father's day

father's day was wonderful. we love dad.

rockin hair!

summer soccer

boston trip..and much more

we drove from indiana to boston over memorial day weekend. it was a perfect trip. the kids did marvelous in the car. we took two days driving out there and one day driving back (left at 6:45am and get home at midnight).

our first stop was in cleveland to meet my new nephew milo. he was beautiful. elliot took this picture. he did pretty good.

i love this picture of the boys with their cousins and their aunt kate.

here they are playing outside. click on the picture to make it bigger to see the hair action sala and sam have going on.

our next stop was to see our good friends rachel, micah, and simon in pennsylvania. she was so sweet and remembered it was my birthday in a few days, so she made me a cake and they all sang happy birthday to me. it's been so much fun to live within a days drive of them the past couple of years. we seem to keep bumping into each other and i love it!

simon in the middle. isn't he darling! they let us stay the night too. thanks guys!

our third stop was to jeffrey's 9th great grandfather's grave in medfield, massachusetts. his name is james allen, which is where jeffrey gets his middle name, james. it was a really neat experience. james allen was the first allen to immigrate to america from england.

this picture is of the boys searching for the gravestone.

found it.

jeffrey brought along his large format camera to take a picture. i can't wait to see it.

the boys were totally entertained for 45 minutes with this hole in the hill. they stuck sticks and grass and anything they could find in it. not sure why, but they called it a skunk hole. whether it was or not i'm not sure. all i know is i'm glad they didn't get sprayed.

i had to add this picture. isn't he handsome! i love love love this picture. this is truly an elliot smile.

we spent the night with our good friends ashley and mike just outside of boston. they were so sweet to let us crash at their place over the weekend. there is a cute picture of them later on at the beach with us.

we went to boston on saturday and it was wonderful. you can always count on some great live entertainment by faneuil hall. i love my boys.

grandma and grandpa homer were in town visiting my brother so we got to have all of them join us in boston this day. grandma and grandpa bought sam and elliot these swords. i think it was definitely a highlight of the trip for the boys.

we've been to downtown boston quite a few times having lived in cambridge for a summer and then having lived in ny and driving up every couple of months to visit boston. we still had a couple things that we hadn't done yet that i wanted to do this time. we took a ride on the famous swan boats in the boston public garden. it is so gorgeous there.

we finally walked over the bridge to see the uss constitution, "old ironsides". we didn't have time to go below deck, but it was cool to walk up on the deck, especially because it is "the world's oldest floating commissioned naval vessel". it was worth the long walk.

luckily boston didn't let us down and we got some great rain! what i learned and fell in love with while living in cambridge is that no matter what the weather or how the skies look, you always take an umbrella. sure enough it cleared right up too. oh how i love boston. i think i'm meant to live there again someday.

on sunday we had another cool experience. james allen, the 9th great grandfather, came to america with his uncle john allen. john allen established the allen congregation in 1638 in dedham, massachusetts. here's a link to his wikipedia page. we went to the service in memory of jeffrey's ancestors. it was really neat. afterward jeffrey was allowed to take a picture with his large format camera inside the church and outside the church.
if you're wondering why it's spelled "allin", jeffrey explains that the family name changed from allen to allin and back to allen a few times through his family history.

we took the train into boston on sunday afternoon. the kids and i hung out at a playground while jeffrey took his camera to get a few shots in the city. we went with him to his last location, acorn street, a very popular place to take a picture. the funny part of the afternoon is the kids were all whiny at the playground, so i was a little worried about taking them to this street while jeffrey took his picture. you see it usually takes a half hour or so for jeffrey to set everything up and take his picture. well the kids had more fun running up and down this hill for a half an hour than they did at the park. silly boys.


this became a new favorite way to ride in the stroller.

monday we went to the beach. a dream come true. i've been missing the ocean so much lately. plus i had jeffrey by my side. couldn't get better than that.

jeffrey got in! it was so cold. eric quickly joined him. then sam amazingly wanted to join him.

the boys loved playing near the water and in the sand. the beach was definitely another highlight for them, especially because their grandma and grandpa were there along with sarah, eric, will, and lily. our friends ashley and mike, along with their beautiful daughter lizzy, joined us as well.

sam doing a funny back pose.

elliot getting buried. it's a favorite thing of his to do at the beach.





that night jeffrey surprised me with a raspberry chocolate ice cream cake to celebrate my birthday, since my birthday was the next day and we'd be spending all day in the car.

here's another shot of sam's cake face.

the drive home actually wasn't that bad. i mean it was long, but it wasn't awful. i think what made it better was our spur of the moment pull-off in palmyra, new york. there is so much church history there. this was my third time there.

the hill cumorah. the spot where joseph smith was given the golden plates by angel moroni.

the smith log home. where angel moroni visited joseph smith in a vision.

the sacred grove. where Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to the boy joseph smith. it is so amazing to walk through those places. such peace and power there.

jeffrey got in one last picture. the kids were entertained with bugs and sticks and rocks this time. it was such a nice 2 hour break from the long day of driving.

thank you jeffrey for insisting that we do this trip to boston. it was so wonderful. thanks for taking care of us and making sure our life is full of fun!

4 years old!

yesterday was sam's birthday! boy was he excited. he woke up at 6:30am ready to celebrate. sadly we made him and elliot go back to their room until 7:30am. jeffrey made breakfast and then we opened up presents.


thanks for the legos grandma and grandpa homer.

thanks for the trio blocks grandma and grandpa allen!

a tradition my family had while i was growing up was that we got to pick exactly what we wanted for our birthday dinner. sam was so cute. he picked mac n cheese, hot dogs, corn on the cob, cantaloupe, and green beans. he loved it.


for his cake he requested a chocolate apple cake. i've never had one of those or made one of those before, but we tried it anyway. it turned out pretty good. especially with the white chocolate cream cheese frosting recipe my friend morgan gave to me. jeffrey is so great, he did the cooking and the decorating of the cake. we're a good team. i plan and he carries it out. :)
sam told us thank you for the "delicious cake." (those were his exact words) he was very happy. we had our friends morgan, dominic, adriano and ian come join us for cake and ice cream. it was fun to have someone to come celebrate with us since we don't have family nearby.


happy birthday sam. i can't believe you are 4! we love you! thanks for adding so much adventure and imagination to our family.

happy 7 years!!!

jeffrey surprised me big time for our anniversary this year. he said that 7 years seemed like a really big deal and he wanted to do something special. i love him so much!

he took me to a little bed and breakfast for the night, found a sitter to stay with the boys over night (thank you jessica!!!), took me to get dinner and pie, and then took me to an antique fair the next day. it was so fun and so nice to be alone with jeffrey. he truly is the love of my life! i'm so glad our friends, karie and beef, took a chance and set us up on a blind date 8 years ago. they just celebrated their 7 year anniversary last month.

i'm so happy where we are right now. we've been quite a few places. we started in slc, utah, moved to provo for 4 years, lived in cambridge, ma for a summer, went back to provo and then moved to new york for a little over a year, and now we have been in indiana for about 8 months. it's been fun to travel around and see all sorts of new places. it's been hard moving so much and having to start over, but i have found that as long as i have jeffrey by my side i can face anything and i can be happy. i feel so lucky to have found someone like him.

we are excited for boy #3 to join us in september. it'll be so neat to see our family change and adjust again. i'm sure he'll complete our family even more.

tomorrow is sam's birthday, so i'll have some more pictures to share. i still need to do my boston trip too. i'll catch up someday :)

birthday cake

i will do a longer post about our boston trip, but i thought i would quickly add this on to go along with the video i posted earlier. we celebrated my birthday while in boston. i LOVE this picture of sam devouring the chocolate ice cream cake jeffrey surprised me with.

we celebrate our 7 year anniversary tomorrow. jeffrey's got something secret planned. i can't wait to find out what it is.

sunday is sam's 4th birthday! wow. 4 years old.

it should be a great weekend!

sneak peek into our trip

this video is from the boston subway.

sam and elliot dancing with their cousins will and lily.