4th of July

This year for the 4th of July was different for us both. Like all the other holidays were. We were in Arizona for one and not in Idaho like we had always been for all the holidays. But it was still fun. Even though I missed my family like crazy.

To start off the day Kolby put our car on craigslist and was looking for a new one. It was not even on craigslist and he got a call and someone was interested in looking at it. So he went to his moms and cleaned it up a little. The guy liked it and bought the car. So we were car-less. I had to go pick him up from our apartment and bring him back to his sisters.

Our 4th we celebrated with Kolby's family. We all went to his sisters house and celebrated. We had dinner there. They barbecued whatever meat you brought over. Then we also had salads. The kids while I was gone had a water balloon fight. Okay i will say not just the kids. There was a few adults involved in it.

Once it got dark we sat in my sister-in-laws garage and watched the fireworks from there. They were not that far away. We couldn't see the ground ones but we didn't mind that. We got to see all the big ones at least.

Daddy and Harper            Harper and the girls       Harper and Uncle Brian

They had a pretty good firework show. Harper loved it. She loved the loud noise and the bright colors lighting up the sky.

Harper starts walking and Easter

I never thought the day would come that Harper would actually walk. She would walk everywhere on her knees. She had got so good at it that she was so used to it and got around so good. She was going on 14 months and was still walking on her knees.

We were working with her for a while. But then she had got sick and I was not going to force her to walk when she was not feeling good. Because I know that I do not want to walk around when I am not feeling good. So she started to feel better and we slowly started working with her again.

She got the basics of walking down pretty easy. She knew how to get to her feet her and could take one or two steps but not to much more then that. Unless she had something to push in front of her. All I know is that I wanted her to be walking before Easter. My wish came true. Two days before Easter she started walking all over. I was so proud of my baby girl. She was not longer a baby she was turning into a little girl. She was walking. Getting into everything.

I was so happy that she was walking before Easter. All I wanted was her to be walking so we could do a egg hunt with her. She still used her knees for most of it but still. She knew how to walk. She loved looking for the eggs. She knew that when she found them and shook them and they would make noise. Because of the candy  that was in the eggs.

Harper's first fishing trip

Harper got to experience her first fishing trip and her first boat experience all at the same time. Harper was not to sure of all the wind in her face when we were getting to where we were going fishing. She cried actually. That was until she went and sat on her daddies lap and helped drive the boat.

                            

But her favorite part had nothing to do with fishing. She had so much fun watching and feeding the ducks. They followed us everywhere we went because everything she grabbed that was food related she fed to the ducks. 

Harper loved every minute of feeding and watching the ducks while daddy fished. It started getting later and Harper started to get tired so we had to head back to shore so we could get the boat loaded and head back to the house. But she didn't make it all the way back to shore. We were only part of the way back and she fell asleep on me while I was singing to her to try and keep her calm. We got loaded up and wiped the boat down and headed to the house.

Our first trip to the zoo

There is a Wildlife zoo that is not to far away from where we live. We got a coupon in the mail for some money off of the tickets so we went. It was so much fun and Harper loved it.

Harper loved seeing all the amimals. 

It was quite an adventure at the zoo. Showing Harper all the different animals that they had. She had a blast looking at them all. She loves animals though which helped. She sure loved looking at all the monkeys especially when they came close to the fence.

Harper got to see her favorite animal.

After we went and saw the the animals outside we went and went on the train to see the park from a different view.

 

After we left the train we went and looked at the rest of the inside exhibits that they had there. Harper got a kick out of all the animals behind the glass. 

Harper gets her ears pierced

I don't remember what day it exactly was. I know it was around the end of February to the beginning of March.We went to the mall. It was later at night when we went. We went and looked at Claire's to see how expensive they would be there. We also looked at the Piercing Pagoda. They had pretty decent prices so we went with them. They also would pierce both sides at once unlike Claire's.

Harper before she got her ears pierced.

 No clue what is going to happen in just a few minutes.

Harper was all smiles before she has to sit with mommy in the chair. I knew she was not going to be a very happy little girl for a little bit. She began crying once they were at her ears.

After she got her ears pierced she was not to happy. Until Auntie Jessica gave her some Pepsi.

It was sure worth it in the end.

Move to Arizona

After we got married. We moved to Arizona. Harper flew back with my new in-laws and we drove a uhaul down. I didn't realize how hard it was going to be on me and my parents to have Harper fly down and not going with us in the uhaul. I think it hit my parents harder because they were not going to be able to see her in just a few days like I was. It was so hard leaving my family behind.

We started out journey by going from St. Maries to my grandparents in Plains Montana. We made it there later than I had wanted to but the weather was not cooperating with us. We hit a snow storm and had to drive slow. Which sucked. But when we finally made it I was happy so we could see my grandparents before we left for Utah.

The day we left my grandparents house we went to the tribal office and got my tribal id so we had that before we got to Arizona. We tried to stop in and see my uncle but he was already gone. I was bummed not getting to see him.

Once we finally got on the road we drove to Billings and gassed up and ate then headed to Salt Lake. It was a long drive. We got to the hotel late at night so we got to see on the way into Salt Lake all the lights. Which was cool to see. We went and got food then went and checked into out hotel.

When we left Salt Lake we went to Provo and had lunch with a friend of ours from St. Maries. It was nice to see her. From Provo we went to Cedar City and stayed there for the night. I got to meet Kolby's family there. It was fun getting to know them all. We stayed with his uncle Matt and aunt Rachel that night and went out the next morning with everyone for lunch. After lunch we went to his cousin Crysta's hair salon and she cut my hair for me. We got to go see her house. Then said our good-byes to everyone and headed to Hurricane to see his grandparents. It was a short visit but we got to at least see them. Once we left his grandparents house we headed to Las Vegas.

We got to Vegas and had stayed at the Luxor. It was a very nice hotel. The room was amazing. The whole hotel had a Egyptian theme. Its the shape of a pyramid and had all the pictures and decorations inside of all the Egyptian decorations. Even the rooms had all the decorations. The colors were golds. The room we had looked over Vegas. The morning before we left Vegas we went and walked the strip. It was a fun experience.  I would of liked to have more time to look at all the shops on the strip before we left. But we didn't. We ate a P.F. Chang. That was my first time there. The food was amazing also. It was so worth it. Got some souvenirs for my family. Then we headed back to the uhaul and headed the rest of the way to Arizona.

We left Vegas and headed to Surprise. It took us like 6 hours and when we got there all I wanted to do was see Harper. When we got to the church where they all were watching the kids do the pinewood derby. She was so excited to see us. Just as excited as I was to see her.

The reception

We did not celebrate the reception the same night as the wedding. We had the wedding on a Friday night and celebrated it on the Saturday night. Now that I look at it I am kinda bummed that we didn't get some pictures after the wedding with the guests that could not make it the next night.

Right after Harper's birthday party we then got everything ready for the reception. Getting everything to the church, getting the balloons there, and then setting up the church. It went way faster than I had thought it was going to. I really appreciated all the help that we had got with setting up and getting the food. I really appreciated it when the ladies in the church helped by making at least one salad or tray of food to bring. It meant so much to us.

We all had so much fun. We had such a good turn out.

We all ate then it was time for the cake.

We were so blessed to have everyone show up and share the special moment with us. It was not as many as people as we had invited but it was enough to have fun. 

Harper loved all the attention she was getting even when she was still not feeling good. She even let auntie Jessica take pictures.