Whitney's Wedding

On July 25, my little sister Whitney got married in the Los Angeles Temple to Ryan Jackson! Everything went perfectly and she was absolutely gorgeous. The kids and I were there the whole week before the wedding which was fun and very chaotic! I took tons of pictures so here is how the day went:

Mr. and Mrs. Jackson coming out of the temple. They are such a darling couple and they were called "Barbie and Ken" more than once!

They looked so happy the entire day. I don't think Whit stopped smiling.

The five sisters. The bridesmaids were all of us sisters and Ryan's two sisters and sister in law.The wedding party.
This picture makes me cry! I love you Whit!

Ella was the "flower girl," and she didn't let anyone forget it! She had been talking about Whitney and Ryan's wedding for weeks, so she was so excited for the big day. She was ticked when she got to the temple and was told she couldn't go inside! But as soon as she saw Whit, she ran to her and didn't want to let go.

Attempt at a family picture. We were all matching so I had to try, right?

The reception was held in the Jackson's private cul-de-sac. Golf carts drove people up the street and dropped you off at the sign in table. The best part of the party was the DANCING. It was seriously so fun. Anyone notice Mandy in the background? :)The first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.
The daddy-daughter dance was a tear jerker for sure!

Nana and Kash dancing together.

Ella and Mom.

Cutting the cake.

These two love birds headed off to the Dominican Republic for an entire week! Afterwards they will be living in Ontario where they will both be working. Don't worry, I'm already working on a plan to get them to move to St. George!!!!!

I have THREE kids!

Does anyone else add their husband to the number of kids they have? Matt is such a kid, it is so funny. The other day I was heading over to the splash pad with Gina, and right then Matt came home for lunch. He decided to come with us and spend his lunch break at the splash pad. As soon as we got there he spotted the "water guns." He kept saying to me, "man, I really want to go shoot that thing." Two other kids were shooting each other with them, so I told him he had to wait his turn. As soon as they got tired of it, Matt jumped up and took over! He played at the splash pad with Ella, Kash, and Adam the whole time!

I love these two pictures of Kash. He has the McLaws tongue going on!

Scuba Diving and Jungle Tour

We were able to go on 3 two-tank dives for a total of 6 dives in Mexico. These were my first dives since my certification so I was pretty nervous. Luckily my dad said he would be my "dive buddy" until I was comfortable. I LOVED it. It was so fun and we were able to see so many things. My favorite dive was the Santa Rosa Wall which is literally just like in Nemo, where there is the "dropoff." I officially love scuba diving and Matt and I might even try to go with a group here in St. George that goes on different dive trips.
We bought an underwater camera and took a few pictures of our last dive, but they didnt turn out very well. This is Whitney and I.

Everyone but Matt, who is taking the picture.

We also went on a jungle tour where we got on these wave runners and cruised out to this reef where we all snorkled and then drove back. The highlight of this little adventure was when Mandy was driving back with my dad on the back. She hit a wave and he went FLYING. He was laughing so hard and said it was the best part of the whole day.

We are all laughing in this picture saying, "tequila!"

Here we are on our wave runner/boats. They are bigger than wave runners and you can't go too fast and you aren't supposed to fall off.....unless you are my dad.

The snorklers! I love my family, we seriously had so much fun and laughed the entire time.

Market 28

We went to 2 different flea markets while we were in Cancun, but Market 28 was the best. We girls were especially excited to do some bartering because we are used to going to downtown LA for the best deals! We have learned to play hardball with these guys and know just when to walk away.....and then they come running after you saying, "ok ok you can have it for $10!" But Cancun was a bit different, it was REALLY hard to get them to come down in price. We didn't end up buying much, my favorite purchase was Mexican vanilla! I have already made chocolate chip cookies with it!

And I have to mention how much we rode the bus. We never took a taxi, we always jumped on a bus, and you NEVER had to wait at a bus stop. There was always a bus pulling up right when you got there, it was so nice. I wouldn't say the buses themselves were nice....they smelled strongly of B.O and most had no air conditiong....but the experience was pretty fun!

Here are the girls at Market 28.

Matt HATES coconut, but I turned around and found this in his mouth. I took a sip and it was SOOO nasty! He didn't seem to mind.

Of course my Dad found this little taco stand. He got some carne asada tacos and they were so good! I think he would have liked to have stayed there while we shopped but he had to be one of our bodyguards. The girls were never allowed to leave the sight of Dad or Matt or they got in big trouble! I was a little paranoid myself because right before we left the country I decided to watch TAKEN for the 2nd time...

4th Fun

For the 4th of July we spent the day swimming at Mike and Gina's and then went to Bob and Dobo's for a BBQ and fireworks. This picture is of Mike throwing Adam in the air....

And there is no mistaking this silhouette....who else has all of that hair?

The very first firework was a giant sparkler that Matt gave Ella. She whipped around and smacked Kash with it right on his arm! He got a pretty good burn. With that and the loud fireworks, he was NOT having a good time. He spent the rest of the night inside with Grandpa Bob!

Ella's favorite were these snakes:

My husband is a total pyro, and he had stopped in Moapa to get TONS of not-so-legal fireworks! He was more excited than the kids. And if you get Matt and Mike together, it is never a good thing. They had the most fun shooting roman candles at eachother.

I love Adam's face!

Ella applauding the firework show, with tongue out of course.

Gina with THREE babies in her lap!

I love sparklers.

Adam and Ella had front row seats to the show.

I wish Kash would have liked it as much as Ella did!

I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July.

Parasailing

When we were on our honeymoon Matt and I wanted to go para sailing but I decided I didn't want to spend the money. I have always regretted it! Ever since then I have really wanted to try it out so while we were in Cancun, we did! From the beach we got onto wave runners that took us to the boat that was waiting for us. Just getting to the boat was a challenge. The first wave that hit us, we both fell off! I started thinking maybe I couldn't handle being hundreds of feet in the air if I was getting scared going over a few waves.... Once we got there we sat in this reclined chair with no seat belts or a bar over our lap or anything! I kept telling Matt that this must not be safe, but they told us that this is the same type that Disney uses, because it is much safer than harnesses. It was actually really fun, and I'm glad we did it.

About to take off:

Our boat down below...

You can see the beach behind us.

It was a little scary when a gust of wind would shake us, and Matt wasn't the most comforting. He kept explaining to me how we would die if we fell.....how it would be like hitting cement....how every bone in our body would be crushed.....uhhh thanks honey. But then he added, "but don't worry, I'll save you! Just try to keep yourself nice and straight if we fall...."

Fishing!

We rented our own boat to go fishing with just our family. It was over an hour boat drive, so just to be safe, we all took two Dramamine pills. We didn't have any more non-drowsy, but we all agreed we would rather be tired than throwing up. So here we are on our way out to sea, we were OUT! I really do not remember ANY of the trip out there.
Matt and my dad were the coaches. It takes a lot of work to reel these fish in! We needed all the help we could get. I love this of my dad helping Nikki, they are both concentrating so hard!

Here is her catch! There was a lot of blood, but she held her trophy up anyway.

Here is my mom, "holding" hers.
Mandy...

Kar and her Tuna.

Okay I know it looks like I am about to pop a blood vessel, but I have good reason!

I caught this GIANT sail fish! It was so hard to get this baby in, I was so tired. It was worth it though because I was the only one that got a sail fish, and they said it was 6-8 feet long! They kept asking me if I wanted to stuff it and keep it as a trophy....uhh are you kidding me? Matt looked hopeful at this prospect but there is NO way this thing was going to be hanging up in my house! We threw it back.

The best was Whitney's fish! The boat guys kept saying "grande grande" as she was reeling it in, so we were all excited, and then she pulls out this little guy! The bait was actually sticking out of his mouth because it was about the same size!! It was pretty funny because she is the only experienced fisherwoman out of us girls haha! This one went right back in the water.

And of course, the boys. They loved every minute of this little trip!

CANCUN, BABY!!!

We just got back from a week in MEXICO! It was so fun, and no, we did NOT take the kids! My parents took the whole family on vacation to this amazing all inclusive resort. It was beautiful and so much fun to hang out with family(and not have to worry about the kids). My friend Heidi watched the kids, bless her little heart, and she claims to still like me! We were definitely ready to see Ella and Kash by the end of the trip, but there is no way I would have taken them to Cancun...even though we are all still alive and healthy and no one got swine flu! We had activities planned out for everyday so we stayed super busy. We went scuba diving, snorkeling, on a jungle tour, went to two different flea markets, to Cozumel, para sailing, fishing, visited ruins.....so much stuff! I have a million pictures from the trip so this first post is of our trip to Coba, to see the Mayan ruins. At first we were so bummed out because it was raining but it ended up being one of the best days we had by far! We rented bikes and rode around in the rain to all of the different sites. It was SO much fun and so interesting and beautiful.

Here we are on our sweet bikes! We were drenched and laughing so hard the entire time! The mud kept splashing up on our butts...I'll spare you the numerous jokes that were made.

Climbing up the temple. This is the 2nd tallest temple in the Yucatan.

You can't even tell how tall it really is. It was a good workout.

The view was amazing from the top, it was just an ocean of trees as far as you could see.

All the girls made it to the top!

Checking out the view.

Mandy and Karlee imitating how they would cut off people's heads and roll the heads down the steep steps! (I don't know if this is true or just Matt's imagination).

Warning: I have many more pictures of this trip to come!