our home town

living in cozy alpine, it's typical to see farms and ranches around the neighborhood.
it makes our weekly bike rides an adventure.

and cute little barns and old homes like this are all over,
mixed in with the new developments.

i just love coming across these small beauties.
makes it more "homey".

one more reason we love our home town.

pictures by me from holga. 120 film

we live in the secret garden

leaving and returning home everyday, i feel like i've stepped into some kind of fairytale.
this is the view from my doorstep.
it's quite relaxing.

the landlords love the yard,
and we do too.

park city and a little bit of deer valley

we took a little trip to park city this weekend
and pola was nice enough to come along.

we ate ourselves silly--
my favorite part of the trip.

and of course enjoyed historic main street.

our lovely hotel: the Chateau in Deer Valley.
such a random find but a gold mine.

and the lovely pool--
jake's favorite part of the trip.

it was a quick trip but much needed.
i think jake can handle fall semester now.
he has one year left. (yay!)
anything i can do keep the man motivated...sigh.
tough life.

cottage update: the family room

slowly but surely it's coming together.
decorating on a budget is super fun.
you get creative, or a frequent visitor of thrift shops.
but we love this little cottage- the crazy ceilings and all.

stay tuned for more!

freshman roomies

one of my roomates from freshman year got married on monday.
so the gang got back together.
i love these girls.

of course we were up to our old selves.

i don't know why people invite us anywhere.

but we sure spice things up.

megan- congratulations. may you and dusty be this much in love. forever.
all our love,
us.

the morse family

we like pictures too.
check out more here.

the cute family on the left is moving back east at the end of the month
so we decided to snap a few before they left.
we just love them. and will miss them.

good thing for pictures.

that's a lot of doughnuts

saturday jake raced in the american fork Tour de Doughnut.

it is a three lap race, each lap is 7 miles.
between each lap you down as many doughnuts as you can.
each doughnut shaves 3 minutes off your time.

after the first lap jake ate 6 doughnuts.
the second lap he ate 8 doughnuts.
that's a total of 14 doughnuts folks.
ya...he wasn't feelin so good.

jake's overall ride was 1 hr 13 min for 21 miles.
he ate 14 doughnuts so 42 minutes off his time.
the final time: 31 min. 47 sec.

what does this mean?
he placed third!
wahoo!
so his love for eating and biking paid off.

side note: the winner ate 25 doughnuts...
jake is determined to win next year.
that means more doughnuts.
gross.

thacker family reunion

the yearly reunion with my dad's side of the family was held at the heber valley camp.

so beautiful.

we enjoyed the fam,

but as forgetful bryton,

i only got pics of this little boy. (surprised?)

we played on the rope coarse,

(i climbed a 20 foot pole, walked across a beam, then down the zip line. pretty good for lil' scardy-pants me.)
watched home-made family music videos,

and played at the beautiful lake.

even though it was just a weekend, we had a ball.
can't wait till next summer.
love you all thackers!

pictures by me
film: 200
camera: pentax MX

have you every played....

ninja attack???

well we do.

and we can't help it when the game will bust out.

but we will always be ready.
bow to your sensei!

feeling patriotic

all these cute little flags are around our place.
(along with blue steamers in the flower pots. so cute)
i feel so american every time i come home.
i hope our landlords leave them up until halloween.

more weekends like that please

even though we were apart most of the weekend,
we had a pretty stellar 4th of july.
i'm already looking forward to the 24th.
(maybe because i found out jake is taking me to park city that weekend...)

anywho,
happy that the 5-day work week is now a 4-day work week.
yipee.

thank goodness for fridays

have a happy looooong weekend.

jake is on a campout with my dad and brothers.
so me, my mom, and sisters are having a girls weekend.
this means movies, shopping, lunch, and pedicures.
so fun.

oh, and happy independence day.
not sure what our plans are yet...
just happy we both have work off.
(our plans better entail fireworks. i just love fireworks.)

until next week,
peace.

picture from holga taken by me.

remember these lovelies?

well i'm "electronically channeling" these cupcakes to my mom for her birthday today.
(don't worry, that's not all i got her.)

love you mom.
love you for you-
your faith, love, sincerity, loyalty, and all those fabulous shoes.

have a happy birthday.
yours truly,
Bryton

picture from holga taken by me