Nashville

Okay, so don't judge and think we have totally been frivolous lately, but Tyson and I went to Nashville. He had a conference he was presenting at and so he invited me and the boys to come along. All we had to pay for was food and activities. Tyson has been dying to go on a vacation with just the two of us, so I asked my mom if she would be interested in watching the boys. The angel woman said she would love to. So I told Tyson and he was so excited he acted like a little boy on Christmas. It was the cutest thing ever! So we had a great 5 days away. It was REALLY weird not being with the boys everyday, not putting them to sleep or changing diapers, listening to the thousands of stories they have to tell. I really missed them, but it was SO nice to be away. When Tyson was in his conference, I got to sleep, read, watch TV, read my scriptures in silence, explore town, go shopping without chasing kids, it was AWESOME! Every night was date night. We decided to go miniature golfing and we found the coolest course. There were tricky holes that you had to jump the ball over little creeks, sandpits, all kinds of things. We decided we have to start our own course. :)

Tyson's conference was at the Opryland hotel, the biggest, coolest hotel I have ever seen! There is literally a little town inside of it. I explored it for hours!

Tyson's presentations were so good. He got the people in charge to let me in to watch him and I loved it. There was some computer jargon that I had no clue about, but other than that, he is a very entertaining presenter. He had everyone laughing and asking questions, a regular Dave Ramsey. Hehe. Seriously, just watching him made the trip perfect.

Pictures of the inside of the Opryland Hotel. See what I mean, sweet huh?

In case you are wondering, no we didn't stay there. However, someday I plan to...I think I actually plan to own the place. :)

Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. I had to get this picture for my mom, a true country fan, not a margarita fan though. :)

It was super hot in Nashville the whole time we were there, almost 100 degrees and super humid. There were the grossest cicadas everywhere too, I thought I was going to die. One night we were in the pool and the cicadas started jumping in the pool and swimming for us. SO CREEPY! We went to go to the Opryland museum, but it was closed, so sad. But we got to walk around for a little while in downtown before I started melting. And weirdly enough, I craved hot chocolate the whole time. Why? I have no clue, besides the fact that I love hot chocolate. Hehe, it was a lot of fun. Seriously, I love little getaways. It was so good for the boys to really get to know their Oma and Pops too. Thank you both SO much! I am sad because I missed Kenni's last week here, but even with that, the trip was worth it. Thanks Hunny for letting me come!

Virginia Beach

So for my Dove Chocolatiering, we had a team conference in Virginia Beach a few weeks ago. So, we went a family vacation. It was totally awesome! It was weird leaving Tyson with the boys and going off to meetings, since usually it is the other way around, but it was a lot of fun. The boys wore Tyson out, we were very glad to get home, but the beach was beautiful!! Here is a cheesy us picture. :) Note Tyson's totally hot new sunglasses that he got there. I am so glad he got them, he acts all cool when he wears them which totally cracks me up, not to mention he is so handsome. Yes, Caleb did fall asleep like this. We tried to get him to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag, but he and Josh switched.

Caleb LOVED the water. Tyson loved standing there with him, it was so cute to watch.

Josh however HATES water, totally weird I know. So even this close, he was not so happy. :) I thought it was funny though, I am such a mean mom.

Josh did love building sand castles, which was really cute. I love that he is getting so old and creative.

Tyson and the boys hanging out during the day, having fun without Mama. From what Tyson says, they were really great and obedient. I think I would have freaked watching them with all those people around by myself. But I did marry the most amazing man in the world, so what did I expect?

I escaped the group to hang out with my family during lunch. Sweet pizza place and the kids were so funny. Josh even fell over with his chair once, which was way too funny.

The trip was awesome! The kids were great and I loved going to the conference. I learned a lot and met some new hilarious people. Not to mention I got to eat the yummiest chocolate in the world. (Got to try the chocolate covered dried fruit, AMAZING!)

Hooray for family trips! Tyson is getting bored of me typing and said "I dare you to work Alfonzo in there." So, does that count? Hehe

The Many Cooper Adventures

Wow, my blogging is long overdue. Let me first tell of my traveling adventures. Josh and I spent about a week in Washington with Tyson's family and we had a lot of fun. The weather was perfect and so both of us wanted to be outside almost the whole time. Josh got to go swimming in their little kid pool (we had to bring hot water from inside to put in it because it was so cloudy and coldish that day). He LOVES the water. We went to his Aunt Katie and Uncle Josh's house that they just bought. Josh loved this one closet and would hide in there over and over again. It was really cute.

We went to the zoo, and there were TONS of people there, making it really exhausting and crowded, but we still had fun. This is Josh waiting for the birds to fly over in the bird exhibit thing that we watched. I think his favorite animal though was the little groundhog things because he was able to get close enough to see them and there weren't many people there. He did find a fountain and he played and got soaked in that. I didn't take any pictures though, I was just trying to keep him from drinking it. ;)

This is him riding in the kid car. He loved this thing and from dawn till dusk, he spent most of his time in it.

This is a very blurry picture of Tyson's sister, Cassie, at her high school graduation. We were up really high in the bleachers so this is a very zoomed in shot. This is also where I first met Tyson's old girlfriend and still really close friend of the family, Angela. It was kind of weird at first but she was really nice and we talked for a long time.

Here is Mom Cooper in the hammock with Josh. I also had to zoom in on this one. If Josh saw me, he would freak out and want to come to me and not be with anyone else. It was slightly frustrating, but it made me feel loved at the same time.

P.S.- I want a yard to hang a hammock in.

Mom and Dad Cooper and Josh.

Then Josh and I flew to California to spend about a week with my family. I was really nervous about it because Josh was already pretty sick of traveling and I was already exhausted, but it ended up being really fun every day. I didn't take many pictures, sorry, I got distracted and forgot it most of the time.

We went on a lot of walks though, which Josh loved. This is Ammon and Josh (whose names I kept mixing up, I guess I am already a real mom :) ) Ammon really was happy and he loved Josh, but he had an angry face in the picture. Hehe

Here is KJ feeding the cows and Josh watching intently. Both the cows were huge pregnant, I felt like we had a lot in common.

Father's Day dinner. It was a lot of fun to be with my own dad for father's day. It has been a long time. It was sad that Tyson had to be alone without his little boy(s) and me though. It was a yummy dinner and it was Yance and Kimmy's anniversary too, so that was cool.

4 generation shot. It was really neat and I'm glad Mama had us take the picture.

I took this the morning we left to come back home. Dad really wanted me to get a shot of the two of them. It was cute how excited my dad was to be with Josh because Josh is old enough now he is fun to play with.

We did lots of other things too, like going to Dennis the Menace Park, I took my Mama out to lunch, I hung out a lot with Courtney which was great, Ammon Carmel and I took Josh swimming and he freaked out but loved it at the same time, we had a lot of movie nights with ice cream, we went to the beach as a family and KJ buried Josh in the sand, and then all the boys went sand cliff jumping, it was crazy. Mostly I just spent a lot of time with everyone in the family. It was a lot of fun. The weekend Ammon and Chanson are coming out for EFY this week and I cannot wait to hang out more with them.

So then Josh and I went home...kind of. My dad gave me a father's blessing in the airport parking lot before we left and it was really wonderful. Blessings are such amazing things. Then they (Mama, Dad and Carmel) walked me to check-in, then to the gate. Which I'm glad they did, it wasn't really a stroller-friendly place. It was weird leaving them as I went through security. I wanted so bad to go home to Tyson, and yet, even though I have left my family many times over the past few years, it never gets easier. But Josh and I boarded the plane and he was really good on our flight to Las Vegas. That is where I learned that I should have never complained about my flight, I had it pretty good then. Just as we were about 10 minutes away from Vegas, a freak storm hit and we had to detour to Ontario, California. We landed and waited there for about an hour, then we flew back to Vegas. By the time we got there, my connecting flight was long gone. So in confusion, I walked around the airport until I saw a flight going close to where we needed to go. So I talked to them and they told me that this flight was full and the next time they could get me a flight wasn't until the next day. I freaked. I thought of spending the night with a toddler in an airport and I wanted to collapse and die there. They told me they wouldn't pay for my hotel since it was weather, but they could get me a good deal. The lady was really nice and helped me a lot, but I still have my suspicions that the "freak storm" was all a hoax to make people delayed and have to spend the night in Vegas and gamble their money away, thus improving the economy in Vegas. :) Just kidding, kind of.

So Josh and I stayed at this sweet hotel, except I was terrified and wanted it to all be over the whole time. I refuse to ever travel without my husband, ever, ever again. However, Josh did love it and we do have some fun memories now. So here are some pictures of us at the airport the next morning eating breakfast and just being crazy.

When we finally got home the next day, I don't think I have ever been so happy to see Tyson. We have had a lot of fun since. We got a five day weekend for the 4th of July and we have been doing tons of fun stuff. We went to a safari park, Boxerwood, played a ton, went to Kip's wedding (which was gorgeous by the way, the perfect way to spend my birthday), Kenni and Chris threw us a birthday bbq. Seriously, it has been the perfect week. And next week is our anniversary so I can't wait to tell you about that. Oh, and here are pictures of us in Josh's new tent too. Sorry, this is a super long "epistle" as Tyson calls it.

Hope you enjoy, I hopefully will write again soon. :)