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I absolutely love summer. Even though I'm not in school anymore it still feels like it's my free vacation time. I find myself going from place to place almost nonstop. It is occasionally exhausting, especially with the added toddler and growing belly but I have gotten to do such fun things.

My summer officially started with Jon's parents, Bert and Charla coming for a visit. We were excited to show them our new house, and even more excited when they immediately got to work and helped us knock off several projects from our list. Charla and I hit the yard. I seriously know nothing about yard work and now I have all these plants to keep up. Now my roses are trimmed, the ivy is cut back, and most of the old roofing tile is off of my pretty flowers.

Bert and Jon finished our amazing bedroom. I can't wait to get pictures (we have some paint that needs to be touched up so I'm waiting for the finished product). We just painted our downstairs as well and it just looks so good. I really married a talented guy.

After working for three days straight we drove up to the extended Nielsen family reunion at Brian Head. We had a good time. Good food, fun hikes and activities, beautiful weather (it felt so good to be cold again!). The last night we split off into families and had an iron chef/dinner impossible cook off. Each family got secret ingredients and some cash and we had to make a few dishes. We got chicken, pineapple, and apple juice and my sis-in-law and Jon turned it into an amazing chicken dish with a fruit salsa and beverage. So then we all got together and sampled all the different dishes. That was such a fun meal.

We got back in town and my family was already in Vegas for the Nationals dance competition. They did such a good job! Scarlet and I spent the week watching hundreds of dances. Well, Scarlet spent most of her time making up her own moves to the dances. I even found one of the judges watching and laughing at her instead of watching the dancers... oops! They stayed in town and played for a couple of days and then headed back to Washington.

And then on Monday, Courtney, Scarlet, and I headed up to Utah to join my mom and Kylie. Kylie was in the Young Ambassadors camp at BYU and Courtney had some dance classes she could take at some good studios up there. It was basically a week of eating well, catching up on some television, and shopping. What more could anyone ask for!

We stayed at Cali's house and I absolutely loved being around her kids. Grace and Scarlet had a lot of fun together. I love watching kids that age play together. But at some point through all of this I definitely ran out of laundry which is usually a sign it's time to go home and get something done.

Oh, and Jon was just called as Young Men's president. Busy Sundays for us!