KETCHUP: so many great clove family photos in one post

no posting for a month means catching up. which i dislike.
so we'll do the condensed version, hit the major highlights, call it good & move on.

in the past six weeks we've....


gone to sadies with a fun group of kids:

 & continued working on our "wood" coffee table book:

the parentals escaped to one of the most beautiful places on earth for rbc's 42nd birthday:

where they checked and, YEP. STILL IN LOVE:

we rocked out with one of the coolest bands on earth:

& dave grohl reinforced my theory about a not-so-hot guy turning SMOKING HOTwhen he knows his way around a guitar and a microphone:

we dressed like cats for halloween:

as well as hippies:

& a sweet little strawberry:

we embraced some crazy on the daddy-daughter date:

& chuckled over the continued creative spelling stylings of our mia:

(TRANSLATION: "hi, my name is mia. i am building a house for my family. it is going to be SASSY.")

but the best part of the past six weeks was having our grandparents return home to us:

7 lessons learned from madame tussauds wax museum

7 lessons learned from our trip to madame tussauds wax museum:



1. using the president's personal phone line is really no big deal:

2. stevekemp is still the world's greatest photo bandit:

3. ALL THE LADIES want to get married to george clooney:











4. george clooney tends to be a bit handsy.  (but i really didn't mind.)

5. lindsay lohan is still not a great role model for the young girls:

6. mia ONLY wanted her photo taken with girls:

(thanks, kamwee for your awesome photography skills)

7. the dads really only wanted their photo taken with girls, too:

9 lessons learned from labor day weekend in las vegas

9 things we learned from our labor day weekend in las vegas:




1. friends accompanying last minute always make for better times. and better jazz hands:

2. it is still possible to milk out your 20th anniversary even 2.5 months after it happened at a surprisingly great new restaurant find:

3. mindi doesn't ever need to ride the new york new york roller coaster ever again in her whole entire life:


****UPDATE 2019 I AM POSITIVE THIS THING DIRECTLY EFFED UP MY ALREADY EFFED-UP SPINE!!!!!****

4. somehow it is possible that chandler will find the only feline in the entire madame tussauds wax museum:

(but we all wanted in on that action):

5. speaking of wax museums and roller coasters....

if you (allegedly) know somebody or are somebody (allegedly) that would be in possession of a counterfeit nevada driver license (again, allegedly) it just keeps paying off.

like in the form of half-off wax museum tickets & free re-rides for all ten persons in your party on the coaster:

6. sipping something out of an adorable container makes it even just a little better:

7. waking up to this view never seems to get old:

8. seeing this view is the reason why we keep doing it:

9. pseudo-suburban gang signs never go out of style:

we went to the olympic park in park city

one of the new things we experienced this year in park city was the utah olympic park



coming up the hill we could see the ginormous ski jumps and were just a bit awestruck:

the main agenda was the zipline. we opted for an all-female run and fared pretty darn well:

having proved at lagoon that she was a gnarly adrenaline junky ready for the next thrill, mia sailed through like the seasoned veteran she'd become:

she also decided that once was NOT enough, so she went for round two:

my favorite part of the afternoon was watching the freestyle aerial show.
the skiers, which seemed to be on the MUCH younger side (am i getting old? hmmmmm.) would ski down the jump up to 60 feet in the air and perform acrobatic fantasticness before landing in the 750,000 gallon splash pool:

super hardcore:

thankful thursday

things i am thankful for this week:



**my friend's husband's amazingly creative way to celebrate their anniversary--

this banner was displayed proudly on river road today:

**a sweet new baby cousin for us to love and kiss on:

**& for her incredible fashion GOOD sense she displayed at a mere two days old by wearing kitty clothing:

**the last two elementary girls i have taking the annual "back to school" obligatory photo--


my 5th grader:

& my 1st grader:

i must admit that i got a bit misty-eyed when watching this from the front porch:

i felt like i had a love-hate-love-hate relationship with the fact that i had no child at home during the day for the first time in SEVENTEEN YEARS! crazy.




**speaking of said child, did you see her awesome backpack that we purchased solely for the fact that it looked just! like! her! :

i might have been so enamored by the items we found at target from the harajuku mini line that i may or may not have purchased THIS backpack for no reason at all.

or for myself: (really. not joking.)