life lately...

francis peak, farmington, utah: we went from 0 to 9560' in just a matter of days

our brother in law asked us if we'd like to hike/climb mt. olympus with him.  we said yes and our bodies have felt it ever since.  it was difficult but oh so amazing up at the top!

our town's temple is up and running!  the dedication was beautiful and we feel so blessed to have a temple so close to our home.

harvest moon festival: i love this girl.  priscilla is a co-worker and good friend of mine.  she lives in ogden too and loves our town just as much as i do.  we play a lot together.  

celebrating our blonde beauty's upcoming wedding day!  college besties forever.

gordon's church calling has him over the youth organizations in our ward.  i am so happy about that because that means he gets to participate with me in their activities.  our latest adventure was a temple quest with the primary.  i got to talk to them about baptism and he got to talk to them about temple recommends.  it was a beautiful night filled with lots of wonderful people.  i am so blessed to be able to serve in the primary.

rollerblading is back! at least my sister in law and i think so.  and we're pretty freaking good at it too.  let this fantastic fall weather last so we can keep on blading!  skate or die.

i am a yogi.  ogden had a yogafest.  i attended the two day fest and pushed myself to new levels.  and had a lot of fun doing it.

meet la tortuga blanca (the white turtle).  it's our new vacation house.  see those red plaid curtains? those are custom-made by gordon himself.  yes ladies, he sews and he's all mine!

the wedding.  the beautiful bride.  and the best of friends.

ogden had a spooktacular bike ride.  first one.  priscilla and i went.  we dressed up, got some treats for our tricks and had a great time.  seriously, ogden is the best.

witches night out at gardner village.  first thing little miss said to me "tonight we're princesses dressed up as witches.  nice witches of course." it was a super fun night.

surprise gift from my mister.  i've wanted a pendleton blanket for years.  he's too good to me.

first session in our temple!  it was perfect and gave us both some much need clarification and guidance that we were needing.  i love the temple!

halloween work party and witch costume number two.  love these girls and i am so grateful i have such wonderful friends that i get to work with too.

i voted.  it was kind of a big deal.

annual hardcastle pumpkin decorating contest

halloween has been turning out to be one of my favorite holidays.  so many fun family traditions like our annual pumpkin decorating contest with the hardcastles.  this year was extra fun because the littles are getting older and can participate much more.  little man and little miss even designed their own pumpkins! 

the gordon hardcastle family swept the contest! gordon's ninja turtle pumpkin won 1st place, my boo pumpkin took 2nd and justin's scary halloween scene took 3rd.  

and what's family get together without lots of giggles with uncle gordon.  him with all of those littles just melts my heart!

annual fraga family halloween party

every year my dad and step-mom brenda open there house to host the annual fraga halloween party.  them, along with my aunts and cousins, put so much time and effort into planning and prepping for our family party.  every year there is a different theme.  and every year it is awesome!

this year's theme was "welcome to the carnival."  as if clowns and carnivals are not spooky enough.

the backyard was full of carnival games.  if you won you got tickets that you could save up to pick prizes from the prize table.  seriously, it was like a real carnival (with extra creepy decor).

my brother and his daughter.  he is doing SO good.  happy and healthy!

now that's a prize table!

last minute costumes provided by my mother in law.  she literally has bins full of costumes; awesome, awesome costumes.  she's the best MIL ever.

travel diary: jackson hole, wy

every year gordon's grandma hardcastle takes the whole hardcastle clan to jackson hole, wyoming.  each family stays in different house in teton village.  we go a lot of places but this one is one of my favorites because we all get to stay in one big house as one big happy family!  once again, because of some phone upgrades and changes we lost some photos from our trip.  lucky for me, though, my talent sister in law, jenn, has started her own photography business and took some family photos of the gordon's sister's family and snapped a couple of me and little miss.  we were sort of stuck like glue the entire weekend playing princesses and stuff.  it might have been the best weekend of my life so far.  i could play princesses all day with her!

travel diary: kauai, hawaii day seven

the last couple of days on our trip were really relaxing.  we went to the beach (probably mahaulepu beach and spouting horn...i lost track of which beach we went to when at this point), played in the water, sunbathed...everything you would expect from an island trip.

free POG in our resort lobby.  POG = tropical fruit drink mix of passion fruit, orange and guava.  gordon and trevor got their monies worth that's for sure.

our last meal in hawaii was at the feral pig.  probably the best pulled pork sandwich i've ever had.

travel diary: kauai, hawaii day six

we decided to head down to the south shore of the island today.  we've been hearing about waimea canyon and how it is the 'grand canyon' of the kauai.  it was very large and very beautiful.  it blew our minds that on such a small island the climate was different.  the north shore is very tropical with lots of rainfall.  the south shore was dry and almost dessert like.  felt a little more like home.

**no photos of this but needs to noted was our lunch at shrimp station.  um, yeah, it was dang delicious.

after exploring waimea canyon the first half of the day and since we were down near the south shore, we decided to spend the rest of the day at polihale beach.  

this beach, though not as scenic as the others we had been to, ended up to be my favorite beach we went to on our trip.  the water was calm so we could play and bodyboard without the large ocean waves sweeping us away.  we packed some food for dinner and stayed the rest of the day to see the sunset and stars.  it was perfect.