Happy Thursday!

What made this Thursday such a happy one? Brandon had a layover in Salt Lake, so we went up and visited him after having dinner with the Keller clan. I miss Brandon and Diana. Looks like there is a much needed trip to San Fransisco :).

So happy!

A Very Cute Baby

Last week was Kate's baby blessing. Gorgeous little girl. It was such a wonderful day, and there were a ton of people there in support. This girl is loved so much it is insane.


Mom and I joined Nicole, Kim, Mark, and kids up at Thanksgiving Point to check out the farm. I love my time with the cutest little girl, she is so much fun to watch.

This has now become one of my most favorite pictures

Baby Time

School is keeping me busy, busy, busy. Not too much fun. Thankfully, I can take some time away from the craziness and go up to Woods Cross to spend time with the Kellers. For Conference weekend, Erin came down and we hung out up there. And then last week since Mom and Dad were gone, Nicole convinced me to come up, so I wasn't alone (honestly, it doesn't take much convincing to get me up there). It was a blast to hang out with my sister, and the oh so adorable baby Kate.

We went out to eat to celebrate Erin's Birthday a little early. (Ignore the forced smile on my face...I don't know what happened)


Kate is absolutely gorgeous! She is so much fun to watch, and she is growing up way too fast!


And of course, Nicole and I can't get together without making some sort of dessert. So we made Halloween sugar cookies this time. After making the dough, Nicole realized that she did not have the appropriate sprinkles for the spooky holiday, hence the red and green sprinkles and icing.

Welcome to the World!

We are all a little excited (okay, maybe more than a little) around here right now. Because, on Wednesday August 31 at 1:32 pm this gorgeous little girl joined the world. She was 8 days early, and that was fine with us.

Baby Kate weighed in at 6 pounds 11 ounces and 19 inches long. She is absolutely perfect! She is such a precious little girl and we are all so excited to spoil her and show her how much we love her. Welcome to the family Kate!

Look at how happy Grandpa is!

And yes, I will be her favorite Aunt. I've already started spoiling her and she doesn't even know it! :)

Josh Groban

Friday night, while driving home from a ward activity, a friend of ours mentioned that her sister had Josh Groban tickets and couldn't go anymore and she needed to sell them. Well, since Erin is completely obsessed with Josh, we bought the tickets and spent our Saturday night in Salt Lake exploring Gateway and then enjoying one of the best singers of all time. Totally spontaneous. And so worth the money. It was a fantastic concert!

Family, Isn't It About...Time?

This past week we were up in Idaho for the Call Family Reunion. It was a blast. We had a bunch of cabins for everyone to stay in, and had dinner together every night next to the lake. We spent our time hanging out, playing games, swimming, and spending time as family. One of the highlights was Monday night. It was decided that each family was to perform a skit. Well, us being Horne's and the "over-achievers" as we were called. Put together a video beforehand that we could show. Thanks to Diana's amazing video skills, we pulled off the greatest family skit video of all time. Blew everyone's mind. So I guess that makes us pretty cool?

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures. Slacking, I know. But here are the couple that I did manage to get when I remembered to pull the camera out.

Right before we hit the road.
Love this little girl. She was eating watermelon the whole night.
Hanging out on the beach.
Seriously, isn't she adorable?!

I love our family!

Life With One Less Organ

So, as you can guess from the post title, I am now down one organ in my body. But don't worry, it's for the better.

(This story is detailed so that I can have it for documentation sake).

For about the last 2 years I was having these pains in my abdominal area. The past couple of months they were getting increasingly worse, to the point that it was getting hard to breathe. Well, it was time to go to the Doctor. His guess was that I was having problems with my gallbladder and he wanted to get some tests done. The ultrasound of my abdominal area showed that my organs were working fine and that there were no gallstones in my gallbladder. Well, something was obviously wrong so they decided to have me do another test. This test was a HIDA scan; a.k.a. they shoot some radioactive material in my system to see if it can get a reaction out of my organs. Well that test came back telling me that my gallbladder wasn't functioning properly. Hooray, the problem was figured out and it was time to go in for surgery to get it removed. As I met with the surgeon he decided to give me more details. To keep your gallbladder in your body it has to be working at least 35%. Well folks, mine was working at 3.9%, he wanted it out of me as soon as possible. 2 days later, at 5:45 in the morning I was at the hospital getting prepped for surgery. They did it laparoscopic; meaning they cut me in 4 different places and went in through the incisions. It all went okay, and now I've just been in the recovery process. I'm feeling much better than I did before, but there's still the whole fact of my body getting used to not having the gallbladder inside of me. I had my check-up appointment and my Doctor gave me the clear to start gradually getting back into all my daily activities.

So what have I been doing while I've been recovering? Taking it easy :).

Nicole is due in 2 months. Which means the time has come for Baby Showers! I have been making invitations, getting things ready, wrapping presents, and attending the showers. So much fun!

To celebrate the 4th of July, we went boating (of course). But sadly, since I had surgery, all I was allowed to do was sit on the boat and work on my tan. But everyone else did fantastic wake-boarding and surfing.

Dad wake-boarding

I love Brandon's face in this

Just hanging out on the boat


We went to the Stadium of Fire; which was absolutely fantastic! And we did fireworks and a barbeque with family and friends.

Excited to see David Archuleta


This lovely sunshine of July brings time to do some swimming.

Jaxon looks too innocent to be playing chicken

Victorious!


Chris, Becky, and Aimee Jackson came home from Brazil; so to celebrate we had a barbeque up in the park with family.


Family time is fantastic!