Shannon's Craftiness

I am by no means a creative artsy person. I would like to be and sometimes I pretend to be but, in reality, I buy my cute things. Every time I go to Safford I have to make a trip to my favorite store, The Gingerbread House and see if there is anything I can't live without. These were my latest. Thanks Tessa and Mindy for convincing me to buy them (like it was hard). Even though Easter is past, I still had to hang them on my wall. They do not have names yet so if you have any suggestions please pass them on. Anyway, thanks to whomever used their crafty gifts for the benefit of me!

Happy Earth Day!

I am by no means an ecology freako but this was so cute it had me wishing everyone a Happy Earth Day!

Happy Birthday Stacy!!

This past weekend was the Stacy 30th birthday extravaganza! We were lucky to have every member of the fam there but Doug, who was quite missed. Her actual birthday was today, April 20th. It was a true Smith celebration complete with dancing, singing and really really good desserts!! Here's a breakdown in pictures and video.

We started with some really really good food: brats, quickie pies, salads potatoes etc.

When dinner was over we moved to the hat decorating portion of the party.



Aren't we just the typical family. Who needs matching shirts?!

After the hat decorating we moved on to the piñata. The night before Stacy had instructed each couple to 10-15 things to put in the piñata. The only things we weren't allowed to put in were rocks, glass, and nails. Other than that it was fair game. We had little juicers, steno writing pads, lint rollers, pins and rings. All of the items were quite useful and I don't see why everyone does that instead of filling them full of candy. Below is a pic of Squareknot during his turn. We are using a genuine samurai practice sword (thank you Collin).

Once the piñata was broken and we had collected our goodies we moved on to sidewalk. Below is a picture of Squareknot on top of the Tetons.

Presents came next. This one is of the potato masher Stacy got! Wooo potato masher!!

This is Stacy's huge musical Star Wars card.

These were the 3 amazing desserts alluded to at the beginning. 3 cakes for the 3 decades of Stacy's life. The first one on the left is a 3 leches cake. 3 leches for the 3 decades of Stacy's life. The middle one is a lime cheesecake, mmmmmm. The one on the right is a Tessa red velvet cake which was exceptionally good. (Those of you who have had Tessa's red velvet cake know that is saying something.) We couldn't adulterate the cakes by putting candles on them so she blew out a stand alone candle.

Interpretive photography.


All in all it was a great weekend. Happy birthday Stacy. Thanks for letting us celebrate with you.

Easter... A Little Bit Late

Here are a few pics from our Easter. The Easter Bunny still found us even though we were living so far away.

Shannon got Mary Poppins and some Reester Bunnies. (The Easter Bunny knew she was too good at sniffing out where her basket is hidden that he didn't even try this year.)


Zachary got to go on a egg hunt around the living room.


Then he got to go on a hunt for his Easter basket that was hidden.


It's a good thing we don't have kids yet because I don't know if Zach would be willing to let them find any of the eggs!

A Weekend with Hot Chocolate

For those of you who don't know, there is a band called Hot Chocolate that wrote a song about believing in miracles and being sexy etc. Well, this particular song sort of became the unofficial slash official song of the weekend. Why would this particular song be the song of the weekend... because Preston and Mindi tied the knot on Friday. It was a marathon weekend with 2 receptions, a luncheon and a sealing. There was lots of running around but everything turned out great. Only one more reception left, May 2nd in Safford! It's shaping up to be one heck of a party!




Congratulations to you both and Mindi, welcome to the family!

The Arizona Trail or "Just one more mile!"

This past weekend my father recruited Zach an I to go hike a portion of the Arizona trail with him. When he first approached us about doing this we were very excited. We enjoy hiking and don't get the opportunity very often so we jumped at the chance. My understanding was that it was going to be about a 11-13 mile hike through the Arizona desert. What I forgot to factor in was the extra 4-5 miles that you always need to calculate in when going on a hike with Lynn Smith. All in all it was a perfect day for hiking and we got to see some gorgeous country. Even though we all have blistered feet and couldn't walk on Saturday night, it was very worth it. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

This is us starting. Mom dropped us off not knowing if she'd see us alive. I made sure to tell her she'd been a great mother and had raised me well. Notice how fresh we look. I still have my sweater on.

Dad in front of a tall mountain. We walked past that mountain or should I say, around it.

Zach was in charge of the GPS and would give us updates along the trail. They had plotted out about 7 points along the trail and the GPS could tell us how far it was to the next point. The problem was that it was plotting distance in a straight line and we don't walk in a straight line. Zach would tell us we had .6 miles to go to the next point. 4 miles later of twists and turns and switchbacks we still had .2 miles to go.

Beautiful country!

This rock formation is called Hole in the Rock. Notice the pile of rocks we are standing by. It's called a cairn or as my Dad called it a cairnbeaner. They are set up along the trail to help hikers know they are on the right path. Dad couldn't remember the name at first and then Zach tried to correct him but I was so entertained by cairnbeaner that I made sure we yelled it out every time we passed one on the trail.

Painted desert!!

See that little bump of a hill right above my head. Our destination was past that and trust me it's farther away than it looks. It's a big hill. You'll also notice I'm sporting a hat. I don't really like hats but this one is very colorful and Zach aptly named it my Dr. Seuss hat. Well, after that, who wouldn't want to wear it!

This is the grave of the guy who died on the trail last year. His belt broke and that was the end of him. That's our destination, Picket Post Mountain, in the background. It's still really far away.

This is Dad napping during one of our breaks and that is Picket Post Mountain in the background. Notice how it never seems to get much closer. These last few pictures were not taken in close proximity of each other.

Ok, this one is the same spot as the last one but still.

This is us at the end.We're more tired than we look and we are now on the waaaay other side of the mountain.

So the final milage total, 17! Next week it will be up to 20 and when I end up telling my kids it will probably be about 35. All in all it was a great trip with good conversation, great company and spectacular country but rest asured, next time I won't forget to calculate the extra 5 miles!

Don't You Hate It When...

You get these letters and there is nothing you can do about it!