If I May

I may have broken blogger with the mass amount of pictures I just uploaded.
I am taking this golden opportunity to update my blog. It is golden because Tom and Samantha are on a daddy/daughter camp out and the other children are asleep. I feel like that makes the perfect opportunity to finally recap the last two months. It has been so good and so busy.

• Rental move-ins were a success, a headache but a success
• We harvested our honey (from the bee hive) with the wonderful help from our neighbors and got 9 pints of honey. So good.
• I have sorted through my childrens clothes and pretty much have things organized for fall/winter.
  
• I have three children in school. Pre-K, Kindergarten and 2nd.
• Tom is rocking USU with his new job there.
  
• One of our cute chicks is a rooster. It makes so much noise.
• I'm going to run a marathon next weekend. 26.2 I'm a little intimated. My sweetie pie is running it with me.

Now for the long list of pictures. Most of our summer we spent close to home. In July we went to Wyoming and in August we went on a road trip to Seattle and Kalispell, MT. All our travels were so lovely.

WY- Giant slip n slide. Part of Fossil Fest.

WY-Samantha the birthday girl snuggling daddy
WY-This was just like something off of Funniest Home Videos. The tower of cupcakes starting to burn. It was all those little umbrellas. The cupcakes were darling they just didn't get along with fire.
Aunt LeAnn made matching doll and Samantha-sized bathing suit cover-ups
Grama made matching doll and Samantha-sized Pjs
Another birthday cake on Sunday her actual birthday.
Now our Seattle trip. We had the best time on this trip to Seattle and Montana. We could not have asked for things to be more perfect. We loved seeing all our family and friends. The weather was spectacular. Above is our kids with cousin Natalie on the Ferry boat. We took the Ferries as often as we could.

Just look at that blue sky
This was the best reunion. My best childhood friend, Comfort. I can't believe how much we are alike. We have the same views, same ideas and same thoughts. It was so fun having dinner with her and Rob and their children. Our daughters played non-stop the whole time we were at their house.
The beach looking for crabs under rocks. We hit low tided and had success.
Another best friend, Becky. She just happened to be in Seattle (from Houston) for her parents 50th Anniversary. We had fun chatting and catching up
Check out that blue sky, and lovely Seattle skyline from the car.
Me with my nephews. love those boys
Grama & counsins
Samantha and Alex
We went to the Seattle Science center that is at the base of the Space needle. I would go to the science center when I was a kid and made these neat-o designs. You still can and my kids did.
The fountain and the base of the Space Needle
Loved the Crab Pot. They dump a pile of Seafood (clams, mussels, crab legs etc) on your table and give you a mallet and chopping block and let you go at it. My sisters, nephews, cousin and bro-in-law all went.
Cute
Cute - Delanie, Sadie and my beautiful Mom
Cute
A hike in Washington led us to this tree
Now Montana. It's an eight hour drive to Kalispell from Seattle. It's a lovely drive. We played so much and had so much fun in more sunshine. Above we are doing the maze. The girls team won!
Racing on these speed racers
Bumper boats
Mini-golf
Ice Cream treat. The adults got huckleberry shakes. The best shake ever!
Amazing Dam. I've been to Kalispell a zillion times but this is the first time seeing this enormous dam. Very impressive.
Walking on the dam
Went to the county fair in Kalispell. saw all the sights, ate some grub and toured some awesome motorhomes.
Grama set up the pool for the kids. Very refreshing.
Two games that are a must in Montana: horseshoes and Pinochle
Sadie riding the wooden horse at Grandpa and Grama's cozy home. We love it there!~
Great picture with Grama and Gpa and Daylin. We had the best time. Thank you everyone for making our visit so spectacular. It was a trip that we enjoyed more than words can say.



To finish off this post and because I'm about to crash here we are back in Logan at the Demo Derby. Definitely a family favorite. Watching the Derby eating fried chicken and drinking rootbeer. Yeah baby!
Love you all, I'm going to bed. Please forgive any type-os. I can't see straight any more.

July 1

I married an absolutely amazing man 12 years ago today!
I'm on cloud 109.
Thank you for loving me and being patient with me.

Lemonade

I think I could write the same story day in and day out about how hectic things are. Life is full and I honestly don't know how to squeeze it all into a day. This morning I woke up to little cute ants eating popcorn under our kitchen table. And when I went to do the dishes this afternoon I realized there were dishes from Sunday evening that I was loading into the dish washer. Are you kidding me? I seriously do not know how to squeeze it all in. We did reach a milestone today as Samantha, Seth and Trey worked together to unload the dish washer. Ah-ha! They can unload the dish washer and they are really good at it. I should never have to do it again. I wish. I hope. I was impressed with their initiative and team work, can I order a repeat of that for tomorrow?

It was hot today, over 90 degrees. We stayed inside most of the day. Tonight I went to Young Womens. We weeded a lady's flower beds then got rained on. I love summer thunderstorms.

Below are my picture selections from this last batch of pictures. The picture below is the annual filling-up-of-the-rental-swimming-pool. See that little garden hose that Seth is holding? That little hose fills up the entire swimming pool. Isn't that impressive? We finally got the pool cleaned out of all the dead leaves and yucky rain water then we turn that little hose on and for 2 whole days the hose runs until the pool is filled. I kind of think that is amazing.
This pool is the known by students from all over. The USU student population have nicked named this house the "Pool House" because it has a pool of course. Even Big Bill from the USU basketball games (You know that crazy wild USU fan) swims at this pool, he lives next door.

The above picture is of Lemonade Stand Training 101. We have this little school room where we do Summer Learning (I try to be consistent with it, some days are better then others) On this day we were learning about how to run a lemonade stand: how to give correct change, how to provide good customer service and how to drum up customers to buy lemonade.
Here is the training in action. The real motive behind the lemonade stand was so the boys could buy new Bay Blades. (see below) It went pretty good. They each earned $3.25. It seemed like a ton of work. See this is why I suffer from fatigue much of the time. I'm exhausted thinking about this lemonade stand. I do it because I want our kids to learn how to earn their money but man it's alot of work on my part for that lesson to be learned.

New Bay Blades. The boys combined their money and money they had saved to buy the Bays. I must admit it is pretty fun listening to the boys and Samantha on occasion have the Bay Blade battles. There is a whole lingo used when talking about Bay Blades.

I have got to get to bed. I still need to read my 6 pages in the Book of Mormon for our summer challenge of reading it in 90 days. Trey's road rash is just about healed. Last night we were at my sisters house late helping them put up a cedar fence along this swift canal that runs along the back part of their property. She had a huge scare last week when she thought her 2 year old had fallen in. It turns out the two year old had not fallen in but that motivated her and her husband to put up a much needed fence.

Everyone be safe!

So Cute

I have discovered that one of my favorite things is going out on a summer's evening, just Tom and I and the kids. Last week we had a couple of these evenings and I felt so grateful and joyful. Last Wednesday we went to a concert in the park down the street. The evening was perfect we were together and we had a nice picnic dinner. Food is always a plus. We listened to fun music, were surrounded by friends and sat under a beautiful sunset sky.


Then Thursday we went to Summerfest (a Logan Art Faire in downtown Logan). We walked through the booths, ate some delicious food (Greek gyros and dutch oven and caramel apples and corn on the cob) the kids got balloon animals and we listened to a band sing Beatles covers. It was lovely. So to remember the evening we crammed our kids on a bench with their balloon animals and took several pictures.

So Tough

Here is Trey being extremely tough! He wrecked on the 4-wheeler yesterday sending the 4-wheeler flipping in the air according to eye-witnesses and giving himself some really bad road rash. My sweet boy cried for a good hour after the accident. I had to keep his mind off the pain with shaved ice and M& Ms while Tom held him and comforted him. Last night he slept in our bed and moaned and groaned throughout the night.
Today he was doing lots better unless someone bumped his wounds or purposely pressed against them like Seth did. Aren't brothers great?

So Good

I'm going to post three posts in a row because I hardly ever get to blog and I have some things to share. The picture above is the garden evolving into a garden. I think we got it planted June 1. I had high, very high hopes of checking for weeds every day and staying on top of that but it's the 21st and I really need to get to that weeding ~ tomorrow.


These pictures of Sadie are for my nieces who live in far away Pennsylvania. They were wondering recently (via txt) if Sadie was a big girl or still a baby since it's been one year since they have seen her. Well my Darlings, she is a big girl. She is walking and talking and eating with a spoon and drinking out of a cup and almost putting on her clothes by herself at least hats for sure.


Tom playing basketball by moon light. Here he and his 3 on 3 teammates are winning the championship game of the tournament. Yeah babe!