Grandpa = Fun Toys

The bigger kids and I spent the afternoon with Aunt Lindsay & Grandpa last weekend...and our guns! Jason's up first!



Jacob's turn. G just can't let himself get too far away! Not sure if that was for Jacob's safety, or the safety of his gun??



That's my girl! She's a natural!



In this picture Madilyn learns that when you shoot with grandpa you don't remove your plugs until you are in the car driving home! He doesn't always think to warn before he fires! Apparently you are supposed to just know!



Yes, that is MY target! Not bad for an old lady!



The sons our father never had.

Sweet 16

This year Maddie Belle turned 16! Since her birthday was on General Conference weekend - she started the day with a candle in her Costco Muffin (our traditional conference breakfast).



Mom pulls of yet another fantastic surprise! Maddie's most favorite part of Disneyland this summer was the World of Color display we saw the last night. My friend Tiphaine posted on FaceBook that her family was at Disneyland a couple of weeks before Maddie's birthday - thanks to the world of technology, Tiph and I were able to text pictures of hoodies, sizes and color back and forth until we found the perfect gift! Whew!



What birthday isn't sweet when your sister gives you a peach pie??? Mmmmmmm!

SMILE

Sometimes I impress even myself! For Maddie's 16th birthday I emailed our dentist and asked him abt timing the removal of her braces with the appointment she had just 2 days before her birthday. He was totally on board - and so was his staff! Nobody breathed a word to her - she went in totally thinking it was just a routine check up!



Our first glimps of her new smile!



Here she is! I think all of her misery paid off nicely!

BSA in the blood

What a bunch of scouts! The cousins got together to celebrate Tony's Eagle Court of Honor! Jason completed his Eagle Board of Review the same week...(more to come on that later).



A Scout is: Helpful???



Tony is about to join his Dad, Uncle Brandon, cousin Jason, (some guy I don't know), and Uncle Rick in the Eagle's Nest.

No longer wise!

Jason had his wisdom teeth removed just before school started. I'm sure now that it's been over a month ago he won't mind having his picture shared (we'll see)! :) Lots of Jell-O, soup, mashed potatoes & pudding that week!!

First Day of School 2011

And so it begins! Madilyn has a zero hour weight class so she had to leave before the bus riders.



Joseph started Kindy this year! That just leaves mom and Meredi at home during the day! Whatever will we do with our time?



Jason started his Senior Year at DPHS and his 2nd Year of Running Start. This June the boy will be holding his High School Diploma & his AA Degree! However, for pictures on this day - he was still in bed! School for him started 3 wks later.

The Last Hurrah!

The last hurrah of our summer was spending the last week before school started in a cabin at Deer Lake Resort! Ahhhh! It was heavenly! Our dear friends own the resort and since we went during the week we were able to spend some time with them - their weekends are nutso busy!



We did a lot of this!



Joseph having a random cute moment!



We had Dean, Sharon and Ed over for dinner every night! So.much.fun!



At night we had a firepit down by the water. Joseph LOVED this!!



We played a lot of mini golf!



Hay ride!



Tubing behind the jet ski!



Hours and hours were spent on this wonderful contraption!!

Silverwood 2012

This year Silverwood was awesome! The weather was perfect! We swam our guts out! We had lunch with friends! We split up - mom and the littles / dad with those brave enough to step foot on rides that go higher than 4ft off the ground and faster than 2mph.



This really was my most enjoyable year! Yes, I know - we've been going for 10 years! But because I enjoyed myself so much - there aren't many pictures!



So this is all there is - my friend Reagan has a lot of us at the water park on her camera...if her life slows down enough to get copies to me, I'll share them later!



Fun!

Jason Turned 17

My birthday boys! Grandpa's birthday is just 4 days after Jason's.



When did 17 years happen?



I'm not short - just in case you were wondering!

Girls Camp 2011

This year I got to go to Girls Camp with Madilyn and Megan as one of the leaders! I truly had a blast. The girls in our ward are just wonderful and the other leaders who went were amazing!



An added bonus was having Mardi there as a leader, too. When we were young we went to every year of Girls Camp together - that ended 20+ years ago! We had so darn much fun!!

July 4th

We got home from our vacation on July 3rd. July 4th we loaded up the car and went to Uncle Dick's and Aunt Marlene's for ice cream and fireworks! Because that's what we do!

Exhausted but very happy to see my favorite people!!



My cute daddy with my cute Meredi and my cute Jason!



My cute mommy with my cute Jaynie!

California Ocean

It's the end of August and I'm officially now the whole summer behind in blogging!! This is the last post about our Disney/California/Oregon Vacation!! I'm leaving out Sea World - it was fun, once you've seen one killer whale, you've seen them all!

I don't know which beach Carson & Kandi took us to, but we had a blast!!



Carson introduced boogie-boarding to Brandon & the kids...



The boys did spend time in the water - but opted to spend more time on the beach.



My sand-haters!! Notice that neither Malorie nor Melanie is actually touching the sand with much more than finger tips and toes!! That's quite a balancing act!



Gracie had a blast playing in the sand and would only go into the water with mom!



Getting better at the self portrait! It's not hard getting a good picture when the scenery is so amazing and everyone is smiling from ear to ear!!



We couldn't drag Carson, Brandon & Maddie out of the ocean! They stayed and boogied until the sun went down!



The ocean was awesome! The very next best thing came after the ocean when we stopped at Little Caesars for pizza, bread sticks and soda, then ate it in the hot tub at Carson & Kandi's! Shhhh - don't tell their manager!