Happy Memorial Weekend!

We have a family tradition that my mom and dad started to start out our camping season over the Memorial weekend...this year was no different. We packed up our gear and headed to Pallisades! It was truly a gorgeous weekend... only poured rain 1 time for a few hours on Sunday.. of course that was just enough to make a mud mess!
We went camping with our good buddies, Cort and Misty and their 2 adorable kids Teegan and Talon..


My brother Andy and Kristi and my 5 adorable neices and nephews Breanna, Danielle, Eric, Philip, and Charlize.. My 2 younger bros. Cameron and Brayden.. and John's former boss Keven and Cheryl who saved us a spot at the campground among 500 other camping fools with motorcycle fever! It was a mad house in the pit!




We couldn't keep the kids off the 4 wheelers and motorcycles.. they just wanted to ride :) They are all doing so well on them.


Justin has been riding for quite a few years now and I think this is the first time that I've really seen him jump.. Check out the air he's catching! That's awesome!


My little brother, Brayden, has been riding for a couple years and he is just fearless. John wants to start him racing.. haha.. we will see what my mom thinks of that! But John and Cort built him a little jump to go off of and Brayden had no problem reving the engine and going for it! He's doing awesome on his bike!


Here's a look at the 2 psychos trying to climb a steep, rocky hill! Took them 3, 4, 5maybe 6 times but they finally made it up. They claim there are no hills to steep to climb! Crazy!



Makayla and Charlize found something else to do with their time.. they collected snails, snails, and more snails! They left them sitting everywhere including in our chairs so we had snails climbing all over!! Grousse!!



Teegan is making fire the old fashioned way.. by rubbing stick between hands against rock! :)


We had a good time.. but this trip definately was not without its unfortunate events either!
1. There's nothing like starting out a great camping trip with a nice black and blue bruise! I twisted my ankle after stepping in a hole.. let the bruises begin I guess!

2. Kristi was on her way up with her 5 kids and got stranded just after Ririe.. my mom's suburban engine blew! She was stuck at a rest stop with antsy kids for a couple hours waiting for us to get there to pick them all up... poor guys!
3. We had a few unfornate crashes but nobody was seriously hurt! Whew! That's good news cuz it sure could have been worse.. broken bones and all.
4. Philip, my 6 year old newphew, fell in the fire burning his hand... but he's ok!

5. A friend of the family showed up to rescue us on Monday when we couldn't pull the 4-wheeler trailer home... however, when she got there, she realized her hitch had been jacked!! Luckily we had an extra one :)
6. Of course, there's always those few extra food items that it seems no matter how many times you check the list, they still get forgotten. It was a TRAGEDY that we forgot the ice cream and whip cream for the great apple and peach cobbler!!!

Thanks to everybody who came that made our trip an eventful, but fun campout! See you all next year!... minus the tragic events hopefully!

In Rememberance of My Dad

A year ago today, my dad lost his battle with cancer and left us to fulfill his calling in heaven. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him.


It seems like there's always something, no matter how small, that triggers a memory for me of him. Simply dropping off my kids to school reminds me of him, because every chance he got, he would take them and he loved it. He used to just chuckle to himself about how he couldn't believe how small they looked next to all the other kids. One time my dad was taking them to school and he was a little bit too early so he decided to circle the block a couple times.. well, Makayla was getting this annoyed look on her face and he asked what was wrong.. Makayla said, "grandpa.. you are wasting our time!" Dad said she was so serious about it and he just laughed. He laughed about it all through his chemo treatment that day.


My dad just enjoyed the simple things in life. Taking his family camping, fishing, going to the park..


taking his grandkids to the dollar store. They had him wrapped around their little fingers.


He was so amazing with them. He read them books and ruff housed with them. He did homework with them too. He liked to just have them around.

He was a man of great integrity and raised us by his great example. He was always lending a hand wherever needed giving such great service to others.

When the flood in Blackfoot happened in '97, I decided I would sand bag for one of my laurel projects which meant, 20 hours minimum. He was right there by my side chucking those heavy sand bags along the river bank. We had so much fun.. we laughed and laughed. He especially found it funny when he would toss the sand bag to me, but it wouldn't quite make it too me, so it dropped in the water at my feet, splashing me with water and mud and making the bag 10x heavier for me to heave to the next person! My muscles were like jello after 2 straight days of tossing those bags. It was such an awesome feeling serving next to him. He taught me the greater and important things in life. I have many wonderful memories of my dad, that I will always cherish. I miss him every day. He was too young to go... Life really is too short to take anything for granted, especially the chance to make memories with your family. I'm so grateful to him that he made it so important to have our family be close to each other and to make memories with us so that now, I can reflect on it all, as I miss him so much. I have a great love for the gospel and the knowledge it brings into my life. The knowledge of knowing that I will see my dad again brings the most comfort to me. I love him and will always miss him.

Happy Birthday Cameron and Wyatt!

We had a combined birthday party for my nephew Wyatt, who just turned 1 years old.. and my little brother Cameron who turned 15 today! Wyatt's little cake was a puppy.. he couldn't resist digging in to the black eyes and nose.. it was more appealing than the white frosting.. good luck cleaning that up Dustin and Sarah! :)

Of course, we didn't want Cameron feeling left out either so we made sure he got a good taste of his cake too!

We love you guys and hope that you both had a very special day!

Happy Easter!

This post is a little late but better late than never :) The kids had a ball this year at the big egg hunt! Makayla was sure she was going to end up with the big easter basket by the tree.. she was so focused on it that she didn't get very many eggs but it was all smiles that day.


We painted our eggs with the tie day pack that night.. What a MESS!





I like the old conventional way where you just dip your egg in a cup.. next year!

Look at my adorable little ones in there new easter clothes :) And then there's the one in the middle.. that's my handsome hunk!
Anyways, hope everybody had a Happy Easter with their families and celebrating the spirit of the day.

TWILIGHT

I finally decided over spring break to see what the fuss was about over twilight. I first watched the movie... it was pretty good.. so I had to read the books after that. The books were awesome.. better than the movie. They had so much more detail than the movie and the movie didn't follow the book as well as I expected. I started out reading the last friday of spring break and finished all 4 books by the next friday. 1 week! That's a lot of reading but the books have it all... mystery, intensity, danger, romance, excitement, action! I couldn't put them down. I'm definately a fan of the vampires versus the warewolves. I'm glad I'm done reading them though... I can finally start getting my life back together. I sort of put it on hold for a week while I read. I still got things done but it was super hard to juggle work and then come home and read while trying to cook dinner and watch my shows and do homework with the kids and find time to clean the house too! Exhausting.. I wasn't going to bed until midnight every night and I am an OLD women! I need my sleep. Anything past 10:30 is too late! :) Anyway, awesome series and I'm looking forward to the next movie! I liked the soundtrack they used in the movie. My favorite song was Bella's lullaby. I love that piano piece.

Happy Birthday Makayla!

Makayla turned 7! Makayla is our little ball of fun. She is in 1st grade at syringa. She loves to play games, ride bikes, dance, read books, and play with her friends and cousins. We had her birthday party at the park where she and her cousins could expend their energy!


It was her day and she a had a lot of fun. She banked on her gifts getting a barbie doll townhouse, little pet shop toys, baby clothes for her baby alive, a journal, and several other little fun gifts like beads to make bracelets and a stationary box with stickers, pens, and paper.


Makayla is our little sweetheart and we want her to know that we love her bunches and want to wish her a happy birthday!

A Special Birthday Gift!

Recently, my brother, Andrew, has become quite the quilter. He makes some pretty awesome quilts. Today is my birthday and he gave me this quilt. It's a very special quilt because it was made out of my dad's jeans. I want to thank Andrew for your thoughts and hard work making this for me. It's very special to me and I will treasure it always. I know my dad will be in my heart always, but now I have something of his to wrap around me every night too. Thank You Andrew!! It's perfect!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY VERONICA!!!!!!!! I hope you had a Great Day...Thanks for being a Great Friend. Love You!!! TAMI

A Special Day!

This was a very special day for our family. Yesterday, we were able to attend the Idaho Falls Temple and show our support for our mother and our adopted little brother Cameron. Cameron was able to be sealed to our mom and be brought into our eternal family. I'm so proud of him for making the choice to become apart of our family forever. It's a good thing he thinks I'm really "cool" because I told him he's just stuck with me now! :) I feel like I was also very blessed to have been able to feel my dads presence with us while we were there. I know my dad was with us and I can't tell you the emotions that fell over me as I felt like he was sitting right next to me in there. :) The second reason this day was so special is because our parents were sealed in this temple, this day, March 17th, 25 years ago. And just a few short minutes after, my brother Dustin and I were sealed to them. So this was a great day then, and now!

John and I just purchased a new 5th wheel camper! We will be making many great memories with it. We love to take the kids camping and motorcycle riding and this will make a great addition to those good times! There are 3 tip outs which helps create a lot of room :) It has a master bedroom with a big shower and bathroom pictured below


the kids have their own seperate bedroom with bunkbeds and wardrobe as you can see..


the table and sofa fold into beds.. and there's plenty of room between the kitchen/dining area/sofa because of the tip outs so we can even fit an air bed between them if we needed more beds. This camper rocks!


Well, it did rock! John has already put it's first scratch in it!!


We've only had it home for 12 hours and he's already broke it in. It helps to have extended mirrors on your truck when backing it up... even I know that! :) I just had to throw that in there because it would probably be something that I would have done so I'm glad it was him and not me! :) Anyway, we are pretty excited to have it and we can't wait to get it out into the mountains!