more cousins

We stopped at Aunt Ardis's house before heading to Ut. I lived with An Ardie (how I say her name) my 6th grade yr. Heck. I lived with her during summers, when I stayed home from school sick (or just pretending) I went to her house. Her kids and family became my extended family. My second family. And I spent a lot of time at their house. Thanks for all the wonderful memories!!

What I love about this picture is....Jeff (the bald guy) was my favorite person when I was her age. Seeing him play with her really, pricked my heart. Unlike me, she didn't want anything to do with him. But, I loved him. Still do. He was my favorite, favorite. When He got married I was so upset.

And...here it was back then. Jeff and Antoinette. I was 8mo old.

The Bridge to Tarabithia

Luke and his "boys"

Cousin time

Part of our travels were visiting cousins and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. Who has the longest spaghetti noodle?

Spaghetti sure does feed the 5000 in this family. Our 2000 boys.

Question, Loves or headlock?

No parents allowed at this table.

Play dough is such a good entertainer isn't it!

Lucy, Jaeger, Owen, Jakob, Luke, MaKia.

Keeping it cool

We survived the hottest day of summer that our city has EVER had. It reached, 105!

This girl is a fish.

"Well Hello!" Photo by Owen

Okay so you might think we are a little ghetto here. Well it was. But we had no pool. I went to 12 different stores searching for a pool. Everyone was completely out! Thank heavens, Christa bought one in Ellensburg for us, and personally brought it over. With no air conditioning it was painful. So we dragged out the tarp from the garage and with the natural dip in the grass we made our own swimming pool. Not very deep, but it did the trick. And you bet I was sitting right in the middle of this thing. I'd do it again if I had to.

I did mange to find a slip-in-slide.

The Royal Slope

We spent three days on the Royal Slope. It was beautiful and worth every moment. We slept under the stars one night and listened to coyotes howl. They have a HUGE slip-in-slide, that was fantastically fun. We swam in a pond, rode bikes, made cookies, had daily (let me change that) hourly pull-up contests (Jacob, my goal is to beat your record of three. yeah, I'm going for it!) laughs, bliss, fun. That sums up our visit here.

Thank You L. Family for Everything!!!Check out this dreamy sunset!

Vacuum the trampoline. What the heck, we're on vacation, anything goes.

Spending all day in the bathing suit.

Nice green water for the Poly Wogs.

There are about a hundred of them in here. Savanah loved it.

Crazy hair

Featuring here, is my boy, Owen!

With five boys around

I watched two boys today that are the same distance apart as Owen and Jaeger. So its fun and interesting for me to watch them.

So with five boys around this is what I learned today.

1-Building forts is going to happen. Even if all you have is a hill and lots of long dead grass.

2-Sometimes ants live in grass and will crawl inside your clothes.

3-Good thing your a boy so you can take off your shirt to get all the ants out

4-The park and fort were so much fun we had to go back after lunch and come home just in time for their parent to pick them up.

5-You have to name four guy names in order to begin your pretend war...

6- one of them was Fart Man.

7- Doing tricks on your bike is COOL.

8-Sometimes you don't want to play with a younger girl. (Don't worry she held her own.)

9-A shirt was torn trying to climb to the roof to get a toy.

10-Had to talk four of them out of climbing on the roof to get a toy (our history with roofs NOT LOOKING GOOD) Boys at this age, you have to reason with them. I explained I didn't want anyone hurt. If we tired to climb it and someone got hurt I wouldn't have enough seats in the car to take everyone to the ER, so we'd better wait until Dad got home.

11-Thank heaven we don't own a fifteen passenger van!

12-Can you imagine the looks I would get as I entered a ER with seven kids! HA!

13-They are going to Explore. And...they are going to find stuff at the park. A almost empty spray paint bottle. Yes they are going to spray something, thank goodness it was a stick.

14-the littlest boy is going follow and do OR think he can do everything that the older boys are doing BUT better. And say "I cool Mom!"

15-When two people are swinging and they are going back and forth at the same time it's called...double dating. (????) *What did you call it?

16-Did I get anything done today? Not much. But I still like to hangout at the park! That doesn't get old, even at 30!

For Family Love

I couldn't sleep. It happens more often than I want. I hate it when I do this but, something will wake me up then my mind takes over and moves a hundred miles per hour and then I just can't go back to sleep. I'm tired, but my mind is moving. My body is telling me to go back to bed.
My mind won the fight this morning.

Some things have come full circle for me as I've been visiting relatives over the scattered weeks.

Think of your childhood. The things you enjoyed as a child, things that you experience with Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Cousins, Aunts, Uncles. You want your kids to have that, plus more. I have great memories with my family. Playing in the pond, catching poly wogs, star watching, family get togethers (my jello fetish seeded at these events) Its been extra fun this summer knowing my kids will treasure these experiences with their own brothers and sisters and with extended family. I just makes me smile. And I can't help but think of my memories spending with family. And it brings me joy as I know they are making memories. And more than just memories but the love they feel as they are around each different family.

It's important to put aside differences, hold the tongue or the opinion and just enjoy each other. Some times you just have to let it all go under the bridge. Every family is different, we all do things a our own way and it may be a little strange to others. But I guess that's what makes a family dynamic fun.

This summer has made me want to be a better Wife, Mom, Sister, Cousin, Aunt, Daughter, Daugther-in-law, and friend. I love the feeling of being with family.

Being tucked away in a city, far from family, I've learned family isn't just direct blood lines, but we belong to a big Heavenly Family. I'm thankful for the friends that do "family things" with us too. They will be apart of our "family" memories too.

I guess what I am expressing is I have a testimony that we belong to a Heavenly Family. We are all apart of the same Heavenly Family. We have a Heavenly Father and Mother. Families are important. And our own individual families can be together forever. And the joy I feel here with my earthly family as I talked about above must intensify a thousand times over in the celestial kingdom. This is why we must work so hard to keep it together, ALL of us together so we can live with that feeling for all eternity. What joy. I know Heavenly Father has made this possible for us to achieve. As a little girl Heavenly Father blessed me with this knowledge and planted it my heart early and line upon line it has grown. As I get older He gives me another glimpse of what eternity should be like. I know what goal I want. I am thankful for my family.