Angela's wedding...

I'm up in Utah at my nieces wedding... My sister Cindy's daughter got married yesterday in the Salt Lake temple. She is the first one to get married on my side of the family. It was beautiful! She was a gorgeous bride. her dress was a true princess dress, so big and fluffy. You should have seen all the little cousins looking at her!! She married a great guy names Shawn Blymiller. He's from West Jordan and has a wonderful family.

i'm headed to bed and we are headed home early tomorrow morning. I will hopefully have time to post more details and some pictures tomorrow when I get home. I forgot my camera cord!!!

It's been nice to not think about camp for a few days and just relax with the family.... that is until today at 6:00 when my camp director called and said there has been a plane wreck on Mt. Charleston and all roads to camp are closed!!! No i am not kidding. I am very stressed.... but trying to stay positive. the internet says they should have the fire contained by tomorrow. we are praying hard!!! I could be in for a crazy week! Wish us luck and pray that we can have camp as planned.

Girls Camp is in a week......

That's all I have time to say... Camp!

Week in review...

A bunch of things happened last week that I never blogged. First of all, Ashley got a new job! She is working at a local little restaurant called Farm Basket. The teenagers love to eat there! fried chicken strips and french fries! nothing healthy on the menu... hopefully she won't eat too much! she and I spent all day Monday down at the health department getting her a health card. I walked away a little nervous about eating out.... to get the card, you pay 50 dollars, they make sure your shots are up to date and then you watch this hour long movie on food safety. They hand you a test on the way in and then at the end of the movie, they hand you a card. They never collected the tests!!! So, basically, you could have slept through the movie and now you are ready to serve food! Scary!

Tuesday night I spent a few hours with Mitchell at the medical center because he fell at soccer and he was sure that his wrist was broken. Luckily it wasn't broken... the doctor called it a "buckle" and gave him a little brace to wear for a few days. Here is my dilemma... it wasn't broken, but the Dr. referred me to an orthopedic Dr.... I don't see the need to go if he is going to tell me to have him be careful?? Should I go or not?

Saturday John, Tanner and I went to Zion National park and hiked the narrows. We hiked for about 4 hours. I'm not sure how many miles we went... It was so pretty!! Ashley had to work and Mitchell didn't really want to go, so we didn't make him. Although I think he would have enjoyed it. Tanner wanted to come and he was a trooper! More than half of the hike was through a little river. It was so fun. You would get a little hot, and then there was a section of water! It was great. Tanner floated down the river on the way back!

Happy Fathers Day...

Happy fathers day to all the wonderful fathers out there! Especially mine! I love my daddy so much! Here are a few things I love most about my dad:

1. He's got a great sense of humor.
2. His unconditional love for me and all of my brothers and sisters.
3. His patience.
4. His love for the outdoors. If my dad woke up on a Saturday morning and the sun was shining (remember I am from Seattle and that is a rarity) he would wake us up early and we would head to the mountains or down to Cannon Beach. I have great memories of those days! Every-time I see a river or stream I think of our drives in the mountains where we would just pull over and go play in the water!
5. His love for my mom!
6. His example of service by serving a full-time mission with my mom right now.
7. Teaching me to enjoy watching a football game. When I was in High School none of my brothers that were home at the time really cared about football. So, I would take advantage of some one on one daddy daughter time and watch the Seahawks games with him every Sunday. I have fond memories of going to Huskies games and Seahawks games with him. I think the love of football that he taught me helped me find a great husband. John and I watched the Superbowl together on our 2nd date... he was impressed with my knowledge of the game...I scored big points with him!
8. His love for my kids and husband.
9. His love for the gospel and our Heavenly Father.
10. He is always happy to see me!

I love you DAD!! Thanks for being the best dad ever!

I can't write about Fathers day and not write about the Father of my children! John is such a great dad. He loves each one of our kids so much. When the kids were babies he would hardly ever let anyone hold them. Especially after Ashley was born. We would be at family gatherings and he wouldn't let go of her! It was pretty funny. It didn't make my grandma very happy.

He loves to play games with the kids. Every Sunday he tries to get the kids to play board games with him. Tanner is getting pretty good at checkers thanks to John.

Thanks for being such a great husband and father!!!! Your father would be proud of you.

Happy Day!!!!!!

I finally got a call from the Apple Store today saying that my laptop was fixed!!! I had been tracking it all week online and it finally arrived today. Luckily they didn't have to replace the hard drive, so all my stuff is still on it! YAH! I was worried that I would have to reinstall programs and stuff. I feel like my life has been on hold for a few weeks! I have needed so many things on this. I mostly missed my address book. I need to back that up on my ipod.

So, this should be a lesson to all of us... back-up your computer today!!

4th year hike...

One of the any benefits of my calling is that I can go on any of the pre-camp activities that I want to. So I chose to go with the 4th years on their hike on Friday. It was AMAZING! Brother Thorley in our ward offered to take the girls up to their property above the Kolob reservoir near Zion National Park. His extended family owns like half of this mountain that overlooks all of Zion and beyond... absolutely beautiful. We drove up to their cabin Friday morning with 14 girls and met the Thorley's there. We made the hike a little harder this year, the girls had to pack in their tents and food! I think my pack was 3 times heavier than last year! I cheated last year and threw my sleeping bag into the truck that drove in the food and tents... So it was a lot harder this year. But well worth it. We all felt very accomplished when we finished. We hiked about 4 miles in and 2-3 out. Brother Thorley planned a hike that took us all around his property... there were huge hills to climb, ponds to skip rocks into, breathtaking views of the earth below! When I left the beautiful, green, mountainous Pacific Northwest to live in the desert, I never thought that I would see such earthly beauty again and it was only 3 1/2 hours away! It made me a little homesick for my hometown. The highlight of the hike was when we were about to hike out Saturday morning, we were out on this ridge and the 4th year leader, Tori Jackson, had the girls sing "How Great Thou Art". It was so cool. We were looking over this amazing earth that we live on, thinking and singing about our loving Heavenly Father... so cool. The spirit was so strong and I think everyone was shedding a few tears. I pulled out my camera and videoed a bit. I have to say that the girls were great! They go along so well and there weren't any bad attitudes or big cliques to break up! So fun to be with them!

School's out for summer!

Tanner had that song blaring on the Guitar Hero yestarday! A nice thing to wake up too...

I am always a bit mixed emotioned with the last day of school...

Top 5 reasons why I am sad that school is out:
1. My house can't stay clean...
2. I hear "I'm bored" all day! (Tanner came in a few minutes ago and said he was tired of swimming...maybe it's just not warm enough yet and the water is still a bit chilly.)
3. I hear that there is nothing to eat all day long...
4. I have to fight for TV and computer time... especially at night when they think they can now stay up late every night!
5. No more lunch dates with my husband...

Top 5 reasons that I am glad school is out...
1. No more backpacks all over the house
2. No more waking up Ashley for seminary! (that's not easy)
3. No more driving carpools.
4. No more making lunches
5. No more fighting kids to do homework and going to bed early.

I decided to let them do what they want until Monday and then the job chart will come out! I am actually excited to do some fun activities with them and go on a few trips with the kids! I really do love my kids and enjoy being with them.. I guess I need to be organized with some fun ideas and projects for them to do... Let me know if you hear of any fun day trip ideas.

Miss him.....

Listen to this story told by President Hinckley. He's so cute!

when one thing breaks...

It started with my laptop.... now Ashley's car is dead. We think the alternator is out. She called us late Saturday night and said that her battery was dead, so her friend jumped it for her. We told her to come straight home, she was way up north. As she was coming home she called to tell us that it died again at a stop light. So her friend Alex called her uncle and he came to help and we decided to drive up there so John could drive the car home. We got it going again and it made it home, never to start again! We had to call a tow truck... Ashley was so sad. Luckily it's finals this week and school only goes till 11:00 or so. Because this lazy mother can't get up early to drive her to school, I let her take my car. So I am home catching up on my blog reading this morning....

laptop update.... i decided to be smart, save money and just get my laptop fixed. So it is somewhere at an Apple hospital getting all better. Hopefully it will be back in my hands soon. A new one just wasn't in the budget right now.... it killed me tadmit that! Family night was on "Wants and Needs" last night! We all needed a reminder.

Check out this cute picture of Scott & Jenn's dog Duce trying out the pool Saturday. He hated it! He wouldn't get in, they finally got him in and the minute they let go, he was out! pretty funny!