Weekend in M-F for Stormee's wedding...

The day after my day with the missionaries, we had to head down to Milton-Freewater for my cute little cousin, Stormee's wedding. She got married on the 16th of August, and I was the one who actually made her wedding announcements. But funny story, my dad called me the week before the wedding asking if I was going to be the photographer. Well, let me back up here. I took their engagement pictures in May and then she had me do her announcements, so I made those, and everything was great. I kept on thinking to myself, she hasn't asked me to do her wedding, so she must have gotten someone else, which is totally fine, I was glad to just go and enjoy her wedding and not be the photographer. Well, I should have actually asked her. I didn't even think about being her photographer again until the week before when my dad called and asked me if I was her wedding photographer. I told him no, that Stormee didn't ask me, so I wasn't planning on it. He then told me that I should probably call Stormee because he was under the impression that they all thought that I WAS going to be the photographer. So, I did. And lo and behold, she WAS under the impression that I was going to be the photographer. No biggie, I just had to change my frame of mind from relaxing weekend at the wedding to photographer.

Besides the wedding, we did have a great weekend spending time with family and long time family friends.

We stayed at Scott and Kathy's all weekend, and of course, the kids had fun swimming in their pool. My kids are little fishies, and love love love the pool.

This little guy loved all the doggies...

We spent all day Friday in the pool while these guys stayed inside shucking crabs all afternoon. It's fun to see these brothers together. I love my Uncle Scott AND my dad.

Beautiful Milton-Freewater sunsets, I love that we can still be in the pool playing this late at night!

These guys were our playmates all weekend; Dad, Kathryn, Louie, Nancy, Scott, Kathy, Stu and his wife.

These two lovebirds...

Saturday we spent all day doing wedding things, which I will post about in a bit, and Sunday we just hung out with these fools again:

Went out to breakfast, did some swimming, and then we had to get back early so that I could be there for my other son's Eagle Scout court of honor. I was giving the opening prayer and just had to be there for the big event in his life! I love Starling! And especially now that Tucker is in Cub Scouts, I understand the work that has been done by him AND his mother! :)

It was a great weekend spent with family and pseudo family! :) I sure do love my Milton-Freewater family and roots. There is nothing like being with those who love you and you love the most! Up next is Stormee's actual wedding day, that deserves a whole post of it's own! :) Lot's of good times.

Missionary day...

The Book of Mormon musical came to Spokane in August. I'm not sure if any of you have ever seen it, but it is definitely NOT what the church is about. I had no idea really what the musical was about, but back in July or June even, I don't remember, our stake did a joint Relief Society and Priesthood meeting about it. Our ward mission leaders and Stake presidency and stake PR people all came talked about how awful the musical is, and how it really degrades the church so much, but that the church has really tried to use the popularity of it as a missionary tool, really. They take out ads in the play bill saying things like, 'you've seen the musical now read the book' or ' The book is always better' things like that. So, our stake, and I think all the stakes in Spokane were going to participate in what they called a social media blitz. A few stakes in Ohio had tried it when the Book of Mormon musical came to their town, and they had seen some really great results. I think it's just one more way that our church is keeping up with the times and using social media for good! So, what we did, is is we decided on a Social Media blitz day. It was to happen right after the musical ended in our area. I think the last day of the musical was the 12th of August, so they had decided on the 16th of August as our blitz day. 5 or 6 members from each ward (or branch) in the stake were supposed to go out with the missionaries on the 16th and post to facebook, twitter, instagram whatever you wanted and just post pictures of what you did with the missionaries that day. They wanted members with the missionaries during the whole day, and I was one of the members asked from our branch to do it. We were also supposed to use the hashtags #realmormonmissionaries and #mormonmissionaries and things like that. It was really fun. We were also supposed to post things about what missionary life is really like, and what missionaries really do. And how long they serve, and how they pay their own way, etc... I told them I would actually be at my cousins wedding, so I didn't think I could do it, but they told me that I just have to post the pictures on the 16th, but that I could go out with the sisters a night before I left for the wedding. So, that's what I did.

I brought Tucker with me, too. I thought it would be good for him to join us on the visits we had. We were lucky enough to have Hermana Walton and Hermana Robles in our branch then, and they are both so cute and fun! I loved going out with them as much as I could, so it was a blast! We visited some less actives, and had some good discussions.

Then we went to the Lopez home for a discussion with Jenny and her family. Jenny was a young women who was recently baptized in our branch, and her family was taking the discussions. They have since moved out of our branch, and I'm so sad that Jenny is gone, but I loved her parents and little sister so much, I was sad to see all of them go. I kind of became a surrogate mom to Jenny while she was here. Anyway, we had a discussion at the Lopez home with Jenny and her family.

Hermana Robles, Jenny's dad, Cassandra-her sister, Jenny's mom, Jenny, Hermana Walton and Hermano Lopez:

A beautiful sunset on the way to the Lopez's (which you can't see very well in the picture)

Then we called it a night and the Hermanas were on their way! I love going out with the sisters and remembering, even for a bit, what it was like to be a missionary! I loved being a missionary so much, and I remember how wonderful it was to have members help, but with life and kids and a family, I don't go nearly as often as I'd like.

It was also so much fun to see everyone's posts on August 16th. I was down in Oregon for Stormee's wedding, and I was the photographer, so it was a bit difficult squeezing in time to post my pictures from my missionary day, but I did, and it was fun to see all these awesome missionary hashtags. I know in Ohio they had all these statistics about their social media blitz day, and they had had SO many discussions that day, and out of all of those discussions, there were 3 baptisms, just solely on their social media blitz posts. I haven't heard how things went for our stake yet! But it was a great reminder to me about the importance of missionary work!

Jackson and friends one year photo shoot...

We got the 4 amigos back together for another photoshoot. We've done it before, we used to have a baby brunch every week or so last year when they were just babies because the older kids were all in school or pre-school. It was so much fun, and these cute boys are all within a month of each other. Jack, I think is the only one at the beginning of July. George is just two days before Jackson, then my Jackson and then Crosby came two weeks later, on the 21st, I think. Then Jack at the beginning of July. We had wanted to do a photoshoot in June, then that never happened, then I was gone the whole month of  July, then I went to girls camp. Finally we were able to get their 1 year photo shoot done. We all had River front park passes, so we decided to meet up down there one day. Marianne had found these cute shirts at Old Navy and they mostly had random numbers, but they all got the number of their birth order in their family.

Can you see our little helpers peeking up back there, the boys still weren't steady enough to sit still on the blocks. We didn't want one of them to fall, so we had some spotters back there! :)

Jackson, Crosby, George and Jack:

And then one in the grass, still all pretty happy:

I think most of the boys at this point were starting to take a few steps, and George, I think was full on walking. Jackson, on the other hand, was the only one not even close at this point! He had just started crawling!!! :)

We thought it would be a fun idea to get some pictures of them going down the slide. (which is higher than the blocks by the way) I'm not really sure what we were thinking, but Angie and I stayed up to send them down and Dori and Marianne went to the bottom to catch them at the bottom. We sent George down first. This picture both cracks me up and makes me so sad. Poor little George I'm not sure if he was excited or scared, but he just wiggled his way right off that slide, and it's not a small slide!!! We decided to abort the slide plan, and had all the kids come down. I'm still not sure why we decided to send down the most wiggly one. We should have sent Jackson down first, since at that point he was nothing more than a blob of flesh! :) Not really moving at all! :)

After we calmed him down, we decided to head over to let the big kids play, but we wanted to get one last picture in with the mama's after George had calmed down a bit. A nice little lady who didn't know how to work a camera took this for us. I wasn't even sure if we would get one, but we got one, and it turned out pretty cute! :)

Then just a few more of the boys, they are just too cute! :) I'm so excited to do this every year. I hope that they are all BFF's! :) And we can do this until they are like 18 years old together!

These pictures show their personalities a little more! :)

Allen & Kelli's August visit...

While I was at girls camp, Allen and his family got into town.

We were finally able to meet this cute little guy:

Gage finally made the trek up to the Pacific Northwest, and we were so happy to meet him. He was born in June in Las Vegas. Tucker, our baby lover, of course, was loving on him as much as he could. The boy is and always will be a snuggler!

While we were all in oooohing and aaahing over how cute Gage was, Jackson went out and found Papa to do some manly things with! :)

One of the nights they were here, we hit up a Spokane Indians baseball game. It was like the hottest day of the summer here in Spokane, and so so bright out! But it was a ton of fun!

Jackson sat with Papa the whole time, these two are totally best buds!

Tucker and Keyton holding up their K's...

Me and the Jacksonian...

Two cute boys enjoying the game together:

We were kind of a circus trying to wrangle all 7 of the kids to keep them in their seats and watching the game. About half way through, we finally noticed that there was a kid area for them to play in, and it was right by where we were sitting. It was pretty awesome, and I think the point of it is to let your kids run free, but that made me a little nervous, so I spent the whole second half down there with the little kids, while those who wanted to watch the game watched the game.

These little girls had fun together there:

There was even fireworks after the game, and that was a big hit with the kiddies. Something totally funny, we had been teasing Allen all night about his not drinking Mt. Dew anymore because of the flame retardant ingredient in it, and one of these fireworks totally caught a Mt. Dew car on fire that was below it. I should have gotten a picture of that because the burning car drew more attention than the actual fireworks. Too bad the flame retardant didn't work on that car!!! :) ha ha

Some of you may know, that my brain is a little spacey, ok a lot spacey a lot of the time. Well, I thought it would be fun while they were here to take the kids to the pool. We had gotten a super guest pass for the summer at Chester Hills Pool. We packed up and headed out to the pool, again on a really hot day that was perfect for swimming. We got about- blocks from our house on 16th when my car totally died. Well, it didn't die, I just ran out of gas. I knew that I had seen the light go on at some point, and kept on meaning to get gas, but just kept on spacing it. Well, it happened with a car full of kids, in about 100 degree heat. I called Ben, I called my dad, neither of them answered, and finally I called my brother Allen, who was hanging out at my dads house. I told him what happened, and he went to go get us some gas. But it took him a little while because he had to find a little tank to put it in, so he searched my dads garage, then he had to go to the gas station. Needless to say, we were stuck in the heat for a while, and we pretty much all looked as hot and sweaty as Jackson does in this picture. It was pretty miserable. A fire truck when by, not on a call or anything, but they stopped to make sure we were ok, and I told them the story. They were so nice, and had a little cooler in the back of their engine full of cold water bottles. It was the best water I have ever tasted! I wish I would have gotten a picture of them because a) they were so nice to the kids, totally let them come look at the engine, gave them water and stickers, they were so nice, and b) they were HOT! :) Like, the typical hot firemen you always hear about. This was them!! :)

Allen finally did come with the gas, and we went on our merry way and by that point we were so ready to get in the pool, we had a wonderful afternoon of swimming!

Another fun outing with the Campbell's was to Mobius. We love mobius. 

This seemed to be the big hit this time. You take those little triangular paper cups and you can cut them up, or do whatever you want to them, and then put them on top of this blower, and see how far they go up, they have levels in the air, so you can see how high up you can get your little cup to go!

One of my favorite all time pictures of Taylor. She loved to lean over the blower and get her hair all wind blown. Crazy girl!

After Mobius we walked over to Red Robin for some milkshakes, and it was so much fun! It was the perfect way to spend our time with our cousins that we don't see very much anymore!!! Tucker is so sad that Keyton doesn't live within driving distance anymore! :( But we'll take them when we can because I don't know how often they'll be back!!!

We wish you guys still lived closer!!

Girls Camp 2014...Love can thaw a frozen heart...

Not long after I got home from Alabama, I packed up again to head to girls camp. I was the camp photographer again this year. I love it. I love getting to know all the girls in the stake, and by the end of the week can put EVERY SINGLE FACE with the right name! That's a lot of girls! I farmed my kids out this year, and I'm so lucky to have such awesome friends. Tucker went to the Mortensens, of course, he spent a few nights and came home with Ben a few nights, I forget which. Taylor went up to the McLuskies. It was Riley's first year at camp, so we made a trade! :) She said she would watch Taylor all week, as long as I took care of Riley! :) It was a deal, and Taylor actually just stayed there every night all week! She had an absolute blast! It was like she had the 4 older sisters she'd always dreamed of.

We met at the Stake Center, like always, and they had to say good bye to Riley and I had to say good bye to my Taylor...

To say that Taylor was excited would be an understatement. Her and her mom for the week. I'm glad that Katrina was excited too! There's nothing better than great friends that you can trust to fill in and really love your kids while you're gone!

Got to girls camp on Monday to all the expected cheery and happiness that is at girls camp...

Is it just me, or are these girls getting younger and younger every year? They sure are so dang cute!!! I swear I was just a first year like last year, right?!

Monday and Tuesday were spent doing typical girls camp things. Singing, cheering, certifying, eating, swimming, things like that. Then on Tuesday after lunch, the emergency siren started going off just as we were starting a dance party at the fire pit. They had told us that there were some wild fires in the area, but that we shouldn't be concerned. BUT... that if there was a need for evacuation that a certain siren would go off and the girls were to get to the kitchen area as fast as they could. I've never seen girls so fast! It was a bit scary at first because we didn't know how close the fire was, or how much time we had.

This man from the parks department came and got on a table and scared the crap out of all the girls!!! He stood up there and said the fire was about 3 miles away and spreading fast and told the girls to go just get their valuables and return to the kitchen area. The poor little girls were in hysterics. I found sweet little Riley and she said to me, in tears, 'I know what I'm going to get, I'm going to get my scriptures!' and Riley had invited a non member friend, Colby, to camp and Colby said to me 'I'm going to get my swimming suit, because my mom just spent a lot of money on it.' These little girls are so cute! The girls were in hysterics, and we didn't have buses to bus them out, so after they ran hysterically through the camp ransacking their tents for their 'valuables' (which I'm sure none of them really even had at camp) we took a head count, and shoved them in our cars. Since most of us had pretty big cars up there, and we were really just trying to get out as fast as we could, we just shoved as many as we could, like 15 girls in a suburban etc...

It was pretty crazy, and although most of us adult leaders knew that it would most likely all be ok, that guy sure scared the bejeezeesies out of the girls. This was a photo one of the leaders on the 4th year canoe trip took just as they had gotten into the camp that morning. He said it was just around the bend from Camp Naborlee:

The local high school a few miles down the road had been set up as the 'disaster relief' site in the area. So, we had to go there to get out of the fire zone.

I was one of the last  leaders to leave the area, and hopped in my friend Heather's suburban and headed to the school. BUT...on the way to the school, in the tiny little town Heather and I were too tempted, so we stopped and got some diet cokes. We couldn't help ourselves, it was too tempting. So we stopped at the tiny little market all the while unbeknownst to us, her husband, Jevonn, who was at camp as the Priesthood leader, noticed that we hadn't made it to the school yet, so he came back looking for us, only to find us walking the streets of the little town with our diet cokes in town. He wouldn't let us live that one down, that we were taking our sweet little time getting diet cokes while girls were in hysterics at some random high school gym in some random tiny town.

Anyway...we were holed up at this high school from about 1pm to about 5pm when they finally told us that we couldn't go back. We still had all of the workshops that were supposed to happen at that time, and we had some snack shack treats that the cooks thought to grab. Anyway, by the time we found out we had to evacuate for good, we had arranged the busses, and they came and took the girls back to the Stake Center. It was a lot of work making sure that all the families and bishops were notified, but we got the girls off, and half of the leaders went with them back to Spokane. The other half of us got to go back to the camp to pack up EVERY.SINGLE.THING.

Now remember the girls had ransacked their tents searching for their valuables, and none of the girls were there to even help us decipher who's stuff was who's. It was a difficult task, but we literally took all the stuff out of each tent and put it on a tarp, folded up the tarp, labeled it with the year, and piled them in the trucks. THEN...we still had to take down all the tents, all the decoration. Pack up all the food, sound system, all the waterfront stuff, I mean everything. We were there for another 4-5 hours doing that.

I snapped this picture of the sunset as we were working...

I do have to admit that I was very excited to sleep in my own bed that night. I thought for sure girls camp was going to be cancelled and it was going to be over at that point. But I got a call bright and early the next morning that they wanted to continue it, that some members in our stake had offered their land as a place to continue camp, but first we had to get all this crap back to the girls. We hauled it all out on the lawn by the Stake Center/Temple. We told the girls to come at 4 to gather their things, and then we would continue with Bishops night at the pavillion.

My friend, Katrina dropping off Riley and has my Taylor girl with her...

I honestly didn't know how many girls would come back after the whole ordeal, but I was so shocked at the cheeriness and happiness and enthusiasm these girls still had for girls camp and being together. We had a wonderful bishops night, and all but 4 girls came back!  

The 6 of us who represented the Spanish Branch at camp this year; President Lopez, me, Hna. Gower's two granddaughters, Jenny and Karrina. I love these girls so much!

And, of course, President Mott did the U-tah-tah dance he's done at girls camp every year even since I was a camper!!! These are the awesome leaders of the Stake, the Stake Young Womens Presidency and the Stake camp director (I missed Emily being there this year) But these women were so awesome, and totally turned what could have been a bad situation for the girls and turned it into a great experience and one that the girls will probably never forget!

We got to sleep in our own beds on Wednesday night, well, I did the rest of the week. But we had the girls meet us up at the Guinn's property on Thursday morning at 7 with their camping gear. They had the most perfect wooded and open area property that we could do everything. They even had the most gorgeous pool for swimming time. It was a great set up. We set up camp again, and had all the girls in their levels, and really it was the best experience. The girls were awesome, the leaders were awesome, and the workshops and spirit was awesome. I wanted to add this picture of Brother Toth giving his workshop because honestly, it was probably one of the best lessons I had ever heard. I love this man so much. I had never met him before camp, but I tell you what, his lesson touched me, and I was in tears. I kept going back to it at every rotation so I could hear it again. It was about love. And also, let me tell you that I was so NOT excited that the theme was frozen, my first reaction was, 'seriously???!!!' But, I absolutely loved it. It was all about forgiveness, and letting go of things we can't control and learning to trust in the lord, and even about relationships, we can't control other people, we can only control our attitudes, and thoughts and feelings. I just loved it! One of the little things I got from the Stake was a quote that says, 'EGO is the only thing that gets in the way of good relationships, so skip the E and let it GO!' I really worked on that and remembered that daily for the few weeks after girls camp, and it's still something I am striving to remember daily, I really loved the message this year.

Evening firesides complete with the roll call songs. The evenings were so beautiful!

I had to add this picture of Tori. She is awesome, she made me get in a picture with her because she knew I hadn't been in any. She was so thoughtful and sweet all week to me, even though I had never met her before camp, I just fell in love with her! This was right before I was leaving for the night, another perk of not being 'in charge' of any girls is that I didn't have to sleep up there with them! :) I got to sleep in my own  bed!

Oh, and another benefit of camping at the Guinn's, polar dip looks like this:

Not too shabby!!! :) I had a great time this year at camp. I love being with the Young Women. And for all the craziness that happened, it was probably one of the best years yet! Another bonus about camp this year, is that I cracked my soda addiction! It was so hot that I started just drinking so much water, because soda wasn't so readily available to me (except our little diet coke run during the evacuation!) :) but I started drinking so much water, that I realized my body really liked it, like it made me feel really good, so I started to just buy those big packs of water bottles and every time I felt like I wanted a soda or needed something to drink, I'd grab a water, and it makes me feel so good, I love it! It's now March as I'm typing this, and I've been soda free since girls camp, 8 months! It feels great! I've had a few sips here and there of Ben's soda's when I see them out, but usually I take a few sips and it seems to be enough. I don't crave it, and my headaches have so gone away! I used to think that I got headaches when I needed a soda, but I realize now that the soda, for me, was causing the headaches, and I love not feeling like I need a soda all the time. Water really does feel and taste so good to me, now! Anyway, lots of good at girls camp, lots of great experiences, lots of love and happiness, and I feel so grateful that I get to go up and get to know the girls and usually some friends of mine are up there, so I get to hang with them and meet new awesome ladies in our stake, and this year was no different!
Although, this is what my feet look like when I get home. All dry and cracked and dirty and hairy. I could maybe do without that, but I guess it's a small price to pay! :)

Girls Lake day...

One of my best friend's parents have a beautiful lake house on C'da lake. Last year she did a girls lake day and I wasn't able to make it and was so bummed! I was, however able to make it this year for the girls lake day and it was so nice! I felt kind of guilty getting a babysitter all day to do my job, but it was worth every single penny! We had a blast!

We literally just hung out on the dock, ate, boated and swam all day. It was pure bliss. 

The ladies...Abbey, Meg, Angie, Nicole, Sarah, Whitney and Michelle:

Meg, Angie and Michelle on the tube:

getting a little crazy:

Angie caught this super awesome shot of me on the tube! I swear he had it in for me!!! :)

After a perfect kid free day of relaxing on the lake, we ended it with dinner at Tomato street. It was delightful! Next year we're thinking it should be an overnight extravaganza! Can't wait!

End of July...

We flew in so late from Alabama that we just went straight to bed. The next morning when I went in to get some laundry done, I was TOTALLY shocked to see these two new beauties in my laundry room. Can you say best husband ever???!!! :) Laundry just got a whole lot better around here.

We came home to our awesome raspberry bushes brimming over with berries! We had so many yummy berries! And...Carter and Chase were still in town from before we left, so we got a few more days with them before they left!!! Carter helped us pick raspberries...

Next year I need to do some serious trimming to those bushes, there were a ton of berries, but even more dead vines and bushes intertwined...

Of course, we had to get some cafe rio before they left! We love crushed ice from Cafe Rio! Also, we love to wear gymnastics leotards all day long!!! :)

Selfie with my little snuggle bug:

This guy's birthday is at the end of July. We love this guy so much! We are so lucky that he is so close and we get to see him all the time. What would we do without Papa around??? We got to celebrate with him at our favorite, Rancho Viejo...

Jackson was excited about it! :) ha ha

A few days after I got back, they asked me to take some pictures at our Stake Pioneer day celebration. It was a beautiful day. I love our stake. As much as I always talk about how I would love to go somewhere new and exciting, (which I would) There is always part of me that loves how much this feels like home to me.

Good thing Heather and Jevon were there to help me with the littles, as I had to take pictures and was running around everywhere, they totally took care of and fed my children for me!!! Taylor wasn't as excited as I was to be there! :)

This year they had their first annual 5k run. It was so much fun to get pictures of! Maybe next year I'll be ready to run it, but for this year, I was happy to be at the finish line behind the camera!

The Appletons in our branch crossing the finish line! woo-hoo!!! Nadia is one of my most favorite people ever!

Brett and Natalie Clark crossing the finish line. It's so fun to have so many friends in our stake.

After the Stake celebration, we had a baby shower for Carmen in our branch. I love our branch family so much! Hna. Cabrera made us some El Salvadorian food that was delicious!!! I want to say they were Pupusa's but I could totally be wrong! I have the worst memory!

The gang:

We played a game about the things in our purse, to see who had the most junk in their purse. Melissa won by a landslide! :) It was hilarious watching her pull out all of these random things. I really think she had almost every single item on the list!!! Here is her one article of clothing, a sock! :)

We got back into the swing of things with gymnastics, after being gone a few weeks, we had a few classes to make up. (they made me pay for the month of July but let her make up the classes she missed.)

And Jackson, the ever so devoted brother watching her from the sidelines, in his pose, of course!

Tucker went to play with Owen one day and came home with this. He said that one of their neighbors was having a yard sale so they went over to take a look and she got this for Tucker for a dollar!!! I was totally annoyed at first thinking I didn't want any more toys in this house, but after we put it together and saw that it really worked and is totally COOL, I was glad she got it at such a steal! It still is a favorite! I love finds like these! And it plays music which my music loving kids love!

We had to borrow Papa's truck so often this summer for random car problems, that this was one of the times we had it. Jackson is making himself at home! :)

Getting ready for church:

We mostly just relaxed and tried to recover from our trip the last few weeks of July. I love me some lazy summer days!