Make new friends but keep the old....

We had a lot of fun hanging with some old friends last night at Carrabbas. These are our friends the Whites and the Eves. We were all in our medical school ward together back in Maryland. They both just recently got assigned to Nellis AFB this summer. The best part is they are Radiologists and will be working with Jared every day. He could not be happier. The not so best part is they didn't find houses in our ward. So they are close by, but not close enough in our opinion! We still will hang quite a bit I'm sure. We're so glad you're here guys!!
The Eves were cracking us up by insisting on sitting in the very back. Jason is about 6 foot 6 and Kameron their son isn't too far behind. Rachelle is medium height, they looked "cozy" back there. As for the night vision goggles.....you'd have to know the Whites to understand why such things would be found in there car on a daily basis!

'Oshy'

Back to school supplies

In case anyone is wondering what $241.00 of school supplies looks like....I took a picture. It doesn't look as crazy with it all organized, but when I plopped it all on the belt to be rung up, the clerk asked me if it was for a whole class!

The Happiest Day of the Year

I do like when my kids go back to school. I'm okay admitting it to the world or at least those of you who read this. I do enjoy a good summer vacation too. And that is exactly what we had.

We swam and swam and swam. Went to the Lake. We reunioned in Utah. We toured Salt Lake City. We visited Reno. We had numerous play dates and swim parties. We enjoyed camping. We slept in. We watched movies. We earned summer points. We spent summer points. We ate popsicles, made slushies, had BBQ's, went barefoot, rode bikes, and went to the drive in. We loved grandparents, hiked to the "G", had our cousin carnival, and explored the children's museum.
We've bought school supplies. ($241 dollars worth for my 3 kids and my friend Missy's 3 kids). We got new backpacks, back to school shirts and shoes, and had priesthood blessings. Now its time for a schedule, a routine, and learning.

Yep, I like back to school and the even better part is that my kids do too!! Hanna was a cutie this year. She was so excited that she laid out all her outfits for the first week. Complete with shoes and scarves, and hats. Then she labeled them with pins for the days of the week and papers with which hair do she would wear. Jared asked her, "You aren't going to leave these here all week are you"? To which her and I looked at him like duh, and I replied, "its a girl thing, you wouldn't understand". I remember doing the same thing.

The kids have great teachers and classes this year, we are thrilled.


I made these huge heart cookies and had their names on them for after school. It was fun to see their faces light up when they got home and tell me all about their day. Mostly good reports...hanna was a little sad however. Her closest friends all got in a class together that she did not. (We tried, believe me! You pretty much have to work in the school or be a PTA officer to get this teacher) Anyway, she was a little sad to see her friends on the sunshine rays lined up with their teacher together. Ms. Rexing even said, "Oh, I wish you were in my class Hanna". (not helpful at the particular time). Thankfully her second day went much better. She's so sweet and friendly, I knew it wouldn't take long.

Last Chance for Summer Fun

Mt. Charleston, oh how I love thee....

These hot babes were all "wooed" once upon a time by this:

Of course with all that manliness, we ended up with this!:

(all together we have 18 boys and only 4 girls lots of them aren't in the picture)

Dallin, Kobee, Jake, Jack --best buddies
Yes, our fellow camping neighbors were not feeling the LOVE of us, this many kids and parents make for very LOUD campers(Lots of these friends just came up for dinner and didn't sleep over)

Chef Jared a la dutch oven. Brandy and him tag teamed BBQ chicken, potatoes, and there were three types of cobbler.....so YUMMY!!
Casey and "Cali-Pokey". Little man was not a fan of sleeping in the tent. Poor Casey only got about 30 minutes of sleep.....and this after twisting his pregnant wife's arm (lots of twisting), to camp over night! (jared and casey are best buds we tease him that they have a "Bro"mance going on)

Cole spent a lot of time tasting rocks
Clark and Carter, the big boys
Boys and fire.......they never stop loving to play in it

SEVEN

Which of these two are not like the others???
Seven swimmers to watch
Seven heads to count at the children's Museum
Seven Back to School Kids at Kohls
Seven toothbrushes
Seven seatbelts
Seven heads of hair to comb
Seven pairs of flip-flops
Seven goodnight hugs
Seven popsicles
Seven sandwiches
Seven bowls of ice-cream
Seven sets of dishes to wash.......
Seven nonstop smiles
Seven imaginations running wild
Seven HAPPY summer kids
Seven days of pure cousin BLISS!!!!!

Thanks for coming to play Harrison and Hunter-we love you

(not pictured: one tired mama)

Big Cole Man

About Cole at 10 months:
He loves to crawl up and down stairs
He likes to eat all kinds of foods (Hooray!)
He loves to be loved by his siblings....who love to hold and play with him
He has two bottom teeth and his top two are about to break through
He sleeps through the night and has since 4 months
He loves his bottles
He loves his blue silky blankies the transportation one and the one from G'ma Karyl
He sucks his thumb only when he's sleeping
He loves mommy until Daddy gets home and then no one else will do
He likes to look at us upside down in sommersault form
He likes to clap when anyone says hooray
He loves his play piano
He loves little chairs to sit in
He likes to read books and chew on them
He likes to hang out quietly in his crib playing until someone discovers he's awake
He doesn't like getting his pants changed and tries to roll off the changing table all the time
He weighs 21 lbs. and has more hair than any of our other boys did at this age

More Celebrating

As if a surprise party wasn't enough! My husband also planned a surprise for me. We had two of my young women (twin sisters) come over on Friday around 2:00 pm and sleep over until Saturday. We took off downtown. When we got there, we pulled up to the WYNN hotel and Jared told me we had 5:30 dinner reservations to the SW steak house and 7:00pm tickets to LA REVE.

(The hotel Lobby, the Wynn rooms have orange walls with art work of brightly colored flowers.....a theme carried throughout the hotel)

We checked in which took forever, but made some friends with all of our fellow Las Vegas visitors who we have a lot in common with, (yeah, right huh).

Dinner was delicious! We had amazing bacon cheese rolls with sea salted butter, yummy salad and dressing with a kick, and then our steaks. My filet mignon was to die for. I love filet mignon. We had asparagus and au graten potatoes for sides. Jared ordered the ribeye which was good, but not as good as mine, even though so many people claim it is. (this is a cycle jared goes through about every 5 years of our marriage--needing to test the ribeye again to see if it is as good). We love a good steak!
Our view while eating dinner
"La Reve" was amazing. It is "The dream" in French. Probably my favorite show yet. Maybe a tie with "LOVE". Anyway, it had a bit of a story line which was a nice change of pace from the weird (but awesome) 'no plot' other shows I have seen in Vegas. The stage was water and then parts of it would come up and there was a lot of classical style dancing in it. A must see!!
one of the pools
35 here we come (jared will be there in 5 weeks!)
We enjoyed the pool the next morning before heading home. Due to no other loungers being available, we got the honor of resting our stuff on loungers in the European style pools. Yes that does mean tops are optional. We did all our swimming at the other pools, so as not to take in any of the atmosphere, but couldn't help but noticing some grand tetons on our way in and out. (YIKES!!)
Love it

Isn't it ironic that you can have a great weekend outing with expensive dining, show tickets, and gorgeous room.....and the one thing you'll probably remember 10 years from now is the European style sunbathing experience??? Its always the quirky things that make the long term memories. Thanks for planning such a fun 24 hour date Jared.....happy 12th anniversary and 35th birthday to me!

If you have to turn 35........then celebrate BIG!!

This is what happened to me on Thursday night last week. I went out to eat with my friend Missy and a bunch of Military gals. Missy is in the process of moving here. Hooray!!! We had a great time. She drops me off at home (its only 8:45pm) and I see all of these cars on my street. I say to Missy "These are like all my friends cars. There's a party going on and I'm not going home until I find out where it is". I call Melissa who tells me she doesn't know of anything. I walk in my house feeling left out and disgruntled that my girls night out is ending at 8:45, LAME!! Then the phone rings, Melinda my neighbor tells me her kids are sick Jason is working and she needs someone to sit with them while she runs to CVS. (I think oh great, my kids played over there all day yesterday). As I'm walking across the street, it occurs to me (finally) that wait a minute, there is going to be a group of ladies behind this door......sure enough!! SURPRISE! Thanks to Melinda and Emily for planning a fun party with great Pina Colada drinks, stuffed mushrooms (to die for) yummy desserts and a cool breeze so we could enjoy the beautiful outdoor lights next to the pool. I feel blessed to have such great friends who make turning 35 so much fun!!
Kristen, Melissa, and Missy who I went out to dinner with who were obviously in on the surprise the whole time!!
Heather and Sarah you guys make me laugh
Kristen, Whitney, Kaydee, Austin, and Melissa with our delicious pina coladas

President's Jackets

We went shopping for church clothes for our kids the other day. Joshy saw Carter and Jake trying on suits and immediately started saying, " I want a President's jacket too"! I don't know about being President someday Josh, but I do know the world would be a more peaceful place if you were President. Keep shooting for the stars kiddo, you never know!! Hopefully you'll take a few pit stops along the way to go on a mission and get married in the temple. Boy do I love these "Little Men in Black". (Were missing two: Cole doesn't have a suit yet and Carter is at his cousins house. )

Girls Camp

I haven't attended girls camp since I was in Young Womens myself. It has been about 17 years. I LOVED it as a teenager. It was the highlight week of my summer. I grew up in Oregon and because of the rain, we slept in cabins (not fancy ones), ate most of our meals at a dining hall, and had access to crafts, repelling, the camp store for treats, and swimming. We had our afternoons free to explore any activity we wanted or to stay in our cabin and visit with our friends (or play pranks as I recall at times!) But most importantly, and I can't believe I haven't got to this important fact yet; we had flushing pottys and hot showers nearby. As camp drew nearer this summer I started panicking a bit about the tents, porta pottys, latrines, crude showers....etc that my girls kept reminding me of. However, little did I know what a treat girls camp would be for me this year.....
To try and summarize this life altering week for me would be impossible. Girl's camp these days should be renamed: Spiritual Retreat week. It was overwhelming, exhausting, and one of the most spiritually packed weeks of my life. I had the opportunity to witness, priesthood blessings for three of my girls who are struggling. These blessings were given by a member of our stake presidency. It was amazing to hear him bless them with things they needed and specific to them when he barely knows them. Our stake president joined us for our testimony meeting. Since we have a very small ward, we were done quicker than the other wards, so he opened it up for questions. He shared things that were personal about his dysfunctional upbringing that some of my girls relate to. Things I have yearned to be able to talk with them about, but never quite sure how to. He brought peace to their troubled little hearts like no one else has been able and gave them sound doctrine. He encouraged them to make choices now so they can prepare to make things better for their own families like he has done.
It was an amazing week for me. The spirit was so strong. Many times throughout the week we talked about how you can have temple like experiences in the mountains like happened during scripture times before they had temples when they would go up to the mountains to talk and be closer to God. I am convinced of the truth of that after my week up there. I came home with renewed determination to live more worthy to have the spirit with me always and to let it reside in my home. I feel blessed to be serving as Young Women President so that I could partake in these great experiences and be strengthened through them. I LOVE GIRLS CAMP!!
This is what Mt. Charleston looks like--It is a 40 minute drive from my house--hard to believe it after visiting Las Vegas, huh! I got to go with the first year girls on their hike

Hanging at the table with Sis. Taylor: all wearing the "Live Like you Believe" shirts which was the theme this year. I'll let you try and guess which one is the leader.
Jen, Me, Kaydee, Susan, and Melinda --the amazingly talented leaders I get to work with
Playing around with the camera trying to make it look like Aubrey is in the flames (*on a side note, it was big hair day)
My talented leaders did dutch oven one day for lunch. It turned out soooo good. BBQ chicken, potatoes, and peach cobbler. The greatest part was that all the girls helped.
Campfire with the Bishop and his wife. Were so sad that they are moving! And yes we are roasting the Krispie Kreme donuts he brought up. Along with starbursts, marshmellows, banana boats, and pizza. You can roast just about anything I've learned from my girls!
Jen and I got to do the Zip Line with our friends Amber and Whitney who were up at camp for two days helping with crafts.
" Bernice and Hesta Sue" they hiked all the way from "Hollywood" to teach us about manners. Ironically Bernice in orange is actually my hair dresser (when she's not busy being Bernice). These two are known all over the valley of Las Vegas in mormon circles for their alter egos. They are hilarious!! (The picture doesn't give them justice, it was getting late and I only had my small camera up at girl's camp in case of rain.)

What a week of fun, spirituality, and bonding. It was nice to be able to focus completely on the girls and not worry about my family for a few days. The tents were really nice, the porta potties were doable ( and way better than the latrines that are there that they've used in years past) and even the crude shower had hot water if you were willing to get up early which I did once! Camp Stimson was a great place!!

Hangin' at the pool and bowling with friends

We all hung out at the pool one day with the kids. This is Susan, Marlina, me, Laurie, and Melissa. I finally got to meet Melissa. I have heard her name in the AF medical School circles so many times, that I sometimes catch myself thinking we've been friends for years! We ladies went to see the Proposal and out for yogurt one night together. It was awesome to catch up with Laurie, she always has the best stories to tell*)
We took the kids bowling on our last day. Ethan Wanlass came along. He lived right next door to us in Vacaville, and we adore his family. We caught up with them and were so glad they got back into town so we could get the boys together. The Travis AFB bowling alley is so clean and cute, they've even put in these new leather couches recently....adorable!!

Fairy Tale Town in Sacramento

When we lived in Vacaville just a half hour west of Sacramento, one of my kids favorite day trips was Fairy Tale Town. We have lots of footage of it on our family videos. Joshy watches these videos almost every sunday now. So he always asks to go to "that place" when he sees Fairy Tale Town. Since Reno is only 2 and a half hours from Sacramento I decided to take the kids over. And since we were already in Sacramento, there was no way I could tell the kids that we weren't going to Vacaville!! We met friends at Fairy Tale Town and had so much fun with them. We stayed in Vacaville for 3 days. Thanks to the Edmonds and Stephens for spoiling us rotten....we love your kids and you.
2004 Carter 6 Hanna 4 Jake 2
2009 Carter 10, Hanna 8, Jake 6, Josh 3, Cole (9 months but he stayed home with Grandma while we were in Vacaville!)

Camille and Hanna when they saw each other they ran and hugged like they'd never been apart and for the next three days they were basically not parted. Hanna had two sleep overs with Camille, ate dinner, and pretty much was at their house the whole time we were in Vacaville.
I'd like to say keepin track of these kids was easy, but......
Things looked more like this!
This is the old women's shoe that is made into a slide, one of my kids favorite spots. They also love the King Arthur's Castle, The Pirate boat, the "Crooked Mile Path", and the tree house slide. Cinderella's Coach
I can never quite get enough of the California beauty, greenage, (i think that's only a word after you've lived in the desert for awhile), and many flowers.
A silly shot of Andrew, Dustin, Carter, Trenton, and Jake! Andrew turned to Jake on the way home from Fairy Tale Town and said, "Wow, you've like grown up Jake, you're big now". He's officially been inducted into the big boy club.
Inside Sherwood forest
Jake and Josh played on this train for about 40 minutes. They had a whole bunch of girls they were driving around and playing with. Josh did not want to leave. Fairy Tale Town is really geared toward his age.

The girls on the Cheese. Hanna remembered it being a lot bigger....she's just bigger unfortuneatly
The mommy's (my friends Melissa and Marlina)