And Now, Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Life...

This has to be the longest post in recorded history. And, it's what I get for not downloading my camera for several weeks. Please keep reading and scrolling and reading and scrolling. We've had a lot of activity in the last few weeks. After Lake Powell, we've had Em's b-day, a trip to St. George, First Days of School, a piano recital, and a few days of canning to keep us busy.

Miss Emily turned 7 years old....my, my how time flies.

***The weekend before school started, we made a trip to St. George to see my brother and his family. They had twin boys in May and we hadn't even seen them yet. They were being blessed and so we made the trip down south. We had alot of fun seeing them and those baby boys didn't spend one minute not being held. They are the cutest things ever and look just like my brother!!

Baby Van

He's so sweet and mellow. We hardly heard a peep out of him the whole weekend.

Baby Redek

The larger of the two boys (in case you can't tell!) Couldn't you just eat those cheeks??

Steve, Maegan, Stevey,Brody and twins Redek and Van on their blessing day.

It seems so weird to me to see my brother with a family!! Although, it suits him just fine.

He's a great dad and we had so much fun being with him and Maegan and the kids.

I couldn't get enough of those cute baby boys.

Abby: First Day of 7th Grade - Officially at the Jr. High School!

Gosh, I'm old!!

Emily: First Day of 2nd Grade

Jake: First Day of 5th grade. He refused to smile.

He's waaayyyy too cool for that.

Abby and Jake just after their piano recital. They have been taking lessons for quite a few years from Sheri Meyer. She decided to retire her skills after this summer, so we are currently in the market for an affordable piano teacher. She was our neighbor when we lived in Vineyard and we have continued to take the kids down to her house each week. They learned alot from her and we wish her all the best.
Jake playing his piece at the piano recital. Sheri decided to hold it outside and it was quite enjoyable. It was shady and really relaxed (the kids didn't even have to dress up) and a nice evening.
Abby's last official piano recital, ever. She was always promised that she could stop taking lessons after she entered Jr. High and as long as she participated in some kind of music. She opted to be in the Orchestra (playing violin) and so her piano career has come to a close. I begged her to keep taking lessons, because she is just getting to be quite good, but she used that pre-teen stubborn-ness that she has and said "no way".
This is what's been keeping me busy for the last few days.
I've retired my canning supplies at least until the apples are ready.

12 Pints & 10 Quarts of Salsa

21 pints of dilly beans (pickled green beans)

And now that we're back to our regularly scheduled life, things have calmed for the moment. The house is quiet and stays somewhat picked up throughout the day. No bikes strewn across the lawn and fighting kids to disturb the neighborhood's peace and quiet. The dog is calm and Natalie is pretty content to just be my shadow all day long. And, most of all, I'm grateful to have survived another summer.....

Seven Years Ago...

Emily was born.

This is my favorite picture of Emily...it just screams her personality!!

She made her entrance the long and hard way....getting stuck and making us panic a little. And, she's been feisty ever since! Emily spent the first 3 months of her life crying and screaming. She was very colicky and needed lots of attention. She was beaten up by her jealous brother and teased by her older sister. She started talking very early and hasn't stopped yet. She is still getting beaten up by her older brother and teased relentlessly by her older sister. Not much has changed! Em has a determined spirit and will re-arrange and re-phrase questions to try and get what she wants. She is definitely our most spunky and feisty child. We've always thought she should be a politician or a lawyer....
We're happy to have her in our family. She keeps us laughing and smiling all day long. She is fun to be around and a good friend to everyone that she knows. She has given us an interesting and fun seven years and we look forward to many, many more fun times. (It's the teenage years we're a little worried about!! )

I had to include this picture of Emily....she was 2 years old and showing off her personality. She was running in the basement of our house and tripped over a mattress and landed nose first into the concrete siding. Lucky for me, grandma (my mom) was here visiting and made a quick dash to the doctor's office with Em and I to get stitches. The doctor did a fabulous job at repairing her filleted nose and today you can only see the scar when she's been out in the cold. Like I said, she's always keeping us on our toes!!

Happy Birthday, Emily Esther!!

Isn't She Lovely-er???

Meet Roxie. I met her online yesterday. She is a new and improved version of Clementine. (See post below, if you have not met Clementine...) My hubby picked out Clementine for me and mentioned that the store he purchased her at did not have a pink version of her in stock. There was another pink bike there, but she didn't have gears. I was browsing the web yesterday and found her at a Target store in Salt Lake. I made a few calls, and drove up this morning to pick her up. Isn't she beautiful?? I love the white wall tires and the silver fender guards. She rides like a gem and I am excited to attach my wicker basket to the front. Roxie has her name scrawled right across the side of her, so no one will dare mistake her for their own (okay, Roxie is the store name for her, but I couldn't really call her Clementine with the name "Roxie" already on her, right???). So long Clementine. Nice knowing you, even if it was just for a day....

Isn't She Lovely??

I think I'll call her Clementine. She was a gift from my husband for my 34th birthday (after a REALLY BIG HINT from my sister, Brenna). And, although I really would have like to have a really retro pink or turquiose cruiser bike, Kim said that those particular bikes have no gears. And, I would want gears. He's right, I did want gears. So, she's here. I love her and will ride her to the school or to the church or to the neighbors house. The best part is a fabulous wicker basket that I purchased this morning to attach to the front. We cruised around the block on her this morning and she rides in true old lady style. Nice and smooth with hardly any effort. Love it. Yes, I'm an official old lady with an official old lady cruiser bike. If we have to get old, let's do it in style.

Can we LIVE here???

Sunday, August 2 was the start of our summer vacation! We had been waiting all summer to go and do something that was truly considered a vacation. We were invited by our good friends, Brandon and Cynthia Weekes to spend a week in Southern Utah at the infamous Lake Powell. We had a week on a houseboat - no phones, no TV, no internet, no other distractions that usually take over our lives. Just friends, fun and water and food! Oh, but the bonus was that we did have electricity and running water (if you know me at all, you know that I am not a "roughing it" kind of girl. I do like to have some modern conveniences!) We embarked on our trip after church and after hours of packing, loading, and driving, we arrived shortly after midnight on Sunday. We threw everything onto the houseboat and went to bed. The next morning we left the slip at the harbor and set off to find the perfect spot. And, we did. There was only a few select times that we even saw ANYONE on the lake with us. It was heaven. We took alot of pictures, so I am re-doing our SLIDE show at the top of our blog if you want to see more of our fun!!

This is some of the beautiful scenery that surrounded us each day... truly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen....

T

These were our sleeping arrangements - a little compact, but we slept well. We had a little rain storm one night and had to get even closer, but laying out under the stars each night was definitely a highlight of the trip. The air would cool off just enough to be comfortable and we even used a blanket a couple of times. Our kids are a little wild when they sleep, so Staci and Craig had to battle them for space some nights - Staci even got kicked in the head a couple of times by Emily! Thanks for being patient, guys!

Every morning when it was still cool outside, we would find the dads and several kids out throwing a fishing rod into the lake. They literally would put anything (stinky cheese, moldy bread, stinky chicken liver) on the hook and drop it in. Within seconds they would pull up a blue gill, a catfish or a carp. We threw them back - no one would subject themselves to eat them - but the fun was all in the catch! Natalie loved to hang out down there with her dad and 'help' him fish.

Here's Emily with her white santa beard (see below for an explanation!)....she was already brown as a nut, but another week in a swimming suit has her looking like she lives at the beach! Emily's favorite activity was being pulled on the tube behind the boat. She also tried (and successfully stayed up!) on the wakeboard! She was very daring and tried quite a few things that were out of her comfort zone. We were very proud of her!

Not only was there water activities to keep us very busy all day, but the boys found a few others: digging holes (why do boys enjoy this so much??), chasing and catching lizards, swimming off the back of the boat, jumping off the top deck into the water, playing card games, and throwing large rocks (boulders, really) into the lake. The boys were not bored for a minute. This picture is of Jake with one of the many lizards that he caught over the week. Natalie must have felt sorry for them, because she was constantly setting them free! Jake was getting so irritated with her, because catching those lizards was hard work! **You may be wondering what all the white stuff on the kids faces is: after a few days of wearing a life jacket all day long, they started to get some serious chafing...we used Desitin to ease the pain a bit. So, they all looked a little like they had a white beard in most of the pictures!

Kim tried and was very successful on EVERYTHING there was to do on the ski boats.....slalom skiing, wake boarding, wake surfing, the airchair, kneeboarding - I think his favorite was the wakesurfing. It was a surfboard that you rode in the wake of the ski boat - you had a rope to hang onto until you could catch the wave and then you would let go and just surf on the lake. He loved it....I love that he still is young and healthy enough to out-do his kids! And, really, he will always be a 19 year old at heart! Yes, I attempted a few things also, but since I'm the one doing the posting here, there will be no pictues of my attempts at fun. I did try the wakesurfing and successfully got up on the wakeboard a couple of times. Let's just say that watersports are NOT my thing...

The kneeboard and Natalie became good friends...it was really the only thing that she wanted to do each time we were on the ski boats. She got quite daring with dad behind her...she would let go of the rope, stand on the knee board, and even attempted a 360 on it! This is, of course, because each time she was on it, Kim was right behind her! She did get dumped into the lake a couple of times and she just jumped back on for another turn!

Kim and I on the ski boat....we soooo enjoyed not having the cell phones ring, not having to work and just being able to watch our kids have a blast. It was truly the most relaxing vacation we've taken.

This one is our entire group, minus Shawn (he was taking the photo). L to R: Audra and Baby Devry, Kyle, Cynthia, Kevin, Brandon, Craig, Staci, Talon, Gabe, Jake, Emily, McKenna, Melodie, Darci, Abby, Natalie, Kim and Erin.

This picture just says it all...we were exhausted. Not from too much work, but from too much fun. We had a long drive home and pulled into the driveway at 1:00 am. Thanks, Kim for being the one to stay awake! We had an early day at church on Sunday morning, and Kim and I had meetings all day, but we went to bed early - something we haven't done in awhile. Today is Monday, August 10 and we are back to real life. I have a "to do" list a mile long. I overheard Kim telling someone yesterday about our trip and I love what he said about it - "If it's possible to have too much fun, we did it!"....Yep, we did.