Happenings back home

Ok this is a LONG post with picture overload. For those who wanted to see my haircut it is all the way at the end. But you will miss some awesome pictures and memories if you fail to read all of this. :) Ok so every year most of my family attends a 3 on 3 basketball tournament about 1 1/2 hrs. away from home. My kids and I and my dad are usually the ones who stay behind. And what a treat it is. My dad takes us fishing. You have to understand that this is quite chaotic and not an easy thing. But every year my dad is up to the task. He is awesome. We have TONS of fishing pictures. It was so hard to leave any of them out. Here is my dad helping Zach get a fish off his hook. Rachel is in front.

Ok so there is NO order to these but here is Zach's HUGE fish. Check out all that in there. So COOL.

Caleb is getting ready to clean his fish. In our family if you catch it you have to clean it and eat it.

YEP...Ethan caught a fish so he is helping Grandpa pull the guts out. My dad is SO patient. The look on Ethans face doesn't look too pleasant. You know what I think happened here? I think my dad wanted to fish and I think he is pretending to get the pole ready for a kid. But I do not see any kids nearby. HMMMM this is a little bit fishy.
Ethan with his awesome catch of the day.

And here you have the fisherman....minus Rachel. She is in the process of catching one with Grandpa. This was SO COOL. Rachel was the bravest one. She would take the fish off some of the hooks. After Rachel took a fish off blood squirted on her arm. She was so proud of that. A true fisherman. Her dad is gonna love this pic.

Here is Grandpa helping Rachel.

I just loved this picture and I was wondering what Hailey was thinking. She probably wanted to catch some more fish.

Here is our bucket of fish. Now home to clean and eat them. By the way.....they were not very good. But we had to really get into them and talk them up so the kids would eat them.

OK this is the funniest thing that happened on this fishing trip. Zach caught a huge fish. But when he got it out of the water it was so heavy that it was flipping around in the dirt. The line broke so I picked it up and tried washing it off in this little irrigation ditch. Well the fish got away. But there was NO way we could leave it behind. It was BIG. So Grandpa told Zach to get in there and move up the ditch where it was really shallow. Zach did not want to do this. He was scared. Finally he did it. He got in and moved his hands to get the fish to move to the shallow end. Every time he would touch the fish he would jump and his hands would come out of the water. It was pretty funny to watch.

Here is his big fish.
Had to measure this one. It was 17 inches.

Every year we get the privilage of spending one or two times with Don's side of the family. The kids LOVE being with them. They always take us out to eat and then to the park. We really wear them out. I really think it is good for them because I am pretty sure they probably have the best nights sleep after they get done with us. Here is Ethan getting eaten up by a HippoH

Here is Zach on the rings.
Caleb is climbing on the equipment. It was almost impossible to get his picture. He kept hiding and running off. But I was good and finally got one.



I LOVE this picture. Notice....everyone notice that all my kids are looking and most have a nice smile. WOW. This is a perfect picture to put in a frame. LOVE IT.

The summer was spent with so many different things. We had slippin sliding.

There was basketball playing.
There was LOTS of visiting.

There was racing.

There was helping Grandpa change the sprinklers.

There were pranks. He didn't even know that someone put that there until OFCOURSE he got kicked.

Riding bikes. Lots of swinging.

Caleb spent a lot of time with his little cousin. Here they are getting ready to get into the kiddie pool.
Some trampoline jumpin....it just isn't as fun unless you have a sprinkler underneath.

Here we have some dancing going on. This was part of someones talent.

Some of the spectators. My kids sure miss their cousins.
Here is one of my favorite talents. My mom also does not like being in front of people. I know she was very nervous. She memorized the Gettysburg address and gave some great remarks afterward. Good job mom. You did fabulous. And you say you can't remember things.

OK this is funny. Many years ago my dad would make the grandkids sit and watch a Paul Harvey 15 minute video called "Our Lives, Our Fortune, Our Sacred Honor." It is a great video and it almost made me cry. The only reason it was funny was because the grandkids hated it and thought is was SO boring. Well now those girls are graduated from HS and they don't think it is fair that the new, better and younger grandkids don't have to watch it so Grandpa brought it out this year and had the kids watch it. I do have to say that they didn't complain ONCE about it though so they really are better.....right dad?

This year was our second year for the 4th of July to do a talent show. The kids just LOVE it and even many adults participated this year. We had between 40-50 people there. Now that was a big audience. And when I sang my knees wobbled. I was scared. This is Mayah. She sang "Our Primary Colors".

Here is Zach. He walked and balanced on that barrel back and forth on the basketball court without falling. He did awesome.

Here is Rachel. She sang "I Love to See the Temple" and did awesome.

Ethan sang "I am a Child of God. It was so cute.

And here is Caleb. I was a bit worried that he would get scared and not want to perform. He doesn't like to be in front of people at all. I was SO proud of him when he jumped up and went to the keyboard and played Battle Hymn of the Republic. Such a perfect song for the occasion. Good job Caleb. You did amazing. Your bravery impressed me the most.

We wanted to take a family picture of my parents and brothers and sisters. But my older brother got up early that morning and went home. I don't even think he knew we were taking pictures because he would have stayed. I wonder if we could phots shop him in there next to me. What a great looking family we are. And here we have the cousins. They are so funny. It wasn't very easy getting all of them to look. I thought it was hard with just my five. This is only a portion of the cousins. I think my parents have 23 grandkids. And there are only 10 there. Atleast we have the cute ones in this photo. :)

Another attempt. Not bad. Man those are some good looking kids. Wouldn't you say? Here are the three muskateers. Or the three stooges!!!!! Great buddies.

Here are the boys working very hard to build a tree house. Zach gathers the wood. Here is Caleb with the finished product. This did not last long. He brought it out on the dolly and the poor thing fell to pieces.

They look tired. They spent a lot of time nailing this together.

Three years ago on July 12th my sister had a sweet baby girl that passed away right after birth. A tradition is sending balloons up to heaven to her. Thankgoodness for this sweet little girl in the picture. That is the new addition to that family. She has a purple balloon that she is sending to her sister. Here you can see the boys in the background sending off their balloons. The boy in the white t-shirt is the big brother. The father stands to the left of the trampoline. Such an awesome family. They have shown amazing strength through this hard time.

There goes all the balloons. Happy 3rd. B-day miss Allison. We love you and miss you and will soon see you again.

Donating hair to Locks of Love. I do not have any before pictures. This was a spur of the moment thing. Rachel and I were going to do this together but her hair was ready before mine. I had gone into town the day before I left and I fought whether or not to do it. My stomach actually hurt while I was contemplating...not because I like my hair long or anything. It was because I do not like this type of change. I don't like any attention brought to me and I know this is something that would do that. This is my second time doing this. The first picture is after straightening my hair and the second is curly...just wash and go. Love that. Also notice the color in the first picture. That is the color Don painted the master bathroom. I absolutely LOVE it.

Which do you like better?