Family Self Portraits

VBS!!! Avalanche Ranch!

Okay, it's finally here, my post about last week's VBS. It was so much fun!!! And I can not wait for next year. Lot's of work, but so worth it. We had about 165 kids this year! Wow. Next year we are planning for 200. Ready Lindsay and Kailin?!


Here is one of the kid's favorite parts, the little petting zoo.

Mama Goat and Pepper the Pony.

Cowboy Rigo showing off all his animals.

Love this picture of Pepper being so patient with all the kids, even while Gregory is looking like he's about to saddle up. I hear my son was trying to get in the pin with all the goats too.


Stacy and Lynn leading Praise and Worship, along with a little line dancing. Get ready for next year ladies, because the kids loved you! I have the sweetest video of Pips doing the movements to "Our God Is An Awesome God." I'll post that later.

The kids filled the stage with stuffed animals donated to the Women's and Children's Shelter and also raised over $500 with the Penny War. Here are the teachers from the losing team getting "cow pied"


And Crafts and Snacks are always a favorite.

Thank you everyone who helped us out this year with the "wild ride"

Holy Snip!

I'm trying to embrace the fact that I am going "silver". Therefore, the color must go...and with the color goes most of my hair. Hmm...now I am trying to embrace the fact that I just cut all my hair off!!!!

Congratulations to our Graduates!

We had two nephews graduate from high school while we were up in Seattle last week. It was a proud moment for all of us to be able to see them graduate...although I did get sad a couple of times thinking that Emery's graduation will probably come faster than I imagine.

So a Big Congratulations to Garret! Who is talking about going on to study law enforcement and become a police officer. He is also extremely talented in art, and very proud of his new tattoo that he got on his 18th b-day. He designed it himself, among many others that may grace his body someday.

His brother and dad, and crazy uncle Mike.

And Congratulations to Josh! Moving on to Eastern Washington University on a Track&Field Scholarship. Way to go Josh!

Mike and Josh, looking a little like smurfs in this picture ;).

Napster Night

Downloading Gwen's new album as well as Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry". Love this song!

Random post I know,but when I like music I like to share. (although these choices might not be attractive to some of my blogger audience.)

So what have you downloaded lately?

A 60th B-Day Party

So one of the reasons we went to the Seattle area last week was to throw a 60th Birthday Party for my mom! It turned out very nice. The weather was rainy all week until about 2 hours before the party. It was beautiful which was good, since we had 5o some people to accommodate. My parents beach cottage would not hold that many, but their patios did! I was pretty good at taking pictures of the "details" but didn't do so good taking the pictures of the guest or the guest of honor. Here is one picture of her reading through her cards and the memories her friends sent her. Sorry about that mom!

Happy Father's Day

Caught this picture of Mike reading to the kids today...he's a great daddy, but don't we all know that already :). (not sure where pips was)

And Happy Father's day to my dad and father-in-law too!

(oh and if you look really closely, you can see swogs sleeping in the flower pot out on the porch...we have cute kitties.)

Home Sweet Home...

The phrase is so true...there is no place like home. We had a very fun filled week in the Pacific Northwest. I have several post coming between this blog and my photography blog. I am however, approaching what could be my busiest week of the year, between VBS, wedding invites and photography work, so we will see how fast the post comes. Good thing I came home to a house with clean carpets, a spotless kitchen, and clean laundry...Thanks Honey!
So stay tuned for updates on our trip.

We're at the Beach

Now She's a Biker

After seeing her younger friend Avery ride a bike last night...Emery was encouraged to have a go at it. Turns out it's a lot easier to balance on a smaller bike. She's Got it. She practiced on her little girl bike all day long, even taught her friend DJ how to ride with no training wheels on it.
And now they are both racing around the cul-de-sac on their big kid bikes!! She's so proud of herself.

Time to bring out Sammy for official use on the block.

Last day of Kindergarten

First Day and Last Day pictures

Kind of sweet...kind of sad...next year it's full day. How did that happen so fast? Really makes me reflect on if I did okay wiht the time I had her at home the whole day. I hope so. Okay, now I am in tears.

Video Problems?

if you are having trouble viewing the video's on my blog try the instructions below, i found them on the youtube website. Hope they work.
Help Center Home > Troubleshooting > Solving Video Player Issues

The video won't play—what's wrong? Video



Videos on YouTube are streamed through an Adobe Flash player. For the best viewing experience, we suggest you install the latest version of Adobe Flash after removing any old versions you’ve installed.

Please completely uninstall Flash before reinstalling the latest version.

To uninstall Flash, please follow Adobe’s instructions, listed here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14157


Once you're done, restart your computer and follow Adobe’s instructions for reinstalling Flash: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash


If the instructions above don’t resolve the issue please try the following:

Temporarily disable popup blocking software installed on your computer to test.
Allow YouTube.com as a trusted site in your Firewall software.
Ensure other applications like Quicktime, iTunes, Real Player, or Windows Media Player aren’t set as the default streaming application, as this might affect the video player.

Piper's kind of shower

Yet another Piper video. I'm pretty sure the two older kids are going to resent the fact that Piper has a ton of videos of her, but they don't when they were her age. Oops....we'll try to make it up to them.

This is Piper's idea of a shower. The drips from our flower pots. Yes the water is coming through about 6 inches of pot soil before it hits her little face. Hey, whatever works, she's afraid to death of the real shower and bath right now, so we have to bath her somehow ;). And it's cheap entertainment!





Sorry mom, I know another video you may not be able to play...we'll get them working when we are up there in a few days.

Sunday Fun

The weather was perfect, picnic lunch was delicious, the company was the best, the fishing not so much. A perfect Sunday afternoon.




The Mama's fishing...me with Emery's 2 foot barbie pole, with Trey's binky as a bobber. So resourceful.

The babies of the family...aren't they just the cutest!!!!! (my new favorite picture at the moment.)