Eclipse is Tomorrow!

For those of you who don't know, the movie Eclipse is coming out tomorrow. It is the third book/movie in the twilight series. Leann, Rebekah, and I are going at midnight tomorrow night, which I suppose is really Wednesday morning if you want to get technical about it. We are all super excited. It is a fun girls night. We did this last time the second movie came out. Of course I had work the next day and was sooooo tired. Good thing there is vivran that helped me through! =) So I will probably not be conscious til about church time on Wednesday. It will be awesome!

Zoo in the Summer

Today was the first time that we could all really go to the zoo. Of course it was only 90 degrees when we went today. =) We stayed only 2 hours. That is the nice thing about a zoo pass, you can just hit the highlights and then if you get too hot you can go home. Before we went home we did have to stop and get some ice cream. How else can you recover from heat exhaustion? =)

Day With the Cousins

The cousins came over Saturday. It has been a while since we have all seen each other, so there was lots of screaming for joy! =) The hit of the party was Truffles, our kitten. Since Leann and Ryan cannot have animals at their home the kids love on our animals. Our animals are all over that. They love it, for the most part. =)


Richard and I enjoy that our kids are finally old enough to take pictures. We can both be in a picture together! Yahoo!

All the cousins together. It was pretty painless getting them all to smile, which I gotta say is very impressive since there are 7 of them. Who knew that my parents would end up with 7 grandchildren just from Leann and I! =)

The boys were busy playing star wars almost the whole time. They ran around like maniacs. Such a difference between boys and girls. It cracks me up.

The girls were playing very calmly with each other. Much of the time they were playing with the animals. Good times were had by all!

Grandma Visits

My Grandma came with Mom and Dad from Oregon and just left this past Saturday. She was in Nebraska for about 2 weeks. Ryan and Leann went up to visit her and then we went up to visit her. We got a whole bunch of free strawberries that we had to go through and freeze. So it was a really long process, but totally worth it. The kids had a great time. Richard, Dad, and the boys all went fishing. They found a new camping spot so we are all super excited to try it out. We had a super great time.

Family Camp Spells FUN

As most of you know, we have been gone all weekend at family camp with our church. It was so great. Jasmine did not appreciate being left outside all weekend. Apparently she thinks that she is an inside dog. Right when we got home and she greeted us she went to her pillow and refused to move from there. Today she has gotten up to go outside, so I think we are on the path to forgiveness. =)

So we stayed at a place in Junction City, KS. It is about two hours from here, not bad. It reminded me so much of Camp Yamhill and Oregon, it makes me a little homesick. Anyway, our cabin was air conditioned (thank you God). It was totally worth it. It was really warm on Saturday. I am sure it was easily 90 out there plus the humidity. However, that did not stop us from venturing out. There was a turkey out in the woods that kept gobbling at us and ran in front of us. It was so bizarre. You would not see that in Oregon. I am always amazed at how many wild turkeys there are in KS.

The first night I was walking and it was dark with Alyssa and there was a man in front of me from our cabin. All of the sudden we heard a kind of large animal in the woods. I don't know what it was, but it was scary. The man in front of me (I forgot his name) said maybe it was a dog, but he had a racket with him just in case. =) So we all walked together after that. =)

Saturday we went to Archery. Richard helped Jacob and I helped Aaron and Alyssa. Aaron is a natural at it. Rebekah took pictures of us. It was a lot of fun. Then we went horseback riding. Alyssa promptly got sunscreen in her eye and started crying. She decided that she would never be able to see again. =) So she did not go riding. Aaron was on the horse, but said that it "kept looking at him" so he got down. So I got pictures of Rebekah and Jacob riding a horse. It is always an adventure for us! Then we went canoeing. I was with Aaron, Richard with Jacob, and Rebekah with Alyssa. Do you know how hard it is to canoe when only one of you is doing the paddling? let me tell you, very difficult. It was so much fun though. The girls finally got the hang of it, after all their arguing.

We had absolutely awesome lessons. It was so great to get to spend time with the family and we got to meet new people. The kids had separate classes so they got to hear about God on their own level. Rebekah got to hang out with some friends a little bit and she loved it.

Sunday we actually made it through horseback riding. Richard, Alyssa, and I went. Aaron, Rebekah, and Jacob stayed back to watch us. Alyssa's horse, Sandy, took off away from the trail and they had to go chase her down. It was so funny. My horse kept trying to pass the horse in front of me. Of course, that might be because the other horse was being lazy not wanting to walk up the hill. =) We tried to go canoeing again, but there was a storm coming and there was lightning, so we went swimming instead. =) How's that for safety?

I saw many animals there like snakes, a turkey, possibly a dog in the forest =), a doe, turtle, fish, ticks (do we count these as animals?)and of course spiders. We really want to go again next year. I cannot express how great it was for our family. The storm did come and we didn't get to have smores, well we did finish getting smores before we went to the cabin, but we didn't get to stick around. We were blessed that there wasn't any hail. So I didn't take that many pictures. But you will get the idea. On Thursday we leave to go to Mom and Dad's house. My grandma is up there, so expect that there will be even more pictures. Have a great summer everyone!