Idaho Portraits

Gracey- 8 years

Jameson- 4 years

Megan- 10 years

Luke and Jameson

All the kids

This apple tree I grew up eating from. There was nothing better than a green sour apple, a salt shaker and my grandma's front porch steps. If you look closely, you can see my grandpa's silo's in the background.

This willow tree is so old and provides so much shade and beauty down by the rivers edge.

Cousins- Caden 12 years, Luke 2.5 years

Cousins again

Running through the clothesline...GiGi (great grandma) would have had a heart attack if she say this happening on her property, with her towels and sheets...PRICELESS!

Rachie took these gorgeous pictures of my kids in Idaho. She is so talented. If anyone is interested, she is coming to Arizona in October to visit and would love to take your pictures for you. She is making a trip to Utah too in September, so get a hold of me if you want a session with her there.

We love Idaho so much and always have a great time with my family. We swam in the river, played at the sand bar, ate Big J's, had many shakes, ate all of Aunt Malee's cinnamon rolls up and had fresh raspberries every day. What a treat it is to be able to visit and stay at a place we love so much!

Family Portraits

My sister Rachael has a side job/hobbie of taking photographs. She is amazing at what she does. Here are a few that I have gotten my hands on lately of me and the girls, our family in April and my whole family in April as well. We were all able to get together and surprise my parents for their birthdays. It was a great weekend.

Swimming in the Summer

How cute is he?

Luke swimming to safety

Daddy catching Luke

Jameson swimming freestyle

I had to share these adorable pictures of two of my swimmers. Luke was always so cute with his goggles and Jameson loves to swim. As many of you know, I teach swim lessons during the summer and my littlest two got lessons this year. Luke was quite the swimmer and fearless. Once he figured out how to use his arms and look at the bottom of the pool, he was amazing. I could throw him in and he would turn and swim to the wall or step to save himself. Jameson also got lessons and at the first lesson was swimming the length of the pool, perfect freestyle. She also learned the butterfly, breast stroke and back stroke. She can do front flips and back flips as well. She told me one day that she wanted to learn how to dive. I was busy reading in the shade watching them so she said, "oh, never mind, I remember how you taught Jackson in his lesson" and I watched her do a beautiful, perfect dive. You can imagine my excitement! She continued to dive all day and eventually moved to the diving board and performed it flawlessly there as well. Maybe some day she'll be the girl version of Michael Phelps. Who knows. For only 4 years old, she's talented, and naturally so.

Colorado with the Kids- July 2008

In July I headed up to Durango, Colorado with Jamers and Luke to pick up Megan and Gracey who had been visiting their Grammy for a week. Not only was I thankful that they were gone for the week to give me a break, but Gracey got the chicken pox while up there and Megan had pink eye (or a stye). I was so grateful to Valerie for being a trooper and taking such good care of my girls. They went to the melodrama and did many other activities each day such as hiking, playing spoons, playing PR (progressive rummy) and watching movies.

When we all got there we relaxed, read books and went to the cemetery one day to visit Gma Ethel and Gpa Earl's graves. My older two girls knew Earl and loved him dearly. They never got the chance to meet Ethel as she passed away while Jim was on his mission. The head stones have pictures of Ethel and Earl on them and the most amazing thing happened while we were visiting the graves. Luke walked right up to Gma Ethels picture, waved and said, "oh, there's Grandma". Valerie and I looked at each other and I asked him who that was as he said back that it was grandma. I asked him where grandpa was and he said he didn't know, but there was grandma, pointing to the picture. It made up both tear up and it was another testament of heaven and the veil to us. When we were leaving he walked up to her picture and said, "bye Grandma" and waved goodbye to her face. It was so sweet.

It made Valerie and I remember when Megan was 2 and hanging out with Grammy, looking through a photo book. She pointed to Ethel's picture and said, "oh, she was always so nice to me." Again another example of heaven and who is waiting for us up there.

The last picture is of Megan dressing and I had to take a snap shot of it. Does she remind you of anyone? My dad used to do a skit imitating Johnnie Carson when he would read the cards touching them to his head. I had to laugh and catch the image.

4th of July Weekend and Lake Powell

For the Fourth of July weekend we headed to Lake Powell with just our family. We have always gone with large groups and taken the house boat out and anchored down. Well, this trip it was just us and a short trip at that so we stayed in the marina on the house boat. It was so relaxing and low maintenance! We took food but ended up eating out at the restaurant at the marina. It was fabulous! There is a ski boat that is left up there in storage for our use so we drove up in the suburban fast and came home fast. We boated and tubed with the kids close by the marina and as you can see from Gracey's expression, they were not too happy when Jim made them fall off the tube. They would not get off though when it was time to stop! We had to get mad at them to get out of the water. Needless to say, it was my best Lake trip to date since it was so relaxing! I did miss the crowd though too.

Disney Cruise

We were fortunate enough to go on a week long Disney cruise out of L.A. to Mexico with Jim's family in June. It was the best vacation EVER! Having never been on a cruise, I was worried about being motion sick, the cramped spaces and Jim getting bored on a ship. I was so wrong! I was in heaven! Not only did I have a head waiter who cut up the kids food and let me order anything I wanted off the menu, but the drink waiter delivered diet cokes with lemon one right after another! Plus, there was a room steward who organized clothes, cleaned the rooms and bathrooms, turned down beds, made beds and even folded my kids blankets for them. I was in shock. I figured he had a little bell that would ding the minute we left the rooms because no matter how long we were gone for, he always freshened things up in the room. I must say that the first week back to reality and cooking and cleaning for me was very tough. I got so spoiled and we are already planning our next Disney Cruise.

The service was impeccable, the food phenomenal and the ship was so clean and run well. It was amazing. Jim's parents go on cruises a lot and they said this was the best one for service and the best food by far!

We were each given $100.00 to spend what we wanted it on my Jim's parents and I got a massage along with Jim. The kids got beach towels, stuffed animals, their hair braided and cover ups. We also had them help pay for tipping our fabulous room steward and explained how great he was and how we needed to thanks him with our money so he would know how much we (me) appreciated it.

Each day and night on the cruise had a theme night and you can see that the Pirates of the Caribbean night was our favorite. We had such a great time dressing up and dancing in to the late night. We even got to see fireworks shoot off the shop!

We stopped in Cabo San Lucas and Megan Jim and I went on a canopy tour with zip lines, rock climbing and repelling. Megan was unbelievably brave and quite the trooper. She is so athletic and loved every minute of it! She even rock climbed the big rock and Jim had to use the ladder. Ha! We flea market shopped in Mazatlan and rented a van that held all four brothers, wives and kids and toured the city. In Puerto Vallarta we swam with the dolphins. It was amazing and so fun! What an experience! I will post our dolphin swim when I get the pictures from my sister in law.

We loved every minute of it.

Gracey's Baptism - March 1, 2008

Gracey's baptism was so amazing. It was such a special day for our sweet little girl. She was very pensive and quiet for the day. Gracey tends to soak in as much as she can as to not forget anything. When I was getting her ready she asked why we go under the water and I told her that our sins are washed away and we are clean. She thought for a minute and said, "so the water gets really dirty and they have to get clean water for each person getting dunked?" I got a good laugh out of it and explained that it is just symbolic. We had a big luncheon afterwards with our fabulous friends and family.