Summer?????

Summer finally showed up today!!  It has been cold, rainy, windy with a nice day here and there.  We kept thinking summer must come, especially for my garden and it showed up today.  Yeah (especially because we were finally able to go to the pool)!  

On another note, man I've been neglecting my blog lately.  With the kids home all the time now I don't seem to have a free minute.  Not too mention something is always going on.  Right now I am coaching Kathryn's t-ball team and I am having a great time with 14 little soon-to-be first graders.  This week my friend and I have been catering a geology conference, then next week it's off to my brother's wedding and lots more food cooking, and then to our ward camp-out.  Add that with all the fun things we are trying to do this summer and I don't get on the computer very often. 

Hope you all are having a great summer and may there be pictures next time!

The new addition

First, "THANKS" Grandma for the jammas!  They love them :)

Well they finally did it.  They saved up all their money and bought a bunny, a cage, feed, etc., everything a bunny needs.  They have been entertained for days (I wish that meant less fighting but no deal) and poor "pyrate" is a little over stimulated.

Western Days Parade

Every summer there is a Western Days Parade.  I am not a fan of going but the kids love it and even though it was windy and rainy (surprise, surprise) we survived and had ourselves quite a few laughs!

Here are reasons we go to the parade.  Luke:

Sarah and Kathryn:

Seth:

(he says no way, but we have to tease him a little bit)

Sam and I:

Can you figure out why this is so funny?

Craters of the Moon

Seth's class took a field trip this past week to Craters of the Moon.  It is a National Monument but not so pretty most of the time, but it's rugged beauty is amazing.  If any of you come out this way, you should check it out.  It's an active volcano that has cracked and every couple thousand years has a lava that comes out, also there are lots of caves from lava tubes.

Seth with his best buddy getting off the bus.

Waiting to see where we are going.

Seth took this picture of his teacher who we absolutely love and who has been such a blessing to us and Seth this year.  Especially because she puts up with all his wise cracks, jokes, turkey gobbling, bloop language (something him and his friend made up), and general class clown behavior.

I was so lucky and got to ride the bus with 60 kids up there and back.  Yeah for me!!

One of the small caves and 

the massive tunnels.  It went back quite a ways and was very fun to climb through.

Memorial Day

How was your Memorial Day?  Ours was a lot of fun, well besides the non-stop rain.  Man you would think that we live in Seattle! (okay the rain is really good for my garden and the crops so I 'm not really complaining just wishing the sun would come out)

We went to the South Hills with some friends for the weekend and had a fabulous time.

I took Luke, Kathryn and Sarah up on Thursday since Sam had to work and Seth had homework to finish and they were going to come up the next day.  That day was actually nice and then by that night it started to rain, not cold rain just rain.  We got our tent set up and then hung out with everyone in their camp trailers (side note: I am so a believer of camp trailers!!!!).  We all went to bed and by 1:30am Kathryn woke up and couldn't hardly breathe.  The cold was affecting her breathing, so after an hour of her crying, coughing and trying to breathe I packed up the kids and took her home to get some medicine (we were only an hour away).  Of course I get pulled over by a state trooper because my "headlights were improperly adjusted" code words for "you are driving at 3 in the morning on the road that comes from Jackpot and I hope you are drunk so I can write a ticket and really I am just making up an excuse to pull you over!!!"   The funny thing was I wasn't even tired, I wasn't speeding, we were all in our seat belts, and I wasn't even driving erractically.  I got no ticket, I better not of because Sam would of sued him for me (yeah!) and we went on our way.  After that we got a few hours of sleep and waited for Sam to be done and then headed back up.  The kids had a great time riding 4-wheelers, a "rhino" and getting absolutely filthy:

playing games and eating food:

Luke was enthralled with all the generators and that kept him busy for hours:

Sam's little sister Jessica and her roommate Chantelle came and camped with us for one night and then spent the rest of the weekend with us (thanks for coming guys we loved it!).

We also did some hiking, but mostly hanging out, playing games and eating food!

Our van got absolutely filthy too, but hey it provided great entertainment for the kids, after I took this picture they spent another hour drawing designs all over the window.