Girls Camp

I had the opportunity to go up to Girl's Camp this week...and I survived! I was very excited about going and looking forward to the opportunity to spend time with my girls and with my fabulous fellow leaders. But I was very nervous about leaving my kids. I have never left them for more than about 12 hours before. They were excited to be playing at Grandma's all day while Daddy was at work. As Ryan was preparing Pierce for how things were going to go while Mom was at camp, Pierson said, "I'm going to live at Grandma's all day, it will be like I'm Grandma's kid!" Clearly he was not feeling the anxiety of the separation like I was.

Camp was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it. I was very thankful that is was cut a day shorter than usual though. By the 2nd night I was feeling very anxious for my kids and by the next day I was very ready to come home. I am sure I have never felt so disgusting in my entire life.

I'm not able to post pics of the girls, so here is a favorite of me and some of my fabulous leaders-

Me, April, Kara & Jana - Love you girls!

A few things I'll remember most about camp:

-All 8 leaders sleeping in 1 tent (not because we were unprepared, we had a tiny campsite, and not enough room to set up another tent)
-Therefore, Jana, Kara and I sleeping on 1 air mattress, sideways. At least I was warm!
-Yummy, yummy food! Thanks to Jana A.!
-Killer hike that made my 6:00 A.M walks, (which include a major thigh/butt burning hill) seem like a piece of cake!
-Being drenched in sweat and shivering with cold in the same day
-Spending some quality time with "my girls" (the Mia Maids plus the ones we just lost to Laurels) They were great examples to the younger girls in their attitudes, willingness to help, leadership and especially their beautiful testimonies. I was so happy for the chance to get to know them better and grow closer to them.
-Having fun with the awesome leaders and laughing hysterically about...
-And making complete fools of ourselves in the skit with our "scene change effects", something that I could never adequately describe, only demonstrate. I don't know why the audience wasn't laughing harder, truly it was hilarious! I'm so thankful that at least Bishop Brooks appreciated the humor.
-Rockin' skit by the Stake Priesthood Leaders
-Awesome talk by Pres. Bangerter, seriously love him! He gave such a great message based on "Virtue loveth Virtue"
-Awesome fireside by Bro. Staheli, followed by awesome testimonies from the Bishopric. Love these guys! We are so lucky to have them!

Good-Bye Babies!

We finally got all of our kittens given away! I was so anxious to find homes for them, knowing that they were plenty big enough and that they needed to go or they'd grow too fast and I'd end up with 6 cats....but it was still a little sad to see them go. I was definitly fighting back a few tears. It has been so much fun for me and the kids to have them and see them grow. They have been so fun to play with and we have loved it! We will miss them. They were getting so cute and playful and their personalites we're really coming out.

Bye-Bye Oliver!

Bye-Bye White!

Bye-Bye Mr. Pettybone!

I wanted to let the kids say good-bye to them- the first one to go was "Calico", such a favorite, and Pierce was in bed when the family picked her up so he didn't get to say good-bye. The next 3 I made sure he got to hold them and snapped one last picture.

And I can't resist adding some of my favorite pictures of them. They were such cute little things, I just loved all these little faces!

Oliver - who after we realized was a girl became Mrs. Oliver

Mr. Pettybone nuggling White

Vanilla AKA White

Calico

I feel very thankful that we were able to find nice familes to take them, who were excited to give them a good home. But, it still tugged at my heart strings a little letting them go. I could just imagine them wondering where the heck they were and were their brothers and sisters were. I'll miss seeing them all sleeping in a pile together. I knew they'd be sad the first few nights away. We were all quite attached after 9 weeks of having them, of course we had given them names, which the kids picked out and loved. But we are happy to down to 2 cats, our Mama kitty Bella and Mittens the kitten we chose to keep. Litter box duty is definitly much more doable now. Good-Bye Babies!

Celebration!

The weekend of fun started out early with my great girlfriends taking me out for an early birthday dinnner. We enjoyed a great night out with delicious food, great conversation and some good laughs.

Stac S., Lynds, Stac D.

Mel, Me, Kathryn

And of course we had to have yummy CAKE! I had such a FUN night! Thanks girls! I truly feel so blessed to have such wonderful girlfriends who I feel so close to. You are all Fabulous and I love you!

The next night we headed up to Huntsville for the weekend. My Dad, and his wife, Susan, were so great to invite us to stay with them for the weekend. My Dad and I share a birthday and this year was his 50th! It was fun to celebrtate with my family at a nice dinner out....

Me & Madi with Susan & Pa-Pa

...and of course yummy cake!

Seriously hard to believe that my Dad is 50! And that I am 28!
Happy 50th Dad! We love you!

Celebrating the 4th!

The Parade
My sweet Pierson, an All American Boy!

My good lookin' husband and my good lookin' boy!(Loving showing off that missing tooth)

Mommy & Madi (she is a bit anti-photo op lately)

I love the 4th of July in Huntsville. Partly because it is my hometown and I love seeing old friends, and partly because it is just a GREAT celebration! They have a great parade that never disapoints. Ryan's favorite thing about the 4th in Hutsville- the jets from Hill AFB flying over to kick off the parade! It is pretty darn awesome!

Patriotic Program

My Dad has been announcing the parade for years and it is fun to hear him. This year he was also in charge on the patriotic program.

He had a fantastic program arranged and he did a great job hosting! I was very proud of him! Here he is honoring the Grand Marshall

And here he is with 2 of the great speakers. It was really amazing to hear from these great men who have served our country so dilligently. These 2 gentlmen are both pilots and the gentlemen on the right is the fighter pilot to hold the record of 4,000, 5,000, & 6,000 flying hours! Pretty Incredible!

Fun in the Park

The kids had fun going down the giant inflatable slide and jumping in the boucy house, and of course, enjoying cotton candy!



Cupcakes

Susan took great care of us with yummy food all weekend, and baked yummy cupcakes for the kids to decorate, which they LOVED!
I turned my back for 30 seconds and this is what happened...

Too cute to get mad, and too funny! I had to snap a picture. She was just so excited to have her "favorite color pink!"



Fireworks

Daddy & the kids

Mommy & the kids (seriously what is up with my daughter?!)

I LOVE watching fireworks. They really facinate me, how they work I'll never understand, but amazing little things to me. We had a great time watching fireworks and the kids both did great. (No one cried! YAY! We've overcome.)

We had a wonderful day celebrating our Independence Day. What a fun holiday and a great time to remember to be thankful for all that we are blessed with! We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Huntsville, the weather was perfect, not hot, not cold, and the kids loved running around in Pa-Pa's yard. It was so nice to enjoy being outside, dinner on the patio, breakfast too, and sitting on the front porch swing. Not much in life is better than sitting on a front porch swing in beautiful Huntsville, Utah, watching your beautiful kids play to their heart's content. Thank you Pa-Pa and Susan!