Our Drive to San Diego..................

Logan was so good on the long drive...............he found great joy in coloing..............HIMSELF! I kept thinking he was too quite but didn't want to look back to know why :)

The other highly of the drive was running out of diesel 5 miles outside of Yuma. Yep..............Good Times! I asked Justin to stop in Gila Bend so we could eat and get fuel, he said "no its only 40 miles into Yuma." I said "No I think it is more like 100 plus miles to get to Yuma." He insisted that he was right. Just for the record it is like 113 miles from Gila Bend to Yuma, in case you ever need to know. But I bit my tongue and didn't say a word once he saw the road sign indicating how far it was he was a bit grouchy. That was the worst 3 hours of the trip by far............the kids were hungry and Justin wasn't much fun at that point either. I have a lot of pictures and journaling to post of our week in San Diego, it got MUCH BETTER once we arrived in San Diego!

The Bingham's Cabin on Mt. Graham

My good friend, Stephanie Bingham, invited me and the kids to go up to their cabin at Turkey Flat for the weekend. I was so excited to get out of the heat. The weather was great! It was foggy and cool, so we really enjoyed that. We played pool, ate, played board games, went for hikes, ate some more, roasted marshmallows, played on the zip line and stayed up until 2:30 a.m. just visiting. It was nice to get away and have some grown up girl bonding time!

The whole gang on the deck outside the cabin. There is a great view from the deck.

Stephanie giving me a little attitude because I was taking her picture!

The kids loved roasting marshmallows on this raging fire. You should have seen Steph making this fire. Notice the two bottles of lighter fluid.................need I say more!

Kiersten and Gavin, what a cute couple of kids!

Hunter trying to melt his chocolate. I miss having Stacy Smith around, she made The Best Smores ever. She had it down to a science. Man I miss that girl! I need to go visit her in Boston.

The Zip Line @ the Bingham's cabin...

We had so much fun on the zip line and I got quite the work out pushing the kids up to the start of the line. It was a blast! We can't wait to go back! I was the pusher and Stephanie was the photographer.

Gavin is a great kid. Kiersten just adores him!

Kiersten loved the zip line and she wasn't even scared. I was so happy for her. She is a wonderful kid!

Bailey is a fun kid. He is seriously like a 45 year old man in a 9 year olds body. We had some good conversations and he beat me at most every game we played.

Crazy Hunter! Look he actually had shoes on :)

Hunter loves to make funny faces. He gets such a kick out of it. I love his personality and want to be more like him.

OK so I had to try it myself...............................I wanted to test it out to make sure it was "safe."

Adian is crazy too! He makes me laugh and his smile will melt your heart. He's sure a cute kid!

Camping with the Bingham's @ Turkey Flat

Hunter, Bailey, Gavin, Kiersten, and Adian...............They loved playing with the play dough Steph had brought.

Kiersten and Gavin had a great time making a little man out of the play dough. They made such funny things for the man. They play so good together. Gavin was Kiersten's really good friend in both Kindergarten and 1st grade. This will be the first year they don't have the same teacher, as Kiersten will now be at Pima. She is really sad about this. Kiersten writes in her journal all the time about Gavin, it's just so cute.

Gavin was making a spear for Kiersten. It was so funny to listen to them talk. They talk to each other like a married couple. Steph and I got the biggest kick out of it!

The Rain Brought Out the FROGS...

When we rolled into town it was storming so bad and after the kids had their baths we could hear the frogs croaking. When the rain stopped we took the kids and let them walk around our subdivision to catch the frogs in the road. They caught about 30 plus frogs...........it was so crazy. The frogs were so loud it was almost scary.

The boys basking in their victory over the frogs. It is the funniest thing to watch Hunter catch frogs. Both Justin and I were laughing so hard, it was worth letting our freshly bathed kids get a bit dirty. We let the frogs go the next day and Hunter cried because he just loved them so much. Hunter said, "I am so sad because I thought we could keep them! You know mom I don't have a big brother so I thought I should keep the frogs!" I just want to ask him does this really make any sense in your world? The sad thing is that he could probably explain a reason why it does actually make sense. He is so good at that!

Bath Time

Sunday when we got home from Egar, the kids decided that they had "worked" so hard all weekend that they needed some jacuzzi time, as Hunter worded it. They had a grand time soaking, OK swimming in my little piece of heaven....my tub! They especailly loved it when the jets made the shampoo turn into bubbles.

Hunter thought he looked like a snowman with all the bubbles!

Wishing Puffs...

GREER 7-5-2008

Kiersten was so happy to find the largest wishing puff we have ever seen.

She said she made a few wishes instead of just one, because the wishing puff was so big!

We Fell In Love with Greer!!

We decided to got have a fun outing to Greer while up in Egar. We all just fell in love with this small, quaint town. The Smith's, the Green's and us enjoyed our picnics there both Saturday and Sunday. The small stream that ran through the town was perfect. The little kids played in the water, while the older boys went fishing and even caught some fish. Greer is such a cute town, we plan on going back and camping at one of the RV parks there. There were cute little shops, bakery, restaurants and ice cream shop.

Logan had a blast here............of course he got soaking wet in the freezing cold water, but it didn't seem to faze him. I just got my foot in and thought "why.......seriously why would you subject your body to that?" Kids....................they just don't care.

Hunter, Whitney and Maranda thought it was so funny that they made it across the creek. They danced and shook their bums at us, just giggling away. I love watching kids just enjoying being kids. I learn a lot from it!

Logan and Melanie had fun with each other. Logan thought the creek was more like a swimming pool and laid right down in it. They played like they were cooking all the rocks to eat and also used the rocks as paint brushes. It's fun to see kids use their imagination...........especially two year olds.

This was the kids "boat house," and they loved it. They sure enjoyed playing house.

Hunter is just so dang cute!

Hunter's Pioneer Feet!!! Hunter truly has some tough feet, we can hardly keep shoes on him. He'll run across rocks barefoot no problem!

Hunter loving the water. Greer was so much fun and we can't wait to plan a trip to go back.

4th of July...............Camping in Egar

Hunter and Whitney were quite the pair this weekend!

They enjoyed their junk food picnic together. It was fun to watch them play.

Hunter and Whitney were playing really good so I went over to complement them. I told them they were doing a great job playing. Hunter said, "We are playing house." Real quick Whitney replied, "Hunter's not my husband..........he's the dog!" Later in the day I was teasing Lace that she was going to have to come home with me to watch Logan for me for a week. She said she didn't want to. Hunter looked up and said, "What about Whitney, can't we keep her?" They were so cute together!

Watching the rafts float down the canal.

Logan was sooo excited to have his own raft. He would jump and run to chase after the raft in the water. Lots of fun for him and all the kids.

The kids loved having a little Birthday party for America! Especially when they found out they all got to blow out a candle on their cupcakes.

Kiersten stopped to pose for me.

There was a small irrigation ditch that ran in front of the place where we camped, so what better thing to do then make rafts out of sticks and have races. The kids loved every bit of it. They raced their rafts the whole weekend. It was fun to see their excitement and creativity that went into their rafts! Fun times for sure!

Watching the rafts compete. Hunter usually carried his down half way and then threw it in. Of course everyone was a winner. At one point Hunter asked, "just how can I be the winner and someone else....................not too smart mom."

4th of July in Egar

I just love the 4th of July! We are so blessed to live in America and enjoy the freedoms that we do. The kids had a great time and we did some fun things to help them better understand the meaning behind all the fireworks, picnics and fun! We drove around Egar and counted all the flags we could find.............68 to be exact! The kids had so much fun looking for and spotting flags. Then we had cupcakes and let all the kids blow out a candle to celebrate Americas Birthday. The kids thought it was so fun to sing Happy Birthday to America! We camped with our friends the Smith's and the Green's to enjoy the 4th together and to escape the heat!

Aren't they so cute in their red, white and blue? I even made Kiersten's bows myself! Thanks to my friend Steph for showing me how. I'm thinking I need a baby girl to make bows for :). We had a great time at the parade, we ran into the Browns family. It was fun to see them! During the parade they threw so much candy out the kids just loved it!

The whole fam. @ the parade in Egar.

Our Scottsdale Trip

So the weekend of Justin's birthday we left for Scottsdale. We had several photo shoots in the Mesa area and thought we would make it a little get away. Thanks to my mom and Justin's mom we left the kids and just enjoyed being together! We decided to stay @ the Reniassance Resort in Scottsdale............this is where we stayed after we got married. It was so much fun, except for when I had to break away and go to a shoot.

I was able to enjoy a little pampering @ Dolce. Can I say LOVED IT!!! I had the fiji stone message which was amazing! I went back and had a facial, it was just wonderful. I am putting this on my wish list for Christmas!

The Resort has separate little bungalows. We stayed in the Phoenix Suite which has it's own out side hot tub. The weather was nice in the late evenings and the temperature of the water was like a nice warm bath, so we spent a lot of time relaxing in there.

Very nice private hot tub!!

It's not so much fun getting old. But we are having a great time together!

New Calling............

OK so I was called to be the Sunbeam teacher...........yeah.................I was so excited after being in the Relief Society Presidency for 2 1/2 years. I was sooooo looking forward to primary. I had the calling as Sunbeam teacher for 2 Sundays one of which I was out of town. Anyways, I now have a new calling as second counselor in the Young Women's Presidency! I hate to admit it but I felt like crying! Justin is also in the YM, as an advisor, so we now have to get someone to watch the kids every Wednesday night and obviously there are no YW available to call. It's going to be crazy and get hard to manage especially once school starts, cause our kids go to bed by 8. I was excited to at least be over the Beehives................they will be fun and I'll have plenty of babysitters for date night (not that we have those very often, but maybe after I know all the YW we will!!). I had just bought a bunch of fun snacks for my Sunbeam class.............there were 13 kids! We'll see how it goes!