Rebecca's Birthday!

Rebecca turned 12 last month! I can't believe it! My little girl is really growing up. She celebrated her birthday several times (lucky!). She was debating on having a big party at our house or just inviting a few friends to go somewhere else to do something. Mom's stress level was relieved when she decided to go ice skating. Here she is with a few friends from school.

We also celebrated with the Towne side....

and the Eldredge side. We like cake.

Becca's main present was her own iphone (Richard's old phone)! She doesn't get to take it to school yet, but she still loves it.

Another big deal about being 12 is becoming part of the Young Women program at church. The 12-13 year old girls are called "Beehives" and they came and decorated her room during school to welcome her to the group. She loves going to the activities every week and is already planning some goals to earn her recognition award.

Happy Birthday Rebecca! We love you!

Richard's Birthday!

Last month, Richard turned 36. His favorite new toy is his new phone. I had to drive for a few days so he could spend ALL his time figuring it out. :)

Another highlight was having breakfast at IHOP. The breakfast was ok, but the balloon artist was AMAZING! :) Richard really doesn't like attention for his birthday, and with his new hat, he really stood out.

The very generous balloon guy also made something for everyone. Katie and Breanna got flowers, Jonny got a dog, Rebecca a great monkey, and I got a diamond ring. (Megan would have eaten hers.) What a great birthday!

We love you Richard!

First Day of School 2011-12

They are growing up too fast! I now have 3 kids in elementary school.

Rebecca is now in 6th grade so she is a big kid on campus...watch out! She loves that her teacher is almost as much of a Harry Potter fan as she is. Several of her friends from last year changed schools so that was hard at first but she is making some great new friends. She got new contacts and is growing into a beautiful young woman.

Breanna is in 4th grade and gets to be in the same class with cousin Emily and good friend Desiree. She has the same teacher that Becca had in 4th grade and we love her! It will be a really fun year!

Katie started kindergarten this year! Wahoo! The first several days were pretty hard, as she really missed mommy and wasn't sure about routines, etc. We made a chart where she had to go to school 5 days without crying and then she would get a date with mom. She did it! The thing that made the biggest difference? A note from mom and dad in her lunchbox every day. Now, she is doing great! She loves her teacher and has several kids she knows from preschool and primary in her class. She is one of four kids in her class to start the reading program already (usually the teacher doesn't start it until later in the year) and is zipping through books as fast as she gets them.

We are so blessed to have such beautiful sweet kids. (Wish they would be this sweet every minute of every day!)

So that leaves Jonny and Megan home with me all day, every day. Jonny is really missing his older sisters. That, coupled with the fact that it is too blasted hot to go outside for more than a minute at a time, he is really starting to act up and is being too rough with Megan. But we'll take it a day at a time and hope we all have a good school year!

Vacation 2011 (part 2)

Welcome back to the exciting conclusion of our family vacation!

After we left the Gentry's house in Montana, we didn't have far to drive to go to Cindy and Keith's house in Newport, WA. After a nice picnic on the banks of the Kootenai River, we made it to their house in time for dinner in their backyard. It was so fun to be with them again and to have the cousins get reacquainted with each other. The next day we headed over to Sandpoint to play at the beach for awhile. So nice, and beautiful weather! We then stopped at an ice cream place where we all enjoyed ourselves! Especially Megan!

That night we were all excited to see Richard's parents arrive. We had a yummy spaghetti dinner and enjoyed visiting. The next day was Isaiah's birthday and we had a great pancake breakfast.

The grandkids love listening to Grandpa playing and singing "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly."

Time for a group picture and then we had to leave. It was a quick visit but we were so glad to be able to visit the Campbell's.

After a really long drive, we arrived at Yellowstone National Park around 5:00pm. We saw lots of wildlife. Elk...

Bear...

And Bison.




Our camera started going blurry occasionally. So sorry for the quality of these next pictures. We had enough daylight to see the "Grand Canyon" of the Yellowstone. One of these years we'll have time and big enough kids to hike down there to the brink.

We arrived at Old Faithful after dark and had missed the geyser spouting by 30 minutes. It isn't really impressive at night. ;) Oh well. We arrived in Rexburg, ID really late. So we took our time the next day and the kids loved to swim in the hotel hot tub.

More driving, but we took our time and split the miles into several days. But Megan sure gets tired of that carseat! Occasionally I would have to take pity on her. She would be so happy to get out for a few minutes!

We drove to Salt Lake and visited with Grandpa Great for a while. He is now in an assisted living facility, as he has Alzheimer's and is in need of more care. He didn't recognize Richard but we were glad to see him again. His wife, Maureen, dropped by at the same time, so it was good to see her as well.

That night we stayed in Park City and Richard was able to visit with his brother, David, while he worked the night shift at a Marriott. We are so thankful to have that discount! :)

The next day (Thursday) we drove up to Sundance and had a picnic at the Aspen Grove campground. The kids had great fun playing on the old stage.

We then made a stop at Bridal Veil Falls. We had to soak up all the cool weather before returning to "ugly." If you squint you can see Becca in the middle of the lower falls. She went WAY too high for Mom's sanity.

Some nice guy offered to climb up the waterfall partially to take a picture of this crazy family. Who poses for a family picture in the middle of a waterfall? Especially with a baby? Us! That's who!

Megan and Jonny loved it! (You can see Becca making her way down.)

We headed down to Cedar City where we met up with Lynn and his family for dinner. Fun times!

As our camera was getting worse, we didn't take many pictures for the rest of the trip. And we were driving a lot. But after dinner we went on to St. George. Early the next day (Friday), Richard had me drive him out to the middle of nowhere so he could run 13.2 miles. He is training for the St. George marathon on October 1st and wanted to run on the course. So that was fun...

Then it was off to Las Vegas. We drove down the strip a bit and saw a couple of free things, like a pirate show, circus act, and the fountains at Bellagio, but really Las Vegas is not a place we like to go. Of course we went swimming at the hotel pool again. Always a hit. :)

On Saturday we drove to my good friend Lydia's house in Bagdad, AZ. They have a nice new home and we all enjoyed watching Phineas and Ferb's new movie. :) We went to church with them the next day. So weird that we are now each a mom to 5 kids. That's a bunch of kids!

After church and a yummy lunch, we made the hot drive back to Mesa. We had a wonderful trip full of memories. But it is always good to be home!

You don't even want to know how much laundry I have done.... ;)

VACATION 2011 (part1)

So we decided to go on a vacation after all this year. We had been debating it for months, because we are really trying to get out of debt and our car just would not make it very far. However, after hearing the news that my sister in Montana got a new job as a CEO and she and her family would be moving from beautiful Libby, MT, we decided we needed to go visit them one more time. Plus, we really wanted to get out of the heat! Plus, we also needed to get a new car anyway (more on that later). We are so glad we made the trip! So many wonderful memories made!

I will try to condense the 1500+ photos and try not to bore any of my fabulous followers out there. :) Remember, this is for posterity.

We left Mesa on July 19th - our 14th wedding anniversary! What better way to say Happy Anniversary then to spend ALL day driving in the car with 5 kids?!?! Right??? yeah... But we made it to Orem, UT without too much stress.

The next day, Richard decided that it would be great fun to hike to Timpanogos Cave with all the kids. I didn't know any better so we went. We packed a picnic and ate in the forest before we started. The kids were all excited to see the river. An actual RIVER! Whoa!

Here we are at the start of the trail. See how eager we are! I am even carrying Megan in the carrier. Little did we know how steep and long and hot the trail was....

But we made it, slowly but surely. Towards the end, Richard had Megan on his front, the backpack on his back, and Jonny on his shoulders. Who needs a pack mule? The cave was cold and refreshing, but kinda dark and cramped. That was not easy for Becca (aka Miss Worrywart) to handle, but eventually she calmed down and later enjoyed the cool formations. I admit I was a bit clostrophobic too, especially when they mentioned the earthquakes...

We survived. See. This is after the cave tour.

And this is after the hike down. Fun stuff.

We then drove around BYU and tried to talk the kids into someday attending. :) We had a yummy dinner at the Brick Oven Pizza place close to campus. Then back at the hotel the kids jumped in the pool for awhile. Good day.

The next day was my 35th birthday, and so we decided it would be another great day to drive. All. Day. Long. But Richard insisted that we stop and have a steak for linner/lupper and I didn't argue. Here I am with my birthday cheesecake!

We arrived in Libby late but that was a great birthday present. We LOVE to be at the Gentry's house! We were there for a little over a week. The kids had a great time together. Almost every day they all went to the creek (or crick) about a block away. (My kids were so happy to be able to go outside and not die of heat!)

Being silly together and eating...

Birthday celebration dinner: MOOSEburgers!

Celebrating Jeanie's 50th birthday!

It was so much fun to go to the beautiful sites around Libby one more time. This time with all 5 of our kids. Here we all are at Kootenai Falls.

And the swinging bridge. No one fell in. ;)

Such fun!

Breanna (and Richard) learning to ripstick.

And that was just the first two days in Libby. The next day we all packed up and headed over to Glacier National Park. We stayed in a cabin that belongs to one of Jeanie and Tom's friends and is inside the park right on the lake. It is so beautiful there. The kids had so much fun swimming and boating. This is right after Richard threw Jonny and Katie in. That water is cold!

Even Megan got in a bit!

It is here I must digress and mention our car. We bought this 3 days before we left on our trip. It was a good price but it needed more work than we orginally thought. I won't go into all of that, because honestly, I can't remember. But it has a dvd player so that's nice. Unfortunately, the morning we were to drive to the top of Glacier NP it decided not to start. Turns out it needed a new fuel pump. But Richard and Tom found someone to tow and fix it that day, so crisis averted. Always something....

While we were figuring out the car stuff, Jeanie took the older kids into the village for some fun. Ice cream and shopping! We love Aunt Jeanie!

Then most of us piled into Jeanie's car and drove up the Going to the Sun road (Tom and the boys decided to stay and fish). The kids had a great time playing in snow in July!

On the way back down, Richard decided to ride a bike (that he found lying around at the cabin). The road is very steep and winding but he didn't die and got some great shots.

Believe me, I am omitting lots of pictures!

So then the next day, we packed up and headed back to Libby. But first Tom and Richard got to go ziplining at a nearby ski resort. The kids and Jeanie and I went to see Cars 2. It was mostly fun. Jonny is 3 though and was not cooperative. Oh well. We then met at McDonald's to get some wiggles out and then made our way back to the Gentry's house.

The rest of the week was spent playing and helping pack the house a little. And eating.

Tom loves guns...and ice cream.

On our last full day in Montana, we went to this beautiful little lake and the kids went fishing and swimming. Tom helped Jonny catch his first fish. He is still talking about it.

The kids and Richard caught a turtle too! Becca's holding it.

Then it was off to Ross Creek Cedars for a picnic and hike. So pretty! Here's the whole gang!

Inside the "fairy" tree...

Chuggachugga CHOO CHOO!

14years ago Richard and I took a picture of us in this same tree while on our honeymoon. Kinda surreal to be in the same tree now with 5 kids.

One last picture in Montana in front of the Gentry's house. So wonderful to be able to be here!

To be continued!