New Boat

 Last year Larry and I set a goal to "up grade" on our boat. We have had the boat we had for 8 years and have loved it! But we have 2 more kids then we did then and it was feeling a little small... So we were hoping to have the money together to buy this winter (best time to buy price wise). We made our goal and Larry had been shopping. We found the perfect one for our family and went to pick it up last weekend. We made arrangements to have our house treated while we were out by the exterminator (aka my amazing cousin Braden). So we had to be gone for at least 4 hours. So we made a day of it we started by picking the boat up then we thought we would go to OMSI. (My in laws get us a family member ship for Christmas each year. Which we LOVE!) We spent a few hours there and had fun. It was nice to have Larry with me this time. He was able to take the older 3 to do some of the big kid things that would be boring to the little girls and I took the little girls to the playground part for a while. We also had not been to the Temple visitor center so we went to check it out.

 They loved getting to see the temple. It was closed for cleaning so it was really quiet there. (Well until my kids got there anyway). Ruth was really excited about the angel on top. She was saying she wanted to climb the temple to be up there with the temple. I asked her "do you think Jesus wants you to climb the temple?" She replied, "Jesus, climb temple, pleeeeeease?" In her sweetest voice. It was cute! Even the next day in church a sister said something about the temple in her talk and Ruth perked right up and said, "Angel me climb up!"

 On our way home we stopped in Salem to test drive the boat in the river. It was cold!!! But the kids had a great time just going up and down the river a few times! Ruth actually hated it at first because I didn't get in when they first took off because I had to go park the truck and trailer they came back for me. Once I was in the boat she calmed down. It was a very busy and fun day! Now we are just looking forward to some summer weather! Till then Larry has a few projects he wants to do to get it all ready for the ski season!

Week 8 of Summer Vacation/ Vacation

Hayden even got brave enough to ride the tub by herself! This was after a ride with mommy.... She is very cautious when it comes to water so this was a break through for her. Her ride was really slow with no bumps but she had a blast and it is building up to all the other fun stuff her siblings do! Amelia is a daredevil on the tube. She wants her daddy to give her the crazy rides and loves it! It is pretty scary for mom but she loves it!

We saw some amazing sights! We love the mountains there! They are very cool, but this year we saw lots of butterflies, wild mountain goats, and Deer. We had 2 storms blow through in the late afternoons/evenings and one evening after the storm we had this beautiful sunset! I thought it was a great medifore for life but I won't share since this entry is going to be long enough!




Both the boys knew how to water ski but this year they both learned to knee board and got really good at some tricks! Ethan also learned how to wake board. It was pretty fun watching them! They got pretty competitive over who could do the most or coolest "tricks" or who would go the longest!



The kids LOVED fishing! The dog did too apparently! She would get sooooo excited with every fish caught! twice she got so excited she jumped, or slipped off the boat and ended up in the water. We had to fish her out with the net once. She did not like that!


Hayden loved "turtle rides"

Just cute!

Ruth Loved the water!

Amelia bought this floatie at the dollar store to take on this trip. She loved it and used it a lot! But Ruth loved it too! We would lay her in the shade in it in the boat and it made a nice cushy bed while boating! It was great!

Some nice people let us use their thing! Only I sat on the shore and watched Larry and the kids. I stayed with Ruth.

The grasshoppers were so thick! I have NEVER seen so many in my life! IN the afternoon when you would walk it was a dust cloud only it was grasshoppers! YUCK! Brock loved catching them in this bug cage he bought just for this trip! He also loved pulling their leggs off. This worried me but Larry told me most little boys do this a few times. EEEWWWW

THere are so many pictures I filled my card (I don't do that very often!) So I am just going to do a few highlights of our week at our favorite lake ever!
It was a wonderful week and I could post so much much more, Maybe I will do some journaling later on some of my thoughts during the week too but now I need to move on to the rest of post vacation duties!

Week 5 of Summer break!

This last week was pretty fun. It was pretty relaxing. The kids played a lot and we got lots done! We ended the week with a really fun camping trip. We had planned to go with our friends the Cooper-Leavitt's and some of our other friends from the ward ended up camping right next door! What luck! It was sooo much fun. We put the kids to bed and we stayed by the camp fire till late in the night just visiting and getting to know each other better! But here are some pictures of the fun we had this past week! Next week is Cub Camp Hopefully I will get some pictures of show of that for next week. I am only going one day to help out. We have jam packed the rest of the week with boy free activities!
Brock was helping Ethan weed the garden this past week and was very very excited to find this worm!!! I thought it was gross but pretty cool!

Brock's big worm!

My pool boy! He does a good job of keeping the pool cleaned out. It has been so much fun having this pool. I have to admit it makes me never want to pack everyone up to go to the public pool again! So nice to open the door and jump in! Oh and Hayden can can nap in the middle of it all!

LOVE this face and this sweet girl!

Boat full of fun! Look close that is the only picture I got of the boys! They were so busy I never got a chance to get a picture of them!

I love this picture because Hayden is really "deep" in the water. I say that because she is my kid who usually stands on the side throwing rocks, and rarely gets in deeper in then her knees. But she loves to play with Ava and Amelia so she just followed them out. It was so cute watching them pretend to defend the castle from "bad guys" with their water guns!

Ruth had a nice nap on the blanket while the girls were swimming and the boys were on the boat.

Ava and Amelia had a great time on the tubes! They were so cute, and so brave!

Trip to Prineville

The last night we were there the kids got to roast marshmallows on the fire. It they all had a great time being together! It is fun to have all 12 grand kids together and all the mom's and dad's together. We took Family pictures but I don't have a copy yet I will post those when I get them! Also while we were there my dad had surgery and the kids had a rough house free weekend. It was funny to see them play with grandpa and NOT get to play rough but they enjoyed being with him and I hope he got enough rest while we were there!


While in Prineville we went to the Parade for the Rodeo. The kids came home with a haul of candy!!!


Beautiful view from my parents house! The sun was setting on the other side!
Both the boys water skied like pros (got up first try!) and Amelia rode on the tube with her cousin Lia. They all had a great time on the lake!


Ruth went on her first boat trip. She tolerated it well. She liked it best when the boat was moving and had a nice nap!

Weekend report!

Brock loved the water!

Claire did not love the water!!!

Hayden is our little fish! She would spend the whole day in the water if we would let her!

Sorry Allison! I had to post it! She did a great job skiing! She went farther then I did! Next time we will get her up on one ski!

Amelia had a lot of fun in the water and on the boat!

Ok it has taken me a few days to do this post, but I was having problems with my pictures so I am finally getting around to it!
This weekend we went to Foster Lake with our Friends the Bevans! It was so much fun to water ski, tube, and keep cool in the killer heat! The kids all had a blast! It was funny because just as we got there I had a bad feeling something bad was going to happen. I couldn't shake the feeling. I didn't think we needed to leave or anything I just knew we needed to be careful. So We get in the boat and I was going to drive the boat so Larry could get a run in on our way over to the day use area to meet the Bevans. After just a few minutes of him skiing he wiped out in a way I haven't seen him do in a very long time!!! When I got back to him he told me his ski had broke. Those of you who know about skiing and boats know that this is not a quick or cheep fix! The main problem with this is the ski is only a year old!!!! So we had to get new boots to put on his ski before vacation! FUN!!! But worth it I guess so they don't brake while we are there and be stuck for a week with no ski! Once that was over the feeling went away, everyone had a fun and safe day after that! (other then the missing sunscreen and kick board!) But those are minor! We didn't even have major sunburns! I on the other had could hardly move for the next two days due to my first ski trip this season. I always find new muscles that I forgot I had. Maybe now I will be less sore when we go on vacation in a couple of weeks! Yeah right! It was a fun day though!