Summer wrap up

 We had anther fun family and friends filled 4th of July! We love this day and go all out! We often have our cousins with us that weekend because it is also their parents anniversary and they usually get there just in time for the parade! This year we even tie dyed shirts. I had never done it before so some of them got A LOT more dye than others.... but they were fun. (Even with a dead dryer for weeks this summer! I had to hang dry everything for over a month while waiting on parts for the dryer. Thankfully it was hot and dry and we had clean clothes.)

 Not long after the 4th we went to one of our favorite places Prineville Reservoir for our family vacation. We were so lucky to have many of our family come up for part of the time and friends too! We swam a lot, loved the kiaks a lot, had lots of water fights and Ruth learned to water ski!

 Brock and Macquarie did their usual and build massive mud castles and lakes.

 Ruth was amazing! She totally water skiied on her very first try and had no fear. She can stear really well too. It's amazing what this kid can do! Some of the pictures look foggy but we had some smoke issues due to wild fires. It was also my 20th class reunion while we were there. I didn't take any pictures while I was there. It was a lot of fun to go see everyone who came. I am glad I went.

 Amelia and I got to go to girls camp together again this year. This was her 2nd year. She has such a great group of friends, and had a great time getting to hang out with her friends.

 We took a day trip to the beach late July with a few cousins. The weather was AMAZING!

 I even had Brock drive! He hadn't done much other then around town so this was a big deal. We weren't in a hurry so it was good practice. (AND SLOW!)

 We also attempted a new thing for our family. We not only went on a hike which we have done several times but we went on on over night backpacking trip. It was so much fun! Everyone carried their own pack, no one was packed, and it was awesome!

 The lake we camped by was beautiful! The kids loved the food and the experience of really being in nature not just in a camp site.

 The girls all shared a tent and snuggled in tight.  It was pretty cute.

 See look at that lake! AMAZING!

 Late summer we said good bye to both of the Spanish Elders that were serving here. They closed the Spanish area here. So Elder Elias (above) and Elder Kehl (below) Moved on to other areas. We miss them. We held Hayden's picture because she was in Sunriver with Uncle Sunny when they came to say goodbye.

 We made one last trip to the beach with Aunt Emily, Grandma, and Myka the end of August. It was NOT as nice of weather as we had in July. But they still had lots of fun

 Something super cool that happened August 21st was we had a total solar eclipse and we happen to be in the path of totallity. By camera didn't get great pictures and there aren't really good words to describe what it was like. But it was incredible. We watched at the park a few blocks from our house and it was amazing to see the light get dimmer and dimmer yet you could litterally still see the sun was there. Then all of a sudden it wasn't! It was gone and it felt like night. It got cold and everything. Then like a flash the sun was back but still dim as it slowly came back. God is amazing at the things he does.

This is Elder Pinkston. He was hurt doing service in our area and tried really hard to heal his broken wrist and serve the Lord but he ended up needing to go home to have surgery and physical therapy. We sure loved having him here.

Camping and boating

First trip out for the summer! Friday night was a little rainy, but Saturday was awesome! The kids skied, wake boarded,  kneeboarded, and kyaked all over. The sun felt so good!
It felt so good to just go be a family and have fun. We've been so busy we really needed a break!

Guilt....

So many things have happened in the last year and a half that are now undocumented for my family. The longer I went with out posting the harder it got for me to want to post again because I felt like I needed to "catch the whole thing up". Which got more and more overwhelming of course. But after this month of events I decided I was going to attempt to just pick up and start from here and not feel like I had to post about everything that has happened. I might touch on a few things that have happened because they are big but mostly I just need to start again. Not because anyone ever reads this but because I need to to document our life as the Davis family.
#1 Event worth Posting about was in December of 2014 Hayden was baptized. It was a very special day and I can't actually find any pictures of it right now... (this is WHY I need to do this so things don't get lost!) After her baptism we went and cut down our Christmas tree and went to the carousel to see Santa with all our family.
#2 Everyone had birthdays, Ethan got his divers permit, I've gone to girls camp, was released from Young Women's (after almost 6 years of serving with these amazing girls). Larry was put into the young men's presidency and now is the Young Men's president. Ruth started kindergarten which is ALL DAY! Funny thing is after 3 days of that at dinner she asked, "is tomorrow a school day?" I said yes everyday is school except weekends now. She said, "this is really cutting into my playtime." Just this week she has turned a corner and hopefully it will stay that way but she is enjoying school now and not saying she hates school. So that is exciting!

This is a picture of her on her first day!

But the thing that has inspired me to get back into this is the passing of my mother in law. After she passed away I was gathering picture of her to put together for a slide show at her funeral. As I looked and looked through all our photos I was seeing my children grow and change so quickly that I hardly believed they were who they are now because in my mind they are still these sweet little kids but yet they are not at the same time. I realized I was missing out on a lot of what I use to capture on my blog of memories. I post very little on Facebook and what I do post there is not very informative. I don't share overly personal things but maybe a few funny stories here and there. Not that I over share here by any stretch of the imagination but I do tend to journal a lot more when I do post on the blog (which I am sure part of why I stopped... it was more time consuming AND I can't figure out how to do it with my phone and I don't love sitting in front of the computer.) But now that all my babies are in school maybe I can sacrifice a few minutes a week to just update! That is my hope! So on to the passing of my mother in law.

We found out in July that she was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer that stemmed from the breast cancer she had had in 2000. They didn't give us a timeline but we knew this was going to be terminal. We spent some time with family and they all came out to see her in the last few months. 

Very close to Christmas things started to get much worse for her and the doctors told her probably 3 to 6 months. Christmas Eve was a bit scary we thought we might loose her then, but she really wanted to spend Christmas with her grand kids and family. So we all prayed she would get to do that and she did. She was strong enough to come out to our house Christmas morning, and spend some time with our kids. That was the last time our kids saw her and the last time she really left her house. After that she was on hospice care. Scott and Brenda (Larry's brother and sister) had come to be with her during the holiday. After they left I would go and spend days helping care for her and Larry spent several nights there to help his dad as well. It was a very emotional time but also very special. I felt heaven very close each time I was with her and felt the veil was thin for her as well. On Jan 10th I spent the day helping her and it was the most painful day ever. For her and everyone involved. I cried and cried as I helped care for her (as did the hospice nurse). I cried the whole way home with my heart breaking that she was in so much pain. Jan 12th Larry called to let me know that she had passed away about noon. There are many aspects of my relationship with her I won't go into a lot of detail but I will say this. Even though some times we may not have always seen eye to eye and had disagreements I grew to love and respect my mother in law. I saw her many attributes and how she blessed me and my family. Our last afternoon together we hugged and cried and I told her I loved her and she said to me "I love you so so so so so so much." This still makes me teary but I know that the Lord has blessed us, healed our relationship and has left me knowing that I do love her and will try to keep her memory alive for my children. 

I had the privilege of writing her obituary, and dressing her after she passed. These blessed me more then I can really say as they were the last way I got to serve this woman who served me in so many ways.

Her funeral was very nice and we got to see lots of family we haven't seen in a while. We spent that evening with Larry's brothers and sister and their family. We got to hear all the great stories of them growing up. We laughed so hard we cried and I just felt blessed to be surrounded by these people. 

So now my goal is to try to post something at least once a week (maybe every other if there isn't anything to exciting going on) But mostly I just don't want to loose all the memories that are to come like I have many of the past year and a half.  Some of what we have done in the past year and a half have been painful and private enough I probably wouldn't have blogged about them anyway but I should have at least documented some of what was happening. I will do better!

This is my favorite picture we found while I was putting together the slide show. This was Nadine with their daughter Brenda. I think she looks so beautiful in this picture.

This picture was taken in our back yard a year or two ago. She just looks peaceful and happy.

 This was the last camping and boating trip we took after her diagnosis in July. Scott and his family came out and we had a wonderful weekend just being together and having fun!

I took this picture of Nadine in 2000 Ethan is that baby. She use to come and help us work on our house that we had to totally gut. Here she was still going through Chemo, just barley healed from her mastectomy and she would come and help work on my house projects. On this day she needed to rest and often times would take that time to snuggle the baby and they both took a very deserved nap. It brings me to tears and humbles me to look at this photo and realize all the many ways she served and blessed my life. 

camping at the beach

 While at the beach we went to the Hatfield marine center and found Nemo and Dory!

  We cooked our lunch out side

 Played on the beach for five minutes till we were blown away. But we also went for a hike.

On our way to the beach we had dinner at an all you can eat sea food place. This is our bucket of bones and crab legs. .. We had a lot of fun.  Our kids were excited because they got to order something other than water to drink.
It was a fun trip.  Ruth loves camping and keeps talking about going again.

Welcome to Summer!

Last year just before school was out I saw this idea on Pintrest and I did it for my kids on the last day of school.... so guess what my kids say to me on the way out the door for school on their last day. Mom I hope you do that banner on the door again! So of course to try to keep being a "fun/ cool" mom I throw one up. Luckily the kindergartners were done the day before so all I did was write the words and Hayden and Hadley did all the art work. Worked out great!

 As soon as Larry was off that night we headed out to Green Peter Lake and camped out. Great way to kick of summer vacation I think! The next morning after breakfast we got to go on our first "real" boating trip with our new boat. We had gone on a boat ride but not gone water skiing or anything. (Since we bought it in February this is not weird that we didn't run right out and use it. BRRRR!) Ethan got to do all his favorite things. Slalom, knee board, and wake board.

 Brock water skied and knee boarded. He popped right up. Larry got his first trip as well. It was Amazing! Great take off and easy pull! LOVED IT! Don't ask if I did. It is June the water is still COLD!

 The weather was perfect and we all had a wonderful time! Hayden loved hiding in the "cave" under the seat.

 Amelia on flag duty. Amelia also did some water skiing and some knee boarding. My battery died before I got any more pictures!

We all came up with a little sun burn. Ruth and Hayden got away with almost none, hardly pink. Ethan and I are pretty sore 2 days later. But it was fun anyway and we will be golden brown by the end of the week! Welcome to Summer!!!