Most of February

Tuesday February 2nd

Garrett went out of town the day after he got back from the snow camp out.  He flew to California for meetings.  On the last day of their meetings, Intel rented out California Adventure and that whole group got to ride rides and eat for free.  So Garrett sent us pictures to make us all jealous! :)

 They even had Fallout boy come and put on a concert.

 Wednesday February 3rd

 Garrett got home this day and brought the kids Intel light sabers.  

 I started reading scriptures with the kids out of the illustrated Book of Mormon.  I also found the idea to have them write in a scripture journal and have them answer one or two questions about what they read.  I really love it and the kids really love it too.  (I'm just doing this way with Bella and Noah.  I have a different system going on for the older kids.)  Anyways, I write the question and then help Noah write out his answers.  (Bella can answer on her own without my help usually).  I was really impressed with how well this was going and how much they enjoy doing it, so I thought I'd share.  

February 6th and 7th

 Since our anniversary fell on a Sunday this year, we went out to celebrate on Saturday night.  We went out to eat at PF Chang's and then went to see the movie, "The Finest Hours" with Chris Pine and Casey Affleck.  It was pretty good!  He got me these flowers and card and balloon.  We had agreed that we weren't going to buy gifts for each other since we were going to Mexico at the end of the month, but he bought these anyways.  

Friday February 12th

 We packed the trailer and headed out to go camping for the weekend at Mt. Hood Village.  Someone took pictures of beautiful Portland as we drove by.

 The clouds were beautiful as the sun was going down.  When we got closer to Mt. Hood and the sun went down, it started pouring rain!  Ugh!

 So, we went to the little restaurant that they have there and had dinner there.  

Saturday Feb. 13th

 This was a really, really low-key weekend with swimming and playing games and reading books.  I don't even have that many pictures!  

 Playing skipbo--one of our favorites.

Sunday Feb. 14th

 Garrett's a saint and takes the kids swimming so I don't have to!

 It was Valentine's Day, so I brought Valentine's pictures to color, but that was the extent of our celebrating.  

 Sitting out by the fire, out in the rain.  Thank heavens for our canopy!

 Monday Feb. 15th

 This picture reminds me of the noise and chaos that is usually in our trailer.  We were getting ready to go hike around before we left to go home.  It takes forever to get ready because no one listens, they all do their own thing and they are either fighting or being silly and loud.  

 I love this shot and I'm not sure who took it.  

 It's the fam!

 Looking at the river...pretty exciting!

 Throwing rocks in.

 It's hard to tell in this picture, but when Garrett was lifting up big rocks to throw into the river, he found this little crawdad.  The kids thought it was interesting but they didn't want to touch or hold it.  

 Then we came upon this big old tree that had fallen down--so cool to see the root system and how they obviously weren't very deep.

 then some of the kids took turns walking across  it. We're so adventurous!

 Sunday Feb. 21st

 We spent the previous day packing and buying last minute things for our trip to Mexico on Monday.  Funny picture of Noah with Garrett's scuba gear on.  

I have to share this story about Lydia.  When she turned 12, they asked her to speak in sacrament meeting.  She agreed and we helped her write her talk.  But when Sunday came and she was supposed to go and sit on the stand, she couldn't go up there.  She was scared and crying and kept saying that she couldn't do it.  I even offered to go up and sit with her, but the Bishop told her that he wanted it to be a good experience for her and if she was this worked up about it, to not worry about doing it.  He didn't want her to feel this worried and scared about it.  So, she didn't give the talk.  So, it had been a little over a year since that happened and they asked her to give a talk again and she agreed (on the 21st).  So, once again we helped her write her talk, prayed for her, encouraged her and she really felt like she could do it.  So, Sunday comes and she had to go early for a meeting since she was Beehive president at the time.  She was saving a row for us since we hadn't gotten there yet, and when we walked up to her before the meeting was going to start, she was crying and starting to freak out saying that she couldn't do it.  We took her out and said a prayer with her and tried to calm her down and encourage her.  But she wasn't going to do it.  So, Garrett asked Maggie if she would give Lyd's talk for her and she agreed, so she went up on the stand and told the Bishopric.  Before the sacrament portion, they confirmed a new member and gave them a blessing.  Lydia had still been crying, so she went out to go to the bathroom to blow her nose while they were passing the sacrament.  She didn't come back in until the sacrament was done being passed.  The bishopric member got up to announce that Maggie was going to be speaking and at that point I saw Lydia walking up the aisle towards us, but then kept on walking up to the stand.  The bishopric actually said, well never mind, Lydia is going to give her talk.  My heart was bursting at this point and I'm sure I had the biggest smile on my face.  It took her a few minutes to start and when she did start talking you could tell that she was trying not to cry, but she delivered her talk and got more confident as she got through it.  I cannot tell you how incredibly proud I was of her.  She has a legitimate fear and she did something that was extremely hard for her.  I hope she remembers that experience and knows that she can do hard things!  It was a proud parenting moment for sure!!  I did ask her what changed her mind about speaking and all she told me was that she heard something in the blessing that helped her decide to speak.  I thought that was pretty neat.  I sure do love her!!

Fun 4th of July Weekend

Thursday July 2nd

 Playing with his new birthday toys

 We headed over to Jim and Georgia's for dinner.  The kids decided to sleep out in the barn with their cousins.  (everyone but Noah)

 Garrett had some guy make this giant Jenga game.  Everyone loved it!

 Friday July 3rd

 We had a BBQ at our house.  Bella loves Unlce Alex...and they both love watermelon!

Josh and Tanya and their 3 kids arrived today.  

After dinner, all the kids played in the sprinklers.  

Saturday July 4th

 Us 4 got up early to do the CAT Walk. (a 5K) We had Josh and Tanya stay at our house the previous night and they brought the rest of our kids to the parade after the CAT walk.

 a picture of the walkers walking down Main Street

 Then we hung out in the hot sun for an hour waiting for the 4th of July parade to start.

 Noah, Bella, Paige, Hannah and Caleb waiting for more candy

 After the parade we went back to Grandma's for lunch and swimming

 Later that evening, we were headed down south to go to the St. Paul Rodeo.  Jim of all people got pulled over by a cop.  I can't remember why he got pulled over...I don't think it was for speeding because Jim is a really slow driver!  We all thought it was funny!

 At the rodeo.  It was such a hot day and it wasn't getting any cooler as the evening came on.  We had seats in a covered area, which was nice because it kept the sun off.  But it was also bad because there wasn't any air circulating at all and it felt hotter under that area than out in the open.  So that was pretty miserable, but it was a fun rodeo.  

We left a little early.  My little kids were extremely tired and miserable.  Josh and Tanya had left even earlier.  Maggie really wanted to stay so she stayed with Alex and Savann and their family.  

 They stayed till the very end and then went on some of the rides.  They brought her all the way home and then drove to Jim and Georgia's.  

 Maggie and Devon.

Sunday July 5th

 After church, we went back out to grandma's to hang out with everyone.  The kids loved playing up in their room in the barn.  It's cool that they loved it, but we couldn't let them stay up there very long, because it was extremely warm up there.  The barn has windows, but none that can open.  We brought up fans, but all it did was blow around warm air.  

 They went swimming again...numerous times in fact.

 Alyssa and Sydney

 Alyssa reading in a tree. :)

 Grandma made homemade ice cream!

Devon, Paige, Hannah, Caleb, Bella, Noah and Luke

 taking turns licking the ice cream stirrer-thing

Monday July 6th 

We had Noah's birthday party at Out of this World Pizza

Tuesday July 7th

 Today we drove down to Maupin, Oregon to go white water rafting down the Deschutes River.  Garrett has been wanting to do this forever, and I've never had the desire.  I don't really like the water.  Especially rough flowing water with large rocks!  All of his siblings were willing to go and he bought a ticket for me despite me not wanting to.  

 Beautiful scenery on our 2 1/2 hour drive there.  Once we got to the little town of Maupin we were a little late, so we went to the shop and quickly filled out our paperwork, went to the bathroom and stored our stuff.  None of us had a waterproof camera or anything, so we didn't get to take pictures.  But luckily, some of the other people on our tour had one, so they took our pictures.  And then we bought the rest from the professional photographers that the rafting company employs.  I was wishing the whole day that I could take pictures, but this is what I have.  Still a lot of good ones, but I would've liked some more candid ones when we were just floating along.

So anyways, back to the shop...we all got on a bus so they could take us to the river.  When we got to where we could see the river, I was SO nervous!!  It was a big wide river and the water was really rushing along.  I was really terrified of falling out or getting smashed up against the rocks!  So, he's giving us instructions as we're putting on sunscreen and our life vests.  And he's of course talking about worst case scenarios like if you do get knocked out of the boat and you are stuck under water, etc.  By this time, I'm dying!!  And then he mentions SNAKES being out on the rocks (on the shore) and now I'm really freaking out because I'm thinking they are in the water, too!  (Lonesome Dove anyone???)  But, there's no where else to go so I get in a raft.  (and there were no snakes in the water--I asked him.  didn't even see one the whole day!!)

 Our big group had to split up, so we had Josh, Tanya and Hannah in with me, Garrett, Maggie, Lydia and Paige and our guide whose name was Travis and was so cool!  

 Alex, Savann, Devon, Sydney, Alyssa and Jim were in with their guide, but I didn't know her name.  

 These (the ones above) are the only pictures of the other group...the rest is our group.  

 There are quite a few pictures, but I love the faces in all of them!  When we first got on the water, it was really calm for awhile and this is when Travis taught us how to row together, he explained how to hold on with our feet, ex.  When the first rapids came, it was a bit scary, but mostly fun...the rapids weren't too bad.  Hannah, being the youngest was really afraid and started crying.  She got over it fairly quickly.  Paige was pretty worried, but soon realized how fun it was and loved it. 

 All in all it was quite entertaining and quite fun!  In between rapids, we would have water fights with the two other boats in our group.  We brought some soakers and Garrett got a lot of people wet.  There were also times where you could jump out for a few seconds and swim a bit, but it seemed quite hard to get back in the boat, so I never went in.  The people in the boat had to physically pull the people in the water into the boat by their life jackets.  Plus, it was freezing water!!

 They had this thing where you could "ride the bull".  It's where one person would sit on the front of the boat and hold onto the ropes as you went down the rapids.  I did it once and it was quite fun.  Paige, Maggie, Lydia and Hannah did it a couple of times.  

 At one point, we stopped at a picnic area and they had lunch for us...hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, salads, fruit, chips and cookies.  It was good.  We had a little while to just hang out before we got back in the boats and continued on.  

 There was another area where they had everyone get off the boat and let people swim down the rapids.  You had to be a pretty strong swimmer to do it and not get swept down the river.  I of course, did not do it.  But Maggie, Garrett, Sydney, Alyssa, Devon and Alex did it.  Maggie and Garrett said it was really hard and Maggie didn't think she was going to make it.  The Guthrie kids are all swimmers and they thought it was hard, but doable.  

 It was a super fun day!!  Maggie and Lydia loved it too, but Lydia was so pumped up about it!  I think she's found a new love!  We went from 10 to about 4:30.  When we got back to the shop, we changed clothes and then went to pick out our photographs.  Our guide suggested a local restaurant to eat dinner at.  So we did...

It was this cute little place called the Oasis and I have to say that it was the best burger that I have ever had...it was so good and they had delicious shakes, too!!  

Then we drove back home...beautiful view of Mt. Hood on the way home!

We had such a great day!!