Fun on the water

Wednesday we took the boat out for the 2nd time this summer (pretty lame - I know.) We took our four oldest kids with us and left the little girls at home with a baby sitter. Melissa was sleep deprived from a volleyball camp and her stomach hurt early on, so she went and sat in the van most of the time, and Zach was upset most of the trip that the bindings on the wake-board were split and hadn't been replaced yet(which he did on the last trip). Alan, Rachel, Hannah and I had a great time. I managed to water-ski, knee-board and ride the tubes without getting the top of my hair wet! It has been very warm here lately, too hot for me!
Alan left this morning with Glen to fly to Phoenix for Uncle Henry's funeral, Zach left for Denver for a football camp this morning, Melissa has a volleyball camp tomorrow and Hannah has a swim meet in Wendell tomorrow morning. I am going to be mowing lawns today since we leave for Park City on Monday and getting whatever supplies that we need for the trip. Don't know how and where to pack any food. We might hit the zoo or temple square coming or going. It looks like I will be hitting the Stake 24 Celebrations by myself with some of the kids tomorrow night. No rest for the wicked, I mean weary! Happy 24th to you all!

Starting out!

Rachel is pretty serious when she first starts.

The wedge was down on the boat which created a serious wake!

Look at those muscles!

Melissa's tube was a little bit under inflated, so she really had to hold on!

Rachel had fun and she really caught some air because she is so small.

Knee-boarding is quite easy and fun. I did it so long my legs had cramps in them when I got into the boat.

Alan was trying to jump the wake with the knee-board. He also drank some lake water trying to do so.

I do love to water-ski but I found out wake-boarding is so much more fun. I am not too adventurous. I pretty much stay on one side!

Alan is a pretty strong skier.

It was cooling off a bit around 9 p.m. but the water was still 68 degrees.

At the last minute we talked Zach into knee-boarding and his legs immediately started to cramp when he got into the board.

Mom & Miss and Lemonade Anyone???

I recently attend a mom and miss activity with Rachel. We did a progressive dinner with games at each house. It was fun to spend some time with my 4th born. Isn't Rachel cute?!!


My sister Jaime talked me into doing a yard sale in Gooding with here this last weekend. I really hate to do yard sales but she promised to do the lion share of all the work. I went over the day before and spent a few hours pricing things. That night I thought it would be fun for the girls to have a bake sale and fresh lemonade stand at the yard sale. They were eager to this and so we baked lots of goodies for it the night before and morning of the yard sale. I promised to match whatever they made from the sale. Well, they sold $17.50 worth of stuff at 25 cents per item - not too shabby! They had fun and it kept them busy. Nobody can resist buying from cute little girls! (BTW - the yard sale wasn't all that - I think I made a little over $60. That should about cover the cookie cost, lemonade and the gas driving back and forth from Gooding. Oh well - we did create memories!)

Abigail goes to the dentist

Dr. Lloyd recently retired and so at the beginning of June we went to the new dentist who took his place (a young Wyatt from Hazelton) to have teeth cleaning done and they discovered that Abby had 4 cavities in her baby teeth.
It was a very traumatic ordeal for Abby and many tears were shed on the first visit. We learned very quickly that she would have nothing to do with the wedges to hold open her mouth and she did not like the "happy gas." After the first visit she told me that it wasn't too bad except for the numb mouth for the next 4 hours. The second visit wasn't too difficult but I about died when she told me the bill was $808! What!?*@#$%$%^* They charged me $202 for each tooth filling - and they were baby teeth for crying out loud! The cavities were just on the surface too! Time to shop around for a new dentist.....

Abigail and Allison's New Room

Abigail and Allison had been begging me for a while to paint their room a different color. I was able to put them off during the school year with the promise that we would do it in the summer. Well, summer is here and I had no more excuses. So goodbye to baby chick yellow and hello to pink and green! I saw this flower, diamond pattern in a flier and I thought - no sweat, I can do that! Well I did do it, but it took a full day to do so. Melissa helped me paint the leaves. We also took out their old carpet and replaced it with new. That room has always smelt like pee and it didn't matter how much I shampooed the carpet - the smell never really disappeared. I told Abby and Allie that if they pee on the carpet and don't tell me - they were going to be banished to the dog house with Rusty. We got rid of a bunch of stuff and really got them organized. I even put up 8 shelves in their closet all by myself! Alan did help a little by cutting a little bit off the shelves because I had them cut too long at the Home Depot. The downstairs was a disaster zone while I was getting everything done and we had to wait a few days for the new carpet to be put in but I am glad that it is done, it really did need a change. Now I need to tackle the downstairs bathroom. That shouldn't be too hard - right??!!


Out with the old....

And, in with the new!

Diamond pattern on two walls

Shelves in closet

4th of July in Salmon

The Gaver's in our ward, kindly offered their cabin in Salmon to us a few weeks ago. Their cabin is actually more like a home than a cabin! It is very nice with all the modern conveniences. We took them up on their offer and headed up to Salmon over the 4th of July weekend. We left on a Thursday and returned on a Sunday. It is usually a 4 1/2 hour drive but due to construction it took us 5 1/2 hours and they were very long hours indeed. We took Jaime and Steve and their two little ones with us.
The first night we were there Jaime and I got in a good bike ride and soon realized that the streets that run east and west were not long at all so we spent a lot a time weaving all around town. There is only two directions in Salmon - one is up and the other is down. The ride down was great but coming back up was a killer!
The next day we went to a parade downtown. It was your typical parade with a lot of cars and people. The kids enjoyed this. They learned that if you wave and smile really big, people will throw you lots of candy! Melissa and Hannah each found a bargain on some skirts and I got a sun hat. It looks kind of goofy but it keeps me shaded! Later that day we went to the Sacajawea center. Honestly I didn't see or read much about Sacajawea but more about Lewis and Clark and the Indians in general. It was interesting but kind of a let down. The mosquitoes thought we were really yummy while we were there. Afterwards we found a local park where the kids could run off some energy.










4th of July day we went to Williams lake which is only about 15 miles away but it took us 45 minutes to get there. We couldn't imagine that there would be any boats or people at this lake because the road was very steep, rough, and narrow. Once we got to the top it was a whole new world. There were a ton of cabins surrounding the water and people were out fishing and skiing on it. We determined that the locals didn't use it much, just the summer people who keep their boats up there all year around. It was beautiful and made us wish we were out on the water with them. Zach thought he would be brave and swim out to some rocks but we convinced him that they were a lot farther away then they appeared. We were grateful that he chickened out because not a one of us could have saved him if he got into trouble! After a lunch there we drove back (which was much faster) and some of us went swimming at the local pool. That evening Jaime, Melissa and I went for a run/walk up a mountain a few blocks down. My heart was doing double time and Alan took some of the kids to a local demolition derby.








That night we enjoyed watching the fireworks all around us at the cabin. We kept watching and waiting for the local show to begin wondering if that firework there or that one over there was it. After lighting our own fireworks and some more waiting, we spotted the "real show". It was great and we were all tuckered out by the time it ended. The next day we left bright and early to get home for our 12:30 church time. We barely made it and it only took 4 1/2 hours to get home instead of 5 1/2. We had a lot of fun except we were so tired we needed a vacation from the vacation!






.