Summer Happenings

I find that with 4 small crazy boys, it's hard to find time to do the things that I want to do...like blog. So here are some of the things we have done this summer:

My cousin Camdon went on a mission to Chicago. We were able to attend his farewell. I love this picture of boys because we have a returned missionary, current missionary, and all my future missionaries ;) We just started writing Cam each week, and it is so fun to see how much he has grown spiritually. He is an amazing missionary with a strong testimony.

 While we were in Idaho for the farewell we stayed with my grandparents. Here is Grandpa John and the boys. Hope they didn't mind the extra noise we brought to their home ;)

 It was really hot this summer. So we had a water party with Alyssa in our redneck swimming pools. The kids loved it, so I guess it was a hit.

 We also worked on growing grass instead of weeds in our backyard. It's still a work in progress. We have quite a few bare spots.

 Randy turned 32! We spent the day with family and Willy took us out to Old Country Buffet and then we played a new Redneck Life game for 3 hours.

 We blessed this little bundle of joy. The blessing circle was full of giggles because Randy almost dropped this little guy. Thank heavens cousin Jordan caught him. 

 The day we blessed Baine, we also celebrated Deko's birthday. Our house was full of family and was about 90 degrees inside, but I loved it. It was so fun to have them all over at our house.

 We went to Ocean Shores for the day.

 It was actually a nice break from the intense heat we had been experiencing.

 We went to a wedding reception at a castle! This is the Thornewood Castle in Lakewood. It was huge and beautiful. This is a view of the castle from the secret garden.

 The happy couple. Jordan's family is in our ward. We found out that Stephen King had made some changes to the castle when he filmed some movies there. We also learned that Randy's brother, Brian was in a movie that was filmed there called "Rose Red"

 Just a random pic of all my boys. So hard to take a pic of them. How do you take pics of your children together? Did you notice Baine's face is blurred? 

 We went to Titon's pirate birthday party. Here is Raidon walking the plank:

 After the birthday party we took Titon and Diesol home with us and they crashed on the way there.

 Tripp started first grade. He also started riding the bus this year, which is new to us. Only missed the bus once so far...

 And Deko started preschool at a gymnastics center. His face tells it all. He still cries every time I drop him off. Hopefully he will get used to it soon.

Phew... hopefully I am all caught up now. It's been a fun summer, I'm sad to see it go but am excited for the fall and all the fun holidays coming up.