We had an all day, non-stop fourth of July!! We woke up early to get seats for the parade and the kids loved it!! For lunch, we had a big pizza party at our house with the whole fam dam and had a swimming party. The kids had a blast on the blow up slide, pool, and trampoline! They were well entertained!

Then that evening we had yet another family BBQ in Pocatello with all of Mike's family. We had some wonderful home made ice cream and lots of good food!! Is it me or does all the summer activities revolve around Barbeque's and treats!! We then came back to IF and had some fireworks at Holly's house. All I can say is the kids were exhausted! Just the way I like 'em!!

Family Campout!

It's been a while since I've posted any pictures! A few weeks ago our family went up to Sawmill Canyon for a few days in the wilderness! We had a ton of fun and ate way too much really yummy food! Here is a few pictures of a lake that we hiked to that was so gorgeous. We thought Braden would do a pretty good job on the hike so we brought him along...I was regretting that while hauling him on my back up the mountain! Mike's arm is still healing so it was pretty rough!! I guess it helped make up for all that food I ate!!

Last night we decided to make tin foil dinners and go up to Blacktail for dinner. It started out to be a beautiful night. It was about 70 degrees and calm. The water level up there was so high and the kids had a blast playing in the water. Of course, again, we had no suits. They had fun anyway. Then right after we finished dinner, the winds started coming in. And within 10 minutes the hail started and totally drenched us as we all ran back to the cars hauling the kids in our arms! It turned out to be a very wet adventure!!

Washington DC and North Carolina!!

Our family just took the most amazing trip to Washington D.C. and North Carolina. A few months ago, Mike told me he had a surprise trip for me but would not tell me where we were going to go. (He likes to do this sort of thing.) So anyway, a few weeks before the trip I did end up finding out the surprise and wow! I was so excited. This would be a first for us to go to the east coast together! So we took Mike's mom along with us so that she could help us with the kids and we would be able to do some sight seeing without them. He had actually planned that from the beginning but it turned out to be even more of a blessing after Mike hurt his arm and wouldn't be able to help carry luggage or anything like that. So with Mike's mom's help...it turned out awesome. I don't know where to even begin...

I guess I will just tell about some of our favorite parts!! One of the days we left our kids with Mike's family and Mike and I had the day to ourselves! We left in the morning and caught the Metro and went out on an adventure in D.C. We went to the Smithsonians, the Holocaust Museum, Lincoln's Memorial, Wahington Monument, the Old Post Office, and the Union Station. Honestly, my feet were killing me by the end of the day. We walked so far!! It was so nice to be able to have that time with just the two of us and see so much!

Another day we got a private tour of the Washington D.C. Capital building and the White House. It was pretty amazing. Thanks so much to Heather for hooking us up with the tickets for that. It was interesting to get a whole different perspective of D.C. We also were able to go to the Arlington Cemetary. This was incredible and so touching. If you have never been there, it is hard to explain the miles and miles of headstones and how it makes you feel so grateful for our country and the heros that are buried there. The tomb of the unknowns and the changing of the gaurds was really so amazing.

We took our kids to the D.C. Zoo and they loved that. After the first week of our trip, we went to North Carolina to visit my brother and his family. The kids had so much fun together. We went out on his boat into the sound and swam in the ocean. We docked the boat on this island that had about 200 head of wild horses that have been there for hundreds of years. It was really cool. Steve and Mike went fishing in the ocean and caught some fish for us for dinner. He loved it! We also saw dolphins and Mike saw a huge sea turtle while they were fishing. It was such an awesome experience.

I am so blessed to have such an awesome husband and the fun things he plans for our family. None of this would have happened if he wouldn't have planned it. So of course now he thinks he needs to plan a surprise vacation for our family every year.....hey, I won't complain!!

Here are just a few pictures that I have been meaning to post for a while. Karlie got another hair cut and it turned out so cute! She was such a good girl to sit still!! You might think her Aunt Holly was her mom! Now you know where the red hair comes from!!

Karlie and Braden are doing a little preschool through Idaho Falls High School. It is just for an hour a day for 4 weeks. They really have loved it so far!

The last pictures were a surprise that Mike's mom helped the kids make. They made me Happy Mothers Day cookies! They were delicious! I have a very thoughtful mother-in-law!

Just an update!!

Many fun and not-so-exciting things have been going on at our house! My dear sweet husband (who thinks he is super-human) was at work the other day and was lifting a huge barrel of wood into a dumpster. It is a two-person task but apparantly he wanted to save some time and do it himself. So he went to lift it up and literally tore his bicep off the tendon...yea, sounds disgusting. It pretty much looked that way too. He is now bruised from his forearm all the way up past his elbow and scheduled to have surgery on it on Wednesday!! I am so sad for him. He is such an active person and is really into his weight lifting which is really going to be on hold for a while. Not to mention, we are leaving on our huge vacation to Washington D.C. very soon. Hopefully he will be healed enough to go. He sure thinks he will be!! He hasn't ever had surgery like this before so we'll see how it goes. I guess I will just have to pamper him as much as I can in between work and three demanding little children!! Thankfully my kind family will help us out with the kids while he is in surgery. Anyway, I just pray that things will be okay and he will do fine. I love him so much!!

Happy Easter!!

The kids had such a fun time this year collecting eggs! We threw an Easter party and had fun ourselves hiding hundreds of eggs and letting the kids go find them!! Thanks for all who came!! I'm sure we'll do it again next year! Clearly from the pics, you can see the kids had fun climbing trees and enjoying the treats!!