First Day 2011

Teenagers ROCK!  I wish I could keep them home with me forever, but (sigh) it is time for school.  Ya gotta enjoy these teenagers while ya got 'em, because the time really starts to fly, and it's so unfair.  LOVE you kids, have a fantastic year!!

Body By Clint

I know the quality won't be great, but here's a little clip of Clint body surfing last night.  I wish we had more, it was pretty funny to watch.

An Evening At The Lake

Remember this?

Well, two thumbs up!  Wes is back!!

He celebrated with a nice evening waterski.  Too bad I didn't get his picture, I was driving the boat.  We feel like summer is just beginning for us, since this was the first time on the boat as a family this summer!  Kori enjoyed a little kneeboarding:

We also got Kori's friend Alysha up on the kneeboard:

The deer were out:

We also saw the Ulriches out there:

Clint had a kneeboard:

And he also provided the night's best entertainment with his body surfing:

We lost our sun pretty quickly and had to come home, but we had a nice evening!

Bio-West Bear Lake Party

It was our annual Bio-West Bear Lake party yesterday and we had lots of fun!  The lake is up so high this year, there is hardly any beach!  It was insanely crowded at the north beach because I guess there just isn't any sand anywhere else.  This is what it looked like down our little strip of beach:

This is me in my happy place, waiting for everyone else to show up:

Here is the Bio-West crew:

We had 2 ski boats, a canoe, and this sea kayak that Clint and his friend Connor tooled around in all day:

We had hot moms:

Sweet sleeping babies:

We also saw the Bear Lake Monster Snack Shack!  This must be a new thing, they were selling cotton candy and snow cones:

Loads of food and a raspberry shake for the road!

Thanks, Bio-Westers for a very fun day!!

It's My Party And I'll Blog If I Want To

Is it vain to post about my own birthday?  I just had so much birthday love, and such a nice day, I have to take this opportunity to blog about some of it!  First, I got this in the mail:

A sweet card that made me a little weepy from my missionary boy!  Last year, Colton didn't even mention my birthday.  Which was fine.  Really.  I mean, he's supposed to be focused on the work and all.  But that made this card so unexpected and exciting and made me feel so good!  Then Wes brought home these beauties:

Yeah!  And he smelled good!  And he gave me one of these:

Okay, that's supposed to be a smooch.  I guess it's kind of a scary picture.  Just use your imagination.  Sorry kids.  Then I went to lunch with a few friends on my birthday and got in a temple session in the afternoon.  Wes and Clint had gone up to Scout Camp for the afternoon and evening, and Kori had to work, so I came home to a movie by myself which was actually quite lovely, and THIS was waiting for me:

I mean, seriously.  Can you believe this cake?  Raspberry buttercream with chocolate and almonds.  How can you go wrong with any of that?  Wes had special ordered it and I couldn't believe that it was mine all mine!  Bwa ha ha....  (Okay, I shared)

Oh my yumminess...

THEN, just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any better, my friend RaLee showed up with THIS:

Red velvet, are you kidding me?  And she even got my age right!

Since everyone was gone yesterday, we are headed out to Mo Bettah Steaks tonight for some Hawaiian goodness, and then home to watch Tangled.  Thank you everyone for all the wishes and cards and gifts and birthday love, it was really a fantastic day!

Loads Of Fun

My poor little laundry room, you have been the most neglected room of the house.  I've been meaning to clean and paint for a long long time, but I haven't until now.  I hope you like your makeover.  You're so much cuter!  I should have taken pictures before I emptied your shelves, but maybe I don't really want to remember how messy they were, do you?  Here are your shelves before:

And after, you look so good in this color.  It's called Warm Cider and I picked it because Cider likes to come inside to get warm and she always wants to lay here.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

All you had for light was this naked bulb:

I didn't really want to change the whole fixture, so I just got a lampshade and wired it up there.  Sorry I left some paint on the fixture, I can get that off:

Your new crown molding isn't very flashy, but it does make your shelves look a little neater:

I can tell it's going to be nice to spend time together now that you are a happy laundry room!  It'll be loads of fun!

Feliz Cumpleanos, Aunt JuJu!

We wish everyone could have an Aunt JuJu just like ours.  She is so special to her nieces and nephews, and we wanted to give her a blow out for her seventieth birthday!  We met at Mama Inez, in Pocatello, and it was a total surprise, I mean she was totally taken off guard, overwhelmed, and embarrassed when we started singing Happy Birthday!

We ate Mexican food, and the kids had a ball running around with the balloons.  Here are a few of Aunt JuJu's guests:

Sonia made this adorable pinata shaped to look like a Schnauzer!  She didn't get it filled with candy, which was good because there was no way Aunt JuJu was going to let us hurt it!  Isn't it cute?

Did I mention this all happened in the bar?

We had reserved a banquet "room" which turned out to be a totally open space at the back of the bar.  I'm sure the bar patrons were really thrilled with all of our noise and craziness.  Oh well!  We ended up taking the cake up to Marie's and continuing the party there while the little boys splashed in Marie's new water fountain:

We love you Aunt JuJu!  We hope you had a happy birthday and we wish you many more to come!