Eli Turned 8!

 I can't believe that I have another kid that is ready to be baptized.  This year for Eli's party he wanted a pirate theme.  I tried my best to make a pirate ship cake for him.

 Sometimes it is crummy having a summer birthday because a lot of your friends are out of town for your party but, Eli was glad that his friends Cloby and Brady were able to come this year.

 After we had cake and ice cream Spencer took the boys to Lazermania to play lazer tag.  They also played some arcade games they had a ton of fun!  In the car on the way Eli opened his birthday card from Great Grandma and Grandpa Hall that had money in it which Eli was very excited about.
Eli's favorite food is waffels with ice cream.  He like Star Wars books and his favorite thing to do is play with Legos.

Newhouse Family Reunion 2012

We had a blast at the Newhouse Family Reunion in Bonners Ferry Idaho!

My Uncle Chuck and Aunt Suzie went to a ton of work to make the reunion a treasured memory for the whole family.

 

Gavin got to meet his cousin Sadie.  They had a blast playing together!

 

 This picture just makes my heart happy.  I want to give my kids every opportunity to learn from their great-grandparents.

 Dad was in charge of designing and ordering the official t-shirt.  They were a lot of fun.  They had my Uncle Chuck's classic car on it with fireworks because the reunion took place over the 4th of July weekend.

 We got to be in a parade!

 Hiking up to Copper Falls is a memory that I have from my childhood so it was fun for me to be able to have that experience with my kids.  It was quite the hike all of the way to the top!  It is fun to see all of the men do the kid passing over the wet and dangerous parts!

 The Fam

 Teamwork!

 My LaMonte's

 The Whole Gang!

 Watching Fireworks

 Tubing down the Kootnie River.

 This is another one of my favorite childhood memories that I am so glad that my kids get to make that memory too!

 Every morning we would have a flag raising ceremony.

 We made a trip into Canada

 and got to go to a strawberry picking farm.

We heart attacked Granny and Pappy's room that they were staying in to show them how grateful we are for everything that they are and have done for our family!  We love them so much!  

It was a wonderful reunion!

Yep, We Celebrated!

 SUMMER!

The kids got out of school on May 22nd.  I decided to decorate the door to welcome them to summer break. I also had new sleeping bags for them because we hope to do some camping this summer.

 

 

 Our 12 year anniversary was on May 26.  We decided to take a little trip to celebrate.  My best friend from Jr High had twins so I really wanted to go and see them. They live in Washington state so I pitched the idea to Spencer to take our anniversary trip there. My parents were gracious enough to take the kids so that we could vacation alone.  We have celebrated most of our anniversaries with our kids, eating Chinese take-out at our kitchen table so this was quite different!

 First, we headed north of Seattle to the Boeing Airplane Factory.  It is the largest building on the planet!  In the building where they assemble the airplanes, you can fit 80 Empire State Buildings!  It is so huge that we had to take a bus to get from one end to the other.  It was neat to see airplanes in different stages of assembly.

 Next, we headed to downtown Seattle.  We were hoping to do some shopping on Pike Street but, all of the stands were closing down by the time we got there.  We still enjoyed walking around and hanging out near the Puget Sound.

 

We had dinner reservations at the Space Needle.  We called make the reservations as soon as we picked up our rental car and could get to McDonalds to use their Wifi. Spencer had the great idea to try and schedule our reservations for a time around sunset.  I called and asked the reservation desk if they knew when sunset would be that evening and the lady said that it would be at 8:52.  I skeptically asked if there was a reservation available for that night around 8:52 and she told me that the only reservation for that night was at 9:45PM.  I told her that we would take it!  She then told me that we could go up to the lookout one hour prior to our reservation time, so we were excited!

 

We got to the Space Needle a little earlier then we had planned but we decided to try and check in for our reservation anyway.  They let us!  They gave us our pager for dinner and told us that we might be able to be seated earlier then our reservation time.

 We went to the top and enjoyed seeing Seattle from a bird's eye view. Then the sun started to set and we were thrilled to be up there!  We were busy taking pictures along with everyone else up there when our pager went off.  We were able to sit at our table and watch the rest of the sunset and then all of the city lights go on while we ate!  It was wonderful!

 The next day, we headed to my friends house!  We got to see her beautiful tiny twin babies!  They were so precious!  So precious in fact that I guess that we didn't put them down long enough to take a picture!  It was so good to see our friends again, it had been quite awhile!

 When we headed out again, we went for a drive to see some waterfalls.  We stopped and took this picture of the Columbia river that divides Washington from Oregon. 

 On our quest to find a waterfall we saw some interesting creatures!

 On the last day, before heading back to pick up the kids, we went to the museum where the Spruce Goose is on display.  We took their 1 hour tour that turned into 2 hours but, it was very interesting!

                           

The kids had a blast at Gramy and Papa's house!  They love it there!  We heard stories for days after about all of the fun stuff that they got to do!

 One of the kids favorite things to do is fish in the backyard!

Eli was lucky enough to go on his first hunting trip with Papa.  Saying that he was thrilled would be an understatement!

Our New Small Town Life February-May

 We are still trying to adjust to all of the changes that have happened over the past few months.  We feel really blessed being in the house that we are in.  We feel like it was meant to be!  When we knew we were going to be moving, we started looking for places to rent.  We would think that we found a good fit for our family, Spencer would call to go and look at it, and by the appointment time it would be under contract.  Our budget had to keep getting bigger and bigger.  I was beginning to get stressed out!  Then, my friend Elizabeth, called and asked if we had found a place to live.  I explained to her that we were having a hard time.  She told me that her sister was renting a cute house and that they would be moving out.  She gave me the land lord's contact information and I called immediately.  Spencer ran to the house right after work that day.  He sent me a text with pictures and said that he thought that it would work for us.  It had four bedrooms, wasn't anything fancy but, the rent was great for our budget. We jumped on it!

 We have had a lot of fun doing small town things!  We spent a lot of time putting in a little garden.  I'm pretty happy that things are growing!  We have strawberries on a regular basis and we almost have zucchini that are ready to harvest!

 The little boys help we pull weeds and water the garden every morning.  In this small section we planted watermelon.

 Washington just celebrated their annual Cotton Days with fun family activities every night last week. On Monday night we went swimming at the community center for free!

 Spencer's mom came down for a quick visit.  On Thursday night we had free ice cream in the park!

 Conference Weekend

 One of my family traditions growing up was to go on a car ride and listen to conference.  I remember parking near the Park City ski slopes and watching the skiers come down the mountain while eating tuna fish sandwiches.  We want to keep that tradition alive so we took our little family on a drive and picnic.

 Here is a taste of the beautiful landscape.  This is where we parked while we had our picnic.

We ate in the back of the Pilot and listened to conference.

 After conference was over we went on a hike and found some dinosaur footprints!

We also had a great time climbing on the red rocks!

Kids + Mud= A Fun Mess

One weekend we had fun watching the air show! These are the Blue Angels.

SkyWest Mini Indy

 Every year SkyWest hosts a fund raiser where local companies can buy a mini race car and participate in a mini Indy race.  SkyWest chooses some of their best employees to come and be on their team.  One year Spencer got to participate by being one of the few selected!  This year since we live here he was volunteered to be the track coordinator.  That is him directing traffic!

We went out to the race track to watch some of the fun.

 Kyle's Birthday

 My little brother came down to celebrate his birthday!  We made him play one of our favorite family games called Headbands. 

 For his cake he wanted home made cinnamon rolls!  We were so glad that he spent his special day with us!

 Later in March, my parents came down and we celebrated again!

 Back to the garden...We planted it a bit early.  I'm not a gardener so I was just going off of the packages that the seeds came in.  Overall everything is turning out great! 

 We all worked really hard.  We spent a Saturday putting in our irrigation system that waters each box.  Then on Monday night we had a FHE lesson about faith and work and we did our planting!

 

                                                

 We planted spinach, 4 different varieties of small tomatoes, 2 different large tomato plants, cucumber, zucchini, crook neck yellow squash, and red leaf lettuce.  Already planted for us were some onions, strawberries, and blackberries.  More recently, we planted corn and watermelon.

                                 

 Valentines Day

 For Valentines Day Garet decided to clean the floor for me!  He insisted really!  He loves the vacuum and my steam cleaner.  Anytime I get them out he cries hysterically until he gets his turn!  He is quite the little helper!