Summer in a nut shell.......

This summer flew by so fast! I am so happy I took a lot of pictures, because I didn't do such a good job writing about it. So Here is our summer in a nut shell.....

4th of July at a wonderful place called warm springs up in Island Park. We had never been there until that day. It is now one of my favorite places to go up there. It is so beautiful! Anyway fun picture of our family on the bridge there.

ATVing is one of our favorite cabin things to do. We did a lot of this this summer, went to some beautiful places in Island Park.

Jacob came and stayed with us for a week over Jareds birthday. We sure loved having him here. He and Jared are two peas in a pod! They got this great idea to invent different pies. They would take cookie mix and make a crust and then put pudding and cookies on top of the crust. They were very inventive! Their plan is to open a business after their missions called "pie boy".

On one of our trips into Yellowstone park we saw a bear! It was so much fun to watch it. At one point we watched a Coyote sneak up on the bear and chase him, then after a few seconds the bear turned on the coyote and chased him away. It was way cool!!!!

On the 4th of July Lanny ran a 10K race up in Island Park. He did really well. This is a picture of him crossing the finish line.

One of my favorite traditions of the summer is to go to Old Faithful and get ice cream and watch old faithful go off. This is a picture of John and DeAnns kids with Jared and Alyssa with their ice cream cones

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Of course I had to throw in a picture of the house. This is the color of my kitchen. I know it is bold, but it is going to be so cute! This picture was taken just after they finished painting.

Alyssa needed a friend to swim with her in the pool one hot summer day, so Lanny being a good sport decided he would be her friend that day. Also Fudge our dog got into the play. They had a great time!

We took one day and went to Jackson Wyoming. They have a fun Alpine Slide there. We thought it would be fun to take Jared and Alyssa on it. We bought a 5 ride pass and a child pass and went think that I would ride once with Alyssa and Lanny and Jared would ride twice. Well Alyssa loved it so much that we had to buy another ride for her and I. It was a really fun day! We ate at a wonderful BBQ place called Bubbas.

The wild flowers were beautiful on Sawtelle mountain this summer. So we had to go up there and take family pictures. This was another fun day!

Our good firends Kelly and Mindy Stoker came up to the cabin for a weekend with us. We had a great time canoeing down the snake river. There was one point that Kelly tried to turn around in the canoe and tipped them all over. We had an awesome time with them!

Uninvited guests. This summer we had some little guests that were not invited. They build a nest just above our front window. This didn't do so well with showing the house. Our window always had bird droppings on it. Oh well, it was fun to watch these little things hatch, fly and finally leave the nest. It is all down now and cleaned up. Now if we could only show the house more.... We really need to sell it!

We love Huckelberry's . It is so much fun to go up the mountain and pick them. They are always ready the first week of August and we just happened to be there when they were ripe. We spent 3 hours picking and got around 7 cups. Enough to make a great huckelberry pie. It was so yummy!!!!!! Our hands were purple after picking!

Picture of the pie I made....

Alyssa and Jared took swimming lessons, in the few weeks that we were actually home. Alyssa's teacher let her try out the life guard chair. She thought she was really cool sitting up there.

The week before school started we rented a fun water slide and had an end of the summer party. We had it for 4 hours and for the first 2 hours we had the slide all to ourselves, we invited the Stokers over to share those 2 hours, after that we invited our neighbor kids to come join in the fun. I think everyone who came had a blast! We all enjoyed playing in the hot sun and getting cool by the fun water slide. I am hoping to make it a tradition each summer. It was a lot of FUN!

As you can see we had an eventful summer. Busy, but a lot of fun!!!!!!

Christopher update.

Christopher left for the MTC 9 months ago tomorrow! I can't believe how fast time flies! Anyway he emailed me a couple pictures and I had to post them.

This one was take the day before he flew to Portugal.

This one was taken a couple weeks ago in Castelo Branco Portugal. He has lost 50 pounds!!! Doesn't he look good? He said there are so many hills and all they do is walk, walk, walk! He also said he has been practicing portion control. I think he looks so happy and healthy. I did put extra money in his account this month to buy new clothes. They just hang on him!

I got an email from him this morning and he is being transfered to Sao Joa De Madria.

Don't know much more from there. He will be giving me details tomorrow. He has loved Castelo Branco and I am sure he is sad to leave there.

More soon on him.

Life is busy!

Life has been crazy busy lately, I feel like time is flying by!  

Our house is coming a long really nice.  We broke ground just over one year ago and are finally dry walling.  Hopefully it will go fast from here.  Besides having to choose everything, we are having to get our house ready to sell.  Hopefully we will have it on the market by next week.  If anyone wants to buy a house in Burley, I have a nice one to sell.

Our cabinets are almost all done.  The picture below is of our kitchen.  This was taken about 2 weeks ago.  They now are finished and have the stain on them.  They turned out beautiful!  The wood is hickory, and we did a natural stain on them.

Alyssa is in her last month of dance for the year and they are getting ready for recital.  She has one performance a week for the next few weeks.  The picture below is of her in her recital costume.  I think she looks pretty sweet!

Lanny and I had the opportunity to travel to California to visit Will and Joan, they moved there about 2 months ago and I was missing Joan, so we went to see them.  They live in a great complex that is beautiful!  The beach is only about a mile from their house and we had a great time exploring Newport Beach with them.  Below are pictures of the beach at sunset!  

Not only have we been busy with these things, but I have been trying to learn some new technology.  Lanny bought me a new Macbook Pro.  I have enjoyed getting used to it.  It is totally different from windows, but it does some great things.  I also got a new iphone, and a kindle.  So I have been busy learning new things.  

Anyway, life is good, and it just gets better.  I feel very blessed!

heat ducts and wires and pipes OH MY!

This is another house update. I haven't done one in a while, because not much had changed on the outside, but now that the weather is getting better they are outside working again on the brick and our wrap around porch is being put up now. It is looking so nice. The inside is done being wired, plumed, and heated, so this week the insulation should be started. It is getting exciting! The projected time line us late July early August. I just can't wait. Now we need to get our house up on the market and sold!

Just look at all these wires!

Lots to talk about

It has been way too long! It has been two months since my last post and I have done a lot in that time. First we went on a great cruise at the end of January. We were able to travel with our good friends Kelly and Mindy Stoker. We went to the Western Carribean on the beautiful Carnival Triumph. We went to Ocho Rios Jamaica, Grand Caymen, and Cozamel Mexico. It was so beautiful and relaxing, I wish we could go again right now. We did have stormy weather, and the waves were huge, but it didn't stop us from having a great time!

Lanny and I were able to fly to Miami 2 days before the cruise, and we spent one whole day together. We went to this great mall called Bay Side, it has some really fun shops, and they had this boat ride we took. It took us out around "star island" this is where many of the stars mansions are. The boat ride was so fun, it was a very fast boat and after going around the island, they took us out into the ocean and jumped wakes that the big yachts made. It was great!

Me standing at the front of the boat

This is "Shacks' house Orlando Magic basketball player. His
house is 20,000 square feet, and his master bed room is over

3,000 square feet! I can't imagine having a bed room as big

as my house right now. That's just one room.

Later that night we picked Mindy and Kelly up and went to dinner at a wonderful restaurant called the Sea Watch. We sat by a lady on the plane from Miami and I asked her where a good place to eat was, and she told me about this place. It was so yummy! We had a great time there and I defiantly would go back to eat there again.

The next morning we got up and went to get on the cruise. About 3 weeks before the cruise, we were called and offered to upgrade to a penthouse suite for not too much more money so we all jumped on it and this also gave us V.I.P. status, so we didn't have to wait in any long lines. We just walked up and told them we need to go to the V.I.P. line and we went right in. After going through security, we were taken to a room and they took our name and told us to sit on some really nice couches and they would call our name when they were ready for us. Then they called our name, we went up and got our keys and were off to board the ship. It was so great! I felt really pampered. Here are some pictures on the boat.

Life boat drill.

After the boat left Miami, Mindy and I went to get a pedicure. It was fun to get one together. This is one of my favorite things to do when Lanny and I travel. It is the only time I get one, so it is a real treat to me.

This is a picture of Lanny and I in the dining room the first night. One of the best things about cruises is the food! I am not a big fan of the buffet, but the food in the dining room every night, I LOVED! I looked forward to dinner every night.

After dinner we went to the show. This is Kelly and Mindy waiting for the show to start.

Our first island was Ocho Rios Jamaica. It was so pretty there! I can't believe how hilly it is and how lush green! It had been a while since we had seen such green. It is great to get away during the winter and see such a beautiful place! Mindy had arranged to have a tour guide meet us at the ship and take us to see Jamaica. Our tour guide was wonderful! She took us first to the Dunns river falls. We actually hiked up the falls with a tour guide. I was a little nervous about going up the falls, but I am so happy I did!

This picture is of us about half way up the falls. After hiking up the falls, our tour guide took us on a little ride up through the rain forest. They called the area "fern gully" It was so pretty! While we were in the rain forest out tour guide stopped at a little shop along side the road and the lady there showed us the fruit and spices that are grown on the island. The lemmons were the size of softballs! They also grew nutmeg. Chocolate beans, noni fruit, all spice, and a wonderful fruit called sour salt it tasted really good! Mindy and I are kicking ourselves as neither one of us thought to take a picture there. The lady was so sweet, I really enjoyed our time with her.

This is a picture of our boat from the top of a hill.

The pictures above is of us at this great authentic Jamaican jerk chicken place. Our guide took us there and helped us order just the right thing. I loved it!

Lanny and Kelly wanted to go para sailing, so our guide arranged for them to do this. Mindy and I rode in the boat. A storm was coming in and the waves were over 5 feet high. I didn't like the boat much and was really not liking the fact that Lanny was clear up in the air with a storm looming. He did get rained on, and he said he would have enjoyed it more if it was a nice sunny clear day.

These are pictures of us getting back to the boat in the plants behind us it says "welcome to Ochos Rios". I loved Jamaica.

The next day was a sea day. Lanny and Kelly took a spin class in the gym, and then went for a swim. Mindy and I actually It was the first formal night. Lanny and Kelly rented tuxedos. They both looked so handsome. It was fun to get dressed up for a great night. the following are a couple pictures from that night.

Grand Caymen was our next stop. Lanny and I just spent the day together shopping. We had a great time and Lanny spoiled me!!!!!! He got me some really nice jewelry. Then we went to lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Margerettaville. It was pretty good. Then we got back on the ship and relaxed! There were 5 ships in port that day. It was so pretty looking out and seeing them all. What a beautiful day!

The next day was Cozemel Mexico. We had a blast there. Mindy, Kelly, Lanny and I took a shore excursion from the boat and went in Jeeps to some caverns and went swimming. Then we drove to a private beach and had lunch. The tour was actually on the main island of Mexico, so we had to take a water taxi over. It was such a fun day! It was so pretty and warm, but when we were just walking through the gates to board the ship a huge storm came up it was so windy that it was hard to walk! We got on board just in time for the storm, and the rest of the time on the boat was stormy and rocky!



At the caves we had to wear hard hats in because it was low. I had to bend down a lot so I wouldn't hit my head.

Swimming in the cave! The water was so clear and beautiful. The Mayans actually still use this water to drink.



Lunch on the beach

Lanny and I enjoying the beautiful water!

The last day at sea was really rock and rolly! It was cold so we didn't hang outside at all. In fact, I think I only walked outside two times that day. We spent the day playing hand and foot, and just relaxing. It was really fun!

This picture is a map of where we had been. It was cool to walk by and see how far we had gone. This was taken the last night. The green lights is where we had been and the red lights are how far we had until we got back to Miami.

The following picture are random pictures from the cruise that I liked.











Pictures of our room. It was so nice!!!!!!!




Every night our room steward made a cute towel animal and left it on our bed. This was our collection.
After leaving the ship we went to the Everglades and took an air boat ride. It was so much fun! We saw alagators, and turtles, and equanas. We actually got to hold a real baby alagator!

We finished our trip watching the superbowl in our room. We were all rooting for Arizona to win. Eventhough they didn't win, we all thought it was a great game.