Fall is here!

I love the fall, it's my favorite time of the year. It was a big weekend. celebrating birthdays and watching Conference.

September is a big month for birthdays in our family.Jason and Josh have a birthday on the same day and Hunter and Cadens are only 2 days apart. Jason turned 31, Josh hit the big 30, Hunter turned 6 and caden is now 4. lots of celebrating. They combined Josh's and Caden's party.

Jack is being a helpful big brother, pushing Clara. Caden and Jack are enjoying the cake and ice cream, Cousins are the best.

Heather had her snowie booth at the Leavenworth Salmon festival again this year. So I took the kids to see all the cool activities. It really was very fun and educational. They got to paint pictures, hear an indian story teller inside a great big in flatable fish. they learned the differant types of fish, made plaster animal tracks. got to hug all kinds of animals. They got to dress up as different animals. Sam was a chipmunk and Caden was a wolf. They had this fun cart track and miniture golf. A huge san box where the kids could build towns and villages. They showed how the indians smoked salmon and gave out samples. They had real indian dancers and all kinds of indian crafts. I give it 5 stars ***** :o)

Alaska!!!

This is an iceberg, that is by Juneau. The ice has a blue tint to it because it is so dense and there isn't any air in it. It will last longer than regular ice.

This is a waterfall that comes right off of the iceberg.

There is a rocky island that the sea lions go to bask in the sun. when you get close to them they get quite noisy.

David and I got to go to Alaska for a week. A friend of ours has a cabin on Admiralty Island. We went fishing. Caught lots of salmon, saw some killer whales, looked for bears...not very hard or very far from the cabin, because there are a lot of bears there. We also caught some crab and fished for halibut, but we didn't get any halibut....bummer! It really was a lot of fun:o)

On our biggest day we caught 14, on our smallest day we caught 4. The biggest weighed 18 lbs. needless to say we have lots of salmon in the freezer.

There was a pod of killer whales playing off to the side of our boat

This was my first salmon, it weighed 15 lbs.

David and I showing off our big ones.

Summer, whats left of it.

Well summer came and went, it seemed so short. There were a lot of changes going on. made quite a few trips to Utah. We are now officially empty nesters. Or as Janelle Dorsing put it. DEAD ENDERS. We are excited to have two new members of our family Katie, and Devin. Holly and Devin are in St. Louis going to medical school. Alan and Katie are still in Utah going to school. I got to go and spend a few days with Holly before she left to be with Devin. We had a good time, shopping, watching movies and painting shirts with Aubri. We also went to the Monty L Bean museum at BYU. It was amazing. If you have never been you have to go. They have every animal and insect, imaginable.

We managed to fit a camping trip in this last week. of course it was only in our back yard. but we pitched the tents, had tinfoil dinners and started a fire in the fire pit. Got the pool put up for the kids and went to Calalhans water slide. All in all we had lots of fun. Good food and great company:o)

Sam got to dance at the grant county fair. And it's time for school to start so i guess that means summer is officially over. oh well! onto the next thing, CANNING.

Weddings

Well the long awaited occasions have arrived. We pulled it off two weddings in 30 days. We all survived and we still love each other. AMAZING!!! It first started with Holly recieving her endowments on the 27th of May. What a special time with all the family there in the Draper Utah Temple. We afterwards went and ate at the Texas roadhouse. Way yummy food. put a star by that one, we will definately go back again.especially since we got there about 15 minutes before they closed and they were just as nice as can be about serving our group. The next dayMay 28th was the big day, Alan and Katie's wedding. it started at 6:00 pm in the Bountiful Utah Temple. What a georgous Temple. The weather was a bit windy and it couldn't decide if it was going to rain or just sprinkle a little. But all in all it was a beautiful day. The bride was lovely and the groom was happy to finally have it happen. They make a cute couple and I know there will be lots of love there. We went to the church afterwards and had a wonderful meal prepared by Katies family. It was a darling reception with lots of favorite things there. The Bride and Groom headed off to Hawaii for their honeymoon. The next weekend we had a reception for the newlyweds at our home in Royal. The weather had been pretty nasty a few days before, but the day of the reception (which was held outside in our yard) it was as beautiful as can be. sunny and calm, It couldn't have been more picture perfect. Thanks to lots of family and friends, it was a smashing success. Katie and Alan are now settled into a cute little studio apartment in Orem. While Alan finishes his degree. Katie is working at a credit union and Alan is working part time for a nuts and bolts company called fastenal.


Now jump ahead 29 days. June 25th The kids (Holly and Devin) decided to have their reception the day before the wedding. So that the day of the wedding it could be a calm and non rushed day. What a great idea!!! The weather again cooperated for the reception. it got a little breezy closer to the end of the day but all in all it was beautiful almost as beautiful as the bride and groom, if you can call a groom beautiful (OK, Handsome). Again wonderful friends and family to make it run smoothly. The next day we headed to portland early. The wedding was scheduled for 1:00 pm in the Portland Temple. Now Portland is known for it's rainy weather and it had had a few days of rain, but not on this day. you couldn't have asked for more picture perfect weather. And man did we take pictures. Rosalie Black, the photographer took some amazing pictures, both at the temple and the day before at the reception. She was an all around awesome help that weekend. She did family pictures two hours before the reception. did Holly's hair, did bridal shots and reception shots and then traveled to Portland the next day for the wedding. As I write this Holly and Devin are also honeymooning in Hawaii. Thanks again to Yasmine's (Jason's wife's) parents Firoz and Diane Husein who own some condo's on Maui and was gracious enough to let our children use them for their honeymoons.
















So things have calmed down a little, except that i'm getting ready for girls camp. (I'm the stake camp director). We have one more reception for Holly and Devin in Alpine Utah. I will miss the first couple of days of camp but will be there to finish out the week. Thanks to some very competent assistant camp directors. I'm pretty sure every thing will go smoothly without me.

My next big adventure will be this week. I am taking Josh's place on a sturgeon fishing trip that was planned for the guys only...but Josh got called to colorado on the catastrophy team (for his job as an insurance claims adjuster) and I am going to catch a huge fish, if not it will be the biggest fish story ever. See ya all later :o)