We have....EGGS!

As I've said before, we are officially Chicken farmers. Well...we weren't expecting any eggs until August, so when we got back from our Montana vacation we were surprised to find that they had started laying! The kids that had taken care of the chickens for us had found 2 eggs, but when we started looking further we found 10! Too bad we had to throw them all away because we didn't know how long they had been sitting. We still haven't made their nesting box and we need to soon because they are all 5 laying now and sometimes we find them in the yard along our fence. The kids adore looking for eggs and Nick thinks he needs to at least 3 or 4 times a day. Because they lay at different times Nick is lucky enough to find some almost every time he looks. It's like an easter egg hunt around here every day!
People had always told us that if you tasted farm fresh eggs you would LOVE them and never go back..unfortunately Dave and I must not have much of a discrimanatory taste because we don't see a big difference, but if anybody wants to give them a try just let us know...we have 5 every day and that is more then we can keep up with.

Ella is 3!!!

On July 10th Ella finally turned 3! I say finally because she has been "working up to" her birthday for MONTHS! If you ask her when her birthday is she can tell you the date...only problem is she has no relation to time so she thought that July 10th was forever "tomorrow". While we were up in Montana the big day finally arrived and it was great! The night before we went birthday shopping and she picked out a fun pink dress and some GREAT sparkly pink shoes that she adores...with the exception that they hurt her feet.She has been wanting a Hello Kitty cake ever since I made the dreaded mistake of making those darn Puppy cake pops for Nicks birthday. So since we were out of town I escaped the 6 hour task of creating Hello Kitty cake pops and we were able to just order a Hello Kitty cake. It turned out super cute and she loved it. She was then spoiled by all 6 of her siblings, her parents and cousins with lots of fun gifts. She was one lucky little girl to have such a fun birthday.

I just can't believe that she is already 3! Unfortunately I still think of her very much as my baby...I guess with all of the other 3 I had already had another baby by this age so I never thought of the others as babys at this age. I'm afraid poor Ella will remain my baby forever...is that a lucky thing for her or unfortunate?Ella's Quirks and Favorites

• She LOVES animals but is scared to death of them, including our Chickens.
  
• She loves all things pink and girly, especially lipstick/gloss and shoes.
• She insists on Mom doing her hair each and every day, including bows...good thing we have lots of options.
• She loves to sing and she sings loud and often.
• She loves to play pretend.
• She has to sleep cuddled RIGHT next to someone. Good thing she normally shares a room with Kira.
• She is VERY sure of herself....which unfortunately means that she is VERY bossy.
• Ella loves to be silly...we LOVE this girl!
  

Montana take 2

Big Fork Montana

Yes, I still have more to say about Montana. We spent a total of 3 1/2 days traveling too and from Montana but it was COMPLETELY worth it...although my kids did come to the conclusion that camping in a Walmart parking lot was not nearly as cool as they thought it would be.

Another great thing my kiddos were able to try for the first time was water skiing and tubing. They loved it! We all had so much fun and the lake and river were just gorgeous. One of the evenings that we were out on the water and it started raining and we were privileged enough to see a double rainbow. I just thought it was amazing that we were out playing on the water at 9pm and it wasn't even close to dark yet! Ya got to love those late Montana nights where it doesn't get dark until 10:30pm.

Austin, Aisha and Ella on the water tube

Austin doing GREAT on the wakeboard...it was SUPER cold this day!
See...look at his purple cheeks!

Kira on her first try waterskiing. I need to get the rest of my pictures of the other kids waterskiing from Bridget.

I REALLY wish I could figure out how to download my video here of my kids water skiing, wake boarding and tubing, but I can't make it work...so if anybody wants to see it just come over and I'm sure my kids will entertain you with our video we made. I'll make do with pictures...here's just a few. Like I said...Montana was FANTASTIC!

Dad and Nick by an overturned tree's roots at Glacier Park

Austin and Ella at Glacier National Forest (or park?)...absolutely BEAUTIFUL!

Dave and his BIG catch.

Ella taking a hike the easy way.

Montana 4th of July Parade

Another FAVORITE thing we did while in Montana was participate in the Big Fork, Montana parade. Henry Wilkes (our host) provided the float, tons of helium balloons that we blew up and lots of candy to throw out. My kids haven't had that much fun in a LONG time. Kind of funny how much the big kids said they DIDN'T want to do the parade and how much fun they ended up having. All of the kids, both big and small adored throwing out candy to all these kids yelling for them. The balloons were a hit, even if they took FOREVER to blow up and were handed out in mere minutes. After all the candy and balloons were handed out my kiddos had a ball just waving and pretending like they were something "official" in the parade, rather then just a family float. Yeah for the Wilkes...their family float won 2nd place in the family division and 1st in the patriotic division!

Montana

Here is sit in Montana updating my blog. It's not that I'm bored here...just that it is 10pm and STILL not dark outside! It really doesn't get dark here until 10:30pm at night! Let me tell you...it's totally throwing off our sleep schedules. We are having a ball. We are staying in a town called Big Fork and it is a little lake community right on the lake of Flat Head. Tons of pine trees and beautiful homes. We are staying with Dave's brothers in laws...while spending time with Daves brother and his family. They have a little river/canal that runs right to the back of the house and goes out to the lake. We have really taken advantage of what Montana has to offer so far!

July 4th my kiddos got to be IN the parade- not just watch it but really be in it. Our float ended up getting first place for the family float. VERY fun. We blew up hundreds of helium balloons and the big kids passed them out as the little kids threw out candy. That night we watched lots of fireworks...cleaning up the mess the next day wasn't nearly as fun as watching them but the kids loved them. Even Kira who watched them from the front seat of the truck as she hates the noise...even with ear plugs in.

The highlight so far has to be watching my little kids water ski...yes, they water skiied! Like I said, we are taking advantage of all that there is to offer here in Montana. We went out on James boat (daves brother) and I thought that my kiddos wouldn't really try it. The lake is really cold and my kids have never even WATCHED water skiing before. So Bridget (my sis in law) explained to the kids what to do. One other little girl that is here with us tried it out and got up but crashed pretty quickly. Then it was Kira's turn. She ended up getting up the first time and she NEVER crashed! She did SO good! Hayden was next and he got right up as well. I was shocked! He crashed after a little bit, but I was still really surprised. THEN Nick wanted to try..which was a real shocker to me...but he even got right up! Again, he didn't do as well as Kira but he did great! Got right up and went a bit before crashing. I have video but i've now spent two hours trying to upload it with no luck. So if anybody has any solutions to getting these videos online that would be great as I'm one proud mama that would love to share!

Girls Camp 2009

Wow...this June has been absolutely busy, busy, busy! I'm hoping that July will slow down a bit!

I spent the week of June 22-26th at Heber Valley Girls camp with the Spanish Fork Stake. I'm the Cambridge ward Camp director and I LOVE and adore the calling! It is so much fun working with the Young Women...minus the every wednesday night activity. Heber Valley girls camp is an amazing place and we had some fantastic speakers. If you ever get a chance to listen to in person, or on CD check out Diane Hoelscher. She has several of her talks on cd and she is an absolutely amazing and inspiring speaker. She talked to the girls about member missionary work. And besides being an inspirational speaker she is super funny and entertaining. Anyway..again...no pictures YET but girls camp was definately a hit this year!

Springville Art City Days Craft Fair

In my attempt to catch up on my blog and be a bit more consistent I thought I would document just how big a disaster the Springville Art City days craft fair was this year...maybe if I document it I will remember not to do anymore outside shows. I don't have any pics...so it's all in the words-which I'm sure just won't paint the same picture as what is in my head.

We set up on Wednesday night and it was dollar days that night. So the goal was to be set up by 5pm so that we could take advantage of a busy night at the park...yeah- how about set up at 9pm and closing at 10pm...so no sales this day. The next day it rained most of the day so nobody was really out and about, pretty much another loss. Friday rolls around and it looks to be a really nice day. It hits about 3pm and we finally made our booth fee...yeah! Now we had the rest of the day and all day Saturday to make a profit.

Then we saw the dark clouds moving in. The temperature started to drop really quickly so we pulled our tables in so that they were all the way under the easy up tent that we use for ourdoor fairs. We had two sides up all the time and started putting up the two other sides in preperation for the rain we thought we would be getting. All of a sudden a BIG ol' clap of thunder and lightening happend and at the same time the wind gushed in. It was blowing so hard that it was pushing over our tent since it was staked too securely to blow it away. All of a sudden our roof was tore off by the wind and we got DRENCHED in the pooring rain. My mom threw a tarp over the machine and we put the laptop under a table and we just had to continue to hold on to the tent so it didn't get bent by being blown over. It was raining really hard and just kept on blowing. We had fathers day hats blowing all over the park and ALL of our merchandise was wet at this point. It only lasted about 15 minutes but it was a complete loss. We called my dad and brother and they came to help us pack up and go home to dry out. People kept coming by and asking why we were closing down early...uh...I don't know...could be because everything we own, including ourselves are dripping wet! It took the rest of the evening to lay everything out to dry and then the entire next day cleaning up the mess, but atleast we only lost paperwork and business cards. All of our merchandise dried out great and our machine wasn't hurt. And yes, that will be the last of the outdoor fairs for me and Stitcheroos. Oh...I do have to say that other crafters were AWESOME. During the rain several of them came out in the rain to try and help us hold down our tent, meaning that they got drenched too...thank you all you nice people out there!

Moab Girls Trip

June 5-7th was our first ever, and now annual, girls trip. We had SO much fun. I really haven't laughed that hard in a really, really long time. When I first got the notice about this trip I really thought I was going to have to do it by myself. My mom is not a big fan of water and this would be a full day of white water rafting in moab. And both my sister Megan and my Sis in law Shannon had nursing babies. I asked if anybody would be able to come and to my surprise all 3 were able to make it...minus babies or any other attachments!

We started the trip right by stopping by a nail salon on our way out of town to get glitter toes. A very fun indulgence and a great START to a fun weekend.

We had a fun time setting up the tent and spending a bit of time shopping around town. Saturday was spent white water rafting and it was a ball! A little chilly and not a TON of white waters but still great. I need to get my water camera pictures developed...I have a GREAT picture (I hope) of Shannon getting slammed over by a wave right as she was trying to pretend like she was oh so scared of the white water...too funny.

Later Saturday night my Dad made the mistake of telling my Mom to make sure she got some good pictures around the campsite...needless to say we laughed our behinds off for the next 2 or 3 hours while having fun taking some real quality pictures...lets just say a full moon came up over the trees and we just had to take advantage of it. :) Below is one of our nicer pictures...bottom to top is Megan, Mom, Shannon and me.

We also got in just a bit of bike riding. This picture actually has the FUNNIEST story behind it. My Dad sent along the helmet and gloves and was kind of bugging my mom to use them even though she told him repeatedly that she wouldn't. So we took another quality picture of her decked out in them just to please my papa. The funny part came about because if you look closely the handle bars are BACKWARDS. She took the helmet off and tried to ride out of camp and quickly biffed it. She got back up and rode it a ways more and couldn't figure out why the stupid bike would have such dumb brakes placed in such a wierd place...turns out the brakes aren't in a bad place when the handlebars are being used in the forward position.

On the way home we took time to stop and take more quality pictures. Yeah..ok...we didn't really get in any REAL mountain bike riding...but we took some great pictures to make it look like we did.

Here is my final picture from the trip...this was taken right before our head on collision with this semi truck. Ok...not really. But it was kind of spooky to be driving along at 80 mph and look up to see a semi facing you. It was being towed by another semi...but still a little spooky.