blog mush

 Emmy's Stake Conference creation

 Chatting over Jambas

 Playing cars anywhere and everywhere

 Cute friends at school

 "...this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..."

 And I wanted to get rid of the extra wood and empty pot

Jake's first day on the job as a soccer referee

party!!!

16 friends, 4 large pizzas, 5 kleenex boxes, 75 ping pong balls, a bag of skittles, 18 bandanas, 2 gigantic bowls of popcorn, and a candy kabob can only mean one thing...

Ali's birthday party!!

A crazy (polish) dinner, minute to win it games, and a movie required 4 rooms to be rearranged, furniture moved, and Beehives enlisted to help.

3 hours of craziness!!  3 hours of fun!!

BIG fun...

with a mini party!!!

Lots of friends, lots of energy, and lots of fun...

with lots of tiny, tiny things!

There was mini art,

 shrinky dinks,

mini pom-poms and cheers,

mini bites,

mini cupcakes and ice cream cones,

but BIG BIG fun and BIG BIG smiles!!

double digits

Double digits for this gorgeous girl!

 Birthday #10

A Saturday birthday is a bonus bonus with double the celebrating!

A soccer game (she scored the team's only goal off of a corner kick and earned donuts for the team for doing it!), out to eat, shopping at the mall...all of her birthday wishes fulfilled!

seven

What does an airplane (being filmed by Grandpa), New Mexico, and 40-something cupcakes all mean?

It's Emmy's birthday!!

And what a birthday!  It finally arrived, and we started it off as early as we could!  It was a short day at school and we had big plans to head to Yakima to welcome Kaden home from the Albuquerque New Mexico mission!!  Hardly anybody gets to celebrate a missionary homecoming along with a birthday!

We celebrated with cousins and grandparents at the airport while we were waiting,

we had more reasons to celebrate once we saw Kaden,

and we celebrated even more at the Olive Garden (a fancy restaurant as Emmy later explained)!!

She even got to open some presents in the car!!  

It was definitely a fun, unique and memorable birthday # 7!!

an M's FHE

Go Mariners!

Family night was really fun with extra family and a Mariners game!

Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Gary, Jaci, and Lon all were there.  The 12 of us took up an entire row!  

 

We love going to Mariners games with Grandpa and Grandma!  Thanks for the great seats and yummy treats!

back to school

"I'm so tired I can't really remember anything.  My brain is washed out.  I think it's because of the long summer thing, but I just need to get used to this." --Emmy

That pretty much sums it up.  First day of school and blah blah blah.  We want our summer back!  Nevertheless, we said good-bye to the carefree days of summer and said hello to schedules, early  mornings, homework, and sack lunches.

8th grade, Pacific Cascade Middle School

WEB leader (Where Everyone Belongs)

1st year of Spanish (¡Què bien!)

Last year of middle school.

Last year of no seminary.

 4th grade, Grand Ridge Elementary

Ms. Luci, Rm. 166

1st time with a sibling at same school in 3 years.

Wishes she could be Emmy's reading buddy (at school).

"Reading with her at home is just different, mom."

 1st grade, Grand Ridge Elementary

Mrs. Hawkes, Rm. 142

1st time packing a lunch and eating at school!

1st year at Grand Ridge.

No more holidays and treats and parties.

(We'll miss you, Endeavour!)

Labor Day

Rattlesnake Ridge

Today we hiked Rattlesnake Ridge, just about 20 minutes or so from our house.  We love where we live!

 The hike was a 4 mile loop, so quite the accomplishment for little feet or those carrying backpacks and toddlers.

It was a pretty good incline way up to the top.  We took a few water and snack breaks along the way to keep everyone happy and moving forward!

When we reached the top we were pretty happy!

We enjoyed our lunch, stayed as far away from the ledges as possible, 

and enjoyed this amazing view!  That water is just unreal!!

We came back down the two miles (much faster than we went up) and enjoyed the reward of cool, refreshing water in Rattlesnake Lake--no backpack required.

We also had fun playing in the trees

and just chillin' for a bit, enjoying the warm sunshine, our 4 mile victory, 

and our last "not a school night" left of the summer.