Happy Birthday to Brooke & Blake

July 13----The twins turned 19! It's amazing how fast time flies. It seems like yesterday that Blake was a little boy playing with my little brother David all the time! Oh and little miss Brooke was so tiny (she still is) when I saw her for the first time. They were just about to turn 9 years old when Matt and I started dating and now here it is ten years later and they are about to venture out on their own journeys in life!
Brooke will be leaving in a few weeks for college in Utah. It's not too far away, but it's too far away! This is especially true for little Kylie. She is attached to her at the hip, her shadow in every sense of the word. I think it's gonna be pretty rough when the time comes to seperate them!
Blake will be leaving us in September for two years to serve a mission for the Church. He will be serving the Brazil Manaus mission. It's gonna be crazy not seeing him for two whole years! He like Brooke has also grown a permanent shadow named Tyler.
We will all miss the twins being around all the time, but wish them luck on their journeys! We love you guys!

Big Lake Camping

So probably my most favorite camping spot is Big Lake! However, we only get up there once a year or so since it's a pretty long haul for us and to make it worth going we need to be able to stay at least a few days. Well anyway about three weeks ago we went up for a few days and enjoyed ourselves as we always do when camping. Kylie invited her best friend Emmie along and that worked out really well. We were skeptical, wondering if she'd get homesick or the girls would have a disagreement, but it went great! Matt and I brought our bows and we did a little practice shooting, the kids enjoyed the gorgeous area and we were lucky to be camped where someone had built some pretty cool forts already. We attempted fishing and swimming! Actually only the girls attempted the swimming, of course it was too cold. Tyler was the one doing the fishing and he would have sat all day if we let him, unfortunatley he didn't catch anything except a weed! The most comical part of our trip was the kids including the big one named Matt trying to find a squirrel in a tree. I think Tyler wanted to eat the thing in all honesty, but he is a pretty avid outdoorsmen just like his daddy and uncles and grandpas. Matt found a gorgeous area with some tall wildflowers that we took the kids to for some pictures. However, you know when camping you really don't have nice clothes for pictures so the only ones that looked good were Kennedys! Anyway we of course have numerous photos, but I've posted just a few of them for you to enjoy. We are going to try to sneak one more camping trip in before school resumes in a couple weeks!
This was a pretty cool little set up if I do say so myself..


This is one of the forts, you probably can't see it, but Emmie and Kylie are in there

Daddy relaxing with Kennedy and Karissa

The girls just waking up and ready to eat!

Trying to swim, but not really!

Trying to fish, but no luck!

Trying to find that darn squirrel

Finally, the meadow of wildflowers that Kennedy was so precious in!

It's Official...

I am officially a C.N.A (certified nursing assistant)! My license was validated yesterday. Now I'd really like to put this to use and use all the great knowledge I learned in my last semester of school. So ya short post, but there it is!

Happy 4th of July

Fourth of July has come and gone yet again. It seems two holidays come and go around here in the blink of an eye, which means Christmas is right around the corner! We had a good holiday getting to visit with family and enjoy some good food and all the festivities that go with our Country's Birthday.
I started the weekend on Friday by getting up and cruising around to all the yard sales...unfortunatley around here they are mostly junk sales! I did get a couple good things, but after a couple hours of driving all over I was sadly disappointed I didn't come up with more treasures. Oh well I'll hope for Labor Day weekend! The rest of Friday for me was spent getting my house picked up and then I had Blake's girlfriend come over and do my hair for me, my roots were needing a pick me up! I also had my sister in laws Brooke and Kandra over and gave their tootsies a little pedi, making them look festive for the fourth! The boys went off and did their own thing while all us girls got to sit around and catch up.
So this is how I started Saturday, the actual 4th of July...(after the anvil woke me up that is :-)

Kandra and I along with an estimated couple hundred others joined in the 1st annual Carissa's Run. We had to be there by 530 am to register and get our shirts. We participated in the two mile fun run/walk, but we did run a portion of it and she even pushed Gavin in his little umbrella stroller while we cruised. It was a great event and I'm sure as the years go on it will have more and more people turning out to support such a great cause!
Then it was time to get ready for the parade, which we did. Kylie and Tyler were at Grammie and Papa's house getting ready because they were going to be riding on the float they were doing based on Glenn Beck's 9/12 project. So I got Roo and Kennedy ready and tried to get a picture, but this is the best I wound up with!

The parade went pretty much as usual, it was hot and there were lots of...interesting floats that drove by. Of course our favorite was Papa's float that had Kylie and Tyler on top of it. Here they are...

Poor Kennedy got doused with a big spray of water during the parade, she let out a shriek but once we picked her up out of her carseat she was happy as usual. It was her first 4th of July and we had her looking festive as ever!


After the parade ended I went to the park with my mom and Kylie to check out the booths and any games and or rides for Kylie. It was pretty worthless really, the best part was the frito pies we ate right before it rained! However it was still nice to go and spend a little time with my mom and Kylie by myself.
Once the park ended we all wound up at Matt's moms where we visited with some of his family that had come up to watch our spectacular firework display. We had a nice big bbq and ate some great food! We weren't quite sure when the food would be done cooking as there was SO MUCH of it...and here is our master chef El Dobo grilling it up...notice Uncle Matt with little Gavin!

I painted the kids face for the parade and just for fun that day and Tyler was the only one really showing it off!

We went to the field to watch the fireworks with some friends and then came home to go to sleep! That was a long day, but full of fun!

Our 1st Camping Trip This Year

...and we hope to have a few more before summer is over! However, summer is disappearing fast so we need to hurry up! Last weekend we loaded up and took the kids just about 20 minutes away from home, but we had a good time as usual. Matt's brother Blake came out one afternoon and hung out with us and helped the kids build a fort which was probably the highlight of their trip. We finally got to enjoy using the camp chef that Matt's parents got us for Christmas and we truly did enjoy it so thank you!! We ate a lot of food, relaxed, built the fort, shot our bows, played some games and relaxed some more! It was a great time!