Nostalgic

Travis surprised me for our anniversary by taking me to relive parts of our first date.
Instead of visiting Jimi Hendrix at his grave we went to the Experience Music Project museum. They are featuring Nirvana right now which was very cool!
Instead of staying up all night listening to Pink Floyd we went to the Dark Side of the Moon Laser show. I have never been to a laser show before and it was super trippy. I felt like I was being hypnotized lol!
We also added Thai dinner and a trip to the grocery store lol!
It was so much fun and I am so lucky to be married to such an amazing man. It was so cute to see him trying to plan the surprise. I eventually caught on and he let me help him plan our date- He had a lot of good ideas but he is super indecisive so he kind of needed my help anyway.

Happy Birthday Jimi and Happy Anniversary to us!

What if 6 was 9

High school sweethearts!

After the laser show. Is it sad that I fell asleep during the last few songs?

He likes the picture above better and I like this one better so I am including both

“All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality -- the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.”

One of my best friends, Denise, gave me a wooden block that now sits on my bookshelf- it says "books fall open you fall in" There probably isn't a truer statement about me on the planet and well.... I have fallen in and deeply. See you all again when I come up for air!

 "I was born with a reading list I will never finish." -Maud Casey

"The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."- Dr. Seuss

Future American Idol!

I finally remembered to upload this video!!! Hopefully next semester Kay can take some formal vocal lessons. I think she has a lot of potential! Oh and Britt is just awesome! She was so sweet to work with Kailyn on this and play it with her! I only wish I could be half as talented!
Contrary to what the title of this post says she really doesn't have American Idol on her mind. We are still homeschooling but taking a few classes through the school district. For each class she has to reflect on what she has learned and how it will help her in the future. When I read the reflection for her beginning guitar class I almost started crying. Here is what she wrote for practical application, "I will be able to use this in the future when I want to play the guitar to my children considering I want seven of them. I could play when they go to bed as a lullaby or if we go camping together I could play it at the campfire. I could also use it if they wanted to learn how to play the guitar."
seriously can it get any sweeter than that?????
(also none of the other videos that pop up at the end are of my Kay or my Britt!)

long time no post!!!

Our summer was grand and I have an almost empty bottle of after sun lotion to prove it!I haven't taken the time to blog like I should but I want to get back into it- mainly to preserve the memories- my kids are growing up and I am starting to forget some of the little details- the little stories and cute things they said pop up here and there but they aren't part of my every day memory. I decided to give up all the time sucking addictive games etc that I play and I want to focus on what matters most. I am going to start a notebook where I write down the memories that come to mind. When a story pops into my head I want to write it down so it isn't lost forever.

I have a little catching up to do with all that happened this summer but to start here are some amazing pictures of Allias cresting Mt. Adams.

Allias didn't want to go- he has been fairly depressed since we moved to Washington. He was determined to have a miserable summer and didn't want to go to Youth Conference, Trek or the High Adventure hiking trip. I told him he had to do two of the three and so he reluctantly chose Youth Conference and the hiking trip.  Well when the time came to go hiking he said he wasn't going. We decided to give him an ultimatum and told him that if he didn't go on the hiking trip he wasn't going on his beloved yearly trip to Lake Tahoe and he said fine. We were totally shocked and really quite sad but we felt like we had to follow through on what we had said and hold him accountable for the commitments he had made.  He literally fought us on it until two nights before he was supposed to go! It took a call from my uncle with the cabin in Tahoe to finally change his mind.

Needless to say we had to rush around and get him everything he needed for the trip.

He promised us he was going to have a terrible time no matter what. He told us if he had fun he would give up basketball for a year lol- we didn't hold him to that.

He ended up being the first one to reach the top and one of the last ones down on the ending day because he was helping one of the boys who was struggling to glacade.
All of the leaders said how happy they were to have him on the trip and how impressed they were by him. They also assured us that he had a "terrible" time.
There are a ton of pictures and I couldn't decide which ones to cut out so you get to see them all! They aren't in order but hopefully you get the picture!

getting ready to go!

on the way up

view from the top!

taking a break

another view! So amazing!

glecading down

wow!

this picture really shows how tiny the boys were on that huge mountain

happy to be at the top!

I think this was taken either on the way to or the way back from the mountain.
 I can't believe Allas was on the top of that thing!

base camp!

clean up

They camped out up on the mountain one night- there were 35 mile per hour winds so the boys didn't get much sleep. They had to be up bright and early the next morning for the final climb to the top!

king of the world!

this one is my favorite!!!!!

at the top!!!!

Dates

The picture of Travis and I  in the last post is from our date Friday night. We went and watched the Everett Silvertips play hockey. It was fun even though the home team lost. Hockey is such an exciting sport and like most sports I liked watching the minor league/college players better then the pros. There just seems to be so much more heart involved.
Saturday Trav took Kailyn out- they went bowling and then walked around the mall. Other then a lady in the candy store acting like a total neurotic freak they had a great time.
Trav took a couple more pictures but they are on his phone and I will have to get them later.
There is a super cute picture of her devouring a cinnamon roll at Cinnabon that I have to share once I get it from his phone! Aren't they precious? They look so much alike to me in this picture! People always tell me that Kailyn looks just like me but I don't know, I think she looks a lot like her daddy.

When they got home Allias and I headed out to hangout and do a little shopping. My nephew Gavin came along as well.

The pretzel line was super long so they hung out in this sweet ride and waited for me.

I am quite proud of myself because I let him choose the radio staion (R&B- blah), the place to eat (McDonald's- YUCK). I didn't actually eat anything at Mcdonald's though but I don't think he cared. He was just bummed that I didn't tell the girl in the drive through that he thought she was hot. I was so going to but I thought he would get mad!

We spent most of our time shopping! I am pretty sure next to watching or playing sports it is his favorite past time. He got some new cologne and a belt for church from Ross, some jeans and a nice polo from the Calvin Klein outlet and some basketball shoes and a Lebron James tee from the Nike Outlet. There were some killer sales going on.

Here he is with his shopping bags.

There was a church dance that night and he wore his new outfit- I should have taken a picture. He looked so handsome. He complains that people here in Washington don't dress "fresh" enough. Not quite sure what that means but I know people ask him why he wears shirts with collars every day lol. I am glad he isn't interested in adopting the sloppy style of dress I see a lot of the kids around here wearing.

Wake UP!

One of Travis' cousins (who I consider a dear friend) started a blog encouraging members of the church to get involved politically! I am so excited to read what she has to say and so happy to have been able to spend some time with her and her husband in Washington DC at the Restoring Honor Rally.

Here is a link to her blog- her first post is AMAZING!!!! I can't wait to read more!!!!

http://wakeuplds.blogspot.com/

Raven Rock, Rose Prom and Quirky K

Travis and I went to Raven Rock Saturday- just the two of us. We had the best time and are going to try to hike on a regular basis.
We did the four mile hike- they have another loop that is more like seven miles that I would love to try.
There were so many cool trees and plants- and we even found this awesome bug!

This tree was totally hollow on the inside but massive. We saw a tree that had been recently struck by lightening as well.



Travis set the camera on a cliff- set the timer for ten seconds and then raced back to get in the picture- it was great!

Raven Rock


It had rained a ton the night before so the river was super muddy.
We jogged part of the way so we were nice and sweaty by the time we reached the lookout.
This picture is adorable to me
Tyler and Allias went to Rose Prom Saturday night with a group of friends. It was a lot of fun!
Here are the boys all decked out and ready to dance.
Kailyn keeps getting taller. I have measured her three times this month and each time she has grown at least a quarter of an inch. Today we were getting ready for church and her head was about at my nose!
These next three pictures are so totally her- they make me smile!