Dallin and Katie's Wedding Reception

These are some crazy pics I took at the reception. I didn't think they fit with the formal wedding photots so I am posting them on a new post. The famous face was originated by Mary and now all her siblings can do it well too. It takes years of practice!!!!!

Dallin and Katie's Wedding

Steve's Cousin, Dallin Bird, got married in the Rexburg Idaho Temple on June 7th. Some of us weren't feeling well. But Steve and I headed up there to join in the ceremony. It was a freezing cold day and I felt so bad for her since she had a short sleeve dress. They are a great looking couple though and we wish them all the best.

Stomach Flu

As soon as Franzi left we all got the stomach flu and it lasted about a week. I took this pic of Thomas when he was really sad. It bascially summed up our first two weeks of June.

Saying goodbye

In June, we went to the airport twice in two days to send off foreign exhange students. The first day was Tim and Assim-- they were friends of Franzis and we loved them! They were from Germany too. We had a great time getting to know them this last year. Then the next day we had to take Franzi to the airport to say goodbye. It was really hard and we were all crying, except Thomas who kept ramming us with his head saying he was a buffalo :) I guess little kids deal with emotions in different ways :) We hope we get to see her again someday!!! It was a fabulous experince and she will always be part of our family.

Franzi's last few day's

As I mentioned in the Yellowstone blog, Franzi had a few things she wanted to do before she left. Here are a few pics of her adventures to Park City for shopping, one last visit to Salt Lake City and Golfing.

Yellowstone with Franzi

Franzi, our exchange student, had a list of things she wanted to do before returning to Germany on June 4th. One of those things was to go to Yellowstone. We went up on May 31st and had a great time. This is truly the time to visit. There was no line to get into the park and there were baby animals everywhere and no crowds. Franzi had read the warning about the buffalo that they give you when you enter and she was freaking out when ever we got "too close to one" in our car. We also saw eagles feeding their babies and lots of elk. No bears this trip but that's ok with me. :) Since we only had a day to see the park we headed over to Old Faithful and saw some springs and mud pots on the way. Then back around to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. There was still a lot of snow on the way to the Grand Canyon part. I was surprised how much there was. Also the rivers were really full for the fishermen. There was only one river low enough to fish in. When waiting for Old Faithful to go off it was a couple minutes later than predicted and Timmy, who was tired of waiting for it said "I am not impressed". This lady behind us who had traveled all the way from Pennsylvania to see it, thought that was a very funny comment...and I realized I have a lot to teach my kids still about appreciation of nature :) Overall it was a great day and we all had a great time! It ended with a huge 1 pound cheeseburger at Big Juds restaurant in Ashton, ID (it's on the way home) Don't worry we all split the burger but we thought it was funny to take a pic of Franzi like just she was going to eat it.

Memorial Day

We went down to the local cemetary and visited all our relatives graves on Memorial Day weekend. It is nice to live in a place where we actually have relatives graves to visit. In the past we have taken the boys to cemetaries and we usually put flowers on Veterans graves. This year the boys actually knew the people we were honoring. It was really special and I think some family was smiling down on us and happy to have us visit.

More Baseball

So as it is Baseball season I thought I would post a few more fun pics we have taken. Steve has been practicing with Timo a lot. We go over to Sunnyside Elementary that is across the street and play a lot as a family. Franzi (our exchange student) can really hit them hard. Her form is very strange as she hits it like she would a tennis ball, but they go flying way in outfield!!!!

Daddy Brings Home Legos

Steve went to Redmond, WA for a business trip and he brought back lots of fun things for the boys from the Lego store. They loved them!!! We picked Steve up from the airport at 10pm and the boys stayed up putting their legos together with daddy until 11:30pm :) They were very happy to see their daddy again after he had been gone all week.

Thomas Graduates from Preschool

Well, Thomas finally made it to preschool graduation. He had a pretty bad mid year report card that stated he needs improvment on all behaviors except one. But by the time the end of the school year came he passed with flying colors. :) I took him to see his Kindergarden classroom and he was not impressed by the stuff on the walls. He could only see the numbers 1-100 and he said "but mom I already know how to count to 100 I want to learn how to count to 1500".....Hmmm we will see how this next school year goes. I am thinking I may have to supplement with more stuff at home :) I posted a few of my favorite pics from his graduation. they sat on the stage and sang songs at first then they all got a diploma.

More pics from Grama's birthday!

Sorry, just wanted that last post to show off the birthday girl. Here are the rest of the birthday bash pics. By the way my Uncle Dale painted that Indian Drum for my cousin Nate. Nate just recently lost his wife and newborn baby to pregnancy complications. Dale's gift to Nate was to commemorate Jenni and her little one Broden.

Grama Atkinson's 96th Birthday!

The boys and I went down to Salt Lake this last weekend for Grama Atkinson's 96th birthday. I didn't have Steve with me (he was busy getting ready for his trip to WA), so it was hard to mingle and take a lot of pics. But here are a few good ones I got of the big bash. I am sad I didn't get any of all five of grama's kids with her. Hopefully she will stick around another year for that. :) She seemed cheery and happy to be there. All the kids had a great time visiting with cousins. Timmy played baseball for three hours with his cousin Alex Buttars. Can you tell the kid has baseball on the mind. :)

MOTHER'S DAY!

So, my wonderful hubby spoiled me again this mother's day! I woke up to breakfast in bed. The boys then proceeded to give me their presents (which consisted of some wonderful plants for my garden). Then he made dinner for our family, his sister Mary's family, his mom, and his grama. He made pasta, ceasar salad, and french bread. :) I am always telling him he is the best hubby in the whole world. Now you all know why :)

Franzi Makes it to State Tennis Championship!!!

Our foreign exchange student, Franzi, has had a great tennis season. She played mixed doubles with Kyle Mabe for IF high school and finished 2nd in the district. They went to state and came out 5th in state. We are so proud of her!!! They did a great job and had fun too. I am posting a few pics of her playing at the district tournament.

The Sammamish River Trail

One thing I love about visiting Redmond is being able to run some of my favorite courses. The place I miss most when it comes to running is the Sammamish River Trail. It starts in Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington and follows the Sammamish River for several miles before it changes into the Burke-Gilman Trail in Bothel. I often start at McRedmond Park, which has easier access than Marymoor (and they don't charge for parking either).

On Monday I took our little point-and-shoot camera with me when I went running. I also had my Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch. Using those (and some C# programming) I created a KML file of my run that you can view with Google Earth. This file also knows how to bring in pictures from our Flickr account so that you can see where I ran and the pictures I took.