Grama Passes Away

Today I found out that my last Grandparent on either side passed away. Allene Orton Atkinson passed away this afternoon in Bountiful, Utah. These are the last pictures I took with her on a visit to see her at the hospital at the end of Dec 2008 and Oct 2008. She was actually in quite a happy mood the last day I saw her. Aunt Lynette curled her hair and she got a call from Dale when we were there. As you can tell from the pic she was quite animanted about it. We were planning to spend some time with her on our visit to Utah in a couple weeks for Spring Break. But grama we know you are having a party and much happier where you are now. We love you!!! Thanks for everything!

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.