Win!

So many attempts at a group boy photo...so many failures...but at long last, this one, I declare a SUCCESS!!!

(Ok, well, to be picky, I wish they weren't wearing the stickers, and Aaron's got that goofy propeller hat on...but we have ALL FIVE BOYS looking at the camera and looking pleasant!!! Don't be surprised to see this one make an appearance in a Christmas card.)

Many more pumpkin patch pics to follow...we visited the 3rd one of the season today. : )

A Forever Family!

I can't believe I don't have a single photo of Katie & Scott & Betsy at the Temple after their sealing. But alas, I don't. I know I was taking photos but I think they were all on other people's cameras. Betsy was adorable, no surprise there. She was so darling during the sealing itself with her tiny little hand held on top of her parents' hands and "singing" throughout the ceremony. The Temple Sealer told us that babies don't cry in the Temple, they sing. : )

(If you are not Mormon, I'll explain here what a sealing is--we believe couples and families truly can be together forever if they are sealed in the Temple for time and all eternity, not "til death do us part". Often a marriage/sealing happens at the same time, as it did for George & me, and all our children are already sealed to us by virtue of us having been sealed. Katie & Scott had to be married civilly and so by the time they could go to the Temple a year later, they had had Betsy, so they were sealed together and Betsy then sealed to them. Any future children will already be sealed to them.)

Katie & Scott & Betsy are now a forever family!

Here is Betsy in her adorable little dress. We ate at a nearby restaurant immediately afterward.

Betsy and I are BFFs. : )

Before the big day though, we joined up with Katie & Betsy & her close more-family-than-friend Wendy & her boys to visit the Zoo. : )

I love babies sucking thumbs.

Wendy had to leave at one point to tend to her 4 year old Roman and asked me to hold her baby Hudson...well, Hudson was not happy with that plan at all, and Zac started up too, only because I was holding another baby. So there I was holding a crying boy in each arm...I just laughed.
And this is so not a flattering photo!

Everybody was happier again when we decided to go for a little train ride.

We got an unexpected little peep show along our route--if your eyes are sharp, you might be able to make out a couple laying on the grass under the trees on the right side of the pic...things were getting hot & heavy over there and the entire train saw it as we passed and laughed. I think it's funny that I got a shot of this before we knew what was happening over there!

There's Roman peeking over his seat. He & Benno are just a couple months apart in age. They finally started to play together toward the end of our Zoo visit.

Betsy looks so much like Katie in this pic. Other times she looks just like a mini-female-Scott.

Roman is such a little character! He put his jacket on backwards and had the hood over his face.

Then another day we visited the Rose Gardens with my Dad & Darlene who were in town too.

And ate at McDonald's afterward. : )

And that's it. I didn't get any other pics of anybody before they all went home but it was so fun to see everyone & visit together!

YW Camp 2011

This post is a little bittersweet for me. I'll explain.

I didn't have to stay the entire week at YW Camp but I did go up for our one leader day. I had volunteered to make the "Doodah" from the ward to give to each of the girls for the day we'd be there. (They got a doodah each day in their mailboxes.) I'd just learned how to make these fun rosette clips and thought they'd be fun for the girls--unbeknownst to me before I'd prepared it all, they would be making a few handmade flowers at camp, oh well. They didn't make rosettes though so it was still unique and I still see the girls wearing these now.

Not only is yellow my favorite color, but it's our "ward color" at camp...so I thought yellow roses (which also symbolize friendship) would be appropriate. Together with 3 other YW leaders, we put all 40 rosettes together one afternoon (and I think we all left with headaches after breathing in the fumes from that fabric glue stuff for 2 hours! Awful!)

Found this lovely little quote from one of my favorite guys to include and there you go.

Now here, looking at these photos is the bittersweet part. That day was so fun. And we really had the most wonderful ward. Just a few short weeks after this though, our ward was split with almost no warning in advance! Half these girls and leaders and especially our bishop are all in the new ward and we miss them!

So you'll see the girls wearing the rosettes here and we're all sporting the yellow T-shirts for our ward games.

This picture cracks me up... 

The guy in blue is the Bishop in another ward (and is the brother of a friend in our ward before it split...now she's in the other ward, boo-hoo.) He & our Bishop there in yellow were doing some bishop-style trash-talking all throughout the game.

And the trash-talking led to the Bishops wrestling on the ground! HA HA! Bishop Hayden is such a riot!

A highlight of the ward games is the bishopric canoe races. I think the Bishop hurt himself wrestling (or that may just have been his convenient excuse) to get out of having to get in the canoe. This was the first race to determine who would race off for bragging rights as the fastest canoe.

And our ward won the chance to race off for 1st place...but look, the other ward's bishopric races dirty & tried to hold ours back. The other ward won but only because they play unfairly! 

Next was some game with the parachute...

I love these next couple pics because of the lighting...that was the only sun we saw all afternoon/evening.

 Then it was time to eat...we had to wait forever while they dismissed everyone ward by ward to go get food...but we spotted the Bishop cutting in line before we were called! ; )

These girls really have no idea how good they have it...check out these lovely cabins (with electricity & running water!) I know I've posted about these before but I still feel envious about this awesome camp!

That night was the birthday of one of our girls so we had brought the cake up with us that day to surprise her.

After the birthday festivities, the Bishop spoke to the girls. It was such a pretty night.

I love this shot of my friend Corrin...she is the one whose brother is the trash-talking Bishop of the blue ward above. Everyone I've met from their large family is so much fun.

(She's in a wig & glasses, if you couldn't tell.)

That was such a fun night, did I mention that? 

There's another somewhat bittersweet side to this too... I got released as YW Secretary, which is a calling I have SO loved. I cried for a week about being released (and then it took 4 or 5 weeks later to finally be released). The nice thing is that they kept me in YW as a Miamaid Adviser, so I'm still there and I'll still get to go up for future leader days at camp. I just have different responsibilities and it's been a transition for me to change my thinking out of secretary mode.

Starlight Run

Looking way back to early June...

George & I ran in the Starlight 5K Run in Portland with a whole bunch of friends...it's a costumed affair--the official theme of the Starlight Run was "Carnival" but we weren't too keen on that theme, so our group went patriotic instead.

Can you tell what we're supposed to be?

If you guessed the famous "Spirit of '76", give yourself a big pat on the back--you win!

In my head I'd envisioned our costumes much better than the final results were... My brother David sent the fife to me in the mail, just in time for the parade. I tried to gel and powder my hair and tied it back with a black piece of felt for that colonial look...but I'm not sure that it was all that effective. I just look dusty and gray-haired.

The other part of my big plan was that we would run together--me on fife, George on his drum and then my sister Katie was going to go with us as the flag holder....and that didn't quite work out either. First off, Katie didn't make it. She tried, but the insane crowds and lack of parking were to blame. So luckily, our friend Russell stood in and carried the flag. Unluckily, Russell is a pretty quick runner and together with George, they kept a fairly very brisk pace--a little brisker than I am accustomed to running. So instead of being a solid line together as in the painting, it was Russell & George with me lagging a few paces behind trying to keep up. I did my best but by 4Ks of the 5K, I was entirely pooped and walked most of the last K while they ran on to the end without me. (Oh yeah, almost forgot--it was 80 degrees that day too...we were all dying, it was so hot & muggy! I'm used to running in our cool 50 degree mornings!)

The best part of the whole thing though was running behind Russell with that flag--he was definitely a highlight of the run. Everywhere along the route, people started cheering and chanting "USA! USA!" and he got called out repeatedly by guys on loudspeakers. Made me proud, especially in this liberal city here to hear so many happy patriotic people! George beat his drum all the way through and every now and then I'd belt out a couple bars of Yankee Doodle on the fife.

Here's the whole group in our patriotic glory after the race. : ) 

Russell's to the right of George in the flag shirt.

It was a way fun night & I hope everyone will do it again next year. The Richards were kind enough to invite everyone over afterward for ice cream sundaes and smoothies...perfect finish to that hot, exhausting run! : )

Day at the Beach

We had a pretty full schedule over the summer thanks to gymnastics. Our one day 'off' was Wednesday (though Aaron did have gymnastics those days at 3...but up until 3 we were free!) 

One Wednesday, there was a pretty nice forecast for the beach so I took the boys & went to play until we had to head back home again. It turned out to be just as dazzlingly beautiful as the forecast had promised (you never know about Oregon beaches...so many times we get out there to find it socked in with fog.) I'd invited a bunch of friends but not a single one could come along. We had fun but it was definitely evident that the boys were wishing we had friends along. 

They're getting to that age...boo-hoo. They still play well together but you know how it is.

Funny that the only photos I have from that day are of the boys with the kite. There really wasn't any wind that day--Anthony had to run to keep the kite aloft.

I love being close to the beach...so nice to be able to just go. I only wish the warm weather lasted a little longer.

Hapa

Over the summer, the local parks & rec hosts concerts all over the place. It's almost a little overwhelming there are so many of them. So then I kinda ignore it until I see that I missed some band that I would have liked to see (and it's all free!) 

Hapa came a couple years ago and did a Zoo concert and I was sad to have missed it, so this time when I heard Hapa was going to do one of these summer concerts, I jumped on it. And it's not even that I'm really that big a fan of Hapa in particular...I just like Hawaiian music, and it's so perfect for a warm summer day.

I don't remember where Christopher was (maybe at gymnastics?) or George either but it was just me & the 4 other boys. We brought a Taco Bell picnic with us and played card games while we enjoyed the lovely music.

The concert started with some Polynesian dancing...I could watch them dance forever--isn't it mesmerizing? The boys were not as into it as I was.

There is Hapa singing away up on the stage.

And there's my Zac, enjoying his cinnamon twist. : )

That was a fun little outing.

The Reptile Guy

One day over the summer, friends of ours let us know that the Reptile Guy was going to be doing a free show at the library--the Reptile Guy had come to speak to the kindergarten kids earlier in the year and he was a huge hit. I was so sad to miss that so we made a point to go see it this time.

I wish I knew his name...to us, he's just the Reptile Guy. 

He is way fun & has a fantastic collection of reptiles.

I love how enthusiastically Christopher is raising his hand here. I think he got to kiss the snake after this but Zac had momentarily distracted me & I totally missed the moment, grrr.

His little routine with this little alligator was so funny.

He carried this monstrous snake around at the end so all the kids would get a chance to touch a snake. He was so great! It was so worth it to go see that!