I know that I am way behind, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to tell Nate how proud we are of him. Back in July, my brother Nate returned from serving a 2 year mission in the Phillipines. He did an amazing job and shared his testimony of Jesus Christ with so many people. He's a great example to my boys. We are so happy that he returned safe and sound.

We almost missed him at the airport. We were all waiting in the wrong terminal. How sad that would have been.

We finally got all set up in the right spot.

I have truly never seen my parents more excited.

Our complete family!


Love You Nate!

I'm sorry for Steve that the boat is not fixed yet, but I am totally loving that we have been able to spend more time on the mountain this year. Last week we went up to Foy lake twice, the first time we just fished and cooked dinner with my family. Then that weekend we decided to pull the camper up and do it right. We had a great time both trips. The Saturday that we were camping we decided to load all of us onto our 4 wheeler and take the trail up to Shay Mountain. Good thing we have a pretty tough 4 wheeler.

For the kids, the best part of our rides are always the breaks, where they get a little snack and relax. This time the football made the ride with us.

Kade is seriously getting too big for the type of slings I've been using, but I love him being so close. I always feel like I have such a precious view from my vantage point, I tried to share.

Does this look like a good trail for a family of six? Ya, it was super rough. Needless to say, they kids and I walked up much of the trail. You can't exactly bail off if it starts to roll when you're holding onto four kids.

A mini break.

I think she loves the mountain as much as I do.

When my family came up for dinner, my mom was in charge of dessert. She decided to make donuts. Bronsen loved it. She was nice to let him help, and now he thinks we should have donuts at every cookout.

What I've learned in my 7+ years of parenting little boys, is that no matter how many times you tell them, or burn their sticks, they will always find another one to poke the fire with.

Does life get any better? Sharing a salad with a cousin.

He's always rolling around in the dirt. He hasn't been feeling well and I teased that he probably caught some virus from all of the dirt, leaves, rocks, sticks, and who knows what else he's always putting in his mouth. I truly hope I'm wrong, because #1, that's just disgusting, and #2, he's got a lot more trips to the woods before he's done with that stage.

If you can't find us at home most likely we're gone to the mountain again. . .

Now I'm pretty much wasting time. I used our home design software to give me a feel for what the room would look like. Yellow, with my original fabric, or painted blue with #4.

So this week I've been looking at drapery fabric for the basement. As most of you know, the basement has brown carpet and is currently painted a deep yellow/gold. The fireplace is a bit rustic looking I think. Anyway, I feel like it looks like it came from the 1970's instead of 2010. So this first fabric swatch was my plan, with adding some white crown moulding and wainscot. It would allow me to keep the wall color, add in some green, blue and orange to tie it all together. But then I showed it to Steve and he said, "I thought you were trying to get away from the 70's. That looks like it is straight from my Grandma's." I think that means that his grandma has good taste. Anyway, so I found some other fabrics that I like as well. I would appreciate a few honest opinions as to which is best.



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If can't be this time of year without some fishing at Dry Wash. The view is so pretty, the fishing is usually great, and being on the mountain is my drug of choice. On this particular trip Parker caught a 14" trout. What more could we ask for?

I know that I'm way behind with blogging, but that's just because we are too busy having fun. I had to put up a few pictures of Bronsen's machine pitch baseball season though. He had such a great time. It's such a step up from t-ball. I really felt like he was out there playing ball. So much fun to go watch!
Thanks to an awesome coach who even managed to teach these boys a few things.

Memorial Weekend we had a very busy, but exciting time. We headed down to the Lake on Friday night to play with Steve's family and all of their crowd. Saturday morning Bronsen tried out the knee board. Thanks to a very helpful Uncle Mark, he was able to get up. Despite the cold water Steve and I tried out our new toys too, a slalom ski and wake board. Before we trashed our prop on a rock that we couldn't see because of all the wind, we were thinking that it would be a Summer spent in the water, now ????


We came home from the lake early Sunday morning in time for church, and some much needed rest. Monday the Snyder family all got together for a BBQ at the farm. It was tons of fun to see everyone. Steve's aunt asked me how life was going. I replied, "Couldn't be better!" I've been thinking about that statement the last few days, and really we're so blessed, I couldn't ask for life to be much better.

Steve's brother and his wife came out to visit from St. Louis. We were so glad that they came. We made them linger a little longer than we probably should have and took them to Mesa Verde on Tuesday. In 3rd grade I broke my arm the night before our field trip to these cliff dwellings, and it's been on my bucket list ever since.




I love this picture! She is such a happy thing when she can run and be wild.


We're not the best at family snapshots lately.
Cliff Palace
Grandpa and the boys.
So good to see the two of you again. My kids have always loved their Uncle Mark, and despite the fact that Parker won't hug or kiss Madison they all talk about her and when they're coming back.
A random picture of Parker. He has always been my "gear" boy. The other day he was acting very very silly and trying to get some attention, he dressed up.