Kenedy's Beach Pictures

I went through Kenedy's phone to get some pictures that she had taken and I found some really beautiful pictures. She did an amazing job of capturing the beach I love in a more unique way. 

She got some pictures of herself with her Bestie Alyssa. They had Rylee take the sunset pictures and also the hat pictures.

Kenedy, Alec and Alyssa

One of the best parts of any camping trip are S'mores! Big thanks go to my Mom for being the one to provide us all with this delicious treat!

I really loved these beach love pictures she took.

Ryker gets hurt and Family Pictures

It is not a complete Lutes Family Beach Trip without Ryker getting hurt. I was in my chair taking a nap when I heard my name being called. I looked up and saw some of my family surrounding Ryker and my first instinct was to close my eyes and go back to sleep because I wasted to escape and hide from what I thought was going to be a major injury on his part. I am not good with blood and gore. Luckily I was able to suck it up and I walked over and they said he got stung by a bee. Not too big of a deal, phew. The problem was the stinger was still in his foot and had the poison sack, or whatever it is called, still attached so they could not just pull out the stinger because it would cause more pain. I went and got the lifeguard and she was able to safely get everything out. Ryker was going to be ok

This year we got red Lutes shirts but Jeremy's Family shirts got left by accident at Moms house so we did a family picture with the different colors because Mallory was flying home that night. It's fun seeing all the different shirts although the dominate color was red. 

We thought it would be fun to do a stairs picture and I had everyone organize in order by Mom, then oldest sibling and her family in order by age, then the next oldest sibling, then the next and their family and so on. It's little harder to see the faces but fun none the less.

Joshua and Kefford

Ashleigh left that day to go get Andrew Brown and she was able to stop by Mom's to get the missing red shirts. We had our red shirt picture day minus Mallory but with Andrew Brown so everyone at the beach this year had a chance to be in a family picture, it was just too bad we could not get everyone at the same time.

Erin and Rylee

 Ryker, Avynlea, Kefford, Elizabeth, Rylee and Kenedy

Rylee was watching the antics of one of my family members and I enjoyed watching her cute little face. 

We decided to pack up Friday night and leave to stay the night at my Mom's house and then head back to Idaho the next morning from there. It just seemed like an easier option rather then waking up really early at the beach and trying to pack up in the dark. We stayed with my family until about 9:00 pm and then headed out. I was really sad about leaving and even though I was going to be going back in a couple of weeks it was still hard to leave. I love being around my family and I love my kids being around my family, it makes me sad that they only get to see them usually once a year and I only get to about twice a year. I love where I live but living far away from family is the hardest.

We got home pretty late Saturday night and with the next day being Sunday and with us not being able to go to the store we had to make do with whatever we could find. Avynlea found a box of Oreo cheesecake and wanted to make that for our Sunday treat. She did such a great job and it was delicious

Beach Days 3 and 4

Ashleigh was with us all week but Andrew Brown had to work and wasn't able to come up until Thirsday. I was really glad he could come for at least part of the week, I haven't been able to be around him as much and it was fun to spend some time getting to know him better. I really like him a lot and enjoy his personality, he is just a good guy and a lot of fun. He did tell me how impressed he was with how good all of the grandkids were and how obedient they were. 

Ashleigh and Andrew Brown

Elizabeth and Heather

By the end of the week my girls were looking a little red despite all of the sunscreen they had on so I had them wear shirts over their suits for the last two days. 

                            

                          Jaylynn, Avynlea and Rylee                       Rylee and Avynlea

Ben and Ryker

Church and Beach days 1 and 2

The next day was Sunday and we went to church with my Mom in her Ward. They had just recently had their home ward dissolved and part of their ward were put with a new ward and in a new building so it was different then I was used to whenever I have been in California. We filled up 4 of the smaller pews on the side and my little family had at least one person in each of the pews. It was nice to be able to sit next to Kefford during church for a change. Heather and I took a picture before the meeting started and my Mom must have been feeling left out since she tried to get in the picture with her hand sneaking through between our heads. I turned and took a picture of her and Kenedy so she would feel better. 

I braided my girls hair as well as Jaylynns hair that morning and their heads looked so cute close together as they were looking at Jaylynns tablet. Jaylynn and her Mom loved her hair so much they kept it that way the entire time we were at the beach! I asked Jaylynn how she washed her hair while it was still in the braids and she said that she just rinses it. Smart girl. 

Monday we repacked up and were finally able to head out to the beach. We got there about 1:30 and were told we could not check in until 2:00 so we drove down the road a bit, parked and got out to enjoy the sea breeze and ocean views. I took this picture of Rylee and right beside me was Avynlea throwing up into a bag. She does not do real well while traveling and tends to get pretty sick, luckily she kept it together until we parked. Ryker enjoyed jumping from cliff to cliff which made his sisters very nervous.

I really love being able to come back to the beach every year. It is beautiful, rejuvenating and makes me so happy!

We were finally able to check in and once we started setting up camp we let the kids go down to the beach to check it out and to keep them out of the way.

Rylee, Avynlea, Jaylynn and Ben

Mornings at the beach are pretty low key and relaxing. The next day, Tuesday, I got up early to go on a trail run with Stephanie. It was one she had never done before and we were trying to follow the map on her phone but the trail was a weird one and even though it was supposed to be a circular 4 miles in distance we were only able to run 2 miles before we couldn't figure out where the rest of the trail was so we just ran back the 2 miles which still gave us 4 miles just not the way we wanted. Playing games and reading are typical morning pastimes for us. Someone brought up phase ten and we spent a lot of time playing that. Kefford has a hard time with idleness and in the past has struggled with our mornings at the beach routines of hanging out. This year he did a great job of keeping himself occupied and I think he really enjoyed himself.

Around 11:00 every day I would start making and packing lunches to take down to the ocean and we all would get ready for an afternoon of fun in the sun. Our kids are old enough that they can get themselves ready and would head down to set our stuff up while we finished preparing lunches. It is so great to have older kids, makes things a lot easier. When I got down on the first day Ben had already been buried in the sand and Kefford was drawing an airplane around him. The end exult was pretty cool! Emily and Matt couldn't make it this year, he had to work and Emily and Isabelle had girls camp the same week. We missed them, especially Avynlea missed her buddy Isabelle, but we were really happy Ben could come down with Andrew and be with all of us. 

Beach time with my honey!

Avynlea enjoying the sand and looking pretty cool in the process

Jaylynn, Rylee and Avynlea hung out and played together a lot but there were often times that I saw Avynlea just hanging around with no one to play with. She wasn't always interested in doing what they were playing and without Isabelle did not have anyone her age to play with. She did a good job of not complaining and making the best of her situation. I did enjoy seeing these three together the times they were playing with each other.

Over the fourth Taylor did my toes with her glitter and polish and I was really happy they were lasting so long. I liked my glitter toes on the beach. Anita had some white glitter toes so we took a picture of out glitter toes together. I was trying to get a good picture of my toes but my shadow was getting in the way. Jeremy was standing nearby and when he saw my struggles he stood behind me and braced me so that I could lean back and get a good shot with out the shadow. He is the best brother!

A Gender Reveal and Cousin Sleepover

Finally in the middle/end of July it was time to drive down to California for our Annual Lutes Beach trip. We drove down on Friday and on Saturday Joshua and Mallory flew in and Andrew and Ben drove down. A couple months ago Mallory and Joshua announced their pregnancy to everyone and we were all so excited to finally have another Lutes cousin. Rylee has been the youngest cousin on the Lutes family side and she is 9 years old so it is exciting times for our family to be growing again. Mallory had her ultrasound earlier in the week and decided to find out what the sex was but not tell anyone in our family so that they could do a gender reveal when we were all together. She had ordered doughnuts and the sprinkles would tell us if the baby was a boy or a girl since they would either be blue or pink. We took a vote beforehand and the majority of us thought they were having a boy. They had Mom open the box and...

BLUE sprinkles!! It's boy!! 

So exciting and such a fun way to tell the sex of a baby because then we all got to eat the doughnuts! Yum! Rylee and I had some gifts to give the soon to be new parents and I was so excited to give them the onesie I found. 

Once Avynlea made the cute baby quilt for Michelle Rylee really wanted to make one for Joshua and Mallory's new baby. I was really concerned about how Rylee would do with cutting and sewing a quilt since she is a couple years younger then Avy but she also exceeded my expectations and did such a great job. She did the cutting and the sewing and I was only their to show her how things were done and it turned out so cute. Joshua and Mallory are into dinosaurs and we found some cute Dino fabric at Hobby Lobby and then we bought a pack of red fat quarters since that matched the fabric and it is Joshua's favorite color. We felt the quilt would work great for a boy or a girl but Rylee said it looked more boyish and was really hoping the baby was a boy.

It turned out so cute and Josh and Mallory loved it! Great job Rylee!!

Jaylynn stayed the night so she could be with her cousins and with such a full house it was hard to find space for everyone so these three ending up "camping" under the kitchen table. 

Disney Running Shorts

My Mom and sisters have made it a tradition to run the Tinkerbell 10k and half marathon for the past 3 or 4 years. They want me to come and do it also and I would love to but it just never works out. It is usually over Mothers Day weekend in May and when I am teaching Dance that is the worst time for me to be gone because May is recital month and I am always so busy with recital prep. But the biggest reason is the expense. It is not a cheap race to run in the first place but then add in the expense for me to fly in and hotel costs and food and it is just too much money for me to justify. When Heather told me that Disney was doing a virtual 5k run series I thought this was a Disney run I could be apart of. Of course I wish I would run it with my sisters but at least I can be a part of something with them from a distance. You could either sign up for one or sign up for all and I opted to sign up for all three which would give me a finishers medal in addition to a medal for each one I did.  Since I was not running with anyone I decided I needed to give myself a challenge to make this more meaningful for me, I wanted to run each one with a faster time then the one previous and I did it! I am so proud of myself for how I completed each race and how I was faster with each one!

June 1, 2016

3.10 miles  9:17 min/mile

28:51

June 10, 2016

3.10 miles  9:05 min/mile

28:12

June 27, 2016

3.10 miles 9:02 min/mile

28:00

I got my medals in the mail and I was so excited to see them. I sent a picture to my family and when my sister saw them she thought they looked small. These medals are definitely not small so I sent a picture with one next to my hand to show the comparison.

It feels good to feel so accomplished!

18 years

Kefford and I celebrated 18 years of marriage on July 11th! Avynlea took it upon herself to decorate the chalkboard for us and she first did the one on the left and then halfway through the day she redid it and made the one on the right. She is pretty dang cute!

Kefford and I first went to the movies to see "Captain America Civil War" which we both really enjoyed. We went to the theater in The Village and after the movie we decided to eat at a place there. I had a $5 off coupon that a dancer gave me to The Counter last year and so we decided to eat there. It is a build your own burger joint and Kefford and I decided to share a burger so that we could have room for dessert. While we waited for our food we took some cool black and white photos of each other. 

I married one good looking guy!

After dinner we went to Aspen frozen yogurt because they were doing a fill the cup for $3 special and who doesn't love frozen yogurt?! Kefford and I got our delicious cups of goodness and after having them weighed the total came to $15 but we only had to pay $6! Score! We took our FroYo and drove over to our new house and ate it while we walked around and talked.

It was a great anniversary and though we have had many ups and downs throughout the years I am glad to be sealed to this guy for Eternity. We have come a long way from our first years together and have learned a lot and changed a lot and I look forward to things becoming even better. 

Kenedy posted this sweet message on Instagram for us.