Baby Shower at the Beach

Heather and I had the idea to do a Surprise Baby Shower for Ashleigh and Andrew Brown while we were at the beach. We were also going to have everyone bring baby gifts for Mallory and Joshua's new baby so we could send them baby gifts as well. A week before the beach trip Mom accidentally said something about the baby shower on the wrong group hangout so Ashleigh and Andrew found out about it. Oh well, it will still be a fun time.

Emily brought diapers for everyone to decorate and I put together the candy bar game for us all to play. I wanted everyone to be able to get a prize so I made sure to have enough matches for everyone to get a candy. Mom ordered a cute cake from Costco and the party was a raging success. Ashleigh and Andrew got the cutest little baby stuff for their little Baby and it was so fun celebrating with them!

 Andrew Brown and Ashleigh 

 Heather and Mom

 Anita

Rylee and Jaylynn

MaryBeth and Erin

Matt and Emily

Isabelle and Avynlea

Ryker and Ben

Alec, Kenedy and Alyssa

 Kenedy and Alyssa

Cake and Presents! 

Rylee, Elizabeth and Avynlea

Mom and Erin

Jeremy

Lutes Beach Trip

This year we were missing some family members at our annual Lutes Beach Trip. The ones who were able to make it were... Mom, Jeremy and his family (minus Little Jeremy), Me and my family, Heather, Emily and her family, Alyssa and Camryn, and Ashleigh with a little bit of Erin and Andrew Brown. It was a small group this year but we managed to still have a lot of fun!

I was busy doing more video recording this trip so I didn't get as many pictures as I maybe would have normally got. 

Rylee Heather and Heather Marie. 

Mom is not a fan of being touched and Heather likes to antagonize her a little bit by encouraging hugs and random massages and such. Mom was busy playing a game and while she was occupied and concentrating Heather stood by her and just placed her hand on her shoulder. It took Mom a little bit to realize there was a hand on her but when she did she quickly shrugged it off. hahaha

Rylee has been sometimes sporting this awkward smile lately. I think she is not always thrilled with me wanting to take pictures of her. 

Avynlea managed to make charcoal on her face look cute!

Rylee and Jaylynn loved their time together at the beach. These two are very good friends/cousins. I only wish we could get them together more often.

The big kids spent some time digging a hole. Kenedy and Alyssa decided to go in on buying a small blowup boat together to take out into the ocean. They and the others had some fun playing with it in the water but it didn't quite work out like they envisioned it. I think it was a bummer in that sense but I did see some nappers using it for a bed every once in a while.

For dessert one night Ashleigh and Andrew had us make cone s'mores. Take an ice cream cone, fill it with chocolate chips, peanut butter  and marshmallows, wrap it in foil, then place it on the coals long enough to melt but not burn. It was good but I still prefer the original way of doing s'mores. Kenedy took a leftover marshmallow and tried roasting it on the coals.

I love the beach!

 We took family pictures Saturday morning. This year we ordered plain white t-shirts and everyone had the job to tie dye their own. I love how they all turned out! Alyssa and Camryn had size issues with theirs as well as Jeremy so they didn't have the tie dye, we love them anyway ;)

Family pictures were a little sad with so many members missing. Hopefully next year we will be back to full capacity!

 Grandkids with Grandma

 Avynlea, Isabelle, Camryn, Kenedy, RYker, Grandma, Ben, Alyssa, Alec, Rylee and Jaylynn

 Peterson Family

 And a sad Mom and and kids picture, sad only because we are missing half our siblings. Otherwise this is a great picture!

 Heather and I did our tie dye the same hearts and all. We are the cutest!

 Alyssa and Kenedy, future college roommates.

 Ave and Rylee, my two little monkeys!

 Ben, Alec and Ryker

Models and Waterskiing

Rylee spent the day at Brynn Givens house playing with her and two of their other friends Allie Hansen and Taycee Olson. Katie, Brynn's Mom, sent us other Moms some pictures she had taken of the girls "Modeling". Brynn did their hair and then they picked out some cute clothes to photo shoot with. They are all 4 beautiful girls!

Allie, Taycee, Brynn and Rylee

Meanwhile Avynlea went boating with Shayden Albert and her family. Toni, her Mom sent me a picture she had taken of Avynlea water skiing, I was so impressed! She looks amazing. like a little professional :)

Back to Boise :)

I had so much fun exploring Boise that I wanted to go back and take the kids with me. Kenedy and Ryker were busy so it was just Avynlea and Rylee and they invited their friend Brynn to come along with us. I was sub teaching some dance classes that day and after I was done with the morning classes I picked the girls up and we headed to Boise. We went to the rose gardens and wandered around looking at the roses. We all loved the blue water fountain!

 The girls had fun "interacting" with the Julia Davis statue

They also had as much fun with the Lincoln statue as Kefford and I did!

We got hot pretty quick so we drove over to the Library! and after looking around for a bit I left the girls to read and play games in the Library while I went and taught one more class. It was in Boise luckily and did not take me too long. When I got back I found the girls playing some games on the computers and after checking out some books we left. It was a lot of fun spending the afternoon with these cute girls in Boise!

20 year anniversary!

20 years! I cannot believe it has been 20 years that Kefford and I have been married! Why does time seem to go so fast? 

Kefford and I did a little Boise exploring for this anniversary. We drove down to Boise and walked around trying to figure out where to eat. His cousin Coby works in Downtown Boise so Kefford asked him for some ideas. We ending up choosing a Burger place called Eureka! We have never been here nor have we even heard of it but the food we ate was the best burgers and fries we have ever had! It was so good I could not stop thinking about that meal. We are definitely going to have to hit up that place again!

After we ate we ate dinner we saw a doughnut shop and so we went in there to get us each a doughnut, they were very good and a perfect after dinner treat.

While we were walking through different parts of Boise we saw things we ave never seen before and we explored things we have seen before but never explored. One of those was the Library!, I have passed the Boise library many times but have never ventured inside. I was pretty excited to check it out, I am a book lover and libraries are my jam!

I have this recurring dream in which I am inside a multiple story Library and I always thought it would be cool to be in a library that has multiple floors. I was so excited when we walked closer and realized that this Library is a three level Library, a library of my dreams!

I enjoyed walking through and looking at books, I even found a bunch to check out. Kefford was so nice to carry my books for me while we walked around some more.

We came upon this cool Lincoln statue that I have never seen here before. It was really big and we had fun taking pictures with him. Lincoln is a big deal in Idaho because it was during his Presidency that Idaho was declared a State. 

The last activity on our date was to go hiking. I changed out of my date dress into some hiking clothes and we went to the military reserve trails which neither of us have hiked before. They were nice trails with a lot of shade and when we reached one of the end points we had a beautiful view of Boise. 

White Water Rafting!

I had so much fun white water rafting at girls camp that I really wanted to go again with all of my family and Heather since she was going to be in town at the perfect time. We coordinated with our friends the Hansen's (who own the boats) and managed to find a time that worked for both of our families busy schedules. We decided to take the longer trip down the river and it had a lot more calm spots then the way we went for Girls Camp. Nobody fell out of the boat during the rapids but there was plenty of jumping in for floating and cooling off. In addition to our family, the Hansen's were there with their two oldest girls, Kim had her Dad along, Kenedy had her friend Gabi with us and of course Heather was there. It looks like the only picture we got of Ryker was his peace sign in the top picture, he is pretty good about staying out of pictures when he wants to be, also he is a stinker.

Kenedy and Gabi rode the bull the entire trip and never fell in which is an accomplishment. "Riding the Bull" is when you sit on the very edge of the front of the boat.

Riding down the river between the mountains and all the pine trees gave me another sense of appreciation for God's hand in giving us beautiful places to see and enjoy. The views were stunning and while I miss California I really love living in Idaho and being able to surround myself in all this beautiful scenery.

Ally and Avynlea were super cute together, whenever we got close to going through the rapids they would wrap their arms round each other and hang on for dear life!

During one of the lulls we were encouraged to jump in the water and float around for a while. I decided to take advantage of the break so I could enjoy the cool water. It was a really hot day, high up in the 90's, so it was nice to relax and cool off in the water.

Poor Rylee got injured during our trip, she decided to hang off the boat in the water and her foot rubbed too hard along some rocks that were in the water. Her foot got scraped up pretty bad and it made it a bit hard for her to walk around later. Luckily we were boating in one of natures numbing tools and we had her sit on the edge and keep her foot in the top of the water to cool it down and help numb some of the pain away. When it got to the part where the river was low enough that we could walk beside the boat Rylee stayed inside to Captain us around. She is such a good sport and did not complain at all about her hurt foot. 

I am so happy that Heather was here to go rafting with us. I love that she comes to visit me every year and I love being able to show her fun things to do. This was a good trip!

Kim and I, we just love her and her family!

Sophie, Avynlea and Ally walking in the shallow depths of the water.