San Diego Family Reunion

Every 2 years my siblings and I with my parents all get together for a little family reunion. 

This year my brother, Jonathan was in charge. He decided to take us all to San Diego for a few days. 

Grandma had a few projects for the kids to do. 

When they weren't doing projects they were running around on the ginormous lawn....

or playing ping pong....

or playing air hockey. There was so much to do around the house during our down time. 

When we weren't at the house we were at the beach.

Aunt Christina, Aunt Sheri, Madelyn, Aunt Hanna and Grandpa all trying to break the wave.

Cousin Carlaya burying Madleyn. 

Kylie trying to bury her daddy.

Emily making her sand castles. 

Being so close to Sand Diego we decided to go walk around the temple.

I love this castle looking temple!

I had never heard of Seal Beach. The parking was horrible! There is none...people park along the streets or pay $20 at a parking garage. Hind sight, we should have paid the $20. Instead Kory dropped us off, found a parking spot a mile away and then caught up to us. 

So stink'n cool to see so many seals and how close we were able to get to them. Sometimes they'd bark at us or just stare at us. They are some pretty cool animals. 

Something that my mom wanted to do with the grand kids was crab catching. This was something she remembers doing with her dad. 

We walked out along a rocky pier, tied raw bacon to the end of dental floss and hung it down between the rocks. We wanted it just above where the tide was coming in.

Madelyn

Hunter

Madelyn, Carlaya and Uncle Mat

t

The older kids loved it! The younger kids freaked out a little about being on the rocky, rocks and close to these little pinchers as they called them. 

We ended up with 2 sand buckets with lots of crabs. At the end of the night we dumped them back into the ocean. 

We ate tinfoil dinners at the beach that night. 

Love, love this picture of Madelyn and Carlaya. The 2 oldest grand daughters. 

All 12 grandkids!

Hunter (13), Carlaya (12), Madelyn (12), Noah (10), Emily (9), Brayden (7), Jamie (7), Elena (6), Brionney (4), Kylie (4), Jesse ( 18 mo,) 

Park Fun

One Tuesday night both Kory and Hunter were gone to Young Men's. Madelyn's group was doing something that weekend so she was home with the rest of us. We needed to get out of the house so we loaded up and went to a near by park. The girls wanted their picture taken. 

This is Madelyn's latest thing. Opens wide when Mom's got the camera out.  

Brayden wasn't interested in pictures. He just wanted to play

The girls wanted me to take picts of them jumping out of the swing. I still haven't quite figured out how to take pictures of fast movement. 

This girl is so fun to take pictures of. Very photogenic!

The girls wanted just one picture of all 3 of them. 

All the little one wanted was to go back and play!

I love Emily's squished look!

Oh happy days!

Madelyn turns 12!

Look who's 12! 

Madelyn and I have had a fantastic week! We just spent it together at Girls Camp. Her birthday fell on Saturday the day we came home. Before leaving I had told Kory where all her gifts were so that they could be wrapped and ready for her when we got home. Kory turned the job over to Hunter. He got a little creative and made opening gifts a lot more fun!

Look at that huge box! What could possible be inside it?? 

Why a huge plastic tub full of smaller boxes!

Inside the Go-gurt box was some muffin mixes Brayden pulled out of the pantry to wrap for her. 

What was inside the wipe box? 

Mascara wrapped in wrapping paper.

Can't believe this girl is going to start wearing make-up. 

Saved the best box for last.  

Another box inside a box!

Boy did Hunter do a good job at prolonging the expense. 

This was what she was desperately hoping for. 

Her very own iPod.

Happy, happy birthday my sweet loving girl! 

1st Year at Girls Camp

This year something amazing happened. It was Madelyn's 1st year at Girls Camp. If that wasn't exciting enough I was called to be the Camp Director. Making it my 1st year at Girls Camp as a leader. Oh the fun we had!

We had a total of 13 girls. Seven of whom are inactive or non members. It was so fun to get to know each of these young ladies. 

We left Wed morning and came back Sat morning. 

The stake had plenty of activities planned for us during the day. We had games, crafts, canoeing, zip lining and hiking. In the evenings we were blessed with amazing speakers that taught us to "Come What May and Love It". 

Camping with these fun girls brought back memories of my own time as a young girl at 

Camp Stimpson.

I was a little worried when I first accepted my calling. I have been in Primary almost since the time we've been in this ward so I didn't know the leaders or the girls. I was also worried Madelyn wouldn't be able to enjoy herself with her mom there. But by the end of the week I couldn't believe how quickly the time had gone and fun we had all had. I wasn't ready to go back home and neither was Madelyn. We had a great time!

Madelyn turned "12" on the last day of Girls Camp. For fun we bought a pillow case and had all the girls in our  camp sign it so she would have a fun "memory" of her 1st year at Girls Camp. What a fun way to spend a birthday!