Utah Trip- Part 1

So I have a ton of pictures from our 3 week trip to Utah. Due to my lack of time I think I will break it up into 3 separate posts.

We decided to make the drive in two days this year. The kids were great the whole trip with minimal complaining and we made really great time!

Even Jacob did really well on the long drive!

I love the look on Noah's face! The kids got a little bored and wanted to watch a movie so I told them that if they could make at least 12 or more semi trucks honk then they could watch a movie. They really got into it (believe it or not, so did Noah). It didn't take long to get the required number of trucks to honk and they got to watch their movie.

We are almost to Boise and our hotel, the kids are getting a little tired at this point, but they were still really good!

At the hotel for the night and having a late dinner before bedtime. We were all very happy to be out of the car. It was a very long night though as Jacob was up till 1am wanting to crawl around.

We stayed the weekend at my aunt Jan and uncle Jeff's house just north of Salt Lake City. All my dad's siblings and his mom were there. Also all my siblings except Jessica and her family were there. We really missed having them too. One of the days we went for a hike. Some of us stayed behind with some of the smaller kids and played at a park nearby.This is Noah and my brother, Jeremiah on the hike.

This is my brothers Jeremiah and Joshua, sister Melissa and her daughter Alina, Noah, cousin Ryan and grandma Alma at the falls.

Kendall and Noah on the hike.

Emma and cousin Hyrum playing in a tree.

We went to a park and took family pictures with everyone. I wish I had one of the whole group!

Noah and Hyrum had a lot of fun together!

My bother Jeremiah and his family: Sharon, Hyrum, Lyliana, and Addie.

Daniel's new little friend a rolly-polly bug.

My dad and Catherine with all the grand kids, minus my sister's 4 kids.

My Grandma Alma and all the great-grand kids. It was so fun to visit with everyone! It had been years since we were all together! My aunt Jan and uncle Jeff were so awesome to have us all at their place for the weekend!

Jacob's 1st Birthday!

I know I'm really late posting about Jacob's birthday, but better late than never. Jacob turned 1 on August 5th. We just had a little birthday party as a family. The kids blew up balloons, which he LOVED!
He's still pretty small for his age but we are working really hard to fatten him up! He loves to eat now and if I let him he would just hang out in his highchair all day as long as I kept food in front of him!

He got some new clothes, and a couple new toys. He was pretty confused about the whole opening presents thing, which his brothers and sister were more than willing to help out with.

Looking a little tired after opening presents.

I made zucchini cupcakes for his birthday. He was really confused when I put it in front of him. I had to dip his finger in the frosting and then stick it in his mouth. After that there was no stopping him!

Yummy cake! This was the first time he was given sugar so it was quite exciting for him!

I love this picture, he's so stuffed with cake and getting a little sleepy too. I can't believe it's been a year, it seems like just yesterday that I had him! We love our Jacob, he makes us smile everyday!

Girl Scout Cheering Station!

Emma's girl scout troop went to help cheer on the walkers for the 3day walk for a cure. It was a lot of fun. The girls all made signs and wore as much pink as they could.

They handed our otter pops, stickers and candy to all the walkers and cheered them on great!

Emma also ate a lot of suckers throughout those three hours, can we say sugar high!!!!!????

Kayak Point Park

One evening in July we went to Kayak Point Park. It's one of our favorite places to go. It has a great play ground and the kids love the beach! We had a fun time taking pictures of the kids and playing on the beach.
I thought the water was way to cold but the kids didn't seem to mind!

Well Jacob seemed to be the only kid with some sense! Every time we would put him down to let his feet in the water he would curl up his legs and yell!

Daniel likes to play on the driftwood all along the beach.

All the kids sitting on some driftwood.

The best we could do for a family picture.

Daniel loves to throw rocks!

Daniel was telling Jacob all about rocks.

Then he gave him a little rock shower! Strangely Jacob didn't seem to mind.

I'm Back

So it's been a while since I've last posted. It's been a very busy summer and I have lots of stuff to post so just be patient as I sort through all my pictures and find the time to post. School has started up again, so life has gotten a lot more busy! It didn't help that during the 1st week of school the peaches and pears I got all ripened at once(75 pounds of each, I know, I'm totally insane)! So it was a very busy stressful couple of days. But I now have 26 quarts of peaches sitting on the shelves and more frozen in the freezer. Plus 34 quarts of pears! And the peach jam I made is amazing! I kinda wish I had made more, but with all the other jam I made this summer I just didn't see the need to make more jam. We also picked over 30 pounds of blueberries this month and froze most of them. I did make blueberry jam for the first time and it turned out pretty good. So with a 3 week vacation to Utah, processing all the different fruit I got this summer and other little fun family things it's been busy! Oh ya, I have started to learn how to play the guitar! I have always wanted to learn but have put it off for years. I found a good guitar and have been taking lessons for about 5 weeks now. It's so fun and I find it's my way of relaxing at the end of the day. So stay tuned for more posts soon!

Deception Pass boat tour

Deception Pass is a beautiful place. We have been several times as a family and love it! I found Jet Boat Tours tickets on Groupon and just couldn't pass up this deal! We couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather!

The kids were super excited! I wasn't so sure Jacob would enjoy himself but he LOVED it!

There was still a lot of fog over the bridge which was way cool!

We saw two Bald Eagles!

Jacob kept pointing at everything and getting really excited!

Noah smiling nice for the camera.

At the end of the tour the captain asked a trivia question and said whoever answered correctly won a free ice cream cone. The question was: Which city in the USA sells the most sunglasses? Seattle! I was the only one to raise a hand and got it right! At the time I was doing the no sugar thing so I thought I would get the ice cream for the kids. And maybe would end up buying a second ice cream if the free one was to small for the kids to share, but the thing was HUGE! The kids really enjoyed it! I confess I did have a little. :) It was fun spending time as a family doing something we don't normally do.

So I had this "grand idea" a couple weeks ago. I would invite my nephews and niece up for Memorial Day weekend and let the cousins spend some time together and let my sister Jessica and new brother in-law, Vernon, have some alone time. (Well kind of alone time since they have a 2 month old baby.) Emma's birthday was on Memorial Day so I thought we would just have a weekend long "party" with the cousins. 7 kids in our house for 4 days was loud and crazy and fun. Bedtimes weren't as bad as I thought they would be after the 1st night. It was a great weekend, but I'm exhausted! Trying to keep all those kids fed was a challenge and a half! But so worth it!

The first thing the girls did when we got home on Friday was change into "dress up" dresses.

Then they wanted to go play outside and I made them change into play clothes. They came out like this. I think Emily wore Emma's clothes most of the weekend and Emma wore Emily's clothes. So as usual we were getting them mixed up all weekend long. Silly girls!

The boys wanted to play target practise with the airsoft gun and we had a neighbor kid at our house most of the time so that made 8 kids running around!

When they got tired of target practice they came inside to make a tent in the living room.

We watched the movie Tangled which Cale said was a "dumb movie" but as you can see he sat and watched it anyways.

Kendall got out his rc plane and flew. The kids loved that!

The kids stayed up late talking and giggling every night and for some crazy reason they were all up before 7am! We were all pretty tired!

We had a little flag ceremony in the morning on Memorial day. Since it was Emma's birthday she got to be the flag bearer.

All the kids and Kendall.

Jessica and Vernon came up and we had dinner at my mom's house. The kids all had fun playing with bubbles.

Jacob playing with some toys at my mom's house.

Emma really wanted a pinata for her birthday, so the kids had a great time with it!

Daniel taking some swings at the pinata.

Vernon got the older boys real dizzy before they could start swinging the mallet around!

I made an apple pie and a cherry pie for Emma's birthday. Darien's birthday is on Sunday so we celebrated his birthday too while we were all together. My mom made a chocolate cake for him.

Emma and Daniel being silly!

Noah, Cale, Daniel, Emma, Jacob, Emily and Darien.

Okay we were missing the newest cousin Alexander in the last picture so here are all the Washington cousins. Some day we will get all my siblings and all their kids together and get a picture taken!

Emma opening her presents.

She LOVES I Spy books and now has the game! So much fun!

Jacob and Alexander getting to know each other. Alexander is 2 months old and I think he weighs more then Jacob!

He is so cute!!

Hmmm, what's this??