How did you spend your last day?

I'll never forget the day before I left on my mission. For that matter, most of the world won't forget either. It was April 20, 1999. I spent the day running around SLC sight seeing and spending time with my family. We even met Elder Perry on Temple Square and spent a few minutes visiting with he and his wife. It was so cool! We got back to our hotel that night and learned all about a little place call Columbine High School.

Cody also spent the day with family, only this time, there's more family to spend it with.

And of course he did his very favorite thing. Wrestling! Granted, his competition was slightly different than before, but still.

Gideon's Story

Okay so it's no secret that I'm not really into crafts at all. And I'm definitely not into scrapbooking. But I had all of these beautiful blog posts and journal entries about Gideon's adoption and I wanted to put them together somewhere.

So I made a book using Heritage Makers. It turned out so beautiful, I just can't help but brag a little bit. The book is 12 x 12, so as you can see from the pictures, it didn't fit on my scanner.

I have loved having it already. Even though I could access my journals and blogs anytime, it's nice to have it all together in one place with beautiful pictures. Anyway I'm thrilled with it and so happy to have it all together now in one place so that someday Gideon can have it.

According to my sister, Jesse, "It's a lot of words" (yeah, no duh, coming from me!) so it's probably boring to the rest of the world, but if anyone else is interested in ever reading it just let me know.

heat rash. see the oozing and this is my good leg. We all deal with this crap everyday. Enjoy the pictures Cali

Is Your Family This Much Fun?

Today was a busy day. We spent most of it running from store to store with Cody buying all of his last minute mission stuff. When we got home all of the cousins came over for a sleep over at Gideon's house.

I was informed that we have really great climbing trees!
So I had gotten dinner for everyone (okay actually my friend Natalie got dinner for everyone. She brought over a Shepard's Pie last night that turned out to be a Godsend! Thanks!!!!!) Anyway so we had dinner and I started running water in the tub for baths. I was in the other room when I heard a splash. Gideon was apparently very excited about his bath tonight because he climbed in fully clothed. He thought he was pretty darned clever.

Emily Mae (my oldest niece) decided that since we were having a sleep over that our family night needed to be a pajama party. Even the adults were required to participate. So we had a PJ Party family night.

Uncle Cody got Dogpiled.

And I'm not entirely sure how to even begin to explain this.

We even got to have some serious "Monkey Business." And then we capped it all off with popcorn and home made milkshakes.

Sunday Afternoon with the Clan

No explanation necessary

It was cold, but we partied on anyway!

So Saturday may have been windy and quite chilly, but we had planned Cody's birthday/bon voyage party and we weren't going to miss out.

We started things off with some mid-afternoon skeet shooting.

Adrianna watched from a safe distance away.

Cody's Amazing Technicolor Cupcakes. (We had about 8 "helpers" with the decorating so some of them turned out quite interesting.) And don't worry. We had plenty!

When it turned out to be cold and rainy, we had to move the food inside. Good thing mom and daddy have a house that will handle it.

Cami & Jacob made a slide show presentation about Cody to show to all of his friends. It included highlights like wrestling, traveling, the Hawaiin lip-sync and the infamous "tight-whitey" dance.

We had a nice fire for hot dogs and S'mores though!

Gideon loves playing with his cousins!

Watch out for the wind, it will get you!

Lily pulls the best faces in the world!

Gideon and Lydia get a bath!

Okay the boots & hat belonged to guests at the party. We had some explaining to do after we caught Adam being a ham in them.

Games in the house until dark, and then outside for fireworks and an "Epic" Capture the Flag battle.

Okay I still want to know who gave my son a chocolate cupcake after his bath. How was this a good idea?

P-Dawg wants a cupcake please!

Don't ask me why her hoodie is on backward. I think she said something about it being her "zombie" face.

Dude, you're only 19! You don't need that much air!

These boys were definitely ready for bed! They were all partied out!