Camping Trip

Just a few pictures from the family camping trip... It was a fun time! We missed you Dan, Brigit, Darrin and Kris!

Debbie, forever untangling all the kids' fishing poles!
Carving water-bottle boats to float in the creek.Testing to see if they float.The boat-launch.Jessica, the awesome 4-wheel driver! I don't know how many rides she gave, probably 100. Thanks, Jess! All the kids really love her!Poor Bev, cold in the sun. :)Uncle Doug starting Kyler on what will be a life-long love of speed.Misc. pics:

Happy Birthday Katie!

Hi Katie,

We just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. We hope you had a great day!

Love,

Dan, Brigit, and Kids

Water Fight

Hi everyone,
We loved Martin's Cove. We had such a great time with so many neat spiritual experiences. All I could do all day Saturday after we got home was cry. Then yesterday at church everyone who went to Martin's Cove said the same thing. It was such a wonderful experience, one of the greatest things I've ever been able to do. I'm so thankful we were able to go.

We loved seeing Debbie, Jessica, Anna, and Mark on Saturday night! Dave started a water fight and we all ended up soaked. Poor Jessica! I think she got the worst of it! And this picture of Anna and Mark posing cracked me up.

We're looking forward to the family camping trip this weekend!
Love you all,
Ali

Tyce's T-Ball Team

Peyton can crawl FINALLY!!

Hey everyone Peyton has finally decided to not be such a chicken and can crawl. He has been so close forever but he has just been to big of a chicken to move his legs! Its really nice now that he can go for his own toys but also a lot more time consuming for me!

We went waterskiing on Saturday. We had a lot of fun and Peyton was a real trooper. We were in the boat for almost 6 hours and He never once cried! He loved it! These pictures are of him splashing in the freezing cold water on the dock! He loves the water and didn't seem to be affected by how cold it was!

TREEmendous!

We had quite an exciting Sunday. A bad storm blew through Rexburg and uprooted our big willow tree. The kids had fun climbing on the wreckage. Our trampoline blew from our back yard, over our house and into the power lines across the street. The power lines were tangled and one house lost power for a while until the power company could come and fix the lines. Brett was in Boise this weekend for continuing ed courses and came home to the mess. Here are a few pictures. That was such a good beautiful tree. Our trampoline is banged up and no good anymore. Nate was crying "my trampoline blew away!"

Brett and the neighbors are hacking away at the tree right now. Love you all!

Family Vacation

Hello everyone! We hope that everyone is having a fun summer. I love looking at the blog and seeing all of my cute nephews and nieces. We just went on a fun little family vacation. We started out going to Virginia City and Nevada City where we got to see a play, ride a train and see the ghost town which my kids kept calling the cowboy ghost town. Then we went to the Lewis and Clark Caverns which I highly recommend! Then we went swimming to a place called Big Timber. The kids had a blast! They had a bunch of water slides and a cute little kiddie pool. We took our trailer and just camped out each night. We were gone about 4 days. It was lots of fun! Ethan was pretty tired as you can see in the picture. Lizzy was pretending to sleep for the camera. It was pretty funny. She couldn't stop smiling. The picture by the river was taken in Big Sky. It was so pretty there! We have had a pretty fun summer so far. I can't believe that school will start next month!

Peyton's jumper

Here are a few pictures that I took of Peyton today in his jumper. He loves it! He could jump for ever (notice the blanket under him, we have to put that there because our carpet is so hard he gets blisters and his toes start bleeding!! That's how into it he gets! Ha Ha)

His new thing lately is mutilating his bed...He pulls himself up and tries to escape, making the process of naptime a little more difficult. Normally, I just lay him down and he'll go right to sleep but now that he figured out that he can stand up by himself I have to work a little harder. I caught him in the act of trying to rip his bumper off, needless to say he thought it was pretty funny.

Our 4th of July Week

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We had a nice, laid back day. We went to a parade in the morning and watched fireworks in the evening.

Last Christmas I bought Dan a gift certificate to go indoor skydiving. He finally decided to use it last Saturday. When we told Tyce where we were going, he wanted to skydive too. It was really neat to watch. (The pictures didn't turn out very well, since they were inside a big tube)

We love to hear what everyone is doing we LOVE to see pictures! Thanks for the great recipes and the cute pictures, Ali. Kara, you really are the woman. I can't believe that you did Disneyland with all the kids without Brett. You are a great mom!! Ashley, can Peyton get any cuter?? Happy Birthday Darrin!! Debbie, we are so excited to see you and the kids next week. Katie and Bev keep te blogs coming!! I hope that everyone is enjoying the "dog days" of summer!

Love,

Brigit

Happy 4th!

Hey guys,
I would love to hear about your 4th of July's and see pictures of your kids. We had a fun, normal day - parade, BBQ, fireworks. I can't believe summer is 1/2 over. Kyler was asking when his birthday is, and I said in 6 weeks and he was sad it was so far away. I told him it was right before Kindergarden started and then summer would be over and then he thought that was too short and he didn't want it to come so fast. (nice matching pajamas)

Kara, I loved seeing your Disneyland pictures! I just saw them this morning. The kids loved seeing them too. Lexi thought it was so neat that Haley got to meet Cinderella. What a fun trip!!! I wish we could have gone with you!

Brigit, I made your Buster Bars and they were really good! That is such a great summer treat with ice cream and chocolate. Thanks for the recipe!! And thanks for asking for summer recipes. I have a couple to share.

Chocolate Pie

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
5 Tbsp butter, melted
3 squares semisweet baking chocolate, melted
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 cups cold milk
2 pkgs (4 oz each) instant chocolate pudding
8 oz cool whip, thawed

Mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press in pie pan, bake @ 350 for 6-8 minutes.

Mix chocolate and condensed milk (melt 20 seconds in microwave, stir, melt another 20 seconds, stir, etc.) Pour into crust.

Mix milk and pudding with wire whisk. Spoon over fudge. Spread cool whip on top. Chill for 3 hours before serving.

White Chocolate Macadamia Caramel Bars

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
1/4 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 cup butterscotch caramel topping
1 pkg (18 oz) Pillsbury Ready to Bake Big Deluxe Classics refrigerated white chunk macadamia nut cookies

Heat oven to 350. In large bowl, beat cake mix, oil, water and eggs with electric mixer on low speed until smooth. Spread in ungreased 13x9 pan. Bake 15-18 minutes or until top is golden brown. Remove partially baked crust from oven. Pour caramel topping (warmed) over crust. Crumble cookies over crust. Bake another 18 minutes or until golden brown. COOL COMPLETELY before cutting.

(These bars are really good and really easy. Dave is not a nut fan, so I made them again with a devil's food cake mix, caramel ice cream topping, and chocolate chip cookie dough. You can get creative and mix and match what you like!)