First Day of School YAY!!!

Not so excited to be starting 8th grade!


excited to be going to the middle school and 7th grade, but also a little nervous!

She has been super excited to start 2nd grade, until today when it was time to walk out the door. I'm sure she had a great day once she got there!

Special Day

Today was a special day for our son Josh. He turned 12 last Sunday, so today he was set a part as a Deacon in our church. Congrats Josh! We are so proud of you and the choices that you have made!

Thanks to all of our family who came to share in this special day with us!

Three Years ago today,

I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Happy Birthday Jena. We love you and are so glad that you are a part of our family!







We also want to wish a Happy Birthday to Grandma Cragun, We love you!

12 years ago today

I gave birth to my second son.

Where has the time gone? It's been an exciting 12 years.

Happy Birthday Joshua.

We Love You!

New Calling

I received a new calling at church yesterday, I will be teaching the CTR 4 class. This is going to be a new adventure. I haven't been in primary for at least 12 years. Wish me luck I am going to need it!

Camping at Teton Canyon

Joe had Thursday and Friday off from work so we decide to take advantage of the days off and headed off to Teton Canyon for a camp out. Jena wanted to go on a nature walk, so we walked around the campground and looked at the wild flowers and then Joe and the kids went down to see the creek. Jena was mad when we sent Jake and Josh off to look at it again without her! Joe and I and the girls saw a Moose behind our tent while the boys were out exploring, I felt bad that they missed it! If our dumb dog wouldn't have barked at it we would have gotten a picture.

We had a really good time other than Josh had his first experience with a migraine headache and threw up outside of his and Jake's tent just when we were all getting ready to go to bed. Jacey then threw up because Josh was. FUN TIMES!

It was short but a lot of fun. I'm really glad that we got to spend this time together as a family before the kids head back to school!

Here are some pictures of our adventure!

The Tetons

The Moon!

The Creek

Proof that we were in bear country, and that you need to be bear aware!

Another one of the creek!

Our cute kids!

Some of the pretty wild flowers we saw around the campground.

Sunburned

My sister Rachel and her kids came up to visit this week, we all had a really good time and hope to see all of them again really soon! We decided to go to Rigby Lake on Tuesday and both Rachel and I got sunburned really bad, the sad thing is we were both wearing SPF 50 Sunscreen.
Thanks for coming to visit us Rachel!

Fun 4th of July Weekend

We had a really fun 4th of July weekend. Joe's parent's and most of his siblings came to our home on Sunday for a family dinner and some fun, some of them had to head home Sunday evening, but two of his sisters and two of his brother's and their families stayed here for the 4th.

We spent most of Monday at Rigby lake playing in the water and the sand, we then came back to our house for a BBQ and then headed down to Freeman Park for some fun and fireworks.

It was a great weekend and we were so glad that everyone could come to visit, we hope they all had as much fun as we did and that they will come back and visit soon!

Summer has finally come to Idaho Yay!

We have finally had some warm weather here, this is what the kids have been doing!

This pool has been worth the money we spent to buy it a couple of years ago!

Happy Father's Day

Just wanted to tell the Father's in my life Happy Father's Day!

To my Dad, I love you and I think you are the best! Thanks for putting up with me, and for raising me to become that person that I am today! (I would post a picture but I don't think he would be happy with my choice!)

To my Father in Law, thank you for raising such a wonderful Son, and for welcoming into your family!

To Joe I love you! Thank you for being such a wonderful Husband and Father, We are so blessed to have you in our lives!

Fun with Friends

My friend Mandy's In Laws have a pond on their property, and we were able to spend some time out there on Wednesday. Thanks Mandy for letting us come out and play! We had a blast!

I have some other pictures, but I am respecting my friends privacy and wont publish them here, you will have to come look at our scrapbook if you want to see the other pictures!

We Love when family comes to visit! (Picture Heavy!)

Joe's brother Mason and his wife Sarah came up to visit us for 4 days last week, along with their little sister Madison. We had lots of fun with them while they were here!

Wednesday we took them to the Idaho Falls Temple Visitors center, walked around the Greenbelt so that they could see the Falls, we made a stop at the big Indian Head in Idaho Falls for a pictures, then it was home for some lunch, we then took them to Fat Cats for bowling, pizza, mini golf and some arcade games, and then it was off to the DI in Rexburg. (Can't pass up going to the DI when it is right there!)

We also played a game outside and watched Mason and Sarah play Dance Central and a couple other Kinect games before bed!

Checking out the falls, and the temple!
Thursday we headed down to Arco to see EBR-I the first Nuclear Plant and then it was off to Craters of the Moon. June 9, 2011 and we were all wearing coats because it was so cold. We have never experienced the cold at Craters before, usually when we go we are all dying of the heat! We did get rained on, but all in all I think everyone had a good time!

Playing with the manipulators at EBR-I!

Craters Of the Moon

If you look closely at this picture you can see a face, creepy!

On the way down to Craters of the Moon we saw some prong horn deer and on the way home we caught this picture:

Isn't it beautiful?! I think a rainbow is just one of the sign that Heavenly Father sends to show us that he loves us!

Before we left the house I asked Joe if he wanted to fill his camel pack up with water for the hiking at Craters of the Moon, so now Jena thinks there are camels there. She was really disappointed when we were almost there and she asked if we were going to ride camels and I told her there weren't any camels there!

Jena riding her Camel down the path!

We like to look for licence plates when we go places, here is a list of the ones we saw while traveling to and from Craters of the Moon:

Florida

Texas
Idaho

Utah
Oregon

California

Washington

Montana

Ohio

Illinois

New York (this was a hippy bus)

Alberta Canada

Michigan

Arizona

Nevada

Colorado

US Government.

When we got back we had some dinner and then roasted marshmallows and made s'mores!

Friday we were off to see Mesa Falls, Big Springs, and Yellowstone! The weather was much better on Friday then it was on Thursday, we were so glad to see the sunshine, but we still had to wear jackets in Yellowstone!

Mesa Falls

I need to crop and photo shop this picture, but I think it turned out great for using the timer!

We were disappointed at Big Springs, none of the trout were out and the Johnny Sacks Cabin doesn't open until the 4Th of July.

Yellowstone!

Love Jena's face in this picture, she had fallen asleep on the way to Old Faithful and she wasn't happy about us waking her up!

Mason & Sarah!

I have a bunch more pictures of Yellowstone, but if you want to see them you will have to come and visit us and look at them in our scrapbook! Although I don't have any pictures of Old Faithful erupting because the camera batteries went dead right before it went off!

Licence plates we saw while traveling in Yellowstone:

Idaho

Utah

Montana

Michigan

Iowa

Wyoming

Nevada

Colorado

Washington

New York

New Jersey

Missouri

North Dakota

South Dakota

Texas

Pennsylvania

Oklahoma

Alabama

Florida

Massachusetts

British Columbia

Kentucky

Georgia

Indiana

Tennessee

Arizona

Connecticut

Louisiana

New Mexico

Wisconsin

Minnesota

US Government

Ohio

Alaska

Ontario Canada

Hawaii

New Hampshire

Animals we saw:

River Otter

Bison

Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels

Raven

Elk

Mountain Blue Bird

American Gold Finch

Snowshoe Hare

Bald Eagle

Uinta ground squirrel

Canada Geese

Mama Bear and 2 cubs (they were way off in the distance we could hardly see them!)

Clark's Nutcracker

Swan

Crane

Jack Rabbit

Cotton Tail Rabbit

On our way out of the park we had to stop for some Bison crossing the street, Jena will tell you that was her favorite part because they walked right past her window!

Saturday we spent some time playing the XBOX 360, then it was off to play some disc golf and going to Big Jud's for the Big Jud's experience for lunch, they we spent some time relaxing before Mason, Sarah and Madison headed home!

Thanks for coming to visit us Mason, Sarah, and Madison, we hope that you had as much fun as we did!

Camp Out, I mean in!

The girls loved that their dad suggested a cam pout with the tent in the family room last night, too bad Jena ended up in our bed at some point! She was really quiet about it though because neither one of us noticed her until about 5 am.

Kindness

I want to be kind to everyone, for that is right you see, so I say to myself remember this, kindness begins with me.

President Thomas S. Monson taught us how to interact with our peers and everyone we meet when he told the Young Women of the Church "my precious young sisters, I plead with you to have the courage to refrain from judging and criticizing those around you, as well as the courage to make certain everyone is included and feels loved and valued."

Remember Kindness begins with me!

I just needed to give myself a reminder that I need to be kind to everyone.

Planting a garden is fun to do!

We planted our garden yesterday afternoon. Tomatoes, Broccoli, Cucumbers, Strawberries & Cilantro. We still have one empty box, not sure what we are going to plant in it!