My cute boys

Ok Emily, so your not the only lame mom whose takes pictures of their cute kids on the first day of school. I hope you still do it when they are old junior high kids like mine. See the smile on their faces. That only lasts for about a week or two. That is why you should catch it on camera, before the excitement and nervousness wears off. I have to admit that I feel those emotions with them. Britesha was up and out the door before I could get a snap shot of her. She's a big high schooler that doesn't need her mom to take her to school on her first day. One day it will come for you too Emily and you will feel a certain sadness. It comes so fast, so take all the pictures you can. We enjoy seeing them also.

I think Amree was the sadest. She loves her siblings and now all she is left with during her day, is Elmo and Mom.

Our Fancy Van

Here is our beautiful new van. Amree loves it because she can see everything going by. You gotta love the color. I am actually excited to have something to drive. As great as walking is, sometimes it just doesn't cut it.

Ward Campout

We attended the ward campout. It was Amree's first campout. She was in heaven, basically because she was outside for 24 hours. She was so excited, she just giggled the whole time. She had never been so dirty in her whole 14 month life. Daddy was a little stressed out and over protective as you can imagine.

It was not a very good turnout. There were only about 5 families there. The boys still had a blast. There was a play ground right next to the camp site, so they felt it was their job to play king of the mountain. I tried to take pictures, but it was dark and they did not turn out very good.

The Mosquitoes were crazy. They were just swarming us. Bug spray helped a little, but they just seem to love Darren no matter what he does. I put spray all over Amree, but I didn't want to get to close to her eyes. Yeah you guessed it, she got bites around her eyes. Pour baby!

I wasn't sure how it would be to get her to go to sleep in the tent. She was a little scared when we first got in the tent, because it was dark. But she soon got use to it. She was so excited and wanting to check things out. She didn't want to lay down. She kept crawling around all over every one. Finally I pinned her down and she went to sleep. She slept all night long. I couldn't believe it.

Our site was right by the Jordan River, so we went down to look at it. Pretty dirty water and almost to a stand still. There were a ton of cat fish right up by the shore. The boys were impressed. I am sure they would have fished if they had their poles with them. Amree wanted to go swimming and was freaking out like she always does whenever there is water. We let her put her hands in it, but then walked back up to camp before she had a complete emotional breakdown.

Notice Britesha is not in any of the pictures. She had a date and that's way more exciting than a ward camp out with your family. That's ok though, her date was scheduled before we knew we were going on the camp out.

Britesha in Spinnakers

This is Britesha practicing right before the 4th of July parade. She on the drill team for Cyprus High. It is pretty difficult to get on to this team, so she was very excited. She is the cute one in the middle. It looks pretty cool when they perform with their sabers. They do not use them in all their dances, but it is what they are known for. The girls get dangerous when they start swinging their sabers around. Their sabers are sacred. They are not allowed o let anyone touch them or they will be put on probation. If they drop them during practice, they have to run laps the rest of the time they are at practice. Britesha comes home with cuts and briuses from them. They put them through some pretty intense training. She sometimes wonders whether she should have tried out for this. The girls all have to learn the dances, but they have to try out for every dance to see if they will get to perform them. She just made Kick and will be performing next Friday. Yeah! I am so proud of her. If I can figure out how to put videos on here I will.

Brenner and Tresden at camp

Brenner and Tresden are at Camp Steiner for the week. They weren't too excited to go, but they are going to love it. It is an organized boy scout camp that offers archery, shooting, rockclimbing, fishing, swimming, woodcarving, etc. Sounds like paradise for boys there age. They will be earning merit badges in the things they do. Darren is the Deacons Quorum assistant so he gets to go up for a couple of the days. They sleep in huts that only have 3 walls, so it should be interesting. The boys will probably starve to death or think they are going to, because they are such picky eaters. We will let you know how things went when they get back.