August Happenings

August was busy for us. We had two very fun birthdays. Autumn turned the magical eight and was able to get her ears pierced and get baptized. For her birthday some of her friends joined us for the only rollerskating adventure of the summer. Jill turned the nonmagical age of two and is living up to everything that two year olds claim to be. She went from a sweet angel to a screamer and a teaser.

We took two last camping trips. One to Lake Alturas, of which I got no pictures, and one to Lake Walcott where I snapped one photo of each child. Nice. We had a lot of fun at Lake Alturas and hope to make it an annual event. We had never been past Sun Valley and now that we have I think we are addicted to the beauty of that part of Idaho. Lake Walcott is great for lots and lots of bike riding, but this year it was also great for lots and lots of nats that like to attack your face so we didn't stay long the next morning but sleeping in a tent and enjoying a campfire are always fun.

Autumn is now officially a member of the LDS church. We are so proud of her for learning about baptism and choosing to enter into that covenant. We love her and she is absolutely perfect in every way.

And yes now the fun is over and it is back to work. Autumn started third grade and Brynlee started first grade and they both came home very excited and happy after there first day.

Halifax!!

We have been home a couple weeks now and I am finally posting some of the pictures from our trip to visit our missionaries. Yes we made it for a second trip to Halifax. The getting there was more complicated this time, but all worth it. We are now counting down their final year as mission presidents and can't wait for life to get back to normal.

We were able to visit for two weeks and we pretty much did non stop site seeing. Here we are at the Bay of Fundy where the ocean tide has just a 12 hour cycle. When the tide is out you can walk among these amazing rock formations. The tide here is amazing and I loved that as we drove into town the rivers were empty as it was low tide. As we headed back out after visiting the rocks and getting dinner the rivers were full again as the tide was coming back in. What a strange view to see empty river beds.
Chaz would not let anyone take his picture during our vacation. I guess if he can't see you that must mean it won't happen. Little stink.

We had lots of time to visit the beach. Of course if you are on a small providence surrounded by the ocean what else would you do but visit beaches. We loved each of the beaches we made it too. Each of them had their own personality and things to do. Here is Chaz at a park along the Halifax harbor. Isn't Ben quite the photographer as he poses our silly Chaz who actually loves sailboats and lighthouses, and I mean loves!

Another beach we visited was on Prince Edward Island and a brochure we had said to look for star fish. Well Ben did and he found us lots of star fish. Here is Autumn with one of the medium sized star fish we found. It had been raining, but hey we weren't about to let rain keep us from enjoying PEI.

One of my favorite pictures. We are just leaving a beach about 20 minutes from the mission home, Conrad's beach. Last year we saw Crab near the bridge of this little inlet of water, so of course the kids were excited to look again. They were not disappointed, there was a lot of crab hanging out on the rocks in the water right next to the bridge. Also taken at Conrads Beach. I guess Chaz was cold, it was windy and he was wet.

Well here we are at the cutest cove just an hour from the mission home. Peggy's cove has a beautiful lighthouse situated on some large rocks. The kids love the adventure of finding your way over and around the rocks to new views of the ocean and the lighthouse.

In celebration of Canada Day, which we happened to be visiting during, Grandma had bought all the kids a Canada shirt. Which I think we actually forgot to wear on the actual holiday. We didn't really participate in any of the events happening in Halifax - we went to the beach instead. We did walk out to the lake at 10:00 and look up in the sky to enjoy the city fireworks. I must say that is the best way to do fireworks no crowds and no long hours of waiting.

Oh yes we did light off some of our own fireworks. Though we were the only ones in the neighborhood doing so.Here is one my my favorite places in Nova Scotia. Lunenburg! If you want to see some pretty views of a fishing village this is the place to go. The bright colors of the homes and businesses lining the ocean waters is absolutely amazing.
Also you can't visit Prince Edward Island without some kind of Anne of Green Gables moment. So here is Jill posing as Anne.

Ben and I got two days to ourselves, and my parents got two days of just grandkids. I think we all enjoyed those two days. I know Autumn keeps telling me things they did while we were gone. My mom wondered if Jill would miss us, but she didn't. She quickly learned grandpa is a sucker for his grandkids and she had him wrapped around her finger and when I got home she still preferred him to me. It was cute to see her as she would beckon him with her had and say C'mon and he would follow.

Ben and I took a driving, hiking tour of Canada's Cape Breton National Park. It was beautiful.

I think the kids may have liked it if we had just stayed put at Grandma's house all week and swam in the lake everyday. The mission home is across the street from a beautiful little lake with a walking path and a few sandy beaches. Any time there was a down moment the kids would convince someone to take them over, and if they fooled us by saying just for a walk they always seemed to manage to come back with wet clothes and claim it was an accident.

Well as you can tell we had an amazing time. What a wonderful experience. We have been so blessed by my parent's sacrifice and I know that they and their missionaries have also been blessed for each of their sacrifices. I loved hearing the happenings of the mission while we were there and seeing the successes of the elders and sisters. I know my family is all homesick and can't wait for this next year to get over. It has been hard to have them gone and all the things they miss out on sharing with us. My kids are so blessed to have such amazing grandparents and whether they are near are far we are grateful to know they love us and that they are safe and healthy and that this too shall pass.

Jill

I was looking through my camera and realized that most of my pictures, which haven't been many, the past couple months are of Jill. I guess she must be the cutest right now. She is 21 months and I think I would like to keep her at this age forever. She is all snuggly and playful and yaps in her own language so she never argues with me, which the other three are very good at. I am excited for summer and all the new things she will get to do, plus it will be nice not to have any crawling babies this summer.

Here she is pulling her teenager attitude cause I asked if I could get her picture. Yes, it has been cold enough the last few weeks to still wear warm fuzzy pajamas to bed.

She just looks too big to still be in a crib. But since she makes no complaints we are leaving her there.

She loves twister, and her sisters are kind enough to tolerate her interruptions.

I asked if I could take her picture in her new dress and she immediately sat down and leaned on her arm to pose for the camera. She is too cute!

April

Brynlee had her sixth birthday in April. Since it was so close to Easter she had an Easter party. I love all these cute bunny faces. She is very happy to finally be six!After her friend party, I ran out of energy. Since her choice for dinner was to order pizza she had to put candles in her pizza instead of a cake. (She'd made easter basket cupcakes at her party)The weeks before Easter were freezing. Our friend had an egg hunt for the kids in her beautiful backyard but as you can see it wasn't too enjoyable since we were all just freezing.

My kids enjoyed decorating eggs but they mostly enjoyed eating them. As soon as they finished dyeing them they all ate about three. I find this disgusting as I don't really like hard boiled eggs.

As long as I am talking about Brynlee. She has a dance recital next week and this week they had their dance class pictures. Here is my cutest dancer!