I Love Texas!

Saturday, we had a beautiful drizzly morning that left me missing Washington State. As I was daydreaming about moving there and enjoying this type of weather more regularly I sped past a policeman and, of course, he pulled me over. He was very nice and even asked me if I "wasn't from around here". He could tell because of my "accent". (I didn't know that I had one--I thought I had the opposite problem!) Anyway, he was very pleasant and let me off with a warning. A I drove away I looked at the warning slip to see the name of this nice keeper of the law.

My dream come true. To get pulled over by the real Walker, Texas Ranger.


Later that night I got to appreciate another great thing about Texas: High School Football!

Football is huge here and no one grows out of High School Football. My brother-in-law plays semi-professional football, but this night he organized an alumni football game for his high school. It was quite the event! It was fun to see a bunch of old, out of shape guys run around (not my brother-in-law of course!)

Here he is with his son after the game. I don't know if I love football, but I do love this player! (oh, they won by the way!)

I did it!

I'm offically 35! I have had one kid per 5 years of my life.
I was dreading turning 35 for some reason, but once again the anticipation was way worse than the reality! I had a great day, and can't wait to start tomorrow!

Happy Birthday, Jacob!

I've always told my kids that 9 is the most awkward age for boys. Ben just got out of being 9 in June and now we have a new 9 year old in our midst. He is determined not to be awkward, but I don't know, I guess I kind of like awkward boys now.
On the day of his birthday we had 4 dentist appointments in two different cities, two soccer team pictures to be taken, a soccer game and a soccer practice, so we celebrated the day before.


His best friend from Amarillo came down to surprise him and play for the afternoon and we had yet another Pokemon cake.

We got him a new bike, that he has been wanting, but the real excitement of the party was the gifts from his friend. Air Soft guns! I think I'm going to start giving guns to all my friends kids on their birthdays. (Thanks, Jana :)) While Mom was a little nervous, Dad and boys couldn't wait to start shooting things, including each other. After they each got one welt on their backs


(and Brad got one on the side of his head),

they just stuck to shooting empty pop bottles. Now that we have some rules in place we are feeling a lot more comfortable with them, and I guess with 5 boys, I couldn't keep guns out of the house forever. Can't complain, I'd rather have soft plastic beads than bb's or real guns around. Oh, and for the record, I was the one who told the friend's mom that it would be okay to give them as presents! So, I have no one to blame but myself!

Labor Day!

We decided to invite the branch over for a barbecue tonight. We had 50 people and a lot of fun! It is so nice to get to know people away from church. We are all so busy at church that there is no time to just enjoy one another!
This was our first big get together in our new house and it was great to have the motivation to do some needed yard work and get the house ready!

Pulling a trailer, a dog, and my mother-in-law...

Does this sound like the ideal vacation to you? Well, I forgot to add in that we went over 4000 miles. Okay, now that's perfect!
We actually had a fabulous time! The pulling the trailer was not fun, but it was nice to have a place to stay along the way! (It just took a lot longer and a lot more gas!)
Here's some highlights of the trip:
Girls weekend with all my sisters, sister-in-law, niece and my mother-in-law. We got a couple condos at Seaside, OR and had a fabulous time together. We have never just done the girls only and now we are hoping to do it as often as we can!






We went camping at Fort Stevens with my parents and my nephew before we headed home. It was great to let the kids play on the beach! We had so much fun! (Apparently, we had so much fun that we didn't take time to take any photos!)




The best part was just hanging out and enjoying the family! And the nice weather!