Trip to nauvoo

I have over 300 pictures of this trip...how do I pick just a few???
Well, my Dad treated our family to a trip to nauvoo!! He rented a 15-passenger van for all of us...and we still had to bring my mom's SUV too. there were 17 of us on the trip. It was so AWESOME!!!!!
We went to the temple. It was so beautiful.

I love my sweet husband!!!
Me and my Mom. She's the best.
We went to Carthage jail, where the prophet Joseph Smith was killed.




There's the Helms!!! Randy and Carrie.
My Mom does this every time she sees a locust shell. LOL She cracks me up. Sometimes she hangs them from her ears, or wears them like a brooch.

In old Nauvoo, they have all of the old buildings, some are still functioning like the olden days!!
This was at the blacksmith shop. It was so cool- we all got rings made out of nails. very groovy.
Pioneer games!! Josh on stilts...
Emily in the "mini Nauvoo" village.
Handcart races!!!
The pageant was the best. It was phenomenal!!!!

Summer 2009

There's a new "spray park" by our local playground! The kids love going there and running through the water. It's hot as heck for me, but they're happy. I just find a shady spot under a tree and read a book...once I thought I'd just stick my foot in the water and a huge blast of water shot me in the backside.
There's a snow ball stand with a play area for LITTLE kids...but that doesn't stop Julian and Emily. LOL...We kept Madie and Hayden for a week while Keli went to Girls' Camp. She was the camp director or something. Our 4 kids got along for about 2 and 1/2 days...and I had them for 6 days....so that was interesting!!! But they love each other.

OH- see the dog in this picture? Poor thing. So this lady was giving him away on Craigslist. His name was Rosco and he was a dachsund mix. Well, we had him for like 2-3 weeks. He bit Annie in the face (our other dog- see how depressed she looks in the picture?) and then he bit my little 7-year-old cousin. I brought him to the pound as soon as that happened. It was sad.
Me and Carrie love taking our friend Patty out on "girls' days out"...but since school let out we haven't been able to. I'm pretty excited for school to start back up next week, but I am going to start subbing again too. HOWEVER, I will definitely take some days off...I love going to the temple and spending time with my sisters and my Mom during the school year.
That would be Julian and Hunter enjoying one of my Mom's AWESOME country meals out at the camp. All of the veggies came from the garden- potatoes, squash, purple hull peas, butter beans, okra...and then she made some fried chicken to top it off. We thought we'd died and gone to heaven.
Me, Madie, Ella, and Robyn picking peas. OH, and Annie...she's so sweet!
There we are shelling the peas. That's my favorite part. See that huge tub of peas? We filled at least 2-3 of those. Robyn and I stayed up til 2am shelling. Everyone else gave up and went to bed, but we weren't going to stop until every one of those peas was shelled!! Our thumbs were ACHING. LOL
Emily helped me wash my car in the driveway one day...I went inside and when I came back out I found that she had made a little "pool" for herself. LOL...I laughed so hard.
My Mom gave Emily a Haircut!!! She did a really good job too. I might ask her to give me one soon. My hair has gotten soooo long and heavy.

Soooooo.....one of my blog buddies (Kristina) emailed me and asked if I had died. LOL
Nope. I'm still kickin'.
This summer has flown by.
Let's see- what's new?
Well, I was called as our ward's Primary president which threw me for a loop!
It's a lot of fun, and I have been trying hard to be worthy of such a great responsibility.
I started an Ebay business and became practically obsessed with it...I have pretty much put that on the back burner though. It was taking over my life. I spent at least 50 hours a week doing it, probably more! I made about $1200 in 60 days too...so I was hooked.
We spent some time in Mississippi at the camp...
And we just went on a trip to Nauvoo, Illinois. My Dad treated our family to that vacation! It was so awesome. I am so happy that my children got to experience that. I have been so fortunate- that was my 4th visit to Nauvoo. And I'd love to go back! It's just wonderful.

Ten fun things to do at the camp

#1. Kick back on a hammock and read a book!!!
Or- hey,
#2. chew your toe nails:
Don't worry about the fact that you haven't showered in 2 or maybe 6 days...and you've been going barefoot....chew away!!! LOL

AWWWW- #3. bond with your cousins!!!! That's the best one of all....
#4. Harrass the poor dog! Yippee!!! What could be more fun? LOL
I love Ella!!!
#5. Play with bubbles! Thanks Aunt Keli!!!
#6. Ride a huge stuffed fish...... LOL
Alice is so adorable!!!

Or #7. throw an awesome Easter egg hunt:
#8. Sit on the side of a hill and watch a bunch of your crazy relatives purposely fall off a zip line into a huge mud hole! Top that!
#9. Load as many family members as possible onto one 4-wheeler so they don't have to walk 20 yards back to the camp. LOL
#10....and the best of all!!!! Be a REAL kid and do real kid stuff- like playing in a patch of dirt for hours on end!!! YAY!!!!
I can list at least a million more....I might just have to keep adding to this list. I haven't even scratched the surface yet!!!

The Zip line

As U can see:
Randy hooked up a zip line-
from the wench on his truck to a tree at the bottom of the hill, above a huge mud hole....
the above picture is Randy going down it, backwards and somewhat upside down....he is a daredevil!!!
I lost count of how many times Julian went down that thing. I closed my eyes almost every time.
Someone would go down in a 4-wheeler to bring people back up the hill...I'm surprised no one got stuck in the mud.

But a few people did fall into the puddle!!!
I think it was on purpose, though.

Easter at the camp

Hey!
We had the most awesome week out at the camp....there's Annie and me (above)...she loves the camp!
Easter was the best, then Spring Break vacation came right after. It was non-stop fun.
I have about 5 gazillion pictures to share....LOL...so I might have to narrow them down a bit.
I took these next 4 pictures- they're my favorites!!!!

slackin'

I've been pretty busy lately.
I hardly have any new pictures to show for it though!
There's Josh washing some golf balls he found in the woods.
Josh was in a tournament Saturday. He won a hat.
Conneen got rid of some of her clocks. She has a huge collection. I might just take up collecting clocks myself!! These look pretty cool.
Annie is the most loved dog on the planet.
Carrie, Patty, and I went out on a Girls' date this past Monday. It was SO much fun!!! We went to IHOP for brunch, then went to see "Race to Witch Mountain" which was cute. We were the only 3 people in the whole theater so we could make loud, obnoxious comments through the whole movie. That always makes it sooooo much funnier. We were laughing our hineys off.
Last weekend it rained and rained and rained....
This is normally a ROAD::::

We were in Josh's truck, which rides pretty high...I would not have driven a car through the water! Several people in small cars got stuck trying to drive through it!
See these people:
We went to the temple that night (last Friday) and by the time we got back home, the road to our house was CLOSED. We had to take a one-hour detour to get to our house from the back way. We actually live in a relatively high spot, but we have to go THROUGH the low area to get in and out of town.