Boating with the Skeens

We had our very first boating experience as a family this month!  Todd and I have been when we were kids, but our kids never have.  Our good friends, Sarah and Cameron Skeen invited us to go with them to Owyhee Reservoir for an evening.  It was awesome.  The last people there were finishing up as we got there so for most of the time, we had the lake to ourselves.  The water was smooth and pretty warm, the sun was hot, it was perfect.  They had a tube that could seat 5 people and all the kids took turns piling on for a ride- even Lainey and their little girl, Maya got to ride with us moms one turn.  Lainey loved it!  All this time I thought our family was too young to go boating, but all of our kids had a blast.  

I tried out the knee board and had fun maneuvering it once I got the hang of it.  I got up on my first try with the wake board but couldn't seem to figure out how to steer it left or right.  But I towed behind the boat for a good while before calling it quits.  It was so fun!

Sarah and I with our girls.

Uncle Randy's Wedding

Over the weekend of the 17th, I had the opportunity to fly to Salt Lake (just myself) and attend my uncle's wedding.  Uncle Randy lost his wife, Janin, a little over 2 years ago when she died suddenly at the age of 52.  Lainey was born that week.  Time went by and Randy's children started to persuade him to just try dating again.  They set him up an online dating account earlier this year and he bumped into Mary there.  Mary's late husband, Mark was friends with Randy growing up in Salt Lake City.  He married Mary and they moved a little north to Bountiful, UT where they raised their family.  Mark was in a car accident that took his life 9 years ago.  Randy and Mary were able to reconnect and talk about their experiences losing their spouses.  They hit it off and were married a week ago (for time) in the Bountiful temple (my favorite one!).

Before the ceremony, the officiator spoke on their marriage, on death, losing their spouses, the gospel perspective and blessings.  It was absolutely beautiful the way he addressed it. The room felt so peaceful afterwards as he shared how those who have passed on have such a greater perspective of life and eternity than we do and can easily find joy in seeing Randy and Mary marrying and spending the rest of this life together.

Mr. and Mrs. Jackman 

We welcome Mary into the Jackman Clan!

 

Mom talking with her sister Diana, her brother, John, and his wife, Anne.

 Great Aunt Rose and Great Aunt Rayma.

My cousin, Aaron and his wife, Sarah.

 Mom and I

The wedding reception was in Mary's back yard and it was so pretty!  She's taken a sloping back yard and made terraces, beautiful box gardens, tons of grapes, flowers, etc.  They had a nice misting line hung over head which was very nice, being pretty warm outside.  The kids surprised them by blowing up poster sized pictures of each of them making a very silly face to put on display.  It was super cute.  I don't know Mary well, but I do know Randy is one of the funniest, goofiest pranksters around.  Never a dull moment.  They should have a lot of fun!


After the reception we went to a restaurant Devan had been referred to by a friend saying it was super healthy and yummy.  It looked like a hole in the wall- which usually means I'll love it because it's one of a kind.  Sure enough, the chef ran the show taking our order, checking on us, as well as cooking, with his little girl waiting the tables and his wife cleaning.  He changes his menu daily based on what fresh, whole food he can find.  His specialty is his stir fry so that's what we had.  We told him to make us whatever he wanted in the stir fry dept.  He made us each two kinds, a ginger chicken stir fry and a shrimp/scallop mix with coconut rice.  Both were incredible.  And very healthy.  He piled it on, though and was so friendly mingling with everyone so much that I felt bad not to eat a lot, but boy was I full when I left!  If you're ever in the Bountiful, UT area and want to check it out, it's called Thyme and Seasons.

The trip was too short!  I got to stay at Devan and Maura's house and visit with them and my mom who stayed there as well.  But I wasn't even there 48 hours before I flew back home.  I did squeeze in a trip to Whole Foods with my mom.  Too much fun.  We made peanut butter and almond butter, got some roasted, unsalted cashews, wildflower honey, DARK chocolate, my favorite fish oil, got my mom and Devan some coconut oil.  Too much fun.  I fit in a CrossFit WOD at Devan's workplace.  The coach, Mike, had just come back recently from their Region's Regional competition and I wanted to hear about it.  His team took second place and will be going on to the CrossFit games in California here shortly!  Congrats to them!

The trip was short but sweet and I'm glad I got to go!

Miss Western Idaho Pageant

Brielle was invited to participate in the Miss Western Idaho Pageant again this year.  Each year the contestants are escorted onto stage in the evening gown portion of the competition by a little girl of their choosing who they refer to as "Little Sisters".  This year, our friend from church, Ashely Smith, was a contestant.  And she asked Brielle to be her Little Sister escort. 

Brielle loved getting to dress up fancy and wear a little make up and be on stage.  I'm certain it's a way to help plant a seed of interest in little girls wanting to grow older and eventually be contestants in future pageants.  Brielle talks about it a lot as though she'd enjoy that, but being perfectly honest, it's still not my ideal avenue for finding scholarship money.  In my experience, it seems like too many of the girls gauge their self worth by how they're judged at these things.  But Ashley was clearly a polished young woman with exemplary morals and character, and a solid self worth regardless of a crown.  She did a really good job.  Her talent was singing and she did an incredible performance.  I really enjoyed supporting her there.  She did win $650.00 in scholarship money as second runner up and most outstanding talent!  We congratulate her for her hard work and for her success that evening!

The Hunger Games Series

I finished reading The Hunger Games series a couple weeks ago.  I started reading it on a plane last fall but as the plot thickened, I became increasingly concerned about what I might be getting myself into, reading it.  It starts out by setting up the events of a very twisted sounding sort of war.  I didn't know what to expect, but when my trip was over, I didn't pick it back up again.  But since then, so many people I know and respect have said it's absolutely an awesome series and not as awful as I was afraid it was.  So, about 9 months after the first go at it, I started reading them again and sure enough, I loved them.  What an intense story.  I guess they recently began filming the movie of it.  That'll be exciting!

Independence Day Weekend

 OK, the LONG and LENGTHY collection of 4th of July Weekend's pictures are finally sifted through (I know it doesn't look like it- I probably could have done better :-) and here they are.  

We enjoyed a weekend of family and fireworks.  On Saturday, we played at Grandma Lee's pool and visited with friends and family who came for fireworks and a BBQ.  Our friends, the Dames joined us and we enjoyed having good friends there with us.

 

The newlyweds ;-)

Fireworks were fun, but Lainey proved to be deathly afraid of them this year.  She never cared about the boom bang or the lights in years past.  But she was terrified this year.  We didn't  push the sparklers on her when we saw her initial reaction!  The brothers put on a firework show after the kids finished playing with the smaller fireworks.  Enough people pitched in for it that it was a pretty big show.  I didn't get pics of that because Lainey was too hard to contain while flipping out at them :-)

We lit off some fireworks of our own one of the days as well in the culdesac at the end of our road.

 

On Monday evening, the actual 4th, we had a BBQ at Grandpa Stice's and lit fireworks with them as well.  Our kids were in Firework Heaven!

Pose/Chi Running drills for fun.  The kids pulled it across the entire lawn on dares several times too!

Jumping on poppers.

I had to put the next few pics on showing how Lainey warms up to the sparklers this time around...  Seeing other kids do it several nights in a row made her want to try one out.

Lainey being bashful with the sparklers again.

 She warmed up fast, though!

 

 This Independence Day I've made a new goal, to read "The 5000 Year Leap".  I've heard all about it from Todd, but never actually read it myself.  Time to learn more about my country and what liberty has done for it.  Sometimes I ache to live in a time where everyone understood what liberty and independence really are.