Collages are Fun (Bear Lake 2009)

We went to Bear Lake a few weeks ago with Dave's family. This is our third summer going together, and we had a great time. The kids just think it's the awesomest thing ever...running around in the condo, playing all day at the lake, and being with their cousins and grandparents for three whole days, they were in heaven.

At the end of the trip my brother-in-law took the memory cards from each of our cameras and burned everyone a disc of all the Bear Lake reunion pictures. Needless to say we came home with tons of great pictures...way more than I could ever post. Thankfully my friend just told me about this great photo editing web-site (http://www.picnik.com/) and I was able to make a bunch of collages of lots of the fun pictures. I am way behind the times when it comes to the whole collage thing...I had a lot of fun putting them together though. :) And for those of you who (like me) don't have photo shop but desperately want it but can't afford it right now...that picnik site is great, I definitely recommend it. :)

So, it's collage time...

First day at Bear Lake...we arrived in the afternoon. The kids had fun playing on the playground and of course we had to walk down to the lake. We just need to remember for next time that there's no way we can take all the kids down to see the lake in their clothes and think they'll be content to just get in a little bit. The little ones especially got soaked. :)

Second day was our day at the lake. The kids had so much fun playing in the sand and swimming in the water.

We rented a paddle boat which was lots of fun too...

My brother-in-law took some photos of Justin and he caught some of my favorite facial expressions of his...so I had to post them. :)

Cute cousins and cute grandparents... (my awesome teen-age niece and nephew-Alison and Davis-are pictured above in the boat ride pic)

Day three...we took family pictures! (Thanks Sean.)

(before and after)

Cousin picture...

The whole family...

Day four...we spent the last day of our trip in Logan.

Dave's mom made all the kids the most adorable aprons and they spent the day wearing them. They all looked so cute. They had fun making sugar cookies together and getting those new aprons nice and messy. :)

Every year Dave's mom plans a cousin scavenger hunt and a "cousins forever" game where she reads information about each cousin (like their favorite color, what they want to be when they grow up, etc.) and the kids get to guess which cousin it is. It's always really funny and cute and they absolutely love it. So here are some pictures from our last day...

Thank you Gutke Family for a wonderful trip!!!

Grandma Rachel

My beautiful Grandma Rachel turns 91 today. Isn't that amazing! She is an incredible woman and has lived an incredible life...I love and admire her more than words can say. She came to visit a few weeks ago and it was so wonderful to see her. I thought it would be a perfect day to share these pictures...

Eden's actually named after the little town
where my Grandma was born.
Eden, AZ

Dave's Grandma (and mine too of course :)) just turned 85 a few weeks ago. Let me just say she is one incredible lady. I really look up to her and feel so blessed to know her and to have married into her family. :) My cousin-in-law just wrote a sweet post about Grandma Barbara with pictures from her 85th birthday party. I was so glad to see them because we couldn't be there. If any of you would like to see pictures of another beautiful and amazing Grandma...click here.
I am one lucky girl to have such wonderful women to look up to!


These next few pictures are from the night we were visiting with my Grandma at my parent's house. They made me happy...so I wanted to share them...

p.s. Today is also a special birthday for someone else in my family. My newest nephew, Holland, was born just this morning! Happy Birthday Holland!!!

The pool and the mountains...

are two of our favorite places to go in the summertime. I just wanted to share some pictures…

The Pool:

We have been to the pool a ton this summer which has been so fun. Eden absolutely loves the water, Emily is a little fish, and Justin likes it too. :) For as many times as we’ve been though, I actually don’t have a whole lot of pictures. Mostly because I’m always too nervous to take my new camera with us to our public pool. Kind of defeats the purpose of having a nice, new camera, huh. :) Oh well. I still have a few fun shots to share…

(taken at my parent's pool where I'm not too nervous to take my camera. :) )

The Mountains:

It’s always about 20 degrees cooler (or more!) up in the mountains here. So beautiful too…it feels like a whole other world and it’s only about a 40-minute drive from where we live in Vegas. Here are some pictures from a recent trip I took with my friends and their cute kids…

Justin had just gotten this bug catcher from his Grandma the day before we went. He is obsessed with bugs and had so much fun looking for them in the mountains. It was great.

A swarm of ladybugs flew through our site and the kids caught a ton. They were in heaven. Here's a picture of one little ladybug...

The kids also had fun chasing bubbles through the trees...

For some reason I didn't get very many pictures of Emily. :( Here's one of her with her friend Mindy...

And here is Eden with her little friend Kate...

(they were so good at sharing their rocks with eachother :) )

Speaking of rocks...

all Eden wanted to do while we were there was dig around in the dirt and eat them. It kept me pretty busy trying to keep her from doing so. I finally gave in and let her try just one...

Here she is looking around for the perfect rock...

Daring me to stop her...

It's in...

Her reaction...

Truthfully, Eden-in-the-mountains wore me out. :) But, we still had a blast and we'll be sure to go back at least a couple more times before the summer's over. I'm so thankful that even though we live in Hades we still have these wonderful ways to get out of the heat and have fun together!

Eden loves the Trampoline

Like the fabulously creative title of this post says ( ;) )...Eden loves the trampoline. Playing on there is one of her very favorite things to do. She just runs around in circles and is as happy as a clam. I thought it would be a great place to do a little photo shoot of her...

I think babies are so cute from behind...

Some sunny pictures...

Eden felt like licking the ball ...I think she thought it tasted weird...(I'm glad.)

Gotta love the crazy trampoline hair...

So that's it. Eden loves the trampoline, and I love taking pictures of Eden loving the trampoline. It's a good combination. :)
The end. (again.)