I want to Follow your blogs if you'll have me family and friends!!

PLEASE INVITE ME TO YOUR BLOGS!! I know I was a slacker but I will try and do better :)

She's a JUNIOR now!!!

In AUG I registered my girl for 11th grade she is a JUNIOR NOW!! Wow that just blows my mind!
She got her license in August and is a driver now! I have to get used to not having a car during the day unless I make special arrangements to use "her" car as she calls it. Well worth not having to pick her up after football practice though and she can drive herself to Mutual. She is my personal chauffeur whenever I need to go anywhere because driving is still FuN for her.Pretty much if we are using the car she is driving!! Every now and then I drive just to be sure I can still do it. :)

Camping

Since there are so many pictures from this Summer's activities I decided to post what we have been up to individually so as not to have such huge posts.
So we usually find a way to go CAMPING but this Summer like last we have been very busy with our church callings and LIFE!!!
Thanks to Doug's parents we made a special effort to get out Camping at least once this year.. They like to meet us for dinner and visit and enjoy the fire and then drive home. A big plus that we are not to far from a good camping spot!



This is our favorite spot ever!!! Well worth the fee to reserve it! This year the river had all these washed up branches we could use for Firewood. Doug and Sierra kept the fire well fueled.






During the day it was quite H☼T, so we cool off by playing in the River until our feet started to get numb from the Cold water!











Mom and Dad came up for dinner and we had just sat down to eat when it started to sprinkle and then as it gradually became a constant rain and then a down pour. So we "smooshed" into the rain fly and ate and watched the rain! Everything is so beautiful and green when it rains!

What we have been up to...

I can not believe we are more than half way through this year!!! What Septemeber already.. WHERE DID IT GO...

With Doug not working except occasionally we have had the opportunity to spend LOTS of time together as a family. One of our favorite activities is to play Guitar Hero, Sierra on guitar, Doug on Bass and I sing!

One of the most looked forward to events this year was in March during Spring Break Sierra got her Braces off!!!

Here is the BEFORE picture!




Here is the AFTER picture with her dentist! Whom we love!

The cake Doug made to celebrate!!!
Complete with removable braces...



In the Spring we planted some flowers around our back patio.










In April we catered a friends wedding for her oldest son.




Sierra saved the day with her catering talents by adding beautiful roses to the cakes that came bare.


Sierra's beautiful roses were the perfect touch...



Doug's tray were a plethera of colorful goodness...










Shortly after this experience Sierra had a catering assignment at a retirement party for 4 teachers. Her group was assigned an American theme...They served chicken tenders, meatballs, noodle salad,a melon basket and a chocolate cake decorated as a flag!




I love the ANTS!!










One of the perks of having your Mom come and "help" is that she can go get samples from all the other tables. There was a WESTERN theme with fried potatoes, baked beans and BBQ beef sandwiches, There was a GARDEN PARTY theme where they had cookies, cakes and little tarts, there was a CAMPING theme where they had hot dogs and smores and an AROUND THE WORLD theme where they had appetizers representing different cultures...chips salsa,taquitos (Mexico), sushi and california rolls (Japan) Creme puffs and rich pasteries representing (France) They also had a chocolate fountain to dip food into. pretzels, pineapple, marshmallows, fruit.. it was a favorite! This was part of Sierra's final and she passed with flying colors!!!


In May was PLAY IN A DAY... the kids from our church gather from all over the stake (consisting of 6 church groups) and they have a day to write a play and perform it for everyone the next evening. This year their theme was CSI and so it was a mystery??? The Theme is the Mutual Theme. Be strong and of a good courage!
Sierra's time line was STONEAGE(other themes were futuristic, Modern, King Arthur's Court, Western, Pirates) so they wrote a little play called "Rocky Relationship" in a nut shell... the King's daughter, Pebbles who is old enough to marry must chose a mate to rule with her and King Kronk and Queen Wilma decide the best way to decide is to see who can come up with the best invention, so 1 suitor, Bubba builds a wheel and the other suitor, Chad discovers fire... seeing their inventions the Princess Pebbles steals the wheel so she doesn't have to marry because she loves Pipen a poor handsome boy in the village... it was really cute. Sierra was the Queen (in Yellow of course)
They won 7 awards for their play, only 2 came with trophies. Best supporting Cast and Best Fight scene! The trophies consist of old toys mounted and spray painted.

It was FUN to be with the kids all day, help with props and see the result of all their creativity and hard work!