Hoby Get Your Gun Ready!

This summer Rylie spent almost a month in Arizona. While she was there she got her hair cut. (by Cara's friend Brittney) I love it but it made her look so much older than she is. Now there are all sorts of boys hanging around her. Including some of Tyler's friends who have started noticing her. And as you can tell by this picture she is starting to learn how to "work it".
Here she is "kickin it" in our front yard. She is growing up way too fast for me. It is hard to believe that she will be 14 less than 2 months.

Family Reunion

We had a Family Reunion for my Mom's family this past weekend. There weren't a whole lot of the family that was able to make it but those of us who went had a nice time visiting. My Dad and Mom were in charge so one of the activities that they planned was finding prizes in the saw dust. Here is Rylie with some of the nephews, nieces and cousins searching for candy and money in the saw dust.
Hoby wasn't too thrilled about having to go but he was a good sport and went anyway. This is his "ok I'll try to look like I want to be here" look.

These are my youngest nephew, Gavin, and youngest niece, Malia (Mia for short) showing some of their haul from the saw dust. It was pretty fun to watch the differences in ages. The really young ones, like these two, went for all the candy they could find. The older ones were all about finding the money.

Even though Family Reunions aren't the highest ranking activity on my list of favorite things to do, I appreciate that my Mom and her sisters still have them. It gives us a chance to spend time visiting with family and getting to know the histories of our ancestors. I have learned a lot about my Mom's ancestors by going to these throughout the years.

Happy Birthday Tyler

Tyler turned 16 on August 24. It is hard to believe that he is that old. He had a party and so I decided to make him a cake. Lately he has really been excited about playing the bass guitar so I chose to make him a guitar cake. Here he is with the finished cake. Other than the strings (and a few wooden dowels) the entire cake is edible. It was fun making it for him. He was so excited and all of his friends were amazed. They were all telling me when their birthdays are and wanting me to make them a cake.

Here is the cake next to his real guitar. The party seemed to be a success too. There were approximately 15 to 20 kids here. They played Guitar Hero and Rock Band. They had a fire in our fire pit outside and played cards and games. They had pizza and tons of munchies as well as cake. They topped the evening off watching a video downstairs in our movie room. I didn't get any pictures of the actual party. By the time I was done making the cake I was tired so I left the party supervision up to Hoby and went in our room and shut the door.

Happy Birthday Tyler. We are so happy for you. You are growing into such a wonderful young man. We love you!

Treasure Chest Cake

Here is my first attempt at a 3-D cake. A friend of ours was doing a pirate birthday party for her son and asked me to make the cake. So here is the final product. I had a lot of fun making it and was really excited with how it turned out. I am looking forward to having the chance to make more in the future.

San Antonio

I brought my camera but I am really bad at remembering to use it so I have a limited number of pictures. Here we all are with Mckenna after her blessing. I love her dress. Cassi's Grandma-in-law made it for her.
Here we are outside the Alamo. I don't think anyone can come to San Antonio without having a similar picture taken. We really enjoyed visiting the Alamo. It is much smaller than we had thought that it would be. Rylie and I have some interesting hair going on. It rained all morning the day we went and then it was very very hot and humid that afternoon. We both have just enough natural curl that came out that day to make our hair look very funky.
Here is Rylie, Cara, Mckenna and Tyler at a rocky nature preserve near Cara and Jeff's home. It was fun to go climb on the rocks and trees. It was really hot and humid so we didn't stay long. When we were getting ready to leave we heard a noise in the bushes just a 100 feet or so away and looked up just in time to see some deer walking nearby.

THE BEST TWO WEEKS!!

We have had a wonderful two weeks of being Grandma and Grandpa. Cassi, Jacob and their 3 beautiful girls came to Utah and stayed for almost a week. We had so much fun spending time with them. This is Hoby and Kamryn. Kamryn is 6 and just started 1st grade. She is so fun to be with and it is exciting to see her learning to read and write.

Here I am with Hadley. She is such a bundle of energy. There is never a dull moment with "Hadders" around. She is 4 and is getting ready to start her second year of preschool. She is very curious and loves to ask a lot of questions.

Anndi is growing up so fast. She is almost 10 months old. She is such a happy baby. She always seems to have a grin on her face. She has such a sweet personality as well. She is learning to crawl and feed herself right now. It was so much fun having her around.

Two days after Cassi and the girls left we flew to San Antonio to take part in Mckenna's blessing. It was Hoby, Tyler and Rylie's first opportunity to see Mckenna in person. She is such a wonderful baby. We got to spend a week in Texas with Cara, Jeff and the baby. It has been such a great two weeks spending time with our daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughters. Not living near all of them has been very hard on us. So we enjoy every opportunity to spend time with them.

Plentiful Harvest

So we made our rookie attempt at having a garden. Here is the bountiful harvest that we have gotten so far. We actually have quite a few more tomatoes that haven't ripened yet and two cucumbers as well. We got 22 beans...not even enough to feed us for one meal let alone freeze or bottle. Oh well...I guess we have a lot to learn still. We did master growing a fine crop of weeds though.