Wyoming Trip part 2

Here is another goup of pictures from Wyoming. This one is by the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

The kids really loved being together!

You have know idea how hard it was to get the family to pose for a family picture. They all liked their picture taken except when it was a full family picture!

The Alpine Slide was a lot of fun!

If you are wondering where the picture of Toni on the chairlift is?....Well, let's just say she still has her little fear of heights!

Wyoming Vacation

Well here we are in Wyoming on vacation this year! All 8 of traveling around for about 2500 miles. But everyone really had a good time together and there were no issues at all. That definatly made the traveling seem better. Enjoy the pictures!



This is the chair lift to the Alpine Slide

Jackson Hole

Dakota and Steve practicing roping



Everyone excitedly waiting to start a hike.

Summer Fun

I spent this weekend in Utah with Cadie, Cody and Carson. Dakota also came along this trip. Thanks to the long drive, I now know about what 2 super hero powers Dakota would like to have. They happened to come up in conversation....no wait...no, they just pretty much came up out of now where!!! Along with many other interesting, albeit, random thoughts of his. But I was never bored!!!

Here are some pictures of some of the fun we had:

This is a homemade water slide. It didn't go as good as we would have liked...but it was still WET which was the main point anyway.

This is at The Gateway in SLC. Again...I just couldn't keep them out of the water. I said, you can run through the water, but see if you can stay as dry as possible...like I really thought that was possible!



Here I am, just hanging out trying to stay dry in all of this!

4th of July

Friday was the 4th of July. We had a really great day. It started off with a Breakfast buffet at the Sam's Town Hotel and Casino. What is really funny about this is Toni does not like buffets and Toni and the kids do not like to get up early in the morning. During Family Home Evening this week, I asked if anybody wanted to get up early to go to the buffet with me on the 4th? I actually thought that only Dakota might say yes. But Devynne and Dylan were also very excited to go. We convinced Toni to also go with us if Devynne would agree to go to the movies with us. We were planning on seeing Hancock which is an action movie and Devynne typically does not like action movies. Anyway, everyone got up at 6:45 and we went to the buffet. Truth be told....it wasn't even that good. Next time I will just make breakfast at our house!!

We went and saw Hancock that afternoon. We do like Will Smith, but this movie had WAY more bad language in it than we ever thought it would. Not a movie for kids, thats for sure!

That night, we had my parents and sister over and some friends of ours from the neighborhood, the Millers. We played games and cooked on the bar-b-q, then did some fireworks in our street. The kids like to take Piccalo Petes and turn them into bombs. Boys...what are you gonna do!

One funny thing that night, is Toni was a little concerned with us leaving trash (used fireworks) out in the street where our neighbors would complain. So, she started to sweep up the fireworks that the kids had been doing for the last hour (mostly the boms described above). Well, I guess she couldn't stop because when the adults came out to do the rest of the fireworks, we could not get her to sit down. She was even cleaning them up as they were going off!!! As soon as it finished, it would get swept into a pile!

This is Devynne and her boyfriend Justin. Justin also went to breakfast with us and came over for dinner and fireworks. He is fun to have around.

Steve and Toni

Well, I guess I should include a few photo's of Toni and I so that everyone knows the kids have killed us off...yet.

Toni is beautiful as always. She is still enjoying being a stay at home mom. It has been a real blessing in our lives that Toni is able to be home with the kids. So many people think that parents only need to be home with their kids when they are little...but trust me...it is even more important to be at home with them when they are teenagers!!! Talk about needing stability and and a positive influence around and not leaving them alone for hours wondering "what trouble can I get myself into".

Toni is also an avid reader write now. She just re-read all the Harry Potter books...again and also has read her favorite, Twilght series several times. She is now just waiting for the newest book in that series to come on on August 2nd.

Here I am. Not a really flattering picture. There are just so few pictures of me because I am the one usually taking the pictues.

Things for me are going pretty good. I am settling in at my new position with my company pretty good. We are still struggling in this real estate market, but I have hope for the future. I have made some changes that will hopfully make a difference in our profitability next quarter.

Home life is great. I still love my church calling and am playing in a golf league once a week with my Dad and sister, jenn. I enjoy being with them very much. Maybe I will have to take some pictures of that and put them on the blog!

Dylan's Eagle

Also in April, Dylan received his Eagle Scout Award. We did a Court of Honor for him and I tried hard to embarass him with a slide show from early childhood until he received his reward. I think I did a good enough job of it. Here are some of the pictures that I used.

But the one picture that really tells it all is this one:

Dylan is really growing and maturing into a fine young man. We are very proud of his accomplishment before he even turned 15. Well done Dylan!

This was April for us

It has been a few months since I have written (again), so I thought I better get on the ball. How can I expect everyone to keep up to date on my family, if I am unable to keep my family up to date on the blog! But....I have a new goal. It is now my intention to get up on Sunday mornings before the rest of my family and update this blog and my personal journal (I now use ldsjournal.com It is an online journal that is really cool and easy to use that I think will help me do a better job of journaling) every Sunday morning. If I can accomplish this goal, then this blog will be able to stay current!

So this is what we are up to these days. Here is a current picture of Devynne, Dylan and Dakota. School is out next week and I think somehow we survived another school year. At least with the older two. Dakato is in year round school so he still has a month and a half left to go!




Here is a picture of Cadie, Cody, Carson and Dakota. We went to the Dinasour museum up at Thanksgiving Point, Ut. It was a lot of fun. I actually like it better than all the kids. Thye move to quick through it and don't take the time to read and learn. I guess that is kids for you. Always in a hurry just to see the big stuff or do something instead of just see something.








I think their favorite part of the museam is plaing in the sand and water. They likes to set up a little city and then direct the water to wash it all awy in mass destruction. (I think they watch too many movies!)