Happy Birthday Hannah!!
Happy Memorial Day!!

Today is Hannah's 20th birthday! We started out the morning with waffles and birthday gifts.


Then we went to Grandpa Don and Grandma Polly's house for the afternoon!

Grandpa Don took the kids out in the canoe... they all had a lot of fun!

Along with celebrating Hannah's birthday, we celebrated Memorial day...

We had a lot of fun, but missed a lot of the family! Uncle Matt and his family, Selma, Liesel, Nathan, Abram, Aaron and Jennifer and Eli.... not to mention Aunt Merry and Aunt Marni's families!

Grandpa also gave some golfing lessons! :)

Lots of ultimate frisbee was played!!

And I think everyone was kind of tired! Asher and Sylvia both fell asleep in the livingroom.

On the way home I convinced Hannah to stop at a park in Scandia, so I could take some birthday pictures of her.
As you can see it was very difficult to get a good picture...

It must have been the subject...

obviously not... Hannah is beautiful! :)

There are lots more lovely pictures of Hannah but she thought three was too many to post... :( :'( Oh well, I guess I have to obey my big sis. ;)

and of course, Joel... :)

We had a fun time taking pictures together! :)


It was a great day!

Happy Birthday Hannah, we love you!!!

After a Storm...

Last night we had a pretty good storm... in Hugo, about an hour away, they lost several houses and one person died.

After the storm, we went down to the lake.

Joel and Hannah went swimming for a short time...

It was a beautiful evening!

I had a fun time taking some pictures!!!

Happy Birthday Noah!!!

On Saturday, Noah had his 13th birthday! So Mom and Dad took him on a picnic...

He very much enjoyed his time with Dad and Mom! Then in the evening some friends came to celebrate with us!

It's a Black and White Day...

Well, my pictures today are all black and white... my grandpa brought me a couple of his old lenses, so I had fun playing around with my manual skills(still working on them...) :)

We went down to the park this afternoon to take pictures.
Actually Hannah said we went to practice Soft Ball...

But while Hannah was pitching to some of the kids, I decided to play around...

We all got some good practice!

On the way back from the park we stopped at the beach to wade...

These are tulips that grew at the farm... they are red and yellow - since you can't really tell. :(

It was a very nice afternoon! :D

Trip to Virginia...

Last Thursday we all piled into our cars and headed for Virginia to see Abram, Aaron and Jennifer for their graduation.

Dad, Mom, all of us girls, Behn and Asher stayed in a lodge called the Bear's Den out in the woods. The rest of the boys slept in the boys house...

It was a great place! We all enjoyed it very much!

Their were lots of great hiking trails, unfortunately we only walked a little...

continued:

On Saturday was the graduation ceremony! It was so nice to be there to see Abram, Aaron, and Jennifer graduate!

I think I can safely say that they are very happy to be done!

:)

Aaron and Jennifer.... :)

continued:

Talia was sure that she should graduate too...

visiting...

brothers... (good bye Nathan)

continued:

On Sunday, after going to church, we went back to Abram and Aaron's house...

They grilled hamburgers and brats for us all!!!

We played outside! :) and Dad took a picture of Hannah and I... :) :)

and Sylvia took a nap. It was a very nice afternoon to just hang around the house, take walks together and just enjoy each other's company...

continued:

We went to a park a block from Abram and Aaron's house with the kids and played! It was so beautiful out!

Sylvia loves climbing up and down the stairs/ladder and going down the slide!!

The boys played lots of pool in the basement!

It was a great trip! It was so good to see Abram, Aaron, and Jennifer, her family and all of their great friends!!! It was very hard to leave, especially since we had to leave 4 brothers behind... Nathan is flying out from Baltimore in a couple hours to his station in Germany - we won't see him until Aaron and Jennifer's wedding. We also left Eli in Virginia to work with Aaron for the summer! Abram is continuing his work in the Chamber of Commerce and Aaron is working, mowing lawns, building patios and keeping Kritik going.

We miss you all! I wish Virginia and Germany were not quite so far away!

Tuesday Afternoon...

This afternoon Nathan, Eli, Seth, Talia and I went a on a hike...

It was very difficult to stay on the trail - it seems that it has not been used very often...

So we just kind of made up our own trail...

It was a very nice walk...

Birds...

After our hike we went to Grandpa Don's and Grandma Polly's house, so that Nathan could fix their trailer... so I decided to take pictures of all their beautiful birds!

None of the birds were too excited about letting me take pictures of them... except this one! He sat very still for me!

Inspired...

Not only was I inspired by Byron's new picture - Byron
I was also inspired because I got a new tripod, 3 new filters and a new camera backpack!

anyways, I am very excited about my new toys!!!

Mother's Day...

On Saturday we celebrated Mother's Day, by going to visit Grandma Judy... and then we went to the Boom Site in Stillwater.

we also visited our cave... :) Dad and Mom are going on 26 years at the end of the month!!!

We had a very nice afternoon and evening!

It was very nice to see Grandpa and Grandma!!

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!!

Graduation Open House...

Last Saturday was my open house...

Here is a smattering of my life... lots of pictures! :)

a couple of friends came over to help us get ready! We cut out about 350 donuts...

Since it was suppose to rain, Eli and Joel put up a tarp outside...

I was blessed to have lots of family and friends come!

Our menu was complete with pickles, donuts, pretzels, chips and dip.

The rain did come! :) But we stayed dry, for the most part...

It was a very fun evening!!! I don't think I have ever talked to so many people in one evening! :)

All girl...

On Saturday morning I found Sylvia sitting on Mom's bed looking at a J-Jill catalog... so
after hearing about little Adam, who is the same age as Sylvia, looking at a catalog with knives and saying, "Wow, Cool" I just had to take a picture of her being all girl-saying "pretty"! :) :)

Nathan is Home!

This morning at about 2:00 Nathan got home! We are very happy to have him back!!!
He brought home part of lunch for us too! :) We got to sample some of his MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) - barbecue ribs, clam chowder, pasta, cake, crackers and everything else that we could possibly want, all ready to eat! :)

Hoping to get rid of some junk, we had a garage sale this afternoon. It was a great day to be outside!

We decided to celebrate part of Mother's day today, just because we were so excited! :) We bought lots of flowers for Mom's patio gardens...

Sylvia and Asher helped Mom do the planting...

I think she had plenty of help!

Sylvia loves the flowers!


(click on the picture to make it larger)
This is another gift that I made for Mom this past week... I printed and framed it for her! :)
I am hoping to do another one with everyone as 5 years old, 10 years, and the graduation pictures... I think I will have to wait a couple years for those. Yes, apparently we are all a little impatient... because my secret was sort of given away in the presence of Mom, partly by a mistake that I made - but I got help really losing the surprise...

We are very happy to have Nathan home!!!

Bath Time...

This evening I gave the three littlest kids baths since Dad and Mom went to pick Nathan up from the airport...
and when I brought them into the living room to get their clothes on, the sun was so perfect that I had to take some pictures! :)

(I think he looks a lot like Joel in it!)

:) :)

Cascade Falls...

Last Saturday we went to Mom's Open House at the Tri Life Center...
and while we waited for Mom to finish up, Noah, Talia, Behn and I went for a walk down town to the Cascade falls...

The water was beautiful!

and so was the day! :)

Little Boys and Trains...

The other day Behn, Asher and I got out the Brio set and played! :)
I have not played with the trains for a long time... they have to be some of the best toys in the world! :)

We had fun! :)

Happy May Day!!!

This morning we all made May day cookies! :)

Seth, Talia, Behn, Tovala and Asher(and Hannah and I) all worked together and put a whole bunch of plates together for some neighbors and friends...

then we piled in the car and dropped them off...

and then, we came home and ate the left overs!!!
:) :)