Girl's Camp

Happy Campers?
We'll see...

This year girl's camp was at the ward level. My friend Keri was called as Camp Director. She spent a lot of time and energy making it cute for the girls. I'm pretty sure they will have LOTS of fun.

Levi turns 2!

For Levi's 2nd birthday, we celebrated in Grueber Park (sp?).

Candice's dad and step-mom won a jump house rental from a silent auction and gave it to their family to use. Levi was the lucky recipient.

Candice made cute CAR themed food.

Levi was fun to watch as he tried to blow out his candles.

Oops.. things got a little juicy.

With some sibling and cousin help, the candles were finally extinguished.

The cousin crowd descended upon the birthday treats. Yum, yum.

Hard to believe that Levi is already 2 ...time flies.

Happy Birthday Big Boy Levi!

Taylee the Baker, Maker and Cake Decor-a-ter

Taylee said to me, "I wish I could make and decorate a cake for someone."

(I'm guessing she secretly would have liked to have made/decorated Treyson's cake.)

I suggested she call Candice and offer her services for Levi's upcoming birthday party.

She didn't call.

Then as Candice and I were texting later on that week, she mentioned Levi's cake and not being excited about making it. I told her what Taylee said to me and offered her services. She thought that sounded like a great idea... an answer to her prayers. :) 

Later that day, she asked Taylee to make a CARS cake, like one she had seen on Pinterest. Taylee was sooo excited!

The morning of the party, Taylee got to work.

Taylee did the bulk of the cake, but I have to admit I jumped in a few times..just couldn't resist so much fun.

Taylee couldn't wait to use this sugar paper. It worked perfect for the checkered sides.

Look what I made!

The finished cake on location with Lightening McQueen candle.

Nice job Taylee!

Happy Birthday Treyson!

Treyson requested a PIZZA party for his 11th birthday.

He wanted pizza for dinner and pizza for cake.

He was very specific about what kind of pizza he wanted for dinner... Idaho Pizza Company.

Jason and I didn't know of one close to us, but Treyson said he knew of one. He described the location the best he could..and we found it.

This boy LOVES his food!

We invited Grandpa Waite and Grandma McKinley over to celebrate too.

Earlier in the week Treyson was talking about his birthday... wondering what he might get for gifts. We talked about how turning 11 is getting older and how maybe he doesn't need as many toys. Like maybe clothes might be nice. (Just trying to prepare him a little.)

He LOVED the mp3 player Rylee passed along to him.

He was perfectly happy with the clothes he received (jeans, t-shirt, jacket, shoes). He also appreciated the Zhu Zhu Pet house Abree made him, the candy and book from Grandma, money from Grandpa and a model car too.

Pizza Cake; white cake "crust", strawberry jam "sauce", grated white chocolate "cheese" and fruit roll-up "pepperoni" and "green peppers". Sounds kind of strange, but it was actually good...sweet, but good.

Grandpa Waite helped Treyson put together his model car... a Ford Mustang. Treyson has a thing for Mustangs. :)

Happy Birthday Treyson!!!

Riverfront Park

After water skiing with the Hodges, we went into Spokane to reminisce with the kids. 

We wanted to show them some of our favorite Spokane sites. (We lived in Spokane from June 1996-April 1998.) Rylee was born during that time, but was so young probably only remembers it from pictures.

First stop was Dick's Hamburgers...a low tech, greasy burger Spokane landmark.

Next, we went to Riverfront Park.

We ran with the "running people"..who pay tribute to the annual Lilac Bloom's Day Run.

We stopped by the "garbage goat"..but he was out of order.

When Rylee was little, she LOVED the garbage goat. She would run around and find little pieces of garbage and feed it to the goat. The goat sucks it up and "eats" it. --Whomever came up with this idea is genius. 

Treyson

Abree                                                          

Rylee

Taylee

The huge Radio Flyer slide is so fun.

See how big it is? The tires are taller than us.

The famous Spokane skyline.

Many of these things were built for the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane.

As we walked all over the park, we talked about our memories; the summer when we arrived and I was pregnant with Rylee and wanted to stop at each park bench to rest, the 4th of July where Rylee almost got burnt  from the cinders falling from the big firework display and the time Grandma and Grandpa Smullin visited and we rode the famous Looff Carousel.

We especially enjoyed walking over the bridges and looking at the rushing Spokane River. We wanted to go on the Skyride Gondola, but it was getting late and was closed. Bummer.

Rylee's legs started to show her wake board attempts, from earlier in the day. 

Ouch!

Jason and I had a lot of fun reminiscing..the kids tolerated it. :)