Happy Father's Day!

Instead of hurrying home, the day after the Cousin Party, we decided to stay in Ogden with Jason's parents 2 nights.

Sunday was Father's Day, so we celebrated there.

When we got home from church, Jason opened his Father's Day gifts from us.

He got a cool homemade beaded key chain from Treyson.

A picture and card from Abree.

A cool little homemade notebook from Taylee.

Some BSU (Boise State Bronco) converse shoes from Rylee.

She had seen them in the store and begged me to take her there to buy them with her own babysitting money.

And of course the photo cube, Family Yahtzee game and a few other things from me.

Happy Father's Day Honey!

When Grandpa Smullin got home from church and others had gathered, we did some more Father's Day celebrating.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Father's Day Gifts

Got my CRAFT on for Father's Day.

Made some more photo cubes. One for my dad, one for my dad-in-law and one for Jason. Jason's resides on his desk at work.... making all his employees jealous. :)

Then I took these supplies....

Painted these blocks.....

And Mod Podged these photos.

To make a "Family Yahtzee" game of course!

We've played it once as a family. It's slightly harder to quickly see the numbers, but my kids LOVED to see their faces on the "dice". They would say things like, "Hey, pick me. I'll get you a Yahtzee" or "Thanks a lot. I could have had it if it weren't for YOU!"

Cousin Party!

This year, our Annual Cousin Party was held at Brandon & Melissa's house, in Sunset, UT.

As is tradition, we had Little Caesar's pizza for dinner.

We set up our tents in their back yard and got ready for some fun.

When it got dark, we got on our pjs, and gathered around the fire pit. We sang camp songs like, "Going on a Bear Hunt", "Sugar, sugar", and "There was an Old Man named Michael Finnegan.....begin again".

The highlight around the campfire, was when some of the uncles, aunts and Grandma Smullin got up and shook their booties, when it was their turn to dance.

Then it was time to watch last year's Cousin Party video thanks to Grandpa's hard work. The kids made their own "trail mix" and sat down in the front room to watch.

There were a few technical difficulties, so we ended up watching it with no audio. It was still great fun!

In the morning, Melissa started the day off with a game. If you found a yellow paper heart, she would draw 3-4 names to pick out prizes. The game continued until everyone got a prize.

"Good Morning Jak-jak!"

Jak was the lucky guy that got to draw the names. He was quite popular with the kids that morning, "Jak pick me, pick me!" Abree was soo happy when he finally drew her name. She quickly chose silly string for her prize.

For breakfast we had fruit and cereal.

"Yum!"

After breakfast, we took down tents and loaded sleeping bags and pillows into our cars. We needed the whole backyard for games.

First game, "Pull the Flag". The older girls definitely had the advantage with this one, but the younger ones learned a few tricks and hung in there when they played it again and again.

The spectators

More spectators

Next, blanket races.

" Goooo Treyson!"

"Whoa, hang on Colton!"

Then bean bags were passed out to play, "Pick up Your Room". The kids were divided into 2 teams. There was a rope to divide the yard. Each team tried to keep as many bean bags off of their side, by throwing them to the other side, until time was up. The team with the least amount of bean bags, at the end of time was the winner.

I got BEANED a few times, as a spectator. It didn't hurt bad, but definitely surprised me.

Sarah Anne

Jessica and Abree couldn't get enough of this sweet little cousin. So cute!

Next up was a picnic in the park and a hike.

Melissa gave each cousin a disposable camera to take on the nature hike. The kids were thrilled!!! The adults started making guesses on how long it would take for all the film to be used up. Some of the kids had pictures left by the end of the hike, but not many.

Cute Lex trying to figure his camera out.

It was a warm day, but the trees and shrubbery provided lots of nice shade to hike in.

Some silly cousins I found along the way.

This was a BEAUTIFUL trail.

I started out in the rear of the pack and somehow ended up at the front of the pack by the end. I was informed I was the 9th one back. We drank our water bottles as we waited for the others to arrive.

We saw Grandma Smullin at the top, coming down. The kids yelled, "Grandma you're almost here.....Don't give up.....You can do it!" --I think Grandma was WAY too committed by then and didn't plan on giving up, but it was so sweet of them to encourage her.

" Whew, made it!"

When we got back to Melissa's we were all HOT and sweaty.... time for a water fight!

Uncle Nate even got in on the water action.... fully dressed. It took him quite a while to get completely dried out after that.

We ended the evening with a family BBQ.

Thanks to Melissa and Brandon for a fun Cousin Party.

Happy Birthday Marianne!

Marianne's birthday gave us a good excuse to get together.

Jaime planned a fun date with lots of activities for us to enjoy.

We started Marianne's birthday date with an early dinner at P.F. Changs. Next we went to "Blue Cow" and had a delicious frozen yogurt. I chose Dulce de Lache and cheesecake with berries on top. YUM! Then it was on to the movies. We saw "Killers". I liked it ok, but it had a lot of killing in it.... DUH. :) After the movie we decided we weren't quite ready to go home (kids not in bed yet), so we took a leisurely drive. We toured the nearby community "Hidden Springs", then ended up at Veteran's Park to walk the Greenbelt. The Greenbelt walk was refreshing. We enjoyed good conversation and many laughs. As it got dark, we left the greenbelt and headed back home... hoping the kids were in bed and that it was safe to make our arrival.



It's so much fun to "play" with my friends. We had such a good time. Thanks for the awesome date girls. Love ya!

Ironman 70.3

Our friend, Travis Manning, participated in Boise's Half Ironman 70.3!!!

The kids & I headed to Lucky Peak to see him off. First leg was a 1.2 mile swim.

After getting his wetsuit peeled off his body and sunscreen slathered all over, he dressed into his biking gear.

Next up was a 56 mile bike ride battling 20 MPH winds!

After seeing him off, we left and went on about our day. I did think of him often, especially when I was relaxing on the couch or doing something that required little thought or effort. I kept thinking about how tired he might be or if he might be struggling. He was in my thoughts all day.

That evening, Jason and I went to the adult session of Stake Conference. We planned on meeting his wife downtown afterwards to see him come in. I watched the clock. It seemed like the meeting was taking forever. I thought that the adult session usually only took 1.5 hours. This time we almost went over 2.

When the meeting ended, I called Ann. She said he wasn't in yet and thought that he was about half way through his running. If we got there within 30-40 minutes we should be able to see him finish.

We got there in good time, found Ann and had plenty of time to anticipate him coming in.

He came in from his 13.1 mile run around 10:20pm, with the time of 7:22:44!!! He wants to shave an hour or so off this time, but I'm totally impressed and inspired by him doing this and finishing at all. Wow!

Way to go IRONMAN Travis!!!

Our no-so-Ironman experience- We knew Travis was swimming at Lucky Peak, but didn't know exactly where to park. As we were driving there, I noticed a sign that said something about Ironman. I pulled in and wound around until we were at the Sandy Point park. We paid to park and asked the attendant if we were in the right place. When he said YES, I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew we were getting close on time and didn't want to miss Travis. The attendant was vague about where we were supposed to go, so we wandered around and found the last available parking spot. Then we noticed 2 arrow signs saying "Ironman", so we headed in that direction. Little did we know that we were in for our own mini Ironman. The sign pointed to a gravel road going uphill. It was more treacherous than it initially looked. Treyson started asking for water and Abree started to cry. She told me she couldn't make it. We didn't have time for this and I wasn't willing to pick her up..I was struggling a bit myself. I didn't feel like I could slow down, or I might not start back up or at least loose some momentum. So I drug Abree up the hill, with semi-encouraging words. Then when we thought we couldn't go any further, we saw the top and went just a little bit more. Whew! ---Coming down was much more enjoyable and less treacherous. :)