Squeezing the Fun out of Summer

JD and I had FHE with the Hickenloopers yesterday and we went to Nun's Park up the canyon and had dinner by the campfire and played some cards. It was fun! Here is on the way home. It got stormy all of the sudden and we had to make a run for it :)

Here is Scott and Wendy :)
Here is a sweet sunset we saw going on a Sunday drive.

I decided to make freezer strawberry jam today! It was really easy and tastes great, so I thought I would show it off :)

I discovered a recipie for cleaning the bathtub from the checkout packet from our apartment complex we moved out of recently that works really well so I thought I would pass it on-

pour a bit of dishsoap- not too much just a small puddle, sprinkle baking powder on top then sprinkle lemon juice on top of that. It fizzes really cool then you scrub it with a scrubby pad and it makes lots of bubbles and is good at getting soap scum off and makes the faucet shiny.

Our Trip to Idaho

Last week Liz and I were lucky enough to have a six day window in which we went to Idaho to see family. Even more lucky is the fact that those 6 days were 6 of the same days my sister Nicole and my bro in law Steve were going to be in Idaho as well. They are living in LA right now and Steve is going to USC dental school. They get two weeks off four times a year from school so we don't get to see them to much. We started our trip off in good ole' Poky to spend some time with the fam.

Emma making a blanket

Liz, seeing the cool blanket Emma made, wanted one (or two) for herself. Here is a picture of the first one she made.

John is waiting for the real action to begin. We always get some good gaming going in Idaho.

I think the kids were feeling the pressure of school starting next week so they decided to get a little energy out.

Here is Amazon Anna letting our her war cry after successfully doing some push ups. Shes tough for a 12 year old, don't mess!




Johnny showing off his sweet muscles. Hes almost 16 so hes working on getting into dating shape

Emma showing her younger siblings whats up.

Not to be out done Jacalyn showed them why they still need to fear their mother!

Matt just got done doing a bunch of push ups. He's starting boot camp for the marines in January.

A nice picture of the crew

Liz, excited to be with her fam.

Whew! Married for over 15 months and still keeping it real

Liz with Emma and a tired mom

John, passed out after all our hard gaming.

Here is Liz's second blanket she made.




After parting with the fam in Poky we headed up to IF. It was fun to see everyone. Jackson had gotten so big and could walk! I couldn't believe it. We had a good time and did lots of random stuff.

Random event #1-Croquet. Nicole tried to show of here mallet skills, unfortunately she never won.

Dad on the other hand worked us over

Mom also beat us a couple of times. Croquet must be an old person game : )

Here's the youngsters wondering what to do with the stick with a cylinder on the end.

One of the few board games my dad will join in is settlers so we always like to play that one.

Random event #2-trip to Craters of the Moon
Liz standing before the massive sub 1 mile hike.

Everyone on the way up.



As you can see by the size of the obstructions on this trail it was very dangerous. I'm glad the forest service gave us a heads up!

Liz, the champion of the mountain

For being such a desolate wasteland it doesn't look to bad huh?

If you ever go to Craters of the Moon you have to go through all of the caves, they are sweet!

Jackson looking like a stud. He handled being carried through the dark caves like a champ!

Here is his new smile called cheesers

We had all turned our lights off so this cave was pitch black besides the flash of the camera.

We all survived, yeah!

Random event #3-Nicole and Steve's 3rd anniversary.

It was quite fitting we went to Craters (a national park) on their anniversary because they went to Yellowstone for their honeymoon, so it was basically the same thing...except being surround by your entire family...

Here they are eating some of their 3 year old cake they didn't know my mom had in her fridge

MMMMM , fondant is so good in the first place I bet the 3 year old version is terrific!

Ah, such a happy couple

Ok, get a room

Random even #4- horse back riding.

For those of you who don't know, Steve is a cowboy. His parents have a small farm and a bunch of horses. He and Nicole hope to have a little farm of their own someday. If you ever get the chance, ask them how their first farming experience, buying some cows, worked out for them : )

I had never ridden a horse in my entire life so I was listening intently to Steve explaining to me how not to die if I got bucked off, very reassuring. They had some cows get loose so we had to go do an old fashion round up.

Liz, looking like a cowgirl pro.

Liz and I look just like the real deal don't we. Steve let us borrow the boots and the hat.

Jenna and Jackson looking thrilled to be in the great outdoors

Jackson going for a little ride

Thanks everyone, we had a great time!

The finished product

As Liz said, we have been busy as of late. This has been the first summer term I've ever done and it has been crazy. Getting out of our old apartment and settled in our condo would have been impossible with out everyone's help, so thank you so much! I thought I would put together a video of what the condo looked like when we bought it and how it looks now, four weeks later after everyone's hard work. So grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy.

Setting up house!!!!

So you may have heard that we moved! Yay! More room! It has been forever since we posted and there is good reason :) if you check out these pics it can give you a good idea of why! As if moving wasn't difficult enough we decided that we needed to paint it all first. Good thing we are lucky and have wonderful families who came and helped us out! We absolutely love our new place!

JD has been busy with summer classes and especially with his computer programing class. He has been working super hard and I am so proud :) I have been busy with work and cleaning, packing, then unpacking and organizeng. JD's parents saved us by helping with the painting and my mom and wonderful Aunt Leonora helped with the cleaning so that we could check out of our apartment. I guess what I should say is my mom cleaned my apartment while I slept before working my 6th night out of 7. Yep families are amazing! Thanks so much we never could have done it without you!!!

Thanks to Jenna our photographer or we would have forgotten and not documented all our hard work!
Touchups

Here is the queen of touchups! Thanks mom!

Ya gotta love the touch up part!

Painting!!!

Taping- we discovered this is a crucial part of painting.

One of many empty rolls of tape! whew that take a lot of tape which incidently equals alot of work!

Yep look at us go!