Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Texas Cousins! June 27th

How cute is she?! This is Macy, my cousin Marshall and his wife Mandy's little girl. She is so sweet!


Mommy was pulling on her ears and she thought it was so funny!
Haha....Macy is pickin' on Noah. They were so cute together. You can see Macy's daddy in the background. It was fun to get to see them again for an afternoon.
We all went up to the farm after lunch to hang out. Macy was totally posing for me and my camera.
Check out those blue eyes! And her proud parents on the background.
Now it's Noah's turn to get Macy.
He loved being taller than everyone!
Macy's big brother Maddox. He's quite the little stud!
I love this picture! With Emma's hair flying, it gives you a sense of how fast they were actually spinning on the tire swing! The kids love that swing!
Grace had to take a picture of our lilacs up there. They made it smell so good! I love being up there!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Girls Camp - June 23-25 2010

Girl's Camp was so AMAZING!! I really, really love these girls! We all got up bright and early Wednesday morning and met at the church so we could all head up to the cabin. The girls were tired and cold, but ready to go! We had them all line up and count off so it would help us keep track of them for the next couple of days. Here they are, all bright and sunshiny and ready to go!

As soon as we arrived at the cabin, the girls headed straight for the swings and they were on them as much as they possibly could! Cheap entertainment.....ain't it great!

We played a few games and then we made some lunch. We had deep fried pizza bombs, so I made the girls chop up onions, peppers, ham, olives and all the yummy stuff that is so good on pizza. The onions were so good that they were making anyone around tear up!
After lunch we started handing out camp shirts and journals. We had tickets to go to Mack's Inn playhouse and have dinner and see a play, so the girls decided to start doing each others hair in all sorts of wacky ways.......
It then spilled over into the leaders! We are all up for having a good time and so we all had wild and crazy hair and wore our camp shirts to the play.
We had some really fun, BIG hair! It was so much fun. The girls loved that all of the leaders were willing to be fun and crazy with them and we enjoyed it just as much! There was another girls camp group there at the play and we kept hearing comments from them about how cool and fun we were because of our hair styles. It was great!
The play was a spoof of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was SO funny! We all enjoyed it so much! If you ever get a chance to go up there, do it! They are really talented people and do an amazing job.
The next day was Hike Day! Brother Sweeney took us to find a GeoCache that was near by. That was lots of fun. The girls really thought that it was really cool. You can find out more about it here.
We hiked for a couple of miles up the mountian and stopped for lunch. There was a lot of complaining about how much farther we had to go......Really?! We had just started! Plus, it was kinda hard for me, because both of my knees had swollen up Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and I could barley move them. It was really hard....they were about double the size they should have been. I spent a lot of time putting heat and ice on them. I'm glad I was able to go on the hike with them. We were worried about them because we knew that in a month we were doing a pioneer handcart trek and would be walking a LOT more than this. But we all survived! After we made it back to camp the Bishopric came and made dinner for us, which was wonderful. Of course, just about any dinner that someone else makes for you is wonderful!

We then set up for our spiritual night. We blindfolded the girls one at a time and each had a guide lead them to the iron rod. They met up with some heroes from the Book of Mormon and had a visit from Jesus reminding them to be strong and listen to the Still Small voice to help guide them through all the tough times in their lives. It really touched each of the girls. We then proceeded to have an amazing Testimony meeting where every single girl stood up and bore her testimony. It didn't matter if they were part of their class presidency or inactive, every single one of those amazing Young Women stood up and let us know what was in their hearts. I felt so privledged to be a part of that experience.
That night nobody went to bed before 2 am, so we slept in and took our time finishing with everything. All of the years took turns doing a skit that came out of the scriptures. Sierra and Jaci did a re-enactment of Joseph Smith finding and translating the Gold plates.
The 2nd years did David and Goliatha.
The 3rd years with the help of our YCL, did Nephi and his brothers retrieving the Brass plates from Laban.
Then our only 4th year had the help of our awsome Priesthood leaders and they re-enacted the story of Lib and Shez and Coriantum in the book of Ether.
Here are the very talented ladies who are our camp leaders and planned everything for us! Thank you Holly and April!
We leaders also did a skit before we all packed up and got ready to go....we re-enacted girls camp from beginning to end....it was hillarious! We all had such a good time and really got to know the girls on a deeper, personal level. I hope to have many more, equally gratifying experiences with all of these wonderful ladies and Young Women. There was so much more that happened, but these are definitely the highlights for everyone.
MMMMWWWWAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! We loved every minute!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Check out this amazing idea....

I love going through amazing blogs and finding new adventures, crafty things, yummy recipes, etc., etc. Needless to say, I can waste many hours a day if I allow myself too just hopping from one blog to another. Well here is one that I wanted to share! FawnDear is hosting her 2nd Annual Second Star to the Right Adventure. This looks amazing! Basically she is encouraging you to use your imagination with your kids and do something new and exciting with them. She has ideas from last year that you can look through. I'm really going to try to do something fun with them and enter into this fun adventure. Check it out!

Swim Lessons - June 21-25

Swim lessons at Green Canyon.....the kids love it.....they get to see lots of "cousins" when they go and have lots of fun with one another. It's nice because I go when Brooke and all of her sisters-in-law go with their kids, so all together there are about 18 of them in swim lessons and a few extras who are too little to start lessons yet. The only problem was that this year, crazy as it's been, swim lessons were the same week at Girl's camp! So Sierra and I only made it to 2 days of lessons before we had to leave. Luckily my mom and sister stepped in and took the kids for me the rest of the week!

Waiting for their turn to go back in the pool.....Sierra was giving Josh a piggy back ride.

Notice Grace's pretty purple "waterproof" cast.....that was a life-saver!
Even though she was still able to do swim lessons, it was little more difficult for her with the cast on.
Joe learning how to float on his back.....he's able to do it now!
Waiting for his turn to go off the diving board....this kid is fearless! He did a front flip off of it the first time he went off! The kids had a great time! Emma is really excited that she gets to start next year, but we'll see....she's not the biggest fan of the water when you try to make her do something that she doesn't want to!

Warnke Reunion - June 18-20



So we had the Warnke Reunion up at the farm this year. It was a blast! The first day we spent most of it getting the shelter up and ready for the family to use. The guys did an amazing job, as always! And the ladies and kids helped out too, of course. That's why it's called a "Family" project. It looks awsome!

Gav lookin' so cute up there!




My amazing husband!
They put some sheeting up top so we are mostly protected from the elements.
Later that afternoon family started showing up. Here are the Warnke sisters ~ Lori, Lisa and Glenda ~ together looking through family pictures and stories with Uncle John.
Skye was totally kicking her mom's butt at tether ball! I love this picture!
Skye roasting some starbursts. Very yummy!
Saturday was the big day. We had a big portion of the family come up for most of the day! It was a great success! Chase and Gloria were enjoying the shade with Olivia.
Fun with bubbles! Geena and Courtney had so much fun with the kids, whether they were coersed(sp?) or drug there by the kids is irrelevant!
The kids loved hangin' out with Aunt Lisa! She had the best seat in the house! It looks like Gaylen is ready for a nap!
Family chats.....nice to see the adults can get along! ;-)
Uncle Dennis playing with the grandkids, while their dad, Zane, is on the phone.
Aunt Tina, Angie's hubby, Matt's wife and Aunt Jan. Sorry, I am bad with names!
Uncle Dave chatting with Uncle John and Aunt ?......told you.....bad with names!
Aunt Jonna with Chant's 2 kids, Logan and Boston and Heidi watching our "Redneck Pinata bashing".
The kids had a great time going after all the candy!
Gloria is amazing and made all of the "redneck" pinatas. She just used empty cereal boxes, filled them with candy, taped them shut and tied some string through them. The kids had a blast! Bret sure hit it like a pro!
Jason and Gary playing Cowboy wrestling (I think that is what it's called). For some reason Gary always ends up falling on his behind! Hahaha! ;-)
So here is Bridger's worm. He brought it over to his mom and wanted her to eat it.....needless to say she wasn't going to! She told him that if he ate it then she would.....well, the little stinker put the worm in his mouth and then pulled it back out. He then completely expected his mom to do it! She was not going to at all, but he sure persisted and tried like crazy to get her to "eat" it too!
Cousins enjoying the campfire!
Sunday was a great day. There weren't many of us left.....Lori and her family, Gavin and Glenda, me, Gary and the kids, Aunt Lisa, Uncle Dave and Tiffany came back up after staying in town for the night. We had Courtney too and Garin and some of his buddies came up later that day. Naturally there had to be a water fight......naturally I tried to stay out of it!
I think these dirty girls had a great weekend!
Everyone enjoyed watching the big boys shoot golf balls with the shotguns. I know, we're rednecks, and we're okay with that!
We hung out most of the day with Lori, while she waited for Barry and Cody to make it back from baseball games in Montana. It was lots of fun with lots of good conversation and laughs. I can't wait to do it again!