Destination Imagination

A few weeks ago, I was able to fly to Knoxville TN to be with Kylie as she participated in the Global Finals of Destination Imagination. This is Kylie's sixth year participating in Destination Imagination. Her second time attending Global Finals. She has had the same coach and most of the same kids in her group. Below is the group that went to Tennessee.

Destination Imagination or DI as we all call it, is a combination of creativity, team work, and a little bit of Engineering.

Here is Kylie and I. Below is Kylie getting ready for the instant challenge part of their competition.

The whole week is filled with lots of fun activities for kids. One of the things that is super fun is pin trading. All the kids that attend, bring pins from their states and trade with other states. It is such a fun way to meet people from all over the United States and all over the world.
One of the events at Globals was a 3M Duct tape party. Here are some of the kids in their duct tape creations. I made these dresses for Kylie and Korine.

Everyone came in some amazing duct tape creations.

We had a day when the kids weren't competing and we decided to take a trip to Dollywood. This is a fun amusement park that was created by Dolly Partin. We had a great day riding on rides and trying not to get to wet.
I had such a fun week with cute Kylie and I was so proud of their team. They placed 11th and their structure held 1010 lbs. An amazing amount of weight. Great Job Cubs!

Mothers day!

This is what I woke up to on Mothers day! What a great day and a great surprise. The little wrapped package was a cute watch. My greatest happiness and my greatest joy come from being a wife and mother. I have the best husband and five amazing daughters, a great son-in-law and the cutest grandson, that are all so different and wonderful. I am blessed!

Me with the three daughters that were in town to share the day!

EFY 2011

All my blog stalkers are totally going to be in shock. Yes, it's me, I'm finally back. I have had a crazy couple of months. I was super busy with planning our stakes youth conference which was held at the end of April. I was also pretty sick with the flu on and off for about a month. I thought it would be fun to share a few picture from EFY. The theme for this year was "Reach Higher". The conference is held at a wonderful youth camp just outside of Sonora CA.

Here is a shot with a few of the adults that attended. This cracked me up when I saw it with all the kids jumping in behind.
Here is Lauren with some of her friends. They are doing a great job of showing off the cute t-shirts. The youth were divided into seven companies, that had their individual colors. The colors make it fun to bond with their group and they make great pictures.

Cute Lauren playing games with her company "Trustworthy Teal"

Teal group having a devotional.

Me getting involved in one of the games. Yes! I am holding a gold plunger. There is a lot of craziness when you work with the youth.
There was a sports theme for the dance. As adult leaders, we decided to dress as referees. Here I am with my amazing presidency. Karen, Becky and Paula.

Lauren and I

Lauren and her friends came up with a fun take on sports. They were on the chess team. These girls made nerdy look pretty cute.
This is the young mens president and I with the three youth leaders of our stake. We spent many hours planning and serving with these amazing kids. They did such a great job leading this years EFY. I love these guys with all my heart. The young men's president and I both said we wanted to adopt them. They are great kids.

Laurel and Priest Overnighter

Our ward has a fun tradition of going on a laurel and Priest get-a-way. Reed and I have pretty much gone on all of them. We went when I was the YW president and now we go because Reed is the YM president. It is held at the Stokers cabin during the snowy winter months. It is always a fun/bonding weekend. We all had fun eating yummy food and playing games.

Courtney, Amanda, Holly

Tiffany Madsen(the current YW president) and Claira

Linzi and Robert

Reed and I

Tiffany and Happy Amanda

getting into the twister game.

Playing in the snow the next day. It was sunny and gorgeous!

Claira and Holly

Robert

snow ball fight!

Aloha

We decided to have a family trip before Kara left on her mission. We went to Ohua and stayed at the Ko Olina resort. We had a busy and fun time. We always love being together. Some of the highlights of the trip were the swap meet, church, pearl harbor, the polynesian Cultures center, a session at the temple, a snorkeling trip and a scuba trip for Reed and I. Below is a family shot taken at the PCC.

We toured a sub and went through the museum at the Pearl harbor memorial.

Some shots of the sub.

Cute Kara

Grandma Shelley with baby McKay!

Kylie ready for snorkling!

The cutest baby in the entire world. We all had so much fun plying with "busty-pants". A name Kara started calling him. We loved hearing him talk and seeing him smile. Life is good!

At the Temple!

We had fun exploring all the villages at the Polynesian culture center.

We went to the amazing show and Luau.

Grandpa Reed and McKay

Here we are on our whale watch/snorkle trip. The water was pretty rough and there were a few who tossed there cookies. Bummer! We saw lots of amazing fish and whales and worked on our tans a little too.


One of Lauren's good friends Abby was also in Hawaii with her family. Lauren wanted me to take some pictures of them. I loved to one above.