Summer 2011

It is now November and Christmas is coming upon us! I thought now would be a good time to catch up on the rest of our summer! LOL!



We went on a lot of bike rides for fun and to help prepare for our Bike MS ride we went on in September.





We made it to one of Kaden's Motocross races! That kid amazes me! He is a pretty cool kid!





Kambria got a basketball hoop as an early birthday present. We all enjoyed it!





The kids got a horse......oh wait...we already had him! :)




Daddy accidentally crashed on one of our bike rides with Kambria and Benson in the trailer. Benson came out of it without a scratch, Kambria wasn't so lucky, but she was okay. :)




For a Family Home Evening activity shortly after the bike accident, we made cards and took flowers over to a wonderful lady who helped us so much. We made a new friend that day!

Eli and his mis-match flip flops. LOL:) The orange pair were his favorite, but one was lost some where at Coeur d' Alene Lake when we went there for the 4th of July. So this is how he wore his flip flops the rest of the summer. Funny kid!

Kambria's Barbie themed birthday party in our front yard

Kambria turns 7!

Pinata fun!

One of Kambria's favorite birthday presents! She LOVES Monster High stuff right now!

(this is Frankie Stein, Frankenstein's daughter)

One of Benson's favorite foods over the summer!

Before this summer, my kids had never been stung. During the summer, Kambria was stung once and Benson and Eli were both stung twice! Here is the beautiful reaction Benson had to a bee sting on his eye lid while we were in Walla Walla.

Brotherly Love on a road trip to Walla Walla

We took a little trip with our best friends, George and Rhiannon to the Trail of the Coeur d' Alene's to help prepare for the Bike MS ride. It was so fun, beautiful, hot, exhausting, and even ended up spiritual in the end!

Some silliness during one of our breaks :)

I took this picture off of the Trail of the Coeur D' Alene's. LOVE IT!!!

One of our fund raisers for Bike MS

Kambria's first day of 2nd grade!

School starting marks the end of Summer. Now onto Fall.....

A Great Ride into 30!

For my 30th birthday I wanted to do something different and memorable! For a while, Jon and I had been talking about riding our bikes to Coeur D' Alene on the Centennial trail, staying the night, and riding back the next day. So I thought my birthday weekend would be the perfect time to do it! I was so right!!!! While planning our little getaway I couldn't decided where we should stay. We didn't have a lot of money to spend, but we were really hoping to have a pool to swim in since the lake was very cold and it wasn't quite hot enough to want to swim in it. The day before we were to leave, I finally called The Coeur D' Alene resort. Thinking it was a long shot, I was wondering if they do "fill the room" rates if we just show up and they have space available. The very nice gal that I talked to said they do grant those rates and that if I wanted to reserve a room right then she would give me such a rate. I ask what the cheapest Economy room rate would be; she said $159. Hmmmm.....I wasn't sure??? She then told me that they had quite a few of the tower view rooms available and if I wanted to make my reservations with her then she would upgrade for free!!!! SOLD!!!! :) I was so Excited!!!!!! Those rooms are normally $300+ this time of year!!!
Jon's mom and sister took care of the kids, we are so grateful! We wanted to be in Coeur D' Alene by a certain time and were running behind (yes I know that is surprising, lol) so we had his mom drop us off by the Mirabeau Park trail head. Starting from there, it was about 27 miles to Coeur' D Alene.


Here we are about to head out! :)




We made it to the State Line!!!!



And finally to Coeur D' Alene!!!



After checking in to the Resort, having a wonderful dinner at Tito Macaroni's, taking a short walk around downtown Coeur D' Alene, and Totally ENJOYING the pool, hot tub, and steam room, we took a shower and headed to Dockside for my Birthday dessert!!! We were going to do a half and half Snickers Sundae and Peanut Butter Cup Sundae, but we found out they don't have the Snicker's one anymore. We decided to look at the menu and saw that they have a new one, a 25th Anniversary Sundae! A Heavenly concoction!!!! Jon can actually eat a WHOLE sundae from Dockside, myself on the other hand cannot! We chose to share!



In the morning we called room service to find out if there was a microwave we could use to heat up our left-overs from the night before. They said they would be right up to pick it up and heat it up for us! :) They brought it back laid out nicely on a plate and nice and hot! No Charge! :) So we had dinner food for breakfast........why not??....you can have breakfast food for dinner! :) We enjoyed our breakfast on the balcony, it was so wonderful!!!



One of the views from our 12th floor room!



The other view from our room :)



Even after we checked out, we were still able to enjoy the amenities for the day! :) We hopped on the free boat ride available to guests and headed to the Resort Golf Course for a swim....

.........that's right, a swim!!!!! You can't see it too well in this picture, but they have a brand new pool they just finished! It is AMAZING!!!!!!!!

We were even waited on by pool side employees!!!!!

Just what I needed!!!! So relaxing and blissful!!!!! The pool water drops off the edge, but it looks like it goes right into the lake!

After the boat ride back, we collected our things that were being held for us, grabbed our bikes, rode around a bit to find a bike repair shop, got Jon's bike fixed, ate a quick burger at Hudson Hamburgers, and headed back on the trail toward Spokane again! We rode all the way to Jon's mom's house; a 36 mile trip this time. It was not easy, but definitely worth it and a good work out!!!! We LOVED our break from the kids, but we were excited to see them too!!! The word that I say all the time, but best describes our little biking to Coeur D' Alene getaway, was AMAZING!!!!!

Sunday, July 10th, was my actual birthday. We went over to my cousin Misty's house and I got to celebrate it with some of my Awesome extended family members!!! Misty and I have our birthdays in the same week, so it was a double celebration! We were actually getting together because our cousin, Teresa and her family were in town and we hadn't seen her in a couple years. It was great to see her and have Eli and Daniel meet each other! They were born only a month apart.

In addition to cake, we also roasted marshmellows for smores!

4 of the 5 cousin babies all born within 7 months of eachother!

Eli and Daniel finally get to meet and play!!!! :)

I had to include this picture of Benson I took there too! He is just so cute!!! :)

I had such an AMAZING 30th birthday weekend!!!! What a great way to start off a new decade of life!!!!

Independence Day in Coeur D' Alene

We went back to our tradition this year and spent the day in Coeur D' Alene for the 4th of July.

First~ The Parade! :)

Second~ Fun on the beach and in the lake!!! :)

Kambria and Audriana

Third~ The fireworks!!!

Benson's first firework show......one that he can enjoy anyway since last year he wasn't even a month old yet. He LOVED it!!!! :)

We are so grateful to live in an Independent and Free country! Happy Independence Day America!

Kambria~ School and Dance

That's right, it's July and I am still posting about June's stuff! I want to catch up because I am planning on turning my blog posts into books, kind of like yearbooks.


Kambria received a Golden E and and Academic All star award from 1st grade! Way to go Sunshine! We are so proud of you!!!

Kambria finished up her first year of dance with a great recital! She attended Julie's Competitive Edge Dance Academy. Julie was one of my dance teachers when I was younger. :) Her class tapped to "Sugar Sugar", it was super cute!!! :)

Camping Fun!!!!

We have been wanting to go camping for the last couple years and finally decided to go, even just for 1 night. We drove to an area out by Power Lake where you don't have to pay for the campsites, it is just first come first serve. No power, water, or even toilets!!! It was true camping and we had a GREAT time, it was even a little relaxing at times. (which doesn't come easy with 3 kids!)

Eli loved collecting rocks in his dump truck and throw them out into the creek



Snack time! :) Setting up is hard work!

This is where Missy was most of the time! I am pretty sure there were some squirrels or birds, or both that were teasing her! If she wasn't sitting there staring at the tree then she was trying to climb it or jumping at it! :) LOL

Smores!!! Yummmmm!!!!!



Benson slept until almost 11 o'clock the next morning!!! I think the sound of the creek was comforting to him!

Benson got super dirty and Mommy let him!!!! He LOVED it!!!

Kambria spent a lot of time trying to catch the many beautiful butterflies flying around.



.....and she finally caught one!!!! She was so excited! Especially since they were just studying about them in school. :)

We are going to try and make this camping trip an annual thing. Although it was a lot of work preparing and unpacking for this 1 night camping trip, it was definitely worth it!!!!