Family Camp

 The Phillips family survived their first camping trip!  I have to say that I was a little nervous that our maiden voyage was with a bunch of professional scouting families.  But I think we packed half of our house and took it with us.  We were loaded down, but there wasn't anything that we needed that we didn't have.  Kent's last two weekends of wood badge camping came in handy.  He came home with lots of ideas and tips on how to be a good camper.   :)  Nothing like camping with 30 other adults, you're bound to learn some new tricks. 

When we set out for family camp it was 56 degrees and raining.  It continued to rain throughout our camp set up (there has to be a term for this, I am not thinking of it), so we were nice and drenched, along with most of our stuff.  Which was fine, we came prepared.  :)  After that, the sky cleared and it was mostly just overcast throughout the weekend, which made for some chilly nights.  I am so thankful that I threw in winter hats and gloves.  We all slept with them on, along with wool blankets, while we burrowed in our sleeping bags.  Did I mention that we had fun?

 It really was a great weekend, the kids wanted to live there forever.  They rode bikes and explored the forest, unfortunately a foreign concept to my kids.  It's sad to think that my childhood memories mostly surround a forest and all the games we played within it.  This may have been the first time that my kids were inside of one.  :( 

                                                  The ritual hike to end family camp.

 The cub scout pack has tons of traditions that surround family camp.  Most of which we were oblivious to, since we had never been.  This makes it difficult to be in charge and head this activity (Kent), luckily Wayne, (Kent's assistant) took on the enormous task of planning the majority of family camp and all the activities that surrounded it.  We still didn't see Kent most of the weekend because he was "Cub Mastering" everyone and everything, it's amazing how much drama and BS occurs with 20 some families in one weekend.  Holy exhaustion.  I am not a quitter, but I know without a doubt that if I were Kent, I would have quit his position a long time ago.  Way to hold strong Babe!  ;)

                                                    The scouts that attended family camp.

One successful Family Camp weekend in the books!

Friends!

 I had to stick this picture in here because I am so thrilled with it!  I bought a Groupon from Project Repat  (www.projectrepat.com)  for this quilt.  I sent in 30 of my old shirts and they put this together for me!  It makes me smile whenever I look at it.  There are 15+ years of memories in that thing.  If you are in need of something like this, I strongly encourage you to check this company out.  I am saving my children's shirts already for one of their own someday.

The first weekend of Summer started out with a BLAST!  My college friend, Kelsey, and her family came for a visit.  It was so wonderful to be able to hang out and catch up with her and Brian.  Plus, I got to spend some fun times with Eli while his parents headed to a wedding.  He was so easy, he got along wonderfully with my kids and they just played and played all day.

 After a long, fun day in the sun we decided to go and try to shoot some family pictures.  Apparently, they have never had any done.  I am by no means any where close to know what I am doing, but I had a good time and I think we got at least a few good shots! 

 This picture cracks me up, I think it represents their little family so well.

Thanks for a fun weekend Graves family, we can't wait until next time!

The Last Day of School

 Life got away from me and I am behind a few weeks.  These are the last day of school pics.

 Everyone was very excited, I can't believe my baby girls are going to be gone all day in the Fall,  first grade!  Since they get out of school super early we had a picnic in the park with the neighborhood friends.

Emmett & Cole

                                                                          Kaiden & Gavin

                                                    Ally, Huntar, Sam, Dani & Chloe

Keegan

 First day of school pics:                                   Dani

                                                                           Ellie

                                                                          Brayden

They have all grown and learned so much over the past 10 months!  Look out Summer, here we come!  

In A Split Second....

In a split second your whole world can change....
~you could score the game winning goal
~you could share a knowing smile with your spouse
~you could barely avoid an accident

or you could receive a phone call from a lifelong best friend and know in an instant, from the tone of her voice, that her world is falling apart...and wouldn't you know it, the words that you most don't want to hear, that couldn't be possible, come out of her mouth.  The worst word in the English language, the scariest, most unbearable word, accompanied by "my baby."

"They think my baby has cancer."

In a split second, nausea, numbness, tingling, disbelief, dread, anger, heart break, angst, in a split second.

It can't be right, this isn't happening, not to a healthy three year old girl.  They have to have made a mistake. 

In a split second you realize just how far away you are from a lifelong, best friend.  In a split second you know that it doesn't matter what is happening in your life, you will go to her, to hug her, to be with her, to take care of her and her family.  In a split second nothing else matters but fixing this horrible wrong. 

In a split second your whole world can be turned upside down.  In a split second you can realize how lucky you are.  In a split second you can only imagine the hell that she is living in.  In a split second you can realize how helpless you can be.  In a split second you can feel all of the love and support that is surrounding you.

Our girl is all growed up

Our Maya girl graduated yesterday!  It's hard to believe the sweet little 12 year old that we met six short years ago is a grown up!  We are so proud of the spunky, caring, smart, hilarious, beautiful person that she is.   I have yet to figure out what we are going to do without her this Fall, I am in complete denial that she is moving on to achieve bigger and better things.  Look out world, she is going to make an impact!

Congratulations Maya, we love you!

Extraction

Our little Danielle had to have three teeth extracted!  She was so excited for all of the money that the tooth fairy was going to bring, she never really thought about how this was going to work.  Which turned out to be a good thing, because there was no anxiety before hand.  She was so brave as they yanked and pulled those puppies out.  They weren't even close to being loose.  They were the longest teeth I have ever seen, I think the roots went clear down to her toes.

She was brave and tough the entire time, until we got home and she looked in the mirror and saw what had been done.  She started wailing, "I want my Daddy, I want my sister, I want my brother!" 

"Well, fabulous, none of them are here, but I am.  I am your mom, can I hold you?"  Talk about feeling worthless.

Family pics

 We headed out to the grange near our house a few weeks ago to play with my newish camera.  We took a load of amateur pictures.  These are a bunch of my favorites.  The kids did great and Shelbi came by to snap a few family shots.  I have now purchased Photo Shop, so next on my to do list is to figure out how to use it and edit some pics!  I can't wait to crop and fix some of the lighting on these.  I love photography and I am hoping that I will be able to spend some time learning how to take some great pics!  One of my client's moms is teaching a class this summer, I can hardly wait!