Date Night!

Our fun date night bowling! We had so much fun with everyone. Richard got a little crazy at dinner afterwards but he does get a little weird around his sisters! Love Texas Roadhouse, yum.

The Girls

The three girls of the family! We had a fun weekend at Mary's with all us sisters together. I guess we should have taken a picture of us too! Here is Kaymie (2 weeks), Megan (9) and Brooklyn (6.5 months)

ZOO

We had a fun trip to the Phoenix zoo over fall break. We were lucky to have Richard take a couple hours off work to join us!
the kids at the fish pond
Loved the train ride!
Nice elephant rump behind Austin's head!
Carson loved the Gorillas, they were fun to watch

Bowling Fun!

We had a fun trip bowling with the kids on Thursday since it was Fall Break and no school. They all had so much fun.
Carson loved to watch the balls come up and out!
All the kids!
Megan ready to bowl. She got really lucky most of the time!

My new niece

I had to post a picture of my new niece Kaymie Alauna Shumway who was born 10-13-08 in Prescott. She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz and is so cute. Kam and I went to see her and enjoyed our time with Mary and baby. What a nice addition the their family of three boys!

Ward Campout!

Rylan on the zipline
Carson and Dad walking over the bridge some boys made
We always knew where to find Austin, next to the fire!
Carson having fun on his bike

All three boys loved shooting the bb gun
Ok Carson you can do it too
Megan loved the zipline
Austin tried it once and that was enough for him

We all had a good time at the ward campout this weekend near Payson. We showed them all how to really camp with a trailor! They all roughed it in tents, crazy crazy. The kids had so much fun riding bikes, making smores, playing in the dirt, the zip line, and everything else they could find to do. We look forward to our dune trips coming up!

Hats off to you…

You guys are the best to host the BBQ on Conference Sunday. It was so fun to see everyone enjoying each other. The kids were having so much fun they didn't want to stop to eat. A few casualties aside, it was a memorable evening. I just had a couple of pics on my camera I wanted to share, so am posting them for you. Your apple pie was delicious - I was wishing I had another piece around midnight! (I am the original night grazer) Thank you for hosting and here's hoping we'll do it more often. love you.


Stacie feeding Emersyn

Three of our crazy girls, Faith, Rylee and Madison

Tetherball wars

Jordyn helping Carson while Chance, Aden and Lauren get away in the little rhino

Our Cruise!

As you can see from the slide show we had a great cruise! We enjoyed every minute of being together! I am going through with drawls of being together 24 hours for 8 days and now he is at work all day. We appreciated being together even more because Richard almost didn't get on the ship. This is the story! We had a good day Saturday traveling to Ft. Lauderdale and renting a car to drive down to Miami. We stayed the night at a hotel close to the port. We slept in and then got ready to go to the ship. We wanted to get on as soon as we could but realized we had forgotten our digital camera. Can't go on a trip without a camera so we found a radio shack despite all the one way streets and bought one. (Richard needed one for work anyway so I didn't mind if the company was buying) Then we returned the car and headed to the port. We walked in to security and they checked through our bags and escorted us up to the line to get through the second security point. There were already tons of people waiting in line cause the ship wasn't ready to board yet. They told us to wait right there and we would be the first to go through. We were so confused why we got put in front of everybody but oh well we were excited. As soon as the ship was ready we were sent through first! First in line to check in we were feeling pretty good, then they looked at his birth certificate and told us this was not acceptable. I didn't realize I had the hospital issued birth certificate for Richard and not the AZ state issued one that was required as of 6 months ago. So we were devastated. I was all upset. We then tried to make plans to get me on the ship and have him get the right birth certificate and fly to San Juan to meet up with the ship. In the meantime Heidi and Kam were searching our house for the right certificate which they found and faxed to Royal Caribbean. I went from being devastated to so excited! Yeah we got on!
Ok that was a long story, but it really made us appreciate being together even more. I must of told him 50 times how glad I was he was with me! So off to San Juan we went. The ship was absolutely beautiful and we enjoyed hanging out at the pools, hot tubs, rock climbing, ice skating, surfing, and just hanging out in our room ordering room service at all hours of the night. It took us a while to figure out where everything was and how to get back to our room! We enjoyed the balcony and often sat out on the patio just looking out over the ocean. We walked around old town San Juan in Puerto Rico and got back on the ship in time for dinner and the ice show which was amazing. Then off to St. Thomas where we went on a private sail boat charter with only six of us passengers. We sailed over to St. John and snorkeled by the beautiful beaches. It was really relaxing and beautiful. The next morning we were in St. Martin or St. Maarten which is half Dutch and half French. We went snuba diving there which was our favorite. We went down about 20 feet to the bottom and got to see lots of coral, fish, octopus, and sunken ships. I can't wait to get our underwater pictures developed. We had a great time! We then took a taxi to the French side and went to the famous Orient Beach. It was one of the most beautiful beaches I've seen. We didn't want to walk too far over cause there were nude parts of the beach, not exactly what we wanted to experience! Then back to the ship for the two days back at sea.
We couldn't have asked for a better vacation except for a few minor hiccups! We almost didn't get off the ship cause I left my birth certificate in our bags that were already taken off this ship waiting for us to pick up. I didn't realize we had to go through customs and prove our citizenship. We really need to get out more =) Then one of our bags was missing and we ended up finding it in the corner of the room because someone had taken it off the carousel and left it. What fun! All in all we loved it loved it loved it! Richard didn't even come home to a disaster at work so we were thrilled. Our kids had a great time with Heidi, Kam and Chad, Grandma Susan and Grandpa Don, Granny, Grandma Lorie and Grandpa Paul, and Bob! Thanks so much to all of you who made it possible for us to go. Our kids were well taken care of and had a great time. We really appreciate all your help so very much.