Cousin Annies Birthday Party at Grandmas

        Alan and his cupcake cone.

   David and birthday girl Annie eating their Cupcake cones.

     Avery, Owen, Josh, Grant and Isaac.

This was some water fight!!!! I have more pictures than this, but you get the point. The cousins always have a blast together.

Arivipa Canyon

September 4, 2010

                                             Jared and the boys.

 The hike up was a little scary but everyone was safe.

 Jared, Grant, and David
Jareds' Dad and his Grandpa at one time owned a ranch in this area, from this location you can see the old Ranch they had (look at pictures below). Jared had many memories playing and working at the ranch. This is one of them--climbing up to this spot with his brother Justin. We had a fun day exploring the canyon and seeing the Ranch. We went with Jareds' cousin James and his family. Good times.

Carmel by the Sea

David and Grant

Grant and Uncle Aaron Thanks for the boogie boards!!

The sand castle! I did nothing to help build this I went shopping at the cute shops .

Too cool for me!

I just love the beach!!!

Grant trying to catch a wave.

Grant riding in on a wave.

Jared, Alan Me and Grant in the background.

Alan kept trying to eat the sand. Yummy!

I loved this chillin pose of Alan's so cute.

We went to the beach on one day in Montery CA. and then the next day we went to Carmel. These pictures were taken in Carmel, CA. If you ever go to Northern CA, these are the beaches to visit. I loved the beach and now I am dreaming of owning a beach house. This was a beautiful day! David loved playing in the hugest sandbox ever, Grant loved the water and catching waves on the boogie board and I just loved the sand in my toes and the sound of the waves and the cool air. Thank you to Aunt Cassie and Uncle Aaron for taking us.

On a side note David lost his beloved doggy(stuffed animal he sleeps with every night) on the way to the beach. We had our windows down while we were driving and David said his doggy wanted to be superman.  We now have conversations that go like this: David asks- "mom is my doggy at the beach?" I answer-"yes, remember he is superman" David suggests"maybe we could go in the car again and drive to the beach and find him" I still don't know how to answer to that so I just say yeah maybe.

Summer in review Continued-California

                                                  Downtown Sacramento

                                                    Train Museum in Sacramento

                             Diners Drive ins and Dives; The Squeeze Inn .This Restaurant was featured on the show it happens to be just a few miles from my sister's house in Galt, Ca. Yummy! Thanks Cass for taking us there.

              Some serious cheese on this cheeseburger!!

Attractive I know!!!

Summer Road trip pit stop

Tulare, California Ag Museum. We drove to California to see my sister this summer and we needed a bathroom break and somewhere for the kids to stretch out for a bit. We pulled off the freeway and found this place, it was perfect. Jared had met some farmers from this area this year and thought it would be neat to see where they were from. The boys had fun watching this movie on tractors. Alan turned on these sprinklers a bunch of times. Grant and David practiced milking a cow, and we had fun looking at all the old tractors. Fun stop, it was free cool and had very clean bathrooms!! We lucked out.

Summer in Review- Grand Canyon

Okay so this is a terrible picture of us but you can just enjoy the scenery. It was breathtaking and mind-blowing to look out into this Canyon.

We are never smart enough to get someone to take a picture of all of us so here is Jared and the boys. Alan, David and Grant.

David wanted to climb under these bars and start climbing and hiking!! My heart was racing watching him try a couple of times! We will have to take him back when he is older to hike the Grand Canyon. I know he will love that sort of thing.

We rented bikes and had a fun time riding downhill the whole way to the look out. Then we had to have the bikes back by 1:30 so we were booking it the whole way back, all up hill!! We made it,  I was a little light headed when we got back. Maybe next time we will bring more water and think about lunch before hand. 

Summer in review continued - Birthdays!

So everyone in our family has a summer birthday. It's one big party after another around our house in the summer. My birthday is first followed by Alan's and then Jared's, all in June. Then July is Grant and August is David and Benjamin. I won't even start with extended family. I had yummy chocolate cupcakes that Grant and David made together. I made some heavenly frosting to go on top. Jared had cheesecake. Grant chocolate with white frosting and David funfetti. Grant's birthday was a mission impossible theme. His friends had water bombs and super soakers they split into teams and battled it out, all to the Mission impossible theme song. It was fun and I am mad that I didn't get pictures of it. What kind of mom am I??? So that's that we are all a year older and wiser too. Maybe?

Today is Ben's Birthday

This picture was taken on Ben's Birthday 5 years ago. He would be 6 years old. I am so glad he was born into our family. Today is a wonderful day to celebrate what a beautiful and loving boy he was! He got this cute John Deere tractor for his birthday thanks to Grandma Allred. He really liked playing with it.


"Snapshots taken with the heart are never lost... they become an album of beautiful moments that live forever"

Ben 8/25/2005

Summer in review Alan turns 1!

I made a carrot cake for Alan. I thought carrots would be something healthy and cream cheese frosting has cheese in it so he had cheese and carrots, not cake right?

His hair is so long now! First hair cut will have to be soon.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Cousins came to celebrate with us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Alan's Birthday loot.

This pinata was so full of candy that if broke off at the top from all the weight.