Beach Birthday Fun

Last weekend Dad and I had a lot of fun with some of our dear friends. We spent Thursday and Friday night at the Paul's beach house in Pacific City celebrating 4 birthdays... Susan Trone, Linnell, Dad, and Marlin. We left late Thursday night (after the Relief Society birthday dinner) arriving at the beach at 11:30 pm. Of course, we stayed up talking until about 2:00 am. Friday was one of those magic days at the beach... blue sky from morning til night with little wind and just the right temperature for hiking the dune. We played on the dune for hours, including some jumping off the edge to see how far they could go. Marlin won. I was on camera duty. Then we all held hands and jumped together. Cindy has those pictures so I can't share them yet. Friday night the Harkers prepared an unbelievable seafood dish and birthday dessert. Friday night's entertainment was a sing along using an old Recreational Songbook the church published in 1949. We had brought our keyboard and Craig did his magic. Corny and funny. Friday was the typical cold and rainy weather for this time of year. Marlin still wanted to go clamming so we drove to Netarts Bay where Susan T and Craig joined him for the adventure. The rest of us didn't have waterproof boots so we watched from the van. After another great dinner, we headed home. A very fun 48 hours. Susan Trone kept saying, "I feel like a teenageer!" Well, we don't look like teenagers, but we certainly had as much fun. She also said it was the best thing she has done since Gene's death. A reminder of the importance of friendship. So, there you have it! I am thinking we need to go to Pacific City this summer when some of us are together. What do you think? We have certainly had very fun memories there as a family. Love you all!

I have the most amazing family in the world. Period.

Our new van!

Surprise, surprise...we joined the ranks of Burnett family Sienna owners! We purchased this just over two weeks ago and are loving it. It's a 2001 XLE, so it's got leather interior. It has a great speaker system in it with a 6-disc changer and tape player, so we're enjoying listening to music and radio again. It only has 74,000 miles on it! (Of course, when I told Grandpa Foley that, he and Grandma thought that was way too many.) Bekah loves having control over her power door and the rear heat, although she was very sad to say goodbye to her window that rolled down in the Odyssey (a feature we liked in the 5-door van). I was sad to say goodbye to the rear bench that folded into the floor, but found that we like having a third bench that slides back and forth. Our Odyssey was just falling apart...literally. We truly got our monies worth out of that van. We thought we'd sell it before it hit 200,000 miles so we listed the Odyssey on Craig's List the day after we bought the Sienna and had 4 people seriously interested in it within 15 minutes of posting! We sold it that night. Amazing! We feel blessed. We now can drive safely in the winter weather.

Pictures: You'll see our garage and the back of the house in the background on one picture, and West Elementary in the other.

FYI

We finalized our summer travel plans this week, so I thought I'd let everyone know, in case you're making plans of your own.

Wed., June 10 - Fly from Baltimore to Portland
Wed., June 17 - Fly from Portland to SLC
June 18 - 23 - Walton Family Reunion (Eden, UT)
Fri., July 03 - Anne & Girls Fly HOME (Russ will return home a week or so earlier)

We're excited! :)

GOOD Times

Well, I have definitely been using my time to do way fun things. I thought I would share a bit of it all with you.

On Saturday, 14 February 2009, I went indoor rock climbing. As a member of the Outdoor club we get a free membership to this place in Orem. I thought I would make use of it. Actually, I wanted to practice more so that I don't look so lame next weekend when we go rock climbing for real. So, this is me rock climbing; this was a way hard run. The only one I didn't finish...

Then, my friend Sarah and I decided that we would not be found alone on a Saturday night, it being Valentine's Day. So, we called our friends and set each other up on blind dates. We made pizza and went sledding. It was an incredible amount of fun; the sledding was amazing.

On Monday I went caving with three other people up to Nutty Putty caves. I felt especially cool because usually these caves are closed but I just became friends with someone who has got sweet connections and we got in. It was a really awesome trip! We walked for about 3 miles in deep mud (some of it being uphill), went cave exploring for 2 hours plus, got entirely soaked, caked in dust, which turned to mud as we slithered through small holes with puddle-covered floors, exerted all of our efforts to get our muscles to pull us through tight squeezes and slippery slopes, then walked another 3 miles back to the car...in the mud...and rain. I stepped in several puddles on the way home. Needless to say, we were all very exhausted and in the morning Sarah and I were COVERED in bruises. It was great. One of the most fun things I have ever done. :) Go figure.

Our most recent club activity was tonight, Wednesday. In order to get funding from BYU, we have to write a ton of letters to donors saying thank you. It is clearly not the most fun thing to do, so we thought we would entice the club members by reserving the tumbling gym to play in after writing letters. If all of you who don't know, it is a big warehouse with lots of trampolines, pads, sumo suits and a huge pit full of foam blocks. It was good times. Hard work, too. Here is Sarah and I right before our Sumo Wrestling of Death! Actually, we just pushed and shoved and fell on top of each other and decided we never wanted to gain enough weight to be like that. It's hard work!

This last video was Alan, me and Sarah jumping into the foam pit. It was good times. Huzzah!

Liken the Scriptures

One of the scriptures Kaylee can recite is Amos 3:7. The other night she quoted it as follows:

"Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servant . . . the Monson."

Pretty good, huh?