family and good friends

We got to help our good friend Shivawn celebrate her birthday! God has blessed us with great friends and family!

Jen, Shivawn, and I

We have had many friends over this summer to swim. I finally got a picture of some of our friends. Our friend Shawna came with Mallory, Wyatt, and Lynsdey to swim. We stopped for our ice cream break.

We were very excited to see Uncle John, Aunt Marjorie, and cousins Jessica and Laura. I had to get a pic with Laura and Jessica before they left for California. I hope someday to make it to California to visit them.

4th of July

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Caywood's on the 4th of July. We went to help celebrate Grandpa Caywood's birthday.

I had to get that picture!

Brayden's 9th Birthday with family and friends

Brayden invited 10 friends to help celebrate his 9th birthday and 5 made it! He had a good time!

We had grandma and grandpa Caywood over on his actual birthday for supper and cake. It helped make his birthday special.

Father's Day

We painted bird houses for Brayden's birthday party. The kids had fun painting and stamping on them. I always try to have a craft for them to do when we get together.

I could not find someone to make his cake so we had to get one from Walmart and this is what he picked out. I am not talented like my sisters in decorating cakes.

The kids had a good time swimming!

Father's Day was also Brayden's birthday party with the Markley side of the family. We had a fun filled day by the pool!

It is not often that I get to spend Father's Day with my dad since it is Scott's special day. It was nice to have dad here to help make his day special too. Love you dad!

Yellowstone National Park vacation pics

There were buffalo everywhere! We got to see them up close and personal.

I am horribly scared of heights but the views were just awesome. Scott thought it was funny I didn't want to get close to the sides when we were up high.

The sulfur pits were quite stinky! The kids quickly walked by them complaining about the smell all the way.

The lake was beautiful! All Lucas could think about was fishing.

I took this leaving the park. We didn't get to see part of the park because it was closed due to snow but what we saw was awesome.

All the roads going in and out and around Yellowstone looked just like this. All the trees lined the roads. It was so hard to come back to flat Kansas after seeing all the beatiful views.

Lucas actually let me take a picture of him in front of Old Faithful. The kids didn't like waiting for the water to spray out. It happens about every hour.

Old Faithful was the last thing we saw in the park.

Addison was all decked out in her winter gear for us to watch Old Faithful.

We did get to see a bear!

And we got to see elk.

This is one of my favorite pics I took of the falls.

This is a view of the falls without the trees in the way. It is still beautiful.

Another picture of the lake.

We saw thousands of buffalo. And lots of baby ones too.

More stinky sulfur pits.

This is what Addison did as we walked by the sulfur pits. She got quite a few giggles.

We were walking around the streams. We liked looking at the rapids.

Addison and I were sitting along the bridge checking out the views. It is one of the first things we saw coming into the park.

vacation pictures of Mt Rushmore

We were getting ready to leave Mt. Rushmore and saw these mountain goats up close.

Scott and the boys climbed the 200 and some steps to get close to Mt. Rushmore and were treated with ice cream afterwards. Addison and I opted out and just climbed back the stairs we already came down.

It is incredible what a good zoom lense can do. You can look right up his nose. HA HA!