Lamp.

As I was finishing my last post (scroll down to next one for your viewing pleasure), Gavin gracefully walked into the office (mind you he has been asleep for 2 1/2 hours) and said, "I want my yamp (lamp) on". And walked back in. So I followed him with the camera to just show everyone how freaking cute he is. Especially when he is tired.

He laid down because he didn't want me to take his pic.

All tucked back in!

Enterprise.

So, I grew up on a farm. That's right. A farm. And when I say farm I mean this. My grandpa has a few horses, cows (we kept one and fed it bottles), my siblings and I each had a sheep that we sold for lots of money ($56 bucks), and my brother once caught a chicken that laid an egg. One egg. I got paid $1.00 per gopher that we caught in the hay field. We were real redneck I tell ya. Oh, and I don't ride horses.

I don't mind going to a rodeo every once in awhile. I don't like the dust, cow poop, or the rodeo clowns voice (have you ever noticed they all have the same fake yeehaw accent!?), but I love going to watch.

However, I DO love the overly expensive candy and pop, snow cones, and all of the girls that think they are all hot stuff in their short shorts and cowboy(girl) boots. If you want to see some awesome fashion, go to the Enterprise Rodeo. That is where we ended up spending the 24th of July this year! Gavin was enthralled the whole time. Every time a bull went back in after the ride, he would go "I want another one out!"

Kenna and Gavs went to chase chickens. Luckily they were kind of late and didn't catch one. What the heck would I do with a chicken!? We stayed for half of the rodeo (and still didn't leave until 10:30). Thanks for dinner at the Red Dog Cafe Dad (don't we sound real redneck!?) and the fun at the rodeo! It was a blast...

Eating at the Red Dog Cafe (I got my sisters good side hopefully)

Gavin's cowboy hat. He didn't want to wear a real one.

Kenna and Cam... aren't they so cute!

Gavs and Pepa. Best buds.

The chicken chase with my little bro.

Seattle and everything in between

I have seriously slacked a lot on blogging. Multiple reasons, which don't matter. Either way, I'm back at it and here I go with our latest vacay of Seattle.

We left last Wednesday at 5:30 AM. It was SO DANG early, but the kids thought it was greatest thing on earth to wake up in the middle of the night to go get on an airplane. When we hit Vegas (and the sun was up) Gavin said, "Yook Mom! The sun is awake!" We got all situated in the airport and then had to wait to board until all of the early bird "A" people boarded. Which unfortunately was half the airplane. By the time I boarded everyone had spread out and there wasn't a row left for the three of us. Meaning I had to get the flight attendants on the PA to tell everyone to scoot over because there wasn't room. We ended up sitting in front of these cute boys with one being named Gavin as well. The kids did AMAZING on the flight and we landed and Gavin saw Brent he said "Yook! There is my dada right over there!" It was super cute, considering he hadn't seen him for 3 1/2 weeks...

Brent took us down to Puyallup (I still can't pronounce it right) where my good friend Cori and her kids were staying! They graciously allowed us to crash their vacation and parents home for the few days we were there. Luckily they were there because Brent had a lot of work to do, so we didn't see him a whole lot.

Thursday, Cori, her sister Honor, and I decided to venture out and take our kids to the Point Defiance Zoo. There were 11 kids and 3 adults and it actually wasn't too bad of a day! Then we went to Cori's dads house to pick raspberries which Makenna refused to eat...

Friday, we went up to Anacortes (or San Juan Islands) and went to Friday Harbor. It was fun except the ferry ride home when Gavin wouldn't stop screaming "ME-MA!" (what he calls my mom) at the top of his lungs for the whole ride. I could have cut his vocal chords after that. We survived though and slept most of the way home!

Saturday we went to a beach called Owen's Beach. Now, if you haven't been up to the Seattle area, their beaches are not sandy or warm. Rather, rocky and freezing cold! But we still had fun and were able to take our sweat shirts off by the middle of the afternoon.

Monday we boarded the plane and came to warm, sunny St. George!!! Thanks to George and Judie for allowing us to crash their basement and to the Hench's for letting us tag along with them! We loved it!

Waiting to board...

Waiting to take off....

Sleeping (supposedly)

Getting ready to land...

Gavin and Gavin

I found about 15 of these pictures on the camera... What a girl!

Here we go!

The zoo (obviously)

Kenna and a goat

Their "real life" spider web

9 of the 11 children.

Kenna the hermit crab

Can you tell its a bit cold?!

I threatened no snacks if they didn't smile....

They smiled and got ice cream for lunch.

At the beach

Aren't they so cute...

Some of the girls

A real crab... Dead, but real

Sunday, we decided to give the Hench's a break from us, so we headed up to downtown Seattle and go to the Pacific Science Center. The kids loved it! There were so many different exhibits to go see. The favorite was the butterfly exhibit, where you went into this huge greenhouse type thing with tropical trees, ponds and so forth with hundreds of different butterflies that just flew randomly. It was awesome. They also had a dinosaur section, circus section, small planetarium, tide pool thing, and other hands on things! It was a blast.

Dinosaur print

They don't ride horses in Seattle

Dressing up in the circus

One of my highlights was our rental vehicle. They were out of the "standard" car, so we ended up getting upgraded to a Ford Flex. It is a funny looking car, but super nice on the inside and it was 'magical'. And this is what I mean by magical.

This is how the kids were most of the time in the car. Even when we went on a two hour drive one way, they both slept 1 1/2 hours of the trip. Both ways. Gavin even fell asleep one time at 9:30 in the morning... what the crap. It was awesome.


For any of you who are interested, this is what Brent's place looks like. I decided to give everyone a visual. (just picture this with a funny smell)

Living room/office

Kitchen (what gave it away)

Brent's bed. Love his bright orange sheets and bedspread. He picked them out all on his own!!!

Martin Family Reunion

Man, this year has seemed to fly and unfortunately, so have all of our vacations! They are over with as of now... so if anyone wants to take me somewhere, I will find a sitter!!!

So.... this year the MFR (Martin Family Reunion if you didn't catch that), was at Pine Lake. If you don't know where that is, it is up by Bryce Canyon. It was awesome. We had this HUGE campsite all to ourselves and plenty of space to let the kids catch their horny dude (and no, it wasn't Brent- it was a horned toad that they named Horny Dude, hilarious if you ask me) and just run wild. I pretty much parked my butt by the fire most of the time but still enjoyed my time. We did go to Bryce for about 20 minutes before Brent started freaking out over some "cliff" and that was the end of our sight seeing. It was still fun!
So we got up there Thursday, got our stuff out and ate some delicious chicken kabobs and corn on the cob. The next morning we ate dutch oven cereal (ok, maybe just cereal) and then we went to Bryce and just chilled the rest of the day. By 9:30 it was 49 degrees and we were off to bed. It was a bit cold. Saturday we just did some more playing in the dirt, walking to the lake that was filled with leeches (my nephew got one on his leg) and then Brent took Kenna fishing while I relaxed more with Gavs as he slept in a hammock (oh the life of a two year old).

We ate like we hadn't eaten before while we were up there. And if you didn't eat the snacks and food fast enough, they were tossed in the fire by Gloria. Pretzels, cheese balls, salsa, grapes... you name it, it got burned. Seriously, some super delicious food. Alright, enough of my chatter! Here are the pics.

Just starting to get dirty

Eating homemade/handmade ice cream.

Booms, Maicey and Gavs on the hunt for "Alvin and Brittany"

Don't I look pretty... HA!

Lake Powell.

Yes, yes. It is that time again!!! YAY! As we know (and I mean me and two other people know) I LOVE Lake Powell. L.O.V.E. it. This year was no exception except I got to experience something that will probably never happen again (fingers crossed). I had to wear a freaking jacket the whole time we were there. So did everyone else. Most people were in sweats 90% of the time. I wasn't that smart and just brought a jacket, but my kids were in their long winter pajamas (I was a bit smart for them). It was SO DANG COLD!!! When we went to bed on Friday night, Cha Cha said it was 57 degrees. At the lake. In June. It poured I think most of the night. Either way, here is the run down of the trip.

Thursday. We leave at 7:30 (surprisingly early) to get out there and going. We all arrive around the same time and start to unload everything. Once again, as we start the houseboat, only 1/2 an engine works (not surprising). I think they (the men) worked on it for maybe 2-3 hours and finally got it going. The wind was starting to blow at this point, so we had to move fast before it died. I'm pretty sure my dad and grandpa are experts and driving the boat with one engine. In a wind storm. And all of the other houseboats now have booeys (sp!?) around theirs just so when we get blown into them, their boat is protected. Anyway, we find a beach. All is well.

Kenna decided that she wanted to wake ski (thats how she said it). So when my little bro got in to wakeboard, she jumped in and got up with him. It was crazy! They went forever and it was fun to watch. Unfortunately (once again not surprising), I didn't have my camera, so we went and got that and my mom and she wakeboarded with my dad (see pics below). Day was over and we all got to sleep on the top in the starry sky.

Friday morning. We didn't wake up to the usual bright sun, which was a pleasant feeling knowing we slept past 7:00 in the morning. Problem. The sun didn't shine the rest of the day. It actually rained, wind blew and was so dang cold. We did go to a sand hill and climbed the beast and ran down it before we were covered in sand. We all got back to the houseboat and were camped inside the rest of the day/night. We watched movies on laptops, played some card games, and ate. Now, the houseboat we have is fairly small on the inside. By 11:30 we realized we were all going to have to sleep inside the boat instead of outside due to the rain. So there were 31 of us crammed (and when I say crammed I mean CRAMMED) under the roof. It was quite humorous really. People were sleeping two to a twin size mat, smashed in the kitchen, and down the hall. Quite the adventure. Some of us slept, some of us didn't. We woke up in the morning and the weather was still pretty crappy so we went home.

Overall, it was pretty fun considering the circumstances. My kids were wonderful (thanks to my family) and we survived without killing each other!!! Hopefully August will be a bit warmer. Even 70 degrees would be a whole heck of a lot warmer than it was! Enjoy the pics.

Ready to go the first couple hours.

Them waiting to be served.

Driving to the beach.

Two adults ended up sleeping in this small space.

The beast of a sandhill.

Getting ready to climb it!

My grandpa and Kenna

The big wakeboarder!

Kenna and her bestie (she doesn't leave him alone)

Isn't she so cute?!

A few of us watching a movie (taken with my phone so not the best shot)
There are 14 people in the picture. Can you see them all!?