The Cabin

After the wedding we had the opportunity to go and stay at a cabin that my parents friends own. It was near Sandpoint, Idaho at a little ski resort called Schwietzer (sp?). It was the most gorgeous place, and the cabin wasn't bad either! It was the perfect grandparents cabin. There were tons of movies, puzzles, games, the best part for the kids and cause for most fights was the rope swing in the family room! Not kidding, there was this huge log beam across the family room and they had this little swing to tie around the beam, it was so fun! The cabin was amazing complete with a player piano downstairs, two story family room ceilings (which were great for the thunder and lightening storm we had!), beds and for 15 if not more, a waterfall on the side of the cabin, we left the windows open all day to listen to the water run down the mountain, and hot tub on the porch! It was so fun and we were so lucky to visit that beautiful place and hope we can go again before my parents are done with their mission. That picture above is my dad and Olivia snuggling on the couch.
Matthew on the rope swing.
Enjoying the hot tub, it actually started to sprinkle a little bit while we were out there, but we didn't care. It was pretty cold out but the hot tub was really warm so we didn't mind, being surrounded by the fog was neat too! We felt like gorillas in the mist!
This was down in the basement where the player piano was, we found a bunch of Disney songs on the piano and the kids had a blast dancing
A picture of Maddie and I, yay! It isn't the best but I will take what I can get! I forgot to post about the bear cub that my dad and I saw on the side of the rode about a half mile down from the cabin. We were coming home from an early morning run to Wal Mart, when we came around one of the switchbacks, there it was just eating some grass on the side of the rode. We watched it for a while, it was pretty neat, but kind of scary that the bears were so close to where we were. Good thing we didn't take the kids on a morning hike like we had planned!

More Wedding

During dinner we decided to take a few pictures of the girlies. They looked so cute all dressed up and twinsies!
Maddie eating her major piece of cake! She went to get her own piece of cake and she came back with the biggest one on the table!! She could hardly carry it back to her seat.Olivia playing peek a boo.

The Wedding

This was right when they walked out. I couldn't get any other good pictures, it was such a hot day and everyone was crowded in the little bit of shade they had. The ceremony was very sweet, Aaron's grandpa came from Idaho to do the Sealing. Jess and Aaron were just darling, she was a gorgeous bride.
My cute little parents!
My mom and Maddie, isn't that sweet? We had the camera out just in time!

Beautiful Bride

Jess had bridal portraits taken in the mission home. She looked so pretty in her dress and Maddie and Emma were amazed at Jess in her beauiful princess dress. Aaron was downstairs while Jess took pictures, it was a little hard to keep him from peeking!

One more

I forgot this cute picture of the kids they were being so good, sitting on the stairs waiting for us!

Swimming and Fire Alarms

My sweet parents put Mel and I and the kids up in a hotel so the Mission home didn't get too crowded with all of the kids and grandkids, and Jess could have a little space before the Wedding. We stayed in connecting rooms at the Best Western. We got in pretty late from the airport and the kids were pretty wired. I turned on the t.v. to help Maddie to fall asleep and help me to stay awake. She was all over the place, she couldn't fall asleep forever because she wanted to lay in my bed, and she was rolling all over trying to get comfortable. It was two in the morning when I realized I had dozed off and Maddie was asleep, but the t.v. was still on. I think we fell asleep sometime around 1:30. To continue this wonderful evening Olivia decided she was ready to get up at 5:00! So I slept for about three hours, with Maddie in my bed rolling all over me trying to snuggle etc. I fed Olivia and hoped she would go back to sleep like she usually does. She opted out of that idea...at 7:00 I called my mom to see if we had a car at the hotel that I could drive the girls around in and maybe Olivia would fall back to sleep. Well we didn't, but my dad said he wanted to come over. I was talking to my dad and telling him that he didn't need to come when I heard a loud buzzing in the hallway. I told my dad to hang on, and I thought there was a fire alarm going off. We laughed for a second --wouldn't that be perfect?! Well, it was a fire Alarm!!! (Not to mention that the night before when I was putting Olivia in her pack n play I wanted to put it next to the door, it was the darkest spot in the room - I had this thought that if there was some reason I needed to leave quickly I wouldn't want to have that pack n play blocking the door!) So I waited in the hallway with some other people, I knocked on Mel's door to tell her what was going on and she said her kids were still asleep and she wasn't coming out. The hotel staff then came charging down the hall banging on everyones doors telling us to get out. I started to panic and started banging on Mel's door with the staff member. Mel woke her three sleeping kids and we all shlupped(sp?) down stairs only to be told it was a false alarm and to go back inside!!!! We were so mad!!! My poor pregnant sister had to wake her sleeping kids! We decided to stay up and eat the free breakfast, and then our dad came in to rescue us and come swimming with the kids! We love grandpa, it is so nice to have my dad help us when our husbands aren't there! Sorry for the long story, this is my journal too! The hotel had a really nice indoor pool with big windows all around. It was so nice to not have to worry about sunscreen or anything. The hotel also had these nice floaters for the kids to sit in. After all of our troubles with Best Western that morning we now loved them again! This picture is Maddie and Brenley my brother Ryan's girl.
Wendy, Thane, Brenley and Matthew.
Brenley's cheeser face! She has the cutest little grin, it kills me every time.
Sweet little Ryan.

Off to Spokane for the Wedding

My sister Mel and I booked our flights to Spokane so that when her flight from San Diego stopped in Oakland she would switch planes and we would be on the same flight! The kids were so excited to see eachother and even more excited to sit together on the plane. Mel and I put Maddie, Emma and Ryan in the row next to us and Matthew sat behind us. There was a really nice man that sat next to Matthew who we had visited with a little bit before we got on the plane. He was so nice to Matthew and such a good sport sitting next to all of these crazy kids.
Matthew's cheesy grin!
The kids were so cute and so grown up, drinking their soda and juice. They were suprisingly well behaved, I wasn't sure how the flight would go but it wasn't bad at all. The worst part for me was Maddie coloring all over her tray table with crayons! It was totally covered with rainbow swirlies!
My sister Jess and her fiance Aaron picked us up at the airport, we had never met Aaron before so this was really fun. (We had talked to him before but never seen him.) I thought this was so cute, Jess came in to meet us and offered to take the kids out to the car while we got the luggage. It turned out to be a really cute picture moment.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was so beautiful! We decided to go on a hike with the Henry's, we walked from the Cliff House down to this look out point where you can see the Golden Gate just perfectly! I think that this little trail has a name - I'm not sure what it is. The walk was really fun and having the girls strapped to us wasn't that bad, by the time we got back to the car though we were starved! We had a barbecue with Dan and Ashley down at Baker Beach, after a little hunting for an open grill we finally found one. The food was delicious and the company was great, such a fun day!