Weekend with cousins

Aug 28th, 2011
After the 60th Anniversary celebration we got to spend one more day with Tyson and Amber and their girls. I wished they lived closer because our girls get along so well. Soon we will both have three girls and one boy (except their kids' ages range from 0-9 and ours will range from 0-4! Well, 4 1/2 really...)

  The girls decided to dress up as pioneers and push one another around in Gram's wheelbarrow.

Gotta love those summer days outside, playing with your cousins.

What a cute baby and a handsome man. See how Eloise curls her toes? She's always done that.

We also celebrated Kennedy's ninth birthday! Looks like Lottie swiped a palm tree off of the birthday cake.

Love these girls.

60th Anniversary

David's Grandma and Grandpa Phipps have been married 60 years. Wowzers. What does that feel like? Kevin and Vicki threw them a surprise anniversary party at a beautiful park near their home and boy were they surprised! They had several of their lifetime friends there, great food, and even a mariachi singer! Here are the highlights of the day...

Isn't that a surprised face? When they got out of the car, Kevin and Vicki and Sheri went to welcome them over to the park area and they were so surprised. Then Grandpa came over to say hello to everyone and Grandma stopped at the little trailer where they were fixing food (to tell them how good it looked?) We had to wait a little while to see her. So funny.

These beautiful flower arrangements were donated by a flower shop owner who had hired Marjorie when she was young.

Me, Gram and my girlies.

I really think they enjoyed every second of this.

Big baby!

Josh played the guitar for us; he's really good!

Hazel, Charlotte and cousin Isabelle.

Spencer and Ellie are only one month apart and are so cute together. Both enjoyed the Mexican food very much...









And there were pinatas!


The kids took a shot at it first...







And then Tyson finished it off. David spun him about twenty times.












Love this man.


This couple was so cute! I asked them how long they'd been married and they laughed and said they were just "good friends." They were so flirtatious and giddy; it was so cute!





This is Lottie trying to get into the candy on the table.

Mariachi!

Grandpa's sister, Ione.

Happy Anniversary Ron and Marjorie!
We love you.

August bliss

Here a few things we've been up to this August...(what a beautiful summer we're having!)

I hesitated to post this picture just because our back yard looks like a junkyard! But all that furniture behind us is actually Hazel's new bedroom set that I need to paint (one fine day) and our grill in the background is just nasty. But we had a LOVELY dinner outside in the nice weather! I wish we would have done this more often this summer because I didn't have to worry a bit about food falling on the floor or onto the chairs or any of that typical stressful stuff. I'd love to build a larger picnic table for this patio and eat out there every night during the summer. Wouldn't that lower my blood pressure?

That same night we tossed these cuties into the tub and got some great hair shots.
I love these pics.


My little tellitubbies (sp?)


David has officially started a business in Mozambique, Africa.
That's been a big dream of his for a long time and I can't believe he's actually doing it.
His plan is to grow this business into a cold food storage transportation company in southern Africa, but he's starting with ICE CREAM. He's emulating a company in north-western Africa called FanIce, which also started with selling ice cream in the streets and has grown into a large and successful business. We're excited.


So of course he had to find the perfect/easiest/most cost efficient recipe for vanilla ice cream.
And he had a house full of willing taste testers.











Our freezer was soon full of several different flavors of vanilla ice cream, not my favorite luckily or I'd have finished them all off.


And lastly, this picture that makes me smile because I know what it took to reach this part of the evening with these girls. We had a chaotic dinner (am I the only one that struggles at mealtime??), then a crazy family night where both David and I were really fighting to keep their attention AND keep the spirit...Then we sent them outside with their family night treat and suddenly all was calm and okay in the world.

Oh, bother. I love my life.