L & L Days at Potter Park Zoo

Every year L & L Grocery Store hosts two free days at Potter Park Zoo in Lansing. The girls and I attended the first free day, and we had a great time. All in all there were three highlights to our adventure that day.

1.) We went to the park with some friends of ours from the ward. Here is one of their daughters looking at snow leopards with Alyson and Kourtney.

2.) Various organizations sponsored a bounce house, slide and face painting. Get this...the slide was so tall that you had to sign a waiver before your child could go up and down it!

3.) We got to feed the llamas. Even Ellary had a chance.

Fruit Frenzie

We have a routine when we come home from the grocery store: 1.) get Ellary safely in the house, 2.)bring the grocery bags in and set them on the counter top, 3.) put the groceries away. Well, we strayed a little from this process after arriving home from a long trip to the grocery store after our vacation. We had too many bags to set them all on the counter so a few ended up on the floor. As I began to put the produce in the fridge I spotted this little girl on the floor eating strawberries stems and all. I grabbed the camera and these pictures are the result. I wouldn't have been surprised to see that she had devoured the entire container of strawberries and munched on a banana or two had she had the time. Ellary absolutely loves fruit!

Splish Splash!

I neglected to mention that while Ellary and I were in Utah and Colorado June 11-16, Kris taught Alyson how to swim without her floaty suit and ride her bike without training wheels! Now she's a little pro at the doggy paddle and has been working on her stroke and diving skills.

We've been going to the University Club swimming pool several times a week all summer, and now Kourtney has graduated from using her floaty suit too! She's a little swimmer now and is asking that her training wheels be taken off. That little Koco sure wants to keep up with her big sis!



Ellary likes to swim too, but she didn't get to swim this day. Her patience began to wear a little thin! Cute pitcure though.

Our Colorado Vacation-Pictures at Last!

Our Colorado vacation began when Ellary and I flew to Salt Lake City just in time for my oldest niece, Ashley, to have her first baby, a daughter named Ylena. Kris, Alyson and Kourtney arrived in Grand Junction 5 days later on the 16th of June via car. It was so good to see them again.

Ashley did an amazing job especially considering her long labor (32 hours). What a trooper! Ylena is beautiful, and I am very happy I could be there for the special occasion. My mom and dad, great grandparents for the 3rd time, were present at the hospital too.

Ylena was a beautiful baby from the very beginning.


Here is Ylena with her proud daddy, Mark, shortly after her birth and bath.

June 17th, 2009-Our 10th Anniversary!

Kris and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary on June 17th. Wow! So, we celebrated it in style by taking a trip to Vail, Colorado...And of course, we left the kids behind. They had a great time with their grandparents while Kris and I had a great time together...Alone! Funny though, so frequently we saw things the girls would have liked to see or do that we couldn't forget about the little princesses we left at home. Here's to 10 more and many more wonderful years!

Here is a card I made Kris for our anniversary. We ate most of the candy while we were in Vail.


Vail Village

This is where we had our anniversary dinner. Surf and Turf...Yum!

Handsome husband + beautiful Colorado Columbines= Very Memorable Picture We took a hike up a waterfall along East Vail. It was beautiful.

We celebrated Father's Day when Kris and I got back from our Anniversary trip to Vail. The girls made a special card with Oma and Kris and I returned from our trip with a pillow shaped like a bear for "Papa Bear". Kris got some clothes, including a much needed MSU polo shirt and a neck tie with a picture of the girls on it.

Kris' mom, Eleonore, went to the temple for the very first time on June 27th. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful experience for her and everyone who joined her for the session. She left the temple saying,"I don't know what took me so long." Congratulations, Mutti!

Alyson, Kourtney and Ellary spent the whole day with Papa Bear playing with chalk and riding their bikes on the driveway while we attended the temple with Mutti. He also painted their fingernails. Here are a few chalk pics drawn by Alyson.

Alyson's Rendition of "Oma"at the Temple

Alyson's Rendition of Papa holding Ellary

Here Alyson and Kourtney are displaying their newly painted fingernails compliments of Papa.

Kris and his nephew Leighton took an all day trip down the Colorado River in a raft. They had a blast!


Mom and I took the girls to story time at the Mesa County Public Library one time as well. Here they are with their t-shirts to promote the summer reading program.

Alyson, Kourtney and I had lunch with my friend Angela. Here is a picture of our girls...Tyra (5), Kourtney (4), Anna (3), and Alyson (6).
We went fishing two times while in Colorado. The first time was spent at Corn Lake (no pictures), and the second was spent on the Grand Mesa. Let's just say we caught our limit and had a great big fish fry a few days later. We also caught a few rays, a few mosquito bites and had a wonderful time!

We spent several Thursday evenings on Main Street at the Farmer's Market. We had so much fun seeing the vender's products, eating and dancing. Kris' nephew Leighton, his mom and brother and sister went to the market with us once too.

Mom (Nana) also took Alyson and Kourtney on hikes. Here is a picture of Mom with Koco at Connected Lakes and a picture of Mom and Alyson on Serpents Trail.

As with tradition, we spent the 4th of July at Lincoln Park. Kris and the kids swam most of the day while the rest of us held down the fort (a spot on the lawn to view the fireworks from), and just enjoyed some time together. My sister Renee and her husband, Rod and kids Jordann, Aubrey, Eli and Josh came for a visit from Utah (also keeping with tradition), and Mutti's sister, Uta and her husband Jim, pleasantly surprised us at the park. We had a great time!

Here Kris is doing acrobatics off the high dive.

Alyson jumped off the high dive with no reservation whatsoever. And she kept doing it over and over again!

We stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois on our way back to Michigan so we could visit some friends we made when we were living in Bloomington. We had a fun time with the McConnel family and hope to get together with the again soon. The first two pictures were taken at a stop along our drive to Nauvoo.

The Beautiful Nauvoo Temple

Here are our kids and the McConnel kids at the Cultural Hall in Nauvoo (Eva, Kourtney, Alyson, Ellary, Eli, Ellary and Ezra). We got Ellary's name from the McConnel's family...obviously!

Here is a friendly cat outside the hotel. Ellary couldn't get enough of it.

Our sleeping beauties! They wore themselves out playing with the McConnel kids. We drove home later that morning, about an 8 hour drive. After such a great trip to Utah and Colorado, we were happy to be home. Many thanks to everyone who helped us make many special memories!