Girls Camp

I was invited to be the special speaker at girls camp this year.  It was alot of fun.  I drove to Sagehen campground on the sagehen reservoir on Wednesday.  I enjoyed a lovely tin foil dinner and lots of fun girls and good friends. 
The theme for camp was BUGS which stood for Beautiful United Grateful Sisters.  My theme to speak on was Beautiful.  My talk was about being your own kind of beautiful.  The pictures are of some posters I used in my talk.  My neighbor who is almost 16 made my posters for me. 
After my talk I was asked to help them do a special "faith walk".  It was about the 10 virgins.  I was a foolish virgin and had to tell a short story about my life and the foolish decisions that go me to that point. I asked them to accept my gift which was gold or other worldly treasures.  The wise virgins filled the girls lamps with oil as they chose to accept their gift.  It was touching when all the girls and the wise virgins with their oil entered the tent and shut the door leaving us outside. 
I spent the night and had a nice bed on a cot in the leaders tent.  The frogs and birds made for a short night, but woke up to a beautiful day and another lovely meal; mountain man breakfast!  I drive back to Boise after breakfast. I gave Sister Roy a ride home and enjoyed visiting with her.

                              10 vigins- (almost) foolish in black and wise in white

Warm Lake Camping Trip

After looking over our summer and realizing there was not many free weekends, we decided to at least try and go camping in our trailer once a month.  For our June trip we went to Warm Lake which is about 25 miles from Cascade.  It was really pretty. 

Joel got home from working in Utah all week, and we loaded the trailer and left by 3pm.  It took us about 2 hours to get there.  Once we arrived we realized we should have stayed at shoreline campground instead of Warm Lake, but oh well.  It was still pretty and nice to be in the mountains. 

We enjoyed being together, but missed Coelton who stayed home to work.  We made friends with "Theodore" a fat chimpmunk who ate food out of our hands. 

We went on 2 hikes.  One around the lake and another one on a nature trail.  The kids loved climbing the big rocks that were around. 

We played scum and solitair frenzy while we made cookies in the oven.  That night we wathed Signs on my lap top.
Sunday morning was Father's Day, so Joel got breakfast in bed.  We loaded the trailer after breakfast and headed home to catch a 1:00 sacrament meeting.  On the drive home I was thinking about having to drive the trailer by myself to Burly for Joel's family reunion.  He will be in England.  I said to him, "what do I do if I get a flat tire".  Then I heard a loud noise and looked in the mirror to see black rubber flying everywhere.  There was a pull out right there and we found that we blew a tire...literally the tire blew up, cause there wasn't much left of it.  It also did some damage to the trailer, we can't win.   Joel saved the day and had the tire changed in no time. So much for 1:00 sacrament meeting and a Happy Father's Day.


 
 

Burning of the high school papers.

Coelton has kept every paper he did since he was a freshman.  There were several boxes full of papers.  I knew he had quite the collection in his closet, but when he pulled it all out, I was surprised to see 4 big mountains of papers.  He didn't want to throw any of it away, because he thought he would need it sometime.  (like father, like son).
We dug a hole on the side of the house and built a fire for him to have a burning ceremony.  We roasted marshmellows and made smores.  I found these ginormous marshmellows at Winco.  They were a little too big and made for a very messy smore. 
We were having a fun time until Joel thought that maybe the fire was on top of a gas line and the whole place would blow at any second.

 

Certified Babysitter!!

Hailey and good friend, Jordyn attended a babysitting certification class.  They both turn twelve in a few months.  This picture also shows how much Hailey has grown!  She and Jordyn have always been the same height.   The class started at 9am and ended at 4pm.  They were two tired girls by the end of the day, but very knowledgable with babysitting "stuff".  She learned some CPR, which she felt was the best thing she learned.  The wierdest thing she learned was that she should wear gloves when changing diapers.   They even got a handy babysitting brief case!  She's all official now.  

Clog classic 2010

This year we started Chloe clogging in March.  She loves it!  It was fun to see both girls at the clog classic this year.  Chloe performed her 2 dances; Hoe Down Throw Down and also Lollipop. 
Hailey performed her 2 dances which were Wierd Science and Rapper's Delight.   Daddy bought the girls flowers, which they LOVED!    Aunt Stephanie and Maiya also came.

Click on the link to see Hailey's dances.

Last Day of School

The kindergarten class had a pizza picnic on the last day of school.  We recieved Chloe's report card and saw that she passed with flying colors.  We also took some pictures with her teacher Mrs. Grayson and Mrs. Jody. 

Hailey also passed the 5th grade with all A's and Caden recieved a 4.0 on his report card too! 

Great job kids!!!

Joel's Birthday

They say, when your old the birthday is just another day.  Well, I hope birthdays are never just another day.  Although at times it's difficult, we try to make it special and filled with the birthday person's favorite things. 
Joel truned 41 on May 29.  We had a nice day by eating a good meal together and then we went to cheesecake factory and ate yummy cheesecake!  The servers even sang to him!  I love a good embarrasing moment:) 
He saw Iron Man 2 with caden the weekend before...(he cheated) and he got some money to put in his drawer.  He's saving for dumbell weights, the neat ones that adjust with a click of the dial.  Ya, the $400 ones.  He is SO happy whenever he has money to put in his drawer, hopefully he can get those weights before he decides he needs something else.
Love you honey!  41 never looked so GOOD.

5th grade graduation

The morning after Coelton's graduation we found ourselves at another graduation.  Hailey graduated from 5th grade and elementary school!  She will be going to middles school for 6-8 grade. 
Hailey had a great 5th grade year.  She was on student council and made the speed jump team again.  She also went to ski night.  Her best freinds are Kylie, Brook and Ashey.  Her teacher was Mrs. Heathcock. 
She earned the" presidential award" for her GPA.  She recieved all A's.  Congratulations Hailey!  We're thrilled for your exciting future and the great things ahead in your journey.

Class of 2010 Graduation

I can't believe it happened.  My little boy just graduated from high school.  We knew he was the class of 2010,and it seemed so far away,  we NEVER thought those strange numbers would ever arrive.

Aunt DaNae designed the announcements. 

 She did such a good job we couldn't decide which one was best!

Of course he had to do something crazy and obnoxious...it's graduation!  So he and a group of friends died their hair black!  I arrived home after running some errands and he was in my kitchen with no shirt on with black gunk all over in his hair.  I couldn't yell, cause there were others too.  Joel was working from home, so I went into the office to see if he was aware of what was going on. He said yes and "if this is the worst of it...I'm okay".  So, I decided that black hair for graduation couldn't be that bad...at least it wasn't white or shaved. 

 
We had a "graduation party" wednedesday night.  We invited Jason and Stephanie over.  The gradnparents had allready arrived.  I cooked dinner for everyone and of course Joel's flight was delayed, so he didn't get in until 7:30pm.  We had a good time visiting and eating some yummy food.  We all gathered and told one thing about coelton that we admired.  It was neat.  I had borrowed some decorations from a friend and had fun hanging the big banner in the front of the house and decorating the kitchen area.

On Thursday afternoon we took the Grandparents to the "Old Penitentary".  It was fun to walk around and read about the prison days.  There was also a gun exhibit and a transportation exhibit that were interesting to see.

There were 517 graduates from his class and the ceremony only lasted an hour and 15 minutes! Grandma and Grandpa Hammer were there and also Grandpa Judy. Grandma Judy was there too, just in spirit.
It was held at the Taco Bell Arena behind the BSU stadium.  The students have different color sashes; each represents their accadamy.  Coelton's blue sash is for the acadamy of Science, Engineering, Industrial Technology and Health.
They had  the 2 highest scoring GPA students speak.  They did a great job and the choir and jazz choir sang some excellent songs.  All the students were well behaved for the most part.  It was a great graduation!!

Notice the silver rope!  3.5-4.0 GPA

Pals

The gang

Elias

best buds since 9th grade

Elias, Coelton, Blake and Garrett

Kelli (she cut her hair)

Not sure where to put her arms with the mom taking the picture.  haha

After graduation we sent the Grandparents home with the kids, and Joel and I went to the student union building at BSU to chaperone the "all night party".  It started at 10 and ended at 4am.  It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we did it.  We were in charge of a game.  They had a room with "price is right" type of games, ours was called "hole in one".  The kids had to answer a question about high school and if they got the right answer they could putt the ball from the $5 line.  That's right, the kids won money...lots of money.  One boy won $85 on the wheel!  I had $200 in one dollar bills in my pocket to give to the kids for prizes.  It was a blast.  We ended the games at 1am and watched the hynotist show.  They also had all you could eat pizza, ice cream, drinks and other food.