one crazy awesome week

birthdays, parties, holidays, celebrations, visitors, fun & vacation

holy moly! it's been one crazy week of fun and business. so i'm going to do a little backwards recap of the week as i type this from a hotel in montana on our way to yellowstone. stan got a new truck last week to replace our minivan. he's feeling very manly now. lol. so we got our annual pre-trip picture with the car all packed and ready to go. i will say, i am liking how little it makes the girls look. :)

we had some old friends visit for the weekend from out of state & brought their four sweet little darlings with them. this was our first time meeting their youngest two. tons of fun, lots of laughs & bbq'ing. the kids all bunked out in torrey's room (except baby maximus). i'm pretty sure they didn't get to sleep before 11:30pm any of the nights. too much giggling going on.

i got some runky red streaks put in last week too. just to change things up a bit for fun. we spent the 4th of july at a big bbq at the fuentes family's house. i think it's our first year we haven't camped there too. (just too much stuff to try to squeeze that in too). next year! they, of course, know how to throw a fabulous party. tons of families, fireworks and celebration of our great country.



on friday, after the jewetts rolled into town, we all turned around and went right to a wbc staff reunion bbq. the kids put away some hot dogs and hamburgers while the grown ups visited. it's always fun to see lots of families and kids you don't get to see very often all playing together. emmy, the jewett's youngest girl, was so dang cute sporting her little jane fonda 'do...

i loved that we had all of the party bag making supplies on hand at home! hurray for scrapbook supplies & lunch bags!

on thursday, we had back to back parties. from 12-3pm we had a bunch of fabulous 4th graders over for torrey's 9th birthday. i'm not really sure how she's 9 years old now, but she assures me she is! lol. we made a homemade 50' slip & slide out of clear vinyl, and a soaker hose, and had it going down one of the hills in our backyard. we even grabbed a couple of bottles of baby oil to really make sure they'd fly down the slip & slide. the girls had a blast, and went home with oily, grassy bodies... hopefully with not too many bruises to remember the day. :)

then after a quick clean up we had a 60th anniversary party for my grandma & grandpa. how cool is that? 60 years! the whole family was there. they brought their high school year books (yes, they started "going together" in high school) and their albums of pictures. we all took turns looking through the pictures while they told us stories about them. what an amazing legacy... plus they're just so darn cute. darn that none of the pictures turned out well. when we get back from vacation, i'd really like to do some portrait shots of the two of them. just a reminder of the blessing they are.

ooo! stan also took down a beehive that morning, i've got a couple of pictures of that, but i'll have to post them later. i'm trying to be speedy so we can get back on the road, and i may get in trouble if i take too much longer. lol.

wednesday, we spent the entire day running around trying to get all of the last minute things done before the parties & company came in... then we bought the truck. i'd left my camera at home, and it was the first day i nearly missed getting a shot for project 365. but as we tucked the girlies into bed, i snapped one of torrey's last day of being 8. loving her big eyes & silly look.

on tuesday the fuentes family came over for some relaxing fun in the sun. the kids played in the hose while jennifer and i visited. man, time gets so busy sometimes. when the kids were littler we would get together 3-4 days a week in the summer... now we're lucky if we get a couple of times a month in. thank goodness for good friendships that can handle the ups and downs and time constraints of real life.


there it was... a quick (or maybe not so quick) recap of our crazy week of fun. i better get this posted so we can get back on the road for our crazy week of vacation madness. hope you are having a fabulous summer! {{hugs}}