June 2017

What a HAPPY month!

SO many fun adventures and wonderful family events happening...

We started the month by celebrating my birthday!  We took our friends to see the Ape Caves to celebrate - I love a good birthday hike!  :)  We explored the cool lava tubes and enjoyed the hike through the forest back to the parking lot - the kids even found a lizard!

 June brought the end of a successful school year.  It was the twins' first year of school and it was all day Kindergarten - they've come away from it much more confident and knowing how to read!  Cameron is a favorite of his teacher and has lots of good friends.  Carly finished elementary school and is excited to start middle school.  She received tons of awards - including the Kiwanis Student of Distinction award for the whole school - sweet!  Alissa kept her 4.0 GPA all year and is excited to be the oldest at middle school next year.

 Alissa and Carly made some super cute gifts to give their teachers at the end of the year too.

 HAPPY NEWS!  My youngest brother and his wife were blessed to be able to adopt a sweet baby girl they named Caroline.  They've had a long 8 year struggle to get to this happy moment in their life.  I was so happy I cried!  :)  Welcome to the family sweet baby Caroline!

My favorite picture of her...

MORE HAPPY NEWS!!  Matt's youngest sister Kaeli was blessed to marry a good man - Barry Johnson.  Welcome to the family Barry!  We were happy to be able to make a quick trip to Utah to join in the festivities.  Lots of fun family time.

Who did this gorgeous wedding hairdo you might ask?  Why, IT WAS ME!!  My first time attempting something like that and it turned out quite beautiful, if I do say so myself!  :)

These crazy cousins had so much fun together all weekend

Western themed wedding - cowboys boots were mandatory, of course!

I love the 3 suspender-ed boys watching this shot - adorable.

Matt with his Grandma Turner 

Matt at his best!  ;)

Family Photo!  I'm sure you'll see this one in our Christmas card later this year - haha!

The Hansen Family 

(I know it looks sweet - but I was actually holding Matt's hand so he would stop tickling Alissa!)

Kaeli and Barry had a surprise entrance - Ruston and Kurtis scattered bullet casings instead of flowers and the wedding party came dancing into the room - very entertaining.

 Lots of fun dancing all night.  Beautiful decorations too (took us ALL day the previous day to make it look like that!)  Daddy daughter dance - chokes me up every time I see one.  Helps Matt and I remember the small amount of time we have with our kids is precious.

 Cute brothers.

The next day we had lots of gatherings of loved ones and many photo opportunities...

 With Great-Grandma Paskett...

 I love pictures when no one is looking!  So funny.

 Back home in our beautiful state of Washington we had some more fun adventures as the summer warms up and I get my kids all day long now...We go on walks around lakes nearly every morning - we found this sweet trail at one.  And we went to a farm where you can pick your own strawberries!

 We stayed at one park after our walk to have a picnic and do some reading - I think I was the only one that ended up reading...

 This is how the older girls handled a peaceful morning at the park...

 Trevor spent some of his time drawing this sweet picture...then on our way home we drove by the sign that Matt was working on so the kids loved to see their dad hard at work and realize what he does all day.  He was happy to show us all around his truck and explain what he does.

 One of our morning walks turned into a fun adventure - we chose a trail that was 3 miles long and it overlooked the ocean, sent you through a thick forest then out across a golf course and down by the beach.  Really cool.  The tide was going out so we walked out on a boardwalk and down steps to the shore and explored for awhile.

 The most exciting - and creepy - find of the day was a big chunk of styrofoam that must've been in the ocean for a long time before it finally washed ashore.  It had tons of these straw-like creatures growing on it and we discovered a worm creature that would slide back in if you bumped the straw thing - creepy.  We looked it up and learned they are called giant feather dusters.  There were also sea cucumbers, slime-encased worms and a little crab living on the styrofoam.  Creepy but cool.

 Kids have lots of energy.

Another day, we decided our morning walk should be at the zoo!  The meerkats were awesome to watch this time.  And this cute frog was happy to smile for my picture!

We are having fun hiding rocks around parks and trails we visit for others to find and hide again or keep if they like it - we've only found a couple rocks so far ourselves.  It's an activity lots of people in our community are doing.  This is our latest batch of rocks to hide...

And to end our happy June - another WEDDING!  My nephew Sam married his sweetheart Maitland.

What a fun and happy month it has been.  Thanks for reading about our adventures - now on to the fun of July!