What a great weekend!!

I have been quite a slacker in the blogging department lately! It just takes so long to upload pictures and get it all lined up the right way... AND I'm so far behind that I don't know where to start. I'm starting with current stuff and will start working backwards, but will date it like I actually blogged it on the correct dates. I have lots of summer things to blog about.

Anyways...



We had such a great weekend!!

It got an early start with the kids not having school on Friday.



Thursday night I went with the young women in our ward to D.I. (a thrift store) in Federal Way. Our Young women are so much fun! We did an 1.5 hours of service, helping hang clothes back up on hangers & putting them back in the right spots. Melissa was pretty funny, she pushed a cart around with her in case she found anything she wanted to buy. She found a pair of jeans and a great outfit for spirit day that I will post a picture of soon. We ended the evening with ice cream at McDonald's.

Friday we got to sleep in and be lazy! yah! I read a book most of the morning. Then we had some good friends come over & we went and got Pappy Murphy's pizza for dinner. YUM!

Ray also planted grass seed in the back yard.. can't wait to see how well that will turn out!

This weekend was General Conference weekend, which I always love. (General Conference is where twice a year our prophet & apostles give talks to uplift us and give us guidance in our lives).

So many things to love about General conference! Besides the usual - being spoken to by our prophet and listening to all the great talks, hearing the announcements of the new temples, some other favorite things,

* My kids getting along (for the most part...) and being excited for conference. I love how it is a tradition in our family and they don't even question that we are going to sit through all the sessions of conference!

* Watching conference at home in our pajamas!

* having cinnamon rolls for breakfast!

* we went out for dinner after conference on Saturday... although it almost seemed like we were breaking the Sabbath. I love Happy Terriyaki! (and then left overs for Sunday!)

We also watched some Monster Truck racing on t.v. that Keagan had recorded. I love watching that, see my blog below about that.

Saturday it was sunny in the afternoon and I took the kids out & about after we went out to eat (Ray went to the priesthood session). We went to Tumwater Falls(another blog), drove by the Capital(another blog post), went to JoAnns fabric store, and ended it by getting milkshakes at Big Toms. Yummy!

Sunday we watched conference at home, had quiche for breakfast, and leftovers for dinner. Pretty much a perfect weekend! Monday came a little too early.

Tumwater Falls

I love going to see Tumwater Falls! It is so beautiful!! I realized I hadn't been there in quite a while. It was a place I used to take my kids all the time when they were little. My camera didn't do it justice. (There is a short video of this picture at the end)

Melissa didn't want to walk down and see the big Falls, so here she is waiting for Keagan & texting... typical teenager!!

Here Keagan is down below, he liked getting "sprayed" by it.

Poor Melissa is deathly afraid of bridges. This one really freaks her out, so she waited until it didn't have anyone on it and then she kind of covers her face and runs across it.

Keagan always being silly!

The fish hatchery was pretty cool, too. I was more interested in it than the kids... man I miss the preschool days when anything entertained them. There were a ton of big fish in there and they were jumping like crazy... until I got the camera out. You can kind of see them here. The videos are very short.

The first video is of the water fall. I love the calming sound of the waterfalls!

Our Capitol building

I love our Capitol. I think the grounds are beautiful. I love how on a sunny day you can see it everywhere downtown. I think Ray is very blessed to be working in such a beautiful area. I love it all through out the year. These pictures don't really do it justice. I have blogged about it before, here for a beautiful sunny spring day & here for a beautiful winter day. Here is a website that lets you take a virtual tour of the capitol. I love the inside as well. The dome & the marble are gorgeous. If you live around the area and haven't been in a while, you should go visit our Capitol grounds... just don't go in January.. until mid April when they are in session, unless you don't mind lots of people milling around and the parking is really hard to find.

You may find this suprising...

that I

LOVE

Monster Truck Racing!

I didn't post about it this year, but we went in January & the January before that & I think the January before that...

They come every year to the Tacoma Dome in January. We usually go with my mom & Thom. My bday & Ray's bday is in Jan. We usually go for our bday presents.

I don't really have a favorite truck, I don't watch it enough to know the trucks. I love when they jump in the air & when they crash & get back up. I love when they safely catch on fire and it is put out right away. I love how loud they are and you can feel it in you're whole body. (tv doesn't do it justice) Here is where I blogged about it before. Sometimes it is a little too cold & sometimes too smokey...(from the truck's exhaust) but mostly just FUN!!!

Now you may wonder why in the world after not posting for so long would I randomly post about this? We recently got the sports channel (for football purposes) added to our channel line-up, and they have Monster Truck racing on there. Keagan has been recording them on the dvr & we watched it Saturday.. in between conference.. I know felt a little weird.. like we were breaking the Sabbath or something, but it was so fun to watch. Who wants to come this year with us in January to the Tacoma Dome? My mom & thom are gone on their mission..

This one was really cool because fire was coming out the back! :)


The view from our seats.. we actually had really good seats this year.

They usually have some kind of other event there too, before they do the Monster Truck races, this year they had motor cross. It is really fun to watch, too.