It's a Heat Wave!!

Well okay maybe that's going a bit too far. But hey it sure does feel like one since last week. The high most days last week was 8 degrees. The low, -16. And of course that was the day I had to take Gavin to an early morning practice because he couldn't find his license. And since there was no place to go (in the wee hours of the morning)I sat in the car only letting about 5 minutes go by before I had to turn the car back on. Oh the joys of Rexburg. But now it is... should we say "normal". And boy does it feel like a heat wave. It is about the mid 20's, and bearable. The kids finally had the chance to go out and play in the snow.

Yep, Basketball Season Again!

Gavin is at it again. He made the JV basketball team, and one of the best things about it is that he gets to be on the same team as his cousin Brandon. Well the other night they had a great game and won by about 20 points, but unfortunatley along with the good comes the bad. While Gavin was defending a guy, the guy ran him over. As Gavin fell to the ground, the kid stepped on his hand giving him a burn from the bottom of his shoe. It literally left the kids shoe mark on his hand/arm. Gavin is hoping it will scar so that he will have a really neat marking on his arm. So silly! :)

All She Wants For Christmas Is Her 2 Front Teeth

Joy of Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we were so blessed to be able to have family and friends this year. My mom, dad and sister Cheri came up from Utah. We had a wonderful weekend together, and aunt Cheri brought her Wii. Needless to say we hardly saw the kids over the weekend. We reminded ourselves this is exactly why we will never get one. :) We were so excited to learn that our good friends from graduate school would be coming out also. It was fun because Cheri was once their nanny for about 9 months, so of course they knew my family also. It was wonderful all being together and reminiscing once again. We are so glad that everyone made the sacrifice to come and be with us. Unfortunately we didn't take very many pictures, but here are the few we took Thanksgiving day.

Halloween Costumes

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He's an EAGLE!

Yes, Gavin has now finished his requirements for the Eagle Scout rank. Last weekend we had the wonderful opportunity of having his Eagle Court of Honor. We had a lot of family and friends that were able to be with him to celebrate this great accomplishment.




Because Gavin was the only Eagle scout that night, we planned the whole program. It was really special to customize it just for him. Katelyn gave a really sweet tribute of Gavin with some fun stories along with tender feelings of her brother.



A former Scout leader spoke and did a really great job. He has a really tender heart, and so he got emotional several times sharing his feelings about Gavin and the example Gavin was to him. He spoke a lot about Eagles and their characteristics, and how they apply to Gavin, and even us.




Gavin's aunt Suzanne made him this really neat cake for his court of honor.



Gavin's aunt Tricia, Jayson and I all worked together to make this video for Gavin. We played it during his Court of Honor, and it was very touching. I had been looking all over trying to find a song that would be neat to play to this video. I just couldn't find one I liked. Jayson had one sung at his court of honor, but we didn't have the time to order the music for it. When Tricia came to our house and we were working on the video, she brought a song with her that she thought would be neat. It ended up being the same song sung at Jayson's Eagle Court of Honor. Pretty neat!
You can click on the 4 arrows at the bottom of the video to make it full screen.

Gavin Eagle Award from Jayson Kunzler on Vimeo.

Here are just a few pictures of the Court of Honor








Gavin and his cousin Brandon

One of the most wonderful sounds!

I have come to the understanding that one of the most wonderful sounds to me is the sound of laughter. Especially my children laughing. When they play together and just get laughing hard....it's a wonderful sound. When they are just entertaining themselves and think they are really funny, and just start laughing.....it's a wonderful sound. While enjoying a funny movie and you can't even see the movie but you can hear them laughing......it's a wonderful sound. Just talking with them and remembering funny things and we all get laughing.....it's a wonderful sound. As I was coming in from picking vegetables in our garden I watched as 2 of my kids sat on the lawn together just playing and having a good time. They burst out laughing at nothing really, but I had to just stand and watch and enjoy. What precious treasures children are in our lives, if we just sit back and enjoy. Here are a few pictures of my little treasures that just make me smile!

Working on earning his Eagle!

Just recently Gavin was able to earn 11 merit badges at a Boy Scout Court of Honor. He has been working really hard to earn all the merit badges needed for him to receive his Eagle Scout award. Some of the merit badges he was awarded that night were from quite a while ago, but a bunch of them he earned at Scout Camp. Gavin just finished up his Eagle project, and is now in the process of filling out all of the paper work. For his project he put in bumper guards at a local camp ground to designate where people should park. Several camp spots had deep ruts that people would get stuck in during the rainy season. His project went well and he had quite a few boys come to help him out. Way to go Gavin, keep up the hard work.





Here are some pictures of his Eagle project

Before:




After:

Winner Again!

So it seems like we focus on Katelyn a lot, and that is probably because she has had a streak of good luck lately. If you remember, she won a bowling birthday party in April. Well she's at it again. This past week our city has a back to school bash where they have carnival games, carousel rides, cotton candy, train rides, dinner, and best of all a drawing where they give away some wonderful prizes. They started the drawing at 6:00 pm, and they were on the last thing to give away. I was tired of being there all day and we were starting to pack up to leave for home. Just then they called out Katelyn's name. She had won the grand prize. A mini laptop valued at $400.00. She was so excited. Now she has her very own computer, even though Dad likes it just as much as she does. We will see who will really benefit the most from it.

Our Summer Fun!

It can't be almost September! I am in denial, and our family wants to draw out summer as long as possible. Since Jayson doesn't start back until after Labor Day then we don't either. So for now it is still Summer. We have done a lot of fun things and we wanted to share them with you.

FISHING
Jayson has been able to go fishing with the kids and with nephews. They have have had a lot of fun catching big amounts of fish. You can't ask for more than that.

YELLOWSTONE REVISITED
Quite a few of Jayson's family was able to come out our way and go up to Yellowstone. We had a great time being together, and seeing some really neat things. Even more then we saw our first trip. Maybe the next time we go we will see even more.

KUNZLER CABIN
We had the chance to go out to Utah and be with Jayson's parents and go up to their cabin for 3 days. It was so much fun to just relax and not have the hustle and bustle of everyday life. We played games, rode on the 4-wheelers, ate good food, and just enjoyed being together. It was just the key to help us relax.

ROBERTS FAMILY REUNION
While we were in Utah the Roberts had a family reunion. We had a great time being together, and since we are a smaller family, we all stayed at Grandma & Grandpa's house. Aunt Cheri rented a tent for the kids to sleep in and they thought that was great! (until the last night when spiders started invading it because the tent door was left unzipped!) We enjoyed all of the fun that was planned. We had dinner in the yard and watched a show on the lawn projected onto a sheet hanging from the deck. We went to Lagoon and had our fill of riding all of the rides. All of the little kids loved all of the kiddie rides and could have gone all night. Katelyn and Steven still wished they could ride the little kiddie rides and not have to be so grown up. Gavin conquered his fears of roller coasters, and had a blast riding MOST of them. (Not Wicked) Jennie was daring and went on the ride "Wicked" and ended up loosing her cell phone on it. It was literally pulled out of her pocket. Crazy ride! And Jayson had fun torturing Katelyn and Steven by taking them on rides they weren't to excited to go on. All in all we had a great time! We went swimming at a new pool they just put in, and Jacob conquered his fears of going down the water slide, and went down several times. To wrap our our week Jayson, Jennie, Gavin, Katelyn & Steven were able to attend the dedication for the Oquirrah Mountain Temple. What a neat experience to be able to be there for that. It was wonderful.

Well this is a slideshow of some of our fun this summer. You can click on each picture to make them bigger, since some of them are pretty small. Enjoy!

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Delicious Pie!

Yesterday, I went to the store to do some grocery shopping. They had a good deal on Golden Delicious apples, so I got some. Katelyn was so excited when I brought them home that she asked if she could make an apple pie. I had to go to a meeting and when I got home, guess what I saw, a beautiful apple pie. She has only made about 3 pies in her life with some help, and this one she did all by herself. She has really become quite a little cook.

Camping Excursion

GOING CAMPING

Jayson had heard of this great place that has a warm spring with tropical fish planted in it. We decided we would take a camping trip there as a family. As we were leaving, Jayson said, "I sure hope we don't get a flat tire, we really do need to get new ones." Well I think he jinxed us by saying that because just before we pulled into the campground Jayson looked back and could see that the trailer had a flat tire. Did I say flat? I meant blown tire.



We changed the tire, set up camp and had a great time playing in the warm spring, fishing, playing games, and just relaxing.

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Jayson decided to take some of the kids fishing about 3 miles down the road. While they were on their way, they got a flat tire on the Suburban. Well, Jayson changed the tire, had a great time fishing (caught about 40 fish, but only kept 2 because they were pretty small). After almost 3 days of camping and we really had a great time, we loaded everything up and started to head for home. Once again Jayson said, "If we get a flat tire we are in bad shape, because I have already used the spare." Yep, you guessed it, he jinxed us again. Just about 5 miles down the road another tire blew on the Suburban. Jayson pulled us over onto the side of the road. Two really nice ladies said they would help us. They were so sweet to help, because they had to drive Jayson down to the nearest town which was about an hour away, wait for him to get 2 tires (one for the spare, and another for backup)then they drove him back up to where we were waiting. It ended up being a long day. We should have been home about 4:00 PM, but instead ended up getting home around 10:00 PM. Luckily the kids and I had the trailer we could go into and play games and have some snacks. Elizabeth even took a nap. It was such a blessing especially since Jayson was gone for about 3 1/2 hours. Wow, what an experience. Then to top it all off, on Monday I decided that enough was enough and I was going to get new tires. On my way another tire blew. Good thing Jayson got a backup. When I called Jayson to come and help me he just laughed at the thought that in just 3 days we had had 4 blown tires(completely unrepairable). That dirt road must have really had some sharp rocks, or our tires must have been really bad, maybe a little bit of both. Oh well, good memories.

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Father's & Son's

FATHER & SON'S CAMPOUT
The first of June brought the Father & Son's campout. Originally Jayson had the tent packed in the back of the car and ready to go, but then the rains came, and came some more. He decided if they were going to enjoy themselves they needed to take the trailer. They ended up having a wonderful time and were very happy to have the trailer to go to when the rain was coming down hard.

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Congratulations Gavin & Katelyn!!

In January Gavin and Katelyn both recieved "Honorable Mention" for their grades for art work they entered into an Art and Poetry contest. They had an awards ceremony where they were able to talk about their art work and why they chose to draw that particular piece. Because they earned awards, their art work was sent on to state. Just today we recieved in the mail their art work back, and Katelyn took 2nd place in State for the 6th grade. She was so excited. She recieved an award, a ribbon and $10.00 cash. Great job guys!!

Memorial Day Weekend

While Jayson was serving his mission in Japan he met and baptized a wonderful man named Junya. Junya was coming to the US for work, so he decided to come over our way and visit us while he was is the US. We had him with us for 5 incredible days. It was so neat to be able to get to know him better, and to know what an awesome man he is. All of us were very sad to have him leave, but we knew his family was anxious to have him home again. We are so grateful for all that we experienced this weekend, and we know that this could be a once in a life time opportunity. What a great time we had.

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Work and play in the yard

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