one of my older sisters, Lois is 40...she said it was ok to post her age. I haven't gotten feedback from anybody else so we will leave it at that...

so here are a couple of old pictures with a few of the kids in them. it has been way too long since we have been able to get all together as a family and there are definitely not any pictures with everybody in them. I don't even know when we will be all together again so we can get some more updated pictures. so these will have to do for now. and trying to get the younger ones all looking at the camera at the same time, and smiling...right...maybe in a few years when all of the kids are a bit older??


here are a few of the kiddies. can you figure out who they are from the previous blog?

this was a really fun activity at the treehouse in Ogden. too bad everybody couldn't be there. I would definitely recommend taking your kids/nieces/nephews/random neighbor children, whatever it takes to get there! it is a really fun little place with all kinds of fun things to do. since we had called in and gone as a group the kids got to put on a fun production of the princess and the pea.

this was another day in Ogden at a park. not everybody could be there either. but a good time was had by all who were there!!

I can see how this can get very addicting. After I got off on Sunday night I couldn't go to sleep I was trying to think about all kinds of things that I could post. and I know that it is all a lot more exciting to me than to anybody else. but oh well...it is my blog so I can do what I want with it. and I have spent the last half hour trying to find a cute background to put on here. I hope it is as cute on my blog as it was on the internet. if not I can always change it.



So something I thought about blogging the other night was about my family. Of course, like most people, I have a mom and a dad. I also have several siblings, 2 brothers and 6 sisters. also, an officially adopted sister, my mom made it official last year at our Christmas party. so maybe not legally official, but she did make a cute little adoption certificate. all of the sibs are married and they all have kids. So I have 29 nieces and nephews. I wish I could put a picture on here of each one of them, but I don't really think I have them all in my computer. So sad as it may be that you won't get to see a picture of all of them right now, I am sure that at some point during the life of this blog, you just might get to see a picture of each one of them. I do want to introduce them all to you now. This is a list of all 29 of them, from the oldest to the youngest. Katelyn 15

Caleb 13

Janessa 12

Poul 12

Christopher 11

Steven 10

Colin 10

Emma 10

Alex 9

Rachel 9

Konner 8

Isaac 8

Daniel 7

Rebecca 7

Leah 7

Jessie 6

JD (Jordan Donovan) 6

Lance 6

Kimberley 5

Carter 5

Garrett 4

Jaxon 3

Sarah 3

Elijah 2

Mark 2

Ella 1

Nathaniel 1

Owen 89 days

LJ (Logan Joaquin) 21 days

I hope that I got them in the right order and with the right ages. I think a couple of them might have been wrong on the family calender. oh well!!
So that is the family!! I don't think my siblings, in laws or parents would like me to put their names and ages on here so we will stop right there!!

this was a cool view of a bridge on one of the canals in Amsterdam. I loved Amsterdam!!!

this is only one of the couple hundred pictures of waterfalls I was able to take in the fjords.

this is a cool park in Norway there are a million or so it seemed statues. all done by the same guy...can't remember his name right now...

this is me and Alaina on the boat in the fjords...gorgeous scenery in Norway. I really had no idea it would be so beautiful!!

this is Hayley, Alaina and me in Amsterdam at the tulip garden Keukenhoff. It was amazing and the tulips were beautiful of course.

and this is me in the papa bear chair at Keukenhoff. I just had to sit down in the chair when I saw it!!

starting the blog and the ward service project

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now but have just never gotten around to it. I don't know if I really have anything to say that anybody else will care about reading, but oh well...I guess that is the whole reason I struggle with keeping a journal. I know I should do it and I will forget stuff if I don't do it...but I still struggle. Anyway...I guess I will just start and see how it goes!!

I did do something this weekend that I have really been feeling like it needed to be written down so I guess no time could be better!!

Saturday morning our ward had an activity. We started out with breakfast at the church and then we went over to a pioneer cemetary and did some clean up work. I don't know if I have ever used a hoe for that long, it was only a couple of hours. And I only got one blister. But I really feel like I helped to do something amazing. I feel like I helped with a service that really needed to be done and it was a lot of fun to hang out with people from my ward and to work. I know, weird, but it really was a great experience. There were so many people there helping and with everybody doing a part we got so much accomplished. The ward even had some stuff going on for the kids, so that more adults could help out, and the youth could help with the kids, and the people that didn't want to or couldn't do those things were able to do some things for the humanitarian center. It was really an amazing activity and I am glad that I was able to be a part of it, even if I really didn't do much! Service is AWESOME and I need to do more of it!!!