We went on a short little trip to the lake tonight and it was lots of fun. I enjoyed watching Bryson laugh as the boat went faster and faster. We don't boat as much as we used to and I really miss it! Hopefully we can get out on the lake more this summer.
I finally did it. I went to Master Cuts this morning and got all my long hair cut off. It's going to take awhile to get use to, but It's nice to have shorter hair. Ethan took this picture for me. I think he did pretty good job. Looks like we have a little photographer in the family.
Madison has been asking me to make sugar cookies. I thought it would be fun to make sugar cookie wands with her because she likes stuff like that. This was my first time making sugar cookie wands. I was surprised how cute they turned out. They were very yummy and all the kids loved them including Ethan.
This morning when I was walking with my friend Angela, I saw this hot air balloon in the sky. I have always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon! I'm going to see if maybe Travis and I could do this for our 13Th wedding anniversary next month.
Travis took this picture of Robby and I talking to each other on facebook.
I finally got to ride on Travis' motorcycle last night. We only went to the store to pick up stuff for Smores, but I had so much fun! Hopefully we can go on a motorcycle trip soon.
The kids had a great time swimming yesterday. Bryson spent most of the day playing in our hot tub (our hot tub wasn't hot) and now he has a pretty bad sunburn on his back.
We also had Kyla and Colton Powell over to play. Colton had so much fun playing with Benji! He told me that Benji was his friend and he wanted to play with him.
Today at 1:00 our little Ethan was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was baptized and confirmed a member of the church by his dad. This is a very special day for Ethan, not only is it the 4Th of July, but it's his birthday. What a great day to get the gift of the Holy Ghost. The baptism was beautiful! The opening song was Baptism, opening prayer was given by Jan Anderson, then my dad gave a great talk on Baptism. After Victoria Punches (a girl from our ward) and Ethan were baptized. There was a musical number by Hanna Von Strahl "When I Was Baptized" and then Ron Anderson gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Victoria and Ethan were confirmed, and after the confirmation we had a closing song I Am A Child Of God and the closing pray was given by Lexie. We would like to thank all those who came and supported Ethan on his special day. Ethan your family loves you so much and we are so proud of you and the decision you made to be baptized.
After Ethan's baptism we came home and had a BBQ and then celebrated Ethan's birthday. Ethan opened his presents and blew out the candles on his birthday cake (Lexie made Ethan's birthday cake) I think she did a great job. Every birthday we have a pinata filled with yummy candy it's a little family tradition, and the kids had a great time hitting it. Ethan I hope you had a very happy birthday. We all love you so much!!
Every year we have a firework show in our back yard. This year was the best firework show ever! We had our own little Stadium of Fire. Our friend Tom Hazelton brought all his illegal fireworks and I'm not kidding... it was amazing. We even had neighbors from a block away cheering at our firework show. Tom, I want to thank you for coming and sharing your fireworks with us. We all had a great time!!
I have been thinking a lot about freedom and how blessed we are to live in this country where we have freedom. When I was eighteen and living in South Dakota, my dad sent me a nice letter about freedom. Here is a little part of that letter; Freedom is a difficult thing to achieve. It isn't a gift that you are entitled to but something you work for and treasure and make sacrifices for. It isn't a solid thing like a ball you can hold in your arms but it's like a light that grows within you. The more freedom you have the brighter you become. It can quickly dim or be snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Our mission is to gather up the light of freedom and hold onto it and discipline ourselves so that we don't let any of it slip away. How do we do that? We gather up freedom by making good choices. Free agency is the freedom to choose. The choices that we make determines how much freedom we have to make other choices in the future. I think about my dad's letter all the time. Freedom is a treasure and I just want to thank my dad for the letter he wrote years ago and reminding me of how blessed we are to have the freedoms we have today.
