*Mexican Cruise May 2011*

                                                               

My AWESOME in-laws decided to take us on a cruise. We had such a great time!!  We really needed the break.

~Trying to catch up~

As you can see I am a little bit behind with the updates. I hope by the end of 2011 you should have all of 2010. LOL!!

*Family Pictures 2010*

*My cute Mom & Dad*

*My parents and all 11 grandkids*

~Yosemite National Park~

My niece Korinne was being baptized so my family headed out to California for a little site seeing trip before her big day. My sister had the idea to visit Yosemite National Park and we absolutely loved it. Me, Trav and my Mom headed out on for our road trip. We stopped in Vegas for the night but as always we got there too late to do much so we just stuffed our faces with Pei Wei, then my mom went to bed and we headed down to the hot tub. The next day we headed out to Bakersfield to pick up my Dad and my sister Staci from the airport (they were the lucky ones and got to fly). Then we all crammed in my little car and headed out the last 2 hours to Fresno. It was so fun to see how the excited the kids were when we arrived (it made the 12 hour drive well worth it).

The next morning we headed off to Yosemite. Beautiful...Amazing...More Beautiful... Those are the words that came to my mind when we arrived in Yosemite. I highly recommend everyone make a trip out early enough in the year to see the falls. Every time I look at the photos I think the back ground it fake. As you can see from the photos it was a little bright for Tyson we were having a hard time trying to get him to keep his eyes open. It did get a little chilly when you got close to the falls with so much water coming down it felt like a mist of cold water. It was so fun to hike around and explore such a beautiful place. My brother in-law Tyler convinced us to go on a hike and climb through a crack that was extremely small (for us adults) but the kids were so great and loved every minute. Even Tyson and Trav went on their own little adventure to try to see some deer. Then we took a trip to the souvenir store then headed out of the park for food and the hotel.

Our Champers...

We unfortunately had to lose our dog Champ. He was our closest thing to a baby and it has been a lot harder than we thought to let him go. We hope that someone has taken him home that will love him as much as we do. It is kinda sad we are this close to a dog but he was our family...I can't say much more it is making me too emotional. Goodbye our sweet Champers we will always love and miss you!!

tHe CuTteSt LitTle 3 YeAr oLdS

two of my nieces have birthdays close to each other so we decided to have a fun little bowling trip for each of them. not sure why non of us got any photos of us actually bowling but at least we got some of their cute faces. they had so much fun. happy happy birthday alexa & sienna!!!

*Barbie Cake*

My cute little niece Lillian requested a Barbie cake for her 6th birthday. Her mom unfortunately was stranded in London at the time due to the volcano so I decided to try to make her request. She is a very smart and specific 6 year old. She had to have a white dress with pink flowers that had a purple center and holding the number 6. She first decided she wanted it to be a vanilla cake then she changed to chocolate so I decided to do 3 layers. The chocolate is at the top, strawberry in the middle and vanilla at the bottom. I have never used fondant before so I was a little nervous and anxious to try it. Luckily my aunt is a cake expert and was able to give me a few tips. Aside from needing a lot of upper body strength I loved working with fondant. I realized you can do some many fun things with it. After cutting out all the flowers by hand I will for sure invest in some fondant shape cutters the next time around. After making the cake the night before and working on it all the next morning I was exhausted but happy with the way it turned out. Lillian was so surprised I was so happy to make her day. She was a little shy with all the attention but warmed up to the camera when she started opening her presents. I hope she had a great birthday!! Love you Lilly Bug-Crackers!