Weekend Fun!

Friday night Mackenzie and Brooklyn each invited one friend over to spend the night. They had a great time eating pizza, watching movies, painting nails, doing hair and make-up and of course talking about boys! That same night Steve and I were invited over to some friends house up the street for mexican food and games. When we got home from the party the girls wanted to go for a midnight swim even though it was chilly! Steve filled up our little blowup raft with hot water so that the girls could take turns getting warm after their midnight polar dip! Brooklyn and Brianne in their floating hot tub!

Mackenzie and Heidi filling up their hot tub!

Brooklyn heading for the hot tub to get warm!

Yesterday we packed up the car and went over to Mukileto beach for the afternoon. It was a gorgeous day and we had fun being by the water and watching the ferry going back and forth from Clinton. We enjoyed a picnic lunch, card games, taking a walk along the beach,visiting the Mukilteo light house and ice cream cones at Ivars!

Happy Birthday Steve!

We celebrated Steve's Birthday Wednesday! Instead of going out to dinner Steve wanted to stay home and have dinner. So he gave me a menu with all his favorites. We had dinner, opened presents and enjoyed a relaxing evening together as a family.

The birthday cake Steve requested was a homemade angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream! Yum Yum!

Happy Birthday Steve! We love you!

Parade, Evergreen State Fair & Marching Band!

Mackenzie is in the marching band at the High School this year and has been in band camp for the past week and a half. She has been learning how to play the mellophone and march at the same time! It has been fun to go over the the High School and watch the band practice in the parking lot. Today was their first performance as a new band. They started off the day marching in the parade in Monroe to kick off the Evergreen State Fair. They won best band and best overall parade entry! From there they moved to the fair grounds to perform. It was a lot of fun to see Mackenzie in action! She looked so cute in her band uniform! We especially like the fluffy hat! We are looking forward to going to the Cascade High School football games this fall to watch Mackenzie and the band perform during half time. Congrats Kenz for doing a fabulous job on your first marching band performances today! You were AWESOME! :-)
An action shot of Mackenzie marching!

Mackenzie with the Mellophone Section!

Band performance at the fair!

Steve and Brooklyn taking a ride on the "Tilt-A-Hurl"...oops I meant to say the "Tilt-A-Whirl"!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our Wedding Anniversary! Twenty-three years ago today Steve and I were sealed together in the Oakland California Temple. I am the luckiest girl in the world to be married to such an awesome man. Yes I am blessed indeed. Steve, I love you more today then I did twenty-three years ago. I never could have dreamed how much fun my life was going to be being married to you. Thank you for making my life so fun! You are the Greatest and I Love You! Happy Anniversary! XOXO

Championship Swim Meet!

This morning our girls had their last swim meet of the summer. They have sure enjoyed being on the team again this summer and it has been fun to go to their meets and see how they have improved in their events. This is a picture of Steve writing all of Brooklyn's events on her arm so that she would know when she was swimming!

Cynthia taking a break during the swim meet to have a snack of Pirate Booty! Yum Yum!

Brooklyn and with her coach Brooke!

Brooklyn pushing off the wall for her medal winning backstroke! She took 2nd place out of 31 kids in this event! Way to go Brooklyn!

Here is Mackenzie with her relay team. They took 2nd place in this heat! Way to go Mackenzie!

Swim Parties!

This past week has been gorgeous here in the beautiful Northwest. We took advantage of the nice weather and had swim parties just about everyday. Our girls have had fun inviting their friends over to P A R T Y at the LeBaron pool!
During one of our swim parties Steve got out the lawn darts and had lawn dart competitions. He was in heaven!
Mackenzie had a pool party and BBQ with some of her friends from our ward and kids that she met this summer at Youth Conference, Girls Camp and the Stake Youth dances.

Steve and Rex decided to try out the Olympic sport of synchronized diving. Here they are getting ready to do their dive! They were quite entertaining!

Addie and Madison taking a break from swimming to eat their Popsicles by the fire! Rex and Sidney cooling off in the pool!

Girl's Camp Service Project!

This year I was asked to head up the service project for stake Girl's Camp. I searched and searched for a fun yet fulfilling project and came up with the idea of tying fleece blankets. We will be donating them to a local home here in Everett that houses troubled and homeless teens. Our goal was for each girl at camp to tie a blanket and we reached our goal and a few more. Here are some pictures of our project.

We filled 3 wardrobe boxes full with blankets...110 of them!

I recruited four of my friends to go up to camp with me to help with the project. The service project was a HUGE success and I never, ever could have pulled it off without all of their help. Here is Heather, Sarah and Janae cutting the strips on the fleece.

Mackenzie tying her blanket!

We worked on the project from about 9:00 till 5:00. It was pretty warm and the humidity was very high. But getting to spend the day with my friends and all the girls made it fun. Thanks Steph, Sarah, Heather and Janae for all your help! Together we reached our goal!

Smith Family Reunion...All Right!!

We just returned from a fun filled week of camping in McCall, Idaho for the Smith family reunion. My brother Alan was in charge of the reunion and he did a great job planning it and making sure that we were all having a good time. Thanks Alan! We only had one member of the family missing...my niece's husband Trent! We missed you Trent! There were 25 of us! Mackenzie and Brooklyn had a lot of fun spending time with their cousins and Steve and I enjoyed relaxing and spending time with my siblings, their spouses and my parents! We had lots of fun activities planned each day to keep us busy and everyday we went to the lake. We had such a great time together and at the end of the week it was hard to say good-bye to everyone and go home! It's so awesome to be apart of such a great family. Each night after our campfire program and before we went off to bed we would all say a cheer together and this is what we would say, "All Right"! So this is for you all..."All Right"!! Thanks for all the fun memories everyone. We Love You!

Brooklyn, Mallory and Mackenzie getting ready to be pulled on the tube behind the jet ski!

Mike, Heidi and Mackenzie before they went out jet skiing. All the cousins loved having rides on the jet skis with the older boys because they knew that they were in for a wild and crazy ride and would for sure get dumped! They usually went out dry and came back wet! Thanks Mike and Brad for all the fun rides!

One of the crafts that we did during the week was to make a design on t-shirts using masking tape. Then we would spray paint the t-shirts in different colors. Here is Mackenzie planning out her design.

One afternoon we went on a 2 mile hike up to the top of the mountain overlooking Payette lake. Notice Brooklyn and Mackenzie's t-shirts that they made the night before!

One afternoon after we got back from the lake we drove to a fishing pond and did a little fishing. Steve caught one fish and Mackenzie caught three.

My sister and her husband brought their boat with them and everyone had fun wake boarding, tubing, skiing and wake surfing. Here is a picture of Steve trying out wake surfing for the first time. "All Right"...Steve!

One night we had a bunch of survivor type games that we competed in as teams. Steve made these stilts and brought them with us to use in one of the games. Here is my 70+ year old Father on them! We were all cheering him on but at the same time holding our breath that he wouldn't fall and break his legs! A big "All Right" to Grandpa!

My brothers brought their fun whale with them to pull behind the boat. Here are some of the cousins and even Grandma waiting to take a wild ride on it! Half way through their ride they all got dumped off the whale and everyone ended up in the water...even Grandma!

Another one of our afternoon activities was to make homemade ice cream in a bag. Here is a picture of some very satisfied ice cream lovers!

One day while we were at the lake Steve and Brooklyn went out fishing in the kayaks. Here is what Brooklyn brought back from her kayak fishing trip! "All Right" Brooklyn!

We took 4 of our kayaks with us and everyone had fun paddling around the lake in them. Here is a picture of Grandma and Grandpa in them.

Steve and Brooklyn getting ready to take off for a fun ride on the jet skis!

Here we are making Jacob's Ladders as one of our crafts. The kids had fun painting their blocks of wood and putting different colored ribbons on them. Steve even made one in BYU blue and white!

On our last day we got up early and took some family pictures. Here is a picture of my parents with their 14 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter.

This is a picture of my parents and my 3 siblings Gregg, Alan and Julie! Thanks for a fun week everyone! We will cherish all the fun memories and fun times together! "All Right"!!!