jennie's 30th birthday

our good friend jennie shanburn celebrated her 30th birthday on friday and we, along with about 20 other people headed to royal oak for dinner.
jennie was the pastor's wife at our old church, the bridge, and we are so thankful that we have been able to remain close through the years.
after dinner, we all headed over to jennie's parents house where they broke out rock band, ping pong and darts. we eventually played catch phrase which is always the best game to play when melissa weckler is present. seriously. turns out, having jeremy stephison there provides even more laughs.
it really took me back to the days at the bridge. a great time was had and i don't know that i've laughed that hard in quite some time. i certainly wish it could happen more often!
we had a great time and i'm pretty sure that jennie did too. happy birthday, jennie!!!


sarah, eric, jeremy, jennie and dave:
ping pong. i hate ping pong:
jeremy and i played darts to get out of playing ping pong. i beat him the first game and then things just fell apart. i lost the last two:
jason, sarah and jeremy (saremy):
sarah and jason:
jennie and eric and the vegan cake that not too many people were daring enough to try:

catch phrase fun with melissa, eric and jennie:

a week at grandma and papa's

this week hayden went to ward for vbs (pictures to be posted on his blog soon). jenn and rainah were still staying at mom and dad's as they were waiting to get a new car from the area. since they were here and mom and dad's house is closer to ward then ours, talan and i went over every day but today to hang out.
on tuesday it was so warm out that mom set the pool back up. talan and rainah played in it all morning and then after vbs i brought hayden over to play in it for awhile too. the end of the afternoon turned into a water squirting fight and then quickly turned into mom and hayden pouring buckets of water on each other. while the kids were playing, i was able to get a start on my tan...with dad yelling at me the whole time that i was red. it has turned mostly to brown now and means for the rest of the summer i will only get darker. spf is for weenies.
every single day that i dropped hayden off at ward, talan would run through the halls saying "gama, papa, jenn, rainah" over and over. he had a great time going over there every day and playing with rainah. i don't think he's going to know what to do with himself next week!

day 1. rainah and talan would ride the goose and then talan would make them fall off:



day 2. popsicle time!:






the kids loved the goggles. at least for a little bit:
make sure to click on this one to blow it up. hayden's eyes are crossed. i'm so proud:




the water fight begins:


i LOVE this one:

father's day fun

after going to church on sunday morning, we headed over to mom and dad's to celebrate father's day with them, jenn, don and rainah. mom set up the pool for the kids and we brought along the slip n' slide-with permission of course. we were never allowed to have one when we were young...it would ruin the grass!! here is where i send out a special props to my kellogg grandparents who spread out a huge piece of plastic in their yard for us to slide on! what would we have done without you?!
hayden started and showed the little kids just how it was done. rainah quickly jumped in and was fearless with it. talan, who really does not like being splashed, would really only walk and then occasionally fall on it.
we then all ate lunch outside and the kids quickly went back to the pool. after awhile, we were able to get the kids back up on the deck so we could let all the dads open their gifts. we got dave several shirts and a book that i made him on shutterfly filled with pictures of him and the boys. i think it turned out great and he later told me it was the best gift he has ever gotten.
we had a great time and hope all of you other dad's out there did as well.
happy father's day!

they couldn't wait to get on the slip n' slide:



hayden thought he was bowling apparently:
lunch time!:

talan watched hayden dump buckets of water over himself and then he wanted to try. however, he hates getting water in his face. so he'd dump it and run to me so i would wipe his face off.:




talan had some really important things to tell papa:
at the end of the day, when we turned the slip n' slide off, the kids watered it their own way:



and then they did this. something hayden always does with an empty pool because of the old home movies of himself when rob, sara and josh came for a visit:

rainah was making a "squishy face" with talan watching intently so he could them mimic:
i think i have far too many pictures of these two like this:
i hate this picture because talan looks so big: