Momski and Me: 2016

Sunday 2 October 2016

Our Annual Summer Reunion

Our cabin is almost finished, so we celebrated by having our Stringham family reunion there over the September long weekend!

We actually managed to have a family picture taken, which I love!!

We are so glad Max was born in time to make it in the family photo!

Our theme for the reunion was "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." We centred everything around lemons.

Ava made us a nice sign for our Lemonade stand.

The kids had fun helping grandpa make the lemonade stand.

Grandpa thought that 5 cents to 5 dollars a cup was inflation, but they had their bat ready for him if he didn't pay up!

In order to stock the stand we had to make lemonade and that took a lot of squeezing effort by everyone.

Brynnlee had the most fun and kept saying "one more, one more, dad!"

Mark just had to get one more drop out of that lemon!

The kids went on a scavenger hunt, looking for fun things in nature. They brought them back and make a 'sculpture' out of their treasures.

Brooke and grandpa had a good time trying to figure where to put everything.

They decided the lemon drops were pretty good and gave them extra creative energy for their 'sculpture.'

Mckinley is very pleased with her creation!

Ava used almost every item that she collected...except Uncle Mark's live beetle.

Grandpa and D are making concrete forms from deep dish pizza boxes.

After pouring concrete in the pizza boxes we were able to get the grandkids hand prints for stepping stones!

Grandpa is really concentrating to help Brynn get her print perfectly centered.

They are turning out so cute!

Wow, how fun to put my hands in cold concrete. Can we do this everyday dad?

We'll put the concrete stones around the cabin for the kids to see in the years to come!

Brynn, Mckinley, Ava and Brooke had fun hanging out and playing.

They are sure beautiful little girls!!

We had so much fun eating together... Some good food and some junk food (like lemon drop candies).

Grandpa is cooking the crab for the Crab Boil... Lindsay's specialty.

Wow!! Now that is a lot of food!!

Crab, Taber corn, potatoes, and sausage. Doesn't get much better than that!

I don't think we ate even half the food we had on that table, but how fun to just throw the food on the table and use NO utensils!!

I'm not sure how much crab Mark ate, but he loved every piece!

Ava and Auntie Tiff loved holding little baby Maxwell.

I think he loved being at the reunion and all the attention and love he got!

We were happy that Great Grandma Stringham could come out on Sunday for the reunion. Doug went and got her after church. She loved visiting with everyone!

Well, what fun we had doing crafts! Grandma's fridge looks so beautiful with all these lovely creations on it!

What a wonderful reunion! We are so grateful for our dear kids and grandkids. They mean everything to us!!

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Friday 30 September 2016

Summer Ends with New Beginnings

We had very exciting news at the end of summer, we received our 9th grand baby!!

Maxwell James Johnson was born Augusr 31. He was 20'. 5" long and weighed 8lbs 14oz.

He was a big boy!!

We are so happy that he arrived safely, and even 2 weeks early!

Lindsay was happy about that but even more happy that he was a natural birth and not caesarean(as with Ivy).

He is so darling! We are excited to welcome him to our family!

And more exciting new beginnings...4 grandkids in school now! Wow!!

Brooke is in Grade 3 and McKinley is just starting Kindergarten, she loves it! They are going to the new school that just opened near their new home, so they just walk to school together each day. So fun for them!!

Ava has just started in Grade 2, and looks so grown up, she likes like she could be going off to college.

She and Joshie are both going to a new school this year.

Joshie is excited to start Kindergarden this year. He loves his new teacher!

Phoenix has become one of our favorite places. We think it is beautiful there, especially it's sun rises.

We visited our home there for a week in August, and I caught this sun rise the day we were leaving.

My brother Kevin and his wife Joeen came down from St George to visit us in Phoenix for several days.

We took a fun trip to Sedona. They had never been there and were awestruck with the beauty of that area!

We had so much fun together!!

We love the Sedona area and enjoy it when we can visit there or take family or friends there!

We loved this picture, but I especially love this guy!!

We have some great memories of our trips to Arizona!

A few weeks, later Dad and I had the opportunity to do a quick road trip in four days to Jackson Hole, Wy.

We went to Cardston to attend a session in the Temple first. We then drove south and caught this beautiful picture of 'Old Cheif' mountain during a storm!

The next day, we planned our drive to go south through Yellowstone National Park and enjoyed the beauty of the park and watched "Old Faithful' erupt!

Yellowstone was one of first dates, and we have such sweet memories of this place!

We wanted to take a picture 39 years later. Wow!!

We are so grateful for the many blessings that have come because we've stayed together since that first date!

We went up and through the Teton Pass, the Grand Teton mountains are gorgeous!

My brother, Kevin, was playing in the band, "Most Wanted" in Jackson Hole and invited us to come hear him play and have some fun! So we did, and it was so much fun watching him play, he is very good on the bass guitar! We met all the band members, they are so cool!

Just 5 miles north of Jackson Hole is a little town called Wilson. Kevin was excited for us to go over and explore it together. Our great great uncle Nicholas Elijah Wilson founded this town.

We had great fun driving around Wilson together, 3 of us packed in our little 2 seat convertible!