Birthdays, Burley and Cars

Erik skillfully cutting my cake up for my birthday. He baked it himself! He did a great job, it was delicious. 
Here is what Erik was creating with my cake. He has done this every year since we have started dating! 
Erik put 25 candles on the cake, I am only 23. How rude. I couldn't do it in one blow, because of the massiveness of the cake. 
YAY! A bread machine. It doesn't only cook the bread, it kneads it too. (Erik didn't know that!)
The day after my birthday we packed up to enjoy a weekend in Burley. We had a great time. We played on a really large slip and slide on Saturday, but because I was playing I didn't take any pictures. Hopefully, mom will post some. This picture is of Coral. I asked her to smile for the camera, but she wouldn't. So she got this ball to smile for her. 
Carson, who is now 1, and Cooper showing us their musical abilities. It was great to see them both and I can't believe how much they are growing. 
We had a birthday party for me and dad and all those August birthdays (Carson, Talia, Abbigail, Cooper, Quinn, etc...) Those are Jon's arms. He and Quinn, Wendy, Jacey, Parker and Paige were there and of course Grandma and Grandpa. 
Here is our birthday cake. Nate baked it. It was great and it took a lot of time. Thanks again Nate! 
Monday, the last day we were in Burley we went to Shoshone Falls. 
We had a picnic down at the falls with stuff we bought at Costco. 

We went to the falls, after we went to the Twin Falls Temple open house. The temple is beautiful and Mom and Dad were ushers and showed us were to go. 

Here is Mt. St. Helens. We went there for a field trip with work. It took about 4 hours to get there on a big, yellow, school bus. So that is not actually St. Helens, it is a replica. That is what it looked like after the eruption. 

This is what we saw...BOO. We saw clouds and rain and no Mt. St. Helens. Poor kids were sad (I think) I know I was sad. You can see the mud were the water ran off and that is about it. So basically we rode 4 hours to see some clouds, a movie about the eruption in the visit center, and the kids played on a different playground. Oh well. I will just have to go back when it is not cloudy. 
Saturday I did something that I have never done...wax a car. Here is Erik demonstrating the proper wax on technique. 

Here is the car all waxed. Erik is admiring his work. Oh and my work. 

Wax off. Notice the difference between the two sides? So that is what we did this weekend. It was a lot of work good thing Erik did most of it.  Oh and a bird pooped on it at church today. RUDE!! 

Dungeness Spit

This is where we went on the 4th of July. If you look at the map you see a little green thing poking out into the water. That is the Dungeness Spit. We walked along that small bit of sand, all the way to the end. It took 6 hours, but it was a lot of fun. 
This is a very happy tree that we found along the way. There was a lot of driftwood around the beach. It looked similar to the last pictures we posted, Ebey's Landing. 
This was the final prize at the end of the 5.5 miles, a lighthouse. At the top of the lighthouse were some binoculars and we could see Victoria, BC! It was pretty good. That is it right above my head. 
Here is the lighthouse. The light house use to be at the end of the spit when it was build in the 1800s. Now there is about a 1/2 mile past the light house. The spit grows an average of 15 feet a year. Crazy. Soon it will stretch all the way to Canada! 
This may just look like water, but in the water are some small black dots. Those small dots are harbor seals! It was really fun to watch them hang out and splash around for us. 

We enjoyed our Holiday and watched the fireworks on the pier. It was pretty cool, mostly because there were people shooting fireworks off all around us. 

Whidbey Island

Last weekend (June 21st) we went on a hike at Ebey's Landing on Whidbey Island. Whidbey Island was about an hour and half drive, plus a half hour ferry ride away, but it was worth it. It was a cloudy day, but it was nice and warm. We even got sunburned! 

Here is the beach that we walked along. We saw lots of crabs that were dead and broken seashells.  This is the hill that we climbed up. We started walking up the dune/hill then made a loop down and finished our hike on the beach. I don't know why Erik is leaning, but he is. 
This is the path down to the beach. We saw a bald eagle about 10 minutes into our hike, so that was pretty awesome. I also almost stepped on a snake, but I didn't notice it! Erik did, however! 

I love this picture. Washington is great! It was so pretty up on the island, but there was no food there. Luckily, we found a cappuccino place that served 2 different types of sandwiches. 

This was a military fort built back in the 1880s. It was used to defend the Puget Sound Navel Shipyard of unfriendly ships until the 1950s! It was really fun to wander about in it. It was like a maze with ladders and stairs and small rooms everywhere. 

Erik just really liked the big guns though! 

I can't believe how easy it had been for me to discontinue my weekly emails ever since Devon has returned from his mission. I figure I will try and update the blog weekly instead! This past week we didn't go on any hikes. We stayed close to home and looked at a few houses with our realtor on Saturday. We also participated in a Stake service project by widening a few walking trails up near the hospital. Friday Erik wanted to go shopping, so we did! We founds some great deals at the Gap, so that is always exciting. 

Work for me is going great. I really like the kids I work with, even though they are a handful. They are for the most part very kind and excited to be at summer camp. Tomorrow we take them to the Tacoma History Museum, so that should be fun. I come home every day tired, but that is ok. Erik is still working, which means taking classes. He even has quizzes and tests every week, but it is much easier than BYU! Well I hope you all had a great week! 

Hello Kristy

We put up some pictures for Kristy, our foreign exchange student from Russia. We hope she enjoys these and gets an idea what our family is like.

This is for Kristy

This is the last time the entire family was together (before Devon's mission and before the baby boys were born). This is after Colette's wedding in the Logan temple. Back Row: Devon, Hyrum, Nate, Sarah, Von, Colette, Erik, Jaren.
Front Row: Abbigail, Chelsesa, Debbie, Talia, Chantille, Coral.




This is the whole family (except Devon) last Christmas. Back Row: Erik, Colette, Hyrum, Chelsea, Nate, Sarah, Chantille, Jaren.
Middle Row: Von, Debbie, Cooper, Carson.
Front Row: Abbigail, Taila, Coral.

















Von is a farmer. This is during the sugar beet harvest last fall.



















This is our dog, Tippy.

Debbie and Von on a hike just above our house. You can see the valley below and the sunset.

Most of those that where at the airport when Devon came home. Left-Right: Von, Aunt Karen, Devon, Talia, Debbie, Chantille, Carson, Jaren.

Our Trinidad vacation

We had a really great trip to Trinidad. The people are great and we had a lot of fun. It was hard to leave.
Saying goodbye to President and Sister Robison.

This is a food court we had lunch at. Dad put hot pepper sauce all over his pelau!

Walking down the streets of Valsayn just minutes after Devon got released.

We got caught in a rainstorm and sought shelter under a mechanic's garage.

Mom is clapping it after it's cooked to make it nice and soft.

Baby teaching Mom to cook roti.

This is the whole crew at Andrew and Baby's house.
Devon finally playing in the Caribbean Sea at Paria Bay Beach.

Kinda blurry. Mom and Devon at Paria Falls. The water in the pool below was very clear and somewhat warm.

Paria Falls. It was soo nice!

Walking along Para Bay Beach. We hiked over two hours to get there! It was worth the walk.

Dad and some of the Deonarinesingh's playing in the water.

Beautiful Sunrise! Mom and Dad on Manzanilla beach just after sunrise.

Azim likes Dad a lot. He calls him "Older Elder Gibby." He had Dad give him the Aaronic Priesthood the Sunday we were there.

These are some funny buzzard-looking birds on Maracas beach trying to dry off after some morning rains.

This is all of us that camped out on Manzanilla beach to see the turtles. The Deonarinesingh family, us, and Azim.

This is some of the eggs!

This one is digging her hole with her back fins. Pretty cool!

This is a video of Paria Falls.