Our Baby Turns 3!

It seems that our kids birthdays last at least a week. It was the same with Libby's 3rd birthday. We started a week before her actual birthday when Grandma Hobbs came to celebrate. She loved the cupcakes with princess rings in the shape of the letter 3. She was also in heaven with more food for her kitchen and a double stroller. Libby is still obsessed with babies. Grandpa Hobbs sent her money to buy something special just for her. She chose a purple princess backpack of course! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

On her actual birthday we celebrated again with family and friends here. It was all about Belle...from the cake the girls help me make to her Belle dress-up gifts. It is hard to believe that our baby is three! We love you Libby!

Summer Highlights

I am finally finding some time to post! I know...I know...it has been awhile. Nevertheless, here are some highlights of our summer.

AUGUST

The Shoshone Falls were beautiful this summer. We spent one evening having a picnic there, going on a short hike, and looking at the falls. The kids also had fun being monkeys in the trees. They insisted on me taking their pictures. Libby was a little more cautious and opted not to participate.

Another fun highlight of August was having our friends, the Hickmans, come to visit. They moved from Twin Falls a couple years ago and hadn't been back since. It was so fun to spend time with them. The kids had a blast and we laughed and laughed. Besides boating on the river, swimming, hosting a barbeque with lots of friends, we took the opportunity to go to the temple open house with them.

The Twin Falls Temple Open House was a big part of our summer. Tony worked security several times, we helped put on foot-coverings with the young single adult branch, and I served cookies in the hosting center the last day of tours. We also took our family through many times as we took other family members and friends through. It is absolutely beautiful and how fortunate we are to have a temple here. Besides taking our children through for the first time, I really enjoyed the tour Tony and I had from President Clarke of BYU-Idaho on the day we did foot-coverings for the VIP tour. It was the first time either of us had been inside and I was in awe of everything. It was equally touching to have Cache with us at the dedication services.

JULY

Thank goodness for swimming lessons! Our kids love the water and two weeks of wet fun is just what they needed in the middle of July. Here is a photo of Shelby jumping off the diving board. She is fearless!

Another annual event early in July is the Traveller Family 4th of July. As always, we had a blast and with a little bit of luck, our team took 1st and the trophy for this year. I'm not sure who was more excited, me or our kids. It has been a long time coming!

Our biggest adventure of July was travelling to the Oregon Coast for the Ragnar Series Northwest Passage Relay Race. I will do a separate post of that, but it was also a wonderful summer experience.

JUNE

We traveled to Utah the end of June to spend time with the Hobbs family. Everyone was in town from far away places and we had a great time with everyone. As part of the fun, we tried a photo shoot of all the grandkids. It didn't turn out quite how we envisioned, but the kids looked darling. Here are a couple snap shots I took of my kids.

June was also filled with lots of baseball games and two cuddly bunnies. Cache and Cooper really enjoyed playing ball this year. I think their new bat bags might have had something to do with that. It is always more fun when you look the part. We also found the perfect pet and they cared for these rabbits perfectly! It provided great entertainment and taught them a lot about responsibility. Unfortunately, they very suddenly died in August from unknown causes. I think we will try them again in the spring. The kids sure loved them!

Thanks to several invitations from friends, we also enjoyed the benefits of Bass Lake. Thanks to all who invited us! We had a blast!

In the middle of June, I ventured to Lake Tahoe again with six other friends and family members to run the Lake Tahoe Relay. It was so much fun last summer, I decided to do it again. Thanks Kari, Jodi, Brenda, Tammy, Jenna, and Lisa for a great run and a great time!

Last, but not least, Shelby started the summer off with her first dance recital. Tony surprised her with roses in her favorite color, pink, of course! She was darling and performed so well.