We recently got back from Rock’s family reunion on Whidbey Island in WA.  It was lots of fun.

We woke the kids up bright and early and hit the road on our 12th anniversary.  Note to anyone thinking about getting married at the end of July.  DON’T.  There will ALWAYS be a family reunion on your anniversary.   And if you are an airhead like I am, you will totally forget that it’s your anniversary until your husband walks in with flowers….two years in a row.  But the kids gave us a wonderful present for our anniversary this time.  The BEST road trip we’ve ever had with our kids.  Everyone was great! 

Reagan is going to enter some pictures in the Southern Idaho Fair this month and so he was begging for the camera every five minutes of our trip.  Here’s one he caught of the sunrise that morning.

Pretty good for an amateur, eh?

On the ferry ride over to Whidbey.
Liberty has never been on a ferry and so when we told her we were going to ride a ferry she got really excited and said, “A ferry princess??”

We stayed at Fort Casey for the reunion.  Reagan took this picture of the deer out in front of the inn.

This is the amazing and cool family tree that Rock’s mom put together for the reunion.  I just love this.  I love seeing that ALL these people came from Grandma and Grandpa.  What an awesome thing families are!

Here’s our branch:

Three of my favorite people in the whole world.

Admiralty Head Light House at Fort Casey

Attempting to keep the kiddos quiet at 6:00 in the morning so they wouldn’t wake up the whole of Fort Casey.  Yes, we drug our children sometimes.  It’s called TV.

Our family photographer, Sam Hymas took the official family photos for the reunion.  You can check out more of his work here:
Classic Essence Photography

Families are Forever.

Cade turned nine at the end of July but we’ve been traveling and so I am just now getting these up.

For his birthday party he took two friends to see the movie Turbo.  It is about a snail….that races. 

Yeah, I know, the thought of such a plot would make most of us roll the eyes and cringe at paying to see such a movie.  But the boys have talked about nothing else since.  Apparently it is THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE.  So y’all just might want to change your date plans for Friday and go see that one instead.  For Cade this movie was right up his alley.  He has never outgrown his love for cars and though I was sad to see him grow out of calling them “go goes”, I am glad that he has grown into such a nice boy. He is bright and friendly and determined as all get out.  My mom tells me that I used to hound her about things I wanted to do constantly.  Well, this kid puts me to shame.  If my mother could experience his hounding on a daily basis I think she would not only agree that he puts me to shame, but she would laugh wickedly while doing it.

We had Cade’s favorite birthday “cake that’s not a cake”, Heavenly Dirt.  Perfect for all 9 year old boys.

Yuck!

Our present to Cade was a trip to the craft store to pick out a craft to make.  He loves to do any kind of craft and…hounds me about them all day long.  He chose one that was a car, naturally, and then went home and proeceeded to…hound me about it putting it together.

He couldn’t do it on his own, however. 

So Grandpa H came all the way from Colorado to help him out.  Grandpa comes from a long line of model car makers.  Thanks, Grandpa!

A new Bumble bee Transformer was the Pièce de résistance for this boy’s birthday.  He has eaten, slept, bathed (ok, maybe not bathed) and played with this thing 24 hours a day since his birthday.  Can you tell he gets a little obsessive? 

Sarin’s gift was the best, though.

His own bottle of Gatorade. 

We love you Caderade!  Thanks for making life interesting at our house!

Reagan has been up to magic tricks again…

Then a few days later we went to see a magic show at the library and Reagan got to be an assistant!

Now if he can just make my laundry disappear life will be good.

All decked out for the neighborhood pancake breakfast bike parade….

Had she actually made it on time, I’m sure Aunt Alli’s handiwork would have won a prize.  The boys took off before I could get a picture of their bikes.

Dinner attire was red.  If you weren’t wearing red, you didn’t’ eat!

What Wesel family gathering would be complete without Heavenly dirt.  This time, with patriotic flare. 

I LOVE this picture!  Two of my very favorite people.

Fireworks!!


Ground blooms in a bucket, an American classic.

Levi LOVED the fireworks.

Libby did NOT.

The rest of the audience.

We ended the night with the big fireworks.



Some of us did, anyway.

Libby chickened out and fell asleep in Penny’s bed, utterly exhausted from her long day. 

Hope you all had a happy 4th!  We sure did!

Liberty turned three on Tuesday!  Here are the highlights.


She wanted a Princess party for her birthday.  Which is really kind of funny when you know that the only princess movie she has seen is Cinderella.  For a long time she wanted to have a princess/pony party and she was going to have a “piggy pie”. Luckily we got her to narrow it down a bit because making a pie look like a pig was going to be a stretch.

Her favorite princess is “Sweeping Booty”.  Why, you might ask? It is not because she gets to shed some blood or because her prince gets to fight the meanest dragon of all Disney fame, which is what her brothers would tell you.   Rather, it is because she wears a pink dress.  

On Tuesday when Grandma told her that her gift would be coming in the mail the next day her only question was, “Is it Pink???!!!”
Her brothers were so sweet to her on her birthday.  They hovered outside her bedroom door that morning because they couldn’t wait for her to wake up so they could tell her it was her birthday.  They made her this pink castle and played house with her all day.

It even has a catapult!
We love our little princess.  She is so much fun to have around.  Based on what I hear, and from what I remember, she will NOT be as much fun when she turns thirteen, but I sure am grateful for her today.

We moved into our new home a few weeks ago and I have been up to my eyeballs in packing and then unpacking.  Thus, the big lag in blog posts.  Packing is not a problem for me.  I handle it just fine.  It’s the unpacking that kills me.  I tend to get a little OCD.  I want everything in its perfect place and it drives me crazy to put things somewhere just to get them out of the box when I KNOW I will be moving them later.  Everything must be in its proper place and that takes lots of thought and planning.  Meanwhile my husband and children want to eat and I haven’t decided where I’m going to put the plates.  At some point on that first day after a move I just stop because I don’t know what to do next.  I’m overwhelmed and don’t make much progress.  I start to unpack X only to find that I can’t unpack X till I have Y out of a box.  I just get stuck.  Rock says it’s pretty funny to watch the melt down.  Luckily my wonderful husband is patient and helped me actually get moving.  ( No pun intended) This time it took me a long time to dig out of my OCD cocoon and we are still not quite unpacked.  But here I am and our home, though maybe not a beautiful butterfly yet, is getting there. 
I recommend turning the sound off for this one.  🙂

At some point I’ll put up some pictures of the outside.  The big tree that hides the house (that we couldn’t wait to cut down) is actually a beautiful tree to look out at from inside the house.  We haven’t decided if the tree goes or stays so this video will have to do.

The kids had fun with the packing paper again…


They slid down the stairs into the massive pile of paper.

And they had a good time with the moving boxes as well.

We love the ward and the neighborhood.  The kids are already making lots of friends and so are we!  I love having a basement.  And my kitchen is the best!  I have so many drawers and cupboards I can’t remember where I put everything!!!  I was pretty nervous to paint the cupboards red, but they turned out perfect!   We can walk to Target and we are less than ten minutes from Winco.  Woohoo!  We have had our share of fun surprises, though,  like the fact that the cold handle on several of the bathroom faucets comes off when you turn them.  Or the fact that our monster air conditioner, though almost the size of a small car, cannot seem to keep the upstairs very cool but the boys, who sleep in the basement, have to wear long underwear to bed.  Or the fact that hot air balloons wake you up at sunrise on the weekends because we live right near where they take off.  I was awakened by the weirdest noise on Sunday morning and it took me a while to figure out what it was. Finally got this picture from my front porch:

Maybe I’ll finally have to ride one! 

We are so happy to be here and feel so blessed to be in such a good place!

My little Beaner graduated from high school last weekend! 
She went from this baby in a beanie (thus the nickname)…..

To This!

And now she’s off to BYU!

Our little girl is all grown up!   I’ve always been more of a mother to Sarin than a sister because I was seventeen when she was born.  This all makes me just about as teary eyed as it does Mom.  I love you, Bean!  You have become a beautiful woman.  I can’t wait to see what you make of the rest of your life! 

We spent the morning at swimming lessons…

And the afternoon at the Splash Pad!

Check out our Red Head!

She was VERY tired by this point.  We all were!  We came home and I took a nap!  At some point soon I’ll get some packing done….

Aunt Janie’s for the BBQ.

The Idaho State Veteran’s Cemetery.


Thank you. 
Thank you for allowing me to sleep peacefully in my bed at night.  Thank you for leaving your families to do so. 
Thank you for making it possible for my children to run free down a country lane. 
Thank you for giving the last full measure of devotion.

My mom asked me this question when I called her on Mother’s day.  My answer; “A house!”  We have been trying to buy a house and our offer was accepted on Mother’s day!  We will be closing on June 14th.  We love Boise and we are here to stay.  The house has just about everything we have ever needed or wanted in a house.  It’s in one of our favorite neighborhoods with LOTS of trees, it has a big back yard, it backs onto a park, it’s in a cul-de-sac, and it has a basement!  It’s also five minutes from the Boise River and we can see the mountains from upstairs!  I will put up some pictures of it, once we close.  Right now the front of the house is hidden behind a tree we plan to take down asap and bushes that cover up the porch.  But we have taken on an overgrown yard before.  We tamed a third of an acre in our first house and I’m now a pro with the clippers.  Just ask the trees in Duvall. 

At times over the last few weeks I have felt like pinching myself to make sure this was really happening.  The Lord has been so good to us and I feel amazingly blessed to be in this wonderful place with family and friends. 

Rock now gets to move into a house for Father’s Day.   He’s not quite as excited about his gift, though.  Go figure.