Ricky & Eden's Visit

Ricky, Eden, Lincoln and Logan came to visit us for the month of July to escape the terrible Phoenix heat. We had a nice long visit with them, the boys got to do a ton of fun things and Ricky and Eden even got to get away to Denver for a week. We had a great time having you all here, and Mom and Dad say that the house is very lonely and quiet without the boys there now. 

I took a bunch of pictures on my cell phone, but I'm sure Eden's blog will have more pictures at a much higher quality, so I would check over there soon for better updates. 

Grandpa Tutu and Logan watching the sunset on the patio. The boys loved to eat outside on the patio and throw treats over the railing to the dogs anxiously waiting below. 

Lincoln chilling out on the patio after a long hard day. Notice the spray bottles? Mom filled these up with water and the boys had a lot of fun squirting each other with them on hot days. 

This is Lincoln chasing after Freckles, who was retreating under my bed. Both Logan and Lincoln had a lot of fun with Freckles, and they were constantly trying to play with him. Freckles was a pretty good sport, but there were a few times we had to lock him up in my room... I'm not sure if it was for his safety or for the boys safety though hahaha. 

Another fun thing that we did was to go to Pocatello's "Pioneer Day" celebration. Its a fair with lots of treats and activities for kids and live music too. They also have this tradition of doing "Mutton Busting" which is where kids under 8 get strapped up with a helmet and other protective gear while they try to hang on to a full size sheep that is bucking like a bronco. Its actually pretty cool, and those sheep are very big up close. Lincoln was brave and he got to do it 3 times! We were all proud of him. 

Sometimes Logan would make these funny faces and hold them for a really realllllly long time. This was a face he made at Texas Roadhouse after jumping up and surprising that girl in the booth behind up. She screamed a little bit, and we all started laughing. Once Logan saw that we were laughing at what he had done, he made this face and just kept making it for like 5 minutes. It was too funny. We even had time to snap this awesome picture.

Lincoln doing play dough karate chops with Matt. 

Logan doing coloring up in the loft. 

Logan "sleeping"..... 

Having a picnic at the Museum of Clean. I love Lincoln's silly face in this one. 

And, last but not least, the Train Game! We used to play this all the time and it was dang fun to bust it out again after so long. Nothing has changed though, Eden still kicked butt. 

Thank you all for a fun visit and we miss you!

Octo-Baby

Nolan was recently given his first modeling gig! He will be the official poster child of the latest Baby Banana product, the Octo-Brush! How cute are these shots from his photo shoot? Thanks for being a good sport buddy.

More England Pics

Some more cute pics from England that I found on Mom's phone.

Coming soon.... pictures from Ricky & Eden's July visit! (aka.... Lincoln & Logan overload)

Moms Birthday Party

We had a big family reunion/birthday party for Mom this year. We missed having Nancee, JJ, Roo and their families here, but everyone else showed up. It was a LOT of people.





We ate good food, played board games, talked, played tennis, rode the golf cart, went on walks, and played with the animals. The boys got to do a fun sleepover on the balcony too!



On the day of the birthday celebration, Spencer and Kristin brought a fun cupcake shaped pinata that everyone got to take a whack at--including Grandma Tutu! Spencer had to figure out a way to suspend the pinata from the ceiling! It all worked out pretty well.



We also had Matt come up and give everybody a personalized gun shooting lesson. He set up a special gun range with targets and everything. It was lots of fun!




The girls decorated the house up very nicely with patriotic decorations, and then Mom blew out the candles on her delicious American Flag cake.


Even Freckles got in on the party! (He's been a very good sport)


Thank you everybody for making the effort to come up and celebrate with us.

 Happy Birthday Mama Tutu!

Fire in Poky

While Mom and Dad were in England, we had a huge fire in Pocatello. It was a very hot and windy day--perfect conditions for a fire. It burned all day and all night, and they had to evacuate an entire subdivision. The fire ended up claiming 66 homes, with hundreds of others displaced indefinitely. The hillside where the fire came into town is still all burned up.
I had a birds eye view of the fire just a few minutes after it began, and I took this photo from Mom & Dad's balcony.

Away to England!

After dropping Erica and Sadie off in Phoenix, Mom and Dad flew directly to Houston to help Roo and Annie with their newborn baby, Penny--and the little matter of relocating their entire lives across the Atlantic Ocean to live in England. No big deal.

Mom and Dad did all they could to watch the girls as Roo and Annie got their house packed up and fixed up to be sold, Dad spent a whole day fixing up the yard, Roo and Annie spent time getting international visas for themselves and the kids, they sold their cars, and best of all, Esmé got to go to the water park! Mom says that Esmé still talks about that one.

Then it was off to England on a 9 hour flight. They took a red eye flight and Grandpa Tutu was generous enough to give up his seat for a few hours so Esmé could stretch out and have a nice sleep. Mom said the girls did really well on the flight.

Mom and Dad had a great time once they arrived England. Getting used to the small cars, driving on the left side of the street, the complex roundabouts and tiny parkings was hard. Mom said the living spaces were really small and the exchange rate was tough to figure out. She said the weather was beautiful and that everything was super green. She said everyone has a wonderful yard and there aren't even any sprinklers. She said the meals were amazing--better than she was expecting!

Surprise Visit

Troy and Nancee had been on a long road trip from Tuscon, Arizona all the way up to Seattle, Washington. So, on their way home they thought.... whats a couple hours out of our way to stop at Grandma & Grandpa Tutu's house?
So, they came and ended up staying a whole extra day. Then, Mom offered to let Troy and Nancee drive the rest of the way home in peace while we watched Erica and Sadie. Mom and Dad were planning on flying to Houston at the end of the month anyways, and they had a layover in Phoenix so they thought it would be easy to just drop Erica and Sadie off at the Phoenix airport on their way to Houston.
I suppose being able to make, manage and adapt to plans like this is why Mom and Dad were able to raise 8 kids (somewhat) successfully. I have a hard time keeping up with their crazy hectic schedule. But, they do anything they possibly can to help out their kids as much as possible, and we love them for that. They are actually in England right now trying to help Roo and his family transition to life in a new Country. Mom already has her fake British accent down pat.

This is what happens when people from Arizona visit Idaho. It was about 40 degrees, which is pretty cold when you're used to it being 100 or so.  40 degrees in mid-June is pretty lame.  

Nancee's darling daughters. We are playing memory here. Erica totally kicked my butt. And she even let Sadie hold the instruction card so she felt like she was playing. We had lots of fun with the girls. Dad watched them a lot and played outside with them, Mom took care of them in the mornings. I took Erica out on a special date where we went to McDonalds and we went to see "The Lorax". After it was over I asked her what she learned about it and as a joke she said, "I think I'm gonna go cut down some trees". Too funny! 

Grandma Tutu and Erica hanging out at the office

It started snowing while the girls were visiting, and Erica was staring out the window trying to count all the snowflakes as they came down. It was pretty cute.