We spent an afternoon and evening at Don and Jenny's house. When we got there, Ava was playing in her new pool! Don and Jenny had dug a fire pit that day, so we enjoyed smores around the campfire! Have you ever replaced the Hershey's chocolate with a Resees peanut butter cup? It no, try it - it's amazing!

Ava in her swimming pool and Jenny looking on

Isn't she adorable?
Ava climbing out of her pool.
Cute Ava

Eating a banana around the campfire. She took huge bites!

The group!
Dennis and Ava

Jenny and Ava

Mom and I drove up to Olympia to meet the newest member to the Jensen family - Cooper Ellsworth Howard. My younger cousin Nick and his wife Courtney's son. He was 3 days old when we saw and held him. It was so nice to cuddle with a newborn again.

Great Grandma Ellen Howard with her first great-grandchild.

Cousin Nick - I still can't believe that he's a dad.
My beautiful Auntie Sue!
Nick, Courtney and Cooper
Otis - Sue's dog. Isn't he cute?
Auntie Sue's lovely poppy
And finally a picture of me holding Cooper.

Rowena and Mari visit!

We were lucky to have Kari, Rowena and Mari come to visit us on their trip to Oregon from Montana. We had a very nice visit for an evening and enjoyed playing with Rowena and Mari. Lee and Lela were able to come for a short time as well. Thanks, Kari for making us a stop on your trip!

When Rowena saw Mari holding my phone she said "Hey, someone has MY phone!"
Lee and Lela Jacobsen - some good friends of ours

Mari standing up. She is almost walking!

Rowena and Mari playing with Ollie. See how huge Ollie is?

Mari the turtle!
Rowena and Ollie. Rowena is 3, Ollie is 2. Rowena weighs 27 pounds, Ollie weighs 18!
Jen with 2 of her favorite girls. Rowena has my phone - she loves Jen's purple phone!
Dennis with Rowena and Mari!

Our cats

So, as most of you know we have 2 cats - Kitty and Ollie. Dennis proposed to me with Kitty and Kitty lived with Dennis before we got married. About a year after we were married we decided that I needed a cat of my own so we went to Cat Adoption Team 'just to look', fell in love with Ollie and of course had to adopt him. Kitty weighed about 13-14 pounds before we got Ollie - now he is around 11. Ollie is only 2 years old and weighs anywhere from 18-20 pounds - he is our porker! Here are just a couple of pictures of our furry boys and I'm sure there will be more to come!

Here's Kitty showing off his belly!
Ollie-buggers!

Boise Weekend!

We headed to Boise for the weekend of Dennis' 10 year class reunion. We were able to take Friday off work so headed there Thursday after work. We drove all night, arriving to Eric and Lenora's (Dennis' sister) at about 2:30 am. Friday, Dennis and his dad spent some time together and Tamara and I went to Hobby Lobby! Wow! What an amazing store. Alls I can say is I hope one comes to Portland, but I also hope one doesn't because I can imagine lots of my money going there! Friday night was a picnic in the park for Dennis' class reunion. It was amusing for me to watch his former classmates interact with one another - especially since my reunion was a couple of years ago. Are everyone's 10 year reunions uncomfortable? Later Friday evening, after the picnic we headed back to Eric and Lenora's and then went to Merritts! If you ever visit Boise you should head to Merritts! It is a scone place - but not the type of scones that Starbucks sells. They are deep fried yummy-ness. And, you can order one with fruit, meat, eggs, etc... tons of options. The seats have duct tape on them - it's an experience! Saturday morning Jon, Tamara, Eric, Lenora, Dennis and I went out to breakfast at Goldy's another yummy place. We walked the Saturday market prior to breakfast because of a 1 hour wait for a table. After breakfast, the guys went shooting and Tamara, Jenny and I headed to Hobby Lobby again! Saturday evening Jenny took all of us to the Greek festival which was yummy and an experience! Sunday morning was union meeting and luckily all of our family members meet together so we were able to be in meeting with them all! It was a very nice day, then we had lunch with Jenny, saw Lloyd and headed for home! It was a grand weekend!Eric and Reina
Jon and Tamara at Goldies
Eric and Lenora
Eric shooting
Jon shooting!

Celebrating Dad's birthday

Mom and dad came for the weekend of Dad's birthday! We were able to surprise him with having Archie and Edie Brown over for dinner. We had a wonderful evening with them. I made my first ever German Chocolate Cake for dad - his favorite - and we managed to put 53 candles into it, 12 of them trick candles. Dennis and I also rigged up a spider on the chandler a family joke. The cake was delish and the company was superb! Overall a very good evening!

Setting up the spider to drop on dad as we sing Happy Birthday!

Pretty flowers at this time of year - from our yard!

Dad and Arch visiting

Mom, Arch and Edie - and our orange wall!

The whole gang minus Jen and dad

Yummy German Chocolate Cake!

Mom trying to help dad blow out his candles!

Dad holding the spider and blowing out his candles!

I think I had mentioned in an earlier post that we were planning on going to Cirque de Soleil. We brought Dennis' small camera, however they asked for no pictures to be taken :( It was an amazing show, if you haven't ever seen it, I'd highly recommend going. If you have seen it, well, let's go together next year! So, the day of the show - I wanted to have straight hair. My hair is anything but straight all the time! So, a good friend of mine spent 2 hours and ta da... (pictures below)... After coming home from Cirque de soleil we were honored to have Rick and Julia here at our house for the night - and Rick even stayed up and waited for us! Thanks Rick it was nice to visit with you. Dennis and Rick stayed up into the wee hours talking cousin guy talk... We had a very nice Sunday with them and ate our first meal of 2010 outside on our patio! Such a nice summery day! I will let this be all for now!

Lookit my oh so straight hair! Someday I will post a 'normal' looking hair day - how unstraight my hair is! :)

Another view of my straight hair! If it didn't take 2 hours, I would do it more often!

Mom helped me plant some flowers in some pots on the deck - they have grown a lot since this picture, I will have to send updates!

The table is set for our first meal outside!

Cute newlyweds! Rick and Julia!