Camping Trip to Idaho

We had the opportunity to go camping in Idaho for a week. Every year Ryan's family goes camping in the mountains at a place called Baumgartner. Originally, according to Ryan, the tradition was for all the boys to go dirt bike riding almost everyday and for the girls to stay back and watch the children. Luckily for me a lot has changed. The dirt bike riding has cut back and family time has been emphasized. We had a lot of fun during this trip.

We met up with Diana (our sister in law) who lives in Fort Worth. Her and her children took us to the Dallas airport. It was fun spending time with them before we left.
Like any trip we take, we start off with working the night before and not sleeping at all the next day. This trip we went about 38 hours with no sleep... mmmm definitely not healthy. Ryan passed every chance he got. For some reason I just think he is soooo cute when he sleeps!

At baumgartner we played Minute to Win-it games. We had a lot of fun! This is a pic of my strategically planning how to win the next challenge....ha just kidding I have no clue what I was doing!
Just all of the cousins and their spouses playing the games.
He would make a cute Reindeer, huh?
We had a craft time while we were there. We made little signs. I love Joyce's (Ryan's mom). Her said, "Where have all the cowboys gone?" She is so creative!

This is a beautiful picture of the beautiful, cold river we swim at.
It was so cold me and the little kids talked Ry into farrying us across the river to the other side where we liked to hangout.
This is my nephew Landon, just chilling. So cute!!
I did a lot of this!! Something about the high altitude made me exhausted!! I was sleeping all the time.
This has an interesting story...

Have you ever been part of a BEAR CHASE? The last night we were there, there were a couple black bears surrounding the camp. The scary part was that there was cubs somewhere. Black bears are not usually aggressive but when cubs are involved they care be very aggressive.

Right around dusk we were warned that there were sightings of a black bear. Ryan and I ran off to go find the bear! We found it...Unfortunately it was too dark to get pictures. But it was neat to see a bear in real life. Well it was just hanging out at the side of the mountain and wasn't doing anything. We headed back to our camp site. A while later we heard a loud BANG BANG and yelling. Ry and I looked at each other and ran off in the direction of the gun shots. We end up in his brothers campsite and find a black bear about 20 feet away just watching us!!! It was soo cool! We ended up chasing the guy all over camp so that when the bird and game people came they would be able to find the bear and take it somewhere safer.

How fun is that?

Trip to San Antonio (07/21-07/23/10)

The week after girls camp, Ryan and I took a spontaneous trip to San Antonio for a few days. We had the time of our lives!!! It was so fun and relaxing! We spent the most of our time at water parks so we do not have very many pictures (we should have invested in a water proof camera!) We spent a whole day at "the best water park in the nation", Schiltterbahn. That was a very fun day. At one point Ry and I decided to go walk to a local Subway for lunch. We got lost but we found this beautiful tree dripping with gorgeous flowers! We had to get a pic!

On our trip I acquired quite an injury to my right foot :( This picture does not do it justice!! It was swollen for over a week and very scraped up! How, one would ask, does a normal vacationer meet with such an occurrence? Believe it or not, it was trying on cowboy boots!!! I have a very high arch and that makes it difficult to put on boots. Ryan couldn't quite understand...we found some beautiful boots on sale and he kept begging me to try harder to see if they would fit. Well, try I did and I didn't realize what it was doing to my foot!!! All is well though. We found some beautiful boots that did fit!!
The tannish orange ones are mine and the turquoise ones are Ry's. We will get pictures of us wearing our boots.
This is Ry trying out different pairs. He did not have the misfortune of having a super high arch and not being able to fit into most boots.
We had to stop by this buffet because anything or place names Ryan has to be great!! hehe Isn't he handsome?

All in all we had a great trip and made ever better memories. Life is great!!!

Girl's Camp 2010: Women of Courage!

Ryan and I had the INCREDIBLE opportunity to be camp nurses!!! It was one of the neatest experiences!

Like any classic adventure that Ryan and I go on we started off with working the night before and having only 30 hours of going with out sleep. That was rough!!!

When we got to camp we were given these awesome shirts and found out that the mascot for camp was Rosie the Riveter! She is one of my favorite people! I was tickled to find out that Ryan got a shift too! I LOVED it!
We Can Do It!!

I loved how Ryan was one of 3 men at Girls Camp and he was 100% comfortable! Not only was he comfortable with it but he jumped in with both feet and everyone there couldn't help but loving him.

I think one of my favorite things to do is sit back and watch Ry interact with those around him and see how he puts a smile on everyone's face :)
This is our dear friend Shannon. She and some other women made Ryan a special necklace during craft time. It was a necklace made out of cheezits and cheerios.
Ryan loved the necklace so much he refuses to eat it!
I was the full time nurse at camp and the part time hair dresser. I can't count the number of braids I did at camp. I love doing hair. Ryan, like always, was willing to try anything. I started teaching him how to french braid. He did well, but had to give up after a while.
Everyone was impressed with Ryan's desire. They couldn't stop laughing.

Speaking about Ryan, it was decided that he provided the BEST moments and the WORST moments for camp.

BEST:

Ryan ended dancing in front of everyone in little hot pink shorts... Everyone could not get enough of it!

Worst:

In the middle of playing "Do as I Do" of the diving board, he broke the diving board. It literally broke totally off. It was great, when he jumped and it broke everyone got very quiet, but I thought it was HILARIOUS! While everyone was waiting quietly for Ryan to come to the surface I was laughing hysterically. You see, it was Ryan and he is always ok :)
This is sweet Leighanna. She has some of the most beautiful, long hair. Ever since the first time I saw it I knew I HAD to braid it! This took the best part of 3 days.
I corn rowed the top of her hair, then braided the rest of it.
This was all of those braid's. I can't get over how beautiful and healthy her hair is!
When unbraided her hair almost touches her knees!
I love her so much! We had a lot of fun together!
This is my future sister-in-law. I decided that she needs to marry my little brother Sethie. She is PERFECT and so fun!!! For some reason she and all of the other girls thought I looked like Jessica Alba.... I look nothing like her, but it was definitely flattering!
Just relaxing. I was very good at that!
Good, old Susan!
Brianna, another girl from my ward made me this beautiful bracelet. I loved it!!
This is Briana, she LOVES getting pictures...Can't you tell?
I was trying to show off the bracelet she made me.

All in all, it was an incredible time.

The last night there was testimony meeting. Towards the end of the meeting, Ryan turned towards me and said, "I need to go bear my testimony". Honestly, initially I thought the idea was kind of weird, but I kept that idea to myself and told him if he feels it, he needs to do it.

Ryan got up and bore the most sweet simple testimony. While he was bearing his testimony it hit me how wonderful it was that he was here being such an incredible example for what worthy priesthood holders should be like.

After the meeting a leader came up to me and said the exact same thing that I had been thinking. It was neat to know that Ryan could be making such a good impact on all these young girls.

Trip to Fort Worth

Ryan I were able to take a fun trip to Fort Worth to go to our newest nephew's baby blessing. This is Cory and Diana's 4th child. His name is Collin Joseph Loveland. He is a sweet, calm baby. We had a really fun time playing with the kids for 4 days. This picture is a little blurry, but you get the drift.

These are their other children. Carston, 2 years old is on the left. He is full of energy and love! If I weren't so madly in love with Ryan, Carston would have stoled my heart! Then there is Collin, then Caden, 4 years old. He is a sweet, quiet boy. The oldest is Kiana who is 6 years old. She is fun and very intelligent. She reminds me a lot of her mom, Diana.

This is the Corey Loveland family!

This was the star of the show! He looks very Lovelandish!

Diana is a wonderful chef. We were fed very well while we were there. Thanks Diana!

This is Carston loving on "Baby Collin". That is what he calls Collin. He is a very good brother!

Corey is Ryan's oldest brother. Over a year ago Ryan started growing a ghotee (sp?) and slowly his brother's began to follow suit. Now both Corey and Ben are sporting them and I think they all pull it off well!

We enjoyed a run with Corey too. On our run we found a dead rattle snake...right on the streets in the sub division!! Then later that day there was a 6 foot long rat snake right infront of their house!!! We had our own version of rat snake round up and got the HUGE snake into a box and transplanted it to a field a ways away to continue to feast on any and all rats!!!

We were able to go to the Fort Worth zoo!! Zoos are always fun, but they are sooo much more fun with kids!!! Carston was a crack up the whole day! It was fun to see the zoo through his eyes. Everything was so much more fun adn exciting!

This is part of the gang. It was a fun day, but super hot and sunny!! I broke down and spent $2.50 on a drink because I was dying of thirst! We never do that, but desperate times call for desperate measures!!

:)

Another one of our adventures while we were there was going to this inflateable jumping gym place. It was a BLAST!! I love being with kids because then you have an excuse to be a kid yourself!!!! :) Carston and I were almost inserperable. That kid has stamina!! When I would get tired of one area and couldn't pull him away I would say, "Carston, where's Uncle Ryan?" Carston would stop what he was doing, start looking around then run out yelling, "Wyan? Wyan? Where Wyan?" Then we would find him and yell and scream and then go on to the next area. It was so funny!

This is Carston outside of a resturaunt we went to just enjoying life!

We just ate a HUGE meal and were trying to relax and digest!

The last day we were there we went to the pool and had a great time. This is Ryan and I and Carston. Ryan scared Cartson a little so for the rest of the day, he wouldn't let me put him down...I didn't mind though ;) I think I am in love....again!

The good old fashion kiddy pool!

Carston was trying to explain something to me...

Ryan didn't have any younger siblings so he loves to pick on my younger siblings or his neices and nephews...Ryan was hassling Kiana all day long. I remember when my uncles would do that and I remember one specific aunt who was my hero because she would save me time and time again. I tried to be that aunt for Kiana....It was pretty funny!

I am pretty sure my exact words at this time was..."Ry, you are being mean!!! Girls are always supposed to win!!!"

This is a group shot of us and Ryan's parents.

The last day we were there it was Bruce's birthday. Diana made this gormet cake! It was 6 thin layers of cake with chocolate mouse in between and then a dark fudgy icing on top!!! Oh man...it was HEAVEN!!! Happy birthday Bruce!

This was our last group shot of the trip!!! Man did we really enjoy ourselves! I can't wait to see the family again!! Love you guys!!!