Island Water Park

For the last several years my mom has took our family and my brothers family to the waterslides.  Today we went to the Island Water Park in Fresno, my aunt Cheryl and cousins Valencia and Joey came too.  We got there before the park opened, which was a good thing, because that allowed us to get on several waterslides before the crowds came.  By noon it was so crowded, the lines were long, and it was hot.  We have been going to this park for several years and this is the fullest we have seen the park.

Unfortunately, I chose to not a pack a camera around the water park.  I did not want to take the chance of getting it wet.  We did get this picture of John, which was taken for a joke.  A guy we know, told him he wanted to see a picture of him in his Speedo on a waterslide.  John's swim suit was made by Speedo, and so we decided to take a picture of him on this kiddie slide and send it to the guy.  Although, John does look pretty scared on this thing!  He was dry, and the water coming out of the whale was cold, so he wanted me to hurry up.

Stanislaus County Fair

Every year for the past few years the girls have entered items to show in the fair.  It gives them a little something to do in the summer time, and it also gives them a free ticket into the fair.  This year Mikayla entered 3 items, and Ashlee entered a couple drawings she did in Art class at school.  We decided to not do any cakes this year.  Which probably was a blessing in disguise, the items had to be to the fair the week after we moved, and there would not have been any time to decorate plus with the warm temps we have been having, the cakes probably would have been one big pile of mush.  The girls got 1st and 2nd place on everything they entered.  Ashlee received a Best of Show as well.

Mikayla's painting.  2nd place.

Mikayla's Canvas drawing 2nd place.

Mikayla's birdhouse 1st Place.

Ashlee's Watercolor Tree Painting.  2nd Place.

Ashlee's Marker Twister Drawing Best of Show, 1st Place.

 The funnest part of the fair this year was the science exhibit.  The girls enjoyed the large bubble pot.  They tried to put bubbles around each other.

Mikayla putting Ashlee in a bubble.

John putting Ashlee in a bubble.

Ashlee putting a bubble on Mikayla.

Mikayla has had a huge fascination with horses ever since she broke her foot in March.  She wanted to see the horses at the fair.

Sunset Beach

Our ward had planned a beach trip for the youth (ages 12-18) to attend.  Our ward has very few youth to begin with, and to top it off most of the youth were out of town for the beach trip.  Since there were very few youth attending, the Bishop told the leaders of the youth that they could bring their families too.  Ashlee tried to invite a friend to the beach trip, but everyone she asked had plans.  So we went as a family with her to the beach.

When we arrived at Sunset Beach it was 56 degrees.  The sun did not come out until we left and it was cloudy the entire time we were there.  The kids played in the ocean, hunted for sea shells and sand dollars, we played beach volley ball, and our bishop made teryiaki chicken in a dutch oven for lunch (very yummy).  I think this was the first time I have ever ate something cooked in a dutch oven.

 The beach was very crowded.  This was only our second time to this beach and we were lucky we got a parking spot (we ended up standing in parking spaces to reserve them for our Bishop and another family in our ward).

Ashlee playing in the sand with Paisley and Berry.

Miakyla getting her feet wet.

Our young women and their friends.  Ashlee and Mikayla are on the right.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Noah, Dylan, Hailee, Ashlee, Alyssa, Ashlee Stiles, Kaylee, Mikayla, Allison, Landon

Landon and Ashlee

Dylan and Hailee

Every year the girls are allowed to participate in a reading program through their school. They have to read for 6 hours, fill out a form, and in return they receive a free admission ticket to be used at a Six Flags Theme Park.  This year the girls and I went with some of our friends from school, and I also took my brothers three kids with us.  The park was crowded, probably one of the most crowded times we have been there.  But we were still able to ride just about everything before heading home.  Everyone had fun and enjoyed it.
 A couple hours before we were going to head home Landon's stomach started to bother him.  After giving him some ice water and having him lay down, the stomach ache persisted, so I decided that we should head home. I did not want to be in bay area traffic, by myself with 5 kids (one sick), and driving home in the dark.  As soon as we made it out of the parking lot of the park, he started throwing up, luckily I had garbage bags in my car.  I pulled off into a parking lot and some man starts yelling at me, telling me that I better get out of  there, or he is going to lock the gate on me, and I will not get out of there.  I tried to tell the man that I had a sick child in the car, and I would leave in a couple of minutes.  The man kept yelling at me, so we just left and went to another parking lot.  Thankfully, Landon only had a couple of episodes in the car, fell asleep and was fine the rest of the way home.  I think he may have got an upset stomach on a spinning ride!

Dylan, Landon, Hailee, Ashlee and Mikayla

Ashlee, Ashlee Stiles. Kaylee, Noah, Allison, Mikayla,  Hailee, Landon, Dylan, Alyssa.

9th Move Success!

Well, the month of June has been one fast paced blurr.  I am glad it is over with and everything has fell into place(we had some very stressful decisions to make, but everything is working out).  We officially moved for the 9th time in the 16 years we have been married in June.  Thanks to some very helpful friends and family the move was quick, easy, and successful!  We were all moved in about 24 hours from start to finish.  We just had to hang stuff on the walls and we were done.  By the end of the week, the house looked like we had lived there for months.  Our neighborhood seems to be nice and quiet (which is a great thing) and we are now only  5-7 minutes away from church, shopping etc, instead of 20 min.  Which is really nice, especially when kids have to be to church activities, etc.  I can drop them off and go home.  I don't have to spend hours in town waiting for them to finish, because it's too far to go home and come back!
John started his new job on July 1st.  Things are going ok.  He is a bit overwhelmed by information right now.  He has 4 weeks of training to complete, before he begins working in his department.  Each day is a learning experience, but he seems to be enjoying it and will feel better when he is more familiarized with everything.  So far the company and the people seem to be really good.

Swimming

We have been experiencing a heat wave.  Temps over a 100 pushing 110-112 degrees for a week.  There are a couple high schools here in town that have pools, and they open them up for a few hours a day for the community to use for a dollar a person.  So I took the girls and my brothers kids to the pool for a couple hours to cool off.  I did not swim, and I thought I was going to die!  It was soooo hot.  Next time I decide to do this, I think I will swim too!  I did not think I was going to convince them to get out of the pool so I could take them home because it was so hot.  But they ended up getting out on their own and asking if we could leave.

Ashlee's First Year of YW Camp

Ashlee got to attend girls (YW) Camp for the first time this year.  She went to Clarks Fort (Camp Liahona) in Dardanelle California up past Pinecrest.  I drove Ashlee and the other 4 girls from our ward up to camp (our ward has a really small group of YW right now).

Just finished getting her health check.

Ashlee and some YCL's helping her pack her luggage to her A- Frame aka "box".

Has her bed laid out for the week.

The outside of the A-Frame (yes it's only a tarp).  Talk about free range for the critters.  And they are sleeping on the floor too.  Ashlee, Alyssa, and Hailee (Hailee is a non-member from school attending camp for the first time, unfortunately she got sick on the third day and had to go home).

Ashlee returned home from camp on Saturday.  Not so sure if she wants to do it again.  She said it was cold(so cold, that she slept in two sleeping bags, with two blankets, with pjs, socks, sweatshirt and a beanie on and she was still cold), dirty, the bathrooms and showers are gross, and she had a room mate that was a huge disturbance.  On the other hand, she loved the craft shack.  She brought a duffel bag home full of crafts she made!  We will have to wait and see what happens next year.  We told her now she knows what to expect, and how to be better prepared next year!