Whidden-ville

 Here are some high lights from our family reunion.

 Marshmallow guns

 Ultimate battle of the marshmallow guns

 People ganging up on Papa!

 Gangsta'.....well as gangster as you can get being a Whidden

 Chilling on the balcony, it was an amazing view from the "gathering place" the 4 bedroom condo.

 Very few pics are taken of the photographers:) (although I rarely had my camera with me, I hijacked every body else's pictures)

 My boys have the funnest uncles, non stop entertainment......I am sure they needed a vacay after the family reunion.

 Celebrating a few birthdays that week.

 Cooper's smile kills me, it is so Lloyd!

 This little girls smile was the highlight of our family pics, Airlyn had the funniest pirate look. I love it!!

 Girl cousins....

 Renne with her Auntie:)

  We thankfully never lost anyone.....

 Buffet Utah Style, bring in 30+ people.

10 Years ago man time flies, so glad we have had nothing of that sort in the last 10 years. (Graphic photos)
2013 back to school special is in the works, excited to share with the kids, the things I have been working on.

I'm alive!!

I survived July..... barely!!
 It started out really rough. Most of you know I was sick and I can now look back and see it as a very humbling experience. I had a procedure done at the beginning of June which my opinion is that is was started it all. They put me on some medicine that didn't agree with my system and things got progressively worse. 2 ER visits, insta-care visit and a few doctor office visits later, and 5 days without eating because I was so sick, I made it into the GI doctor and they helped me in a very simple way. I take some medicine to help my stomach. I still occasionally get nauseous but nothing like before. I am going to finish the medicine and go off of it for a bit (it is supposed to heal my stomach, and if I start getting sick again, I will need to take a different but similar medicine)

I may not be in the perfect body, but I am so grateful to be feeling better, I would take this healthy body (according to every test they did all is well with-in my insides, lab work and ultrasounds) anyday compared to the way I felt before. Sure you may loose a few pounds while your sick, but I lost a lot of ground in the mean time, I was doing really well with my work out routine and was getting stronger everyday. My point is I am so grateful for my life, the imperfect body that I have, I will always to improve that will never stop. Ben was amazing trying to help me, he helped me in more ways than one, but one afternoon stands out. I am not really a crier, but one afternoon I was so sad, I just wanted to be normal again and he knelt down laid down beside me and just hugged me, I will never forget that.

We had the Whidden family reunion the week of July 24th. It was SO great to see everyone, it always is good to be reminded of how amazing Ben's family is and thank them for the huge sacrifice it is to travel so far. Our week included a trip to Temple square, a tour of the conference center, a few trips to Seven Peaks, some fishing for the boys on the boat, hanging out at the resort in Park City, some outlet shopping and mostly just enjoying each other's company, trying to cool the hot tub down, riding the gondola, putting the kids to bed, playing games and laughing so hard it hurts!!

We are so lucky to be able to get our family pictures done while everyone was in town, here are some of the results. THANK YOU Jeni!! love you!!

I love this one, but we were teasing Ben that I was photo bombing he handsome head shot:)

Alivia 10, she was in cousin heaven, she barely wanted to be with her own family........wait she barely was with her own family.

Cooper, my sweet boy. He has had a hard summer hasn't wanted to swim much and when he saw how tan his brothers were and people commenting about it, he decided he should start swimming again:)

Bauer, so easy going and still missing his two front teeth, it is starting to worry me a little bit. It has been a few months and they are not even poking through. We go to the dentist this week so I guess we will find out whats going on.

Kessler, getting bigger everyday, I think the days of snuggling with mom might be fewer and far between. He just wants to be with the big kids, he can ride his bike now with out training wheels and that is where you will find him.

Happy Pioneer day, I love this "Utah" holiday!!

I hardly have any family reunion pictures, I have been in a camera slump lately but hopefully will hijack some of my sister in laws pics:)

The newest Whidden Renne, she is such a sweet happy baby and we had a blast hanging out with her (Alivia was in LOVE!)

I just got back from girls camp yesterday and don't have the time to blog about that right now, hopefully it will be sooner than later.

Upcoming for the Whidden's
Andrea is back to work.... a 2 day trip to Calgary with my sister from another mister!
Andrea has jury duty.....lame!!
Ben shaved his goatee:) I liked it, but the clean shaven look is good too!!
Andrea has to speak in church, yikes!!
Ben is mid re-model and it has been stressful to say the least, lots of longs days!
Andrea finished the Book of Mormon before girls camp!! Boo-ya!
The kids start school in 17 days.....crazy!
Kessler the kindergartner!
Mayfield Family reunion the weekend before school starts (haven't seen them in 10+ years)
Getting back to normal but still on girls camp schedule...up at the crack of dawn:)

June is almost over....what?

Alright, summer needs to slow down just a tad.

Some highlights with verdicts

Cooper Scout Day Camp.....loved it
Pool is up and it is hot...........love it
Cooper and his first piano lesson.......likes it one day, doesn't like it the next day
Andrea obsessed with the George Zimmerman trial....Love it
Ben being told once again he looks like Anderson Cooper...love it
Ben's colonoscopy.....Andrea loved it, Ben hated it......all clear!!
7 years of waiting=wood chips in the back yard.....love it
Seven Peaks......love it
Ben's store remodel started......don't love it
Andrea going off dairy for 2 weeks......don't love it
Kids staying up until 11pm or even midnight.....don't love it
July is going to fly just as fast as June with the line up we got coming......love the line up
Can barely cool my house down when it is 100 degrees outside.......HATE IT!
Andrea having two really bad flights in a row, with being sick......Hate it!

I am not sure what is going on, I know that I got really sick at Youth Conference and felt like I had really low blood sugar that made me feel like I was going to pass out. I have been fine for the last few weeks and then got really sick on the airplane Monday night. Even to the point they turned the airplane around brought it back to the gate, unloaded the passengers, I went to the instacare and they got a new flight attendant. Then the same thing happen this morning, I was boarding and my body starts to tingle and I can tell that it is starting....I made the flight home luckily, but had the same feeling like I was going to pass out because of really low blood sugar?? Had some more tests done today, waiting for the results and we'll go from there.

Coming up in July
Fire Works!!
Trip to Yuba (My mom's side, family reunion)
Trip to Park City (Whidden Reunion)
Girls Camp....boo ya

And to fit in all of the SkyWest  work and the work at home....should be interesting

Flaming Gorge

We had a great time at our new favorite family vacation spot. We loved it so much last year and our second trip last year got cut so short. We decided to go back for fathers day and decided that will be our new fathers day tradition to travel to Flaming Gorge.

The trip started out a little crazy we had truck problems again and I spent some quality time in Parleys canyon waiting for someone to come and get me. I made it up a little later in the day than Ben and the kids.

Our first full day the fishing started out slow but is was so nice and beautiful and the kids had a blast chasing lizards, finally catching fish and just being carefree.

There were so many moments that I didn't catch with my camera but so thankful those memories are burned into my memory. There was one moment when all of us were walking back from the lake the sun was almost completely behind the mountain and so everyone was just a silhouette. I felt so blessed in that tiny moment.

My mom and sister came up for a day and brought the boat and so the next day we spent the entire day on the lake. Went to our favorite boat in camp ground and looked around, had lunch on the boat and spent a lot of time fishing.

The kids always make friends when we travel this time is was with some older folks and their dogs. They also did really well together until about the last day then all the crazy arguing and complaining started. It became somewhat comical because they were just exhausted and ready to go home.

Life is happening full speed and is not slowing down at all. I was staring at Alivia a few times and was taken back at how big she is getting. She is getting so tall and more mature.  

Cooper is having some stomach problems and Bauer loves camping more than anyone and he doesn't bat an eyelash when Ben wakes him up at 5:30am to go fishing. Kessler on the other hand sleeps until 10 am and loves taking the dog for a walk around camp  

So far pretty fun summer, lots still left to do. So glad we can spend some time together and enjoy being outside, which reminds me the pool is up and the kids and all their friends are having a blast. So glad they have cute friends to play with and they all have a good time in the pool.

Today is a recovery day in more than one way. Getting caught up on laundry and cleaning up our camping mess. I also had a exploratory "procedure" done today for some female problems I have been having. 

Everything went well they put me under and that is the hardest part trying to snap out of the fog I feel I am in.  Feels good just relaxing but it also stinks knowing the mountain of things I need to get done.

I took this picture because Ben is one of the very few people I know who can wear a pair of shorts under his pants. Seriously if I tried to put on a pair of shorts under my pants, I couldn't' zip my pants up:)

Creddie found his spot by the fire

Ben is so patient with the kids, all the kids need their rods, reels and lines baited and tackled he moves from one to another, and then will turn around and say what next. He rarely fishes himself (until we get on the boat) He loves to watch the kids get excited and gets excited right along with them. They are many great dad's out there, but he is right at the top with those other great dad's. I don't think there are many other things that make him as happy as being with his kids. He is an amazing person!

We were talking about grey hair and I commented it is more white now, he didn't believe me so I snapped a photo to prove it:) He really wasn't a fan of this photo...ha ha

We took an afternoon and drove into Green River, Wyoming. I don't know if I have every been there, but it was fun to walk and let the kids play along the river. There was also this really great splash pad and playground (that was free) the kids had a blast in!

If you would have told me Cooper would catch a fish with a lure, I wouldn't have believed it. He was standing on the shore one afternoon and told Ben he wanted to practice casting and only had a weight on the end of his line. Ben said Cooper if you are going to keep doing that put a lure on the end of your line and maybe 10 or so casts later he said, I think I have a snag and we all soon realized it was a fish!! It was so awesome to watch him do that.