Let the summer begin.......

Many people say that the summer begins on Memorial Weekend. Well in Washington we still have school for another month, however we don't want to miss out on all the summer fun, so for the last 7 years we have gone camping on Memorial Weekend. It's a great way to start the summer season. We have always gone camping in Carnation, Washington. This year we decided to change it up a bit and go camping far away from grocery stores and head to the mountains. We camped at church camp called Zarahemla. It was great for me, since this is where I am taking the YW this summer for girls camp. (I am the Stake YW camp director). Some years it has rained the whole time but this year we had great weather. Along with the great weather we had 7 other families (20+kids) to enjoy the fun with.

So why do we love to go camping..... here are a few of the reasons:

*Time together as a Family

*Pretty Scenery

*Playing in the water

(too cold to swim in, but look at the work out Zeke got rowing 5 kids around)


*The kids play and play
(below: Hunter, Alyssa, and Lydia)
*Dutch oven cooking
(below is our groups Dutch oven potluck dinner)

*A fun talent show Saturday night

Landon and Mason sang "You Give Love A Bad Name" beat boxing like Blake Lewis from American Idol

Give them microphones and an audience and they are in heaven.Magician Sali Kai
The McInelly Skit (Ballerina will be posted at a later date, it deserves its own post)

*Just hanging out

Our Happiest Camper!!!

Jacob loved camping and he was as good as ever.

We sure do love this little guy!!

*Not so fun is the long drive, however going home we went over Chinook Pass it was absolutely breathtaking.

Piano Recital

Another year of piano lessons and another recital to finish it off. This time Landon and Mason were asked to perform a duet of Yankee Doodle. They thought it would be fun to dress like George Washington, but at the last minute Landon decided the wig was getting in his way. Mason still wore the hat.

Oh what a weekend!

This past weekend was full of fun and lots of excitement!

First we had

Lydia's Birthday

She had a Strawberry Shortcake Party

A Musical Strawberry game with 5 of her friends

Pin the stem on the Strawberry Planting Strawberries
Lots of presents!

Then right after the party Grandma Evans flew in!!

Saturday we had our annual neighborhood garage sale. We got rid of some old stuff and sold over 70 cookies and 30 churros!! YUM



Sunday was Jacob's baby blessing! It was a special day for our family. We were grateful we had Grandma Evans, and Grandma and Grandpa McKinney with us.



Mother's day! Zeke bought the Claim Jumper "Mother load Cake" It is a very large cake that is sure to feed a crowd (or three moms)
But who did he really buy the cake for............
He deserved a big treat though, he had quite the Sunday,he made a great breakfast for his wife and his mom, had to conduct Sacrament meeting, bless his baby, call his wife on the spot during sacrament meeting to bear her testimony, teach sharing time, and make a fabulous Mother's day dinner (with the help of my dad, Landon and Mason). What a guy!!


Monday was Landon and Mason's end of the year piano recital. The ended up playing a duet together. (Zeke will put the video of it on a later date)
Landon

Mason

And finally due to a busy life this is the scene every night!

The Tale of Herbie!

This is the story of "Herbie" the rabbit and his days living with the Evans family.

A little less than a year ago, Grandma McKinney called me and said she wanted to give Lydia a present, but she needed to get our permission. She wanted to give Lydia a bunny. A kindergarten student had brought in some cute newborn bunnies and they were looking for a good home for them. I told her I would talk to Zeke. To my surprise, Zeke's response was "Can we get two bunnies?" Sure enough we could, so we ended up with Herbie and Sketch!

These pictures were taken a the day we brought the bunnies home last year!

The bunnies were fun to hold, were cute and I felt okay this is going to teach my boys some responsibility of taking care of something. Every kid needs a pet and bunnies are going to be easier than having a dog. Well our sympathetic hearts got the best of us and we just couldn't bare to see the bunnies locked in their cage every day, so we would let them out for the afternoon. Well sooner or later the bunnies got faster and harder to catch, they also started eating many of our plants and became very custom to the outdoors. Herbie especially started developing some bad habits of biting, and when the boys would go out in the morning to feed them Herbie would fight his way out of his hutch resulting in myself having to go out to catch him (once in my robe, towel on my head and pregnant!!!) To say the least mom and the rest of the family were getting fed up with Herbie. We didn't know what to do with him, I suggested we take him on "the drive", but Zeke didn't have the heart to do that, all he could imagine was Herbie hoping away into the woods only to be attacked by a raccoon. I tried to convince Holly, my childhood friend who now has a farm to take him, but she has already reached her animal limit. So it was suggest we take him to the auction.


My only familiarity with the auction was going with my dad to the auction on an occasional Saturday. We never bought anything there, and I am not quite sure why we ever went, but I do remember enjoying it along with my siblings (Matt especially).


We decided the auction was probably the best place to take Herbie. So Saturday was the day! We didn't care how much money we got for him, we just wanted to find him another home. It became a family affair.

The Auction is approximately 20 minutes east of Auburn. Somewhere between here and there, it becomes farm country!

Lydia thought this bull head was neat.

A country band played some country blues. We were told that whatever Herbie came in is what he goes with, so Zeke put him in a banana box. Bye, bye Herbie.

Here is the auction floor before the bidding started. All the boxes are filled with rabbits, chickens, geese, roosters, ducks, etc. Herbie was in one of them.

The bidding of over 100 animals took less then an hour. Check out how talented this lady is. She can hold two chickens in one hand.

Leading up to the actual bidding of Herbie was a little traumatic. Mason started worrying what would happen if no one would buy him. The thought of no one wanting him put tears in his eyes and he started feel bad that we were selling him.

When the bidding began we were very cautious as to not to itch our face or point, for we didn't want to accidentally buy a bunny or a chicken. When Herbie was up Lydia put her hand up, Oh no I said, we can't buy him back. Later I found out she was just waving hi to Herbie.

So there you have it 1 year, 1 bunny, 4 dollars later.

Zeke thinks for $4 we should take Sketch to the auction next week. But the kids will hear nothing of it. In fact when Lydia got home she went right out to say hi to Sketch.

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta

Here are some pictures from the party we held to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, which to me mostly means lots of tasty Mexican food.

The spread...




Got to have the margaritas (virgin of course, but you wouldn't know it by watching the crowd).

The evening started off fairly calm...



Then got a little gross with "You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends nose." I'm sparing you all the details andd only posting what was voted the best looking nose.


Tara provided the first spark with a Tina Turner impersonation.



Mat and Jared turned up the heat with their own rendition of My Little Teapot.



Then things really started to turn ugly.

And suddenly...
KAPOW!!! UNA LUCHA DE GATAS!!! MUCHA FUEGA!!

Special mention also goes to the McInelly brothers performance of "The Leap".

Jared has now made it a tradition to show this off at all group outings.



While Jared's performance is always a favorite, Mat really out did him. It's too bad we only got the last part on film because this was a real gem for the highlight reel.



You can see all the pics at Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Pics.

All Girl!!

What do you get when you have one girl and three boys?

Lydia, who is all girl!!

While I was in the hospital having Jacob, Grandma McKinney took Lydia to the fabric store and together they picked out material and a pattern for a summer dress. Lydia knew exactly what she wanted and had a great time picking it out. Grandma said she was by far the best kid she has ever taken to the fabric store. (I remember those long visits to the fabric store when I was a kid, I probably wasn't always that easy to take).

Above: Here is Lydia modeling her dress that Grandma made her and Lydia designed.

Thanks Grandma for the dress!!

Over this last weekend Lydia discovered French Braides (or should I say I can finally do them, without it looking too bad). I told her when I was a little girl this is how I wore my hair, especially when my Grammie McKinney would come to visit. She now wants them everyday.