Pics

Dear Aubrey mailed me my camera (thanks!), so here's some pics from our fun trip to Boise.

More pics and reunion plans

We are getting SO excited for the reunions we are hosting this year - especially the Baker one. Brian's brother Kevin bailed, so the Llewellyn reunion will be small - Delona's family, Brian's parents, and Karie (Brian's sister). It will still be fun, but I think seeing all 10 Baker grandkids together is going to be the highlight of our summer. Here's the plan for it so far:

• Tuesday night - Suzie and Jeff are coming into town.
• Thursday afternoon - reunion officially starts.
• Thursday night - pictues, dinner, playing and s'mores (there's a firepit) at the park by our house. For the picture, bring shirts with the colors that have been popular lately (brown, light blue, green, pink, and/or white - I've got lots of little boys shirts if Suzie or Steph don't know what to bring). We'll just do jeans - either shorts or pants.
• Friday - cave tour (if we want) and Bear Lake! ( I figured we could do sandcastles and lunch first, and then I've tentatively reserved a kayak, 2 paddleboats and 2 waverunners from 1 -3, and a boat and water trampoline from 3 - 5. I decided to go with waverunners AND a boat - it was the same price as doing waverunners for the full 4 hours, plus they won't let us pull a tube behind a waverunner. The rental place is right inside the hotel we've reserved, and all the equipment is already in the water, so we won't have to waste any time returning and getting stuff.) There's a famous shake and burger joint close by, so we'll take the easy way out for dinner. After we play and eat, the hotel has a hot tub and pool if anyone wants to warm up or hang out before going back to Logan. Aubrey's family is staying at the hotel that night, and any babies who need to nap during the day can use the room.)
• Saturday - 4 wheelers (dad's) and motorcycles (ours) for those who want to take a ride. We can either do this up the canyon, or just up the road from our house. We can do whatever else we want during the day (movie, water park, bowling, fishing or just hang out). In the evening, we will have a family game night (board games, pool, foosball, etc). The grandparents might come up this night. If anyone is ambitious enough to make a slideshow from our blog pictures throughout the year, this would be a good time to show it).
• Sunday - church at 11, and that's about it...

A note about accomodations: We have 3 rooms in the basement, 2 with real queen beds (mattresses are good but firm), and one with a blow-up. Upstairs, we have 1 or 2 empty rooms (the boys can sleep with us if someone wants their room). The boys' room has 3 twin beds (bad mattresses). The other room has a computer, crib, and blow-up. Some rooms are quieter than others, so let me know if this is the most important thing to you. I'll have 1 crib and 3 playpens, so we should have the babies covered. I have enough pillows so each of you can have 1 - if you want more than 1, please bring it. We have plenty of towels. You are welcome to stay in a hotel if you want your own space, just let me know what your plans are.

If you have any food suggestions, I would LOVE to hear them. I'm thinking EASY, since we don't have a ton of time to spend cooking and cleaning. Love you all and look forward to seeing you!

Building blocks and dancing

Hi All,

We've been doing well here in Boise. We've been building a lot with blocks lately, making very tall castles. The trick is to finish it before Grace knocks it down. BethAnne and Grace also love to dance to music in the empty space by our entryway. It's very fun to watch them. We also have dance 'recitals' at Mom and Dad's house while Mom plays the piano. I love watching them, they're so fun! I have been enjoying motherhood a lot lately, the kids are so sweet! Grace has settled down (except for sleeping at night) but in the day she's a joy. BethAnne has been happy (usually) and healthy lately. She is having minor surgery tomorrow to take care of some scar tissue on her tummy, but it should be quick and easy.
I've recovered well from my surgery and I've lost 20 pounds so far. I already have more energy and more optimism about life. Mark is interviewing with Microsoft in Boise and he may interview with Microsoft in Redmond, WA (by Seattle). It would be nice if he could work for a more stable company doing real software engineering. Microsoft also has excellent health benefits, so that would be really good for us. We'll keep you posted. So, Mark has been busy interviewing and he is an assistant scout leader in the ward. I've been called as a teacher in the Relief Society. I get pretty nervous, but I know it will get easier over time. Mom has been really helpful, giving me lots of teaching tips and ideas as I prepare my lessons. We're really looking forward to the reunion in August and the Bousquet's visit afterwards. It will be great to see you all. We love you!
Love,
Aubrey

Hi everyone

Hi! I forgot my camera at Aubrey's, so I don't have any cute pictures of our fun time at Grandma and Grandpa's last week, but at least I can write about it. Cameron asks every morning if we can go back. He had a great birthday. Grandma logged 3 or 4 trips to the park, and Grandpa played board games with Brian and Tyler for way longer than any human being should be required to. It was great to see everyone together. Aubrey's pool was perfect, too. What a nice subdivision she lives in!!

Things are peaceful at the Llewellyn's. I couldn't be happier with my boys - they have been so good the last few days. I'm proud of my husband, too. He got a better raise than we expected at his review last week. He wore a suit to work a few weeks ago because he had to give blessings at the hospital, and rumors started swirling that he was interviewing for another job. His boss got nervous, so Brian didn't even have to negotiate a raise this year.

Adam ate something weird and decided to throw up from 5am to 9 this morning, but besides that we're doing great.(he's feeling fine now - playing fetch with Tyler while I sit on the porch in the beautiful summer breeze. Thank you, Aubrey, for your laptop!) I'm cooking peach ding-ding right now (does that take you back or what?). We got a new bed for our basement (actually, we got a sleep number bed for our room to see if it would help Brian's back), and we put our old bed in the room beneath the boys room at the corner of the house. It is perfectly quiet, and I hid there and took a nap this afternoon. I might not be able to sleep tonight, but it was worth it.

Cameron and Tyler are fascinated with bugs and catching them in their dollar store bug catcher (we spend $150 on a basketball hoop, and all they want to do is trap spiders and caterpillers - yuck!) Well anyway, the oven is beeping so I'd better get going!

Love,
Lisa

Bathtime at Grandma's

Here are some of my sweet ones enjoying bathtime at Grandma's! We so love having BethAnne and Grace close - This was a Saturday night when we had fun in the backyard and needed to wash off the sand. The girls think Grandma's tub is a nifty swimming pool!

And here are those smiley Llewellyn boys! We had such FUN this last weekend - playing baseball, tennis, flying kites in the park, and swimming at Aunt Aubrey's pool. And of course the BEST part was that Cameron turned 3 on Saturday. Lisa made a Curious George balloon cake - the cupcakes were the balloons! - and I woke up to Cameron saying "I'm 3 today!" Can't wait for the rip-roaring reunion - how wonderful it will be to see all my Baker Bunch!

Bo's growing so fast I thought I'd post some of the latest pictures of him. He's such a happy baby I can't wait for you all to meet him. We are all doing good here in AZ. Our ward was split last Sunday (actually divided into 3 parts). Our area will be added with members from anothet ward. The split was expected and much needed! We are headed next week to Seattle/Oregon. I am unpacking our winter clothes to take with us. It will be a nice change to have clouds and some cooler weather. We hope all of you are doing well. We can't wait to see eveyone in August!

Hastings' Happenings

Hi Family! Again, I've been waiting for anything exciting to happen before I post, but Carl hinted that I've waited too long. :) Things are going pretty well here in Omaha. My work is off and on busy and slow, but mostly slow despite my efforts to get work from people. As exciting as it sounds, being a secretary at a hospital is not all it's cracked up to be--or at least working in the pharamacy department. Consequently, I've become a crossword guru, though I'll never come close to rivaling Dad. Jon is enjoying his job and is highly valued in the company for his skills and talents--not just for being the "boss's son." He's already been on two business trips and has one planned to Mississippi next week to check out some of their properties. The ward has been making good use of us, and it's nice to finally feel needed. I'm the Relief Society pianist and Jon is a ward missionary. We were asked to give a fireside to the youth a few weeks ago about making good choices in your teens that affect your life later on. Since then, we've been asked to go to youth conference in a couple of weeks and be counselors. Sometimes I kinda wish we were invisible like we were last summer in Indiana, but we're happy to be able to serve. We're excited to be coming up on our second anniversary in a few weeks and my sweet husband is planning a weekend getaway to Kansas City. Rick, any sites we should check out? I can't believe we've already been here for more than a month--I wish the summer months wouldn't fly by like they do! I'm glad to hear than Aubrey and Dad are recovering so well and am so happy for them. Hopefully the next time we see each other we'll all be a little slimmer! Jon and I have gym passes here and I've been going quite regularly with a sweet 15-year-old exercise guru from the ward. I'm hoping to shed some pounds and am even forsaking chocolate for the cause, so we'll see! I'm trying to follow what's called the "Best Life" Diet and it seems pretty cool so far. Well, I think that's about it for us. We're happy to be where we are and are so grateful for the Hastings' hospitality and love this summer. Hope you all are happy and healthy! Much love!

Rogers Family Update!

The weather has been in the low 70's today, it's gorgeous! You should all move back to Boise immediately! The kids love to swing outside, it will be nice when Grace can swing herself. Things here are going pretty well. I've been healing well, but it's been hard to be on a liquid diet for so long, I never did like soup :) I get to move to soft foods on Thursday and I am very excited. Mark is busy as always, but he seems happy. Micron is changing our health benefits so we're nervous about that, but we have faith that everything will be okay. We are trying to plan a trip to Cincinnati soon because BethAnne needs some minor surgery to take care of some scar tissue around her cecostomy button (a port on her tummy that we do the clean-outs through). Hopefully they will also be able to replace her current button with a more discreet, flat one at the same time. We would like to go in June while we still have our current health benefits, but they may not be able to schedule us with such short notice. Sometimes I wish we could move to Cincinnati to make situations like this a little easier. I'm sure things will work out one way or another, I know the Lord is mindful of us. I hope you all have a great week. I'm so looking forward to seeing you all in August.
Love, Aubrey

110

That's right. Two weeks ago on Monday it was 110 outside. It was crazy hot. But at least it's a dry heat. Two days in a row we had record breaking heat. Two days later we got a cold front and the temperature got down to 55. It was really weird. this past week was good for us. Nothing too eventful. These two pictures are from about a month ago when Steph went to the zoo with the boys.