6 Wonderful Years

It's pretty hard to remember what it was like not to be married now...and it's only been six years! Six WONDERFUL years, I might add. :)

Three children, 7 moves, 3 colleges, and a TRUCK LOAD of memories later, we're still pluggin' along and loving life together.

Thanks for asking me to marry you, Brandon. I wouldn't want to go through all the ups and downs of mortality with anyone else!

LOVE YOU!

Social Smiles

Gavin is 8 weeks old today, just 5 days shy of his 2 months mark and giving smiles ALL THE TIME!

I love it!

I can't get enough of those! (Hence, the 5 pics of one little man's smile!)

Gavin's Blessing

Gavin received his Baby blessing from his dad on the 4th of July. I have been meaning to post these pictures from that day after church, but am just now getting around to it...

Brandon gave him a beautiful blessing. It's always a little mind boggling to think about ALL that these little ones have ahead of them. (I'm not gonna lie, it makes me REALLY nervous too...we only have so much control over their decisions and what control we have in the beginning doesn't last for very long.)

Babies crack me up. They tend to make a lot of funny faces and do the "flexed fingers thang". I promise his tie is NOT that big in proportion to his head...the picture was just taken at an unflattering angle...woops! He looked darn cute though, if I do say so myself! :)

Multnomah Falls

So, with the 4th of July on a Sunday this year, we decided to do a family outting on Saturday, the 3rd. So, we FINALLY visited ...

and did a little hiking up to this...

Initially, we had said, "Let's just take the kids to the bridge. That's probably far enough." That was only a 1/4 mile though, and seriously, that's a bit pitiful in my opinion, to drive an hour just to take a 10 minute walk to a bridge. So, we decided we would attempt the hike to the top... It's only a mile, but it's switch-backs all the way and pretty darn steep.

Here we are in front of the lower falls.

A little bit of the scenery...the big falls through the trees from the trail.

So, about half way there, Jemma started getting pretty tired, so Brandon, (the NICEST dad in the world) agreed to carry her...along with Carter whom he was already toting.

Another shot from the trail...the Columbia River...GORGEOUS!

Carter, on one of the MANY breaks we took on our way to the top. (Since he needed it so badly...riding in Dad's arms is SO much work.)

I'm a bit sad to say that Carter, Gavin and I did not make it to the top...about 3/4 of the way up, I was so exhausted from carrying Gavin, that I decided to turn back with the two boys. Jemma REALLY wanted to get to the top though, so Brandon went with her...actually, he carried her...and this is what he looked like when he got to the top.

I would have made her walk...he is so nice!

Jemma at the top.

BEAUTIFUL!

It was nice to spend time as a family and get out and see some of the unbelievably gorgeous landscapes here in Oregon.