Summertime!!!... and the living is easy!

SHAWN and BRETT NELSON!

Kevin's youngest brother, Shawn Nelson, got married to Brett Baldry on July 3, 2009. We walked into the temple with a completely overcast sky, and walked out to find hardly a cloud to be seen. It ended up being a perfect day, and their outside reception later on was out of a fairytale. They make such a great couple! We are so excited to have Brett as part of our family now.

Kevin and I decided to take a "Family Photo" as we waited outside the temple for them to come out. What a good-looking husband I have!

This was a cute picture of Jeff and Angie's kids as we waited for Shawn and Brett to come out of the temple.
(left to right: Tycee, Noah, Autumn, Jade, Austin, and Gunner).

We tried to get one of all of the Nelson girls in their cute yellow too-toos before the couple arrived. As we tried to arrange them on the step, we began to realize how impossible it was going to be to get a shot with all of the kids in it. Kudos to the photographer for her patience and any magic she was able to make happen in her picture taking over the next half an hour.

Shawn and Brett looked like the happiest couple in the world as they walked out of the Cardston Temple together as husband and wife.

And the chaos begins...

... and continues for about 15 minutes.

Here is Brett with all of her neices and nephews in front of the temple. How adorable!

I took some photos of Cindy, Josh and the kids outside the temple after we finished all the big family photos. We couldn't get Orin to smile after he was moved to sit by his mom, as he wanted to be sitting by his dad. It is still a great picture though.

Claire - Got to love those too-toos.

SMITH FAMILY REUNION 2009

July 4-7 was our Smith Family Reunion at the Mountain View Inn. We started off the weekend at the Waterton Reservoir for some boating and sun tanning. We went to church in Waterton on Sunday, and had our big "Smith's got Talent" show that night, where dad, once again, had us rolling with his "Simon Cowell" comments that he came up with. The "Bennett Family", or at least those of us that were there, did a "Kazoo Concerto". There are a few pictures of the other talents below. Monday we went to Waterton to hike Bear's hump (only me, mom, dad, and my cousin, Lindsay Tollman, opted out and went to meet them all a bit later for lunch). All of the hikers (including Grandma and Grandpa Smith, who weren't going to hike it, but then did, which made me feel pretty guily for not going - if they can do it, I could have done it easily) ended up getting drenched in a crazy downpoor that ended up convincing us to head back to Mountain View to play games at the cabin. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and catch up, especially with the cousins who don't live close, like Lana, Lindsay, and Colin and Camie and kids.

Danielle and Nicolle's oldest daughter, Kylie, started off the talent show with a song about a bug. She is way too cute!

The "Smith Brothers" did a rendition of "Hey Jude", which totally blew me away. I don't know Brad, Colten and Austin as much as many of my other cousins because of the longer distance away that they live, and I had never heard about how talented they were at singing (not to mention the other instruments they play!!). It definitely helped me to get to know their personalities a lot better to have them come up for the reunion. I'm so glad we have the reunions often so I can get to know all of my cousins as we get older.

Ashlyn got the Smith's got Talent award for "The Most Musically Gifted". She did a wonderful job playing her violin for us all! That is one instrument I have always wanted to learn.

hm.... this one needs some explaining. All of the "Smith" sisters decided to do a number in remembrance of Michael Jackson, who died last week. This is their interpretation of "Thriller". I wish I could have recorded it on video.

Grandma and Grandpa were last up on our Sunday night activity, and we were all brought almost to tears as they told us how much they love us and how the gospel has blessed their lives. I love them so much. They are such good examples for everyone in our family to follow.

My cousin Taylor was brave enough to be the "middle man" in this classic game where you toss the person in the middle around the circle while they stay as straight as they can. Lighter people like Taylor get moving very fast around the circle, and it is fun to watch them bounce back and forth.

Uncle Aaron taught us how to play a balance game (no idea on the name) where you try to make the opponent move their feet from a planted position, with only your hands allowed to touch while trying to push the other person over. It was very funny to watch.

SURVIVOR YW's CAMP 2009

I was able to go to YW's camp this year, and had an incredible time with all of the amazing girls in our Stirling 1st Ward. Our camp theme, "Survivor", seemed to get the girls excited as we organized them into tribes. Sister Sager, our camp specialist, did an amazing job planning great challenges, activities, crafts, the hike, and most especially, food for us to enjoy at the camp. I was lucky enough to sleep in the cabin, and avoided the bit of rain and cow mooing that affected the girls outside. I guess being 8 mo. pregnant gives me special treatment joys like that though. The cabin belongs to Ty Stef's family, and was perfect for our little camp. It is so beautiful to be camping at the foot of Chief Mountain! Even with the cloudy weather, we had very little to complain about for the four days of camp.

Day 1 - making the tribal flags

Tribe 1 - "Heaven's Angels"

Tribe 2 - "The Red Apples"

Challenge number 1 - blue and red glass plates...

...and then some slingshots and stones.
It took a while to hit them all, and we only had one casualty... Somehow one of the rocks ended up going completely sideways and hit one of our tiny beehives in the head. Good thing that not all the rocks went too fast or hard. She was left with a little goose egg, but nothing worse then that. I tried not to laugh at the fact that the girls were unable to hit the plates with any accuracy, but the one time a girl got anywhere even remotely unsafe, they hit her right in the head.
Poor Natasha.

Challenge number 2 - Tribal pictionary...

The tie breaker was "Sister Sager", our camp director. We had a good laugh at the resulting pictures.

Nothing like a pedicure and manicure on the last day of camp!

Katie and Lexus, two of my miamaids, at our camp awards ceremony. I think Katie got the "Happy Camper" award.

The girls, all still looking beautiful after a four day YW camp.

Finally, a last shot with all of the leaders.

Unless the boat sinks...

Summer is finally here, and so that means that it is time to bring the boat out to the lake, and start having fun! Monday afternoon most of the family took off to the Raymond Ridge Reservoir for some tubing, wakeboarding, and good fun (it was too windy to ski). Angie, Jeff, their kids and I were the first to get there with the boat, and took it out on the lake to make sure everything was working properly after the winter in storage. Fifteen minutes into our trip, we opened up the storage hatch to get the wakeboard out, only to find that the hatch was 90% full of water! We were slowly sinking! Even with the water pumps on the water level didn't change much in the boat, so we had to bring it back to the dock and lift it out of the water to see what the matter was. Turns out that Kevin dewinterized the boat, and couldn't remember if he'd taken four or five plugs out, and put back roughly four or five when finishing the job... apparently there were five, and he only returned four. At least there was a quick fix for the problem, and we were able to take the boat out again for the rest of the afternoon. After all the kids had finished their fun tubing, Chad, Kevin, Austin and Hunter decided to try to go wakeboarding!!! Here are some pictures of the action.

Hunter and Austin watch as chad shows off his stuff!

Kevin's hair-do is looking particularly nice in this picture... his hair-gel had washed out, and it was looking especially froofy from the wind in the boat.

Austin finally got out of the wake soon after this.

This was Hunter's first time wakeboarding, and he did an excellent job!

Although he didn't make it up on the water this time, it is clear that he will have it before going home

Here is Kevin, cutting hard to the left for a big jump.

...The jump... He would have landed it fine, but he let go of the rope, and so ended up getting wet.

Here is Gunner, trying to share his marshmellow with me on the beach.