Pictures with Santa

 

These were taken at our ward Christmas dinner. I think it's the real Santa!

Detroit Lake

Last weekend, we went camping in Detroit Lake, Oregon with our friends, George and Carol. The weather was perfect! But when we tried to start the boat up the first time, the battery was dead. We had to drive 25 miles to the nearest auto part store to find a replacement. It was worth it though. Everyone got to go tubing, including Elise. We also got to wakeboard. George drove the boat so Javier could go tubing. We are still recovering from the fun weekend!

Javier

  

Javier and little Elise

 

Marissa

Austin and Anthony

Grandma and Girls

I was looking through my  pictures and found this one of my mom with all her granddaughters. They all just woke up, but mom looks perfect, of course!

Shelley's 32nd Birthday

I had a nice birthday, complete with breakfast in bed consisting of chocolate and strawberry stuffed crepes and chocolate milk. I got some fun presents and Javier even surprised me with Phantom of the Opera tickets! 

 

Our Garden

Back in May, we decided we were finally going to plant a garden. We didn't really know what we were doing, so we built the box, filled it with soil and went to Home Depot and each picked a plant. We ended up with Thai Basil, Northwest Green Beans, Red Bell Pepper, Pumpkin, and Roma Tomatoes. When we came home from Texas, most of the plants had doubled or tripled in size. We have already eaten some of the green beans and they were tasty!

Our Mantel - a work in progress

Javier bought me a fireplace surround for Christmas a few years ago. It was way oversized, and he tried to figure out how to fit it on our fireplace, but just couldn't make it work. We had our neighbors over for dessert last week and Javier was telling Don about our dilemma and Don whipped out a plan and grabbed the mantel and ran to his house and started working on it. Needless to say, by the next evening, it was installed with just a little caulking and painting left to do.

Wakeboarding on the Willamette

Javier and I went wakeboarding last week with Kyle and Clara. Javier went before me and it took him about 6 tries to get up. I was the last of everyone on the boat to go and was really nervous (I'm not athletic). I got up on the first try!! I didn't stay up though. I finally got the hang of it after about 3 tries. Javier was so shocked I got up the first time,  he forgot to keep the camera rolling.  (He did get this picture though.)

After we wakeboarded, we wakesurfed. This seemed to be easier for Javier, but harder for me. You are supposed to throw the rope in the boat after you get stabilized and surf in the wake of the boat, but we never got to that point.

San Antonio, Texas

We went to San Antonio, Texas for Javier's family reunion  at the beginning of July. We stayed with Javier's brother, Rene. It was really fun!

We went to the Alamo, of course, and to this huge waterpark called Schlitterbahn.

We also hiked up a big rock called Enchanted Rock

 

(the view from the top)

and went to Sea World and the Wildlife Safari (Javier is holding nephew Jeremy as a shield while sitting in the "splash zone" of the Shamu show). 

When we weren't going somewhere, we stayed at their house and swam and BBQ'd and played WII and jumped on the trampoline. On the 4th, we stood on the front porch and watched the fireworks shows from Six Flags. It poured about every other day (not like the drizzles we get here), but it was still hot and muggy.

We brought home a bottle of Rudy's famous BBQ sauce!