Summer of 2011 - Round 3

Does Luke zooming by in this picture- and thus slightly out of focus- make your head spin?! Well good because now you understand my feelings about our summer. I really focused on PLAYING with my kids this summer! Oh we did chores as well. Everyday was supposed to be a new chore (like totally cleaning out the book shelf and other big projects). We did crafts and swam and and read and went on adventures (Explora, community garden, watering the plants at that house with the scary dogs that jump on you). We watched very little TV -hooray!- and it just zoomed by.
Our little 4th of July firecracker! Spent the evening with dear friends.
We really played hard all summer...
and had friends over...
and I mentioned special projects... like let's try to use every single piece of the train set...
and it just zoomed by I tell you- ZOOMED!
I love how Allie's hair is just flowing behind her. Something about that makes me think of carefree summer days. Yes like the ones just passed.I absolutely insist that you click on this photo of Wesley and Isabella so you can see Wesley's face!
"Ha HA! I laugh in the face of danger!"
The pit crew

Summer of 2011 - Round 2

Happy 10th Anniversary to us... 8 months early! We have talked about visiting New England for years where Jason was a missionary (New Hampshire Manchester Mission) and thought about making it a 10th anniversary trip. And then we found out Carter and Jen would be married in Buffalo so we combined the two. First BEAUTIFUL Buffalo, NY then on to Boston...

where these wonderful people put us up. Thanks cousins Joe and Jen!
A BIG thanks to their adorable and brilliant sons Ian and Blake who gave up their room for us. Also seen here Jen's little sister Natalie whom Rachel adored.

By the way, Rachel pretty much looked like this the entire trip:
And why not? She had mom and dad all to herself for 10 days!

Boston was amazing! And rainy.

Rockport, MA (tip of Cape Ann)


Little lobster shack where we ate...
lunch!
Loved all the clap board buildings! We ate at this little shop too in Gloucester, MA (where The Perfect Storm was set).
Portsmouth, NM
There goes the bridge! Up, up, up to make room for the tug boat.

I repeat- happy!
We went to church in Portsmouth with Nori, someone Jason taught as a missionary.
And lastly... some cute little billy goats gruff that we thought the kids would want to see as we headed to airport on our way home. They were cute. And a HUGE thank you to Grandpa and Grandma Jackson for watching the older 3 kids!

Summer of 2011 - Round 1

Oh, where to begin?! For many of you, this is a review (since you were there). Our big trip this summer, ok this year, ok maybe for a couple of years, was Buffalo, New York! Carter and Jen got married! HOORAY!

Right before the ceremony- the baby girl cousins:
(There is a secret baby boy who crept into this photo; he is making bunny ears).

The beginning of the public ceremony- Carter walks around Jen 7 times. I loved watching Carter's face during the wedding and really the entire day. You could see how much he loves her in his eyes and written all over his face. I snagged these photos from Krista- thanks!


Niagara Falls:




We rode the Maid of the Mist. Can you see us waving way down there?!
Family photo with the horseshoe falls behind us.
Lindsay sent us this photo. She called it is the cover of a Harlequin Romance novel. We laughed and laughed over that! Yes, the damsel in her sexy blue gown... wait, what? Is that a plastic bag she is wearing?!

Palmyra, NY
The printing company that first printed The Book of Mormon.



Do you see the cases above? Each little slot had a letter that they would carefully place on the page? to then roll the ink and print the page. The capital letters were in the cases above. The lower case letters were in the cases below. Thus we have "upper case" and "lower case" letters. Cool, huh?!


The Scared Grove
Very special. Wish we could have spent more time there.

paynejandj@gmail.com

Ok! New email since we got locked out of our old email and Yahoo seems to be in no hurry to help us out. I cannot express how very frustrating this is especially because of all the information I have stored in my/our old email account. I have had that for over 10 years! Aargh! We need to slowly rebuild our old contact list (makes me shudder to think about that) and so if you don't mind leaving a message with you preferred email address in the comments. Or better yet, just shoot us a quick email.

Will our technical difficulties ever end?!