Balle & Co.: August

Here we are in August. School is winding down, summer is sadly winding down, but here's my hair in 7th grade. It's deftly not winding down!

(When I downloaded pictures from my phone for august this was on there)

The boys discovered a pond close to our house. I'm so happy about it. Outside all day is where boys should be!

Brett came home from his mission in Texas

Sharon is famous for her applesauce cookies. The grandkids love them so we brought one to the airport for Brett

Little Mr Jude and little Miss Kate

We took Audrey to snow college and stayed over night in Ephraim

My mom and Aunt went to Snow

My sister and two cousins went to snow together

I went to Snow

Mandy went to snow

Jamies' son Bryce went to Snow

and now Nielsens daughter Audery is going to Snow

We love it there

When we got to Audreys dorm room her roommate was already settled in. She likes black. Her bedding was black, her decor was black, her dress was black, her makeup and lipstick was very black and the cat ears she was wearing were black. We started to unpack Audrey and realized all of her stuff was white. Her bedding was white, her decor was white.

The room looked very.... um.... 1/2 black and 1/2 white when we were done!

How come I didn't get a picture?

Kate and Ellie are still playing so good together

The flip flop broke.

Mike bought these in Spain for Emery when she was about 3. He bought me a matching pair. Kate was so excited to start wearing them and match me.

And that's the end of the matching

My cousin texted this picture to me

What a treasure

The polka dots are coming down. It started out a light, solid color. Then I had red wall paper. Then the polka dots went up. Stay tuned for what's next.

And school has started.

These crazy, cute boys are in the 6th grade. Man, Jr High next year.

I love them little faces and bodies. I miss them.

(kindergarten)

(sixth grade)

Jack and Lucy

(Forth grade)

Emery

(second grade)

Back to North Pointe this year

MAMA'S ADVENTURE 2019

A couple days after school started I got to take a little trip. My friend Jill from Arizona has put together a group with the idea of taking a trip every couple of years. It's the same group I went canoeing with a few years back. I think they went to Sadona a couple years after that. I didn't go. This year we went to Washington and it was SO fun!

There was 13 of us. I really only knew Jill, but remember about 5 of the other girls from the canoeing trip. I was the only one coming from Utah. One girl drove up from Oregon, one girl lives in Washington and the rest all came from AZ.
We flew into Washington all about the same time. Loaded into our two mini vans and
1st stop- PHO for lunch
2nd stop- side of the road to pick blackberries

3rd stop- food stand

4th stop-grocery store
5th stop- our airbnb in Mossy Rock to make a yummy dinner

Then we just relaxed for the evening

I don't know? You get get a bunch of girls together and even though they are grown women they resort to stuff like this

(I took a similar picture during our hike the next day, but I'll do you all a favor and I won't post that one)

It was a pretty long drive from the airport to our place. It gave us plenty of time to get to know each other. Some of these gals carry with them some great hardships. This is Jill. She is the one who brings us all together. Jill is an awesome person and has had some fun life adventures. I love to hear her tell stories. I won't get the facts completely straight, but her parents divorced when she was young and she lived in a small town in AZ with her dad. He decided to move, but she was approaching high school and didn't want to leave so he bought her a trailer (or they had a trailer) and she lived by her self during high school. Well gosh, doesn't that sound fun?!?

The girl in the back with the turquoise swim suit is Jamie, I can't remember all the details of her story either, but she was taken from a drug addicted mother when she was little. I think the mother may have even used her and her little sister in the smuggling and selling of drugs. She lived with an aunt and uncle for a while and she also lived with her grandmother. After she grew, got married and had their first child (I think) her husband felt like he wanted religion in his life. He met Mormon missionaries, but Jamie told him, "no way!" She had been baptized when she was living with either the uncle or the grandma. She fought against it for I don't know how long, but he ended up baptized and they are both now active.

The next morning we drove to Mt Rainer National Park for some hiking

This is Tammy. She is Jills step sister, however her dad and Jills mom divorced so now they are divorced step sisters I guess. When her two boys were about 4 and 6 she took them to daycare. A couple hours later the daycare called her and said they were very sick and she needed to come get them. She ended up rushing them to the hospital where the younger one passed away. I want to say it was meningitis? The 6 yr old was on all sorts of support. This brave women was back and forth between one hospital room, where she was making funeral arrangements, to the other room with a very sick little boy. The sickness ended up leaving her son with permanent disabilities.

On the far left is April. When she was in high school her mom passed away. As she got older and thought more about the situation some of the details of the death didn't line up and they are thinking maybe it was murder and that her dad had something to do with it.

We made it to Paradise visitor center

This mountain peak is Mt Rainer

We fueled up

and then 4 of us took skyline trail a little further up

On the left is Danyel. She placed a baby for adoption when she was young and has dealt with the joy and yet sorrow that comes from a decision like that.

Fabulous view everywhere

And then we began the trek back

We hid in the tree's and tried to scare the other girls with animal noises.

This is really what scared everyone

Oh Jill!

Reflections Lake

After hike Indian food

The girl to my right and the girl across from us wearing the white shirt are sisters. There last name is Miller. I commented that I came from Millers. We decided to turn on ancestry.com to search to see if we were related. Turns out we are! My dads grandpa and their dads grandpa are brothers. Cousins! Ivan had just done a spotlight in primary about this ancestor line and so I was familiar with the story. It was pretty cool to hear them talk about this same story.

The outside view from our second airbnb

our inside view

pole dancing for entertainment

The next morning we went out Kayaking in the San Juan Islands

It was pretty cold and rainy

While we were getting our instructions Mike sent me these photo's

Micah's arm from their football game that morning

It was a tad intimidating once we got out there in this vast ocean area in nothing but kyaks. I thought the ocean would swallow us up for sure. But at the same time, it was cool being out, surrounded by all that water and I had just finished the book, "Boys in the Boat" about the Washington rowing team.

The plan was to row out and make a loop around one of the Islands. We rowed and rowed and rowed. I got to a point where I didn't think I could keep rowing. The guide pointed to a spot ahead and I thought he was saying we were to row there and then head back. I panicked for a second, because I was already soooo tired. Then I realized we were actually done and just needed to row into the spot he was pointing at. Boy was I relieved!

ate some lunch aftwards at Gera Deli

I think it was another long drive into Seattle where we were staying our last night so we stopped for a treat. Her big huge ice cream fell off just as she got out of the store