A few months behind as usual!!

Dad & I and a little bit of Ray.

Isn't my husband precious?

Happy little family, even after I made Ray go swimming.

Ray's cousins

Ray's counsins, Laina and Chantay, and their kids came last week from California to surprise his Granny for her birthday. It was during the week and luckily Ray was home and he got to see them this time. We went to dinner Thursday night and then some of them stayed at our house that night. It is amazing how the kids hadn't seen each other for a few years and they just kind of picked up where they left off. They had so much fun together and my kids are still sad they are gone. Kinlee asked me this week what I thought about running to California for the weekend. Little does she know the actual driving time required to get from here to there. But, I thought it was cute. She really struggles when any of our over night visitors leave. These are just a few of the pictures, I will post a couple more soon.

Flying a kite in April??

Some of you already know that Ray was gone for most of March to New York, which is so much further than he usually goes. Anyway, while he was gone he bought kites for the girls and so while he was home this week we went to fly them at the park. It was NOT a success!! After all that wind we have had, there sure wasn't any when we needed it. It was family time though and we had a good time.

Look, I did get in the pictures, its my shadow.

St. Patrick's Day Bunco

I hosted bunco at my house on March 17, and you can't have a party on a holiday without taking full advantage of the "Theme" of that holiday. Therefore, everything was green. We had peas, pistachio salad, green bread (see below), green enchiladas, and then I ordered grasshopper cupcakes from the cupcake store in town (they are the center piece on the table) and I can't forget the green kool aid.
These are my bunco friends, minus Nakia, she was late. Anyway, I am on the left (in my cute farm animal apron), then Allisa Carlson, Mandy Davis (who hates all green food, she had a rough night), DeAnn Chadwick, Kathy Davis, Sheila Gummow and Nichole Stanford. We had a lot of fun!!

Kinlee wanted a pictures of herself eating all of the green food. I need to be a fun mom all the time I guess and do things like this more often. Both the girls thought it was pretty silly.

Mom's Birthday.

Yes, I do realize that mom's birthday was in January, and that is how far behind I am and how far behind I feel on everything else.
But, here are the pictures. We all met at Applebees in Rexburg and there were so many of us we had to sit at 3 tables. KaReena was in charge of my camera and nobody would take a picture of her, so she took one of herself. Merrill wasn't there, because he had just had surgery on his shoulder. Shelby and Anita surprised us and came from Utah to eat with us also. It was a really fun night and I know mom enjoyed it, even though we weren't all sitting at the same table.

Brian, Ray, Shawn & KaReena sat together. Don't they look excited.

Isn't Shawn precious?

KaReena's self portrait. Ray still thinks she is adopted and I'm not sure why.

My cute parents.

Mom's Birthday Cont.

Tracy (Shawn's beautiful wife), Kayla & Linda

How many chins does the lady in gray have?

Ben (Nakia's husband), Blake & Cindy his wife

Anita (Shelby's wife), Shelby & Nakia

Hello Everyone

I really wish I could think of something really interesting to tell you this month, since it seems that is how often I am actually writing. We recently found out why Jerika has been struggling so bad in school, and at home with a few things. She doesn't really want me telling everyone, so I am not going to put the reason in here, because she will freak out if she reads it. But, it really isn't too bad, it will be a way however that the school will actually help her from here on out. As for the rest of us, we are just plugging away. I am still making watch bands, which I am keeping pretty busy with. I have been putting them in Traditions, which is a store in Rigby that sells handmade items. Kinlee is dancing her little heart out once a week and she has starting going to Activity days with girls her age from church. Ray is trucking as much as he can, and we are praying hard every day that his boss doesn't decide to close up shop and leave us high and dry. But, I guess life happens and we will cross that bridge when we come to it, if we come to it.

Wow, I am a slacker!!!

I am pretty sure that we have done something newsworthy since Christmas, I am just not really sure what, and I guess I have no
pictures except these that I have dowloaded documenting saild newsworth items. I have super busy making watch bands and I think my family is starting to get a little edgy, but people are loving them and we, Allisa, Nakia (sometimes) and I are loving making them.

Tyler moved back to his moms house after Christmas, which left it quiet around the house and it wasn't in the best of terms with his father. They have since made up, but he is still not going to live here, its too much for me to handle. He will be taking the test for the Navy again and hopefully he will get in, pray for him, it will do him good!!
These last two weeks I am back to working full time at work, thank goodness!! It was a little tight around here for a few days!!

Our Family

I love Christmas Eve!! We all get together at mom and dad's house and eat and then we have a little program. Which normally ranges anywhere from singing, playing the piano, to stories and anything else like that. This year mom and dad sang for us and it was really fun. Also, the little kids acted out the manger scene which went along with mom and dad's singing. Then of course we had all kinds of food and the best part is that we all get along that day. Not like we always fight, but everyone just treads a little lighter that day. Anyway, every other year we spend the night up there, but this was the year we stayed at home and then went to moms for lunch on Christmas day. This is first year that most of us were there, we missed you KaReena, but I don't think they could have made it if they wanted to. The roads were terrible and it snowed most of the day. You really needed 4 wheel drive to get anywhere. All in all it really was a great holiday!! And I am finally getting it posted. Happy New Year everyone!!

Christmas Morning

WOW, I am really not very happy with myself!! Ray got me a REALLY nice camera for my Birthday, which I will blog about later, I guess, since I haven't done that yet. Anyway, I really didn't take hardly any pictures on Christmas and I can't believe it!! We went back up to mom and dad's for lunch Christmas day and had so much fun!! Everyone was there except for KaReena and her family, and we really missed them, but I don't think they could have made it anyway because of the weather, it snowed all night. We played games and had a blast. Then we came home and watch a movie with Mauna (mother in law) and she ended up spending the night. I had to work the day after, which was a total bummer!!

Christmas Eve

WOW, I guess I am the BIG sister!! We had a great Christmas and I will blog more later!! This is me and my siblings on Christmas eve. Me on the left, then Merrill, Nakia, Blake, KaReena & Shelby.

Christmas Newsletter

Here is our family newsletter that we are either sending out or emailing or just posting on our blog. Enjoy.

Greetings from the Youngs
I am going to try to get this letter out before Christmas this year, but I guess we will see if that really happens. Anyway, I hope whenever it does reach you, it finds you all well. This year has definitely had its ups and downs, but once again, we lived through them all.
This time last year our house was still in complete upheaval, we didn’t even have a full size Christmas Tree. I can now that we are all done with our addition and we were able to put up our Christmas tree in our new family room. YEAH. We could not have finished the addition without the help of our good friends and family. You all know who you are and we REALLY appreciate all of the help and time you put into making our days go much smoother!!
Jerika is a teenager, need I say more. I guess I will though, she finished her last year of Tavaci this year in May, boy I am glad we are done with that. But, she enjoyed every minute of singing. We are still waiting to get her into some kind of private voice lessons, but are currently on waiting lists. She also started Jr. High this year, which has been quite the experience for sure!! It has been somewhat of a struggle for her and she is working harder every day to make her parents happy with her grades. Since we moved out of the master bedroom upstairs, she got to move in and make some major changes, and it really looks cute!! The biggest change for Jerika this year is that we found out in January that she has a thyroid disorder and insulin resistance. Both of which are regulated by mediation and diet. So, that has been a real struggle for her to change her eating habits, but she has lost weight and I don’t know if that is a good thing, considering how many boys she is talking about all the time.
Kinlee is taking dance again this year, it is a little of everything, tap, ballet and tumbling. She loves it and that is all that matters. She is doing really well in school and freaks out when she doesn't get a good grade on something. She really keeps things hopping at our house, and makes sure that we are all towing the line. A couple weeks ago when I got home from work, she told me she didn't do her chores because she got thinking and wants to know what it is I do around the house. That didn't go over very well. She got baptized in October, which proved to be interesting, just like everything else in our lives. Ray held up the wrong hand when he baptized her and nobody mentioned anything until after she was confirmed, so we had to do the whole thing over again. It was quite the experience. I was glad afterward that we had added onto our house, because we had about 40 people over for lunch afterward. Which was really fun!!
Tyler has had a year full of ups and downs. He turned 18 in May and was supposed to graduate in May also. After much effort on his mother's part (because he didn't really care) he was still not able to walk with his class at graduation. But, took a summer class and received his diploma in June, YEAH!! A few weeks after his class was over, he started a job with Dome Tech and traveled to a few different states to work. And that lasted until a few weeks ago when he got laid off because of lack of work. So, he is working for his cousin and as of this week, living full time at our house. Pray for me, I am not used to boys in the house all the time.
As for Ray and I, nothing really changes, he's running loads all over the U.S. and I am running kids all over town. He did have a week long "vacation" in the hospital this year, which he has completely recovered from, thank goodness. And my boring life consists of making interchangeable watch bands, which I am sure most of you already know, but if not you can go to my blog and look watchmebead.blogspot.com. Also, if you don't already know we have a blog that I try to update every now and then it is youngmom1220.blogspot.com.
We are just thankful at this time of year to have our health, family, friends and our jobs. We love you all and hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Oops - forgot the kids table.

Here's Kinlee (mine), Dax and Lydia (KaReena's kids).

Quiet Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was pretty quiet at mom and dad's this year!! KaReena and I were the only "kids" that came home. We of course had our kids and Ray's mom came also. Ray showed up in the middle of dinner, but at least he made it home! We had a really fun time!!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, hopefully I can post some pictures this weekend. We are all doing better this week. Thanks for all the kind thoughts, who would have ever imagined our dog dying would be so stressful. Thanks again!!

SAD DAY!!

Yesterday we lost our Chaz. For those of you who don't know who that is, it is our dog. He died yesterday morning while he was on a little trip with Ray. One of his favorite things to do is ride in the back of Ray's pickup. It is so funny, he would alway sit back there and howl. Anyway, Ray took him for a ride yesterday, they were going to a swim in the river, well Chaz was going to swim. We don't know for sure why or how, but he jumped out of the back of the pickup while Ray was driving and broke his back. So Ray had to put him down. And guess what, you never realize how much you love the dang animals until they are gone. They girls are really struggling, especially Kinlee. She cried herself to sleep tonight and it made Jerika so sad that she was crying also. Anyway, I have to stop now because I am crying also.