Changes in the Family!

We took Lauren to her new life at BYU! She was a little nervous but she has a super cute roommate and a super cute room! It was a very sad good bye and Grace still won't let us mention her name yet! We will miss you cutie!!!

BAPTISM DAY

Grace had a great day! Grandma & Grandpa Pennington, Dee-anna and boys & Jackie and Justin all came for her big day! She was really cute! She asked Derek and Jackie to speak and they both did great! Justin led the music & the sisters sang "My Own Little Lamp" (a family tradition which Jackie said she will not continue on to the next generation! hehehehe) Lauren played the flute with part of the song! We had a packed relief society room - Derek had asked me earlier how many people I thought might come and I really didn't think many would come on a saturday at 1:00! He made fun of me the rest of that day!  But we have wonderful supportive friends and we did not even have enough seat! She is a very much loved little girl! We are so proud of her! She is on her way to Jackie and Justins today without us! We are still packing up Lauren and leaving in the Morning! It is now starting to be really sad! I will really miss Lauren!

The Baptism girl and her dad

We made lots of CTR cookies for everyone that came

Here is part of the crew that came to celebrate with us

Jackie and Justin also had their 1st Anniversary - Same day as the Baptism!  So here they are eating their wedding cake they saved for a whole year!  All the kids thought that was the grossest tradition they had ever heard of!  
  

Grace Baptism

I just finished the slideshow we are going to show while Grace and Steve are getting dressed during the baptism! I thought you would all enjoy seeing it!

8 years old!

We were traveling home from Chicago on her Birthday so yesterday we celebrated! It was quite a day! She had a big party with lots of friends and went out to eat at her favorite restaurant - Mongolian BBQ! Grandma Pat & Grandpa Jerry showed up right as all her friends were singing Happy Birthday to her! Next is the Baptism this Saturday! CRAZY that my baby is 8!

Here she is the 8 year old!

Savannah - cleaning up during the party- POOR, POOR Savannah!

 She is a little like cinderella!

It was a luau!  We made Beach picture frames, learned to hula from Lauren & Annie, played volleyball and broke a pinata (I know seems a little spanish but it was a flip flop pinata)

Here is all the girls at the party

CHICAGO

teve had a meeting in Chicago so we took the girls to show them what real school shopping was like in the Big City! We left Derek home - he had football - he wasn't very sad! We loved all the shopping, taxis & Great food!

Savannah & The Chicago river

Lauren with the Chicago Sky line in the back

NEED WE SAY MORE!!!

S

Family Vacation!

It was sad for us to see all our family leave! We had so much fun with everyone ! We were a little lonely without everyone! We just kept looking at eachother wondering what to do! So below is this last week - we did a few things we are not use to doing - 1. We went Camping on the ward campout! (My kind of camping is at the local Hilton!) Grace had never slept in a tent outside of our backyard and she begged us to go! So we went camping- some were happier than others about camping - but we made it and Grace LOVED it! While we were there we hiked to Elk River falls and played in the creek! 2. We went on a 15 mile bike ride through the bitteroot mountains on the Montana and Idaho border! It was so beautiful! It is was the old railroad track they converted to a mountain bike trail! It was really cool! 

This is for you Uncle Darren - this is what we call Inland surfing - No Ocean!

Our Bike ride on the Hiawatha trail! Here we are on one of the really cool bridges!

Gotta love the Idaho scenery!

Grace on her Tag a long bike with Steve

Everyone on the Trail!  I am thinking we should do 

this bike ride next year as part of our Johnson family 

reunion the end of July! What do ya think guys?  They rent all kinds of bikes and trailers and tag a long bike and BIKE LIGHTS FOR THE DARK TUNNELS

That is one of about 7 bridges we rode over!  So cool!

Lots of tunnels - you had to have a light or you would crash in most of the tunnels

 - one tunnel was 2 miles long -

 absolutely NO light!!!!   Good thing we had lights

And now our Camping trip!

This is how Lauren felt about camping!

The things we do for GRACE!

Another Reluctant Camper!

Super Happy Campers!

We hiked to Elk River falls - really beautiful!

After a 3 mile hike we found the jackpot!

Campfire and all!

I

TEENAGER!

Savannah turned 13!  She had a great day!  She got a juicy sweatsuit and a lot of giftcards!  She is so fun and we love her so much!  She is planning a outdoor movie and bowling with her friends this week!  Happy Birthday!!!

Savannah and her presents!
One her way to girls camp!!!  

Johnson Family Reunion

My Dad & Madge, Derek, Mindy, Shannon and their families all came for a week at the Lake! It was so much fun! We tubed, waterskied, wakeboarded, surfed and swam. Cory was the ultimate boat driver! The big kids loved him - Rumor has it he was going 40 miles an hour - Cory denies all inappropriate behavior. Although we do have witnesses that say when Taylor fell off he was skidding across the water! hmmmmm I even heard my son Derek say there were moments he was afraid for his life! hmmmmm My brother tore his hamstring while waterskiing - so that was sad! He loved having all his sisters take care of him! He really loves a lot of attention! hehehe We missed all the family that couldn't come and say to them - put it on your calendar for next year - it is now going on the 5th year of Johnson Family reunion the last week of July!!!!!

The two August 16th Birthdays - We celebrated - had chocolate cake and keylime pie!

Monopoly was the game of choice this year! They played all the time!

Dad & Madge - it was so fun to have them with us!

Tubing - My sister shannon has all the water sport pictures - look on her blog

More monopoly

It always starts out nice

Then it turns ugly!

And just keeps going

Jaxon swimming at night!

Summer oh' nine

So far the summer has been fabulous!  We have spent a lot of time up at the lake!  We are looking forward to the rest of the summer at the lake!!!!  If you don't have plans to join us you should!  Maybe these picture will entice you!!!!!

Savannah reading Harry Potter

Girls out tubing ! Savannah, Grace, Lauren & Annie

Grace out kayaking

Papa Joe & Grandma Marlene came to visit!

Chris, Cassie & Rayne came to visit too!

Lauren perfecting her diving!  Too bad the springboard diving class at BYU was full she would have been a shoe in for an A+

Derek Showing off his mad diving skills also - he is such a goof!

Trek 2009

Fathers Day with the kids! Jackie called - It was the first time for steve to have one of his children call him instead of being here! We miss her!



TREK
Our Stake went on a Trek this last week.  Steve was the trail boss and I was the photographer.  Derek was our only child that came.  Lauren was too old, Grace & Savannah were too young.  Savannah spent the week in Utah at Basketball camp and at her cousins!  When I asked her how the week went she said " It was a Lot of Basketball!"    Maybe I should have explained that at Basketball camp you play basketball!   hehehehe  I love that girl!  Lauren entertained grace for the week and they did everything from making tie dye shirts to riding bikes to get a snow cone!   They went to see the Lippanzaner dancing horses and grace was a little dissappointed the horses didn't do back flips or anything!  hahaha  I guess I really need to talk to my children about there expectations before they go to stuff!  

The trek was so hard!  It looked just like Wyoming and hot and windy and we even had rain!    Steve gave about 10 talks and they were all great!  He gave a great spirit to the trek!  We came home totally exhausted and sunburnt! This is our second Trek Steve and I have gone on with the youth and everytime I can gain such a great respect for the Pioneers!  I am also  blown away by our incredible youth!  I came home knowing "I CAN DO HARD THINGS!"  One of my favorite talks Steve gave was to the YW about Virtue and he said "the Iron rod does not go through the Great and spacies building!"   It gave me a chance to look at my life and see where I could to do better!    Another thing that was great to think about he said was "Because a boy prayed . . . . . . ."  I am so thankful for this gospel and that I get to be a part of it!   

Thought I better document this - Derek writing in his journal 

We started out so clean!!

Trail boss

Our Stake Flag - Lauren made it for us!