Camilla turns 10!

Dear Camilla,
We are so excited to celebrate the double digits with you. I don't know how we could ever have a happier, more creative and friendly kid all wrapped up into one. Camilla you are one of the greatest additions to our family. You keep us excited about life. You always want to go on a family bike ride, make treats, play a game or do a craft. Every time I turn around you are doing something fun and creative. It is hard to believe that you were once this little (well 9lb little) girl. We were head over hills with you from the moment they told us... "its a girl!" Daddy cried and said after having two boys, "we got a girl!" We painted your room pink and pretty much dressed you in head to toe pink from day one.

Your beautiful blue eyes have always melted our hearts. By this age you were swishing your hands in the toilet, eating cat food and wanting to always be "dressed up" in pretty clothes. You walked at 9 months and have not stopped since.

At 10 you are the tallest in your class, playing the violin, doing gymnastics, making scrapbooks and cards, singing in the 5th grade honor choir, wearing the same size shoe as me, horseback riding, snow skiing, playing softball & swimming. You still melt our hearts.

We love you so much, Camilla.

Hugs and Kisses...Mom and Dad

Seattle Girls Trip

I took my annual girls trip with my favorite girl friends from Virginia. It has gone from Virginia Girls to now just a fun friends tradition. Sierra lives in Seattle now and we have moved to Boise, so getting together is that much more important. Cute Whitney from Denver and Emily could not make it this year.
We LOVE to spend time together. We make each other laugh until we cry. It has become a very necessary trip for all of us to stay connected!

We got very silly this trip. One of our favorite things to do was to ask some nice stranger to take our picture. It was hard to fish through the hundreds and hundreds of photos. You would have thought that we were gone a month with as many pictures we took! I will keep most of our really funny parts of the trip to myself. Mostly because it is never as funny to someone else and also because re hashing it would only make me laugh so hard again I would cry, and Jason already thinks I am crazy for doing just half the thing I have told him about.

We started off this great trip being picked up from the airport by Sierra in her new 15 passenger van. I got in a few hours early so, we made a sign to let them know what white van would be picking them up! We are ready to hit the road and begin this great trip!

I had never been to Seattle before and it was beautiful. I just loved the water. Hilly streets, great restaurants, shopping and people watching! Pikes Place was very cool. We wandered around the market all morning.
This is a night shot of Pikes Place with Mt. Rushmore in the back ground!

We ate the famous donuts....

got our picture taken on the famous pig...

saw the famous fish market where they throw the fish through the air...

The last 2 years we have gone to New York on our girl trip, it was funny to see that we had all brought a China Town Coach purse to Seattle!

We ate some very good food. Sierra took us to her favorite Ethiopian restaurant called Pan Africa. It was delish!

We went downtown to see the Space Needle. It was very crowded and I was amazed at all the people coming to look at it. We did not go up, but had fun walking around and of course...taking pictures!

We took a water tour called the Duck Boat Tour. It was really cool, land and water tour. They took us all around Seattle on the roads, and then we went in the water. I loved being on the water and seeing all the amazing floating houses. We saw the Sleepless in Seattle House....which is on sale for 2 million!

One of the main attractions for our trip was to go see where the book Twilight was created. We all had read the book (and loved it). It was so worth the 3 hour ride to the coast to see this beautiful part of Washington. How could we possible go to Forks without the main character of the book: EDWARD! So I bought a poster of Edward and he made the journey with us!

Edward had to ride in the trunk, but he was glad that he could come.

On the way to Forks, La Push and Port Angles we saw some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever scene. This is Crescent Lake.

We rode the ferry to Port Angles.

Arriving in Port Angelas was great. Edward was glad to be out of the trunk and ready Party!

I think for a few days I actually returned to being about 14 years old. It was SOOOO much fun, to just not care and laugh so hard. Yes this IS me walking down the street holding a poster of Edward.

We had to eat and took Edward with us.

We went to the dress shop and tried on prom dresses

This is Bella's red truck from the book!

This is the Famous Forks High School.

This is the Cullan's home.

We drove from Forks to the coast and went to La Push beach. It was breath taking. The amazing landscape was so beautiful. The beach was covered with these smooth beautiful black rocks.

All this drift wood had washed up onto the beach. Really amazing.

The water was freezing, but since I just love the beach I had to get my feet in the water.

We went to the local hardware store and bought matching baseball shirts. We then headed into some incredibly dense forest. The trees were covered with moss. It was awesome.

On our way back we thought Edward might need some air so we put him out the sun roof to cool off. You should have seen the look on this guys face when we asked him to take this photo. You would have thought he was going to call the mental hospital.

THat night we went to the famous Bella Itilia resturant. It was a little crowded in this resturant for such a small town. We had to wait a minute for them to find us a table for 5. Yes we needed a seat for Edward too. As we were waiting for our table. The hostess could tell that we were laughing. She said "is it really a table for 5?" I said yes. "She said "did you bring a poster?" I was shocked. I guess we were not the first (or last) to bering in a poster of Edward and ask to be seated with him. When our table was ready the nice girl said "party of 4...and a poster" We laughed very very hard that night. I had the mushroom ravoili, same as Bella in the book. It was very good. We got a lot of "looks" from the other diners at the resturant. It was fun.

We spent the night in Port Angelas at the Olympic Hotel. Our faces hurt by now, with all the laughing we had done. Cute Sierra surprized us all with matching PJ's and a new purse.

It really was a fun trip. We finished off the weekend with a friend of Sierra's who came and cut and colored our hair. Shauna and I got a great cut and color. I sure wish I would have had this great hair for the begining of our trip. It was great to come home refreshed, relaxed and looking great.

I love these girls.

I am so looking forward to our next trip.

Seattle was an amazing city, I am lucky to have such great friends that want to spend a fantastic weekend together. We were crazy, and the girls put up with my many silly moments.

But I can never replace great friends like these.....cheers to another girls trip and heres to many more to come! Love ya Penny, Shauna and Sierra.