DAY 2 New Years and Weddings

Ok, I know it's going back a bit.  However, not only am I trying to catch up on blogging, I am taking time each day to clean up my photo library.  I am deleting loads of duplicates, hundreds of pictures taken by my kids of random things around the house, and fuzzy pictures, you know what I am talking about.  While going through my massive library I have found a few gems that never were documented.  So, let's start at the very beginning.  ("A very good place to start"-The Sound of Music)

Wedding #1-My cousin Lauren was married a few days after Christmas in Cove, Utah.  Annie and I hitched a ride down to the wedding with the Garzas.  My uncle owns a tree farm and they decorated the entire church with live trees.  It was like a winter wonderland.  And the brownie sundae's were not bad either!  

Austin and Adam...these two crack me up.  

The quality on all these pictures isn't so great.  However, I was trying to capture the second generation of cousins chatting it up.  What are they talking about?  

Maybe Austin was sharing a funny story...

I don't know where they get all their chatting skills from...could be they come by it naturally from this  crew?

Holly, Ben (brother and sister of the bride) and Ben's wife Ally.  

Holly and my favorite Aunt Kathy!  

When Ben came home from his mission, I was like, "Oh my goodness, it's my son Michael."  I think they have a lot of similarities.  It's kind of funny cause Michael is my only child that people ever comment looks like me, however, no one has ever really told me I look like any of my Milligan cousins.  I guess I must!  

I don't know why I barely took any pics of the beautiful bride and groom! 

Even though I think this is the MOST hideous picture of myself, I will put aside my vanity for the sake of the memory.  Starting on the left:  Heidi (sister), Emily (cousin), Holly (cousin) and some crazy lady having a bad hair day, bad clothes day, and looking a little possessed. 

And finally, my favorite picture of the whole evening...

My three nieces Abigail, Sadie, and Chloe got down and dirty reaching for that bouquet.  I think Chloe came away with the prize.  This picture just makes me laugh. 

Okay, now onto a few more pictures leading to our New Year.  I just like these I found of Annie. 

Helping Mom in the Kitchen

Maybe she was helping me to make up for earlier when she was refusing to pose for a picture.  

Some bribing (or threatening) might have taken place.  

This is what is usually happening when I try to get a picture. 

Loving her new Christmas Clothes and boots. 

This is where I often find Annie.  There are ALWAYS loads of papers, paper clippings, scissors, markers, pencils and pens lying around. 

The cousins came over for some good old "Just Dance" on the Wii. 

On to Wedding #2- My good friend Kristy (my friend, Joshua's BFF's mom, and two of my children's school teacher) was getting married to Joe.  Joe is the greatest guy and we were just SO happy they found each other.  They decided to make the wedding short, simple, and sweet and to do it on New Year's Eve.  I thought it was a great idea, since we never do anything too exciting on New Year's anyway, what could be better than a WEDDING party!?   I told Kristy I would help with ANYTHING she needed...and she took me up on it.  I kind of became in charge of getting the church ready and things in place for a short ceremony and a meet and greet afterwards.

If you look closely, I mostly just grabbed all the decorations from my house, and brought them to the Church to make it more cozy.  My sister, Jennifer was a LIFE SAVER, and brought things from her home too and helped me set everything up. I would never have had made it without her.  

We moved in the couches and chairs from the foyer and cut the gym in half so it was cozy.  

The ward was awesome, everyone made treats and appetizers to share.  

Here's the beautiful bride.  

James and friend, Jaime.  

I love this picture, it's like Ryan is giving some fatherly advice to the groom or something.  Who knows what they were talking about.  

The happy couple...

They both deserve a long life of happiness together...

The Chapel...

After cleaning and packing everything back in the car, we got home about midnight...just in time to ring in the New Year.  

 The kids were all watching the fireworks go off all over the Valley. 

Cheers!

Nothing like an orange popsicle to ring in the New Year.  

New Year's Day brought playing with friends.  I was laughing so hard when I saw our neighbor, Keisha, had walked through the snow to play- in her older sister's high heals.  

We went out for Chinese as a family. 

We ran into some people we knew at the restaurant.  :)

The newly wed's son, Michael, came along with us.  Annie enjoys teasing him.  He is the youngest in his family so I think he likes the chaos.  :)  

I don't know what we were thinking (because we usually never even take all our kids out for dinner)  but we went all out and got ice-cream too.  New Years only comes around once a year! 

Sassy...

Five boys...

And two girls...

It was fun to look back and revisit our New Years!  How is 2014 going for you?  It will be this time of year again before you know it!

Hundred Days of Blogging, DAY 1 Pioneer Day

Well, I have SO much to catch up on.  I have always been the type of person that when I have too much to do, or I don't know where to start, I just do nothing.  Do you relate?  My sister did "30 days of Vacation" on Instagram this summer.  I have had other friends do similar ideas.  I have so much to catch up on I was thinking of doing 30 days of blogging, but I don't even think 30 days would catch me up at this point.  Soooo, I am going for 100.  You heard me, 100 days of blogging.  Don't worry, you don't have to follow along, but it's mostly more for me.  I am not good at scrapbooking at this point in my life, so this is pretty much our family journal.  So, here I go.

I am starting with yesterday, Pioneer Day.  Here is Idaho, unlike in Utah, Pioneer Day is not a State Holiday.  However, we still take time to think of the Pioneers, and all those who have gone before us, and celebrate their journey.  We usually go to our Stake Pioneer Celebration.  Everyone is invited to dress in their best Pioneer gear.  We didn't get that far, however, these two cuties from our ward did.

Each ward was in charge of a game for the kids.  We did Tug a War. The kids really had fun with it, and some of them really cracked me up.   

After we became tired of being the tug a war referees, we delegated the job to Joshua and Abigail.  Joshua had just finished working 12 hours at his new job, so he really looked like a pioneer with his work boots and dirty face.  They were more fun as referees than we were, because they actually jumped in and played.  This kid is strong. I don't think he ever lost. 

She might not be as strong, but she looks cute!

Abigail didn't like this picture, but I still think it's cute.  

This is the one where Joshua looks like an old man.  Isn't that funny looking?  I should not have edited it, because pre-editing he looks like at 80 year old. 

 I am so grateful for cousins my kids age. This year at Bear Lake it was so fun to see all the older kids together and how much they are growing up.  (We miss you Garzas!)  The kids really love each other and have each other's back.  These two girls are kind of like the sisters Joshua never had (until he had his actual sisters.) I am so grateful he has them not only as cousins but friends too!  Even though he likes to deny it, he loves watching musicals with them (ha-ha) and hanging out.  I am sure his future wife will appreciate all the training they have given him.  :)  I can't believe that this will be Abigail's last year before she is off to college.  She will be DEARLY missed and I just hate to think about it.  Boohoo.

And I don't know what Sophie will do when she finds out that Emmaline is actually eight years older than she is and they won't be in school together.  Sophie asks to go play with Emmaline practically everyday.  Soon Sophie will be bigger than Emmaline, and there will be no more carrying her around. 

I think they would have been pretty cute pioneers.  I don't know how much Sophie would have appreciated the food situation.  No spicy chips?  No strawberries?  Forget it. 

And these two pioneers kept busy running around the whole evening, I barely saw them. 

I am SO grateful for my Pioneer Ancestry.  In Primary (the children's group at church) each family is taking turns telling about their Ancestors.  It has been a great experience.  My kids told a few stories from both sides of their family.  We still need to call our Grandma Bogren and get some stories from her about our Ancestors and where they came from and what their life was like on that side of the family.  One of the stories I shared was about a modern Pioneer, my Grandma.  I have so many memories of my Grandma, but none of them involve this part of my Grandma's life.  I never heard her talk about it, but I loved reading about it later.

This is my Grandma-

Edna May Prigmore Milligan

The above picture was when she was in the Navy in 1943.  She was in the WAVES (A unit of the US Naval Reserve) and lived in New York City.  SHe lived with her sister, Rose.  (Who I named Sophie Rose after.)  I just LOVE this letter that she wrote to her parents on August 15, 1945.  

"Dear Mama and Papa, 

So much has happened so fast and furious of late in the past week that I'm not quite sure whether or not I'm awake or just dreaming. 

The end of the war and the exciting events leading up to it are never to be forgotten.  Ever since the first news of the first atomic bomb, the people of New York have drifted around like bombs themselves awaiting a spark to explode them.  Last evening, after a week of intense waiting the good news came over the radio at about 7:05 o'clock and New York simply went mad.  

Rose and I got home around six.  We turned on the radio immediately but didn't expect to hear any too favorable news because of the word we had heard in the afternoon informing us that the Emperor's first note to Switzerland had not been too enlightening.  

But at 6 o'clock the atmosphere was changing.  Rose and I stayed glued to the radio and when the final news came we dashed around like mad and got up to Times Square.  So did every body else.  The factory whistles blew (many of them out where we live) the subway trains screamed at every station and church bells rang.  All street cars and automobiles detoured around the square.  There wasn't room for the people let along anything else.  For twelve blocks the streets were packed with yelling, screaming people.  

Rose and I pushed ourselves through the streets about 8 o'clock and finally found ourselves in the middle of the square.  We went up in the Bell Telephone's Servicemen's Lounge and got a view of the swarming beehive of people below.  In about 20 to 30 minutes we went back into the street again to fight our way up to Broadway.  And it was a fight."  

And this is my favorite part-

"It was a sight to see and we would have stayed longer but there were so many silly service boys so determined to kiss the girls and especially the ones in uniform it became unbearable.  I was becoming doubtful that I'd make it out in one peace."  

Not really a typical "Pioneer Story", but so fun to see this iconic peace of history come to life in the words of my own Grandmother. 

More Pioneer stories to come!  All who have gone before us were survivors.  They lived through hard things and I am so grateful for their courage and the sacrifices that they made for us.

All Pictures have been Recovered!!!

I am soooo happy.

My iPhoto problem...fixed.

My crazy slow computer that I could not do anything on...fixed.

I can edit photos.

I can download photos.

I can blog!

HURRAY!

ALL my pictures I took the last month of school that I thought might be gone forever, recovered.

Let the documenting of the summer begin...

PS That little girl just happened to get baptized today.  We are pretty proud.  Way to go, Isabelle!