A MISSIONARY!

My youngest sister stacey just left on her 18 month mission yesterday. before she left, we were able to travel down to colorado for her farewell. and boy am i so glad we went! even though she has only been gone a few days we already miss her! no i didnt see her everyday but i did talk to her at least everyday in some form or another. i keep sending her snap chats, and keep wanting to pick up the phone and call her or text her. she was so excited and so ready to leave and we are so excited to hear all about it! 

  

our first night there we had a fire and roasted some marshmallows. which parker loved doing. good thing we did it this night cause the other nights were rainy!

we also went to the zoo another day.

 and we were able to see some old friends while we were there! jared and i know quite a few people that live in colorado. it was fun to catch up with everyone.

me and cassie with our baby girls. cassie was a GREAT friend when we lived in moscow and our boys arthur and parker were good buddies.

 parker was less than thrilled to have his picture taken. 

 My friend janae from high school lives just north of denver and saw online that my sister's mission open house was while we were there so she drove down and surprised us all. it was so fun to see her. i also got to see my old college room mate melanie and meet her little girl but i never got a picture with her! 

sunday stacey spoke in church and did a great job. she is going to make one awesome missionary. i am so so so glad we were able to go!

the allred cousins. my goodness its so hard to get them to all look! they are all going to be so big when stacey gets home! 

good luck stacey! see ya in 18 months!

our trip was so short and before we knew it we were headed back to idaho. i do love idaho and i cant complain to be here but man i so wish we lived closer to family!

IF trip

we traveled over to Idaho Falls the first weekend in august for charlee's baptism. we had a great time with the Rucks' family.

 grandma and grandpa rucks have the best driveway to ride bikes on. its nice and big with plenty of space to ride.

 of course we took a ride on the four wheeler down the canal bank.

 these boys are all about a year apart from each other.

 swimming on saturday afternoon.

it was a great trip that went too fast! good thing they dont live too far from us. im sure we will be making another trip over soon. we sure love southeast idaho!

update!

after jared's appointment with the doctor concerning his gall bladder we decided that it would be best for him to have it taken out. Surgery was scheduled for the following friday. i was a basket case trying to decide what to do with my kids (i just have this thing with leaving them..... thats a whole 'nother can of worms we wont open right now....) but my cousin clint and his wife were gracious enough to watch them. 

we had to be at the surgical center by 7:30 am. the whole procedure was very quick and we were on our way home by noon! 

all set and ready to go!

 i sat down in the waiting area, which was pretty much completely empty, and then this shiftlet came and laid down right behind me and started snoring. LOUDLY snoring. ha.

parker had a blast running around with my cousins twin boys that are his same age and they said brooklynn was great for them. thank goodness. 

recovery hasnt been too bad for jared and he was back to work by tuesday!  now he can eat whatever he wants again and wont have to ever worry about having another attack. 

but let's hope we dont have to have any other kind of medical procedure done for a while because WOW! it aint cheap!