My Grand Birthday Picnic

At some point while I was awaiting Vienna's birth, or just after ... I had an idea.  Me and my ideas!  Well, this one seemed do-able.

A picnic ... in Victorian style, dresses, sun hats, picnic baskets, flowers, quilts.  The works.  With a delightful menu to boot.

My family so graciously obliged me.  Burnell actually loves my ideas and takes them on as his own.  He purposely mowed the lawn out by the pond so that it would be ready for my party.  What a sweetie.  And Dwight got all the boys' hair combed (although some thought it would be fun to go "spikey").

Using as many Longaberger picnic baskets as I could find, and some other pretty things, here's what we came up with:

 Raspberry Lemon Water

 Ice cold Root Beer - a total treat!

Carrot Cake ... my favorite!

Turkey Sandwiches with all the fixins

Friends and family (I would have loved to have had Naomi & Paula here, too, but they were both gone to CA. Bummer. We'll have to do it again soon.)

 Me and my baby girl. So love dressing up this little smiley princess.  I borrowed her flower for my hair. :-)

And, the family shot.  Aren't we color coordinated and all.  Dwight refuses to wear aqua. :-)  Everyone is so sweet to get dressed up for Mama's picnic.  They're great sports!

 More candids: (I do not get how blogger places these photos!)

The love of my life!  I adore this guy.

Look what my Momma painted for me!  An original piece of watercolor artwork for my wall, by request. :-)  She had fun painting one of her favorite places - Sahalie Falls.  The McKenzie River is a gorgeous aqua blue.  So beautiful!  Thank you, Momma.

California Memorial trip

As a family, we haven't been down to Cali in 4 years?  Can it be that long?  Life got busy, we were starting our Bend Soap business, and we just hunkered down for a bit.

But, the passing of Donna Beth and Grandpa Gene brought us back.  It was soooo good to visit with family again.  I took absolutely NO pictures during either memorial service.  I so thoroughly enjoyed seeing everyone.

Road tripping with the crew:
Burnell & Chance rocked the back seat.  Unbeknownst to me, they brought along a harmonica and accordian!  When they broke out in song, we were all stunned. :-)
Quint & Wyatt handled the middle seat.  They are amazing traveling buddies and can handle 12 hours in their carseats with no problems. Amazing! :-)
Ty and Vienna and I were in the front-middle seat.  With Orin up by Daddy.  It works great!

Z beautiful Mt Shasta

  We had the awesome privilege of staying with Dwight's cousin, Sherry Kirk and her family.  They live on an expansive campground out of civilization a ways.  We LOVED it!!  What a perfect place to raise their children.  Our boys loved the hiking trails, the playground equipment, and all the bugs they could find. :-)

The view from Elliott & Sherry's

Making new friends: Chance and Tiffany Birkholz

Catching up on all the adventures and pictures from Shannon Winter (Dwight's cousin).  She and her husband are living on a catamaran in the Pacific, traveling along the Central American coastline, with their 6 children!  What an adventure!  Dwight and I are so intrigued.  We spent hours listening to stories, asking questions, and basically living vicariously through her. :-)  So much fun.

The camp kitchen where Elliott & Sherry fed us amazing breakfasts.

The gorgeous Aunt Jodi meeting Vienna Rose Cheree. 

Brothers David and Dwight and their little "thugs" Quint and Sammy.

Mandy is a natural with Vienna.

Uncle David razzing Orin

A fun merry-go-round for the children

After Grandpa Gene's memorial service, we stayed the night with my sister, Amy and her husband John.  Our 1sts time seeing their home since they moved there years ago!  Can't believe how time flies.

Birthday bashes

Burnell's Birthday

June 10th arrived, and so did Eliashib and Isaac Zwonitzer.  Apparently, Burnell had a great idea for a birthday to remember, and invited his buddies to come over for the day.  He told them to arrive at 10am. :-) Good idea, BD.  What fun they all had all day.

Birthday cake and ice-cream for the 9-year-old

 Our new tradition:  Treasure Hunt and Pinata!  The boys love running all over the property looking for golden "clues".  One is always hidden in the pinata - which leads them to their treasure: aka presents. :-)  I think I love it about as much as they do.

Reading his own clues

The Clarks help out

Aren't these the spunkiest Grandmas you've ever seen? :-)

Uncle Ryan's Birthday ... Bowling

I think the last time we bowled was in Colorado for the Padwe Family Reunion.  I'm thinking this is a Padwe interest here.  After a few warm-up games, Daddy (Ted) bowled a 201 - and was incredibly excited, let me add.  He earned it. What a fun game. Several of the boys even got strikes and spares - legitimately!  I was impressed.

Ty's hilarious way of getting the ball down the lane ... sprawl and chuck it as hard as you can!

Ecstatic over another STRIKE!!

 And ... bumper cars.  The boys brought their own money so that they could have a turn on these.  You can just imagine the enjoyment that the boys and their Daddy had out there, crashing into each other.

Cheering the team on ... Dwight the Man!

Quint (still 3) thought he was in 7th heaven!  He actually managed the controls amazingly - which is so Quint.