My Princess

Lately, Brooke has been on a princess kick. She's seen a lot of Disney movies lately and now is a princess and most of the time refuses to wear pants. She only wants to wear a "princess dress" or a "cute skirt".

Her latest thing she requires of us is for Daddy to be the 'beast', her to be the 'princess' and Mommy to sing. So I have to sing the beauty and the beast song while they dance/re-enact the dancing scene in the library. You know the one!

I'm waiting for this princess thing to die down, but it really hasn't.

Last week, my Mom sent Brooke some clothes and there was a purple jumper/dress from Oshkosh in there. Brooke was pretty excited to see it and immediately wanted to try on her "pwincess dwess" from "gamma ernhuffer". She was thrilled to say the least.

A few photos from the past few weeks of this princess phase:

Camping!

At the beginning of the month, Gordon Brooke and I went with some friends camping. Holy smokes, was it fun! This was the first time we've been camping as a married couple and obviously Brooke's first time camping.

A few days prior, we set up the tent and slept outside to test it out to see how Brooke would do. Yeah, she LOVED it. This girl would live outdoors if we let her! Everyday after that, she talked all the time about camping and even in her prayers would say "tank dee for da tent...tank dee for camping".

We had amazing weather! It wasn't even close to raining!

One of the families brought a boat for us to go waterskiing and tubing and another family brought a bunch of paddle boards and kayaks. What fun we had!

We all were assigned breakfasts or dinners to make for everyone to make things easier. I cooked a dinner with one of my friends, Tia. We did pulled pork in crockpots the day prior so we just had to reheat them in her trailer! Easiest and tastiest meal ever. We had that on rolls with coleslaw, watermelon and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Not your typical camping meal! It was sure tasty. Actually, all the families made awesome meals! We ate well!

The last night we were there, we wanted to stay up late, make s'mores and play games, but the wind was so loud, it was blowing paper out of the fire and blowing everything off the picnic tables. Oh well. So we went to bed early that night. Hopefully, we will make this a ritual! It was such a great time! I LOVE camping!

One of these days, we'll have to travel back to Ottawa so we can go to Algonquin Park! Now THAT is the place to go.

{these photos aren't in order, so don't be expecting them to be...}


Photo taken from my phone....us practicing sleeping in the tent a few days prior. Have I mentioned my daughter is a ham?

The second day we were there, we had to take a nap! We all were exhausted! Please note my {painful} sunburn!

The car, all packed and ready to go!

Setting up at our site!

When we checked in, the guy gave Brooke a frisbee. She liked to chew on it...not so much throw it...

This is Cooper, one of Brooke's friends who she plans on marrying...in the temple. She tells me this at least 3 times a week.

Another friend of Brooke's!

This is Isabelle, or Isa as we call her. Brooke first planned on marrying Isa first before I said "you can't marry Isa in the temple!" so she switched her answer to Cooper.

On the boat

This was the little table the three little girls ate at. It was a genius idea for Machel to bring this for them! {Machel is Isa's Mom...and also the nursery leader at church.}

Lost Lake

A few weeks ago, some of Gordon's siblings and us all met up at Lost Lake for a get together one Saturday afternoon. I wasn't expecting much, but holy cow! How beautiful is this place and how much fun did we have?! Amazing! I pretty much just sat around and watched everyone paddle around in the kayaks, sitting in the shade. This whole time though I thought "how much fun is this?!" I love getting out and being able to do things with great company. The older Brooke gets, the more I dislike tv. I hardly watch anything anymore. Whenever we move out, we aren't getting tv. We can watch the shows we want on Hulu or buy the seasons on dvd.

That was a little rant.

Moral of the story: we had a blast up at Lost Lake.

4th of July {I know I know...I'm so behind!}

Gordon was only a few days from getting home and I remember thinking "its so close!" but we had to celebrate without him. RATS. We still had fun though! Gordon's sister Tamara and her family were in town, so that was lots of fun!

I started the day off by doing a 7.4 mile run from Odell into Hood River right before the 4th of July parade. I guess it's a tradition and lots of people run it. So, I ran it with my sister in law Emily and her brother in law, Jason. A few other ladies who did the relay with me were also running. Overall it was a decent run except for the breathing problem/stabbing lung pain I get. All you runners out there: why do some of us get these stabbing pains in our lungs feeling like it's impossible to breathe? Anyways, it definitely wasn't my best time, but I was just happy to finish. And I wasn't the last one in our group, so that made me feel good!

Then after that, we had a potluck dinner with family and friends. It was a laid back day and we had lots of fun! My Grilled Corn Salsa was a hit, too! :)

This was the first year Brooke stayed up to watch the fireworks. After the first 5 minutes though, she was so bored! She wanted to walk around and talk and eat more marshmallows. So I was with her away from everyone else for the last half. Overall, a super great day!

This last photo we texted to Gordon trying to include him in the festivities!