Angela's family came to visit

It was so fun to have Angela, Ryan, Kathleen, Brandon and Cody for the day.

Cody found the snack cupboard and got his own crackers anytime he was hungry. He was so cute crawling everywhere and so independent!

Angela spent the whole day sick on the couch, so Ryan and I took the kids to watch Alyssa's band practice.

Then we went to the school so the kids could play.

Kathleen and Kaylee called themselves the K-Team.

Uncle Leo

This is my Uncle Leo, Pepere's brother, who is turning 90 on September 13th. He looks like Pepere, doesn't he? We are trying to round up 90 birthday cards from family and friends for him. If you feel like you would like to send a card to Uncle Leo, I know it would mean a lot to him and his daughter, my cousin, Susan, who is putting this together. Susan, by the way, always asks about all of you kids and even sent Jonathan packages in Iraq. They are a really terrific family. Here's Uncle Leo's address:

Uncle Leo Hamel
PO Box 552
Florence, KY 41022

Kathleen & Angela

Kathleen just had her 5 year portraits taken. The umbrella reminded Angela and I of her 4 year portraits. So, just for fun, here they are, side by side. Cute, huh?

Tanner's new suit, Kaylee's fort

Dad's been out of town for over a week now, first in Chicago, now in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He wanted to see a picture of Tanner's new suit so here it is. Doesn't he look handsome! (It rained today!)Kaylee's been missing her Dad, so she built a fort under his desk and in his closet. Dad put Kaylee under his desk the first time when she was 2 days old (like he did with all the rest of you) and Kaylee has built forts there ever since. She has always connected with being under her Dad's desk as being close to her Dad. So Dad, here's her fort this week. Some things you can't see are Dad's marbles, a picture of the Temple, a white board for drawing, and a fluffy pink blanket as the wall of the fort.

More of Alyssa's Core pics

Here are some more pics of Alyssa's trip. I'm not sure how many more will turn up, but if they do, I'll post them.

Playing at Prelims:


Here is the whole Core at the Rose Bowl. Alyssa is the first row, second from the right.

Six Flags:

Alyssa's Senior Pics

Which one do you like the best? We had so much fun. Some of these are taken in Kep's yard. Not only did Keith barbecue for us, but Kep got so excited, she took all the pics! Thanks Kep & Keith!

Alyssa's home

Alyssa arrived home on Sunday night back at CV High School at midnight from her big Spokane Thunder Trip. She came home so tan and so skinny.

While in Pasadena she got to go to Six Flags and Venice Beach. Kaylee was very excited to pick her up.














Here's the new boyfriend, Craig.














Just for fun, here's pics of the way they slept most nights, on gym floors, with girls on one side of the gym and boys on the other. (Alyssa's sitting on her air mattress.)

Harry Potter

July 21st, the last Harry Potter book was released. Alyssa, Kaylee and Mom were at Barnes & Noble at midnight when the book was released. We had so much fun!

They had a drawing from the hundreds of people there and gave away one free book and guess who won it-Alyssa! How cool is that? First picture is Alyssa, Kyrie & Jackie with her congratulations certificate. Second, she's picking up her free book.

Bradley & Alyssa

Just for fun, here are pics of Bradley working at KFC and Alyssa at Dairy Queen. If they would only bring home food to Mom and Dad. Fried chicken then ice cream-what could be better?

Ashley, Faith & Logan move to Lakewood

We moved Ashley, Faith & Logan to Lakewood this week. They have a really nice apartment with a big living room, a fireplace, nice kitchen, new carpets, swimming pool, hot tub, playgrounds, and tanning bed (yes, a tanning bed!) in a gated community. Getting them there was not easy though. We had everything go wrong on our trip, but everything somehow kept turning out right. Dad says its about “stories and relationships” so we built lots of them. The fuel pump went out in Ellensburg in the van, so Dad and Bradley and Tanner put a new one in on the side of the freeway. Thank goodness, the Schucks in town had the parts. The babies played in the dirt. It was hot and yucky. But it got done. What should have been a 4 1/2 hour trip took 8.

Then we couldn’t get to the apartment complex before they closed at 5 pm because Ashley had to sign her lease before we could move in. We had to work with the complex, in spite of lack of phone signal, and after some work, they found a maintenance man who was nice enough to meet us on his off-work time to let us in at 8 pm when we got there. Someone was parked in Ashley’s assigned parking so we thought the maintenance man said to park anywhere, but apparently he meant anywhere that wasn’t assigned to someone else. When we woke up Friday morning, Ashley’s car had been towed. When we called, they wanted $320 to get the car. So we went to the managers and they arranged for us to get it out free. We just had to drive an hour each way to pick it up. In the meantime, the POD people called. The POD, which we thought would be delivered at 7 am would come between 4 and 7 pm. We were on a really tight schedule and our plan was to unload then help Ashley upack all day Friday and leave late Friday afternoon to get home Friday night because Bradley had to work Saturday morning at 11 am. At 8 pm, when the POD finally came, we couldn’t get the gate to open with the code the manager had given us. Finally some neighbors helped us. We got the POD unloaded and left Ashley with a giant mess at 11 p.m. and we arrived back in Spokane at 5 am.

Faith and Logan were so cute. The day before we moved, Faith said, “Grandma, I’m moving tomorrow.” Then, the morning after we arrived at the complex, Logan got in our van and tried to buckle his seatbelt and told Dad, “Grandpa, go home.” Then later that day, he started screaming to Ashley, “I want to go home.” I’m so flattered that home was still with us. We're so grateful to have had the time with Ashley, Faith & Logan live with us, building stories and relationships. Thanks Ashley, for putting up with us. We are so grateful for our time together.