Family Pictures

In anticipation of the disbanding of my family, Josh leaving on a mission and Aimee and Porter headed to Indiana for grad school, my mom planned for us to get family pictures taken.  Here are some of the good ones.

Spencer, Maggie and  Me

 Grandkids - Maggie, Oaklee and Smoot

 Korbin thought it would be fun to jump in with the kids.  I thought it was cute.

 The Whole Gang

 Boy Shot

 Girls

 Sadie and Maggie

 Perkins Family

 Sadie, Sydnee, Maggie and Oaklee

 Cute Oaklee!

Aimee's Birthday Visit

My brother in law, Porter Perkins, was accepted into the MBA program at Notre Dame!  He started his summer classes at the end of May.  Aimee went with him for the first week orientation stuff, but then left Porter there and came back to Centerville to be with the family for a few more weeks before leaving for the whole year.

So where I'm going with this is that Aimee had a lot of time to kill here in Utah without her sweet hubby.  So for her birthday on June 16th she came up to Logan with my mom and her mother-in-law, Shelly, to party with me!  

Chocolate raspberry cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting... YUM!

The Birthday Crew

Aimee stayed the night with us in our apartment that night and in the morning we made ourselves some amazing parfaits for breakfast.

When Spencer came home we went to Summerfest and the Humane Society adoption day at Pet's Mart.  It was so much fun!

I want a dog so bad!  I can't wait to have a place of our own with a yard so we can get one.

Even Maggie loved the dogs

I had so much fun and I'm so glad that Aimee came up to visit so that we could spend some time together before she left for the year.  I love you Aimee!  Hope you had a great birthday!!!

Things Maggie will chew on...

Maggie loves to chew on her feet,

Her hands,

And let's be honest... She'll chew on ANYTHING... or at least try :)

We Love Elder Smoot

After the family reunion, we came home to Centerville and then continued to work frantically to get ready for Josh's missionary farewell.  It was pretty tiring business :)  I found Maggie and Sadie sneaking a little nap together.

Josh has been called to serve in the Puerto Rico San Juan Mission.  We are so proud of him and I know very few missionaries who have been as prepared and ready to go as he was.  

Josh spoke on June 12, 2011.  His talk was so moving.  I was so impressed with his testimony, knowledge of the gospel and sheer excitement to go on a mission.  There are few other days in my life that I will remember like I remember this one.  It was perfect.

Josh left for the Missionary Training Center on June 15, 2011 and will be serving for 2 years.  We are going to miss him SO much, but we KNOW that he is out there serving the Lord and that that is exactly where he is supposed to be right now.  We love and support him and he is in our prayers.  The people of Puerto Rico are so lucky to have Josh serving them for the next 2 years.

We Love You Josh!  You are going to be the greatest missionary ever!

Smoot Family Reunion

My immediate family was in charge of this year's Smoot family reunion - which really means that my mom was in charge of it.  It was so much fun though!  We went up to the Heber Valley Girl's Camp from Friday to Saturday, the 10th and 11th.  There were so many fun activities to do we hardly had time to fit them all in.  Here are some of the highlights:

Challenge Courses:

This one you had to climb this rope ladder

Walk across these boards with only your rope to hold on to

And then you jump off this platform

And sail away down the zip line... That was the fun part.

Sydnee, Sadie, Maggie and Lindsey Essig - Waiting for their turn

Aimee doing the zip line

Me climbing the ladder - I am SO scared of heights!

Me on the zip line

The next course was a giant swing.  

Here's Josh.  

Korbin

Brianna Smoot and Maggie

This one didn't really take guts to do.  The only person that was scared was my mom, but she did it anyway.

Even Uncle Steve got up there and took a ride

Oaklee didn't quite understand the concept of holding onto the rope until you were high enough before letting go - so she just got pushed for her ride.

Here's Maggie with her Ema

She didn't care that she didn't get a ride - she was happy anyway

The last challenge course we went on was the scariest and most challenging for me.

First, you had to climb this log with isn't attached to the ground, so it winds around and moves while you're trying to climb up it

Then you have to walk across this little wire while holding onto the wire up above before you can get to the zip line.  It was killer!

Here's me going for it.  I seriously thought I was going to pee my pants.  

I think my mom is more scared of heights than I am - but she did it too.  Yay!

The next best thing of the reunion was the food.  This dinner was amazing!  It was a cajun boil of some sort.  Basically you boil sausage, hot dogs, all sorts of different potatoes, corn and carrots and then you dump it all out onto the table and people just go for it.

It was one of the most creative and fun meals I've ever been a part of and you better believe that I'm gonna find an opportunity to do one of these sometime in the future.  It'll be great!

The other big activity we had there was time on the lake.  Spencer and I didn't want to make someone look after Maggie for us while we went out, so we found the smallest life jacket possible and took her with us.

She was the biggest fan of the life jacket, and I think she was a little hot with her sleeping bag pajamas still on, but it was fun to have her out on the paddle boat with us.

I love having family reunions and getting everyone together!  It's so fun to see everybody and catch up with life.  I seriously had the greatest time at the reunion, and I think my mom did an amazing job planning it.  She put so much hard work into everything and it all turned out amazing.  Thank you!  We love you mom!