Family Pix

It's been a loooong while since we did family pictures.  Last family picture looked like this:

Pre-mish brothers and little Stephy, somehow Dallin looks the exact same. (Love you Dall-Guy!)

We took some pictures on Grandma Liedtkes 85th Birthday.  Love all of these people so much!

Sadly these are some of the only pictures we have taken since Ashton joined our little family that weren't on a cell phone.

50 years of LOVE

My Grandparents celebrated their 50th anniversary this June.  They are such an amazing example to me of strength, pure love, endurance, humility, kindness, patience, and happiness.  I have always had a very special place in my heart for both of my grandparents.  Being the oldest grandchild I think I got to be a little extra spoiled.  Having my Uncle only four years older than me, and my Aunt only 6, made me feel more part of the "kids" and not so much the "grandkid".  I loved visiting Grandma and Grandpa growing up.  Which we only got to do maybe twice a year since we were in Washington most of my childhood and they were in Idaho.  I remember my little brother and I use to swing on our swing set as high as we could thinking and hoping it would lift us off the ground and we could fly all the way to their house and land on the neighbors trampoline.  

My Grandpa has Alzheimers and has been dealing with it for about 3 years now.  It is progressively getting worse and worse, but for the most part he still knows we are his family, he just can't quite figure out how.  My grandma still takes care of him, the house, and all the rest of us, while faithfully serving in all of her church callings.  She truly amazes me.  We wanted to throw them a big party with all of their friends and family.  But things are a bit more tricky now with Grandpa so we opted for a more intimate party with just us close family members.  Every other year we get together for a family reunion.  This year it was at Island Park, Id.  

(just missing 3 people this year I think)

This was the first time most of the family was going to be meeting Ashton and I was so excited for him to meet his little cousins.  Especially Jase who is just a few weeks younger than him.  They will be best buds I'm sure of it!

We went for a hike to Mesa Falls, ate yummy food and spent lots of time together.  

I will admit camping with a baby is much harder than I ever imagined it would be.  I think I forgot about naps, and the fact that it is very loud with 40+ grandchildren running around all the time.  Jason was such a good sport and spent the majority of the time trying to find quite places to let Ashton rest.

On June 15th, we distracted Grandma and Grandpa and setup the "mess hall" with all the decorations I could come up with.  

I got put in charge of decorating, and I think it didn't turn out half bad for camping. 

We managed to surprise them (or at least that's what they say). We had their wedding cake recreated and displayed pictures and a slide show of them and did some gifts and of course ate cake.  

It wasn't much but, Grandma if you are reading this, I hope you know we wanted to make things so special and that we all love you and Grandpa so very much.  I am in tears just writing this with how much I care about you both.  

Congrats on 50 years.  You have set the bar so high for all of us!

(pictures like this make my heart happy)