Okay, I admit it....

So I was told a while back by several people that I should really read the Stephanie Meyers "Twilight Series" books. Joe remembering that I had mentioned something about it - ended up buying me first book in the series "Twilight". It sat on my desk for a little less than a month. One day, as Joe abandon his family for his xbox 360, I decided to pick up the book and give it a try? After all, I did like the movie. Within 2 pages I was hooked! I couldn't put it down! I fell in love with all the characters very quickly! I ended up rushing to the store at the end of each book to grab the next one in the series! I read all four books and the 5th book draft in 11 days (thats something like 2400+ pages!!) It was an amazing read. I would definately recommend them to anyone young and old. There is a little romance (well it is a love story after all), some action, great story lines and past tales, just a little of this and a little of that! The books are:

"Twilight"

"New Moon"

"Eclipse"

"Breaking Dawn"

and the 5th book's draft copy was leaked onto the internet - Stephanie Meyes decided that she would never finish and publish the book...However her website offers the draft copy to read. The 5th book "Midnight Sun" can be found at

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html

"Midnight Sun" is a repeat of the first book through Edwards eyes! The fifth book made me appreciate the movie "twilight" much more!!

Anywho, if you havent already - ENJOY!!

oh - I thought I would throw up some pictures too...this is Kaleb bored out of his mind taking pictures of mom reading her books and dad playing xbox 360!!!

4th of July!

What is better than a day to celebrate the greatest country in the world! And what better way to celebrate than to come together with lots of great family and food!!

This year (as is slowly becoming a tradition) we all went to Chief Timothy park in Clarkston, Washington. We brought stuff to BBQ, swim, play in the sand (we got Kaleb a big sand castle kit with bridges, towers, shovels, the works!) and lay in the sun!! It was a GREAT day!

A happy mother - As most of my friends know already, Kaleb spent many little boy years scared of little things, one including water! My parents brought him water wings and we excited him by talking about the swimming area the entire way there! When we got there, it was the first thing he wanted to do! So Joe and I walked him down to the roped off area of the river and he jumped right in!! We didnt act scared or anything!! He was all the way to his neck in the water, he fell down at one point, and still he just kept on playing! There was another little boy he found a friend in and they played and played splashing eachother in the face and rolling over laughing! I stood in the water (standing back enough to give him his "I'm cool" distance) watching him with wide eyes and trying not to cry. I knew the day would come when he would realize things weren't really scary - but what an experience to watch my baby turning into a big boy! Gahh!

Here are some pictures!

Another Storm!

The last time I took some lightning photos, I have to admit I just got lucky to get any of them! The storm was rather far off in the distant and I had to to a lot of cleaning up and blowing up to even see some of the actual lightning.

On June 19th (my birthday) we got an awesome lightning show in Spokane! It was directly above us and very close! It seemed as though the thunder was roaring through the sky before the lightning had even finished lighting up the sky! My poor friends sat patiently on the front deck with me while I "geeked" out trying to get pictures of it!!! Hehe..great friends! These are the pictures that I got:

These last two pictures were taken at 11:00 pm or later! The light is from the lightning only!! Otherwise it was pitch black!!

and some more cake!!

one more!!!

more cake!!

Here is some more footage!!
(again, not so great - but all these were taken on my little camera!!)