Staker Family: August Rush

August was a wild and fun month!

Kaliah and I did a scalp conditioning treatment.
It feels so good! Even if you look silly while doing it!

On our anniversary weekend, we went to Ponderosa Ranch, which is by Zions.
It was a fun little getaway.

It was to celebrate my Grandma Weekes' birthday.
There were things each night to celebrate. My dad spoke one of the nights and the kids performed a dance. Each family was responsible for dinner and the program each night.

We are all chillin' watching the program!

Grandma blew out all the candles, that is A LOT of candles!

Or a couple REALLY BIG ones!!!

Hopefully, she made a wish!!

There was a pool there, so we spent some time swimming!

They had a blast! Especially since their cousins were there too!

There were 2 levels and slides and all kinds of things!
The kids loved it, as a parent, I was a bit stressed trying to keep an eye on everyone!

BK had a blast getting to play with Holland every day!

We were all together having a good time!

Going on walks together!

Petting and feeding the horses!

The horse seemed to enjoy the kids feeding it. They get a kick out of feeding it!

Bea was entranced by all the horses!

While we were there, we took advantage of our surroundings and decided to do some family pictures!

We drove up the canyon to Zions.
It was pretty busy, now the hunt is on to find a good spot!

The animals did not seem to care that we were there.
They are just going along their merry way.

They just walk wherever they please

We found a great spot. I will do a post with our favorite family pics..but there are a few they did with their cousin that I am sure they will want to reminisce about!

Keeping busy between shoots for our family and theirs...

Each of them got pics with their birth order matched cousin. It was really fun!

There was plenty of playing in the sand!

And on the rocks and we saw little lizards that they chased and almost caught!

The boys playing rescue bots!

MyLee and Kaliah did the zipline. It was dark, but they were brave and did it anyway!

Way to go girls!

We had a little bonfire the last night we were there with my family. We made s'mores and sat around and talked. It was a great way to end it!

Our trip home was.....an adventure. the tire popped just outside of Fillmore. Probably about 2 hours away from home. We searched and searched and realized we did not have a spare. We called our roadside assistance and they could not tow us home because it was too far. They could tow us to Fillmore though. Through a series of calls, we found someone who thought he might have a tire to fit our van and he would come in, for a charge, to put it on for us. So we waited for about an hour for the tow truck to come.

It was quite scary thing to have him pull our van up on the trailer. It was dark and he was using flashlights.

I was certain he scratched our car at least once. I was nerve wracking!

We then had to ride about 20 minutes in the truck of the tow truck guy.

They were cramped in there

It stunk pretty bad in there and he was telling weird stories about crashing and such. Not the topic we cared to discuss under the circumstances.

We finally got to the tire place

Then we had to get the van off the trailer. It was again, scary. we then had to wait for him to replace the tire. We finally got back on the road and back home. Much later than we expected, but we made it safe. So it turned out ok.

Another glow day!!!! SO fun!

Breanne's first glow day!!!

always gotta document the paint!

The kids and their friends!

The boys wanting in on the action!

Saileen's paint

Brandy, Breanne and myself! Mykenna took this from the back and it is one of my favorites!

We are still cute from the front too!

Kaliah went to Syndee Doss' birthday party!

They played fun games and she had a good time.

Then the 3 older girls went to Allison's birthday party.

They went bowling.

I think they had fun!

Cake and ice cream afterwards!

They got laughing and talking and had a good time the rest of the night!

We went to an open house for Champion Sports Center.

I worked the ice machine booth. It was long and tiring, but I think it was successful!

This guy changes so much every day! He is still my little guy....but he is getting so big!

He still sleeps like a goof though!

This makes me laugh....why....just why with the earrings, linken! ha ha

Saileen taking a hair selfie!

I have not idea why he has his dog snuggle in his shirt....There is no explanation! Ha ha

The youth did a neighborhood D.I. pick up.

They had fun doing it with their friends.

hmmmm...Burrito boy

Bea still working on her splits! It think she had arrived!

Silly putty shinanigans

The first day of Derek's high adventure with the young men in our ward.
They went to Newdale Idaho where Derek's parents live.

The camp site was just outside of Newdale in the middle of a farm owned by the Crapo family.

On their way to do some white water rafting in Jackson Hole Wyoming.
Derek designed a logo for this conference that you can see on his hat.
ID2B (I Desire To Be) was the theme of the conference.

Enjoying the campfire along with great testimonies.

As part of their adventure, Jason, Derek's older brother, took the boys up into the mountains
without any gear except a sleeping bag. The idea was for them to survive a night. They spent several hours building forts and getting beds ready. Needless to say, Mother Nature had a different plan for them.

It started to rain really hard. Lightening started to strike very close as well. They
decided it was best to leave. They made the 3 mile hike back to the cars. They then
sought refuge at Derek's mothers house where she put on her medical cap and bandaged
injuries, fed the hungry and dried and clothed all of us. It was quite the experience.

On the way home they stopped by Craters of Moon National Park.

They had a lot of fun exploring the lava tubes but Derek took a wrong step and fell down.
The lava rock was extremely sharp and gave him several scrapes and cuts.