We're Baaaaack! Yep we were gone again:)

Larry and I took a week and went to Levenworth, Wa. We stayed at the Worldmark resort there. We had a great time. We might as well celebrate our 30th anniversary all year eh?

Our view out our Condo.

We brought our bikes on vacation with us and decided to go for a bike ride. We went downtown where their is an entrance for the trail on Blackbird Island. During the ride I would ask Larry want he wanted to do and he would say whatever you want. That went on for a little while and then I asked him why he kept saying that... Once upon a time a long time ago we went to the Oregon coast for one of our anniversies. We walked the boardwalk quite alot to look at all the art and different shops. Larry really does like to look at art and the unusual shops and I'm not making that up either. I had mentioned a few times while we were browsing that I thought it would be fun to go whale watching. Larry didn't take the bait and we never went whale watching. So his answer to my asking "Why do you keep saying that?" he simply said "Whale watching." Then I understood.
At first I wasn't sure if we would be able to keep ourselves busy for the whole week. What's their to do in Levenworth anyway besides shop? Lots!

We went on several bike rides in the week. Here we are on Blackbird Island.

I used the timer on the camera for this one.

I wanted to try mountain bike trail riding. I found out it is a learned skill and I need some practice before I can really do it. We did ride up Icicle Ridge mountain a little ways though. It got steeper and the trail got skinnier. Here's proof...

Larry and I also rode up Icicle Road and it was up:) It was fun though. We took several detours along the way. We stopped at a fish hatchery where beside looking at the fish there was a nice nature trail to ride on also. We stopped at a wood carving shop, farther up we browsed through a little store and kept on riding. We got to the end of the county rode where a trail head was.

Isn't it a beautiful view we saw there.

This is a novelty picture. Larry actually looking for directions on a map. LOL Sorry Larry:)

On our way down the mountain we stopped at the store where their was a yuppie type restaurant where yummy fresh food was. We shared a wonderful tasting Panini and a sample of several fresh salads. That was a lot of fun.

We also went golfing a couple of times and to a couple of different driving ranges. This is cool being able to hit your balls in the water.

This driving range was in a small city right before Levenworth and the course and range was in and around a farmers Cherry orchard.

We also went miniature golfing. I love these kind of courses for miniature golf. I won!

Later in the week the Truscotts, Broadheads and Jim Munger came up. The guys spent 95% of their time golfing and the ladies visited and went shopping. It was Victoria Truscotts birthday and Levenworth is her favorite city to visit.:) So that was nice for her. As couples we went out to a couple of nice restaurants, visited and played 5 crowns. It was a nice time.
It was a fun week. When we go back again I would also take along with our golf clubs, bikes, games and books. I would also take our hiking boots. Anyone up for the adventure?

If you build it food will grow (hopefully)

When we first moved out in the country 17 years ago we started planting a garden in the orchard. After a 3 or so years word got out amongst the deer, cows and other critters in the neighborhood that the Johnson's have some pretty good food just for the picking. Our garden was a sorry sight for a couple of years. So I made an executive decision that I was't going to go to all that work and have the animals eat it. Larry and I talked and decided that we would need to put up a high fence that is also buried a bit to keep the critters out. 12+ years later we have our fence. Larry and Michael put in the fence post and dug the trenches and I helped them attach the fence. With the price of gas and the cost of food rising we figured any cost saving thing we can do will help our pocket book. The fence isn't quite done yet but it is functional and I've planted the garden with some help from April.

I thought I might need to explain the inside of the garden because from the first picture it looks like it's full of grass. Larry had this idea to remove sections of the grass and move that grass to our back yard since we still don't have grass out there after the flood. So I loosened the dirt and then used my mantis tiller to get the soil ready to plant. We were going to mow the sections of grass left with a hand push mower. Larry tried to do that today and the wheels kept getting stuck in the dirt. I had the idea of laying black no weed paper down where the grass is so I won't have to keep weed wacking the grass in between the vegetable rows. We'll see how this works out. Hopefully the things we planted we'll grow and we'll be able to share some too. Anybody ever feels like weeding come on over:) On the right is a compost pile I started. I have no idea what I'm doing but we'll learn along the way.

Family Reunion at the Blue Mountain Lodge

Friday after Michael's graduation we took off for the Blue Mountain Lodge up by Tollgate, Oregon. It only took us 45 minutes to get there. The lodge was nice it had 6 bedrooms and about 14 or so beds, 3 1/2 bathrooms, a couple of large gathering areas and a kitchen. It was a really fun weekend. Here are some of the highlights.
Here's the lodge.

The dining table could fit our whole family. Here are some of us at the end of breakfast.

One of the first things we did was to go exploring by taking a walk. We found old old trucks, a pond and it looked like an old sawmill. Here is a picture of the walkers. Nathan and Sean are hiding behind someone and I took the picture.

The porch swing was fun to sit on. Did I tell you it was cold? If I didn't I'll tell you now. It was cold. :)

While we walking David got a scavenger hunt ready for the kids. They had fun taking turns reading and figuring out the clues and in the end Gabe was the one who found the treasure basket (maybe with a little help). :)
Thanks David!!!

Another one of the fun things we did was play shuffle board. We even had a tournament and Joshua became the Champion of the first "Johnson Shuffleboard tournament". It was alot of fun and everyone got in on the action except the babies.

This pair up here between April and Nathan was one of the close matches. Right April?
lol.

In this match up I'm not sure if either one scored any points. Gabe was having a lot of fun though.

Spectators were always close by rooting for their favorite. It was funny to watch the heads turn as the pucks were gliding back and forth on the table.

With this many people in our family we seem to always be celebrating someones birthday. We decided to combine several into one party and even threw in Father's day for Larry. It was Jill's actual birthday (Michael's girfriend), Sean's birthday, Nathan's birthday, Misty's birthday and father's day. My Birthday was also included.

I thought it would be fun to have a crossword puzzle competition. The family enjoyed it so much they want to do one every year. It was a crossword puzzle about individuals in the family. It was fun to hear them talk about what they thought the answer should be. I thought it would be really easy for them but it wasn't. Good thing Aria was on Papa J's team because he didn't know what April's first words were, she did.

The winning team consisted of David, Misty and Nathan. Good job guys!

The next day was a lot warmer than the previous and so the kids went out to play on the swing set.

Nathan got stuck up on the top and he wanted me to get him down. I told him I would go get someone big and strong. He asked me if I would get Uncle Joshua to get him down. That's who Nathan must think is the biggest and strongest in our family. lol

These are random pictures that I took up at the lodge. In the first one Mae and Jovie are having thier first little fight over the bottle. They both wanted it but they worked it out peacefully.

Walking along. I wonder what dad is telling everyone?

I love Mae's cute crinkle face smile. Don't you?

Rachel, Sean, Gabe and Mae on the walk.

Michael showing us how strong he is. Either that or showing off for Jill. LOL.

Larry and I love that the kids all like spending time together and want to do things like this. It's nice as parents to see that. We sure love our family!!! We missed Shannon though (Joshua's wife) she had a business trip. I have other fun pictures of our weekend but I had to stop somewhere. Misty, Rachel and April most likely will post about the weekend too so you can if you want check out their blogs and see more pictures and here more stories from their take on it.

Playing catch up

I realized that I forgot to blog about a couple of important things that happened. Clarissa was blessed on June 1st. All of the family except for April's husband was able to go to Spokane to be there for it. As always a babies blessing is a special time. When an baby is blessed a Melchizedik Priesthood holder (usually the dad) gives the baby his/her name that will also be known on the records of the church. They are then given a blessing for their health and well-being physically and spiritually.
Here are Larry and I holding Clara. A friend of Misty's crocheted her dress. I made the pink slip and knitted the booties and headband. Her friend did a beautiful job on the dress.

We also celebrated Rachel's birthday. As Aria would say any excuse to have a party let's do it!

I have taught Jessica how to knit while they've lived at our house and she finished her headband that weekend also. She did a great job.

My "baby" has graduated High school

It came. The day came that my youngest child graduated High School. For the last couple of months Michael has mentioned more than once that he was ready for school to be over. It's over. Believe it or not I did get teary eyed for a few moments when I realized that this chapter in my life is closed. No more of my children in the public school system. I'm not sad per say but maybe a bit nostalgic. When something like this has been a part of your life for 25 years it will be an adjustment for me. I went to bed Sunday night and I was going to turn on my alarm so I could get Michael up for school and I had to stop myself. I realized I did not have to wake up to an alarm this morning. I am no longer the mother of a student. Hey maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

All of our family came home for the big event and it was miserable weather but the graduation was still held outside. Before graduation we wanted to have a family picture done since we grew in numbers in the last year. Larry didn't get home until almost 5:30 and Michael informed us right after that he had to be at the school at 6:00pm or else he couldn't walk. So Misty had literally 5 minutes to get the camera, umbrella's and set us up for Jill (Michael's girlfriend) to take snap the picture. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.

This is everyone in the family who braved the cold, rain and wind for two hours to watch Michael get his name said and handed an empty diploma cover. Pay back to Michael for him attending ALL the track meets, games and music events of his siblings. I'm glad they were there. His other two sisters couldn't take their babies out in the cold or else they would have been their too.

After graduation we got Misty and April's family and headed up to Tollgate for a weekend family reunion. More on that to come...