Guess where my van is?

Parked in my garage!! I can hardly believe it myself! We have lived in this house for a year and I have learned to just tune out the garage when I walk by. I would close my eyes, hum a happy song and pretend it wasn't there. It was scary, folks. I soooo wish I would've taken before pictures, but I didn't. But here is what it looks like now!

We spent allll day on Saturday cleaning it out. We took a huge load of stuff to goodwill and a HUGE load of stuff to the dump, and now we have a clean garage that I can actually park in!

We found all sorts of fun stuff during our garage cleaning adventure. First, I found our lost set of van keys that have been missing for almost 2 years! Woo Hoo!

Some other fun stuff we found:

My Utah State ID card. Back then they just put your SS# (AKA student number) right there on your card for all the world to see. Wow, I'm old.

My very first check register from my and Ray's joint account. I had some compulsive need to save every single check register for the first 5 years of my marriage...

I loved this because I found a sweet note from my then 14 year old baby sister Dana :)

This next find gave Ray and I a good laugh...






Just remember that it was the early '90's, people....











I'm just keepin' it real, folks...

Tanning beds were really popular back then...

My senior pictures!

Love the spray-painted foam '93, and I just don't have anything to say about my hair.

1993, people.

Love white pantyhose and pumps,

and my friend Andrea just reminded me! The "pirate shirt" Sienfeld episode just called, they want their shirt back ;)

Love the pink backdrop,

and the shoulder pads ;)

The ladder? Classic!

The fake ficus tree? Perfect.

The wicker chair? So whimsical.

The faint glow behind my head? Angelic.

Some always classic hand to the chin shots.

This looks like the picture you see in the doctor's office of the office manager.

(and love the shine off the earring!)

Hmmm, so mysterious!

Just to remind you, again, that it was 1993!

(love the sandals, and don't you think the pink backdrop goes so well with the yellow shirt?)

All for the amazing price of $54.95. Worth every cent, in my opinion! Mom and dad sprung for the $15 clothes change fee, you only graduate from high school once, after all.

And this doesn't have anything to do with cleaning out the garage, but check out this hunk!

I took some shots of Ray for our website :)

See, cleaning the garage out can be fun!

Forgiveness

Please watch this amazing story.

Family Closeness: Part 3-Mt. Rushmore

I have been really busy. Scratch that, I have been really overwhelmed and that is worse than being really busy because it tends to incapacitate me sometimes. But I have made a list and I feel like I have some control over my life again and I will persevere! (I'm really good at that). Anyway, time for blogging has been scarce, but I decided that I need to do some things to escape and give myself a break. So here you go!

I thought our Mt. Rushmore trip deserved a post of it's own. We stopped there on our way through S. Dakota. It is the third time I have been there (does that seem weird to anyone else?), but the last time we went was when Grace was a baby. By the way, the Mt. Rushmore KOA rocks, seriously, it does. Word to the wise, don't go to Mt. Rushmore after you have been driving all day! Naomi was a handful, to say the least, but can you blame her?

Happy to be out of the car?

There was a flag for every state.

There we are! I learned something new at Mt. Rushmore!

We *tried* to get a picture with all the kids, but Naomi wasn't having it-as you can clearly see.

But we got some cute ones with the other 3 :)

Wahington and Linclon, 2 of my very favorite presidents.

There they are again.

Truly amazing, really.

Uh-oh....

Can you see the frustration in her eyes? Poor girl!

As we were leaving the parking lot we saw the most awesome pack job, EVER! Those black containers with the handles, those are garbage cans! Genius! They were from Maine, they were a looong way from home! (and we scored a "Maine" for our license plate game!)

Keep scrolling down for part 2 :)

Family Closeness: Part 2

We got to spend some time, too short an amount!, with Ray's family in Minnesota. We visited his mom, dad, and brother in Lake Crystal for 2 days, and his other 2 brothers in Minneapolis for 2 days. I was terrible at taking pictures and am kicking myself for all the pictures I didn't get (like one of all the cousins together, and one of the kids with their grandma and grandpa). But I did get some fun ones.

We needed to make this a budget friendly trip so we camped at several KOA's along the way (and we only went out to eat twice, we totally rocked the PBJ's and cereal!!). This one in Billings is the first KOA ever! Not the best picture, but I was standing in the middle of the road and Ray was yelling at me about all the cars coming!

The kids FINALLY got to miniature golf at the Billings KOA when we stayed there for the second time on our way home.

At the park in Lake Crystal with Morgan!

Seth and Maggie had such a good time together, he helped her so much!

Anyone who watches Wipeout as religiously as we do knows what a dizzy dummy is. For those of you who don't know, it is an adult size contraption like the one above that the contestants get strapped to, spun around very fast, then they are released to complete the course. When we got to the park, Elliot stands up and says, "YES! DIZZY DUMMIES!!!!"

I *heart* swings, big trees and evening light.

Ray with his dad and grandma

Ray with his aunt Cheryl. These two are on completely separate ends of the political spectrum and have gotten in many heated facebook discussions (imagine that). It's good to see them getting along!

Naomi loved this piano in the common room at great grandma's apartment!

Great-grandma with the grand kids :)

Grandma talking to Naomi. I just love the expression on grandma's face :)

Grace and Morgan

Ray and his mom and dad

In Minneapolis, the girls played barbies.

Elliot played on the Wii

The only picture I got of Jade

And I didn't get any pictures of Jez and Trina's 4 other kids, or them. I know, I'm lame. We had such a good time visiting them, though! I only wish it could've been for longer!