Happy Birthday McKinley!

Our beautiful, crazy, first born turned 3 today! We love our little McKinley, she certainly keeps us on our toes and provides a lot of entertainment. We are having a family party for McKin at the cabin on Wednesday, so she got to open a couple presents today and we saved the rest for the cabin so we can have a party! She got phone calls all day with her great family singing happy birthday to her. McKinley thinks every day is her birthday and tells everyone that so I was glad to have a day where it was actually true.

We let McKinley choose where she wanted to eat, and she chose McDonald's so Chan and I put on a smile and went to Mickey D's for dinner. Can anyone say glorifed cafeteria food? After that we went and saw Ratatouille at the movie theatres and she really enjoyed herself.

Happy Birthday McKin, we love you and are so glad we got to have you as a part of our family!

Congratulations Marcus & Brittney

On Wednesday we made a quick trip to Utah for the reception of my cousin Marcus Baker and his new bride Brittney who were married July 7 in the Newport Beach Temple. They are pretty much the cutest new married couple ever, well since Hailey & Marc. (Sorry the picture is so blurry, my camera is being weird.)

Halle & Hailey at the Reception

McKinley, Whitney, Hailey & Marc on the way down. Again, sorry about the blurriness.

My beautiful cousin Katie, with her daughter Peyton and husband TJ.

All the little cousins, Houston, Porter, Jaxson, & Baylee

It was a great time, thanks to Tanner, Hailey, Marc & Whitney for the fun trip!

Yellow Pine

Our good friends and next door neighbors the Manwarings invited us to their grandparents cabin in Yellow Pine, Idaho. (the Morgans -also Marc's grandparents) It was a last minute decision but it worked out to be a good time for us to get away.

Where in the heck is Yellow Pine? Exactly. We drove 90 miles on dirt roads at about 25 miles per hour on all the dirt roads. I don't think I've ever been so far from civilization, but it was a blast!

Justin, Amber, Ogden, Ellie, Anna, McKinley, Chandler, Angie & Halle in front of the Yellow Pine sign. As soon as we got there and got settled, we took a little Yellow Pine tour. We saw the Yellow Pine cemetery, golf course and one room schoolhouse with no indoor plumbing.

Yellow Pine Golf Course, there are no green fees - can you beleive it?

Anna & McKinley on the tire swing outside the cabin.

On Tuesday we rode the four wheelers about 15 miles to an abandoned mining town called Stibnite, I think. There seems to be some controversy as to where we were exactly. It was very fun. McKinley had a great time and loved the 4 wheelers. Halle was quite a trooper, Chan & I took turns carrying her in a baby carrier the whole way. We joked that it was the "mama deluxe" because I've always seen ladies wearing them and thought that there comes a point when you give up any "coolness" you have left for the sake of your kids. I guess we're there!

We got back and had lunch and wiped all the bugs off of our faces and then decided to check out Yellow Pine a little more. We went to the General store and met some of the locals. Hailey tells me that during the un-summer months it's open for 11-1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays! This is McKinley, Anna, Ogden, & Ellie in front of the Yellow Pine Library. We tried to check out some books but it looked like somebody had moved in, so we hit the road!

After our tour, Halle & I stayed at the cabin to rest and everyone else went swimming in the river, but of course McKinley just wanted to play in the dirt.

Justin & Chandler got in and swam against the current. They were "going no where and getting there fast."

Amber took this picture of Chandler because she thought he looked so thoughtful. Great pose babe! On Wednesday morning we packed up and took off, we did the dirt roads in only 2 hours on the way out, as opposed to 3! We had a great time! The best part of the trip was that McKinley had no accidents (we pulled over a lot) and still hasn't so maybe the potty training nightmare is over.

Thanks to Theo & Mirla for letting us use their wonderful cabin and to our great workers who picked up the slack so we could leave, and thanks to the Manwarings for being great friends and letting us tag along!