The Pier

This weekend Scenic River Landing opened on the Snake River. It is filled with shops, resteraunts, and supposedly a water park...There is also a pier that you can walk on, it goes out into the water and is absolutely beautiful. Since it is the Grand Opening they had games and blow-up toys. My friend Ally andI had some fun playing on the slide and basketball hoop, even though it was meant for younger people....(12 & under)...but we still had fun despite the weird looks.Train Ride around the parking lot...
Miniature horse ride!

The basketball game was not fair! i was down on the ground the whole time...crawling to make a shot... plus people cheated for Ally by pulling on the rope!

My Friend Ally.
The Slide of wonders!
I had some fun going down the slide....alot of fun!Out on the Pier.Pics on the Pier!Ally and me at home!Picture perfect!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Alright Mom, its your turn!  We hope you have a great day and we are so excited to see you in a few weeks.  Here are 53 interesting, funny, and cool things about you to celebrate this birthday.  I am doing a lot of this off of memory alone so hopefully it is mostly accurate. 

1.  She needs to be more careful where she keeps her estrogen pills.  Funny story.  Dad accidentally took one of them recently and was up all night having anxiety attacks about silly things.  

2.  Hard work?  Bring it on.  She is one tough cookie.  I don't think I have ever seen her in a fully relaxed state.

3.  She really loves celery and canteloupe.  

4.  She grew up on a real working farm in Idaho.

5.  She milked 100+ cows, baled entire fields of hay, and herded cows every morning BEFORE breakfast.  Or at least that is what I was led to believe as a young girl who always wanted to sleep in.

6.  She once took part in a high school sit-in in the early 70's to protest the ban on girls wearing trousers to school.  Its probably the most rebellious thing she has ever done.

7.  She had a lifelong dream of learning how to dance.  Dad gave her tap shoes and dance lessons for her 30th birthday and she fulfilled her dream and went on to be a terrific dance teacher to hundreds of kids and adults.

8.  She is unwavering in her standards and values.

9.  Long before it was cool to be into natural homegrown healthy foods, she was utilizing her own garden, grinding her own wheat, and staying away from overly processed foods.

10.  She is one HOT grandma.

11.  She has been an exercise enthusiast her entire life.  

12.  She gave birth to TEN children. Five boys in six years.  Need I say more?

13.  She raised us all without skipping a beat.  Even with Dad traveling so much for most of the time when we were all small.

14.  She wasn't afraid to use her trusty wooden paddle to keep us all in line.

15.  I would love to find out that she has a secret sweet tooth and a hidden closet full of chocolate.  

16.  Her regular walking pace could match an Olympic speed walker.

17.  She practices what she preaches when it comes to living a clean life.  

18.  I have fond memories of seeing her in her room kneeling in prayer by the side of her bed and studying her scriptures every night.

19.  She is not shy about sharing her beliefs with everyone she meets.

20.  If you want to make a good impression on her, wake up early, don't be lazy, and help with the dishes.

21.  She plays a mean game of Rummikub, Phase 10, and Rook.

22.  She makes the BEST bread, rolls, gravy, jam, pie.....and so on.

23.  She once was driving the 'Burb while nursing (it was okay back then) and had a tire blowout on the freeway.  She was able to slow down and steer with one hand to the side of the road.  Wow.   

24.  She tells the best stories about growing up on a farm.

25.  She has always been extremely generous with her time and talents to help those around her.

26.  I can always count on a Sunday night phone call from her to check up on me and my family.

27.  She has dabbled in lots of different crafty things and makes the warmest quilts.  

28.  She has this thing about hoarding lots of cereal.  You can find large quantities of it in lots of places at home.

29.  Much to Dad's surprise, she is learning to love the game of golf.

30.  She always displayed our silly school projects and cheap gifts in her glass curio cabinet in the nice room.

31.  She has always been very frugal and is perfectly content to live without the latest gadgets or fashion trends.

32.  She has never been a big fan of having pets.......especially in the house.

33.  She has a thing for Irish dancing.  After learning that she had some Irish blood, she felt a special kinship to Michael Flatley.  

34.  She dreams of traveling throughout Europe.

35.  She is not afraid to speak her mind.

36.  Don't bring anything of questionable content into her home.  The house is rated G.  

37.  She loves children and has quite the following of grandchildren and kids from church who love to listen to her stories and eat her yummy homemade food.

38.  While most of her friends are relaxing and enjoying their free time, she is busy running a large distribution business and doing a lot of the work herself.

39.  She is not a big fan of organized medicine and prefers to take the natural approach.

40.  She once had an herb that would cure anything and professed her love for its healing powers.  Josh, with his chemistry background, took a look at the ingredients and burst out laughing because of the high concentration of alcohol.  This was mostly funny because she is so adamant about staying far far away from unhealthy things.  So much for ending her day with a little nightcap.

41.  She has great genes when it comes to height.  She passed them on to most of her sons and we are still keeping our fingers crossed that a bit will trickle down to our kids.

42.  She goes by Darlene but growing up, everyone in her family called her by her middle name, Susan, Sue, or Susie.

43.  The dating advice she gave to me and my sisters was to just slap a boy if he tried to kiss us or "get fresh".

44.  She has really good posture and always reminds everyone to stand up straight.

45.  She taught herself to play the piano.

46.  She knows how to drive a tractor, school bus, diesel truck, motorcycle, and pretty much any piece of heavy machinery.

47.  She has always been supportive of Dad.  They are very unified and respect each other so we were never able to get away with much trouble.

48.  She is the first person I would call if I was in trouble or needed something.  I know that she would drop everything to give me advice or help me out.  

49.  She loves to feed the men in her life.  It is one of the ways she shows her love, by taking the time to bake good, hearty food.  She has set a very high standard for their wives and for her daughters to follow.  Rice-a-roni?  Mac 'n Cheese?  Forget about it.

50.  I cannot imagine how much grief and worry we have caused her over the last 30+ years of our lives.  

51.  She loves huckleberries.  And knows the best spots to pick them.

52.  While other kids were eating "sugar cereal" for breakfast every day, we had oatmeal, germade, and cracked wheat.  I love these now much more than any kind of cereal.

53.  She is the best MOM and grandma in the whole world!

We hope you have a fantastic day!  Thank you for always taking care of all of us and putting so much time and energy into teaching us by your strong example.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

 

Girl's Camp

Our Girl's Camp Group
This week I had girl's camp up at Darby. We had a great time, it was so much fun. Only one other beehive came, we have only three in our ward, Shayla. I was the only 2nd year and she was the only 1st year. We had only 7 girls so we all got to sleep in the cabin.

This is my buddy Shayla.. we were pretty much insane the whole week.

The first night we did a skit. It was about a princess (Toadette) that was on her search for a companion. Her first date was the "know-it-all", played by Miss Natalie. Not only was a wearing a cape and a Harry Potter costume, I even had the glasses. Walking pigeon-toed onto the stage and tripping, having a horribly nasal voice and snorting, I brought up quite a few laughs. The next was the "Joker" our leader Sis. Cecil played her. She had a joker hat that she wore. She cart-wheeled onto the stage and her line was "Knock, Knock." Our Froggy chorus replied,"Who's there?". " The bear is over there," the joker said while placing her arm around the princess. "Where, where???" the princess screamed... "No! No! don't run!"the joker said," Stop, drop and roll!!"....you see how it went we also had some dress up as Batman... but we called her "Badman"... Her line was you better be hoping these guns are on safety..." after she kissed her biceps... it was a pretty hilarious night. Also later that night I jumped into the youth leader's bed and she pretty much freaked out it was so funny! I had some other pranks, and they all got laughs...

On Thursday, Mom and Dad came up for the hike. On the hike the limitation is 20 people. We ended up with 21. Halfway on our hike to Monument, (which I might mention I was the only 2nd year on), a park ranger caught up to us. He had been hiding in the bushes to see how many were in our group. The first thing that he did was take a picture of our group. He then informed us that he was going to give tickets to all of the adults (6). He wouldn't tell us how much the tickets were, but said that he would explain us to that later(?). We tried to negotiate with him but he was suffering from little man syndrome, he was about 5'3, (I was taller than him), a king looking for a kingdom, bent on giving tickets. He also kept repeating that he was the park ranger "manager" of the Grand Targhee National Forest. In the end he sent half of the group back down the mountain and gave Dad and the other priesthood leader a ticket. It took him over one hour to issue the tickets and Dad was about ready to throw him over the cliff but somehow restrained himself. The ranger said that we could not pass another group from Darby, than said that we had to be within a 1/2 mile (30 minutes) away from another group. After he was threatening to arrest any adult leader for continuing on with the hike, we decided to stop at a rock ledge jutting out of the mountain for lunch. We listened to the Monument story, and all felt the spirit. Our hike ended after that and we proceded to head down the mountain. The rest of the day was pretty boring waiting for other hikers to return to camp. Mom and Dad were pretty frustrated because the girls weren't able to finish their hike; but you know how they like to tell stories of their lives.....but it was a pretty intense afternoon.
The Back of the "Ranger"

Dad, Mom, & I on the hike.

Here's a better look at the waterfall.My Frog Prince!

Rummikub

Since I have all ready talked about the "Speed Scrabble" game I decided to show the Rummikub game we always play.

The "Alamo"

Here are some pictures from thsi Sunday. We had quite a few people over for dinner. It was a great weekend with lots of fun on the 4th of July, jet-skiing, and playing games.
Jeremy had an interesting outfit of girl's sunglasses, a Ron Paul button, a necklace, old karate pants..well more like capris on jeremy, and a popped collar....Oh last but not least his hair reminds us of..well, the Alamo.
He obviously can't feed himself.Sharilyn and I pretty much are best friends.Kirk and Sharilyn....Mom and Dad stopped washing the dishes for a scenic picture.Devin and Julie are such a cute couple!!Lee came with Aunt JoAnn and Uncle Carl, we all had a fun time.

Jeremy brought some friends up,Rebecca and Whitney.
Our cousin Clancy rode his motorcycle here and we all had some fun taking pictures of it.

Dad even had some fun on it....Mom was behind the camera on these ones, otherwise we would have definitely made her get in the pictuer too!
They just wouldn't let me be in the picture! (matt, ashley, & ashleigh)
A picture of most of us...

Last but not least is Devin and Julie on the motorcycle... they had to find some way to get home!

"Speed Scrabblers"

I am putting complete blame upon my sister Sharese for introducing Mom and Dad to "Speed Scrabble." Until recently the nightly game has been Rummikub, but since then we have been introduced to another great game. At first I was thankful for something else to play since the nightly complaints I have been saying to get out of the game have been getting old, along with playing Rummikub every night. But now that we usually play 5-6 games of "Speed Scrabble", instead of the 2-3 of Rummikub, I have been thinking differently. It would be fine except for the fact that: there are 3 bags of Scrabble letters are combined, it is a never ending game, and it is very easy to cheat at...(the last has sometimes been a plus, though)...

The "Speed Scrabblers"

4th of July

Devin in the last few pictures thinks he is a gangster...


Ashley after the parade...

Jeremy smiling away....

The Stoker house has been pretty busy these past few days.... Jeremy w/ his 3 friends, and Ashley, Devin & Julie....doesn't sound like much but some of of still had to share rooms.

The Fourth of July was so much fun... we started the day off with the parade with a delayed start from Natalie, from having to catch the neighbors dog....Ashley was in the parade for her dance company, so we got to watch her with all the other floats. Then a quick nap afterwards left us awake for our BBQ and competitive sports playing. The fireworks were amazing as always with a 30 minute display of different fireworks again and again.

Braces Off!

So since this is some of my most exciting news of the Summer I decided to post something about it. But after 2 years and 8 months I finally was able to get my braces off. ( Oh and get my ears pierced and get contacts..) but that is my exciting news for this week..

Trip To Missouri

Seeing as though I am the only one at home now...I have taken up the responsibility of adding stuff to this blog, (even though Sharese and Kayla pretty much have done all that is needed to do.)

Last week we went to visit Whitney and to see her Boot Camp graduation. (3rd from the left)While we were in that area we were also able to go see sights at Nauvoo and Carthage. Since I was only about 3 1/2 when we went last time, it was a great experience to go again. We saw some great sights, and had a great time. At one of the old bakeries there was some China from England that turned out to be the exact same as some of Mom's. She was pretty excited to find that out. We also got to take wagon rides around the town. When we were taking one we couldn't go down over Water St. It was covered in water! Due to all the flooding we had to take quite a few detours and sometimes go through water.

Oh and of course...this way awesome milky way car that we found!