Earl Rasmussen Reunion 2018

One of Alan's cousins (Jeff) organized a small reunion for that side of the family this year. Since Grandpa Earl is 95 years old and lives in a nursing home in Twin Falls, ID, the reunion was held at a park there. We loaded up on movies and snacks and headed off to Boise on a Friday morning.

Mason joined the crowd of people petting and taking pictures with the cows at the rest stop in Boardman. City people - haha!

We got to Geoff's just before dinner. They had pizza for everyone and then took the kids to a splash pad.

I got to go to dinner with my roommate and friend from BYU Mandy. She lives in Boise, but I almost never get to see her because we're always there for such a short time and need to spend that time with family. Mandy recently lost her mother to ALS and I felt like it was important to visit her this time. We had a fun time catching up at The Soda Stop in Nampa. I remember Mandy's mom as a graceful, loving, and kind woman and am so sad for Mandy's loss. Life takes us all on such an unexpected (both in good and hard ways) ride.

We left for Twin Falls first thing Saturday morning, but Spencer and Katelyn made time to play pool for a few minutes. They are about nine months apart and always have fun together.

Twin Falls is about two hours from Geoff's house so it was almost noon by the time we drove there, stopped for some groceries, and found the park. The reunion consisted of a bbq, some pictures, and lots of visiting. The kids ran around and a few people played corn hole, but it was HOT and most of us just tried to stay in the shade.

I think someone said that Grandpa Rasmussen currently has 120 descendants. I don't know how many of us were there, but it was a good crowd. Earl and his late wife Vauna had four children (Brent, Bonnie, Darwin, Rhonda). All of them were there plus lots of grandkids and great grandkids. I had met most of them before, but definitely don't know them well. A few of them live in Sherwood with us, but most are in Idaho or Utah. A special thanks goes to Geoff and Alicia for the group pictures!

Amazingly, all of Alan's siblings were able to be there! Our family has reunions every other year so we were super happy to get to see so many of them on our off-year. Caralee hadn't planned to come since she had just been out here a couple of weeks beforehand, but her family surprised her with plane tickets for her birthday at the last minute. We were only all together for a few hours, but it was still so nice to see everyone. It was a fun afternoon and miraculously I didn't get a migraine despite the intense sun and heat.

We drove back to Geoff's later in the afternoon. These boys were tired! Happily, everyone except for Eric's family got to come to Geoff's house too so we had a few more hours with them!

We had dinner and just relaxed that evening. Geoff lives out in the country and I love their pastoral views. It reminds me of home and makes me wish we didn't live in the city.

Geoff has an awesome fire pit so we roasted marshmallows for s'mores later that night.

We found a 9:00 ward for Sacrament Meeting on Sunday morning, changed in our car, and then drove home. It was a quick trip, but so worth it to see family. I've said it before, but I am so blessed to have married into such a great family. I love all of them!

July at Home

We spent the second half of July on vacation, but the first half was filled with typical summer activities for us.

The boys helped me pick raspberries at Koch farms one hot morning. The picking was better than it usually is for raspberries, but I don't remember how many pounds we got.

Alan ran a half marathon at Cook Park a few days after the 4th. Mason liked watching the geese while we waited for Alan to finish. Of course Mason tripped and landed in a pile of goose poop. Yuck! Alan ran well and almost beat his PR.

After the race, we did some geocaching at the park. We are new to geocaching and aren't very good. We found the first one we hunted, but never found the second.

We found another geocache in Sherwood while out on a family bike ride another day.

I offered to pay Spencer $1/bucket of berries if he would get up early and help me pick. He was a great helper and we wound up with 37 lbs of Marion berries and blue berries. I've never been able to get all of my berries in so few trips - Spencer was a big help! And, he was very happy with the $2.80 he earned.

Mason was in bad need of a haircut, but I just didn't feel like dealing with the screaming and tears that always happen when I cut his hair. So, we visited Cookie Cutter Haircuts for the first time. Mason was nervous, but loved the airplane he got to sit in and hardly made a peep while they cut his hair. It helped immensely that the lady was really fast - we were in and out in about 15 minutes. We probably won't go there every time, but the lack of trauma was definitely worth it this time!

Dani and her kids came to visit for about a week like they always do, but sadly, we left town right after they came so the kids only got to play together for a couple of hours. These crazy Lego boys had fun while it lasted though!

Our first harvest of 2018 - a yellow zucchini!

We went to the splash pad here in town for FHE one night. It wasn't crowded and we had so much fun! Not pictured is Alan and Spencer ganging up on me and soaking me. Haha!

Independence Day

Our 4th of July began with the Freedomthon in Beaverton again. This was the 4th year Uberthons has held it there and it gets bigger and better each year. Spencer and I ran the 5k while Mason rode in the stroller like usual. I don't know how many more races I can push him though - he is getting heavy!! Spencer didn't quite get a PR, but ran well considering that he hadn't run in almost a month.

I purchased special 4th of July shirts for all of the boys but on race morning, Mason REALLY wanted to wear the Spiderman costume our neighbor had just passed down to him. It was the right colors so we went with that. Mason was super happy and wore it all day.

The boys had pancakes after the race. Mason really did like them. He was just super anti-picture that morning for some reason. Haha!

Alan worked really hard to create some carnival games for this race. While he was setting up the day before the race, some missionaries stopped by to ask how they could help (so awesome!) so Alan had them run the carnival games. Spencer and Mason had lots of fun playing the games. I think they liked the "snack walk" and "toilet paper throw" the best. They got small treats for their prizes and loved that of course.

I convinced Mason to try the kid's race again. He is always excited to run before the race, but freezes and doesn't want to participate once it's actually time to start. I don't know if the crowds bother him, or if he feels too pressured, or what. He did wind up participating, but insisted on walking after the first ten yards.

Uberthons had also rented four bouncy houses for the occasion. Mason was really excited about them, but they were crowded and he got nervous and didn't wind up playing on them much.

We had Darwin and Debbie over for a bbq in the evening after the race was all cleaned up. We had grilled chicken, veggie kabobs, rolls, fruit, and macaroni salad. I attempted a couple of desserts without regular sugar, but they didn't turn out too well. Alan is always really tired after a big race like that, but he is still a good sport and tries to make the rest of the holiday fun. 

It started sprinkling after we ate, so we pulled our chairs under the tree and had a bean bag throwing competition.

I really don't like the small fireworks you light off yourself, but Mason had been talking about fireworks for weeks. Our options for letting him see some were to either buy some ourselves or take him to a professional show that doesn't even start until it gets dark at 10:00 pm. We decided that buying some ourselves was the lesser of the two evils so I spent $10 on a small package at Walmart. Lesson learned: $10 is not enough to make it worth buying any at all. They were super lame!

Luckily, our next door neighbors spent a lot more than I did and were very generous in letting us enjoy them too and letting our boys take turns choosing which one to light next.

Can you tell that Mason loved them?!

I was asked to give a talk on religious freedom in Sacrament Meeting a few days after the 4th. While giving a talk is always stressful for me and this topic was particularly difficult for me, I appreciated the opportunity to study it and to learn what I can do to defend religious values and freedoms within my own sphere of influence. Our great country was founded by brilliant men who were led by God as they won our freedom and wrote the constitution. I'm proud to be a citizen of a country with that legacy and pray that I can be courageous and articulate enough to defend it.