Is this all we did all summer? Pretty much!

In the past the Collins Family has gone to Lagoon for a wild and crazy day of rides, however this year we decided to go to Bear Lake. We all had so much fun.
Calub is the Little Mermaid, Talon build the Logan Temple, Caden created his version of the Bear Lake Monster, and Aimee, Calub, and Josh built great castles!

We were the only ones willing to try water skiing...Caden, Talon, Holly, Jeff, and Russ Hansen. The rest are a bunch of babies!

Porter had his 5th Birthday! He got a Gameboy and some games from us and Grandma and Grandpa Collins. He also got $6, which he is very excited to spend. He chose Pizza for dinner, always a favorite for him!

Porter is such a fun little guy. He always has a way of making me smile and laugh. Port's best friend is Carson Goodworth. They LOVE to hang out and do so almost on a daily basis. He is also my pickiest eater. I think he only loves meat and sweet...He at least isn't gagging anymore when I make him try new things. One baby step at a time. I am hoping by his next birthday that he will at least eat a few veggies and fruits! Porter is a great singer, however he requires some bribery sometimes to do his best singing. He loves to sing How Firm a Foundation. He is also great at choosing the right...well most of the time anyway :0)

Love you Ports!!!!

Parades and Beaches, What fun!

This is a picture from our 5th parade we have done this summer! The the
me was "Back in time 2009". I didn't know that this parade was on Monday, I thought I had a full week to get ready for it, but no I had 1 day, and what can you do on a Sunday to get ready?? So after cramming my brain for a little bit I thought, Big hair 80's would be so funny. I was totally laughing my butt off as I was getting us all ready. It was like stepping back in time with my hair :0). I wish I would have got a better pic of Talon, he was halarious! Under his jacket all he had on was some big necklases. Isn't Brin a doll! Anyway, our float theme was "Then...Now, Bear Lake ROCKS!!!" We had 80's music blaring out a speaker, and we got some pretty good laughs as we went by! :0) Too Fun!




This is Brin's new cousin Tyler. Mandy and Steve are his foster parents. They have just been given the go ahead to adopt this little cutie. I am so happy for all of them. He will be very loved and cherished in thier family! The other pic is Carrie, Mandy, Ty, and me :0)

Janice, Julie, Meg, Sherilyn, and some of our kids

Want to Make a Bet?

I bet you cannot read this post and not laugh out loud. I stole this from a friend and had to post it!

BANNED FROM WAL-MART...
This is why women should not take men shopping against their will. After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out. Equally unfortunately, my wife is like most women - she loved to browse. Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Wal-Mart:

Dear Mrs. Gilbert,
Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to ban both of you from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Gilbert are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras.
1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people's carts when they weren't looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.
4 July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, 'Code 3 in Housewares... Get on it right away.'
5.. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M's on layaway.
6. August 14: Moved a 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.
7.. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told other shoppers he'd invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department.
8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed, 'W why can't you people just leave me alone?'
9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.
10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the ' Mission Impossible' theme.
12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his 'Madonna look' by using different sizes of funnels.
13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through yelled, 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'
14. October 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed, 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!' And last, but not least...
15. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile, then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here!'

Sincerely,
Wal-Mart

Haha! You snorted admit it!

Time for new family Pics

I still need to get to our family pics, but for now here are the kids. See more of my favorites on my photo blog.

Maple Dell 2009

We had another great year with Jeff's family. We go every year to Payson Canyon and camp at Maple Dell, a boy scout ranch. We were not able to go up this year on Friday like we always do, so Neil (Jeff's dad) got us a hotel room so we could swim and have fun. The next day he took us to the Dinosaur Museum at ThanksgivingPoint. We all had a great time, especially the kids!

Jannie and Mom found a very distant relative that passed down the "cankles" that they lament having.

Big Fish! All my boys wish they could catch one this big!

Brinley's first time fishing. Porter caught a fish but didn't want anything to do with it once he got it. Talon caught his fish early in the morning, it jumped into a row boat full of water and he spent the rest of the day scooping water out of the boat and trying to catch the smart fish. Finally All his hard work paid off and he caught the poor fish for a second time.

MORE Temple Pictures

Temple Pictures

Here are some of the temple picutes I have done. I am wishing I had a different photoshop that could do a few different things like scratches. Does anyone have one that can do that?

Jinxed!!!

Stitches
Two a little over 2 weeks ago Brinley was running into the bathroom to go potty and crashed into something(??don't know what??) and cut her little head open. Jeff took her into the emergency room and they opted to tape it shut to minimize the scaring on her head. A couple hours after she pulled the tape right off. So I am afraid that the scar won't be as minimal as it was suppose to, even though Jeff did a good job of gluing and taping it shut again (luckily the doctor sent us home with extra so we could change a few days later). She learned her lesson and didn't touch the tape again. In fact she wouldn't let us take them off when the doctor said we could. The tape finally fell off yesterday.

Concussion

Last week Talon thought it would be cool to hitch a ride on the back of our Suburban. I had no idea he was back there and drove off. I was almost to the end of our street when he decided to jump off. He hit the ground with so much force that he passed out and scraped up his back pretty bad. I was 15 minutes away before the kids got a hold of me to let me know Talon was hurt. Long story short, I took Talon to the doctor and found out he had a concussion. They did a MRI and it luckily came back negative for bleeding on the brain. He has about an hour of time that he can not remember including my neighbor helping him out. We were extremely lucky he wasn't hurt worse. He has had terrible headaches, but the doctor said he would be back to normal in 2 weeks.

Broken Leg

Can you believe it, ANOTHER broken leg (Emilie last summer)! Poor little Brinley is going to have to wear a cast for most of summer. I don't know who is more upset by this, me or her :0(. I was planning on playing at the beach all summer. I hope duct tape and garbage bags will do the trick!

In case you are wondering what happened, she was climbing on a little cabinet and it fell over on her and broke her bone just below the knee. I am hoping that she only has to wear the cast for a month, but it will probably be more like 2. We go see a specialist on Wednesday.
This is the cabinet. It is only about 4 feet tall, I can't believe it did that kind of damage.

Fat Cat

I was planning on taking my kittens in this summer to get them fixed. As you can see by this picture, I didn't make it! Darn it all, what am I going to do with a bunch of kittens??? Oh and our other "kitten" just may be prego also! UGGH, this stinks!!!