It's Almost September?!?!

Well, the travelers have returned! We got back late Sunday night after a long 2-day drive home. We had fun visiting and catching up with everyone in the Portland area, but it is nice to be back in our own beds! Three weeks went by fast. We got to the coast, so it was Beckett's first time in the ocean, which was great. Kyle and I got to eat at our favorite sushi place, and we celebrated Auntie Hannah's birthday. Kyle went on a great golf tournament with my dad, and he shot his personal best ever! It was exciting. I got in some great visits with old friends was amazed (again) how much things have changed wince I left 10 years ago. Auntie Sumner was so awesome and took a weekend to come up and visit (not long enough!), and I got to buy some great beads/stones. It was a fun time for us all. We're now getting ready for preschool to start again and are preparing for Beckett's first birthday! I can hardly believe it's September already and that 2009 in flying by so fast. I had another epidural steroid injection today and am patiently waiting for the effects. My back went out horribly Friday night before we left, so I scrambled to find a chiropractor Saturday morning before our long drive back. I found a good guy (oddly one who hunts out here every year!) who helped me out, but needless to say the drive was miserable. I haven't had anything this bad in years where my right leg just gives out. It made me nervous to even carry Beckett, so I'm glad Hannah was here to help! Anyway, here are some pictures from our trip (now, if I could just get them scrapped) so enjoy!

Grammie and the kiddos at the aquarium in Newport Beach...

Miss Natalie having a "casual" drink of water at the beach hotel...

Aquarium...
These are Japanese crabs and they get HUGE!!! They can have 9-feet leg spans and live for 100 years...

One of the underwater tunnels...

Natalie
Momma with the babes...

It got a little cold and rainy at the beach, but we still had fun outside.

Beckett discovers how fun sand can be...and that it doesn't go in your mouth...
Nattie in the waves
and Nattie in her "pool" up on shore...
Happy boy!
Bird "chasing"
And Auntie Hannah helps her investigate a dead jelly fish. She insisted on bringing it back to the hotel in her bucket so she could "save" it.

And we thought this was just a tourist attraction the first day, then read in the paper a guy had fallen asleep at the wheel and drifted his fishing boat to shore! They were using cranes adn backhoes to get it back out to sea the next day...
Here we are at Grammie's in Portland digging potatoes. She had a blast. Mom has a great garden this year!

Leyah, Justin and Beckett

I finally got together with two of my oldest girlfriends this trip and we got pictures of our kids together. Erin (who now lives in California with her husband and four little ones) and Mariah (who still lives in Portland with her husband and little girl) and I are all only 3 months apart and we all had babies last year within 5 weeks of each other! Beckett was the beginning of September, Justin (Erin's) was the end of September, and Leyah (Mariah's) was October. It was so much fun to get everyone together for the long-awaited photo. Beckett didn't think it was such a good idea this time, but with so many kids it's hard to get them all happy at the same time!
The Mommas with our seven kiddos...

Beckett and Justin. Justin taught Beckett how to efficiently scoot on his bum, and now he's decided that's much better than crawling!

Auntie Sumner and Beckett

Grammie and the grandkids

Ipa and Beckett...we went swimming in the Columbia River near his Washington home. It was great fun. It was 107 degrees the first 3 days we were there while it rained at home!

Ipa, Natalie and Beckett

Ipa and Daddy made Natalie a log horse to ride...

Grammie, Anne and their grandbabes...

and here we are with Mariahm, Yshai and Leyah. We had them over to Grammie's for dinner and I made Abie's fabulous spinach encheladas! Thanks for the great recipe!!!


We spent one day at the fair with Ipa and Jimmilea in Washington. Natalie's favorite part was the cows, and we got to watch a sheep show and ride carnival rides...a little bit bigger than our county fair!

Petting a chicken...

Pygmy goats! They were so adorable and Hannah now has be half convinced that we need one here...Daddy's not so convinced.

Auntie Hannah and Beckett...

Ipa "drove" the teacup ride!

The gang at Jimmilea's house...

And Ipa bought Nattie a clown nose at the fair. She really enjoyed a clown performance they had.

And that's our trip in a nutshell! The summer went by WAY too fast this year, and Kyle is getting ready for his first bow hunt at the beginning of September! Hope you all had a great July and beginning of August. Suzi and Lauren...I can't wait to visit with you guys, whenever it happens!!! Hugs to all.

Summer Time...Summer Time... Fun, Fun Summer Time

Hope you all had a great Fourth. We sure had fun. Kyle did make it back from North Dakota in time to help his dad bale hay for a few days, then we headed to a friend's house for a great BBQ and spectacular fireworks. They live next door to a prominent business owner in town who puts on a fabulous fireworks show each year from his house on the hill. He gives a free meal to all Veterans and anyone can come in and watch the show he pays to have professionally put on. It is rumored this year he spent $50,000! It was great, and we were right underneath it all. It was by far the best show I've seen, and Beckett slept through the whole thing! They didn't start until about 10 pm, so it was a long night and Nattie stayed up for it all. Anyway, I took the kids to a parade in Ten Sleep earlier in the day, and here are some pics...

Daddy and the munchkins...


Natalie and her friend Addison roasting marshmallows. The BBQ was at our friends Cassidy and Travis's house, and it was good so see and visit with so many people.

Natalie and Beckett waiting for the parade to start...

Sorry, this one is out of order. It's from the week before when my cousin Rene and her family came through and visited. She has three fun boys who loved our big dogs and played great with my kiddos. Spencer and Natalie are only a couple of months apart. They live in Washington and were on their way to Yellowstone.

Momma and her good friend Amanda at the fireworks

I tried to get some pics of the fiasco, but of course these don't do the event justice. It really was spectacular.




Here are some swimming pictures from this week. We've been without any rain or thunderstorms for a while now and the hot dog days of summer have set in! We've been spending early mornings at the park, swimming and on the bike path. Natalie rode 2 miles by herself on her trike this week! I had to help push her up one of the bigger hills, but for the most part she did it all on her own. I was so proud of her. I had Beckett in the stroller and did a bit of jogging behind her...she can really put the pedal to the metal on her trike! She gets to start swimming lessons next week. We've also had some fun playdates while Daddy has been gone so much. He got home again last night and is off this weekend, so we are happy about that. We have two weddings to go to tomorrow and will probably head out to Hyattville Sunday. We had more company last weekend when his good buddy Matt from college drove through with his wife Beth and son Samuel. Samuel and Beckett are only a few weeks apart, so they had a lot of fun together. They all spent the night and it was really nice to catch up and visit. Nattie was 9 months old when we went up to Montata for their wedding!

I'm trying to get as much jewelry done this week as I can for a show next Saturday, then I head straight from there (Riverton) to Pinedale to see some old friends I have not visited for a while. It will be my first weekend away from Beckett! I'll be so busy I think it will be fine. I think between Kyle, Jill and Guy they can handle it. I also have a JOB INTERVIEW next week! I hope to work online teaching English to Asian students. It would be part time and I can work late at night when the kids are in bed, which is perfect. MY ideal shift would be 10 pm - 2 am, but we'll see what they give me ( if I even get hired!). It's a great company based here in the Basin that has really expanded a lot over the last couple of years. I remember reporting about it when they first started and I worked at the paper.

Anyway, that's it in a nutshell from the Tharp family! We're getting really excited about our Portland trip at the end of the month. Hopefully I will post again before then, but no guarantees!

"The best relief from life was the presence of a friend who seldom asked us for more than we could give." ~Barbara Raskin, American writer

Hello Again

Yes, We are still here, just too busy to sit inside at the computer to post on the blog! It has been a fun few weeks with lots of exciting news...Beckett got two teeth in one day right after I posted last time, and he is very close to crawling now. I thought he might go straight to walking because he stands up so well, but it looks like all that time spent crying on his tummy in crawl position may actually pay off. He's just a bit "relaxed" about the whole thing...not like his go-getter sister was. He had his 9 month checkup and is 19 pounds and only grew 1 inch in the last 2 months, so he's slowing down a bit. He is still in about the 80th percentile for height. Hard to believe he'll be a year old in not too long.

Aunt Karrie and Madison came back last week for Grandma and Grandpa Tharp's 60th anniversary party, which was a lot of fun. We got to see a lot of family from near and far and we had a big BBQ at the hot springs park in Thermopolis. I had my first double-header softball game Tuesday, and Karrie and Grandpa Guy came in to watch the kids since Kyle was one of our umpires! We are a pretty inexperienced team, but we had a blast...though I'm a little sore. It is definitely a game I wish I had gotten into earlier. I even made it to second base! I wasn't quite sure what to do when I got there, but luckily you're allowed to have people yell at you from the sidelines to tell me when to run! I've had 4 games now and haven't struck out yet! Anyway, here are some snapshots of the last 3 weeks...


Our attempt at having a family photo of grandparents with the grandkids at the anniversary party. Little Madison didn't really think it was a good idea at the time...

Here are Phyllis and Eddie with their five children (Pam, Jeff, Steve, Guy, Terry)

Adorable baby boy...

And adventurous big sister...notice how high the river is. It was all the way into the parking lot and grass lawn at the park.

Aunt Karrie and Aunt Teresa (Jeff's wife. They live in Colorado)

Our little family photo...

And I just love this one!


For Father's Day we headed to the lake after church to do some fishing and a BBQ. It was a great day to be outside and we all had a lot of fun. This one is definitely a framer of Daddy and Nattie in our new boat. Yes, we've been storing a boat for more than 7 years for a friend of Kyle's who ended up not moving back here. He signed over the title to us last week! Needless to say, Kyle is pretty excited.


Our little fisherwoman...she caught quite a few that day. She just loves it and wants to do it all herself. It was fun to have Madison join in this time. I took Beckett home after a few pictures...too much fun in the sun and he was ready to be done.

Kyle got some new weed spray this week to take care of our "jungle," and some of the dye is still there with the morning dew, which of course makes Bella look like a complete freak! It doesn't show on Katie nearly as much, and it is harmless at this point.


Nattie and her waffle this morning. She was jellous that I took a picture of the dog and wanted one of her.

She and Beckett will head to a sitter's house tonight while we go to the Big and Ritch concert! It's our anniversary celebration, and it should be a lot of fun. We're gonig with Guy, Jill and Karrie. Not much else is new...Natalie is done with her music class and will start swimming in a few weeks, and I'm trying to get some more jewelry done for a show in mid July. I had one a few weeks ago that didn't go very well. Kyle was gone so I had both kids, which was not ideal. I wasn't selling much so I packed up early and headed home. That was good because I missed the downpour about an hour later! We'll see how the next one goes. I'm doing some custom jewelry for a wedding that Mandy is in next month, and I'm really excited about that.

My cousin Rene and her family are driving through this weekend, so we'll have dinner and visit for a while Sunday. We have not seen them in a few years and are looking forward to catching up. I may try to make a trip to Pinedale to see a sick friend sometime next week, which I desperately need to do. He has been sick for a long time and I didn't make it down there last summer. I also have to congratulate my dear friend Emi in Pinedale who just got engaged! We've been friends/penpals for 20 years now. Another congrats to my beautiful friends Karen and Seth on the news they are expecting a baby girl in November! Karen and I went to high school together and she is one of the few that I still keep in touch with! Can't wait to see all of you Portland crowd when we visit next month!!! We are also very proud of Auntie Hannah and her STELLAR test scores to end her first year of nursing school. I know you will be a fabulous nurse.

Hope you all have had a great June and are planning a fun 4th of July! Hugs to all.