CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Monday, August 11, 2025

Sister Hailey Hurst

Just two days before we left for Bear Lake, Haiely left the MTC at 3:30 in the morning heading to Houston, Texas South mission where she will be serving for 18 months.  


Her farewell was so amazing!  She gave a great talk sharing the ways she has been preparing for her mission. She is going to be one incredible missonary. She had a great time in the MTC .   Houston is going to be so blessed by having her.  We look forward to reading her emails every Monday.


 

Bear Lake 2025



 

Our trip to Bear Lake was so much fun!  We rented a house that had our own private beach.  The boys spent hours digging a hole deep enough for Zac to stand inside. 

\]

We rented a couple of wave runners, and they were the hit of the trip! 


Everyone had a great time taking them out for a spin!


They even talked me into hopping on even though I wasn't planning on it.


Hard to believe that some of the teenagers were old enough to take them for a spin without parents.  (I was terrified, but they did great!)


Savvy taught me how to use a kayak.  It was so fun!


The boys enjoyed paddle boarding and tubing when they weren't digging holes.


Even tiny Zac was amazing on his kayak!


We spent lots of time watching the kids and enjoying the cool weather.


They brought Logan's volley ball net and ball and had so much fun playing sand volleyball.


Oliver and Jamie brought their bikes and Oliver loved doing tricks on his.


They played soccer on the grass by the house.


We had a pool competition that Jamie won.


We played games and watched shows, and just had fun being together.


Mike did an art project with the kids.


While we were there, we left the wave runners in the water, tied to Jordan's truck, so they wouldn't float away.  

The last day, all our cute girls got them back on the trailer to return them.  Girl Power!


My only regret, is that we were having too much fun to remember to take a big family picture of all of us.  Jamie at least remembered to get one of their little family with us.  Most of the others were already headed home when she remembered..  


On the way down, Krista and Matt's van died going through Logan canyon. Fortunately, it died in a place where they could pull off the road out of traffic.  Unfortunately, they had no cell service in the canyon.  Fortunately, there was a small campground not far from it and Matt had brought his bike so he rode it to the campground.  Unfortunately, they couldn't get ahold of most of us because we were also out of cell range.  Fortunately, Josh was at the beach house and fortunately he was able to get ahold of Lani who fortunately was about 45 minutes behind them and was able to squish Krista, Aida and Sophie in her car.  Unfortunately, Matt and all their stuff wouldn't fit. Fortunately, Matt was happy to stay and go for a bike ride in the canyon. Fortunatley, they made it to the beach house and Jamie emptied his van and let us borrow it to go rescue Matt and all their stuff.  Unfortunately, they had to leave their van in the canyons, but fortunately, Matts awesome brother Paul was able to come up Saturday and he and Matt towed the van home. Fortunately, Matt had a truck at home that would fit all their stuff and them, so he drove it back up Saturday night.  Whew!  Quite a story with LOTS OF TENDER MERCIES!


Hailey was the only one of our kids and grandkids who wasn't there.  She is serving her mission in Houston Texas.  We missed her but are so happy she is serving our Heavenly Father.  













Monday, July 7, 2025

Lani's Birthday Party

Lani's birthday party has kind of turned into a Birks Family reunion.  It's a time we all get together because everyone adores Lani!


I think we had close to 40 people come.  We did it at Jamie's beautiful home, because it's kind of in the middle and it OFTEN storms on Lani's birthday.  






It was especially fun this year because Skyler's cute family was here.  I did a terrible job of taking pictures, I was having too much fun visiting, but it was great to see so many of our family.


 

Family pictures 2025



 A few weeks ago, Hailey took our family pictures.  They turned out great!  I wanted them before Hailey left on her mission, and we were able to make it happen. Hailey got things all set up for this picture and Lani snapped it for us.  Thanks Lani!


Our whole crew!

Krista and Josh's families


Jamie's family


Jordan's family
 

Mike and me


 The Bigs


The Middles


The Littles


The Boys


Us and our grandkids






Sunday, May 11, 2025

Happy Mother's Day

What a wonderful day mother's day is to think about how grateful we are for our mothers.  I was so blessed with an amazing mom.  It's been almost 10 years since she passed away and I miss her so much.  She would be so proud of my kids and grandkids.  I'm so grateful for the mothers of my sweet grandchildren.  They are all incredible ladies and I love and appreciate them so much!


We had such a fun day.  Krista invited us all over to her house for lunch.  The boys took care of the planning of all the food, aqnd it was DELICIOUS!  They did grilled chicken tacos, with street corn, mexican rice, and ALL the trimmings, complete with homemade salsa. Krista made cheesecake and Lani madea sheetcake for dessert. So Yummy.!




We had the hardest time getting the kids out of the sandpile to come and eat.


They headed there as soon as they arrived and we had to shake the sand off them before they left.


Such a great backyard.


Thanks to Krista for hosting and the boys for organizing it and making the yummy food.
Happy Mother's Day!









 

Bigs Sleepover

It's hard to believe that these three girls are all so grown up!  Molly is graduating in a few days, and will be heading off to BYU.  Hailey leaves on her mission to Houston Texas in July, and Libbie will complete her Associates degree at Salt Lake Community College in December and head to Weber State University.  I decided I wanted to do a last hoorah, a quick Big Girls Getaway.  Amazingly enough, we found a 24 hour time slot that they were all available.  I booked a fun Hotel in Heber and we had a great time being together!  Our first stop was the Dairy Keen.  It is a fun little restaurant in Midway that serves delicious hamburgers, fries and shakes.  It did not disappoint!


Then we walked around the cute little town of Midway.  We went to a few of the shops, but most of them close at 6:00, so we just wandered around.  We found this HUGE field covered in dandelions.


Libbie had the idea to get matching jammies, so we ordered them before we went and they were so cute and cozy!  We moved a table in between the beds to be our game table and had so much fun playing  Sky Jo and Five Crowns.  (Bonnie and Dennis taught us these the last time they came and I bought them right after)


We spent time talking about our favorite memories together, and they remembered the time I made them matching nighties for a sleepover.  They wanted to recreate the picture I had of them in the nighties at breakfast.  Such silly girls!


We went to Midway again and hit the shops that weren't open the day before


Then we headed to the outlets at Park City.  I gave them each shopping money and they had a great time finding all sorts of cute things.  Libbie got a  red Nike hoodie and a pretty silver bracelet.  Hailey got a darling dress and skirt at Down East and a cute shirt at Old Navy, and Molly got 2 fun tops at Gap.  Such a great shopping spree!


Before we knew it, we had to head home to get Molly to a job interview.  I sure love spending time with these AMAZING young ladies.  They are soooo good and are turning out just how I hoped they would..