A Bit O' Summer

Hello! Hope every one's Summer's are going alright!
Our's has been absolutley wonderful!

Daddy built us an outdoor kitchen at the beginning of Spring! You can cook almost anything you want, even biscuits, if you don't mind them burned a bit on the bottom;)

We've done quite a bit of camping lately. It's been so much fun! I love sitting around the fire with my family, talking or reading and singing! I won't say much about the times when our bedding got soaked or we didn't have any clean clothes for Sunday, or when someone tried to teach us how to start a fire with a stick and shoelace;) yeah, that should've worked, but, it didn't. Oh, well, it wouldn't be real camping without all this plus the bugs, smoke and dirt! It's been quite an experience! Ah, interesting times!

I was able to get a few pictures of Joey and Rach a couple of weekends ago!! She is doing well and her house is coming along nicely! Joe had a fever while we were there though, poor darling.

We are keeping Bret and Ron this week while A-n-K (aka Alan and Katie) are gone to Arizona with a load of wood! They are such cuties (the little boys, I mean) Maud did the most adorable photo shoot of them:)

To end my post I have pictures of us girlies riding Go Carts at the C.'s from Sunday!! It was very fun and very bumby!

Hope y'all enjoy 'em!

Beth

Wha-la! La Cocina!! Didn't Daddy do a good job?!He just built this Saturday! The joys of camping;) no sarcasm intended!What fun nephews are!!

Mother and Peach with Peachy's pretty blue walls in the background! Daddy with Joe-Joe

"There's a good one of you Wolve"

Me and my sister Rachy! I must say, we don't really look alike!LOL!

I'm not sure how we ended up matching!LOL! T'was fun girls!Being goofy! Goofy again;)

Have a good day!

Bethany

Catherine's 16 Birthday Party

A couple of Saturdays ago Mama, Madi and I were so blessed to get to celebrate Catherine C.'s 16th birthday with her! It was a beautiful afternoon tea with several courses, ice cream and cake and some fun games, my favorite being the one about "How well do you Know you mother?" One girl got every single question right! Bravo, Kayla!
The theme of the party was things for her Hope Chest so Catherine's brother Austin made her an elaborate cake designed to look like a wooden chest!
The birthday girl!! Catherine and Austin with the cakePlaying gamesCaught in the act!Esther with her fan club!
The beautiful tables!

Decoration close up

Maud and Denae enjoying the flower garden

Catherine's beautiful Hope ChestThe Maiter'd....And the Servers! What cutie's y'all are! Waiting for the food to be served
"Ah, no pictures right now please;)"

The C. Sisters And the Smith Sisters!

More games

How well do Sami and Abbi know Mrs. A?? Turned out they knew almost all the questions!

Mama and Levi

Happy Birthday Cetherine!

~Bethany

Party Faces

To Arizona and back

Day One

About two weeks ago my brother Alan and I took a load of wood out to Arizona for our Cousin Daniel! It was so neat! I'd only been to AZ once and I didn't remember it so it was a really interesting to see this different part of the U.S. And it is REALLY different from the South East!
We left on Monday, around 3 a.m. Not a good time to start a long car trip! We made it about half way through Texas though. Not bad!
G.P.S, Sunglasses, Flag, little music device thingy...yup, we're all ready!
Charlie tightening the load

Yeah! AK!! We're half way to the half way mark!

My handsome bro!

Ahhh, all sorts of things to remind me of family and home!

"Look! Only 1085 miles to go!!!"

A beautiful sunset at the end of our long day of driving.

Day Two

Day two finds us in New Mexico. Land of shrubs and buttes!! I've never seen land like this before. LOL! It's so flat and NO trees! Wow!

New Mexico may have been flat and kinda boring but it did have a very beautiful and rather large flower garden at the rest area!

When we got to Arizona there was a gorgeous Mountain pass that we stopped to take pictures in!!The camera had decided to act up just then so the pictures are too bright but it really was just breathtaking!!
A little creature that I have no idea what it is! ;)

Alan saw this old car! LOL!

More pretty mountains!

Uhh, and more mountains

hmm.. I'm sure your wondering how many pictures of the mountains I'm going to post;)

Just one more!
We dropped our load that day in Show Low!! Yeah!

We were then able to drive over to our Cousins house for the night! Thank y'all so much for letting us drop in at such a late hour!

Day Three

After a much needed nights sleep we spent a wonderful day with our dear cousins! The girls showed me their neighborhood, dogs and we got to meet some of the sweet people in their Church!

The youngest S. member. Such a cutie!

The girls

And their dog, Squiggle!

Me, taking a nap

Charlie talking with Kate, and taking a nap!

They have these trees everywhere! They look like toothpicks to me;)

Day Four

Well, day four we headed towards home wonderfully refreshed and fed and *sigh* eating sandwiches againHmm, here's something you don't see everyday in Ga!

Day Five

OH! dear W. family, it was so good to see y'all again! Thank you so much for the beds and chow!

Hey! Its the B's!!!

Well, around half way through Texas we got really desperate for home and I quit taking pictures;)

We finally puled in around around 6 a.m. Saturday morning, SO happy to be home!!!

It was a wonderful trip all together! We even found a Krispy Kreme out in Texas! LOL!

Since then we've been busy with the wonderful everyday things of life, just enjoying the summer. I hope to post some pictures of our summer happenings some time soon!

Till then!

Dios te bendiga,

Bethany

Indian Springs

Last Wednesday we met the Crawford's over by Indian Springs for the afternoon!! It was so fun! We played in the rocks for a bit then ate lunch on the lawn under a beautiful shade tree! Then we went over to the beach. It was quite overcrowded though and filled with smoke, so while the kiddo's swam Cattie and I went over to a cute little pavilion in the woods and played cards;)
Ahhh, how peaceful it was! Later the Crawfords were so dear and invited us over for a delicious supper of chicken and dumplings! I had such a wonderful time y'all! Thank you!
Unfortunately I only have pictures up till lunch, I guess after then I was either to lazy or to tired to take any more!!
Hope y'all enjoy 'em!!

Dee and Walle enjoying their own little pool!

The boys working on their sun tans;)

Water....(how original right? I guess I could say 'Beautiful water' or 'gushing water' or something more dreamy but I'm not feeling very creative right now!!)
Madek's going down the 'Slide'

While looking for a place to eat lunch us girlies stumbled across some very pretty flowers and bushes with a cute little bench in the midst! We got a few pictures but decided to come back later for a photo shoot when we'd put back on our normal clothes;) well, let's just say, never put off what can be done right now! We forgot later so these three photos will have to do;)

The quaint little bench (with Cattie and I)

Dear Maud and the beautiful flower that we found out later we weren't supposed to pick;)

Some Smithy Ham shots

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

Psalms 42:1

Dios te bendiga!!!

Bethany

Birthday Boys

These past couple of weeks we've had 3 birthdays!!

Madisens was first! He turned 6!! Yuchi's was next and he turned 7!

And then last (but not least) Arman turned 12!!Since Madisen's and Yuchi's B-days were so close we celebrated theirs together! And we started a new Smithy tradition too!! Instead of cakes on b-days we'll have Pinatas!! How neat is that?! Well, I thought it was neat, at least it's different! The kiddo's had never seen one before and didn't know what to do with it! LOL! They were in for a happy surprise!Madi with our horsey pinata which she called 'Goofy' but the rest of us officially dubbed 'Lightning' ;)"I get to hit it?!!" Spin him round an round!

Bretski takin a turn! Gavido was so cute! He had his tongue stuck out the whole time he was trying to hit it!

Happy b-day boy!

Madek's with his trophy

It's almost down!

Isn't this cool?! Daddy gave the final blow from sitting down!

What's left of lightning ;) The mad dash for candy

Little Pinata hams

Arman reading the sweet note from Nanny and Grandpa Charles

Present time!

And here's all the boys with their b-day presants from Nanny and Grandpa Charles!!

Happy Birthday boys!!

Love,

Beth

Little Esther Update

Well, here are a few pictures of the little cutie from the past couple of days! She has really changed hasn't she?! She keeps her schedule perfectly and has been sleeping through the night since night 3! Wonderful! Thank you LORD! (Oh, by the way the correct spelling for her name is Catherine ;)

Have a blessed day!

Bethany

An Afternoon Luncheon

A couple of weeks, before little Essi was born Catherine C. took Kate, Denae, Ronnie and me out for a special treat at Applebees!! We had these delicious virgin daiquiris and oh this scrumptious steak, topped with tons of mushrooms!! Yummo!! But even better then the food was the sweet fellowship we ladies had as we talked and laughed together!!!
Thank you dear Cattie for a wonderful afternoon!!!

Cattie's lime daiquiri

"AH! For me?!!"

Ron with his new hat;)"Here mommy you try!!"

What cutie!!Sweet sissies!!

Are you still hungry???Cattie and myselfGoodbye deario's!!!!!

Beth

Pretty in Pink

Yesterday Kate and I dressed dear little Esther up in the two gorgeous dresses that Nanny gave her and took some most adorable pictures of the cutie!!! It's so much fun to try little clothes on her!! Finally! A girl we can put bows and ruffles on!!! She's like a precious little dolly!!
Ron-man was there helping out and being such a ham!!! It's so cute! He loves hold her and give her sweet little kisses!! What a great big brother;)
Have a happy day!

Bethany

Hat styles with Zoey!!

-Bethany