July - a time for Family Reunions!

July 2010

July started out with MORE family reunions. On July 3rd we met as a mini-Wright Reunion prior to the Christensen Reunion that afternoon/evening. And then on July 5th we met as a Sabin Reunion.

Here are the kids are hooting and hollering together in their dress-up clothes.

l-r: Carter, Hailey, Preston, Kate, Aubree, Paige

So cute!

The best part of reunions is COUSINS! Here's Stephanie & Sara - big hugs.
Here's Josh, Jared and Steve. The "men".


Here's Emily & Kate.

And Here's Ellie & Kate.

Saturday afternoon was the Christensen Reunion. Here's the heads of all the families.

l-r: Bob & JoAnn Christensen, Jean Christensen, Erma Christensen, Joyce Christensen Wright, Bill Wright and Ted Christensen.

It was held at Ted & Jean's house in their back yard.

Here's the Jay & Erma Family representatives:

Here's the Bob & JoAnn family representatives:

(oops - the picture got accidentally deleted. Just imagine a group of happy people!)

Here's the Joyce & Bill family representatives: Here's the Ted & Jean Family representatives:

One of the activities was playing games found on the Minute to Winit TV show. Here's me showing my enthusiasm after winning the Elephant Walk game. I had to wear a pantyhose with a baseball in the bottom of one leg that was my "trunk" and knock over 4 water bottles on each side of me (8 total). It was fun.

Here's the family waiting for the awesome, more fantastic, better-than-Seattle-SpaceNeedle fireworks show.

Now starts the Sabin Family Reunion (I know, it's confusing!)

This is all of us waiting to watch our own fireworks show - which was quite lame compared to the Christensen show, but it was still fun to watch and do.

This is the reason for the gathering: Helen Gene and Paul Sabin and Phyllis Sabin Walton.

We had a lot of fun together - eating, swimming, playing bingo and watching fireworks. It's always fun when families get together.

June 2010

June 2010

A week after school got out, I took Jared and his friend Alberto Cruz, to Utah for football camp. They were pretty excited to attend and just hoped they wouldn't get hurt. I think they thought they were pretty big boys until they got next to some Polynesians and other kids that were HUGE! They were humbled quick. But they did have a blast. Here they are at the Lavell Edwards Stadium after registration.

While Jared was at camp, I went and played. My first thing on the agenda was visiting friends. This is Dezi Miner Cannon. She and I have been friends since we were in grade school. I think she moved when we were in third grade. But we've kept in touch ever since and have visited one another a few times over the years. She has a son and daughter-in-law (but better yet, she has a granddaughter) who lives in Highland so it was perfect to meet her for lunch at Thanksgiving Point. We had a wonderful time getting caught up with each other.
The next day I met up with another friend from high school, Liz Boyd Teerlink. She lives in Cedar Hills (or nearby) and is a quilter. It was fun to visit her and see her lovely home. We grew up together in Olympia 2nd Ward. Good memories.

After picking up Jared and Alberto from football camp, I took them and Jared's cousins Kaitlyn and Josh to Salt Lake to show Alberto the church sites. This picture was taken on top of the roof of the Conference Center looking over to the temple. It was a beautiful day. We saw the Visitor's Center, the new exhibit in the South Visitor's Center of the cutaway of the Salt Lake Temple, we took a tour of the Beehive House, we saw the movie "Joseph' in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and we took lots of pictures. We have a wonderful heritage.


We left Utah and headed home with extra baggage. We brought Jared's cousin Steven Wright home with us to work on the farm. He turned out to be a great worker and never once complained. He was a good example to Jared - he made his bed every day ! and cleaned up after himself and took his dishes to the sink. We missed him when he went back home about 4 weeks later. Even though he worked hard, we also found time to play - they went to Silverwood, went motorcycle riding twice and went to a couple movies as well as hung out with friends and relatives from Royal.

Sabin Farmily Reunion
May 28-31, 2010
A Trip Down Boulder Lane

Our annual Sabin Farmily Reunion was held this year very early in the summer due to expecting mother. Heidi is due July 31 and Sadie is due August 6 so literally due to their due dates, we had to plan our family get-together early in the summer. It worked out great. Everyone was able to attend at one time or another - some longer than others. Since it coincided with Memorial Day, I thought it would be fitting to choose a theme that centered around memories. So thus the theme "A Trip down Boulder (instead of Memory) Lane".

For those who could arrive early enough, there was motorcycle riding on Friday - just on our track by our house.

Friday evening was our soon-to-be-a-tradition Fashion Show! We even had a "red carpet" (red tablecloth) and an MC (Marci). The kids had an absolute blast going downstairs to the dress-up box and finding clothes to change into for event.
On Saturday, we held a Memory Scavenger Hunt - but instead of finding buried treasures, we went from place to place and talked about the memories that existed at each place. For example, at this place, was our old dirt pile where Jeff would play for hours on end and bury endless toy soldiers and matchbox cars as well as dig trenches and fill them with water. We also went to the sewing room where the girls played Fabricland and to the big rock where they would sing their lungs out into their "microphones" (jumpropes). At each place, I had a little memento to remind them of the place and activity.

The guys had planned a motorcycle trip Saturday morning, but an impromptu service project at our neighbor's house that morning to help them reroof their house changed their plans. So instead they went paintballing out on our motorcycle track and had an absolute blast. It was hilarious watching them from inside the house.

l-r: Jared, Craig, Kyle, Jeff, Kevin, Derek


Fun times in the pool

l-r: Aubree, Paige, Kate, Carter

Our patio

It seems we can't celebrate a holiday without a birthday for someone! Kate was lucky to celebrate her birthday with everyone on Saturday the 27th - she turned 5. This is her adorable "swim pool" cake made by her mom. Look close and you'll see teddy graham bears with innertubes around them!

On Sunday, we took a tour of Ellensburg where both Craig & I were born and where Craig grew up. The first stop was the school house where he attended grade school from first through fourth grade. The school has been purchased by a family and turned into a home. They were gracious enough to allow us to tour their "home". They still have the gymnasium!

This is my first home I lived in (Vicki) in Ellensburg on Mountain View.

This is the old LDS Church where my parents were married and where Craig & I were blessed along with Marci & Jeni and where Craig was baptized and where we attended church together when we were first married until we moved to Mattawa 4 years later.

This is the cemetery in Ellensburg where Craig's grandparents and my grandparents are buried. Here we are surrounding Clint & Jewel Bohannon's graves.

This is where Grandma Lucy and Grandpa Roy are buried. I still miss Grandma. I just hope I'm as good a grandma to my grandchildren as she was to hers.

That concludes our tour of the Sabin Farmily Reunion. It was a great time to spend together reminiscing of memories and making new ones.

May 2010

May 2010

The first of May brought PROM and Jared's first official date. He has a mother who insists that every dating-age boy should take a girl to all the school dances since they only get to attend these dances a couple times in their life. So with some "encouragement" he went on his first date with a lovely young woman. He made arrangements with several of his buddies and pretty soon the group date turned into quite the group. But it was so much fun! They met together first for a scavenger hunt held in our town (since they all couldn't drive anyone but themselves) and then after getting dressed, they came to our house for a nice dinner before going to the dance. Jared is so lucky to be a part of such a wonderful group of good young men and women.

Back row: Conner Coulson, Tyler Yorgesen, Tony Martinez, Jordan Zirker, Jared and Jens Yorgesen

Front row: Keitra Calaway (Jared's date), Moriah Christensen, Kally Carter, Heloisa, Jordan's date and Lindsay Christensen

Here they are eating dinner in their beautiful attire.

Here's the couple: Jared and Keitra.


This next picture was taken on Mother's Day. I am lucky to have such a wonderful mother. She has suffered most of her life with health issues (right now she suffers from Parkinson's) and yet has always been a source of strength and support to me and my life. I love her and appreciate her more the older I get.

We had a lot of rain in May. This just shows you how much was pouring down our gutters one day. It was pretty depressing especially when you had your hay cut and on the ground. I felt sorry for all the farmers. We wondered if summer was ever going to come.

Seminary ended on May 28th. I totally and completely enjoyed teaching seminary this past year. The kids were WONDERFUL. I had 17 students. One of them was my son. I have always taught one of my children these past 5 years of seminary. But I'm sad Jared is moving on to the next class of Juniors and Seniors of which I'm not the teacher and so I will really miss having him as a student. He is not only a good son, he was a good student.

April 2010

April was a month of celebrations. First was Paige's 3rd birthday. Her party theme was "Tinkerbell". Jeni made this adorable cake for her.

This was our gift to her - a dressup Tinkerbell costume. She looked just like a fairy!
Next we celebrated Craig's birthday. He turned 58 years old. Can't believe it. I arranged to have us attend the opening day of the Mariner's - he LOVES the Mariners almost as much as the Huskies and almost as much as me! We had a wonderful time. Our seats couldn't be any higher in the stadium - we were literally on the top row.

To top of his birthday celebration, we went to Famous Dave's for his dinner. We met Marci and Heidi & Kyle and their children there. It is his favorite place to eat.

They lit off fireworks to wish him a happy birthday!

A little later in the month, we took a trip stopping in Rexburg Idaho first to visit with Jeff and Sadie. They are expecting their first baby on August 6th so we were able to see Sadie pregnant, ooh and aah over all the adorable decorations for their baby Reagan's room and spend time with them. They are busy as they anticipate the birth of their first baby, work (Sadie is working at the hospital in labor & delivery and Jeff is working for a construction firm), attend school (Jeff has a semester and internship left) and serve in the church (Jeff was recently called as 2nd counselor in a bishopric of a campus ward). They are doing great.

One of the purposes for our trip was to attend the wedding of our niece Erin Gilmartin. She married Gregory in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a beautiful wedding on a beautiful day in a beautiful temple. We were glad to have attended.

The last event celebrated this month was our 35th wedding anniversary. We celebrated at Jared's baseball game in Warden and then went to dinner in Moses Lake meeting up with Derek and Sara. I guess that's what happens when you've been married 35 years.