Madison Invitational Baseball Tournament

We just arrived home from attending the Madison Invitational Baseball Tournamanet in Rexburg, Idaho to watch Carson's 12-year old AF team. This team was made up of all the boys his age in our city league that made the all-star team.....and what a team this was!

The first day of the tournament the boys weren't looking all that great and lost two games. The next day the weather was terrible but the boys managed to win their morning game. The second game was called due to rain and boy did it ever rain! With two losses and a rain-out this put them into the 8th seed going into the playoffs on the final day, Saturday. But watch out, these boys stepped up to the plate and played the next three games like they really were the best of the best of AF and not like they were the first day......The boys are back in town!!

They were set to play the number #1 team going into game one of the playoffs and sitting at #8 and they rose to the challenge and won the game 11-2 eliminating the local home team who sponsored the tournament -yikes....not a lot of happy locals after this game! Game two, the semi-finals was played immediately following game one against the #4 seed who were another Idaho team and we sent them packing after winning 9-4. This team was actually the team favored to win the whole tournament and our boys beat them!! Our boys are going to the championship game against yet another Idaho team who had some pretty big kids who knew how to hit. This game was played with a lot of power but just not enough to come out on top in the end. The team from Rupert won 11-6. But I couldn't be more proud of the boys for rallying that final day and playing non-stop for a triple header, back to back to back. They were absolutely wiped out in the end but didn't complain with taking second place. Second place was awesome considering our record.....we'll take it! We didn't get home until after midnight and we were all sunburned and exhausted. 9am church came awfully early this morning!

Me and the girls obviously during one of the games we lost because during the triple headers we had a hard time sitting still and were constantly jumping up and down! I don't think Mark ever sat with us.....he was so pumped up and was EVERYWHERE but sitting in his chair!

I managed to convince Carson that he would be happy one day with a picture of this.

CONGRATULATIONS AF CAVEMEN 12-YEAR OLDS!!!!

Time with Tyson

While Tyson was home on his 10-day leave we were able to have some fun family time. One thing the boys in our family reallly love to do is fish, and Tyson wanted to make sure he did plenty of this while on leave.

Father's Day happened to be on the Sunday he was here on leave so we decided to have a big Father's Day/Tyson Graduating Boot Camp Celebration. Grandma and Dayna were in town also for cousin Tara's wedding so we were able to have a lot of the family together for the big party.

Happy Father's Day Grandpa! (Mark and Will)

At the end of the 10-days he was off to San Diego again, to Camp Pendleton for 30-days of combat training before heading off to South Carolina until December.

A New Marine!

Introducing one of the newest members of the United States Marine Corps, First Class Tyson from Bravo Company, Platoon #1025.

We were able to travel to San Diego, California this past weekend to support Tyson in graduating from the Marine Corps Boot Camp. He has been there for 13 weeks, and what an accomplishment this is for him. While we were there we were able to see firsthand what goes on and we could see other troops being trained and OH MY GOSH!!!! I wouldn't have lasted one day there. I heard yelling drill sargeants left and right and "YES SIR" being yelled back left and right. We even saw singled out boys going through "IT" where they are singled out for doing something wrong. What physical and emotional torture!!! I guess they have to go through this intense breaking down to make them the tough Marine that they need to be. We are so proud of you Tyson for making it through!

Brandt, Kortney, Jean, Tavyn, Mark, me, Tyson and Kylie

On Thursday, "Family Day" we hadn't been allowed to see Tyson until all the Marines came running in formation with their platoons and marched into formation in front of us. We were told they wouldn't be allowed to make eye contact with us but we did catch him eyeballing us. It was pretty neat! After that they ran off again to run 4-miles and we couldn't meet up with them again for another couple of hours.
After we were able to finally see and talk with him we went to a luncheon that our church sponsored for those LDS Marines who attended the branch on base. The Branch President who served in the Marines cut the ceremonial cake with a sword that he had while he was serving as a Marine.

Bravo Company, Platoon #1025 marching in for graduation
Graduation Ceremony

After the graduation, he was given his orders where he is allowed 10 days leave and he flew home with us. After his leave he will return to San Diego to Camp Pendleton for 3 weeks before heading on to North Carolina where he will be in school/training until December. After that, he's not sure what or where he will go. Until then, he will probably enjoy sleeping past 4:30 am and eating all the junk food he wants with more than the standard 4 minutes chow time. He won't have any drill sargeant yelling orders and he can actually talk normal to us. I am interested though in seeing how the drill sargeant said he will know how to make his bed and clean up after himself.....this I HAVE TO SEE!!!!

Summer is here!

Summer has finally arrived and with that....CAMPING!! We took the trailer up the canyon and parked it all week. It is only a 15-minute drive from our house to the campground and with our busy kids and schedules we did a lot of driving back and forth. What a wonderful place we live in, we can be camping one minute and back home enjoying the modern conveniences of home the next minute. We've found our new favorite campground and think we'll visit it quite a bit this summer!

The whole Crump family was able to come up one day for Family Home Evening and that was a lot of fun! We use to camp at this particular campground quite a bit as younger kids so it was really fun to get all together again at this same spot. Even the big slippery rock is still there and now my kids can enjoy the same bumpy, tailbone bruising ride that I use to enjoy when I was young.

And of course the girls always take the camera and do their posing!

The boys brought their best friends Kade and Chance up one day and had fun chillin' and fishin'

Hmmmm??????

These pic's are a little dark but if you can make out the large black blob next to Tank, that is Diesel, Kortney's pony.....I mean puppy!

He is now as tall as Kortney (5'7) when he's standing on his hind legs!

7 Years of Wonderful!

Seven years ago today at 12:00 in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple we officially became The Good Gomer Family. It's hard to believe it's already been 7 years, but at the same time it's hard to imagine life ever exhisted any other way. We truly are best friends and life is WONDERFUL even amidst trials and chaos. The instant Brady Bunch Family - Wow have the kids grown since then!
So many wonderful friends and family shared our special day with us

We honeymooned in Maui and it was spectacular! This year we are celebrating in a less exotic fashion.....WE'RE TAKING THE FAMILY CAMPING! Actually, we knew it would be crazy with it being the first offical day of summer with no more school, so we enjoyed a weekend getaway in Oregon last weekend and are just going to head up our beautiful AF canyon for the night.

Here's to seven wonderful years with many many more to come!!