Visiting Tutu

Every year on July 5th, we go up to Grandma's grave and eat lunch while we sit around and remember just what an awesome woman she was. This year we were lucky to add to our midst as the Imbach's joined us. It's never a sad visit and we rarely cry but she was hardly a sad lady and would rather giggle at silly jokes than cry. My tutu was quite the rascal... It's a chance for my kids to hear about their Great Tutu Kamae. We make her a lei from our plumeria trees and just spend a little time being happy together at the place where she and Grandpa Kamae are resting together.

our 4th

There was no shortage of fireworks this 4th of July. A few were leftover from last year and had... matured a little. lol. We spent our 4th with the other/older Booths (haha). We've enjoyed the last few years eating yummy bbq and blowing stuff up with Tom and D'lene. This year was no different aside from the little Booths getting bigger. We had a great time and we B's enjoyed celebrating this nation and our independence!

Canada, Eh?

We took a family vacation (and by family I do mean everyone... Maga, Tutu, Breeze, Mr and Mrs B, J.T. and Hea Bug) to Canada. My Aunt and Uncle have a wonderful Bed and Breakfast called A Rovers Rest in Blind Bay, BC. We left on Hea Bug's first and J.T.'s second plane ride ever from LAX at 8pm to arrive in Vancouver at midnight.

We rented a van and drove 5 hours toward the interior of British Columbia to the B&B which is right on beautiful Shuswap Lake. The charming property is amazingly beautiful and welcoming. Encompassed by the circular driveway are the apple and cherry trees, benches in the shade and a bed frame flower bed with lady bug lights that glow at night.

We adventured all over every day. Tummies filled with delicious breakfasts every morning we set off for suspension bridges, hot pools, gouda farms, petting "zoos", Margaret Falls, road side fruit stands, a lavender farm for high tea, and so much more.





Mr. B, the kids and I were in the "From the Brush Suite" which had it's own entrance separate from the house. Breeze was in the "To the Pointe Suite" and Maga and Tutu had the "Heart of the Home" suite which featured the giant red heart jacuzzi tub that none but the littlest B's enjoyed.



We spent quality time with my grandparents and Gr. Grandma Wahl enjoyed sewing "I Heart Canada" clothes with Maga for the grandkids to wear to the Canada Day Festival. We decked ourselves out and showed our Canadian Pride for the July 1st Celebration and enjoyed dancing hula to Tutu singing classic Hawaiian songs on stage and watching the AWESOME fireworks show.

We felt so warmly welcomed it was hard to leave but we knew we had to be back in America to celebrate the 4th of July so we hugged and squeezed our loved ones and made the night time drive back to Vancouver to catch our 6am flight.
It was definitely a challenge managing 7 international travelers but the time we had was unforgettable. Our Summer has been filled with crazy fun and crazy love so far.

Camping on the River

To kick off Summer and celebrate our nephew Elisha's 9th birthday, we took the boats out to the river and set up camp. We spent 2 nights and 3 hot days on our own little rocky beach. The lake was completely windy the whole time which made lots of tubing and what not a little difficult but we had lots of fun nonetheless.



The highlights were definitely the night rides... after the sun went down a huge full moon took over the whole sky and everything was so calm. We took the boat out and rode around on the dark water. It was amazing! The kids were so wiped they slept hard, the girls enjoyed the rocking of the water as they slept on the boats. I had a hard time the first night because every sound seemed crazy magnified to me. By night two, I slept like a baby cuz I was just as wiped as the kiddos!


Camp food always seems to taste better than regular food. Maybe it's due to the exhaustion of spending your whole day in the sun or the pride in knowing what you contributed to the meal. It was delicious to say the least.

We had a great time as a family and can't wait to do it again!!

PreSchool and T-Ball are Pau!

J.T. has officially finished another season of T-ball. He really enjoyed playing and we enjoyed seeing his skill level and appreciation for the game improve and evolve. He's got a great glove and a killer swing. At his team party he was awarded the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger awards. That's our little Dodger! They had a cute team party and we passed out mini photo albums that I made of our team over the season.

School's Out!

June 23rd was J.T.'s last day of Pre-K! He's now a bonifide kindergartner. We were so proud of our little guy. Thanks Ms. Winnie and Mr. Vincent! (I don't know what's up with his weird picture faces today...) He'll miss his best buddy Phoenix. Martina will miss him.

an awesome iPad for an awesome iDad!

My hubs Mr B is beyond the stars the best man I know. He works so hard for our family and does so much for all of us. He's a great dad and watching him rock fatherhood is one of the greatest pleasures of my life. He's an amazing husband and top notch best friend, I know first hand. Mr B is a VERY hard man to shop for because as he works hard, he enjoys life just as much so normally if he wants something, he'll just go and buy it for himself. Well, the ipad has recently come out and although he'd expressed how cool they were, it wasn't something that he felt he needed so he wasn't going to splurge on it. This provided us the perfect opportunity to do something to spoil the man that spoils us daily. It took calls to 12 apple stores within 60 miles, an appointment with a personal shopper to get on an email black box system list and waiting very patiently for our name to get to the top of that list. We didn't have it in time for actual Fathers day so I printed out a picture of it and we presented it to him that way. He was very excited and 6 days later, finally got to unwrap his iPad, which he (and pretty much the whole fam) has been enjoying ever since.

Thanks for everything you do babe. I know I try to thank you as much as possible and I thought a little public gratitude is good for anyone once in a while. U da Bess <3

The Caravan to Vegas

Our Nephew Skye graduated this year as well and we headed out to celebrate with the Brandow's in Las Vegas. It was great to see and be with our family. Normally when our little Booth Fam heads to Vegas, we do the trip in about 3 1/2 to 4 hours, with kids. It was a whole different story this time around. We had 3 cars and two motorcycles making the trek and with all the stops, tire inflating, tire blow out and waiting for a tow truck to come with the right size tire iron, it took 9 hours to make it. Then we had 13 people staying at 3 different hotels and 1 timeshare. Needless to say it was a crazy two days but we enjoyed swimming around the shark tank at the Golden Nugget, roaming the Bass Pro Shop for hours and stopping at State Line to ride the roller coaster and log rid on the way home.



Mara acted as chauffeur for Maga and Tutu as Maga had sprained her knee two days before we left. We brought Tim, our friend and Rock Steady employee with us to help set up and strike the stage and lighting that we took with us for the little hula show we put on with our family at Skye's Graduation party. At one point, I was going to our time share at the Cancun Resort with two arms full of double chocolate chip blended frapps for the kids and as we were walking through the lobby, I lost my balance and dropped (although it kinda look like I threw them) all 6 frapps with whip on the floor. I was mortified. It was a little stressful being self proclaimed coordinator extraordinaire for so many travelers but in the end, any time with my fam is a good time.

Annual River Trip to Kick off the Summer!

Every year we go to Laughlin with the Imbachs and some members from their ward. This year we went a little early since we had to leave a little early but it afforded us 5 days on the water opposed to our normal 3. It was tons of fun, there were huge rocks to jump off of, no water marks because the water was so high, lots of sun, fun and good times with the fam. We launched at Kathrine's Landing in Bullhead on Wednesday and rather than put the boat in a slip, we took it out everyday which gave me lots of practice in pulling and backing up the trailer... I still suck at it but i'm getting a little better ;) The kids (and the adults) had lots of fun. We relaxed and hung out. Ate well and napped well. Looking forward to taking the "Holo Holo" out again soon!