The Birkeland Family Blog

So you may all ask, "why would you get a trampoline when you just have a 1 year old?" Believe me my 1 year old jumps. In fact Emmi sits at the back door yelling, "I jump", and if you ignore her she proceeds to ask the next person until someone takes her out there. We find ourselves out there at least 3 times a day getting our exercise. Mainly her. Wow does she live for jumping. Maybe we should give her up so she can be a world class olympian doing the trampoline routine. Just kidding Emmi we could never give you up. Thank you Aunt Shanni for our favorite toy....The Tramp!!

Ok so I have been trying to change my blasted blog template cause I was getting quite bored of the one I had. I hear from everybody that it is a piece of cake. So, I finally find one that I like and I try to download it. First I keep getting all these error messages. I then download firefox and voilla it works and I get my new template. But, being the kind of person I am I wasn't fully satisfied with the template so I thought, "lets try another one". I did and my whole crapping sidebar disappeared with all of my blog links. I even thought oh no big deal I saved them all, but oh no I happened to have saved it wrong so I am pretty much screwed and now I have to go back and set up all my blog links again. PLEASE HELP.....if any of you know how to make this any easier I would love your advice.

This year we opted out of the Days of 47' Parade AGAIN! I don't think we will ever find ourselves there because Brian thinks parades are lame, and I really don't enjoy baking in the sun for hours hearing Brian complain about how much wasted time and money it is to make these elaborate floats. The cool thing about this 24th was that Uncle Brett, Brian's youngest brother, was scheduled to come home from his mission in Montreal Canada late on the 23rd. We had this huge WELOME HOME family BBQ planned for the 24th. Tons of activities, and water toys were set up for all of us to enjoy. But, his flight got cancelled to the next night due to weather issues. So, here we all were having this party in honor of the missionary who wasn't there. This is the best part of the story. At about 7:00 pm we are all sitting down enjoying our nice BBQ'd hamburger and we get a phone call. Not kidding it is Brett saying, "HELLOOOOO....... I am at the airport. Come and get me"....

Our yearly trip up to Jeremy Ranch this year was actually really fun. Usually we are cracking the jokes about going up the canyon 15 minutes to "watch TV". We think it is so lame, and usually don't call it a vacation. But I have to admit this year was great. The sleeping conditions were rough, but other than that we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. In the evenings it would cool off so we enjoyed evening walks and nightly hot tub trips. ahhhh!!! Emmi loved swimming, feeding the fish, saying "hi" to the moose, being with kitty 24/7, waking up to Grandma and Grandpa, and eating like a queen. Ella, Emmi's best friend even came up for the day to go swimming. Wow, was that a treat!!! Here are a few pics of the week.

I signed up for an online card sending service. It is the coolest thing I've seen in quite a while. I have always sent thank you cards, baby congrats, birthday cards, etc., but it is so expensive to buy the card and then take the time to write and get it into the mail. Now I can do it for all occasions easier, faster and for less money. There are thousands of cards to pick from or you can even design your own card with your own pictures. SWEET! If you want to try the system you can click on this link and you can send a couple of cards on me. It is really easy and just plain fun. Send out a spontaneous card to someone you are thinking of right now. You will be surprised how good you feel keeping up with family, friends and coworkers. Let me know what you think. I am so excited to keep in better contact with other people and I hope to inspire others to do the same. http://www.sendoutcards.com/inspiresomeone

EMMI and ELLA Two peas in a pod Ella lives up the street and Emmi says they are best friends. We ask Emmi who her best friend is and she says, "Ella". (Grandma Jill taught her that one) Wow have these two had a blast this summer together. They share everything, and play almost everyday. Ella is six months older than Emmi, but I can say that Emmi sure tries to keep up with Ella. Things they love to do together: swim wagon rides park adventures share sippy cups eat snacks play with each others toys talk jibberish and say each others names over and over

To make Emmi happy all you need to do is give her an avocado. Don't try to take it away or you will see some serious attitude. We are just grateful that avocado is available all year round. What would we do without AVOCADO! SHE IS IN LOVE!