Adios Amigo's

Jared's parents entered the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on the 16th of August and flew out to Uruguay yesterday. They will be working mainly in the Employment department but also plan on working with New Members and inactives and some proselyting as well.

Jared and his brothers sang "Dear to the heart of the Shepard" and it sounded so beautiful, for Jerry and Betty's farewell.

Jared, Chad, Jerry, Betty, Dusty, and Byron

We missed Heidi, who is the oldest and only sister!

All of us except for some of our kids who were in Primary.

Grandma Betty and Grandpa Jerry with their youngest grand kids. 18 months will totally change these babies!
Lilly (6 months) and Jordyn(2 months)
We love you Elder and Sister Heath!

Aunt Ancy!

Normally it is the kids who find the camera and take a whole bunch of pictures, but this time, Nancy found it!Her Ghetto Booty!

I don't know how she managed to take this one.
Nope, no boogies!

"Eye" am watching you!

Her classic funny face!

Spaz!!!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. Mackenzie got up early this morning...way earlier than she needed to get up! We had to send her back to bed. She had gotten out of bed and put on her clothes that she picked out the night before and came in our bedroom stating she was ready for school. An hour and a half later, we got out of bed and finished getting her ready for school.
She ate breakfast, brushed her teeth, got her hair done, shoes and socks, and pack pack. We still had 20 minutes to go until the bus came...or so we thought! It came early and when we ran outside to catch it, it drove off right in front of us. Rude! I will be having a talk with the bus driver tomorrow morning!

(Update on the bus driver....Apparently, the wrong bus driver stopped to pick up the kids that were standing outside my house. When the right bus driver came by, we weren't out there because we thought we had already missed the bus. Mrs. Murdock called me that night and said she is our bus driver and that she will be coming by between 7:29 and 7:31. She will stop and make sure that Mackenzie safely gets on the bus and to her school. The other bus driver didn't even see up coming! I also have the little neighbor boy across the street watching out for Mackenzie. He is a sweet boy and Mackenzie has a crush on him anyways, so she is fine with Deavon taking care of her!)

Mackenzie Heath, 1st grade

Her teacher is Mrs. K. Christensen

Alexis has been ready for school to start ever since Mackenzie started Kindergarten. She would sit down and watch Kenzie do her homework every day and ask if she could do it too. She doesn't go to school until the afternoon, so she sat around all morning asking if it was time yet. Finally it was time. She was so excited. We loaded up in the van and I drove over to the school. There is a special place to drop off the kids and when I told her she could go, she jumped out of the van without question and never looked back. I cried last year when Kenzie left for school, but not this year.

Alexis Heath, Kindergarten

Her teacher is Mrs. K. Weist

All ready to load up in the van so I can take her to school!


Mackenzie and Alexis getting off the bus.When they pulled up, Alexis was practically hanging out the window waving her had at me while yelling, "Hi mom! Hi!" Their bus driver, Mr. Edmister, who takes them home, didn't seem to mind that she was hanging out the window so I am not going to worry about it!

Alexis loved riding the bus!

And really great news...now that the school is finished next to our house, the speed limit for the road in front of us has gone from 50mph to 35mph indefinitely! I still want a fence really bad but at least cars aren't speeding past my house! We have enjoyed watching the police officer pull over many cars, although I think he should give them a warning at first, because they aren't use to the new speed limit! I've caught myself a few times speeding up because I forgot that they have lowered the speed!

The Heathens on Vacation

I love my in-laws! We all live in the Idaho Falls area, except for Heidi, Jared's oldest sibling and only sister. She lives in New Zealand....lucky! Anyways, we all live close to eachother and have a great time together. This year we decided to have a family reunion at the Oregon coast, at a place called Seaside. Dusty and Megann made all the arrangements and we showed up. It was a very cool condo right on the beach. We had a very fun time together.

Warning...lots of pictures!

Our family, and I think our first one as a family of six.

Jared, Courtney, Jordyn,

Mackenzie, Eli, Alexis

Jared's whole family(Except Heidi, we missed you!)
When I first married Jared, I thought that it was so weird that they would all get together and just sing. Growing up, Jared's mom would play the piano and all the kids, and Jerry, would stand around her and sing songs. Now, I love it! (My family was not very musically inclined, or at least, I was not musically inclined.) When Jared and his brothers sing together, it is just magical! We had a lot of fun jamming in our condo.

(And Eli is busting a move in the middle of the room.)

We had a family talent show and Chad and Des' kids used their puppets and did a lip sync to Bohemian Rapsidy. It was so funny!

Our girls sang, Lainy did a ballerina dance, and libby did an awesome flying trapeese routine with her daddy, Dusty.

Betty spoke in Spanish, (a rebuttle to what Jerry and Jared where talking about earlier in the day. They were teasing her and she was able to get them back! She knows Spanish really well but it takes her time to come up with the right words to respond with. She is going to be great on her mission to Uruguay with Jerry!) Megann did a sexy dance and called it exercise, and Chad and Des showed weird things they can do with their bodies. Byron and Jemayla sang a super cute song and Jared and I showed our superman trick.

Jerry sang. I love it when he sings.

Grandma Betty and Jordyn at 2 months.

Grandpa Jerry with Jordyn at 2 months.

Jemayla, Byron, and Jared. Jared went body surfing. The ocean water was so cold!

That's our condo in the background. It was so cool to be right on the Pacific ocean!

The kids loved running towards the water and run away from the waves.

Eli got sand all over him.

Our base camp on the beach.

Chad, Des, Lilly, Byron, Jemayla, and Jerry

Joey,I told him to hold still so I could get a picture. He obliged!

Lilly eating sand

Dusty was checking to see if hypothermia was setting in on Byron. He went body surfing with Jared but he didn't have a wet suit to wear. Byron had slurred language but I think that is from the excessive amounts of alcohol that he drinks from his hidden flask...j/k!

Dusty was teaching Joey how to see sand crabs. You dig a big hole in the sand were the waves run over it. The crabs come out of the sand for a few mili-seconds before they quickly burrow back into the sand.

Chad, Des, and Lilly

Alexis, Mackenzie, and Lainy freezing thier buns off but having a blast!

My love Jared with me.

Dusty told the kids to start digging in the sand hoping that a wave would come splashing over them. It didn't work, but it would have been funny to get a picture of that!

Lainey, Kenzie, and Lexi

Eli looks like he has a hairy back.

Eli and Luke had so much fun together.

Run, run, run for your lives!

Benji and Eli building sand castles.

The trip was awesome except for the weather, which was kind of cold and humid, and when we lost Alexis at the beach. That was such a scary feeling! The kids kept running from water to our base camp. But one time, Lexi ran in the wrong direction. She was trying to find us but then decided to give up and just sit down and play in the sand. She was about 1 block down and 2 blocks up from where we were. I was crying when I found her. She didn't mean to wonder off. I am just so glad that she stopped wondering and just sat down. Plus, she was wearing her bright yellow swimming suit with her red hair. We had taught her our phone number and where she lived and she knows our names, so hopefully someone would have contacted us if we hadn't been so fortunate to find her. But we did and all is well and we had a fantastic vacation with the rest of hte Heath's!