A friend at the factory :)

While we were in Idaho for our reunion I had the amazing opportunity tour the scentsy factory :) AAAAA!!!!! I was so very excited to see this factory. Pulling into the parking lot was incredible...it smelled so good :)

I saw my friends that work there....Colleen, Christy and Doug :)

They are great people...it was so good to see them after all these years.

Okay, so the factory was so amazing....there were so many workers putting together orders, new consultant kits, making bars and labeling them. Scentsy is growing so fast and is expecting even more growth coming up. I also had a sneak sniff of the new scents that are coming out :) WOW!!!!!! I am having so much fun being a scentsy consultant and am always looking for more parties :) and more new consultants to join my team....so far it's a team of me :) It is a ton of fun though...there are so many amazing scents and new ones coming up :)

I did love going through the factory :) What a special opportunity :) Thanks Colleen

www.scentsy.com/9625 Here's my link if you want to check things out...the link is also to the side.

Our family reunion

We just had our Hallam family reunion in Idaho. We went down early so that we could see some of our friends there. The reunion this year was at Three Island Crossing state park....WAY COOL!!!!! It's great to go somewhere and learn something new about our past and our country's past.... Three Island crossing is just south of Mountain home in Glenn's Ferry...just on the river.

We haven't been to a reunion in a few years as I've been busy with girls camp those years :0) I love girls camp, but I did enjoy the reunion. We have missed going and visiting with family.

It was crazy how everyone had grown...all the younger kids. Each of the boys had at least one cousin their age to play with. Aaron was in seventh heaven with two cousins his age...BOYS!!!!! It was quite funny to see those three pal around together :)

Of course there were other girls camping with another family that was having a reunion there. These girls came over and walked through our campsite several times. One night they were making completes fools of themselves by dancing on the table next to our site and doing all sorts of cheers....totally inappropriate cheers and dancing might I add. The boys were quite hilarious to watch...they were laughing at these girls but not even paying attention to them. Aaron thought of an idea that the boys would act like nerds and pull their pants all the way to their chests :) The boys weren't impressed by these girls as they were not dressed apprpriately...GO BOYS!!!!!! It was so good to see the three figure this problem out on their own...too bad they can't go to school together...they'd be a force for good :)

Anyway, the girls started making fun of the boys for being "nerds" oh well....then Tim's brother in law Andre (Janae's husband) went over to these girls and told them to stop making fools of themselves and go back to their camp. Well, he scared them off by threatening that he would go to their camp and tell their parents how they were dancing ;) GO ANDRE!!!!! The girls left and when Andre came back to the table where the boys were, the boys clapped :) It was so great to see this :) Thus starts a new chapter in my life as a mother....the GIRL stage ;) Heaven help us

On saturday, the park had an activity at the meuseum, making corn husk dolls. Three Island Crossing is one of the pioneer crossing places.


They were led by the indians across the river. Since the current was so swift, they had to have a guide that knew the area and knew where the currents were best to cross. They used three of the islands on the river to cross it.

At the reunion, Tim's uncle Burt had their tandem bike with them....this was the HIT for everyone. We all got to try it out. It was such fun to see the boys riding this bike. At one point, when all the cousins arrived.

Aaron and Chris, who are only a few months apart got on the bike and were riding. It was a missionary moment :) They looked like two future elders getting on their bike to go out and teach :)

The whole reunion was a great time :) The boys had a ton of fun with their cousins and just playing around and camping. It was fun to watch all the kids and play with them as well.

We didn't want to come home as we were having so much fun visiting everyone. Hopefully soon, we can be back with family and all those cousins that the boys enjoyed :)

Happy 4th of July

Comment Graphics and Myspace Layouts at pYzam.com

The 4th of July brings back so many memories for me. I have moved all over the place when I was younger. It bothered me at the time, but I look back and realize how blessed I was to have so many opportunities to see and experience this great country in which we live.

When we were moving across the states from Idaho to Pennsylvania, we stopped at every state capital we could to take a picture in front of it. It was great to see so many state capitols.

We have also had so many chances to experience 4th of July fireworks in so many different places. When we lived in PA, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to Washington DC and see the fireworks on the nations capital steps. We sat right on the steps to the nations capital and ate m&m's and watched the fireworks. Those were the best I have ever seen. They set the fireworks to live music. Totally AMAZING!!!!!!!

More experiences in PA have given me a greater appreciation for our freedom. So many of our founding father's and ancestors have paid a high price for our freedom. Being so close to Philadelphia gave me greater opportunity to learn for myself about our freedoms and see so many great things... like the declaration of independance, liberty bell, independance hall where the declaration was signed. I remember one time, my mom let us skip school so that we could attend a parade in Philly for the celebration of the declaration of independance....many local schools marched in the parade :)

I am so grateful for our great country and the freedoms that we share. It is a free country, so let's keep it free. We have so much to be thankful for.

Have a very happy and safe 4th of July !!!!!!!

A family Favorite

I wanted to share one of our family favorites. We LOVE the Liken the Scriptures dvd's :) The boys love music. These dvd's are scripture stories set to a musical background....kind of like a musical play. The actors are quite entertaining and funny.

We hear such wonderful comments from the boy's teachers about how well they know their scripture stories. Liken has helped that understanding increase for them. It puts things into their prospective....as well as showing them fun in music. We've purchased almost all of the Liken series that is out.

Check out my link on the sidebar to see what they're like :) Some of our favorites are: David and Goliath with Thurl Bailey and Alex Boye, Alma and King Noah with Micheal B, Daniel and the Lions den, Ammon and King Lamoni (hilarious), Nephi ( I will go and do), Sammuel the Lamanite.

The messages in these dvd's are wonderful of course :) They are so engaging and entertaining :)

15 yrs

Today Tim and I are celebrating 15 years of marital bliss :) YAY!!!! It's been a FUN 15 years. We've grown so much together and we've been each others best friend....that's how it should be :)

Tim remembers our first meeting better than I do because he noticed me first :) He was sitting by me in sacrament meeting on my first sunday at the branch in Ontario. He must have thought I was a hottie or something :) lol..... I like to think that anyway :o)

At our first FHE for the branch, everyone was sitting in a circle and we went around and introduced ourselves. I was sitting on the couch with a friend, which, we were both surrounded by men :) hehehe.... I introduced myself "I'm Gina Downing, I'm from LaGrande and I'm single, that's why I'm here" Well, Tim leaned over to one of our guy friends and said "We'll see what we can do about that" And boy did he see what he could do about me being single :) HA!!!!! It's fun to remember the past and the fun of those years.

We remmeniss about our so many "first" dates as well :) Thanks to John Jorgensen, our first first date was foiled by John and Tim hiking :) "The roads over here" "It's not too far" LOL!!!!! Tim and John went hiking early in the morning and were supposed to be back in time for us to go out. We had only dated in a group until that time :) well, the guys didn't get back into town until after 10pm...NO DATE!!!!!!! Okay, so we did have a date, just not the one we were planning. We went to dinner. Our favorite place to go to dinner was a dinner downtown Ontario. Kingsbury's owned it. 4th street dinner. They had the best chicken sandwiches and milkshakes.

Then about a week or so later, Matt Anderson and another friend from LaGrande came down to Ontario on their way to Conference and kidnapped me. We left a ransom note with a friend in the dorms :) I had a great time at conference...we went to a BYU/ Uof U game :) It was a blast...that is where I met Mitsie Cowley. We became very close friends in an instant...thanks Matt :)

Tim and I eventually got our first date and have had many dates since then :)

For halloween Tim and I wanted to shock everyone so we went as bride and groom :) He rented a tux and I borrowed a wedding dress. It was such great fun to make everyone wonder :) Everyone seemed to know that we would get married, but it was still fun to shock people...we still have fun shocking people :)

When we got engaged, Tim and I wanted to shock the branch Pres..... he had a FHE at his house and we went to him and told him we needed to talk to him about something serious.... We weren't smiling at this time, we wanted him to be shocked :) hehehe.... So we told Pres. Hunter that we wanted to go to the temple but had some issues we needed to take care of first. He took a deep breath and sighed. He was quite sad.....but then we smiled big and told him that we wanted to go to the temple to get married :) HAAAHAAAA!!!!! He hit Tim and just laughed...then we went into the family room and he told everyone we were stinkers :)

On our wedding night, Tim had to work, so we didn't have a honeymoon. We have since made up for that by going to the coast or getting away by ourselves for a night or two :) Tim has made me laugh and smile almost everyday of our lives :) I have loved having him as my friend in whom I could trust. I appreciate him so much and his strength.

We had another fun experience at a marriage retreat. Well, it wasn't fun at the time, but it was fun later. I was about 12 weeks pregnant...not wanting to be because Josh wasn't even 1 yet. Anyway, during the retreat, I started to misscarry. Tim was talking to Bishop Banner and I was talking to Marshiela. I was crying as was Tim. Bishop and his wife were consoling us. Right after the retreat was over, we left for home. For weeks after that we had people calling us to make sure things were okay. Then another friend called one day and asked if we were getting a divorce. WHAT!!!!!! I guess word had gotten around that we were apparently having problems and we were getting a divorce. Nothing could be farther from the truth :)

Tim and I had grown closer through our trials.

Another one of our shockers was when we were expecting Dallin, we didn't tell ANYONE!!!!! NO ONE AT ALL!!!!!! We did finally tell someone the week we were going to go in and have him :) That was great fun as well

I look forward to our eternity together. I can't wait to see what our next 15 years has in store for us and for others to be shocked :) Watch out everyone, we Love to shock you :)

I love my sweetheart Tim :) He loves me dearly and is my best friend. We are so truly blessed in our lives to have each other and to have so many wonderful friends and family.

A Photo Tribute to our DAD!!!!

Tribute to DAD!

Happy Father's Day :) It's time to toot Tim's horn. He's such a great dad. I want to share some things about him and toot his horn :)

Tim loves to take his boys fishing, camping, and do all sorts of BOY things with them. He loves to work with them on their scouting stuff and duty to God.

He is a great leader in our family and teaches the boys the great importance of Home teaching. He has a strong testimony of home teaching and shares it with the boys often. Tim is a wonderful example of a righteous priesthood holder. He is always there when we need him for anything. Tim works so very hard so that I can stay home and be MOM.

Tim is very kind and loving to our family. I'm so glad Tim knows how to cook and helps me and works with me in the kitchen. It's wonderful to be able to work with him in the kitchen cooking.

I love how he has the spirit of scouting and employs it on our family campouts :)

Tim takes ALL of the boys on the Father's Sons outings :) YAY DAD!!!!!!

Tim loves to snuggle with Kyler. I'm grateful that Tim has helped me and supported me while homeschooling Josh, by taking Kyler and helping him with his name. K-Y-L-E-R....Kyler.

He makes me laugh almost everyday of my life....ever since the beginning :) Tim helps his parents out and my parents when they need our help. He is willing to serve whenever. Tim has a wonderful caring heart. He will work until the job is done.... Tim joys in service and teaches it to our boys.

I love you Tim. Thank you for being such a great dad to our boys. The boys love their dad :)

Here are some pictures of our SUPERSTAR DAD!!!!!

What do you do when you're waiting?

The realtors were supposed to tour our house today so we had to be gone from 9-12 this morning. Sadly, the realtors didn't come :( not too happy about that, as I'm anxious to get the house sold.

While we were waiting, we went to the park and played. The boys have such fun at the many parks here. This one is Butte Park. The whole community helped to rebuild this castle park after a vandalism fire about 5 years ago. It's even better than the old one.

There are so many fun things to do at this park. There is even a "tot lot" for younger children. A favorite of most of the kids here is to play tag and not touch the ground. You can see kids jumping all over the playstuff :) It's quite fun to try to get around without touching the ground. It's also a great workout.

These are the big kid swing sets. There is more in the tot lot for the kiddies, as well as a handicap swing. This is a great park, even for the handicapped kids :)

This is one of the bridges throughout the castle. Aaron was riding his ripstick across the bridge :)

Dallin crossing one of the many groups of monkey bars. I think there are four total sets of bars.

SCHOOLS OUT

Summer is about to begin for the boys :) The middle school boys will be home in a few minutes and then Dallin. Josh will be done with his last class on Friday, but technically not done with school until the 10th. We're excited for summer and saving gas not going anywhere :(

We have a family reunion that we're going to this month. On the 21st, we're out of here :) And headed "HOME" to New Plymouth. It will be great to visit again. One thing that would make our visit even better is if we actually had an offer on our house so we could start looking for houses down there :) lol.....I'm too funny I know.

It's so nice to have our backyard finished so the boys can play in the backyard and play on the slip and slide. We got rid of the pool because we were selling the house :( I don't know if we're going to need it anyway with the way the weather is going :) it's cold so far. Very wierd weather that's for sure.

Okay, the boys are going to be home soon and I'm goin to enjoy them the rest of the day :)

Scentsationally Scentsy :)

I have signed up to be a scentsy consultant :) My consultant number is 9625 I will have a website within the next couple of days :) I'm so excited to be selling scentsy. I love the safety, smells :) Love the scentsy. More to come later :)

My personal scentsy website is in my favorite links. but here it is too :) check it out please :)

www.scentsy.com/9625