Christmas time fun!

Don't you all just love Christmas? It is so fun to see family and celebrate the birth of our Savior. Cameron and I made out with a haul as usual--we are so blessed! We forgot our camera, of course, but my mom took some pictures of us right before we left their house last night. We got to spend Christmas eve and Christmas Day with Cameron's family and then go to my parents' house yesterday.
Us with Brianna's daughter, Cambria

Weekend adventures

I am using this blog as a journal like many people and it is helping me to log everyday things that we do as well as special events. The last two weekends have been great, and I wish I had pictures to show for it. Last weekend, Cameron and spent the weekend at my old roommate's Jamie's house. Her and her husband live in Meridian and they just had their second child about 6 weeks ago. What a great family! They are good examples to Cameron and I on how to lovingly parent young children, and they just welcomed us into their home with open arms. We mostly just talked and played with the kids, and we also went out to lunch and went to our favorite place, Cabelas. We specifically went close to when the feed the fish in their huge aquarium so Beck, their almost-3-year-old, could watch the big fish eat gold-fish!
This weekend was also super fun because my mother-in-law and Cameron's two sisters and I went to Boise for a girls shopping weekend. We stayed in a hotel and shopped Friday night and all day Saturday. Those girls have such excellent taste in home decorations and clothes, and I found that shopping really can be fun. I usually go by myself and am in a hurry, so this was a different, better experience. I came home exhausted late last night and Cameron was so good to let me go and to have the house clean and some grocery shopping done when I got home! What a great guy he is!

Cambria Paige Mckinnon Baby Blessing

My sister, Brianna's, daughter, the first grand-baby in my family, was blessed last Sunday, and boy was she cute. She is so spoiled by all of us--we just can't get enough of her! Her blessing dress was worn by me and Brianna when we were babies so that was special. Brianna made her cute head-band for a "modern" touch. Here are some pictures of the little cutie.

Cambria in her beautiful dress!

Brett, Brianna, and Cambria Mckinnon

My mom and Cambria both taking a little nap!

My dad with all his favorite girls (besides my mom) :)

She's thinking, "What are you looking at?"

Boys will be boys

Cameron is involved with 14-15 year old boys in our ward, and he usually has them over about once a month for "dinner." I put it in quotations because it is actually a feast--Cameron likes to go over the top. The boys love it and and they have learned to cook new foods and how to help prepare and clean up in the kitchen. Their mom's appreciate it as well! This last Tuesday, Cameron gave each of the boys an assignment to bring, and something I knew would happen, almost all of them forgot their food item. So I got to go on a last minute shopping spree to the grocery store to buy various finger foods. The complete meal was not ready to eat until almost eight o'clock but it was fun and well worth it. They had apple slices with carmel and dry ice bubbling out of the cups, mozzerella sticks, fresh veggies and dip, stuffed jalapenos, pickles, hot wings, french bread, and watermelon. The following pictures show that these boys enjoyed the experience and were begging to the be the one to pick next month's meal. Boys will be boys and they love food!

My back issues

I just have to post about something that is not that exciting but has really been a big part of my life lately. Since January of 2008 during my dietetic internship, I have had major upper back problems between my shoulder blades. That area has just been so tight and my ribs were "popping" out of place frequently which does not feel too well. I have gone to chiropractors in Pocatello, Burley, and Twin Falls throughout this time period and have gotten some relief but the problem keeps coming back. What really hurts is to write or type or do anything with my arms lifting in front of me (like laundry, dishes, etc.) So finally about 6-7 weeks ago after seeing the chiropractor in Twin Falls for several weeks with no significant improvement, he referred me to a physical therapist. I have been seeing him after work the last 6 weeks and I think I am slowly getting better! It is taking so much longer than we had all anticipated and hoped, but I am getting stronger and I have tons of exercises to do at home involving a foam roller, rolled up towel, a chair, and "thera-bands." In fact I had better do my exercises right now! I am going to keep going at least once a week and hopefully this problem will be fixed once and for all!

Family Camping

This last Labor Day weekend, Cameron and I went camping up Pass Creek near Mackay, ID with my family. It is an annual family tradition, although we didn't go last year. My whole family was there, my brother Vance recently getting back from Texas, and my sister Brianna was there with her husband, Brett, 37 weeks pregnant! We kept telling her with all those bumpy four wheeler rides, she was going to go into labor on Labor Day! Luckily she did not and we had a ton of fun camping! Cameron's parents also came up for the weekend, so it was a double family reunion for us. Kathy, Cameron's mom, said "Well, this is what the Celestial Kingdom will be like." I sure hope so! Here are a few pictures of us camping and of Brianna's baby shower the weekend before.

She looks so dang cute and she does not own any maternity pants!

She is having a girl that is due September 22nd.


My grandparents that live in Leslie, ID came up for Saturday evening. My grandpa just recently had surgery and they still did not want to miss the tradition.

After dinner on Saturday night.



Me and the men folk went on a hike up to Bear Creek Lake. It was beautiful the whole way up and the lake is such a beautiful color. Because it is made from snow run-off, I would not want to go swimming in it!


Cameron found this picnic table at another campspot down the canyon and lifted it on the four wheeler and drove it to our camp all by himself! He is so cute and crazy!

Pics of the yard

June was spent furiously finishing our sprinkler system, plannting bushes and trees, and planting grass before we left on our trip. It was so fun when we came back because volia! Little grass was growing! Now it is thick and green and looks like a real lawn. These pictures were actually taken a couple weeks ago, and it looks better now because most the weeds are dead. That is one thing we are really good at growing--weeds! Anyway, it has been fun to enjoy our yard and continue to work in the garden as the summer progresses. We have already bottled 36 pints and 6 quarts of green beans, 11 pints of homemade salsa, and 15 quarts of pickles. We have been busy bees and it will be good food storage. One thing I still have yet to learn is to bottle fruit and make jam. If it doesn't grow in my garden, I don't bottle it!


Some other fun things we have done this summer include buying a new car (with air-conditioning that works--yay!), going to a few family reunions, and Cameron going on a high-adventure outing with the young men in the ward. They rafted and hiked in Alpine up by Palisades and went to Jackson for the Bar-J Wranglers. The bishopric thought the rafting was so fun that the girls should get to do it too, so this Saturday all the youth are going back up to Palisades (3 hours away) to float the river. Should be fun!

Here's just a taste...

We went on an amazing road trip from June 27--July 5th with our friends, the Hollingsworths. This was our third annual road trip with them and their three kids. This year we went down to Moab and Blanding, UT, and we went to 5 amazing national parks/monuments and hiked into some indian ruins in Blanding that very few people know about. Blake Hollingsworth spent a lot of time down here as a teen, so he was excited to show us the wonders of Southern Utah. It was very hot! We all wore Camelbacks throughout the day to stay hydrated and were very grateful for the air-conditioned mini-van we got to climb into after each hike. Cameron ended up taking about 500 hundred pictures and Blake took a lot more than that. I don't have the time or energy to go through them all and post my favorites but here is just a taste of some of the stuff we saw:

We hiked through the "jungle" and scaled a cliff to get to this ruin near Blanding, UT. It was built by the Pueblo Indians about 1000 A.D.

Some of the Hollingsworth gang packing out their kids in the "jungle." I could have sworn we were in the desert until we went on this hike!

This was Natural Bridges National Park. The amazing bridges we saw are bigger and thicker than the arches.

Brittyn and the other kids were amazing as we dragged them down mountains and into canyons to find indian ruins.

Another bridge at National Bridges National Park. There were very few people in this park on the 4th of July. Could the 100 degree weather be a reason?

An Indian village at Mesa Verde National Park (in Colorado.) We only got to see two of the villages here, both with ranger led tours, but it was way worth it.

We got to the top of this hill, looking for the ruin one of Blake's friends had given us coordinates to. We saw this and just had to figure out a way down to get into them. On the way down, we discovered two more that had been hidden by trees. We were so crazy to do this with three kids. Lots of catcuses (cacti?), slick rock, lizards, and NO TRAIL! It was so fun!

This is Blake measuring his hands against those who lived here thousands of years ago. This was in the one of the ruins we hiked into. We also found pieces of pottery and tons more petroglyphs.

This tower/house was the first ruin we found on this trip. Blake had been here when he was a kid and was sooo excited to show us everything. We go to go inside, which was pretty cool.

This is Balanced Rock, the famous rock formation at Arches National Park.

This is Delicate Arch, another very famous formation at Arches. Cameron and I got up early and hiked to this one alone. We had to go early because of the heat and there were a lot of steep cliffs so we were glad the kids were not here. The sun was just coming up when we got up there and there were only two other couples. Way cool!

This is view from the road driving through Arches National Park. It was so different there than anything I have ever seen.

This was me and Cameron's favorite arch, "Double Arch." The picture just doesn't do it justice.

This was Landscape Arch, which was huge and breathtaking. The Hollingsworths didn't make it all the way to the arch because it was so hot and it was hard to walk through the sand at the end. Those poor kids, they were troopers!

This is a view of the "Island in the Sky" at Canyonlands National Park. THis area had some pretty fantastic geography.

This is right under one of the Natural Bridges we hiked into. There was shade and water down there! There were also a lot of petroglyphs on the walls of the formation.

Brittyn, I know exactly how you felt. We all slept good in our tents every night.

Carter was so tired he didn't care the position he was in. I think he was just ready to be done!

Five years!

Today is me and Cameron's five year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it has been that long. I am so in love with him and here are the top 10 reasons I love Cameron:

1. He always says "I love you," whether we are on the phone or we're driving down the road together.

2. He loves to hug and hold hands and doesn't mind PDA (public shows of affection)!

3. His amazing work ethic and how he steps up and does 100% of any responsbility.

4. His worthiness to hold the priesthood.

5. How he stores away in his mind things I say I like throughout the year and starts Christmas shopping for them in October.

6. He makes sure we go on a fun trip each year. He does all the planning and then "scrap-books" the trip afterward (he makes an amazing DVD of all our pictures).

7. His williness to do most of the cooking during the week and help with the housework even though he works full time too.

8. He is taller than me, even when I wear heels!

9. Did I mention he is a great cook? He loves to experiment with different recipes.

10. He took me to the temple to be married, so he's mine forever!

I love you Cameron and I can't wait to see what this next year brings!

pics of the family!

My mom just e-mailed me these pictures from a few weeks ago when we were down visiting in Firth for the day. My parents got home from Hawaii that day (isn't my mom tan?) and we came and surprised them and made dinner for them. My cousin, Dane Ivie, also had just came home from his mission and was speaking in church. I love family so much and I am so grateful for mine! Here's my family all together.