I vow to do better!

I have dropped off of the face of the earth. . . at least as far as this blog is concerned. We had a WONDERFUL summer filled with long overdue visits with many of our friends and family members. Details and pictures in the near future.

2009 Youth Conference trip to Palmyra, New York.

The Sacred Grove

There are not words to express the feeling of this place.

The Youth of the Shenandoah Valley Ward

Charter buses...Palmyra or BUST!

The stake organized 3 charter buses for the trip!

Levi and his friend Jacob Aintablian waiting to take off.
Levi and Jordan Brant waiting for dinner once we got to Palmyra.
Bring on the Pizza!

The Pagent

Ashlyn being a bit cheesy as we all patiently waited for the Palmyra Pagent to begin.

We had some flirting going on. . . every youth conference has flirting!

This is Travis and his friend Korrine Aldous.

The Pagent was TOTALLY worth the wait!
How awesome is the Book of Mormon!

Brother Read, our amazing Young Men's President,

studying his scriptures by a tree. We love you, Brother Read!

You are an amazing example to all of us in so many ways!

Sight seeing in Palmyra

The Palmyra Temple as seen from the Smith Family Farm.





The actual shop in which the first Book of Mormon was printed. This is a replica of the press that was used.




An authentic first edition Book of Mormon!!!



A short walk from the print shop led us to the grave site of Alvin Smith, Joseph's older brother who died from what they believe was a ruptured appendix.

Celebrating Independence Day.

We feel a deep gratitude in our hearts to live in a country in which we can freely express our love and belief in Heavenly Father and His son, Jesus Christ! We are thankful to the many individuals who have sacrificed so that we can live every day with this blessing in our lives.




Fireworks out at our good friends the Butterfields. We are lucky to have thier friendship and lucky that he is also our Bishop!


The Ferrulli/Buhl kids (minus Jake and Johnny)
aka: THE FERR-BUHL-LLIS!!!!!!

Soakin' up the Shanks

We are so lucky to have had Nathan, Matthew and Austin Shank come to visit us for a few days. We are impressed with how much they have grown. Wish they could have stayed longer;but we are grateful to have had them.

Amanda and her husband Jeff (who we think ROCKS) came too. We are so glad they have found each other!



Travis and Austin


Levi wrestling Nate, Matt and Austin

Eagle Project complete!

A start marker was placed at the beginning of the trail. Every half mile, a marker was placed, until the last marker which reads "end".

These were the loose end. Now he's done! Just working on the write up to submit on Sunday!

Travis' Eagle Project moves forward.

Travis chose the Third Winchester battlefield for the sight of his project.

Travis and Mark (Dad/Scoutmaster) with a donated auger for the project.

We had an awesome turnout from friends, family, the troop and ward members.

Thanks to the Ferrulli Fam, The Read Fam, The Olsen Fam, Mom, Dad, Levi, Ash, Aunt Manda, Cousin Brooke, Brother Bradley, Jarinn and Connor Riches and Cory Hoke. Many hands make light work.


Travis began by giving specific instructions to all volunteers and dividing his force into teams. Each team was given a specific assignment.

The process. . .

The men lugged the auger down the two mile trail and stopped to drill the holes every half mile.


It was seriously hard work in the 80 degree, humid, sunny weather.



The auger left a deep hole for wooden posts. The dirt was packed back in place around the posts so that only 1 inch or so remained above ground. Mile marker signs that have been ordered will be attached to the wood next week.





Numbers that correspond to a trail map were added to informational signs that are already in place at the battlefield. Just throw up the right stencil and roll it with some paint.

Beautiful Virginia

This is the path that the mile markers were placed along.



Thistle. But it's pretty!




Flowers growing in the field.

Burk came to visit!!!

We are very lucky to have our cousin Brooklyn come to visit. She was able to stay for 10 days. We did a whole lot of staying up late, sleeping in late, laughing, eating, talking, singing, playing the piano, and just hanging out. It was awesome to see her because any time apart is way too long.

This is right before we took her to the airport. Bye Brooklyn (boo hoo) but we'll see you at the family reunion.

We got to help throw our great friends, John and Karla Ferrulli, a twenty fifth wedding anniversary surprise party.

Okay, we had to find a way to lure them to the church. We wanted to make sure they would come looking halfway put together and yet, we wanted to avoid all suspicion. I called our Stake Executive secretary and he agreed to call John and Karla and tell them that a member of our Stake Presidency wanted to invterview them. All week long I had to listen as Karla was a little stressed about this interview. I felt a little guilty. . . but not too much.

Our AWESOME bishop, who we love, met them in the Stake wing of the building and told them he wanted to show them how someone had broken the basketball hoop.

Here they are walking in. . .



We all yelled surprise!



Karla hugging Kelsi(John and Karla's daughter). . . who put so much work into this party. It was her idea and she worked her butt off to make it awesome. She rocked!!

It was a great party!

Rachel Ferrulli and Levi

We had some dancing.

The boys had a great time popping balloons during clean up. The balloons were maroon and pink. . . John and Karla's original wedding colors!

The ducklings have hatched.

We found Mama duck on her nest, but. . .

. . . after looking closer. . .

we found that she was sitting on 9 or 10 little ducklings. Does this look remotely comfortable to you?

Mama duck kept them snuggled under her for most of the day and all night and then the next morning when we checked the nest they were gone. She was a very vigilant mother! It was a cool experience and to think all we had to do was look out the front door.

Looking forward to the 2009 Smith Family Reunion in Arizona

Ashlyn and Travis in 1995 climbing the ladder up to the famous treehouse. Every child that has been to the ranch loves to be in the tree house.

Jake in '95 is no exception.

Levi is snuggling with Grandma Neva in 2004. She is a sweatheart! All the grandchildren love her.

We will be having another reunion in July of this year at the wonderful Smith Family Ranch. Granddad Smith has provided for his posterity a special place to come together and feel unified. It's AWESOME and we can't wait to be there!

Choir is over for the year.

Travis and Ashlyn had thier spring concert this past week. The spring concert is the big one where everyone says goodbye to the graduating seniors. Travis was pinned as an upcoming senior. It is always sad to move on but lets face it; we could all use a break! They did a very strange peice at the end. I'm not sure what it was; but if you blend african tribal with latin chant you might get a general idea.?.

Ashlyn and Travis during the concert.

Travis saying goodbye to his good buddy Eric who won't be back next year since he is a graduating senior.

We are the neighborhood aviary!

We have a weird phenomenon going on at our house. We have 5 different types of birds nesting on our lot. We have finches in the bird house (not abnormal), sparrows in our newspaper box under our mailbox (not so much what the newspaper box is for), robins under the deck, doves in our ladder, and (this is the weird one) ducks nesting under a bush in our front yard!!! We even called a "duck specialist" about the ducks. We were worried about cats getting to the ducklings once they hatched. He assured us that we SHOULD NOT move the nest and that once the ducklings hatch they would only be there 5 or 6 hours and then mama would march them to a nearby water source to begin thier training. We still wondered about the cats! He said at the most they might get one or two but that was natural selection. (Oh no!!!) We have to be careful that the ducklings do not see us right as they are hatching because they could imprint on us (twilight fans this will ring a bell) and then they won't follow thier mother. Ashlyn thought this would be awesome but we said, "HECK NO!!!"