Toree's B-day Photo Shoot

For Toree Day's birthday of fun Macey called and asked me if I would take them on a photo shoot and be their photographer. Of course I was thrilled to hang out with my girls and help Toree have a fun b-day!

Toree, Macy, McKaylee, Brooke, Alyssa, Cortney and Amanda and I headed to downtown Gilbert first. They all wore bright colors which looked great on a very sunny August day!

Toree, the new 15 year-old!

I had fun trying the camera on lots of different settings and then at home the girls helped me edit the pictures and make 'em kinda funky.

The water looked like a temple in the back ground and Macey looked like an ANGEL!

We're in Hawaii!

Tickle torture

Birthday girl

JUMP!

Macey

Brooke

McKaylee

Amanda

Alyssa

Cortney

Cute kicks!

"Throw your head back and laugh"

Thanks girls for letting me part of the fun memories and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOREE!

Rustin and Go-ped meet pavement!

Yes. His clavicle (collarbone) is broken!

Ouch!!!

Flag waving ACTIVIST

I went to the town hall meeting last night with John McCain to make sure he reads his constitution before he votes on health care reform. They wouldn't let me bring my Constitution sign in. They had a 'no sign' policy and wouldn't even let me bring in the constitution by itself!

My message for John McCain!

Luckily, they did let me bring in my flags. I might have been forced to cause a scene. I was the only one in the whole place who brought any! Kelly Despain and I were both waving them during the meeting and I tried like crazy to get him to call on me for a question. He must have known what was coming because he skipped right over me and my flags! But the Arizona Republic noticed me and put a picture of me online at their website and maybe in the paper too. I will have to go check!


We didn't get to really pin John McCain down on much. He did say several times that he was totally against the public option and that he didn't want the Federal government to get between you and your doctor. He did have several really good ideas on how to reform health care in a much better way. For example, making it possible for people to buy health insurance across state lines which would really be a good thing for prices. Also to give tax credits for buying insurance, health savings accounts etc. There were a few things I wasn't sure about and wanted more information on. I am still worried about whether he will reach across the aisle and try and negotiate with the Dems on this and somehow let them slip some seeds of government run co-ops or such in the bill. We will have to see.


Afterwards we had fun waving my Constitution/sign out the window at people. I got lots of thumbs and cheers from some great patriots and then some nasty remarks from the huge crowd of Obama supporters that were bused to Phoenix to protest near the event. It was fun!!!!


I also met a great guy, Jim Deakin, who is running for John McCain's senate seat in 2010. We had a long chat about politics, freedom, political parties and the constitution. I was impressed with him, his knowledge of the Constitution, Federalist Papers, 5,000 Year Leap and his platform. He definitely has the right ideas and is very motivated to go clean up the mess in Washington. If you want to learn more about him go to www.jimdeakin.com

Koski Family Reunion!

While in Utah we had an official family reunion at Alta Mont campground in American Fork Canyon

Tess and cousin Abby on The Rock!

This was a fun new friendship that developed this summer.

Tess using her camera on her phone to fix the flower in her hair.

Gotcha!

My mom taught us how to whistle with a piece of grass between your thumbs. Now I pass the tradition on.

All the girls were able to do it!

Liv modeling on The Rock

Thoughtful pose

My crazy sister, Anne, and Chloe

My sisters in order of age, youngest on left (baby Liza is missing)

Dorothy, Katie, Emily, Anne, Sarah, Maryjane

We added the brothers in- but wrong place STEVE!

That's better. Book end brothers

Add our one and only sister-in-law, Jen!

Liza came to visit!! Thanks Dorothy for getting her here!

Now we have all the brother-in-laws too

(except Russ who was home working hard)

ALL of my parents' 25 grandkids!

Olivia and Clark on the side of the mountain.

Making Emily and I nervous.

Mj brought up a bunch of peanut butter play dough that she had made and lots of fun treats for the kids to use in their creations like, fruit loops, pretzles, m&m's and more.

It was a super fun craft for kids young and old

Tess working on her masterpiece

Done.

A girl in my parents' hot tub. Complete with blue water and steps!

That Camille is sooo cute!

Alex and Rustin even make some interesting creations

Mj, Chloe and I are so impressed with Emily's craft project she brought. We put stencils, objects of all sorts, on the shirts and then sprayed them with bleach for the coolest look!! We have some seriously creative and artistic people in our family!

These have been rinsed with water to stop the bleach from bleaching out too much color and are drying

Clark, Kolby and Kenney having fun poking the fire!

Playing my new favorite board game, "Wits and Wagers" with my brothers, Steve and Bill and my bro-in-law Kole (in the hood)

Jen and Kate with my Aunt Pat who came to visit the reunion with her darling dog, Shaggy Maggy.

One of Olivia's favorite parts of the trip was catching grasshoppers in her bug catcher she got at BYU.

This is her pet, Olivia, who was so tame she would just walk around on Liv's arm. Olivia (the human) decided to let Olivia (the grasshopper) go as we headed out of town on a patch of grass by a gas station. Be free!!!

Anne made this AWESOME matching game with everyone in our family's picture, b-day, first and middle names. You could arrange them any way you wanted, by age, family, intelligence, beauty, righteousness! Haha!

Here they are grouped by family with b-day and names added. This was such a challenge with 44 people in our family!!!!!