Russ's Birthday "Girls Camp Survival Kit"

 This year, Russ's birthday landed on the first day of Girls Camp, which he and I and 2 of our daughters would be attending. So, the night before camp (July 24, 2011) we had the Koskis and Wilsons over for a birthday dinner and we gave him a "Girls Camp Survival Kit" as a gift.

Inside the kit were other small packages with labels explaining how each gift would help him survive camp.

This bag contained his favorite treats, candy, beef jerky and smoked almonds. YUM!

This hilarious mini foldable pocket chair had a tag that said, 

"To help you rest your weary bones"

This one had a new pair of flip flops in it for him to wear around his cabin in the evenings, just like the girls do.

Peter liked the packaging of this one!

Russ is digging into his first bag

Russ checking out the VERY big bra the girls picked out for him and placed in a bag labeled, 

"To help with PRANKS and SKNARPS"

Also in the bag was Saran Wrap and candy.

Claire-bear trying on the bra! It's a bit too big for now.

Olivia is holding the last gift, an ipod holder to strap on your arm while running or hiking, which was in a package labeled, 

"To help you get a little peace from all the chitter chatter!!!"

LOVE YOU RUSS!!!!

Happy Birthday and thanks for putting up with all us GIRLS!

Summer Random Fun

This summer the Crawfords tried some new things to try and keep the doldrums away.

 One of Rustin's and mine (and Chloe tried it too) was playing disc golf.

(picture of total stranger from internet- but you get the idea)

 Rustin, Mason, Gary, Chloe and I had such a blast playing, that we would go out and play in the 103 degree weather! We even braved slimy pond water when we accidentally threw the discs in the water.

Rustin crammed on Chloe's flip-flops and waded out in the muck to retrieve his precious disc! 

Watch on video!

Can you see all the slimy weeds in the toes of Chloe's flip flops??? 

EWwWWWWww!!!

I threw one in later that was too far in to get, but the park manager (who is Rustin's friend) called the other day and told Rustin he had scooped it out with others and to come pick it up!

Rustin and Mason couldn't get enough of disc golf so they would try and play inside. Bad idea Rustin!!!

Rustin played on The Force, a summer lacrosse league and kept himself in good shape with 2 hour practices and games a few nights a week. I kept in shape by jogging around the complex for 40 min. while he practiced and then read books, or watched his games. I love the color of the sky in this picture!

My cute dog Jasper just has to lay on the towels as I am folding and stacking them after they've dried on the fence all day. I just keep plopping them on his back but he doesn't care!

On the night of July 14th, I took Kaitlyn and Olivia to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2. We had such a blast! I left them at the theater to hold our place in line and while I was gone at my meeting, they let everyone in to the theater WAY earlier than expected. Unfortunately, I had not left the girls' tickets with them! Fortuntately,  I had asked these two teenage girls to keep an eye on them for me and one of them saved us seats in the theater, and the other one waited outside with the girls in the dark until I got there. Phew!!

My creative girls HAD to make shirts for the special occasion!

My little Olivia partied so hard with a bunch of friends from diving that happened to be in our theater, that she fell asleep 30 min. before the movie started. I let her sleep and then woke her up just in time! She stayed awake for the whole movie! :) 

It was AWESOME!!!!

We also had the Legos out for a few weeks and had a blast making project after project. Of course girls build different things than boys do!

 Summer isn't all play. I did have some work to do! As assistant Girls Camp Director for our stake girls camp, I had a huge task (that I assigned myself) of putting together 300 booklets with the schedules and songs in them for the girls to wear on lanyards and use all week. I write their names all by hand and they turned out so nice! But it took several days of writing for hours and hours at a time. I even got out my list of fonts so I could make sure my writing looked nice.

One of our favorite games is "Take Two" with the Scrabble tiles. After many competative rounds of this game, Rustin used all the tiles to make this excellent crossword puzzle. I guss his brains haven't turned to mush this summer! 

Liza Koski Memorial Lacrosse Game

2 of Liza's lacrosse teammates now run their own lacrosse club for girls called, Wildfire Lacrosse. They absolutely love and miss their buddy Liza. They decided to provide a scholarship in her name for girls to play lacrosse each year on their team. 

To raise money for this scholarship, they held the first annual Liza Koski Memorial game. All of us Arizona Koskis came to support the team and the fund raising efforts. A lot of Liza's old buddies came from all around to play in this awesome tribute game. Rustin played too!! He was the only boy and had a blast playing with his friends, Kira Williams, Madi Biggs and Addison Bowyer's older sister.

It was held at the Barney Family Sports Complex

Warming up and stretching. Some of these girls hadn't played for a few years.

We all wore our Rollersaurus shirts. It was Liza's favorite shirt in life, so we had some made to match hers and we wear them cuz we love her to pieces!

Liza's dad with her old coach from Gilbert High School

Tanya Williams (and daughter Kenzie, Kaia came too) watching Kira play for Liza! Tanya was one of Liza's best friends.

Olivia and Peter.

Chloe not doing a very good job of hiding behind a water bottle. She's wearing her Liza necklace made by Kenna Petersen

Clair-bear Wilson

Maddi Biggs in the green shorts and Kelly miller in the green headband, passing out the bracelets they had made for Liza's family and friends. They said, "Strength, Tenacity, Love"

which described how Liza felt about lacrosse and so much more.

Kelly giving saying a few words about our favorite lacrosse player, and the reason my kids play lacrosse, Liza. She made us cry!

Rustin played goalie the second half of the game. This was fun and different for him.

Luke (a.k.a. Spiderman) came to the game and is giving Rustin "five" through the fiberglass.

They made $535 that day. Enough for several girls to have the opportunity to play lacrosse that might not have been able to otherwise. 

Thanks Wildfire Lacrosse for an awesome event and for Loving Liza!!!

Tie-dye day!

One boring summer day (June 30, 2011) we headed to Hobby Lobby to find something to do. We found a tie-dye kit and bought white t-shirts went to town dying them and everything else white we could find.

Olivia about to squirt the blue colored dye on her shirt which is all twisted up and rubber banded on the table.

Shaylee working on her masterpiece.

Chloe's is ready to sit and soak in the color for a few hours before we rinse.

We had so much fun doing the shirts that we dug through our closets looking for anything white. We had these white aprons left from Tess's 16th birthday party. So we tried a different style of tie-dye with them. Instead of one big twisty spiral, these would have rings of colors.

It's in the bag, resting.

The dye. We had lots of it!

It stains fingers too!

An apron I made for my mom for her birthday. It just faded from blue to green to yellow. It looke amazing BEFORE i rinsed it out. Then it faded like crazy cuz the apron was mostly polyester and that fabric just won't hold the dye like cotton does. Oh well, she still wears it!

Olivia rinsing out her shirt. I CAN'T WAIT!!

Shirts and pillowcases drying on our pool fence.

Ta da!!! Chloe's turned out great!

So did Olivia's, and her pillowcases done in two different styles.

This is a sheet one of the girls did that we sewed fleece onto the back of and made a blankie. 

Olivia and I in my room sewing the back of her blanket on. Thanks for taking this picture Chloe.

Not sure what Chloe is thinking be apparently she had developed a new art form!

Great summer memories!

Val Vista Ward Campout!

The Crawford family and Val Vista ward family had tons o' fun at the ward campout this year, June 23 &24, 2011. We got some great pictures too. Some were pictures of beautiful things, some of crazy tricks and some of the people we love!

Somties the people we love are a little reluctant- (cough, cough... Rustin!)

Karli Hall is our next-door neighbor in the real world, but when we were camping, they were further than they are in real life. What does that mean??

Me braiding the hair of one of my favorite red-heads, Sammie Gallman!

Anath Hall showing us what it's all about. Below with her son, Jacob, who had tons of fun playing Risk and Monopoly and other games with Rustin and friends.

Olivia Gallman always ready with a crazy face and big smile!

Russ and I had tons of fun paddling our new kayak the Gallmans gave us for Christmas and jumping off the cliffs!

Rustin half way through with his back flip off the cliff!!!

Garrett Mariner diong his backflip too. We thought he was crazy to try one from so high, but soon he and Rustin were doing front and back flips and showing off for the girls who were up at Blue Ridge Reservoir for girls camp.

Rustin and Garrett do a DOUBLE back flip! 

Above Rustin are some of the girls that cheered him on to do his first back flip and who he later found on facebook.

Olivia taking the plunge!!! Weeee!!!

Almost there Olivia!

Sammie stealing my sunglasses!

Olivia with her Hot Tan pal, Shaylee Gallman. 

Chloe going for it!!!

(Tess jumped several times too, but I can't find the picture of her!)

Neighbor, Jarom Hall, testing out our new kayak. 

Shauna Gallman and daughter, Penelope. She is like a sister to me! Don't know what I'd do without her!!!

Me, Shaylee, Olivia and Shauna (who are eyeballing each other on the right side) playing NINJA, our favorite group game. Olivia is VERY VERY GOOD!

Chris Lewis who just got baptized and officially joined our ward family last week (Sept. 17th) but he's been a big part of our ward campouts, choir and ward family for the last few years!!

Russ and I and Rustin with friends, just after eating breakfast

Waiting for some ward games to begin. We had an awesome candy treasure hunt where you paired up with a partner and one person was like the dog, sniffing out the candy and could only bark when they saw it. The other person had to follow the dog's lead and could only pick up what the dog brought them too. Fun and different. Then we played FIRE and WATER, which is a lot like a girls camp game we play called "A Rum!" 

Then of course the competition heated up with the classic, gunny sack race. Pye Hirsche, Rustin, Jacob and Susan Eck battle it out!