Brett and Brighton Brooksby

Friday, September 2, 2011
Portland Oregon LDS Temple

Brett and Brighton were sealed on an incredibly beautiful day. They were the only wedding in the afternoon, so we pretty much had the grounds of the temple to ourselves for pictures.


We got a picture of the siblings together minus Jared, who is on a mission for the LDS church and wasn't able to attend. We all missed him!

Friday, September 9, 2011

Brighton and Brett had an Open House in Glenville, NY with friends and family. Brighton's parents Brenda and Lorin were able to come from Scappoose, OR to be with us.

Erin and Lauren together at the NY Open House.

Justin, Erin, and Bennett were able to go to both the wedding in Portland and the open house in New York. It's wonderful to have them in Baltimore, just a six+ hour drive away!

Our family is growing by leaps and bounds. We're so happy to have Brighton in our family!

Guess Who is 15!

Lauren had her birthday party early this year because her birthday in on a Sunday and the next day she leaves for EFY for a week. I can't believe that my "baby" is fifteen years old! Where has that time flown to?

Lauren wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting,
so that's what she got.

Look at all those cute kids. They came over and had a BBQ (hotdogs, chips, relish tray, soda) played outside, and then tried (unsuccessfully) to watch a movie.

They must have had a good time because days later I was finding Skittles behind things in the front room.

Brett's Engaged!

Brett is engaged to Brighton Fielding from Scappoose, Oregon. They are getting married in the Portland Oregon temple on September 2, 2011. They'll have a reception that night in Oregon and an Open House here in New York on September 9th.

Albany New York Stake YW Camp 2011

YW Camp was Monday, June 27-Friday, July 1, 2011. I went as a Second Year Level Leader and Lauren is a Third Year camper this year. It was the best week weather wise that I've ever had attending YW camp. The days were sunny (except Tuesday for a little bit), on the cool side, and the temperatures were great for sleeping. It was fantastic!

Here is the only shot of Lauren and I together, and I didn't even have it taken. I'm glad someone else thought of it.

The girls were able to go kayaking on Seneca Lake. The day the Second Year and Third Year Level girls went it was windy and choppy, but all made it back safely - even though a few capsized.

There was archery and trap shooting at camp this year. The girls really enjoyed it.

We went hiking up Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca, NY. It was beautiful. There were approximately 600 stairs in the first part of the hike. Fortunately it was cool, so we didn't get too hot.

After hiking at Buttermilk Falls we drove to Robert H. Treman State Park where the girls could go swimming. It was an amazing natural swimming hole with a deep end that had a diving board and roped off swimming areas.

Here's Lauren with Michele and Jenny.
Just look at those happy faces!

Lauren's Divine Nature Value Project

Last year during the basketball tournament one of the young women twisted her ankle and they didn't have any ice in the freezer at the stake center so she had to go outside in the cold and put her foot in the ice. After that incident Lauren decided that she wanted to make "snuggle socks" to keep in the freezers of the various units in our stake.

She decided she could do this for her Divine Nature Value Project. So once she was done with school we got the socks, rice, and ribbon and she made 12 snuggle socks. One for each unit in the stake.

This is what they looked like before she put the unit's name on the sock.

And here they all are with their names on them ready to be delivered to the various units. She did a great job. And hopefully the next time someone is injured and needs an ice pack these will be ready and waiting in the freezers of the various church buildings in the stake.

Strawberry Jam!

Last year I didn't make strawberry freezer jam because we still had a bunch in the freezer. And with fewer people living at home we just weren't going through it as fast as we used to. But we ran out of jam about a month before the strawberries were ready here. Lauren said that we could NEVER run out of strawberry jam again.

Making strawberry jam takes almost a whole day. We left at 8:15 am to go to the berry farm and pick our 12 quarts of strawberries. Yes, it was hot and muggy, and the berries were tiny. The farm worker said that they'd had a lot of people pick the day before and they'd gotten all the big berries, so that made it take a little longer than normal. That and the fact that we were down to just Lauren and I doing the picking. Then we had to go buy the sugar and pectin. Then it was home to cut up, mash, and make the strawberry jam. We made ten batches of jam. In the middle of making it Lauren had to leave to take a Regents exam so it took me a little longer to finish since I was working alone.

When Lauren got home from her exam around 2:30 pm she started helping again and we got done around 4:00 pm. On the counter you can see some of our 30+ jars of strawberry freezer jam. Justin happened to be here interviewing for a job, so we sent a couple jars back with him. One for them and one for Brett. It's truly a labor of love - of strawberry jam love, that is. Nothing tastes better!

It's Official!

Jared is officially a missionary for
The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints!
He left today for Utah and
and enters the MTC on Wednesday.