Summer Trip to Tennessee

This is Maddie, her Aunt Rachel, and her cousin Josalyn. This was what we spent pretty much all our time doing while we were there. It was like 100 degrees so we took advantage of Papa and Kay Kay's pool and swam all day long. This is at Andy's Dad's house is TN. Rachel is Andy's half sister, she is 15 and she loves her nieces more then anything and they love her.

These two are the two year old trouble makers. They love to play and fight and cause trouble, like any typical two year old i guess. But they are just so darn cute no one cares.

This is all four cousins.They are Kenzie, Maddie, Josalyn, and Brooklyn. Kenzie and Josalyn came down with us to TN to visit their dad (Clint) for the weekend. Misty(their mom) lives in Ohio right now, so we borrowed my mom's suburban and drove 5 little girls in one car for 6 hours. It was awesome.

I couldn't get these pictures to turn the right way and i don't know why, so sorry.

This is Brooklyn finally swimming by her self for the first time. At first she would only sit on the steps, then she got use to the floaties, then by the end of it we had her jumping off the diving board. Nothing scares her now.


Here she is jumping off the side of the pool for the first time, she had to work her way up to the diving board.

Rachel having a blast with Maddie while she jumps into her arms from the steps. This was their constant game.

Brooklyn and Josalyn swimming all by themselves.

Daddy and Maddie making funny faces.


Maddie loves cherries, it is almost an obsession, i think she could eat a whole bag by herself.

Brooklyn found two toads one night all by herself. She reads a night sounds animal book at night sometimes, and through reading that she knew by the sound they made that they are peeping frogs, because of the way they peep. Our girl knows her frogs, Papa was impressed.

Andy got her to kiss them, i thought it was gross, but of course Brooklyn didn't hesitate.


We finally got her to go off the diving board and once we did there was no stopping her, she did it again and again.

Mommy and Daddy chillin with Evie by the pool.

Sandy the Turtle

The Bassett's found this Turtle outside our apartments a few days ago. It is huge, we couldn't believe it. The kids on our street went nuts. Kacey decided to catch it and keep it for a few days and that is when we asked the kids what they wanted to name it and Brooklyn suggested Sandy.

This is Sandy herself. We got her to climb right into a box and the Bassett's kept her in a big bin with some water in it up on their porch. We got to visit and let the turtle run around the yard while the girls found worms and fed them to her.

This is where we first found her just sitting in the Bassett's front yard.

The girls wouldn't leave the poor thing alone, they just sat and watched her forever. It was so cool that we found a turtle that big, it was like being at the zoo for a bunch of three year olds. They let her go yesturday and we had to wave farewell to Big Sandy.

Evie, aka, June Bug

I love these pictures because it shows off who Evie is so perfectly. She is literally like this all the time. I have never known such a smiley baby before. Anyone smiles at her and she smiles like this back. She was sent to this earth to brighten peoples' days. Andy thinks she looks like a turtle though.

She loves her mama. She thinks i am so funny it makes my day. She is my sunshine in the middle of two winy toddlers, well sometimes the other two can be sunshine too when they want to be.

Goodbye Party at Golf Pointe

This was a root beer float party we had for everyone that was leaving this year for residency or to be a dentist. We are losing like 6 families and it was really hard for everyone. But we decided to have a last golf pointe hurrah.

This just shows typical golf pointe hang out time. We have a ton of Mormons that live hear and when one comes out to talk, every comes, we could have thrown this party without trying to.

We obviously had to have corn hole ohio's favorite pass time, it was our last game of many.

My Dear Friends

Once upon a time in the little town of Galloway there lived 6 women. They were all neighbors at Golf Pointe Apartments, except for the lovely Kathryn who ventured up from Wesliegh Run Rd., but still a kindred spirit. All of their husbands were students at The Ohio State University. So that meant all of their husbands were gone most of the time. So they decided to band together and support each other through the years ahead. Their names were Kathryn, Kaicie, Barbara, Tabitha, Camey, and Marianne(who is missing in the picture because of a sick kid throwing up in the car on the way to take pictures). When these ladies arrived at Golf Pointe they all had one sweet baby to attend to.

Kacey joined the women shortly after and became a quick addition to the group. Well since these chicks are such hot mamas their husbands just couldn't resist them, so the number of kids quickly multiplied. They started out with only 7 kids between them. Then 7 became 9. And then....

9 became 16. Now they practically make the neighborhood. These women have become so close by now they are practically family.

And all these kids are practically brothers and sisters and they treat each other as such. They are the best of friends and the worst of enemies, they have also spent most holidays and birthdays together, so they pretty much are family without a doubt.

These are the precious second wave of kids, they are the babies and aren't they cute. They are the group that will not remember the adventures at golf pointe but that is why these pictures were made.


These are the busy husbands of the women at Golf Pointe. Aren't they cute. The women of Golf Pointe did well catching these guys. We have 4 doctors, 2 dentists, and a very good looking business man. The husbands also became close, and enjoyed golfing together, building corn hole together, and helping with the kids together so that the mothers could go on an occasional shopping trip.

Since they are family they decided to take a family photo.

It is now the end of their journey at The Ohio State University, but they will never forget it and now everywhere they go they will show off the O.H.I.O letters with pride.

This was all possible thanks to the beautiful mothers that stuck it out and band together for 4 years, so that they could survive 16 kids and no husbands.
These women will never be forgotten and will always be family.

The End

Andy doesn't have cancer YEA!!!!

We have had a huge scare these last few months. April 6, 2009 Andy's doctor told him that he had Lymphoma. So we had one awful week where we thought Andy had cancer and everything that comes with that. But then he went to a follow up appointment after that and they told him that some of his blood work was clean so he might not have cancer, but they need to do some tests just to make sure. After that he ended up going to specialists and doing weeks of testing. It was a long hard road of not knowing what he had and knowing that it could still be cancer. Finally after almost 2 months of this Andy got a biopsy which is going to leave a beautiful scar on his neck. And it turns out he does not have cancer he has Sarcoidosis. I am not good at explaining what that is, all i know is that it is treatable and it is a whole lot better then cancer. We are truly blessed.

Bubble Bath with the Miller Girls

Young Family Reunion 2009 Lake Hope and Hocking Hills

Catching a snake with Palmer at the Cabins. They had a bug kit they put him in and they kept him as a pet through out the trip.

Brooklyn thought the snake was awesome and she wanted to hold him and touch him.

Maddie of course was terrified of him and would have rather died then touch the snake. My girls are so different it is funny. Maddie is our sweet, sensitive girly girl and Brooklyn is our tough, adventurous tom boy who loves to wear skirts. They crack me up.

Fishing at Lake Hope

This is Maddie fishing at Lake Hope. On certain days at Lake Hope they have morning fishing for kids where anyone can go and they provide poles and bait. All of the girls loved it.

I love this picture of Andy and Brooklyn fishing they look so cute.

We finally caught a fish and Andy convinced Brooklyn to kiss it. Brooklyn was the only brave cousin because she was the only one to actually hold and kiss the fish, that's my girl.


We did get them to touch it though, except for Maddie, we couldn't have paid that girl to touch it, she is definitely our girly girl.

Swimming at Lake Hope

This is Papa Young swimming with all of his little granddaughters and loving every minute of it. He is loved by so many women, he must be so proud.

There was this sweet teeter toter balancing thing on the beach it was fun to play chicken on. So we had multiple competitions. Palmer beat everyone. The midget is a ball of muscle with a low center of gravity, we didn't have a chance.

This is Evie and Lydie, the hot babes, sunbathing on the beach. This was all so new to them they weren't sure if they liked it or not. But they do love their bumbos, (Lydie didn't have a hat so they had to make due).

Hiking at Hocking Hills and Lake Hope

On Saturday we decided to go hiking around Lake Hope where our cabin was. This is Andy and Maddie hiking in a cave cave near the Nature Center at Lake Hope.

Here is everyone in the cave, we went hiking with our whole family and my brother-in-law Matt's Family. My dad performed his famous one man skit called "rinse the blood off my toga" for everyone in this cave, it was fun to see him do that again.

Brooklyn loved the Nature Center at Lake Hope, we spent like an hour in there looking at the animals and playing with toy animals that you can see here in the picture. Brooklyn loves animals, she is our funny kid that will sit and watch a 2 hour documentary on sharks. She loves documentaries.

Here is happy Evie and I after hiking a trail. Evie loves riding in that back pack. Every time she got sad while on the trail all you had to do was put her back in there and then she was happy as can be.
Evie was a born hiker, she was like this the whole time while hiking, unless you took her out of the back pack, then she was mad.

This is the whole Miller family hiking Old Man's Cave at Hocking Hills. I love this picture because this is the Miller family's element we love being out doors.

Elaina, Makenna, and Brooklyn decided to take a walk over the water fall, the water felt great.

Palmer and I went off roading a little bit at Old Man's Cave, and yes that is Evie with us but don't worry she was perfectly safe.

Maddie is always a bit more hesitant to get in the water, but we finally got her in and she loved every minute. This was the best time to go to hocking hills because of all the water falls were going and the streams were every where, the girls loved playing in all of it.

This is Megan and Duffy with me and the girls. We had to hike through a small river to get to this rock, it was quite a fun challenge with three girls.

Andy and his girls playing in the water falls. Andy becomes a little kid again when he can play with his girls outdoors. He truly loves it.

The whole Young gang up on a bridge while we set up the camera on a back pack to take the picture. That is why it has such a cool angle going on.

Sadie, Maddie, Elaina, Brooklyn, Palmer, and Makenna exploring some boulders along the trail.

On Monday of the trip we decided to go repelling over at "big springs." It was beautiful, the water fall was going and we sat at the bottom of the cliff with the girls watching people repel. We were surrounded by boulders that became a play ground for the girls.

Brooklyn belongs in nature. She could live outdoors barefoot forever.

That is Brooklyn and Makenna at the top of those boulders. This is where Brooklyn belongs, she climbed all the way up those boulders herself while i just sat back and watched. She was born for nature and climbing, i never see her more happy then when she is outside doing stuff like this, she is just like her mother in that sense.

This is "big springs" where we repelled. It is about 120 ft high and beautiful.

This repel is cool because half way down the cliff it dips into a cave, so when you get to that point the belayer on the bottom swings you in and out of the cave, it is so fun. We ended our trip with this last adventure, it was a good ending to a very fun trip. Hocking Hills is so beautiful.