From Start to Finish

Rapid Revelries

To celebrate Kayla and Ethan's birthdays (yes, Kayla got two, count 'em, two parties!!) we went to one of our favorite spots in Maine, Coos Canyon!
It's a semi-fast flowing river with lots of places to swim and slide down rocks and jump off cliffs. We had oodles of fun!
Here Tash and Shay are demonstrating how much fun it is to float down the river- you have to be a bit careful of the jagged rocks, though.

Here are the interested spectators.
Someone decided the water was too cold and opted for a nap- although he looks slightly unrecoverable (I don't think that's a real word)!

We finally got to go on a hike!! Yay! Albeit a small hike, really more of a nature walk.

We crossed raging rivers!
Scaled rocky terrain!
And viewed God's incredible, gorgeous creation! How could anyone disbeleive in a Creator when there is such unfathomable beauty?

Poppin' in to Popham

During Dad's vacation, we took our usual trip to the coast. We just love it there! I'll just let you enjoy the pictures and do as little commentating as possible!

A friendly native!


There's nothing like a catnap in the summer sun!

This is what I picture when I think of a little Maine harbor town. Isn't it quaint?


Since we got to the beach late, we were able to see the tide all the way out and as it was coming back in again. As a result, we found this sandbar that curved around from the beach area all the way to this little island a bit off shore. It was so neat! Kayla and I walked almost to the island, but didn't want to get caught as the water was coming in.

Who can enjoy a beach day without a bit of ICE CREAM!!

Volleyball for All

It is no secret to those who have visited our church and stayed long after or have come to any of our parties, that we love volleyball. Before attending Winterbrook Fellowship, I was completely indifferent to the game, but now it has become one of my favorite outdoor activities!

For Kayla's 21st birthday, we decided to go to her now in-laws' house and have some volleyball tournaments and, of course, food.
Here's the birthday girl serving it up for us! And she is hardly ever without her counterpart (below.)

Lovely ladies!
This is me after serving. I look a bit like I'm doing some sort of Mexican Hat dance or something!
This is the famous Denny Spike. I don't know who had my camera to get that shot, but it's brilliant!

Apparently I'm not the only one who likes to dance after a serve! So does George!
Amanda and Tasha. They're such sweet young ladies!

Don't mess with the Pastor when he's playing volleyball! Look at the intent on his face!
After our mixed games, we did our usual girls against guys, where the guys could only use their heads and feet to hit the ball. One of them said that we wouldn't want to play that way because we always lose, so we said, "Bring it on!" And we won the first game! So much for that idea! They won the second game, of course, because God has a sense of humor!
Because Kevin was not able to come to Kayla's bridal shower (mostly because bridal showers are for ladies), he was aching to give Kayla the present he got her- I'm not sure of it's technical name, but it's supposed to check an outlet to see if it's live or not. Pretty handy!
There's a very satisfied birthday girl! What a fun day, if you ever get a chance to come down and visit us at Winterbrook Fellowship, be sure to come ready for some serious volleyball for all!

A Tale of Two Showers

For the now Mrs. Denny, we gave two bridal showers. The first one was meant to be a suprise and it was, up until the evening before when my grandfather (Chick) accidently spilled the beans. oops! That's ok. I think she still enjoyed it.
Walking in to her "suprise" bridal shower.
Miss Rena was getting a kick out of something! The pictures makes me smile!
I love her expression! I can't even put a caption to it.
Lori, Ali and Kayla.

One of the games we did involved drawing a wedding dress while the paper was on your head. Some of the pictures were hilarious!

Hannah, Tash, Shay, Emily and I worked on this cake for awhile. Our poor cake decorator was extremely sick, so we took the job upon ourselves and the girls did excellent work!


Tasha carried out the old tradition of making a hat for the Bride-to-be out of the ribbons and bows from each present. She got very creative!

As is tradition for every event our family holds at the fish and game, we decorated the moose according to our party theme. Doesn't she look lovely?
And here is her dashing groom, compelete with a bow tie that Em made!
Doesn't she look loverly? Tash needs to go into the hat making buisness!
These next pictures are from the personal shower we gave Kayla. Some of the ladies from church came and we played some little games and ate lots of junky, not-good-for-the-bride-and-bridesmaids'-figures kinds of food.

The game that was the favorite was making a bridal gown with only scotch tape and toilet paper and they had about 20 minutes to do it in.
The results......stunningly beautiful! Move over Vogue fashion!

Kayla received some very nice and very personal gifts from these very gracious and giving and generous ladies! What a blessing.

We laughed so hard at this game. You had to move all of the cotton balls from one bowl to the other while blind-folded. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Actually it is incredibly challenging, because cotton balls hardly weigh a thing, so often times you'd just be move air from one bowl to another!!!

We had lots of laughs and I beleive Kayla was very blessed by these godly women and young ladies!