Category: Uncategorized (Page 116 of 118)

While eating dinner at our neighborhood “Cul-de-sac of fire” last night, Robin asked, “how is anyone supposed to lose any weight when they live here?! You’ve got parties or barbeques every day, and if you aren’t going somewhere, people are bringing you treats.” So, I guess I can blame my neighbors for keeping me fat. Maybe I should move……No, I think I’d rather be fat.

I really have the coolest ward.

Today we had our annual Pioneer Day Breakfast and it was delicious! Ryan flipped pancakes with the Elder’s quorum and we all ate like kings. The kids all stayed over at the neighbor’s house for a couple of hours playing in the sandbox.

Someone even called Robin today and asked if they could visit teach her. I’m not sure why she should need visiting teachers when she’s only here for 8 weeks, but I guess they think she does.

We enjoyed President Hinckley’s Birthday celebration on Friday night, even though because of some bad traffic issues we didn’t make it there in time and they gave our seats away. We went to the assembly hall and watched it on a screen there. Not quite the same as the conference center, but still nice. My kids were very well behaved and it was an excellent program. If you missed it you can catch it on BYU television or channel 11 here locally.

Wednesday we went to Lagoon, and it was about 104 degrees. Ugh. Good thing for Rattlesnake rapids, where you get totally soaked (especially if you go twice in a row using baby swap techniques). I had to go right from Lagoon to Bell choir, so that was a bit weird. I changed in the car, and put dry clothes over my wet underclothes–icky, but cool. I looked quite a wreck, but did my best to spruce up a little bit with makeup and a brush–oh well. We all had fun, though–especially since we managed to get passes for all 10 of us for free.

After vacuuming yesterday and noticing that the dirt just seemed to be jumping around in the carpet and not going up into the hose, I asked Ryan (my own mr. fix it) if he could clean out the vacuum head. Wow. He took out a fist sized glob of “guck”. Now I’m happily vacuuming with some suction again!

One of life’s little pleasures is a freshly vacuumed room!

Robin and I took 5 kids with us to Yellowstone. Not the longest drive, but not the shortest drive with 5 kids in the car, either. We had a good time and saw LOTs of wildlife. Elk (some very close), Eagles, Buffalo, a wolf, pelicans, and geese. We didn’t see any bears, but while camping we heard something grunting around the camp, and heard wolves howling.

The kids would tell you that they were “charged” by buffalo, but that wasn’t really the case. If you look at the pictures you may see one with the kids standing in front of a buffalo. The story is–we were in a parking lot, and along come two buffalo. After seeing so many and so close up, we weren’t all that impressed or suprised (one was 15 feet from us in our camp!) , but asked the kids to just stand there and we’d take a picture when the buffalo walked by behind them. Well, the two buffalo decided right then to change directions, and to pick up the pace, so they were trotting right toward the kids! They scampered out of the way and there was no real danger, but it gave us all a scare.

We saw all the great sites, had fun camping, and the second night we enjoyed our hotel in Idaho Falls with a Pool. By the time we got home on Sunday we were all a bit sick of being in the car, and not a little bit tired of each other.

Ryan was a real saint and he watched not only Jenna and John, but also Amy’s kids for half of the day on Friday. He was supposed to be working from home that day, but I don’t think he got much work done.

It was a fun trip, and I’d love to take the other kids someday when they were older. There was a noticable lack of children John’s age. It’s just too hard to keep them from danger when they are too big for a backpack but too little for following important directions (like don’t get too close to that scalding water, or don’t go and touch that big thing that looks like a “doggie” but is really called a buffalo). So, I’m glad we didn’t have John or Jenna along on this trip. Traveling with kids 6 and up is much easier!

Yellowstone Pictures…

Watch this space for the blog entry…

Chaos.

My house is pretty much in Chaos right now. I don’t like or enjoy chaos, although Organized Chaos I can handle.
Let me explain. We’ve already got Robin and Sarah and Jacob living here for a while. With our 7 people that brings us up to 10. It’s manageable, and even fun most of the time. Well, my sister just had her third baby early this morning (Congratulations Amy and Brian!) and so I’ve got her two boys over here, too. I’m not sure how long they will be here–probably two days while their Mom is in the hospital. So, that brings our numbers up to 12, except that Cole is still gone until tonight, so it’s technically only 11, but he still counts because I’m using my mental energy worrying about him.

So whatever plans I had for my day are now thrown into a tailspin, as I don’t really think I’m capable enough to take all 8 of them to the Dinasaur museum by myself–actually I know I could do it, but is it worth the mental and physical energies required? I don’t think so. And that temple assignment for tonight? I sadly think that one’s going out the window. I think instead I’ll do damage control here, try to keep up with the food and snacks needed for all these kids, keep them from killing each other without having to send them outisde in 100 plus degree weather, and pack for our trip to Yellowstone tomorrow.

Keep those calm, happy thoughts coming, I need all the good karma I can get.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

We sent Cole to his first scout camp today. He looked so sharp in his scout uniform.

We got him a very loud whistle.

I told the scout leader that if he lets my boy drown or get lost he will NEVER be going on a scout camp EVER AGAIN. And neither will any of my other kids. He assured me that Cole would be safe. Let’s hope so. I kind of like that kid.

Breathe in. Breathe out. He will be all right.

Today we took the kids to Kiddie Kandids. Ugh.

After all that work of getting everyone dressed up, doing their hair so it doesn’t look like they just ran a mile, and then making them all sit still, it hardly seems worth it as I leave with my two measly pictures. It’s just easier to take one child at a time, I guess. Then they get their own moment to do different poses, instead of having all group shots. If one kid looks dumb, I’m not buying.

Oh well, I’m just trying to preserve the special memories of their youth with quality portraits, or something like that.

Always the organizer of fun, I put together a little neighborhood scavenger hunt. I don’t think kids today know the value of a good old fashioned scavenger hunt. The bad thing was that it was about 100 degrees and I’ve got 30 kids running all over the neighborhood at 3:00 in the afternoon. Oh well, they survived. Here’s the list of what they were supposed to get:

a lifesaver candy
bandaid
a Happy Meal type toy
a receipt
carrot
otter pop wrapper
envelope
a bad photo
piece of string
greeting card
a sacrament meeting program
a coin from 1975 or before
a post-it note
junk mail
one sock
a new diaper
something pink

Afterwards, they all got Otter Pops and suckers. Fun!