Back to School, Back to Reality

I have been dreading this day all summer. I love having no homework, a break from preschool, swimming, camping and just general freedom from a set schedule. Yes, it's true, the kids are driving me nuts with their fighting and messing up the house. But, the biggest reason I didn't want summer to end was that I had to send my precious boy to the arpit of the earth....Jr. High. I can't believe he is that old. I don't feel old enough to have a kid in Jr. High. I still feel like I'm 20, just starting out my family. Of course, he lost his schedule (boys! I had mine highlighed and placed securely in the front of my trapper keeper!), so I had to go with him on the first day to make sure he got another one and knew where to go etc. As I walked with him toward the locker hall I said "I guess you probably don't want me to go down there with you." he said "If you need to Mom, you can come." I guess he doesn't hate me quite yet. I left with my eyes filling up with tears. I almost couldn't leave him there. I'm worried about so many things--8 classes to keep track of, bad influences, girls, drugs, teachers teaching wierd things, etc. Todd gave him a really nice blessing which actually helped calm me down a little too. Anyway, I went straight to my running which really helped. I had my music and I tried to concentrate on my breathing as to not burst into hystarical crying. It's just that the world is so scary these days and I can't be with my kids every second anymore to protect them. Hopefully they make good choices and talk to us about things that go on in school. Also, people have told me to volunteer at the school so I feel like I know what is going on. Nonetheless, Jordan is loving it so far and he is already getting better organized.

I am also a little concerned about Katy's teacher. He is kind of weird and just got moved up from P.E. specialist to 4th grade a week before school started. He called her "Katy bug" in P.E. and it made her embarassed, so I told her to let me know if anything happens to make her feel uncomfortable and I will switch her to another class. So far she is liking school, but I will be keeping a very close eye!

I guess I'm sounding a little "dooms day" about Jordan and Katy. Jillian, on the other hand, is loving 1st grade. She loves her teacher and was excited to be the first "Star Student" and pick a prize out of the box. Lunch is, of course, her favorite part of the day. It's been weird to have her gone all day, but Allyson and I are having a blast with each other. Sept. 4th preschool starts and Allyson will finally get to go to school too. She can't wait to have all her friends over at once! So the new year is underway and it's back to gride kidios! And back to the grind for Me too!

Tracy Aviary

As it turns our, I have never been to the Tracy Aviary in SLC. My friend Heather called to see if I wanted to do something fun with the kids since summer was almost over, so we headed up. We went to the Liberty Park(I think that is the one) that is right next to it and ate lunch. The kids loved to water fountains and the Saratoga like rides. When we finally went to see the birds Heather and I were pretty much wiped out and dying from the heat. The girls followed around a peacock and liked feeding the ducks. It seemed like we couldn't get enough water to cool us down, so we stopped at the 7-11 on the way home for Slurpees. That seemed to do the trick! I'm sad that summer is coming to an end, but I do love the cool fall weather!

July Funtivities!

Ok, I realize that the last blog was a tich wordy, so this one will be more-or-less a listing, with a few explanations and slideshows! Here we go...

4th of July
July started out with a bang (as it always does)with a 4th of July Logan trip. We were so excited that Matt and Cortnie were here that we followed them to Logan to party! Grandma's achillies tendon was bugging her, and Cortnie had jet lag, so Mom and I (escorted by Dad) ran the Lewiston 5K! Those ones are the best because you can actually win in your age group! Mom took 1st and I took 2nd. When we got back we went to play tennis (see Matt's blog for some cute pics.) and then had a b-que on Grandpa's deck (Todd was in charge of the delicious hamburgers)with Clark and Brenda. Then we watched the USU fireworks from Grandpa front lawn. Next was black and white night on Grandpas big screen. Todd and Jordan had stuff to do back at the ranch, so they left after the B-que and the rest of us stuck around. For the next few days, Grandma was so nice to take us to all the Logan hot spots! We went to the cheese factory, Prestwich Farms factory, Caspers icecream, the fancy fun pool(Jack and Jill jumped right off the high dive-no fear!), and Costa Vita for dinner. On the way out of town we went to Ratatouille and Artic Circle. We had a great time, and I even found time to finish Ender's Game!

M,C,& J
The big fun with Matt and Cortnie continued through most of July. It was so fun to party with them. They were good sports to put up with all of us! Some of our fun times included sleep overs with Jack, the Lehi Pool, Harry Potter, Ping Pong, B-ques and dinners, movies, Jillian's play, shopping, house hunting (in case they move back) and just chatting!

Swim Team
Katy decided to join the swim team this year! To try out you have to be able to swim 3 strokes across the pool. So, in a few trips to the pool, she learned how to breathe on freestyle, do the backstroke without weaving all over the lane, and how to do the breast stroke. She made the team and was very dedicated to her morning workouts. Her time ended up being at 9:00 and I just ran on the track while she swam, and sometimes I did a few laps after she was done. She really improved over June and July and had a great time. The meets were long and annoying, especailly County. They have bronze, silver and gold meets that you go to according to you times. At the last minute they changed Katy to the silver meet in P.G. I was bored to tears so Melody and Jonny came to rescue me! She one all of her heats(she must have been in the slow ones!!!) and placed 13th in backstroke and 19th in breast stroke. Who knows how many participants there were...Anyway, at a couple of the meets she was signed up for the I.M. where you have to swim a 25 of each stroke. I thought she would never make it without stopping or dying! The first time she got DQ for only a one had touch on breast, but the second time she passed! It brought back good memories of my own summer swim team adventures! (nevermind the black dot on all the pictures...)

Jillian's Play
I signed Jillian up for a theater workshop thing. The play they did was about bugs going to a picnic. They gave them a CD with the lines and songs on it and told them to listen to it at home. She took this very seriouly, as usual, and had her parts and most of the others memorized within a few days. Before practice one day I said "oh shoot, we better practice your parts" She told me she already did that morning and she had them memorized. Very self motivated. The hard part was getting her to say the parts with enthusiasm! The first performance...not so much! The second time was like night and day. It was so nice of Matt etc. as well as Lili and Mom and Dad to come to her play. She loved being the center of attention! This was one of her parts "That's right, I'm a Dragonfly. I may look rather odd. I've just gone through a metamorphesis, for I am and arthropod!"


In other news...
* Jordan played in the State baseball tournament
* Ran with Mom, G-ma, Brenda and friend Mandi in the Hyde Park 5K (Logan) Katy and her friend Spohie did the mile race and WALKED across the finish line together!
* Pioneer Day b-que and sparklers at Mom's
* Football camp/try-outs--Jordan made the A Team!
* Todd played in Monticello golf tourn. and stayed in Moab-1 under 1st day and
played well enough the next 2 days to earn back his entrance fee!
* Took Katy and Jillian to 7-peaks

I guess this one was pretty much the same as last time, but now I am caught up to August and I can do normal sized blogs!

June Fun-tivities!

This is going to be a longer blog, so you may need to read it in small chunks--however there are exciting slideshows to keep your interest! I am basically going to outline the highlights of our summer, so here is June! This list of fun times is actually going to start with Memorial Day, but close enough!

Memorial Day
We went camping with our friends the Normans for Memorial day. We tried to go to Palisade State Park near Manti, but it was all full, so we found a campground called Temple Hill Resort (term used loosely) and reserved a spot there. We weren’t sure what to expect, and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived. We had a hard time getting there since our trailer is having problems with the slide out. Todd worked all day on it and we finally got out of town. The kids ended up hitting it off with the Norman kids and got along great. They only ever see them once a year or so, but they got right to exploring and playing games. We went on hikes to find petroglyphs, milked the campground cow, took pics at the temple grounds, some went golfing, swam at the questionable pool, played games, and rode 4-wheelers. We rented the 4 wheelers right from the campground and hopped right on the trails! The Norman kids loved Todd’s “Juciest hamburgers they ever had!” and of course we had peach cobbler in the dutch oven.

Little Red Riding Hood
I started out the summer with a 68 mile bike ride in Logan. My friend Heather and I(see triathalon pics in March) decided to do this ride for cancer. I signed up for the 38 mile version, but at the turn off decided to continue on as to not be bored riding by myself. Amazingly, I made it! And in better time than expected--I averaged about 16 MPH. Let's remind ourselves that my longest ride until this point was 18 miles. It was actually fun and as an added bonus, I burned 3100 calories!!!!!! The food was also awesome! They had stops every 15 miles or so with every fruit you could want all cut up nice, little sandwiches, power bars, drink refills, Ibuprophen, pottys, everything you could think of. It is a women's only race, so at all the stops were the men being everso helpful and encouraging. They had the best lunch-Subways, chips, fruit, cookies, etc. And at the end....Creamies, chips and salsa, you name it! They also had a breakfast that morning and a dinner party the night before when we picked up our stuff. I know it sounds like I am all about the food, but man what 5K could compete with that! Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to let us stay at their house even though they weren't there and I had the best shower of my life after 4 1/2 hours on a bike! We are hoping to make it an anual event and we are trying to get big group to ride together with matching shirts and all the fun stuff, so anyone who wants in invited!

Our Baby Julia
Of course the highlight of our summer has been baby Julia! No other baby will do for Allyson--"Mommy, that baby is not cute as our Julia!" "I don't like that baby!" Jordan and Katy are always fighting over who gets to hold her (and well, so am I). One day I said Allyson couldn't hold her because she was fussy and she said "I want to hold the fussy Julia!" The funny thing is that Jillian isn't as obsessed as the others. It must be the age! We loved playing with Emily when she was here to see the baby. Even though she got sick that one day, we still had fun times. Anyway, Jonny and Melody are so patient and cute to share her with us all--We love her tiny self!

IKEA

Yes, the excitng times are here. IKEA has graced us with her presence here in Utah. I did not sleep out to be one of the first ones in, In fact I waited several days if you can believe it! I decided to get the cubbies that all of my sisters have and put them in the laundry/mud room. They are the BEST! Each kid has a cubby for their laundry, there are cubbies for swimming stuff (in the winter I will put the hats and gloves in those), mismatched socks, tools, bracelet bead stuff, sports stuff, etc. On the top I got green containers from Walmart for cleaning supplies, handwashings/towels to wash, and DI stuff. After getting several opinions from various family and friends, I decided that mixing different kids of baskets was just fine and the most functional way to do it. For instance, bottom row has the sports junk and tools, so they needed a more sturdy basket. Anyway, here is a picture of the pride and joy! The best part of it all was that I installed it myself and never had to bug Todd once to build or assemble it!

Strawberry Days 5K
This year I ran the race wtih Mom, Grandma, Jonny, my friend Cori, and Melody and Dad walked with weeks old Julia! Jonny said he just didn't want me to beat him. On what planet could I ever beat him? I did however run it in 25:50 which I think is my PR and was 9th in my age group! It was really fun, but the shirst were the ugliest they have ever been-even worse than the yougart cup ones.(See Jonny, Melody, and Dad)

Strawberry

Our next adventure was camping at Strawberry Reservoir with the Ruffners (the people Todd is building the Park City house for). The trailer was even worse this trip and we took it in to the shop when we got home. Of course our warrenty expired in May, so we are trying to decide whether to trade it in, or fix it, or what. Anywho, The kids had a great time fishing on the rented pontoon boat. They caught 29 fish, but none of them were rainbow trout. They were all cut-throught and we couldn't keep those. None-the-less, when do you catch that many? Todd and Jordan shot their guns a little and the girls went on a ride in the Ruffner's ranger jeep. The kids also loved playing with the walkie-talkies, Disney Scene It. I, myself, was sneaking any minute I could to read Ender's Game! Todd made the famous dutch oven ribs and peach cobbler and they were loved by all.

Baseball/Softball

We had a lot of fun this year watching Jordan play baseball, and this year Katy decided to play softball. Many of their games overlapped and were at different places, so it was a little hard to juggle. They have such supportive grandparents, Aunts and Uncle. Even Emily spent some of her precious hours of vacation time at the kids games. Jordan ended up being one of the 2 main pitchers and short stop when he wasn't pitching. He doesnt' normally pitch, so I was a nervous wreck. It is so hard to watch your kid be discouraged when they are having an off day. Everyone is counting on them to pitch well--so much pressure. As we got farther into the season, he got much more comfortable and ended up doing really well. In fact, our team didn't make it to the state tourn., but another team picked Jordan up to pitch with their team in the tourn. The kids are only allowed a certain number of pitched per week, so the teams can pick up extra pitchers so they won't run out. Usually the pick-up guys just pitch, but when they used up his pitches, they put him on third base. Even though it wasn't his actual team, they were very nice to him and he a great time! Now about Katy. This was her first year and she did awesome! She usually got at least one base hit in every game . She was a good sport when her team lost every game except for one. I think all she cared about was hitting the ball!

The Rest....
In our spare time we had even more fun! Todd and Jordan went to Jordan's survival boy scout camp. Todd was in charge of the GPS course and loved every minute. Katy went to Girl Scout Day camp and joined the swim team for the first time(I will blog more about that in the July funtivities!). Jillian went to play practice every tues and thus. morning and lost her first tooth! Did you know that the tooth fairy can sometimes come while you are at church? We also had weekly sleepovers/tennis with Nana, went to piano lessons, the summer movies at the cinemark theater, got a pass to the Lehi Pool, and played non-stop with the neighbor kids. I'm just wondering who made up the name "Summer Vacation!" No, really summer is so fun and I love being with the kids(when they aren't fighting) and it is a nice break from preschool. So.....if this blog didn't bore you to tears, watch for July funtivities coming soon!

ENDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know this will be hard to believe, but I have actually read not one, but 2 books in the last few weeks! Also, it might blow your mind to know that they were sci fi! Todd has been bugging me to read Ender's Game since we got Jordan the set for Christmas. I also found out that most everyone in the fam except me Melody. I knew Matt was also huge fan also, but I thought.....why would I be interested in a space and fighting type of book. I read Ender's game in a few days over the 4th of July and loved it! (full of eternal truths and just a great story) I couldn't wait to get home from Grandma's so I could get Ender's Shadow and read about Bean's side of the story. Todd put it on my ipod and opened a whole new world to me! Who knew you could read and get something done at the same time (plus if I am tired I can lay and rest my eyes while I listen!) It only took a few days to get through Ender's Shadow which I liked just as much if not better! I cleaned out my closet, did laundry, did the dishes and ran while I listened. (I wondered if I would like running with it, and I DID!) I would recommend these books to anyone! I think next I will listen to Speaker for the Dead(next in the series) and actually read the vampire book Elise has been begging me to read. Since we have been doing some camping, and hope to do some more, I should be able to get through several books this summer. Cami gave me a great list of books to read, but if anyone else has favorites to suggest please let me know! Also, Yay for Melody. She listened to Ender's Game on CD and loved it too!

A Gift From the Heart

THIS little wonder to the left was my Mother's Day present from Todd. It is somewhat annoying that he always thinks of the perfect gift, and I can never think of anything for him. Part of the reason, I think, is that in order to buy a piece of technology, one needs to KNOW about the technology. Thus I can never buy him anything he would actually want! Anyway, this is a GPS/heart rate monitor extroidiarie! I absolutely love it and don't know how I ever exercised without it! Like our Dad, I love to time myself, track my progress, etc. It makes a little map of where I ran, average mph/heart rate, tells me how many calories I burned, and countless other interesting things! I love knowing how far I have gone without driving around my route in the car afterward. You can also plug it into the computer and it graphs your route and all kinds of other stuff that Todd loves! You can set it up to alert you every so often if you want to do interval training, or if your heart rate goes to high etc. To work the heart rate monitor, you have to wear a strap around your chest and the info registers on the watch. I am actually trying to figure out if I am working my heart too hard or where I should be. It seems like I am too high, but I am still investigating that part. Anyway, you can switch it to biking mode and I does all the stuff for that too! I acutally read the manual so that I could work many of the features, but I'm sure the coolest parts are wasted on me. Luckily Todd has decided to start riding his bike and trying to get in shape, so he can use the watch and be excited about the cool features! Also, let's pay attention to the fact that I learned how to get a picture off of the internet and onto my blog! That is the big time--and also thanks to my techno savy husband! Without him, I would still have a DOS menu on my computer and a big floppy drive! It takes me a while to come around to the new things. I am currently annoyed that he put Windows Vista on my computer to make it "so much better!" Everything looks different and I feel like I am re-learning how to get pics off my camera, find Word, and well all of it! He wants me to open up more than one thing in windows at once! Like I said, a lot of the cool stuff is wasted on me, but I am coming around. I am glad I have a smart husband to answer my every question. Anyway, if anyone is in the market for a cool running watch, check out this one!

The Dance Recital...

The day was finally here for the big dance recital! The girls have been so excited about their dances, the costumes, make-up, the stage etc. I took the girls back stage, got them all situated, took pictures and then sat down in the audience to enjoy the show with Todd, Allyson, Jonny and Melody. As the recital progressed, I started to get more and more disturbed by the costumes and more alarmingly the way the girls were dancing. Luckily for us, Katy was a pirate in her dance and Jillian was Belle. Their dances were cute and not immodest. I couldn't believe that the parents of the older girls (even the 12 & 11 year olds) were on board with what was going on. There was way too much shaking of everything and in general making the kids act older than they are. After the dress rehersal Katy told me that some of the girls had immodest outfits on. I told her that dancers have to wear leotards etc. so it is ok. Woops- I was wrong! In one of the dances, the older girls were wearing saloon looking costumes without the floofy skirts. Are you kidding me? It looked like they were wearing neglegees!!!! Not to mention they were dancing around like ladies of the evening. The straw that broke the camels back was the three year olds coming out in swimsuits with a towel velcroed around their chest. They looked cute, but half way through, they ripped open the towels and shook their hips and such. I'm not exaggerating--ask Melody! I had the girls registered for the summer session, but called and took them out. All 6 girls from the neighborhood decided to quit after the recital! If this is how the dance world is, I think we may be going the sports route wtih our girls! If I do ever put the girls in dance again, I am going to the recital first and doing a lot more talking with the ladies in charge before hand. This place was recommended to me by people I know, but aparently I need to do the investigating myself! The good new (sorry about my rant) is that the girls were darling, they had a great time, and both of them are going to use their costumes for Halloween! We also have video presentations available for anyone who is interested. Katy and Jillian will gladly watch it with anyone anytime!