Meet the new addition!

Our family has a new pet. His name is Bruce (we stole the name from my sister, Melanie's cat, who got the name from "Matilda"). He likes to run around and pant with his tongue hanging out. The girls love to play with him. He likes to sneak up on you and lick your legs. He's really good at playing fetch. And finally, he loves to eat. His favorite food is the caramel kettle corn we get at the concerts on the river front. Isn't he the cutest puppy you ever laid eyes on?? For me, he's the perfect kind of dog...someday he'll take himself on walks, feed himself, bathe himself, and he'll even go poop in the toilet. Someday. For now, we'll just enjoy our little Brucey!

Memories...

I saw this idea here (the funniest blog EVER!). I want to know what memories people have of me. It's also a good way for some of you "lurkers" out there to let me know you're looking. So bring on the memories! Be them good, bad, or ugly (just try to keep 'em PG rated)!

Fun with Grandma...

My mom was able to come up and spend a few days with us this past week. We had a lot of fun! We were able to spend some time on the boat, my kids were super impressed with Grandma's wake boarding skills! We played "Greed" with some friends. We had our very own "Indianna Jones Movie Marathon" I made a batch of regular popcorn, and a batch of Jenn's caramel popcorn each night...yummy!

The girls loved being able to ride their bikes beside Grandma while she went running (I'm mean and make them stay home while I exercise, it's my alone time). It's tradition for my mom to take the kids to McDonald's for breakfast. Nalani is a HUGE sausage fan and ate all the leftovers, for such a tiny little girl she can sure put the food away!

Maika was sick for a few days, running a pretty high fever, but the kicker was that she was complaining of back pain, so I caved and took her to the doctor. It turns out that she had a pretty bad UTI that started going up into her kidney. After a BIG shot in the bum and a prescription she's much better! It was sure nice to have Grandma here to stay with the other kids instead of dragging them all with me! Thanks mom!

The kids have been begging me to take them berry picking at a local farm, so we decided it would be the perfect activity to do while Grandma was here. We had so much fun! We picked four BIG buckets of raspberries (Bronson probably ate the equivalent of a bucket while we were in the fields. The evidence was ALL over his face, but he charmed the owners with his winning smile and they didn't charge us a penny for his spoils!). After our hard day working in the fields, we stopped by the fabric store so my mom could get some material for an apron, ate at Sonic and headed home.

While my mom worked on her apron, I worked on the raspberries! I made 22 containers of freezer jam after selling one of the buckets to Rochelle, and keeping one bucket of the fresh berries. The kitchen was a red, sticky mess with the help of Bronson and Nalani! Bronson thought I needed help mashing the berries, he likes to use his hands. Nalani thought 5 1/4 cups of sugar to 3 cups of fruit wasn't enough, so she liberally added more. Sheesh! I can't take my eyes off them for a second! All in all I think it was a successful day! Logan was a great helper and loves to learn about cooking.

We were sad to see Grandma leave, but were so happy she came to visit! We love you, Grandma! Come again soon!

p.s. In the background of this picture you can see the left-over caramel popcorn. I had this for the first time at Jenn's house and now it's my favorite! So here's the recipe:

Jenn's Caramel Popcorn

1 1/3 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. light Karo syrup

1/2 C. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, syrup, and butter over medium heat and bring to a boil. Let boil for one minute. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over popcorn and stir until evenly coated.

Note: I usually pop 3/4 C. of kernels for this recipe.

Now go watch a movie!

Bronson's Birthday Blog

I can't believe it, but Bronson turned two today! Just like two years ago, Grandma Marcia is here to help celebrate:)

We started the day off lazy and slept in. Bronson didn't wake up until almost 10am. We all helped to make a Birthday Breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. After "brunch" we decided to do Bronson's favorite new thing: SWIMMING! He is a crazy man! He jumps off the side without any help, kicks his way to the top, and when his head finally makes it out of the water, there is a huge grin! We are definitely getting our money's worth out of the family pass I bought! The good thing about swimming is, that it absolutely wipes him out and he always takes at least a 3 hour nap when we get home. The other day he even fell asleep in the car while licking his ice cream cone! Today was no different, we all came home and had a good rest and hoped that it would warm up enough to go out on the boat.

It didn't really warm up, but we still went out on the boat. The kids had a blast playing in the sand with Grandma, and collecting piles upon piles of clams to help decorate their castles with. They turned out beautiful, but I don't have any pictures of them because my battery died while we were there:(

So, we came home and I charged the battery. Kelly got busy on the grill. We ate and then had some friends over for cake and ice cream. Bronson got a t-ball set, some match box cars, GEO Trax, and a reversible Batman/Superman cape. What a lucky little guy!

We love you, Bronson, and are so happy to have you in our family! Thanks for keeping us all entertained! Happy Birthday!

summer trip: phase 3

Blanding+Monticello+Lake Powell= Three of my favorite things!

After we dried Maika's tears after leaving Grandma's house we drove through the reservation to get to Blanding. It's funny, because when I was young I thought the landscape in this region was ugly! I think it's so beautiful now and miss the area so much!

We arrived in Blanding and met some friends at the "Midnight Madness" softball tournament. It was fun to see so many people that I hadn't seen or talked to in years. I loved catching up with some of my best friends Steph and Storm and also got to see Candace for a few minutes. It was getting pretty late, so we decided to head up to Monticello and get some rest. My grandma's house was waiting for us:) Mel and her family also met us there and we visited with dad for awhile before heading to bed.

July 4th: I love a small-town 4th of July celebration! We sat in front of the theater with Steph and her family and my kids gathered in the candy! They were in Candy Heaven. We even scored a t-shirt from The Patio Drive-In. Back in the day, I spent many hours there, slaving over the hot grill and still have some scars to prove it. They still have some dang good food, too!

After the parade we waited in line for a freakin' hour and a half for an authentic Navajo Taco. Not worth it. And I got sunburned. And we lost Nalani TWO times. BUT I got to people watch, so that was fun! We were all pretty much hot and grumpy by this time so we took our boats to Recapture Dam and cooled off. Note: if Blanding would put some money in to that place it could be nice! Here are a few suggestions. How about a DOCK? Maybe a nice campground? Some bathrooms? A designated swimming area so people don't get run over when boats are trying to load or unload? Charge $5 per vehicle and earn some of the money back. Okay, enough ranting about that, but it could be such a nice place.

We went back to Monticello to eat dinner with Grandpa before heading back to Blanding for the fireworks. We were so impressed by the fireworks, they rocked! The new-to-me ball park and everything was so nice, and again we loved visiting with people. Even Kelly got to see some old girlfriends from Montezuma Creek, where he grew up! After the fireworks we went home to get some much needed rest and to prepare for our trip to Lake Powell.

Lake Powell: holds some of my best memories of growing up. I was so excited to take my family there and create some memories of our own. Ah, such lofty hopes! We got there and it was so windy! None of us had been to Hall's Crossing in years so we couldn't remember which canyons were which. We couldn't find a beach that wasn't already crowded so we just parked in this awesome canyon and let the kids swim and had lunch.

Then it started to get REALLY windy and decided we better start back. My dad said he had been in a few bad storms down there, but these were the biggest waves our boat had ever seen! We were all soaking wet. Logan and Macy were FREAKING out! I admit, it was a little scary, but they thought we were all going to die! The bolt to one of our wake-board racks sheared off and the whole thing fell in the water with both boards still attached. Luckily they didn't hit anyone in the head and we were able to retrieve them. Bronson slept through the whole ordeal, and it was nice to have my dad with us to help hold kids:) We finally made it back to the docks, got our boat out of the water, wiped it down and loaded up the kids. Then, the wind stopped! But we were done, so we went home. Hopefully we can try Lake Powell again and hopefully it will treat us better!

I forgot to mention that the plumbing at Grandma's house was acting up. So, when we got home we could only pee in one bathroom and couldn't take baths or showers. Riley and my dad tried everything to get things moving but nothing worked. So we just enjoyed the night visiting with Kayela, J.J., and Asa while they endured our stinkiness (thanks for coming up guys, it was so good to see you!).

We got up the next morning and cleaned as good as we could with clogged drains. We said good-bye to grandpa and packed up, ready to return to Orem and stay with Auntie Nani for a night. We decided to stop at Wilson's Arch because our kids had never hiked it. They had a great time. We also stopped at Denny's in Moab for a last meal with Mel and Riley and kids.

Phase 3.5: We stayed at Nani's again and got to see more cousins. The next morning we visited Auntie Jo and picked up Tutu's old shave-ice machine. The girls have big dreams of making loads of money selling shave-ice in our neighborhood. Hopefully dad can get it cleaned up soon before the weather turns cold:) Then the long, boring drive home. We finally made it! We had so much fun on our trip! Thanks to everyone we stayed with and made our trip so nice! We love you and miss you!

summer trip: Phase 2

Moccasin: The next phase of our trip was to visit Kelly's mom and family. On this phase of our trip I discovered two new favorite road-trip-snacks! Dill Pickle flavored sun-flower seeds, and Blue Diamond "Wasabi and Soysauce" flavored almonds...yummy!

Grandma Winna is always a terrific hostess! Although, I'm a little grateful we don't live closer to her...I would weigh 300 pounds being tempted by her yummy "Winna-mon" rolls and homemade doughnuts! They are to die for, and I ate waaaaay too many!!

The kids had a great time helping grandma in the kitchen, riding the horse of a friend (Logan so wishes she were a cow-girl!), playing with cousins in the yard, and basically doing anything they wanted because it's such a tiny town:) Of course, it's tradition for Auntie Jennie to "do" everyone's toes cute when we're around her. Even Kelly and Bronson got in on the fun:)

As I mentioned before, we towed our boat All-The-Way-Down-There, so we had to take advantage of Sand Hollow, near St. George. It was a beautiful little lake and the HOT weather and water temps. were perfect! One of the best days ever on our boat! Bronson found his courage and started jumping off the swim platform with no help. He would just pop out of the water and kick over to the ladder, climb up and do it again, over and over and over! He slept for 14 hours straight when we got home that night.

On one of the days we borrowed a huge blow-up swimming pool/water slide. The kids had a blast and it kept them entertained for hours! Grandma, Kelly, Auntie Jennie, Uncle Mitch, and I had to take our turns too. I think those things are geared for the smaller members of the family:)

We ate like royalty on this phase of our vacation too. The first night there, Uncle Anson and crew had an awesome BBQ with ribs, steak, chicken, sausages, salads and everything else yummy under the sun! We had so much fun seeing our family. Maika had such a hard time leaving! She cried until we got to Page, AZ. and as soon as she heard grandma's voice on the phone she started all over again. Sometimes it's so hard to live far away from family! We are grateful we got to spend time with you all and love you very much! Thanks for everything!!

Up next, Phase 3! Blanding, UT

summer trip: phase 1

We just returned from a wonderful vacation! It was split up into three major phases, so I'm starting with the first :) Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Kelly was able to drive down to Utah with us, instead of me driving by myself, which was the original plan, phew! So we packed up the truck and boat and headed out. Nalani kept us entertained on the road with her countless "I Spy" games. She always spied something green and it was usually a tree:)

We made it to Utah and spent the night at Auntie Jo's and Uncle Jason's house. The next morning we visited Auntie Nani and Auntie Belle for a few minutes and then dropped Kelly off at work, he decided to work in Utah for a few days. I was off to Jackson with the kids. My mom has a time-share there so we met up with my side of the family for about five days.
The kids loved to play together at the pool, in the park or riding their bikes together. They got some mean games of "Old Maid" going on Grandma's window bed. We ate like royalty. My mom's friend, Gary, is an awesome cook.

The first few days we just played around at the pool. My brother Jesse came up on Wednesday so we saved the fun stuff for when he could come. Thursday we made it to Yellowstone. It was beautiful as always! I did manage to lock my keys in the truck, which was a pain in the butt, but the guys were resourceful and got it unlocked with the antennae. Note to self: Call Ford and get the key code! It would have been nice to know!!

On Friday my mom and Gary stayed home with all seven grand kids and took them swimming while Jesse, Mel, Riley, and me went river rafting on the Snake River. It was too high and swift for kids under 10. We had a great time and the rapids had me really scared, but we made it through without going in the water! I realized I've become a major wuss in my old age. I honestly about cried when we made it through the first 10 foot wave! Honestly.

On Saturday we packed up and headed back to Utah. We stopped to let the kids watch rafts go through the rapids "Lunch Counter" on the way. I think they were relieved they got to go miniature golfing with Uncle Riley instead of rafting after the second raft we watched got tipped over and people were floating down the river!

When we got back to Auntie Mel's the kids had fun playing on the trampoline. Then Auntie Rachel, Brandon, Lauren, and Zoe (the dog) came to visit for a few hours. It was fun to see everyone!

I took the kids back down to Auntie Nani's to spend the night and I went to pick Kelly up from the SLC airport at 10:30 pm. We made it back to Nani's house and had a good time visiting with them and prepared for Phase Two of our trip. Moccasin, Arizona. To be posted soon.