Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Twenty Years Ago Today

Twenty years ago today Brent and I started dating. Ah, so young! So bright eyed and hopeful. Well, I would be if my eyes weren't closed.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Those Who Can....

....paint or draw or something like that. Those who can't get a Charley Harper art book and cut out a bunch of pictures, mod podge it onto poster board and frame it. This allowed me to finally finish this family room of ours. Well this and discovering after the kids rearranged the furniture to make a movie theater one day that I still had room to exercise at the far end of the room. This and that and some strategically placed sock monkeys placed at the far end to balance out the other wall since I couldn't put anything big on the wall over there since Brent and Noah discovered that empty space I will now use for exercising is also good for a fun game of hand ball with a red rubber ball too.











Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Brief Summary of Summer

Summer was here! And now it's almost gone. It was a good summer.Thank you summer, we really needed (well wanted) a good summer. What did we do? We...

Had a week of cold and rain. Had swim lessons, with beautiful weather (not too hot, not too cold) I might add. We took lots of bike rides to the other side of town. Stopped for a few icees at the gas station along the way.

The kids ran the Run for Congo 5K run at Wheeler farm, half of it anyway. I helped out with kids activities (heel spur came back, no running for me.) Brent cheered us on. Followed it with a ride on Trax, exploring the SLC Library and visiting a park from my teen years.

We had girl's camp for Isabella (she had fun!); 11 year old scout day camp with Brent as leader; cub scout day camp, a first for Noah (and me as a parent volunteer).

Next up was a week off for Brent with some local fun. (We WILL NOT call this a staycation.) We rode the Heber Valley Railroad- got robbed by some train robbers, it was terrifying! We went to Lagoon. It ended up being the worst Lagoon trip in years. I got a small purse stolen. It didn't have anything in it but $25 but it was a cute little handy purse and I'd had it since 1990-something. I yelled at a girl running a ride. I think the purse theft was karma for my bad behavior. Then we got our stuff locked in the Lagoona Beach lockers and had to get a security guard to break our stuff free. The kids had fun though! Then the drive in of course, you have to hit the drive in once a summer.

Then there was the actual real vacation. We went to Lake Tahoe! Ah, beautiful Lake Tahoe! There was kayaking and playing in the water and on the beach, a sailboat ride, and horseback riding. The girls LOVED that. They'd never been on horses before so it was pretty great. My horse kept getting sassy and had to be separated from Zoe's horse.We stayed in a condo and did not eat at or from a restaurant once! Well, except for sundaes at the McDonald's drive up, but I don't think that counts.



Next I went on my own little adventure. I went to Seattle to visit and old, old, old, old friend. Okay, not old, because we're not old dangit (regardless of what my foot and back try to tell me). I spent three days there. It was great hanging out and seeing the sights. Did I ever tell you how much I love Seattle? Well I do. I belong in the Northwest somewhere. My friend Becky lives in a suburban forest. Huge trees everywhere. Paths that literally take you through the woods. I felt like Little Red Riding Hood. It was magical, I tell ya.


While I was off enjoying the cool weather and the water and the trees Brent took the kids camping with Grandma Cathy at a lake. I hear they had fun, not as much fun as I had, but fun still.


Then summer was almost over and it was time to get ready for school again. I signed up for a new program at a different school which I will talk about more later, I'm excited. I had to get four shots though. I wasn't sure which was worse, enduring the pain of the shots or realizing how much it must have hurt my kids to get all of those shots when they were little. Okay, my own pain was probably a little worse than my empathy for the kids. Back to school shopping with the kids went really well and I didn't even want to shoot myself in the head numerous times. A small miracle.


So there you have it. Summer 2011 in a nutshell. You were good to us summer. Thank you.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

First Day of School 2011






School is back again! Summer went by so fast. My kids are growing up so fast. Isabella is in 8th grade, Zoe is in 6th and Noah is in 3rd.