November is here and almost Gone!

November has been a very busy month - we traveled to the City where my husband had a surgery on his eyes - that was an adventure last week - but at least we had great weather and ended up in an awesome hotel. Let's see - the month has just totally blown by and here we already are at the end of it. We decided to stay here for Thanksgiving - we've just been running around too much lately, and the thought of a a 7-8 hour drive back and forth and then running to everyone's houses for dinner just exhausted us in the thinking about it stage. My husband's work has been very busy, and he's had several nights that he's had to work which has thrown all of us off. So - we stayed home and cooked our dinner and had it that night. It wasn't too fancy - we did the traditional. We did Emeril's brined turkey recipe that we like - but our bird was huge and took a LONG time to cook. We did pumpkin, lemon meringue, banana cream and a pecan pie. The pecan was great but turned out like a caramel soup with set pecans on top. I have yet to find a good recipe which works here - maybe it is the altitude? (It's nice to have a scapegoat):) We did yamples (yams and apples - one of our favorites), cheesy beans (another favorite), potatoes and gravy, and rolls. We forwent the stuffing and the salad as I would be the only one to eat the salad, and it was already way too much food. We also put together a spinach appetizer dip which we munched on before hand. We topped the dinner off with grape juice grown in our own backyard. We hadn't tried it - so it was kind of fun. It was okay - not as amazing as we'd hoped, but it was from our yard (and they told us you couldn't grow grapes here - altitude again) - we mixed it with sprite - which used to be my favorite part of Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa J. After dinner we played some games and later came back for the pies. Our eldest said it was the best day ever, cause we let her have a piece of all four pies. Albeit they were teensy, she couldn't finish them all - but she thought it was pretty cool as did our youngest. On Friday, we just hung around, played games, did laundry, had a family foosball tourney, and did a little ping pong as well. The girls found a box and decorated it and have played about 150 different games with it. The rest of the day (no wonder it was a blur) was spent Christmas shopping. (I got a large majority of our shopping done a couple of weeks ago when my husband was home during the day after working during the night.) The girls loved to shop for each other, and then trade parents and shop for the other parent as well - it was a LONG shopping trip, but most of it is now done!
Today, we did a major house clean - I finally paid some attention to my plants - they've been severely neglected for the past 1 1/2 years. I finally repotted some of them and trimmed them and finally threw out some really dead ones. It is nice to get things back into order. We moved some furniture so that we can get out the Christmas stuff tomorrow and start setting it up. That was originally today's goal, but we got it prepped and after Church we'll go at it. Instead of the Christmas stuff, we went and saw the Bee movie. I don't believe we'll be purchasing it - but it was okay and the girls enjoyed it.
Hopefully that sums up our lives for the past couple of weeks. I've been off from Seminary for this week, and been able to catch up with staying up late and messing around at night and sleep in. Very Nice!

Happy Halloween!

We went to a Halloween party last weekend and wanted to show off some of our pictures of our little "Cheetahs". Thanks to Grandma who helped find the costumes.
We will be spending a busy day hitting the streets at 3:30 for the businesses which are open to trick or treaters up valley. The joke is the zombies for parents the next day I think!

October 17, 2007

Well - I got a new camera, and I figured out how to send my pictures to get them printed, but I'm still trying to figure out how to upload them into this blog. I think I just need a little bit of time and patience and will get all of the kinks worked out. I didn't post last week because we were away. Some friends from came for conference. We all stayed at my parents, and went to the morning session on both Sat and Sun. My husband got a chance to also get into the Sat pm session which was pretty cool for both him and our friend. Thanks to all who helped us with tickets. Conference was great!! What an amazing blessing we have. One funny story - as we were getting ready, our friend asked me if I wasn't wearing heels to the conference. I said no - I don't really wear them. After parking, while crossing the street, her high heel broke right off her shoe. We didn't know what to do, and we were already there, so we told her she'd just be sitting the entire time not to worry. After conference, they men went to get the car, and pick us up. Our friend and I stood in the rain (it had been snowing) and the freezing wind for 30 minutes waiting for them. Finally, someone asked us if we needed to use their phone. We called the guys, and they were stuck in the parking garage. We told them to stay there, we'd come to them. By the time we got there, and had gone up all of the steps to every flight because we couldn't find them, someone else offered their cell phone and we ended up having to go back out to the street to try and find each other. All in all, it was a comedy of errors.

We spent one day at a nearby Island. There we waited for a herd of buffalo to cross the road in front of us, and got some great closeups. We toured a ranch with some really old artifacts. The sad part was that some of our antiquated tools still haven't even made it to our friends' home country. It was hard to show the girls a washboard and explain it to them since our friends still use one!

One of the girls woke up sick on day, so dad dropped the Choc's off in SLC. The girls and I later went and picked them up and we spent some time in the Visitor's Center. That night for FHE we carved pumpkins and made some fun Jack-o-lanterns. The next day we went to the mall for several excruciating hours. Our youngest was playing in the racks and got lost. For 10 very intense minutes we searched for her until a worker found her on the other side of the store wandering around. It was an ugly experience that I'll never forget. Later that day, we did Trappers Loop, and then spent some time at the Ogden temple. We later went to Walmart and did some last minute midnight shopping.

On Wednesday, we packed everyone's bags and went to the Bountiful Temple, then to the This is the Place monument, and then to Temple Square. We ate in the Lion House, and then spent time seeing the Beehive house, and the tabernacle. Finally we spent time touring the conference center. We rushed the Choc's to the airport, and the girls and I went back to temple square. Later on we went back to the airport and picked my husband up. He'd flown out of SLC to a work conference. Thursday we made it to the Jordan River temple, and then back home. We did have an hour and a half wait through the canyon due to construction, but it was all very good.

Thus - it was a pretty busy week. We came back, spent some time cleaning up on Saturday, and are now getting ready to head back out to Utah for a surprise party this weekend (yes I'm a lucky one - I love 7-9 hour drives!).


I'm sure I'll have more pictures and details once I get back from that trip!

October 3, 2007

Well, I will be finishing up some canning this morning, and we are getting ready to head out for conference. We have some wonderful friends from G who we will be meeting there, and are excited to be their tour guides! Stay tuned for lots of cool conference pics!! This week I had a prayer answered. It's a short post this week, but we've got lots going on, and lots of preparation for our trip!

Frost is in the air

Yesterday we got the FREEZE warning, and I'm told that it snowed in the mountains yesterday as well... yuck. Anyways, we harvested much of our garden for Family Home Evening. We did have a mammoth carrot - a la grandpa (I took one of his to kindergarten for show and tell it was so cool). The girls also had their own personal garden in which they planted carrots, and some squashes. The girls won the house award of the best flower garden - theirs was truly amazing and totally beautiful! Our corn (which was just for fun and experimental) came up and we got a few small ears which we are excited to eat. We are still canning tomatoes - we have one box almost ready to go, and two more which are still ripening up! Here are some fun pictures of the garden - the really tall tree like things would be the tomatoes!

Zoo

We spent the day at the zoo earlier this week. I got to chaperone 4 kids throughout the zoo. It was a fairly exhausting day, but it was pretty fun. We got there before the school bus did, so my child and I hung out - here's a picture of her eating her morning snack of Cheeto', and then a picture of our little group. I think everyone's highlight was the carousel - I'm not sure how we could work it into the curriculum, but I know the kids would probably rather do that than the zoo!

More pictures - Finally!!

Well - here we have several new pictures I thought we should post.
First of all we have the first day of school - which is actually a couple of weeks old, but nonetheless.

Time for that weekly blog

So - for those of you who are interested in my life on a daily basis (yes, I know EVERYONE is) you may want to check out my other blog (and if I've already promoted it - apparently I'm pretty proud of it or excited or something). It's my Seminary blog page, where I share what we've done in class each day so that the parents and students, and any nosy person that might want to know what we actually do at 6:00 am at church can follow with our daily chronicles. Actually -... well, at this point I went to bed so I don't know what I was going to say.
I started a pre-school this week with 2 other moms - that is sucking a little life, and yesterday I spent the day at the zoo with a bunch of kids- that was pretty fun, but exhausting. We picked all of our tomatoes this past weekend, and have about 90 lbs of them. I'll be canning them both today and tomorrow, and hopefully be finished for the season. We picked all of our grapes (which experts predicted could not possibly survive the winters and climate) on Monday. We got 11 quarts of grape juice - we can't wait to try them!

Canning Party

This weekend we picked up 88 pounds of peaches. Yesterday morning I was feeling a little overwhelmed as I looked at them and thought about the full next week I'd need to get them taken care of. A friend called, and I mentioned what I was doing, and she volunteered to come over and can. Another friend called and had never canned but wanted to come learn, as did another. We ended up with 5 kids running around playing, while four of us canned. Within 3 and a half hours we ended up with 45 quarts of peaches for the winter. I spent time in the garden yesterday morning picking tomatoes and my husband and I canned 14 quarts of tomatoes last night. We still have tons of tomatoes in the garden - and hope to get at least 45-50 quarts this year. The exciting part is that we started these plants indoors from seeds back in March - so it's been really fun to see them develop into the taller than me trees that we've got now. The 35 quarts that we got last year went quickly and we had to ration them!! We are also praying that it stays warm enough that all of the raspberries will ripen for jam, and we are looking at harvesting the grapes within the week. On Monday we picked apples from a friend's, and I will be doing lots and lots of applesauce today. It's been so awesome to produce our own food, and store it up for the winter. There's nothing more reassuring than looking at a full food storage, and knowing how hard you've worked, planting, growing and canning... what a reward!!
On another note, the girls are busy with school and gymnastics. Seminary is finally starting to settle into a routine. Our power went out for a second yesterday and the messed up the alarm clock. When I reset it, for some reason it rang at 12:01 am. Just as I was getting into the shower I looked at my watch and realized that it was NOT 4:30 am. I got back into bed - relieved, because it felt like I'd only slept for an hour and a half... funny thing!
My husband applied for an internal job promotion yesterday - he was told that there should be an offer by the end of the week - this has definitely taken an emotional toll since we first learned about the possibility the first week of August, but we are hoping that it all comes to fruition.
We will be traveling 3 hours away for our stake conference this weekend.
That's pretty much our life in a nutshell this week!

School has finally started

Well, school has started and life seems to be settling back into it's normal hum drum (which is always so welcome at the end of the summer). My schedule has changed - I was going to say drastically, but I just realized, it isn't that different! I used to get up at 4:45 every morning to go walking. Now I get up at 4:30 to get ready for Seminary. I leave right about 5:30, and get there between 15 - 8 minutes before 6:00 a.m. I then come home, get my daughter off to school and begin my day. I'm still trying to figure out where to fit in the rest of my schooling. I've got a final I'll take this Friday, and then one class left. I've just GOT to get it done. I'm starting up a pre-school with a couple of other moms, and have to get it up and running. I've started walking at 8:00 pm. The only problem is that by the time I get home, I'm ready to start my day! I was grateful last night when I got home, showered, collapsed in bed and was instantly asleep, and slept great. It's just tough to actually get my buns into bed by 9:30. Well... its 10 in the morning and I'm yawning - that should tell you something! Yes - precisely, I live for school holidays!

Another post already?

Well - I just wanted to say that I have created another blog as well. As if I just sit around blogging all of the time right? Anyways - the other blog is ........ I will be using this blog to keep up with my seminary class. It will chronicle our assignments - especially the reading assignments will be posted there, as well as a commentary of what we've been doing in class each day etc. I'm hoping that the kids and their parents will use it to keep track of what is going on, and to keep up to date if they miss something. Seems like it will be a nifty little tool - we'll see. That's it - I made it through day number 2 so far. :)

It has finally started!

Well - August 29 finally arrived. No photos - but be assured I at least made it through the first day. Yes - I am talking about seminary...and people actually showed up. That was the real test - will anyone come??? I had 14 fresh live victims there - we'll see if there are any survivors. Really though - they are all really great kids and I think we are going to have a blast this year. We are studying the Old Testament, which is one of my favorites - so much action and violence, and inspiring stories. So - I got up at 4:30 and will do so again tomorrow (if not earlier), so I am going to bed. I am going to set up a blog for my students I think too... we'll see what they have to say!

At Home in our Elements!

We love to play in the mud in our back yard! As you can tell - the kids really had a day of it. Imagine, a mud body wrap in the privacy of our own back yard - and dirt cheap!

We spent an evening fishing nearby - but got skunked. Unfortunately, we forgot the hot dogs, and as we had no fish had to settle on corn on the cob and s'mores for dinner. No one seemed to complain and we had a great time!

Strep is NOT our friend! & and Rock band / classical Fusions

Well... it's hit once again. Our girls had their check ups this week, and since someone else in our home (no names, but it wasn't me or the girls) had strep the week before, we had them checked for strep throat. We thought that they might be carriers and someone is just sharing it again and again. I personally have had it in May, June, a sore throat in July, and one in August as well (but not the fever and chill and headache and aching symptoms). We are REALLY sick and tired of strep in our house. So - if you have strep - please don't come by. We are all on antibiotics, and once we finish, we will all be tested just to make sure no one else has it - it's ridiculous!
Well... onto to other items now that the strep disclaimer is off of my chest.

The last couple of weeks have been good. The girls just finished their last session of swimming lessons for the summer. I'm so excited to have that daily 2 hour block of my day back - they've been at it for a month.

As was alluded to in a posting comment, we had the big seminary kick off meeting two weeks ago the 6:00 am stands. Don't get me wrong - I do like my sleep too, but it ended up being the only time that could work for me. I'm pretty excited to start this month with it, and look forward to a really fun year.

I've played several gigs with my group the past two weeks. We just participated in a Relay for Life yesterday. We played the soft background music while they did the luminary ceremony. While this was as cool as always - there was a way more cool part of the evening. When I arrived, I went up to the stage to put my stuff down, and saw a friend who was doing some percussion with the rock band that was playing on the stage. He invited me to grab the tambourine and to jam away with them. So - I turned into the tambourine player of the completely non-famous garage band that was doing the entertainment. Besides the tambourine, I got to play an instrument called the 'cabasa'. No - that wasn't a typo. It is one of the main instruments that is used in Santana stuff (yes - that is the best description I can come up with). It really just looks like a lint roller with beads stuck all over it, but it makes a really cool sound. I have to admit - playing in a rock band wasn't as easy as it looks. I had to try and stay on beat, and the singer wasn't that great and they didn't want me to do back up vocals (I have NO idea why!) I guess the hardest part was when they kept playing music I'd never even heard before. We did play an old Police song - walking on the moon. Just for the record - the tambourine and the cabasa were RIGHT ON in both of those songs - the others were all just guesses. Anyways - it was pretty fun. I got to stand on stage in my black concert clothing with the garage band who was dressed up like Hee-Haw in front of approximately 200 people and pretend like I had an idea of what I was doing. It was awesome!

New news

We've been busily rolling through our summer with nothing major to report. We got our first zucchini's last week and our tomatoes look promising. Last week my husband had strep throat - we can't seem to go a month without someone having it! I got a 98 on my midterm - I'm at least thrilled about that... almost done I keep telling myself. I am officially done with Primary and am the new Seminary teacher. I am looking forward to that challenge, and my husband is signed up and ready to get back to work on that degree he's been working on. The girls have been doing swimming lessons, and we (glutton for punishment that I am) signed them back up for another two weeks! I'm looking at getting a new camera so that I can post pictures more easily - but I'll see if I can't get some more posted this week. :)

Cello at the Library

Here's a picture that showed up in the newspaper today - we had no idea. A couple of cellists came to the the library last week and did a presentation, and the girls got to try a child sized cello. If you weren't sure, the girls are in the upper right hand corner ~ you know, the cutest ones there!

MUDSLIDE

Well - we had one of those mountain storms today... I told the girls it would be over in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we were still sitting in the Post Office parking lot - watching the hail stones and rain pelt down. The parking lot turned into a veritable river and we decided to wait when we saw the cars literally almost swimming down the street. The main street to get to our house was completely flooded... we went really slow and prayed we'd make it through okay - the water was probably at least a foot and a half high!!
I-70 had a mudslide that closed it down for about 4 hours, so my husband didn't get home until much later! Super crazy mountain weather!

Family Trips and getting back to life

We met family members at three different reunions last week - lotsa family!! It was fun and memorable, but always nice to get back to the cool mountains. Today we had a huge cloud burst that really cooled things down and was over in 3 minutes - it was fun while it lasted. The best news is that we have peas!! Our garden is producing well so far this year. We started to eat the first peas yesterday - they were divine! Someone commented that they were the candy of the garden - no wonder we like them so much! Our swiss chard is almost out of control, and the lettuce and radishes are almost going to seed as well. We've got to start giving stuff away. Our tomatoes all have flowers on them, but we really hope they'll hurry it up. I got up at 4:45 am today and went hiking. It's kind of fun with a head lamp cause you only see what's directly in front of you instead of watching ahead on the trail (add the increased fear of mountain lions and you've got some great adrenaline). We reached the top while I was still expecting several more twists and bends in the trail (yes - 'we' - there is actually someone crazy enough to go with me at that time of the day). Today I took the girls to play at the children's museum and in the water panning for gold again, and the girls actually found several nuggets. I'm not sure if they are authentic or not, it will be fun to see. Later we went to the library where a cellist played and did a story with music. The girls got to try to play a tiny cello and thought it was pretty neat - therefore pictures pending!

Pancake Picnic and park

Today we put pictures into a photo album, and then the girls decided they wanted to do something we'd done a couple of weeks ago. We made pancakes, took them upstairs and had a little breakfast picnic while watching a show together. My husband insisted that we go to the park to see the fireworks tonight. I didn't want to, but we did and it was pretty great. We met most of our previous branch there and some other friends came and met us. We didn't get home until after 11:30, and hope the girls will sleep late tomorrow! They really got a lot of good playing in!
Happy Fourth of July everyone. I am amazed and awed at the sacrifices made for the freedoms we have in our country. We will go to a ward breakfast party, then take naps and then do some all American Barbecuing. That's it for us for a couple of days.

I think I've figured this out!

So - after thinking about what to do with this blog all day, I think my main point will be to share some family pictures and try to keep people up to date.
Today - we cleaned the house. The girls have started to really have chores, and it's been an interesting learning curve to have our youngest cleaning the bathrooms and mopping, or in charge of all of the dishes. She's pretty independent, so I'm starting to plan much slower days! We put together 72 hour kits, and planted a ton of daisy and viola plants which a friend thinned out of her flower garden. I'll post a picture once we are sure they are going to make it!