Family campout

A couple weekends ago we went on a family campout up American Fork Canyon.  It was so beautiful up the canyon and I loved that it was cold in the morning.  My house isn't cool right now and I loved sleeping in the cold!

We had fun with all the neices and nephews until we built a campfire.  Then they all wanted to 'help', light matches, put wood on the fire and everything else.  My dad was sure that one of them was going to fall into the fire pit and I got to the point where I was going to help one of them fall in so that the others would learn to stay away from the fire. (I'm nice, aren't I?)

My dad taught us a new Indian saying (since he has some Indian blood he and one of his brothers has taught us 'Indian' lore). 

"White man built big fire, sit way back.  Indian build little fire, sit real close."

We had a true white man fire.  It was huge and warm and attracted all children within the campground!

Fireworks

Last night we did some fireworks at mom and dad's house with all the lettle neices and nephews. We gave the little kids sparklers to start off.  When I was a child when we had sparklers we spent time writing our names in the air and twirling in circles.  Last night, we had 5 little kids running around yelling 'stupify' and 'protego'!  We also heard lumos, avada kedavra and expecto patronum!  What fun they had pretending to be wizards.  I heard several refrences to Harry Potter while playing with fireworks.  I love that kids can take something like sparklers and pretend to be wizards!

Germany trip 2011

I've been home almost 2 weeks and I still wish I was in Germany!  We had so much fun and I got to do so many things that I probably wouldn't have if I lived there.  I kept telling myself that I needed to do it because chances of me getting back there are slim.  That's the only way they got me to ride the tram to the top of the highest mountain in Germany!


Here's a slidshow of some photos I put together for the girls at work.


http://cmd.shutterfly.com/commands/pictures/slideshow?site=mygermanytrip2011&page=mygermanytrip2011/pictures&album=8

Busy, busy, busy

Life has gotten busy and I guess the first thing to go was my blog.  I'll attempt to catch up to the present.  Dad had bought a new toy to play on - a Rzr and we have taken it out west twice to play with the grandkids.  I've gotten sunburned each time we went out - you'd think I'd learn the first time. And to my credit I mostly did.  This past Saturday when we went, I put sunscreen on my head and face (where I had gotten sunburned the first time), but neglected to do my arms.  Who would think that I would get a lobster red sunburn on my arms? Apparently not me! 

My 2nd niece turned 8 and got baptized a couple of weeks ago.  It's so fun to see her sweet personality shine through when it's her turn to shine in the spotlight.  She's the middle kid, and is really quiet, so she sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.

 

We had our auction for Friday's Kids Respite and had lots of fun.  I always forget how much work it is, until we get right in the middle of it and then I wonder what I am doing there!  It was a lot of fun and I actually won a couple of things.

 

The biggest change in my life came about 3 weeks ago when I was called as the Relief Society President.  It was not unexpected, but still nerve-wracking anyway.  Right now, I am trying to figure out exactly what needs to be taken care of and hoping that I'm not dropping anything. 

We get to watch my neices this weekend in their dance recital.  The 4 year old was doing her dance for us on Sunday and it was really fun to watch.  She's quite shy, so the recital should be interesting.  The other two are old pros at it now and have a lot of fun with it.  Let's hope the 1 year old boys enjoy sitting in the dark for a couple hours, or it's not going to be much fun for anyone.

Disneyland!

I just got back from a fun, quick trip to Disneyland with some of the family! My sister, brother-in-law and their 2 kids were going and they invited mom, me and our other sister to come join them. We had lots of fun! We started out by leaving late Wednesday night and drove through the night. Little nephew fell right asleep and stayed asleep most of the trip, little niece was good until she got sick and threw up a couple of times and lucky me, I was the one beside her in the back seat.

We rolled into town about 8 am and were able to get right into our hotel and took a little break/nap. Then it was off to Disneyland!  

Little niece wanted to meet Tangled (aka Rapunzel) so we got in line and saved her a spot.  She is usually incredibly shy but we were surprised to see her walk up to Tangled and Flynn and talk to them.  She also gave Tangled a hug when we were leaving.

We spent most of the day Thursday in Disneyland, on Friday we went back to Disney and spent quite a bit of time (and I saw my roommate who was there with her sister, brother-in-law and their children), then that afternoon we went to California's Adventure (which I had never been to) then back to Disney for the fireworks. Saturday we spent time in both parks and then that night started back home. With all the 'fun' we had on the way down, we decided to stop in Las Vegas for the night. Then we got up this morning and finished the ride home. About an hour from home, little nephew, feeling left out, threw up (and since I wasn't sitting by him he got it on my pillow for me!)

All-in-all, it was really fun and I would probably do it again (but I'd come a little more prepared for the fun of a road trip with children!)

Passport

I got my passport in the mail today!  Now I'm one step closer to my trip this summer!  Happy day today.

Busy, busy, busy

A week before Thanksgiving I got called as the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency and then promptly got thrown in charge of the Angel Tree gifts for several families in our ward.  Life got very busy for about the next month and it was really nice that I had some time scheduled off of work.  We ran into a few problems near the end but everything worked out and all the gifts got out by Christmas Eve.  I don't think I've ever been so excited for Christmas to be over! 

I did take some time and took 4 of my brother's kids to see the 3rd Narnia movie.  The 3 1/2 year old loved it
(I think he loved the popcorn the best though).  And my sister and I took her 2 kids to The Living Planet Aquarium.  I liked the penguins and seeing the octopus eat was very interesting!  Her little girl really like the penguins too but did not like when my sister tried to get her to touch the sing-ray.

Time change + me = not good!

"The closer you get to the fronter of the building... wait, fronter isn't a word."

Yes, that was my brilliance today! Our office has windows all along the front of the building and they let in the cold. It's a good thing I don't work by them, I'm cold enough as it is.

I went to bed an hour earlier last night trying to counteract some of the time change problems I've been having. I'm thinking it didn't help, as evidenced by my speech!

Crafting can hurt

My mom, sister and I are making a fun Halloween craft. It's a wall hanging called Frank N. Stein. He's cute, but I don't think we are going to get him finished before Halloween. Today we were working on it and in the space of 5 minutes I had cut my finger on the rotary cutter and burned my thumb on the iron. I was then politely asked to leave the craft room.

The only bandaid mom had in the craft room was a My Little Pony one. So I was sporting that on my finger when my youngest neice came. She saw my bandaid and kept asking what happened. I think she was jealous of my cute bandaid!

It's been awhile

At several points during the last month and a half, I've thought 'I should blog about this.' And as you can tell I never got around to it. Most of the time, by the time I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is get back on the computer, but mostly - I'm just lazy about it. So I'll just do a condensed version...

I took my oldest nephew to a BYU football game (my roommate has season tickets and couldn't go that weekend. Since it was a night game and I didn't want to fight traffic all the way back to his house, he got to sleep over and go to church with me. Since our ward has one senior primary class with 5 children in it, I think it was strange to him.

My poor car is still sick. It gets to go to the mechanic tomorrow. I really hope that it gets fixed and stays that way! I love my car, but it's starting to have mucho problems.

And the last thing, a kind of funny story. My mom almost never calls me. So one day, I got a call from mom at lunch time. I thought it was kind of strange, but nice. So I was talking to her, and asked what was up, she replies with, 'I was kind of wondering how I got you. I was calling work.' Thanks mom! I really can feel the love. :)

Car battery

My poor car battery 'gave up the ghost' last night! Oh, what a night. I had run to drop off the books for bookclub since I couldn't attend club and my car died in their driveway. Aaahhh! We got the battery out and had it tested. It was dead, dead, dead. Dad and Mom came over to rescue me (and my poor neighbors). Goodbye old battery. It was fun while it lasted! :)

Camping in the rain...

We had a ward campout this weekend. I don't think I've ever been on one (if you don't count girls camp, which I didn't). It poured and I mean POURED! But the tent kept us dry at night and the tarps rigged up over the tables kept us dry other times. It did stop long enough to roast some marshmallows for smores. It was a small group, but we had much fun. (even me, who wasn't real excited to be going anyway.)

Family time

We were going to have a family campout this last weekend, but other plans were to be had. My uncle passed away from cancer and his funeral was planned for Saturday which kind messed up the campout plan. We did get to have some fun anyway.

We went Thursday night and roasted marshmallows for smores in my sister's backyard. They have a little fire pit and we got to use it for the first time.

Then my sister and family ended up having to sleep in the tent because 3 the year old was so sad about not going camping that they tried to make it better by sleeping in the backyard. She thought it was so much fun!

Since we had all taken Friday off for the campout, we ended up taking all the neices and nephews to the pool Friday afternoon. We had a lot of fun and wore the children out! I got to take the 6 month old around the lazy river. He loved the water, until he got hungry/tired, then he didn't like it so much!

Summer fun

Last week my roommate and I went to the Shakespearean Festival. We had so much fun!

We left on Monday morning and drove to Cedar City and picked up our tickets for the plays. Then we went to my dear friend's house and spent the afternoon with her lovely kids. After a yummy dinner we went to a short expliantaion of the shows that night (that really helped me understand the play) and to the Green show. After a very yummy lemon tart the three of us (me, roommate and my friend) went to "Much Ado About Nothing". I thought it was a marvelous play!

Tuesday after another yummy meal (Thanks Linds!) we went to a presentation about the costumes. It was amazing to see what they went through to put them together. Then, since it was Jane Austen week, we went to a Lunch and Q&A with 3 castmembers from "Pride and Prejudice". We had Mr. Darcy, Jane and a butler. It was a lot of fun and I would reccommend it to everyone. After lunch we went to "Pride and Prejudice". It was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. Then it was time to drive home. Short but fun trip. :)

We stopped at Cove Fort on the way home and got to drive through a pretty good rain storm.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Movie night

Our outdoor movie night is quickly becoming our new family tradition. My 3-year-old neice was talking about watching a movie outside at nana's a couple of weeks ago, so dad arranged a movie night on Friday night with the option of a sleepover and breakfast the next morning. With a little storm front coming in, they decided not to do the sleepover outside but 5 of the grandkids spread their sleeping bags out on the family room floor in the basement once the movie was over. I didn't want to keep driving back and forth so I slept in the spare bedroom downstairs by the kids. They were really good once the last few got to sleep and we had a yummy breakfast the next morning. I love holiday weekends!

Vacation

My mom had a conference in San Diego for 5 days. She didn't want to go alone so she took my sister and me with her. We had more fun playing in San Diego than she did sitting in her classes but we did get some time to play together too.

We went to the USS Midway and got to walk around the HUGE aircraft carrier. They had so much to see. You saw where they slept and stuff like that, then on the top deck they had quite a few aircaft from different times. Even as big as it was, I'm not sure how long I would last on one.


We found a time that mom didn't have any classes she wanted to go to and we went to visit Sea World. I haven't been since High School and it was really fun. We went to a Sea Lion show, a Shamu show,a Dolphin show and walked through many different exhibits. Then when it got dark we went back to see another Shamu show and watched some fireworks. It was kind of a long day - but a really fun day!
The next day my sister and I went to the zoo. It was a cold day but still fun to see the animals. We got to see the Polar Bears and the Panda's among many other animals.


We also went to Little Italy (and had wonderful pizza) Old Town (and had great mexican food) and the Mormon Batallion site. We walked along the water and ate seafood at Seaport Village (well mom ate seafood!). Lots of fun was had but it was kind of nice to come back home too.

My favorite store...

Most of you know I love the bookstore! I go there when I need to get out of the house and enjoy wandering around. I have found another reason to love them. They have these fun 'parties' for different books. I took niece #2 to a Fancy Nancy party a couple weeks ago. She dressed up like Fancy Nancy and we had a BLAST! at the party. Then this week nephew #1 and I went to a party for the new Rick Riordan book "The Red Pyramid." Much fun was had! I think I like the parties as much as I like the coupons (I'm pretty sure I haven't paid full price for a book in quite a while! Don't tell!) If you have a Borders near you - check out the storytime and parties!

Fun treat

Last night we had bookclub at my house. I made a yummy apple dip!

1 block cream cheese - softened
1 cup brown sugar (i usually add 3/4 of a cup instead)
1 cup toffee bits
dash of vanilla

Mix cream cheese and brown sugar together. Fold in toffee bits.

My roommate told me a new way to keep your cut apples from going brown. Instead of dipping in lemon juice - you can dip them in Sprite (or any other lemon-lime soda). I think they taste better than the lemon juice ones!

Shirley J giveaway

I hope I win this giveaway. I'd like to try the Shirley J products!

http://www.mommyenterprises.com/moms-blog/416/shirley-j-review-and-giveaway/