2014 in a blog-shell

 
Disneyland!

Need I say more? Our memories of 2014 are definitely dominated by our trip to California this summer to celebrate Mom and Dad S’s 50th anniversary.

Jeremy and I loved seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces even after spending long days on our feet. Morgan took two trips to the instacare – first for croup and then for an ear infection – and yet she plugged along and hardly complained.

Some favorites: Thunder Mountain Railroad, Cars Land, California Screamin’, World of Color, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones.I personally got a kick out of watching Jeremy and Caleb on the Winnie the Pooh ride. We needed it after taking the plunge on Splash Mountain. We also enjoyed a day at the beach and good food.

We say regularly that we want to go back, and I hope we can someday.

 

 








We decided to take advantage of being in southern California by extending our trip and spending a few days in San Diego. I don’t think any of us regretted it.

We tried to hit as many attractions as possible including Old Town, the Mormon Battalion museum, the beach, the San Diego temple, the USS Midway museum, and of course Sea World.

I solidified my crazy mom status by dragging everyone to a park with an awesome view only to find out it would close in about five minutes. Not wanting to pay admission, we turned around, found a spot to take a picture in the middle of a cemetery, and drove back to the hotel.

The summer also included a trip for ⅔ of the family to Oregon and then down to the cabin, partly for my 20th high school reunion [really?!?] but more to visit Mom and Dad B and see their new home.

One of the most memorable and hysterical parts of the trip was going “clamming” on the coast. I will forever have the image of my parents and the kids squishing through the mud with shovels in hand.

The cabin was of course refreshing. The morning we left I could see that Aiden was struggling. I asked him if he was okay and he started to cry, which is not normal for him. He said he didn’t want to leave, and I could totally relate.





















The reason the other ⅓ of the family stayed behind was because Caleb had committed to marching band. This was his first season, and he had a great experience.

He wasn’t overly fond of the parades, but he really enjoyed playing the synthesizer for the field show as well developing friendships with his fellow pit members.

His high school took 3rd in state and 4th in the region, which was remarkable for being their first year as a 5A band. He liked it enough to decide to sign up for the winter drum line, so we’re back to fun practice schedules. By now we should be able to drive to the high school with our eyes closed.

We’ve watched a substantial amount of basketball this year. Marissa was assigned to the 8th grade B team, but as the coaches watched her during practice they decided she would benefit from playing with the A team as well.

Aiden plays with a competitive team in addition to being on the 5th grade A team.

Caleb played with city recreation. That’s a lot of basketball.






In other activities, Marissa gave track a try in the spring and found she has a knack for the shot put. She took 3rd in regionals. If you consider her skinny arms, that’s pretty impressive.

Morgan took another year of dance but is taking a break right now. I’m still trying to figure out how to convince her to sing in front of other people. Caleb got his driver’s permit.

We said farewell to our old blue van after 13 years together, replacing it with a new-to-us-but-not-really-new-at-all red van. The first thing we had to do after we bought it from our Ute fan neighbors was to remove the Utah sticker on the back window just so Aiden could breathe again.

We’re all busy with church responsibilities as well. Jeremy perseveres as 1st counselor in the bishopric; I am still Laurel advisor and went to girls camp as assistant director; Caleb serves as his teacher’s quorum president, and Marissa is 1st counselor in her Beehive class. Aiden goes to scouts, where he just received his Webelos badge, and Morgan gets dragged all over the place.

School work keeps us hopping, as does work-work.

Life is good, and we count our blessings every day.


P.S. Please pardon the formatting issues. I think Blogger was feeling neglected and decided to act out. Either that or I'm way out of practice.








 

July dump

I soooo want to be a valiant blogger. Kind of like how I want to have a clean, organized house. And keep up on my correspondence. And have an updated photo album. And . . .

But since I don't really want to burden you with all of the things I'm not doing, I will instead delight you with some of our July DOings!

We painted.

I will pause for a moment to let the momentousness of this sink in.

This may not seem terribly noteworthy, especially when our color choice has a name like "rye," but since painting normally sits up there with all the things I would like to do but don't, it's actually very significant. Plus, we had to move the piano. We've lived in our house for 10 years now, and the front room and kitchen have remained builder "apple peel," minus one red wall in the kitchen. Please don't judge me. Painting also gave me a chance to do the spring cleaning I didn't get around to this year, or even possibly last year. Did I already ask you to not judge me? I haven't taken pictures of the finished product, but you can check me out cleaning atop the plant shelf [or whatever you call a useless 3/4 wall].

We celebrated Morgan's 6th birthday. Jeremy and I actually ditched her for half of the day to attend the temple sealing of our good friends to their adopted baby daughter. After we came home, we took the family to see Despicable Me: 2 and to dinner -- at an actual restaurant. As gifts she received additional modes of escape, I mean transportation, in the form of a scooter and a new-to-her bike.

Six!

Somewhere in there I made a cake. Morgan first requested a unicorn, which eventually evolved into baby Princess Celestia from My Little Pony. Aargh! I gave it a good effort. She looks a little freaky with her too big Japanese anime eyes and strange tumor wings on her back. Oh well. I guess I should stick to blue pigs.

It looks a little better if you squint.

We went camping in American Fork Canyon with Jeremy's side of the family. We stayed at Timpooneke, which is the most fun campground name to say pretty much ever. It was truly beautiful up there, and I'm ashamed we don't spend more time in our lovely mountains. Not only did it take a mere 45 minutes to reach the campsite, but the temperature was about 20 degrees less than in the valley. Jeremy took the kids fishing, we played lots of games, splashed in a creek, went on a hike, and lazed around. 

Am I standing in a hole?

Praying to the campfire gods

Marissa and I wearing our girls camp sweatshirts, just in case we get lost in the forest.

I think that pretty well covers it. And I think I've made a record number of appearances here. Now on to August!

How'd they do that?

I was exercising the other day when Morgan popped in and exclaimed, "TWINS!" Her friend from across the street then peeked around the corner, and this is what I saw:

I would like to know how it is possible to duplicate such a unique and spectacularly mismatched means of self-expression. It's a mystery to me, but they succeeded triumphantly. This outfit represents Morgan's daily clothing choices fairly well. We have mean fights on Sunday mornings in which I insist you can NOT wear purple and pink striped leggings with a black and yellow flowered dress to church. Well, okay. I suppose you can. But only if you let me do something pretty with your hair. And since that's not going to happen ... Point mom!

I had to get a close up of their twinner grins. Morgan lost her top tooth a little prematurely thanks to getting elbowed in the mouth while playing on a neighbor's slip-n-slide. Oh, the hazards of summer!

 

This song's been stuck in my head ever since

Our family bought into the rage of the Seven Peaks Pass of All Passes last year, which ended up providing some unanticipated perks. One of those perks was "free" tickets to watch Fiddler on the Roof at the Scera Shell Theater this summer. The tickets available were on the same day as Jeremy and my 16th (16th!!!) anniversary. At first I thought, C'mon! I don't want to take my kids on my anniversary date. But then I got over myself and decided it would be a worthwhile family outing.

There we sat on our blankets on a lovely August evening enjoying a very polished performance when the song Sunrise, Sunset started playing. I looked back at Jeremy and we smiled. This song is significant because my mom sang it at our wedding luncheon. It hadn't even crossed my mind when we decided to see the musical, but here we were, 16 years later (16!!!), surrounded by our kids, wondering the same questions Tevye and Golde were asking in the song:

When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

It was tender. I cannot lie.

Mazal tov!

Summer flashback: fish tales

As the season changes and the temperatures cool, I find myself thinking back to summer. Here is something I meant to post a few months ago but neglected. While we were at the cabin we wrote letters to my brother, Spencer, who is on a mission in Wisconsin. Aiden's letter was so great I had to copy it down, and now I wish to share it. I've tried to preserve his wording and spelling as much as possible. Please enjoy.

Dear, Spencer

Me and my dad went fishing and the pole bended so far and so I reeled the fish in and it was tiney. And we went snorkel-ing. We oiled the outhouse. And also I went fishing by the shore and then all of the sudden I lost all of my bait and so I just chose to cast out my line and so it only took me two cast's and then a fish jumped in the air about at least 3 feet in the air it saw a fly and jumped to get the fly and I hirred and cast it out and hit it in the lip and I lost my breath oh wow I caught a fish and I reeled it in and took it to my dad and then about two days later I was fishing and I was chust sitting there on a rock and then there was 3 to 5 fish just right by the shore and so I reeled it in and then Marrissa came and she said hi Aiden and I said shhhhhh and then droped the worm and the bober. And waited about ten seconds and then the fish bit the worm, and then I was like woohooh but then it lost it but the fish was still not done it bit it again and it did that a couple times wait a secon-d. I forgott somthing to menchon Marissa was sitting next to me and Marissa said I don't see anithing daaaad she screamed and ther was three fish right by her left foot and then I said I told you. And then droped my bober on the shore then I caught the fish and it was bigish and littleish and they lived under the boat then I took the fish back to my dad and then the same exact thing happined in about 20 minuets after

the end

from

Aiden

 

What did you do in the summertime?

Did you ...

... build a Barbie zipline?

... eat a ginormous ice cream cookie?

... prepare for warfare?

... use the [fish] force?

... flex your muscles?

... welcome alien lifeforms?

... invent a game named "Card Wars" ...

... inspired by a cartoon?

... dance by an outhouse ...

... that you oiled?

... plant yourself in the sand?

... see life through the eyes of another?

If not, you're missing out! But no worries. There's always next year.