You May Officially Disregard the Last Post

We have less than 3 weeks of summer break left to go and I don't know if I've accomplished ANYTHING on my list from the last post.  But who cares... it's summer vacation right?  Here's a recap so far:
Week 1:  Girls Camp

It was amazing and exhausting, all at the same time.  I LOVE Girls Camp.  I LOVE doing the 4th year hike... I LOVE doing it with my partner, Danielle.  I LOVED having Megan on the hike this year.  I LOVED my YCL's.  I LOVED how Eric puts up with me all for this amazing 3 days with a bunch of teenage girls.  (He LOVES it too... and I think he loves that going to Girls Camp gets him out of Scout Camp now!)

Week 2:  Recover from Girls Camp (Daily Routine:  Sleep in, decide it's too hot to exercise, sit in chair in my PJ's until close to dinner time, shower, get dressed and make dinner, pretend like I've done something other than watching Robin Hood episodes with the kids all day, hang out with Eric, watch some more TV, wish I was back at Camp, and go to bed.... repeated 5 times!)

Week 3:  Road trip with my besties...
These girls are seriously awesome.  We got invited to go hang out at Karen's house (aka Lambson Lodge) for a couple days without kids or hubbies.  It was sooo much fun... we were the biggest kids up there.  We sat around Karen's house talking, eating caramel corn and chocolate chip cookie dough, while watching Season 2 of Downton Abbey.  We did get out of the house to eat some mediocre mexican food (and I was mad because I forgot my milk pills!), shop for soda and junk food at the local Safeway,  and get ice cream in Greer.  (Again... still no milk pills....)  Most of these photos were taken when we parked to walk along the creek in Greer.  This little tourist trap town has got to be the prettiest mountain town in Arizona I have EVER seen.  Next time I get a Groupon offer for a cabin in Greer, I might just buy it.    Many thanks to Karen and Sheri for making this visit happen.  It was WONDERFUL!

Two days after coming home from the White Mountains, we took Sheri's family out on the boat with us. It was super fun.  All the kids had a great time, including Megan, even though their family has all boys.  Megan is such a good sport.  She puts up with a lot of boys in her life.

Week 4:  Recover from road trip with my besties and an exhausting boat day... I'm not 13 anymore... it was almost like Ragnar all over again... except that Adrienne and I got to share a double bed instead of cramming into a van for middle of the night naps!   Also this week, appointments galore.... Visiting Teaching, Chiro, Ortho, Dermatology and 2 of the kids got physicals.  Whew... I felt like I was LIVING in my car!

Week 5:  Which brings us to today.  The only thing I've accomplished today so far is about 6 loads of laundry... whether or not said laundry will get folded and put away is anyone's guess.  I've also cleaned out my 2 email inboxes and read blogs that I've ignored for the last six weeks.  Luckily, I'm not the only lazy blogger out there... so there weren't too many to sift through.  I do have a "to do" list of things I want to accomplish before wednesday afternoon.  It includes cleaning the fridge, sweeping and vacuuming the house, pulling the weeds in the backyard, and the usual stuff that has to be done all the time.  Wednesday evening we are having friends over for a BBQ/swim party, and Thursday, Eric and I head to Portland for a short but sweet getaway.

Week 6 will involve lots of cleaning and back to school shopping.

Week 7 we will have family come!  Yay!  I always feel bad when the grandparents come in the hottest summer months, but Ian will be turning 12 and getting the priesthood, so it's a big occasion that warrants the presence of both sets of grandparents.

Week 8 will be the first day of school... and summer vacation will officially be over.  Booo.... Hisss.... sad face!  Summer itself will last for 2 more months after school starts, so at least the school routine will help distract us from the heat.  Maybe...

Pinterest Strikes Again

Not much has been going on around here during September except school.  I should have been blogging more, but I’m not going to lie… I spend an exorbitant amount of time on Pinterest.  This week I did two fun projects that I found on Pinterest.  The first was an orange burlap wreath.  Hobby Lobby was conveniently OUT of orange burlap when we went to buy it, so this is where we improvised. 

   

This is Karen.  I truly believe we were twins in the Pre-Existence.  We met in January when we were both called to be YCL leaders at Girls Camp.   Over the last few months, we’ve discovered that we have the same birthday, we are both native California girls, we both get our hair cut from the same hairdresser, we both love Mexican food, snowmen, chocolate/mint desserts, Diet Coke from McD’s, wreaths, and Pinterest.   We are both sarcastic and say “Dude” and “Totally” and “Awesome” a lot.  And in the craziest twist of fate ever, our families both moved from California to Arizona in the same week of March 2005!   See?  Twins, I tell you.  She is the sister I never thought I had!  We had so much fun making these wreaths together!  And for those of you who’ve been on Pinterest, FYI… the plumbing tubes from Home Depot don’t make the greatest wreath forms.  That’s what we used and they were indeed cheap, but they are already sagging.  I just saw that a better alternative would be using pool noodles.  Next time, that’s what we are going to use.  Because, yes, there will be another wreath making day.  You can never have enough wreaths, right?Here’s the other project I did.  It’s nothing but canning jars, tissue paper, mod podge and construction paper.  I was finally able to put some use to the 300 canning jars my mother brought to me a couple visits ago.  The kids got involved with this project… that’s how easy it was.  I used real tea lights for this photo, but I think I’m going to buy some battery operated ones so I don’t have to worry about the jars overheating.  I LOVE how cute these turned out!   I have two more kid friendly projects lined up for next week.    If I can get my act together, you might see another Halloween craft here on the blog before the month is over!

Over the Last Few Weeks....

I have a new obstacle that slows down the blogging progress.  Photoshop!  Now, I feel like I can't blog a photo until I've played around with a bit in PSE.  So, it's takes me like 3-4 times the time to do just one blog  post because I have to spend the extra time fixing photos.  Not that they all need fixing, but it gives me an excuse to play around and get more comfortable with certain features. 

But, back to the purpose of this post.... October was a busy month for us.  We spent every Saturday at Megan's school sweating buckets watching Ian play flag football.  He loves it.  He really LOVES it.  And he's pretty good at it.  So, we will probably keep him playing through the winter league with the same coach.   The worst part about it was the heat.  It was hot and miserably humid every single week for the whole month of October. 

Here is Brayden cooling himself off with our friend's spray bottle.  It was that hot.  (Football game photography provided by Eric... he didn't want to share my camera with me, he was having so much fun.)

I also got to go with Megan and Taylor to the Mesa Temple to do baptisms for the dead.  I haven't done this since I was 17, so it was super cool for me to be there with them.  And they both got baptized for some great-great-great-great aunts and uncles of ours, so that made it even more special.

 One thing that I have struggled with my new Nikon camera is taking sunset pictures.  I haven't figured out what setting it needs to be on to capture the coloring in the sky as it really is.  The below picture is the doctored version of a sunset picture we took a couple weeks ago, but I love it.  And yes, I know it's been photoshopped... and the photoshop version is more vivid that it was in real life, but I still love it.  The more I practice the better things will look, right?

And last, but definitely not least, we got to have dinner with one of my best friends from High School.  It's always fun to get together, and we never do it enough, considering our parents still live 5 minutes away from each other.  Fun fact about us.... I introduced her to her husband in 10th grade... and she introduced me to mine at a singles ward blood drive the summer after freshman year at college.  I didn't even realize that until she pointed it out last time we got together.  Weird, huh?  Her sister lives 20 minutes from me, so I was thrilled to get a dinner invite while they were in the states visiting family (they are currently living in Fiji... glamorous, huh?)  And her older sister, who'd I'd never met before, is super cool, too. 

Stay tuned for a post on Halloween... I just need to edit more pics... I hope it doesn't take me another two weeks to do it, or pretty soon I will be just as behind on blogging as I am with my scrapbooking.

Q & A

Thanks for all the feedback and fun questions to answer!!! Here we go:



From Lexie:

Who do you like musically, any favorite groups/artists?

I will be the first to admit I'm totally lame when it comes to keeping up with current music trends, bands, etc. For at least a 2 year stint, I listened to nothing but what was currently playing on Radio Disney... yeah, pathetic, I know.... Probably my favorite current band is Coldplay. I love all their albums and their sound... so much like U2 which was my generation in high school. My favorite CD of all time is the Les Miserables soundtrack from the Broadway Musical. I went to see that in my junior year (I think) and fell in love. I've loved that CD ever since and can sing the lyrics to every single song. A new music favorite is Mamma Mia... I don't have the soundtrack CD yet, but I love to turn on the movie while I'm cleaning house... it's the perfect sing-a-long movie for housework!



From Stacey:

How old were you when you had your first real kiss?

I'm not exactly sure on the age (somwhere around my 15th birthday)... I do remember who it was with and where it was... which puts me in 10th grade... after a friday night football game... with Edwin Wells... I think he was a lot of girls first kiss back in the days...



From Melissa:

Do you have a favorite author? Book?

Nailing down a favorite author is really hard for me. I LOVE to read and could list many authors as being my favorite! Some authors that I love include:

Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, Orson Scott Card, J.K. Rowling and Gail Carson Levine. Currently my favorite book is still Twilight. I know it's my favorite, because I can sit down and read it again and again and never get bored of it.



From my mom:

Did you ever sneak out at night when you lived at home?

NO! Even though I had the perfect tree outside the window... NOT! I do remember sneaking out of a friends house once in 8th grade (?) and walking around her neighborhood in the middle of the night. We only did that once... and clearly I never ran into any serial murderers and lived to tell the tale. It was actually very boring, so there was never any temptation to do it again.



From my dad:

How many times a week do you check our blog?

The simple answer is whenever I'm online. The complicated answer is this.... I keep most of my blogs organized in Google Reader. Except you "private" bloggers... Google reader doesn't like those ones! I read most blogs almost daily, but don't actually visit the real blog page unless I plan to leave a comment. And then sometimes I do try to leave comments and google thwarts my attempts and I get frustrated if it erases my comment without saving it so I give up and move on. I don't comment as much if I've gone a few days inbetween blog reading... the more I have piled up to read, the less I comment.



From Marisa:

Now that you are Relief Society President, which calling did you like better... R.S. Pres. or Primary President?

Tough call. I'd rather be neither... I just want to be a Nursery leader or a Sunday School Teacher or the Activity Days leader... heck, I'd even be a Den Leader... but... I think Primary President is better... not because it's less work, because it isn't... it might be more work. But, it's easier work. For example, the Primary President doesn't have to plan funerals or do food orders. They get to play with kids and sing songs and be silly and it's okay. I don't get to be silly anymore at church... I miss that sometimes!



From Kayla:

Do you like Arizona better then California???

California will always be home to us. Well, Eric, me, Taylor and Megan consider it home. Ian is iffy and Brayden never lived there, so he'll be a true Arizonan. There are things I like better here than there, but on the whole, given the right circumstances, we've move back to CA in a heartbeat. But, we are adjusting and our blood is thinning, so the summers don't seem as bad as they did when we first moved. I could see us living here a very long time, but we're not so in love that we won't move somewhere else given the right opportunity.



From Sheri:

O.k. Currently, who is your favorite kid?

This was a tough one... I've thought about it all day. Then, I zeroed in on the word "currently" and I'm going to go with the 3 year old. I don't think I've ever appreciated this age before. Perhaps because it's my last one, I am more tolerant and appreciative of their quirks... or perhaps I now have 2 teenagers and 3 seems like a piece of cake compared to hormones, acne and mood swings... either way, I just love "chatting" with Brayden. Tonight while we ate dinner, he told me this elaborate story (of which I only really understood about half) about "my dad... went down the mountain and crashed in the snow... into a snowman... and...." it went on and on. It was so dang cute! And if you could have seen the gestures and sound effects to go with the story you would have cracked up!



From Elise:

If you could be any celebrity, who would it be and why?

This was the hardest question for me to think up an answer to. I'm just not into keeping tabs on celebrities in real life, etc. So, my answer will probably seem totally lame and as soon as I hit the "publish post" button, I'll think up a way better answer, I'm sure, but... here's what I can come up with at present... I think I'd like to be Stephenie Meyer. She took a "hobby" and wrote a novel for her sister, not intending to get it published and when she did get it published it became this amazing cult phenomenon. I'd love to have that kind of talent to share with the world... and then to see your novel be made into a movie... that would just be awesome!



From Karen:

If you weren't able to have any kids of your own, would you have adopted and how many would you have wanted?

I definately would have adopted. No question. I always knew I wanted four kids from the beginning. Seemed like a good compromise between my family (2 kids) and Eric's family (7 kids). If I had been forced to adopt I don't know if I would have pushed for all four... hard to say, and I'm grateful I never had to walk that road. I don't think I'm strong enough to handle it!

From Mandi:

If you could ask a question to three people who have died, who would you pick and what would you ask each one?

Hitler: How does it feel to be burning for all eternity?
Heath Ledger: Did you get to watch the Oscars?
My Grandpa K: Is there chocolate in Heaven?

From Heidi:
If you could relive any moment in life (in which you made a mistake) how would you relive it and why?

There are lots of moments I wish I could relive, but one that still haunts me is this: a couple years ago, I was at church, in the library and having a horrible day. I had really been annoyed by someone and their behavior and a friend, sensing my bad mood, prodded until I came out with it. Next thing I know, I'm ranting and raving about this person and their actions and then it hits me... they could be standing just outside the door listening in. I never saw them, but it still bugs me that I never resolved it. If I knew they had overheard, I would have gone to them and apologized. If they didn't overhear, then it didn't seem appropriate to bring up my grievances with them at that point. I still don't know if the wrong ears overheard me and it makes me sick everytime I think about it.

And one last one from both Carol and Karen:

How do you get those cute circle buttons on your sidebar?

It's super easy, once you know how to find them. If you have access to flair on Facebook, then you can get them. If you don't have flair, let me know and I'll send you some. Once you can look into the flair database, just find a flair button you like, right click on it, select "save picture as" and save it to your hard drive. Then you can pull it up and use it on blogger anywhere you can post a photo. Does that make sense???

Homesick

Every once in a while, my kids get homesick for California. It's hard to blame them, we did live in the very best part of California that there is. Great climate, great schools, great location, great ward.... with lots and lots of kids... we had a huge Primary and Youth program... over 100 active kids. We all have times when we miss Dublin, even me... sniff, sniff...

I don't understand why, but since we've moved here my kids can't seem to make (and hold onto) any really good friends. Don't get me wrong, they have LOTS of friends... Taylor's texting bill every month proves that to be true. They seem to know everyone. All the kids seem to like them. But close friends... tight friends... even best friends... those experiences are alluding my kids. I don't know what to do about it. I really don't... and it makes me sad.

Is it too much to ask for a stalwart, outgoing family to move into our neighborhood (preferably from out of state) that has a 14 year old boy and an 11/12 year old girl? Is that too much to ask? It certainly seems like it...