24th of July

Matt had the day off for the 24th of July, but he was going on a long bike ride, so I decided to take the kids to the parade with my Mom and Pam and her grandkids. We got there and found great seats. The parade was pretty good, but a bit slow at first because I swear they had a block between each entry in the parade. The kids hounded my Mom for food and toys from the vendors, and then cried when they saw the next vendor had something better (a little embarrassing). We had to leave a little before it was over because we were heading over to meet the Gloeckner girls at St. Anne's Homeless Shelter to serve some food to the homeless. The kids had a good time and hopefully learned a little about life for others less fortunate. The patrons enjoyed seeing the kids serve the food. Addy was serving the dessert, Alex was pineapples, Connor was coleslaw, and Cassy was mashed potatoes. Addy could hardly keep her fingers in the gloves they were so big! At one point someone called Alex a "mam" and he was not happy about it. Luckily the next guy said, "Thanks, little dude!" That night we had Grandpa Cola over for dinner to celebrate the holiday.

I so hope that my kids understand how important it is to serve others. I feel like we are always going over this. The other day I was saying something to Cassy about possibly moving so that the kids could attend some better schools and have better influences in their lives, when she reminded me that life is not always about serving people who are homeless and sometimes it is about befriending people and being kind to people who don't have a lot of kindness in their lives. I just hope that my kids can do this and still remember who they are.

The Blondies plus 1 Brownie Camp Out in the Back Yard

Alex keeps asking if we can sleep outside with Biscuit, but it is usually on a really windy or rainy day. The other night he lucked out and the weather was perfect. Matt was trying to get out of it by saying we should do it when we had it planned out ahead of time. But my motto is more the "no better time than the present", so Alex, Addy and I started to make preparations. At first I thought we could just sleep on the lawn and keep it simple, but then the idea of waking up to a snake warming itself next to my body in the night started to make me nervous so we opted to do the tent. We haven't used that thing in a couple of years. It was fun to get it out and brought back lots of camping memories of us putting it up in the middle of the night using flash lights. Luckily this time we just turned on the outdoor lights to the house and put it up in no time. Once we had the sleeping bags arranged, Matt (who had come out to stake down the tent) plopped on the sleeping bag and thought he might stay. Although, he would not let Biscuit in the tent and she was one of the main reasons Alex wanted to sleep out, so Matt was kicked out so that Biscuit could come in. And in she came, she thought the best spot to sleep would be right on top of me, breathing her dog breath right in my face. Eventually we were able to get her off and into her own spot and she snuggled in with us for the rest of the night. Connor also joined us once the work of putting up the tent was done and he stayed the night. Totally fun! I could have used a little pad for a cushion, though!

One more year of being in his 30's....

We had lots of fun celebrating Matt's birthday this year! He was out of town at a Capital Reef Classic Road Race until the evening of his birthday, but when he came back we celebrated with cherry pie and homemade ice cream. Jake and Crystal McMillan came over to have some pie with us. Part of the fun was the surprise gift we bought for Matt. I asked my mom and Wayne and Madilyn to go in on his gift this year. Usually our birthday money is earmarked for family expenditures, like vacations, trees, or a grill or something. But this year I wanted to get something that would be just for Matt. He has been wanting some dr. dre headphones, but they cost $300, which is a serious splurge and not something we usually do. With everyone pooling money we were able to get them as a surprise. Right before we gave them to him, Addy asked if she could tell him about the restaurant (we were taking him to Five Guys, his favorite, that just opened in Ogden), but he thought she said "wristwatch", which isn't something he would be overly excited about... Anyway, he was expecting a wristwatch and was so surprised to see we had bought him the headphones. It was totally not on his radar at all, the best kind of surprise!

Then Monday night, we celebrated with his family and everyone went to see Harry Potter at the Junction. It is the final movie and we were especially excited to see it after our movie marathon! Before the show we all met at Five Guys (another surprise) and it was kind of crazy because they were having the horse and hitch parade for the 24th of July and the streets were all closed. Good thing we planned on dinner or we would have been way late to the movie! All in all it was tons of fun. Every year Matt's birthday rolls around, he gets into a funk that he is getting old and that this year he was going to be in the best shape of his life. I think this year he has done it. He has been riding his bike quite a bit and lifting weights as much as possible. He looks great, to the point that people keep asking him if he has lost a ton of weight (some have even suggested 60 lbs). It is so funny because he has always weighed about the same give or take 5-10 pounds or so. He gets so offended:) I am lucky to have him for my husband and my kids are so lucky to have such a great dad. He would do anything for anyone and is always trying to show us how much he loves us through little acts of service. Happy 39th Honey!

The Visa Glitch

I ran into a website this week that gave out some more detailed info on getting a visa to live in Spain longer than 90 days. I knew it would be a long and difficult process, but apparently there are some costs that I didn't know about. It cost their family of four almost $6000 to get the visa! Some of the unknowns are international health insurance (about $2,000 for our stay with a deductible of $10,000) and lots of fees for papers and translation services. I am feeling overwhelmed by the cost. Plus you have to have all of your ducks in a row before you go (rental agreement, airline tickets, etc) and you still don't know if they will give you the visa or not. It is making me feel stressed. My gut feeling is telling me to wait until February to go and then stay in Spain for 2 months, then move on to the other Schengen countries I want to visit (Italy, France) and then end in England and come home around mid May. Unfortunately we have already made some pretty solid plans with my mom and Wayne for December in England. My mom is out of town, but hopefully I can speak with her more about it today when she gets back.

Summer Reading

So far, my summer reading has mostly been comprised of reading and studying travel books and blogs and searching for places to stay for our European Adventure. I think half of the fun of going somewhere is the planning. I do hope to leave enough "holes" in the calendar that we have time to just explore and find little treasures on our own, rather than running from place to place. Although, I do like to have an itinerary and some things planned out so that days aren't wasted standing in unnecessary lines and chasing our tails trying to figure things out. It is a lot of work putting a trip of this magnitude together (although it would be much easier if we didn't have a budget:)! So far the best travel guides I have found are the Rick Steve's European Guide Books (one for each country). I feel confident about planning the apartments, hotels, campgrounds, and homes, as well as the airfare and some of the entertainment, but I am feeling uncertain about costs related to getting around. I don't want any expensive unknown costs popping up! Hopefully I can catch up on my book club books while I am lazing about in Spain for three months while my children are in school!

Summer Camp

AAAHHHH!!! Summer camp week. I will be happy to have a little break from the running around and the sibling fights. However, I will miss my kids and my hubby a ton. Connor left this morning for Astro camp. He will spend part of his week at the Astro Camp here in Ogden and a couple of days in Pleasant Grove at another camp (it is all part of one camp). My little man will be gone from Monday to Saturday! I was talking to him about if he gets homesick and he looked at me with a quizzical look and said, "Mom, I am not going to get homesick. Tanner's brother's wife got homesick for japan and so they had to take a trip to Japan. I'm not going to be homesick!" Well, I hope that is true. He wanted to got to the camp with Ford, but they didn't register in time, so he is going it alone. I am so proud of him for being willing to try something so unfamiliar (and for such a long time)! He really is growing up. The tuition for camp is $450 and Connor has almost earned his half that he is required to pay, he just needs another $50. He has been working hard to earn the money. I want to teach my kids that they can do anything they set their minds to if they just work for it. Another idea I hope to instill in my children is the motto, "We do hard things". I read about this on another blog and it summed up how I feel. When you are able to do hard things, you feel such a sense of accomplishment, more than anything else, especially more than if you are just handed an experience. I still remember hiking 10 miles up to Ben Lomond peak when we were at girl's camp and the exhiliration I felt just for sticking with it, when almost everyone else (including my friends) had turned around long ago. Once you learn how to do hard things and overcome obstacles, it is easier to challenge yourself to do other hard things and to accomplish great things in life.

Cassy leaves for our ward Girl's Camp tomorrow. They are going to stay in Island Park and do some fun "roughing it" activities, which I think will be good for Cassidy. She has to have her bags packed and over to her leader's house tonight. There is a pile of laundry the size of Mt. Everest in her closet, I hope she can get it all together in time! Alex and Addy will be going to stay at my mom and Wayne's Tues and Wed night so that they can have their own little camp. And Matt will be leaving for a bike race Thurs through Sat. Like I said, a week of summer camps. It will all wrap up with a birthday celebration for Matt and some fireworks at Weber State on Sunday...

The Ugly Yell

I hate to admit it, but sometimes the ugly yell comes out. If no one is listening and I give the warning that I am about to do the ugly yell, they usually snap right to it. I wish it didn't come to this...I feel like I am usually one of the most patient people in the world (especially with my kids), but every now and then a perfect storm brews and I have reached my limit....this is when the ugly yell rears up. Usually accompanied by a hell or a damn to boot. Being a parent isn't always easy. I pray for patience and peace on a regular basis. I can see that my kids think I am crazy when I get that mad. I wonder if they will ever feel the same way, but deal with it differently? I hope so.....

Fourth of July

This year we were actually home for the Fourth of July celebration, which was a nice change. It seems like we are usually in Jackson Hole or Bear Lake for the 4th. We had a fun BBQ at my mom and Wayne's Sunday night to help kick off the celebration. My cousin Nesha and her family were here from Las Vegas and it is always good to see them when they are in town. Alex and I made the infamous flag cake to take to the party. I asked Alex if he wanted to make it our little tradition to make the cake for the 4th of July and he told me he would be happy to go shopping with me to buy some dessert, but it was way too hard and long to make such a cake. Everyone went on and on about how yummy the cake was, so hopefully he will change his mind! He was quite proud of himself...

On the 4th we went up to the Huntsville Breakfast in the Park celebration. Of course, we were too late to make the breakfast in the park (due to the fact that we had some late night fireworks at Grams and Gramps & also because Matt was doing his weight lifting). But I actually think it worked out better that way. We got there in time to see part of the parade, which the kids LOVED because they were able to catch tons of candy and they had front row action to be totally grossed out by the horses pooping. There was one horse that was kind of nervous...he started rearing up and he was right by the kids! Then we ate some funnel cake (which I had never had) for breakfast. It was yummy and totally bad for you. We played games: cup commando, pirate treasure games, crossbow shooting, and won more pop and prizes. Addy got tatoos. We ran into lots of friends and played at the playground. After that we had yummy burgers for lunch (free with Matt's VIP cards :) We heard the breakfast was extremely crowded and it was chaos, but the lunch was yummy and easy, so it worked out for the best. The only bad part about going was that it made me sad that we didn't buy the Huntsville house we were trying to buy last year. It is in the perfect location and it would be so fun to have a cabin there, even though it isn't very far from home. It is still a dream we have and I can see us celebrating the whole weekend there with friends and going to the 4th of July celebration, then back to the house for a swim, then back to the park for the fireworks. It is the friends and family that make a cabin fun and there is so much to do in Huntsville that we hope someday we can make it happen. We left the celebration and headed to see the movie "Soul Surfer". It was about a girl who lost her arm in a shark attack while surfing, basically a giant sob fest with a really good message. I'm glad my kids got to see it, although Connor says he is never going to try surfing after seeing that! The strongest message from the movie was to have courage and to overcome hard things. I hope my kids picked up on that!

We all came home and Matt and Addy had a long nap (I had a short one). Then we went up in the foothills with the Gloeckners and Grandma and Grandpa to watch the fireworks and eat popsicles. Even better than the fireworks was the beautiful pink and orange sunset! What a beautiful day!

MMMMOOOMMMAAAAA!!!!

This is how Addy usually starts her day. Most nights she starts asking "can I sleep with you?" Some nights we give in, some nights she has to sleep in her own bed. When she sleeps in her own bed with Cassy she always has a contingency plan, "what if I have a nightmare?" Some nights she tries to claim she has had a nightmare before she even goes to sleep.... By morning she is usually snuggling with us in our bed and the first thing she does when she wakes up is call my name and then she rolls up in her sheets and tries to pretend she is still asleep. I love my little Booza, and secretly Matt and I both miss her when she isn't snuggling with us.

p.s. The other day Cassy's friend Miranda was saying how amazed she was with Addy when Addy was a baby and how well she could speak at such a young age. "Remember how when she was a baby she could say encyclopedia?" This brought back a flood of memories! I wish I could remember things better, but I just don't have the gift of a great memory. I so regret that I have not been a consistant blogger or journal keeper while my kids were really little. I did bits and spurts here and there, but it seems like we are always so busy living life and doing fun things that I haven't documented it all like I wish I would have looking back. I have taken TONS of photos and I hope they tell the story of our life together, but it is the little things like Cassy teaching Addy to say "encyclopedia" when she was 9 months old that remind me of the sweet tenderness of the everyday.

Kids Camp! (Back by popular demand)

We are working on earning money toward our big Spanish excursion so we are doing 5 kids camps this summer! Cassy and I made up the flyer and took them around to the neighbors. We are planning on doing a Survivor Camp, Circus Camp, Art Camp, Harry Potter Camp and a Medieval Camp (for knights and princesses). We have already survived (just barely) our first Survivor Camp. The day before camp there were 21 people registered, the morning of camp we ended up with 35 kids showing up. Needless to say I had to make a last minute popsicle run! I wish we had some pictures, but it is so crazy with that many kids taking photos totally slipped my mind. We had some fun crafts, face painting, flag making, endurance challenges, popsicle clue search, water games, water balloons, and the highlight was the food challenge. We had baby food on spoons for everyone to try. There were peas, green beans and sweet potatoes. Everyone had to take a bite and and then secretly guess what they were eating. We had 9 and 10 year old boys throwing up in the garbage can over this (like 3 of them). They were guessing the craziest things....rotten cucumbers, guacamole, cucumber soup and I can't remember the others. I think everyone had fun and we were happy when it was all over.