Camping Adventures

We love to camp even though we haven't gone as a family in about 4 years! I guess with the boys (and now Brendan) in scouts it seems like they get their fill of camping, but Allison and I have really missed it. .

So we had what we like to call a "family reunion" of sorts because we spent the weekend camping with a few friends that we honestly consider family. Each of the kids also got to invite a friend of their choice to come along. Jordan's friend couldn't come at the last minute and neither could the friend of the McGuire's 16 year old son Dillon. They both put on their teenage grumpy faces about having to go on a trip with "mom and dad's" friends. We told them about each other but they thought it would be lame to be forced to hang out with someone they don't know. They hadn't met before but you would never had known that from seeing them together. They found so many things in common and instantly became the best of friends. They both admitted later that they had a ton of fun...what?...teenagers saying that mom and dad were right?

"ONE O'CLOCK CLUB"... details below

SILLY FACE CONTEST
All of the kids had a blast and acted like cousins together. That is especially fun for our kids since all of their cousins are under age 8 (except for 2 that live in Iowa.) They formed a club called the "One o'clock club" referring to 1:00 A.M.! This was open to people between the ages of 13 to 17 only! Meetings began around the campfire each night after all the parents went to bed. This was not a meeting of hushed secrets since the tent sites within a 1/2 mile could hear all that went on. What is it with the volume of teenagers? They cracked up over silly jokes & stories, exploded things in the fire, and had the time of their lives. I was impressed that the boys walked the girls to their tents each night too! Then they separated into the boys tent and the girls tent, where the laughs continued.


It wasn't the greatest camping spot at Diamond Fork, but it was all we could reserve at the last minute. We made the best of it though. Between us all we had a four wheeler and a couple of motorcycles which we took out for a ride on Saturday afternoon. We thought it would be a two mile ride up to the trails, but we ended up driving for about an hour trying to find not only ATV trails, but a shady picnic spot for us "non=riders." We ended up in a little shady area decorated with cow pies everywhere. Not the best place to have lunch, but it was the best we could do and we can now laugh about it.
Highlights included Charades of movie titles around the campfire, Richard's Pert shampoo commercial, Brendan's Haka, and listening to Brian Regan jokes from Jordan's I-pod broadcast on Brandy's I-home each night. If you haven't heard of Brian Regan you are missing out! Smores, dutch oven pineapple upside down cake, tin foil dinners, sourdough pancakes, cowboy potatoes...we all contributed to some really fantastic food. A special thanks goes to our great husbands for going down a few miles to cook our steaks on grills since our campsite didn't have any. Thanks to Ryan for teaching the kids an old Indian stick game. It's amazing how much fun kids can have with a tin can, sticks, and a little imagination!

We bonded like you only can out in the beauty of nature! The kids are all looking forward to making this a tradition each year and are already talking about how much fun we are going to have next summer when Lake Powell is our planned destination!

Over the hill...not!

We had so much fun celebrating Brendan's 40th this past week! I felt the pressure, put on only by myself, to do something extra special for him this year. I had watched Brendan create a slideshow for Jake's Eagle court of honor so I tried to remember what he did and do one for him! I spent Sunday evening scanning all the photos I could find of him as a baby and of us dating. I had to do this right after we got home from camping and thankfully Brendan was exhausted and took a long nap! Monday morning I gave him some boring gifts of clothes that he needed to kind of throw him off for the day. I spent 3 hours that morning after he left for work frantically trying to figure out how to add music to the slideshow and how to make it to a DVD. I took several years off my life from all the stress I gave myself, but I finally got it. He wasn't expecting that I would drive up to his office with the kids to bring him black balloons, golf clubs, and 40 golf balls. The kids and I tried taping the balls to form a cake with tees for the candles, but after several failed attempts, we bagged that idea and put them in a gift bag. So after going up to surprise him at work, we all went out to lunch at Famous Dave's (it was HIS birthday afterall so no "girlie" place would do.) We discussed going to see the new Batman movie at night and he was really excited about that. We knew all along, of course, that there would be no movie but hopefully a full on surprise party that night. Jake came up with the idea of going golfing to get Brendan out of the house for a few hours. They got on at about 5:00 and I told Jake that if they finished golfing before 7:00 that he would have to pretend to be sick and hide out in the golf course bathrooms until 7:00. He was so cute! He said that he felt just terrible about lying to his Dad all day and that it just wasn't right. I told him that he was right and we shouldn't lie, but today was an exception and that we could repent later :0! I made a homemade German chocolate cake and so did his mom...his absolute favorite! Even Jordan (and his buddy Jordan) made him a cake...almost 18 and his first attempt at baking a cake didn't turn out too bad!
We had all of his family over and a few neighbors and friends gather in the living room and on our stairs to shout SURPRISE as he came in. He really thought we were going to the movies and even called from the golf course to make sure Jordan met us there in case he was running late. Brendan is impossible to surprise. He guesses the end of every movie and book and I have NEVER been able to surprise him, but I think this time it worked. We all had dessert together, watched the DVD of his life photos so far, and had a fun time celebrating his 40th! Our family is so lucky and blessed to have Brendan lead and guide us and we can't wait to see what the next 40 years brings us! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETS! I LOVE YOU!

Sacrament Talk

You know you are old when your "baby" is old enough to give her very first talk in Sacrament meeting! Yep, Allison spoke today and did a great job! She happens to be good friends with our Bishop's daughter so she got cornered while playing at their house, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. She spoke on Agency and Making Good Choices. She spent several hours on Friday and Saturday preparing her talk. We were just really impressed that she wrote the whole thing herself, looked up scriptures, and even borrowed Brendan's timer to time herself giving her talk (to herself) to make sure it was close to 5 minutes like the Bishop asked. She said it took her about 5 minutes after she was done to stop shaking. Her voice was understandably nervous sounding, but more surprising was how much she sounds like me! Not really sure if that's good or bad.

Coolest cake ever!

We haven't had much exciting things going on around here the last few weeks (other than working on pulling our weeds for 7 hours straight last Saturday!) So I thought I would post a photo of one of the most creative cakes I have ever seen. My brother and sister in law threw the coolest Star Wars party for my little nephew Gavin's 6th birthday (see details on Carlos and Julie link on my sidebar). Unfortunately we couldn't be there since they live in California. Julie made an amazing cake that would be a dream come true for any Star Wars fan at any age. She said that you can't tell from the photo, but she even put dry ice for smoke coming out of the volcano. Hope you don't mind Julie, but I just had to show this off. Way to go!

4th of July 2008

No, we didn't go to the Stadium of Fire (we couldn't even get into the website before the tickets were sold out), but we spent the day with Brendan's side of the family doing our yearly traditions. Tank wars, BBQ, lots of snaps for the little kids, climbing up the hill across the street at Timpview High School to see the Stadium of Fire fireworks, and then staying up till midnight doing our own "Cul-de-sac of fire." (We did miss Joe's homemade rootbeer though...what happened with that?) I think that Brendan's brothers get more into the 4th of July than they do even Christmas. We had SO MANY fireworks and had about 5-6 people lighting them for a non stop one hour show! The grand finale was great. Their neighbors brought out ice cream cones for the whole cul-de-sac which was a really nice treat. It was a LONG day, but I think it was another fun year that everyone will remember for a long time!

Tank Wars!

I know the 4th of July is for remembering our country's independance, parades, fireworks, and family BBQ's, but in our family it's the time where all the guys (and a few girls) get to build their best tank creation (just another word for "bomb") and duel it out to the death! This year was the best one ever! The process involves a lot of duct tape, crackling balls, tanks, and whatever else they can find that will fire and explode toward the enemy! It's an artform that the guys work on improving each year! We have to say that we were all impressed, intimidated, and scared with Dan and Toby's triple decker!

We went to the church parking lot right behind Brendan's parents' house because we weren't sure how big the explosion would be and we had to be away from all cars just to be safe. Jordan was excited to have beat out his opponent, but I don't really get how they decide who wins since everything just gets fried crispy in the end. I caught the finale on video.

Canyon time fun

It's such a rare evening where we are all together anymore, let alone have a few fun cousins visiting from Arizona that we decided to go up the canyon for some food, hiking, and fun! El Pollo Loco just opened up their first Utah location by Costco so this was a perfect opportunity to get some take out. We stopped by a picnic area up American Fork canyon and the kids had fun climbing on the rocks, sliding down the rocks, throwing rocks, etc. What is it with kids and rocks? After a few mandatory photos by mom, we decided to hike up the Timp Cave trail for the views even though we knew we were too late to get a tour through the cave. We came across a scary lady on the trail who was all by herself and started chatting away like we were her best friends. It looked like she hadn't combed her hair in months and she was carrying a little bag of garbage which I thought was stuff she was cleaning up along the trail. Then we noticed her car in the parking lot and saw that it was completely packed with junk and garbage! So I guess she was collecting souvenirs! It was the most beautiful weather ever and we rode back home with all the windows and sunroof open listening to Jordan's I-pod songs! It was so nice to be together even if for just one evening!

Our handsome Eagle Scout!

Jake received his Eagle Scout rank last Sunday at a Court of Honor just for him! He had been gone all week at Scout Camp so Brendan and I missed him even more as we were busy looking through his scrapbooks for pictures for his slideshow. It's been a long road, but one that Jake has really embraced. A few people commented that it takes an active mom to get their boy to an Eagle, but I really can't take much credit. Ya, I organized a few things for Jake, but he really did it all without much help and without any nagging. He's a great little worker and prioritizer. It was a great evening with family and friends.


It almost didn't happen though. Jake got home from Scout camp Saturday morning completely sick. We had been up at the camp Friday for family night and after seeing the mucky lake that they swam in all week, I'm not surprised! He was sick (you know, coming out both ends sick) all day Saturday and Sunday. Brendan gave him a blessing to be able to make it to his Court of Honor. I just prayed all day that he could be better for just an hour. At about 6:30, he felt well enough to get up and get dressed. He was able to feel fine to really enjoy his night and gave a great talk. As soon as it was over and we were having refreshments he started feeling sick again so Jordan drove him home while we cleaned up and he was sick for a few more days, but for that hour at least, he was fine!

One of the cutest moments was when Jake gave flashlights to his next oldest cousins on both sides, Noah and Toby. He challenged them to continue the tradition and get their own Eagles and one day pass the flashlights on in the family.

Good Wife, Even Better Husband

My sister in law, Julie, suggested that I do this test that she had on her blog to see how we match up to a 1930's housewife. Now I am absolutely no Martha Stewart, but I am a homebody and LOVE to be home cleaning, organizing, and doing laundry (I know I have a thing with that). But just don't look too closely at my toilets and tubs! I guess I would have been alright back in the 30's considering it was the depression era and it seems like we're in it all over again with the ridiculous gas and food prices. Take the test below as it only takes about 2 minutes and see how you do.

75 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

What I love is that there is a different set of questions for men. I knew Brendan would score off the charts because he really is one in a million! So while I had a respectable score, his was amazing.

145 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

What can I say...I'm a lucky wife! He is very efficient at everything he does and when there is something that needs to be done he just gets it done. He works really hard at work, but he's not one to linger around the office. He enjoys being home just like me. He helps me with the dishes every night and is Mr. Handy. There is nothing that he can't fix from cars to washing machines, from roofs to electronics...he even fixed my mom's sewing machine once. He coaches the boy's football teams and loves to watch chick flicks with me (ok, maybe not "loves" but certainly "likes"). He enjoys plays and dance concerts almost as much as he enjoys sporting events. He'll take Jake golfing, Allison to the movies, and Jordan to Jazz games. Every Saturday morning we get in his car and have what we have come to affectionately call "our weekly date." We go to Costco, fill up on gas, buy a few things there, go to Walmart to finish up our grocery list, then go to Kohlers to buy bread for the sacrament (since that is part of his calling as YM 1st counselor and the ward has an account there.) If we are lucky we will sometimes get a drink or hot dog at Costco to split. It's our thing to share a drink everywhere we go. Sometimes we'll even venture out to Orem on special errands. I know you are all jealous of our romantic weekend tradition, but it's our time to catch up and we have come to really look forward to it. Movies and eating out are much more fun with our kids so we rarely do that alone. I've loved Brendan since I was in high school, but I adore him to pieces now. I am so blessed to be loved back by this amazing man!

New Summer "Do"

Allison decided that she needed a change and that her hair was just getting way too long. So we gave Lauren a call and wah-lah! Here is her new look. She got about 5 inches cut off and Lauren put in a few highlights for a sun-kissed look for the summer. Allison is in heaven and having fun doing her own hair, for the first time ever, finally! (I know it looks like she went out and got a tan too, but she didn't. It must have been the lighting).

Princess Bows

I have been doing hairbows as my little home business for 11 years this month and I have never taken a picture of me doing them until now! Anyway, here are a few pictures of me putting together my latest order.

Here I am putting on barrettes after spending several days making the bows. This is the fun part.
Sorting through the piles of bows to put them on cards and box them up.
Here is an order all boxed up and ready to ship.

It has been such a blessing through the years to be able to have a second income (kind of) and still be able to be home with my kids and not miss a thing. I can even do them on long car trips! When I first had Allison, a good friend of mine used to make bows and I would go to her and have her make one for each outifit for my little princess (hence the name Princess Bows). Soon after, she moved out of state to be a nanny and I was beside myself as to what I would do for custom made hairbows for my baby. I was also looking for a way to supplement our income. I had quit my fulltime job at WordPerfect soon after Jake was born. I had been doing daycare to help pay the bills since then, but it was not my cup of tea at all! So I had Elisa teach me how to make bows before she left (mainly for Allison) and then I thought to approach the store that she had been supplying, but was now leaving behind. I got an order immediately from the Lindon Kid to Kid. I was so excited! That is, until I went home and realized that there was no way that I could possible fill the order! I was not experienced enough to put together so many bows. I was seriously freaking out and in tears. I was about to call them and say, "Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking..." when Brendan was so great to encourage me and help me to do it all. Yes, he helped me make bows...other than giving birth, there is absolutely NOTHING that he can't do. But that is a whole other post. I LOVE MY SWEETIE! Anyway, long story short, I did my first order and it took me about two weeks. Now I could do it in about 2-3days. I remember my fingers and hands hurt so bad at first that I could barely turn a doorknob! I don't know if it's a good thing or a sad thing that I can do them with my eyes practically closed now. I have stayed up late many times and have made many bows half asleep. I ended up getting business from most of the Kid to Kid stores in the franchise which at one point kept me extremely busy! If it wasn't for the help of my mom and my old neighbor Michele (she's not old, she just moved :), I would have never survived! Sometimes I have been so busy that I get a little stir crazy sitting in front of my card table doing bows day after day after day. There is only so much TV I can stand! But it's kind of sad that my bow business has really been dwindling lately. There is just a lot of change in ownership in all of my stores and the competition is a lot harder to keep up with. It's been an adjustment to try to live on one income again, but we'll figure it out. Brendan and I are resourceful and have always been blessed to make ends meet. I hope to be able to keep it up enough that I can hand it down to Allison when she enters the stage in life where her little princes and princesses need her at home with them. It's been a long hard road sometimes full of its own problems and pains, but it has also been one of the biggest blessings in our family. I'm not ready to go back to the real world's workplace even though my kids are all older now. It seems that they need me more now than when they were little and I'm not ready to leave them either. But I'm always at my best when I have a million things going on so I'm sure I will find my next project or adventure before too long.

My little chef

Ok, he's not so little anymore, but he's still my little Jakers. I love that Jake always wants to help me in the kitchen whether I'm baking cookies or making tacos. He's always there eager to learn and ready to do whatever. He's going to have a very happy wife someday! So last Sunday I decided to try cinnamon rolls again. I only do them once or twice a year because they are so much work and usually don't turn out very good. Jake was there ready to volunteer. Using the floss to cut them was a first for him and he thought I was kidding when I showed him how to use it. He pretty much did the whole thing by himself with just a little guidance from me on the sidelines. They were fantastic!

Here we go...

This is from Brendan...

Leslie opened the newspaper Thursday, turned to the sports page and was greeted by this picture of Jordan at football practice. He's been doing great and will most likely be the starting quarterback this year. He will also play safety on the defense and even receiver sometimes. He's been looking forward to this year for a long time and is very hopeful for a good season. I told him Thursday night to be ready for the onslaught from the local newspaper. They will print good and bad about him this season. He needs to have a thick skin and just concentrate on doing his best, not worrying about what some reporter thinks. Here we go, this is the start of it. It's a cool little article about student athletes still working hard at school, practicing their sports over the summer. Football season starts when school gets out for us. Jordan lifts weights Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday's at 7am and he walks through offensive plays, watches film, and runs Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 9pm. On Saturdays he has 7 on 7 tournaments at every major college in the State and football camp in July. He'll also be running a football camp for the youth football program with some of the other seniors (It's very weird calling him a "senior"). Working at the car wash and going out with friends are how he fills the rest of his time. What a busy kid. We NEVER see him anymore. But what a FUN time of life he is in. Enjoy it Jordan, it will be over before you know it.

Family Preparedness

After weeks of preparation and planning, we were finally able to come together as a family to assemble our 72 hour kits. We live in such an amazing neighborhood and I was inspired by a goal that we set as friends to get our supplies and get ready! I thought we kind of had ones already only to discover that the only thing I was able to salvage from them were a few toothbrushes and combs. Why would anyone have a can of "potted meat product" in their kits. I wouldn't have fed our nasty stuff to a dog! Obviously it was time to re-do them after 10 years or so...even our lotion was spoiled. I won't let that happen again. I now have a plan and real stuff! I spent several days researching and organizing what we needed, where to buy it, what to do with it, how to rotate it, and how to pay for it. I won't go into the long story, but let me just say that our Heavenly Father really blessed us to do this. We have been really tight lately in the finance department, but miracles fell into place to allow this to happen. It was wonderful!
I could have just assembled each person's backback, but I felt that it was important that everyone do their own so they know exactly what's in it, what it's all for, and how to use it. I labeled plastic ziploc bags of different sizes with all of it's contents and then each person filled them up.

It was actually kind of fun! Jake said that it felt like Christmas. They were especially excited when I showed them the rotation schedule and when they get to eat the food that we put away so that it stays fresh. I know it's meant to sustain us for 72 hours, but in "real life" it's just a few snacks that will be devoured in a day!
I told them that even though it's kind of fun to do this and it was a lot of work to put it all together, I hope that we NEVER have to use any of it.

Yikes!

Last Friday night was our ward's father and sons campout. Jake had been looking forward to it all week! He was packed and ready to go when Brendan got home from work (it's just kind of an unspoken fact that Jordan has football all summer and won't be at many family events.) So they packed up the car, headed for KFC to pick up dinner and went to join in on the fun. Allison and I were having a girls night and reading together in my bed when we heard commotion downstairs at about 11:00 pm. Jake ran up the stairs and ran straight to his bathroom to wash up. Brendan was getting some Benadryl and came up to tell us that Jake was sufferring from a major allergic reaction to the grasses and pollen at the campground. He had been playing night games for hours in the fields and had been rubbing his eyes which made them even worse. They were so swollen that he could barely open them. Thank goodness the campout was just five minutes from home. I told Jake that he looked like Rocky Balboa after a fight! He could hardly see himself in the mirror and asked me to take a picture. Even in the deepest despair, boys just love to see their battle wounds, don't they? The picture doesn't show how bad he really looked. He washed up, took out his contacts, took his medicine and they were off again. He wasn't about to let a little thing like eyes swollen shut prevent him from missing out on the campout of the year!

Flashback or Flashdance?

Allison's 6th grade group did their dance festival routine to "The Evolution of Dance" which was made popular on You Tube. Anyway, they asked the kids to dress in clothes from the 50's, 60', 70's or 80's! Of course Allison "forgot" to show me the paper with all the details. She remembered to tell me about it literally 15 minutes before she was walking out the door to school that morning! She didn't want to wear her 50's costume because she had just worn it for the music program. So I started racking my brain and remembered that I had a box of all my old dance clothes from high school at the bottom of my closet somewhere. We ran up the stairs and tore through the boxes until we found it. You can't get more authentic than REAL 80's clothes. I found an old headband, leg warmers, parachute pants, and off the shoulder leotard. She was cracking up at the thought of people actually doing their hair in a high side ponytail. I went on many dates with my hair like that. SAD! I didn't have the "flashdance" sweatshirt so we found an old sweatshirt of Allison's that she never wears and put the scissors in action! Wa-la! Instant 80's outfit in 10 minutes! Another "Whew" moment --done! The only things we were missing were the Reebok high tops and big plastic earrings! I was so busy video taping the dance that I wasn't able to do pictures too. I got a few afterwards inside the school. Oh what we moms do to capture these memories!