American Idol 2009

Some seasons of American Idol are definitely better than others. This years was one of our favorites ever. Unfortunately our top choice ,Danny, came in third and our next choice, Adam ,came in second. But we knew it was a season worth going to the concert. We got tickets on-line the second they went on sale.

We had it circled on our calendar for a few months. Then Brendan needed to have surgery on both hands to fix his carpal tunnel problems. He scheduled his first of two surgeries for the morning of the concert!! I told him that wasn't a good idea, but he said he'd be fine. Ok.....but it won't be, I thought to myself.

The morning of July 15th came and the hospital called that his surgery was scheduled for 1:00 PM. Kinda pushing it, I thought again. We got to the hospital and the doctor had an emergency come up that delayed Brendan's surgery to 3:00. Great....there's no way we'll make it to the concert now. His surgery went well and he was in post-op by 3:45. Now the hard part for him...recovery. After being through 5 knee surgeries with Brendan I know how hard it is for him to come out of anesthesia. He is always violently sick and it takes him hours to stabalize enough to get released. We only had 2 hours until we needed to be on our way to the concert. He acted extremely loopy and funny and drugged up....not normal for him at all. He seemed to be ok enough to be released by about 5:30. But then the fun began. He got sick in the car and couldn't move by the time we pulled up in the garage. He basically crawled into the house and made it as far as the couch. He insisted that I go up and get his clothes to change, bring him some nausea medicine and that he would be fine.

We left for the concert at 6:30 with a puke bowl in tow. Oh.....the things we do sometimes. It was up to me to get our whole family up to the E center in 30 minutes during traffic safely. Are you kidding me? Me? The one who doesn't drive past 7200 south--ever!

Made it just in time! By intermission poor Brendan was finally himself again and we all enjoyed the concert so much. We met the Gledhills up there and had fun spending that time with them. Too bad we couldn't do dinner or more fun before. Everyone of the finalists were amazing. Even the ones that weren't that great on the show did a great job at the concert. The anticipation for Danny and Adam were too much. We loved them!!! Kris was the American Idol winner, but Adam really stole the show. That is until he took off his jacket and wore only a vest and started acting a little too gay for my comfort. Awesome performer though!

It was fun to have Nicole come with us since we bought her a ticket back in May before "the breakup." We weren't sure how that would all work out. We all had a good time together. After the concert we grabbed some burgers (Brendan was finally hungry). Jordan and Nicole drove separately and went to a late dinner and then to the midnight show of Harry Potter. Oh, to be young again and be able to function on a few hours sleep....those were the days of a LONG AGO. Crazy day for all of us, but what a great memory!

Kari's Cabin Fun

My good friend Kari and her family have a cabin at sundance that we have been going to since we were in Young Women's together way back when......It's more of a little cottage really, but it has many great memories and I'm so glad that our own children have been able to have spent so much time there together. This year we happened to have Brendan's cousins boys with us and we all had a great time! We brought our lunch and met her at her parent's house which is up Provo Canyon in Springdell. It's just as great as the cabin with all of it's rustic charm and the fabulous pond out front.

The kids spent hours in the freezing water. We had lunch under the huge trees and played some more. Then we all drove up the few minutes to Sundance and went to the cabin for dinner and more fun. The kids went on a hike down to the Sundance Resort to buy suckers. It was so nice to have older ones to lead the way so us old fogeys could just relax inside. Jordan and Savana were the tour guides and did a great job with all the little ones.

Here is a fun video of Jake and Jordan having a hot dog eating contest. No, it wasn't to see how many each could eat....they decided to just see who could eat one the fastest.

It was funny to see how cute little Gates became Jordan's shadow for the rest of the evening. Notice how she just has her little feet up on his leg like they are just the best of friends.

Jordan was getting over a cold/cough and ended up taking a nap on the couch while the rest of us went out to make smores. I caught Gates sitting next to him pulling up a blanket and tucking it under his chin. Is that the cutest little thing or what?

We had a busy week ahead and weren't able to spend the night, but it sure was great to spend the day with good friends!

(July 8, 2009)

Uintah's Camping Trip

July 10 - 12, 2009

Kind of a last hurrah before the Peden's moved to Arizona (sadness) we decided to all go camping together with the McGuires. Not the Peden's favorite activity, but the kids all have so much fun that everyone decided it would be worth it. Well, maybe except for Richard who put on a half smile and tried to have fun amidst the bugs, the dirt, the sleeping accomodations in a tent, and the smoky campfire.

We took a day trip up the canyon a bit further and ended up at Provo River Falls. How can I have lived in Utah for 30 years and never seen this amazing place!!! It was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. We spent a few hours walking and hiking all around the many waterfalls and taking lots of great pictures. Each of the boys came to the conclusion that it was a perfect spot for a proposal in the future....the far future, right?

We ate lunch at this fun little diner, but I think they saw the size of our group and the rowdiness of our kids and seated us outside on a nice, but private deck out back. We had a boys table, a girls table, and the grown ups sat in the middle table trying to dodge spit balls between them.

The food was great and we were stuffed, but the boys went for the challenge of eating The Pig Trough which was a ginormous banana split. They ate the whole thing in just a couple minutes!

We walked around Mirror Lake a little unprepared for the chilly temperatures that the higher altititudes brought. I had one jacket and two very cold girls. This was how they ended up walking most of the way......

We camped right by the river in a beautiful little spot where the kids spent hours throwing rocks and exploring. Our nights were filled with amazing food, games of charades by the fire, and marshmallow roasting.

The kids had a blast telling jokes and being goofy and renaming The 1:00 club from last year to The 6:00 club this year. That means that they stayed up until 6 am and THEN went to bed for a few hours until their tents got too warm in the morning sun. Crazy, but super fun memories!

(Emily Peden, Dillon McGuire, Kennedy McAvoy, Jordan Smith, Cameron Jeffers, Jake Smith, Sarah Richey) A.K.A. "The 6 o'clock Club"

Farewell Richard, Debra, and Emily! We will miss you so much. Thank you for the many, many years of wonderful memories. We hope that we can continue our traditional annual family trip, maybe not always to the mountains, but always with some of our favorite people.

4th of July 2009

It may be over a month late, but I couldn't not post about the best family holiday of the year! And this year was better than ever because everyone was together (except for Joel) for the first time in years! The cousins played all day long, we ate tons of yummy food including homemade root beer, we had a great patriotic devotional, our traditional tank wars were a hit, young and old played steal the flag for hours and hours (and kept playing until sprained ankles, blistered feet, and a broken nose finally forced a cease fire), stadium of fire fireworks were enjoyed up on the hill across the street, but had nothing on the 2 hour non stop cul-de-sac of fire that all the family pyro boys put on to end the day. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, enjoy the millions of words that are about to follow. Thanks to everyone for all the fabulous memories!

Allison loves her cousins little and big. Pictured here with Lynlee, Solei, & Kate.

Brendan and Jordan doing their GQ model photo shoot.

Allison and I don't mind sharing our Prince Charming.

Most of the cute girlies. ............All 21 cousins with 1 on the way. You gotta love Cannon's face! I wish I would have taken a photo when Jordan got desperate and held him upside down to see if that would help. No luck.

Brothers and Sisters Forever: Sarah, Jessica, Pam, Debbie, Chris, Brian, Brendan and Joe. Yep, that's all of us minus Joel and minus Dan and Pam's baby coming to our family in just a few more weeks!

You know Tank Wars is serious stuff when boys use Glue Guns! After hours of planning, plotting, and glueing, the boys headedout back to crown the 2009 Tank War Champion. This year Brian had the ultimate tank, but all the smaller battles were just as fun. Next year, the competition won't include Jordan as he will be on his mission, which will be really weird to not have him with us.

After hours and hours of watching everyone play steal the flag, this is the only measely picture that I came up with? Shame on me. We'll have to remember the fun in our memories I guess.

How lucky are we that we get to walk across the street to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks fom one of the best spots in town...the hills by Timpview High School. How lucky are we to live in this wonderful land of freedom and prosperity? How blessed are we to be surrounded by so much family where we can create such great memories? How truly blessed we all are indeed.

Organized at last...

Besides the kitchen, I spend most of my time in the office paying bills, doing my bow business paperwork, scrapbooking, and of course, wasting valuable time on the computer. Everyone that knows me knows that I can't function in chaos. I have to have things organized and put away. So how in the world did I let the office get this bad?!!!!!!

I know, I know. I can't believe it either, and no, I didn't mess it up on purpose for "before" pictures. This is how I lived in my cluttered office for years! When the kids had a school project we moved to the floor. It drove me nuts, but everytime we looked into doing something in there the estimate was in the thousands $$$$ and we couldn't justify it when there are so many other demands on our resources for example, 3 teenagers. Enough said.

Well, one day we happened to be at Home Depot and ran across some nice looking cabinets that were being clearanced out for $100. We both did a double take and quickly tried to find 4 matching ones. After searching the whole store for the 4 cabinets they showed in inventory we got down to business. Just emptying the office was a two day project. Then Brendan painted it, hung the cabinets, we changed our mind and he pulled them off one wall and rehung them on another wall (I know, he's a saint sometimes). Then the fun part began. It took me 2 to 3 days to put everything back and ORGANIZE all my crap! But at the end of the whole thing, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and sit back and finally enjoy being in the office. Now I can waste even more time on the computer because it feels so much better being in there.

June 27, 2009

While on the subject of home improvement....let me introduce you to a couple of my new best friends....

I got a new washer and dryer for Mother's Day and let me tell you how much my life has changed with these two beauties!!! 8 to 10 loads of laundry are now done in 3. A load full of jeans takes only 30 minutes to dry (all at once) and so does a load full of towels!

HEAVEN!