Good Trade: Program for Pizza Party

Cody graduated from Kindergarten on the day that I drove home from Erik's graduation. I felt really bad that I couldn't be in two places at once so we made a deal. I would give him a pizza party and he could invite whoever he wanted to come. So today on the last day of school, his friends Sabron and Hayley came over.
Our first stop was Lakeside Pizza where we ate yummy pizza and salad.

Then we headed over to Garden City park and played on the playground.
After that we walked down the boardwalk to the lake.

Let me rephrase that. Jaycee and I walked. Everybody else ran, so by the time we got there, Britnee, Cody, Sabron, and Hayley were all in the water. My plan was for us to walk on the beach and play in the sand, maybe get our feet wet. But that wasn't Cody's plan. They were all swimming and having a great time. When they got out they buried each other in the sand to get warm and dry off.

Then we headed for the Bear Lake Golf Course where the kids got to hit buckets of golf balls on the driving range and then pick up the balls in the cart with Candice (thanks again babe :)

All in all it was a great day. The weather was wonderful and everybody had a great time. And Cody says it was a good trade.

Field day

Tuesday was field day at the elementary. I was asked to go and help in the afternoon and I could bring Cody with me. He was so excited because he had several kindergarten friends that were going to be there too.

He hooked up with his cute little friend Hayley and they had a blast playing together.

I actually forgot my camera so these few shots were taken during the tug-of-war with my cell phone. Brit's third grade class beat everybody but the 5th graders. And Brit says they cheated.

Some of the events they had were bubble gum blowing contests, a bounce house, monkey tails throw,(where you toss the two golf balls joined with a short rope at some PVC pipe stand... anyway) long jump, , a Velcro bounce house (where you put on a suit and through yourself at a Velcro wall),and the three legged race (Cody and Hayley won that one in the morning with their class.)

They had lots of fun activities. It made me cry that I'd forgotten my camera. Where were these things when we were kids?

Memory Monday-The Date

Jr. High was not my best time growing up. I seemed to lack certain social grace and in trying to find myself, I didn't fit in very well. Fortunately for me though, I grew out of that awkwardness in high school and found several good friends that made fitting in much easier.

In college the real world hit. I had a pretty stressful job and little time to spend with friends. One week was pretty bad so I was looking forward to Wednesday, my only night off.

After classes I stopped by the campus library to get a good book, then go to my apartment, kick back and relax. At the library however, I ran into a boy I had known somewhat in high school who asked if I had plans that night. The boy, Andy, didn't have the same fun memories I had of the past few years I was sure. Kids could be very mean to him and so he kept to himself a lot. A small flashback of Jr. high ran through my head and I found myself telling Andy yes. He told me when and where to meet him at the campus, and that we were going to see a film of "Warren Miller's Endless Winter." (Yeah!!)

About 10 minutes before I was to meet him, I got a phone call from another good friend asking me to go to dinner. I really wanted to and actually thought, for one split second, about standing Andy up. But a feeling came to me of how I would've of felt and I couldn't do it. As I was explaining that, I looked up to realize I was late. I got off the phone, and drove as quickly as I could to our appointed meeting place. As I pulled in to park, I saw Andy waiting by himself, under an awning in the freezing cold and I was so glad I had come.

I found out that night that although I'm not a big fan of Warren Miller, I had a pretty good time with Andy and his friends. They were very polite and considerate of me.

As luck would have it, the filmstrip broke about half way through and it couldn't be repaired. They apologized and gave us all free tickets to the showing at Snow College. Before we left though they had a door prize drawing. Andy had put our names in and they pulled his name out to win a six pack of Fresca and my name out to win a $90 ski jacket. (Tag still attached.)

I thanked Andy for a fun date and went home.

I haven't seen Andy since that night but I hope someday I get to tell him about how memorable that date was for me and how much I learned that night. I still have the jacket, I wore it today again in the rain, and every time I do, I think about Andy.

Class of 2009

This last weekend Britnee and I ventured to Powell, Wyoming where Bret and Heidi's son Erik and our cousin KC graduated from Lovell High School. Matt stayed home with Jaycee and Cody because they had school stuff they couldn't miss so my family was the only one not completely there.

On Sunday we played family bunco and then went for a night walk in downtown Powell.

Bret had to work on Sunday so we all went and toured Encore to see where he works.

It was a pretty fast trip but it's not very often that all of my siblings get together so even though I missed my husband and kids, Brit and I had a great time.

Call me Mrs. McDonald

Matt has always loved horses so I pretty much knew that we would have one or two of them. But here lately we've turned into quite the little farm and I have animals running around that I never thought I would have. So here is a little field trip of the creatures that call this place home.

First, we have our trusty roping mare, Ducky. She is the sweetest horse to people but when it comes to eating, she is most definitely at the top of the food chain.

These are the roping steers that we got last year. They look like they could rip a person in half but actually have a mild disposition. Not sure what we're gonna do with them but they're kinda cute.

This is Charley Jeff Dingle. (As named by his previous owners.) He came to live in us last spring and has been a fun little pet for the kids. We have found recently that he prefers to run free. My flowers however, prefer that he does not.

Dobby is half goat, half horse. In other words, he's very large. He's a ditch eating machine and is not too aggressive but he will bunt if you're in range and not paying enough attention to him.

Just recently Matt and I have ventured into the chicken business. Some neighbors moved to Salt Lake and couldn't take them so here we are. There are 11 plump egg layers that have actually been quite fun and a lot easier to take care of than I thought.

And, our newest addition arrived just this morning as the kids were going out to the bus. My mom's mare had her third colt and it's a boy. Matt is pretty excited.

I sometimes play a game on facebook called Farm Town. The other day I was "harvesting my crops" when Matt yelled into me to get off of my virtual farm and get outside and help him with our real farm. I mean really, who'd ever thought that I'd be a real life farm girl?

Pet Day at Paris Elementary

Thursday was pet day for Britnee's school. She wanted so badly to take our little goat Charley to show. So I put a rope around his collar, loaded him up in the dog carrier and took him to school in the back of the truck. At 2:30 p.m. the show and tell commenced. Now, you might be thinking that a pet show and tell would include kittens, dogs, and maybe a goldfish right? Well, don't. Living in Bear Lake allows for raising animals that you just can't find in your everyday suburbia. Ours included a miniature frog, baby chicks, a large lop-eared rabbit, a horse, a crawdad, Britnee's goat, and a chinchilla. (If you don't know what those are, watch Go Diego Go! That's where I learned about them.)

The whole thing lasted only 20 minutes but it was really fun to see the personalities of the kids with the different pets.

P.S. The note that was sent home asked us to bring clean up gear for our pets, just in case. Can you guess the only pet that required "pet clean up?" Yep, that's worth a brownie point or two...

Being the MOM!!

I LOVE being the mom to our three kids. I get the best mother's day presents in the world. Like yesterday morning when I woke up to (instant) breakfast in bed courtesy of Britnee.

Or like the necklaces I got from their primary sharing time. Cody's said " I WILL clean my room, collect eggs, and help clean the house. (A man after my own heart :) Britnee's said " I WILL be nice, love you and ?" I can only guess what the ? might mean.

I got this delightful card in Cody's backpack on Thursday from school.

And in the mail I received this darling poem about Cody's fingerprints. I remember making one for my mom when I was little which makes it so much more priceless.

This is the inside of the card that Brit made for me in school. She has quite a way of expressing herself.

Jaycee got up and made it to church on time without grumbling and that is a great gift indeed. I asked where my card was from her and she said that middle school doesn't do stuff like that so I guess she's off the hook. Cuz, how can you argue with that?

I'm so grateful for my kids and the chance that I have just to be the mom, and it just keeps getting better :)

Blessing Baby Peyton

Ben and Kelly blessed baby Peyton this weekend in Delta, Utah. It was one of those crazy weekends where Matt had a thousand things to do so he kept Cody and Britnee at home with him. I took Jaycee and we hopped in with mom and dad to go down. We didn't get to spend very much time there which made me sad but I got to hold my beautiful little niece for a few minutes and that was worth all the hours in the car.
One funny little side note was that we stopped in Evanston at McDonald's for breakfast on the way down. In Provo I asked Jaycee to hand me my purse and she said she didn't have it. Ya know those moments when your heart literally drops right through your toes? Yeah, that was me when I realized I'd left my purse under the table in McDonald's two hours before. ( I put it under the table so it wouldn't get stolen. Sound logic-if you remember to pick it back up when you leave :)
Anyway, after a few moments of panic we found the number and I called McDonald's. Some blessed soul had handed my purse into the manager who put it in his office. I called Matt and he drove over and got it, still zipped up with nothing missing.
It was a crazy thing to happen but it made me so thankful for honest people in the world.