Best of Summer 2013

This is the last you will hear of my summer. I promise. 

Indulge me as I give you Best of Summer 2013:

Best Activity with the Big Kids: Hike and tour of Timp Cave:

Best Activity with the Little Guys: Thanksgiving Point Farm:

Best Mommy Daughter Activity: Taylor Swift Concert.  It truly was amazing:

Best Cheap Take-Out Meal: Cheesecake factory Skinny Asian Lettuce Wraps.  These babies are like $6.99 and they give you the yummy bread too.  Add a McD's Diet Coke and you've got a meal.

 

Best Event of the Summer: Ashley and her family moving back to Utah.  Ryan was in boy Heaven with his cousins.

 

Best Summer Date Activity: Alpine Coaster and dinner in Park City

Best Bike Ride: Wildflower Pedalfest in Mountain Green, UT.  Rolling Hills, beautiful scenery, fun friends, great food:

 



 Best Lesson Learned: Yard sales are not worth it.   I made 80 bucks and lost my dignity:

Best Extended Family Outing: Alpine Rodeo with Ashley's family:

Best Reunion: Seeing my favorite guys from my freshman year at BYU.  Already planning another one for the Fall and hoping my girlfriends can make it!

Best Treat: Hokulia shaved ice.  This stuff is as big as my head and totally lived up to the hype.

Best Parenting Moment: Driving home from Café Rio and seeing this homeless looking toddler roaming the neighborhood in a swim diaper.  Sure enough, it was my kid.  Luke was supposed to be babysitting.

Best New Addition: My brand new nephew Wyatt

Best Tradition: Fourth of July Parade as the Patriotic Pirates: It never gets old...at least not for us!

Best Vacation for the Kids: Going to Snow Mass, CO with Sam for five days

Best Vacation for Mama: Kids going to Snow Mass, CO with Sam for five days and I stayed home
No pics.  Just lots of trashy tv, dinners out with friends, and roaming the mall by myself. 

Best Shopping Find of the Summer: Slip Extenders.  These are a life saver for us tall girls. I bought one in every color.

Best Bang for your buck: Seven Peaks with the Pass of All Passes.  There are a lot of haters out there but it will always be my very favorite Summer activity.  I love this picture of my bff Susan doing the rope swing in Provo with Y mountain in the background.  Our boys make us do it every time we go.

Best Free Adventure: Alpine Sliding rock: I felt like a hero for actually going down it with the kids.

That's it folks.  Put a fork in me.  Until Next Summer...I'm done!

Goodbye Summer

Marjorie Hinkley has a fantastic quote:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny spots car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long perfectly manicured fingernails.  I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.  I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children.  I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed some one's garden.  I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.  I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

And that is how I felt this evening when I pulled into my drive-way in my filthy mini-van.  I had four kids in tow, all wearing wet swimsuits.  We spent our last official day of summer at the pool with Ashley and her kids and of course we stayed until the bitter end.  We picked up chick-fil-a and ate it in the car on the way home. 

Every year at this time, I mourn the end of summer.  I am a Summer girl.  I live for warm weather, flip flops, bike rides, hikes and long days at the pool.  And we squeezed the life out of this summer.  We went non-stop every day.  Swimming lessons, hikes, Seven Peaks, parades, rodeos, amusement parks, birthday parties, t-ball games, bike rides, sports camps, you name it--we did it.

Summer makes me feel like an awesome mom. I don't say this to brag. You see, I am not that mom that does cute Back to School themed dinners for my kids. I don't put notes in their lunches, Heck! I don't even wake up with them most mornings before school.  But I am great at taking them to do fun adventures and I'm not afraid to get my hair wet! 

I will never get tired of Summer.  I will never be ready for school to start.  I will never welcome the routines and homework and freezing cold temperatures. 

But at least I have no regrets from this summer.  Now who wants to come deep clean my mini-van? 

Four Things Summer Edition

Alpine Rodeo

I much prefer Instagram to blogging these days.  But in case you don't follow me there, here is a little catch up on what we have been doing this summer:

Luke:

1.  Luke did two basketball camps--one at BYU and one at Skyline High School.  He loved both of them.

2.  Luke and Sammie have both been taking tennis lessons.  I am living vicariously through them.  I am dying to take lessons--just so I can wear the cute skirts.

3.  Luke turned 10 this summer and let his little brother blow out his candles.  That's the kind of kid he is.

4.  The big news is that Luke started tackle football for Alta.  We said no for the last two years and he finally wore us down to the point that we said yes.  He absolutely loves it.

Sammie:

1.  Sammie spends 90% of her time tumbling on the front lawn.  She taught herself an aerial and almost has a back hand spring.  It scares me to death.

2.  She started dancing at a new studio and spent a considerable amount of time dancing this summer.  She also did a cheer camp at BYU.

3.  Sammie went on a trip to NYC with Sam for five days.  She saw three shows and toured the city.  At the airport, she turned and barfed all over Sam's shoes and then exclaimed, "phew!  I was so worried I was going to get it on my clothes!"

4.  Sammie loves little kids.  She comes to the gym with me each morning so she can go to the daycare and play with the toddlers.  They adore her.  Too bad she wants nothing to do with her own little brothers.

Ryan:

1.  Ryan spends all of his time outside roaming the neighborhood on his bike.  Luckily, we have fantastic neighbors who basically let him live at their homes. 

2.  Ryan took swimming lessons again this summer.

3.  He also played on a t-ball team with his buddies.  He was the biggest and slowest kid on the team.  And just like with soccer, he thought he was awesome.

4.  Ryan, Luke, Sammie and Mitch all went on a vacation with Sam for five days to Snow Mass, CO.  They had a blast swimming and going on bike rides.

Buster:

1.  The big news is that Buster is potty training.  We are half way there and it has about pushed me over the edge.  After ten years straight of diapers, I am ready for this kid to be trained!

At Walmart in no pants.  When in Rome...

2.  We thought he broke his arm last week on my sister's trampoline.  After one horrendous trip to the ER, and a week of wearing a cast for no reason, we found out he is totally fine.

3.  Buster's favorite thing to do is go swimming. We did Seven Peaks, Cottonwood Spa, Alta Canyon and the gym pool.  He mostly enjoys puttering around the pool deck or sitting in a lounge chair eating treats.

4.  He loves going anywhere with the big kids. 

 

Churros at the Real Game

Me:

1.  The big anticlimactic news is that I got a job.  I am working very very part time for the Utah Senate.  I won't bore you with the details but I can do it from home and so far it hasn't been too much of a thorn in my side. 

2.  Still dating on and off.  Summer is so busy that I try to slow down the dating a bit and focus on the kids.  I do like dating in the Summer because you can get outside and do things like bike rides and hikes. 

Look at that view!

3.  My vacation was when my kids went to Colorado with their dad.  I managed to get Mitchell's baby book finished which was my only goal for that week.  I am still trying to lose the five pounds I gained eating out with friends for every meal.

My friend Kari and I at City Creek before we gorged ourselves at Cheesecake Factory

4.  I did a lot more biking this summer. I have some kind male friends who take me since I have a hard time finding girls to go on rides with.  There is a great new trail from Alpine to Provo Canyon.

The end.  I will do my annual Best of Summer post next week.  I am not ready for Summer to end!

Craftastic!

If you know me at all, you know that I don't craft (unless it is to make an amazing porch display). I don't have the interest, the time, the energy.  But I am the Enrichment Coordinator for my ward and we have a Super Saturday type enrichment planned with the YW for September 13th.

I have known about this thing ever since I got put in this calling back in February. Of course I did my best to put it out of my mind until this week.

Luckily, my RS president told me about a place called Poppyseed Projects.  (I am not even getting a kickback for this plug!)  They sell kits with everything included to make the crafts (crafting for dummies.)   They have an actual store you can visit and pick out your stuff. 

There are a few stores that I hate to go to because just walking in puts me into a cold sweat--think Emergency Essentials and the Scout Store.  Now we can add this place to that list. There were just way too many options to choose from.  I had to leave and come back with my friend Corinne for moral support (and because she actually knows what is cute and is much better at crafts than me.)

We managed to pick out six items and we busted them all out this morning.  It took two trips to Home Depot and one to Holiday Oil for huge Diet Cokes and the project was done.  Never mind the profanity Corinne and I were both uttering as we continued to mess up our projects.

The worst of them was this bad boy:

It doesn't look like much but it is a 7 step process---texturizing cream, black paint, white paint, vinyl, red paint, peel vinyl, sanding. I had a major mishap with this thing and had to do some creative fixing.

Now I display these at church for the next three weeks, get with my committee, come up with refreshments and do some more planning, collect money and get the kits and then it's go-time.

Are any of your wards still doing Super Saturdays?  Do you ladies like to craft?  Does anyone want to come take my place that night?  

I'm baaaaaaaaack!

We are in total summer mode at my house. There have been a million things I have wanted to blog about and then every day, I get busy with my kids and think "I will do it another day." 

Then I got this comment emailed to me for approval on my 2008 post about my uniform: 

"sorry for my english. but please do not be angry.  I have interest of the black velvet jogging suit the can i have it.  I would pay them what they want if I could have it.  I offer 200 to 250 €."

This comment is from a man in Germany who is offering me the equivalent of 250 US dollars for my used velour sweat suit.  I mentioned to a friend that I no longer have that uni but for that kind of money I would find this guy a new one. My friend sagely said "I think he is looking for a uni that has been worn in the game." 

For some reason, that experience was the catalyst that made me decide to start blogging again.  I need to have a place to post about the ridiculous things that happen in my life.  Or maybe it just reminded me that I have a blog.

So with Fall right around the corner, I am back to blogging.  I am going to give you some Summer recap posts, some Instagram photos for those who don't follow me over there, and maybe a rant or two thrown in just for kicks.

Is anyone still out there?

Goldilocks Bike Ride in the Rain

Last Saturday, I rode in the Goldilocks bike ride again.  I was so excited to do it because I had enlisted more friends to ride with us and I loved last year's event so much.  I knew the forecast was calling for rain so I ran out the day before and bought a light rain shell.  But I was totally unprepared for how freezing cold it was going to be.

Here is what I was wearing the day before on a ride around my neighborhood so you can imagine that I wasn't anticipating the cold:

We got there that morning--ate the yummy porridge and fruit breakfast, picked up our swag bags, and took the obligatory photos.  At this point it started POURING rain.  We were all soaked before we even got on our bikes!

I feel like I am a pretty tough person most of the time.  I can push myself when I am working out through pain and rely on mental grit. (Stop laughing Sam!)  But nothing makes me give up faster than being cold (and wet!)

Within the first ten minutes of being out there, my fingers froze and my feet got completely soaked.  I could feel the water sloshing around in my cycling shoes.  At this point, I gave up mentally.  I had hung back to talk to a friend and my group of friends were way up ahead of me. 

This is where I lose all dignity.  I decide my friends are dead to me.  We had decided to do 40 miles  but in that moment I decided I was doing 20.  I didn't know if I was ever going to catch up to my friends but I didn't care anymore how they were going to get home!  In fact, it was a good thing I didn't see a Papa Bear vehicle or I would have waved the white flag, called it quits and gotten in the car. I was that cold.

We stopped at a rest stop and I caught up with my friends.  I talked to them and they all agreed to do the 20 miles and be done.  Everyone was freezing.  The cool thing about Goldilocks is that the volunteers made it a fun event even when everyone was miserable.  There were Papa Bears at the rest stops taking our bikes from us and "parking them" and one guy even gave me his coat to wear while I was taking a break.  I was really impressed with these guys who gave up a Saturday to come volunteer in the rain!

Knowing that we only had 10 miles left, we got back on our bikes and soldiered on.  The odd thing was, once I was completely soaked and my fingers were numb, it was okay.

Of course, at the Finish Line, the rain stopped and the sun came out.  You can finally see my cute Goldilocks jersey from last year.  A very nice friend bought it for me!

They gave us darling little necklaces and we had a yummy lunch (at 10:30 in the morning!)  Next year I am doing 60 miles no matter what!  And if it is raining, I am going to be prepared with warm gloves and plastic bags over my shoes!

 

Of course, my favorite part of the whole thing is how girly and darling all the details were:

 

 

Even the port-a-potties were pink!

Dani (the gal in charge of Goldilocks) is so nice--she bought everyone's Zazoosh photos to make up for the rain. (Zazoosh is a photographer that takes pictures of people along the route and sells them after the race.) Here is the one of me:

 

And finally: my cute t-shirt from the swag bag to remember the day!