Freebies

On Saturday after having a restless night in the tent I had promised to take the boys to the Country Fest Parade. I decided to walk down because it wasn't that far and they had closed the road at the end of my parents street. I loaded Garrison in the stroller, had him hold the camp chair, placed a bag with a blanket and camera on the back and practically had to pull Ethan down the street so he would stay by me. I rounded the corner into the park and found a spot on the first piece of grass. We settled in with enough space around us ready to watch the parade!

Along comes a LARGE group of people who decided that we had chosen a good spot at the beginning of the parade route and decided to invade. I say invade because there was PLENTY of room all around us and down the route but they HAD to sit right next to us. I bit my tongue because after all I don't own the property. In fact I don't even pay taxes on it. I don't live in that town. I let it slide we shared. So the parade begins and of course the age old tradition of letting your children pick up candy off the ground to eat. My boys are not shy and will go for anything thrown at them IF they get the chance. I say IF because they didn't even have a chance. The mob of children next to us began taking EVERY piece of candy thrown. I told the boys not to worry there would be plenty of candy and after the kids next to us got tired there was plenty. It was just hard to see my kids bend to pick up candy and see the pre-teen next to them dive, take it and leave a peppermint in its place. What 4 or 6 year old wants peppermint instead of nerds or tootsie rolls? Really annoying.

That wasn't the worst of it. Or the thing that made me annoyed the most. They had the Jazz Bear there on a float throwing out posters, and aprons. He threw one right in front of us, Ethan went to get and out of nowhere, a GROWN UP and 3 kids dive for it and snatch it up just as Ethan is picking it up. He looked so shocked at what had happened and all I could say was that sometimes FREEBIES make adults act like children and some people are just rude. The guy looked at me and just laughed. AGHHHHHH!

Throughout the remainder of the parade I tried unsuccesfully to help the boys get balls, tiny toys, poster, and balloons with NO success. How can a small group of a mom and 2 boys compete with a family of 10 or more.

We left the parade with really enough candy to make them happy and a promise to come back to the carnival that afternoon. They also learned a lesson that sometimes FREEBIES no matter how big or small can make some people go CRAZY!!!

Camp Out!!!

When ever I hear the word Camp Out I immediately have the scene from "The Sandlot" pop into my head with the music "The lion sleeps tonight" playing in the background, Smalls being taught how to roast a "Mallow" and make a smore and having the story of "the BEAST" freak everyone out! I absolutely LOVE that movie!

Brady had youth conference this weekend and while he was packing up on Thursday, the boys were jealous and sad because Dad would be sleeping out in the tent and they were going to be left home. On Friday morning with the Sandlot camp out replaying in my head I spontaneously decided to pack up the boys and take them camping!!! In my parents backyard of course, I am not that insane. My brother and his family would be up to tour the new Temple so it was the perfect scene for some memory making family fun.

At about 7 pm I decide it would be a good idea to figure out the tent. I grabbed Zach the boy scout and enlisted his help. We took everything out of the tent bag, turned the tent around about 5 times thinking we had the door the wrong way only to realize that it had 2 doors, put the bars through the tent then realized that I had pulled them apart, (it didn't click with me that you should push them through not pull. No wonder it bent funny on the top), and assembled the main part of the tent. We stood back to admire our work and saw that the top was a screen only and that we did need to figure out the rain shield and put it on. After it was all said and done we had assembled a decent looking tent with only 2 poles left over (still not sure where they should have gone) and about 6 extra stakes!!!!!! It made it through the night without falling. That was all I asked for!!

After dinner I thought it would be fun to teach the boys how to roast a "Mallow" and make smores! I pulled out the fire pit, gathered the wood, newspaper, and twigs, and dumped them into the fire pit, lit the match and was feeling really confident as I watch the fire roar!! Go me !!!This isn't that hard. I could make it in the wilderness and build my own fire! I don't need a Boy Scout around! I am INDEPENDENT! Just about as soon as I finished this personal pat on the back I realized my fire was dying and that the only thing that was lit was the paper not ANY of the wood. CRAP! So I enlisted the help of Tonya and my Mom and we tried over and over again. I think we used all the newspaper my Mom had and started in on the papertowel rolls, junk mail, drink boxes any paper we could find. Tonya was light headed from blowing but in the end, with a few puffs from Shane I will admit; we had the perfect roasting fire! It was great to sit around enjoying the fire, letting the kids stuff their cheeks with marshmallows, laughing and joking together.

Around 11:30 the kids were so tired so be brushed teeth, said our prayers and headed for the tent to sleep. Zach was a great sport and despite heading to scout camp to sleep in a tent all next week, he agreed to stay out with us. Thanks Zach! I was shocked at how fast the kids fell asleep. I just wish I was as lucky. What was I thinking. I am not a kid anymore and sleeping outside on the ground was not a good idea. I had a rock in my back and my pillow was too flat. I tossed and turned and finally fell asleep only to be rudely awakened by 2 cats fighting just outside the tent. What I would have given for that rock in my back to throw at them. I tossed and turned some more listening to the tent blow in the wind from the storm that was moving in for Saturday and praying that the tent would stay up and that those 2 "Extra" poles were not that important. I finally fell asleep for what felt like 15 minutes to be woken by excited kids that morning was here. I looked at my phone to realize it was 6 am and they wouldn't be going back to sleep.

I let them out of the tent to play, thinking I might get at least another half hour of sleep; to see black rain clouds on the horizon. I grumbled as I got out of bed and quickly rolled up the beds and started on the tent. Now tell me why tent manufactures think that the average human can roll up the tent and make it fit into that tiny bag as easy as the machines can do it? I sure can't. I must have folded and rolled that tent at least a dozen times when it started to rain. I called for reinforcements and together with my Mom we managed to get the tent into the bag, minus the stakes and poles, just as it started to rain hard. I was sweaty and tired and it was just past 7 am.

All in all I am glad I did it for my boys. They had so much fun and it was the first time Garrison and Maddie had ever slept in a tent. The best part is that I have had my turn and next time I am sleeping inside in a comfortable bed so that someone else can have the memory making experiences!!! Who is next!

Summer Activities

Since summer time is upon us; I am sure so many of you are planning your summer vacations, having BBQ's, swimming and enjoying the lazy days of summer. What are we doing you ask? Not working on our family vacation, Not BBQ-ing, NO lazy days of summer for us. This house is getting ready for what Brady considers a Highlight of summer. What every red-neck insane family is preparing for! He is spending every spare waking minute (and probably dreaming about) his derby cars for the SL county Fair!!

I don't really understand the thrill behind this hobby. He spends HOURS in the garage stripping the car, welding, cutting, trying to get the thing to run, re-wiring, hammering, changing tires, and painting this BABY of a car. It would make anyone who restores these cars SICK to see. Yet he does it MOST of the time with a smile on his face, singing along with his "Derby Tunes" (Jimmy Buffet "Cheese Burger in Paradise") as happy as a kid at Christmas. I have decided rather than fight him on this (He knows that those death traps make me nervous) I will join him in the building process. Maybe knowing how "Safe" he has made it will help with my sick feeling I get everytime he drives in the derby. (NO BRADY THIS DOES NOT MEAN I WILL DRIVE ONE JUST WANT TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU.)

He is beginning to brain wash our children in the thinking that this is a normal activity for families to do together. I can't tell you how many Family Home Evenings and Male Bonding times have happened with my boys in welding helmets, handing tools to Dad and having the time of their lives!!

They will ask almost every weekend if there is a derby for us to go to; almost as if Saturday night derby's are as regular as Church on Sunday. It is just what we do in the summer.

Come the middle of August we will load up the cars on the trailer, and head to the Fair to enjoy 2 full days of snow cones, cotton candy, stinky animal pens, venders with over priced items to sell, and as much red-neck entertainment as we can handle. Brady will be sick to his stomach with excitment and I will be pulling my hair out keeping the boys entertained and happy. We will come home with a car half crushed, (he will want to use it in another derby) tired cranky children, and if we are lucky (really, really lucky) maybe even a little prize money!!

If you are lucky enough to go to the derby watch for Brady's cars. They will be the ones with Shine Auto Body and Pain on them.

We Have A Winner!!!

Yes an AMAZING thing has happened. Brady and I actually won something in a raffel drawing. It only took us 4 years of going to the linemans rodeo and entering the raffel to finally win! Brady was hoping for the flat screen TV but we won a wireless ipod docking station. We don't have an ipod just mp3 players but it does hook up to our computer. The cool thing is that we can log onto the SL radio stations online and Brady can have the speaker in the garage and listen to the radio. I am amazed it will feed it from the computer inside through the house, outside and into the garage. Now he can listen to his program and I don't have to!!! I don't think oour luck is ready for VEGAS but we might try another raffel!

You ROCK!!!

For Christmas Ethan asked for a guitar and got one. Neither Brady or I know how to play and he wants to learn so bad. Since we don't know of anyone around who teaches we had to delay any lessons. What did we use to suffice him you ask; we let him play it on video games instead. I know parent of the year award. Don't find real lessons let him think he can play by rotting his brain with video games!!!! For now it works and I have to say he is really good. He does have the hand eye cordination down. The other day he asked Jamie and I to play with him. We agreed and I took the guitar first. I was boo-ed off the stage! I should have known that I don't have any hand eye cordination since I have never been able to play ANY type of video game. Jamie was next and she at least made it through the entire song! Way to go Jamie!!! Then Ethan takes the guitar changes the song from the easiest one with the least amount of notes to a medium song with so many notes I couldn't even keep up just by watching. He plays the song with no problem and even dances around while doing it. He challenges anyone to a guitar duel who would like to try to beat him. I think we have a future performer on our hands who needs real guitar lessons!!

Photo's of the Boys

My Friend Jannetta took these pictures of the boys today and I think they turned out AWESOME. Hope you enjoy!

DARN BEES!

GARRISON WAS STUNG 4-5 TIMES TONIGHT BY A NEST OF BEES IN TUCKERS KENNEL. HE JUST STOOD THERE CRYING AND I WENT OUT TO SEE WHY AND FOUND OUT HE HAD BEEN STUNG. 3 OR 4 ON HIS HEAD AND 1 ON HIS SHOULDER. POOR LITTLE GUY! AFTER CALMING DOWN AND FEELING A LITTLE BETTER HE SAID "DARN BEES. YOU WON'T GET ME ANYMORE"
I SAID "NOT IF YOU LEAVE THEM ALONE"
HE SAID "NO BECAUSE NOW I AM INSIDE. I'D LIKE TO SEE THEM TRY TO FLY THROUGH THE GLASS AND JUST SPLAT!"
I FEEL THE SAME WAY!!!!