4th of July

We had a busy 4th of July.

Our ward, and the other ward that shares our building has a sunrise service every year at 7am. So, we were up bright and early to get ready. There were doughnuts, juice, and milk afterward.

After getting some breakfast, we all headed off to Riverdale (where I then found out that I forgot to charge my camera! (smacks forehead)), to settle in for the parade.

We had a lot of fun at the carnival at the park afterward, and stayed until lunch time. The food prices were all completely outrageous, so we headed home for lunch, and a nap for Libby. I also plugged in my camera!

After a good nap, we went to my parents house to have a bbq with my sister and her family. The kids enjoyed playing on the swingset.

And since, you can't have a good 4th of July celebration without ice cream, there were ice cream cones for all.

We had some time to kill before Riverdale's firework show, so we went home and lit some sparklers.

And then we ended the evening by heading to Rohmer Park, where we have a fabulous view of Riverdale's fireworks without the huge crowds to worry about on the way home.

A New Calling

I have received a new calling. I am keeping my calling on the enrichment committee, but am now also Ward Music Specialist. I will be planning all the music, including special numbers for sacrament meeting, as well as directing the choir.

It's funny how I knew this would happen. Last Sunday I acted as a substitute for the primary chorister. Soon after I arrived at church, the 2nd counselor in the bishopric asked if I could stay after church and meet with him. I had other obligations and told him so, so we arranged to meet on Wednesday evening.

Originally, I figured I was going to be called as primary secretary. The secretary in our ward has sold her house and has to be out in just a couple of weeks, and I figured they were getting her position taken care of right away.

But then, when I got to primary, I was reminded that a new pianist had been called. She already has callings as ward organist, and ward music specialist and the thought occurred to me that she couldn't possibly take on that much. It was then that I knew what my new calling would be.

The 2nd counselor was unable to keep his appointment for Wednesday and we rescheduled for yesterday. I started to laugh when he told me about the calling they were extending to me. I think it made him nervous, thinking I wouldn't accept it because he acted as though he were about to try to talk me into it. But I just told him that I, of course, would do it, and was only laughing because it was amazing to me that I had already known.

It's interesting how the Spirit works. I've been feeling restless for a few months now, regarding my service for the church. I love being able to go to Relief Society, but I have felt that I wanted to be doing more than just planning get-togethers every three months. This new calling is probably the biggest responsibility I've held in the church, and I think it will be a nice fit.

I'm a little nervous thinking about trying to find people to do the special musical numbers each month. I joked with the 2nd counselor and told him that I hope he doesn't mind hearing me sing a lot, if I can't find people, lol. But this is a challenge that I'm looking forward to taking on.

Taking the Plunge

I love hair blogs. I have a long list of them book marked and look at them on a regular basis. I love finding new ways to do my little girl's hair. My mom graduated from beauty school, years ago, and she did my hair until I made her let me do it around 5th grade or so. Even then, she would still do it once in a while. She's passed her love of doing hair on to me. I'm not a pro or anything, but it's just something I like to do. I've thought about starting a hair blog of my own for a while now, but just haven't worked up the courage to take the plunge I guess. But I can't help but notice how many hair blogs are for little girls who have beautiful, long, thick hair, and how few are for little girls like Libby. She has taken a pair of scissors to her hair a couple times, and just had kind of thin hair to begin with. So, until her hair all catches up with each other, I've decided to keep her hair in a shoulder length bob. So, we are dealing with short, thin hair. There isn't much there, yet. And the only hair style that is there so far is a borrowed hair style. But I have finally started a hair blog called Libby Lou's Dos. I hope you'll come for a visit.

Crock Pot Pulled Pork

This is a favorite at our house! I make it at least once a month. One thing I love about it is that once we've had dinner (and stopped picking at it, lol), I freeze the rest in single serving sizes and then I can just heat it in the microwave for lunch. Mmmm. My secret? Root beer!

1 (2 pound) pork roast, any cut

2 cans root beer (not diet)

around 18 oz honey barbecue sauce (or barbecue sauce of your choice)

8 hamburger buns, split and lightly toasted

salt

pepper

garlic salt

dried minced onions

1 envelope onion soup mix

1 clove garlic, minced

Montreal steak seasoning

worcestershire sauce

brown sugar (if desired)

I admit I don't measure much of anything in this recipe, so I will just try to do my best to describe this to you.

The night before you cook this, mix the onion soup mix, garlic, Montreal steak seasoning, and worcestershire sauce. Marinate the pork in this overnight.

Then the next morning, poke holes all over the roast with a fork, then rub the roast all over with salt, pepper, and garlic salt. Place in the crock pot.

Mix 1/2 cup of the barbecue sauce into the root beer and pour into the crock pot. Add a handful or two or dried minced onions. Then drizzle a little more barbecue sauce over the pork. Cover and let cook on low for 5 hours.

Turn the pork over, drizzle with some more sauce, and add another handful or two of onions. Cover, and cook on low for another 5 hours.

Remove the roast and let it cool slightly so you can shred it. Mix in the rest of the barbeque sauce, whatever juices left in the crock pot that you want, and a little more salt if needed. I like my barbecue sauce on the sweet side, so I add a loose handful of brown sugar or two. Drain the liquid you aren't using, and add the meat back to the crock pot to keep warm until you are ready to serve it on lightly toasted hamburger buns.

You won't see it in the picture, since it was taken of a sandwich I made for my lunch today from the leftovers. But, if you really want to take this over the top, slice an onion, and sautee it in some root beer and a handful or two of brown sugar until caramelized. Yummy!

I served this with corn on the cob, homemade baked french fries, and green salad.

Lions and Tigers and Bears! Oh, My!

Okay, so Hogle Zoo doesn't have a lion anymore, but it does have tigers and bears, and many other animals that we had a lot of fun seeing on Thursday!

Speaking of tigers, this is one of the first things we passed.

Ethan really liked this bighorn sheep. He even made up a story about half man, half bighorn sheep! That kid has an active imagination!

The boys were in awe of the height of the giraffes!

What is that mysterious fuzzy tale up in that tree?

It's only a sleepy red panda. Isn't he cute?

The penguins were fun to see, as usual.

We went on a rainy day, which I really recommend even if you get wet. The animals are so much more active and fun to see. Check out this bear!

I thought it was interesting to see how these zebras almost blend in with the fence behind them.

Doesn't this monkey have an adorable face?

This rhino is enjoying the sunshine!

The elephants were, by far, my favorite! This one was kind of shy.

This one, however, loved the attention!

This elephant's name is Christie. She was so interactive with her keeper. I think the whole audience was in love with her.

Christie is expecting right now. Did you know that elephants carry their babies for 22 months before giving birth? And their babies are somewhere around 200 lbs and 3 feet tall! Wow!

She was so much fun to see!

I thought this chimp was totally cute!

We actually got to see the prairie dogs! They were loving the rain!

This one prairie dog looked really strange, though.

This is a very rare tortoise. There are very few in the world today. This one is about 8 years old!

These are the cutest spiders I've ever seen!

Libby decided to take this old croc for a ride!

Later, that nasty, old croc decided it wanted to eat Ethan for its dinner!

But Ethan was way too smart for him!

There were lots of baby animals at the zoo. Many were hard to get pictures of. I was lucky to get pictures of these sweet, little ducklings.

We love the zoo!

The Good Ol' Days

My mom made me a scrapbook for my 16th birthday. I've hung onto it ever since. Elizabeth found it the other day and we spent a good amount of time going through it. I think the kids really enjoyed seeing what Mom was like as a child, as well as seeing pictures of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc at younger ages. I thought I'd share some of the pictures from yesteryear.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Cox with me as a baby on my blessing day. They were Flora Larue Harker Cox and Leonard Delaun Cox Jr. Grandma and Grandpa lived in Idaho. We didn't see them very often, and they both died within a few months of each other when I was 7. I don't remember them well. I do know that Grandpa was a farmer. You can see their old house and land from their graves, which is really neat. Grandma had and eventually died of Alzheimer's Disease. Because I was so young, I think this is what prevented us from getting to know each other. I don't think she ever did call me by my name, but instead, called me Jeremy. Although my memories of them are few, I do have some that are very nice. One of my favorites was probably a year or two before they died. We had a big family reunion at their home. I didn't know my cousins at all, so I mostly hung around my brother and sister. But I remember there was a big treasure hunt, and the prize was a big bag of gummy worms for all the kids to share. Grandma and Grandpa were handing them out. I also remember having a water balloon fight, and a fashion show. When Grandpa died, we stayed a few days so my parents could help sort out my grandparents things. I remember playing hide and seek in my grandpa's old potato bins with my cousins.

This is my great-grandmother, Margaret Elizabeth Jensen Bell. This is one of the women that my own daughter, Elizabeth, is named after. She is the only great-grandparent I ever knew. This is actually kind of a neat picture because one of the babies in this picture is me, her great-granddaughter, and the other baby is her great-great-granddaughter. My oldest first cousin's first baby, Brandi, is only 10 months younger than me and we grew up together. My great-grandmother lived in California and I think was in a nursing home for as long as I knew her before she died when I was 4. Being so little and her living so far away, I didn't know her well, and have very few memories. But I vaguely remember visiting her in her nursing home once. It was probably the last time I saw her before she died.

These are my Grandma and Grandpa Bell. Their names are Margery Vilate Hilton Bell, and Veldon Earnest Bell Sr. Grandpa passed away 5 1/2 years ago, just before his 88th birthday. Grandma is still alive. She still has her house in Morgan, where I have probably a million wonderful memories. But she is at the point in her life, where she has to have a little care. So, she spends most of her time with either my mom or her other daughter, my Aunt Lois. Her other two children have passed away, but she still enjoys visits with her daughters-in-law, my Aunt Janet, and Aunt Pauline, as well as her 9 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, and 4 great-great-grandchildren. I was probably about 5 in this picture. Most of my memories of grandparents are of them.

One of Grandpa's favorite past times was fishing, and he shared his love of fishing with anyone who would humor him. I remember many fishing trips with Grandpa. My favorite breakfast to this day, is still fried trout with syrup. Mmmmm. I have always thought how fitting it was that Grandpa died doing something he loved -- fishing with his son and his sons-in-law. I wonder if his other son, who died two years before after a long battle with cancer, was there fishing with them in spirit. I like to think that he was.

I enjoyed many camping trips with my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. This was possibly my first camping trip. From left to right is my Aunt Lois; my oldest cousin, Cory; her baby, Brandi; my brother, Scott; my grandma; me; my grandpa; and the girl on the bottom is my sister, Nicole.

My parents and grandparents loved to travel, and I was taken along on many excursions. This, in turn, instilled a love for travel in me. I haven't been able to indulge much in the past several years, but I still have a love for seeing new places, and it's something I hope to get back to eventually. This isn't a very good picture, but this was taken on a trip to the Redwoods when I was about 9 or 10. This tree's trunk is so huge, that stretching hand to hand, my dad, my grandpa and I still can't even make it halfway around!

When I was 12, we took a trip to Seattle and Victoria (in British Columbia, Canada). It was my first trip outside the United States and I remember being so excited! It's so funny to me now, because looking back at my excitement, you'd think I was going to France or something! But even if it was just Canada, it was wonderful, and I loved every moment of it. I've been to Canada several times since then, but have never been back to Victoria. I do hope to make it back there someday.

When I was 14, my parents, grandparents, and I went on a cruise to Alaska. It really was the very bast vacation I have ever been on. I highly recommend a cruise to anyone. Everything in Alaska was so beautiful. This was taken at one of the ports we went too. I don't remember which one. We were probably near the glaciers, though, judging by what we were wearing. We went in July, and the weather was perfect. It never gets too hot in Alaska, lol. But the only times it ever got very cold was when we were near the glaciers. While on the cruise I got to see three whales swimming in the water. Two of those were a mother and baby. It was so neat! I also got to see dolphins, otters, and seals!

Bang for Your Buck

Over the years, Ethan has taken on the voluntary position as "Mom's Shopping Partner". This, you see, is a very important job and must be carried out to perfection! It's amazing to see how much he has learned just by helping me at the store. He has learned how to identify many varieties of fruits and vegetables. He gets to practice his sorting and counting skills, among others. He has learned that if the bread or eggs are placed in the bottom of the cart, they will most likely get squished or broken. And of course, the biggest perk of being Mom's Shopping Partner, is that if you do a good job, you are paid with an item of your choice from the store, provided it does not cost more than a dollar.

Another thing Ethan has been learning about as part of his special job is about money. He is no where near perfect, but he's beginning to pay attention to price tags, and is starting to recognize which items cost less money than others. He has figured out that Mom generally chooses the items that cost the least.

So, Monday evening we were at Albertson's for our weekly shopping trip, and I was looking for garbage bags. He found the cheapest package and handed them to me, and was surprised when I said "No, not those. Get these." pointing to a box of Glad bags. Anyone who is familiar with this brand knows that these are generally not the cheapest find on the shelf when it comes to garbage bags. Ethan pointed out to me that the box he had picked up was the cheapest. I explained to him that while he was correct, that the bags he had picked out would easily fall apart and get holes in them, creating a big mess in the process. This turned into a good learning opportunity about choosing quality items.

I try to live as frugal as is comfortable for our family. I admit we are not perfect, but we do what we feel we can. One thing that I think is very important to realize is that frugal does not always mean cheap. This is a mistake that I see so many people make only to be frustrated when the product they have bought falls apart quickly or otherwise doesn't live up to the buyer's expectations.

If we are really being frugal, we are trying to get the most that we can out of the products we buy. This is why I wash and reuse ziploc and foodsaver bags, use cloth wash cloths and towels for most messes, etc.

This attitude should extend into the quality of the products we are buying. I don't normally buy clothing or shoes from Walmart because I have found that they don't seem to last long. Especially kids clothing and shoes. I would rather wait for a good sale at Old Navy, Sears, etc, and get better quality stuff. I also really like Shopko for kids clothing. It's usually very well made, you get it at a good price, usually, and if it falls apart before the child grows out of it, they will replace it free of charge. We don't buy the cheapest computer products. We don't necessarily buy the most expensive either, though. We do some research, and then choose the product that seems like it will give us the most for our money. I don't generally like store brand jelly. It always seems to have a weird jell-0 consistency. Which is fine -- if you are eating jell-o. But I don't want jell-o on my peanut butter sandwich! So, I tend to wait for a good coupon and hopefully a sale to go with it, and buy Smuckers.

I am not saying that we should never buy the cheapest product. In my mind, flour if flour and there isn't much you can do to screw it up. So, I buy the cheapest brand. Same with sugar, or salt. I've never had much of an issue with the cheapest herbs and spices, either. I buy my milk cheap, cereal, mac and cheese, I could go on. But there are those certain products, like trash bags and jelly, that I continue to buy the bigger brands, because they really are better quality.

I'm hoping that the next time Ethan is allowed to pick out a toy he will remember our little discussion on quality and spend a little more on something that won't fall apart so quickly that he can enjoy playing with for a good, long while.