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.

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!

My Hiatus

Sooooo...... it's been awhile, huh?

I've known I've been neglecting my blog, but what can I say? I just haven't really been much in the blogging mood. Not that there is anything bad going on. Nope, all good around here. Everyone is happy and healthy. But we've also been crazy busy, and when I finally get a moment, I just don't seem to be in the mood and would rather read or something.

We are out of school for the summer, and have been for about three weeks or so.

My brother-in-law graduated from high school last month. That seems really weird. He was Ethan's age when Corey and I started dating! It was kind of neat and nostalgic going back to my alma mater to be at his graduation. There were not many teachers there that I recognized. At one point, everyone who had graduated from Roy High was asked to stand. It was really neat to see at least half the audience standing!

Five days later, my little boy, Ethan graduated from preschool. I can hardly believe he will go to kindergarten next year! It doesn't seem that long since I had him. He was such a sweet baby. He came at a time when our families from both sides as well as myself were in serious need of something that symbolized hope and joy. What symbolizes such things better than a baby fresh from Heaven?

We had a nephew from Corey's side of the family and my grandfather both pass away during that pregnancy, as well as a nephew from my side of the family diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. When I first got pregnant, I remember being angry! I was on birth control, and wasn't feeling quite ready for another baby. But it goes to show that Heavenly Father knows what He is doing. My family and I really needed this baby to help us get through the tough times and the grieving period. I think it's only fitting that he was born on my grandfather's birthday. He has been such a comfort to me. He loves to make people laugh, and loves for everyone to be happy. He always seems to know just what to do to help people feel better, has a deep compassion for people as a whole, and he gives the best hugs! I'm going to miss my little guy while he is in school all day. But I look forward to seeing what his future will bring.

Here he is with his certificate and his teacher, Mrs. Clark

We have had some wet weather so far this summer. It's been rainy and cool. I'm not complaining, though. I have enjoyed the cooler weather, and know that it will be really hot all too soon. It's been warm enough that we haven't needed the heater on, but cool enough that we haven't needed the swamp cooler either. It's been comfortable. I also haven't had to water at all! Watering the yard for me means dragging hoses all over all day, since we don't have an in ground sprinkling system (someday!). I hate doing it! So, I appreciate all the rain. It's also given us the opportunity to do some things that we might not otherwise do if the weather was sunny and warmer. We have gone bowling a few times, we've been to the library quite a bit, we've been to the playground at the mall. We've also done a lot of reading! One day, we stayed in our pjs all day and snuggled together with a blanket, a few pillows, some snacks and a big pile of books! It was our own little read-a-thon! The boys are both working on the Summer Bridge workbooks for their grade level this summer, as well as doing a few different summer reading programs. We have a deal that if Ethan completes at least 15 lessons out of the workbook and reads at least 20 minutes at least 15 times, he gets a trip to the Treehouse Museum. Johnathan has chosen a trip to the zoo. They have almost been earned!

Johnathan's baseball season is now over. They played in their tournament last Friday. Johnny's team, the D-Backs, won the first game, which meant they got to play for the championship. They played against The A's. It was a tough, close, and fun game. And when I say fun, you know it's serious, because I don't particularly like to watch baseball games. They are rookie leaguers playing coach pitch, so they play three to four innings, depending on how long the innings take. The first inning they tied with the A's 6-6, and the second inning they tied 9-9. Our team finally won 13-10! It was a very exciting game! The tournament was part of the Terrace Days celebration, so he got to ride in the parade the next morning. The parade was very cool, and it was raining by the time we got down the carnival. If Johnny hadn't been in the parade, we wouldn't have gone, but that's all the kids on his team talked about while they were riding in the parade, so of course, he wanted to go. They had a bunch of bounce houses that were free, so we went and played until Libby started getting cold and tired, and then came home to dry clothes, a blanket, and a movie.

Today, Johnathan went off to Cub Scout Day Camp. Corey went with them too. They went to Camp Fife, for the day and had a great time. They had to meet at the church this morning at 6:45! Needless to say, it was an early morning at this house! At least he got breakfast at the church before they left. They shot BB guns, rode the zip line, listened to some history on Isaac Newton (which is cool because we have good reason to think he is an ancestor of mine, or at least a cousin of an ancestor -- lots of Isaac Newtons back there around the right time period), and got to listen to some info and see some cool pictures of airplanes. He also made it about halfway up a rock climbing wall! He had a fun, but long day. I haven't seen my boy so tired very often.

Tomorrow we leave for Pineview for the weekend. The weather doesn't sound very promising, and for the first time, I am complaining. Camping in thunderstorms is no fun! I hope it stays away until we get back Saturday afternoon. It can come back after that.

A Beautiful Day

We had such a nice last day of spring break. Well, Ethan did have to go back to school today, but Johnny didn't and since Ethan's school day is only about 2 hours long, I still consider today to be spring break.

I woke up early with Corey at 6. I know that seems insane, but with him gone so often between work and school, I take what I can get. And I tend to be a bit of a morning person anyway, so I get up at 6 with him about half of the time. I usually get the bed made and then read my scriptures while he eats breakfast and gets his ipod ready to go and we chat a little bit.

Once he was gone and the kids were up and dressed and through with breakfast, we all headed outside to the front yard. Next Monday is our spring clean up pick up day for green waste. So since the sun was out, I decided that today was a good day for yard work. We've had a few wind storms recently that had blown some garbage into our yard, so I quickly got the kids to work picking up garbage and putting outside toys where they belong. After that, we piled into the van for a trip to Lowe's. I needed a new trowel, and some new garden gloves. They also had a pair of kid gloves that were Johnny's size so I got those for him. Ethan was disappointed because he loves to help me in the garden. But he isn't as much help to me as his brother because he's still a little too young to really understand the difference between a plant that is considered a weed, and a plant that isn't considered a weed. I like to let him help me plant new plants and water. He's good at that. But it's still a bit early to be planting any new flowers so I needed someone who could help me weed. We left with the promise that next week we could come back to see if they had anymore gloves that size in. Elizabeth, who is NO help in the garden at all yet, saw a pair of Dora gloves that she wanted and cried all the way out to the car when I said no. I might surprise her with them next week too.

By the time we left Lowe's it was getting close to when I needed to be getting Ethan his lunch before he had to go to school, so we went through the drive thru at Del Taco for tacos and quesadillas. After lunch, we all walked to the preschool and just enjoyed being out on such a nice day.

When we got back, I put Johnathan to work cleaning up the front porch and sweeping the porch and driveway. Have you ever given an 8 year old boy the job of sweeping outdoors before? You should try it sometime. There is nothing that they have to worry about breaking so they can be as aggressive as they want. There were lots of "Hiyah!"s coming from our house! While he was doing that, I went to work, pruning back my snap dragons and bushes and while at work doing that found the one thing that I hate about gardening. A spider. And not just any spider, either. I found this spider:

I am not the type of person who can bring herself to stomp on a spider, or swat at one with a shoe or something like that. The little ones maybe, but black widows aren't little and the anticipation of the squish just grosses me out. So, I went and got a can of ant poison and sprayed the heck out of it.

Johnathan and I got most of the front flower garden weeded by the time we had to go get Ethan. We found a couple other surprises in our gardening adventures. The first was a caterpillar. I got a couple good pictures of it under one of my snap dragons, which I will show just as soon as my husband ever gets iphoto fixed. We also found a ladybug.

After we got Ethan, I got Elizabeth down for a nap and Johnathan and I finished the front yard. My arms were trembling and my shirt must have come up in back a bit, because I have a nice sunburned stripe along my lower back. It's supposed to be kind of yucky weather the next few days so I won't be able to do anymore until Friday, but at least the front is done and now I just have to concentrate on the back yard. It will be more work. I have a Virginia creeper back there that has taken over everything and I plan to cut that way back, and prune my lilac bush a little bit. I need to get the weeds out of the beds and get my little corner bed ready for strawberries. 

Last year, Ethan and I decided that for a project he and I would grow some strawberries and make homemade jam. Well, the birds ate a lot of them, we had a hard time keeping Buddy out of the bed, and they just didn't do very well because of all this. There were just a handful left and one day they were nice and red. I decided that I would let Ethan go out and pick the few that were left and we'd buy some more to go with them to make our jam. Later that day before we had a chance to pick them, Libby went out to play. I went out to check on her to find her sitting innocently by the strawberry patch with red juice running down her chin and hands. There wasn't a single strawberry left in the patch. This year, I'm going to see about getting some chicken wire or something to help keep birds, dogs, and cute little girls out of them.

It's been such a nice end to our spring break. When 6:30 rolled around Libby could barely keep her eyes open, and Ethan was yawning. Johnathan wasn't quite ready for bed, but was acting subdued. I got the younger kids to bed and had a quiet evening with Johnny before I sent him off to take a bath before going to bed. And now the house is quiet and peaceful and you wouldn't for a moment think it is supposed to rain tomorrow.

For my before bed project, I plan to make some greeting cards.

Good night. I hope your day was just as beautiful and fun, and productive as ours.

Feeling Lazy Today

I was really looking forward to yesterday. It was one rare day where I didn't have to take Johnathan or Ethan to school, no one had a sign language class, a chess club meeting, or a scout meeting. We had plenty of food and other household goods in the house, and I'm ready for Easter where buying is concerned, so no need to go to the store. My poor house has been greatly ignored lately and it was really starting to show. So, I was looking forward to having a full day ahead of me where I could just focus on the house.

I worked really hard. I washed Ethan's sheets and made his bed from scratch, as well as made my bed and Libby's. Johnathan is responsible for his own bed, and he did that. I did four loads of laundry and got about 2/5 of it put away. I helped the boys with their room for a while. It didn't get finished because I needed to go make dinner, and they were supposed to work without me (yeah, that's a funny joke). I made dinner, a vegetable dip for today (Easter with the in-laws), and some Irish soda bread with raisins for breakfast this morning.

I went to bed late last night with the kitchen still a mess, but I was tired. I will go tackle that now so I can have it done before we head to Corey's parents house for an egg hunt and dinner.

But I was so tired from working so hard yesterday that I slept in until Libby came into my room at 8:30 asking very sweetly for a bowl of oatmeal with raisins. I got her going on breakfast and then reclined on my couch for almost 40 minutes. I wasn't completely unproductive, though, since I was reading my scriptures the entire time. Johnathan finally broke my laziness when he asked for breakfast. That's when I decided it was time to start moving and getting something done. :)

iPhoto is Broken

I have several posts going on in my head right now that I wanted to use pictures with and I wanted to update Corey and Johnathan's pictures to the right with some that I just took, but when I went to upload the pictures this morning I discovered that Corey broke iPhoto. He'll have to fix it when he gets home this afternoon.

But I think I'll go ahead and get these posts out anyway so I don't forget about them.

Life is Beautiful

I've decided to drop my old blog. It just wasn't fun for me anymore and I've decided that I just want a place to record my thoughts and journey through life. I love seeing what friends and family are doing through their blogs and that's what I want.

Things feel pretty good for me right now and we are so happy, and just enjoying life.

Corey is getting close to finishing another semester of school. He's decided to do a summer semester, and is hopeful to graduate in 2010! Yeah! We are finally getting close enough that we can start the count down! I am so happy for him. This has been such a self esteem builder for him, and I'm really proud of him.

Johnathan is in his final quarter of school. He will be going to social skills program three days a week this summer from June 15th through August 6th. It kind of sucks because it will take up our whole summer and we'll have to work family reunions and such around it, but it's worth it if he is able to go to school in the fall more set up for success. I just signed him up for coach pitch and he starts that in May. He is loving Cub Scouts. We really slacked off after he earned his Bob Cat, but we've decided it's time to get going again, and we've decided to make it a goal to pass off one thing a week so he can earn his Wolf badge and arrow points, etc. He is loving Chess Club. We are anticipating the opening of a brand new library that will be much closer to us and they are supposed to be having a chess club there. The days and times have yet to be determined, but I'm thrilled to have it closer. Now if they could just do me a favor and have it any day but Wednesday, that would be great! He just got finished participating in the Jr. Author's Fair at school, and put together a book about his love of Dr. Seuss!

Ethan is enjoying preschool, and is looking forward to getting registered for kindergarten later this month. He has been taking a basic sign language class and loves it. He has such an interest in languages. Maybe he'll be an interpreter when he grows up! He wants to join the chess club with his brother. I've told him that if he's still interested in it when he starts kindergarten in the fall, I'll let him. He'll be going to a day camp at his preschool tomorrow and is very excited.

Elizabeth is just busy being 2. We're trying very hard to get her potty trained, and I plan on starting her on preschool in the fall. I'm hoping that there will be enough interest in a neighborhood preschool again and if so, I'll have her participate. If not, I'll homeschool her for next year. If I can get her potty trained by fall, I'm considering getting her into dance lessons.

Things with me are good. I'm feeling really motivated with weight loss right now, and just feel really good about myself. Right now I'm working on getting my house organized and cleaned up. When I'm done with that, I'm thinking of trying to pick up a few piano students.