Bocce Ball Shot-Put

Wow, I think my family qualifies as "the crazy neighbor"!! My parents moved houses within the last year, and now my family has backyard neighbors for the first time ever!! It is quite the adjustment for them to get used to having houses out the backdoor... and a fenced yard!! (I think everyone still living at home has "ideas" about what they would like to see done with the fence... I love visiting and hearing all their wild ideas... I wonder if they all know one another has their own idea... hmmmm.)

Since the weather was warm and sunny and VERY spring-like Sunday, my family decided to play a little Bocce Ball! Things went remarkably smoothly... just the usual Clayton Family cheating and bending of the rules and Alana nominating herself as chief "judge". We looked like the ideal Sunday afternoon family...

...until Kris decided throwing heavy balls on the lawn wasn't quite challenging enough for his skill level! He decided to instead see if he could shot-put the bocce balls OVER the fence into the neighbor's yard!! Luckily I happen to be the neighbor over the fence! Lets just say he tried TWICE... and there are marks ON the fence to prove it! Luckily it looks like bocce balls don't break in 1/2 too easily... they are all still in one piece! Remarkable!!

Here is the video of Kris shot-putting (I am sure Mel LOVES us teaching Alana all these great things!!)! The scream at the end of the video is Alana... after the scream she RAN up to Kris and said "Kris, that was SO COOL!"

15.6 Miles, The Impossible Dream

So... we had a "Wasatch Back Planning Meeting" at work last Friday. In true accountant form we all determined a meeting time/place (we actually got to meet in the conference room... oooooooh!) and came prepared with papers and notebooks and pens... I love being a geek, it involves so many office supplies! Our meeting determined who would run what stretch of the relay race in June. I am so super excited now!! I was been TRAUMATIZING myself that I would "get" some portion of the race that is STRAIGHT UPHILL...something you would need a rope and harness to climb, much less try to run! Well fate has been good to me!! Miracles do indeed happen!! My stretches of the race are totally FLAT!! Wahoooooo!! Of course I am running 15.6 miles... that is a little more than my record distance of 6 miles (which I ran on a treadmill... pretty sure I might have needed serious resuscitation after that run)! I am getting totally stocked for the race!! Keep a weather eye on the horizon, we will ALL see a miracle if I live through this!!

(By the way... see that shoe picture... I found that shoe online... it has the word TURBO in the shoe name... how cool is that?!! I wonder if it comes with jet rockets or wheelees! I think I might NEED some of those... maybe if I start auctioning rides in Amy's "luxury" car I could raise enough moola for those jet rocket boosters!)

Snow Cages!

For Conference weekend we got to stay at the cabin all weekend!! Dad and Mom and Kris went up the weekend before Conference to get our dish satellight working... this was our very FIRST time to get to WATCH Conference at the cabin! Alana also got to come up to the cabin for the weekend... her daddy was out of town and her mom was working. We were all super nervous what the weekend would bring... JoyAnne is Alana's FAVORITE, but JoyAnne was working all weekend, so the rest of us had to be prepared to keep her entertained and happy!

Alana was super good all weekend!! She called me "My Favorite Aunt that is not JoyAnne"! haha! She still doesn't know my name! It was major HIGH STRESS to try to keep up my title as second favorite aunt!

This is Alana wearing one of the snowmobiling helmets! She LOVED snowmobiling!! (She is definitely her mother's child...)

We made a WICKED-AWESOME snow fort (actually Amy did most the work the day before) and threw snowballs at all the passer-bys (which included Grandma, Joni, Grandpa, and Kris... oddly enough there aren't too many people just waundering around the cabin driveway).

And the BEST part of playing in the snow... Kris dug us a snowcave!! There is still so much snow up at the cabin!! Kris dug the cave so we could slide down the entrace and climb out the back door! Alana insisted on calling it a "cage" instead of cave! EVERYONE slid down the cave, even Grandpa!!

Can you see Alana helping Kris dig in the snow? I love how little kids LOVE to be helpful! It was making me laugh so hard!

Doesn't Joni look like a model with her sunglasses and hat?! I also love this picture of Amy... this is what any 1st Grader would be doing also... looking down the cave entrance! She is obviously in her perfect profession!

Grandpa coming out of the Snow "Cage"!!

I couldn't resist this picture... it makes me grin everytime I see it! I have no idea what face Alana is making... I think I caught her while she was talking (shocker... she talks A LOT)! This is a picture of Alana riding in the snowmobile sled on our way from the cabin to the car. Dad and Amy are riding behind us.