Hold on to your horses!

I had the opportunity, I say opportunity now but a few weeks ago, I would have called it an unfortunate assignment delegated my way, of putting together Relief Society at Hearthstone Manor. Hearthstone is a rest home not too far away from my house, with some sweet old people, I have always thought of old people as sweet, until this year, I had not met an old person who I didn't think was an angel. Not too long ago, my opinion may have taken turn, but I assure you that my opinion is back on course (back to sweet, not crabby). For the first time as I sat at the front of the room conducting the meeting a few weeks ago watching all those old wise faces sleeping the day away, I thought, man is this what I have to look forward to? I felt downright a little depressed about the idea of not being able to do anything but sleep. I love being active and coming and going as I please, I love my leisure time, afterall I have paid my dues to have a few leisure hours to myself finally.



Today I was finishing the last week of my duty and was excited to be done with it. I got dressed up, not excited that it was pouring out and wondered why I had bothered doing my hair at all. I fished around in the coat closet for one of the five umbrella's I had bought awhile back but they were no where to be found. Oh, yeah the blasted kids used them to roller blade down the street with the help of Mister Wind. The same kids that make a giant wreck of my house every morning and again after I leave for work in the afternoon. I arrived at Hearthstone to find that only half of the white haired people were asleep today.

While I sat there quietly I noticed a painting hanging on the wall, funny I don't remember noticing it before. The painting was of a father and son in a boat having a good time fishing. Then out of the blue a thought hit me hard, I don't quite know how to put it into words (not like my friend Erika, I am a dummy when it comes to words, just ask her, I may need to run every church talk through her so she can catch my pronounciation before I make a fool of myself) I will try hard to capture what I was thinking at this time. I was thinking that one day I may be sitting in a chair like that barely able to walk or stand on my own and what regrets am I going to have or what will I wish I had done more of. Am I going to wish I had worked more? Wish I had been richer? Wish that I had paid my house off sooner? Wish I had rushed to get things done, and my house spotless more often? I am pretty sure that if I asked any one of these wise old white haired ladies if she wishes she had done more in her life's journey, it would be none of these things.

I am pretty sure she would tell me to chill out and quit running around like a mad woman trying to accomplish the world and hold on to your horses! Or should I say HHHAR-ses.

3rd Grade Field Trip

I was able to go with Sadie and Halen for their field trip. I feel lucky that I have the opportunity and I try to go on most of them. We went to the Bean Museum and a 2 mile hike up to Vivian Park.
That is just plain yuck!
Sadie and Halen and their 3rd grade class. Cute kids! They have Miss Nuttal for their teacher, she is so good with the kids. She is one of our favorite teachers at Canyon Elementary. Aubrie had her 2 years ago and so she was my first choice when it came to requesting teachers. She took all of these pictures and then emailed them to all of the parents by the end of the day! Talk about on the ball.

Beautiful walk along the Provo River trail.

Bridal Veil falls. The kids were pooped at the end of our walk and thank goodness the bus was there to pick us up.

Update on Jayden's hand

I have been too busy with final's this week to post any pictures or to take any for that matter. Life is crazy and I had to run Jayden to the hand surgeon to get the bandage taken off Jayden's hand today. It has been two weeks since surgery and after taking off the bandage I was surprised to see the 1 1/2 inch incision that was made across the top of his hand. His wrist is barely bendable at all and his muscles are weak from not using it much. The doctor advised him to start trying to get the motion going again, but warned against using it much at all. He can't pull, push or lift anything for another 4 weeks. I just hope that he regains some movement soon and we do not have to go to any therapy to get it fixed. He has missed a lot of school because of this surgery and he has had to work hard to make up all those assignments.

Holy Busy!!!

Ty and I took the kids to the aquarium in SLC during the weekend. We had free tickets because Ty's company CVE did the electrical at the aquarium. It was fun to see all the fish and watch the kids pet the sting rays.

The sting rays seemed to enjoy the kids too. They would swim right up to them and then try to jump out. We couldn't pull Halen away to see anything else, we pet the sting rays for probably a half an hour.

Fun to see all these strange creatures.

More strange creatures, ( yes I mean the kids)

A few more strange ones :)

Cool star fish!

This tank full of tropical fish, made Ty and I homesick for Hawaii. We had lots of fun remembering snorkeling with all of these gorgeous bright fish.

Crazy weather, this was during a lightening storm.

More crazy looking skies, this was the thick haze that hung over while there was lots of fires in August.

Soccer started and Halen loves playing. Keeps us on our toes these days of feeling like a taxi driver. Literally dropping kids off at stops at Jr. High, dance, scouts, piano, soccer, cubscouts, activity days. (Not to mention 4H afterschool is starting soon). So glad I don't have to drive to two different schools right now.

The pinewood derby, this is Halen's first year of racing.
I think Halen's favorite part is building the car with his dad. They had a good time, and that is what the pinewood derby is all about. He even won a couple of races and took 2nd in several others.
I took Sadie in for an eye exam because she was complaining of not being able to see the chalkboard or things faraway. Wow! eyeopener, the scan of her eye revealed she has a severe stigmatism which causes everything she sees to be blury or have shadows. We had no idea her eyes were this bad! Poor girl, the eye doctor said she was probably born with this and she didn't know the difference because she has always seen this poorly. Ok, I was shocked, Sadie is an excellent reader and she has passed at least 3 different eye screenings. The eye doctor said that he sees this often where the eye screenings at school or the pediatrician office don't catch it. He was surprised himself at how severe her eyes were and that she doesn't have frequent headaches. He even only gave her half the prescription lenses for now until she gets used to this pair and next year she will be ready for the full prescription.
Ok, here is another event that has been crazy at our house, back to school not only brought early mornings and groggy kids but Jayden realized that he could not bend his wrist. He has P.E., weight training class, and manufacturing shop class, all of which brought some pain to his wrist. He had a cyst on his wrist that was causing some pressure. I took him to the pediatrician and they told me that he would need to see a hand specialist, so off we went to see the hand surgeon and he thought it should have surgery right away. Surgery was scheduled two days away, and off we went to spend a whole day in surgury waiting for the procedure and the wake up process. Keep in mind this was the first week of school, the first week of my new job, and the week of studying for finals, and the first week of Ty's new promotion of being foreman, and the week that I have to run Relief Society meeting for Hearthstone Manor. Just a little crazy!! Jayden can not use his hand for anything but writing for six weeks, which messed up my plan of having him ride his bike to Jr. High. Oh boy!
Here are the kids ready to go for first day of school. Halen's face says, "I would rather stay home and catch bugs all day with my friends."

I think we survived the week! I hope I can survive the next one!

A saying that I can relate to.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” by Dr. Seuss
I love this saying, I saw it on a friends blog and I can really relate to it. I used to be one of those people who just really said what I thought and some time ago I learned to hold my tongue on many things. I am tired of doing so and I didn't quite feel like myself either. In the last couple of years I sure have learned who my friends are and who are not. I guess it is just one of those learning times in my life, and I have not been holding my tongue much lately and speaking my mind. I am definately more myself, and I really don't care who minds it because at least I am honest with myself and those who matter.

Sometime I will get around to posting the school pictures. But not today!

Crickets instead of Cake!

Jayden and Dallin had a blast for their 13th birthday, they are at such a fun age, I can't believe I just said that! They are teenagers now and I am scared of teenagers, but they are so much fun to have around. They are big helpers at our house, they take care of the yard and Ty and I haven't had to mow the lawn for the last couple of years. This year they wanted to celebrate by going to Laser Assault with a couple of friends. Wow! There were 8 boys in all including Halen, after a fun game of laser tag we were off for icecream and back to the house to open a few gifts. One of the gifts were onion powdered crickets! All the boys joined in helping gobble them up. I snapped a few pictures of the grossness!

Sad! July is almost over!

What a month July has been. July is my most favorite month of the year and it is fun to share the time with some of my BFF's, Erika who loves July and exercising as much as I do and Kristen who loves camping more than I do. July has been full of birthdays to celebrate, camping trips, fireworks, and night time walks, looking at the stars, sitting around a campfire, warm dutch oven desserts and sitting on the porch with otter pops. These are just a few of my favorite things but many other things have kept me busy. I finished two more classes, geology that I scored an A and a teaching class that I scored an A- in. I also started a math class this month that has challenged my brain, only 3 more classes to go until my Associates degree is finished! I also applied for a few jobs in Nebo School District and landed my first official job. It has been 13 years since I have been out of the career world. I think that this job will be fun, I am the new 4-H after-school program director at the elementary school my kids go to. I get to hire teachers, parents and volunteers to teach classes and set up the curriculum, an added bonus for those who teach get a chunk of cash at the end. I also got called in as 1st counselor in the Relief Society at church and have loved getting to visit with people in our ward. Life is at such a fast pace! If I only knew how to slow time down a little. Here are some of the pictures I took at our last campout over the 24th. I didn't take many because the trip went by fast also!