Good Fun & Good Read!

Well it seems that nothing ever happens here, and then WHAM.....everything happens! We started the mnnth of August with a BANG! First off we had Andrew's brother and family and their mom in town. So we decided to head out to Lagoon, yes we knew it was going to be HOT, but it was for the kids, right? We got there right when the park opened and Carissa found her favorite spot on the carousel! Her favorite animal was the kitty, but unfortunately it was every girls "favorite" too! Then we ventured over to the "kiddieland" and she had a good time, not great. She didn't really enjoy the rides that went up and down in circles....which is pretty much AlL of them! She did like the boats and the little cars too!

Then when it was just too hot in the shade (thanks to whoever planted all the HUGE trees all over the park!) we went into the water park. I thought this was a funny sight......9 tubes for the crowd of 17 people! Carissa loved the lazy river, but I was a bit dissapointed to see that there really wasn't anyplace for the littlest kids to play. Yes they have the big shooting water fountain, but it's not in the water park area. So we made LOTS of laps around the lazy river while the big kids went down all the slides! I still prefer Disney Land or Universal Studios, but for a close place, it really is fun!

Check out all the people!!!!

Then the fun continued that night when NIkelle and I went to get our copy of Breaking Dawn, the fourth in the Twilight Series (and if I have to explain that....well....you've been living under a rock!). Barnes & Noble decided to distribute wrist bands for the books, even though months ago I pre-orded it. (which tell me why is that if I placed my book on order back in May did I get wristband #451????) Really angers me that it wasn't a "guaranteed copy", and they didn't tell you that back in May. Anyway.....back to the saga.......I get down to B&N along with about 1500 other people for the "party". About the time they started lining everyone up in their groups, my friend Teresa is on the phone talking to a friend who is in line over at Wal-mart (no wristband required) and she is only about 30 people back. We finally decide to head over to the good 'ol WM, joined them in line, and had the book in our hot little hands by 12:04!!! There was no way we would have been leaving B&N before 1:30am with that many people, so we all got to go home and start reading!!! (Dont'cha just love the pic of the stack of books.....so lovely....ahhh...sigh!) I know that there are only a handful of people that know nothing about this book series (my husband was one of them....but after seeing the line for the wristbands, he now understands I why I couldn't just "put it on hold at the library"!!) but this last one doesn't dissapoint at all! And it just makes me more anxious for the movie in December! I really can't wait for all the movies now! (hopefully they will do them)

Remember....I get to read it first Nikelle......"I know Mom"!

Share quickly....

Then I'm heading to bed! It was WAY too early this morning, and I am seriously dragging! I found this wonderful kit over the weekend and I've had tons of fun doing some layouts. I love it when a kit can go the distance and you still love it!

Then these few are ones that I've done since the fourth of July, but never got around to posting them.

I hear my bed calling my name.....AND Andrew brought home Battlestar Galactica from the library and he's been watching it with the kids.......my clue to check out....before I start going off on how LAME that show is!!

Little Vent

I just had to jot this down, cause I KNOW that I will forget when I can enjoy walking to church! We've been dealing with lots of construction noise and MESS for over a year now getting this church finished, and are at the final stages, and everyone is excited and very anxious to get into the new building! HOWEVER......the disadvantage of living across from the church is that the trucks arrived this morning at 5:30AM to dump loads of rock for the landscaping!!! Yes, you read that right....5:30! I probably would have slept right through it, but my loving husband had fallen alseep watching Seinfeld (again) and the noise from the trucks woke him up, so up he came to bed. That would have been fine, but he decided that at 5:50 was the perfect opportunity to converse about this. Well, NOW I'm awake and the trucks are just idling in front of our house! I come downstairs to see what they are doing, and the drivers are just talking!!!!! So I decide to go out and tell them to leave..........and they tell me that "we're just trying to do our JOB"!!! Like the 7am noise rule doesn't apply to any worker that has been told to "get the job done"! I mean REALLY!!! I probably wouldn't be SO grumpy, but I was up until 1:30 scrappin (which really is past my limit....but hey I was on a roll!) and now Carissa is starting to wake up.......Yup at 6:15AM!! Two grumpies in this house is NOT cool....and let's not even talk about the teenage grumpies!!! So everyone that will be jealous because I can walk to church, please understand there was a price to pay for this luxury, and it wasn't cheap!! (I'll post pages later...gonna try and rest my eyes! We'll see how long that lasts)

290 pictures in 4 days!!

It's not that I have my camera out ALL the time, but when we have a busy, busy 4th, it's easy to take that many pictures! We had a great 4th of July weekend. On Friday we made it down to the parade. We got there pretty late (well relatively late for getting front spots) and managed to find a spot on some grass and under a tree. We were kinda in the back, but as the parade started the family in front of us moved up and opened up some space so we moved up too. We were pretty much in the shade the entire time, which was awesome.....cause it was HOT!! Reminds me of years past when I use to march in the parades when I was in band!! Yikes, that was a LONG time ago!! When Carissa got tired of the parade, Andrew took her to McDonald's and got her some lunch, and she had a great time playing while Nikelle and I watched the rest of the parade.

The funniest thing happened later that day. I had taken Nikelle down to Wal-mart to pick up some last minute things for her camping trip next week during Carissa's nap. As we were checking out, (I guess we'd been there awhile!) Nikelle tells me that she hears a kid that sounds JUST like Carissa. I just thought it was funny and laughed it off! Then she tells me she hears it AGAIN...so this time I look.....and there is Andrew and Carissa picking up fireworks!! Funny to me that I didn't even hear her...yet Nikelle did! Just goes to show you that I really do tune her out!! So we lit off some fireworks later that night. This year there were no fires in the neighborhood, which was REALLY good! Carissa wasn't too fond of the loud ones, and pretty soon she was very tired! But that didn't stop the boys from lighting off as many as they could. Check out Donavan lighting one while the other one is still going!!! I could have shot him myself....crazy pyro boy!!

Then on Saturday morning Carissa slept until 10am!! So we knew she would never take a nap, so we decided to try out the new Splash Pad in Herriman. When we got there, there weren't very many people there and she was quite hesitant to get wet. She just wanted to play on the slides (which were hot!) then eventually as more kids got there, she sort of caught on with splashing in the puddles, but she REALLY didn't like it when the bigger boys splashed her. But she didn't freak out too much......just mostly had a good time! We will definitely be going back there again!

And the very best news of all.......they announced today that we will be in our new church building in 3 weeks!! (of course it has to pass all the inspections, but we are all very excited to have our very own building!!) And the best part will be when they clean the street!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More!!

Guess I was on a roll, and just didn't know when to stop!

Things are still quiet around here (at least until tomorrow!) So I may as well get as much done as I can right??

Scrapbooking again!

Decided to spend some time scrapbooking today....and got a bit carried away! Seems I like to use the new pictures and not so much the old ones! But here they are! The big kids are away at Trek until Saturday, so things are dramatically more quiet (even with Carissa!) around here! We've had lots of fun today, I managed to get the dishes done, and put away the laundry! Besides I couldn't sit here ALL day right??

So glad it's finally summer!

I took Carissa and Nikelle to the park (she called it "play park") to meet up with some friends, let the kids play, and some adult conversation (which is why I brought Nikelle...so we could talk & visit!!) Carissa had so much fun going down every slide, going across the wiggly bridge (she wouldn't do it at first, then decided to try it, very carefully, saying the whole way, "I'm doing the best I can", until she got safely to the other side!), and then she found some friends to play with in the sand box. She had a great time, and I will definitley have to take her back there again!

Then as it's gotten warmer (finally!) I went to look for the pool from last year.....and couldn't find it ANYWHERE! Guess I know now that I need to be involved when Andrew "cleans" the garage! So I got out a little sprinkler thingy, thinking that she would enjoy it. WRONG! Donavan tried to coax her into it.....tried to lead her up to it.....then just picked her up and ran through with her......and she squealed a really high squeal! You can see from the picture, that she was literally trying to fold herself in two! Then she got a little adventurous and tried sticking her toes into the water "ninja style"! She wasn't getting any closer than she had to, that's for sure!!

But the sprinkler was exactly what Andrew wanted after driving home without AC (getting it fixed this week!) So he was more than excited to run through them...........and I say.......anyone who runs like THAT........is just begging to have this pic go public!!! I warned him!!!!! And he did it again!! So both pics go up....................Don't mess with me honey!! (And I publicly apologize to all who have been violated with his whiteness and lameness!!!) But it is the ultimate payback..don't ya think???? Anyone out there pity me yet????????

Then Nikelle had to try it too! And then the two of them had a nice super soaker fight!! Thankfully Carissa didn't want to have anything to do with that game!!

Now don't ya just love little summer time bum cheeks?? Just couldn't resist this one! And look Jen....NO baby legs here!! She NEVER had them :(

And this last picture Nikelle was talking to Carissa and was getting her to make cute "princess faces", but because of my angle they didn't come out very good, but I did like this one of her smiling....such a rare occurance when the camera comes out! So this is my official "favorite" of the night!

Yesterday, I got a phone call from my dad. Apparently my mom had been experiencing some belly pain over the weekend which took them to the ER on Monday. They didn't find anything and sent her home. Then on Tuesday she was still having tons of pain, so they decided to go to their regular dr. She ended up doing a CT scan and determined that her appendix had ruptured! Yah, I know, how did they miss that one??? But everything is going well. She had the appendectomy and is recovering well. She's feeling "great" (a little loopy too!). So glad everything went well and you'll be back to your old self in no time! And not too shabby if you ask me....first surgery in her life! Love ya mom! (enjoy the pics!)