Happy 50th Rich!

We met at a beautiful park in Provo to celebrate Rich's 50th Birthday.

He traveled from Hawaii!

It stormed so heavily that I thought for sure we were going to wash away.

All the guests were huddled under the pavilion.

It was great that my parents were able to share this with him. 

Did I mention that it was pouring rain?

 Marley with her Poppa!

It is so hard to believe that Rich is a Grandfather and has such a beautiful little grand daughter.

It was great to see him.

Aloha Cuz!

No Words.....

School Work

The family carpenter.

Jared is really enjoying himself!

 At this point they had poured the basement and layed the trusses for the floor.

 Jared hangs out with a nice group of young men, though Jared is the youngest, they have quite a bit to offer each other. I love to hear the stories of the day.

 Before he started the program he was never tired at 9pm. I had told him that it will happen someday that he will be exhausted at the end of the day and when that happens I want him to come to me and say "Mom, it's happened....I'm tired."

Well, it happened. It was 7 pm about 5 weeks into the program and Jared sat at the dinner table and said, "Mom, it's happened....I am exhausted and feel like going to bed. It's only 7 oclock!"

We all had a good laugh.

Jared being the night owl that he is, is no longer a night owl. I always knew that, that might happen but it was so hard to see that when he was only 13 months old wanting to play at 2 am.

 We are really proud of the man he is becoming. His instructor is a man of good character as well. I love to have my kids around good mentors. An answered prayer.

I am bummed, just after we left, Jared is the only one that is of a good weight to ride out on that stick that they flatten the cement with. That would have been a great picture.

Pumpkins for Sale

Kaleb and Victoria are selling pumpkins for only a dollar.

So far they have sold $38 worth.

Not to mention a few spaghetti squash.

We think Kirk planted those because we don't know where they came from.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I guess it doesn't matter if you wear roller skates while practicing your violin....

just as long as you get it done!

Canoeing Merit Badge

We took a group of scouts out to Mantua Lake to finish the Canoeing Merit Badge with the help of Nana and Poppa's trailer. We made it a family affair.

We had 4 canoes and 1 kayak.

 The boys had done all the book work but now needed the practical, hands on work to do.

It is kind of funny, Kaleb could teach the merit badge on his own with his 7 years of experience canoeing but he hadn't earned the merit badge. So now he is official. He did finish all the requirements....easy peasy.

 At first most of the boys were a little uncertain about getting into the canoes with them wobbly. Of course there is the thought that it would tip over. Well, they got over that so fast it wasn't funny. Within the hour they were tipping them over on purpose, which was a requirement, again and again.

They loved the challenge of having to try to get back into it if they went over the side.

One canoe with two of the younger scouts in it, tipped it over, and then tried to right it out in the water. So they were sitting in full of water paddling to the shore. Within a couple minutes, the canoe, full of water, would tip over and then they would be on top of it again. Of course they all had life jackets on which was even more fun for them to not have to worry too much of keeping their heads above water.

Daphne's kayak came in handy. Jared or Kirk would patrol them out in the lake. We had a heck of a time getting them in when it was time to leave. They had no intentions of going home. 

Jared enjoying the perks of being an adult leader.

Life Scout

Kaleb is already on his way to working on his Eagle Scout rank now that he is a Life Scout.

For the first time, he had Nana and Poppa at his Court of Honor.

He said it was a special one to share it with them.

He also just got elected Senior Patrol Leader.

I am pretty proud of them. Boy Scouts has given my guys lots of opportunities to grow in leadership and time management skills. Not to mention that this is a great group of boys and men. We are really blessed to be a part of Troop 1.

Full Blast or Out Cold

Henry always cracks me up over the places he chooses to take a nap.

And the crazy part is that he won't move if he is in the way.

He doesn't care.

Even if you accidentally knock him with your foot, he still doesn't move. Where as, if you accidentally do that to Samson, he jumps and whines like a baby that you touched him with your foot,

Alexander

Alexander is doing great...

as you can see.

Kirk had the slide down on the grass and up side down to repair a tear with fiberglass patch.
Of course Alex has to see what you are doing.

He spent over an hour just cruising through the tunnel. We purposely left it down a little longer for him to do this. He was enjoying himself.

The guys had barely bolted the slide in place and he was ready to test it out.

I will never forget the day that he was grown enough to get onto the yellow slide as opposed to his cut off green slide. He definitely likes a challenge.

The Bug Whisperer

A couple of things I have noticed about living in Cache Valley is the size of the praying mantises.

And that Kaleb is always playing with them at this time of the year...

That and any other bug that he finds.

Just as long as he doesn't throw grasshoppers into Daphne's hair we are good.

CORN....CORN.....CORN!!!!!!

The great thing about having a huge garden is the harvest!

 We have enough corn to last us the winter.

The bad thing about having a huge garden is the harvest!

When it is time to harvest corn, 

you literally have it coming out your ears!

No pun intended.

 This was only a mere fraction of cobs that Kirk and the boys were shucking outside.

I had pots of boiling water to blanche the cobs for freezing.

Poppa was doing his best to not get shucked in to cutting the corn off the cob.

 Here is the cutting crew.

This was definitely a family affair.

It didn't last long. Poppa jumped in with their little Sugar supervising.

We froze all the corn that we weren't going to eat.

110 bags!

So now when we retrieve a bag from the freezer, sometimes I hear someone joke, 

I can't find any......

or, which one do you want.....

or, bag number 107......

or, which freezer again.......

Redneck Waterslide

For the official first day of school, Star Academy rented the waterslide for the day.
This waterslide is put up by a family right next to acres and acres of corn. I couldn't believe how many dare devils we homeschool with.

It almost looked a little too scary to go down it until I tried it. Then a bunch of the kids wanted me to go down with them in a train. I even tried it backwards.

It felt good to be outside with good friends and just having plain fun.

Loveland Living Aquarium

I taught the Oceanography Merit Badge to the scouts in August. One of my favorite subjects. It worked out great this year because Kaleb and Victoria are studying this subject for their science this year. What better thing to do than to visit the aquarium. We had a large group of scouts attend with their families. I love group rates.

 This aquarium had just recently relocated to another site. I never saw the other one but we were pretty impressed. Some might feel that when you see one aquarium, you have seen them all. Not for us. We loved it.

 Daphne still likes tight, little spaces.

 There were different areas. One was the aquatic life of Utah and then they had a room of the rain forest. That was pretty impressive with those gigantic fish that swim the Amazon. Kind of freaky.

 Victoria and I could have watched the penguins all day. They make you wonder what they are thinking as they dart about here and there.

We had a great time as did the other scouts and families. It was almost a two hour drive to get there but well worth it. Some of the kids didn't want to leave. Hopefully we will be able to return at the end of the school year to top off our studies in Oceanography.

Start of School

Here it is October and we are already looking back to September. Actually, August if you want to get technical. Jared started Bridgerland at the end of August. I am down to teaching only the youngest two now. Life is a little different with just the three of us during the day.

A lot quieter with Victoria and Jared separated.

Bitter Sweet.

They did goof around quite a bit now that they aren't together all day.

 Jared chucked as he left for the first day of the carpentry program at Bridgerland Applied Technology College. He said he never needed a backpack before and now he does.

 Aside from lugging around his school books these are the other supplies that he needed. We had to go to three places to find a tool belt that would fit his waist. He is so skinny. He had to go back and get a set of suspenders so the tool belt wouldn't drag his pants down. 

Since starting school, he has hammered his finger, scraped the skin off his thumb, and nailed his wrist with a NAIL GUN! All in one week. It was a bad week. And if I have the story straight, it wasn't him who nailed himself with the nail gun, one of his class mates did.

When he was telling me about it I was looking up and down his body for injury.

Everyday I give him a hug on the way out the door and tell him to come home with all his fingers!

We are down to two for Homeschooling now.

I like it but miss that they aren't little anymore.

Everyone is growing up

and Kirk and I are just getting old.