1st trip to the dentist

{Brooke had fun, Max was wiped out}

August was the first trip to the dentist for Brooke, Max and Jake. I know what you're thinking, and yes I'm a bad mother when it comes to dental health. Just ask Sam who had to undergo surgery to have a tooth removed and a bunch of work done. Poor kid! You would think after all that he would want to brush his teeth, but no, still it's a big fight. Anywho.... Brooke and Max had no cavities and Jake had about 10, sooo I guess we will try harder.

Ahhhh-gust!

Yay! I'm almost caught up!

It helps that I didn't take a lot of pictures the rest of the year :)

We discovered this bakery in American Fork

I had heard of it on several blogs and Jim went to it while I was still in California in July, so, when we all got home we had to go check it out!

DEEEEE-LICIOUS-NESS!!!!!

We also got a couple of their meat pies to go, but I didn't take a picture and I ate most of them before we left the building..... more yummy goodness! Take my word for it :)

When I am older and aloner I am retiring to Mendocino!

My family decided to have a family reunion of sorts back in July and so we drove out to California with all our camping gear and stuff to spend a few days at the beach. Now let me clarify...I drove the kids out to Cali and Jim flew out that night. Not my first 10.5 hr drive with them alone and certainly not my last! We went to the Mendocino/Glass Beach area of Northern California....the COLD ocean, even in the middle of summer! Needless to say, we had some fun, I remembered that I will do anything else in the world to avoid camping ever again, but the kids liked it. Except for the part where it was really cold, and DIRTY! and wet and we didn't bring enough clothes....and I don't like campfire smoke, and..... don't get me started :) but I wouldn't mind living in the town of Mendocino when I'm old, it's beautiful and right there at the ocean and just a cool place.

20th HS Reunion in NM

We took a couple other road trips in July. Including one down to New Mexico for Jim's 20th High School Reunion! We had a great visit with his family that lives in Albuquerque and met a bunch of his HS friends. One guy brought the Oscar he won for work on that "Benjamin Button" movie and let everyone take pictures with it. :)

4th of July Weekend (Part 2)

Next on our trip we of course had to go see the school!

1ST up we ran around the Snow building.

I showed the kids where I had many a humanities and music class.

Next we went to the Hart Gym

Good ol' Thor :)

Found these plaques of my old friend from my freshman yr.

Hall of Famer!!

Checked out our old haunts....

The ever craptacular Riviera apts.

The CAVE!!!!

The new and improved Craigo's....the pizza and breadsticks tasted the same :) Yummy!

Our friends old apts....Ahh Royal Crest and the Bunkhouse

We also toured around the new (to us) gardens.... it was fun but it was getting hot and we wanted to get home in time to watch the Thanksgiving Pt fireworks from our front yard...

All in all, a fun trip!

It was nice to go back and visit and be very happy we are done with school!

4th of July Weekend (Part 1)

July started with a long weekend for us and we wanted to make the most of it!

We kept talking about taking a little trip somewhere but it was really hot and we had limited funds and everywhere we talked about was either hotter or too expensive.

At the last minute Jim looked up some hotels and we were off on a whirlwind adventure north to the land of our meeting.....

REXBURG, IDAHO

We left kind of later in the afternoon and drove to Idaho Falls

{Idaho Falls, Idaho LDS Temple}

We took a scenic drive around town trying to remember where stuff was and seeing what was new in the last 15 yrs or so since we had been there last...

We swam in the hotel pool even though it was about to rain and cold and windy....and remembered how un-fun it is to travel with our kids :)

Everyone was getting ready for the 4th so we saw a lot of people camped out along the street for a parade and there were early fireworks that night as well.

The next morning we headed to Rexburg and made plans to meet up with Jim's bro Nathan who was living there at the time.

{Rexburg, Idaho LDS Temple}
This wasn't there when we were in school!

This was!! :)


We arrived just in time to catch the Rexburg 4th of July parade and found Nathan in the crowd. I love a good small town parade! They are so patriotic and festive! We got lots of candy thrown to us and even school lunch size chocolate milk cartons from one of the floats :)

Next we drove around Rexburg checking out the changes and boring our kids to tears with stories....

wow.

I forgot how much time I used to spend tweaking my blog.... :)

the REAL rest of June...

My brother and his family came to visit and one of the big highlights was riding the TRAX up to Downtown Salt Lake City...

the travellers
it was really fun when we came back at the 5 o'clock commute and the train was
packed and I had 4 kids and a double stroller to manage :)
THANKS REX for all your help! And for coming to visit!

this kid wouldn't look at me...but he loved the train!

We went up to Temple Square and took the real tour for Lucy's birthday

ahhh Tourists!

and here we are 6 months later....

I know alright! I know! I slacked off BIG TIME!! SORRY!!! I know you missed all my wit and humor and pictures of the kids! Alright I know! I hear it from my sister ALL the TIME!!! If you are on Facebook, {and you should be!! It is the hip happenin' place online} then you have pretty much seen the pics I would have put on here if I wasn't so busy..... being on Facebook. So~! Since it is the Most Wonderful Month of the Year, I am going to finish strong and catch up the rest of the year! A new post everyday until I am caught up! I want to show you my Christmas decorations so I better hurry up :)

The rest of June....

Jake joined the Cub Scouts!

He likes it, I am not very good at getting him to do the requirements...I'm just not that into it. I'm not a scoutin' kind of mom! Get over it!

Oh well, at least he has great leaders that want to help him :)

He also tried his hand at baseball...

It was alright...not his fave...

I'm not sure what his fave is going to be yet...

GOOOOOAAAALLLL!!!!

OK so none yet, but there is the possibility. We have entered the exciting world of youth soccer. Or Soccor as the COACH spells it (?!) We have had 1 practice and 1 game. The game was a good practice to teach them how to play soccer I think. They all need to get a little more aggressive but they looked like they were having fun and I guess that is the most important thing right? :) Except for the winning part. OK maybe Jim and I are a little more interested in the winning part. Is that soo wrong? As long as the boys learn to play and have fun right? What would be wrong with winning the game too? Anyway, here they are after their 1st practice...

Brooke wanted in on the action...

After the games Max wandered onto the field to inspect the goal...

It's a small world in T Falls

This last weekend we took a little trip up to Twin Falls to visit 1 of Jim's old mission companions Will Dilworth and his family. His wife Collette, was 1 of my (our) friends at Ricks. Jim played matchmaker and got them together. We hadn't seen them for about 12 years. It was so fun to see them again! They have 2 kids 9 and 6 who did a great job taking care of Brooke and Max for me the whole time. They are expecting a baby in a couple months and this was really good practice and a good reminder for them. We didn't take any pics though for some reason. While we were there I happened to see their ward directory and found our friend Megan and her family are in their ward too! We know them from Texas and so we went over and surprise visited them for a bit. Sunday we went to church with them and Jim ran into a guy that looked very familiar to him. It turned out to be a family he knew from New Mexico from when he was about 14. The Niccums are really good friends with Jim's dad and step-mom. And they live right next door to the Dilworths! It's so crazy how small the world gets in the church! We did take a couple pics off the bridge across the Snake River, which is an incredible view to behold!

(the pictures don't do it justice)

Chocolate and Zukes

I don't know about you, but our garden turned out like this-

a lot of waterers and no weeders. That's a basketball on the right.

Nothing grew. Oh wait, lots of things grew, just nothing we wanted to eat.

My brother and s-i-l always grow a big ol' garden and found this recipe when they were trying to use up the ton of Zucchini they grew in their garden a couple years ago. I haven't heard how it grew this year but I'm guessing it probably went pretty well as usual. My mom brought us some zucchini when they were here for 4th of July so we got to make these muffins. They are so good and good for you! Vegetables AND Chocolate? Very healthy!

Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins/Bread

Sift:

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 packets hot cocoa mix

in another bowl cream:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup canola oil

1 3/4 cup sugar

add:

2 eggs

stir in:

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

add the dry mix to the wet mix and then stir in:

2 1/2 cups shredded zucchini

1 cup chocolate chips (we have used the mini chips before and that's good too)

Bake @ 325 *

muffin tins 25-30 min

bread pans 40 min or a little longer

These kids like them too!

Little Miss Blue Beard

Can you tell it's her 1st cotton candy?