It's A Party In The USA - Day 4

July 5, 2011

On Tuesday we decided to hop a train and go downtown to see the sights. In the above picture we are waiting for the train. Below is a picture of the kids on Temple Square in front of the Assembly Hall.

It was a hot day and we came prepared with zero water. Not Zero Water as in filtered water, but zero water as in no water. At all. Every time we saw a water fountain, all 9 kids lined up to gulp the stuff down. Our visits to the water fountains were pretty lengthy.

The kids at the Christus
Lunch time! Thanks to the food court the kids could happily eat Mickey D's and the adults and older kids could eat grown up food.

Overlooking the Temple in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Aubrey

Aubrey, Emily and Tia

The kids in front of the Salt Lake Temple

The observation deck on top of the Church Office Building

Waiting to watch the movie in the Legacy Theater

Tia and Aubrey. These girls are only a few weeks apart in age and they are the bestest of friends. They have become like sisters this summer with Tia living at our house.

Touring the Conference Center with our fantastic tour guide. Even though it was late in the day and the kids were all toured out and hot and tired and hungry she still t.a.l.k.e.d. r.e.a.l.l.y. s.l.o.w. a.n.d. g.a.v.e u.s. a.n. e.x.c.e.s.s.i.v.e. a.m.o.u.n.t. o.f. d.e.t.a.i.l.

On top of the Conference Center

Granny with her fan club: AKA: Matt and Addy

The elevator ride down from the roof. All day long it was tour guides saying, "Oh, we'll all fit!" And all day long it was me thinking, "Yeah, we'll all fit if you all want me to claw your eyeballs out!" Not to mention the fact that earlier in the day I was on an elevator with Farrah and a few of the kids and it was a hot sweaty old elevator and Farrah started doing a fake out panic attack and I really did almost claw her eyeballs out.

Granny and nine of her Great Grandchildren

More water fountain breaks. This particular water fountain on Temple Square was the kids favorite because it shot water about 3 feet from the fountain.

On our way back to the train. Granny was escorted all day by her sweet little ones.

Waiting for the train Baron decided to moon us all

Later that night Farrah took me on a ride around the neighborhood.

Monday Morning Musings - Toe Jam

OK, so my garden has been a pain in my booty. We spent forever planting it and then we had that disaster happen with all of the black weed barrier we put down so we had to put it down again. That fantastic weed barrier. That did nothing to keep the weeds from growing. In fact, I think it actually gave the weeds super growing powers. Steve kept threatening to till the whole thing up. I kept telling him I would deal with it. But like I said before, I hate yard work and I hate being outside when it is hot. So I didn't deal with it, I just ignored it. Then last Monday Steve woke us all up at 7:00 AM to go out and pull weeds. At first I was slightly irritated. But then I thought about what a bad example I was being to my children about just giving up on something just because it was a little hard or unpleasant. So every day last week I kicked the kids out of bed at 7 AM and we went out an pulled weeds together for 30-40 minutes. We are slowly but surely digging our garden out from all the weeds. We have lost some plants but I think they are the ones that were destroyed back with the before mentioned disaster.

So far my kids have been great about getting up early and weeding. Today was the first day that we had some grumbling but I think that is just because they had the weekend off and it was hard to get back into the swing of things. I had to say a lot of suck it ups this morning. "Suck it up!" That's the way I was raised. My dad was not a sissy man, by any means. His mantra was "Suck it up". I heard that my whole life. Suck it up and move on and get it done. That has now become my mantra with my children. Ohhhh, I'm such a good mom....

Here are the weeds we pulled this morning. We are about 1/2 way through the garden now.

One day last week as I was on my way back in the house from weeding, I noticed a little something growing by the house. This is where we had our chicken coop and chicken run over the winter. We have since moved it. I looked closer and we have what I believe to be 2 pumpkin plants and 3 tomato plants growing from the food we gave to the chickens. So I pulled all the weeds around them. They should grow great considering how fertilized that ground is.

Last Wednesday we went to the park by our old neighborhood and met some friends there.

The kids were so glad to see their friends again

I was too

This was one day last week when I was taking care of Kristy's kids while she was getting her hair cut. They all insisted on sitting on the same side of the table together while eating lunch.

Ahhh....the two youngest children from two different families. They have this special way of not getting along at all. The two of them fight all day long. Everyday. So it did my heart some good to look out the window and see them working and playing together. They were riding Lauren's bike, but neither of them could reach the pedals. So they were taking turns pushing each other. It was so cute. And as soon as they were done, they started fighting again.

One day last week, Addy and I found ourselves home alone. It was so strange. Kristy and her kids were at her in-laws. Steve was at work, Aubrey was at a friends house, and Zac and Em went to see the new Harry Potter movie. Addy needed a little rest time (so did I) so I had her watch TV in my bed. I gave her some twizzlers to eat. I went in to check on her and this is what I found.

CrAzY Girl!

It's A Party In The USA - Day 3 - Independence Day

Monday, July 4, 2011

We started out Independence Day with Bart's world famous breakfast burritos. Then we had a patriotic devotional including a flag ceremony where we pledged allegiance to the flag and the Republic and sang the National Anthem.

Then we all got ready to go to the parade. Here is a picture of Bart ironing Farrah's shirt. I had to take this picture because it reminds me of my dad. I have heard tales of him as a teenager ironing his jeans before he would leave the house to go to the 7-11 to buy a drink. He also did all the ironing at our house while we were growing up. I remember Saturday nights he would say, "OK girls, bring me your church clothes." And he would set up shop and iron all our clothes.

Waiting for the parade to start. My mom has a friend who owns a house on the parade route and she was kind enough to let us use her lawn for the second year in a row. We had the best seats in the house.

Irene, Kay and Lauren
Zac and Gabe

Steve, Allyson and Addy


Kristy, Allyson and Farrah

Our cute little kiddos enjoying the parade

Emily and Kristy

After the parade we went to my fathers grave.

Then we came home and got cookin'. Farrah made delicious pies.

Kristy making brownies

I made the hamburger patties and Steve grilled them

Teresa making dip

Mmmm, mmm, mmm. Enjoying the fruits of our labors.

The boys (Steve, Sam and Bart) decided they were gettin' the heck outta dodge so they loaded up the wheelers and headed for the hills.

Em gave all the kids rides around the neighborhood on her ATV until she ran out of gas and Kristy had to push her home.

After a while, the natives started getting restless so we decided to go to the park to help them expend their extra energy. Farrah set up an obstacle course for the kids. ♫Two of these kids are not like the others, two of these kids do not belong♫...she also made some new friends. ♪Now it's time to sing our song, it's time to sing our song♪....

Granny, Addy and Grandma. Addy loves these two ladies and had more fun chatting it up with them than she did playing on the playground.

Kay and Tia

On their way back from riding, the boys spotted us at the park and stopped on by. They were so dirty from the trail.

On the way home from the park, Farrah refused to let me close the van doors. So we rode all the way home like this:

And this:

That night we enjoyed another dazzling display of fireworks. We actually enjoyed several displays. From our vantage point we could see two different displays and also someone was setting off their own big fireworks at the park we were at.

It was a very fun day. As a side note, there was one part that was not so fun. The 4th of July was not a good day for chickens. Not a good day at all. Apparently there was a lot of leashless dog walking going on that day. When we got home from the parade, the kids noticed that the chickens were hurt. I went out to look and almost had a nervous break down. Two were bloody and each had an eye that they could not open. One was limping and another had a hole in her back. Later that day as I was taking a nap, Farrah saw another dog come in our yard and attack another chicken. She went out and gave the owners a piece of her mind. I really at that point could not process or handle the situation. We had 5 out of 6 chickens injured pretty seriously. I was so close to finding someone to put my chickens out of their misery and putting my coop up for sale. Thankfully most of the chickens have healed now. One of them with the eye problem had something stuck in her eye. Steve was able to get it out and the eye has healed. The other with the eye problem pretty much has no eye, but she seems to be coping. I thought we would probably never get eggs out of those chickens ever again, but surprisingly they are still laying and we got 5 eggs just today.

Click below for It's A Party In The USA

Day One

Day One Do Over

Day Two