Hot Diggity Dog

I have forever, for all my 33 years of life, HATED

h o t d o g s

YUCK! I am very sensitive to smells and from the time I was a little kid the smell of hot dogs cooking made me want to puke. We rarely eat them at our house for that reason. I have tried several times throughout my life to eat one. Like the time I was at youth conference and we spent all day doing a service project. I was starving and all they had for dinner that night was hot dogs. I couldn't even get one bite down I was gagging so bad. Or there was the time Steve and I took the kids camping and they had hot dogs for dinner and I had a PB&J sandwich. That was the first time a hot dog even looked slightly appealing to me. I took one bite and it quickly lost it's appeal. So when Steve came home in the middle of the day today to cook hot dogs on the grill for him and the kids for lunch, I figured I would make a sandwich or eat some soup. But for some very odd reason I decided I wanted a hot dog. I kept trying to suppress the urge because I knew I wouldn't make it past one bite. But I couldn't. I just wanted it. And I ate it. The whole thing. This is a big deal for me. This is the

VERY FIRST

hot dog I have ever eaten. EVER. It was alright. No gagging.

WEIRD.

To Hell In A Handbasket (does anyone actually know what a handbasket is?)

OK. This is hot dog #3 for me. The third hot dog I have eaten in my whole entire life since eating my first on July 31st, 2007. We took the kids up the canyon on Friday night for a little cookout and we cooked, drum roll please.......HOT DOGS. I don't know what my deal is. I still don't know that I could handle your average hot dog. Actually I am pretty darn sure I could not. All 3 hot dogs I have eaten have been Nathan's Kosher hot dogs. I have been told that they are not equal to other hot dogs on the market. I couldn't tell ya. But I do know that this particular hot dog I am eating in the above picture was particularly satisfying. To see the rest of the pictures of our little adventure on Friday click here. They are the pictures at the end of the album.

Just kidding! Click HERE!

Monday Morning Musings - 1/4 After One

Yesterday was a loverly Mother's Day. I woke up and Emily made me a delicious breakfast. We went to church, I came home and took a long nap, woke up to Steve and the kids making their speciality- lasagna, my mom and sister Lauren came over, and Zac made fabulous dessert. And my family gave me the most fantastic gift (that I bought and told them they were giving to me) of a complete auto detailing. HELLO! I can't wait to use that puppy. What a thoughtful gift! After I use it, we are going back to new mini-van rules of absolutely no food, drink, or toys in the van. We will see how long that lasts. Thank you to my wonderful husband and children for making it such a special day!

Apparently Emily's head hurt and she took a bag of peas out of the freezer and attached them to her head with a Ziploc bag. I don't know who took the picture and I was wondering why I found a bag of thawed peas sitting on the kitchen counter.

Sometimes I can be so so stupid. Stupid #1: Steve was out of town all last week. The kids and I needed to get out of the house. We decided to hit the new grocery store since I didn't really get to see it when I was there because there were 10 million people in it. Also, we heard they were giving out a ton of samples. Guess what? Still 10 million people in it. And taking 4 kids to a brand new grocery store to have a look around is still taking 4 kids to a grocery store. Stupid #2: While I was there I bought a ton of cereal and chips because they were on sale for super cheap. I also bought 2 big family size packs of lunch meat and some really good (aka: expensive) hot dogs. When I got home all exhausted like from taking 4 kids to a grocery store with 10 million people in it, I was so tired, that I just left the groceries thinking it was only chips and cereal, to put away the next day. I was so mad the next day when I found the lunch meat and hot dogs that had been sitting out all night.

One day last week, Addy and I were not getting along very well at all. She said this to me, "You're a MEAN mom! You can bet when I'm a mom, I'm gonna be so nice to my kids! I'm not going to be mean like YOU!"

So I have this tendency to sing what I say (mostly just in the privacy of my own home-you can thank me later). Last week Emily and I were in the car waiting for Aubrey to come out of school. I started singing a song about Aubrey and how we couldn't find her and would she please hurry. My song was phrased as a question to Emily and she answered by saying, "I don't know where Aubrey is and I don't break out into spontaneous song either because it's REALLY ANNOYING!" Well, ex-ca-use me!

On Friday, I went to my semi-annual 24 hour scrapbook thig-a-ma-bob. It was so much fun. These girls and I laughed so much and scrapped so much. And we really got on each others nerves with singing. I was so tired Friday night so I was the first one to go to bed. As I was climbing into the hotel bed, I looked at my clock and saw that it was 1:15. So naturally I started singing, "It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk and I need you now." I texted that to LaRee and she texted me back a while later that now that song was stuck in every one's head and they were mad at me. Then when they were coming to the room, the song was playing in the hotel lobby. So all day the next day, we were all singing that song. And it got really annoying really fast. We decided we needed to find a new song to sing. No one could think of anything. Then someone, I can't remember who, started singing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. So then that song was stuck in our collective heads. All day long we were alternating between the 1/4 after 1 song and the Hallelujah Chorus. For some reason, at one time, we were also singing the Star Spangled Banner. I am sure we were really annoying the heck outta the people around us. Because we were really annoying the heck outta ourselves.

Every time we go to our scrapbook overnighter and spend hour after hour hunched over a table working, we say we need to hire someone to come in an give us massages. Well, after years of talk, we finally did it! Our friend Lindsey has a friend who is a massage therapist and she came and brought her table and HELLO HEAVEN! I had a one hour massage Saturday morning in between scrapbooking and it was fantastic. We already have her lined up to come to our next one!

While we were there, I scrapbooked our entire 17 Day Epic Trip of A Lifetime to St. Louis and Dallas, in which we celebrated Christmas, New Year's, a wedding, a funeral, 2 Birthdays, stitches x 2, and a ticket for running a red light. 92 scrapbook pages. Oh yeah. You know it. Better get on up an show it. Anyway, upon returning home, I showed the completed album to Zac. He informed me that I put the pictures in the wrong order on the page below. Apparently, when he was trying on all of Grandpa's hats and weapons and having me take pictures, he was doing it in historical order. How was I supposed to know that? Better yet, how does he know all that? I was so impressed with his knowledge, I have decided to remake this scrapbook page. One of these days....

The Russians Are Coming - Part One

Back in August, wildfires burning outside of Moscow Russia were blanketing the city in smoke. Too bad for the Russians, not so bad for us. Because the US Embassy evacuated my sister and her kids right smack dab in the middle of my house for two weeks. Her husband Scott was able to help them get here, but he was only able to stay for a few days. We LOVED having them here. Our house feels so empty with them gone. I have about a bajillion pictures to post of all the fun we had with them. I am gonna have to break it up over a few different posts.

Here is Part One:

Scott and Owen

Zac and Steve playing with the sling shot and trying not to hit anyone upside the head with a rock.
Emily, Tia and Aubrey

Silly, stupid me. I thought it would be fun one night to build a fire in the back yard and cook hot dogs and s'mores for dinner. It wasn't until we were sitting by the fire and I couldn't get away from the smoke that I realized, HEY DUMMY! Smoke is probably the LAST thing they wanna be around right now. My gracious guests assured me that the smoke put off by my backyard fire was nothing compared to the smoke they had to endure back home.

The kids ate hot dogs. The adults patiently waited until the kids were snug in bed and then we ordered take out from Pei Wei. Our Russian house guests were trying to cram in as much yummy American food as possible. And we did our best to oblige. That day I had Cafe Rio Pork Salad for lunch and Pei Wei lettuce wraps for dinner. Mmmmm...that was a good day. Because we got to spend it with family, of course.

This is a picture of the kids NOT feeding a strangers horse carrots over the back yard fence. We NEVER do this. Just for the record...

Zac made a cake one night. Mmmm...feeding 7 kids cake. That was a fun mess to clean up.

I learned my lesson after the cake, and made them take the popcorn outside. OK, not really. I ALWAYS make my kids eat popcorn outside. Because I am mean like that.

INSERT DALLAS TRIP HERE

(click on the above words to be taken to the Dallas post)

The day after returning from Dallas I dropped my kids off for their first day of school and met everyone at IHOP to celebrate. Here is Baron, Sam and Teresah.

Lauren and Kay

Tia and Me

Addy, Kristy and Owen

That same night we had dinner at the park, as illustrated by the photo below.

Watch for "The Russians Are Coming - Part Two". Coming to a blog near you.

Family Home Evening Hike

We live in a beautiful place.  We moved here 5 1/2 years ago, and we are still finding more and more things to love about it.  In our small little town, there is 128 miles of trails.  We have been on a lot of different trails, but we still have a lot more exploring to do.  The weather was spectacular yesterday and we decided to go hiking for Family Home Evening.  We found a new fun trail to hike that was only 5 minutes away from our house.

Zac being the good big brother making sure Addy didn't get left behind.

 Emily found the perfect place to sit and just enjoy nature.  

And by enjoying nature, I mean playing on her ipod.

Troll Bridge

By the time we headed back down the mountain, we were all starving.  We stopped by the grocery store to buy hot dogs to grill.  Steve was going to run in and grab those.  Somehow or another we all ended up in the store and everyone wanted something other than hot dogs.  So everyone ended up with their own dinner stuffs in the cart and by the time we checked out, we had spent enough we could have just gone out for dinner.  Lesson learned.  Don't take 6 starving people grocery shopping.  It was a fun night!

San Rafael Swell, Memorial Weekend: Days 3 & 4

Day 3 started out with the kids heading straight for their abode atop the cliff by our camp.  They each had their own "couches" up there.  They spent a good portion of the day playing there. 

Here are a couple of videos I took of them in their "house":

Here they are showing me the stairway to the underground.  This is where they fight zombies and dragons.

Steve and Zac and I spent the morning reading in the shade.

We had our own worship service in the wild.

Then we went for a very loooooong drive to find this cabin called "Swaseys Cabin" named for the brothers who herded cattle there.  The cabin was built in 1921.

We explored the area around the cabin for a while.

Zac found this awesome plant and wanted me to climb up to where he was so I could see it.  I kept telling him I was good down where I was.  But he said it looked like it was painted there.  So I climbed up to see.  And it was pretty awesome and it did look like a painting.  This picture of it below is not out of focus.  That is what it really looked like.

 My silly girls posing by the plant.

Down the road a little ways we were able to see some rock art.  If you look right above Aubrey's head you can see it too.

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It was about that time that Steve decided that if we didn't head for the nearest gas station (almost another hour away) we would not have enough gas to drive back to our campsite and then pull the camper out and make it to a gas station the next day.  So we made the long drive into town.  We needed a little refreshment as well so Steve bought us all some ice cream.

Back at camp we had dinner and then Zac made a mallowdog.  What is a mallowdog?  It is a hot dog bun full of roasted marshmallows, made famous by the Robertson boys.

Aside from the mallowdogs, we also roasted hot dogs and starbursts.  Haven't tried a roasted starburst?  What are you waiting for?  It's delicious!

It was absolutely beautiful sitting around the fire without another soul in sight.  The sky was gorgeous.  I took a video as proof:

Once again, everyone wanted to go to bed earlier than I did.  They all abandoned me and went into the camper.  Steve read his book.  Addy and Aubrey were asleep instantly.  Emily did stay up and play a game of Skip-Bo with me, bless her.

The next morning we woke up and packed up camp.  Do you remember the gnats I spoke of in my post of days 1 & 2?  Oh my!  Gnatty Batty.  That's what it was.  Those evil, nasty, horrible, awful gnats.  Trying to pack up camp with those things attacking your entire person.  While they were trying to gain access into your body through your ears, eyes, nose and mouth.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.  It really was enough to make you go insane.  In the membrane.  

More rock art.  It is so sad that it is crumbling and this is all that is left.

We drove to Goblin Valley.  At the beginning of our trip, Steve told Addy that it is called Goblin Valley because it is full of goblins that turn into statues in the day time.  As soon as we got there everyone was ready to run off and play but I made them stop for a picture.  Then they were off.  And so were Zac's shoes.

 Then we stumbled upon an awesome spot we name "The Arena".  Steve came up with a fun game of tag.

A video of our game:

It was HOT.  H.O.T.  We found solace in the little tiny bit of shade we could find.  We were shocked when we got back in the truck and it said it was only 81 degrees.  I honestly would have guessed upper 90's. 

And at last it was time to begin the journey home.  To keep themselves entertained, the kids (and I) made stuff out of  twizzlers.

We stopped for a bite to eat at Taco Bell.

Zac needed to get out of the booth to show us his dance.  The girls wouldn't let him out so he pushed his way out.  Half of Aubrey's taco insides ended up on the floor.

And here is his dance:

As we were getting closer to home we hit this.  Looks like everyone else was on their way home too.

It was a fun trip.  I am so thankful we had the opportunity to go.  We had a great time and made some fabulous memories.

Click here to see Days 1&2