Family Vacation 2011

It's been awhile since we've taken a family vacation. Six months ago I needed to book a resort so as not to lose our points with our resort membership and Matt said, "Book something fun." No pressure, right? Like the other resorts we've stayed in hasn't been fun. Fun. Okay, so I got online and looked up Disneyland. The last time I did this they were booked solid. This time, expecting they would be booked solid, I was overjoyed and practically bouncing on the bed with excitement as I discovered there was one room that sleeps 6. I booked it as fast as I possibly could, then texted Matt, "We're going to Disneyland!!!"

I'm pretty good at keeping secrets, but this secret I could not keep. That night at the dinner table, we announced to the kids that we're taking the family to Disneyland. A chorus of "Hurray!" sprung from their seats and then the loaded question, "When are we going?" "In six months," was my response. "Ohhhhh. I thought we were going this Saturday." So sad.

For Family Home Evening (FHE) a couple days later, we each decorated a container for personal Disneyland savings! The kids and Matt and I diligently fed the containers as much money as we could sacrifice out of our allowance. This was particularly hard on the younger boys since they love to spend their money right away. I'm happy to say they each saved over $50!

After a week of great preparations, including vehicle maintenance and tons of laundry, the blessed day arrived. Our sweet dog, Nanna, was safely tucked away at the neighbor’s house with their dog in the kennel in the backyard so that Nanna had a friend to hang out with, and we all went to bed. At 3:30 in the morning, Matt and I arose, took a quick shower, and awoke the kids. We have found that nighttime driving helps the hours go faster for the kids since they sleep for about half the time we're in the car. But if we leave too early in the night, we arrive long before we can check in and we're too tired to do anything while we have to wait.

It took us awhile to get settled in, but we finally left the house. Matt takes the first shift and the kids and I are supposed to go back to sleep. Since I was up 'til midnight finishing the packing and some house cleaning, I was very anxious to go back to sleep; however, the kids and Matt are awake and excited and begin visiting. This I can handle, but then matt requests a song, one that is a family favorite when traveling, titled, "Are we there yet." You've got to be kidding me. One of the lines in the song says, "We can still see the house!" So funny. Somehow I talked Matt into waiting 'til later to enjoy the song so that I could go to sleep.

As I fell asleep, I start remembering everything we have forgotten to pack: Matt's pillow, my extra tennis shoes.... and the list goes on. We will have to live without those things for a week. And if we can't, I bet CA has a Walmart. We can always make a purchase for whomever's toothbrush got left behind. Somehow I think we managed to get everyone's toothbrush packed. There's a small miracle! I slept all the way through Utah. When I awoke, we were nearly to Vegas. Wow!

After passing Vegas, we decided to stop for an early lunch. Matt requested we have our picnic on a grassy area that's not at a gas station. We pull off the interstate, take a potty break and fill the gas tank, then head across the street to the last casino around in hopes to find a patch of grass. Luckily there was one, and it included large trees providing nice shady spots! After carefully unloading the trunk to unbury our cooler, we dig out all the lunch items and snack items and spread out on the grass to make sandwiches. While sandwiches are being made, the kids were picking car snacks for later so that I could be left alone to my driving while Matt napped. Then all of a sudden, “Spwesh,” and “Oh, you’re kidding me,” with a response from Matt, “No, not kidding.” The sprinklers were coming on full force. Matt thought quickly on his feet and covered up the sprinkler head with his foot so it wouldn’t pop up while the kids and I frantically grab all the picnic fixings off the lawn. So much for a relaxing lunch. Everyone takes their seat in the van to eat their sandwich or wait their turn to make their sandwich. Then instead of a lunch in the shade of the big tree, we hit the road and off we went.

Minutes later, Matt was fast asleep in the passenger seat and the kids were involved in a movie as we approached Baker, CA. I noticed a sign that said, “The largest…..in the world.“ I missed something. I managed to read the next sign, “The largest temperature gauge in the world.” So I pointed it out to the kids. Elijah says, “Why did you want me to see that?” My response, “Well, just in case you wanted to see the largest temperature gauge in the world.” Silly boy. Or maybe, silly me.

Once the movie ended, we kicked on some Bill Cosby to listen to. He is a great storyteller! The boys went back to sleep and time flew. We pulled into Anaheim much earlier than expected and realized we hadn’t figured in the time change to our travel plans. Needing to wait an hour and a half, we decided to find the nearest Walmart to begin our purchases of Disney paraphernalia.

Upon returning to the resort to check in, we piled all our belongings onto a cart and headed to our room. Normally we get a room that sleeps 8 so that no one has to sleep in the TV room, which typically has a murphy bed. But, as previously mentioned, this room sleeps six, so the kids weren’t sure how to divvy the space available. Then the concern was, “There’s no murphy bed.” Right, this room has a hide-a-bed. That is a new concept to my children who lead sheltered lives and they were quite impressed. Zack said, “I’ve got to get one of these for my bedroom!” I thought to myself, “Wait ‘til after you’ve slept on it to make a decision like that.”

So here we are, on vacation! Everyone has unpacked their bags and settled in. The kids turn on the TV and start flipping channels, which is lots of fun because there’s cable TV, which we don’t have at home. First thing I do is log into Matt’s wifi and check out my FaceBook! Ah, just like home. LOL!

Even though we brought lots of food, Matt and I were pretty worn out from the trip and decided to order Chinese. YUM! An hour later, dinner was delivered and we even have leftovers. After a nice shower to wash away the travel yuckiness, the little boys and I headed down to the pool. Knowing it was windy, I chose to sit at the side of the pool and not get wet. The boys probably only swam for half an hour and we headed back to the room. After changing clothes and bundling up a bit, we headed up to the roof to watch the Disneyland fireworks display!

One travel day down and everyone gladly hits the hay. Luckily there is no hay in my bed, otherwise I wouldn’t sleep very good.

Adventures from Japan

In the midst of our crazy summer, we decided to add another teenager to the group! A friend of mine in Tooele is on the committee to find host families every summer for the Japanese exchange students. I received an email from her saying there are 29 students coming next week who do not have host families, can you please host? I told her no. We're in the middle of redoing flooring in the house and my house is an absolute nightmare right now.

The next day Matt and I finished Sara's flooring and decided it would work out fine to host a student considering we had one week to put the house back together. I did not get all the projects complete that I had hoped; however, we were able to put together a guest area for our exchange student to have his own space.

Rintaro joined us Tuesday evening. He's studies English for 3 years, now to put it all to work! The biggest challenge is that he has learned proper English and we speak with a Utah accent. A perfect example of this was the morning after his arrival I asked Rintaro, "How're you doin' today?" He gave me a funny look. So I said, "How are you?" He said, "Oh, I'm good!" I just needed to enunciate and not slur my words together. Imagine that!

The cultural differences in some situations are huge! We were told when we picked up our exchange student to be sure to explain how the shower works. In their culture, they don't have a tub or a shower. Instead they have a drain in the floor and the shower head and simply shower in the middle of the bathroom. So if we don't teach them how to use the tub and keep the curtain inside the tub, we're due to have a flood in the bathroom. Also, in America our children are allowed to eat pretty much at any time. If they need a snack after school, they get one themselves. But in Japan, children only eat what their mother gives them. So we were told to be sure the students understand they are welcome to eat when they are hungry, especially since we don't serve big bowls of rice with every meal!

When we arrived home the first day with Rintaro I wanted him to see the food so he could know where to forage when hungry. I opened one side of my double door pantry and gave examples of snacks and then opened the other side of the pantry to show him other options. "Woah!" Now I'm not sure this was an English word he was taught, I believe this was a natural cross cultural response as he was surprised to see the amount of food we have on hand. Then of course adding to that the fridge full of fruits and veggies due to my wonderful bountiful basket purchases!

Another cultural difference is our beds. I think the Japanese sleep on mats, they don't have mattresses to sleep on. My guest room has a queen size mattress, which is super convenient for my folks when they come visit! Rintaro is about my height, 5' 6" but he is very skinny, probably 100 lbs. soaking wet....maybe. So this bed is huge compared to the little space he takes on it. Also, I left a smaller blanket on top of the bed in case the blanket on the bed was not enough. But I have neglected to tell him that he is supposed to sleep under the bigger blanket, so he has simply covered up with the smaller blanket each night. I asked him if he's been warm enough and he says yes, so I guess being summer he's fine. I'm thinking I should show him how the bed turns down with soft sheets inside for cozy sleeping! Why have I waited this long? Well here's why:

The Japanese exchange students want the full American teenager experience. I figure why not? He is Zack's buddy so to speak, so he is to do everything Zack does. After being here only a day we sent him off to Youth Conference! The youth in our stake went up to the stake property not far from Park City to camp for Youth Conference. Our ward leaders were more than accommodating and even bought Rintaro a Japanese Book of Mormon. How cool is that! So Rintaro has been able to experience the craziness of young Mormons camping as well as experience the Spiritual aspect of Mormonism being taught to our youth. I honestly don't know how he feels about it all, but I do know that he is reading the Book of Mormon!

The boys arrived back home Saturday just before noon and were very tired. After Zack took a nap, I shipped the boys off to the pool at the Rec Center for some swimming! We've got to keep Rintaro busy so he doesn't get too homesick. Matt and I went on our date so the boys had to walk home. Nobody seemed to mind at all.

My three boys are very much into playing "Wizard 101" on the computers, which is an online multiplayer game for youth. I figure, why not? Rintaro should experience it all, right? We had him open an account and create a character! Any time he doesn't have something to do, he heads to the computer to play. I figure it's great exposure to American fantasy linguistics, right? LOL! I don't even know what they're talking about as my boys play. They have cool names for everything.

The Japanese are big on gift giving. We were warned in advance so that we could have gifts ready for Rintaro as well. Holy Cow, he brought a lot of gifts. Matt was given a bandana, which has a cool fancy name and can be folded in cool ways. It's rectangular in shape rather than square like our bandanas. I received a beautiful key chain made of cloth. It looks kind of like a bell. So once the keys are attached, they can be pulled inside the fabric. The little boys each received a ceramic frog on a leaf that holds a picture as well as some fancy Japanese paper. Sara was given some paper flowers that are meant to be window decorations. Zack was given a Japanese hand fan and Japanese chess game, which has a cool name. In case that is not enough, he gave the family two kites, and three pieces of hand made artwork made by his grandmother. Besides all that, he gave us a scrapbook about him, showing his home, his town, and things about his culture. SO awesome to learn about his home and lifestyle.

Some foods we eat are common world wide. For example, I was excited to take the kids to In N Out Burger for dinner the first night. But McDonalds is worldwide so Rintaro has eaten hamburgers in Japan. Darn it! Other foods are new to him. Tonight we had Bratwurst, which I typically serve with hot dog buns. We also had baked potatoes and salad with dinner. Rintaro took a bun and left it on his plate and was going to eat the bun separate from the bratwurst. So I showed him mine all tucked in with some mustard. He had a heck of a time figuring out how to open the bun. After tearing the bun into two, he tried to put the bratwurst between the two pieces and added some ketchup. In the end he ended up eating them separate anyway, the bun with ketchup on it, and the bratwurst. Oh well. He loved the baked potatoes, though! We oil the potatoes, sprinkle them with salt, then bake them. YUM! Apparently he thought so, too!

Rintaro likes playing games. Besides the Japanese chess game, he played American chess with Zack, who enjoyed having a good opponent, opposed to a younger brother who's not so great at the game. Rintaro also likes card games like Pokemon, YuGiOh, and several others. He brought some Japanese Pokemon cards and gave them to Elijah, who was excited to receive them. I'm hoping Rintaro can help my younger boys learn to play these correctly!

Week one down, three weeks to go. We have a long list of fun activities to do in order to help Rintaro experience American culture!

Crazy Summer Dayze

School is not even out yet for two of my kids and the chaos has begun. Of course I have to remind myself that I signed up for this. In years past the kids drove me absolutely berzerk by the end of summer and I was ready to pay the school district to take them back. But alas, my sanity was at stake. So now I make sure my kids are busy so that no one is bored or bouncing off the walls.

Not everyday is like today....thank goodness. I've had very few minutes at home today. Elijah's class did a wax museum. It was SO COOL! The kids wrote a report on someone who has influenced America. Then they had to memorize several seconds in preparation for the wax museum. On the big day, the kids dressed up like their character. This caused some unusual havoc in our home at the early hour of 8am.

Last night we had set aside Sunday dress clothes for Elijah to wear. His character was Shia LeBouef. Sadly, I had no idea who this is and said to him a few days ago, "You're going to dress up like a girl?"

He quickly corrected me. I was informed that Shia is a boy who is an actor in several recent movies. Anyway, back to this morning's havoc. After family prayer Elijah says, "Mom, I need to draw spots on my face."

It took me a moment to get it. He wanted to have a Go-T! Okay. So I pulled out my eye brow pencil that never gets used. Why did I buy that thing anyway? For moments like this. Ha ha! I am prepared. Spots it is. He goes and looks in the mirror and exclaims, "What? That's not black!" And the spots were wiped off very quickly.

Umm, who said he needed a black Go-T? He surely didn't. Go-T take two. Pull out the black eye liner....that never gets used. Once again spots are rapidly added to the chin and upper lip. Once again he looks in the mirror and becomes very upset, then removes the spots yet again. "The spots were too big."

By this time his ride is ready to go and he disappears out the door upset with me. Shia LaBouef did not have a Go-T today. So sad.

I quickly showered and dressed. I even put on makeup which is pretty rare for me to do during the week. I grabbed my temple bag and hurried off to the elementary school to the wax museum! After signing in at the office, I find Elijah's classroom. The school is set up in a circular fashion and I feel like I already passed it before I ever get to his classroom. Besides, who puts 4th & 5th grade after 1st grade? No wonder why I always feel like I missed it.

First person I see when I enter the classroom is Elijah's girlfriend, Jane. She's so cute. (She's also a twin and her brother is Elijah's best friend. Interesting, huh?) All the kids have a red sticker on their hand that is their button. So I pushed her button and she came to life and gave her speech and then froze back into a statue again. So cute! After pushing several more buttons, I finally look around and find my son and cross the room skipping half the class. I push his button and he did a magnificent job on his memorized speech about Shia LaBouef. I thought I had taken video of him but for some reason it didn't record. Matt would tell me it's PEBKAC. He's probably right, as usual.

I left the school at 9:50 and realized I was going to miss the 10am session at the temple. I had planned on attending the 11am anyway, thinking I'd spend more time in the classroom. Weighing my options, I decided to just enjoy the extra time reading scriptures while I waited.

Once the session ended I headed straight to a neighbor's house for an appointment to plan the elementary school t-shirts for next school year. How I got roped into being in charge of that, I'm not sure. The new PTA president (No names mentioned) somehow caught me on a good day and sweet talked me into it. Actually she nearly scared me out of it, but somehow I still said yes. I'm still not sure what I was thinking. I haven't served on the PTA in years. I'm a rebel that way. Anyway, my appointment was at 1pm and I got there a few minutes later. I had a granola bar that was practically melted on my way so that my stomach wouldn't do all the talking and forced myself to drink some hot water out of the collection of partially drunk water bottles floating around the car. Today would not be a good day for me to end up in the hospital due to dehydration.

After telling the t-shirt guy everything I don't want, I picked a couple colors, told him he had to be the creative one because my creative juices are fresh out and I left...much earlier than I'd expected, which bodes well for my to do list!!!

After rushing home I tell Sara to hurry and put on her shoes so we can make a quick trip to Walmart. She's got to pick out paint colors for her room. That's a great way to use my extra 50 minutes before my next appointment! Again I have to remind myself, I signed up for this. I'm the one that scheduled everything so far on this crazy day. What was I thinking? So I peel an orange and inhale it on the way to Walmart and send Sara off to look at paint swatches. I scurry through the gargantuan store that is big enough to be an alternative gym as I zigzag back and forth grabbing things that I need as well as things that should have been on my list...or at least I tell myself that to feel better about a couple small spontaneous purchases. Sara is still looking at colors. I decide to join her, but her tastes are much different than my own, so I'm not much help to her at all. But of course the super woman inside me says I could paint this room this color and all the halls this color and that room this color....and suddenly have at least a dozen color swatches of my own to pour through later!

I'm done looking and collecting paint swatches and Sara is still looking. It's time to go or I'll be late for my next appointment. Cash registers here I come. Sara will have to catch up. I text her which register I'm at and she joins me a couple minutes later.

My next appointment is for my haircut. I've been wanting to chop off the bulk so I'm not so hot during the day...or at night when I have the extra heat of the pillow. Gratefully, my hair dresser was not rushed and did a magnificent job and got me out the door to go back to the school to pick up kids. I'm end of the school day taxi driver and if I'm not there when the kids are on their way, they freak out thinking they've been forgotten. Heaven forbid I be just around the corner actually on my way!

On the way home Elijah reminds me I've approved for him to go to his best friend's house to play. Chores come first! But of course his chores are done in a jiffy and he wants me to take him NOW! UGH. Ten minutes from now I have to head out to run errands (Wait a minute, exactly what have I been doing all day if I'm just getting around to running errands?) and sit with Zack through his drum lessons. Elijah is frustrated he has to wait. But this taxi driver wants to avoid one zigzag back to the house in the process of the crazy day. Elijah will survive.

After sending Zack's friend home, Elijah, Zack and I pile into the taxi, I mean van and deliver Elijah to his best friend's house. So glad Josh is okay to hang out with Sara for awhile! But, one of the errands is for Sara. Before drum lessons, we head to Walgreen's to develop some pictures from an old 35mm disposable camera. YIKES! *heavy sigh*

Side story: Yesterday Sara had two guy friends over to make "blood cookies" (Red Velvet Cookies) for another guy friend who is on a mission. Anybody else see the irony? Pictures were taken and must be developed, thus the errand to Walgreen's, as they are the only ones left who develop 35mm one hour photo.

Off to drum lessons. Luckily Zack's drum teacher has two pairs of heavy duty headphones to help muffle the loudness of the drumming and music played on the huge sound system. I try to ignore it all while I sit and read my kindle for half an hour, pretending it's quality reading time. What was the Borg's theory? Oh, right. Resistance is futile. Most of the time I have to reread the page to process the words on the virtual page. But at least I can look cool sitting there with an entire library in my hands!

Drum lessons complete, back to running errands. The Water Mart is not far from drum lessons and we're fresh out, which is not good considering our tap water is SO very disgusting. Since I'm tired of running out of water so quickly now that summer is upon us, I decided to buy two more bottles to add to the collection. Hurray for yummy water!

Our hour is up and back to Walgreen's we go to pick up the film. Of course there's someone else at the film counter taking her sweet time while her children shop the rest of the store and bring her items to be approved for purchase, so while I waited, I shopped for a pair of sunglasses as mine have become scratched from constant use. After all, the taxi driver must be able to see the road through the rays of summer sunshine, right?

Home again, home again, jiggity, jig. Finally at home I collapse into my big chair beside my bed. Two minutes later Matt arrives home from work and we discuss how thoroughly worn out we are. Who needs dinner, right? Because neither of us have the energy to pursue anything in the kitchen. Popcorn sounded good to me! But we decided to go with fried chicken. After sitting for 15 minutes and realizing the chicken still wasn't cooking itself, I look at the clock and realize Sara needs to go to play practice. Don't shut the meter off on the taxi cab. Off we go...again.

Back at home, I look at the wall to see who has clear and set table tonight so that I can have some help getting dinner on. Matt has decided to cut up some potatoes to go with our fried chicken. YUM! I'm an Idaho girl and I love potatoes. Joshua offers to help chop the potatoes and I start hollering for Elijah. Again and again...wait a minute. If you've been following me closely, I never picked him up from his friend's house. HOLY COW! Seriously. Back to the van. If I had realized that you know, five minutes earlier, I could have picked him up on my way home from dropping Sara off. But NO! And yet this won't be my last trip out of the house today.

I collected Elijah and brought him home to get ready for dinner. I thought his chores were supposedly done! Oh well. Too late now. That's what I get for not checking on him. Mental note for next time. We finally sit down to dinner at 7:45 and my brain feels like mush. I'm in a bit of a haze. Dinner didn't sit so well. Too much fried food, I guess. The kids didn't mind, they still have rock hard stomachs that can handle anything.

Moments later the text arrives, "Mom, we're done."

If only I had the attitude of the old song, "Life is a highway, I'm gonna drive it all night long." But at least my sweet daughter didn't start walking home tonight. Someday she will have her license so that a percentage of my taxi driving will decrease. I often ask myself, "Self, is it worth it to have a third vehicle to have to put gas into and maintain just so the teenagers don't crash the family vehicles while driving themselves around so that I can have a break?"

The answer is yet to be seen. But apparently the answer is supposedly yes since I have a fixed up clunker in my driveway waiting to be registered, then driven by a girl who is not supposed to be old enough to be hanging out with boys and talking about her first date. Where did the time go? Not just today, but years. Where have the years gone?

Sitting in a daze I wonder if I have enough umph left to make it to the gym for a workout. I guess I should have dragged my butt out of bed at 6am to do that. The gym closes in less than half an hour. Then again, maybe I should skip getting into the van again, and just go for a walk. My big dog, Nanna would sure like that. Will I? I don't know if there's anything left in me tonight.

If only I had a clone. It would be so nice to have one of me home to do the dishes and the laundry and get the house clean, as well as work on the major projects like tearing carpet out and painting rooms while I'm off in my taxi van, zigzagging through time. Oh well. The house gets to be a mess. It's okay I guess. We live here.

The BEST lemonade

I bought one of those cool 3 gallon drink dispensers at Costco last month and we're putting it to great use! My lemonade is becoming famous. The teenagers at Sara's end of school year party raved about it tonight! And if the teens like it, it must be good. Here's my recipe:

The BEST lemonade:

1 gallon pitcher

2 crystal light lemonade packets

1 orange rolled

1 lemon rolled

1 lime

ice cubes

Wash the fruit, slice it and add it to the lemonade. The lime gets pretty strong, so we don't roll it. I will warn you that rolling results in pulp, but the juices from the citrus makes the lemonade SO yummy; however, rolling isn't necessary, it just moves the blending of flavors along faster. The first few cups will taste like regular old lemonade. But if you prepare it in advance the flavors can blend a bit, the lemonade will be amazing! I typically reuse the fruit for another batch the same day, or put the fruit in the fridge to use it again for a fresh batch the next day. With the rolling and extra pulp, you're getting some vitamin C! Oh, and the last cup is typically really strong, so be prepared to add a couple ounces of water if needed.

Family Newsletter 3 June '11

A friend of mine recently wrote her family newsletter and simply posted it on her blog. What a great idea! I don't have to print the letter, stuff envelopes, address them, lick them (YUCK!), and pay an arm and a leg postage to tell everyone I care about that my kids are still growing like weeds!

Summer is here, kinda. Sara and Zack are both out of school, but my younger boys are in year round school, so they have another month. In order to keep me sane, we must keep the children busy. This, however, backfires, and I become a much busier taxi mom.

Sara, 15, has worked hard this past year to improve her vocal skills and it has paid off! She made the Madrigals choir at school, which is the top choir. Only two new girls made it in! To keep Sara vocally busy, she has tried out for the city play, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Coat." She's in one of the chorus lines! Rehearsals will be four days a week for 3-4 hours at a time. I'll post on FB when we're closer to performance time in case you want to come. It's the first weekend and the entire second week of August. Sara has decided to be a music major in college. Last semester of HS she took a music theory class and I'm very impressed at how much she learned! Sara will also have voice and piano lessons all summer to go along with preparing to be a music major. Just in case that's not enough to keep her busy, if I can, I will enroll Sara in a summer drivers ed class. She'll soon be getting her permit!

Zack, 13, has become quite the drummer! Most of you know that he and a couple friends wrote a musical piece for marimba and zylophone and performed it at the middle school's talent show. He's taking percussion lessons and has improved immensely! Zack is often heard in the back garage beating his heart out to a tune that is being loudly played on a stereo. Most of the neighbors are gone during the day, so hopefully they're not too annoyed! Zack is also preparing for a 50 mile hike with the scouts at the end of August, so he has been hiking and will be hiking a lot! Some are just day hikes while others are over night hike in type of things. We have some amazing scout leaders!

Zack and Sara are both too young to have a summer job, so we work for a friend at the Salt Lake Farmer's Market selling jam one or two Saturdays a month June-October. It makes for pretty crazy weekends, but it provides an income for my kids who wish they had more money!

Elijah, 9, is still loved by the girls at school. LOL! He's a little sweetheart. Except that he's really tall! (His current girlfriend is an entire head shorter than he is!) Elijah runs super fast. Last year I enrolled him in track & field and he took first or second place in just about every event. He's decided to participate again so he'll start next week! Even though track meets take about three hours to get through all the events, I love to watch Elijah run like the wind. He is also very good at the long jump. Last year they wanted him to compete in the next age group up because he could jump so far. Eli is also enjoying the Cub Scout program and will hopefully be taking swimming lessons after track & field is over.

Joshua, 7, is finishing up his second soccer season and is loving it! He's a very big kid and will be a great goalie someday. In his current age group, they don't have them play positions, so he's simply learning to block the ball without his hands, but he's doing a great job! It's hard for him to keep up with some of the players, but he scored a goal a couple weeks ago! Yeah, Josh! Josh will also be taking swimming lessons later this summer. This is my last year before Josh is more involved in after school activities. Next January he will be a Cub Scout, too!

Matt has gone back to school! Western Governor's University is exactly what Matt needs to get his Bachelor's Degree. In case that and work aren't enough to keep him busy, Matt has decided to do a triathlon. There's a "sprint" triathlon this fall in Daybreak that he's training for. The new Rec Center not far from our home has allowed Matt to cross train, so he's becoming a runner, learning how to swim, and will be taking some spin classes!

This year has been great! It's my first year with my kids all in school all day. I've been able to take naps when I need them and I'm working on reorganizing the whole house. YIKES! The projects never end. I'm also enjoying time at the new Rec Center. I've been working on a Couch to 5K program on my ipod. Much of my time is spent driving to and from where ever the kids need to be, but it's so much fun to see them discover new talents and then excel in them!

Many years ago Matt and I hoped that as the kids got older, we'd be able to attract the teenagers to our house. That has been the case and we're very pleased! It helps to see who the kids friends are and provide a safe and fun environment for them. This weekend we're having two end of year parties at my house. One for the HS kids, and the other for the middle school kids. We haven't had any huge parties, but it's been a lot of fun. The one tonight is almost over. Tomorrow night, we'll be putting a fire in the pit and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows! I think it'll be a lot of fun.

Homemade Laundry Soap!

Tired of spending SO much money on a good laundry detergent? I am. I've never been one to spend a lot of money, which means I've always bargain shopped, been frustrated with different brands, found one that I liked, then discovered it was no longer on sale, then search for a new one. I even finally switched over to liquid detergent and loved it. Last year I did six months of couponing and bought almost a year supply of laundry soap!!! It was wonderful...while it lasted. Now I'm not couponing and I have decided to try a homemade recipe that a friend recommended.

In the process of trying out her recipe, I hunted forever to find Washing Soda. For any of you that want to try this recipe, I found the Washing Soda at Smith's. It's in a box that looks like an oversized box of baking soda, Arm & Hammer brand. It's similar to baking soda, only much more acidic, which removes the yucky smells from your laundry! I did some research on google to compare recipes and found them to be very similar. I took many other people's advice and didn't use the type of bar soap originally recommended. When choosing your soap, make sure there are no added oils to the bar soap. I'm pretty sure that includes Shea Butter. Oils will stain your clothes. Oxi Clean is a great stain remover! You can use as little as 1/4 cup in this recipe; however, my boys come home with grass stains in their knees, so I feel I need the extra for our laundry. Here is the recipe I ended up with:

Laundry Soap

1 cup Borax

1 cup Oxi Clean

1 cup Washing Soda

1 bar soap, grated

Use 2 TBSP per load of laundry. Yes, that's right. Only two tablespoons per load. Amazing, I know! You'll want to label your container so that anyone doing laundry can see how much to use. I found a small scooper that is 2 TBSP so I just leave it in my container. This recipe is low sudsing which means it will work great in your high efficiency washer!

Other suggestions:

One person recommended putting each bar of soap in the microwave for one minute and thirty seconds. This puffs it up and makes the soap crumble easily for the recipe. I tried this and it's pretty darn cool, except that the glycerin soap I chose smelled horrible after being microwaved and gave us all headaches. I simply used my food processor to grate my soap. Then it breaks down into smaller pieces when being stirred.

Once you try the recipe and find a bar soap you like, make a huge batch. Tonight I discovered that I could probably use entire boxes instead of measuring out cup for cup. I box of Borax is about the same as two boxes of Washing Soda. I bought my Oxi Clean at Costco so that box is twice as much as I need to match boxes, but you get the idea. Then an 8 pack of bar soap is sufficient. It doesn't have to be perfect.

If you prefer liquid detergent, google homemade laundry soap and follow the directions to turn this recipe into liquid laundry soap! You'll need a huge bucket for mixing and storage.

Write the recipe down on your container so that you can make it again without hunting. Also, write down how much to use in each load so that your laundry helpers will know what to do with the homemade laundry soap.

My current batch using entire boxes should last me several months! Possibly the whole year. I guess we'll have to see. But in my opinion, I'll be saving a bundle over the course of the next several months! Let me know what you think after you make yours. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you to Shelly Wolf who posted her homemade laundry soap on her blog! I'm always looking for a way to save money.

High Adventure!

Two years ago, a dear friend of mine, Verlene, talked me into climbing Angel's Landing for a birthday adventure. All of her other friends had declined the opportunity! I'm always up for an adventure, so we booked a nearby hotel to Zion's National Park and went mid April of 2009.

I LOVE southern Utah with the red rock. It is beautiful. It's like I'm in a different part of the world just a few hours south of my home. The day was absolutely gorgeous. Since it was early April it was not too hot and not too cold. Verlene is much more physically fit than I, so she would have had a bit of an advantage over me; however, that day she got allergies REALLY badly and she could hardly see. I'm guessing her memories of that trip are pretty miserable. That night once we'd figured out it was allergies I gave her some of my allergy meds and she did great the next day. I feel bad that I didn't giver her some sooner.

The climb up Angel's Landing was beautiful! I used my camera as an excuse on dozens of occasions to catch my breath and take some pictures. I probably have 300 pictures from that trip! Towards the top of our climb, you are basically walking the ridge line over to the next peak before reaching the plateau at the top. There are a couple spots where there's no path, just a pole and a rope to help you make it up. At one spot in particular, it is quite narrow and only one person can pass through at a time. Considering how slow I am, many people were coming down by the time we were climbing up it, so we had to take turns and wait. Verlene and I are very friendly people and started to visit with the people around us as we waited our turn. There was a guy behind us from Texas that was on vacation by himself and hiking several parts of Zion's National Park. His name was Joe. He was very polite about waiting and was behind us for probably the last 20 minutes or more.

Here's a side note to help you understand the ending of my story. I used to watch the TV show FRIENDS. Matt and I bought every season and watched it from start to finish. In one particular episode, Joey is dating a girl who would always eat food off Joey's plate. Joey really liked her and didn't want to break up with her just because of this habit of hers, so they guys helped Joey brainstorm ideas. On their next date, Joey bought every side dish on the menu for her so that she wouldn't need to take anything off his plate. But of course she does anyway, after which Joey loudly announces, "Joey doesn't share food!" as he slams his fists on the table.

Now back to our story. At the end of our climb is a huge plateau that seems to be floating. The views around us are absolutely breath taking. Verlene and I sit down to enjoy some lunch. Joe wandered our way and continued talking with us while we began to eat. I put my backpack at my feet and I'm sitting with my legs crossed to eat when I notice a little chipmunk venturing closer and closer. We're watching it and joking about it. I'm using my backpack as a table or bowl so that my food is not on the ground while I eat. Next thing I know that little chipmunk is trying to climb into my backpack and help itself to my lunch, so I loudly say, "Joey doesn't share food!" I didn't think it was that funny as Verlene just about died laughing, when I realized Joe is standing right there looking at me like I'm crazy. Amidst Verlene's laughter, she explains to Joe my reference from the old TV show FRIENDS and tells him I'm not talking about him, which is about the time I figure out why Verlene is laughing so hard. Talk about open mouth insert foot! It was a very funny situation. That little chipmunk provided us great entertainment!