My Friday!

Oh my goodness, Friday was soo busy for me. I didn't have time to breath until after school. Here's how it went...

First of all I woke up at 4:00AM! Our wards young women have been trying to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead every Friday morning at 4:30.

We got home at about 6:00. I went straight back to bed after that.

My mom woke me up at 7:15 and my car pool comes at 7:45 so I had 30 minutes to get dressed-eat-and get out the door.

My first class on A days (we have A days and B days, 4 classes each day) was Dance Fundamentals. My teacher for that class works for a dance workout company call Zumba. She is awesome and she teaches us a lot of the dances that they do. So first we warmed up which is like 3 different excercises, then we learned the 1st half of a new dance that we are learning. It was quick and hard. Then we did a zumba workout. The class in all was 65 minutes(not including time to get changed) and the warm ups only took about 20 of those minutes so I was tired after that class alone.

My next class is math which is a full time thing. You just keep going and going and going...   That class is 77 minutes.

In our school we have 30 minutes where you can go to any of your classes that you need to bring your grades up in you can also do something fun if you have a colored card instead of a white card. A colored card means you have over a C- in all of your classes. You would think "Well that's not too hard to get a colored card" but you would be suprised at how many people you see comng down the halls with a white card. I can tell you for a fact that I have never gotten a white card ever!

Any ways I had to take a test for P.E. because I missed it because I went to the schools honor roll party!( F.Y.I. I made the NATIONAL JR. HONORS SOCIETY! I have no clue what that means though)

So I went in and took the test, writen and physical.

Next I had lunch but I had other things to-do. I went and I voted for the 7th grae class president and stuff like that. Then I went into the drama room to turn in my packet to work in Seussical the Musical behind the scences. Then I went to the office to get my information about the NJHS and they didn't have it yet.

I finally had pizza for lunch.

Next I had a test in Spanish on how to spell #s in spanish. Then I had to do a lab in science.

After school was the Christmas Dance at school which I got into free because if you have all of your quizes in Math passed then you get a free pass, otherwise it would have been $3. That went from 2:45-4:00 and the don't let you out to get a drink or anything at all.

After that my friend Melissa Larson came over and we both wanted to just go to bed so we went into my room and just sat there listening to music for a wile which was a much deserved break.

That is how my Friday went.

*McKayla*

Thanksgiving (sorry no pics)

This year we decided to go to G+G Bells house.  We had soo much fun seeing each other again, but the best part was the food! I got to help Grandma make all the food this year. We made:

Butter horned rolls

The traditional turkey

Stuffing

Jell-o

Mashed potatoes and gravy

The fruits and vegies(but they were store bought)

It all tasted AMAZING!

Merry Christmas

(it will be here before you know it)

*McKayla*

McKaylas Turn To Blog!

Hey there! Since my mom has been very busy I have decided to do the blog. Here we go!

We went to the Goveners Day Parade were they had a lot of games like this rock climbing wall, a zipline, and a mecanical bull. It was awesome!

Kyle and Josh started swimming lessons.

Kyle and dad made a fort over Kyle's bed.

We went to the Parker cabin for a few days in October.

We went to Thanksgiving Points Corn Belly's festival with Danny and Gabby.

I made 2 quilts for charity (other one shown lower).

Josh turned 6!

He also got promoted to a yellow belt at jujitsu.

The boys started and have ended wrestling.

Here is my other quilt. The young women/men and the primary all came together and we cut flease blankets and tied quilts (thats what I am doing here).

Kyle also got promoted!

We put up a zipline at our property.

This was a fun fall and lets hope I can keep you guys updated.

*McKayla*

Some Summer Highlights

We had a busy, fun, wonderful summer.  Here are just a few of the exciting things we did:

We tried to get a few hikes in this summer.  This day I took the kids and a couple of their friends up Big Cottonwood Canyon and hiked to Doughnut Falls.  The hike was great, but the water was still running too high for us to climb up and see the "doughnut".  We'll have to try again another time.

Kyle went to Camp Jeremiah Johnson with his Bear Den.  He got to shoot bb guns, paddle a raft, build rockets, shoot bows and arrows, and lots of other fun things. 

We visited Idaho Falls and stayed with Grandma Senia and Grandpa Lou.  We took the kids to Tauphas Park Zoo with Vie and her boys.  We picked a great day to go because they had lots of activities for the kids and they did a clue scavenger hunt to earn stuffed animals.

In July, our family friend, Gail Tolman died while on vacation in Canada.  Joe had the opportunity to be a part of the military honor guard and present his dad the American Flag at the graveside service.  I think he looks amazing in his Class A uniform!

McKayla marched in our Lehi Round-Up Parade with Jump-N-Jive, her dance group.  The kids and I also went to the Lehi Round-Up Rodeo for the first time.  It was a lot of fun!  We will have to make the rodeo a new family tradition.

This summer, the kids discovered a swimming hole at the creek down in the gulley just east of our house. Someone built a small dam to form a pond and the older kids jump off a small waterfall into the water.  Josh prefers to stand in the shallows and throw rocks into the creek.  They all spent hours playing at the creek this summer - the best free entertainment around!

Kyle had the opportunity to carry the flag onto the field at an Orem Owlz game with his scout troop.  He did a great job!  Our family stayed and watched the Owlz beat the other team.  What's more American than baseball on a hot summer night?

Our family took a trip to Northern Idaho to visit Vie and her family at the end of July to see her son, Ethon, be baptized.  We had a wonderful time at their house, and the kids really enjoyed getting to know each other better.  We spent one of the days at Hell's Canyon National Recreational Area playing in the Snake River.  We found a little sandy beach with a nice large area for the kids to swim.  We ate a big picnic, swam, relaxed, fished, splashed and played all day long.  What a great memory!

One of the things on McKayla's "Summer Checklist" was to see Tarzan at the Tuachan theater in St. George.  Mom and Dad let us come stay at their house and came with us to the play.  We loved the play, especially the gorillas and the aerial zip-lines.  Tarzan wasn't half-bad either!

We got the bedrooms finished and decorated downstairs.  For Kyle's birthday, we surprised him with this FatHead of Darth Vader.  He LOVED it!  I'm still not sure about having the "bad guy" on the wall, but he really does look cool!

Our Primary had a "Summertime Scripture Olympics" activity a couple of weeks ago.  We divided the kids into 4 groups and had them listen to the stories of Nephi (Adam Fisher - left), David and Goliatih (Bishop Southwick - middle), the Ten Virgins (not pictured), and Samuel the Lamanited (Joe - right).  Then they got to do a water activity that went along with the story (raingutter boats with Nephi, launching water balloons at Goliath, a water relay filling a bucket (oil), and shooting water guns at Samuel on the tower.  Afterward, we had hundreds of water balloons filled up and the kids got to throw them at Joe and the Bishop.  It was a great activity!

Now summer is over, and the kids are back in school.  We really had a great summer, and it went by too fast, but we are excited for cooler weather, leaves changing colors, and football! 

Basement 99.5% Finished!!!

I'm so excited that our basement is almost done!  This spring we decided to just go for it, and finish the rest of the basement:  a storage room, the laundry room, the hallway, and two bedrooms.  It's been a ton of work, and we hired some of it out, but it is awesome!

I just have a few little things left to do, like put shelves in the closets, and touch-up some of the paint that got dinged, and it will be ready for the final inspection so I can move the older kids downstairs!

Here are some photos from start to finish:

Framing - Air Ducts - Electrical Work (April)

Insulation (April)

Sheetrock (April)

Mud/Tape (May)

Paint - all 4 rooms and hallway (May)

This is Kyle's room, McKayla's is below.

Electrical Outlets - Lighting finished (May)

Finish Trim - Doors Hung (June)

Finish work painted - Doors painted - Hardware and Doorknobs attached (June)

Windowsills painted - Blinds installed - Carpet installed (June)

I keep finding myself going downstairs just to look at it, and walk on the carpet, and open and shut the doors - and sometimes when the kids aren't watching, I do a little happy dance :).  It feels so good to be almost done!

St. George Trip

We had a great time this last week in St. George at Grandma and Grandpa Bell's house!  We loved visiting with the Bell and Thomas families and letting the cousins play and get to know each other better.  (By the way, I have the cutest nieces and nephews, ever!)  Here is Josh, Kyle, Allyssa, McKayla, Caleb, Chloe, and Noah in the front, all wearing their new Old Navy Flag shirts from G&G.

One morning while the men-folk painted the garage floor, we took the kids to a park on the north side of St. George and spent a couple of hours climbing on the red rocks.  It was nice and cool and the perfect weather for exploring and looking for lizards and turtles.

I asked Caleb and Josh to put their arms around each other's shoulders.  Apparently they are too cool for those kind of things, so they gave me this "attitude" pose instead!

Friday night we put up our tent on the back patio, then dragged our air matress inside and the boys and I slept out.  Besides the thunder and lightning, the wind, and the moo-ing cows in the morning, we slept great!  It was also a nice little hide-out for the kids to play in.

Saturday night we drove over to the the temple and went through the Visitor's Center.  My mom and dad were married here in this temple over 40 years ago!

Joe is in Guam for a couple of weeks, and the kids are missing him.  Josh and McKayla got some fake tatoos at Old Navy that say "#1 DAD".  Josh wanted to make sure that I posted this picture so his dad could see, because it will probably be worn off before Joe gets home.

Some other great moments of our trip:

• Noah trying to give the statue of Christ a "high-five".
• Playing games around the table.
• The kids playing hours and hours of TROUBLE (the game, not the punishment).
• Bouncy balls from Old Navy.
• Allyssa crawling like a bear through the red rocks.
• Chloe putting on Kyle's nasty socks and pulling them up to her thighs like leg-warmers.
• Cafe Rio for dinner one night.
• The slip and slide in the backyard - a huge hit!
• Swimming at the Coral Canyon clubhouse (thanks again, Deanna!).
• G&G's amazing new house.  We definitely broke it in for them!
• A visit from Raida and Carl.
• Kyle and Allyssa finding the bunnies in the field on Sunday morning.
• Visiting and eating, eating and visiting, etc.
• And the funniest moment of the whole trip:  Noah being in heaven because the whole tub was filled with "Nuh-Nuh"!

Thanks everybody for a great weekend! 

New Update - No Pictures

So, McKayla keeps reminding me that I need to update the blog.  She's right - it's been over two months.  Here is the problem - I'm burned out on taking pictures!  Last year I completed a "Picture-A-Day" scrapbook in which I really took a picture every single day.  It was so much fun, and I loved it!  Unfortunately, I have only taken about 5 pictures since January 1st.  I haven't pulled out my camera for over a month!
Here are some of the things we have been up to lately (with no pictures - sorry!):

*  Christmas was great!  We were totally spoiled this year and not only bought a 55" HDTV, we also got a Wii from my parents to play on it.  The kids have had such a great time on the Wii, I have loved having a DVR so I can record all of those shows that I never get the time to watch the first time around, and the SuperBowl was amazing on the new TV!  Too bad my Colts lost.  

*  McKayla turned 12 in January!  I can't believe how much she is growing and changing.  She is an amazing girl, and so much fun to have in our family.  New Beginnings was on her birthday and she has loved being in Young Women.

* Kyle and McKayla are both on Knowledge Bowl teams this year.  I'm coaching Kyle's team.  The subject this year is Geography and the kids are learning all kinds of things about maps, globes, states, countries, flags, rivers, mountains, National Parks, etc.  There is so much information to learn, but they are doing really well.  The school district competition is in the middle of March - just a few more weeks to cram it all in!

*  Joe has been really busy at work.  His unit has moved from here in our hometown to a beautiful new building near the SLC airport.  It's a good move for the unit, but it sure makes a long commute!   He has to leave home at 4:30 a.m. to get to work, but he's home before 5 most nights.  His unit has also been able to assist local police and fire departments in a couple of "Real World" incidents during the last month.  They have done a great job and really been effective helping identify dangerous substances. 
Joe's travel/training season is just getting started.  He will be gone off and on quite a bit in the next few months.  He even gets to travel to Guam later this year!

*  Josh is doing great.  He is in preschool - and loving it.  He counted to 100 to me the other day with no mistakes.  Maybe that's normal for a preschooler, I don't know, but I thought it was great!  He can even read small words, and he loves to take our letter magnets in the kitchen and spell words like "Mom" and "No".   His favorite thing to do is play on the computer and he spends hours on the Wii.  He is great at Mario Kart!

*  Kyle has his "Blue and Gold Banquet" this week and he will be receiving his Wolf badge.  Congratulations to him!  He has some great leaders who really care about the boys and want them to succeed.

*  We are planning a trip in April to Arizona and California.  The first half of the trip will be visiting family, and the second half wil be at Sea World and Disneyland. We are so excited - it's coming up soon!  (I better dust off my camera by then!)

*What else?  Just busy, busy, busy.  Joe is still in the bishopric, I'm still Primary President.  I have 12 piano students and volunteer at the school a couple of times a week, along with being Kyle's KB coach.  The kids have preschool, dance, jujitsu, scouts, young women, piano and homework. 

It's crazy, and sometimes we end up eating cold cereal for dinner because that's all we have time for, but it's great.  We are so blessed in so many ways!  Sometimes when I look at our family and the life that we are living, I can't believe how lucky I am!  We are healthy, Joe has a great job, the kids are great - no diapers or teenagers : ) - food in the pantry, a few dollars in the bank, great family and friends, and of course, the gospel to keep us focused on the Savior.   I can't ask for anything more!