Thursday, August 26, 2010

Last Days of FREEDOM

During the last week of summer break, Steve and I took the Young Women of our ward boating up at Pineview Reservoir. Because we have such exceptional young girls in our ward, who are all involved in good things, it has been really hard to line up a date to take them, and even then we had to adjust the timing so that we could pick up girls from cheer practice, and then get them back in time for mini cheer practice. On this day, we also had girls trying out for volleyball and a back to school night. Soooo, we couldn't stay on the lake as long as we would've liked, but we sure had fun with the time we had. We let everyone try wakeboarding who wanted to go, and it was a lot a fun to watch all of them give it a go.

The next day, Steve and I packed up our trailer and our two youngest and headed out of town to meet up with the Mordue Clan at Flaming Gorge. We went in on a trailer four years ago with some friends, and believe it or not, this was the first time we have every used it! As we took a crash coarse from Toby on how to prepare the trailer (juice up the batteries, get the fridge running, fill the water tank) and how to set it up once we got to the camp site, we were asking our selves: Why haven't we done this more often?? Poor Toby, I think we called him a biz-zillion times with questions.

Make that a biz-zillion and one times:

"Hi Toby! Hey, where are the tools kept to change a tire...oh, there ARE NO tools on the trailer? Hmmmm..."

This sweet little bonding experience happened just outside of Evenston.

Steve and I dug out the tire changing tool kit from our suburban and were doing a decent job, until we went to take the spare tire off of the back end and discovered that it had different sized bolts holding it on. And yes, you guessed it, we didn't have the right tool. Here we are, on a tiny patch of ground off the side of the freeway, with semi's whizzing past at trailer-rocking high speeds, the trailer up on a flimsy-looking jack, wheel-less, and no way to get the spare tire off to replace it. Steve had to walk a little ways off into the distance to control his colorful language and think clearly, and meanwhile I said a very plea-filled prayer. With an "amen" I looked down the road, and driving up the side was a truck with a guy in it who was hopping out at regular intervals to pick up tire pieces from off of the freeway. He was wearing an orange reflector vest and his truck had a government insignia on it: yeah for the Wyoming State Road Clean up Crew! I pointed the truck out to Steve and I told him that I bet he would stop to help us. Sure enough, the kindly gentlemen stopped and he had the tool we needed to get the spare tire off, we fixed the tire and went on our merry way!

We made it to the Gorge safely, and had a lot of fun with the Mordue's. We went wake boarding on the lake and the next day we loaded everyone up on rafts and floated the Green River.



We had so much fun getting into water battles with each other and with other boats. Ashley was on my boat, and during one of the battles I ended up with a face full of water from her bucket. I'm still wondering if that was on accident or not...

The trip home was epic in that everything that could go wrong did: parts broke, we got another flat tire, a traffic jam outside of Farmington. A 3 1/2 trip took us six hours, but we made it home safe. Now for the next big adventure: SCHOOL!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Falling in love with Jesse






With this movie, my secret crush on Jesse James began. You have to know that it gave me a secret thrill to actually visit the farm and house he grew up in.





Celebrating like it's 1799!

Turning 13, Amish Style!

On the night before Ashley's birthday, we rolled into this bustling little town:

Jamesport, Missouri. Population 505.

We could hear the brisk clip-clop of fast running horses pulling little black compact buggies. Every now and then we caught a glimpse of their occupants: young girls riding shoeless, a young boy and his sister, a teenager taking his "jalopy" out for a spin, a father bringing his boys into town for business, and an elderly woman on her way to visit a friend.

(I like to think that this is a teen's buggy, we saw it hitched to a post with a bunch of other buggies and they all had different designs on their reflector.)


On Ashley's birthday,

she woke up to breakfast in bed,
(cinnamon roll from the Gingrich Old Dutch Bakery)
a wonderful present of playing with this cute little kitten,

some happy birthday phone calls,

and then we went shopping!

(Madi with her "Mormon quilt" and Ashley with her Amish quilt)

When I asked Ashley what she would like for her birthday, she started by saying the normal answers such as "clothes," "a phone," "an Itouch," but then she surprised me by saying that what she'd really like was an Amish quilt. We had fun looking at the many different hand-quilted and detailed quilts at an Amish store in Jamesport.

Happy 13th Birthday, Ashley! It was really fun to celebrate it in a old-fashioned way.



Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Circle continues....


We just got back from Laguna Beach, California. This is a trip we take just about every year. When Steve and I were first married, the trips to Laguna were a little more sporadic because at that time in our life, the PARENTS paid for the trip. Those were the days. Our hotel room, meals, transportation: paid, paid, paid by the parents. That's why we only went about every four years or so, and it was usually given as a Christmas gift, which we loved! Then, slowly, Steve and I started booking our own family vacations to Laguna (on the "off" years that we didn't go with the whole family). Before we knew it, we were going every year. Part of the trip was booking our hotel for the NEXT year while we were checking out. This year, we invited Steve's parents to join us. We also had a married daughter and her husband, so they needed their own room. Steve and I find ourselves now in the role of hosts for our little group...we arranged for the rooms, the food, the activities. On one of the evenings, Steve and I looked at each other and realized that we have become the PARENTS. It's a really weird place to be. However, if you have to be in that place, there is no better spot than Laguna Beach! What a fun time we had with three generations!

Here are some of the highlights:

Steven relaxing (with a beautiful shot of his wife in the background)

Kelsey and her Cov...always good for a laugh!

B.J.'s pizza! A trip to Laguna is never complete without a meal at this joint.

Mer baby and Ash

The Newlyweds

The Oldlyweds

Bathing Beauties: Madi, Ashley, Mer, and Bam

Our body-surfing Grandad and Madi

Dinner at the Beach House: Bam and Dandad's treat! Thank you, Bam and Dandad.


The PARENTS