Not Much

Dear Blog,

I miss you.

Love,
me

Weekend Update Catch up

I've been planning an engagement party for my friend Pinky for several months. With the chaos that is my life, I needed to do cheap, quick, and easy. Turns out tissue paper decorations rate high on the cheap and easy, but not necessarily quick. Luckily, I had a great assistant (Rick) who would help me cut and fold while watching movies over several weekends.

The party turned out to be a lot of fun and I was pleased with the decor and theme. Pinky and Kieth's wedding decor is Hello Kitty, Star Wars and Flamingos and the colors are pink and red. She wanted the same for the shower. Here's what we came up with.

 

 Tissue paper flower wreath for the door.

The main party room. We made most of the tissue balls.
 

 Hello Kitty food table (for finger foods). My friend Michelle, who is queen of party planners (www.theglitzypear.blogspot.com), recommend using wrapping paper as table runners. Turned out cute. I made a little stand for the middle by gluing together two dollar store candle holders, then added some tissue flowers. Easy and cute.

 

 Star Wars food table (for soup and drinks). Star Wars wrapping paper was harder to come by. Most was blue or was Lego Star Wars. I found this "confetti" of Star Wars characters online.

 Many people helped with food (very appreciated). I should have taken photos of the overflowing food tables. Once the party got going, I didn't think to take many photos. But here are the couple of things I made. Hello Kitty cookies. I forget how long it takes to frost cookies, but it was worth it. I found mini-Starbursts that I cut in half for the bows, and used mini-Sweettarts for noses. My sister froze a bunch of unfrosted cookies to make cats for Halloween later in the month.

 

I made caprese bites, and was excited to find these little flamingo picks online. I soaked the mozzarella in olive oil with some crushed garlic, salt, and pepper before putting them on the picks. Then, after they were assembled, I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar on top.

They were a hit. I think Pinky is going to do these again for the wedding.

I'm bummed I didn't take more party pictures - like photos of some old friends who came. This is one of those occasions when the memories will have to suffice. It was a fun afternoon.

Here we are with the happy couple!

The following weekend, we took off to Sand Hollow for some sunshine and fun in the sand.

We arrived Friday afternoon to a big wind/sand storm. Here are Isaac and his friend unloading the car.

We opted for some time in St. George rather than hiding out in the motor home and trailer. We found a really fun park, where apparently, I only took video and no still photos. There was a climbing wall, lots of spinning rides, and funky swings, etc. It was fun for all ages. 

Saturday we woke up to calm weather and spent a little time digging out of sand drifts. There was so much sand we had to shovel before being able to shake it off.

Look at these cuties! They had fun having the big boys (Isaac and Tristan) pull them along the sand on the knee boards.

As you can see, the water was very low and it was muddy getting out there, so we mostly played in the sand. Saturday afternoon, some of the gang drove to the other side of the reservoir to play in the water, but there was plenty to do without getting in the water. Here is Jairon teaching Isaac to ride the motorcycle. Once he and Tristan had it down, they were out on the bikes a lot.

We also took our road bikes and had a nice ride Saturday afternoon. It was good to be back on my bike!

This little cutie is almost 18 months old and she DOES NOT want to be left out of anything the big kids are doing. She climbed up here by herself and was ready for her turn.

Isaac and Rick.

Our big adventure was driving into St. George for the boys to watch the Priesthood session. My mom and sister were staying at a condo and we left the boys there to be spiritually fed while we shopped. Later we all went to dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. Unfortunately, we misunderstood the park closing time and we were locked out of the campground. Fortunately, the condo was big enough for all of us to crash that night. We made a quick stop for toothbrushes and contact solution and made do. Turned out to be fun.

A really great weekend. I usually don't like to travel on conference weekend, but thanks to technology, we could stream General Conference and enjoy it while sitting outside the motor home watching the kids play in the sand.

H2O

As the resident wicked step-mother, I don't regularly buy soda for us to drink at home. Don't think I'm all about health food (we have plenty of cold cereal for meals at our house), but it's easy to not buy soda and it's a baby step in the right direction to helping kids create healthy habits.

In an effort to encourage drinking more water, we bought a large Britta and have started creating a water-flavor-of-the-week.

We started with a citrus blend: orange, lime, lemon. This was a huge hit and we all increased our water intake last week. Water for dinner is boring, but this made it seem like we were having something fancy with our meal. I had to add water to the Britta quite often during the week, so I know it was being consumed quickly between meals as well.

This week we went with watermelon and mint. Another hit in my book, but not everyone is a fan of watermelon in my house. (I know- how do you not like watermelon?!)  This doesn't look appetizing, but it is delicious.

The only dilemma is in order to give the water flavor, I slightly crush whatever I'm adding. When we dispense the water, it pulls the food toward the dispenser and clogs it a bit. It wasn't an issue with the citrus, but has been with the watermelon. Next week I want to try raspberry/lemon and I know those raspberry seeds are going to be a problem. I'm wondering if I can find some kind of mesh to put fruit in and just float that in the water. Any ideas?

Also- I'm anxious to hear any good recipe suggestions.

Cheers!

Isaac's Empire

Last year for Christmas Santa brought Isaac the fixings to build his own basic computer. Since then he's enjoyed upgrading from our graveyard downstairs as well as saving and buying parts. Last weekend he found a great deal on a couple of monitors online.  I laughed when I went in and he had three big screens going and was texting on his little phone. Definitely a teenager!

It's fun to see him develop this interest and learn about computer hardware (and not just games and web surfing). Proud of him and the work he's put into learning about things he enjoys.

Letting Go of my Ego (aka Getting Older)

I've never minded birthdays or getting older. I feel like each year consists of me learning more about myself and how to be happy and I wouldn't go back for anything... almost. While the aging process is positive for my mental and emotional state, physically I'm left wondering who I am.

I think it started with my plantar faciitis. The pain knocked me out of commission for a couple of years and, when I came back, I seemed to have transformed from the body of my youth to middle age. Everything is harder and everything hurts. It's frustrating dealing with physical limitations that I've never had before.

I was very excited to go back to Bikram yoga, but found my body didn't want to do things that used to be easy or fun. It wasn't just being stiff, something had shifted and I physically was unable to do things. I've always been someone who liked to push myself. If I do something, I want to be good at it, and I'm usually willing to do what I need to be at the level I want. So after a few weeks of yoga, when things weren't getting easier, I figured I'd just push through the pain and get my body over whatever was holding it back. Huge mistake. I ended up injuring my back and being out of commission again for several months.

I'm back again, but with a new - and let's call it more mature - attitude about my body. I'm trying to listen to my "old" body and not push it beyond what it's telling me is it's limits. It's hard. I want to do everything in class, even the stuff that hurts. My inclination is to suck it up and push through the pain. I'm learning that is my ego. Yoga (or anything - I'm also having a reality check with biking) isn't about being the best or pushing my limits (at least not my old limits). It's about being fine with where I am and being aware of my limitations. Ugh. I don't even like the way that sounds. Maybe this is my mental/emotional lesson of my 40s that will make me much happier in my 50s. We will see if I can actually convince myself to believe and act that way.

Life is Good

This is a series of posts I did last week on Facebook/Instagram. One per day.

What I love about Monday: Riding my bike to work

What I love about Tuesday: Playing tennis with my girls. (However, tennis was canceled at the last minute last week so these aren't my girls.)

What I love about Wednesday: When I decided to do this, I was in the YW Presidency and spent every Wednesday at a youth activity. However, as of last Sunday, they changed my job. I had a picture from the previous week (ice blocking) that I used. The YW brought me flowers on Wednesday night, which was so sweet. I also used my unexpected free time to do a favorite bike ride (airport) with some work friends.

What I love about Thursday: Bikram Yoga with my sisters!

What I love about Friday: I get every other Friday off work. I usually sleep in until 8:00 or so, but really slept in this past Friday.  I had a great day getting the house clean, school shopping with the kids, then having a date night with my hubby.

What I love about Saturday: I can't single out something that happens regularly on a Saturday. This Saturday consisted of attempted tennis (it was really windy so we gave up after 15 minutes). We went to the Alpine rodeo in the evening. Rick and the boys had never been. It was fun being with the family, but I'm fine never going to another rodeo.

What I love about Sunday: Going to church together, down time, the boys clean up dinner every Sunday and sometimes make us a treat!

Life is good.

These daily posts were fun. I'd love to see what other people have as their "love" of each day.

Summer's Winding Down

Here are few pictures from the second half of summer.

My adorable and talented niece, Krista, had her senior piano recital. It was amazing. She had a half hour of music prepared including two original compositions.

Ice blocking with the youth. Isaac had this down!

He was one of the only ones who could make it all the way down the hill without falling off the ice block.

I went to one of Isaac's horse riding lessons. He has really enjoyed these this summer. Horse riding lesson was "Grandma Day" this summer. Grandma paid for all the kids to learn to ride, then they'd have lunch at her house.

The Best Advice I've Ever Received

One of my favorite people in the world is my friend Leina. We met the last day of our freshman year at BYU and have been "bosom friends" ever since. There are several funny, yet poignant, Leina quotes, but my favorite was some advice that changed my life.

One evening she called me to see if I wanted to go out. I informed her that I needed to stay home because I was sure a certain man of my dreams was going to call and want to get together that evening. (This was before cell phones, so I had to be home to get his call.) Leina was very frustrated with me and said, "Quit living your life as if something great were going to happen!"

There were a few moments of stunned silence, then we both started to laugh. I'm not sure what I decided to do that night. I hope I went out with her and had a good time.

Fast forward a couple of years.

Leina was leaving on a mission and I went to the airport to see her off. We were reminiscing and laughing about her telling me to "Quit living your life as if something great were going to happen."  As I was driving home from the airport, I was thinking about my life. I was stuck in that same mindset, not just for that evening, but for my life. I was going to school, a bit aimlessly, and waiting for something fabulous to drop in my lap and make my life exciting. I made a decision right then and there to take Leina's advice and start making my life happen instead of waiting for it to happen. I put in my mission papers a week later.

I think about that advice all of time. I use it to check myself to see if I am taking control and responsibility for what's happening in my life. It's helped me overcome fears of the unknown and encouraged me to jump into adventure and experience many things that life has to offer. I hope I've maintained the attitude of seeking adventure and going after the things I want in life instead of hoping they will somehow just happen. I can give credit to Leina for a lot of fun memories, both with her and without her, because I took her advice and stopped dreaming and started doing. Leina, you're awesome (TMA to be precise). I love and miss you!

As a side note, here are a couple of other Leina gems.

"When scriptures are rustling, satan is hustling."
"Why don't you pretend you have some morals."

Weekend Report: Zane's Birthday

Zane turned 17 on Friday. We had an all day celebration.

It started with presents and IHOP for breakfast. I decided we needed to see how many people we could get to sing to Zane on his birthday. Here's the IHOP crew singing.

We then headed up to Ogden to iFly. It's a sky diving simulator (giant vertical wind tunnel). Here's the staff  singing to Zane.

We're all geared up. This is after we finished. If you look closely, you can see hair sticking up through our helmets. That was some strong wind! That's the wind tunnel to the right behind us. It was a lot of fun. Everyone had two turns. Isaac did exceptionally well and learned how to control his movements and height. We couldn't take cameras in with us, but we did get a video of the experience. You can come over and watch it sometime. :)

We kept the party going by heading to see a matinee of the new Wolverine movie. It was a fun movie (review in sidebar). Unfortunately, we got there just as the previews were starting. I had grand plans to get the theater to sing to Zane for his birthday.

After the movie, we bought pizza to take home. Here are the pizza workers singing to Zane.

We also stopped and bought an ice cream cake (love those things!). They also obliged and sang to Zane.

Then it was the family's turn to sing.

We were babysitting my two nephews for the night, so we all decided to take a trip to the park after dinner. Isaac - Ninja tennis player.

We found some neighborhood girls hanging at the park so I had them sing to Zane.

My nephews really really really wanted to sleep in the backyard, but they couldn't convince any of us to sleep out there with them. We compromised by pitching the tent in the living room. This worked out well as they could watch Shrek (Trick, as Mason calls it) through the open tent door.

I couldn't believe how hard it was to get them to smile for the picture. I have about 8 pics like this, none of which has two smiling kids!

It was such a fun day. The remainder of the weekend consisted of lots of yard work, errands, and a little downtime.

Summer So Far

Wow, I'm way behind in blogging. Here's a quick update with several photos of what's we've been doing so far this summer....

My summer glitter toes:

We had an amazing Youth Conference with our church. I should have taken more photos. We started by hosting a Special Needs Olympics. Leaders ran a lot of the events and our youth were "buddies" to the special needs athletes.  What a great experience for all of us. We had a full spectrum of abilities in our athletes. Some were very high-functioning others not so much. One kid I talked to during the day was buddied with a guy who just wanted to walk around. He didn't talk much. So this kid just followed him around the facility for hours. Another kid had a buddy who just wanted to sit. Ages ranges from 14-70ish. None of our kids complained, and they all talked about what a life-changing experience it was for them. I ran the broom hockey event. It was so much fun. We had several athletes come back to play a second time. Success.  Just a note - dollar store brooms break easily. :)

Day 2 of Youth Conference we all went to the Olympic Oval for several hours. The kids had free reign of the place and they had about 10 activities to choose from, like ice skating and dodge ball. Here's a picture of Isaac learning to curl.

I really should have taken more photos! After playing at the Oval, we headed up to Camp Heber. What a nice facility! We stayed in cabins, had a wonderful fireside with all youth speakers, did the ropes/challenge course, and slept (a little).

Saturday morning we headed to Provo Canyon to run the river. I enjoyed this (leaders finally got to participate). The river is pretty mellow, but we had some water fights and nice chats as we floated down.

The weekend ended with everyone returning to the church for a dance with the Special Needs youth. Those kids are very uninhibited which got everyone dancing and having fun. I even got Isaac to join the conga line for a few minutes.

Moving on to July 4. Both Rick and I have standing family reunions that day so we rotate which we attend. This year was Rick's family and we were in charge. Again, I failed on photos. Joanna and I supplied water games for the kiddos while our husbands chatted with cousins.

We stopped by my parents to catch the tail end of my family party. Due to the accident last year with the homemade water slide, dad rented a slide this year.

I love Mason' face in this pic

We did not have swim suits, but I made my sisters (and Rick and Isaac) go down the slide a few times in clothes.

So much fun. Love my sisters.

This past week was girl's camp. Here are a few highlights.

Canoe games (I love this pic because of the girls in the overturned canoe in the background)

Winners of the canoe relay.

Lots of crafts. Body glitter and bracelets.

We had a sports theme so each ward picked a team name and mascot. Our group was Team Sisterhood and our mascot was a tiger. We made tiger tails for the "pep rallys".

Amber turned 16 so we gave her a crown, boa, and sash to wear all day. Here she is getting birthday love from the girls.

We also got some time for archery and air soft guns. The leaders got in on the action.

The whole group!

YCLs (youth leaders) leading girls in silly camp songs. (The stupid jellyfish song has been stuck in my head ever since.)

So far, a busy and fun summer. One more major event then some down time for a few weeks.