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.

Brains verses Beauty

I'm extremely tired today. This was running through my head last night and hopefully it will make some sense as an exhausted ramble.

I know, as a country, we put a lot of value on how someone looks. I do not think it is healthy nor fair. In an effort to fix this, it seems we are now pushing the value of being smart, especially to girls. I wonder if we are creating a similar monster. Just as people come in all sizes and shapes, people come with varying IQs. Replacing someone's value based on one thing they have little control over with another doesn't seem right to me.

I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't be educated. I think everyone benefits from more education. I just have a problem sending a message that someone's value is dependent on how naturally smart (or smarter than others) they are. I don't think anyone's self esteem should be based on how smart they are any more than it should be based on how good-looking they are. And I think being pretty is just as much as an accomplishment as being smart, and vice-verse. Why can't we just accept that people come with different genes and talents. Some people are pretty, some are smart, some are athletic, some are naturally social. A pretty person who works hard and becomes a super model has succeeded just as much as a smart person who becomes a physicist or an athletic person who plays in the NBA. The admiration should come from what people have done with what they have, rather than what they were born with.

Call me crazy, but what if we actually valued someone's character. What if, as a society, we taught that being a good person is more important than being pretty, smart, athletic or successful. Instead of seeing success as being a super model, scientist, or athlete, we see successful people as being  kind, honest and hard working. In reality, this is where we all start on the most equal playing field, so success in this area is actually based on what you do not something out of your control.

No matter what skills or circumstances you were born with, everyone is equally capable of making choices that will build strong character and lead them to be kind and generous. Honestly, I think this would solve the self-esteem issues more than any thing else. How great would a society be that doesn't say one person is better than another based on smarts or looks or natural abilities, rather our collective character is such that we value each person for what they contribute or their hard work in any area regardless of natural ability. Let's stop comparing ourselves with arbitrary criteria and instead, build and support each other in our differences.

Weekend Report-Fathers Day

Happy Father's Day to the best man I know.

The weekend started out with a fencing competition.

Both boys did well and had fun.

Sunday we celebrated Rick. Homemade cards from the boys.

We gave him a 3 month subscription to Birchbox Man. This was one item included. Foldable sun glasses.


Rick sporting the glasses and the box.


Rick also got a new chair for the home office. This has been needed for a long time.

And now you no longer have to wonder about the colors we are contemplating to paint the living room.

Just throwing in a crappy pic of my big brother and me on Friday afternoon. We had a great mountain bike ride.

Kitchen Remodel

Hooray, the kitchen remodel is finally finished. Here are some pics

Overview:

We LOVE the custom wood bar.



Extra large composite granite sink and touch sensor faucet. Love them both, except now I habitually touch all faucets thinking it will turn them on. It sometimes takes a few tries before I realize I have to turn a handle.



Back splash. Can you tell those top vertical pieces are copper? We did some copper accents with the back splash, cabinet pulls and faucet.


We love the granite, even though it caused the most trouble. Actually, it was the installers that were the problem. They cut it too short, took pieces we needed to hook up our disposal, and broke a drawer in the kitchen. Now that everything is fixed, we love it.


We opted for a creamy yellow paint. (Flowers courtesy of my back yard!)


And a finishing touch of these cool outlets that you can plug a USB directly into.

Here are a few before pictures. 

So much better now!