DINNER TIME

Dinner time at our house is one of my favorite times of the day. It is a time when we all can be together and share our days with each other, enjoy good food, laugh and have a great time. More often than not, we get laughing so hard at one thing or another and it is really a good release as well as a bonding time. Tonight was no exception. We had a fruit salad with large grapes in it, and, well, things got a bit out of hand. I think we all laughed until we were sick...the pictures will do the talking. (JORD- you owe us a picture with grapes in your mouth!!)

STRENGTH

Isn't it funny how you think you are not strong enough for all that life throws you, and another curve ball hits. That is when you can decide to step up to the plate and stick together as a team and play the inning of your life with all your strength, or you can forfeit, give up and go home. We choose to play and to play HARD.

This is for my beautiful children...

YOU ARE THE STRENGTH WHEN THE WORLD IS WEAK
YOU ARE THE LIGHT WHEN THE WORLD IS DARK
YOU ARE THE JOY WHEN THE SORROW IS HEAVY
YOU ARE THE LOVE WHEN THERE IS NO MORE

and

I am here to lift you up
To brighten all your days
My arms will gladly hold you
And wipe your tears away...

Love Mom

JOCEY AND THE FOOT DOC

Jocelyn has had ingrown toenails for the past month that have been infected and SOOOO sore. We called our favorite foot doctor who took care of Jenica a few years ago when she had the same problem. If any of you are squeamish...LOOK AWAY. All I can say is Jocelyn is a TROOPER! She giggled through the nasty shots instead of screaming and took the procedure like a champ. Of course it helps that Dr Kelly Gomez is such a great doctor and it is actually fun to go see him. Here is my super hero Jocelyn having BOTH toes done...GO FIGHT WIN JOCELYN!!

NATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY...ARGGGGHHHH

Aye Matey's ....it's national Talk like a pirate day.....YO HO HO HO...it's pirate day at the hospital...at least for me. I got some strange stares driving into work this morning, and I am a little nervous that a patient is going to come to my desk. I am having a great time though. My friend Judy put on some pirate music and we danced a jig or two...

SAIL ON FRIENDS..beer and tobacco for everyone! (or more like rootbeer floats at our house!)

AAAGGGRRRRRR!!

Flowers

We have had a prettiest flowers in our yard this year. I am loving the different variety's and MOST of all, I love that most of them are perennials, so we get to enjoy them year to year and not plant or pay for them. Here is the tail end of our flowers I am afraid...with fall coming...I have this arrangement in an awesome container Jeff got me up at Taipan..(YAY TAIPAN).

PRETTY HUH?

SWEET SIXTEEN......JACEY!!!!

Our little girl Jacey is 16 years old....I just can't believe it. It seems like just yesterday when she was running around the house in some crazy outfit she put together from the dress up clothes with her beautiful blue eyes and her strawberry blonde hair. Singing a little song to herself and reading books.

Jacey has always LOVED books and reading and school. She has always done well learning. She is an incredible writer too. She doesn't let too many people read her poems or her writing, but when you are lucky enough too, it's pretty incredible.

Jacey has such a tender heart and is so good with animals and kids. They love her. Our little dog Joonie whines at her door when she is gone and we can usually find her curled up on Jacey's lap.

Jace has a great sense of humor and usually has me laughing at something...even if it is her one liner texts with lines from Monte Python or Benchwarmers.

Nate started throwng a ball to Jacey in my parents back yard on the day after my mom's funeral and he is a coach of the girls softball over in Payson. He turned to me and said..."You should get this kid playing ball"...we did, and she got to go down and play for Nate and has NEVER stopped. She is a natural athlete, and it is so much fun watching her play. She did play soccer and basketball on teams as well, but her true love is SOFTBALL!! She plays a mean football and wished they had football for girls...her Jr. High band teacher bragged to everyone about how good of a football player Jace is when they play as a class. Oh I love to watch her play, it is so much fun to see how quick her mind thinks out there, when my natural reaction would be to run and hide from balls, players or anything coming towards me. She is not afraid to slide, crash and burn and I have cleaned many a blood stain from her uniforms. ( SEE JACEY...I didn't call it your costume...are you proud??)

She LOVES music and you can usually bet she has her ipod earphones on or her stereo blasting in her room. She plays the trombone in band and is very good. She also has a great voice IF you can get her to sing for you.

Jacey is such a beautiful girl, inside and out, and I am so proud of her. She is sporting a "discoball hair style right now, where last month it was blue hair. She can pull these off because of her beautiful face.



WE LOVE YOU SWEET SIXTEEN!!

The Infamous BETO's Breakfast Burrito

Beto's is a great local Mexican food restaurant that has real authentic Mexican fast food. Jeff's favorite thing there is the "Breakfast Burrito." (I am partial to their fish taco's myself. You have to go with Jeff to Beto's to experience his "Breakfast Burrito" dissection. It is a CLASSIC "Jeffism". That is a term we affectionally use in our home to refer to Jeff's fun and sometimes funny quirks he has.

First, you take this HUGE steaming burrito in a home made tortilla, and unwrap it. Inside are steaming hot bits of potato, egg, cheese onion and bacon. Jeff has a real love/hate relationship with bacon. He LOVES the flavor and the smokiness, but hated the "fat" on it. (Jeff, dude, bacon=fat!) He takes each piece of bacon in the whole burrito and picks what he considers the fat off each piece of bacon and puts the "fat" into a graveyard on a napkin. This can take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes depending on the amount of bacon. Ask any of his friends from work who have gone to Beto's with him. They can attest to the work Jeff meticulously does on the burrito:).

Here are of few picks of my favorite man with a true breakfast burrito experience. If you ever go to enjoy one of these babies, don" forget the red sauce to dip it in...a great way to clear your sinuses and it is YUM!!

FAMILY FUN DAY...LAGOON!

We told the kids that on the 31st we were going to do something fun as a family, but didn't tell them what...er, tried not to tell them what. For those of you who know me well, you will know that I am not very good at keeping exciting secrets.

The forecast for the day had rain in the mix, but we were not worried. We packed up a lunch, packed the car with US and headed north!! The first ride we went on was the COLOSSUS roller coaster. Riley and Jocelyn have NEVER been on a roller coaster, so this was a great initiation! We then headed over to the new spider, which is a fun new coaster where the carts spin while you ride, and the old rickety white roller coaster...FUN!! We hit quite a few rides, went to the pioneer village and was "Dr. Dunford's dentistry, went on the Rattlesnake Rapids and got SOAKED.

We went out to the car and spread out a blanket and enjoyed the lunch we packed, then headed back in for some more FUN!! The skies started getting a bit cloudy, but that did not stop us. We went and bashed each other in the bumper cars, Jacey drooled over some SWEET old mustangs and camaro's they had in a car display there. Jeff and Joc hit the haunted houses while Jacey Riley and I hit the Rocket...SCARY and oh so fun!!

Jeff and Joc and I split up from Riley and Jac and we decided to meet back at the front fountain at 5:30. Jeff and Joc were on those big swings that swing out over the lake when a HUGE thunder and lightning show struck. (Jacey and Riley were on the rocket at this time and they made them get off.) people were running for cover. We went into the pavilion to watch the singing and dancing show for a bit to see if it would blow over. Jocelyn and I decided to run around for a bit in the rain and rode the white roller coaster a few times. The rain pelts your face when you ride that in a thunderstorm...OUCH! We we laughing hard, and enjoyed the NO LINES. With mascara streaming and laughing hard...it was FUN. Jocelyn ran over to get Riley and Jacey as it was 5:30 by this time. They came into the pavilion and Riley and I decided that we were going to hit some rides...who cares about the rain right? We headed over to the WICKED ride as a lot of the rides were not running at this time. They were still running the rides that did not have a break system so Colossus and Wicked were still good to go! We were drenched,and it was POURING, but we got on my new favorite ride of all times...WICKED. You are seated 5 across and it shoots you through a tunnel straight up, the straight down, then all over the place. Riley and I were screaming and laughing and ran around and got on the ride again. we then hit Colossus. They ended up closing the park about 7:30 due to weather, but man, we had a great time. We are planning on possibly "bouncing back" in September if anyone would like to join us! The kids have to have a good chore and homework streak too:)

RILEY IS 14!

"Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday dear RILLLEEEEEYYYYYYY...Happy Birthday to You! I can't believe that my only son is now 14 years old. He is such a great kid and so much fun to have around. He is full of questions, energy, has such a great sense of humor. This is a kids who has always had a mind that has been churning and churning, and I just dont think it stops, even when he is asleep. When he was two he could give you directions to almost any destination in the Provo, Orem area. He would take is toys in the front yard and sell them all by himself. He hooked up my computer when he was still VERY young.

One day the principal of the elementary called me down to the school when he was in first or second grade and told me that he had two 5th grade girls in his office who were scared to death of Riley as he had been bullying them because they were giveing his older sister Jacey a hard time on the playground. I was sitting in the office with these girls and the principal and Jac and they called Riley down to talk to him. These were BIG girls, and they were not very nice either...pretty much bullies themselves. When Riley walked in, he was barely as tall as the principal's desk and he laughed out loud and said " This is who you girls are scared of?" (go Riley!)

Riley has a shoe shining kit and made big plans to shine all the shoes in front of the MTC, he went down to my office when I was out of town and sold all of the ladies in my office coupons with out me even knowing. He signed up for a bugler's registry where there are only 35 buglers on the list to call when they need them to play taps for Veteran's funerals. These are all things he has done on his own.

When he decided to get the priesthood, he went and made the appointment himself, went to sacrament, made his own appointment with the Bishop, came home to get his tithing, went to choir practice AND passed out the ward journal all on the same day. When he does something, he does it ALL the way.

Riley has spent many months in a wheel chair and with casts on his legs and I don" think I ever heard him complain. H just learned how to do wheelies, took kids on rides on the back of the wheelchair down a big grass hill on the playground during recess (much to the dismay of teachers and the principal) and learned how to go off bike ramps. He would "race" grandpa in his wheelchair:)

When anyone is sick in the family, Riley is always there to nurture and take care of them. He would go spend the whole day with grandpa Rex when he lived at Hearthstone, playing with him, pushing him in his wheelchair and even helping him get ready for a fashion show grandpa was in.

When we were on our "Family moon" cruise, people would walk by our table and say " Hi Riley" or "Can we get a picture with you Riley?" We would ask him how in the world he knew these people and he would tell us that he had breakfast with them one morning. He told us one morning that he sat with a table full of people who only spoke spanish and he said they were nice, they just smiled at him.

I love his approach to life, his thirst for learning and his outgoing personality.

I love you buddy!! I am so lucky to have you as my boy.....or rather MAN now!

Which Team Jac.........

Jacey had a call from a coach at Timpanogos High School call to ask her to come to a practice for their softball team. She told them she played for Orem High and she actually GOES to Orem High. He jokingly told her that he was going to try to find a rule to get her back to Timp as we actually live in the boundaries for that school. He then found out that there are no rules stating you cant play on BOTH teams, so... GUESS WHO THOUGHT THAT SOUNDED LIKE A GREAT IDEA??

I asked Jacey what she was going to do when the two teams played each other..."Are you going to play the whole game Jacey? Offense, Defense, pitch to yourself?" I don't think that she thinks I am very funny:)

I do LOVE to watch her play, and I had a great time Moday watching the Timpanogos team, and Wednesday watching the Orem team...GO BOTH HIGH SCHOOLS!!

SCHOOL STARTS ...So Soon?

Clean floors, new clothes, excited people...do you know where we are? You guessed it folks! Back to SCHOOL. This is how I started an excerpt to one of my journals from Jr. high that my children found and they make fun of that entry quite a bit:)

Jacey starts HIGH SCHOOL his year!! She is going to Orem High School even though we are in the Timpanogos boundaries...She played softball for Orem last year, and is playing again this year. She is taking a lot of science classes and Anatomy to prepare for becoming a surgeon.

Riley is in 8th grade!! He is at Canyon View Jr. High. He enjoys the "social" aspect of school and has many friends. He is still playing the trumpet with Mr. Halverson who is an INCREDIBLE teacher.

Jocelyn is the oldest class now in 6th grade at Orchard elementary. She has one of our FAVORITE teachers there...Mrs. Pike. She is a vivacious, fun and quite strict teacher that Jacey had for 6th grade. She really prepares the kids for Jr. High, and Jacey is still using many things she learned from her. Jocelyn LOVES school, and was so excited to start. She will really to well this year.

I am excited to have the kids start school again, as I really enjoy learning along with them. I love the structure of our days when school starts again too! And I am gearing up for some great softball games and band concerts...woo hoo!!