CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

snark

isaac is the king of snark.  i can't figure out where that gene comes from.  he's comes up with some pretty good stuff though.  today we went to the doctor and when we checked in, the receptionist asked if any of our information had changed.  isaac calmy and quickly replied, "well, we moved to hawaii and my mom finally let me start drinking."  deadpan.   it was quite the story around the office.  the dutch lady drawing his blood even offered him a place to live if he would further entertain her.  the good news of the day is that lung capacity and function were the best they've been in a long time.  we're hoping for a winter free of hospitals and steroids!  that would be a first.

and finally, caroline chose her dress for the christmas dance.  she's gonna look amazing.  pictures next week.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

"watch out for that car parked across the street"

i'm not supposed to blog this, but it's family history.  tonight i spent a frustrating hour at my mom's trying to help put up her christmas decorations.  the whole gang was back together.  for me, things did not go smoothly, and i felt a bit like i had wasted my time.  oh well, live and learn.  on the way out the door, as caroline got in the truck, i reminded her that there was a car directly across the street from the driveway.  i then got in my car, backed up, and watched caroline back into said car.  she only took out one door of the car that was so new it still had the temporary license in the window.  we've all done it though.

jake is having the time of his life in washington, d.c. with the close-up program.  every time he calls they've had some new adventure.  today they saw a play at ford's theater.  i've never seen a play there.  he's also had some great face time with congressman bishop. 

Monday, November 28, 2011

my dad's birthday

today's is my dad's birthday.  i guess he would have been 69 years old.  i try not to think about him much, even on his birthday, because it's sad.  but i should say that there were a lot of great things about my dad's life and i'm going to come to terms with those.  i am coming to terms with those.  on his birthday, i will say something nice about my dad:  he taught me how important it is to always think about others.  i'm not very good at it, but he set a great example. 

today was a day spent at school getting back into the swing of things, since we missed the two days of last week.  i don't think anyone missed much though because those few days before thanksgiving aren't very productive.  for family home evening, we decorated our beautiful tree.  i love our tree.  it is filled with ornaments that evoke memories of far away places and great family vacations. 

this year, there's an ornament that says evan front and center.  we miss him.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

home again

we got up early and this time made it all the way home.  vacations are awesome, but it always feels so good to be home.  the house was quiet without jake, evan and the doggies, who were still at the vet.  spending the day gearing up for a busy, busy week at work and school. 

Saturday, November 26, 2011

sad to leave

i for one was really sad to leave phoenix.  we seemed like such a small group. with evan in japan and jake in washington, d.c., the rest of us piled in the car and headed for st. george.  part of the drive was really very beautiful.  at one point we were on a reservation in northern arizona and we stopped at a convenience store.  it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but we ran into two missionaries in the store.  i was in the car when caroline told me so i sent her back in with $20 to give to the missionaries for lunch.  she came back and said that craig had just given them $20 too, so they had $40 for lunch.  i know people are taking good care of evan in japan, so we were just paying it forward.

unfortunately, our karma from this act didn't help us when we took a bit of a wrong turn in northern arizona and instead of heading over to st. george through hilldale, we ended up driving through zion's national park.  this is a beautiful place for sure, but it is not the fastest way to get to st. george and we had to pay $20 for the priviledge of "cutting through" a national park.  the car was rather quiet for that part of the drive.  the speed limit was 25 mph.  i'm not going to rat out the person who chose the route.

Friday, November 25, 2011

day after

the day after thanksgiving.  hmm, more golf for the boys.  caroline, stacey and i went yarn shopping at some local arizona shops.  i had a lot of fun.  stacey and i decided to make matching sweaters.  not so we would match, just so we could enjoy a project together.  caroline picked out some yarn for me to make her a hat and scarf. 

jake spent part of the day writing his senior project.  today was the last possible day for him to complete this.  then craig took him to the airport to meet up with his close-up group going to washington, d.c.  the rest of us went to dinner at a yummy mexican place and sam and isaac were so excited that we ran into a legend:

sam was even wearing a "byu football" shirt when he met steve young.  he was quite startstruck.  isaac, being only ten, wasn't sure who steve young was.  haha.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

thanksgiving

today was really so awesome.  it could not have been a better thanksgiving--only if evan had been here.  the boys went golfing this morning and the girls went to the spa.  caroline and i got a massage and a facial.  we were joined by g-dawg and kim.  after three hours of treatments, i lingered in the relaxation room and read for awhile by the fire in my robe.  so relaxing.

after our morning activities, we met up on the quad by the hotel and the boys played a little turkey bowl.  this was my favorite part of the day.  it was so much fun to watch them play together.  we sure missed scott.








at 4:00 we all met up for the hotel buffet.  i didn't have really high expectations, but boy was i completely blown away.  the buffet was the biggest i have ever seen.  it was rooms and rooms of food.  there was a whole area of traditional turkey, stuffing (cornbread!) and mashed potatoes.  there was also an area for untraditional main dishes like salmon and prime rib.  there was a waffle, omelette and pancake bar (i didn't waste calories on these).  there was a whole area devoted to cheeses.  one area was set aside for kids-type dishes (mac & cheese, chicken fingers).  one room was for seafood like crab legs, shrimp and lobster.  there was a sushi bar.  there was also an entire room for desserts.  most of them were mini desserts, which i really liked because you could try different things.  there was also a chocolate bar.  in the dessert room, there was a crepe bar for bananas foster crepes and a whole bar for gelato.  it was the craziest buffet i've ever seen!  thanks g-dawg!

after dinner, we all rolled to our rooms to watch the ravens game, only to find out that it was on the nfl network and they were only showing it in the lobby.  so we rolled to the lobby and had a fun time watching the game there.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

carefree

more golf today.  apparently, sam hit into the group ahead of him and they weren't happy.  that group consisted of three of my brothers and a brother-in-law, so they'll get over it.  jake, true to form, left his senior project until the last minute, so he's working on that today.  caroline did some shopping, trying on several dresses for the christmas dance.  caroline, jake and i took a short trip to look around carefree, arizona.  the shopping was a bust, but we had fun together and carefree fosters a relaxed atmosphere:

mom and dad and the boys went to dinner at a local mexican place.  we traded caroline for monte.  food was good, but the waiter was a bit of a nut.  he brought a tray of drinks which included coke, diet coke and dr. pepper.  when he got to our table, he looked at the tray and said, "oh no, they're all brown".  that gave us a good laugh!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

temple

craig, always the one to do the right thing, arranged a temple outing this morning.  i love temples surrounded by palm trees.  sam, monte, jake and caroline had a great time with craig doing baptisms for the dead.

they returned to our resort hotel to golf and hang out at the pool.  some of us went to old town scotsdale and did some shopping.  caroline, craig and i were joined by kim and g-dawg.  we ate possibly the worst lunch in the history of the world, but then enjoyed the old shops and a cupcake at sprinkles.  it was a perfect vacation day.  we topped it off with a dinner at roy's.  the lava flow cake is an all-time favorite of the kids.  isaac and i had the delicious hawaiian meatloaf.  we ate outside.  nobody in utah is eating dinner outside tonight!

Monday, November 21, 2011

very quiet

it's so quiet around here.  evan's in japan.  jake's at school.  i just dropped the dogs off at the vet to be boarded for a week.  and the rest of the hoodlums are on their way to phoenix.  did i mention that i really like it when it's really quiet?  i ran myself ragged today getting things ready for our trip before i decided that it's almost not worth going on a trip. 

jake came home from school and the two of us jetted off on a southwest flight for phoenix.  it only took us 1 1/2 hours to get there while it took sam, caroline, craig & ick nearly 11 hours.  i liked our system better.  we are lucky to be with craig because he's an important marriott-type person and we got one of our rooms upgraded to a fancy suite.  it's beautiful here.  and warm.  and the hotel is very fancy.  couldn't be happier!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

vegas and sefa

after church, craig, caroline, isaac, and sam headed to vegas on their way to phoenix tomorrow.  they seemed to have a good drive and a great (?) dinner at cuck-a-rama in st. george.  upon arriving on the strip, isaac texted me and said, "vegas, where the chicks are hot and the gambling's high".  i replied, "good luck with the chicks and the dice".  the last word from isaac, "i don't need luck".

jake and i caught upon some serious sleep deprivation and puttered.  he handled the downstairs and i hung around up here. 

and we heard from evan.  he is still awesome.  still positive.  he doesn't love the korean roommate who keeps using his loofa in the shower, but missions are great to learn patience i suppose.  he met a polynesian returned missionary at church who loves missionaries and gives them a mon every time he seems them ($100).  evan was just happy to see a poly. 

Saturday, November 19, 2011

this & that

wow, a saturday without football?  it's actually kinda refreshing.  so many choices.  unfortunately, jake and caroline were sentenced to an all-day debate tournament and craig had to judge until afternoon.  i was the lucky one, shopping with cindy at taipan and having a relaxing lunch.  supposedly, sam and isaac were packing while i was out.  so, productive day.  in the afternoon i realized that scott died a year ago today and as the day went on i felt a little worse until i couldn't find my camera charger and apparently that was the last straw cause i found myself laying on the floor crying over the lost charger while craig kept saying we could just order a new one.  silly things set me off i suppose.  finally when everyone was tucked in bed, most everything seemed to be done that needed to be done before heading for a warmer climate.

Friday, November 18, 2011

a day off

isaac very much enjoyed his day off today.  i usually go to the temple friday mornings, but had to adjust my schedule today to be home a little more.  jake had his 4 1/2 hour scholarship competition today at the utah bar association.  he took a look around at the competition when he got there and said he wasn't there to win, so i asked him if he was there for the food.  haha.  he didn't win, but had a great experience competing and recieved a u.s. senate scholarship finalist certificate.  more loot for his portfolio.  caroline decided she needed a manicure/pedicure for arizona, so that entertained her after school before she went off with her friends for the evening.  sam had a scout campout.  brrrr, glad i'm not a scout cause it's snowing.  that left isaac, craig and me to entertain ourselves.  we decided to go out to dinner and to a movie.  we had picked thaiphoon (my favorite) before we invited isaac.  my favorite dish there has lots of peanuts in it.  i told isaac since he was tagging along on my date, we were still going to thaiphoon and ordering jungle island princess.  he was okay with that.  thai food is pretty difficult if you have nut/soy allergies so isaac had to have the gluten-free orange chicken (because it didn't have soy in it).  i thought it was yummy.  afterwards i made a terrible parenting choice and we all went to "tower heist".  it was actually quite funny, but also quite dirty.  i tried plugging isaac's ears and covering his eyes, but i'm sure bad stuff got in anyway.  it was a fun night until we got a text towards the end of the movie saying jake had wrecked the truck.  craig dashed out of the movie to learn that jake's friend had taken his phone and sent us a "funny" text, which was not funny at all.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

overreaction

today i decided that our elementary school needs more problems.  like they need people to really misbehave.  i don't want anyone to get hurt, but if there was a little blood or a little stealing, maybe girls and boys calling each other names on the playground wouldn't seem like such a big deal to the teachers and administrators.  and by names i'm not even talking about swear words.  i'm talking about some pretty basic name calling stuff.  now that i've wasted several hours of my time over the word *ay, helped my child fill out paper work defending himself from his accusors and, in turn, filling out paper work accusing his accusors (because that's part of what you have to do to defend yourself), i'm ready to throw up my arms and walk away.  isaac will definitely be taking the day off from school tomorrow and we'll be gone next week for thanksgiving, so hopefully this will blow over.  now if punishment is handed down for use of this word, heads are prolly gonna roll. 

sam had his end-of-season football party at the budweiser general distrubution.  i think the kids like telling people at school that.  they seemed to have fun together, but when it ended, craig's car wouldn't start.  grrrrrr.  his car is struggling.


sweet caroline did her volunteer time at the hospital tonight.  it's always a bit slow, but she sure gets a lot done. 

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

and so it begins

football ended saturday.  basketball hasn't even started.  but baseball practices started tonight.  haha.  isaac started his catcher classes tonight.  i don't mind.  he's an awesome catcher and i can't wait for him to get better.  i just think it's a little bit funny.  our first games won't be until march.

craig had a great meeting today with a japanese company that are moving their u.s. headquarters to utah.  maybe he'll get a trip to japan out of it eventually.  jake is still a little lost without football.  three of the kids got their flu shots today.  only the sickly child is left to get one.  oh, and i went to my book of mormon class today and we spent an awesome hour talking about angels.  i love knowing that evan has all kinds of angels helping him on his mission.

Monday, November 14, 2011

"it's a lie"

this week is early out for isaac.  just after football ends.  i think it's a great time for a little relaxation.  today was our day to visit with his teacher for parent/teacher conference.  these conferences usually go quite well.  however, today just as we walked into his classroom, he quickly said to me, "if my teacher says anything bad, it's a lie"!  of course, this totally cracked me up because that's isaac being isaac.  lucky for him, the report from mrs. arnold was glowing--unless of course she was lying.  haha.  apparently, isaac is doing higher math than i ever did.  not really, but he's in fifth grade and he's doing seventh grade math.  he has a math brain.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

kariya

i think kariya is probably pronounced "korea".  it would probably be easier to ask craig about this than to wonder about it.  anyway, evan was transferred from kasugai to kariya this week.  we got our first e-mail from kariya today.  i was worried it might not be as positive as all his other e-mails, but was so so grateful to hear today that things are still well in nagoya.  evan is living with three other nihongins (japanese missionaries).  he expressed that this was difficult, but the upside is that his japanese should improve by leaps and bounds.  can't wait to hear all about his adventures in the new city with new people.  elder parry sure is a shining example to all of us. 

Saturday, November 12, 2011

championship saturday

both sam and isaac's teams made it to the championships this year.  woot woot!  they worked so hard all year to make it here.  what a great reward.  the morning dawned cold, very windy and forecasted snow.

sam played granger.  his game was first, starting at 10:30.  the wind was really strong and their center struggled, hiking the ball over the quarterback and punter's heads several times.  i felt so bad for him.  granger was very tough and we pretty much got worked.



sam caught a few passes, blocked great and defended the pass great!  it was a really fun season for him and for his teammates.

isaac played at 1:30, about the time the snowstorm was blowing in.  we were playing a 12-0 east team, who we had lost to in the regular season.  it was a close, very exciting game.  isaac started both ways (just like sam) and tore it up on both sides of the ball.  he cut blocked east's best lineman and took him out for part of the first half.  he also had a couple of forced fumbles. 

in the end, we defended our title and won the championship!  again.



Friday, November 11, 2011

crisis

friday i was in crisis mode.  this happens to me at the end of every sports season.  because the high school played yesterday morning this week and isaac and sam have their last game tomorrow, friday was completely empty of things to do.  no plans at all.  i had plenty to do during the day.  went to the gym.  went to the temple.  the kids spent time with friends.  but then evening smacked me in the face.  the football kids were pretty raw too:

because for part of the night, they hung out in my bedroom and said this was the first friday in six months when they didn't have anything football related.  they were sad.

i was occupied part of the night tending this little nugget:
obviously, hanne was big on my make-up. 

i'm a little panicked about boring weekends without football.  what's going to happen when i don't have any football players?  i better have grandkids then.  just sayin'.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

end of an era

today was the end of the road for the 2011 braves.  this season was like a roller coaster. literally.  we had games that were horrible (like east) and then we had games where we were amazing (like wx!).  for jake personally, it was also an up-and-down season.  he had crappy games (like east) and amazing games (like wx!).  we all learned a lot and jake said he wouldn't trade it for anything.

today we had to face a tough logan team.  their quarterback has signed with utah state and he was pretty much amazing.  logan pretty much worked us.  jake's boot came off today, but he was nowhere near ready to play.  he was a great cheerleader on the sideline.  speaking of sidelines, because craig does legal work for the uhsaa, he was able to secure sideline passes for us.  it was fun to watch the game with the team for a few minutes. 



Wednesday, November 9, 2011

is it the last one?

jake watched football practice at the high school today.  they say they're good and ready for the grizzlies tomorrow.  jake won't be playing, but he'll be there cheering his team on.  i just keep wondering if today was the last football practice he would ever have.  that would be so weird.  and sad.  but even if today isn't the last practice, the last one is coming very soon because there for sure won't be any more games after next week.  {sigh}  so much invested in so many years.  it will be sad.  good thing jake has so many great and exciting things to look forward to. 

and we have two championships on saturday!  that should keep our hearts racing for a bit.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

mvp

isaac was named the mvp for his team this week.  he was rewarded for a season of nearly error-free snapping and, in particular, snapping under the worst of conditions last week in the 'mud bowl'.  he deserved it!  now we just have to own east on saturday.

and i was so very happy to ship this off today:
this is evan's thanksgiving in a box.  i had a fun time gathering canned yams, boxed cornbread stuffing, canned turkey, mini graham cracker crusts with a can of lemon filling and even dream whip in a box.  i hope he and his companion have a fun time fixing up a yummy thanksgiving dinner--even if his companion is japanese. 

Monday, November 7, 2011

hot potatoes

today was a very busy day and i don't like very busy days.  wow, i spent the whole morning running here and running there.  then when the kids got home i did some more running here and there. 

caroline and i ran downtown in the afternoon to look for a dress for the christmas dance.  we washed some potatoes and wrapped them in tin foil and asked isaac to put them in the oven at 4:30 to bake.  so he dutifully turned on the oven, unwrapped all the potatoes and put them in the oven.  hahaha. 

Sunday, November 6, 2011

kariya

it was so great to hear from evan today.  his great attitude continues to amaze me.  his e-mail was a little late in coming and i knew transfers were this week, so i suspected something as up.  sure enough, evan will be leaving his first area, kasugai, and his first great companion, elder hollister, and move to kariya, another suburb of nagoya.  he will be working with a nihongin--a japanese companion.  i know it will be very challenging, but i also know evan's japanese will get a great boost.  hopefully he can look past the frustration and see the blessings.  we're missing this guy:

Saturday, November 5, 2011

mud/snow bowl

great games today.  we woke up to six inches of snow at our house and when we got to the fields, they too were covered in snow.  only the yard lines and sidelines were shoveled.  sam's game was first and it was exciting.  we were leading 7-6 until late in the fourth quarter when we picked off a pass and returned it for a touchdown.  this proved enough to win the game.  next week we face granger in the finals.



isaac's game wasn't until 1:30 and by then the fields were a giant mud puddle.  i've never seen a game like this one.  it was funny to watch the little guys slipping and sliding all over the place.  we beat granger 25-0.  the coaches told the kids that if they beat granger by four touchdowns, the coaches would take the kids to mcdonald's.  so we scored our fourth touchdown on the last play of the game and isaac immediately started making the golden arches sign for his coach.  haha, it was so funny.  we play east next week.  should be a good game.





Friday, November 4, 2011

big win tonight

bountiful football played in the state quarter-finals tonight.  so sad that we didn't get to watch jake play.  pretty rotten deal.  anyway, we won big, 34-14, so it's on to the semi-finals for us.  we get logan next thursday at rice-eccles stadium.  i didn't go today because it was so cold and jake wasn't playing, but i think i'll go next week and wear red.  i hope no one thinks i'm a utah fan though.  it's a risk since we're playing at their stadium.

jake did go to the doc today and got pretty good news.  his bone has reattached and he only has to wear his boot for one more week, than graduates to an ankle brace.  no sprinting til december though, which pretty much rules out next week.  and the next week.  wonder why jake had to experience this challenge?