Spooky Dinner

I remembered last night as I was dropping the Little's friends off at home...we never had our spooky dinner and I needed to get some dry ice.  Nate was in the car with me, so we went to Lee's together.  He didn't have any shoes on and he was worried that he'd get called out...you know the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" thing.  I told him no one would notice.  He said he'd just tell people he was wearing Allie's ballet shoes.  "Some dance shoes look like socks!"

We passed bloody stab victims, witches, police officers, all sorts of crazy costume wearing people...all shopping for mundane things like Milk and eggs.  No one noticed his shoeless feet.  :)

And we got the dry ice!  We got stuff to make mummy dogs, and we got chocolate milk.  And since Nate was with me, we got a pomegranate.  He loves fruit of all kinds and when he saw them on display, the begging started.  I tried to make him wait for a better price, but he told me he'd buy it with his own money.  I wasn't about to make my kid buy his own fruit, so we left with a 3 dollar pomegranate.  We'll call it vampire candy or something gross for our spooky dinner.

I came home and wrapped the dry ice in my puffer coat and a sleeping bag.  We hoped it would still be there the next day, and it was!  Perfect for our spooky Halloween feast...

 

Trick-or-Treat

It was another great Halloween!  The boys walked for miles and ended up with a whole lot of candy to show for it.  I neglected to take a lot of the usual pictures, but I do have some.

Jason was going to be an escaped prisoner from Alcatraz.  He ended up finding all kinds of fun things in the costume box and finally landed on "Prospector Pete"  He had gems in his pockets that he'd dug out of the ground and said "there's gold in them there hills!"  

Nathan found this skeleton in the costume box and scared us all time after time.

They had a fun group of friends to walk with.

                                       

Jake was good to walk through the parade and help pass out candy until he left to go hang out with friends.  He ended up roller skating and hanging out watching a scary movie.

The neighborhood parade was huge this year!  

You have to look for Allie because this is the only picture I have of her for the night.

She wore a Christmas costume.

Then she went off with friends and ended up decorating a cake.

It was a quiet night for me and Mike.  We passed out candy and visited with neighbors.  It's crazy how fast we've gone from those years of chasing chaotic kids.  

The littles came home with a bunch of friends and had an epic Nerf gun fight.  It was absolutely the biggest battle they've ever had.  We have 2 bins of bullets.  500 in each bin.  They burned through them and had so much fun doing it.  

When it was time to clean up, we set a timer for 3 minutes and promised a blow pop if they could get it done in time.  They totally did!  I'm sure we'll be cleaning up bullets from under the couch and on book shelves, but it was a great night.

 

Little Baby Charlie

Sometimes after school, Charlie comes to snuggle Allie.  Sometimes, he lets her treat him like a little baby.  Sometimes, I take pictures of it...

 

Conversation About a Finger

 Jason came in from playing catch with Nathan...

Jason:  Mom, I was playing catch with Nate and I started bleeding for no reason!

Me: Oh, shoot!  What is bleeding?

Jason:  My finger.  And it's my best throwing finger.  Well, it's the finger I use the most to throw.

Me: Ok, let's go get you a band aid.

We hunted all over for a band aid the right size...

Me: (putting on the band aid) So this is your best throwing finger huh?

Jason: Well, it's not that as much as it's just my favorite finger.  So, it's just the best one I have.

Me:  :)

Today

I know I seem to always be telling you that I am re-committed to the blog and that I'll catch up eventually, but then I seem to fall away so fast again.  I seriously let the smallest things get in the way of blogging.  The one that seems to plague me the most is the ease of downloading pictures.  If I ever take pictures on my phone (which is happening more often these days) then I really have trouble getting them on my computer.  There seems to be some sort of problem on the computer end of things and I can only move one or two files at a time and it seems like such a daunting task when there are so many things I should be doing instead.

But, I've tried to set aside time each Sunday and that's where I'm at today.  I have been putting the photos in files (manually...one at a time) and labeling the files as to the dates.  I look at the photos that say they were taken June 2 or June 4th and I think that something must be wrong because those things can't possibly have happened over a month ago.  Where is the time going?

The kids reminded me that school starts a month from tomorrow.  That just can't be possible.  I'm really upset at how fast the time is going by.  It makes what I'm spending my time on right now all the more important (blogging).  I don't want to forget the little things that happen each day.  So, once again, I am determined to keep up with the blog.  Life is so good.  I don't want to forget that as the days and months fly by.

Grass and Garth Brooks

We woke up this morning and worked on the yard for a little while.

Mike used to be so particular about our lawn and was always out there trying to make the grass look and feel like something you wanted to lay down and nap in.

The drought this year has wreaked havoc on all the lawns in Smithfield.  We have been encouraged to water only 2 times a week and it's really showing in our parks and ball fields.

Our lawn has been looking pretty sad for a while now.  We need to figure out what it needs and make it happen.  Today, the boys spent time chopping out the root balls that have formed in our back yard from our neighbors aspen trees.

They also mowed and edged.

It may not look the best, but the boys are learning good skills and it's all good in the long run.

I worked a bit around the house and then got in the car with Mike and went to the Garth Brooks concert at the Rice Eccles Stadium in SLC.  My friend, Natalie, had some extra tickets and offered them to us.  I didn't realize how big of a favor that was until we got there.  I guess the show had sold out in 30 minutes and so many people were left wanting to go, but without tickets.  And there were over 50,000 people there!  I don't think I've ever been in a crowd that big.  Let alone, mid pandemic!

It was so fun though.  The concert started a few hours after it was supposed to so things could cool down a bit.  It was over a hundred degrees and we were glad we could sit in the shaded part of the stadium with our friends.

It ended up being a beautiful night and Garth was amazing.  He ran around and jumped off things and sang for hours.  I loved when the band was taking a break and it was just him.  He sang songs that people requested and blew me away with his talent.  He is a great performer and even though I'm sure he says it to all the people he plays for, he said he loves playing in Utah.  He said he felt bad that the tickets sold out so fast and that he'd come back to Utah before his tour is over.  The crowd went wild with that announcement.  It really was a fun night.

When the concert let out, we got on the Trax to get back to our car, but it was headed the wrong direction.  We didn't want to wait in the huge crowd and figured it would just turn around at the end of the line and head back down.  We probably should have switched trains because it was a 45 minute detour crammed on a train with hundreds of people inches apart in every direction.  It's times like that when I'm so grateful I'm tall and am looking over most people's heads rather than stuck down low looking at peoples bums and smelling their stinky "I sat in a crowded hundred degree stadium and then danced and screamed my guts out for hours" bodies. :)  (I'm also grateful that my covid nose isn't all that great at smelling body odor).

We had parked in a Smith's parking lot and then rode the train.  We didn't know until we got to the stadium that the tow trucks and booters love nights like this because they tow people away who had done just that.  So after missing our stop and hoofing it 20 minutes, we were super happy to see that the tow trucks in the parking lot hadn't gotten to us yet.  I really think we missed that event by minutes.  That would have wrecked a fun evening.  

After traffic on the freeway, we got home at 1:30 in the morning.  Kids were all tucked in and by the state of the house, it looks like they had a great night watching TV, eating popcorn and snacks.

It was a great day.   

Flat Top

Last year, a bunch of our neighbors and friends got together for a mother daughter trail run to flat top.  It's the highest peak around us.  We had a cousin over and were going camping so we couldn't go last year, but it was something Allie wished she had done all year.  This year, they all decided to do it again, but rather than run, they'd hike and invite anyone who wanted to come.  Allie was confident that she could do it so she got up at 4:30, packed water and a lunch and took off.

They ended up doing 13 miles and got home at about 2:30 that afternoon.

She was pretty tired and muddy when she got home but a soak in the tub made everything better.

She had a friend take her to Costa Vida for lunch/dinner (I guess that's what got them through the last little bit, was talking about food :)).  Then, she fell asleep at 5 and didn't wake up till 10.  She was up long enough to brush her teeth and say hello and went back to bed till morning.

Way to go Allie!  Now, every time you look at Flat Top, you'll know what it's like to view Cache Valley from the top.  

 

Fruit

It's feast or famine around here when it comes to fruit.  I always have apples and bananas laying around, but for the most part, I only buy the other stuff when it's in season and on sale.  I stock up when things are at or under .99 cents a pound.  When the fruit is cheap, I freeze it or freeze dry it.  The kids also get to pig out on what we have.

This week, the blueberries were in huge containers for 2 dollars each, so I bought each kid their own container of blueberries.  They wrote their names on the containers and either took their time eating them, or, in the case of Nate, ate them all before lunch.  24 ounces before lunch!!!

We also bought 4 flats of strawberries, lots of grapes, cherries, and believe it or not, we've got lots of raspberries in the yard this year.  So we've been having a fruit smorgasbord.

One of Allie's favorite things is a big bowl of fruit when she gets back from dance or gym.  I love to watch her wash it all up and make a big pile as she settles in to relax.  It's pretty cute.

 

Another Lagoon Day

Allie wanted to bring her friends to Lagoon and today was the day that worked out for all of us.  So even though we were there yesterday, it was a good time to go.  The boys came with us and we all had a great day.

                                  

                                     

I spent a lot of time with the boys in Pioneer Village.  I think that's the best part of having season passes.  We don't have to worry about cramming all the things in during the day, so we have fun looking at the things we wouldn't normally waste our time on.

The boys favorite place is the armory.  They love looking at the guns and imagining some circumstance when they'd have to defend Lagoon.  They know just where to go and what guns they'll use first.  :)

The line wasn't long for Rattlesnake Rapids, so we went on that ride and got soaked.  Then we spent some time bouncing a bouncy ball through the targets by the ride.

We loved checking out the jail cell that they used to use at Lagoon when the crowd got too drunk and rowdy back in the day.

It's pretty cool to read about all the Latter Day Saint history.  I liked the table that some guy cobbled together from leftover scraps from building the SLC temple.  It's in a little house in Pioneer Village.

One of our favorite rides is Bombora.  Natalie introduced it to us a few years ago when we came with her family.  It's pretty smooth and still a good rush.  We rode it three times today.

The boys had fun riding the little rides that they still fit in....and testing out the ones that they don't fit in...

We always love the sky ride.  We like to look for new treasures that people have dropped.  There are several masks in a tree about half way across, so we always look to see if they're still there.  And we are always amazed at how many hair ties are on the roof of the merry go round.

This time, we rode the train.  Those poor zoo animals...

And we loved the swings...

                                  

                                       

We didn't see much of Allie and her friends, but we know they had a good time.  Lagoon is always fun when you're a teenager.

 It's been fun having passes.  I had book club tonight, so I drove the girls most of the way home and had Jake meet me in Logan.  He took them the rest of the way and I went back to Wellsville to hang out with my friends.  It's always worth being tired the next day to laugh and enjoy time with them.

Life is good!