America, the Beautiful

I think that the 4th of July party is one of my favorites, too.  I love the food, the homemade ice cream, the awesome program, the songs, the fireworks and the feeling of unity and patriotism that exists amongst us all.  I love seeing family, some of whom I don’t get to see very often.  Thanks so much Aunt Ann and Uncle Walt for putting this on every year!

Here are a few pictures from the evening…..

                      

Updates on the Tree Mansion

Last year, we had some pictures of the tree house that Dad is building.  He has been working hard on it and has got quite a bit done in the little spare time that he has.  Almost all of the side boards are up and the kids had a blast playing in it. 

Here are some pictures of the different parts of it.  It has three different levels.  I know they are almost all blurry.  Sorry.

 

The Tree Mansion

 

 

 

 

The swing set.  Swing and different things can be changed out.  It’s pretty cool.

 

The two ways to get up to the first level. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first level with a steering wheel and a ship’s wheel for racing or pretending.

 

 

 

The higher and largest level.

 

 

You can go down on two different slides…  

 

 

…or go down the fire pole.

 

 

 

 

The third, also lower level.  One of the slides is there.

 

 

 

 

More sand underneath with a bench for us old people to sit on.

 

 

 

Going in from the lawn.  The other side is facing the garden.

Temporary Escape…

The boys and I went to Vernal a couple of weeks ago and stayed for a few days.  We had a great time and it was nice to relax a  little and visit with our family.  We went up to visit Dad at work one day.  Look for another post about it. 

The boys played in the sand and in the tree mansion a lot.  More pictures of it to come.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up visiting Dad.  Jaiden loved that he could throw rocks and not get into trouble!

On our way home, we saw this really cool storm over Flaming Gorge .

At the Flaming Gorge Dam lookout.

Getting their picture taken was not on the top of their list of things to do!

  

Swinging….

A picnic in the tree house!

We were sad to come home but glad to get back and see Carlos/Dad!

Family Reunion

 

We went to up to Payson Lakes from Thursday to Saturday for the annual family reunion.  We had a great time even with all of the rain and rain and rain.  Here are some highlights:

Low clouds on Friday morning after raining all night…

There was no water at the camp this year…

Worms…

and more worms…

Campfire and sticks and marshmallows...

A beautiful hike (Grotto Trail?) to a waterfall…

Riding the toys…

Painting cute frogs, lizards, turtles and dragons…

Water balloons…

Watching “wipeout”…

An anonymous “wipeout” participant…

A little birthday party…

A rainbow…

The Regata (and the winning boat)…

The race is on…

A good time had by all… well, for the most part!

Brotherly Love

Air Show

I’m finally posting our pictures from the air show that was a couple of weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun and it was cool to see the airplanes and the amazing stunts that they do with them. 

We took the Front Runner from Salt Lake to Clearfield then a shuttle bus to Hill Air Force Base.  It was a lot of fun to take a train and it was nice to not have to worry about traffic, parking and directions. 

Another cool stunt.  Jaiden and Zach weren’t impressed by the noise that the F-4 Phantom (not pictured!) made.  They were screaming and when I checked on Austin, he was just chewin’ on his churro, not at all concerned. 

An undefeated stunt pilot (Jeff something??) from California.

We actually left before the Thunderbirds flew because we were tired, didn’t want to fight crowds leaving (there were at least a gazillion people there) and my camera battery died.  We did, however, get to see them from the Front Runner station and for a while once on the train.  Amazing!

It was a fun day and we’re glad we went!

An attempt at domestication…

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I got some Fuji apples for $.33 a pound a couple of weeks ago so I bought a box and made apple pie filling.  It tastes really good but it was my first time canning anything but salsa and several jars didn’t seal right.  So we’ve been having a lot of things with apple pie filling!  Apple pie, waffles, German pancakes, more waffles…. I hope everyone doesn’t get sick of it!  I’ve actually enjoyed it.  I just think that homemade is so much better than store bought!  I also made some apple pudding with the apples-another favorite!

A Broken Heart

Jaiden (names have been changed to protect privacy--oh, wait, no they haven't) was painting this evening and doing a great job. He is very creative and starting to pay attention to a lot of details. I went to put Zachy into bed when I heard a big, "Oh, no!" and went to see what was going on. There was red and blue paint on the wall and Jaiden was desperately trying to wipe it up with his little napkin. He was mostly just spreading it out. I got a wash cloth and together we started cleaning. I asked why it was on the wall and he said that he threw it. I don't have a clue how he did it. So as we were talking, he said, "Mommy, I'm really, really sorry. I broke your heart."

Wow, I thought. Where did he learn to say that? I was actually touched. Then he proceeded to tell me again that he was sorry because he broke my heart. Which heart? The one I had painted on a piece of paper was broken into pieces. And he was sorry because he broke the doggy too. Crazy boy!

Life is like potty training...

Warning: Content may offensive and/or crude...

Without going into too many details, I came up with a new analogy yesterday while I was in the thick of it.

Life is like potty training. At first, we don't really know what we're supposed to do and that's okay. But then we start to learn and little by little make progress. We still mess up and have accidents but we keep going. Sometimes we know what we're supposed to do but because we wait too long or are rebellious, we get into trouble again. And sometimes, we just plain don't want to do what we're supposed to do and as a result have to just sit in our own poop* for awhile before things get cleaned up.

And there is a lot of laundry to wash.

(*edited)