Good Job Honey.

Whenever Justin is in charge of the lesson for Family Night, it's always exciting. Last night he came home with a post-it note of about seven different options. We ended up studying two articles from the church website. The first one is about how to protect your family with regards to the internet. Here is the link. The second was about making life decisions...something we always seem to be doing. Click here to read that one. Thanks for the good advice, Elder Scott!

The Staycation

There was an article in the travel section of the paper about how dumb it is to have a vacation close to home. Apparently, that writer is paid much more than we are, because to us, it seemed like a good idea.

Examining the flora and fauna
Justin had Thursday and Friday off and we had originally planned to go to Pine View with Justin's family. Sadly, we live two hours (translate: $60 gas money) away. So, we opted to do a "staycation." So, Tribune writer, here's to you.

It started Thursday morning with Justin making a list of things we needed and wanted to do...We completed all but two needs and two wants.

We started with a chocolate chip cookie experiment...leaving cookie dough in the fridge for two days will make your cookies MUCH moister (I despise the word moist. It sounds so dirty.)

Justin and Andrew practicing taking pictures

We had friends for dinner on Pioneer Day which ended with a fine holiday greeting..."Happy Pioneer Day! May you never have to cross the plains!"

Luckily it's blurry so you can't see how hard Andrew is crying..

We went shopping (mostly window). We made homemade ice cream. We learned a new song on the guitar. We watched Step Up 2. We read books together. We went hiking. We went swimming. We tried to go to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point, but Andrew fell asleep by the time we got there. Kind of sad. I would have liked a picture of Justin petting a goat.

We had more friends for dinner on Friday due to an unfortunate car breaking down incident. We missed you, Cooks!Small Martin, Small Hedin and Two Small Dodds.

New trail above Pleasant Grove...

Swimming is a delight on a hot summer afternoon

We learned a good lesson..."It doesn't matter what time it is, as long as you're spending it together." (Days of '47 Parade)

My Creativity Has Peaked...

I'm not very creative when it comes to crafty stuff, and it sometimes stresses me out. This took me a good hour to make, and it's basically press on stickers.

I think I've outdone any creative act from my past today. We desperately needed to wash our quilt, but it costs a FORTUNE to take it to the cleaners. I don't have an industrial sized washer/dryer, so I was at a loss. I told Justin last night that I was going to wash it in the bathtub, which he said was fine as long as I didn't start until I had a plan of how to dry it...

I forgot to factor in that the quilt would weigh approximately one ton after I finished and it would be virtually impossible to wring it out while progressively removing it from the water.

One hour and a huge backache later, this is what I've come up with.

So, if it's been a while since you've played in a fort, come on over. Although, the floor beneath is a little bit damp. Oops.

You know it's going to be a good week when...

-Monday morning starts at 3:30 AM with baby screaming because he flipped over in his bed.

-He wakes up the neighbor's baby with his screaming.
-He has a cement style poopy diaper that is progressively smeared across his whole body and the changing table.
-While unsuccessfully trying to remove said cement poop, he pees into the open sock drawer.
-Mom wisely avoids the pee but does not try to block or protect the socks.
-Dad leaves for work but returns three minutes later because he has mistakenly thrown his work binder into the dumpster rather than the cement poopy diaper.

We're excited to see what other adventures will come this week!

And now, for your viewing pleasure...

Andrew figured out when the flash is coming...

Bath time with cousins...Jack wasn't really interested in pictures

Even though this is kind of a funny picture, I love the dimple

Moms having fun on vacation...

Dads having fun on vacation.

Press Release

I'd just like to make a statement:

Even though I feel weird about how many links to other blogs we have, it is NOT to show off how many friends we have. (Although, if you must know, most of the links belong to Justin, not me...) I actually considered removing them completely because I felt so weird about it, but it makes it so much easier to check others' blogs when it's just a click away.

As you can see, we don't really have a lot of friends. I don't know why.

The Hiatus

So, during this short blog separation I've had, here's what I've been doing/thinking.

One of my friends wrote on her blog, "I'm kind of done with blogging sometimes," and someone else said, "blogs are just a place for you to brag about how good your life is." I kind of agree with these two statements. Sometimes I get annoyed with trying to think of things to write, pretend like everything in life is bright and sunshine-y, knowing that I'm part of this weird world that feels somewhat reminiscent of the high school life I despised, etc.



However, I'm over it. Here's some new pictures.

Here's Molly and Andrew...Her hair is an awesome color right now, is it not?
Here's Andrea and Eddie. HE'S SO CUTE!! Good job, Scotty and Andrea for having such a cute, blonde little bug.

And here's a picture of the classic ugly face. If you can't be pretty, you should always try to be really, really ugly. People appreciate it.

By the way...

While I'm thinking about it, on my nieces and nephews post, I didn't put a picture of Mark's girls because I didn't have one on my computer. Check out these beauties...Clearly they look like their mom. They are gorgeous!!

Lydia, Abby, Molly