Golf is a Fun Date! (And other weekend stuff!)

We did a little babysitter swapping with my brother Don and his wife Jodi this weekend, which meant a fun night with cousins on Friday, and Pete and Nicole time on Saturday night.  The kids have been begging us to sleep out on the trampoline, so after our cute cousins went home, Mitch, Maddy and Jake slept out on the tramp.  Being the over protective mother that I tend to be, I slept on the couch with the door open so I could be sure to hear any prowlers or other such dangers.  It gave me the opportunity to finish my book, "The Doctor's Wife" and begin another, "Mrs. Perfect", which I finished today, Sunday.  How pathetic is that . . . 4 books this week, but don't look at my laundry piles.  Ya gotta have priorities, right?

Saturday, we went on a family bike ride on the Porter Rockwell Trail in Draper.  To load 5 bikes and a baby seat, we had to empty out the mini-van, load it up with bikes and then load the kids in the Armada.  We had a great time, although I can't say I got much exercise.  We went 2 miles in 47 1/2 minutes, a cake walk after biking the marathon this spring, 26 1/2 miles in 1 hour and 45 minutes. (That's another story . . . I rode my mountain bike rather than a road bike, unnecessarily tripling the work effort, and I finished with only 2 minutes to spare, but hey, I finished.  Next year I'll try with a road bike.)  Anyhow, our goal this summer is to get Mitch and Maddy riding bikes without training wheels.  Our Michigan neighborhood was so ideal for learning to ride a bike, our Salt Lake house, not so much.  Last summer, Mitch fell off his bike and gouged a hunk of skin out of his thigh, leaving him with no desire to ride a bike.  This bike ride was to help him get over his fears . . . I think we were successful!

After dinner at Arby's (I know, gross, but my kids thought it was awesome), we dropped them at Don and Jodi's and hit the golf course.  I haven't golfed since I was pregnant with Tyler, but I recently purchased these sweet red with white stripes, Addidas golf shoes (on sale of course), thinking that if I ever did golf again, my shoes would be awesome!  Thus, my incentive, to wear my cute shoes.  Anyhow, we only golfed seven holes because it got dark, but I beat Pete on the last hole (we won't mention the other 6).  It made for a fun date.  We walked instead of taking a cart, so we got a bit of exercise.  Now Pete thinks I'm totally hot, because what husband wouldn't think that of a wife willing to spend her free time on the course.  I highly recommend it!

Happy Pioneer Day!

Yesterday was Pioneer Day in the Salt Lake Valley, so we headed up to our family cabin at Alta.  Jake and Pete left at 5am to hike Devil's Castle, Sugar Loaf, Mount Baldy, and Hidden Peak, then took the Snowbird Tram down the mountain.  While they rode the zip line, the other kids and I drove up the canyon to pick them up.  The wild flowers are beautiful in the Albion Basin, so we enjoyed the short hike up to the cabin.  We basically took it easy, Pete and Jake slept most of the time, and I started another book, "The Doctor's Wife", a psychological thriller.  Anyhow, we drove down to the valley for dinner at Gepetto's and live music, and watched fireworks from our deck.  It was a nice, relaxing July 24th.

John Mayer Rocked!

Pete and I spent a fun Monday evening at the John Mayer concert.  Colbie Caillait also performed, another favorite of mine.  Although in many respects, John Mayer is a complete goof-ball, he rocks in concert.  I had no idea he was such an incredible guitar player, and vocally, he sounded awesome.  We had lawn seats at USANA, and met up with our good friends Reagan and Marinda Brooks.  A concert every once in awhile is a great way to maintain my fleeting youth.  Can't wait until Coldplay in November.

A Chaotic Spring

So this is my first attempt at blogging . . . since I've been blogger illiterate for too long!  I thought blogging might create some sense of order as our chaotic lives move forward.

If I have any parenting advice, don't allow your children to play two sports at once.  Here is a sample of last Saturday's schedule so you can see how much I've over booked myself and my kids.  Thank goodness Pete was available to help me this week.

10am-Jake needs to be in North Salt Lake for his Lacrosse game (starts at 11am).  10:15am-Mitch has a soccer game in Sandy.  (He had to drive with friends, since neither of his parents was available to help him).  10:30am-Madeline has to be to Draper for her first dance competition.  11:30am-Madeline's dance performance.  I have to run and grab her so we can go pick up Mitch from Sandy, to take him back to Draper for a party at Boondocks that started at noon.  Yes he was late.   12pm-Jake needs to cruise to his baseball game in Sandy--he'll be late, but at least he'll get there.  1pm-Madeline and I need to be back to the competition for the award ceremony (I ran into an old friend, Shawna Halford, now Shawna Cox, who recently had her 6th baby!  How do we do it?)  2pm-Mitch needs to be picked up from his party.  4pm-Jake has a birthday party next door.  Yes, my two year old Tyler was dragged around to all of this.  Poor kid.

Are you as exhausted reading this as I was attempting to do all of this?  Just the thought of these kind of days is taking me over the edge.  Not to mention we don't have a kitchen since we're in the middle of a remodel.  Do I know how to do chaos or what?  I hope any friends or family reading this are enjoying the tulips in a much more simplified manner than myself!

 

Lake Powell Trip

Since I am not as blogger savvy as I 'd like to be, I have not as yet written about our Lake Powell Trip this summer.  The second week of June we headed to Lake Powell with the Hopkin's, Scott is one of Pete's partner's at work.  They were kind enough to invite us along on their houseboat, as well as Katie's sister's family and parents.  It was a young kids group, the oldest being two 13 year old girls, the youngest being 9 month old twins, with a smattering of other kids in-between.  

But let me back up . . . we decided to take Pete's parents boat, which they have been kind enough to let us use for the last couple of years.  Unfortunately, we have not had good luck with the boat.  That said, the weekend before our Powell trip, we loaded up the kids after Jake's LaCrosse game and headed to Springvale, to pick up the boat from Pete's parents house.  The next day, we turned around to come home, dropping the boat off in Manti to be fixed by Pete's cousins who sold the boat to Pete's family.  Because of our past problems, we wanted to be sure the boat was in good working order before taking it out on Powell.

Skip forward to Powell.  First day on the water, we've got the boat out and running.  We have about 10 little girls swimming in the lake having a great time, when we decide it's time to go find the houseboat.  Turn the key, nothing!  Nothing at all.  In my gut, I'm realizing that this is an omen of what's to come.  After much looking about, we realize that Tyler, our 2 year old has yanked the emergency boat stop, so we reattach it, and we're on our way.

It can't be more than 10 minutes later, we're cruising on the lake, and Snap!  The strap that holds the boat shade up, snaps in half and then posts holding the whole shade up snap in half.  Unbelievable.  These 10 or so little girls are all freaked out and the teenagers promptly decide that our boat is not nearly cool enough for the remainder of the trip.  At least that's a problem that a little ingenuity with some straps and duct tape can fix.
Fast forward to day three, Wednesday.  We decide we're going to take a boat ride to some indian ruins, eat lunch out on the lake and make a day of our adventures.  As we're cruising along, Scott get's something in his propellor, so we stop to be sure he's okay.  When all's well, we try to restart our boat, and sluggishly it starts up.  A little upstream, we stop to let the kids swim (Lake Powell is extremely hot for those who haven't been there).  That's when our woes began.  We tried and tried to restart the boat, but nothing doing.  Eventually, we decided to tie the boat up and take Scott's boat, all 19 of us, see the indian ruins and come back for the boat later, when the engine's had some time to rest.

We had a great time swimming in narrows, where Jake and Nate, hoofed it up the rocks and did some cliff jumping.  We also met up with some friends of the Hopkin's, who took the two teenage girls with them, so now we were down to 17 on one boat.

Several hours later, we back to the abandoned boat, hopeful that it'll start.
 No such luck.  So, going about 10 miles per hour, with 17 very hot and tired individuals, we started to tow the boat back to camp through the channel.  Did I mention the mother of the 9 month twins was with us, but her babies were back at camp and she is a nursing mother?  Anyway, at the rate we were  going, it was going to be several hours back to camp, so Pete called the marina to get a tow.  I won't tell you how much, but I can say that it hurt to part with that much cash, the boat was towed to the marina where we would pick it up a couple days later.  

We felt bad about putting everyone out, and knew that it would affect how long we could stay on the lake.  We had planned to leave early Friday morning to get back for Jake's All-Star baseball tournament, but knew that it wouldn't work with the current situation.  So  we ended up leaving late Thursday evening, and spending a night in a motel in Green River.  I usually drive the late shift (I'm the night owl, Pete's the morning person), but knew I couldn't drive until 4am.  

Anyway, we made Jake's game, and we had a great time in Powell, aside from the boat problems.  Favorite moments included seeing our Mitch and Maddy up on water skis, trying out the new surf board (I got up, but only once and I fell in the wake, next time . . .), riding slowly on the big tube with Tyler screaming, watching Pete ski, kayaking, and watching Jake catch lizards and cliff jump.  Probably my favorite thing was no cell phones for a week--there's nowhere like Powell for getting away from the craziness of everyday life and appreciating family.  Now we're looking forward to a couple's only trip to Lake Powell in September.  Should be a whole different adventure. 

Jake and Spencer's Water Party

This past Tuesday, I consented to throwing a party for my 10 year old son Jake, and my nephew Spencer, also 10.  The previous week, they had spent a good part of a Saturday, creating water games, making invitations and planning for the event.  How can you turn down a party when most of the works been done for you?  They came up with great games, a  few favorites being "Droplets of Doom" or "Feeling the Pain", both of which consisted of boys being squirted with a hose until they couldn't take it anymore.  My favorite part of the invitation was the line "parents don't worry, we've tested all the games and your children will be safe."  Classic.  The part of the invitation I was least happy with was the 12-4:30pm party time . . . fifteen 10 year old boys for 4 1/2 hours!  But we had a great time.  I stocked coolers full of water bottles and soda, and the boys ate pizza, 4 1/2 bags of chips (unbelievable), otterpops, and all sorts of other treats.  Oh yes, they also had a Guitar Hero tournament, and Jake was the ultimate winner.  I wonder if that has anything to do with his creating the bracket list--did I mention Jake is very competitive?  Anyhow, I think we'll make it a summer tradition.  There's not much better than a bunch of happy, laughing kids hanging out during the summer.