Nathan is a Bear

I have been in cub scouting for over 4 years. It has been a lot of fun, but the best part is doing it with Nathan.  I was his wolf leader, but he has been in bears for 8 or so months and I haven't been as involved.  Every once in awhile I will sit down with him and look through the book.  I did it again a month ago and realized that Nathan had earned his bear.  Luckily our scoutmaster decided to start a new tradition and painted the boys' faces who earned a rank advancement. The boys all seemed to really like it.  There was a lot of growling and howling going on.  Congratulations Nathan!

As a side note, I am no longer going to be a cub scout leader.  My new calling is a Unit Commissioner.  I get to help other wards make their program run smoothly and I get to teach Roundtable once a month.  It will be a change but I am not going to lie, it will be nice not having 10+ boys at my house every month.  I am especially sad that I won't be Ryan's leader in February, but I promised him I will help as much as I can.

RE-Decorating

In order to keep myself busy I have been coming up with projects around the house and outside.  On Monday I planted a nectarine tree.  I bought it, dug a hole and planted it all in a few hours.  It was REALLY hard.  The ground was a lot harder than I thought.  I still need to make my hole more round and but bark around it, but I was pretty proud of myself.  Greg was also impressed and he said I could hire some guys to plant some more trees.  Now I just get to wait for them to call back.

 

My downstairs hallway used to be filled with giant posters from old National Geographic magazines.  Cool?  I thought so.  But, I wanted something more personal.  I have been running with my cousin in the mornings and she came up with pictures of all the places our family has been.  I came up with 12 and look forward to adding more. (Nauvoo, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Bridal Veil Falls, BYU, Bahamas, Disneyland, Timp Cave, Zion Nat'l Park, Camping close by, Bear World, and the Space Needle in Seattle)  I love how it has turned out.

 We have lived in our home for over 7 years now.  I have tried planting all sorts of things in my flower beds.  This year I did my research and really tried hard to keep up with weeding and pruning and such.  I now have 19 plants along my back and strawberries and raspberries along the side.  After I took the picture I pruned my raspberry bushes and they look much better (hopefully we will get more fruit next year).  My front yard also is doing better than in years past.  I guess the past couple years I have neglected the flower beds and they are loving all the TLC they have gotten.

 

 I had a day of errands this week.  Callie and I first headed to BYU to get the kids new shirts.  Ryan was ecstatic over the jersey I bought him.  Nathan liked it, but football is a little intimidating to him.  Callie and I also went to the mall and some craft stores.  It has been weird just hanging out with Callie.  She can't talk to me much and so it is just me talking a lot.  While at the mall we passed the Pretzelmaker store.  With the other kids I would always stop and get some pretzels and a lemonade.  At first I passed it, but we went back and got the traditional snack.  It was actually really fun doing that with Callie.  I realized that she is growing up a lot faster than I realized (no pic from the mall, but here she is feeding herself and she is better at it than all my other kids).  I am glad that I was able to carry on the little tradition with her. 

Meadow 1K/5K

 

 Last year Greg ran the 5K and this year Nathan and I decided to give it a try.  My mother-in-law has inspired me to start running  and so I have been "training" a little in the mornings.  Sometimes with Callie, sometimes without.  Sometimes even with my cousin, Sarah.  It is weird, something I never thought I would enjoy, but I am enjoying it.  I should of had Nathan run with me a few times since he had a harder time and needed to walk more than I wanted.  But I told myself that I wasn't running to win or get a certain time, just to spend time with my son.  We made it in 33 minutes.  11 minute miles sound pretty good to me.  Greg ran with Ryan and Annabelle and because of the amount of kids, there was no way to know how fast they ran their 1K.  It was a fun morning and I am glad we were able to get out and exercise. 

St. George

I have lived in Utah for 13 years now and never been to St. George or Zion National Park.  I decided it was time to go.  I had heard fabulous reviews about the Tuacahn and its amazing shows.  This year they were doing Disney's The Little Mermaid, which has always been my favorite.  Anyway, I thought it would be fun to go.  My Young Women's president from my youth lives in St. George now and so I gave her a call for some insider info on where to stay and stuff to do.  She insisted we stay with her and while I am sure our family of 6 tore them away from the calm of their life, they were gracious hosts and we all had a fabulous time.

 There was no photography allowed during the performance.  Check out their website for cool pictures of the amphitheater and shows.  Annie fell asleep for the last 20 minutes, but we all loved it!

 Annabelle wasn't feeling the best as we drove up through the canyon but she perked up once we got there.  We saw lizards and squirrels.  We hiked to the lower emerald pools (so simple after doing Timp cave last week). 

 

 Greg and I decided that we needed to put Zion on our list of places to vacation without the kids.  It would be so fun to stay for a few days and do lots of hikes and exploring.  Plus enjoy all the neat stuff in the little city near the park entrance.  Not that the kids were horrible, but it would just be a lot of fun.

 

 My Aunt Debi recently moved to St. George so we spent an hour with her at her swimming pool.  It felt great after hiking.

 My friend Laura and her husband, Brent, were fabulous hosts.  They had a box of toys for the kids to play with and my kids played SO well with all of these new (but old) toys.  Laura fed us meals and played with my kids. 

 

 The kids loved playing with all of her beanie babies, so much that she let them each pick one to take home. Ryan picked the eagle (he was the one most obsessed with the toys).  Nathan picked a spider, Callie picked a swan and the most surprising was Annabelle who picked the skunk. 

 It was a nice little weekend away.  I look forward to going there again.

Labor Day

For many Labor Day's in the past our family has thrown a BBQ for Greg's side of the family.  I love these people and since I can't have my family over, they are definitely the next best thing. 

 We had hoped to have the slip-n-slides going and the kiddie pool out, but weather wasn't agreeing.  A couple kids wanted to get wet so I turned on a sprinkler.  And then only my two girls got wet.

 We had fun playing Bocci ball and Loopin' Louie.  Dominion and Munchkin.  Sand was everywhere after the boys flooded the sand box while trying to make a volcano.  Dad and Jeff even worked on a car for a couple hours with the help of a neighbor.

 We had a great time with lots of family and food and fun!

A Slip Shop

 

No these are not my cute skinny legs nor my cute shoes, but I have bought a few of these cute slips to go with my skirts.  A bunch of people in my neighborhood have asked where I got them so here is the information:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/aslipshop?ref=top_trail