We're BAAAA-aaaack!

Being away for almost a month made it hard to come back! We had so much fun and took lot's of pictures, but the best part was just hanging out with our family in big groups and small! Here are just a very few pictures of some of the highlights of our trip . . .

We went to Brick Oven - or as we grew up calling it, "Heaps" the day after we got there with my sisters. It was SO cold!

Our timing was great because Grace and I ended up being able to go to the DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) Closing Social. I don't think Grace is old enough to be "official" but she thinks she is. It is so fun having 4 generations, plus my great-aunt and aunt there too. It's also fun to see old friends. They kept asking if we had moved back and if we were etc.

The reason for going to Utah was that Grace wanted to get baptized with all the family around she could get.

I can't believe she's so big!!

It was great to have everyone living in Utah be there for this. There were so many that they had started leaving by the time we got around to getting pictures taken, so we never did get one of everyone who had come.

We had a BBQ at my moms house after (when it finally got warm enough for that!) which was fun for the kids. Most of these girls are within 2 years of each other so they had a blast.

Grace sizing up her aunt that is 9 months younger but 6 inches taller than her.

Before Jon met us up there, we got to go up to SLC to visit the Beehive House and have lunch. The kids want to do that every time we go. The grounds were so pretty with all the flowers blooming! We had spring in March here, so it was fun to have it again in Utah.

We also got to have our picture taken by an Asian tour group that we were behind. We waited for them to take pictures of the temple and then they all wanted pictures of us so we obliged.

Jons brother Seth works at BYU doing . . . um . . . DNA research (is that right?) so he gave us a tour of the cool labs and experiments going on there.

One of the most important things about vacations is the food, and we got plenty of that. We had Italian at Glorias in Provo. Do you SEE the size of my Lasagna!! Click on the picture, it is giNORmous. It lasted 3 meals. We also had great desserts and gelato.

There is PLENTY more where these came from, so stay tuned!

Long Time No See!!

Midge with her new cupcake jaminas, monkey Mo and chocolate divine!

So much to tell and every time I get on here to do a blog, it will only let me upload this picture and then errors out and I'm too tired to figure out why. GRRRrrrrr. Anyway, we've had a busy month. My baby Midge turned 8 years old in April. We decorated Easter Eggs and all sorts of stuff. It has been a very busy month. And May looks like it's shaping up to be just as busy!

When asked what she wanted for her Birthday, Midgey Moo said, "A monkey Pluffy and to go to Utah." When asked what she wanted to do for her baptism she said, "Go to Utah so the family can be there." It sounds like the Mafia! Anyway, we obliged and are heading up there next week for all the festivities. I hope it doesn't snow!

Good Friday

Yes, today is Tuesday, but we had Good Friday last week. Every year I forget that Jon gets it off here, yeah!! I had a Dr.s appointment in the morning and when I got home the whole neighborhood was over here. Collin and 3 boys down the street have formed a baseball "team". Collin has been working on their logo for their team shirts . . .

. . . And told his friends that his dad could print them out onto vinyl for t-shirts. So, there was Jon on his computer surrounded by all the kids making some last minute changes on the logo . . .

. . . and then spent the next few hours printing out and making their team t-shirts. The boys thought they were so cool and ran home to show their parents. Must be nice to be the cool dad in the 'hood. I see Collin will be following in his fathers footsteps!

Just Another Day in the Park

Last Saturday we went to the park to try to get our minds off Collin on his scout trip - you know, the ones you hear about on the news about boys getting lost or encountering bears etc.

I taught Grace about doing "trains" on the slide and Jon showed us his amazing surfing skills - also using the slide.

We also tried to block out the Mexicano and Country music wars going on all around the park battling it out for complete domination over the peaceful sounds of nature. There were many parties and other interesting things going on but this pinata (the big red platform heel) won our prize for greatest sight of the day.

Just one more perk of living in a large international city. I challenge you to go to your closest park and see what you can see. Happy Spring!

"Mom . .

. . . if I don't go to regular High School, how am I going to find a girlfriend?" - Collin

Glad to see he's got his priorities straight. We were without our boy all weekend since he was on his first Scout hike ALONE and it was NOT fun. When we went to pick him up, Grace saw him and took off running yelling, "Collin! Collin!". I was so glad to see that he wasn't embarrassed by this display of affection from his little sister and in front of his homies and gave her a big hug! It was so sweet! We're glad to be reunited again and to spend some time camping together this weekend for spring break. Yay for spring!

Arrow of Light

(I always think that sounds like some New Age Crystal healing organization or something) When a Cub Scout fulfills all the requirements to "graduate" into Boy Scouts, they earn their Arrow of Light award. Without bringing up all the juicy behind-the-scenes antics of his Mother Bear, Collin was able to get his this last week at the Blue and Gold banquet. This is waiting for Jon and I to come up and be a part of the ceremony.

The Sweet Potato (notice the lashing he's done on his glasses? He has stepped on them at least 11 times in the 3 months he's had them. I guess it's good Scout Skills practice!)

Getting his face painted . . .

Smirking at his pals:

"I will not look at the camera . . . I will NOT look at the camera!" Crossing The Bridge into Boy Scouts.

Always the chatty chat-ofilis.

The coveted badge. (Since this is the 100 year anniversary of scouting, they are putting 2010 on everything.)

Remember . . .

Chalkboard Steals

Tomorrow, the 25th, on babysteals.com

Polkadots:

Thought Bubbles:

Clouds:

Weekly Calendar:

Our Week in Review

Actually, I guess it all started about 2 weeks ago. . . it's kind of all blurring together. We (meaning Scribble) got an order from one of those "one day only" websites for 400 chalkboard decals. If that doesn't impress you, the biggest one we've ever gotten was for 60 and that seemed huge. Anyway, we spent about a week printing pretty much non-stop. I never did get a picture of all 400 because as soon as we peeled and taped them we packed them up, so this is only about half . . .

Our whole house was taken up with every corner and hall having something to do with the order in them! These are tubes ready and waiting (only about 100) . . .

175 smaller tubes for the Polkadots . . .

Finally! Ready to be shipped. I missed a lot of the process, but we were too busy to even think of pictures. We also had some fam, Jon's brother James and Roxane come in town so we had a couple of days of fun with them. Again, forgot pictures!

One good thing is that our house sure seems bigger now! It reminds me of the story of Sad Mrs. Sam Sack. Remember that sistas? Not sure I ever want to do that again.

Anyway, if you want a screaming deal on some chalkboard vinyl decals - Weekly calendars, Polka Dots, Clouds and Thought bubbles, you can go to BabySteals.com on the 25th, this Thursday and get some.

Mmm. . . Napolitanke's

I got "moved" from being in the RS Presidency at church to being in the Primary Presidency. I am the counselor over scouts. I got called the Sunday before my surgery so I had a couple of weeks to ease into the calling. BUT as soon as I put clothes on (somewhere around day 11 or 12) I hit the ground running and haven't stopped! When the president was telling me about my responsibilities she said, "scouts is a full time job". I chuckled at her joke. I'm not chuckling now. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE scouts. I just didn't think I'd be gone so much from home. And the little free time I had before to do the blog, write in my journal etc. is now pretty much zilch. So, I thought I'd post about these little beauties. We stumbled across them in the international isle of our local HEB, or "heb" as we like to call it. They are made in Croatia. We love to try new things but sometimes what you think will be so good, just isn't. Well, these didn't disappoint. They're nougat (aka gianduja, aka chocolate hazelnut) filled wafer cookies. They are so delectibly delish - not too sweet, very crunchy, low cal and dirt cheap. If you like that type of thing, you have got to scout these out and try them. I think you can also order them on Amazon. Happy eating.

Why Tuna Makes Me Smile

This story happened a few months ago, but every time I see a can of tuna I think of it, and probably always will, so I thought I'd share. . .

Last semester in Co-op, I "taught" PE for the little kids. Ok now, stop snickering!! Notice I put parenthesis around taught?! There is a little boy in there named Kit. I hadn't done anything special to Kit or treated him any different. If anything, I was a little rude because I was always telling him to stop whining and that there was "no sitting down in PE". One day we were sitting around in the morning getting ready for Praise and Worship (I need to do a post on that some time!) to start, and when I turned my head Kit was there. He planted a big kiss on my cheek, gave me a bear hug around the neck and said, "Teacher, I love you". He then said he had brought me something and dug deep in his bag to produce . . . a can of tuna. He then gave me another kiss and hug and told me again that he loved me. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to shed a tear or two. And I might need to right now too. I love that I have happy thoughts when I see a can of tuna. Thanks Kit!