Darrin's New Ride

Darrin and I both own big vehicles. We LOVE them and need them for work and carpooling reasons, but they are gas hogs. One day Darrin was doing a delivery to a customer's house and he saw a motorcycle for sale. He got a great deal. It has been so nice to have it for Darrin to do service calls and run errands.

Caleb and Darrin. Caleb loves to go on rides all the time.

Drew and Dad. He loves to get rides too. Rides are fun(from Drew). Wish I had gotten a picture of Jared.

cowBOYS

This picture has nothing to do with this post. It is just cute. Caleb has his own back pack and loves to wear it. He thinks it makes him a big boy like his brothers.

A couple a weeks ago I took the boys to the rodeo they have in town here each year. We always go on Thursday because kids get in free. Since Darrin was spending some time with his Mom in Provo, I took the boys myself plus a friend. Silly me, 4 boys and one Mom. Good thing they were good(I guess bribing them with ice cream helps.) This is Jared sitting with his friend watching the rodeo.

Caleb in the cowboy hat. He thought it should be his and would share it with his brothers.

Drew, the cutest cowboy. He was so excited to dress up like a cowboy. He has been waiting for a year to go to the rodeo dressed up.

The boys talking to Jared's friend. Before the rodeo, they let anyone who has a horse come ride in the arena if they want.

Highlights of the night.
1. cotton candy
2. boys were good
3. Drew saw his teacher
4. Jared saw his 1st grade teacher.
What a fun night.

One a different note. The day before the rodeo I got a call from the boy's school. I always hate getting calls because the 1st thing that always comes to mind is" Oh great, what has my child done?" When they say this is the school counselor, you think: "Wow, they must have done something REALLY bad." Anyway what he told me was that Jared was playing with some kindergartners and he slipped and fell on the ground. One of the kindergartners jump on him and bite him. He told me Jared was OK, but that the bite was going to leave a bruise. He just wanted to call and let me know what happened. All I could think of was "Man I am glad it was that and not something my child did." It had so much effect on Jared that when he came home from school I asked him if anything happened at school. He said No. I asked him What about someone biting you. To that he said, "Oh yea, I forgot about that" Funny how kids don't let things bug them, wish we all could be like that.

CAMPING

We love to go camping. Sad to say we only got to go once as a family this summer. But it was an adventure. We went to go for two night, but ended up spending one night. It was so windy and rained the whole night. We tried spending the day in the tent because it was so windy, but that is a HARD job with a two year old. Lucky for us we have a Spring Bar tent. So you couldn't feel the wind or rain at all. In fact we were all hot.


Jared and Drew helping set the tent up. They were big helpers.

Caleb's idea of helping us out.

Were we camped was nice, lots of rocks for the kids to climb. Our table and fire pit was in the middle of rocks, so it helped block the wind.

Caleb providing the music for us.


We kept having squirrels all around our camp. They must always get fed my humans, because they were not scared by us at all. The boys had fun chasing them away.

Drew getting ready to roast marsh mellows.


Caleb and Drew climbing rocks. Caleb is not afraid of anything unlike his mom who had to kept getting him down.


Reading while waiting to go fishing. Darrin took the older boys fishing. They came back sooner than I expected. Darrin was trying to get to a better fishing spot and got the truck stuck in a ditch. He brought the boys back and went to flag someone out so they could help pull us out. Thanks for having good people there.

Caleb LOVED his bed.

Boys had so much fun. Can't wait to do it again next season.

Excited To Be Back At School

My boys were so excited to go to school. I know it was to see friends and have fun. But in Drew's word he said "I can't wait to go back to school. Then I won't have to do Mommy school and chores." I told him he still had chores. He wasn't too happy about that.

I put them to work at a young age.

Caleb at Mommy school.
Poor kids. I made them do math each day.

And handwriting.

And reading.

I hope that it helps them get back in the groove of school. They have been in school for 8 school days now and are LOVING it. I hope they enjoy it the rest of they year.

First Day of School.

Last Thursday school started for us here in St. George. I don't know who was more happy. Me or the boys. They were ready to see all their friends and meet new ones.
This year Jared started the fourth grade. I can't believe I have a fourth grader. He is so excited and loving school. His teacher is Mrs. Hansen and she has been great so far. Jared loves her and loves to learn all that she teaches them. He is going to have so much fun learning about Utah this year. He is excited.

My Drew Bear is in the first grade. He is glad to finally be in all day school. His teacher is new to the school this year. Her name is Mrs. Manning. She is nice and Drew loves her. He LOVES school and says it is too easy. It was not a hard change to go to school all day. He was most excited about lunch on school.
Caleb really missed his brothers. He is so use to having them home all day. It is taking sometime for him to adjust, but he is finally starting to. He loved going to see the school bus.

Drew being silly.

Jared being silly.

Caleb being silly because Jared and Drew are silly.

Aren't they the cutest grade school kids.

Jared and Drew with their friends Kess and Keat at the bus stop.

The boys in their school shirt.

Take me out to the BALL GAME

Day two of our vacation was also awesome. We woke up, went swimming then checked out of our hotel. We drove to see the Newport Beach temple. It is beautiful. It was closed for cleaning, so we were able to wander around the grounds with just our family. The boys keep saying how beautiful it was.
We had a great time there even though Caleb was in a sad mood at first. After the temple we took the boys to TOGOs. Darrin's favorite sandwich shop growing up. He loves to have a #9(hot pastrami). The boys thought it was the best and it is now their favorite sandwich place. We then drove to Ontario CA and checked into our hotel and rested before the game.


We took the boys to "Mormon Night" at the Dodgers VS Braves game. I was so excited because I LOVE the Braves. They had some Mormon sing the National Anthem and God Bless America(which turned out to be our friends sister) and Elder M. Russell Ballard threw out the 1st pitch. Because it was Mormon night we were able to get a good deal on tickets in the "all you can eat" pavilion. So we had all you can eat foot long hot dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, water and pop. The boys were in heaven.

Caleb did so good at the game. He sat and watch the whole thing. I thought I would have to walk him around and I brought things for him to do. Didn't have to do any of that. He just loved to cheer for the game. So if you see him ask him what you say at a baseball game and he will tell you "GOOOO Dodgers" It is too cute.

It was a great game. Braves were winning 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth. That is until the Dodgers hit a home run with two people on base. My Braves didn't win, but it was an awesome ball game.

We let them eat what they wanted and how much they wanted. Caleb ate 1 1/2 hot dogs, and 1/2 a nachos. Pretty good for a boy so small. Drew ate 2 1/2 hot dogs, 2 nachos, 2 waters and 1 pop. Jared ate 2 hot dogs, 3 nachos, 1 peanuts, 3 waters, and 1 lemonade. We got our monies worth.



The game started at 7:00pm CA time which is 8:00pm UT time. My boys go to bed around 7:00pm when we are home so by the 8th inning Drew fell asleep.

On the way to the hotel, they all fell asleep. Overall it was an amazing time and we will be doing it again next year. You are all invited to come.

Life is a BEACH

We decided to take the boys on a little vacation to CA before school started. We went to CA for two nights. We had so much fun and have decided that mini vacations are the way to go. Not enough time to get on each others nerves and the whole time was fun.

We left our house on Wednesday morning about 5:30 am our time. We wanted to get to the beach by 11 ish CA time. Boys were so good in the car. The first night we stayed in Newport beach. Our hotel was maybe 1 1/2 miles from the beach. We drove straight to the beach and stayed and played until it was time to check into our hotel room. We brought boogie boys and that is all the older boys did. They had so much fun.

Caleb loved the Ocean. His favorite was when we would sit and let the waves get our legs. He would say: "Bring it On". He loved looking for shells and wading in the water.

Jared LOVED boogie boarding. He only left the water long enough to get some lunch and water, because I made him.

Caleb loved playing in the sand.

This is Drew running Jared over with his boogie board.

Jared and his baywatch moment.

Drew had SO MUCH fun. He didn't want to leave.

Caleb even tried to boogie board.

We had so much fun. But we found out that when you boogie board you get sand in places you would never think of. We kept finding it for days.