Ahoy Maties

Arrrgh...our weekend adventure...

One hot sunny day much to our surprise...a pirate (played by Patrick) ran up to the house knocked at the door, dropped a treasure map and hobbeled away on his wooden leg...by the time Patrick who was "working in the garage" ;) could get in the house to tell the kids what he had seen... the pirate was long gone. But what was that lying near the door?.....

You guessed it a lost treasure map. The four maties scooped up the map and were off for an adventure...(not picutred due to a severe case of MOM BRAIN sorry!) Just outside the house Matie Porter made an exciting find...a pirate footstep in the rocks. The maties were so excited for the upcoming adventure. They carfully followed the map to the mail box then to the yellow fire hydrant where the map told them to skip to the drainage tunnel. From there the maties all got in a line and counted 25 steps just as the map said to the BIG RED X which convinently marks the spot...the maties dug with all of their might until they uncovered the missing Copper Basin treasure.

Matie Jacob, Matie Porter, Matie Madison, and Matie Cousin Noah arrived back at the ship which is on land and shaped like a house (for disguise purposes) to open their magnificant treasure. Carefully they pulled open the treasure under the direction of Captin Patrick to find...
Golden Resees nuggets, silver chocolate Kisses truffles, golden carmel Rolo's, expensive diamond Ring pops, lovely candy necklaces and dollars and coins. What an adventure those maties had on that sunny weekend.

Candy and Money for treasure: $15.00

Batteries for the Camera: $4.99

Patirck Playing a pirate, captin, and garage cleaner: $Creativity and sweat

The look on the Kids faces: Priceless

President Hinckley Challenge

Honoring President Hinckley

I recieved an e-mail from our Relief Society today and wanted to share it with those who may be interested. It is a Challenge to read the Book Of Mormon in 97 days to honor Presidnet Hinckley. The link is http://www.hinckleychallenge.com. You can register there and put in your progress and the website will track how many pages you have read and how many you need to read to meet the 97 day goal. It started on Feb 4th so this is a day late but never to late to get started. It also has code to put a graph on your blog that tracks your progress. Even better incentive when everyone can see how you are doing. Anyway I was really inspired when I saw the counter that they have on the website that counts how many people have accepted the challenge. When I signed up there were 21,331 people who had already signed up. Also you can type in a name or location and see the names of all of those who signed up. Happy Reading:)

Road Trip!!!!!!

Another trip to Idaho, this one a bit more spur of the moment, to do some more work on the house. Our departure from the house began just like our arrival to the house....Stuck in the snow. Thank heavens for good neighbors, shovels, and tow ropes. Anyway we were able to accomplish quite a bit. We tiled the counter tops and bathrooms, did a bunch of touch-up paint, caulking, stain, put in more base board, put the wood trim on the counter tops, put on cabinet door and drawers, and did some clean up. So here are some pictures.

This is from the Kitchen looking into the Family Room.

Inside the hall bathroom

From the Hall looking into the Hall Bathroom
The Hallway and Baluster

Close-up of the Counter tops and back splash. Patrick was quite proud of himself. He put in a ton of work and we really love the outcome.


The almost complete Kitchen.

Tagged

Okay here it goes...a glimpse into the unknown of me...



1. What were you doing 10 years ago?

Oh I was a Junior at good old Rich High School. Probably in the heat of the basketball season sitting in class drawing Nike signs on the back of my notebooks not even pretending to be engaged in the things being taught.



2. What is on your To Do list today?

Well, we just got back from Utah at 4:00 this morning so I have laundry to do, bills to pay, a car to clean out, grocery shopping to do, and if I keep going I am going to get discouraged and just go to sleep so I will start with that.



3. Snacks that I enjoy.

White Chocolate covered pretzels, Peanut butter Twix, and Cheetos...I mean carrots, apples, and spinach. (I wish)



4. Three Bad Habits.

I am very indecisive. In fact it has taken me about ten minutes just to answer this question.
I cry pretty easily.
PROCRASTINATION




5. If I were suddenly a billionaire I would...

Help some people out, Pay off any debts, do a little shopping (major DI shopping spree...In honor of my husband), take a vacation, hire a house cleaner, then put the rest in savings and live happily on the interest.



6. Five Places I've lived.

Fairview, Utah...Garden City, Utah...Eagle Mountain, Utah...Mesa, Arizona...Queen Creek, Arizona.



7. Five Jobs:

Grandma's Pantry, Pederson's Sporting Goods, Advantage Wireless, America West Airlines, and Desert Schools Federal Credit Union.



8. Five things people don't know about me.......

I really hate to spend money.
I played Basketball and ran track in High School...I guess I gave that away at the beginning.
I got a thing called the "Pregnancy Rash" with my first baby Madison. It was as awful as it sounds.
I am very very competitive.
I am allergic to weeds, grass and animal hair of pretty much all kinds. No pets here!


So there you have it...you are all now stupider (I don't think that is even a word) having read this.


I tag....Kerrie Taylor, Candice Eborn, Laura Woods, Sonda Bryce, and Cedar Skinner.

Construction Boys

Ken, Thank you so much for all of your help the house looks awesome, as my kids say now "rock me baby"!!! Micah thanks for the door nobs it puts Patrick's mind at ease now that the house is all locked up and I just really like the way it looks even if they didn't work.

In the snow with the Wood's

White Christmas!!!

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas!

We were off to our house to do some more work and celebrate Christmas how is should be celebrated...in the snow! The outside of the house is pretty much done and while the inside has come a long way there is plenty of work to be done. We started to do some of the trim work this past trip. A big thanks to Patrick's dad for all of the help, we were able to get a lot done.

No our kids are not GIANTS. This is our stunning 4 foot tall Family Dollar Christmas tree that graced our bay window this holiday season. A big shout out to Martha Stuart who inspired our creative side and helped us to create this magnificent work of art.

Here are the kiddo's all nestled in their Christmas P.J's. Not pictured is Patrick in his gray pajama bottoms speckled with red and white candy canes and his 100% cotton long sleeve gray t-shirt and Cami in her adult size sleeper with elastic around the ankles, feeties with the anti-slip fabric on the bottom and of course the full zip front. Yes it is true they do make adult size sleepers. And I must say it is kind of like the Minivan where you always vow that you are way to cool for such a thing until you try it and you are like hey... this isn't so bad, I like the feel of fleece from head to toe and the freedom that a one piece fuzzy suit gives to a person. You'll never know until you try it.

Christmas morning was a hit as always... however every year I set up the video camera and film the opening of the gifts and amidst all the excitement forget to take pictures as well. This is the only one that I got but is was a good one.

Madison in some of her new clothes and her hanging down earring's and Porter as Spider man.

Favorite Gifts:

Madison: Her new CD player and Hannah Montana CD. Song #1 is her favorite although I don't know if she really ever made it past that song to even hear the other ones. She put on many concerts singing along in Jacob's nasal aspirator microphone.

Porter: His red power ranger with the motorcycle. It is so fun to listen to him and think that we all had such great imaginations when we were younger. A trait we lose way to soon.

Jacob: The ornaments on the tree (although not really meant as a gift for him) he really enjoyed pulling them off the tree and bringing them over to me like he was doing me a huge favor. And every time he was so proud of himself.

What a great time of year, I can't think of a better way to end each year than Christmas. It puts life back in perspective and helps us to remember what is really important just in time to get us geared up for a new year full of memories, trials, excitement, family, friends, and fun. I hope the holidays brought just as much joy to all of you and hope the new year brings you all the best.