Las Vegas and Los Angeles

At the end of March, we went to Las Vegas with Angie and Dan and their brood of 5. We got some cheap condo bonus weeks and took off for our first big vacation with them. We felt quite privileged to be the recipient of Dan's vacation time, as they spend a lot of it with Angie's family in California. In Vegas, we went hiking to Red Rock Canyon, swam ( I should say the kids swam - It has to be 90 degrees before I'll swim :-) The kids had so much fun. We ate all our dinners together, switched off nights to cook, and even got in a date night for each of us.

We took the four boys to a sports car dealership. We told them that if they "touched" the car at any moment, we were turning and walking out. They salivated a lot , but no touching

Hiking in Red Rock Canyon

About a week before we left for Vegas, Scot was complaining about how many projects he had, and how he needed us to go away for a while. I used to go to my mom's so he could work on the house, but now that's not an option. So I got the crazy idea: Well, we're not too far from California.. Who do I know in California? At first I couldn't think of anyone, but then I remembered a missionary who served in MS when I was 8. I'm sure after 28 years he wants us to crash at his house. Then I remembered Scot had an aunt there - not an aunt he knew very all. But, I am who I am, and I called. "This is JulieAnn, Scot Willey's wife. Do you remember me?" Definitely a close enough relationship to invite yourself over for a week with 4 kids :-) The lady is as crazy as I am --- she accepted my invite to her house.

I was pretty nervous - the thought of driving to and in LA was pretty scary to me. I've been known to have some serious panic attacks while driving. I had a couple of freak-out moments, but over all I did really well. Ch. was my guide - sitting in the front seat navigating for us. He did amazing. One lady at a museum, upon seeing him with the maps, commented that with mapquest now, no one can read maps. End of guilt that we did no homeschooling that day. School fulfilled.

Before I left, I googled "free things to do in LA". I was amazed by all there is to do there on an extremely limited budget. I could have stayed another week (I'm sure the aunt was rooting for that!) and still have had lots to do. We went to La Brea tar pits (with Aunt Shirley - she'd never been), Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (free and amazing!), tide pools, beaches, California Science Center (free and incredible), Farmer's Market, to Carlsbad to see the missionary, stuck one day at home with car problems, Getty Villa (so beautiful and yes, free). We passed through Ethiopan town, Cambodian town, Korean town, and never had time to stop. I'm a sucker for anything ethnic. We took Aunt Shirley out to eat Thai food (she'd never had any). We loved staying with Aunt Shirley. Just so you know, any of you are welcome to make the same phone call to me whenever you'd like. Though Lehi sure isn't a hot destination spot.

Scot got a lot done on the house. He worked on planting the fruit trees, putting in the water purifier he bought 2 years ago, and framing the basement.

La Brea tar pits with Aunt Shirley
Notice some attitude we were dealing with.

Getty Villa (replica of the Villa de Papiri buried by Mt. Vesuvius) Since we did the ancient civilizations this year in history, the Greek and Roman artifacts were somewhat interesting to the kids.

afternoon with Stacey Goodson, served his mission in Miss., many moons ago

Tide Pools, San Pedro

And Our Home Will Never Be the Same...

When Ch. said he wanted drums, Scot assured me that this is a quick phase that all males go through. Wow, he was wrong! Ch. has been saving Christmas, bday, babysitting money for these. He wanted to buy anything he could find, sight unseen. We finally convinced him he could get a better deal on ksl.com. In case you're wondering --- Yes, we bought him ear plugs, and yes it's very loud. What I didn't get were ear plugs for the rest of us. Honestly, the worst thing is not the noise of the drums, but that he can't hear me when I yell for him. I have to walk upstairs to get him -- annoying. If you go to his blog, he taped himself playing with a CD. But he couldn't hear the CD very well so he's a little off sometimes. He hasn't had any instruction yet, so truly I'm really amazed with how well he's doing.

The kids singing

A few weeks ago, Scot, my dad, Ch., and I spoke in church. I translated my dad's talk for him, and he read it in Spanish. He did really well, especially for not speaking any Spanish! The kids sang a Primary song, and it turned out beautifully. Of course, when we practiced at home, they were goofing off and laying on the floor. But when the time came, they did great. Tonight before Family Home Evening, I tried to get them to do it again to blog it. I won't go into the details of how it all went very badly and I sent them to their rooms. :-(. But, in the end, they came down to sing. When they sang a few weeks ago it was definitely their best performance, but this will give you an idea.

The Boys' Backpacking Trip

A couple of months ago, Scot went backpacking with the boys. Dan (Angie's husband) and Angie's dad invited them. Of course, Scot wasn't very excited because as we all know having a condo has warped his sense of "camping." He now says "camping" is going on a hike at Snowbird and coming back to look at the mountains while you sit in the hot tub! Anyway, I thought this would be a cheap activity for them to do together, wrong! A $100 later, they're ready for their trip. As he left, Scot said he thought he might actually have fun. I've been waiting 2 months for him to blog this, but I'm giving up. --The highlight of their trip was that after fishing for hours and catching next to nothing, a small stream was found where the fish were just sitting in the water.
They ran around and GRABBED the fish by hand and whacked them with rocks to kill them. Boys!??? At the end of it all, they all had a great time (including Scot), exercised a lot :-), and are all excited to do it again next year!

Newskids

Last night, Ch. and I had an interesting experience in Provo. Through a homeschooling group, I found out that the Daily Herald of Provo wants kids to come and do a short newscast to be posted onoline. It was interesting to see how many times we had to do things over and how much had to be edited becasue the kids couldn't read. We were there almost three hours, and they still weren't done. About 9 kids did the newscast last night. They do this every Tuesday at 5. If you're interested, you need to call Karen at the Daily Herald. they really liked him and asked if we'd come back again. So we might do this again. Because of being in Seussical this summer, he had lots of facial expression. I said, "That's a little too much. Tone it down." The guys there said "Be quiet! We think it's perfect." So I told Ch., "Ignore what your mother said, like you usually do :-) "

The link is http://www.heraldextra.com/component/option,com_wrapper/Itemid,159/ He did it on July 29 and his part is Wildlife Rehab. It will be up for one week.

Seussical, Jr. Performance

Just as an FYI to everyone. Ch.'s performances will be July 31, Aug. 1, 2, 4 at 7 p.m. He only has one real solo and lots of mini solos. His other main solo was taken out because of time constraints. Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for kids over 3. He's had a great time doing this, and I now fear we'll be this busy every summer with theater :-)!

THE YARD

I had said I didn't want a new house because I didn't want to have to do a yard. Then I had said Scot wasn't going to do the yard. We were going to hire it out. Of course, my life didn't quite go as planned. After much work all summer this is the state of things now.

I'm so tired of dirt. Dirt in the house, on the house, in the garage, in diapers, in C.'s ears...We've had dirt delivered on two different days. Both days we allowed C. to play to his heart's content. No pics, but he rolled in it, did somersaults and filled his clothes with it.
Try keeping a 2-year old out of dirt!

Seussical Jr.

Today is a great day at our house! Chandler tried out for the Seussical musical and today found out that he got the lead he wanted - Jojo! I got to sit in on his tryout and thought he did really well. He sang a song from "Hope of America"-- a huge presentation elementary schools had done at BYU a couple of months ago. After he sang we mentioned to the director that he already knew a lot of the songs. They asked him impromptu and a capella to sing one. Yikes! I was terrified for him because he hadn't practiced any. But it was beautiful! I couldn't wipe off the "I'm so proud of my child grin." Still, I didn't want to get my hopes up because he didn't move at all during his tryout. He sang great, but he stood immobile with his hands behind his back. Then the director asked him to smile his biggest smile - it was that cheesy grin all kids make when you tell them to smile for a picture. I told the director that spontaneity wasn't his strong point but that he does great with direction! For any family that wants to go, the performances will be in the EXTREMELY small Lehi Arts Center (the size of the arts center is testament to how much Lehi values the arts) July 31, Aug. 1, Aug. 2, Aug. 4.

Trip to Mexico 2007

I want to back up to last October/Nov. when we went to Mexico.
We went this time during the big school anniversary celebration, Halloween, S.'s birthday.

We've now been to Mexico twice as a whole family with the kids. both times we've lived with the same family - Alejandro and Sissi Jimenez . We didn't know them before we had set things up to live in their home, but we now consider their family some of our closest friends.

Their four children are all adults. We went back last fall because the youngest, David, was going on a mission, and was going to be at the house all the time not working or going to school. He' so good with the kids that I knew it would be a special time for them to spend with him.

We also saw a lot of daughter Vianney (husband Arnulfo) because they live close by. The youngest girl Sissita came home on the weekends from school. We'd still like her to come here and live with us and go to school.

The kids went to school every day and really enjoyed it. Of course, C. was very "busy" and his teacher was worried because all he wanted to was draw monster pictures. M. cried every morning, then after I left her she loved it. While the kids were at school, I washed clothes (this process being a little more complicated in Mexico) and took care of S.

Sometimes David drove us into the city to buy groceries. On Tuesdays Alejandro took us to a huge outdoor market to buy anything you could ever imagine selling from the back of your pickup :-)

S. loved to play in the rooster cages behind the house. I really did get used to hearing them squawk every morning--- wait I wouldn't call that morning. It was still night for me. Ha, HA!
Bathing S. was a little more complicated for me. We had a harder time getting lots of hot water so she and M. took lots of cool baths. I bathed one girl in the water, then the other. While in Mexico this time we were able to go the School's anniversary celebration- full of Mariachi bands and tacos.

We also had S.'s birthday there and the kids went trick-or-treating.

The kids made some great friends. C. and his friend Memo played for hours in a large mudhole in the backyard. One evening Memo's family took us out to eat. When C. saw the chicken feet laying out for sale he had to have one. The crazy kid loved it and continued to eat them on other occasions.

On the weekend of "Dia de la Muerte" (Day of the Dead) I took the older kids on a six-hour round trip into Mexico City.

We saw incredible handmade decorations and ate our favorite Mexican corn on the cob.

About an hour and a half south (on a delightful bus ride) lives one of Scot's favorite mission companions. Roberto and Alis Cervantes and kids, Adrian and Aislinn.

We visit with them every time we go to Mexico and also consider them to be close friends. It's strange that these two families live so far away in a different culture with a different language, yet we feel closer to them in some ways than many "friends" we have here. I say that to point out how much we care for them.

The last week, both times we went, we go to Acapulco. We stayed at The Mayan resort. It's gorgeous! The kids love doing activities with the resort. My mom had sent Halloween packages with me before I left. The kids loved their crazy glasses! She was so good about little holiday goodie bags. We're all going to miss receiving those. You can see from some of the pics that C. looks like a little Mexican.

This is picture that really demonstrates Ch.'s move out of childhood. We had ordered different things from the extensive kids menu. Right after we ordered, an angry Ch. got up from the table and left. We couldn't find him anywhere and truly started to panic. Finally, he came back (saying he'd been in the bathroom--we'd been there and yelled). What was all the attitude about? He didn't want anything off the kids' menu. He wanted one of the fancy adult plates. I know, I know. I created the monster. I've groomed him to like "fine dining" :-) Well, not quite, but he's definitely an adventurous eater.

Pagosa Springs Vacation 2008

Two weeks ago we went on vacation to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Here's the great thing about time shares. They take you to places that no one's ever heard of before! We went there last year, and because we waited so long to book something this spring we went back there again. On our way down we went to Arches, then seven nights in Pagosa, then on to Grand Junction. In Pagosa we went to the awesome hot springs (while it rained on us all day), hiked, played tennis. Scot and I watched lots of HGTV. Since we don't have cable going on vacation means night after night of HGTV. We took our Battlestar Galactica DVDs, but Designed to Sell won night after night. We drove into Durango one day and went to the Children's Museum and a great train museum there. You have to know that traveling with four kids and Grandpa in the van is a tight fit. My poor dad went with us the whole time. (I'm not sure if he's ever going to go again :-) My mom had taken quite a few road trips with me cross country, but my dad has never gone on vacation with us.

One of the highlights of the trip was going on a horse-drawn wagon ride to a BBQ. After stuffing ourselves we sang campfire songs and told jokes. The boys and my dad did a Boy Scout skit that was the hit of the evening. The boys did a couple of other jokes, too. Once they got a taste of public laughter they were both hooked and kept bugging me to let them tell all their jokes.

On our way back we were going to drive through Silverton up to Grand Junction, but it was raining and snowing. We stopped at the Walmart in Durango, and I talked to a couple of locals in the parking lot. They said that they wouldn't do those mountain passes in that weather so that was enough advice for me. Supposedly it's a two-lane road with no shoulder or guard rail through 3 mountain passes of over 10.000 ft. So we took the long way and decided to go anyway. Scot's Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Reid live there and also an old neighbor/friend of mine Myndi and Gary Smith. When we got there we found out the great part was that in a city of 100,000 they live a block apart!

Starting a Blog

I must admit that my son started this blog for me. Being the technically-talented person that I am I never would have started this without Ch. and Scot. I also have never enjoyed writing so blogging is going to be a great experience for me. I've always hated writing. In college I had many a teary breakdowns with my husband because I had to write a paper. Since I don't keep a journal I hope this blog will help to chronicle my kids' lives and keep everyone up to date on our lives. For my first blog I'll tell you about what we did this last month. The boys had their spring choir concert. They had three performances. They both loved it, but Ch. really seemed to come into his own in this performance. He loved being James Bond and running around with his gun being a secret service agent. He's really developed a love for performing (Here's mommy, living vicariously through her son :-) C. also enjoyed it. He sang a song about being a "big, bad squirrel." He had to dress up as a punk squirrel. We absolutely loved watching them.