1/2 way there - 75 Books Read!

I just finished my 75th book this year. I've listened to about 30 audio books and read the other 45. Most definitely need to officially change my goal to 150 books this year.

I've been asked how I have time to read so much. I don't have time! But I make time and I multitask. I am usually reading at least 4 or 5 books at a time. 1 church book, 1 novel, 1 book on my mp3 & 1 book on CD. I keep the CD in the kitchen and listen whenever I'm doing dishes or cleaning. My mp3 is used when I'm cleaning the rest of the house, driving in the car, shopping, exercising, folding laundry, etc. I take a book with whenever I'm going somewhere I know I'll have to wait. I try to read for at least 30 minutes at night. I go to the library at least once a week and use Utah's Online Library to download mp3 audio books. I love the site Goodreads and use it to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.

Currently I'm listening to Inkspell on my mp3, listening to Love That Lasts on CD, listening to Speaker for the Dead with Brian, reading Behind Every Good Man and reading If I Stay. And I'm also reading the Old Testament which I have been trying to get through for the past 3 years.

Modest Dresses

On Tuesday for activity days Rachel did a lesson on modesty. The girls made modest dresses out of newspaper. They had a lot of fun.

I love the fact that at this age they know what is and isn't modest. Bikinis, short shorts and tank tops are not modest and they all know it. Let's hope they remember as they become teenagers!

Food For Thought Friday

Breakfast
What is your favorite part of the summertime?
Sleeping in.

Lunch
How was this week different than others?
I was tired this week so we didn't do much other than have friends over, lots of them. The friends did all the entertaining this week instead of me.

Dinner
What did you think of Michael Jackson?
I liked Michael Jackson back when he was black. However he's given me the creeps for the past decade or two.

Midnight Snack
What do you have planned for this weekend?
Nothing other than housework and laundry. We're headed out of town next week so I'm hoping to have the house clean and laundry done so the packing is easy.

Catching Fire

One of the best books I read last year was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Today I had the chance to read the ARC of it's sequel Catching Fire. It is an AMAZING book. It arrived in the mail around 2:00 this afternoon and I couldn't put it down nor could I go to bed until it was finished. It was that good. A great read until the last page. I can't believe it will be over a year until book 3 comes out. What a long wait to find out how the series ends!

I highly recommend this series. If you haven't read The Hunger Games go read it. The sequel Catching Fire gets released on September 1st.

Sand Hollow Take 2

For Family Home Evening tonight we decided to not stay home. We headed back out to Sand Hollow to try out the boat again. Thankfully it started up and worked this time around. Brian had taken it to a shop and they wanted to much money so Brian worked on it himself and got it running. We all had a lot of fun on our tube. I even took a turn driving the boat so Brian could get have a turn too, something I swore I would never do.

All went well for a couple hours until the boat stalled on me. Then I flooded it. It would turn over but not start. Since it was getting late we opted to get pulled back into shore by a guy we met who had been in our ward in Cedar City. Brian is pretty handy so I'm sure he'll give it a tune up and having it running again in no time.

Kylie was exhausted. I personally could never sleep like this but she managed to stay asleep despite looking very uncomfortable.

Adware, Spyware, Malware, Viruses

What a huge waste of time I spent today getting my computer running correctly. I guess I'm lucky I didn't get something that did any real damage. I bet I spent 4 or 5 hours between last night and this morning figuring out how to remove the spyware, malware & the resulting viruses from my computer. The only good thing is that the solution I finally found also repaired some issues that never got fixed from the last time I got a virus. I have spyware & anti-virus software and yet I still manage to pick up these plagues. It's really annoying. Rant over, until the next time.

Happy Father's Day

Kimberly had the idea to go to Brushfire and paint something for Brian for Father's Day. Well actually for his birthday but we didn't make it there in time to get the items back for his birthday so we decided to do it for Father's Day. Brett & Bryce painted plates, Bradley a Chinese bowl, Kim a dragon and Kylie a small plate. Since it was way cheaper to paint 6 piece of pottery because you then got a party discount we did a cup too. The kids have been really excited to give Brian his gifts. Kylie kept trying to tell him what we gave him. "It's a present like a new cup" she said quite a few times.

Thanks to Brian for being such a wonderful father to our children. He works hard to provide for our family and we love him.

And Happy Father's Day to my own father. The best dad I could have. I love you dad!

Things you don't say to your wife

Brian sent me this video. So funny I had to share.

Uncle Mikes

I bought a big bag of Mike & Ike candy at Costco this week. Kylie has her own name for them - "Uncle Mikes!"
We're headed up to Uncle Mike's at the end of the month. 12 days from now actually but Kylie thinks that's too far away she wants to go in 2 days not 10 plus 2 days.

H2O Fun!

Brian got a kick out of taking this picture of me helping him on the boat. Bad news on the boat. It might be a lemon! There is water in the oil and it's not a good thing nor is it a cheap thing to fix!

What a goof! She had her "princess hat" on and was dancing around.

We headed over to Uncle Philips to swim tonight. He's got a really nice pool and he and Marva are kind enough to let us come whenever we want. My kids love it over there, a pool, cable TV & usually ice cream or some other treat. The beg to go.

The kids had a lot of fun. I enjoyed sitting by the pool with a book. The older 4 can all swim and Kylie is half fish and has a great life jacket that keeps her safe and lets her think she's a big kid so it's enjoyable for all of us.

Meeting Katie

We've still been trying to do something fun each day but we have been doing a lot of repeats so I've not been taking pictures or posting about it. I mean seriously how many pictures do I need to take of the kids at a park or at jumpin jacks or playing badminton!
Yesterday we went back to Jumpin Jacks and met one of my friends from Washington who just moved to St. George. Katie was in our ward in Lacey and just moved to Bloomington Hills within walking distance of our home. Since moving I've seen her once when we ran into her at Lagoon. It was fun to visit with her while our kids played.

FHE at Sand Hollow Reservoir

Brian's been trying to get our boat running. We took it for a trial out to Sand Hollow Reservoir for Family Home Evening tonight. We learned it still needs some work because it was overheating but we still had fun. The 5 kids all got on the 3 man tube and got pulled around for a little while. While we were waiting for the boat to cool down so we could start it again we had our family home evening lesson on the boat. While Brian was loading up the boat back on the trailer the kids went swimming. I'm sad I left the camera at home because there were some fun photos I didn't get a chance to take. I'm sure there will be another boating adventure soon and I'll hopefully remember the camera the next time we take the boat out.

Welcome Back Trekkers!

Saturday we drove up to Pinto to meet the youth from our stake as they came off the trek.

They had us line the road to welcome the kids. It was awesome to see the handcarts come in.

Here is Brett with his ma & pa walking behind him.

Brett had a good time and said he would do it again.

They had each ward gather for a picnic.

The kids had a great time on these mattress swings.

On the way home we stopped at the Mountain Meadows Massacre site.

Thankful Thursday

Wonderful Weather!

Seriously I hate the heat. Over the past 5 years I have acclimatized a little but I still don't like the summers in St. George. They are just too hot for me.

So far we have had a very mild summer. It's wonderful. The past couple weeks have been cooler than normal and I love it. Tonight I left at 8:00 and went for a walk and enjoyed the cooler than normal evening. There are lots of nights when it's just too hot to go outside even at bedtime. We've gone to bed some nights when it has still been 90+ degrees outside.

Right now the forecast says the next 10 days will remain below 100 degrees with many of the days below 90 degrees. I'm sure the days of 105+ degree weather are coming soon but for now I'm grateful for the great weather where I can go outside without melting.

Pioneer Trek

Our stake is having a Pioneer Trek that started this morning and ends Saturday at noon. I heard they will be walking about 18 miles over the course of 3 days. The high this week is only supposed to be 87 here in St. George and a high of 70 up where they are trekking which I understand is from New Harmony to Pinto. Great weather for the trek which sure beats the typical 100 degree weather we usually have here in June.

All set and ready to go. Everything Brett took had to fit in this gunny sack.

Oh and someone answer me this. How can this boy eat so much? He ate 3 double stacks from Wendy's for lunch yesterday! I hope they brought a lot of food for the kids to eat or he's going to starve!

Brett wasn't to sure about having to wear a hat & suspenders as well as long pants & a button up shirt. I assured him that everyone would be dressed just as he was.

This is the group going from our ward. Hopefully it will be lots of fun and a great experience for Brett.

41 Years Old Today!

Happy Birthday Brian!
This looks like some disgusting slop but it is so good. Brian's favorite Comforting Chicken made to order with tender vegetables & thick gravy.

We got Brian lots of fun presents but Kylie in the bag has to be the most fun of all. Brian wanted something his mom used to make but Glenda couldn't remember the recipe. Graham crackers, chocolate pudding, whip cream and he wasn't sure what else so I did my best to make something yummy.

What great kids we have! They were so excited to celebrate Brian's birthday.

We found this hat at Wal-mart. We thought it would be a great boating hat. It says Whose in Your Boat? And has the #41 on it. Since he spent his 41st birthday working on his boat it seemed appropriate.

The best gifts of all - the love children.

On a great note Brian got the boat working! We're ready to take it on a test run in the next few days. Seriously his ability to fix things is amazing. He spent $350 for a part to get it running which was way cheaper than what the shop was going to charge us. It was going to be a minimum of $1000 for them to fix it. Hopefully all will go well when we get on the water!

Last week one of Brian's clients gave him GPS and a $500 tip to use towards toys for his boat! What a blessing! He's been shopping craigslist and has been able to get great deals on some used skis & a tube so we should be able to be out having fun soon.

Happy Birthday Brian

Today is Brian's Birthday! Happy Birthday Sweetheart!
Last month he found a great deal on a boat in Vegas and went down and picked it up. It has some repairs that need to be done and he's had no free time to work on it so today for his birthday he's spent the day trying to get it ready to use. Brian is handy and good at fixing things so here's hoping he can get everything working on it.

I love FREE!

Our Electric Company had a free dinner tonight before their annual meeting. I love free! Free food, entertainment & fun. They planned on 800-1000 people but 1500 showed up. Glad we went early!
This was the table to sit at. 9 kids and tons of good food. Hot dogs, BBQ beef sandwiches, chicken, potatoes, ice cream, brownies & soda.

They had bounce houses and a room that had a bean bag toss, face painting and other fun things for the kids to do.

Kim & Shailee with their face paint.

We were there for over 3 hours. The kids played and had a great time. We stayed through the meeting which ended up being so worth it because we won a door prize: $50 towards our electric bill.

Badminton

We set up a net and played badminton for FHE last night.
Kylie was a big help hammering the pegs into the ground.We had a great time playing together.

Kylie spent a long time pumping up the volleyball that came with the net. She didn't want any help and was quite persistent.

This tree kept getting in th eway so I was trying to the branch.

Brian was in charge of refreshments so he made a Krispy Chocolate Log.