Sisterhood of the Traveling Van Week 7

This week we were privileged to have Mom/Grandma accompany us on our adventure. We took it easy today. GMom took all of us to The Garden Room for lunch. Besides feeling a little under-dressed, we had a wonderful time. The Garden Room is a little fancy restaurant at the entrance to Thanksgiving Point gardens. I think we all felt a little like Fancy Nancy, it was kind of a fancy little place to eat. The food was good, but the company was even better. Addy practiced looking fancy while eating. Maren wasn't in the best of moods, so after lunch we headed home for a nap. Maren and Aunt Camille had naps while Mom and I looked at geneology stuff on the internet and visited. What a great day, I love spending time with my Mom and sister. By the way, how did Mom escape having her picture taken? Hmmmm.
P.S. Click here to see a picture of Camille taking a nap
P.P.S. Just Kidding!

Family Home Evening with Veggie Tales

After our lovely day today (see previous post) we had a family home evening lesson on telling the truth. We watched veggie tales "Larry boy and the fib from outer space" It took a few minutes of discussion afterward, but I think the kids finally understand that there really aren't fibs from outer space. I also think that they understand they have to tell the truth, and take care of their property i.e. toys. Let's hope tomorrow is a better day!

Remorse...

I have a confession to make, I have a bit of a temper. It flared today, not too bad, but it flared. There is one thing I don't tolerate, and that is lying. Addy lied to me this afternoon about something totally stupid. I thought I handled it pretty well. She was punished by not being able to go and play with her friend after lunch. We had weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. It wasn't pretty. She is my stubborn child who doesn't back down. After we both calmed down, I made the mistake of walking into the playroom. It was a complete disaster. It usually is a disaster and it doesn't bother me too much because I don't see it all the time. Today it really made me mad, especially when I saw the writing everywhere. Addy is 7 and she still feels the need to label everything with her name. What really made me snap was the mural on the wall. She wanted to make the wall look pretty, so she drew a scene with a Christmas tree and presents on the wall. I snapped! The only positive was that she told me the truth that she was the one who drew on the wall. I escorted her to her room and asked her not to come out. 30 minutes and 4 trash bags later, I had removed every toy that I could and stuffed everything into the storage closet. I'm starting to feel a little bad about this and that maybe it wasn't the way to handle this. I'm rationalizing by telling myself at least I didn't yell and scream and beat my child. Now I have to figure out a way for the kids to earn their toys back. By confessing this, I hope somewhere, someone is laughing because they have either done or wanted to do the same thing. Anyone?

Sisterhood of the traveling van week 6

The train, the train!

This week's adventure took us to the booming metropolis of Kamas, Utah. Camille had the desire to see Kamas, so we packed up and headed out Thursday morning. It's a pretty drive going through Provo canyon and Heber. If you have never been to Kamas, it's up above Heber, past the Jordanelle reservoir. It's a nice little and I mean little town. We continued driving through Kamas into Oakley where we stopped and had lunch at the Road Island diner. I remembered seeing it on the food network show "diners, drive-ins and dives" It was a fun little place to stop. The diner was made in a factory back in 1939. If you want to know more click here. The owners have tried to keep the interior as original as possible. It was like stepping back in time. The real food looked good, it was a little expensive and a little greasy, but I would expect that from a diner. I left hungry, but such is the life of a glutard. We had fun though. After lunch, we drove around some more. We drove into Woodland and on Bench creek road, past Oakcrest L.D.S. girls camp. I spent the summer of 1998 working at Oakcrest, it was a great experience. It was fun to show my girls where I worked and to see how much growth there has been in Woodland in the last 12 years. We stopped at the campgrounds at Jordanelle for a quick pit stop. Then we drove back to Heber. We stopped at the Dairy Keen for ice cream. Dairy Keen is one of my favorite places to stop in Heber. They have trains that run along the ceiling with scenes from the Heber valley. Maren loved watching the trains while we shared ice cream. Did I mention that they have yummy ice cream? They do, now that Granny's in Heber is no longer as good, I would have to say that Dairy Keen has the best shakes, at least in Heber. After our yummy ice cream, we headed back home. It was another fabulous week of travels and fun with Aunt Camille.

1 year checkup

Maren had her one year checkup on Monday. She is a very healthy and tall girl. Here are the stats: Weight 26 lbs. 97th percentile, height 30.75 inches 93rd percentile, head circumference 18 inches 70th percentile. Our doctor was surprised at how tall she is, let's hope she will continue to grow tall and healthy.

Wacky Weather

within minutes, my plants were under water, the white things in the flowers are hail stones

that's a nickel, we couldn't find a dime

We've had some of the craziest weather this year. This last week we have had lots of thunder, lightning and rain. These pictures were taken Wednesday evening. Just as I was getting ready to leave for mutual, there was a huge storm. Rain and hail were coming down like crazy. I decided to wait it out and leave a little late for the church, it was a good choice! Our zucchini plants look like someone shot holes through the leaves and some of our tomatoes and zucchini actually have little pock marks in them.