Stuff

It will be Pioneer Days in Utah tomorrow. I miss Pioneer Days.
When I was little and lived in Utah we would go to the parade in Draper (for a couple of years I rode my horse in it) and then later in the day see fireworks.
If I lived in Utah now I'd be taking my kids somewhere fun like Antelope Island where they are having crafts including pioneer handkerchief dolls, quilting, candle dipping or making a pioneer lantern and playing pioneer games. Or maybe to Logan where they are having a pancake breakfast with a fun run and volleyball tournaments and watermelon eating contests and then finish the day with a rodeo and fireworks.
But I guess I'll have to do my own pioneer stuff around the house here with the kids.
Luckily, I have a book full of ancestors stories and some of them were pioneers, so I can tell my kids some stories that day.

As a side note: I forgot to mention in my last post about our 4th of July ward breakfast we went to. Joyanna was the winner of the Primary's cherry pit spitting contest.... she spit the farthest. She must get her skills from her dad who won the adult cherry pit spit contest... I estimate he spit at least 18 feet. They counted from where the pit first lands, not rolls to. I'm so proud. Then we had tug of wars and our primary kids/Presidency did really well and were ahead until they made us pull several times in a row and we were pooped by then and let the High Priests have it by giving up during the pull. My hands hurt for a loooong time after that one.
We also had a water balloon toss, and Joel and I did really well on the first one and were going to try again when another guy in the ward called Joel over to be his partner, and they ended up winning that round. Jake played a lot of Frisbee tag or soccer or golf, or whatever it was.
It was a really fun morning.

I could blog about...

so many things lately, but every time I sit down to do it I can't decide what to blog about.

I could blog about how Joel is still looking for work in accounting, but his boss might have him come back to work soon. But for me it's one of those, "I'll believe it when I see it" things. The money would be a welcome relief.

I could blog about how Jake took the Blazing Challenge at Bufalo Wild Wings when he went there with some friends. The website advertises it with these words:

Think you have what it takes to succeed at the Blazin’® Challenge? We have one question for you. What’s your pain threshold?
Have you ever slept on a bed of nails? Walked on burning coals?
All child’s play compared to the Blazin’ Challenge.
Simply eat a mere 12 wings prepared with our signature Blazin’® sauce in six minutes and you win. Easier said than done, of course.

When he came home he described the pain he endured to eat his 12 wings. "My hands started tingling.... then my head started to tingle.... anything the sauce touched started tingling.... and then I started to sweat.... and it burned." But he did it! And for that he got his picture taken and hung on the hall of fame, and he won this beautiful new t-shirt that we have not seen him take off since..... well, ok, maybe to wash it.



I could also blog about the road in front of our house has been turned into a big monster pit, eating up any car that dares to drive across it...



Here's a little peek into the monsters in my kids minds.... scary.

















Or I could blog about how we finally decided to become a family of pirates...



Oh, wait.... that was just Joel. The rest of us will remain land lovers.










Or I could post about how I ended up having to do the ward directory again. The last time was two years ago. This required Janet coming over with lists and pictures and us going through every entry, updating information and pictures and setting it up for publishing. It could have been a huge nightmare, but luckily I remembered how we did it last time and it only took about 9 hours over the course of a few days.

I could also post about the kids t-ball and how well they are doing. Pictures will come in a future post. Joel's class started this week and is on Tues and Thurs nights which puts us in a tight spot trying to get three kids to t-ball with only two drivers. Yikes! Not sure how well this is going to work.

I could also post about our beautiful garden and how well it's growing and how Joel just brought home two huge zucchini tonight. I don't have any pictures to prove it, but our corn was for sure knee high before July 4.But

I could blog about how Jake got accepted to Northwestern College, and it's just down the road from our home. It's also a Christian college which I am happy about.

But I think what I would really like to blog about tonight is that I finally added pictures to a previous post that I'd been working on, called "Camping Trips!" and you'll have to scroll down below Julie's post to see the pictures from that.

Happenings

I have a half-written blog post about our camping trips that I need to finish. I have pictures I want to add to it, but lately I don't seem to have time to play with my own personal pictures.

I have a friend, JoAnne, who has an SLR who's been taking some really great pictures and she posts them on her blog a lot, I am jealous that she has the time and energy for that. I need to reconnect to my photography again. Time to get some models and play again. Tonight would have been a good night to take Jake out to play except that I have to empty all my cards to shoot for another photographer on Friday.

I do have three projects in the works. One is an HDR image, the other is a collage, and then the last is a self-portrait.

Joel is still looking for work. He's had a few interviews and a couple of phone interviews. The two phone ones were for internships. One is for a hotel chain in Kentucky. They asked him if he'd move and he told them yes. Hopefully that internship would come with the chance to be hired on! lol. Both said they'd call back if they wanted an in-person interview or more information.

Today I had a horrible migraine and felt very dizzy for most of the day. Tonight I'm not dizzy much anymore but my head is still hanging onto the headache. I spent the whole day in bed. Joel was so sweet and took over the laundry, watched the kids, watered the garden, took Jake to weight lifting and brought him home, took the kids with him and got me chicken liver and even cooked it for me so I could get some iron into my blood (which helped so much!) and then took Jake to mutual and will be picking him up soon. I don't know how I could have gotten through this day without him. Thanks to Jake for making dinner for us (with a little chocolaty bribery).

After years of working on him, I've finally got Joel to say, "mercy" and let me have a bird. I've been working for the last few weeks of slowly putting together what we need for a bird. I got a huge cage for only $20 off of Craigslist, even. I'm really excited :) Tomorrow we visit a cockatiel breeder, she has a bunch of newly weaned babies for sale, and is having a huge sale on them which makes them totally affordable for me. If she doesn't have the right bird for me there are a few other breeders that have birds for even less, just not as many to chose from and slims the chance of finding one that will be the personality I'm looking for, but I'm totally holding out for the one that I am sure will fit well in our home. One is an albino, and the lady has had her children helping with the hand feeding, but they are about an hour away, but the baby is really lowly priced so I'll drive for it if it's the one. Our children have been asking for all kinds of pets for the last couple of years and I don't want any more dogs or cats and I keep killing fish. I'm not quite sure that I could handle a guinea pig (too similar to rats), and I've always wanted a bird ever since I was little and had a fascinating experience at my uncle's house, who bred parakeets and other birds for selling. I was always trying to get the cousins to take me to the basement where the birds were.

We looked at a lot of breeds of birds before deciding on Cockatiels. We want one that will whistle and perhaps talk, which means it should be a boy. I worry about a female getting an egg stuck so I'm really nervous about getting a female, but if I find one that is really friendly, I'll trade the talking for the friendliness.

I just hope our bird's first words aren't, "MOM he won't share the remote!" or something like that, lol.