Devil's Post Pile

After eating lunch, we drove to the Mammoth Lodge to catch a tram to go to Devil's Post Pile. We got all sun screened up and loaded onto the tram. The ranger told us to drink plenty of water on the way up then to refill our water bottles at the trailhead. We followed her directions and ended up in the bathroom more times than I can count. ;) but we were hydrated!!

Courtney and Ethan got booklets to be Junior Rangers and then we took off to hike to the Post Pile. It took us a LONG TIME because the kids were busy looking for nature things to fill in their booklets. But it was fun to see the kids so excited about nature.

We saw the Post Pile from the bottom and then hiked up to look at it from the top. Then... Courtney had to go to the bathroom so she and I ran down the trail and ... barely made it.

She then went to a ranger and turned in her booklet. The ranger quizzed her before finally swearing her in as a junior ranger.

We hiked back up to meet the boys at the bridge. By then Ethan had to go to the bathroom so we hustled back down to the bathroom.

After filling our water bottles again Ethan took his booklet to the ranger who really made Ethan earn his patch. They went over every page and the ranger quizzed Ethan. It was great.

We loaded back on the tram and went to the lodge where we got milk shakes. Just on a side note: there was a piano in te lodge restaurant and there was a simplified hymn book on the piano.

When we were finished with our shakes we loaded back on the bus and went back to the Mammoth Lodge to hang out. The weather was beautiful!! Courtney went on the swings and then they played beanbags.

On Our Way

The kids were so excited to get going on our vacation that thy votes to leave REALLY early.

Courtney got herself up at 3:45 am and bryan and I got up 10 minutes later. We finished packing, loaded the van and then went in to wake up Ethan. I rubbed his back and said "Time to go" and he popped out of bed and said "I'm ready, let's go!"

So we loaded the kids in the van, said a prayer and were off.

The ride was pretty easy and seemed quick. We got to Mammoth Springs, CA at about 11:00. There is a long twisty road we drove on the was crazy fun!! It was all dips and bump and twisted all over.

We found the campground and ate some lunch.

Fishing

My dad wanted to take us fishing at Otter Creek (Crick) because the fish were biting. Ethan was so excited!! Dad wanted to leave really early in the morning so we woke up and were at their house at about 5:10 am.

We drove to Cedar City and had breakfast then continued the 2 hours to Otter Creek. We arrive at about 8:40.

We unloaded our poles and grandpa baited out hooks and we began fishing. Soon ethan was reeling in a fish...but it got away. Then...nothing... still nothing... and still nothing. 

Fishing is a sport for people with patience. I don't have patience so after 10 minutes I am ready to go. ;). 

We stayed for about 1 1/2 hours with nothing. As dad was reeling in his line he got a bite and it was a big fish!!

But we had fun!

Book club

We had book club again today. We read a Fancy Nancy book about hair. Then the girls made faces that we put yarn hair on. They were able to play with their drawing's "hair." It was pretty fun!

We had brownies for treat. They were experimental but the girls seemed to like them. ;)

Art Camp

Here is the photo from the last day of Ethan's medieval camp. Courtney built a castle like this too.

Bake Sale

Every so often the kids in the neighborhood get together, make signs have their moms make cookies, and have a bake sale. They always have a hard time splitting the money and it usually ends in an argument but the process is hilarious!

Ethan is the mascot this time. Someone must have been very persuasive because his costume is hilarious!

 Yes, that is a tail.

I was ordered to make snickerdoodles, which are easy so it was no big deal. Courtney was in charge of the sign.

And Ethan set the table up outside. Some other family made lemonade.

They are having a blast!!

Courtney Love

Courtney LOVES her boots!! Today in the van she told me:

"Mom, I really love my boots! ....but I have decided that I love you more than my boots...I think...yeah, I do love you more than my boots."

Well, I'm glad to hear that. ;)

Summer Camp

There is an awesome summer camp at the St. George Art Museum. Courtney went last week and this week it is Ethan's turn. They are learning about the medieval times this year (last year was Rome and the year before were the Greeks).

Last week there were only 3 in the group and 3 were in a carpool with us. This week there are 6 and 3 are in our carpool. It's funny because there are 3 families and we all have kids about the same age so they do camps together.

We arrived a bit early this morning and the Museum wasn't opened yet so they played on the rocks and the water features. They had a blast and were excited when it was open and time to start.

Outdoor pool

Our kids love to swim and love to be outside. We got a swim pass so that we have the freedom to go whenever we want and courtney has wanted to go every day!!

They especially live the diving board!

Father's Day

I think Bryan had a great Father's Day. The kids love spoiling him am courtney went so far as to make presents for him from all of us! Imagine our surprise.

We made biscuits an gravy for breakfast and are outside on the patio. Then he opened presents. 

The primary children sang to the dads and Courtney sang a solo! Then the dads  got candy bars, which they all ate on the way to Sunday school. ;)

We had my parents and Kathy and Don over for a Father's Day dinner. It was a good day and we certainly love Bryan and all he does for us!!

Splash Pad Fun

Courtney was bored and wanted to go swimming. Our swim pass expired last Monday and we haven't renewed it so she came up with the idea of going to the Gubler Park Splash Pad. She loves getting in the water. When we arrived there was another family there but they left soon after. So Courtney has the place to herself!

 

Studio C

There is a comedy show on BYU-TV called Studio C.  Ethan found this one day while playing on my phone on the BYU-TV app.  He giggled so hard!  Anytime my phone is missing I know he is watching Studio C.  Maybe sometime we will have to see if they do live tapings and we can take him up to watch one.  He would love that!

Here is the link to their site if you want to have a good, clean laugh.  http://www.byutv.org/show/c68c4e4f-6322-4a23-8b8e-a5be75b70635/studio-c

Summer Book Club

Last year I did a book club for some of the girls Courtney's age who live in our neighborhood.  There are 4 girls in total and it was a lot of fun.  We read books by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond.  They wrote "If you give a mouse a cookie" and "If you give a moose a pancake."  We would take turns reading from the book, discuss what we had read and then cook whatever the story was about.  One week we made pancakes, another was cookies, another was muffins...and so on.  It was a lot of fun.

This year Courtney wanted to do it again.  One of the girls was diagnosed with food allergies so I decided to do something different this year.  So I found some Fancy Nancy books and decided to do crafts and sewing with those in mind.

Last week was the first week and we read "Fancy Nancy and the Pajama Party."  I had the girls come in pjs with their pillows.  We sat around and they took turns reading from the story.  When it was finished, we made pillowcase dress pajamas.  I had already cut them and sewn the arm holes, adding the ribbons to tie them with.  The girls were asked to bring ribbon which they learned to pin on the bottom of the pillowcase and then they took turns sewing the ribbon on.  It was hilarious and reminded me of the first time I tried to sew. 

One girls has obviously sewn before and got right to the pinning without any help.  She also needed very minimal help sewing on the ribbon.  It was a bit wavy but she did a great job.  The other girls, including Courtney, needed quite a bit of help but it was fun to help them figure it out.  In the end, they all had ribbon sewn on their pj dresses and it all looked great!

This week we read "Fancy Nancy and the Stars" which was about the night sky and constellations.  We made a fort so it was dark and then read the book by flashlight.  They really liked that.  We then made our own constellations from hole punches and glued the punches on a black paper.  While they were doing that, the girl who had a food allergy told me that she doesn't have it anymore and so we can "bake as many star cookies as we want!"  It wasn't on my plan but I thought it would be fun.  So they made sugar cookies and then we made paper 3D stars (which are super easy!).  I found the instructions here: http://lilliedale.blogspot.ca/2010/12/day-2-paper-stars.html and made a few so I would be able to help them.  They loved those and made a few each.

Then it was time to send them home with cookies, a constellation and some paper stars...but not until they had karaoked for a while.  Love these cute girls!

My Type A Personality

We have a trip scheduled for the end of June/beginning of July.  We will be going to a family reunion in Oregon via some national parks and Sacramento and then coming home via San Francisco and LA.  It isn't for another 3 1/2 weeks but I have EVERYTHING planned out.  I spend about 30 minutes a couple times a week looking for deals and activities to do.

I have our mileage and driving time charted with maps and directions to each campground/hotel we are staying in along with projected gas prices.  I have figured out each activity (with the exception of Oregon because that's a family reunion and anything can go) with prices and have even bought tickets to everything with discounts I found online and made camping/hotel reservations.  And all this information is printed out and put nicely in page protectors in a folder that is just waiting for us to leave on vacation.  It was when I was figuring out food and which hotel gives us breakfast and which doesn't that a friend called.  She asked what I was doing and so I told her.  Luckily she knows me well enough and just laughed.

Did you know that other people DON'T do this?!?!  I had a good laugh with her because she is so "fly by the seat of your pants" that they figure things out when they get there.

According to wikipedia, if you are a Type A personality you are "rigidly organized...push yourself with deadlines...[and] obsessed with time-management."

I guess they have me pegged!  But luckily I know I'm like this and can laugh about it, most of the time.  Bryan told me that we would be "spontaneous" for one part of the trip.  We tried this before and to us this means not making reservations until the week of the activity!  Daring, aren't we?!  hahaha

Some missionaries go on missions and have to learn to stick to a schedule.  I went on my mission to learn to relax about my schedule.  The people in Guatemala did things on their own time.  Church routinely began 20 minutes late because no one was there on time.  It drove me nuts for the first few months but then I realized something.  Not everyone is like me.  And that's okay.  I just have to keep reminding myself of that.  ;)

FHE at Tuacahn

I got a phone call from our Bishop last week.  He is the CEO of Tuacahn and they are presenting Mary Poppins this year.  Some big-wigs from Disney were coming to see how well they were doing (because this is a major thing to have a Disney license to do their play) and they wanted to have a packed house.  Bishop asked if I would coordinate with Scott Raine, the head of marketing, and distribute tickets to members of our Ward.  I called Scott and he asked me how many tickets I thought we would need.  I told him that we have a lot of people who work at Tuacahn but that we could easily use 150 tickets.  He chuckled and said, "How about we block out 110 and see what happens."

I sent an email out to all the sisters in the Ward to let them know that tickets were available and that they needed to respond back to me by noon the next day (it was about 4 p.m.).  Then I texted everyone and told them to check their email.  By about 5:30 p.m., we had 110 tickets requested.  The next morning, I had a wait list of another 29 tickets.  I called Scott to ask if we could get some more tickets or if he just wanted me to cap it off at the 110.  He said he would check and get back to me.

At noon, I had 140 tickets requested.  Scott called and told me he could give us 140 tickets, so it worked out perfectly.  I did have another 30 tickets asked for after noon, but we couldn't get any more.

It was decided that the easiest way to distribute tickets would be for me to give the email addresses of everyone to the box office at Tuacahn and they would email the tickets so there wouldn't be a huge line at will call.  Two hours later our tickets showed up in my email junk folder.  I thought it was so slick....but it wasn't.

I had asked everyone to contact me if they hadn't gotten their tickets by Thursday.  I had heard from a few who couldn't find them but once they were directed to their junk mail folder they found the tickets there.  One email address I had written down wrong, so those were re-sent and another family has automatic dumping of their junk mail each night, so their tickets were re-sent.  By Thursday night I thought everyone had their tickets.

I was wrong!  Monday morning I started getting a ton of frantic calls of people who hadn't gotten their tickets.  It really wasn't that bad and we got them all resolved but I felt bad for the people at Tuacahn who I had to keep emailing to ask them to send more tickets.  But it all worked out in the end and Scott Raine told me that night that it had really gone very smoothly.  So that was good.

We got 4 of the tickets and the kids were excited...but tired.  They had been swimming all afternoon with friends, so that didn't help their energy level.  The play didn't start until 9 p.m. so they were already up way past their bedtimes.  By intermission they were exhausted and wanted to leave.  The tickets were free so we didn't feel bad leaving early, and it was a LONG show.  We left at intermission and it was already 10:30 p.m.  So we only saw half of the show.  It was really windy so some of the props and set weren't working correctly, which was a bummer, but it wasn't as hot as it would have normally been.  But it was good.

Clean Rooms

It's Summer!!  We had a family meeting about summer expectation and the kids weren't too excited.  They have to do their usual chores but also some special summer chores.  One of the chores that is the hardest for them is keeping their rooms clean.  They both had really messy rooms!!

We made threats that they wouldn't be able to do anything else until their rooms were clean.  It took all day for them to finally finish but when they did, they wanted me to take pictures to send to Bryan.  Here are their clean rooms!

Biking to Piano

Courtney wanted to switch her piano lesson time to first thing in the morning.  So I asked if she could have the 7:20 a.m. time slot.  Her teacher was happy to give her that time and Courtney was so excited.  Tuesday morning she woke up really early and got ready to ride her bike to piano.  It's a few miles away so I told her I would bike with her.

She is a distracted biker and almost ran into the curb quite a few times but we got there just fine and she had a great lesson while I sat on the couch and tried to read/sleep.  Riding back was a bit rough because it is all uphill, just slightly, but it's constant.  She wasn't too happy about it but made it just fine!

Here she is getting ready to ride:

Nerd Girl

Courtney got bored one day and decided to make herself into "Nerd Girl."  I had to laugh.  She got some old sunglasses that didn't have lenses and put tape on the bridge.  Then she used tape to make suspenders on her shirt.  She thought she was hilarious...and she was!  She even did her hair into nerdy pigtails (which I didn't think were nerdy at all, but oh well).

Courtney's Piano Recital

After Ethan's played at his recital, we all booked it from Vista Charter School in Ivins to Snow Canyon High School in St. George (it wasn't too far actually) for Courtney's duet recital.  Her teacher usually has some theme for the recital and this year it was a BYU theme.  Everyone was supposed to wear BYU clothes or BYU colors to the recital.  We had BYU shirts so it worked out okay.

I was Courtney's duet partner and we had practiced the song until we had it really good....or so I thought.  Apparently I had been playing it wrong but her teacher didn't realize until the week after the recital.  But I still think we sounded good...except for the one mistake I made when I got distracted by someone moving around.  Oh well.  Courtney did a great job!

Here are all the piano students.  Courtney is in the front on the right of center.

Here is the video of her performance:

Grandma and Grandpa Pack had come from Colorado to see their recitals!!  So after the craziness of the recital day, they took us to Icebox for ice cream.  That was the highlight for Ethan!

Ethan's Piano Recital

I just downloaded videos from my phone to youtube so I could post them.

Ethan had a piano recital last month, on the same day Courtney had her piano recital.  So Ethan played first and then we loaded up and drove to Courtney's recital.  Ethan was pretty nervous because he had chosen to play 3 songs and they just weren't coming as well as he would have liked.  So we talked to him and he decided to focus on just 2 of the songs.  I think he did a great job!!

He was really nervous because his last recital hadn't gone too well, but he got through it and his confidence was pretty high afterward.