Fall Break, Day 1

The kids had Fall Break this week on Thursday and Friday. While everyone else leaves for vacations, we stay home and enjoy what is in our own backyard without all the people around. It works great and it's a fun way to use all our free coupons.

Wednesday night we made a plan of what we wanted to do based on our free coupons (yes, we are cheap). The kids had to clean their rooms before anything would happen and they were both up at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning cleaning their rooms. They did a great job, after we pointed out what still needed to be cleaned. And then we just had to wait until things opened up.

*Side note: We did not WAKE THEM UP at 5:30 a.m. They wake up at that time when it's a holiday and they could actually sleep in. It's odd that way but our kids are morning people and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Ethan had earned a free jump pass to Anti-Gravity, so we decided to go there first. After 15 minutes of jumping on trampolines they were tired of being there. It's just not as fun without friends and/or a lot of kids your own age. But we stuck it out for our hour. They jumped on the trampolines, got the harnesses on for the bungee game and looked through the arcade. It's a fun place but, after you have been a few times, it's kind of boring.



After jumping we went to JoAnn's to look for some cloth for Christmas presents. The kids loved this because we got to think of all the things we could make and look through all the decorating that were 1/2 priced. We even found Courtney's Halloween costume on clearance! SCORE!!

We then went to Denney's to use some reading coupons the kids had earned over the summer. I think we have only been to Denney's a couple of times but Ethan was thrilled that he could order breakfast for lunch! The kid was in heaven and the manager was so nice because, as it turns out, you are only supposed to use one coupon per visit. But she let us use two because we didn't know. (Being married to an attorney should have taught me to read the fine print, but I didn't.)

When our tummies were full we drove over to my parent's house (grabbing the mail on the way). They are on vacation but wanted us to drive their Pathfinder once-in-a-while to make sure it would still work. So we loaded into their car, ran our errand to Costco, switched back to our van and then took off for home.

By this time it was late afternoon and we had to get home for dinner.

After dinner, we loaded up and went to the park where we played soccer, hit baseballs, played catch with the football and played on the playground equipment. It was such a nice night! Then the kids went to bed...late because it was a holiday but they should have been super tired because they were up so early!!

The Corn Maze for FHE

We decided to do something that was "actually fun" (according to Ethan) for FHE this week. So we ate dinner, loaded in the car and went to Stahli Farms in Washington to go through their corn maze and hang out.

We paid our admission fee (which was way too much, in my humble opinion) and then loaded onto a wagon that took us over to the maze. Luckily, a woman gave us a map so we could find out way while in the maze. The goal is to get to the flag that is in the middle of the maze. They have clues along the way in case you are nervous but we had Bryan and his trusty map reading skills.

It was a full moon, which was really cool, but Ethan got kind of scared as we were going through the maze. There were mounds once in a while where they had covered up an irrigation ditch but Ethan thought they were graves....and wasn't very happy about them at all. We got to the flag, took pictures and then got out. Bryan and I want to go another time on a date so we can spend more time in the maze.

When we came out we were surprised that there were Star Wars characters there?!?! We don't know what that was about and they weren't complete cast but Darth Vader was in Las Vegas (Bryan asked). So we took pictures with them anyway. Then we loaded back onto the wagon to go to the rest of the farm.

The kids got to jump on a gigantic "Pillow", we watched pig races (which Ethan thought were cruel), petted all kinds of animals and the kids did other games. My camera battery died at that point so I didn't get any more pictures. We had a great time!

We decided to get donuts as a treat but I didn't realized that the stores don't sell donuts at 8:30 at night. After a long debate (and I mean REALLY long debate) we bought a box of donuts and went home to make hot chocolate.

It was a really fun evening and the kids loved FHE....for once!! Yeah for us!!

Ethan in the corn maze:The full moon over the corn:
The Star Wars gang:
This is how Courtney went through most of the maze:

Courtney's Fake Hair

Courtney had to get a fake hair piece to wear with her outfit for her dance group. The song they are dancing to is "I Whip My Hair." It's a really catchy but annoying song. The dance coach sent the hair piece home so we could figure out how to get it hooked in her hair and have it stay there while she whipped her hair back and forth. Courtney loved playing with it and I think we figured it out. Now we'll have to wait and see if it works! (It actually only adds a few inches to her hair but she feels cool wit hit on.)

Busy Saturday

We had a crazy Saturday morning.

9 a.m. - Day of Service Project - weeding in the neighborhood which gave everyone allergy attacks so now we have runny noses and sneezes. But the weeds in the neighborhood are kind of gone.

9:30 - I leave the service project to change and run to the Stake Center to play the piano for the Stake Baptisms.

Note: Today is Ivins Heritage Day/Snow Canyon High School Homecoming/Ivins Stake Day of Service, so I was called to sub on the piano because all the other pianists said they were busy. No kidding!!

10:15 - The service project ends and Bryan and the kids go home to change and leave for Courtney's soccer game.

11 - Courtney's soccer game went GREAT!! The girls were on today and Courtney scored 2 goals. The final score was 8-1. She was pretty happy with herself, but it's the second game in a row I have had to miss. Ugh.

3 p.m. - The "best babysitter in the world" (minus grandparents, of course), according to Courtney, came over and Bryan and I did sealings at the Temple.

The kids are now in bed and I am not too far behind. Bryan has his Stake meetings at 6 a.m. tomorrow and I have Ward Council at 10, so we need our sleep.

Hopefully BYU will win without us watching the game. It's an 8:15 p.m. start and we don't get the game on TV (we usually go my parent's house but it's so late at night that we didn't want to) so the radio will have to do, if we can stay awake.

Flag Football Team

Here is the photo of Ethan's flag football team:


In the game last Tuesday Ethan made a TOUCHDOWN! I was so happy for him and it really fired him up for the rest of the game (as much as Ethan gets fired up). ;)

It had been raining all day long and we were out of sorts on Tuesday...forgot the treats, forgot the mouth guard, didn't wear warm clothes, etc. Poor Bryan ended up driving back and forth to our house twice to get things we had forgotten! Ugh! But it was a good game.

Master Preserver

I just finished a 6 week Master Preserver course through the Utah State Extension Service in St. George. We met for 3 hours every Wednesday night for 6 weeks. Each week we would have a 10 minute lecture and spend the rest of the time bottling something to enforce what we had learned about. It was chaos but I learned a lot.

The canning process hasn't changed much in years but there are a lot more regulations/rules that there didn't used to be. The old Ball Book that I have been using for years is now outdated and shouldn't be used. Because of the differences in foods now (tomatoes aren't as acidic, for example) there are new recipes you have to use to make them safe. I always used a steam canner and those now aren't safe according to the FDA. I learned how to process meats in a pressure canner (now I just need one instead of having to borrow my moms that I don't know how to work) and how to properly water bath bottles. I also learned that food tastes a lot better when you bottle it yourself, especially pineapple!

We had to process a lot of different foods to see the various processes. Some things surprised me and others did not. I really liked the peach salsa (yes, it had tomatoes and peaches mixed with onions and peppers), jicama is actually tasty unless it's dehydrated (then it's like eating bark), and garlic jelly is actually okay tasting when put on a cracker with cream cheese. I found out that I don't like dehydrated pastrami, orange jam made with orange juice concentrate is really yummy (my neighbors may get this for Christmas), cherry tomatoes are really potent when dehydrated, and I like to have sugar in my pie fillings.

I also found one way that Bryan won't eat mushrooms....PICKLED! I didn't taste them because I don't like mushrooms but he said they were too potent.

Anyway, there is an additional on-line preserver course from the FDA that I think I'll take just to have some more recipes/knowledge. It's pretty fun.

Ethan's Recital

Here is Ethan's performance at his piano recital last week at the St. George Tabernacle. He did a great job!!