Highlights of 2010....a little late

I'm putting this one first because it's been a HUGE major deal. Dallin FINALLY decided to try out the potty. Not his little training potty....to get it dirty would be just unheard or! But he's finally decided that he can pee and poo in the toilet like a big boy. We've tried for over a year and he finally got it. The reward: a Buzz Lightyear action toy. Well worth it!

We bought another new 4wheeler, so any chance Chris gets he's out pulling the kids on tubes or going for chilly rides in the snow.

Ryan had a sleep test done in the hospital in Pueblo, after which his doctor decided it would be a good idea to have his tonsils and adenoids removed. They did that in April, and Ryan is a new kids now! He has started filling out and gaining weight and looks so much better.

Bailey finished her 2nd year in 4H and Sariah finished her 1st. They both worked really hard and did awesome at the Tri-County Fair in August, Sariah bringing home 1st place and Bailey 3rd place.


We had a very successful tomato garden this year...our first since moving to Colorado. However, we found 6 of these nasty giant worms....known as Tomato Horn Worms. The kids were so excited to take them to school for show and tell. YUCK!

We had a mini high school reunion. Kelly (left) and I actually live 10 minutes from each other and serve in the Relief Society together, but Crystal (center) lives in New Jersey, so it's not often that the three of us get together and reminisce. The kids had a blast too, but I feel aged just looking at my big kids next to their little ones.

Ryan FINALLY decided to try riding his bike without training wheels, which was a pre-requisite to getting to try the motorcycle. He was so excited to finally be able to get on the motorcycle and go, go, go!

My sister (Connie) and her hubby went to the temple in September to be sealed to the fourth of their adopted kids, and we were able to be there. This picture has 13 of my parents 16 grandkids. Taking a picture in front of the font has sort of become tradition too.

And I'm BRACE FREE! Yay!

The Boxcar Children

We were lucky to have beautiful weather again this Saturday, so I drug the kids out for some pictures. They were hatin' life, that is, until we found this old boxcar/traincar. It's really old and dirty but also really cool, so we HAD to take some pictures by it. I love their serious faces! We could really pull off one of those old western pictures. So they told me when we got back in the car that they are the Boxcar Children. We've read several of the series of books, and it made me laugh when they added: "but we live in a house and only take pictures by the boxcar." Aw, kids!

This too, shall pass.

It all started....well we don't know exactly when. Just two weeks ago we noticed that our wood floor was showing signs of moisture. We couldn't figure out where it was coming from....we hadn't seen any water anywhere. Turns out the line that connects to our fridge for the ice maker had been leaking underneath the hardwood. For quite some time. The floor was starting to cup (or warp). A restoration company came out a few days later and set up some mats and fans that would supposedly suck the water out of the floor. And it worked for about 3 days.

In the meantime, our washing machine died. We paid a repairman $50.00 for ten minutes and "you need a new washer." Ugh. So a week ago we took of and ran to Pueblo for a new washer and dryer. (Our dryer had been on it's way out for some time, so it seemed like a good time to upgrade.) For a moment we forgot about the kitchen floor and were mesmerized with the quiet new set. Amazing how little water they use...and they sing little jingles!!!

Our fun was short-lived, as two days after that we find out that our oven doesn't heat. It doesn't go higher than 140 degrees. That is also the day the floor guys returned to tear out the floor to find out what's going on. Turns out the fridge has been leaking WAY longer than we had anticipated, and the water damage is WAY worse than originally thought. When they were tearing out the wood floor where the fridge was, they ended up tearing up extra, and luckily, finding that our dishwasher has also been leaking. For awhile! So out that came, and they told us we need a new one. Out came cabinets. And the smell was horrendous! I still can't believe that we couldn't smell that before they took the floor up.

Then Saturday came. Christopher went to the mountains to ride 4wheelers. The floor guys weren't coming, so I had a full day planned of things I wanted to get done. Which included cleaning out the car and washing it and getting the garage all cleaned up so I could park my sparkling car inside. Right. I got it done. But they had a 4wheeling accident. And now, long story short, we have an extra 4wheeler in our garage, and my car IS NOT parked there!!! It's OK though, I'm glad Matt is OK. That's more important anyway than a sparkling car with a place to park inside.

Which brings us to today. I was headed out to the bus stop. The wind was blowing like crazy....haven't seen wind like this in awhile. The dust was so bad in places that the visibility was nearly zero. Suddenly Dallin starts squealing "need to do potty!" and when he's squealing he means like RIGHT NOW! So I hurried and pulled off the road, opened the car door, and WHAM! the wind takes the door and bends it backward. Forget the toddler that needs to go potty. I spent the next five minutes trying to get the car door closed. Then open so I can get back in. Speed over to the bus stop, get the door open again and pull the now screaming toddler out to go potty!

I'm thinking....could anything else go wrong???!!!

and if you guessed yes, then you're right.

We get home from Volleyball, which was awesome, by the way, to find that the wind has picked up the umbrella on our patio set, and in the process has shattered the glass top to the table. Glass everywhere. I'm surprised the trampoline is still there!

Now seriously, what else could go wrong?!

But tonight, as I stood *washing the dishes by hand* and thinking about it all, I reminded myself that at least we're all healthy and functioning. This will pass.....eventually....hopefully. And life will go on. I'm trying to see the positive side in this otherwise I may go crazy!

Or this noisy contraption is going to drive me there! 24/7 of air purifying love. It's kinda nice when the kids are home, I can't hear them arguing and therefore don't feel so stressed about it. Not all bad :)

Fishing

Christopher, Ryan and Dallin have found a new favorite hobby. It's more Dallin's than Ryan's, who is more of a Wii player and computer guy. But they got away a couple of weeks ago to go fishing. Christopher took Ryan up to Lost Trail Campground and they camped one night and fished the next morning until Ryan (probably Christopher) wanted to come home. They hadn't even unloaded, and Dallin was begging to go fishing. So Christopher piled him in the truck and away they went up to Rock Creek. Now if they could just CATCH something!

Oh, yeah. And I let Ryan sport a mohawk for the weekend. Cool guy!

O What do you do in the summertime?

Us? Well we spend at least one night in the emergency room every summer! And the lucky guy this year is Ryan. It was 8:30 Saturday night, I was ready to hop in the shower, Chris was asleep, and the kids were watching a movie. A little battle broke out between Dallin and Ryan over a remote control, Dallin threw it at Ryan and it hit him in the back of his head, splitting it open an inch. After 3 hours and 20 minutes in the waiting room, we got home at 1:00 AM with three STAPLES in the back of Ryan's head. UUUGGGHHH!!!

It was almost more than my stomach could handle! Good thing Ryan is such a tough kid!

Go Girls!

Last week was the Tri-County Fair in Monte Vista. Our girls have been working for months now with their lambs, and were entered in the Market Sheep Division. The entire week was busy, washing the lambs, shearing them, and washing them again. It was a blast!

The little kids weren't much help as far as getting the lambs ready, but they were easily entertained. This is a platform the we put the lambs on to shear them. We just put their heads in the brace and hold them there with the chain. So Dallin and all the other little kids had a blast pretending they were sheep and taking turns shearing one another!

Bailey, Sariah, Angel and Eric were all in the same class. Actually, both of Sariah's lambs were in this class, so we asked another girl to show her other lamb. She is the one in the back with the black and purple plaid shirt on. The judge has them circle the ring a few times and hold their lambs, then when he's ready he lines them up in order from 1st place to last place.

This was soooo exciting! He started lining them up......1st: Sariah, 2nd: Angel, 3rd: Bailey....we could hardly contain our excitement outside the ring!!!

Bailey with her 3rd place ribbon and her lamb "Rocky Bulwinkle."

Sariah with her 1st place ribbons and her lamb "Steamer."

After all the classes have been judged, all first place winners re-enter the ring to compete for Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion. It was exciting and nerve-racking all at the same time. Sariah looked so tiny out there with all those big kids....and big sheep!

The judge said she is so fun to watch. Hmmmm.

And the final show is the Pee-Wee showing where little kids get to enter the ring and be next to those big animals. Dallin held the halter and Sariah helped him lead Steamer around the ring. He got a white ribbon too!

***And where was Ryan you ask? He spent most of the week hanging out at Chris's office watching movies, but the time he actually spent at the fair he spent playing out in the grandstands with a group of little kids. I love fair!

Our summer has consisted of........

BUILDING A PARADE FLOAT!!!

Yep. I suggested to my sister Kaylene a few years ago that I thought it would be fun to build a parade float for her husband's business. And this year she decided to take me up on that. So in March, we started the planning process: deciding on the layout and colors and then trying to find out where to order supplies and, well, what to order. It's way more involved than we ever imagined! We entered into three separate celebrations: 4th of July in Alamosa, Pioneer Days in Manassa, and Stampede in Monte Vista. Stampede's theme was "Land of Cool Sunshine" so we based our float on that theme, which also fit the 4th of July theme of "American Heroes." The land of cool sunshine is the nickname for the San Luis Valley, so we used three of the things our valley is well known for: The Mountains, The Sandhill Cranes, and High Desert Farming. Perfect since we were building it for the John Deere tractor companies in the area.

Luckily, we had Bailey (and Sariah) there to help with Karly, Kaylene's baby. They are already excellent babysitters!!!

We started out building our tractor at Christopher's office, then moving it to Kaylene's house to add the foil and paint. Here, Jaelyn is adding foil to the tractor's body while Marissa watches.



Our cranes are made of paper mache, then propped onto iron legs and bases. My dad was so much help. He tried to convince us that he didn't think we could build a float and that our cranes wouldn't stand, but with his welding skills, our cranes were built to not go anywhere! And he loved every minute of helping us!

Once the tractor was completely covered with foil, we had to spray paint it John Deere green. We weren't able to find any companies that carried the right color of green, and it wouldn't have been right to make our tractor any other color!

Each piece of foil had to be crinkled before it was stapled to the platform. And on the floor we used gausimer over the top to give it more depth. The gausimer also had to be bunched and stapled into place.

The Mountains. *SIGH* They were a beast to build. It took is all day one day just to build the mountains and get them foiled. But they turned out awesome!

Almost done. Since we had never done this before, and weren't sure if we had enough foil and what we'd cover the edges with, we saved them for last. Turns out we had plenty of white, which turned out to be the best color for that area anyway.

PARADE TIME!!!

We had silver foil underneath the green gausimer, which made our "grass" sparkle. We used GOLD foil underneath the brown 'dirt' gausimer, implying the 'money' in the soil.

OOPS!

A minor accident after the second parade turned out to be deadly for our mountains. Our driver (accidently) didn't open the garage door far enough, and backed our mountains right into the door. It loosened the bolts that anchored our mountains just enough to make the whole thing wobbly. We had to drive the float from Manassa to Monte Vista, about 45 miles. We did fine until we got just 8 miles outside of Monte Vista, and it started pouring rain, and our mountains blew completely off the float!!! So Kaylene and I were out on the highway picking up bolts and mountains off the road.....lovely sight! I should mention that we went no faster than 20 miles per hour, so that 45 miles went REALLY SLOW!!!!! No worries....we spent the next two days repairing (aka rebuilding) our mountains to have it ready in time for Stampede.

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We ended up winning "Best of Show" in the 4th of July Parade, which is the highest award, and we also won the "Stampede Award" in the Stampede Parade, which we believe is 2nd place. Not bad for our first float.....just watch out next year. We learned a ton and we're coming back armed with experience!

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