Farm Stand

We are friends with the Bangerter's who own the farm that is right behind our house. I love to work at the Farmer's Market in Salt Lake with them or the stand in front of the farm. One day I took the girl's to the stand and they sold cookies (made by Mimi) and icee's--I think they made 1 icee. They each made $4 which was a lot to them and it was so fun to see them in the salesgirl mode. It is hard to resist a cute little girl with big blue eyes asking you if want to buy a cookie.

Picture Day!

Trek August 2009

We did it! It was so much work and a lot of stress (responsibility for the salvation, or growth of testimony rather, of 12 youth). Our kids were amazing! We felt a bond from the start and they all contributed so much to our"family".

July 24th Parade

We were in the Bountiful 24th of July parade with our stake. Brooke and Hayley loved waving to the people and spraying them with their squirt guns. Brooke timidly squirted people until she realized how fun it was and that they didn't get too mad at her.

Trip to California

We drove to California. To break it up we stayed in Las Vegas for a night and swam in the pool before we left the next day. The kids slept for a few hours as soon as we left Las Vegas. It was nice to chat with Greg and have an intermission of my "one-woman entertainment show". The kids were so excited to see Mimi and Grandpa with a mustache. First off Hayley usually asks Mimi "So what's the plan!" She knows when she sees Mimi there is fun to be had! We went to Disneyland on my birthday so I could get in free. (I always have to have a deal!) It was wonderful to run around with just Hayley and Brooke, Mimi was wonderful and stayed home with Lincoln (she took him to work b/c she brought cake to a friend and Lincoln apparently put on quite a show). THANKS MOM! We hit so many rides right when it opened and did the fast passes for the rest. Brooke REALLY wanted to see the princesses so we waited in line for almost 3 hours! Cinderella was awesome(she asked Hayley about her fairy godmother and if she gave her her necklace, she told them not to be shy like gug-gus, and she showed them all these different poses), Snow White was ok, Jasmine needs to be fired (she didn't say a word). The fav ride was autotopia. I remember loving that ride when I was young. They loved driving their own car. We didn't have to wait in line the first time and they wanted to go again so we had to fastpass it and that was still a very long wait. Greg was yelling at the adults passing underneath, "Don't ride this ride, go drive your own car!" He couldn't understand why adults would "clog" up the line to drive a car. Yeah he wasn't feeling the "magic" at that point. One of the coolest things there was the Jedi training. Kids were able to fight Darth Vader! Greg was so excited for that one but he wasn't chosen. The fireworks were spectacular and we were all pooped (especially Brooke). It was a great day.
The next day we went to Santa Monica pier with Charles and cousins. We had a fun day at the beach. These kids could stay at the beach all year. It was very enjoyable hanging out with Charles and family. The rest of the week we stayed at Matt and Amanda's. The kids had a blast together. We rode our bikes to the beach a few times, went shopping, played at the beach and watched fireworks at a monestary. It was a wonderful week with family!

We are home from a wonderful 4 days in St. George. I don't like unpacking or cleaning the car after a trip....so I didn't. Greg won the gold medal in tennis for the Utah Summer Games! We all were going to run the 5k that we thought was on Saturday, but Greg got the days mixed up and it was last Saturday. We decided to run our own .5k instead. We had a blast staying at the wonderful wyndham resort courtesy of Clark and Kari, who owned the timeshare that we stayed in. Thanks guys! The pools were great and the room was very spacious. I love having a kitchen, it makes vacations more economical and easy. We were going to leave on Thursday and decided to leave Wednesday so I got a great deal on priceline for a hotel in Cedar. When we got to the Best Western the lady at the desk said "you look so familiar", it was a sister from my mission! (J. Johnson) She was awesome she gave us a bigger room! We watched Greg slaughter his first opponent the next morning and headed to St. George. We had a bbq and movie night thursday, went to the Iron County Rodeo friday and swam everyday. I love vacations. The thing that I love the most is that we are always together, there are no other plans or activities that take anyone away (well except for tennis). It was wonderful! This week I am going to girl's camp and then we leave Sunday for Cali! I love the Summer!

Trek

Greg and I are a "Ma and Pa" for trek this year and we are so excited. We had our training last weekend at Deseret Land and Livestock in Wyoming. We essentially were the kids and went through what the kids would experience when they go in August. I was surprised when Greg and I were split up into different groups for the weekend. I was looking forward to being with him and having him around, I think of it now as if my blankey was taken away. This is how the kids will feel when they can't be with their friends. I really enjoyed my group and had a wonderful experience even without my blankey :) The hiking wasn't bad. I feel like I put a lot of effort into pushing the handcart and I was fine. I do believe the 80 lb girls and video gamers will have a rude awakening. I thought about the pioneers and the struggles they went through and felt a strong connection and love for them, especially on the "women's pull". Of course, I was bawling as soon as I saw the "General" further up on the trail. My heart was full when our leader sad, "General are you asking us to fight for a country who has not stood up for our rights, who have persecuted and driven us from state to state and harmed our people?" General responds, "Yes". We as the pioneers decide we will send our husbands, sons and fathers to war for our country and they leave us to pull the handcarts on our own. And we pulled them to the top of that hill with tears as the men sang "Come Come Ye Saints". This is a special song to me ever since serving on Temple Square and growing to love the pioneer's sacrifice and telling people about it everyday. The next day on the trail Helaman visited us and told us, in a powerful way his story of the Stripling warriors. It makes it so real to have someone act it out in front of you and you can imagine the feelings and what really happened back then. I had so many ideas of what I want to do with our "kids" I hope we can make Trek a pivotal experience that strengthens their testimonies. Greg told me as I reached the top of the hill on the woman's pull that I would have been a great pioneer woman. I think I am pretty tough physically, however, burying a child or watching a husband walk off to war leaving me behind with 3 kids, I wouldn't be so tough.

Consider yourself lucky to be reading this, Greg has been very clear that he doesn't want any crazies having an insight to his family's whereabouts. If you are a crazy please do not look at this blog.

Park City May 2009

We decided to do our first "timeshare presentation" and it wasn't so bad. I am glad we got it over with at the beginning of our stay. We walked up to our room and the key didn't work so the maid let us in to a spacious beautiful room. When we walked back up after the presentation I realized there was a "B" at the end of our room number. We were in the "b" suite which was the little room attached to the "A" suite. It was pretty squished with all our kids. The pool was awesome and the girls LOVED it. We hung out in Park City the next day, ate at a cute cafe for b-fast, rode the trolley and the Alpine Slide. Hayley had a traumatic experience because the slide shut down due to lightning right before we got on the lift. We had been waiting for almost an hour for Greg and Brooke to go down and Hayley was so sad, as was I. Luckily, we only had to wait another 15 minutes and then we had the ride of our lives!

The Hospital

Thought I would document the most traumatic event of the year thus far. Lincoln fell and split his skin open, it got infected with strep and we had to spend 2 nights in the hospital. The bills keep coming- up to this point we have paid $7000!! We could've done a lot of things with that money, but I just can't think that way. Lincoln HATED the hospital. It was so hard on us b/c each time a nurse poked him or even take his heart rate he would point to me and cry, like he was saying "why aren't you saving me?!" The hospital didn't believe in letting him sleep for more that 2 hours at a time, which made him even more of a mess. I am so glad that is over. I am cleaning every wound now REALLY well.

We went to Liberty Park today to "watch" Greg play in a tennis tournament. Of course there wasn't much watching of Greg because each child was off in a different direction in this huge park. It was nice getting out of Bountiful and seeing a different crowd of people. Lincoln makes friends by throwing sand and saying OW when a nice little girl pets him--repeatedly. Greg won so he gets to play again tomorrow. Then maybe the next day, which will cut into his softball game.......that boy plays ALOT!

Finally

I have been so impressed with everyone's blogs and I feel like I need to join the crowd. I thought I should spend my free time documenting our lives rather than scrolling through facebook.