Can I wear this today!

Maren asks this question every few days when she sees this skirt. Her aunt Liz made it for her and it is adorable, but I explain that it must be washed and we really shouldn't wear the same skirt everyday.

Homecoming!

Here are the pics from the previous post.

Kelsie was a candidate for homecoming queen this year for the swim team. She had lots of fun doing it.

She asked our good neighbor, Ron if he would drive her and two other girls in the homecoming parade.

The kids loved being in the parade. Maren is still talking about it to this day. It was taking a while to get 10 cars with three girls each around the track and Maren had to use the restroom. Some teenager came to find us and Josh ran her up to the stadium bathroom. He came back and sat down with her by us, but she wouldn't have any of that. She said, "Dad I'm supposed to be in the parade". So Josh had her run across the football field to find her place with the other kids.

Kelsie, the future dentist with five kids!

Homecoming Dance!

Goofy!

Her model walk.

She tried for about 10 minutes before giving up and having me do it.

Kelsie and Austin!

Glad this week is over!

Homecoming is coming!

Labor Day weekend we had a little knock at the door. It was about 10:00 p.m. and we were in the middle of family prayer. We finished up quickly and the kids ran down the stairs and went on out. Kelsie, having forgotten that it was D Day (whatever that stands for) said, "Who is coming over at this time of night." Josh saw a brown paper grocery bag on our front porch and the kids went running to see if they could find out who it was. Kelsie brought the bag upstairs and it had her name written on it. She opened it up and it had a bunch of kit kats in it. We had to open the ones up that we could tell were taped and they had letters written on little pieces of paper. We got busy on the scrambled name and kept coming up with Alan something. Kelsie should have clued in. She couldn't figure it out and ran to her year book. Then she came up a few minutes later with the name Austin Alan. We got a great laugh, because this is a kid that lives across the street from Aunt Sara. He is in orchestra and we didn't think he would have the guts to ask her. She jokes around a lot saying things to him like, I saw you through your window last night. I forgot that in one of the pieces of candy ther was a little note that said, not Mitch Price. This also should have clued her in since they are good friends and the two are in the same ward together.

She waited a week to answer him back. Sara, Whit, Kelsie, Hannah, my mom and I went shopping up to Park City this Sat. afternoon. On the way, we came up with a treasure hunt for Austin. We all helped get it organized and this is how it went (thought Morgan would really like this).

Step one: Sara called over to the Alan's house and they found out that he was not home. So Jonas had his first stake out in the upper bedroom of Sara's house, with binoculars and waited for the poor kid to come home. I say poor because he has no idea whats in store for him. He got home and Whit delivered the first clue, which led him to the church. Jonas, Kelsie, and Whit still watching waited for a good 15 minutes. Finally, Austin called Kels and told her he didn't have a car. They offered Sara or Whit to take him and he said that his dad was on his way, but that it would be a little while. Finally, his dad made it home with the family van and Austin, being driven by his mom and accompanied by his little sister left for their church parking lot. Having arrived there he had to draw a rather large U in the church parking lot, even though his blood and his families blood is very blue.

Step two: Then he got his next clue that led him to me waiting in the parking lot of the fire station. In front of the building stand a rather large fireman carved out of wood. I am talking ten feet tall. In order to receive his next clue, Austin had to give the fireman a bear hug. He looked at me in my car a and mouthed, are you kidding me! I waved the clue that I had for him to see and pointed at the fireman. So he went over and wrapped his arms around this giant piece of wood and gave it a few pats. It was hysterical.

Step three: The next clue sent him over to Arctic Circle where he had to ask the manager for a special cherry dipped complimentary homecoming cone. Did I mention that this kid was wearing his pajamas, hee, hee, hee! I really wish I could have seen this last part.

Step four: He was given the next clue by the manager and it sent him back to his front porch!
Meanwhile, Sara and Whit have been following them around through all of this. We all headed back to Sara's to wait up in the bedroom. Kelsie happened to open the window so that we could hear what was being said across the street. On his front porch, spelled out in candy was, YES. She also wrote a little note that said, not Mitch Price. Austin's little sister jumped out of the car and ran up and we could hear her say, how cute. But she also read the note and said, Mitch Price. Well, Austin said, "WHAT", and ran up the steps. Then he read the part that said not. Well, we burst out laughing and could not control ourselves. Then Whit turned on the light in the bedroom and I dove to the ground.
This poor kid gave Sara the worst crusty looks for two days, till he saw Kelsie at school and she smoothed it all over.
Can't wait for Friday and Saturday night. Did I mention that Kels is a candidate for Homecoming Queen. She has to do some dance at an assembly and then she asked our neighbor Ron to drive her and two other candidates in his really cool antique truck during half time at the game. I can't wait to see what this kid take her to do on Friday for their before dance date.
This is all so new to me, this Utah style of dating.

Idaho River Trip!

It was a bit of a cold day that we set out to go down the river. Here are the kids, minus Lily!

Esme fell asleep on the way to the river.

We tied all of the tubes to the big raft and sent all the big kids and adult except for me and Whit out in the river.

Sun and lots of fun in the beginning.

Notice how none of the adults, Kelsie, and Andrew's little sister Jody didn't have on life vests.

Morgan had Hannah on her lap the entire time. A bit of white water.

Notice how the rope goes through all of the tubes, right under everyone's legs.

Notice me and Whit with all the toddlers.

The other Andrew and I tried to paddle, but no matter how hard we tried the river took us where it wanted us to go.

We couldn't keep the little girls from sitting on the side of the boat. I figured I would have to jump in if any of them went over. Or maybe I would have to send Whit in since such is the case during most boat situations.

Esme didn't actually have a life vest, so she wore this little floaty swimsuit.

Jonas loved the freedom of the tube until it started to rain on us. Then he moved over to the raft because it got to cold in the water for his skinny bones.

The scenery was amazing.

Esme, Maren, and Leah took turns hanging with Kelsie in her tube.

I just thought this was funny. Usually she is biting her own arms.

A close up of the cat fights!

Hee, hee, hee!

Now to explain all those things I was asking you to take notice of, here are the stories. This is a picture of the first rock we hit or I guess got stuck on. The raft and some of the tubes went on one side of this large rock and Andrew and Marge's tube went on the other. At this point Marge got into the raft with a scraped knee and her husband went back into the tube. Save number one! The next time this happened it was Andrew's little sister Jody that got caught on the other side of a rock. The last time it happened was at a point where there used to be a bridge and all that was left were these large boulder things. Anyways, again I was paddling my tail off and thought we had all made it past when I saw Jody's tube get sucked under this rock. The tube got lodged under it and pulled everyone else out of their tubes. It was a bit like a wave watching it from the boat. I was a sick for a second thinking that the raft was going over too, along with all the little toddlers (one not wearing a vest, I might add). The raft however stayed afloat. Then I started thinking about all these people being pulled out of their tubes. First I saw Jody float down and hit Andrew in the chest, then I noticed Kelsie's head under the water a bit (I wasn't as worried about her cause she is a great swimmer), I saw Morgan and Hannah floating down the river but swimming to the side. Then I thought, great, I am going to have to get in and get that tube out of that rock. Luckily, Andrew was pulling himself up the raft, through the current to help us get out of this mess. I had already tried tugging on the rope that was attached to the tube, it didn't budge. With all of his strength he pulled on that tube and it still didn't budge. He looked up at me and asked if I had a knife. I was like what, I guess I'll look around the boat. In the background I could hear all of the little girls screaming, my two the loudest! Whit is doing her best to comfort them. After scrounging around the raft looking for a crazy knife, I turned around and save number two, Andrew pulled with all of his strength and got that raft out. I truly don't know how he did it. Poor Jody was crying and water logged. We paddled over and picked up all the others that were out of the tubes. Hannah jumped in the raft and said, I am never going tubing again ( the trip is already planned for next summer, babe). We picked up Morgan and Kelsie and floated the rest of the river shivering with kids crying. It was the best time ever! I was worried that Jody was a bit in shock, but she survived and will hopefully come again with us next year.

Lessons learned:

Life jackets for everyone, and

no tying the tubes to the raft.

As Morgan said, Better late than never!

I am back to my post a day goal! I still have the entire trip to Idaho to blog, so here is the beginning in a series of Idaho pics and stories from August.

The last day that we spent in Idaho we had a bit of fun crafting. We came home with many cute hair accessories.
Then the kids talked Andrew into the traditional riding of ATV's and tractors.

Andrew really is a good sport!

This is a funny pic of Maren, and you can barely see Leah's pigtail between Andrew and Hannah.

It's hard to see them, but they are in there.

Hannah seems to be steering in all of the pictures. She just might be a future farmer.

Here she is again!

I just deleted the picture of Morgan showing Kelsie how to ride a motorcycle. Not a great idea, considering her past experience on the farm.

She picked it up pretty quickly and other than the small mishap with a post on the picket fence, she did pretty good. Shelly might not invite us back when she gets back home!

Back to the four wheeler.

Whit took her turn at motocross and went across where the old canal used to be.

I cannot tell you how I had wished that I had been videoing. You can tell by the look on her face that it was a pretty exciting ride.

I love pics from behind!

We had the best time while we were there. It was a very exctiting four days.