Weekend with Kylee & Brody

The weekend before Kylee and Brody came to visit, the 6 of us did our annual flowrider adventure.  Mike joined in for his first time and enjoyed himself, although once will probably be enough.  

Ever since Ky and Brody moved away almost 3 years ago, their visits home have always been a week or more.  Sadly, this one was only 3 1/2 days, and since Brody's family got half that time,  we really stayed busy to get the most out of our time with them.  The 5 of us enjoyed hiking Crimson Trail on Saturday.  It was a lovely day (after cold and rain the day before) and we all enjoyed our first hike of the season.

We enjoyed having the Bundy's spend the weekend with us.  The girls were delighted with Salomon and enjoyed playing with him outside.  After the hike we had dinner joined by Trace and Ann and Jess and Brad and the three kids they were babysitting for the weekend.

After dinner Sunday we all walked to Hillcrest Elementary school to play on the playground equipment.  It was so much fun!  I'm sure I never enjoyed recess that much as a child.

Other things we did was lunch at Costa Vida on Friday, haircuts from Stacie on Saturday for Ky, Brody, Mike, Cam and Jake and lunch after at Great Harvest, games at the place Jess and Brad were babysitting Saturday night, and breakfast Monday at the Crepery with Tom and Freda.  I loved our weekend all together, especially knowing it won't happen again until Christmas, as Brad and Jess are heading out in a few days to spend the summer in Texas, then Brad will be in Peru for 3 months doing his international internship (Jess will join him for a month of it).

Update, growth, new toy and humorous misery

I took Cam to the plastic surgeon  in a few weeks ago for a checkup on his snowboarding scar so I thought I'd show how it looks one year later. . . But first, maybe you need a reminder how how it looked originally. . . (warning- the first picture is not for the faint of heart)  If you want to relive the whole ordeal ,click here for all the details.


 Here is is after the 34 stitches. . .

 Three weeks after the accident. . . 

 And today- one year later.  I'm very pleased with how nicely it's healed.

 I can't believe how fast Cam is growing!  He's caught up to Mike which means he's 6'1"!  Just last year on his birthday he was only 5'71/2".  He's wondering when it's going to stop, because he's good with 6'1".  We shall see.  Jake, who is 6'1" also was only 5'9" on his 16th BD, so I"m thinking Cam has another few inches to go.

 I am not a technologically savy girl.  I don't have a smart phone, we don't own a laptop and I've never been one to run out and buy the latest and greatest electronic toy. That all changed last Friday however, when I went out and bought myself the new ipad!  Woo hoo!  It's been a lot of fun figuring stuff out and playing around on it.  The boys are thrilled as well (Jake refers to it as our family ipad. . . ) and it hasn't been left alone much since Friday. 

Jake had all 4 wisdom teeth pulled this morning from our oral surgeon Dr. Anderson.  Although I don't mean to diminish his pain and suffering, he has said some pretty hilarious things while coming out of the anesthesia  (and I've been doing a fair amount of laughing at what he's been saying).  While I was waiting 30 minutes for him to wake up enough to take him home, he kept slipping down on the leather recliner they had him in ending up on the floor a few times. That was quite a sight with me trying to help him get back into the chair with him being mostly dead weight. The only thing he said then was wondering when they were going to pull his teeth, and wanting to go home.  For the first hour after being home, he said so many funny things that Cam and I had to start writing them down.  Here are the ones we got (sadly there were more but we were laughing too hard to write them and then more kept coming and we couldn't keep up.)
*When did they put me to sleep?
*Where do I go?
*When am I not let it hurt?
*Go get more- more teeth.
*I just want to go away.
*All my white teeth hurt.
*No numb face.
*Am I bleeding on my lip?  Why is there blood on my lip?
*Why did I have a bloody nose?  Why?
*Will I be OK?
*Will I feel OK?
*Cam go ask mom what side I got out.
*My ear and cheek hurts so I can't feel my pillow.
*Go get some sleeper.
*Why does it hurt?
*But I only got 4 teeth pulled.  Why do all my teeth hurt?
*I wanna go make it not it hurt.
*When did they actually put the sleeper in me?

Haha.  He was very confused about the gauge and bandage he had on his arm where the IV went.  He didn't know that's what made him go to sleep- he thought it was from the block they put in his mouth to keep his mouth open since that's the last thing he remembered until he was home.  He's sleeping now (it's 3 pm and the surgery was at 10 am) with a pool of blood on his shirt that he drooled.  Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon because he's scheduled to work tomorrow afternoon!

P.S.  Jake just woke up and when I pointed out the big blood stain on his shirt, he had the most confused and horrified look on his face, then he said "did I get shot?"  Haha.  Funny boy.

Cam turns 16!

Cam celebrated turning 16 on Sunday.  We made it as fun as we could for a Sunday birthday.  Jake gave him this bag of popcorn that he got from his new job at the movie theater.  At the end of the night, they just throw away all the leftover popcorn unless someone wants to take it home! 

Since we were very strict with all 4 kids about not letting them drive alone AT ALL until they turned 16, Cam was pretty happy to finally take the car for a spin around the block by himself.

I had to decorate the porch instead of the yard because after several weeks of 60 degree weather, we got a snowstorm on his birthday.

Cam was in St. George for a baseball tournament from Wednesday until 3:30 on Sunday morning, so unfortunately he had some homework to get done on his birthday.  Doesn't he look thrilled to be doing it?

We went to the Skeens for dinner and games joined by the Bundy's, Petes and Mom who is in town for Madi's wedding which was Friday.  We had a fun time eating sweet pork salad/burritos and playing in the gym.

Thanks everyone who helped make Cam's day a fun one.  And thanks Cam for being such a good kid.  I love you!

Remodel is complete!

 It's finally time to do the long awaited post of our kitchen remodel.  It's been a 2 week longer-than-anticipated-process, but in the end, it's all been worth it.  I LOVE everything and am so happy with how it all turned out.  Here are some before pictures:

 And. . . . (drum-roll please) the after pictures:

 Goodbye old white porcelain sink and. . . 

hello new Blanco silgranit sink!  I love it so much!



 Here is the living room and entry before:

Sadly (or perhaps not as I'm sure you'll be amused by this picture taken in 2010 at our 80's themed New Years Eve party) this is the only picture I could find that shows the french doors before:

AND. . . . the living room and entry after.........

Freda made the cute kitchen curtains and did the awesome flower arrangement on the pedestal.  Doesn't everyone wish they had a talented mother-in-law like me???

This was our 2nd guestroom before. . .

And this is Mike's office now:

He is so thrilled to just walk down the hall to go to work now.  It's been especially nice when its at 4 in the morning, or late at night.  And, unlike many women I don't worry that he'll get off task and start lounging around instead of working- and if you know Mike and his hideous work load, you won't be worried either.

We had many trucks outside our house the past 2 months (and this picture doesn't include 3 of them which I failed to get) which meant someone was inside hard at work.  The electricians, granite guys, carpet layer, cabinet man, hardwood floor installers, plumber, comcast team (yes, it took three guys in three trucks to figure it all out), and our contractor/handyman Bryce (Brad's dad- and may I say what an awesome job he did on the arch, banister, back splash and trim work?)  It's been very quiet the past few days without workers coming or going.

I am beyond thrilled that we've been able to make almost all the changes that I've been wishing to make ever since we moved into this house 10 years ago.