Driver's Ed

Kaitlin started her vacation with summer driver's ed.  Luckily, she has several friends in the class; that has helped it be more fun for her.  However, she said driving in circles for 2 hours at 6am is not fun.



City Days

Every year our city sponsors Touch-a-Truck where they park city vehicles, police cars, fire trucks and military vehicles in a field and let us clime all over them.  This year there was a big helicopter there and we got to watch it take off.  It kicked up quite a wind! 

Saturday morning was our town parade. It was better and bigger than past years. It was fun to see several floats in the parade that I had seen in the construction phase (because of my float building training).  Jared and Ruth got tons of candy.  

That night we went to the "Enduro Challenge".  We had never heard of enduro cross, so we looked it up on the internet.  It consists of motorcycles driving around a track covered with logs, rocks and pipes.  It was the first race of its kind in our area, and it was open to anyone willing to pay the fee.  We went in the afternoon to watch the practice runs.  It was a scene of carnage. Each new group was just wrecks and getting stuck.  It was one of the most entertaining things we've ever seen. The UTV class was our favorite. I posted a video we made of the event on YouTube

Float Update

This weekend we saw two other stake floats in the city parade.  That means two other groups that were asked to make floats are done, and we aren't even close.   I was able to finish screening the rocking chair and I started work on the spinning wheel and got that half done.  I took the weekend off, so I'm interested to see the progress that has been made

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Memorial Day

On Monday we drove up to the farm to celebrate Memorial Day with the family.  We visited the cemetery where many of my family is buried and left flowers. Afterwards we had a nice lunch and enjoyed visiting and hanging out together.  Exciting happenings included, Kaitlin being grateful that she didn't fly into the barbed wire, Uncle Mark's 4 wheeler getting driven into the canal, and a debate on whether veggi sticks are tasty or gross.   I took a bunch of pictures but now I can not find them and have to assume they were deleted from the camera.  Just imagine in your mind's eye a picture of the children reverently standing beside a grave, flowers in hand, listening attentively as grandma tells them of their great ancestors, an American flag waves gently in the breeze in the background. Yeah, that's what happened all right!


Take Me Out to the Ball game -or- My Best Friend Orrin

On Friday we drove into the city to see the Bees play, a minor league baseball team.  Our tickets were courtesy of our good friend Orrin Hatch, and included a seat in the outfield and food vouchers for hotdogs and drinks.  None of us really like baseball, but we decided to go for the experience since we've never been.  We ended up having a great time.  The Bees won and we even got to chat with Senator Hatch and get our family's picture taken with him (picture to come).   In addition to the occasional moments of excitement that the game provided, we also enjoyed rapping about cinnamon almonds, throwing paper airplanes and going to treats at Winco after the game.



Working on the Float

 On Saturday, Chuck took the kids to the ribbon cutting of our new section of highway that was just finished.  It was a big deal with a fun run and booths and free stuff.  The kids came home with tales of free snow cones and cotton candy, free frisbees, water bottles and backpacks.

Kaitlin glued her hand together.

 Meanwhile, I started the screening of the rocking chair on our Days of 47 float.  In the afternoon Chuck and Kaitlin came to join me.  It's an interesting process.  You wrap aluminum screen over a metal frame, and then glue and shape it to fit exactly.  Once sticky and gluey you mold and stretch the screen so it's tight like a skin.  The glue (95$ a gallon) is like rubber cement on steroids and sticks to your hands, and tools and everything. 

Chuck used his spacial skills to cut the pieces.

If you get it on your arms you can just kiss the hair goodbye.  And working with the aluminum is like working with a thousand little needles and then those little needles get glued to your skin... anyway, you get the picture.   It was certainly an adventure and we kept a good attitude and had a fun time doing it.  We got the chair about half done.  The next step is to paint it.

You can follow the progress of the float at my float blog HERE.

This is Kaitlin. Hey. Sup. How's it goin'? I'm the guest blogger this week, I guess.

Kaitlin's photo on the advertizing poster.

So this week, firstly we went to my Photography Showcase at my school. It was nicely set up, with all the pictures matted or nicely framed around my school media center. There was happy guitar music and tasty cookies at the end. A bunch of kids got awards, but I didn't, and that's cool. One judge voted for me. :) But a couple of kids have told me they loved my pictures and I told them that if they remind me on the last day of school, I'll give my photos to them, buuut I seriously doubt that any of 'em will remember. hehe

What else? Well, since this next week is the last of school for me, we had our end of year assemblies and all that jazz. They announced that next year, not only will we have a bronze mustang statue put up in the commons, but we are also gonna have sleep-in Fridays! Yay! I love sleep-in Fridays! But they also said we're going to have 3 lunches instead of 2, which means that there is even less of a probability that I'll be in lunch with my friends. Then again, I don't like my friends, so maybe it's all a blessing. :) The teachers flat out told us not to show up next week, since it's Tuesday through Friday and everybody sluffs anyway, but I always go. I show up and tell the teachers to "Please teach me something so I can learn!" But they roll their eyes and I end up cleaning. It's fun anyways. I'm looking forward to it.

Yesterday we went to Planet Play, the fam and I. It's this little fun center about what, 25 minute drive away from our house?  We walked in and we were all pretty much thinking the same thing: 'This is going to be soooo lame...' but after two games of black light mini-golf, we went and ate at this super amazing all-you-can-eat buffet, and the food was never-ending and surprisingly delicious! I mean, have you ever had barbeque pizza? Me neither, but its probably the most wonderful food I've ever eaten in my life. And there was a slushie machine, and I think everyone in my family had at least 3 of those little slushie cups.
After we ate, we went and played some arcade games, which generally, I don't enjoy. Also, I'm not very good at them. But we played everything from throw-the-balls-at-the-screen to step-on-the-button-when-it-glows (Which we dominated. I'm talking like, 60 tickets per game. Of course, it was considered a "toddler game" in the little kid section, but whatever! :D) So that turned out to be really fun.

Waiting in line for laser tag.

And we did laser tag, and it was Ruth and Jared's first time. Our whole family was the blue team, and everyone else was the red team. As my mom said, "It's the Barnums against everyone else." Needless to say, we won. Dad won, actually. He had the most points of everyone. I always feel really ninja during laser tag, because you have the vest, and the gun, and you're trying to shoot everyone but be sneaky at the same time. I was trying to be real spyish and hid behind stuff and shoot people in the back. That's fun. I wish we could play laser tag whenever we wanted. Like, have a fun center in the basement? Yeah, yes? Potential remodeling plan? haha

Hmmm...uhm, Jared got his karate suit this week. He wears his belt with his stripes on it pretty much every day. Except today. I just looked over there and he's not wearing it today. Weird. His karate suit is pretty cute. I like it. Jared also got these suspenders to wear with his Sunday clothes!! SO. CUTE. All he needs is a little newsies hat to wear with it! I love it!



Oh, and lately we've all been talking about names. I have a problem with my name in that firstly, no one knows how to spell it, and secondly, there are bunches of Kaitlyns and Kaitlynns and Caitlins and Kaitlins everywhere, and I don't feel original. So we've been talking about things to change my name to. I don't like Kate, and mom says I'm definitely not a Katie, so this week we've been trying Kay. And it's not working. But it was cool to think about, because then we'd have Jared Jewelers (♫ It can only be Jaareeedd! ♪),  Kay Jewelers ( ♪ Every kiss begins with Kayy ♫), and....Ruth. Which is not a jewelry store. So then we decided to change her name to Fred. Don't ask me why. I guess Fred is a jeweler? :P But if you care to know, Jared wants to be called either Zane or Jay, and Ruth wants to be called Rue as in the Hunger Games (or street in French. Rue is street in French. Fact of the Day.), and I...still need a catchy nickname. Hit me up if you have any ideas.

Our Week in Pictures

I had a great birthday this year. Ruth and Jared are still off-track so we spent the day together. Chuck brought home pizza and we finished the night with Kaitlin's choir concert. I got a new shirt and a new laptop (as mine had been acting up).

Kaitlin did great in her end of the year choir concert.  She is looking forward to being in the advanced choir next year.

I made these eagle wings and this owl hat for our cub scout Arrow of Light Ceremony this week. It's fun when you get a chance to do something truly creative like this. I'll also wrote the ceremony. I'll put a link to it below.

I played the role of the Bobcat in our Arrow of Light Presentation.  The two boys are my last Webelos who both got their Arrow of Light that night.

Jared's been pretty bored during off-track, so in addition to swimming lessons, we've tried to stay busy with some projects. Jared built a 5 foot tall K'nex Roller Coaster and also made these "boppers" out of pool floats and PVC pipe.

After a long morning of weeding and mulching the flower beds, we took Ruth and Jared to see "Avengers" at the movies.  We loved it.

On my birthday I took Jared to buy all new Sunday clothes as he had grown out of his.  As we were leaving he asked if I would also buy him some suspenders.  Well, who could resist?  Isn't he a handsome kid? (no he didn't lose a leg, it's the photo angle)

Today we are got ready for the solar eclipse by by building a pinhole projector. It works pretty well and we only have to wait a couple more hours.

Here is a link to the Arrow of Light Ceremony that I wrote.  For those that don't know, in Cub Scouts, the Arrow of Light is the highest award that a boy earns before he moves on to Boy Scouts. So it's a pretty big deal.

The Sophomore Home Stretch

Kaitlin is in the last few weeks of the school year. She is overwhelmed with AP tests, projects, finals and concerts. This week she started to put together her final portfolio for her photography class. Here are a couple that she included:

Each week her class has a theme, and the theme for this week was "Smile You're on Camera" and had to do with taking a portrait that caught the unique personality of the person. This photo of Jared won the "Photo of the Week" out of 90 students and is now hanging on the wall of her classroom.

The theme for the week this photo was taken was "Once Upon a Time", where the photo needed to tell a story. That is Jared at the top of a slide.

Other Happenings  

• This weekend, Chuck and Jared went to a Father & Sons camp out with our church. When I asked them how it was they said that it was "fine". They didn't take any pictures but Chuck tells me that Jared had his fill of marshmallows.  

• We finished selling off all of the old kitchen (appliances and cabinets) this week.  We gave up on selling this dishwasher and just gave it away.  

• Chuck and I went out on a Mother's Day/Birthday date on Saturday, and then today (Mother's Day) the house was all cleaned and I was given a new set of pans.  Yea!

• I got the garden planted this week. Tomatoes and peppers.  We lost all of our lettuce and peas to an early attack of Summer-the-hungry-bunny. 

"Why do you hate me?"

Jared asked me this question the morning I forced him to go to swimming lessons.  Jared's never taken lessons, and he is getting to the point in scouts that he needs to be a stronger swimmer so I signed him up during this, our last off-track time of the year.  He did not want to go at first (thus the comment), but after his first two lessons he is really loving it and has asked me to sign him up for another round.  It's amazing how quickly things change.


Scout-o-rama

We went to our first ever Scout-o-rama this weekend.  That is a big gathering scouts where there are lots of booths of different activities for the scouts to do (and things for the parents to buy).   We didn't know how huge it would be (it filled the entire convention center). We spent hours doing the activities and could have spent hours more. I was amazed at the hundreds and hundreds of volunteers that were working at the event. Here are a few pictures:

Jared rocked at the bridge climb.

There were several different rubber band gun shooting galleries. Now I want to make one.

I sword fought Jared a few different times. Everyone in the family could do the activities.

This was one of two rain gutter races we did. The other one was duckies.

Even  Chuck and I fought one battle. But the guy running this one wouldn't let Chuck hit me so I won. Not that I needed the help mind you.

Annette, Lisa and Amy (I'm taking the photo)

BYU Women's Conference

One of the highlights of my year is the two days every April/May that I get to escape with my girlfriends and go to Women's Conference.  BYU Women's Conference is  put on by the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  All day you attend different presentations on various subjects. I particularly enjoyed hearing from the head of the church's Humanitarian Services, Ruth Todd, a Temple Square organist, Brad Wilcox and Ardeth Kapp.

Here we are making puppets.

 On Thursday night we participated in a huge service project; We made felt hand puppets for Head Start. There was also a concert that night that had some nice moments. On Friday, our closing speaker was Elder Anderson. Afterwards, we walked around the art museum and went out to our traditional pizza at The Brick Oven.  Of course the best part is spending time with great friends.  Thanks ladies!

Flat Jared went to see his cousin ice-skate

The Adventures of Flat Jared

Jared has been working on a project at school.  After reading the book, Flat Stanly, Jared made his own "Flat Jared" and spent a week writing down all the activities that they did together.  Then, for the next part of the assignment, Jared sent his little friend to his Aunt Laura in Minnesota to spend a week with her.  She has been taking Flat Jared everywhere and we've been getting regular updates on Facebook. Flat Jared seems to be having a great time and our family has really enjoyed seeing all the adventures that he's having.