Slowly but surely

So I've had a busy week so I haven't done as much painting as I would like.

(Have you ever seen the picture of the Bishop's empty plow that's standing in the field waiting for him to come back at some unknown time in the future...)

Anyway, here is the progress so far...







I still have a lot of work but it's getting there.

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner. Of course I hadn't put it on the calendar and forgot about it until they called to remind me. Luckily I had just gone shopping and had plenty of stuff.



It was our first barbecuing of the summer (shish-ka-bobs). We cut up a watermelon, some cantaloupe and had corn on the cob. It got us ready for summer and now we have a new nick name for Jacob...



We'll just call him BUTTER BOY.




Let me leave you with one of my latest Mom Moments...

Jacob has been working on his State report for awhile. He's doing it on Utah and for one of his last assignments he had to write up a biography on Brigham Young. We already gave his books back to the library so he was using Wikipedia for his source.

Luckily I intercepted it before he turned it in to proof read it ....

He started out by extolling all of Brigham Young virtues and accomplishments and then 1/2 way through started putting in accusations that he banded with the native American Indians to steal livestock from settlers traveling through Utah. He then allegedly ordered the killing of hundreds of settlers in the Mountain Meadows massacre. The very next sentence concludes with the biography stating that Brigham Young was a righteous man who protected his people.

I had to have a talk with Jacob about sticking to known accomplishments and not allegations and accusations.

Then I helped him modify it.

All I need is his teacher and class thinking we are a war monging church who consider those who kill settlers and steal their cattle as righteous men!

Sheesh!

A little bit of magic

I never mentioned it but Jeff had a mother's day/anniversary/necessity present in the works though we weren't sure how long it would take to get it.

But by some magic I got it sooner than I thought ta da...my first brand new washer and dryer set!



No more stuffing a towel in the dryer door so it doesn't run for 24 hours...

hopefully no more worn out clothes that have to be dried for almost and hour and 1/2

...and the best part...

Since they are side loaders with the controls on the front the whole family can do the wash!!!! Even Jacob and Ashley can reach them!

I'm sure everyone will be willing to pitch in right away...today is wash day...any takers????

Anyone???




This week Jeff and I drove out to Hollywood to hook up with my brother-in-law Joel and my sister Angela and her husband Robert to have dinner and watch magic at the Magic Castle...



This is one of those places that you can't get in without and invitation. Angela and Robert know someone who has "the card" to get us in. They gave me one for Christmas...last Christmas and we still had never been so we had been looking forward to it for awhile.

Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside. So you'll just have to imagine it. It was very eclectic, whimsical and dark. With holograms, pictures with bulging eyes, a haunted playing piano that took requests, interesting posters and pictures of famous magicians and past magic shows and a numerous bars to service all those willing to pay $12.00 a drink. (Another reason I'm glad I don't drink)

We watched 3 larger shows (even though none of the auditoriums were too large) and 2 small side shows. We saw card tricks, tricks with lights, slight of hand and our favorite comedy acts mixed with magic.

The first guy we saw was from Japan and all I can say is maybe sitting on the front row isn't always the best idea. I felt like I was watching magic secrets revealed 1/2the time...luckily it got better from there.

Our favorite was a guy that's been on Jay Leno. He was funny and sharp and didn't take his magic so seriously, he was there to entertain us and entertain us he did. Jeff and I had fun time even though we didn't last as long as the rest of them. We left LA at 11:00 or so and that was late enough for us.



This was my brother in law's last business trip before my sister Virginia has her baby so I had to finish her baby quilt to send back with him! She's going with the blue and brown theme so here's a picture of her blanket...



The next night Jeff took the boys to the Father and Son's campout and Ashley and I went over to a friends for a girls night out. We hung out and ate food and visited. The idea was to watch women's conference together but we ended up just talking over it the whole time.

That's OK because we had a lot of fun. I didn't get any pictures because Jeff had the camera but here's the pictures of the father and son outing...













....well you'll just have to use the magic of your imagination because Jeff didn't think to pull out the camera until it was already packed back in the car under a bunch of stuff.


And for my last pictures the progress of my wall painting so far...






I still have a lot of work to do but it's getting there.

I have to say the kids were impressed the first day they got home from school and there was actually paint on the wall. There had just been pencil marks up there for the last couple weeks and I'm sure everyone in my family was wondering when I'd actually get to the painting.

Taylor admitted to me that first day that he had been worried about what it would look like because it didn't look so good with the pencil marks up there.

The erased and re-erased pencil marks was really bugging him so he was really relieved when he came home and saw that the painting covered them up.

All the kids seemed really relieved that the painting so far doesn't stink too bad. I agree.

Mother's Day

This year we spent Mother's day up in Palmdale at Kenny's new house. I was thrilled that we now have another family member willing to host family events!



Jeff and I and the kids all went to Dale's ward in the morning and the mother's were showered with hand made chocolates, cookies and a gospel art picture book. I know where I'm going next year for mothers day :)

When we got to Kenny's Steve came out to help us unload the car holding a smoothie cup. I have to admit there was a second I wondered where he had gotten it from. I knew Steve wouldn't go out and buy smoothies for himself on Sunday...
when I got in the house everyone was drinking smoothies. Sarah works at Jamba Juice and had brought smoothies for everyone!



The food was great especially Kenny's carne asada and Steve's first attempt at making brownies. Kenny and Sharon did a great job hosting all of us! Thanks guys it was very nice!



But...before mother's day Jeff and I dropped the kids off at Dale's house on Friday night so they could spend some time with their cousins and Jeff and I could spend some time together belatedly celebrating our 16th anniversary. We stayed at the Ayre's hotel in Manhattan Beach and packed as much as we could in the 30 or so odd hours that we had together.



With no definate plans we just hung out and wandered the area. We hit the Redondo beach pier, the Manhattan beach peir and the Santa Monica pier. We got to see Star Trek in an IMAX theater (at $16.00 a pop, ouch), eat dinner at a Calendar's grill (an upscale Marie Calendar's) and buy a wet suit for Taylor at Cosco (so he hopefully will enjoy the beach more this summer:).



While we at the Santa Monica pier Jeff was willing to let me buy whatever I wanted as we walked by all the stalls but he got off lucky because I wasn't really in the mood to shop. I was even cheap enough to forgo eating lunch at the big barbeque festival that was going on on the beach because it would've cost us $20.00 just to get inside the tent area before we could buy food (it did smell good though).

Being in my cheapo mood we almost missed the aquarium at the start of the pier! Thanks to Jeff we didn't.



It was only a $2.00 person donation and it was worth it. They had all the local fish and marine life that live in the area we were at. To me it was fun to learn about and see what was under the waves underneath the pier. My favorite was the giant 30 year old lobster that we saw terrorizing and bullying all his tank mates.



I'll leave this post with a "Mom Moment" from today...

As we were walking out the door for school this morning Jacob called to me from the other room asking me to get the thermometer. I figured it was his attempt at seeing if he was sick enough to stay home from school because I had decided to let Ashley stay home from school so I could take her to the doctor because she was crying about her ear that hurt.

After the themometer beeped I asked Jacob what his temperature was. He told me and it was normal.

Then he asked me "Mom why did you take my temperature?"

"Didn't you ask me to?"

"No, I asked you to get the stapler not the thermometer!"

Band Concert, Birthdays and Anniversaries

I haven't posted in awhile because I've been trying to break away from the house and do other things like...get back to the gym more regularly.

I went in last week and was doing my obligatory minimally motivated workout when the personal trainers were on the prowl looking for new clients to pick up. Every once in a while I allow them to give me a "free" workout and then get on with my life. The personal trainer that offered to help me was a mini Arnold and he actually helped me two days for free. In the end I escaped signing up for the overly priced personal trainer program but he did get me more motivated to commit again and really get something out of my workouts. So thank you Sabatian.

My favorite part about that whole experience was the manager trying to sell me on their program. When I made a comment that it was the same price as a car payment. He didn't skip a beat and said "Yah, people say that but really your only going to have a car for so long but you'll have your body for the rest of your life." He answered so fast I was secretly laughing wondering how many others also commented that it was the price of a car payment. All I can say is good luck in this economy...



So last week we got to go to Jacob's first official band concert over at King High school.

As we walked in we were very excited to find a mobile instrument repair company that is right here in Orangecrest. Hooray for no more trips down to Brocton for reeds or repairs.

We were so proud of him! They played great! Though I think Jacob's favorite part was hanging out with his friends.



Our favorite part was that they split it up so that only a handful of schools played at a time so it didn't run more than 45 minutes or so.


On Friday it was our 16th Anniversary.





Since our weekend was booked up we will celebrate this weekend instead. But Jeff still brought be home flowers. What a sweet husband!! Love you honey!



On Saturday we celebrated Taylor's 13th birthday. He decided that he would rather forgo a birthday party to do a boys day at Universal Studios. So I took Everett, Taylor and Jacob to Universal Studios for the day.



I can't tell you how nice it was to get through an amusement park without a stroller and without having to sit around and wait outside of rides while other people went on (at least not too much).



We went on the backlot tour. King Kong was gone (probably burned in the fires) but other stuff was put in. It's nice that they change it up. For one thing we drove through a plane crash...



...and Wisteria lane which is the set for the night time soap opera Desperate Housewives. I'm sure the neighborhood looks picture perfect on TV but up close you can see that all the flowers are fake and fading in the sun. Reminded me that the exciting, fun, good looking people they show on TV living extraordinary lives aren't all they are cracked up to be when you see them up close. :) (at least I like to think so)



Here is the new Simpson ride...to replace the old Back to the Future ride.



We also went on the Jurassic Park ride and the Mummy ride (Jacob had to sit out on the Mummy ride) and all the lines were 5 minutes or so long. So surprising for a Saturday I thought. Sweet! Jacob and Taylor were even brave enough to go on the House of Horrors walk through (Everett was brave enough to walk through far enough to get to the first exit, but we knew he hated horror stuff).



After we got done at the park I took them over to Wolfgang Puck's at Universal City Walk for dinner. We discovered it before. They have the best kids meals if your ever over there. $4.95 for an individual homemade, great pizza, a drink and a dessert of 2 homemade cookies with ice cream in between. Yum!