Jarek's homecoming and other happenings

I'm starting out this post with a picture of Taylor showing of his muscles because....he came home telling me a funny story about school and his friends discovering that he actually "has muscles".

He said that everyone assumed he didn't have any because he looks so skinny. But then they saw his muscles and now they all want him to flex to show off his muscles.

I just want to know how they saw him flex in the first place...hmmmm.



This is Jacob's new friend Adam. Here they are planning their "store". Adam just over a week ago was a kid that kind of was weired out by Jacob and Ashley a little bit. Jacob was telling us about him on the ride home from school and of course Ashley then decides to roll down the window and roar at him to scare him as we are driving home to tease him. Ashley?? whose kid are you??? Ha ha.

So later that I took Ashley and Jacob roller skating in the neighborhood. It happens that Adam was rollerblading in front of his house which is down the street and now Jacob and him are good friends already planning business ventures and all. (I had to tell Ashley to stop roaring at him when he was over).

Jacob is often trying to think of a business or a way to make money...hmmm I know whose kid he is.



This weekend was the father and son campout...oh excuse me priesthood commemoration campout.



Jeff and the boys packed up along with Ricky to go on Friday late afternoon.



Jeff was in charge of the Friday night program stuff. He put on a fireside, had snacks for everyone and then brought a screen, generator, laptop and projector to be able to show everyone a movie.



I got calls from him throughout the night as he went back to K-mart 3 times to buy things either he or someone else forgot.

The next morning they all got to go out on one of the 4 or 5 boats that were brought to the lake by ward members.



I think this was their favorite part.



Ivan Lauritzen brought them out and let them jump into the lake and swim around.



They were having fun swimming in the lake...





when the lake police came over and told them that they had to go back and swim in the designated areas. So back to the boat they go.



Well that was fun while it lasted!



While the boys were having fun at Lake Perris Ashley and I were having our own girls weekend. We started out on Friday night going over to Piper's for dinner and a movie night. (We passed on the Mark Twain movie night of craziness)

Piper, Ann Marie and I hung out while the kids watched a movie and ate pizza. I was glad to finally find out how to make kettle corn from Piper. I'm going to try it soon :) Thanks Piper. After we got home Ashley went to bed and I sat up watching radom shows and sewing a baby blanket for the next day's baby shower.

Saturday morning Ashley and I got up early and brought Jeff's car to the wash. (He had mine and I got to drive his all day...I have to say I like driving his car better than mine). I know he likes his car washed and he was having a busy weekend so we went and got it washed and then came home to clean the house. Jeff is always the best about having the house clean whenever I'm gone so we worked hard to return the favor. Especially since I knew that we would be gone all day.



It wasn't long before we were off to Ceecie's Pampered Chef party. I've been invited to a few and I've always had plans to come but always have had something come up so I couldn't go. Today I finally got to come along with about 25 other people. She had a great turn out and it was a lot of fun. The demonstrator was smart enough to let us try out the gadgets as we helped prepare the food. I now will own items that I never knew I wanted largely because I got to use them myself. Ha ha. Smart.

I think Jeff even has plans to get me the roaster that I didn't want to spend the money on as my mother's day present from him. How sweet. (It cooks a great whole chicken in the microwave in 30 minutes I'm thinking summer time :)

She even had a babysitter for the kids, since the Dads were all gone. Ashley was in heaven with all the puppies in the back.



From Pamper Chef we drove out to Jeff's cousin Angela's baby shower. Her baby was born a couple of months before (3 months early) and was still in the hospital but were able to see pictures of him.



It was very nice to hang out with Cheri again at the shower. It gets us excited for Olive's arrival too. (Ashley's favorite part of the shower was getting to feel Olive move in Cheri's stomach.



We got to meet all of Angela's friends that I'm sure will help her with the baby once he's home.



After Ashley and I got home we hung out as a family and then as the kids were getting to bed Jeff and I ran up to catch a quick movie together. We saw Letters to Juliet. It was a really cute movie. A romance set in Italy which Jeff loved to tell me all about the buildings that had been at while he was on his mission :).

The next morning we left at 7:30 to make church in Palmdale for Jarek's homecoming!

We were all excited to see Jarek! He did a wonderful job on his talk. He's grown up to be an articulate and talented young man. You'll do great Jarek on whatever you pursue.



It was fun to hang out with Jeff's family and eat good food.



Ashley got to hang out with Cheri feeling Olive kick some more.

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We enjoyed hanging out and telling crazy stories from the past...



and of course honoring mothers. (We celebrated our family mother's day today)



Of course if it got too busy downstairs the kids had no problem finding a place to relax.



Jeff ended up getting a raging migraine and had to lay down to try and get rid of it. I came upstairs to check on him and here he is surrounded by video game players. Jacob was even bouncing on the bed as he played! I was amazed that he was able to stay asleep. He felt a little better when he woke up but his migraine stretched into the next day before it was completely gone.



So for my Mom Moments lately. I guess all of Taylor's shorts were in the wash so what to do but wear your dad's pants! I can't believe he wore these. (Jared got the biggest kick out of it)

What got me is that he ended up wearing them to school the next day too! Crazy kid.



And for some more Mom moments...

• Taylor doesn’t have a screen protector for his new phone yet so he walks around with a Kleenex wrapped around it.

• Jeff was supposed to be getting Ashley a drink before bed. I had just got a phone call and it was late so I wanted her to get to sleep. When Jeff got up to the room he didn’t see her anywhere and called for her and she didn’t answer. So he left, out the door drove off to do an errand left. I guess Jeff figured I’d take care of her when I got off the phone. By the time I got off the phone Ashley is nervously out of bed looking down the banister asking where dad was. I got her to bed and then asked her where she had been when he called for her. “Under my covers hiding” I thought it was funny that Jeff hadn’t thought to look there!

• When I was picking up the kids after school the other day Kaitlyn Paige asked if her friend could use our bathroom. I guess she had to go really bad. I told her she could and the little girl said “No way! I don’t want to use anyone’s bathroom!” When Kaitlyn asked her what she was going to do (it was a long walk home) she said “I’ll just pee my pants and change when I get home.” Sounds like a good plan to me.

• Taylor’s texting limit was 250 a month when we checked how many texts he had at it was 300 for 4 days we figured we better change it to unlimited texting. Crazy kid has entered the world of teenagerhood.

• Taylor broke one of the piano strings while he was playing his recital song. It’s an often used string since now Jacob’s piano songs sound crummy and tingy too. The tuner is coming today to fix it.

• When I was up visiting my aunt she told me a funny story about Grandma Hovey. I guess she used to hide candy from herself in the house. Elaine said one time she found candy in the linen closet and Grandma said “ooohh that’s where I put it!...do you want some.” It was old gumdrops and things like that. She passed. Grandma’s favorite was the chocolate covered orange sticks. Elaine said when they were cleaning out her apartment after she passed they found candy in every room except the bathroom. It was in drawers and all over. I guess she had about a 50% success rate of hiding it from herself. So now I know where I got my sweet tooth from.

• Before Taylor got his own phone with texting he was using mine a little bit. So now I keep getting random texts from a 661 number (I’m thinking it’s my niece) they are “pass this along or you will be cursed” texts. My favorite (not) was the one that showed a picture of two girls that were supposedly killed right after the picture was taken by the demon that you were supposed to be able to see in the background. Of course IF I didn’t pass this text along I was supposed to be killed by said demon too. And then it went on to tell a cautionary tale about the person who didn’t believe this text and then they were killed by the demon….delete. Nothing like forwarding cursed texts to endear your friends and family to you. I actually thought it was funny but nothing gets me to delete something faster than a message trying to guilt trip me/scare me into forwarding it to someone else. So supposedly I am officially unpatriotic, hate kitties and puppies, flowers, inspirational quotes, support terrorism, don’t support our troops, have friends and family that will die from mold from old boxes of pancake mix, and other such warnings … and now will have demons after me because I refuse to forward messages that tell me to forward them. Just be glad that I didn’t send them to you so you won’t be as cursed as I am!