How to Be Happy in the Summer

 1.  Take freshly picked juicy tomatoes-slice 'em up

 2. Pick crisp lettuce leaves from the garden (can you believe I have lettuce---in JULY??? In Arizona that's crazy talk-but we're in Utah now & it's true!)

 3.  Prepare thick slices of bacon

4.  Toast your favorite bread and stack all that yummy stuff inside.  Nothing beats the tasty flavors of fresh BLTs in the Summer!  I miss lots of things about Arizona, but I love my summer garden!

Sometimes you just have a bad day

Can you see the scrape? It goes from midway above the rear tire to the bumper

And, that day is today.  Just rough all around-from discovering one of my kids left the car lights on all night, so no battery this morning-to battling with insurance companies it's been a hard day.  And it's not even noon.  Not a good sign.  I also discovered someone decided to drive right along the side of the van, and not take responsibility for it.

This after coming out of Wal-Mart on Saturday to find someone had done the same thing to our truck! Think the insurance company will buy the odds of it happening to BOTH our vehicles within just a few days?  I hope so!

What is with the world today? Why can no one accept responsibility and take care of fixing what they've done?  Or keep their word-I thought you made a deal, you kept the deal.  I've come to find out not everyone believes the same thing.

I try to teach this concept to my kids.  When they do something wrong-accident or not, they need to step forward, raise their hand, and say "I did this, I'm sorry/I was wrong/I made a mistake/whatever the case may be.  And then, they need to do what it takes to fix whatever it is they did.  If that means shelling out cash, or working something off, or even just understanding they hurt someone, and no amount of money or work can fix it, only time and love.

I'm just frustrated and overwrought, and so tired.  Good thing tomorrow is another day, and I have episodes of ridiculous reality TV on DVR I can watch and take my mind off the state of mind I'm in.

Lagoon Day ....July Edition

With Kiefer and Quinn working at Lagoon we get fabulous ticket prices, only $10 a person! We took the kids last month and it was still a little chilly, and kind of rainy.  It was a slow day at the park, so that was good for lines, but not so great for enjoying the water rides and Lagoon-A-Beach.  We promised to go back this month and do the water rides.

We hit the park Wednesday, Kiefer and Quinn were with friends and Jeff had to work so it was me with the three youngest.  We set out for Rattlesnake Rapids first-think Grizzly River Run at Disneyland.  It was a crazy long line, I mean longer than Disneyland last July long-but it was a fun ride.  I got some cute pictures with my phone-I still can't find my camera usb cables-my goal for next week is to find them or order new ones!  Here are a few, I know this first one is crazy, but I LOVE it.

Senior Pictures--Yearbook Edition

Is Kiefer really a Senior in High School already?  Yesirree Bob, he is!  We got a notice about a week and a half ago that he was expected to show up at the High School to take his Senior Yearbook photos.  I hadn't really mentally prepared for this, he is only 16 years old, after all.  My mind hasn't quite made the leap to Senior in High School, soon to be out on his own.  Then I saw this.

My mind made that leap real fast, let me tell you!  I can't believe I only have 1 more year left to cram as much teaching, love, home cooked food, and more lessons into his body and soul.  How can it have come to that so quickly?

Here they make us show up at the High school & Lifetouch takes the pictures for the yearbook-the same company that does all the other school pictures I loathe.  They are so fake looking, our photographer was kind of a stinker, so I just have my fingers crossed they got a good one.  The other photographers were letting the kids & parents take a peek to see if they liked the image, not ours-he was sure he "had the perfect shot."  We'll see....  I'm still planning on taking him to get professional ones that will capture his personality, in a less formal setting.

Happy 4th of July!

 We had a great 4th of July! Our first in years where we could actually have fireworks! Most of our kids didn't even remember having anything like this to set off, so it was especially fun.  Quinn was at EFY, so he missed out-he tried to convince us we couldn't possibly do them without him, but somehow we managed.  Only trouble-he took the camera!  I realized once we started the show that I only had the phone to take pictures with, so I used Jeff's iPhone which has a better camera than mine, but is still not great.  I think we need another camera for our family-I've already started shopping.  But, if anyone has one they LOVE that's not too complicated to use let me know!

We did a few of these fountains, and then set off some of the ones that go 150 feet in the sky, it was so much fun!

 Here are Thane and Kiefer enjoying the show.  I tried to fix Kiefer's red-eye & it looks bizarro--don't tell him!  He never reads this, so he won't know if you all keep quiet!

 Notice how close the chair is to the fountain of flaming sparks?  I suggested before we lit anything that it was a little too close, but what do I know?  Apparently, judging by how quickly he jumped back behind the chair, I know not to sit too closely to fountains of shooting sparks!

 Our dog does NOT like fireworks, or any kind of loud noise for that matter.  He really shakes and trembles when a thunderstorm comes through, or when our neighbors are setting off fireworks.  He'd rather be with us outside than alone in the house though, so this is how he endured most of the show.  Until the very end when it was just too much, and Kiefer took him inside to calm him down (and stayed with him-he watched from the window-how nice was that?)

   
    

 And, of course we had sparklers! Too bad the iPhone doesn't stay open long enough to capture the cool designs they were making with those beauties!

 Yes, that's my husband...isn't he a great example for the kids of fireworks safety?

Hope you all had a great holiday weekend! I loved having the 4th on Monday, it made the whole weekend seem like a vacation.