Gratitude

Today is Thanksgiving. This is my favorite holiday of the year. I love spending time with family, and eating yummy food. I think the reason I love this holiday so much is because it is one of gratitude. As I take time to realize all of my blessings I realize how grateful I should be. One thing I have been trying to work on this year is being grateful for my "trials". I realize that I really don't have many trials, and am blessed beyond many of this world, but I do have some and they do have a way of giving me a workout. As I try to focus on the things that my trials teach me I am slowly learning to be thankful for them as well as thankful for the many blessings that I've been given. I wish you all a very happy thanksgiving!

Pumpkins

This year we planted pumpkins in our garden. If you've ever planted pumpkins, you know that the vines really spread. We had pumpkin vines growing up our corn stalks, and into our other garden boxes! Our largest pumpkin this year was 37 pounds. One funny thing was that as we started carving them, they smelled like cucumbers, and they didn't have the stringy inside. I guess they may have cross pollinated with the zucchini a bit.

The world is shrinking!

I have made an observation that I am not sure how the scientists have missed. The world is definitely shrinking. I am now able to get to know the most amazing people from all over the world just through blogging. It must be the shrinking of the world.

Today I had the wonderful experience of meeting one of the bloggers that I follow. My friend Crash came out to Colorado, and I had the wonderful opportunity to meet her. I've been following her blog for a couple of years. She is an excellent writer, and very entertaining. I love to read her blog because she just has a way of brightening your day. It is really fun to meet someone in "real" life that you've only known through their writing. Let me tell you, if you ever get a chance to meet her, take it! We probably could have talked all afternoon. She is a real joy. I don't have any photographic evidence, but she does, so maybe I'll get the pics from her. Hopefully she'll have reasons to come back to Colorado more often. (or maybe I'll get out to Utah).

And on another note, I just want to say how much I appreciate all the veterans of the USA. It is hard to put into words the deep feelings that I have for those who take on the responsibility of protecting my freedom and that of my family. Thank you doesn't seem like enough, but it is all there is to say. So, THANK YOU!

Cute or questionable?

I have a million things to catch up on here, but first, a little story. While eating dinner the other night my son started licking the pear juice off his plate. Daughter #2 exclaims " EWWww, it looks like you are making out with your plate! Then following this great exclamation, daughter #3 (who is 5) starts singing a little ditty about making out with the plate, then she adds to the entertainment by adding other things to the song. Making out with doors, or pumpkins. Then she starts to dance around the house singing this little song adding whatever she sees to the mix, floors, couches, pillows, more pumpkins....and of course then people. Well, being the responsible parent I am, I of course can hardly breathe, because I am rolling with laughter. Then, someone says, "she doesn't even know what making out means", to which she replies, it means kissing a lot. Sobered me right up. What are they teaching at schools these days?

Hawaii

My family and I have spent the last few weeks vacationing. So, because I don't want to write a huge long post, I will start with the most recent trip and go back. My husband and I went to Hawaii! It was a lot of fun. We left the kids with the grandparents (thanks!) and had a wonderful week of fun and relaxation.
This is the view from the airplane as we entered the Portland airport. Hawaii wasn't the only beautiful thing we saw.

I'm not sure why "Birds" is in quotations, maybe in case we get confused and try to not feed the flowers :)

This is one of the views from our hotel room. I never quite got used to looking out the window and seeing the ocean.
And this has to be the largest No U turn sign I have ever seen in my life. (And you thought the only amazing things to see in Hawaii were beaches, sunsets, trees and mountains.. oh, I have pictures of those too)

We went to the Dole plantation and had pineapple ice cream, to the Polynesian Culture center (which is amazing), snorkeling at Hunauma Bay and a million other things that were all a lot of fun. I hope to someday go back with the kids!

Summer fun!

The kids have been out of school for 2 weeks now, but we've been keeping them pretty busy. They've had swimming lessons all week long, and we went to a Rockies game last weekend. We had a wonderful bbq on Memorial Day and have enjoyed some rather nice weather. It's been a pretty good start to the summer.

This picture is the best reason to go to the game, beautiful sunsets! (The game was good too, Rockies won!)

Tuesday marked a major event for me and my extended family. My "little" brother graduated from High School. I am the oldest of 7 children, and all 7 of us graduated from Doherty High School in Colorado Springs. The graduation was held at 7 pm, probably in honor of the 7 "Buggs" to make it through. (That's the only reason I can think of for holding graduation so late, we didn't get out of the ceremony until 9:30pm) Congratulations Bro!!

And here, just for you, a picture that you can put your own face in, so that you too can feel like part of the excitement!

YES, I do have a blog :)

Because I am not the worlds greatest blogger, here are a few pictures from the last 2 months.

We took this picture down at the neighbors house because #2 daughter needed a family picture for school. It was windy and cold, so even though it looks like my oldest has some attitude, she really just wasn't ready for the picture.

Here we have #2 holding our new dog. We named her Carmel, she is a daschund (no I don't know how to spell that word) mix (pretty sure she's mixed with Red Heeler.) She's a cutie, about 5 months old now.

This is oldest daughter modeling for the camera. I think she was dressing up for "putting on the Ritz" for spirit day at her middle school. SO GLAM

Here is the boy with his teddy bear he brought home from school. He was enjoying some ice cream with his uncle and cousins. This is our favorite place to take people for Ice cream, it's local and you get a TON of ice cream for $1.oo. So come visit, we'd love to take you too!

And I have to add this picture here of my husband doing his favorite thing.....eating. (hehehe, I told him I would post it on my blog, he first said, YOU have a blog? and then he said NOOO!)

It's been a crazy couple of months and these are just a few highlights. School will be out in a couple of days and hopefully we'll have fun! I hope to blog more often, just to stay in the habit of writing. My brain needs the exercise.

Spring Break

Yay for spring break! I really needed a break from the routine of early mornings and homework and laundry and dishes etc, etc, etc. Our family stayed in Fruita, CO, and took day trips from there. We went to Arches, Colorado National monument and the Dinosaur Museum. We had a lot of fun, and I got very sore from hiking. And, to add icing to the cake we missed a nasty spring blizzard here in Colorado Springs. There is nothing quite like the great outdoors to help bring some balance to your life.

this, that, the other

We recently found a New York style pizza place near our house. My youngest begged to eat there the other day.( I think she just likes to eat pizza that is bigger than her head!)

I am the cub scout leader in my ward. So for our activity before valentines day I saw this cute idea of making love bugs. They were a lot of fun to make. Then my other children said, "hey, we want to make some of these too, to give to our school friends." I made a bunch. They are easy to make. All you need is some plaster of paris, some plastic spoons, some paint and some acrylic spray. The original idea was to make them pins, but I found it easier to make them into magnets. (And really, how many elementary age children do you know who wear pins?) The kids painted them and came up with a lot of cute little bugs. (In the second picture I haven't sprayed them with the acrylic spray yet, so they aren't as shiny.)

My oldest got to go to the Cave of the Winds on a special field trip a couple weeks ago. She had a lot of fun. They went to the caves that aren't on the tour. They had to squeeze through some pretty tight spaces and got to get all muddy. Their guide told my daughter that she is a natural caver because she didn't have any problems going to some of the more squeezy areas. Here's a picture of her after the experience. (She already changed into some clean clothes, but hadn't washed yet)