Can it be true?

Unbelievably enough, school is starting again. I took the usual first day of school pictures and told the kids to express exactly how they were feeling about this occasion. This is the result.



I feel the same way, guys.

Moving out and moving on

Brock is moving out with a friend named Tyler. Tyler's grandmother died earlier this year, leaving this home uninhabited. While the family is in the process of fixing up the home, Tyler and Brock will be able to live here. It is close to the university with a bus stop right up the street.

The home is older but has tons of potential. It would make a great property investment for someone.

Brock is so excited for this new adventure. He will still come home on Saturday's and work at Bowman's and go to the YSA ward on Sunday for now.

Brock's new home.

The living room, with enough seating for a crowd.

The kitchen, old but functional.

Brock's bedroom, pretty much set up.

Brock has a resident cat. Court and Alyssa fell in love with the cat and tried to sneak her out of the house and bring her home.

What?!!!

So. I'm sitting at the computer mapquesting an address and I hear the strangest noise coming from outside. It sounded like glass shattering. I looked out the window, saw nothing, and assumed that it was the neighbor's ladder falling down because they had just finished reroofing their home.

I went to run a few errands this afternoon leaving Court washing the windows in the family room. When I came back home, Court told me to go look outside. "Why?" I asked. "Oh, you'll see," he answered back.

I walked outside to our patio and this is what greeted me. The glass on our picnic table is completely shattered. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it's the heat. Not that it hasn't been hot before...I might add.

Anecdotes of the 2009 Sibling Retreat

Boyd and I went down to St. George last weekend to participate in the Casselman Sibling retreat. The brothers and sisters take turns as to who is in charge and this year it was Boyd's youngest brother, Ben. They reserved 2 condos with their timeshare for the family to stay in.

On the way down, Ben's truck broke down. It was only able to go a screaming 15 miles an hour. We rode on the shoulder of the road as far as we could but when the shoulder ran out about 8 miles outside of St. George, he pulled over and had to call a tow truck. This is him cruising down the shoulder of the freeway.


The next morning, Ben and Angie wanted to go to the store. Boyd told them to take our car. Ben said to Angie that he needed to be really careful because he was in his brother's car. Not 15 seconds later, he was rearended by a woman who was in a hurry to go to the St. George temple. She hit the bumper and damaged the paint. Of course her large, blue SUV suffered NO damage!


Since none of the other brothers and sisters were coming until Friday night, we had Ben and Angie to ourselves. We played some shuffleboard together after spending some time in the pool. The condos had a shuffleboard court out front. Boyd and I won one game and Ben and Angie won the other.


That evening we bought some ribeye steaks at Harmons and cooked them on the grill. We ate them along with a mountain of broccoli, mango and rolls. It was such perfect weather outside.


Most of Boyd's brothers and sisters arrived Friday night. The rest came Saturday morning. We went miniature golfing at Fiesta Fun. Angie beat Boyd's score by 2 points. It was quite competitive. I was doing really well until the 4th or 5th hole and then I started choking and ended up second to last. Bummer!


Boyd and I sitting under the waterfall of the pool.


I am not a big water lover but we played the most rip-roaring game of basketball in the pool. I actually had a blast!! Of course, it helped that my feet could touch the bottom the entire time.


The whole family went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We had so many people there that we had to split our party between two tables. Boyd had their ribs and I had a pork chop. Their rolls were fabulous, the salad was delicious and can I tell you that everyone should eat one of their baked sweet potatoes? Loved our meal.


The highlight of the trip was the Family Feud game that Ben and Angie planned. This is Team B. I never did get a picture of my team, Team A.


Ben and Angie went to the DI with Boyd and I and they bought clothes to look like Ben's parents. Ben shaved his beard and cut his hair super short. He looked so much like his dad that we were surprised. This is a picture of them as they hosted our Family Feud game. We laughed so hard that night that there were times that we could hardly breathe.

All in all we had a great time. Thanks to Ben and Angie for all of their hard work and generosity to the family. We love you!

Girl's Camp at Piuta 2009

Being a participant in Creekside Ward's girl's camp in August 2009 consisted of...

...getting ready to leave (9:00 a.m. SHARP!)

...decorating the cabin door...

...goofing off...

...resting after a grueling hike through the forest of weeds...

...dressing up as boys for the Creekside Ward skit...

...enjoying Troy Spackman dressed up in a tutu...

...trying hard to take a nap...

...watching Gina Mickelsen tie a bowline knot correctly...

...picking a prize from the "Let's Make a Deal" game...

...making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without hands...

and enjoying getting to know one another better. Thanks to our great stake and ward leaders for all their hard work!!

Star Light, Star Bright

There has been a meteor shower for 2 nights in a row. We found out about it when we watched the weather Tuesday night. The weatherman on the TV said that there should be 1-2 shooting stars per minute on average if people went out to watch.

Boyd and I went outside that night, laid a thick sleeping bag on the lawn and watched the night sky for an hour. We saw between 8 and 10 shooting stars and several flashes. One of the shooting stars we saw was so bright you could actually see a trail of dust it left behind.

Spectacular!

Progress Update

Thanks to all my friends and family donating chip bags I have actually progressed to this point on my bag. I need to do at least one more row to have it to the height that I want. If you want to try this project, STOP, THINK, and go buy a bag. It's been really fun to do, but very time intensive. I have cut more chip bags than I care to think about AND Kalie and Alyssa and I have folded chains until our fingers hurt.

Would I do it again? Probably, because I like to have projects that I can work on while I'm watching TV and this one is pretty easy to do. But I know that this type of project isn't for everyone...



Can't wait to take it on our cruise in December!!

EFY (Especially for Youth)

Alyssa went to EFY last week and had a complete and total blast. Every day she said she was sad that it was ending on Friday and she wished that it would last longer. I know as a parent, I would like EFY to last the entire summer, but I'm sure that not only would it be cost prohibitive, but that the counselors would be worn out! I am glad that Alyssa had a wonderful experience and next year we are signing up ASAP!!

Kendyl and Maddy came down from Washington state to attend this EFY. They weren't able to be in the same company as Alyssa which made her sad because they only spent one night at our house.


The girls in Alyssa company.


The boys in Alyssa's company.


Steven and Kyler with Alyssa.

Park City

Rosemarie and Heather invited me to go to Park City on Friday with them to do some back-to-school shopping. I always try to go with them when they invite me. We met at mom's house before we left. Rose told us that Kit performed in the Amalga 24th of July talent show and won 5 dollars! She sang the song "When Pioneers moved to the West".

Kit got grandma's stool and climbed up to perform her song for all of us. She knew every word.


We got up to Park City and were ready to hit the stores to see what treasures we might find. The outlet mall is not what it used to be. There are not very many good deals like you used to find. Now, it's just like regular department store shopping with a sale. I guess you just feel like you're doing better pricewise because you are in an outlet.

Just setting out for an adventurous day of shopping.

We went to lunch at the Arby's around the corner from the outlet mall. We were starving by this time and we could hardly wait to sink our teeth into whatever we could find.
Matt sat by us and he was hilarious to watch play with his food.

Matt, carefully dipping his straw into the ranch dip and then putting it in his glass of soda.

So proud of his ranch dressing-root beer combo.