Ibapah

We made our annual trek out to Ibapah for the Christiansen reunion. For those of the family who didn't go, you missed a great time. The reunion is on an old family ranch, I don't know who still owns the place but they take good care of it. Those directly related to whomever owns the house stay up at the house while the rest of the family stays down in the orchard. The first year I went in 2004, they had hit and miss grass in the orchard and it maybe went to the outhouse. This year the grass in the orchard area is great and it covers pretty much the whole fenced in area. Even with the nice grass the kids still find the dirt.

Little b was so excited to go camping that she not only stayed awake for the 3 hour drive she talked the whole way out. Since Cody slept the whole way out when it came time for bed he wasn't even close to ready. He talked for about an hour, "night mom, night dad, night bryten, night jonas" "moma sleep there, daddy sleep there" It was hard not to laugh but I so was tired I wanted to beat him.



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On Saturday they have games for everyone. Lots of fun games for the kids and they passed out tons of candy. Cody thought it was the greatest thing ever. They had games for the adults to play with the kids, they made two huge circles holding hands and had to pass a hula hoop around without letting go. The yearly egg toss, tug-a-war, three legged race and a potato sack race.



They have all sorts of fun "toys" there. They have three or four tree swings, one of the swings, you jump onto the swing about twenty feet up in the tree. They also have a zip line that is about 200 feet long, ending up in the pond. Just about everyone has a dirt bike or an atv. So there is plenty to do yet we spend most of our time chasing the kids.






It wouldn't be the reunion without the candy in the hay game. They let the little ones go first, gradually working up to the oldest teenagers. B and cody made out like bandits, b even picked up some coin this year.




It was Jonas's first camping trip and he did great. I think he enjoys being outside and does better being outside. Next year Randy's family is in charge of all the games and lunch. So for all of those related to Randy reading this, plan on going out next year to help with the food and fun!

What is a Blog?

What is a blog?

I started blogging sporadically at the end of 2006 about politics and such and then started this blog at the end of 2007. I've always been one to voice my opinion, not so much of one to talk about about myself but I don't seem to have much difficulty doing that here. I enjoy keeping this blog going for many reasons, it's the easiest way to keep family and friends informed on what we are doing, sharing things I find in life and online. I try to work on my writing skills that are seriously lacking, which is odd because I'm a planner by profession, I write plans and policy. Actually maybe that explains why my writing is so drab.

I don't think that I ever thought about blogging to keep a journal of our family. It never crossed my mind 'till one day while blog-stocking I ran across someone who wrote in their "about me" that thats the only reason why they are blogging and hope that others will enjoy their blog also. I found that kinda odd but I'm sure plenty of people find me odd.

Elder Ballard gave a talk about blogging in April of this year. He encouraged members to blog, to use it as a journal and to help share information about the Church and the gospel. (another aspect that never crossed my mind about blogging). I found this very interesting. I just might start blogging about my Sunday lessons!!


Thanks to North Temple, I find some of the coolest things there and where I found this story.

Steve Holt!!

I'm totally bummed! I had this great post but they won't let me embed the video.

I started watching Arrested Development a while back and I love it. I'm half way into the third season. It's too bad that there are only three season's because I could watch this show forever. I still think the Office is funnier but that is neither here nor there.

This post is about how I have got Cody to say "Steve Holt!" after he does something. He doesn't always do it but enough to amuse his dad.

Summer'time

One of the many things I love about Summertime, eating peas out of my garden. There are many trade offs with children. I miss quietly reading outside in the summer evenings, I miss quietly reading anytime before 10pm. I miss hiking/camping/backpacking on a regular basis. The ability to just get up and leave whenever I fell like it.


I would give up anything to eat peas out of my garden with my kids.

LONG DAY

There was a time when I went to Lagoon and actually rode the rides. That was great, the first year or two that we were married we would go on the Rocket about twenty times. Love that ride!

Now we go and it's crazy! Like everything else we do. It takes so long to get ready and to move that when we get some place I feel rushed the whole time. By two o'clock at Lagoon I was done! Ready to go home. So worn out I wanted to sleep. Cody was tired most of the day but I think between the candy and the rides he was way too hyped up to sleep. He did fall asleep in line for the train but woke right up the minute we loaded into it. He was grouchy until it started moving.

Take the smile off his face and that would be more like what he was feeling at this time. He was only laughing because I was stepping on him. He is actually laying down on the pavement, the dirty pavement where everyone walks. He was so tired that he was having a hard time walking. He tried to run but tripped twice and his legs would just give out on him. But he wanted to keep going, "ride more rides!!" I don't think I want to ever go to Disney land.


The kids loved the rides. Cody wanted to ride everything, "I want to ride that" "that would be fun". While he was on the ride he didn't look like he was to sure about it but the minute he got off, he wanted to go again. B loved every minute of every ride. She is like her mom, T loves rides and they both get the biggest grins whenever they go on one. B laughed on just about every ride. She let him drive the bumper car, I don't think she stopped laughing the whole time. I thought for sure she was going to pee her pants.


You know if Lagoon would do a few things it would be much better and nicer. I'm sure they are making enough not to worry about it. They really need to fix up lagoona beach. It needs lots of help, the kiddie pool is horrible, I have to wear sandals just to walk around the pool, the grass is crappy and it's all kinda "icky". Then some of their rides could use painting, you would think that they could afford to paint all the rides at least once a year. They NEED benches!!! Lots more then they have, they need benches everywhere you look. So tired of standing and waiting.


So I love my mustache!! I would have one all the time if T didn't hate it so bad. I look bad A!! Talking today at work and we are going to start a mustache trend. Of course most of the men at my work are retired cops, they already have the stache, so we're half way there.

Cash & G man

Which one is Cody?

The Fourth

The Fourth started pretty early (for us) with the neighborhood parade. The parade started at 8am at the Day-riverside library, they had a flag raising ceremony and some speakers. If not for the kids and their parents there would have been about ten people there for the ceremony. They didn't advertise it at all. I'm on the Community Council, I hear all sorts of off the wall events and I heard nothing about this. Even if people showed up they still wouldn't have been able to hear the speakers.

The parade started off crazy! And I use the term parade loosely, it was a parade of kids on bikes and parents walking with their kids and strollers. I was hoping that it would have been more like the Stansbury Park Fourth of July parade, same thing only a couple fire trucks leading the parade sounding their sirens letting everyone know it coming, followed by some local politicians and then the kiddies. The start of out parade was a huge traffic jam trying to cross the Jordan River. You wouldn't think that it would be so bad but when you have 100 or so kids on bikes, half of whom really can't ride a bike add about 40 or so parents half of them pushing strollers, bottle necks are easy to come by. The Rose Park parade went along the Jordan River walkway to Day-riverside Park. When we arrived at the park breakfast was waiting, pancakes, hash browns and sausage, not too bad.

They helped their moms decorate their bikes. They were so excited to be in the parade.



Looks like we have two sets of twins and a baby. When we are our with them people always are asking us if we have twins. People in our church can't tell them apart, even when I'm holding Cody. On a side note, at church on Sunday, when cody saw gavin he yelled, "hi gavin" and gavin yelled back "hi cody". Later during church, cody was lying on the ground and gavin yelled, "cody" so cody says "what" then cody pops up and says "boo!"


We headed out to Stansbury for Maryann's annual Fourth of July bbq. It was kinda fun seeing all the family and the blogging family members. Randy's deck looks really nice, he just about killed himself rebuilding the thing in time for the bbq. He added a couple of slides to the deck that the kids and the adults love. I didn't get any picture of them, not sure why but next time I'm out their.




Cody fell asleep while most of the crowd was still there. He was so tired that he laid down on the picnic table, he was eating candy (never too tired to eat candy) that he was demanding from T's aunt and cousin. After all was cleaned up we loaded the kids up and went up to Tooele to watch the fireworks. It was 9:10 when we first saw them and it was still light out. By the time we got to our parking spot to watch the works it was 9:30, the whole time cody was watching the fire works, letting us know every time he saw one, b had fallen asleep. We stopped and threw the kids in the truck with their cousins and we watched another fifteen minutes of fireworks. They were sweet fireworks, huge and lots of them. Cody loved it! He stood in the back of the truck just pointing, "ooo that was a big one!". Luke is great, we had our dog coco and once luke saw coco, he could care less about the fireworks, "coco! coco!".

Such a busy weekend. No more just kicking back and enjoying the opportunity to do nothing. It's still enjoyable, just in a different way now.

The Third

So much has happened over the long weekend. Nothing life changing or great, just a busy four day holiday weekend. Not so much busy as filled with events and happenings, just life in general at least things that make life enjoyable. I've had several ideas for blog post but just haven't taken the time to get online to post.

On July 3rd Eaglehood has a fireworks show. We have been attending this fireworks display just about every year for the last four or five years, basically since we have been married. We go with my sisters and their families, occasionally my parents will tag along, they didn't make it this year, dad had to work and mom was making money for lynzi's drill team expenses at the REAL game.

We tried to met at my house before hand and order pizza to eat. I'm not sure where the time goes but next thing I know it's 7:00, no sisters around, the kids are starving and their pop too, we are trying to get everything together, just to go and watch fireworks. We ended up going to Arby's, getting take out, the kids never eat half of their food and we throw most of theirs away. By the way Arby's has the worst toys but the kids love them, I think kids love whatever you call a toy and give to them. We made it just fine, Marcee got there just before us and found a nice little place, close to the sand pits for us.



They had some sky divers land on the golf course, no one told Cody to look up, he must have noticed everyone else looking up. One of the sky divers came in from behind us and about ten feet above our heads, Cody got pretty scared, must have thought that the sky diver was going to land on him. Hate it when I miss great shots like that.

Remember the good 'ol days when it took like five minutes to get ready for something like this? And then you could sit and enjoy it with someone? Ok, I enjoy it now with the kids, cody's look on his face watching the fireworks was great. He got excited, and was pointing and ooing and awing. One of my favorite memories growing up was watching fireworks with my dad and laying on him. Shortly after this picture bryten came and laid on me, makes it all worth it.



Jonas didn't get to see the fireworks. He spent the night under blankets. It was windy and he hated every minute of it. We placed him in his car seat with blankets over him to keep the wind off of him and he was fine just like that. We don't know if he was crying or not, under the blankets and with the fireworks going we really couldn't hear him.



Bryten got a set of stick on earrings, her ears aren't pierced so T gets these for her every so often. She had to wear them to the park and when Cody saw that bryten was getting something you bet your right arm that he's going to want it to.

"Through the Night"

I found Brad's last post pretty funny. When he said that Jonas now sleeps through the night, what he really meant was that he, himself sleeps through the night. Jonas and I actually wake up at least once in the night!! But Brad is right that he is doing really good. Brad thinks that newborns are boring because they don't do anything, but I think that they are a lot of fun for the same reason. Jonas lets me cuddle him whenever I want and he never talks back!!

I love this picture of Brad and Jonas!!

HOT!!

I took the day off work today for a couple of reasons. The main reason, just felt like it and I could use the extra long weekend. I thought that I would also get some yard work done. That worked out for about three hours. I woke up late because I stayed up really late. Went to Indiana Jones with the bro-n-laws, it was a good flick but I still think that The Last Crusade was the best Indiana movie. The first Indiana isn't too far behind. I can remember my dad taking me to see the Temple of Doom at the old Villa theater, I don't remember much about it other then it was a sweet theater and an awesome movie. Since the new movie came out my bro-n-laws and I have been talking about seeing it and we finally did last night. We got home around midnight and my sister were at my house watching a movie with T with all the kids sleeping in the next room. Everyone stayed and chatted for about another hour before they went home and it was finally bed time.

I was done before I even started this morning, then I get outside and it's 90 degrees at 9 in the morning. Yeah, I was sweating just standing in the shade at 9:30. Needless to say I didn't get much accomplished. I'm getting pretty wimpy! It must be that I spend 8 to 10 hours a day in a basement office. It use be that I would spend that time outside in the elements and learned just to deal with it. Not any more.

To keep ya all up on Jonas, he is doing good and once he gets to sleep around midnight he sleeps through the night. At his two week check up he was up to 6 lbs 5 oz and seems to be getting bigger, he is still really tiny.

Stream of Life

The song on Matt's video that I linked to the other day apparently has words to it. I really like the song and have listened to it many times as I have watched the video but could never understand the words. Using the credits at the end of the video I found the Poem that is used in the song Praan


RABINDRANATH TAGORE'S


GITANJALI


"Song Offerings"

Stream of Life



The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day

runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth

in numberless blades of grass

and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth

and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

Cash Money's B-day

Cody's birthday was a few weeks ago, things have been so busy and crazy that I haven't had time to post about it. I have filled my free picasa limit which is how I have been posting pictures on this blog. While trying to find other ways of posting pics, I deleted all of my pics!!!! This was on a Sunday and the apple store was closed anyway so I spent 16 anxiety filled hours worrying about my pictures. The "genius" at the apple store found my pics in about two minutes, I was so relieved I floated out of the store. I have most of my pics backed up on disk but hadn't backed up Cody's birthday or any pics of Jonas.

Last Saturday we had a bit of a scare with Taryn. Taryn woke up with excessive bleeding and we ended up in the emergency room of the hospital around noon. My sister's took b and cody for us. B's year end dance review was that night, Marcee got her ready and my sisters helped her change for her dances and helped with T's dance classes. Taryn needed a procedure done which took a few hours, after about seven hours at the hospital we made it home. We are grateful for our family who is always there to help. Makes life a lot easier. T is doing better and back to recovering.

It was more like Christmas then a birthday. He got the hook up! Present after present and he loved opening them. One of his cousins went to get a present for him, he pushed her out of the way saying "my presents". His cousin Gavin had a b-day last month so he knew what was coming and was excited. "My birday!" "Happy birday me!!"

Us "How old are you cody?" Cody "one...two"

It was his day and he was letting everyone know about it. Taryn decorated the house full of elmo and made an elmo cake that cody loved. He had a great day and very much enjoyed the attention.