We're Back!

We've actually been back for a few days now, but there just hasn't been a quiet moment to sit down at the computer for more than two minutes. What you will be viewing is the first day and a half at Lake Powell before the camera died. We did resort to video camera footage for some of our other activities so if you really want an exciting evening, come on over and we'll show you the actual water skiing part.
We ended up in a nice little cove where you jump off the back of the houseboat and could swim or canoe to some exciting red rocks to climb.
Noelle was a little prissy this year and didn't favor dirty lake water. She would much rather wear her life jacket on the houseboat and point to the excitement than be in the water and create her own excitement.
This monstrosity is called a MegaStation. Water seeps in through a netting on the floor so you can keep your feet cool while lounging. The kids loved to climb all over this and Noelle actually liked it as well once we got her in it.
My youngest two boys spent some sun-less time playing My Little Ponies with their cousins. Please don't tell them that those are for girls since they were quite smitten with them.

And those were the pix. You didn't get to see Mitch and Ethan take turns water skiing with Hub. You didn't get to see Ike and his cousins climb way too high on a rocky cliff. You didn't see the huge cloud of gnats that came out each morning. You didn't get to see the jet ski drift off in the middle of the night (we miraculously found it the next morning). You didn't get to see Ethan having stage fright on the houseboat potty and not going for a full day (he gets his strong bladder from me). There are no pictures of how I only really had to bite my tongue once to prevent an argument with an in-law. And nobody drowned or got sunburned. And we still came home with Swedish Fish to eat. How much more successful can you get on a family trip than that?

We're off!

This is a picture of Mitch and Ethan at Lake Powell last year. We've bought a week's supply of snacks and the really fancy spray sunscreen and we're off again. That means I won't have a post for several days and I hope you can all find some other source of enlightenment and edification.

And to clarify my last entry.....Many of you were impressed that Ike's scout shirt was already adorned with stuff. Hub gently pointed out to me that I didn't specify who had pain-stakingly hand sewn those patches. It was not me, so please no more credit. (Though apparently I was more than willing to accept it!) It was Hub. The true seamstress in the fam. If it was up to me I would have just hot glued them on.
Au revoir.
OHHH! One more thing since Cold Cocoa will be very distressed about my revealing that our house is unoccupied. We own nothing valuable. But in spite of that fact, we have a high tech alarm system and four ravenous rottweilers. And a tiger. And really observant neighbors who call the police a lot. (Thanks Summer!)

Notes to Self:

1. Do not put bananas in grocery cart with Noelle at the beginning of the shopping. Unless I had planned on making banana bread. Which I never plan on doing since the middle is never quite done and the outside is always overdone.

2. If Ethan needs boots and mittens to eat an Otter Pop, then maybe he would prefer hot chocolate.

3. Find a way to remove Mitch's vocal chords without him noticing. He screams when he's happy. He screams when he's sad. He screams when he's bored. He screams if somebody else is happy. He screams when someone else is sad....You get the picture.

4. Try to get super excited about all the merit badges Ike and I are going to earn. Uh, I mean he is going to earn. All by himself. Without any reminding or threatening or bribing. Just like with his homework. Super excited are we!

5. Start reading the dictionary to Noelle. So she can learn more words besides "No!" and "Mine!"

Summer lovin'

We could spend lots of money and go to the real swimming pool. Mitchell does need to keep practicing his 'ice cream scoop arms' (direct quote from his swim teacher), but look what we can do instead! Just blow up our pool, put it in the basement and everybody's happy. We don't get sunburned; we don't drown; we don't have to put our head in the water (Ethan brags that he still didn't have to do that in his pre-swim lessons). And the real great thing is we are not wasting our precious resource of water. Pats on the back and on the wallet all around. Speaking of swimming lessons, isn't it my great luck that the second my kids were done the weather got nice and hot again? They actually had swimming lessons in the pouring rain this year. Glad Hub was the spectator on that day!

On another note---a major accomplishment has occurred. I have actively been trying to get Isaac into reading. He reads just fine but he doesn't enjoy it. This drives me slightly crazy since he would cause much less havoc in our home if he was just in his room quietly reading. That's not really the reason why I want him to read, but wouldn't it be a nice bonus? I have tried all the different series and he likes them enough, but not enough to want to pick them up on his own to read. He picks sports books when we go to the library and that's great that he knows where Grant Hill was born, but you can't really lose yourself in that kind of book. So in addition to our own reading program (Ike's prizes are an icee, a can of grape soda, a trip to the dollar store---isn't it great how simple that is?) I told him I would let him watch the Harry Potter movies once he had read each of the books.

He read for two and a half hours yesterday to finish and watched the first movie last night. Half the fun for him was telling his brothers they couldn't watch it yet. (They watched The Neverending Story a couple weeks ago and now Mitch won't go downstairs alone and Ethan likes to bring up how scary it was). So yay. Ike read a whole big book with little prompting on my part. He starts on the second book tomorrow.

The End.

confessional: We will be putting water in the swimming pool tomorrow. The wasted water is worth ending the indoor wrestling mat.

All HET UP

Many of you questioned my choice of blog title. "All het up?" you'd ask, "What the heck does that even mean?" So today's post is dedicated to the education of many of you who are not very familiar with Appalachian vernacular. Het up can mean 'heated' as in, "Your younguns beans are done het up." Or it can mean 'agitated' as in, "We was het up when them city folks called us hillbillies."
I will now incorporate it into my mountain west dialect so you can see how it can be useful in our part of the world as well.
1. I'm all het up over my stinkin' big toe. I really feel like I deserved a miraculous quick recovery. I even ate all my vegetables the other day (which involved two carrot sticks, but it's better than nothing right?) But I still cannot put any weight on it and after standing for a while it starts to throb and get swollen. I am frustrated enough that tomorrow I will amputate it if it's not better. That'll teach it.

2. I was all het up that the first watermelon I'd bought this year had a mushy texture. Ike and I can eat an entire watermelon in one sitting and I am very particular that it be of good quality. I wasn't about to slice this one all up and would have taken it right back to WalMart if I didn't have big toe issues. And if the service center at WalMart happened to ever be a pleasant experience.

3. Speaking of WalMart, they always make me het up. 'Nuff said.

4. I get all het up over the campaign literature in my mailbox. Please do not kill any more trees to tell me how you can single-handedly bring down oil prices and fix the economy. I do not believe you. But you look very handsome in your photoshopped portrait. (speaking of which, did Chris Cannon get LASIK? Am I the only one who wonders?)

5. Somebody needs to get my dinner het up since we have early baseball games tonight.

See how easy that was? Now let's see if you can use it in a sentence.

Ode to My Big Toe

Oh Big Toe. Who knew how much I needed you? I betrayed you by kicking the shins of a girl made out of of steel. You betrayed me by bending backwards. Were you telling me I was too old to play soccer?
Oh Big Toe. Who knew that after that little incident you wouldn't appreciate me walking around the mall? I should have listened to your pain but my selfish desire to leave the house by myself (under the guise of Father's Day shopping) trumped your needs.
Oh Big Toe. I really should have not shown up for church and let someone else do the primary music. But I thought you could handle a couple more hours of my weight.
Oh Big Toe. Thank you for not being broken. I will take good care of you now. I will reacquaint myself with daytime TV and a cluttered house. I will learn to ignore the fighting children. And in 4-6 weeks you will return to normal and we'll go ahead and kick another shin and you will prevail this time.
The End.

****This ode has a very special meter that only the most advanced minds could appreciate.

***The above picture doesn't accurateley represent my Big Toe. I do not have gangrene. But I feel like I have gangrene, so that is why I used that picture. Us artistic types can use images as feelings rather than actual representations.

single mama

Hub has been camping in Moab or some other hot place for a couple of days. Meanwhile, I have been doing all the cleaning, cooking, laundry, yelling, shopping, chauffeuring to swim and baseball, and disciplining all by myself. Wait a second. That's just like every other day. So what is different? Let me tell you! I get the bed all to myself! And I get the remote all to myself at bedtime! And I don't have to cook real food since Hub won't know that most of us don't like real food! And the kids are going to bed earlier since I don't feel guilty that they didn't have much play time with dad!

I have to focus on those little things because otherwise I will remember the bad stuff about him being gone. Like the bed is a little colder. And it really isn't that exciting to have the remote all to yourself when nothing is on that you would really want to watch by yourself. I even actually watched some of the playoff game last night just so I could use the remote. And there's not much satisfaction when your children thank you for the yummy frozen TV dinner you microwaved them. (well, other than the satisfaction that you didn't have to take time to prepare it or clean it up, which actually is a lot of satisfaction on my part so discount that last one) Plus, I really wanted to tell Hub about Ike's great hit at baseball the other night and that Mitch actually correctly fielded a ball to first base. And I really wanted someone else to get up with Noelle last night after she lost her yi-yi (binky, pacifer, brown, apay, or whatever you call it at your house) for the 9th time.

All that aside, we have been having fun as well. There were some other fatherless cousins around who were game for park play and the old slip'n'slide.
Tomorrow, I will gladly turn over the remote and all the children to Hub. Just in time for Father's Day.

View from the Top

It wasn't quite Mt. Everest or even Timp (speaking of which, I really want to hike that this summer--any takers?) But it was perfect for little legs. We hiked to our local letter 'P'. Noelle cried the whole way down since she felt wronged being cooped up in a hiking backpack. And if he didn't weigh 30 pounds more than her, Mitch would have gladly traded her places since he started to complain that his legs were 'sooooo tired'.
It isn't the most scenic hike, unless you really love sagebrush and deer pellets, but the view from the top is nice.
And if you just looked at this picture you might get the wrong idea that nobody was having a good time. But we just have Camera-itis. The second the camera was put away and nobody was yelling at the kids to look happy and be still, they looked perfectly photogenic.

Also, if you do this hike you may want to take little boys with you. There are all sorts of potty jokes you can get from the letter 'P' and it never gets old. Trust me!

What's been transpiring

I know all three have you have missed my blogging presence for a few days. So this is where I've been:

first, we had our anniversary getaway. These are the flowers Hub gave me despite, or in spite of, what I mentioned before. He assured me they only cost $3.00. He usually isn't the liar in the house, but in this case I appreciated it.

We went to the temple, where I had a little nap, and to the Parade of Homes and out to eat and shopping and saw Indiana Jones. Where I also had a little nap. I think being away from my kids must make me tired. It was just good to be gone and have some freedom. I highly recommend it.

We've had baseball and T-ball games most evenings. When they haven't been rained out anyway. This is Mitchell. He is a sneaky one and managed to hit twice in one inning. He also managed to stand like a statue in the outfield and not move a muscle even if the ball landed at his feet. This was driving Isaac crazy from the stands. Remember that Isaac will race and fight with teammates to get a stray ball. If there was a happy medium between the two.....

This is what Hub was supposed to be doing this morning. It was the Salem Triathlon and we were just sure he was going to take first place this year--Even though he's been so busy at work lately that he hasn't worked out for a month. But he drank a lot of Gatorade and that was going to compensate. But darn that rain. They cancelled the bike portion and were cutting down the swim length. This meant the triathlon had just become a weenie biathlon and what fun is in that? It was a bummer for us all since the kids love to cheer him on and I love to gawk at all the crazies who participate. He still got his T-shirt and water bottle so we'll pretend that is as good as first place.

Chuck E Cheese was the place to party for Mitch's 6th Birthday. His actual b-day is on Sunday and that is no fun (Hub tells me to stop saying this as it is introducing the stigma, but isn't it obvious that a birthday on Sunday stinks?) We all had a grand time. Mitch somehow scored on a machine that kept on spitting out tickets and Ike just kept on playing the basketball game. He had a few onlookers amazed at how many shots he made. Then he tried Skee Ball and had a minor tantrum because he wasn't scoring as well and returned to the B-ball game. Ethan and Noelle just did their best at trying to get lost and we redeemed our hard earned tix for some really cheap candy and prizes.

We've also been doing swim lessons and having playdates and learning Roman Numerals. And that's where we've been and what we've been doing. The end.