and the winner is...

Well everyone, we are related to a sweepstakes WINNER! HOORAY JUSTIN!! This year the girls and I entered nothing into the fair. Justin on the other hand entered 3 things and got 2 blue ribbons and ONE SWEEPSTAKES! It was for a thimble he had made out of wood. Good job Justin! After looking around at all of the fair stuff, Justin had to go back to work, so the girls and I went and walked around the fair. All I did was let them get a treat. NO rides...mean momma huh? Tika got a sno-cone, Carsy got an italian ice, and I got one of those yummy Texas Twister drinks. Anyway, I just thought everyone should know that Justin won a purple ribbon at the 2008 Wasatch County Fair!!

Completing the Update...

Okay back to the update. Justin was out of town doing a job and was gone from Wednesday to Monday (2nd year in a row without him here for my b-day :( sad huh?) He thought it was a great idea for us to go and have fun. So since my sister & her family was going to be in Moab, I thought it would be well worth the 3 1/2 hr. drive to hang out with them since we don't usually see them 2 times in a month! I invited Tara to go with us since Justin was gone. She said she was up for anything!! Sunday morning (after we cleaned the house...) we headed to Moab. We ended up not going the "normal" way. We went the scenic route, and based on the amount of time we were in the car on the way home, it was no different in time, and it was really pretty. When we got down there we checked into the hotel, let the girls swim and then we all went out to dinner. If you're ever in Moab, I recommend the Moab Brewery. The food was great and it was well priced. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. I was going to call Justin and let him know our plan, but I decided to wait until morning since he didn't have good reception anyway. The next morning we got up & ate and I called Justin's phone, he answered singing "happy birthday". He had gotten done early and got home @ 2:00 am! Then we all headed to do the Delicate Arch Hike. Thank the Lord for the cloud cover on my birthday...that was present enough! When we started the hike it was 96 degrees at the end of the hike it was 104! I'm glad we went when we did! For a minute, Tara Janine & I thought we were dying, and then we see this womanhiking with a backpack that was probably as heavy as she was. Right then & there we decided to STOP complaining! So if you don't recognize a woman in the slideshow, just know, she was our motivation! We had so much fun together. Tara & I figured out that the last time either of us had been to Arches was in 8th grade for Outdoor Ed....like 17 years ago! Wow, saying 17 years ago makes me feel REALLY OLD! After our hike we went our seperate ways. The Moses Family headed to their reunion and we headed home to meet Justin for dinner. On our way, we stopped in Green River and bought melons....mmmm! Overall I had a stupendous birthday! Thank you to everyone who helped make it awesome! And thank you Justin for buying the software for your wife who decided to be an airhead and DELETE all of the pictures that she had taken. Yes, you read it right...I DELETED ALL OF THE 188 PICTURES I TOOK IN ARCHES!!! But thanks to technology and my sweet hubber, they were recovered for me to put on the blog!! Thank you Justin! :) Enjoy the arches slideshow (above)


Here are a couple pictures of Justin's weekend.(It's actually his best friend Jon in the pic...I'm sure someone got a picture of him!)

Justin had to go to the hospital on my birthday...while working, a grinder he was using kicked back and sliced his arm. He thought he might have broken it, thank heaven he didn't, he does have ligament damage though. Not fun! So there's the wrap up of our weekend! I'll try to be better at posting at least once a week!

Deer Creek Day

This past Sunday was so nice. Justin & his dad went out in the fishin' boat in the morning and the girls & I slept in. Later on in the afternoon we decided to go out to rainbow bay and put our toes in the water. The weather was beautiful and sunny. As soon as we pulled into a parking spot, the wind started to blow, HARD and the clouds started to roll in! We decided we'd tough it out. I put my feet in, and the girls used the little floaty things. Justin decided it would be fun to just jump in. The girls wanted me to get all of the way in, but I tell you what, that water made my legs burn so bad! Besides, who would take pictures for the blog if I had gotten all wet?? After being in the water for about an hour and a half, we decided to go home and get the boat & drown some worms. We spent about 2 hours out on the lake later that evening. It was really nice. Not much luck in the fishing department though. Justin caught a big walleye, and right as he got it up to the boat it got off of the hook. Shucks!! Then a few minutes later he got a huge hit. His pole was just about bent in half. As he got it closer to the boat, it was a big stick AND a fishing pole all tangled up together. Nice catch! As we were heading in for the night Tika got a big trout. Once again, right as we got it to the boat to put it in the net, off into the water he plopped. It was his lucky day! Tika was a bit disappointed! Carsun didn't get any bites at all. That always makes for a "boring" trip! Me? I read my book. (and took a few pictures... I would have taken more, but it was starting to bug my husband!)

Slip-n-Slide

Monday the girls invited the neighbors over for some water fun. We bought a slip-n-slide, an elephant sprinkler and water balloons from Kings. They all had a great time outside.
Today after lunch the girls decided they'd give the slip-n-slide another try. Justin was fully clothed and decided to plop himelf on for a quick cool-down! (I was not fast enough getting the camera though...cause one time was enough for him...he wouldn't even let me take a pic of him in soaking clothes!) Genevieve got in on the fun, well, actually her fun was pretty much forced. The girls would hold her wugga over the slide so she had to get onit to get her ball! Then the girls began to chant: "Momma-Momma-Momma!" Justin wasn't any help either, but I looked at it this way...maybe they'll look back at the summer of 08' and remember their mom slippin' on the slip-n-slide in her clothes! It ended up being pretty fun though, I did it a few times! Slip-n-Slides are a classic summertime need!

you want to roast what?

I've heard people talk about roasting more than marshmallows over a campfire. But me, myself stick to what I know. Over the weekend on our camping trip, Eric convinced me that there is something just as fun as marshmallows....STARBURST!!! They brought "tropical" flavors, but I am almost certain that "original" would be just as delightful! So you stick a candy on the end of your roastin' stick and put it over the flames; turning frequently. After just minutes the outside is a bit soft. Because it is so hot, take care when removing it from your stick. Then when you pop it in your mouth, the outside is almost crispy and the inside a delectible gooey. Good Lord... That is an amazing treat. It might even become as important as making sure we have hot dogs to roaston our next camping excursion or even our next fire pit night!! If you have ever suggested to me to roast starburst and I looked at you in disgust...I do sincerely apologize!

Camping...Take ONE

The above slide show is of our weekend camping trip! (way too many pictures to put in one post!)

A couple weeks ago my bestest friend in the whole entire world, Tara, called and asked if we wanted to go camping. "Of course!"I said. Anyway, we got online to reserve a site at the most excellent campground, Currant Creek. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. It has running water AND flushing toilets! It's like roughin' it, with 2 comforts of home! It is an absolutely beautiful place and it is not too far away.

We decided to leave Heber about 3:00 Friday. Well Tara got here @ 3:30 and Eric & Brittany got here at 4:00. Justin was fiddling with the boat and we finally rolled out of the driveway at 6:00. Yeah, that's pretty normal when it comes to us and camping. We never leave on time!

We decided to go up over Lake Creek, cause it's a lot faster than going around by Strawberry. We got all the way to the summit (only 14 miles further to Currant Creek) and there we stared at 2 feet of drifted, mushy SNOW! May I say that I am done with snow? Anyway, There were a couple trucks with camp trailers on them trying to turn around, so we waited and then Justin thought he had to give his "good ol' Ford" a try at it! Him & this other guy in a Chevy kept goofing around and pulling each other out of the snow and finally Justin got stuck. The guy helped us out and Tara said "that was enough and we needed to get going". Justin was trying to get the boat loaded back onto the truck , Tara & I started to tease him and CRASH!! He lost control of everything and smashed his pinkie in-between the truck and the boat trailer thing. I heard a crunching noise and then Justin's fowl-mouth blurt out a few choice words that I will edit out for the sake of young readers! Ouch! Tara, Tika & Carsun were the Medical Staff as I sat to the side trying not to puke! (thank heavens for First-Aid Kits in all of our vehicles!)By the time he was all fixed up and we were headed back down the hill, we were all starving. We had planned on having Hobo - Dinners that night but since it was 8:45 when we got back into Heber, we stopped at SubWay...the weirdest tasting Hobo-Dinners I've ever had! By 9:15 we were headed the long way to Currant Creek! We actually made really good time. We pulled into the campground at 10:20. As we drove down to our "RESERVED" campsite, there was a family headed to bed. We ended up talking to them about how we had reserved that spot and blah, blah, blah. Anyway- we went to find an empty spot for the night. We figured that we could work it all out in the morning. By that time it was almost 11:00. We decided to sleep in the cars rather than set up for the night. Uncomfortable fun! (the girls thought it was great...Tara, Eric & Brittany on the other hand, did not! They were squished!) The weekend turned out being super nice. The weather was beautiful and the campground was not very busy. Fishin' was AWESOME and the company was much needed! For not camping once all last summer, we did a great job getting back into the groove!

ICE COLD LEMONADE

Tika, Carsun & the Naylor Girls all decided to set up a Lemonade Stand today. The "big" girls wanted to sell lemonade and the "little" girls decided to be different and sell fruit punch. We got big plastic cups, tables chairs & ice and what do you know...they were in business!

The little girls set up their fruit punch stand at the end of our cul-de-sac and immediately the neighborhood kids came running with quarters in hand. The big girls set up on the sidewalk behind our house on the corner to the subdivision. We were hoping that ny splitting them up they'd each get some business.

Tika & Alyssa were hilarious. They'd shout "LEMONADE!!" as the cars went zooming past. I told them if the business started to slow they could change their slogan to, "COLD Lemonade from HOT babes!" They were not impressed by my creativity! Who knows...It might have worked!

After selling the cold cupfuls for 50 cents (about an hour) The girls lowered their price and sold it for a quarter a cup. Business did pick up a bit!

Carsy and Meg were bored after about an hour and reduced their price to 10 cents a cup to try to get "more paying customers". What do you know, a couple of yard maintenance guys came up and bought 2 cups for $3.00! Wowza!! They were so proud of that, they up & quit...just like that! As you can tell by Carsy's expression, I waited too long to take the picture. She was "done" by this point!

All in all I think it was a good experience for all of them and who knows...we might be crazy enough to do it another time this summer!! Funny thing about it...Each of them took home $4.50 - not too bad for their first time!

one week down...and how many more to go?

Ah, the joys of summer... the birds chirping, weeds being pulled, a nice morning breeze and the sound of my 2 beautiful daughters fighting! Well one week of summer has flown by - and we've had numerous fights. Sometimes I wish there was no summer - cause I feel like I have to do something every day. I know it's not true - but seems like in the summer, the kids become a bit more demanding! So last week I promised the girls I'd take them to the pool and they wanted to make "home made " chocolate chip cookies. See 12 years ago when I got married I did everything home made. 12 years ago I also was pregnant, not working and had all day to do that sort of thing while Justin was at work. So the other night he announced that mommy used to be nice and make "real" cookies... not the frozen ones I make now. (hello? they're way easy & NO mess!) I told the girls we'd go shopping for the ingredients and make them before we went to the pool. That was fun! (carsun is beginning to accept all of the pictures I take to put on the blog! It's about time!)
The pictures are to prove to my hubber that I still know how to make home made chocolate chip cookies!!! :)

The pool was enjoyable too!