Will loves to pose

This week Will has been enjoying the camera a lot and LOVES to pose when his picture is being taken! He tries all different poses and he is a hoot!! Here are two examples...

Man vs. Wild

o.k. I am going to try to overview our past week in pictures and journaling notes. I haven't had a chance to sit down and get this all on the blog, so I have been putting it away in little tiny folders in my brain. Now, lets see how much I remember.

On Tuesday night we went on a family hike out in the desert and Lund wanted to bring his little friend Scotty, so we agreed. Scotty was full of commentary as we went along the stream that we found and everyone was in hog heaven (frog heaven actually) when we spotted a frog. Everyone had to take a turn holding the frog and getting peed on! The only smart one was Will, who wanted nothing to do with the slimy creature.

One of our kids greatest joys in life is climbing huge boulders and mountains and scaring me half to death. Well, this trip was no different, and after finding some perfect boulders and even a cave, the kids were off. Lund in particular will scale huge boulders just like he has superpowers or something and his little buddy, Scotty, tried to go right up behind him. Finally, as the two boys reached the top, Scotty turned to Lund and said "You are just like Man vs. Wild!!!!" We all heard that and got a great chuckle out of his comment. Lund then proceeded to turn around and quickly scale back down the rock face. Scotty tried that for a second and then got back up and yelled" Mr. Johnson, Help! I can't do that!!!" It was very cute!

Also, as we were climbing on rocks coming back downstream, Scotty turned to all of us and said "Do you guys get to come out to the desert and do this a lot?!" We responded that we try to do this at least once a week. His eyes bulged and he said "Wow, I am lucky if my mom let's me out of the backyard!!!"

Easter Sunday

We had a great Easter today and I am ever so thankful for the Resurrection of our Savior! We had a wonderful Sacrament meeting where we had the sacrament and then Morgan talked about the importance of Easter and the Sacrament and said that we could dismiss a half an hour early since we were most importantly there for the sacrament, and that was done. This is an idea the Stake President told him a couple of years back and he has done it twice now in his three year Bishop stint. The idea behind this tactic is to show everyone how important the Sacrament and our Saviors atonement is to our church and you really concentrate on that and then release early. Plus, it keeps people on their toes.

Then for our Easter Dinner we invited over some people from the ward to share our Easter Feast with us and it was a wonderful experience. We had a new couple and their baby over, our kids psuedo grandparents in the ward, and a neat lady in the ward who was alone this Easter due to a traveling husband. Morgan smoked a ham that was delicious and we had funeral potatoes, creamy cheesey vegetables, rolls, raspberry salad, fruit with fruit dip, and homemade chocolate cake for dessert. It was FABULOUS!!!! Then we went to another family in the ward later that night and played card games (Dutch Blitz, which was very fun and mentally challenging). Then we came home and sacked out in our bed. Oh wait, I am still awake....

A cute little side note: As we were driving around town today Will figured out how to unroll the car window next to him and decided to say "bye" to everyone really loudly. The problem is, when Will says "bye" it actually sounds exactly like "Die!" So we went around town with Will yelling "Die" to everyone! A very fun drive to say the least!

P.S. The picture I am sending is so frustrating because the shadows around my face and head make me look like I am 400lbs or something. And since I don't know how to crop myself out of the picture, you will just have to bear with my face to see the kiddos. Sorry!!!

Redneck Disneyland!!

We just recently returned from a wonderful/sad trip to the Salt Lake City area for my grandmothers funeral. I will get to more of the funeral in the next post, this post is all about Redneck Disneyland!!! a.k.a. Cabella's. Here's the story... The last few days of our trip we stayed right next to Thanksgiving Point in a brandnew Springhill by Marriott hotel in Lehi, Utah. Very awesome hotel! And right across the street they had just opened a brand-new huge Cabella's. Now, I did not know what a "Cabella's" was and figured it was just a glorified ACE hardware or something and so everytime Morgan drooled over it, I just pretended not to hear. I mean how many lawnmower's can you get excited about. And don't even get me started on how boring picking out ammunition is. But Morgan is indeed a wonderful man and after buying me a double jogging stroller, which I have been coveting for like a billion years. And getting it on sale no less, I figured we could all go visit this silly "Cabella" thing and after 10 minutes, we could then get onto Thanksgiving Point (the real fun)!

Well, Boy Howdy! Was I ever wrong! They just need to post a sign at the door that says "Welcome to Redneck Disneyland!!!" That silly Cabella's was the funnest, greatest store I have ever been in!!! And the kids loved it!

When you get there you get into your rollercoaster car (better known as a cart), and you get to see huge aquariums, huge mountains filled with stuffed animals, the heads of many, many dead critters, eat rock candy, shoot guns at different things, and do many other fun things. I couldn't believe the fun that was to be had at that great store. We made sure we threw "Cabella's" hats on the kids, so none of the other rednecks wearing said hats would call us out, and then "yahoooed" around both levels of the store! It was so stinkin' fun that we ended up spending 2 1/2 hours there and could have gone all day if we didn't have to check out of our hotel by 12 noon. We even got Will a 'coon skin hat so he looks official in all sorts of redneck situations.

When we were about to leave I thought that they should charge people to come here just like Disneyland, and then we got the reciept!!! Oh, I get it!!!

p.s. we didn't even go to Thanksgiving Point, we were all partied out!!!

Judge Daddy!

Another fun side note to the Science Fair in Hillside is that when we got there they asked Morgan to be one of the judges. He laughed and then figured out that they were serious, and he accepted graciously. Before you go thinking that this was a rigged ballot, Morgan didn't vote either of his kids as first place, just to be fair. Lund won anyway, so even though Morgan tried to reverse-discriminate him, it failed!

Forgot the pictures

I noticed that I finished Lund's Science Fair blog, but I forgot to add pictures, so here they are...

Science Fair, Part 2, or Part Lund

Well, Lund was also in the Science Fair this year and his project was really neat. It was called "Does Color Affect Taste?" and he had different cups filled with different colors of sugar water and flavoring and he would mix up the colors so that the color did not fit the taste, for example strawberry would be yellow, etc. The people would try that cup and try to figure out what flavor it was. I was amazed at how much color does actually affect taste. He won 1st place in his grade level at Hillside school, so he went on to the next level which consisted of five schools. He placed 3rd place there and we were really proud of him. I ran up and got all positioned to take a couple dozen pictures of this wonderful day for him and low and behold, the batteries were dead!!!! AGGGHHHHH!!! But it was a wonderful moment still the same, and his whole family was there to support him and it was a great memory. He had to go up on stage to present his science project to the audience and use a microphone and everything, what a brave boy!!! (A special thanks to the book "Science projects that are guaranteed to win!" (hey, that's not cheating it is using the Library correctly!)

Science Fair time again!!

Yup, it is that time of the year again where all kids (parents) have to put together science projects for the science fair. Cassidy did her project this year on the laws of friction and had a neat little experiment where she filled a container with marbles and tied it to a board and placed the board on different surfaces to see which surface would slip first. It was a good experiment and she and I especially liked making the presenting board thing, we got to use my scrapbooking glue dots and put marbles all over the board. I am also including a picture of her presenting her project to the school and judges, I love this picture because she has her hand on her hip and is acting very old and wise. She loves being old and wise and one of her favorite qoutes is from Peter Pan, "Oh the cleverness of me!" That would be Cassidy in a nutshell!

Dressed to the Nines!!!

Sarah got invited to her little friend's birthday party and it was a tea party where you get to dress up all fancy. She loved getting dressed up and even wore an ostrich feather in her hair "Like all the fancy people wear". She also had to have her matching little dog because she said "that princessess all have matching little dogs...." What a cutie!!!