Bounce-U and King Julian

I am always madly searching for summer indoor, beat-the-heat ideas. This was one such opportunity. And I was really excited because this day was supposed to be a "cheap" opportunity. The kids had free passes to Bounce-U (an indoor jump playground), so what could be more inexpensive? Well, as it turns out... I spent 20.00 before I was through. How, you ask? Well, three of the kids weren't wearing socks so we had to buy their "special" Bounce-U socks. And then Will didn't turn out to be free because his reading program didn't give out a free pass. And guess how much it costs for a 4-year-old to bounce for two hours? 10.00! Ouch! Not such a cheap day in the end.... But, on the up-side, the kids had a great time.
And have I introduced you to King Julian? Will is very much like the lemur king from Madagascar. King Julian is very much into himself and thinks that only he matters. Well, Will can be like that very often, and we sometimes end up calling him King Julian. In this picture he is sitting on a throne at Bounce-U telling me that I am not opening his candy fast enough. oh, King Julian!

The kids really enjoyed the different varieties of bouncing opportunities.

Sometimes all I can do is get a picture of their rears as they run away...

.....or their heads as they pop through on their way to somewhere else............

I love the look of determination on Sarah's face as she shoots hoops.

..........and sometimes Sarah can be sooo adorable!.............

.................and so can Lund, when he wants to be....

Slumber party and new bedding

My kids were REALLY excited when Percy Jackson and the Olympians came out on DVD, so to celebrate we ran out and purchased our own copy along with TONS of junk food----everything you need to have a great family slumber party!!! The movie did not disappoint! (of course, we had already seen it in the theaters as well, but still....it did not disappoint!)
Here is Sarah modeling her favorite treat in the whole world.... circus animal cookies! They are so stinkin' expensive, I think she has maybe only had them twice in her entire life! But still, they are her all time favorite!!!

And Cassidy is modeling the beloved movie!!! Her junk food of choice was Keebler grasshopper cookies (also a great choice!!!)

And in other news, I purchased new bed sets for the boys and girls for the new house. This is an example of the boys' matching sets....

And here is a variation of the girls' sets. Cassidy was really wanting "blue" everything, and it is hard to find a cute set for girls that is the color blue. Hopefully when we get into our new house, the bed sets will really stand out in their rooms.

House Celebration!

Since I am way behind, this post is a bit outdated. But, since I am trying to journal everything, you have to put up with me.
This post is from June 3oth when we finally signed (again) on the house. We celebrated by going to Peter Piper Pizza and having a ball!!! Since there was significant "structural damage" with our first house, we had to spend countless hours and stress trying to find another home. We didn't want another home though, we wanted the first home and the first ward and the first cul-de-sac. After much consideration and negotiating, the owners decided to spend the 30k plus to fix our house and sell it to us. We were excited, and after signing the papers again, we celebrated the end of my ulcers and the start of waiting another month while repairs take place.
Will was sooo excited to earn enough tickets to get vampire teeth....scary!!!!

Lund, on the other hand, was excited to get his hands on a "popper" and was popping it off of everything he could find, including his chin. (ouch)

And now with the head...

I think Cassidy went for the "vampire look" as well!

Morgan was just content to sit there looking crazy!

Man, that is one crazy tongue he has going on there!

Sarah just had a great time going up and down the slide and drinking root beer!

Now we are in a "holding pattern" while we wait until the end of July to hopefully move into our house.

Broke Buck Mountain

On Father's Day we made a Sunday drive over to Buck and Judi Shumway's house to give him some fatherly tie tacks the kids made out of shrinky dinks. When we arrived at the house their daughter Raychelle informed us that Buck was in a hospital in Flagstaff. Then she explained his situation... he had been hiking the day before with his buddy and at the end of the really long hike, there was a 180 ft. mountain that they had to repel down. They were kind of rigging together their repelling gear because they hadn't planned on repelling. Buck put his socks on his hands to protect his hands from rope burn and started down the rope. He didn't have a belayer because there were just the two of them. Immediately after starting down the mountain, he found out the awful truth... the rope was too thin and he was sliding way too fast. He couldn't stop himself, so he flew down the 180 ft drop, landing on his feet and then falling over. He broke his heal on one leg and broke and jammed the bones into each other on his other leg. Poor Buck! But he was truly blessed because it could have been sooo much worse!
After a couple of surgeries in Flagstaff, he is now home and will be in bed for three months and can't put any weight on his legs for that entire duration. He will have to use a wheelchair if he must go anywhere.
For Family Night a couple of weeks ago we brought Buck and family a Mesa Frozen Yogurt pie and visited with him. My heart goes out to him because I can still remember way too clearly the vague days that passed as if in a dream while I was on pain meds. I remember being stuck in the bed and just wanting to live a "normal" life again. I remember praying to Heavenly Father to let this stage of my life pass by quickly.......
Cassidy and Sarah gave Buck their well wishes and then took advantage of the Shumway's Wii system.

Will enjoyed sitting on the "throne" right next to Buck and asking him what was wrong with his legs. Do you like the fancy throne? he he

Will was really concerned about Buck and wanted to know "what happened?" over and over again.

Here are the men gathered together talking. We hope you feel better soon Bucky!

p.s. Buck, you sure are lucky to have married such a great nurse like Judi! (it helps that she really is a nurse!)

Dizzy has gone to a better place. Stapley and Main will miss him!

I can remember as far back as my childhood "Dizzy" the dancing preacher on Stapley and Main. If you grew up near Mesa, you probably know exactly who I am talking about. Everyday he would be on his bike or walking on that intersection dancing and yelling quotes from the bible or just "Jesus loves you!" He would rock out to his music in his earphones and dance to the beat of his own drum. Well, he finally succumed to cancer this week and I will be sad to not see him on Stapley and Main in the future.

I will be honest, there were times in my life that I wondered if he was sane and/or on drugs, but his message was happiness and love even if it was demonstrated in a unique way.

I am sure he is dancing in heaven!!!!!

Here is an article about it in the East Valley Tribune..

http://http//eastvalleytribune.com/local/article_8a54f2c4-86d9-11df-bea7-001cc4c03286.html

Slowly playing the catch up game. Also known as Lund's Lego cake about a month late..

Hello everyone, this is "Slacker Blogger" here!!! (don't ask me why everything is blue and underlined....just roll with it!) I am now on a new, working labtop and I now have a new SD card reader hooked up to it so that I can FINALLY catch up on all the blogs that I have been shirking.
You will have to bear with me, because I am WAY behind, and I am going to try to catch up one blog entry at a time. (I am not WonderWoman you know!)
The first blog entry here is definitely belated since it is from Lund's birthday, June 24th. He had an interesting birthday this year because we are living in an apartment while we wait for our house to get ready, and the kids don't have too many friends yet. On his birthday, he wanted me to make him a "Lego cake". I made a valiant attempt, but a you can see, I am not the cake decorator in the family! The true cake genius was at work, but Lund was so cute about it. I told him that it wasn't the best looking Lego cake and he said to me..."It's o.k. mom,..... you are really good at sports!" Thanks for trying to cheer me up Lund! I love you and your caring personality!
So after the cake was made, Lund figured out that he didn't have any friends to share his cake with. So I made a few phone calls and hooked up with a friend from high school that has kids about the same age as ours. We had been wanting to get together for a long time and this just seemed like the perfect opportunity. And we had a MARVELOUS time!!! the kids want to go back there everyday see their chickens and play Lego's with their kids. Thank you April and kids for being spontaneous with us!
They seriously played Lego's for three full hours and the moms had a wonderful time catching up on life.

Nobody even fought the whole time.....it was simply a birthday MIRACLE!

Oh my goodnes! I am so embarrassed looking back at these pictures! Look at my Lego cake!! Ha ha! (I also tried to frost it when it wasn't quite cooled off yet because Lund was antsy...big mistake!)

........but..... Lund is all smiles and I guess that is what really matters!

............And onto Sarah's favorite thing............the chickens!!

I love this picture because Will is trying to coax the chicken into submission.

Then he decides that might not work, so he backs up a bit. (The chickens were actually amazingly docile!)

..........And more views of my pitiful cake!!!

Here is Ethan showing the kids how to handle the chicken.

And Sarah is in Chicken Heaven when she finally gets to hold one!!! She stayed outside with the chikens in the 100 degree plus weather for over an hour and didn't want to leave.

the "in between" world!

Our not so great computer of a couple of years finally called it quits yesterday. I wasn't really sad at all because it has been a bad computer all along the way with plenty of workers coming out to fix it to no avail. The thing I am sad about is that my pictures are on that computer. I am trying to work out a way to transfer them, but so far, I am not successful. I will keep trying though because I am behind with some posts.....
Plus, we have some great things coming up in the next few days that I don't want you to miss out on. Like, for instance, I am going to be the main attraction on the Bagdad parade along with Cassidy's friend who has Luekemia and the librarian who just went through cancer this year as well. My younger sister made us some AMAZING hats to wear that have "Team Courage" embroidered on them. My kids are excited to be the first float in the parade. I am very excited to represent courage and to see Bagdad again.
Stay tuned while I am in the "in between" world and hopefully I will get it figured out soon enough.