8th Place!

A couple of weeks ago the Young Women and Young Men held a Pinewood Derby race.

 Since we are a family of procrastinators we waited until the day of the race to complete the car.

And when I say we, I mean me and Megan (Eric was out of town!).

And when I say me and Megan, I really mean Megan (although I did hot-glue the bb's to the front of the car).

Needless to say we were not expecting much, so you can imagine the thrill when she came in 8th place!

 8th place never felt so good!

Seriously. We were ecstatic. 

12 X 12 - September 2012

Wednesday morning I awoke, made the kids breakfast, packed their lunches, and asked Jackson 15 times to get ready. He has a hard time staying on task! He is in charge of getting himself ready every morning, except I still help him comb his hair:

I bent down to take a picture of Tucker and he immediately lunged for me and attacked the strings on my shorts:



Anything in his field of vision is fair game for chewing.

Megan has a lot of stuff to carry to school each day. Her backpack, lunchbox, guitar, and guitar bag:



My kids are in a new carpool with three other families. When it is your turn to drive you go and pick up this 15 passenger van (which is known as the Warner bus to everyone at Somerset), and then drive it to pick up all of the kids. I have only driven once so far and it is stressful! I feel like I am driving a semi-truck.



After the kids left for school Eric made his morning shake. So far he has lost 24 pounds!!!



A little bit later on Sade and I did some nail painting. She chose purple, and I chose green:



Eric was home doing paperwork all day, so I left Sadie (and Tucker!) with him while I ran some errands. My first stop was Target. Just a heads up, they are currently doing their shoe clearance! I purchased quite a few... AND I saved 5% because I used my Target debit card. Do you have one of these? If not get one ASAP!

I then went to Gold's Gym to sign Sadie up for child care. I finally determined that if I was ever going to make it back to the gym (I have taken an extended month vacation from it), I needed to bite the bullet and pay the extra $15 a month. However, when I got there the power was out. So although I was able to get the paperwork, she is still not signed up!



Then I came home and cleaned the house. I spend quite a bit of time sweeping the floor everyday. The amount of dirt brought in from outside is staggering:



Right before Megan and Jackson arrived home Sade crashed. She has been sleepy lately:



 I had Eric sit down at the table and teach me the rules of soccer. Megan, Eric and I are coaching Jacksons soccer team and I wanted to make sure I understood everything before the first game. I am still a little iffy on the concept of offsides.



For dinner Eric and I had 5 guys. I love 5 guys!



We picked up Sonic for the kids, and then hurried home to take Jackson to Scouts:



An hour later it was Megan's turn to be driven to Young Women's.  I spent the evening driving back and forth to the church, making sure homework was completed, and that everyone was showered and ready for another day of school. Busy, busy.

Tucker

We have been committed to being pet free for four and a half years. And when I say we, I mean me and Eric. The kids, not so much. I have regularly heard from all of them, but especially Megan, how they are THE ONLY kids in their classes that don't have a dog. But still I could not be swayed.

But then something happened. While in Logan after a breakfast date with my friend Kate, I happened to notice three cocker spaniel puppies being sold on the side of the road. On a WHIM I decided to stop and look at them. The rest is history:



I had to bring him home.

As I mentioned, this was a WHIM, so I was able to surprise the kids. I got back to my moms, told the kids I had a surprise for them outside, and waited for their reaction. They were shocked:





And really happy.




Especially Megs:




Not only was my dog purchase a surprise for the kids, it was a surprise for Eric as well! He was out of town, without cell phone service, so my purchase could not be confirmed with him. When he arrived back in Logan, we told him I needed help moving something out of the truck, and then surprised him with the dog sitting in the front seat. His reaction:



It's a good thing he is easygoing!

 We had waited to give him a name until Eric arrived home. And by almost unanimous agreement (Jackson had his heart set on Rocky), we named him Tucker.

The next day it was time to pack up and head back home to Las Vegas. Jackson declared, "This was the best vacation ever! Lagoon and a puppy!"



I knew for my own sanity that if I was ever to purchase a dog I would need one that was fairly calm. So when I asked the guy selling them if they had one that was calmer than the rest he directed me right to Tucker. He said he was everyones favorite, liked to snuggle, was non-aggressive, and sweet.  And he is:



Now if he would just stop peeing in the house life would be perfect.

Lagoon

On Thursday morning the kids and I packed up and left Bear Lake to spend a few days in Logan with my mom and Ken. Eric had left earlier to try and complete his Bucket List Item #3 (post forthcoming)!

The kids and I have been wanting to go to Lagoon for years! And luckily we were able to make time for it on this trip, AND we were able to convince my mom to go with us.  I had not been since high school, so I may have been even a bit more excited than the kids were.

 Well maybe except for Jackson. He must ask me at least 4 times a week if we can visit Knott's Berry Farm, Disneyworld, Six Flags, etc.....

We were there when it opened (11 am-which seemed late to me), and stayed until 9:30 pm, and were able to do ALMOST everything.

Our first ride of the day:



Other pics:



Sade may look super happy and good natured in every picture, but she was a whiny mess a good portion of the day. Since she is usually fairly good, I am assuming lack of sleep was overtaking her. It's a good thing she is adorable.



We rode a lot of the small rides in the morning and then headed over to the waterpark.



After a couple of hours we left the waterpark, and resumed exploring the park, this time focusing on  the big rides. I'm grateful Megan and Jackson are both big enough to ride together. There were a couple of jerky roller coasters that I abstained from, out of fear of sickness.

The quintessential Lagoon ride. The Sky Ride:



My favorite ride is The Scrambler. And it's Sade's favorite ride too!:



It was kind of a fabulous day. I just hope it's not another 20 years before we get to go back!