Tale of the Missing Brain

I have had lots of interesting things happen to me this last week. Last week I did not get much sleep waiting and getting ready for the huge clothes sale with Mandee. One afternoon I had skipped breakfast again and by this time it was about 2 in the afternoon. The kids had already eaten with Steve, so I just needed to pick something up for me on the way home from the store. It was that time of day that the kids were in breakdown mode and ready for naps.

I decided that I wanted Wendy's for lunch! Love the $2.99 meal!!! So as I am driving down Main Street, I pass Wendy's, Mc D's and every other place on the way. I find myself on 5th East already. Hello where is my brain?? I did say something like this outloud "Ahhhhh!! Missed Wendy's. I guess that I don't have a brain today!"

Then I hear from Hannah way in the back seat: Mom what happened?

Me: I missed Wendy's b/c I don't have a brain today.

Hannah: Oh Mom, did your brain go to heaven and you need to go back and get it?

Me: Yep, that is where it must be!!

I love my 5 year old! She always has the best things to say. So at least I know that my brain has made it to heaven. Now I just need to work on the rest of getting into heaven too.

Hannah's Second Swim Meet (A week late but better late than never)

So Hannah had her second Swim Meet last Tuesday night! She did awesome in it and really improved her times. The judges were a little more strict at this meet and ended up DQing a lot of the kids.

Backstroke:
Hannah ended up having to swim in lane 5 which is great except for the drain of the pool is at the bottom of this lane and Han is deathly scarred of the drain. The poor kid didn't even want to get in the pool for her race. I pushed her in and told her to swim. Mean I know, but she needed to swim and you can't see the drain when you are swimming on your back right?!!? She did a great job, but ended up getting DQed b/c the judge said she turned too far over at the very end of the race!! WHAT?!!? Who DQs little 5 year olds?!?!? She did swim it faster by 6 seconds and would have finished 3rd with her time of 49.99. Oh well onto butterfly is what we said.

Butterfly:
Now this was a fun race. We all knew before little beebop started that she would be DQed, but she wanted to swim fly so we let her swim fly! The race started out great since it was just her and one other girl and no drama of lane five. Hannah was in her favorite lane. Lane 2!! Hannah started out great and we were thinking that she just might do it!! Well that was until she got half way down the pool. She just started going slower and slower. At the end she was just bobbing up and down to try and get there to the side of the pool. It was a very long 1 min. 12 sec. for all of us but she had fun and wants to swim it again at the next meet.

Freestyle:
I noticed on the heat sheet that Hannah was scheduled to swim in lane 5 again for this race and being a Mom knowing that my kid is not going to get any ribbons if she has to stay in lane 5, I asked her coach if there was a way for her to swim in lane 2. There were only 3 kids swimming in her heat so there were open lanes. She told me to ask the head lady to see what could be done even though she just wanted Hannah to swim. I went and got something done about it. I got her changed to lane 2 and all was better.
Hannah loves lane two and just took off for her 25 yard swim. She even dove in this time and used her little motor to swim to the other side. This time we had some luck and she finished 5th and improved her time by 6.07 seconds. In the swimming world that is a whole bunch of time!!

I am so proud of my little fish! I can't believe that next week is her last summer meet and that it is all over! Where did the summer go?!?!?

Tale of the Missing Van Keys

Oh WOW what a day yesterday. I lost my only set of keys yesterday of course I didn't discover this until I had all three of the girls in the car and ready to go run our few errands for the day. This is how most of my Monday's go. Kids in the car and forgot the keys inside. Well this time they were not anywhere. I looked and looked until I hear Ruby screaming in the car. I am sad at the fact that I have to get the kids out of the car after I took all the time to get them in there in the first place, but out they come and we start playing the whole find the keys game. No such luck and all the while I was texting Steve to see if he had seen my keys. He was no help and busy at work.

All this stress b/c when we bought the van they only gave us ONE key!! Next time I buy a car I am demanding that I get two keys before I leave the building!! I call the Saturn place to see what they need to do. Of course what do they say?!?!?! They need the van there to make a new key. Hummm.....not so easy to drive a car without a key!! Our car insurance comes with a Tow package, so I called to get my van towed to the Saturn Place. The tow truck guy gets here and I take the girls and start the walk to the bus stop. All three of the girls thought that it was really fun to take the bus and it was a little adventure for Monday morning!!

I am at the Saturn place talking to everyone about how do they actually make a new key and some mombo jumbo about how it has to be programmed first. I still don't really understand that but oh well I was getting a key to drive my van!! I call Steve to tell him what is going on and how they are making me two keys this time b/c I have learned my lesson. No need to learn that one again and what does Steve tell me?!??!?! He found my keys in the kitchen!!! I could have screamed, but oh well such was my adventure for Monday morning.

Yes I did still get that second key made so that this won't happen again!!

Can You Tell That I am a Fan???

I have been staying busy so that I am not looking at the clock and calendar to see when the next Stephenie Meyer book comes out. Only about a week to go!! Hurray!! I need to get all of my books back and read them all over again to pass the next week. I can't wait for Breaking Dawn and I am sure most of you are on the count down too!!!

This is a great time for a side note too!! I finally got Steve to sit down and watch the trailer for Twilight and the extra clips that they have about filming the big fight scene at the end of the movie. Let's just say for 8 whole minutes my husband who is very anti anything Twilight or Edward was glued to the computer screen!!! My prayers have been answered and Steve even asked to see the movie for his birthday!! There really is a God!!! My husband wants (willingly and not forced) to see Twilight!!! I have been doing the happy dance ever since then!!

I won't push the issue for him to read the books, but who knows now. He wants to see the movie, so I should be happy with that!!

I also need to put another shout out for my friend, Jen. She is selling AWESOME Twilight shirts and with the new book coming out I know that ALL of you REALLY want one!! She ships just about anywhere, so please order one!! They are super cute!!

Everything Twilight

$20 Family Night

We have all been really busy this week. Well let me make a correction. I have been busy this week getting ready for my sale in my baby clothes sale in Mandee's basement. Let's just say that getting stuff sorted, priced, on the racks, and getting a store organized is a whole lot more work than Mandee or I thought it was going to be. In honor that we haven't done much as a family this week and that it was at least 85 in our house tonight, we found a place to hang out in FREE a/c for a few hours. The place was Boondocks!!

Boondocks is one of those fun places that has FREE a/c, mini golf, go carts, games for tickets (which earn cheezy prizes), expensive food. You know a place that sucks money from you the moment you walk in. Well like I said in the title it was only a "$20 Family Night" and that is what it was. We did cheat a little since we had a $25 gift card that we won at Garrett's Make a Wish Rodeo last November.

Here is the run down of what we did for $20..........

One ride on the GoKarts for Steve and Hannah!!

Played Deal or No Deal on this cool game thing a few times

Dropped tokens in this really cool disco game and Ruby won 450 tickets!!

Dropped more tokens in another Egypt game and won a ton more tickets!!

The girls played on this huge play thing for a long time.

A bag of fresh grape tasting cotton candy (gross I know but man it was good!!)

but more important than anything Steve played this really cool Bass Game. It was this HUGE wheel game called Giant Bass Fishing or something like that. So we dropped in 4 tokens. Big spenders I know, but Steve has to play every now and then right?!?!? So what does he do on his spin???? He lands the fishing pole on the 2 inch Grand Bass Super Winner!! This wheel is like 8 feet tall and a little spinner pointer thing is like 1/2 inch big and it lands in that little itty bitty spot for us to win 1000 Tickets!!

We ended up with almost 2000 tickets on our $20 Family night. There were enough tickets that each girl got a new stuffed animal to sleep with. Hannah got a Purple Care Bear (my kid has a care bear?!?!? Man I am old!!), Ruby got another Elmo doll (I think that brings the total to about 5 or 6 of them around the house now), and Katy got a really cute My Little Pony toy. We also got a zillion little bracelets, lolly pops, and some smarties!!

All in all it was a fun night. I don't think we will ever hit the jackpot on that fishing game again, but I am sure that Steve will want to try again next time we go. Boondocks is a whole lot better than Chuck E. Cheese's ever thought of being.

And thanks for the FREE A/C!! It made my evening a whole lot better!!!

The Return of the Fab Four

WOW!! We had some fun at Steel Days this year! The whole week was really fun for the whole family. A free children's carnival, parade, the big kids carnival, and to top it all off the Beatles were in town!! The Return is a Beatles Band and they were awesome!! They sang for well over an hour and a half for the main concert of the year for Steel Days. Dad came with us and of course we had to get some Rib City Grill for dinner. Ribs, BBQs and fun in the sun. What else could we want for a fun night out?? It was really hot out so I was glad that Dad brought the pop-up tent for us to use until the sun went down a little bit. The fireworks were great too! I thought they would be over at least 3 times but they kept on going. They had to be at least 30 minutes long if not longer. Over all it was a great night. The kids were good, the music was great, the fireworks show was awesome. All for the bargin price of less than $20 and 6 hours of entertainment!! Our little town rocks!! WE LOVE STEEL DAYS!!

Garage Sale Weekend

I am so excited that I have found someone as strange as me in my ward. My friend Mandee (don't forget the double E!!). We love to go on Saturday mornings and head out to all the yard sales that she has mapped out for us. This Saturday we took the few dollars of fun money and headed out for a few hours. I love it b/c someone else totally loves to bargin shop with me!! Steve hates to pick the racks at DI but Mandee will come anyday. (DI is a totally different post though)

On to Saturday. I thought I wanted a cool little wallet, but Mandee got it first! All cool but now she is gonna have to find me one on eBay!! She bought it for only $2!! What was the price tag inside the wallet?? $78!! No lie!! Promise!!!
I ended up getting a ton of great deals for the day though too!!! I got a flag stainglass thing, ice scraper, and a ton of little puzzles for FREE!! Who wants to cash a $20 bill for something for sale for only a quarter???

For $3 I got the three books of the Bourne Series!! It takes me longer to read those type of books, so I can finish up summer reading with The Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimaum!!

Steve got a Dilbert book, Halloween crazy hat (you will have to wait until October to see that one), and a John Adams book by David McCullough all for the bargin price of $2.25!!!

All the girls got stuff too, but Hannah made the call on the best deal of the day. Mandee and I were at one townhouse and I noticed that there was a trampoline there with a sign that said bring offers. Now the thing is HUGE! like 14 feet around big. I was talking to Mandee and said in a loud enough voice for the lady selling it "Wonder if she would take $20 bucks for it??" The lady goes "Heck I will give it to you for $10!!!" So I called Steve on the phone and asked him if he wanted a trampoline for the back yard and he didn't know, so Hannah got on the phone. Our converstation went like this....

Mom: Hannah how are you today?

Han: Great Mom.

Mom: Hannah would you like a trampoline at our house.

Han: Yeah Sure. Bring it home.

Needless to say, the trampoline came home and was set up that afternoon. The kids love it and have been on it all weekend long. I guess if they get bored of it, I will end up selling it on KSL or craigslist, since they are going for around $100 these days. I would rather have a trampoline than a pool, so the kids are gonna have to love it. $10 is a steal and we have gotten more than $10 of fun out of it already!!!

Man I love going out to Garage Sales with Mandee!!!

What we came home to

As you guys might remember, we tried our hand at a garden this year. Here is our first garden post. I have decided that if you want to see progress in your garden leave for a week!! Our plants have almost doubled in size and the corn is taller than Hannah now!! The cabbage is bigger than softballs! The garden is really coming into its own now!! I am really impressed. We still have lots of issues with the morning glory that has taken over my garden, so weeding is something that we do at least a few times a week. I can't wait for my peas to grow and the huge pumpkins that we planted too!! Our blackberry bushes have some berries on them too!! I can't believe what it has turned into! Next year is going to be even better!!! I can't wait. The fruits of your labors. I get it now!!

Home from the beach.....

It was a fun filled week in sunny San Diego for my family! It went by way too fast and after lots of driving we arrived in Cali!! The girls loved the beach but only lasted about 4 hours there. I had had enough of the sand and freezing cold water. I would have thought that in the middle of summer that the water would have been a little warmer than it was. It was so cold my feet were going numb. Oh well that is the beach for you right??? All the girls got some sun. Katy turned into a little red tomato with really bleach blonde hair!! Ruby and Hannah just got darker as usual. They had sand for a few days coming out of them and hiding in places that I didn't know you could hide sand!! Ruby learned that you don't put sand in your eyes because it hurts. Both the little girls learned that you don't eat sand because it hurts coming out the other end.

We all got to catch an Angel's game while we were in town too!! It was a day game so us parents did lots of walking during the game. How can I complain though when our tickets were only $5 each thanks to a great auction on eBay!! Sure they were in the nosebleed section, but we were on the first row and in the shade!! Even better for the hot day that it was that day. The girls had a lot of fun and I was so glad that we were not baking in the outfield. We got a hot pretzel there, but it tasted nothing like those back in Philly. Guess I need to go back just to get a pretzel.

We hit Knottsberry Farm too!! What a fun place! There were NO Lines and we got to just about ride everything we wanted more than once. I think that I would rather do that place than Disney. The kids loved meeting Snoopy and even Katy didn't want to let go!! I got to finally get back on some roller coasters. This is a big deal since I think this is the first summer that I have not been preggers in like 7 years I think!! It was so nice to ride some rides. My favorite was the Accelorator. Of course it is the one that goes from 0 to 80 or so in a matter of what a second?!?! Totally loved it!!! Awesome is all I have to say.

Steve went deep sea fishing when the rest of us went to Sea World. The trip wasn't all that great for Steve but he did manage to catch one Bass and it tasted awesome!! I guess that since it was okay but not that great we will have to let Steve go again next time!! Sea World was Awesome with the girls. We met up with my friend Mary that I have been a blogger friend with since I was preggers with Ruby. So after 3 years it was finally time to meet up at Sea World. All of our girls had a great time together. Steve had the camera, so no pics from me on this end. **Mary can you e-mail me some of those great pics that you guys took for me?? Please....**

The 4th was so much fun!! Swimming, playing on the beach again, having a huge picnic and just waiting all day for the fireworks!! What fun it was!! The whole day went way too fast and those people in San Diego know how to party. There were a zillion people there by 10 am and we ended up parking our car almost a mile away from where we wanted to be for the day. I think it was b/c more people had their 'staycation' at the same park and had the same idea. Of course my camera broke too, so that is why I don't have any pictures of this either. **I am saying Darn, since there is this cool new Olympus camera that I want really bad, but I didn't break it on purpose since it is a camera and does what it should do. Take pics and movies!!**

All in all the kids did great on the drive there and the drive back. We stopped at State Line in NV on the way back and played for a few hours. Steve got to relive childhood on the rollercoaster. I just thought it was really jerky but fun. We even got the whole family on the log ride just once. Then they all rebelled and didn't want to go on again. I think Katy would have been up for another ride if her older sister's didn't protest so much about another ride. We took off and went to Vegas. Of course it was packed from the weekend and the only room that we could find open at 11:30 at night was a single and it was $150!!! I don't think so. Onto Mesquite we went. There were very few rooms there too. The first place was full, the second had a suite for $200 for the night and breakfast in the morning (Steve thought that was a little much, so he asked for the number to this new hotel on the hill), so we were onto our third place at 1 in the morning. It was perfect!! $70 for the night and breakfast in the morning. We got the kids in and were glad that we got one of the last 5 rooms left in the city. There were about 10 cars that pulled up behind us that got no rooms. We slept until 9 in the morning!! Took it easy and were on our way home.

We had a mini stop over in Cedar to see my friend Elizabeth and her family. It was nice to get the kids out of the car for about an hour or so while we visited. They had a ton of fun, but it was time to hop back in the car for the last 3 hours of the ride home. I was so excited to see our mountains and know that we were almost home.

Nutmeg of course was waiting at the door when we pulled up!! Glad that she had some family back and the kids were just as excited to see her and their own beds. The adjustment from vacation mode to real life has been slow. Steve took off work yesterday to ease back into work life again. We got errands run and now it's back to normal life!! I miss vacation already.Me on the 4th of July!
Steve on the 4th of July
The little fish that Steve caught fishing. It was some good Bass!!
Ruby at the Ballpark.
This is Ruby!! What a hoot!!
At the ballpark after the game.
Steve, Me, and the girls after the game! Go ANGELS!!!
Steve before Deep Sea fishing.
My little Katy helping with the fun on the 4th.
Hannah at Knottsberry Farm
Katy and her suntan!!
Ruby and Katy waiting for me to get my phone fixed!!
All of us with Snoopy.
Steve being silly!!!
Waiting to go into Knottsberry Farm.

Me and Katy at the ballgame.