Orem Tigers

wow.  What a weekend.  Rick and I had our high school 20 year class reunion this weekend.  What a blast.  I have a bunch of pictures that blogger won't let me post.  

So, for now I leave you with 

this...

and this...

I had so much fun seeing old faces and hearing stories.  Some from back then and some more recent.  Rick and I were on the reunion committee.  Rick pretty much did nothing.  I spent many, many hours on the computer looking for classmates.  Some people on the reunion committee did tons of work.  If you read this, you know who you are.  THANKS.  It was awesome.  Can't wait for the next one. 

Pictures and stories to come later....

I've been busy

Once it finally warmed up, it really warmed up!  We went out in the Rhino a couple of weeks ago. 

I left the kiddies and Rick up in Scofield and I went to Girls Camp at Flaming Gorge.  In our Church, the girls go out on a camping experience once a year and because I am the advisor to 18 energetic 12-13 year olds, I was invited to attend camp, too.  We left on Monday, June 16th and returned on Friday the 20th.  We camped in tents, took cold showers, and ate questionable food.  We went on 2 different days of river rafting, did a service project for the National Forest Service at the Historic Swett Ranch, and took a tour of the dam.  We were constantly 2 hours or more behind schedule and we usually got less that 5 hours of sleep per night.  "Girls Camp" can sometimes be full of drama and tears as you can imagine with 35 girls and 10 fearless leaders.  But, amazingly enough the girls were absolutely wonderful.  It makes me a bit embarrassed to look back and think how naughty the girls my age were when we went to girls camp.  I think the most drama we saw in our camp was when some of us leaders were afraid of some of the food handling practices and we sneaked into the food trailer and stole some food out and tiptoed to the dumpster without getting caught by the bigwigs.  We were a little concerned about what would happen if 35 girls and 10 fearless ended up with food poisoning!  Now THAT would be drama.  I have been home for 5 days, and I am still not caught up on my sleep.  But, boy oh boy, does my own memory foam, king size bed ever feel good.  I don't want to leave home again.  Rick was awesome to spend his week off taking care of the kids.  They were in Scofield almost the entire time.  They roasted marshmallows and hotdogs for dinner, explored the trails in the Rhino every day, played in the dirt, and slept with the windows open.  I don't think they even noticed I was gone.  well, Cole did say, "Hello Mama.  Are you home?" and then the next morning when he got up, he asked rick, "mama still home?"  

I have been talking to my plants and my garden coaxing them to stay alive, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, and doing laundry.  Yesterday we went to 7 Peaks Water Park.  Today was the Relief Society lunch at my house.  And I still need to lose those 10 pounds for my 20 year High School Reunion this weekend.  So, as You can see, I've been busy.  I have been trying to upload some pictures for you, but blogger must be busy too, because I just keep getting some dumb busy/still loading box on the computer screen when I try to post pictures.  So, if you have any advice--give it to me.  Or you can just come do my laundry, that would help, too.

I'm going to go fix dinner.  I think we're having cereal.  Have a good day.  And if I figure out how to post pictures again, I'll do that soon.     

french fries vs. ice cream

yesterday I had to run a bunch of errands and I ended up across the street from Arctic Circle for one of my stops.  How could we be that close and not stop in.  So we did.  It was early for lunch but that doesn't seem to be a problem for us.  It was quiet, we had the dining room to ourselves for a bit so we kind of acted like we owned the place (nothing new--we act that way any time we stop in!)  We got 2 hamburgers, an order of chicken fingers (we always get the small, broken, reject pieces so that the real, paying customers don't have to get stuck with them--isn't that nice of us) and we got an order of French Fries.  We ate and chatted with Lanny, then it got busy so Lanny got busy, too.  The kids wanted ice cream.  Summer wanted a sundae so I got each of them their own 1/2 sized sundae.  Summer chose hot fudge, Sierra had caramel, and Cole had caramel + Oreo because that is the flavor that my dad would have chosen--we were after all sitting in "His Booth".  I was watching them eat their ice cream and I had a couple of bites of Cole's.  I was trying to decide if I should just go get my own ice cream.  But I decided that no matter what I will always love French Fries with Fry Sauce more than ice cream.  The 2 bites I had of Cole's were enough to satisfy me.  However, it was all I could do to keep myself from running back to the fry bin and scooping myself up my very own order of hot, salty fries and eating them all by myself.  I didn't do it.  But, boy I wanted to.

What would you choose French Fries or ice cream?  

Good News for Summer

I have found a series that will keep my little reader busy for a few weeks...

 I know these books are clean for a young reader and so far she is hooked so I am happy.  I won't have to search the bookstore or the library for a while trying to find something that will keep her occupied for a while.   

trees

There are eight million and six trees in my yard.  Six that I got from Sam's Club last week and the other eight million are from those darn Chinese Elm seeds that are stuck in every nook and crany of my entire yard.  They are even on my kitchen floor right now.  I hate those trees.  I want to pass a law that you must destroy those trees if they grow in your yard.  There are some cities with such a tree ordinance.  It just doesn't happen to be in the city which I live.  Oh well.  

book Review...

This is the book that is keeping me from getting a full nights sleep these days.  Let me know what you think if you have read this book! 

update:  July 28

I have (finally) finished this book.  wow.  It looks like it took me 4 weeks to read this book.  well, minus one week for girls camp.  And one week for recovery.  That leaves 2 weeks which is about par for my reading lately.  This is what I thought of the book:  I really, really liked it.  It is in diary format which if you know me at all, I really love.  My senior course at BYU (in my English major) was called Mormon Women Writers.  We read lots and lots of journals and diaries of Mormon women, especially ones who immigrated to the United States and crossed the plains in covered wagons.  I have always been drawn to stories of pioneer women since I took that course at BYU.  This book is based on event which really took place.  The author spent a huge amount of time researching the time period for which she was writing about.  Her characters were based loosely on some of her own ancestors including her grandmother who was the "writer" of the diary.  Because it is a diary of a young women who did not receive a formal education it is written with that type of grammar and broken English and it makes it much slower for me to read--And I seem to be a slow reader these days as it is.  I really enjoyed reading the book and I have ordered the next book in the series entitled:  Sarah's Quilt.  A third book will be out in paper back in November and I figure that will be just the right timing for me to finish the second book and be ready for a third.  

My recommendation:  read it.  5 stars. 

Now I will begin reading this:

Let me know what you think of this book.