Hospitality in Salt Lake?

We wanted to start a tradition of taking the children to a session of conference after their twelth birthday. We missed Oct and so wanted to go down with Seri for April. Well, it has turned into a road trip where we will also visit my grandmother in Colorado.
In a hope to keep costs down I am wondering if there is anyone who knows of anyone who would love to open their home to our family for a few nights. It would be great to meet some people and save on hotel costs (especially now that they insist we get two hotel rooms). We will come with air mattress and sleeping bags and just require a floor.

Oh, Canada........

 

This month Geography club is studying the country of Canada.  Yesterday at coop one of the other members asked me how the studying was going since the club meets tomorrow... um, yeah, I had totally forgotten about it, of course. Typical.

So as the day progressed I thought "Well, maybe we should just go". So, go we did.  After a few stops to get snacks, stop in Seattle to pick up Birth Certificates for the two babies (no, I had not ordered them yet but now would need them at the border to get back into the US) we were on our way.  The drive up was perfect. We stopped and enjoyed lunch at Subway and then meandered into Canada.

There were no welcome centers or info centers so we found the nearest hotel and went to raid the brochures in the lobby.  This fountain was outside the hotel and so we had to stop and play a bit.

 

Next, we were off to the beach.

  We found a beautiful starfish.

The sand was breathtaking, all the wave ripples literally etched into it.

  Of course, if you know my family you know that were there is water, there we are.  At first they were going to attempt jumping the rocks across to a little island a little ways off, but the rocks were covered with barnacles.

Seri crossed which of course left the boys contemplating if the desire to follow their sister was worth going in the water. Remember the above pic of the frozen fountain?  Well, in some places there was also still snow on the ground, that gives you an idea of how cold the water is.

Maybe I will, then again, maybe not......

  With both Seri and Michael on the other side Isaac takes a running start to overcome his fear of the cold.

Sariah is not about to be left behind, in she goes....

In a little farther.....

About half way across she turns back says "I am cold" and comes back... :)  Much better to stand on this side and holler for sissy to come and get us and carry us across!!!!

  With all the children over on the other side they proceed to ask me to come over, yeah right!  But then I hear "what are you, a chicken?"   In I go.......

  

Frozen but happy we decide to head back.  Oh. I should mention here that there were a ton of people walking along the boardwalk all bundled up in coats, hats, mufflers, etc.... Watching us, laughing and taking our pictures.....

  The Peace Arch.  this is what we decided to do our report on.

The children with one foot literally in the US and the other in Canada.

So much for border patrol......... This road divides the two countries.

 

The American side of the arch says "Children Of A Common Mother", I thought this pic was humorous.

As usual, my children are convinced, despite numerous advice to the contrary, that the world is their playground.

When we were leaving the border patrol asked what our purpose was for having visited Canada and we replied "field trip"!!!!!

History fans, I need your help!

I am teaching a coop class on little known events in history. I am hoping to focus on things that had an impact on US history but aren't really events that everyone has heard of.
Two of the events I have so far are the sinking of the USS Indianapoils in WW2 and the subject of Orphan Trains.
Do you know of any other event that fits this paradigm? If so, let me know!
Thanks!!!!

love that WII

A month later we are all still entranced with the WII fit. It has become my best weight loss friend and giving me the accountability I need. My family has also discovered that I am a highly competitive person as I will spend as much free time as I can find trying to knock everyone off the board but me.
So far Sariah will do everything with you, just next to you. She knows all the yoga poses and strength exercises, but her favorite activity is doing step aerobics with you!

Family Home Evening and recent pics

A friend of ours used to post what they did for FHE on her blog.  I always enjoyed looking to see what they had done and got a few good ideas for our own lessons.

A continuing goal of ours is to be consistent with holding Family Home Evening and I am thinking that by posting our activities here it will hold some accountability for me.

In the last issue of LDS Living I saw an article about saving and the old fashioned change jar.  The funny thing is that when I told the family what the lesson was on they all groaned, apparently it is a known fact in our family that if mom has lesson it will be on one of three things; money, cleaning/organizing, or learning......

So we discussed what money is, what it is for, and what it should be used for.  We talked about how our first priority is to give the lord his tithing, then to save for emergency, then pay bills and necessities and lastly to use it for enjoyment.

We set a short term savings goal of saving enough change to use for spending money on our trip to Disney next Nov.  We then decorated the jar and taped a label on the front on which we wrote our start date.  Every time it is full we will cash it in and write the date and amount on the label.  The children were then set lose to collect all the change they could find.  Matt decided to get into four terra cotta piggy banks I keep in the laundry room to collect change.  The only problem was there was no way to get the money out, so he went at it with his drill!!!!!

It is already full!!!!!

Just a few pictures of our chunky monkey.  He is too dang cute!!!!!

Today I was watching the  children while they were doing math.  It was one of those moments when a smile crosses your face and peace and contentment are in your heart.  It was a perfect moment.  So after reveling in the moment I grabbed the camera and shot a reminder of why I home school.

Santa Obsession continues

Sariah continues to be obsessed with Santa.  The other day when reading to her I asked her to go get a book and she got excited and brought me the "santa" book.

Later on she was playing with her "Fisher Price Noah's Ark" set and kept talking to Santa. I told her that Santa wasn't here and she looked at me as if I was missing a few and said, "Mom, he's right here".  She then proceeded to show me the Noah figure.

Who would have thought that Noah was really Santa all along!!!

Just a brag post

 

 

My darling Serenitie.....How I love that girl.

She started swimming on a team in Germany once a week for a short time.  When we arrived in the states she really wanted to start swimming again but it was never a good time.  this past July I finally started looking at swim teams for her and she decided to join VAST (Valley Aquatic Swim Team).  It is a pretty serious team as far as training and competition.  They have four different levels, blue, bronze, silver and gold.  Her try outs put her in the bronze level.  The team sent 13 people to the Olympic qualifiers and three to the Olympics.

At her level they swim three times a week for an hour.  She loves it.  Last week coach asked her if he could talk to her parents after the next practice. My first response was "What about?".  Then I felt like I had been called into the principals office and tried to figure out what she could have done that was so bad the coach needed to talk to me.  Last time he asked to speak to us it was because her swim suit was disintegrating and she needed a new one ASAP.  So we bought her one the next day.  I just couldn't figure out what he wanted so I sent Matt.

They came home and said that coach wanted to promote her to the Silver team!!!!!  What??!!!!  Usually kids stay at the bronze level at least for a year or two, it is not unheard of if they are there for three!  Matt asked about her times, coach responded that she hasn't made silver times in a meet yet, but she hasn't been to a meet since Oct.  and he feels her times are in that area now.  He then went on to say that even if they aren't he is suggesting she move up because for her attitude, persistence, and endurance.  I am so freakin proud of that girl!!!!

She has also been taking an intense Shakespeare class this past term and on Friday was crowned, meaning that she has read seventeen Shakespeare plays and report on them.  Less than half the class was able to do it within the term.

  All hail Queen Seri....

Parenting her has been such a learning experience for me.  Anyone who knows her knows that she gives the term "tomboy" a whole new meaning.  She doesn't care about how her hair looks, has developed the swimmers triangle so her shoulders and chest are pretty broad and muscular, she walks very heavily and just isn't all that feminine.  Believe me I have tried to encourage her to be more feminine, but she just doesn't really care about girly things.   The other day we were getting ready to leave and I asked her to watch her posture because she looked like..... and she cut me off and said "Because I look like myself?"  That made an impact on me.  she is old enough that I need to back off and let her be her unique self without criticizing.  She knows my expectations she knows what I would wish for her to be, but it is her decision.  It is so hard........  I keep telling myself that she is such a good girl why waste energy nit-picking all the small things?

Traditions

I have been chatting a lot this season with others about the different traditions that families have to go with the Season.  Before next year I wanted to document some of the ones our family has.

The children get pajama's on Christmas Eve that they open and then sleep in that night.  Some years I make them other years they are bought, it depends on how much time I have left when i realize that Christmas is only x amount of days away.

We also string cranberries and popcorn for the tree every year.  Well, maybe I shouldn't really say "we".  Matt refuses to do it and the children are usually excited to do a strand apiece, sometimes Nana chips in, but mostly the next day finds me stringing them all by my lonesome.  This year we let the ward borrow them for the Christmas party and the tree looked absolutely naked.  We used to buy an ornament for everyone each year, but it got a little crowded and the ornaments didn't really mean very much sentimentally, they were just on the tree to be there. So, this year we abandoned that tradition, picked out the ornaments we really loved and Freecycled the rest.  The tree looks like it can breath a little more now.

When I was  a teenager I went over to a friends house and they had pictures of Santa with the children for every year since my friend was born.  I resolved then that I would do the same.  I love the way they all look and how you can see how the children have grown and how we have added to the family over the years.  Even our old dog Jake is in some of them.

When we just had two children I started tracing their hands on Christmas fabric and cutting them out. I then cross stitch their name and the year on the hand and sew them on to a round fabric table cloth I bought and put a slit in.  I adore this tree skirt.

Lastly, we have the Santa milk mug and cookie plate.  Each of the children get to decorate a sugar cookie just for Santa .  Then after dropping off the gifts he gets a little refreshment.  Word has it that this year Santa got full after only the third cookie though.......

Isaac is 6

That poor boy doesn't know whether to count down the days until Christmas or the days until his birthday which was on the 30th.  It's official he has moved onto the second hand and is now 6.

He really wanted to go to Chuck E Cheeses for his birthday dinner but I was less than thrilled, that place really drives me crazy!!  So we made a compromise and went to "Charles de fomage" for playing and the to......Wingers for dinner!  Yes!!! we have a Wingers here finally!!!  It is just as good as I remembered from Germany.  Man, I have missed that place.  The only change between this one and the one in Darmstadt is that when you walked into Darmstadt you were always guaranteed to know quite a few of the people in there.  I do miss that.

Toooo much fun

While at the Larson's house awhile ago the children kept running in and filling up water bottles and then going back out to play.  One of the adults finally caught on and asked them what they were doing.  they responded that it was a science project to see how fast water would freeze outside.  Turns out, they were performing this "experiment" on the driveway at the side of the house and then further "experimenting" by seeing how fast it would take for a person to go down the hill on their back or various play toys found in the backyard.

the long awaited Christmas post!!!

 

First off, we were so blessed to have had a Secret Santa, thank you, thank you, thank you.  We were surprised to get the first gift, but then they just kept coming!!!!

On the first day of Christmas we received a book about the life of Gordon B. Hinckley.

On the second day of Christmas we received two DVD's, "Joy to the world, and "mobsters and Moromons".

On the third day of Christmas we received, The living scriptures on tape.

On the fourth day of Christmas we received four music CD's.

On the fifth day of Christmas we received five coloring books.

On the sixth day of Christmas we received six VHS movies, a popcorn bowl and some popcorn.

On the seventh day of Christmas we got a Jelly Belly machine full of Jelly Belly's and seven coins.

On the eighth day of Christmas we got cupcakes, yum!!!

On the ninth day of Christmas we received ........

On the Tenth day of Christmas we received the book Stand For Something with ten guidelines.

On the eleventh day we received ..........

And on the twelfth day  we received twelve posters with scenes of Christ.

No one can remember what we got on the two missing days, but more important than the gifts is the memory.  The surprise, and the thought that someone loved us enough to put forth that much effort and time.  Even when the world was snowed in, they faithfully dropped off their gifts.

At first the children tried to wake up early and put on a surveillance so they could find out who it was.  That is when we learned that these people wake up reallllly early!!!!!!!!

The children would wake up, run downstairs to get the gift, bring it to our bed, where the sleepy parents would awaken.  We would have morning prayer and then tear into the gift.  It was such a great routine and an awesome way to start our day.

The fourth day found Seri at the kitchen table examining all the poems that came with the gifts.  She concurred that there were at least three different handwriting styles and then later that day she proudly announced "based on forensic science it has to be the ........".  First of all I had to giggle because she was actually drawing on information that I had taught in a coop class on forensic science a few semesters back.  She then produced some of her Shakespeare papers that her teacher had written comments on and continued, "see the L's loop this way, she has very rounded writing, her T's are crossed high, etc......It has to be her family!"  So, to that family a heart felt Thank You, I don't think you can imagine the joy you brought to our family this season!!!!!

When we got home from my Aunt and Uncle's it was discovered that Santa had dropped off our Christmas pajama's.  We then got on the computer to the Army's Nordac site to track where Santa was at and discovered he was in Iceland and coming quickly.  A discussion then ensued about how if we were tracking Santa and he hadn't come yet then who brought the pajama's while we were gone.  Michael then decided that it must be the sandman that brings the pajama's, he doesn't really have a declared job that plays a big part, so it must be him and that way he can ensure that he leaves enough sleep powder on the beds so that the kids will sleep through Santa dropping off the presents.  How I love my children and the fact that my nine year old has been able to hang on to his imagination!!  They were all thrilled that they had figured out the mystery of who delivers the PJ's.  Notice the PJ's have "WII" printed on them.  I was afraid they would suggest that they must be getting a WII, but not one of them did.

The next morning started with stockings.  Sariah was a blast this year, she was so very excited about everything!!!!  Her eyes were huge, she had the biggest grin, and couldn't stop moving and dancing to save her life!  It was so much fun having a two year old this year.  We first went to the stockings.

This is that look that I was referring to, big eyes, wide grin, almost scary......

 

Then we moved onto presents.  Present time, present time, open the present and see what's inside.....

Tristan was actually very good at getting into his presents.

Riah adores her rocking dinosaur!!!!

  With a little help from bubby.  

Then they opened up the WII box and were ecstatic!!!! Isaac is in mid- whooping.

Until, they found that the box was filled with packages of new socks.  Poor Michael actually started crying..... We are so mean!!!!But Wait! Dad says there may be something next to the TV?THANK YOU PAPA, MIMI, and NANA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's just what we wanted!!!!!!!!!

  And they were quiet for the rest of the day....      Riah got new panties and is so proud!!!! Notice the stocking on one foot and brothers shoe on the other........

 

We had such a great Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!  PS, that Wii fit is highly addictive and is kicking my butt!!!!!