Feild Trip!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I took my preschool kids to Gilcrease Orchard to pick apples for their field trip. Last year the tour wasn't great, so I didn't sign up for one. When we got there a private kindergarten class was arriving, so we paid and tagged along with them. We started out by decorating little paper bags to put our apples in.

They showed us the machine that makes the cider, then took us out to the fields. We walked by this big pile of compost. It actually smelled pretty sweet.

We finally got to pick apples. I think the kids were only supposed to take one each, but my class went a little crazy. I think most of the kids ended up with 4 or 5.

Seth loved his apples. When we got home, he took one bite out of each and then put them in the fridge.

We walked to the back of the fields were they grow other veggies. The tour guide showed us a peanut plant and had a box of worms. The boys were happy to hold them. The girls, not so much.

We walked back to the front and ate a snack. We were given apple cider. It was frozen so we just took it home along with some granny smith apples. The next Tuesday we drank our cider and made homemade applesauce.

Soccer at the Summit

Friday, September 17, 2010

After a day at the temple and school, Alexis and I drove to Flagstaff, AZ for her 1st travel tournament. We stopped in Kingman to eat. I am a nervous driver so the dark, twisty roads and all the big trucks made me a little tense. We finally got there and checked into our motel, the one where most of the team was staying. It was pretty craptastic!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

We got up and ate with the team, then went to find the field. It was on the NAU campus. The fields were tiny and there was a forest surrounding the park.

We won the first game 4-0! and the second game 5-2!

Besides playing soccer, we mostly ate. We had Denny's for breakfast, Sizzler salad bar for lunch, and the whole team went to Chili's for dinner. The girls got silly and started mixing their food up. It was gross!

Saturday night Lex and I went to Subway and got all our food for Sunday. We got the new breakfast sandwiches (not as good as Micky D's), salads for lunch (which totally froze in our room's fridge), and sandwiches for dinner.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

We tied 2-2 in our morning game and we were onto the finals. We dominated both games on Sunday, but we kept taking shots but not making them. It was so frustrating to watch. We were up in the last game 2-0. The other team scored offsides, then again in the last minute. We were tied and the game ended in a shoot out.

The shoot out was too much pressure and our team totally choked. We came in 2nd place for the tournament.

The girls did a good job and broke the losing streak they were in. We headed home, reading Alexis' church lessons on my iPod as we drove. The trip home seemed to go faster. It was a fun weekend to spend with Lex, but I was glad to get home.

The 1st Day of Preschool

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Tuesday was Seth's 1st day of his 3rd year of Preschool. He was pretty sad watching his friends go off to kindergarten the week before, so we were ready to start.

Seth's favorite part was making school bus snacks out of Twinkies and Mini-Oreos .

I ended up with 7 kids in my class this year. Seth and Cole are a little older than the rest of the group, so I am counting on them to be my helpers!

Labor Day Weekend

Friday, September 3 - Sunday, September 5, 2010

We try to head to the cabin every Labor Day weekend. This year Alexis brought her friend Shae, to keep her from boredom. We left after school on Friday, stopping in St. George for a little picnic at the park.

Saturday we committed to work on the rocky road that leads up to the cabin for Grandma Hein. It was a very long hour and I lost a little skin off my hand in the process. After our time was up, Grandma Jenkins rewarded us with a trip to the store to get raspberry chocolate ice cream.

That afternoon we threw the kids in the back of Grandpa's truck and headed up to the pond behind the cabin. This involved some four wheeling that caused Seth and Cam to get into the cab of the truck midway through the ride. Lex and Shae toughed it out.

We left Grandpa to fish, while we walked down to a beaver pond. Dave threw some rocks in the pond as we walked off, apparently scaring off the fish. Grandpa decided to have a little payback. When we got back from the beaver pond, Grandpa and his truck were gone. Everyone was so mad. Cam kept calling Grandpa a jerk. When we started walking toward the cabin, we found his truck just down the road and saw that Grandpa had been watching us with his binoculars. Very funny!

On Sunday, we went to church, then celebrated Alexis' Adoption Day with tons of chocolate chip pancakes, her favorite. Later we went to walk around in the stream that feeds into the lake. I promised the kids a treat if they made it all the way across the stream. They all did it.

We walked down further and Lex and Shae wanted to climb on the logs across the stream. This ended up involving walking through the water in their shoes. Then on the way back, everyone except Dave and Cam stepped in mud and we had to wash out our shoes when we got back to the cabin.

That night we played games - Charades, the Indian Game, and Scum and had very runny homemade ice cream. It still tasted pretty good.

The Iron County Fair

Monday, September 6, 2010

We ended our trip to the cabin by visiting the Iron County Fair in Parawon. Each ride is about 4 tickets, so each kid had to pick what they really wanted to go on. Everyone wanted to do the Fun Slide.

The rest of the time, Seth went on his own rides while the girls went on things a bit more adventurous than this mini-roller coaster.

The girls rode The Ferris Wheel, The Sizzler, and The Tornado. On The Sizzler, the force of the turns made my girls totally squeeze Shae. Lex was extra heavy from all the pancakes and ice cream the day before.

We stopped by the 4H petting zoo before we left. This pig was HUGE. Camryn said, "Look, we are both big pigs!" Camryn is a notoriously messy eater.

We got back on the road and stopped in St. George to visit Great Grandma Jenkins and to have lunch at Iceberg. The giant shakes were so good, but made us all a little sick on the way home.

Back to School

Monday, August 30, 2010

We (okay, mostly me) were finally ready for the first day of school. Alexis is now in 7th grade and Camryn is in Ms. Thompson's 2nd grade class. The girls got up early and got themselves ready with plenty of time to spare, something that I am sure will be very short lived. I hope we have a good year.

Temple Trip

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Since Alexis and the twins turned 12 last month, I thought the family should take a field trip to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. I even looked up some family names for Alexis and Bo to be baptized for. It was great to be in the temple with so many of our family members and I was so glad I could share Alexis' first time in the baptistry.

Oh, What Do you Do in the Summertime?

I just thought I would share some of our favorite things to do in the summer.

Every Tuesday we went to the free movies. They show older kiddie movies. We smuggle in drinks, popcorn, and Seth's favorite-gummy worms. We love anything free, especially if it is air conditioned.

We like to meet up with friends at pools. We go to the public pools and use our punch cards to get in or bum using our neighbors' pools.

We also met up with friends at Bounce U at the end of the summer. The kids ran around having fun, while I sat and chatted with another mom. It was all fun and games until we were getting ready to leave and everyone handed me their sweaty socks so they could slip on their flip flops. It was disgusting.

As much fun as we had this summer, I was so ready for school to start. What am I going to do when everyone is home all summer next year?

You Got Cheesy Blasters

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Dave and I had watched the episode of Ace of Cakes that featured Duff and his crew making some cakes for the show 30 Rock. They made a cake shaped like Meat Cat. The mascot for something the characters ate on the show called Cheesy Blasters. Duff made some for the cast and crew and we decided it was something we needed to try.

The jingle tells you how to make them:

First you take a hot dog, Stuff it with some Jack Cheese, Roll it in a pizza, You got Cheesy Blasters!

On 30 Rock the restaurants served the Cheesy Blasters covered with Nacho Cheesy and the characters were given chopsticks to eat them with. We tried to be authentic.

Everyone ate about 1/2 of one. Mom and Dad really liked them and had seconds.

The kids thought the nacho cheese was too spicy and really just wanted the pizza.

It actually didn't taste bad, but a few bites were plenty. I recommend watching Liz Lemon singing the jingle on YouTube and using a thinner pizza when you make yours.