Thirty-eight is Great!

Well folks today is the most important day in August. It is the day we celebrate the birth of ME! That's right 38 today. I realized that I already thought I was 38 and thought this year was 39! What a great thing to find out I am going to be 38 for another year.
So for my birthday I sent Dave up to the Homestead with 2 of the boys. So that means I am sports chauffeur extraordinaire today. So fall is officially starting here at our house. We had...

• football weigh in at 7:30,
• Soccer practice at 9:00,
• Soccer game at 11:00,
• Football pictures at 1:00,
• Football scrimmage at 2:00,
• 2nd Football scrimmage at 3:00.

My favorite part of fall sports is getting the schedules and writing all the stuff down on the calendar (in their color coordinated pens of course!) Alex-purple, Jonathan-green, Aaron-red, Josh-blue, Family-black, YW and EQ- orange! My calendar looks so festive and it causes a mild case of hysteria when I see that we need to be 3 different places at the exact same time! Colorful Calendars are exciting!!

Oh, I also have a new color this fall.... Pink! Pink is for PTA! I went down to the school to meet and chat with the new principal and in the course of the conversation she asked me to be the PTA President! I was very firm (you would be proud) and said NO! That was a month ago. Since then I kept feeling guilty that we had no PTA! So one night in order to make myself feel better I said to myself..... Well if Cheryl (former president, Ward friend) would be my co-president, I would do it! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! Literally 2 days later I get a phone call.... "Kelli, this is Cheryl. If I do this with you would you be the PTA President?" So Pink is for PTA. Enough said. Though one positive point is I told my little sister, Tricia, that since I was the President then she had to be on my executive committee. Membership Vice-President. HA-HA That made me happy.

I feel that I must share with you a few highlights of the wisdom that I have learned in the last 38 years! This of course is a very small representation of the vast amount of knowledge that I have accumulated in my short life span.

• Using big words in a sentence makes you sound really smart
• But only if you spell them right!
• Mom was right. Dishes are easier to do if you do them right after you eat!
• Dad was right. Making lists is a good way to remember everything when you go camping.
• Grandma Carter was right. Kissing is fun.
• Parents and Grandparents are smarter than I thought.
• Siblings are cooler to play with when you get older.
• Boys are smelly and messy and adorable. They do bring me the greatest joys and biggest stress.
• The church is true.
• My Dave is the most amazing man alive making me the luckiest woman.
• Laundry and Families are forever!
• Anything kids mess up in 10 minutes will take 4 hours to clean up.
• Laughing can make a lot of tense situations a little better.

I don't want to overwhelm you all at once and have anyone go into brain overload so I will sign off for now. Love you all.

Summer Vacation 2007

Wow, what a wonderful last couple of weeks we have had in our family.

We had a fun time at our Stake Lagoon day! Tricia and her kids and Jenn and her kids and Mom and Alli came with us. We played at Lagoon-A Beach for a few hours and had a great time getting nice and tired. We then met Jenn and the little ones and started on the kiddie rides. That is pretty much what Jenn and I did for the rest of the night. The kids had a blast. Even Lauren went on several rides. The big boys and Dave and Tricia took off to go on bigger rides. We did all (except Jenn) go on Rattlesnake Rapids which I love. I really want to go river rafting someday! Mom brought a nice dinner (THANKS MOM) and she brought Alli. We stood in line for 45 minutes to go on the Rocket. We got to the very beginning of the line and they shut it down because of the lightning danger!! Alli and I ran to go on ANY ride so we could justify spending $25! We went on 2 rides!! Oh well, we did have fun. The rest of our crowd was waiting to go on Wicked. They all said that was the best ride. It shoots you straight up and then drops you down a huge hill and then twists and turns all over. Very scary if you ask me! We had a great time!

The very next day Jenn gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL little baby girl! Little Claire has tons of dark hair and is so tiny that I can hardly believe she is real! Jenn and Andrew are so wonderful to bring this special little baby into our family. Tricia has already bathed her and slathered her in so much lotion that she could be dangerous to hold.

B. Rad and Sara and their darling family just left to return home to CA! I know why my boys look forward to them coming because it is non stop fun while they are here.

We spent a few days up at the Homestead! What a great time that was. Thanks to Uncle B. Rad the boys learned Steal the Flag and we all enjoyed watching B. Rad try to do Double Dutch Jump Rope. Kassidy probably really enjoyed doing a "girl" thing for once. The boys did make up a strange game of baseball that involved randomly place chairs. They had lots of fun until B. Rad and Grandpa started changing the rules. Man we have a lot of "red" personalities in this family! Grandpa Irv taught the boys their knots and Josh and Jacob did a good job setting up and taking down their tent. Scouting will go on forever in this house!

The highlight for all the kids was the Mountain Monster Ride! All of the kids pile on a bike with B. Rad and they proceed to go hunt for the Mountain Monster! They go find a place to park and they all pile off and walk a ways into the woods. All of a sudden B. Rad will scream "THERE HE IS!!" With their adrenaline pumping they all go screaming back to the 4-wheeler as B. Rad yells "Run, run he is right behind you!" They barely make it back and then they fly away with their screams echoing off Mt. Baldy. I do believe that a few kids had some nightmares that night!

The four wheeler rides were an obvious highlight and we enjoyed having the wind in our hair and the dust in our eyes as we drove through the beautiful area. The big boys all thrived on driving "all by myself and really fast" around the loop.Our hike to Time Spring is always fun despite Emma the Brave falling twice into the stream. She finally gave up trying to jump and just took her shoes off and walked through the stream! Thanks to Uncle Horace we were able to shower and bathe all of these filthy kids. We talked and laughed and played and rode and cleaned and cooked and talked some more. It was great but we did miss the rest of the family. B. Rad got a little taste of what it would be like to be the only boy having to hang out with all his sisters. Sounds like what Andrew deals with a lot.

After a 1 day recovery we took the boat up to Pineview. We did get Mitch and Haley up there also which was fun. The first couple of hours was very wet and that was before we got in the water. It poured rain! Poured I tell you! We sat under the awning which, by the way, is Tricia's idea of shade. It still lets the sun and rain through! We tried to eat lunch and had soggy sandwiches and soggy chips. The towels were soaked and so were we! B.Rad and Mitch were valiantly trying to blow up the tube up at the car and came back remarkably dry while Sara and I sat in the rain! Alli the Marvelous took the kids in to the water to play and although they were as wet as we were under the awning they had a lot more fun!

We finally got out on the boat and it finally stopped raining and we proceeded to knee board and ride the tube and wake board. Wow B. Rad and Mitch and Haley are fancy wake boarders. Tricia and Alli and Steve and even Josh did well also. The boys love telling tales of their wild adventures of Mitch and B. Rad trying to dump them off the tube! The drivers must have been going 80 mph at least! Sam and Alex went on the tube, rode in the boat and played on the beach. All the knee boarders did great. Josh, Adam, Aaron, Emma, Ethan and Jonathan took a turn this year. We have many fish in the family. We didn't get home until 11:30 and we had some very tired boat adventurerers.
While we were boating Dave was attending his 20th High School Reunion! It was an alumni only party and he had a great time. He laughed a lot at some of his old friends who were a bit tipsy and kept telling him how much he loved him! I was proud of my anti-social husband going and being social without me! We are so proud!

So after many late night visits, late night movies, late dinners and cousin play days we wrap up our July. Thanks to B. Rad and Sara for sharing their vacation with us. We love having them here and miss them when they are gone. Love you all!