Going Dutch

My master chef!
So, we had an idea to do Dutch oven cooking for our ward campout coming up in August. We didn't own a dutch oven and had never try to cook this way before....but we are up for adventure! Mike researched on-line and found the 'official' Boy Scout dutch oven (it seriously has the boy scout emblem on it). It arrived this week, so I got some breakfast ingredients and this morning, right and early, Mikey was out cookin' up some vittles!

He dragged me out of bed (ok..it's was 8:15a), and we headed out to the patio for breakfast! And he did a great job! It was YUMMY! So, we called our friends, the Francis' over for breakfast (we dragged them out of bed, too!). The Lucas' were walking on the pathway behind our house and we dragged them into the backyard for breakfast
(they were also impressed with Mikey's garden boxes).

Mike cleaning up...

Fun morning and with good food and good friends! Mikey is liking the dutch oven so much, we are going to do a cobbler for tonight and then try a roast tomorrow for dinner!

Thank goodness for friends!

After a crazy morning of golf lessons, piano teaching, water sliding, numerous phone calls and the tile guys coming to clean my floors, we were lucky to get a phone call from Emily H., Spencer and Joshua about going to their Grandma's house (her parents moved to Park City, but still keep this house) to swim for the afternoon! They had invited Francis', too and we had a great afternoon! Very relaxing and fun to chat with my girlfriends while the kids are fully entertained. The best part is how the kids play so hard and now they will be tired and ready for bed! This home is gorgeous and the backyard looks like a resort!

Amanda, Josh, Sydney and Zoe

Brando eating licorice and he wanted his picture taken....

Mt. Timp!

Our family at the cave at Mt. Timp.

Matt invited all of us to go hike Mt. Timpanogos a couple of weeks ago and we were excited to go! Since we were going through SL, we decided to do some errands. We took Grandpa's truck, got it washed and then picked up the boat from the dealer and took both back to the storage unit. We grabbed lunch, filled up the car, picked up Mike from the storage place and headed south. The kids were really good even though they had been in the car for so long!

Everyone was there when we arrived, so we started climbing immediately! Little Brandon hiked about 95% of the way, with his only rest being short rides on Dad's shoulders. He weighs about 40 pounds, so that's quite a load for Mikey! Amanda is quite a hiker and took the backpack and hiked up with cousin, Maddie. Little Syd, Syd we had to drag up the mountain. She's quite vocal about what she doesn't like! She did it, though! And although we had to threaten her (you'll go back to the car!) all the way up, we made a big deal of her accomplishment once we reached the top! It took us about an hour since we were traveling at a 3 year old's pace!

Amanda was so excited to see this chipmunk.

It was about 96 degrees today and so we were glad to reach the chilly cave!

The cave was fun and all the cousins were loving all the formations. Brandon was happy and giggly. Must have been the thin air!

We started down and Sydney discovered she had to potty....but the potty is a hike back up the mountain! She wanted to get down, so she and I really went fast. She was in pee-pee pain as any girl would know, but she made it to the bottom and we were both relieved!

We all went to Thanksgiving Point after for dinner. The food was good, but the service terrible. The girls went into the gift shop and found the Webkinz and promptly talked their Dad into buying them each one (and Brando, too). The girls are obessed with Webkinz!

Since we were down south, we decided to stop in at Cabela's before heading home. Mike was in guy heaven! The kids loved the displays of the animals and the fish. It is quite the place. All of my kids loved the shooting range!

Brandon would pull the trigger as Mike aimed at the targets.
After buying a couple of sleeping bags and a shade tent (ward campout coming up), we were headed home at about 10pm!

Fun day with our kiddos! Too bad church starts at 9am!

Friend Day

Zoe, Amanda, Taylor, Brandon and Sydney

Cousin day this week was replaced at the last minute by friend day!We had swimming lessons all week and that made it hard to get anything done (lessons were at 1pm). So, Friday, our friends the Francis', Harwoods and Jensen all went to Kangaroo Zoo for a little bouncing fun! The kids had a BLAST! They were all running around, bouncing around and sweating!

It's hard to work to have so much fun!

Spencer, Brandon and Zoe I couldn't get very great pictures because the kids hardly stayed still! Beautiful Amanda!
Watching the Kangaroo come down the slide!

Amanda, Josh, Sydney and Taylor

After a great deal of fun, it was lunchtime! Kangaroo Zoo just happens to be the next street over from Daddy's work! So, we called him and went to Taco Time for lunch. Mikey has been a bit stressed at work, and I'm not sure that lunch with 3 crazy kids was a stress-reliever, but at least we knew he took a break and had some food. The kids love going to lunch with their Dad!

Sydney decided to have a 'late night' with some friends this night. Amanda invited Maddy L. over and we had Abby O., plus all the neighbor kids. It was a little crazy! The kids had a great time, but I'm thinking we'll limit the numbers next time. I think I'm getting old because I can't handle the chaos anymore!

Dance recital 2008

Our beautiful and talented girls at the 2008 ballet recital!

Amanda in the front middle of the crowd.

Sydney dancing 'Star Dust'
Time for the big ballet recital of 2008! The dress rehearsal is an all day affair. Luckily, our girls rehearsal times were back to back! Then, we usually grab dinner and they have to go back for the run through of the entire show. This year, the parents were asked to not come to the later rehearsal and so Holly H., Rachel O., Liz K. and I went shopping! Mikey came home to stay with Brandon and for their boy's night went to the Bees game!

Sydney right in front with her back to us.
Amanda dancing in 'Space Girls' not sure which one is her, but it's a fun picture!
Sydney and her friend, Abby O.
And with some more dancing friends, Lucy K., Indiana, Abby and Sydney
Amanda and her dancing friends, Susie E., Hanalee H. and Maddy L.

The girls were darling and did so great on their dances! I had a hard time getting great shots of the dancing. We always order the DVD of the show and the kids watch it constantly!

Cousin Day...last week!

We met at Murray Park for cousin day! It was nice weather and lots of fun!

The kids mostly played on this toy. Uncle Dan was the 'pusher' and they loved every minute!

After everyone left, the kids and I went to Grandma Gib's to mow her lawn. Then, since Mike had been out of town, he texted me about picking him up from the airport later that night. We decided to stay in SL and went to see

Kung Fu Panda! Cute movie and the kids loved it! We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Cafe Rio and then off to the airport! We actually drove under Daddy's plane as it was approaching the airport to land. That was kind of fun for the kids! And I was glad to have Mikey home!

Need a good read?

Another great Stephenie Meyer book! It took me a couple of chapters to figure out what was going on, but after that...I couldn't put it down!

Mtn. Vistas Day 2008

Every year our neighborhood has a big party. This year...it rained! We usually miss the flag ceremony and early morning bike ride and run. We don't like to get up early! Maybe we're getting old or maybe we are tired of it because we did it for so many, many years, but we wait until it's time for the children's parade! Just as the parade started this year, it started pouring rain! But, no worries, we still walked in the rain! Mike drove the car down and picked up Sydney half way. Amanda rode her bike on ahead of us and Brandon and I just walked, really fast!

Are we having fun yet?

After the parade, there was supposed to be a family picnic in the common area. So, since the rain canceled that, we had a family picnic at Gandolfo's!

Then, the inflatables! The sun finally came out and the kids could hardly wait!

Mikey was such a good Dad and helped Brandon on the obstacle course.

Brandon and Sydney 'boxing'

Super slide

Amanda helped, too.

The carnival games included catch a goldfish with you hands! Fun, but now we have 3 goldfish that won't die. Many neighborhood people sent their fish 'to live in the ocean' which translated means flush them that night! Great idea....
Sydney won a cookie eating contest!

That night we have a bbq and raffle. It was cold, but a lot of people came. Mike usually cooks and this year I helped in the food line as the dessert nazi, telling the neighborhood kids they couldn't fill their plates with desserts! A guy in the neighborhood has a band and they played for us....and did a great job! In the raffle, we won vitamin water...whoopee....and then they canceled the outdoor movie because it was cold and someone forgot to get a good speaker, so no one coudl hear. It got rescheduled for Monday night. It's a busy day, but it is fun and most of all, it's making memories for the kiddos!

Brandon

Dad: Brandon, can I have a boy cheese sandwich?

Brandon: No, Dad. You have a Dad cheese sandwich!

School's out party - Part II

We postponed Amanda's school's out party a couple of days because of RAIN! But, today was still COLD and RAINY! But, once again, her friends decided to try the slide and had a great time. When they weren't sliding, they were doing karaoke and playing hide and seek in the house. Amanda was a very cute hostess and ended up playing with Maddy L. for a long time after the party. Brandon and I ran a ton of errands today. The bulk of the time was spent driving around construction! Every road up here is torn up! The other thing I couldn't believe today was that it took $100 to fill up the gas tank in my car! And I put the cheap grade in!!! Unreal.....

I do have to say today, that I am so grateful for the time Mike spent as YM President in our prior ward. We had the cutest bunch of boys in his Priests Quorum. We ran into one boy last weekend at the garden store. Brody R and his twin brother, Brandon, are such cute boys who now have darling wives and each has a baby of their own! I was thinking tonight that I had Amanda while Mike was in YM's and she was the age of their babies now! We had all of them over for dinner tonight and it was so great to visit and reminisce about the old days. Brody now lives only about 3 miles from us and Brandon is pretty close, too. Our kids had a great time entertaining their kids and Sydney wants to tend Brody's little girl 'everyday.' Those times were really fun and I didn't even mind the time Mike had to spend away from us because we just loved these boys and Mike loved his time as their leader. We even pulled out the scrapbooks and found the picture of the 'moon' under Delicate Arch. Good times.....

Cousin Day!

The Gibby cousins have decided to hang this summer...so since our first plan got RAINED out, we headed to the Church History Museum. (Are you getting the theme of RAIN?)
Here is Cozette's nephew, CJ, and Brandon at the 'Tabernacle pulpit'. Then, we went into the I Am A Child of God exhibit. Brandon was obessed with these magnet cars! He played with those until a wild pack of girls surrounded him and took the magnet from him. He gave up peacefully and ran to Mommy! Mean girls! Pretty soon they were bored and he was able to resume playing. So busy he couldn't even look up for the picture.

Here the girls were dressed up as angels for the Baby Jesus story. They are flying! This is as far as we got because Brandon didn't want to be a sheep-literally, there were sheep puppets.

Then, I wanted a picture of all the kids 'holding to the iron rod'-as you can see, the girls did a great job....Brandon didn't want anything to do with it as long as the girls were there.

Finally!

We also ran into Sister Berrett and Sister Kelly from the 10th ward. They were training to be guides at the museum. Kat also ran into another ward member from 10th ward, that was just raving about how cool Dad is....he's so down to earth and real and I love how he speaks (gives talks I was assuming). That was fun to hear about my Dad!
As we were leaving to get lunch, Sydney decided to 'lead the Relief Society in a song'
And then it was Amanda's turn.....Can you guess by Brandon's picture where we went next? We had lunch with Darin and Roger who work close by....and then went to the Gateway Olympic Fountain.....This time started out like the last time we were here...with Brandon running in to get wet, but he promptly fell and was done with the fountain for awhile.

Then, he couldn't resist and went back in for fun!
We played awhile with Kat's kids and Corrine's kids (Kat's sis) and all the kids were having a blast even though it was COLD! Brando and Zach, Aubrey running in the background.....
When we started to leave the kids wanted to find our brick! During the 2002 Olympics, you could buy a brick to pave or decorate this plaza. Mike and I thought our kids would think it was cool....and they do! We found it in section 30 - 6 rows up from the fountain.

It was a fun day and we are looking forward to our next fun cousin activity!