Family

Fish and Family stink after 3 days? I am not so sure about fish- we are pretty much a fish free home, but as far as family goes nothing could be further than the truth. The last couple of weeks have been family, family family and we have loved it, loved it, loved it. (I sound like the goose on Charlotte's Web huh?) Anyway- truthfully it has been an awesome couple of weeks.


Tuesday (28th) Dallin had his birthday party -luckily Benjamin was in town, or in state I should say, so he got to come. We swapped Ben for Anna and the kids got to have a cousin sleep over. Which was a real treat. We have a rule (I am considering breaking-would appreciate input) that our kids can't have sleepovers except with their cousins. So they had a great time. ( see future post for more on this slumber party dilemma)


The birthday party went well - as well as to be expected when you mix 8 boys with lots of sugar, dye, and a baseball bat. We made tie dye tee shirts, the boys loved it, the shirts turned out pretty good. Which is a good thing because we will always have a reminder of that experience when we look at the table that is also now tie dyed. We had our traditionally pinata. I voted for picking one up at Maceys but Dallin really wanted a big raincloud pinata. Since Maceys doesn't carry raincloud pinatas we got to make our own. A beach ball, can of black spray paint, and 3 weeks of newspaper later we got a big black ball - that Dallin called a raincloud. He liked it and that is all that counts. I learned it is probably a good idea to put some kind of hook or rope inside of the pinata as you are making it. Our pinata held a lot of candy but wasn't so easy to hang. So only a couple boys got a chance to take a whack at it before broke. Oh well their mouths were to full of taffy to complain much. We moved on to the chocolate bar game which all the boys loved. They had to open up a wrapped chocolate bar with a fork and knife while wearing gloves and eat the whole thing. There were two teams the first team to finish their bar was the winner. Thanks to the fact that Taylor has a huge mouth that can fit an entire giant candy bar at once his team won. Dallins team struggled a bit because they were down one boy. Because although Benjamin is an excellent opener and got most of the wrapper off on his turn to open he doesn't enjoy chocolate and politely passed on eating it. The boys then watched a movie, Eragon, and played night games for a few minutes. I took them home about 11:00 - came home and crashed. Taylor, Dallin and Ben were still playing Pokemon when I went to bed.

The next day Ben got to be one of my cub scouts and go bowling with my Den. It was fun - I love watching my kids bowl, they get so excited when they get a strike, even hitting a pin is something to celebrate. I enjoy it too I scored 118- good thing for bumpers!!! To be honest I am not much of a bowler (except for the Wii - I am the Carter Family Wii Bowling champion- and proud of it) but to put it bluntly I have no form and no aim. I just toss it down there, it bounces against the bumpers like a game of pin ball and ends up hitting some pins. The kids do it the same way but they throw the ball - I was really worried they would break the floor- it hits so hard. Dallin accidentally threw it (overhand) a little to early and to the side, it sideswipped our neighbor bowlers ankle as it went down her lane. It hit the sweeper thing too - luckily not too hard and no one saw so we didn't have to pay the $5 fine. I just had a thought while typing this - what if the fine got added to our neighbors bill since it hit her sweeper not ours. Oh boy, would I feel guilty, first we hit her ankle then charged her $5 - that is not what I call doing a good turn daily. Oh well no way to know or fix that. Back to the topic at hand - family.

That evening we went to Island Park, after a very long ride we arrived at the Larson Lodge, the cabin we had rented. It was pretty nice for a cabin out in the middle of nowhere with 1 big room, 1 loft, 5 beds and a mouse. There was a big portrait of old Grandpa Larsen watching over us that seemed to make the cabin even more homey. It actually worked out great. We had a lot of fun. We met Grandma, Grandpa, David, Megan and their kids that night. Jeff, Stacey and Kevin and Tess met us the next night. We hiked around a bit, floated down a river, feed some huge fish, saw some really big falls (Mesa Falls) and had a birthday party for Dallin, Emily and Josh. It was a lot of fun to be all together and watch the kids play.



We all then headed for Grandma's house and had a couple more days there together. We played marshmallow gun tag, Frisbee baseball, went out to dinner and had a great time just hanging out. Sunday afternoon we headed to our house where Mark, Amber and kids were waiting for us. Mom had made us a nice pot roast with potatoes and salad and everything- all I had to do was finish cooking it. So I plugged the crock pot of 1/2 cooked roast in my car adapter and figured it would simmer along all the way from Soda to Spanish. Well I was wrong. Somehow the cord came undone or couldn't support a crock pot or something because it didn't really cook. So I stuck it in the oven and cooked the potatoes and we had stiff rare roast. It was cooked through enough not to be raw or anything but definitely not falling apart as a good roast should. Anyway we all ate dinner and had a good time chatting and catching up. I was wishing I had a bigger house - with 20 people we were bursting at the seams. But it worked out ok.

The next day David had to fly home so his family left just in time for Jeff, Stacey and kids to join us. We were glad they made it we were a bit afraid they would have to walk down from Soda which would be quite the trek. The key to the car had fallen out of Jeff's pocket and was no where to be found. It is one of those "theft resistant" cars some moron with a son in law in the re keying business invented. The car requires a special key with a chip in it to start. The key is between 50-125 dollars (we checked several dealers) and requires the car to be there when they make the key. So we had to find a way to get our spare key to Soda. No one was too excited to drive it up there so Jeff hit upon a plan. He had a meet the Salt Lake express van in the BYU parking lot. We gave the little package to the driver who assured us he would meet up with Jeff in Blackfoot and hand it off. All went well and Jeff got the key and got to Utah. We spent the week just kind of hanging out and playing.

We went to Thanksgiving point for their 2 dollar Tuesday deal. We should have gone Monday and paid the extra. It was packed. We had wanted to go to the dinosaur museum but the line just to get in was hours long. So we went to the petting zoo. Rachel wanted to ride a horse so I stood in line for at least an hour. She stood right by me mesmerized by the horses. She got her ride and loved it. We went swimming, out to the Spanish Fork reservoir, shopping, the Bean Museum and to the new restaurant "5 guys burgers and fries". We had a great time. I loved seeing my kids play with their cousins and interact with their uncles and Aunts. I wonder if they realize how lucky they are to have such good Aunts and Uncles. They don't get to really see them enough to know them really well which makes me really sad.


We were supposed to go boating with Uncle Rex but the weather turned bad and cancelled that plan. I was pretty distraught. My mom told me "no crying aloud" - right before she told me the news. Its a good thing she warned me because tears were welling up but I was able to stay in control. That may sound silly but I really wanted to go. I love water and boating and have been eagerly awaiting an opportunity to do it. We would rent a boat but with just Rick and I it seem unrealistic. With 1 of us driving the other one would have to choose between skiing and watching the kids. And since our kids safety ranks a bit higher than water skiing we haven't been able to go. So we have been waiting for an opportunity where there are more adults present to help out. And honestly this has been the first one that has come up since we've been married, or at least out of school and financially able to do something like that. It kind of goes back to our lack of needy friends thing. For the most part all of our friends have tons of family who live here and if they go boating or camping or something like that they naturally go with one of their families.

Anyway I have to keep reminding myself to stay on target so back to my week with family. Bottom line is we had a great time and were reminded how blessed we are to have such wonderful family. I have recommitted myself to find a way to be with them more often. At times it seems like such a daunting task with all those miles, expensive plane tickets, vacation time and schedules standing in the way. But somehow it will happen.