Golf Tournament

Today we had a Keele Family golf tournament.  We played as couples.  We played an alternate shot format. It was fun.  Grant and I shot a 44.  We came in second.  Mike and William came in first place with a 41.  I hadn't been golfing in at least two years.  It was good to get out there and play.  I would like to go more often, but it gets expensive.  Also, when you have a family, you can't go very often, there are too many other things going on.

On Thursday, we preordered movie tickets to go to see Brave tonight.  Unfortunately, Krista, Alex and Ethan are all sick today.  I stayed home with them.  We will have to see it some other time.

Here are a couple of pictures I took when we hiked the Y, it may have been in March.  I  finally downloaded them off of my phone...

A Budding Artist

This is Ryan's football card.  Brandon started drawing it a while ago, but found it unfinished.  He finished drawing and coloring it.  Here is the finished product...

What do you think?  I think that he did a pretty good job.  

Late Nights = Cranky Kids

Tonight we got the kids in bed early.  We have had family over late the past couple of nights.  We have gotten to bed around 1, the kids maybe a little earlier, but not by much.  Yesterday, was a little hard because I could tell they were a little tired during the day.  Today was really hard.  It really does not affect the older kids as much, but the younger two fight and whine a little more than usual.  It was kind of a long day, but we made it and now they are in bed!

Activity Day Hike

Today Daniela had Activity Days.  They went hiking near Bridal Veil Falls.  She said that she had a good time.  I know that she looks forward to Activity Days every other week.  I think she just wishes that they did it more often.  She has fun with the other girls and she has a couple of really good leaders.  Here is another picture of Daniela and the other girls in our ward.

Wolf Badge

Tonight Ethan received his Wolf badge.  He has been so excited since his birthday in April to work on the different achievements.  We finished the last one up earlier this week, so he got his Wolf.  Now he is excited to work on electives to receive Arrow Points.  He got his gold Arrow Point tonight.  Brandon earned 7 total Arrow Points.  I think that Ethan wants to do the same, so we've got some work to do still.  The good thing is that he has plenty of time.  Way to go Ethan!

3rd Place Finishers

Brandon and Ethan played in a golf tournament today.  They both did great, they both came in 3rd Place!  Ethan came in 3rd out of 3 golfers, but he played with the 9 year olds, so he did great.  Brandon came in 3rd out of 8 golfers, so he did really well.  He also shot his best round, a 60.  They had a great time.  They do this tournament every year around the 4th of July.  This was Brandon's 3rd year playing in it and Ethan's 1st. I know they both would like to do it again next year.

Tonight we went to Mike and Terri's house.  We had a great time.  We all swam in the pool, ate dinner, celebrated some birthdays and had FHE together.  Daniela, Ethan and Krista did not want to leave.  I think they stayed in the pool until 10.  Here are a few pics....

Weekend

Friday, we cleaned all day.  We were getting ready for Grant's brother, Dave and his family.  They came into town from Idaho.  We really got a lot done.

Saturday, our family cleaned the church.  We went to a T-ball game.  I missed the play, but our neighbor said that Alex caught a pop fly!  Way to go buddy!  Then we were a little adventurous and went to Seven Peaks with our Pass of all Passes.  We went on a Saturday, in the middle of the day, in close to 100 degree heat.  We only stayed for a couple of hours, but the kids had fun.  Later, I tried to give Brandon a haircut with scissors.  I've always wanted to try.  He wanted me to clip his hair with the number two.  I tried with scissors.  I figured if I messed up, I would give in to his wishes.  In the end, we went with the clippers, he is happy.

Today, Sunday, we went to Jordan's homecoming.  It was a great meeting.  Krista and I later went to our ward just for Primary.  I had to go teach my lesson.  It went well.  The rest of the day was spent visiting with family and friends.  It has been a great weekend.

Alex on the "Range"

Since Brandon and Ethan have been golfing so much, Alex has been wanting to go with them.  He's been practicing on the "range" in the backyard.  He goes out and hits the balls all around.  He loves it.  He'll be ready to go play with them sometime, maybe next summer.

Buddies

Krista and Alex get along most of the time, but they definitely have their moments.  Sometimes it just seems there are days where they just don't get along.  They are both stubborn.  I always ask them, "Who is going to be the nice one?"  This used to work pretty well, one of them would give in to what the other wanted.  Lately, nothing seems to work too well.  Yesterday they seemed to be fighting a lot, I couldn't get them to stop.  I stopped trying and it seemed like just minutes later they were best friends.  I asked them what happened and Krista told me that when they fight I just need to remind them that they are buddies.  We talked about it a little bit.  I told them that when I remind them that they are buddies, they need to stop fighting, look at each other and just laugh.  It was cute because they even practiced a couple of times.  They would pretend to fight, I would tell them to remember that they are buddies, they would stop, look at each other and laugh.  Well, today we put it to the real test.  It worked pretty well.  They didn't want to look at each other and laugh, but I egged them on and in the end they would do it.  We were all laughing.  It was fun to go from the fighting, to the laughing and being BEST BUDDIES!

Busy, But Fun Day

I started off the day, by meeting my good friend at Curves.  I hadn't been in a while, it felt good to start the day off with some exercise.  I even came home and walked on the treadmill for a bit.  I hadn't done that for a while either.  I woke the kids up to get ready for the day and start working on their jobs.  I got a call from the neighbor to see if I could babysit while she took her son to the doctor.  The kids were excited for this, they got to play with their friends.  They only had time to get dressed and eat breakfast, so much for their jobs today!  Oh well, we try to be flexible in the summer.

After babysitting, we ate lunch and then Ethan wanted to go golfing.  He has been going with Brandon every day, but Brandon is at basketball camp all this week.  He wanted to go even if it was alone, so I dropped him off with a cell phone.  This way he could call me if he needed to and when he was ready for me to come get him.  He ended up shooting his best score so far this summer, a 72!  Krista, Alex, and I ran to Costco.  Becca and Stephanie came over today to make homemade pizzas for dinner and we needed a few things.  We ran our errands, came home and got started.  We were trying a pizza dough that my sister, Yvonne, really likes.  We ended up really liking it.  It is called Almost Like Papa John's Pizza Dough.  Here is a link to it, http://www.food.com/recipe/almost-like-papa-johns-pizza-dough-177072.  We made a bbq chicken pizza.  It turned out pretty good, I would change a few things if I made it again.

Becca and Steph left, and I had to go to UVU to pick up Brandon and Ryan.  They had a fun, but tiring day at camp.  We got home and I made a pepperoni pizza.  I had time to eat a piece and then I went to Pack Planning Meeting for Cub Scouts.  It was a pretty quick meeting which was nice and we also got a lot accomplished.  I came home and helped Grant build a contraption out of sprinkler pipe and sprinklers to water the garden.  We had some of the soaker hoses, but they really were not working very well.  We'll see how this thing works, I think it will be good.  We tried to get it to work without gluing all of the pieces together, so that it would be easy to pull apart and store for the winter.  Every time we would turn on the water to test it a new piece would pop off.  We ended up gluing the whole thing together.  We'll just cut it apart at the end of the summer.

I cleaned and had time to watch the end of the basketball game.  We got the kids in bed, I just showered, blogging now and soon will go to sleep.  A good, long, busy, but fun day!

UVU Basketball Camp

 

We signed Brandon up for a Basketball Camp at UVU.  Today was his first day.  He goes Monday through Friday this week.  He enjoyed it today.  His cousin and a friend are at the camp as well.  I'm sure that this made it even more fun.  Becca and I went to UVU to watch for a little bit.  I think that he will really learn a lot.  

Happy Father's Day

Grant and I got a video camera for Mother's Day/Father's Day, but we did get him a few other little things.  Mainly just some of his favorite treats.  We are hoping that he will share with us.  I did make him a treat for Father's Day as well.  He wanted some cookies and remembered some that I have only made once before.  He wanted Root Beer Cookies, I found the recipe here...http://www.makeandtakes.com/root-beer-cookies.   I only made them the one time because a lot of people did not like them, but he did, so I made them for him.  He enjoyed them.  We hope that he had a great day, we tried to make it special for him because we love him so much!

Snow Cones

We have had a lot of fun since Alex learned to ride a bike without training wheels.  We have gone to Grant's old junior high and played at the playground.  We have ridden to the park, the library and even to Smith's.  Tonight, we went a little further and got snow cones over by the Scera Pool.  We invited our neighbors to go with us.  We had a long bicycle train, there were 12 bikes!  We made it there and back safely and the kids loved it!  We will have to go back often because the kids want to try all 32 flavors this summer.

A Relaxing Day

An update on the school...it looks like they finished knocking everything down that they need to.  They had a pallet of bricks out front today so people could take one if they wanted.  We have five of them.  I'm sure that we will just toss them at some point, but the kids wanted them, so we got them.

Not much else going on today.  We ran a few errands.  We got a few small things for Grant for Father's Day. I made some copies for my Primary class.  One thing that was nice, since we didn't have much going on, I relaxed a little and watched some of the U.S. Open.  It was fun to watch.  There were a couple of really cool shots.  Grant and I went out on a date.  He chose to go to the Cracker Barrel.  I think I have been there before, but if so, it was a long time ago.  I liked the food and I had a fun time looking around the store.

Golf Ball Hat Clips/Necklaces

Grant's brother, Mike, made these hat clips with magnets.  He has around 30 different golf markers designed to attach to it.  Grant has helped him some.  They have a website...go4thepin.com.  You can see most of his designs on his website.  He has a couple of new designs...

So here is what the hat clips look like...

He also just made some necklaces which you could use while golfing.  Brandon likes using the necklace over the hat clip, I'll have to ask him why he likes it better.  Mike would also like to market the necklaces to kids.  You buy one necklace and then you can buy different tops for it.  I think it is a good idea and that kids would like them.  It's just a matter of getting it going.  Here's a picture of the necklace...

Demolition Time

BEFORE

AFTER

This morning we were at Cherry Hill Elementary at 8:00 am.  They were supposed to do the demolition, but we didn't really get to see much.  They did a little bit and then there must have been a problem because we were there for an hour and they did hardly anything.  The "after" picture was taken around 2:30pm.  We were back in the area, so we stopped by to see how things were going.  They are still going to tear down more, so we'll have to go by every now and then to see the progress.

Balloonology

We went to the library today to sign up for their summer reading program.  We saw this cool super hero hanging from the ceiling.  I don't know if you can tell, but he is made from balloons.  There was a sign telling a little about the guy who made it.  I overheard the librarian telling someone that he had a book on balloon projects at the library.  Daniela found it and checked it out.

It looks pretty fun.  Grant is even excited.  I thought we had some balloons, but I guess that they are in storage.  We will have to go buy some and see what cool things we can make.

Birdie Time!

Look at that!  Ethan got his first birdie!  He came home so excited.  He got a birdie and his best score so far.  They have gone every day since they got their summer passes, they are loving it.  It's nice because they get up in the morning and get their jobs done, so that they can go golfing.  It gives them something fun to do each day.

Welcome Home Elder Keele!

Welcome home, Jordan!  Jordan got home from his mission last night.  He served in Mexico City.  They came over to visit tonight.  It was really good to see him and to hear a little about his mission!

Orem Summerfest

Yesterday and today was the Orem Summerfest.  We did not go yesterday because we were at Lagoon all day.  I did not blog about it because we got home late and I was tired.  The kids had a fun day, they love going to Lagoon.

They had fun at the Summerfest today.  Grant's brother, Mike, had a booth this year, he sold golf ball markers.  We walked over with Grant because he was going to sit with Mike and help him.  I ended up staying with the kids there for a couple of hours.  As you can see from the picture, the kids had a great time and got lots of stuff.  First, they each bought golf ball markers.  You can buy the golf ball markers to wear on a  hat clip or on a necklace.  They each got a necklace.  Next, we went over and had ID cards made for each of them.  The police were there making them.  They took their pictures.  They have info on them like their weight, height, hair color, eye color, etc.  They even each have their fingerprint on the back.  After this, they each made the sun visors you see in the picture.  Then they had their faces painted. Finally, we stood in line and they each got a balloon animal.  Besides for their golf ball markers, everything else was free.  They had a great time.  Yesterday, in line at Lagoon, Ethan out of the blue said, "You learn two lessons at Lagoon. One, patience. Two, fun!"  Well, I guess they learned those lessons today as well.

  The Orem Summerfest always has great fireworks.  We finished the night off with a BANG!

Reward For a Job Well Done

My kids always look forward to getting their report cards for a couple of reasons.  Well, now three...

1.  
They like to take them to Chuck E. Cheese and get tokens.  They give them up to 15 tokens.  They would like to do this every time, but we don't always remember.  Also, I don't like to go very often because it seems to be busy.  I really don't like crowds.

2.  
They like to take their report cards to Krispy Kreme.  Krispy Kreme gives the kids doughnuts.  They give them six glaze doughnuts.  We come home with two dozen doughnuts.  Of course they each have their own box and they keep track of them.  I do make them each give Alex one so that he gets some.

3.  
A couple of months ago, we opened each of the kids a bank account.  We bank at UCCU and they have some cool perks for the kids.  They give them money after so many deposits and after filling their check registers.  Another cool thing, is that at the end of the school year, they give the kids $1 for every A.  For the younger kids they count 4's as A's.  I had Krista with me one day, so we took her in.  They gave her $8, they said that was as much as they give.  I happened to take Daniela another time, to a different branch and they gave her $11.  I took Ethan and Brandon into that branch and they got the same.  We let them put the money into their checking accounts as a reward for a job well done.

Kung Fu Fighting

Brandon "Kung Fu Fighting".  He says he hated it, but I caught him practicing at home a lot.

Golfing Buddies

Brandon and Ethan went golfing today.  After their round, they practiced putting.

They have gone two times recently and had a good time.

Their scores were better today than last week.  They will have to go some more and we'll see if they can do even better.  They love it and have fun together!

Go Captain Feathersword Ahoy!

Daniela dancing at the Cherry Hill Dance Festival.  She didn't like the song that she had to dance to because it is sung by the Wiggles.  I think that she had fun and she did a good job.  She sure is growing up.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Krista and Alex played in their first T-Ball game today.  They had a lot of fun!

They are so happy because they get to play with their best buddies who live right next door!

You Never Can Tell

Ethan at the Dance Festival.  He is such a happy boy.   Also...a cool picture tonight, maybe it's a little hard to see, a rainbow in the sky.