Happy Halloween...

Yay! It's time for Halloween! Mark got a helmet for his birthday and loves to wear it.

 

I wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood and convinced Merril to be the Big Bad Wolf. I loved how his wolf constume turned out! Sorry it was so hot babe!

That furry material was super annoying to cut and sew. It had to be combed so one didn't cut all the fur off. It looked like I skinned an animal in my bedroom. I ended up making my shirt, skirt, and vest. I purchased a red cape. I end up making Halloween costumes because it's almost impossible to find anything modest enough.

Mark was a ghost.

Mikayla was Shine from a cartoon about genies called Shimmer and Shine.

Mark's had too much candy.

Juliet wore an inflatable unicorn costume that made her look like she was riding it. Jack was an auto mechanic with awesome looking coveralls and Maxine was a member of the Hufflepuff house from Harry Potter. They were all super cute and I don't have a.single.picture. #momfail 

Baby ghost pumpkin...

After all these years of gardening, I've finally grown a pumpkin I could carve! I had to catch and relocate 4 squirrels to make it happen! 

Birthday #5 for Marky Shark!

Mark is 5 years old today! We woke up early to open presents so that no one would miss anything by catching the early bus.

Mark requested that we go to House of Jump for his birthday.  We had the place to ourselves!  Unfortunately, Mark hurt his leg after being there a short time and had to sit out for a while.  After some Tylenol, he was jumping again, although he kept favoring his hurt leg. 

 I can't believe what a sweetie he is sometimes.  He always says, "Thank You." which is so nice for a Mom to hear. Life just keeps getting better and better!

Update on my SI joint...

Update on my SI joint: I've done my stretches twice a day for about 3 weeks and I'm experiencing slow but steady improvement. Driving the car caused a lot of pain and so did getting up first thing in the morning.  I had a few really bad days and then the pain slowly started to improve.  Driving became easier and then getting out of bed. I'm hardly experiencing any pain at all but I'll continue my stretches because I feel like they are doing me good! I'm glad I have a body that recovers and that I feel pretty amazing most of the time. 

The kids and I went to an owl City concert. We've been waiting for Owl City to go on tour for quite a while. When I finally saw that he was coming to Salt Lake, I got tickets for me and the four older kids. We hopped in the car Tuesday afternoon and drove up to the concert. We got there just in time to stand for our general admission seats, there were no chairs.

A concert without chairs presented a problem because with everyone standing, Juliet and Mikayla could hardly see anything. So I had them stay put and I walked around the side to see if I could get a better view. I walked clear to the front on the left hand side. There was room for us and it was a clear shot of Adam Young. I went and got the kids and with us repositioned, we enjoyed the rest of the concert. He was so close, maybe 30 feet away. Mikayla got tired quickly and ended up falling asleep on the floor. The rest of us listened with our earplugs! I don't know why they have to make concerts so loud.

Adam was a lot of fun to watch because he plays so many instruments. He would loop an instrument and then go play another one and loop that until he had all sorts of sounds going.  Then he would sing and play the guitar or sing and play the drums. He's a really good musician and we had a great time!

My Boys in Moab

Merril and the boys are in Moab this weekend for Search and Rescue Training. It looks like they're having a good time!  This picture of Merril and Mark is my new favorite. I'm ready for them to get home because I miss their silly faces.

Maxine's picture...

I'm amazed at what my children accomplish. Maxine painted this. DANG! I love her jeans. Maxine is good at drawing people, I never was. I could only draw animals or flowers. Crazy how our children grow up and become amazing people!

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction...

Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction.  That's just a really fancy name for a pinched nerve with a ton of pain down the back of my right leg whenever I sit or stand.  I have been dancing around with this pain for at least a year but on Wednesday, it got really bad so I couldn't sit or stand.  I saw a physical therapist.  Turns out, running gives one tight hamstrings. My tight right hamstring has started pulling on the joint that hooks the base of my spine to my pelvis, which in turn pinches my sciatic nerve that runs down the back on my leg.  The solution?  Stretches, and lots of them.  

The good news is that laying flat is pain free!  However it's hard to lie around all day.  These stretches take forever and I go back to the physical therapist twice next week.  Hopefully I can get feeling a little better because right now I'm barely breathing through the pain!

Neighborhood friends...

The amount of bicycles on my driveway tonight was a little ridiculous. #idonthavethatmanykids

Homecoming game...

I'm a little ashamed but this was the first Hurricane Tigers football game that I've ever been to, and I've lived here for 13 years.  I had fun!  Maxine sang the national anthem with the chamber choir and did a really amazing job.  I didn't take a single picture because I was having such a nice time listening. 

It was the first time I was able to see the Hurricane "H" set on fire.  It was very fun!

It would have been a really great night except that I sent Julie and the little to the concessions to get sno cones with 25 minutes until halftime.  Julie wanted to watch the cheerleaders do their dance routines.  It took FOREVER to get the sno cones and I kept looking to see if they were coming back.  She didn't have a phone and I didn't know where they were.  She completely missed both routines and was upset.  We left right after that.  It was a bummer for Julie but I promised we'd come to the next home game so she could see the cheerleaders and dance company perform.  

Ren and Goongi!

Shota, Aya, Ren and Goongi came back to America for more cars and more visiting. Merril took them around California and then brought them back here.

Once they were back here, they stayed in the guest room! The bathroom was all finished so I was so excited to be able to host with an actual room!

The littles and I tagged along for a trip with them out to Horseshoe Bend. It was hot! We went to the Grand Canyon too.

That hike was a little exposed and high! It was a lot cooler though.

Merril took them to Zion with the other kids.

They took selfies with Maxine and sang the Japanese version of Moana. 

We took them to a real live rodeo. That felt like such an American thing to do. 

They really liked the sand dunes and wanted to go back to Snow Canyon.

We tried to take them to the lake but the boat wouldn't cooperate. It started at the top of the dock and then crapped out once we were in the water. It took us forever to get towed back. Bad fuel pump I think. We ended up just swimming in the water where people cliff jump. 

They invited us to come stay with them in Japan if we ever get out that way. 

Young Womenhood Recognition Award

Maxine worked hard over the summer and finished up a lot of her personal progress book. She finally finished it all up and received her medallion today!

It takes a lot of steady work and we are proud of her that she finished it!

Lake Life...

Can't believe that summer is almost over, and we've hardly taking the boat out at all. The first time we took it out, the steering stopped working and so we couldn't make it turn the direction we wanted. It took some finagling to get back to the dock but we managed to. We brought it home and it just sat there because we were busy. Merril fixed the steering so we went out the other day. It was the most perfect day to go to the lake.

 I don't know how much longer we are going to have the boat, it needs so many things fixed. I think we're going to sell it and get something different or maybe not have a boat for a little while. I think the kids would be sad but we can drive down to the beach if we want to go play. Anyway, it was a really, really nice day at the lake.

The basement room is finished!

This construction room was so full of garbage.  Why did I put this junk in here??  A lot of it should have gone in the garbage a long time ago.  The first step was to clean out the room.

I installed shelves, painted the closet white and installed shelf bars.

I painted the ceiling and the walls.

Installed the baseboards.

Painted the baseboards and finished the wiring.

I thought the power was off to the room.  It wasn't.  My gold wedding ring came in contact with a hot wire and shocked me.  I have a scar under my wedding band now.  I took it to the jeweler and had it fixed good as new for $100.  Ce la vie.

Then the carpet installer came!

I asked Merril to put up the fan because I was exhausted. And the carpet looks great!  All the kids had a sleepover in the room.

The bathroom had a transformation as well! I was mostly storing things in it. 

I found this shower curtain and built the bathroom around it. 

The walls were painted a blue/gray color.  I ordered the vanity from home depot.

Merril and I installed the mirror and I installed the light bar.

The cultured marble for the shower and the sink took the longest.  It came about a month after Emily visited.

Merril installed the shower finish pieces and it work. We had Brother Brinkerhoff, a plumber we know, come and take a look. He said he felt that a piece of solder had become trapped in the T in the wall. He tried to blow torch it out from the shower side but it wasn't happening. He said the best thing would be to cut a hole in the wall. The bedroom wall. The one I had just finished painting. 😩 Whatever. Cut a huge hole in the wall that I just finished and fix the dang shower. It worked!

Then I spent 2 days getting the wall patched, sanded, textured, primed and painted but you can't even tell!

But now that it's finished!  It looks so nice!  I'm really pleased with how everything turned out!