Big trucks...

Saturday was a day of big trucks for Jack. First off, we traveled up north for a reunion at Merril's Uncle Max's house. We caravanned with Merril's Dad because he needed to drive his big, semi-truck up north as well. Here's Jack in the front seat with Grandpa. Have you ever seen so much excitement on a little boy's face?? He rode in the truck for about 3 hours.

Then we decided to go see the Kennecot copper mine with some family. The copper mine is so huge that it can be seen with the naked eye from space! Outside the visitor center, they have a huge tire that is the same size as the ones on the gigantic dump trucks that they use to haul the copper ore. It was HUGE and made by Michelin.

Jack LOVED to watch the trucks haul the rocks to the ore crusher. They look big down there but Maxine's only as tall as 1/3 of a tire.

Juliet was unhappy for most of the day. She looked like this.
Her tummy seemed upset and I changed about 5 poopy diapers. After the mine, which was a lot neater than I thought it was going to be, there was a dutch oven dinner at Uncle Max and Aunt Janice's house. It was super yummy and although my kids never get stitches, I think they get burns more than average. Jack was playing in some dirt and burned 2 fingers on some leftover charcoal. He cried and fussed for about 2 hours of the ride home. He was so tired that he'd start to fall asleep and then wake up because his fingers still hurt. He finally collapsed in exhaustion. He's perfectly fine today. Juliet was still fussy at church today but only because we didn't get home until 1 a.m. She had a nap for 2 1/2 hours and all is well. We still had lots of fun despite the extra weeping and wailing. I was about to finish up but the kids just pulled this pose. I think they survived.

The hoser...

My kids love to play in the hose and get wet. The other day, Maxine wanted to play in the hose and Jules joined in. For whatever reason, our hose in the front yard has had the end cut off so I can't attach a sprinkler to it. However, Juliet still thinks it's fun to get a drink and becomes quite possesive about who's holding the hose. Maxine leaned over to take a swig and Jules looked up at me as if to say, "Aren't you going to do something about this??"
It's still fun to see her facination with water.

We went swimming the other evening at the new community center and I'd never been there before. We all thought it was fun and were completely worn out from all the swimming.

And if you'd like to feel smarter, read on: About 3 weeks ago, we took the boat out and as per usual fashion, Merril backed the trailer in and I sat in the boat, ready to drive. So the boat started to float away from the trailer and I tried to trim down the boat propeller but it wouldn't work. Merril parked the trailer and walked down to the dock and noticed I was drifting away. I yelled, "IT WON'T TRIM DOWN!!" He had me try a few things but ultimately had to swim out to the boat. Then he tried a few things but the trim motor didn't seem to be working. We finally ended up disconnecting a tube from the trim motor and I manually pushed the outboard half-way down with my feet. (Not all the way down because we couldn't get the propeller back up either. That could cause damage on the way home to have the propeller dragging on the pavement.) So we slowly got back to the dock and pulled out the boat and went home. Merril theorized, "I think the trim motor's burned out." Discouraged, we let it sit.

I looked at trim motors online and they were anywhere from $200 to $500. During this time, Merril had his 50-mile hike and school was starting, blah, blah, blah. So last Friday I say to Merril, "So are we ever going to look at this thing or what?" Merril jumps in the boat and gets out his voltage meter and checks wires and some other stuff. He gets out his wiring schematic and thinks and looks a little more and says, "There's a 50-amp voltage breaker somewhere on the engine." After nosing around, he finds the button and pushes on it. Like any breaker that's been tripped, it makes the distinctive, "click." He reaches over and tries the trim button and TA DA!!! Works like a charm! We felt silly that a breaker kept the boat out of the water for 3 weeks but at least it was cheap!! Have a great weekend!

Slacker...

Since Maxine's started school, I've been taking advantage of the free time to do little projects and have neglected blogging. So here's some pictures that I've had on my camera that wanted to be blogged!


First-Rock Climbing:

We went rock climbing for Family Home Evening. I haven't been rock climbing since before I was pregnant with Jack so it's been a few years for me. We went with the Hummels and there was a little whining at first but the kids finally settled into some good climbing. Jocelyn and Maxine were the best climbers because they're the oldest. Max was better coming down and Jocelyn was better going up.

Here's Maxine on her first rock assent:
Mostly Jack just liked getting dirty with Calvin. I think this was right before he was sent to time out for throwing sand. Little devil.

The parents even made it up a climb. I was surprised how easily it came back. I didn't totally embarrass myself. It's such a good workout too!

Next-First Day of School

Here's Maxine ready for her first day to ride the bus.And Now she's getting on the bus and has the pink back pack. She saw the bus and took off with no hesitation. I was like, "Okay, see you this afternoon!"



Last-Laub Family Reunion:


Over the weekend we went to Merril's Mom's family reunion at the farm. Merril's uncle had a little "train" that he pulled behind a 3-wheeler. Maxine said it was almost as fun as the horses that he usually brings. I thought it was great!

Merril ran 14 miles that morning so he did this for part of the afternoon.
One of Merril's aunts brought a fun game of Deal or No Deal. Maxine won some bubbles.

Jack found a whole tub of John Deere tractors at Grandma Laub's house and I barely saw him the rest of the afternoon.
Juliet was very happy because we were outside all afternoon. If there was some way I could have her outside and eating all day long, she'd be the happiest baby ever.
And to finish, the big, yellow moon started to come up as the day was ending. This is to remind you that Autumn and Halloween are right around the corner! I can't wait!

Redrum, redrum...

I start my laundry day by sorting my laundry into whites, mediums and darks. Today, I realized that I could add an extra category: reds. Anyone who knows Merril knows that he's become particularly attached to red items. The whole family has a few red shirts each and some of Merril's exercise clothes are red as well. But to have a whole load of laundry that's just red?!!? It might be bordering on excessive.

Productivity...

Do you ever have those days that are immensely productive?? Maxine started Kindergarten today and the idea of all the extra time I'm going to have made me want to make the most of it. I dropped Maxine off at the bus stop and planned a trip to Home Depot. I purchased supplies to secure my noisy water line and wall patch stuff to patch the holes I was going to create. So I got home and put Jules down for a nap. I had a few minutes before I needed to pick up Maxine so I worked on editing a picture. I picked up Maxine, came home and made lunch. Jules woke up and we fed her lunch and then headed down to the basement. I started sawing holes in the walls and fixing the pipes. I feel bad about cutting ugly holes in my beautifully finished drywall but it had to be done! After working for an hour, I successfully secured the pipe in two places. And then we tested pipe noise and it was all but gone!!! (I can still hear the water stop in the pipe slightly but I think it will be virtually indistinguishable once the drywall is back on.)
WAHOO!!! That only took a year!!

So then we went and played in the sprinklers. After we'd been playing for about an hour, Merril called and said he was sending over a guy to tow that ugly brown Suburban out of the back yard! (If you've seen it in the back yard, I apologize. That thing is an eyesore!) So the guy came over and we had to tow it with the Tahoe to the other end of the back yard but then he was able to winch it up to his truck! He pulled away and now when I look in the back yard, I see beautiful empty space!!! :) Big thanks to Merril for being able to let go.

And if that wasn't enough, I bought a outlet cover for the Christmas light outlet in the front yard. The outlet box was just hanging out with the bare wires stuffed in there. Not real great looking and I've let it go for far too long. (It's wired to the basement so it won't be ready to go until the basement wiring is finished.) It serves no purpose and is completely cosmetic. That being said, I think it makes a HUGE difference.

Eureka!!!!!!!!!!!

Finishing our own basement has had its ups and downs. For over a year, I've had a problem that's been plaguing me. One of our walls in the basement makes a distinctive banging noise in the early morning hours, usually on the dot of 5:49 a.m. At first I thought a piece of framing that I'd installed was shifting so I cut a hole in the drywall and tried a couple things to fix it. And then I went downstairs in the early morning hours to listen the wall to see if it'd bang. While sitting there at 5:49 a.m., the wall that I was positive was the culprit, didn't make a sound but the laundry room made the distintive knock. Puzzled, I decided to abandon my wall and concentrate my search in the laundry room. Last week, I went down and listened and determined that the south wall was not making the noise and that it had to be the north or east walls. So this morning, Merril and I went down and listened and determined that the east wall makes the knock. Satisfied that our search moving forward, I went back to bed. Merril was meeting his brother to go mountain biking at 6:00 so he left to meet up with him. As Merril walked outside, he saw the sprinklers had just finished watering the front lawn. While driving, he started to putting together this puzzle!

The water supply line to the house is a 1-inch flex pipe that comes into the basement and runs right behind the east wall in the laundry room. Since the water pipe was there before I framed the walls for the laundry room, we neglected to attach the pipe to the framing in any way. So when the sprinklers valve would kick off in the morning, the pipe would jiggle, sometimes called water hammer, and knock on the framing. That's the reason the knock happened at the exact same time every day!!!

When he came home and told me about his theory, I ran out to the sprinkler timer and set the sprinklers to 1 minute. I ran down to the basement and waited. Sure enough, the wall knocked just as predicted!!

I am filled with peals of excitement because it's going to be an easy fix!! All I have to do is knock a few holes in the drywall and secure the pipe to the framing. I'll patch the holes and be ready for paint!! And since I followed the advice of a few basement finishing websites, I took a ton of pictures of the framing and electrical before the walls were closed up. Therefore, I know exactly were that pipe runs and just where to punch the drywall. Here's a picture of the stinker! It's the large white flex pipe. I feel so wonderful today and have called Merril a genius about 10 times already!! Wahoo!!

Fair faces and Merril's 50-miler...

On Saturday, the kids and I cleaned the house and then to prevent it from becoming dirty again, we left to go to the county fair. We played in some bounce houses and did the rock climbing wall but the highlight was a lady who did some really cool face painting. Maxine and Jack decided to go feline. Maxine was a girl kitty and Jack was a tiger.


And then they had to do their fierce cat faces for me. Here's Jack! Rarrrrrrr!

And here's Maxine!

The painting was a little pricey but it's what they wanted to do instead of ride the rides. I had a hard time convincing them we had to wash it off before bed. Maxine wanted to sleep in it and then wear the face to church.

And Merril made it home around 7 on Saturday evening. We planned a big, fancy dinner for Daddy's homecoming! Merril took our old digital camera and snapped a few pics along their hike in the Uintas. Here he is in Jared Hummel's scout shirt. Man those things are ugly.
Here's one he snapped of a lake. I'm not sure what he was trying to do but I thought it came out looking cool. I asked him if he did it on purpose and he said, "Nope. Just came out like that."

Here's one, over the shoulder, of the scouts as they were hiking!
They did great! Nobody was injured and Merril lost 5 pounds from a week-long diet of water, fish and some dehydrated dinners. He weighed 199 when he came back!! It's been a long time since he's weighed less than 200 pounds and he was thrilled to bust the 200 mark! Good job babe! Wahoo! It's nice to have him home!!

As American as Apple Pie...

Pie is one of my very favorite things. There's something very simple and homey about a slice of pie. I'm a fan of all pie: pumpkin, coconut creme, pecan, cherry, chocolate silk, you name it. My least favorite is apple, which just happens to be Merril's favorite. Also, apple is very time comsuming to make. I have to peel the apples, slice them, core them, blah, blah, blah. But, I've found that apple pie's edible as long as I drizzle my whole slice with caramel sauce. Then it's more like caramel apple pie. Yum!


So as a homecoming present for Merril, I started making apple pie last night. I finished up around 10:30. Here's the pie right out of the oven. So yummy!
Here's the pie this morning. There wasn't enough light to take a good picture last night so I waited until this morning. I've got a nice tub of vanilla bean ice cream to make it apple pie ala mode. Maxine has hidden the pie in the pantry because she wants it to be a surprise for Daddy! Yum! Hooray for pie! Any other pie lovers out there??

The big 100!!

I've hit 100 posts on blogger! Wahoo! When I think back on my posts, I really can't think what they were about. But I hope that some were funny and made you laugh.

*sigh* Merril will be home in about 2 days from now. I seriously feel like he's dead. Since I can't call him, I type into a Word document when I have something to tell him. So far I've got about 2 pages. It's just funny stuff the kids have done, how I'm feeling at the moment, ya know, things I'd normally just call and talk to him about. But we've been doing okay. Maxine went to Grandma's house for a sleepover yesterday so that was nice. I think we'll hit the lake this afternoon because it's such a nice day!! (No, we won't take the boat. I might have considered it but the trim motor isn't working so the prop won't go up or down. Other than that, the boat runs fine!)

And on a nostalgic note, I scanned the photo from our wedding announcement. Hee hee hee. Seriously, who let's kids this young get married? Anybody else used to perm their hair ladies?? Man I love that bike, I mean Merril. :) P.S. Thanks again Jared for the pictures. These were taken with the Canon AE-1 camera that Amy was messing around with on her blog.

Jacky snacky...

When I had a boy, I figured that he'd be dirty and rowdy and all over the place at once. He's definitely dirty but has a serious concentration that cracks me up. He's inherited A LOT of Merril's mellow disposition. He nevers wanders and stays enthralled and quiet with the same toy for hours (left unbothered).

We were buying Maxine a bunch of things for school today so I felt like Jack needed a new car. He picked out a 'Cars' car: Doc Hudson. While I was making dinner, he played outside in the dirt. After dinner, he said he wanted to go back and continue his game. After watching him lay in the dirt and drive his car, I had to get the camera to capture his supreme focus.


I'm usually not very good at just hand or feet shots but I liked this one.
Jacky's was showing me that Doc has blue eyes.

I wish the my camera had focused more on Doc. It focused on Jack's thumb. It's still my favorite though.
He's my sweet boy. I've always felt super lucky to have had daughters and a son. Some people never have this much good luck! Today was a good day.

He's gone!

Merril left 2 minutes ago for a hike in the Uinta mountains. He'll be gone until Saturday night and will hike 50 miles. Ohmigoodness! Merril told me to look on the bright side and get lots of little projects done after the kids go to bed. (I tend to waste time and goof off when Merril's around.)

The part that bugs me the most is that he'll be out of cell phone service the whole hike. Usually when Merril takes off for a while, he can still call me and we gab about what we're doing. But I won't be able to talk to him until Saturday. *sigh* It'll be the longest we've been apart since he did that tour guide bit for the Olympics back in 2002.

But the best part about today is that we're going to Grandma and Grandpa Campbell's house for dinner and then eating cake and ice cream for Aunt Rachel's birthday. By the time we get done up there and drive back, it'll be bedtime. Give your hubbies a big hug tonight ladies! I'll be missing mine.

Lagoon!

We went to Lagoon (amusement park) to meet up with some of my family and play! It was great to see my sister, Jo Anna, and some cousins. Mostly, we took the kids on rides and catered to them but Merril and I were able to go on a newish ride called Wicked. It was kind of a lot of work but Maxine had a blast. She was able to take off with some cousins and go on lots of rides. Here's Jack on the Dinosaur Drop with Merril. He had fun once the ride started but he seemed scared as he sat there. Jack had the most fun playing in some dirt with his truck after lunch. *sigh* He's easily entertained by dirt. Other than that, it was Baby Boats, Little Airplanes, etc. The Animal Kingdom Train ride was also a bit hit. Jacky thought the little train was extra awesome! (I really should've cropped this one before posting but I'm in a hurry!)

And of course we have the carosel. Maxine thought the horses were beautiful and imagined she was a princess.

And lastly, and totally unrelated, I'm finally going to get a zucchini from my garden and I'm super excited!!! (I know, everyone can grow zucchini but me.) I've been out there pollinating for months and the work has paid off! Zucchini and squash just don't like my back yard, it's super hot back there in the afternoon. My squash keep meandering but I've yet to even see a female flower on it.This year, my carrots have been the most fun for me! They're fun little surprises waiting to be plucked from the ground. (They pretty much taste like store carrots so the fun is all about pulling them up.) I think they'll make a nice side dish with part of the greens still attached at the top and not chopped at all.

Oh whoops, one more thing. Merril got a trampoline from his Aunt Margaret. I don't think she gave it to us; rather, we can keep it at our house and let our kids jump on it and if she ever wants it back, she can have it. It's old school: no net to keep the kids from flying off. The ground in our back yard is so hard, I'm sure I'll have some broken bones by the end of the week. (No one's jumping because it's hot outside.) And Merril's going to be gone ALL NEXT WEEK for a 50-mile hike with the scouts so I'll be posting lots of pictures of me looking glum and worn out.