Bubsy...

This turkey hates getting his hair cut.  It usually takes a bribe in one form or another.  This time he said he wanted a really huge blizzard from dairy queen.  

So I made the deal and he allowed me to cut his hair.  Then we showered him up and headed to Dairy Queen.  I tried to get him to settle for a medium or a small but he only wanted the large.  A deal is a deal!  He got a large blizzard and we took most of it home afterward.  What a turkey.

Mountain Bike Race...

Jack has been practicing with the mountain bike team a few times a week and now we are full into race season!

Merril looks awesome in his team gear!

Jack was so cute and placed 10th in his division! Awesome dude!

Butterfingers....

I'm not a huge fan of cake but this cake is so good. It was shared by Kathy Brown, who moved away. She brought it over when I had Mark. It's vanilla cinnamon sugar pudding cake. I was excited to make it and as I took it out of the oven, I totally dropped it. Cake flopped out all over the floor. I totally picked it up and we ate it. 

First Day of School!

Wahoo! The first day of school is here! Jack and Juliet are both going to the Intermediate School this year. Juliet is in 6th and Jack is in 7th.

They ride the bus together and it comes crazy early! At 6:55 a.m.

Maxine fixed Mikayla's hair for the first day of school. Braids of course. Mikayla is in 1st grade.

They are ready to peace out.

Maxine is ready for 10th grade at the high school.

Mark starts preschool at Coral Canyon. He's a little nervous but I think he'll do okay.

And we finally have our mornings back! Loving it!

Catching squirrels...

I made a new grow box for things that don't fit in the greenhouse. After planting peas, lettuce and arugala, we discovered that the rock squirrels behind our house like to eat those things. So I tried to deter the squirrels and that didn't work either. I got mad and didn't plant anything for a while. I broke down and bought a live squirrel trap. I couldn't kill the squirrels myself but I wanted them far, far away. After some trial and error, I caught a squirrel. Juliet and I drove clear past Virgin and released it next to the river. It's going to need water. I couldn't release it in the desert. It's on the other side of the river so I don't think it will find it's way home.

I ended up catching 4 squirrels total! Now it's way too late for peas so I'm going to plant a pumpkin patch. Hopefully I can get a pumpkin before Halloween.

AND I FINISHED THE FLAGSTONE PATIO! It turned out better than I though it would.  Yay! Yay and yay!

Lagoon!

This is the last hurrah before school starts!  Lagoon!  We haven't been since Jack was a baby.  Mark loved the boats.

I saw on Facebook that the 20th ward had leftover Lagoon meal tickets from youth conference and was trying to give them away.  I snatched them up.  We got 6 free meals!

We rode rides and screamed screams.

I don't have any pictures of Lagoon-A-Beach but we spent part of the day in the water park.  The water was super cold!  The weather was sunny so it was still nice.  Maxine and I played until the park closed and Merril took the rest of the fam to go get Crown Burgers.

Unfinished Business Rally...

Merril and Ryan entered a 3-day motorcycle rally. They road from Hurricane to Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, Primm NV, Williams AZ, Albuquerque NM, Denver CO, the corner of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Idaho, and back to Utah. They rode 3,200 miles in 3 days. They had to take pictures with their rally "flag" to earn points and a picture with an officer was one of the bonuses. This cop was not excited about it. He said "this is my happy face." OK.

And there he goes!

Merril and Ryan are posing in front of a sasquatch at a museum near Denver CO. I can't see it so it must be a good sasquatch. 

They found Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.

Merril and Ryan won 3rd and 4th places! 

Hurricane Flying Tigers...

Hey look at my cute kid! He's on the Hurricane High School mountain bike team called the Flying Tigers. He's only in 7th grade but he can get away with this because Merril is helping with the team. He's holding his own and looks good doing it.