Friends that last a lifetime

There was a time when I considered these beautiful women to be my mothers friends. That was until one day it dawned on me that they were also my friends. What a blessing these women have been in my life. It has gotten to the point with them that I can't remember a time without them in my life. We get togther once a month and exchange homemade cards and work on a preparded project created usally by Trudy. And Trudy thank you for all of the work you put into our fun projects.
This picture is taken of our group in thee Heber mountains where we got together for some amazing projects, conversation, & friendship.

Thanks to Grandma Alicia

What a fun day for us! The fall weather has been fabulous this year and today was no exception. Grandma Alicia invited us to A Pumpkin Patch in Farmington and wanted to buy each of the grandkids a pumpkin. We started out by running through a hay maze. Then we grabbed carts to walk through the pumpkins and make our choices.
It was no easy feet as there were A LOT of choices and some of the funnest pumpkins I have every seen. After we finished making our choices, it was picture time. As you will see I don't think I ever captured the perfect picture, but the kids sure look cute. Finally it was time for the kids to run through the corn maze. They made it through in record time and they all earned a prize for finding each of the markers that lead them through the maze.

Family Photos

The dreaded family photos turned out to be a pretty nice experience. It is so nice to see that in a picture we can appear to really love eachother! Okay we do! Sometimes it just takes a little extra effort.
We had a lot of fun this day. A good friend of ours took our picture, Jill Greenlaw. She did a great job, don't you think! Thanks Jill.

Boys Week-end

Chilcote Boys Week-end

There has been a yearly tradtion for sometime now that the Chilcote boys and their sons go camping for a week-end. It is a tradtion that my sons look forward to every year. And as a mother I have so thrilled to see them enjoy in that time with not only their dad but their Grandpa, Uncles, & cousins!

This year was a little bit differnet. As luck would have it the yearly retreat was held at the MacKay family cabin. Jonathan, due to football weigh-ins, was unable to go up with his dad & brothers on Firday and was disappointed to be missing out. So, I agreed to drive him to the cabin so he could be there also. Rather than turn around to come home, Lane and I had decided to extend the trip to the cabin and make it our last family vacation before school began. Giving me a full day with the special boys/men in my life.

I have such a great love and admiration for my dad and brothers. So it was such a meaningful experience to be with them. It was time well spent and who knows, maybe I will be going every year in the future! tee hee hee

First Day of School

All of my kids started school on the same day this year! That was a little weird. I took this picture as the were getting ready to walk out the door to catch their ride to school. I sure think they look cute in their uniforms. And I love that even the preschool kids wear uniforms too. Nathan embarks on a new adventure this year as he started Junior High. He will be on an 8 period schedule with A & B days.

Truthfully, I sent my kids out the door with feelings of anticipation & anxiety. Is that possible? I am so excited to be back to a schedule and nervous about the homework and ability to meet all the demands that being on a schedule brings!

Happy Birthday Nathan

Two fabulous events take place on this date, August 8th. The first is my anniversary of 16 years. And second is the birth date of my oldest child, Nathan Lane. He celebrated his 13th birthday today. It seems that no matter how we try to plan it one of those events somehow gets over shadowed by the other. This year we figured out a way to give equal attention to both (I hope).

The day began early with a birthday party/breakfast for Nathan 10 of his friends. After loads of sugar from breakfast we sent the kids outside for water games. After an hour of that, we came in the house so Alyssa could hide Nathan's gifts for a scavenger hunt. While we were in the house we let each of the friends tell something they liked about Nathan or something embarrassing they wanted to share. It was fun and we learned some things we didn't know! Then Nathan took his turn to tell what he liked about each of his friends.

Everyone had a good time and Nathan was spoiled with gifts by his friends. A tradition that we have had for sometime is a sleepover with Rylee Chilcote on the weekend of Nathan's birthday. Rylee is an awesome kids and we look forward to this yearly tradition.

13 things I love about Nathan

(these are not in any special order)

1. He has a HUGE heart. He seems to always be looking out for others, especially his family.

2. He loves the gospel! He loves to read scriptures as a family and is always full of questions.

3. He is SUPER creative. I guess that is why he loves the Marvel characters so much! Because he is SUPER too!

4. He is a great cook! He is always so willing to give me a helping hand in the kitchen!

5. He is a great Deacon. It makes me so happy to see him play such an important role in the church as he upholds his priesthood responsibilities.

6. He is my friend. Nathan is not afraid to talk to me. I am so thankful for the close relationship we share.

7. He is an awesome "BIG" brother. Being the first born brings a lot of added responsibilities. Nathan's best friends are his family. He does a great job of looking out for his siblings and being their friend.

8. He is amazing at drawing. He loves to draw and takes pen and paper almost everywhere we go.

9. He is still tells me he loves me and gives me a hug every day, even in front of his friends!

10. He loves to read scripture as a family and he is very a tuned to the our discussions. He asks great questions and I can tell it really interest him.

11. He makes the best out of any situation. (Which makes it almost impossible to punish him, grr).

12. Nathan is very fun to be around. He has a great sense of humor and is very enjoyable to be with.

13. Even though it is sometimes inconvenient to have Nathan's birthday on my anniversary, on the day he was born and every year since then, he continues to be one of the very best anniversary gifts a girl could ask for. (Just don't tell Lane because I love the gifts he gives me too).

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Day 3 - Dubrovnik, Croatia

We were spellbound and amazed at the cleanliness and beauty of Dubrovnik. The water was so clear, we wished that we had time to swim and snorkel. The street inside the city that lead down to the church was made of marble. We tried to get a good shot of it, but a picture truly does not do it justice. We began by walking around the city wall. It was a great way to take in all of the city. We picked up friends along the way and found a place to eat lunch. We were all a little cautious, except for Maria & Chris MacGuire who ate muscles and little fish. But it was nothing but memorable! We also ate lunch with The Covey's & Rawle's.

Vacation pictures as promised

Okay, as promised I added some pictures of our trip! Our first stop was Venice, so that is were I started! Please be patient! I hope to add a lot more posting and updating this week! By the way the date on the pictures is wrong! Ok it is actually right, it is just day, month, year.
(Dani, thanks for encouraging me to do it!)

Venice, Italy Slideshow

Day 1 & 2 Venice, Italy

I had to add the picture of the Matterhorn in because the flight attendants said it was very unusual to be able to see it from the plane, usually it is covered with clouds. WOW!

What a dream come true! We were so excited to go on this trip! We decided to fly in a day early to really enjoy some time in Venice. We were with 8 other people in our group. In Venice everything is on the water. So we had to rent a Taxi/speedboat to take us from the airport to our hotel! It was great! I actually think I could live in Venice if it meant I got to drive a speedboat and do some water skiing everyday!

As you can imagine, the everything being on water can pose somewhat of a challenge to life though. Like what do you do with all of the garbage? And were does the sewage go? (And by the way, you don't want to know). A friend of ours told us that you haven't seen Venice until you get lost in it! Well, guess what, we did get lost our first night! It is so easy to get turned around there. And since there are no straight streets there are also no straight shots to anything! Luckily we ran into some friends, had dinner, and were able to find our way back from there! It was very peaceful and romantic to walk the streets and hear the water so close.

On day 2, we met up the the rest of our group in San Marco Square. Clark Ivory had a tour guide set-up to take us around the city and tell us more about the history of Venice. Land and I just eat that part up. It was also fun to see the rest of our group. After some site seeing we were off to the market for some shopping. It was very entertaining and enchanting to walk the streets and search for the perfect memoirs of Venice. We found and open market with every food you could imagine. We all picked up some fresh fruit and sandwiches for lunch.

Granite installed!

Okay! So I realized I haven't taken any pictures of the kitchen since it was finished! But here is the granite. We had a lot of fun picking it out and it has been one of our family favorite past times in the evening. Staring at the granite and finding diferent shapes, ect. I guess we are getting our monies worth, right!

Happy 2008

New year with new beginnings and new goals. Life just seems to be going at such a fast pace that sometimes I seems to forget to make "note"of the most important things in life. I want to take the chance to use this blog to share the wonderful things that are going on in the lives of me and my family. I have so enjoyed reading your blogs and keeping up with you that way!

This picture was taken at midnight on January 1, 2008. We were so excited to be together as a family and bring in the new year together. Some of our New Year's Eve traditions are building a puzzle together, dad's famous homemade nachos, watching a movie, and screaming and shouting to bring in the new year.

Kitchen Remodel

I don't even remember when we began the process. I just remember that it needed to be done by the end of April! I do know that it has been over 4 weeks since we have had a home cooked meal. We are on the pizza & hot dog diet! YUMMY.

Everything started out at a great cruising speed. We have current run into some delays, but today we had our granite installed! It makes all of the delays okay. I wanted to share some of the before pictures and then the process of our remodeling. Hopefully you won't have to wait to long to see the finished product!