Family Fun.....at Lagoon

School started on Thursday and we just didn't feel we did enough fun summer stuff with the kids...so we decided to head to Lagoon on Saturday. We were able to spend it with some of our family, so that made it even more great! We found out just how much of a daredevil Jena can be. She was just tall enough to go on a lot of the "bigger" kid rides and was more than willing to go on them (it was her mom that was not as willing - mainly from fear of heights :) Emilyn was just under the height requirement for the bigger rides but she handled it pretty well. She took care of her cousin, Mylee, and was quite motherly with her :). Seven hours later we were able to drag the kids away and go home! :) Lagoon is definitely a lot bigger than we remembered...we weren't even able to ride all of the rides but I think we got enough to last us for a couple more years!

Jena decided she would ring the bell and wave to all the people standing around the boat ride. This is her "Princess" wave :)

The girls had to go on this ride twice so they could each drive the plane. Emilyn was so serious about driving these rides while Jena was more of a "relaxer" (after all these were just the little kid rides :)

After Emilyn finished driving Mylee around in this car, she told me that Mylee had the fake steering wheel and that she was the one really driving the car. It was the cutest thing that she really believed she was driving it!

This is one of my favorite pictures! This was a little dragon roller coaster that Jena said took her stomach away. I am sure it was nothing compared to the big White Roller she went on twice with Lance and I (Jena even rode in the very front seat with me of the big White Roller Coaster!)
(Oh, they also got haircuts for school. Their hair hasn't been this short since they were babies - they look so cute!)

I was forced to go on this ride since Lance had sandals on and open-toed shoes were not allowed on this ride. I thought this was just going to be a slow leisurely ride a few times around....um, no. As soon as we got on it took off! It really was probably one of the more mild rides but my fear of heights doesn't help. I held onto Jena's hair the whole time (poor thing). She was screaming the whole time (maybe from me pulling her hair out!) but she loved it. I think we will skip this ride next time. :)

Lance braved the motion sickness of this ride to go with Emilyn. My brother-in-law Trask rode with Jena. By the end, I could tell by Lance's face that he was feeling the effects of it. What we will go through for our children :)

Trask wanted to take Jena on the Ship since she was so willing to go on anything she could (none of the rest of us wanted to go on it). This was a cute picture of them! It is also fun to see the facial expressions
of those sitting around them :)

Emilyn taking care of Mylee in the Plane :) Mylee loved the rides! She is 20 months and the cutest thing. My sister, Brooke, was afraid to put her on these rides (I must admit I was too). It was funny though because the first ride Brooke put her on, she tried to go on with her but the guy wouldn't let her (she was too tall :).

Wow - where has the time gone? Just some random things....

Just some of the things that we have done this summer! It has been going by so fast. Only a few more weeks and then I will have a 3rd grader and a Kindergartner! I guess I will be spending my days at the school! :)

The girls love to get their face painted whenever they can. We told the girls just to have something little done this time. Emilyn told them she wanted a Fairy Princess (I guess the face painter decided to make her into one :). Jena wanted a sunset and the face painter did a great job. I think this kind of job would be a fun one to do someday :).


Strawberries, Cherries, Raspberries, oh my....
We love the garden! The girls will eat anything out of the garden. Jena use to hate tomatoes until we grew them in the garden. Now we have found that if we say it came from the garden, the girls will eat it:) If only I could grow it better and the birds, wasps and grasshoppers would stay away. We got one cherry from our cherry tree this year. Lance came into the house one day and said the birds ate all of our cherries (sure enough - all that was left was the stem and the seed. They had eaten the whole cherry part. The funny thing was that the stems with the seeds attached to them were still hanging from the tree!) We will be getting a plastic owl and some netting next year!











Lance took the girls to a Policeman Breakfast during Saratoga Splash. The girls loved it! The Policemen made all the breakfast and served it to them. After the breakfast, they got to watch a parade. We didn't get to see a 4th of July parade this year because we were in Arizona (they would die of heat stroke down there if they had a parade!) So, I guess this covered for it.

Two trips to Idaho and One trip to Arizona
The girls were excited to add 2 new cousins to our family this year! We made the trips to Arizona and Idaho to see each of them! They are so sweet and the girls loved holding them. They also loved playing with all their many cousins (wow, they have 10 total now!)















The girls also did a little fishing the last time we were in Idaho. We went up to the golf course where they had a kid's pond. They had stocked the pond with some huge fish (even some adults were up there trying to catch one!) The girls got a lot of fishing practice in (I think both of them can now cast their own fishing poles and make their hook go in the lake :). They caught a lot of moss and sticks but no fish! I don't think they were too disappointed though - they had fun trying :)

And in the latest example of why you don’t want your husband to know your passwords...

I’ve hijacked Jodell’s blog. Hi. Yes, it’s Lance. But before you alert the proper authorities, you must understand that my intentions are honorable. Now I get to shout everything that I’d like to shout from the rooftops into, well... cyberspace. :)

On this Mother’s Day, I'd like to tell all of her friends, family, and blog readers not only what a terrific mother she is, but also what a wonderful person her husband knows her to be. I am so truly blessed to have Jodell in my life. Of course there’s the obvious... that she makes up for so many of my weaknesses and shortcomings that I have NO CLUE where I’d be without her (and I shudder to imagine). But honestly—much like appreciating God’s gift of a beautiful sunrise—the real joy is quite simply in the proximity. That I’m the lucky one who’s allowed to watch daily, as this marvelous creature goes around being… herself.

Of course I’ve never felt able to truly express this particular sentiment to her, so it shouldn’t shock if I’ve failed to articulate it here either. But I’m sure that each of you have your own reasons to love her. So whether you’ve been on the receiving end of her heartfelt compassion and thoughtfulness, or share in her friendship and general likeability, or appreciate her endless talent and beauty; you’ve caught a small glimpse of what I (and our children) get to enjoy every day of our lives.

So you can understand completely that I don't intend a hint of narcissism or greedy self-centeredness when I say, “Happy Mother’s Day... to me.”

p.s. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you as well (and to my lovely loving wife who’ll still most likely kill me when she finds out what I’ve done).

Saturday (Work Day)

Lance and I decided it was about time we started teaching our girls about cleaning. It is important that they learn how to work too. We probably should have started this a while ago since they are now 8 and 5! They were excited to be able to help clean especially since I let them vacuum their own room!! One of them would hold the chord while the other one vacuumed. It was good to see them have to work together to get the job done. We gave them each a whole $1 :) (which they were thrilled about). My favorite part was when Jena went and got a mask for herself when we got the Pledge out! She got one for Emilyn too - but Emilyn wasn't as willing to wear hers. I love my children!! :)

Jena's New Glasses

After months of Jena telling us she couldn't see, we finally decided that we should take her in to get her eyes checked. She REALLY wanted glasses and so we weren't sure if she was just saying she couldn't see because she wanted to have glasses so bad. We did several "tests" at home first by having her stand in the living room and asking her to read something in the kitchen. One day we were having her do this and she was taking a really LONG time in answering what she could see, so Emilyn (who was standing behind Jena) finally just told us what the letters were :). It was kind of funny (kind of sad) but that was what finally made me take Jena in. Her glasses make her look like a different person (maybe older - I am not sure that I like that though). She wore them so much when she first got them, but now that the excitement has worn off, I guess she has kind of decided she doesn't always want/need to wear them. I do think she still needs them for seeing the classroom board though, when she remembers to take them to school :)

Finishing the Twilight Series

I can now say that I have read all the books in the Twilight series. What an accomplishment huh :). I really wasn't interested in reading them until I went with my sisters to see the movie around Thanksgiving and it sparked my curiosity. Once I started reading them, I could not put them down - which is what I had heard from a lot of people (so I knew ahead of time what I was getting myself into). I have to say that I enjoyed the first book the best! I read the other books just to finish the story (even though I almost stopped reading them in the middle of Book 3). I will say that I am definitely not a Bella fan. Edward reminded me a lot of how Lance already is - except he is not always trying to protect my life :). I really did get lucky marrying Lance. He is my Edward :)!!

Brian Regan (UPS Boxes)

Lance found this video for me during the week that helped me to keep a sense of humor in all this!!

BOXES (the week of the giant box)

I know, that title is a little weird, but if you only knew what I have had to go through the last week, you would understand. It all started when we needed to ship some things up to Rexburg...

I called PostNet and asked for the largest box they had (I knew I would need a pretty good sized one to send all that I needed to send). They told me that they had one left. I got into the store and asked about their largest box, the man behind the counter had talked to me on the phone so he rang me up before he brought out the box. After ringing me up, he brought out this GIGANTIC box! I had this terrible feeling (I know - I think I am too independent that I sometimes ignore that feeling I should never ignore - it is there for a reason - to warn me!!) Anyways, I knew I should have asked him for his second biggest box but since he had already rang me up - I didn't want to say, "well - do you have anything a little smaller" (It would have saved me a ton of trouble even though I might have felt stupid at the time).

So I took the box home. I got everything I needed in it and there was still a ton of room (yes, I knew I should have got a smaller size!). I taped it all back up and headed back down to PostNet!! I get into PostNet and the guy behind the counter puts it up on his scale. Clicking through all his options, he casually tells me the price. I wasn't sure if he was a digit off so I asked him again what the price of shipping was - he looked at it and said $182!!! I could not even believe it. He stated that because of the size of the box UPS automatically charges a $75 charge on there plus shipping. I told him that I could drive it up to Rexburg for cheaper than that and drug the box out of the store. I came home frustrated and talked to Lance. He had some co-workers around him that said that I could send the box through the Postal Service.

So the next day, I loaded the box up and headed down to the Post Office. I had Emilyn with me. She helped me push the Giant Box into the Post Office. I tried not to look at the faces around me because I was sure they were thinking, "What in the world are you shipping lady!!" We got in line and waited our turn. After waiting forever in line we finally got to the counter. The guy looks at me kind of funny. I asked him if he shipped packages that big. He said he would have to measure it. So I used all my strength to heave the Giant Box up onto the counter as everyone in line watched. I hate those kinds of moments!!

He weighed the box, everything was looking promising, there was a price listed on the screen that was less than $20. Then he began to measure..... Apparently it is called the "girth". There is some equation they use to determine if the box is too big to ship. The particular girth of this box was 132. They can only ship up to 130. I look at him - not wanting to pull down the Giant box and push it out of the Post Office in front of all these people. He tells me they have some boxes for sale on the other wall - I ask if I can leave the box there while I go look (that allows the time I need to make the line of people smaller while I am looking at the boxes and then I won't have to push it out in front of so many people). So I go and look at the boxes near the wall which are way too small to ship what I need them to. I take my time and finally decide that I might as well get it over with and push the darn box out of the post office. There really weren't too many people there anymore which was somewhat of a relief for me (but there were still people - luckily nobody that I knew though).

So Emilyn and I go home. I call Lance - he thinks he can cut down the box. He is my hero :)!! Over the weekend, he cuts down the box and I have him load it into the back of my car.

Today, Emilyn and I head back to the Post Office. We push the somewhat smaller box into the Post Office. People still look at me and make a few comments. If only they knew how big this box was last week :)!! I get up to the Counter and she begins measuring the box and trying to determine if they can send it. I told her that I had already been in before and we had cut down the box. The girth comes to 124 this time. HOORAY. I am able to send the box through the Post Office for about $17 (and it went Priority-wow!!) As we left the box behind and Emilyn and I were heading out of the Post Office - Emilyn looks at me and says "We finally got rid of that box!" Yes, Emilyn was tired of that box too and she took the words right out of my mouth!!

So the lesson I have learned through all of this is to ALWAYS listen to those bad feelings I get and NEVER again buy a 36x24x24 size box :)

November is a busy month for us (just like October was and December will be). This weekend we celebrated Lance's birthday. We got a babysitter and went out for 4 hours. I didn't really plan anything - other than going out to dinner and I figured that we could find something that we could do afterwards (NOT at all as easy as I thought it would be!!). So we went to dinner at this rib place. I don't think we will ever go back there - everything tasted like campfire - yuck!! It definitely wasn't Tony Romas (I loved that place and we would go there all the time when we were first married). Then we headed out to see what we could find to do that would be fun. First, we tried the movie theater - there was NOTHING there that we even wanted to spend the money on. Then, we decided it might be fun to try Boondocks (because we had never been there before and wanted to see what was there) but it was too cold outside to ride the go carts or play miniature golf and the arcade stuff didn't really sound at all exciting at the time. So we headed to the Dinosaur Museum (another place we had never been to before - we will need to take the girls next time :). We watched one of their movies in 3-D. At least it was something different we hadn't done before - but that only lasted 45 minutes and by the time we got out of the movie they had closed down the rest of the museum. So after 3 hours of trying to find something to do - we just decided to go home. Next time there will be planning involved but it was fun to be with just him for a little while! Happy Birthday babe :)!!

I decided that I needed a new look but after several failed attempts of trying to bring in my own template - I finally resorted to this. I am not sure that I like it but at least it is something different to look at for a couple of days until I figure out how to bring in a customized template without it deleting all my posts! :) Lance will know - however he is sleeping right now while I'm updating :) So I guess it will have to wait.

Jena's Baptism Day

We are so proud of her. We love you, Jena!!!

Lance the Photographer

My sweet husband finally got the camera to take our picture :)

Jena's Grow Up Card

Jena gave this to me. I don't know why she decided to write this (especially since she has never lived on a farm), but I thought it would be fun to post.

Jena's 8th Birthday

I can't believe that my little girl is 8!! We were watching some old family videos when she was about 2 and she was so cute. I decided to put up a picture from her first birthday because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Yes, I realize that she is only 8 but before I know it she will be a teenager!! Enjoy them when they are little - it goes by too fast.


Since Jena is in Spanish Immersion, she got a lot of new Spanish books for her Birthday. I think this one is called the Crazy (or Silly) Hot Dog.

Jena loves stuffed animals. She would rather play with those than barbies or dolls. We got her a cat and a dog webkinz. Her friends have them at school and she really wanted one so she could play on the computer with it and talk with her friends. The day after her birthday, she came home with a list of friends names so we could find them on the computer :)


I think my cake decorating days are over. Next year, we will go back to cuter cakes!! Jena also got a bouquet a flowers from my sister. I really enjoyed them too! :)

Jena's Way of Eating Cake

I don't think Jena is a big cake eater. As you can see in the picture, her frosting is all gone off the top of her cake and she is eating the last bite of ice cream. She had pumpkin ice cream for her birthday, which only comes out one time during the year, so she was pretty happy about that.

Emilyn Eating Cake on Jena's Birthday

Emilyn, as much as we try to make her eat with utensils, still loves to eat with her fingers. I told Lance to get the camera. When Emilyn realized how messy she was, she got a little embarrassed that he was taking her picture. However, she still let him take her picture :)

Jena's 8th Birthday

Emilyn's Birthday Cake

Emiyn decided that she wanted a Littlest Pet Shop cake. We have gone with Walmart or Smiths making them over the past couple of years. But this year, I
decided that I could make my own. I looked at how they would make it at the store and did it almost the same way at half the cost. It was a pretty simple cake and I made a few mistakes :) but Emilyn still liked it. The pictures with her blowing out the candles shows that she looks a lot like Jena (no wonder everyone thinks they are twins when we go shopping!! Even Jena thought it looked like her :) Emilyn was determined that she was going to put the candles in her cake - so I let her do it but I told her where to put them first!! While we were singing Happy Birthday to her - she wanted us to point to her everytime we said "you" and "Emilyn." It was pretty funny. She knew that it was her DAY!! After we had cake she said it was time for a Slumber Party -hee hee - so we put on Jungle Book for her. :)

EMILYN'S 5th BIRTHDAY

Yesterday we celebrated Emilyn's 5th Birthday. I can't believe that she is 5 already. It has gone by too fast!! Lance and I stayed up and decorated the house (it has been a tradition that Lance has always liked to do and the girls really LOVE it). I had also told Lance that it would be hard for Emilyn to look at her presents all day and not get to open them until he came home. So Lance went in late to work so she could open them when she got up. She loved all the things she got for her birthday and getting to talk on the phone to her aunts, uncles and grandparents :) (she has become quite the social bug!) Lance and I took her out to lunch for her birthday. She wanted to go to China Isle. When we got there - the people that run that restaurant wanted to know where Jena was. Since we are regulars, they know us pretty well :). Emilyn had to tell them it was her birthday today and that she was 5 years old now. It was cute.

Labor Day Weekend in Idaho

We were able to spend some time in Leadore. The place where I lived 12 years of my life :>) It is always fun to go back there and do the things we did as kids (fishing, riding horses, catching guppies, visiting My Aunt Carol and Uncle Cal and seeing the wildlife -- the girls were able to see a moose this time). All my siblings and my dad and mom were able to make it. It was fun for Jena and Emilyn to play with their cousins and do things that we don't normally do living in the city :). I told Lance we will need to do this every year as a family tradition but we might have to do it earlier in the season - the last night we were there it felt like Winter and it snowed in the mountains!!