Flag football/Tennis

Jaden recently started flag football, and Jaina started tennis lessons. Jaden is the youngest on the team, but has enjoyed it so far. He doesn't understand the game completely, but is learning. He has had some successes such as catching flags, etc. He's pretty nervous about starting the more physical parts of the game. Monday they start on working on blocking and we'll see how he does.

Jaina started tennis last week and appeared to enjoy it. She is pretty athletic, more so than the boys. It seems to come more naturally for her. She was happy until the end when they moved a girl up to the intermediate level (who is about 14), and she had to stay with the "little kids" who are about her age. She has practice again this morning, and we'll see how it goes...

House hunting is very time consuming, frustrating, etc... We made another offer on a home in the area, and they countered. We countered again yesterday so we'll see where it goes. It's a beautifu 4 bedroom home in a well established neighborhood, where the kids won't have to change schools. Hope it works out...

Mindy's sister Julie has established a fun tradition on her blog I want to start adding to our blog. It's funny family quotes...

Cameron and Jaden were fighting in the van while Mindy and I were looking at a house. Mindy came to the van and said what's the problem? Cameron said, "I have many years of pent up anger and frustration" We laughed since he is a whopping 11 years old.

At football, Jaden said to his coach, "I don't want to be the hiker!" His cooached asked why, to which he responded, "I don't like to get sweaty!"

Jaina's favorite quote is "I hurt myself" which is repeated several times per day. I usually respond by calling her a wimp...

Mindy's favorite quote is, "It's in a box somewhere" which is her common response to all questions having to do with requests for toys, etc... The next most common quote is, "Let's just buy this house and get it over with." I think she's tiring of living out of boxes :)

My famous quote has to do with my boss this week. A teacher came in and said, where's Debbie, she's not in her office? She looked in the wrong office. Debbie, the principal said I'm in my office... I stated, I just saw her come out from under her desk. She's so short she didn't even have to bend down to get under there." Needless to say my boss has been easy to get along with so far and hopefully it continues well...

Back to School (finally) !!!

The Big Day FINALLY arrived!!!!!!!

Cameron woke up at the crack of dawn, literally, excited, dressed and ready to go to Middle School.




He even WILLINGLY let Mom take pictures.



Jaina & Jaden had an entire extra hour to get ready for school, elementary school starts at 8:20 here.




They were all excited and a little nervous starting at another new school, but, they all came home happy and reported making new friends.

Crystal's Birthday Party with Cousins!

 

 

 

 

Uintah County Demolition Derby

Alright, so a few days ago, we go to the county fair, and cars come in looking like this: (look above) And we had no idea what was going on until this started happening
( look above) they started bashing into each other. We had lots of fun watching the car's radiators blowing up

A Day in Nauvoo

I can't figure out how I loaded may last slideshow/video thingy, so if this link works, you be able to see the "Day in Nauvoo" Video we made. Hmm.....

I Passed!

Dean Reid, Interim Dean of the Sociology Department called me the other day to congratulate me on passing my comprehensive exams. My response was, "I did? Awesome!" She didn't know by how much I passed (she was very curious to see how I did considering all I had been through in the Dept. the past year), but they (Graduate Council) would not tell her.
Also, she gave permission for me to finish my studies long distance, i.e.: from Utah instead of North Carolina. So, back to work.

The Move: Part 1 (again--with Slide Show)

This first segment of our trip consisted of the following legs:

1. Sanford, North Carolina to Knoxville, Tennessee

2. Knoxville, Tennessee to St. Louis, Missouri

3. St. Louis, Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois

We had good roads with plenty of construction all along the way. Our big destination was Mindy's sister, Julie's new home in St. Louis, MO. Julie & her family had just moved from NC and we were all excited to see them again and spend some time together in Nauvoo with our families.

On the way to Nauvoo, Mindy & Julie saw lots of Corn Coons, fake-bi0-genetically engineered corn fields and learned that not only does MapQuest lie to you, but so does AAA's TripTik.

At the turn off in Illinois to go up to Nauvoo, the very smart sisters pulled over to the side of the road to double-check our directions to make sure we were going the right way. 20 minutes later we still had not found the turn off we were looking for that was supposed to be 3 miles down on the Right. So, we did what anybody would do, we ignored Jason's calls on the cell phone, pulled over where he couldn't go with the U-Haul truck & trailer to consult our directions again.

Well, Jas pulled over behind us, succeeding in creating a traffic jam consisting of a whopping 3 cars behind him on that little country road. Jason got to meet a very friendly Illinois State Trooper who informed him that we needed to turn around and go back 20 miles then turn Right to get to Nauvoo. We did so.

We got to Nauvoo in plenty of time to cook foil dinners, have Julies' 2 girls get bonks on the head and had plenty of time to find seats for the Nauvoo Pageant. Now, you might ask, where was Dr. Beege for all of this? Well, the Good Doctor was at work! BJ left for Nauvoo right after he got off work and drove up to Nauvoo to join us, taking a scenic route through Iowa on the way.

It was an awesome trip!

P.S.

Contrary to all the advice both couples received, Nauvoo is MORE than "Just an hour to the North of St. Louis" and is FARTHER than "About 2 1/2 hours from St. Louis"

it took us MUCH LONGER THAN THAT!

Rediscover the Library!

The first thing we did after we got unpacked, was to locate the local library and get library cards.

It is right down on Main Street (which is very picturesque) in between the Veteran's Memorial with its really cool Vietnam War Era helicopter out front and the Utah Natural History Field house with its life-size dinosaur replicas out front.

We were all pleasantly surprised to find the library full of books (what else?), but a pretty good size little library with the upstairs completed devoted to Children & Youth's books. (I think Jaden's favorite part is the elevator) Since then, we have all been devouring books and thought that we would share our favorites of the Summer so far.....

Mom/Mindy:

Borrowed from Daddy, I last read these books back when I was a kid, Grandpa Knight introduced me to them. Set in the 4-Corners area of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado on the Reservation, the books are suspenseful, action-packed, mystery, what can I say? It's Tony Hillerman, his books rock!

My first book out of the library just for me. Kept my attention straight through. A good mystery/kinda-romance (not really, more mystery).

I thoroughly enjoyed it!

A fun, good, quick read. Is LDS Fiction/Action/Mystery/Romance

I can't wait for this author to come out with another book.

Cameron:

Good ol' Uncle Dr. Beege, sent Cam off from St. Louis with a stack of books to read. Cam really got into this series and borrowed the 2nd from Grandpa Mark upon arrival in Utah.

Warrior Cat Series has been a favorite of Cameron's for awhile. The Uintah County Library has a huge selection of these books plus a new series by the same author Cameron hasn't seen before. Needless to say, he is excited and has read at least 5 already.

A new book purchased for our trip, that got packed in a box without a label, Cameron found and read this book upon arrival and is enjoying this new series. He has found others of this series at the library and has read 2 of them since.

Dad/Jason:

I checked this book out for myself out of curiosity; I had seen it so many times in the Deseret Book catalogs, that I had to pick it up. Not sure why I did, because Jason stole it from me and then Cameron stole it from him. They both read and enjoyed it. Actually, Cameron said, "It's okay" I guess there is some romance in there??





Time for Daddy to get back to work! He spent his last few days re-reading his school books, freshening up for the new school year reading books like this.

Jaina:

Jaina just loves books from this era in history, especially about girls who are the heroines. Her friend Jamie Larsen also highly recommended this series to her.

Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo!

Quite possibly one of Jaina's most favorite series, she stifled a squeal when she saw how many of these books the library has--she checks out 4 every time we go Which is about every 3-4 days.

Jaden:

Although he has spent a lot of time on his newly replaced DS (thanks Nintendo for good warranty service), Jaden has rediscovered this series and read more of them. If you haven't discovered Ready Freddy, yet, it is like Junie B. Jones, but for boys.

Another exciting series for Bubba is the Chapter Book collection of Magic School Bus. A great choice for the scientists with inquisitive minds at our house.