What would I do?

A friend and I were having a political discussion which quickly turned into a discussion about our kids (don't ask how that happened). He had made an observation about how people that are have no children are more selfish and unwilling to compromise and can be difficult to deal with.

I got to thinking about the conversation later and I am not sure I could function without my kids. Sure there are times when I think geez if I didn't have children I could have a nice big house, that BMW I want, a vacation house on the beach, I could travel all over and not have to worry about anything. I could even hire a maid to clean up the house, although I would probably need to make a mess first so I felt like I was getting my monies worth.

But then I go back to finding my daughter in her underwear outside in front of the house, with no supervision as I am arriving home, and she helped guide me car in the driveway like she was the parking attendant. Or the day she was on the front lawn in her purple princess nightgown, with a bamboo stick, playing kung foo by herself, with noises and all. Or watching my son make a complete mess of his new t-shirt while he made a square bowl from modeling clay and then filled it with water proclaming that it works. Or watching the look on my older boys face when he just played his first full game as the starting left guard for the freshman football team and lost but that didn't matter to him. He was more concerned with me knowing that he started and that he played the whole game (like I wasn't there filming the whole thing). Or my other son when he comes home with a good grade and still (in the 8th grade) puts it on the fridge for everyone to see.

Why would anyone want to give up on experiences like that for cars, houses, toys, etc. It's not worth it to me. I can live in my messy house with no maid, with sidewalk paint and chalk all over the front walkway, tip-toeing around the numerous bikes by the front porch.I wouldn't have it any other way.

New Haircuts

So the hubby and I went out last week and left the 15 year old in charge. He is and always has been a good babysitter, but lately he is more inclined to lay on his bed in his room watching TV rather then watching the kids. (The life of a teenager.) But this time, he didn't notice that it got rather quiet and he no longer heard Jessica roaming the house playing. She instead had found a pair of scissors and decided to give herself a haircut. This is not the first time she has done this. The last time it wasn't too bad and it was easily repaired with a shorter version of her current haircut. Not this time. This time she butchered it. Of course none of the kids called to say anything was wrong, but little did I know they sent text messages to the hubby warning him. He also didn't say anything. So the minute I got home the boys warned Jessica that I was there and she hid. She knew mommy was gonna be mad, and I was. When she finally showed herself, she could only say "Sorry mommy." So off to Supercuts to get it fixed, not that there was much left to work with. For a moment I contemplated shaving it all off, and doing the same to mine. Just for an excuse not to have to deal with it for awhile, but that moment passed quickly. Well here is the end result from our trip to Supercuts.

Needless to say the boys all call her a boy, and yes she looks like it. It is a good thing all her clothes are pink. I had to teach her to tell them I am not a boy, I'm a girl.

No one ever said what happened to the hair she cut off. I assumed the boys cleaned it all up and threw it away before I got home. Come to find out I found it in my bathroom behind Jessica's basket of shoes a couple of days later. Needless to say no more ponytails or hairbows for awhile. I guess it makes it easier for Daddy on Sunday, when he has to do her hair. Last week she came out of the bathroom with it call combed to the side, mommy had to quickly fix it.

Big families or just a family full of boys?

So I was reading this article on MormonTimes (http://mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/tiffany_gee_lewis/?id=9209)about big Mormon families. After reading through the entire article I could have sworn she was talking about my family of 3 boys. In the article she lists 10 things about growing up in a big family:
1. Never a dull moment
2. Hand-me-downs
3. Humility
4. Laughter
5. Noise
6. Character Building
7. Abandonment
8. An audience
9. Low-calorie life
10. Healthy neglect

No big family needed around here, all these things come with multiple boys in a family.

Here is items 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 all rolled in to one incident just last night. Jared (the 13 year old), searched for his Boy Scout uniform so that he could attend the Court of Honor last night. Really he didn't have a choice because his brother was at football and he was suppose to be in charge so that meant the responsibility fell to Jared. Anyway, we have not worn our scout uniforms all summer as we wear our scout t-shirts instead. When Jared put on his scout shirt it was so small he could not keep the buttons together. Never the less he wore it. When he put on his merit badge sash I about about fell out laughing. It seems to have shrunk from when he last wore it and barely comes to his waist. Literally this child looked like he was wearing clothes that his 8 year old brother could be wearing. He wore it anyway. He is the biggest comedian and played it off really well, and had all the parents laughing, of course. He could not bend over as the shirt would have come untucked, he had to keep his belly sucked in or the buttons on his shirt would open up, and he had to keep pulling down the merit badge sash or it would have been up under his armpit. I really wish I would have had a camera last night. I could only shake my head and laugh with everyone else.
You don't need a large family, you only need a couple of boys to make it feel like there are 10 kids in the household.

Nine days, 4 states, 2000+ miles, with 20 people but it ended in the Happiest Place on Earth!

Anything that ends in the Happiest Place on Earth can't be all that bad right? Well we just found out the answer to that question when we returned from our trip last week.

Lets start from the beginning. Last year I took over as Scoutmaster of the my older boys Scout troop. That year when we went to summer camp we had 5 boys and 2 adult leaders (me included). So this year I was determined to change that and give the boys an activity that they all wanted to attend. I posed the option to the boys of attending a traditional summer camp and working on merit badges, sleeping in the dirt, eating cafeteria food, etc or should we do something else. They all decided on something else. In doing some research for a afternoon whitewater rafting trip I came across a company in Moab, Utah (World Wide River Expeditions) who have a 4-day Scout trip to include merit badge work. This was perfect and the boys approved. After many changes to scheduling, re-routing directions, and planning extra activities, our final plan ended up being:
Day 1: Drive to Salt Lake City
Day 2: Spend day swimming and in Park City
Day 3: Drive to Moab
Day 4: Start whitewater rafting trip
Day 5: Whitewater rafting
Day 6: Whitewater rafting
Day 7:Finish whitewater rafting, Drive to Anaheim
Day 8: Disneyland/California Adventure
Day 9: Drive home

The day we left we had 6 leaders/parents, 5 Venturing Scouts, and 9 Boy Scouts. The logistics to plan for that many people was a nightmare in itself. Most of the logistics went off without a problem. One thing that did arise was a particular leader who wanted to make changes to the plans enroute. We had been planning this for over a year in meetings, the boys making decisions with input from the parents/leaders, and he decided to wait until we were on the trip to have an opinion. This was more frustrating than anything, but for the most part we were able to accomodate most of his changes. One such changes was on Day 3, we ended up seeing Arches National Park (since we were there anyway). It was a great side trip, but hot. After about the third arch stop, the boys no longer wanted to ooh and aah at the rock formations, they were done.

The whitewater rafting trip was a huge success with only 1 minor injury. We spent 3 days on the Fisher Towers section of the Colorado River rafting, and slept next to the water each night. I can't say enough great things about World Wide River Expeditions. The company plans everything and cooks meals for you every day. The only thing we had to do was put up our tents each night, raft, and then nap, and make new friends. I highly recommend them if anyone is heading to Moab and wants to do some whitewater rafting. They have 1 day trips (not sure on half days) that are fairly cheap. If you plan on going ask for any of the following guides: Suzy, Jessie, Steve or Mike, the kids loved them, especially when they started an ice cream and topping fight. We had kids with chocolate syrup all over them, it was great. Great trip we would do this again in a heartbeat (I think my husband is already planning a family trip for next summer).

Oh yea, for the one minor injury. Our group of 20 was put with an LDS Boy Scout troop of 23 for this trip. On the second day of the trip, I rode in the "Dry" boat to help the boys who were working on the Rowing merit badge. Dane decided to join me on this particular boat, but he decided to nap most of the day on the boats edge. Well the next day he was in a paddle boat, and at the end of the run for the day while the boys were out of the boat swimming he was naping on the edge. The boys decided he had been sleeping a little too much on this trip and decided to get him in the water. In the tussel, it seems one of the boys applied a little too much pressure to the ribs (with his knee) and the hubby got a little bruised up but he came out of it dry. This of course meant he couldn't roll up his sleeping bag or put the tent away, good thing we were with boy scouts.

Day 7 we arrived in Anaheim for a quick visit to the Happiest Place on Earth. We had 3 hotel rooms for this event which was a nice change from the dirt of the tent and sleeping bags. It also meant that all the boys could take showers before getting in the car for the trip home on the last day.

We haven't been to Disneyland as a family in over a year and a half, which is a long time for us. So it was nice to be back, even if it was only for 1 day. I expected it to be super busy since it was a Saturday in July, but the crowds were very manageable I think the longest line I saw was an hour.

All in all the trip was a success and we had 9 boys earn Whitewater Rafting and Rowing, and 5 boys earn Wilderness Survivial.

Several of the boys are already asking what are we doing next year. I'm not ready for next year yet.

Electricity and Water

Jordan learned a valuable (and scary lesson) lesson about touching electrical appliances when your hands are wet. The kids were outside throwing water balloons at each other when Jordan came in for some reason. He went in this bedroom and turned on the light and the next thing we know he is screaming and things are falling (him and the light). At some point the kids had broken their lamp in the bedroom, when he touched it with wet hands it caught on fire in his hand. Luckily he was able to drop it, but not before getting burned. When we got to him, his hand was black and the only thing I could think of is that he had 3rd degree burns all over his hand. We went into the kitchen and started water running over it quickly. By now we could tell that the blackness was just soot from the fire. He does have a large half dollar size burn on the palm of his hand and a large blister on the side of one finger. Luckily nothing else, but he learned a valuable lesson about water and electricity.

Time sure flies!

So much for being better about updating my blog…oh well it has only been a year. Even though I would like things to slow down they just continue to fly by all around me. Lets catch up yet again.

The hubby is as busy as ever. He still is working the two businesses and just recently added a 3rd business. The landscaping business took a little hit with the economy’s downturn, but not too much. The nice part about the way he grew the business was to drop the majority of the small homeowners contracts and stick to mostly the commercial jobs and the large housing contacts. The irrigation repair business has its ups and downs as it does every year. The summer is upon us and we are in the up time of the business. On top of both of those businesses he added a little distribution business on the side. Although it is working graveyard and we rarely see each other anymore, it will be worth it in the long run. He is getting use to working graveyard. He is almost done with school, but I think he is going to take a semester off to take a break.

I am as busy as ever. As Scoutmaster of the older boys scout troop I am busy helping to plan meetings and running a program. We are getting ready for our trip to Moab to do some whitewater rafting on the Colorado River in a few weeks. As Cubmaster of Jordan’s pack, things have finally wound down for the year as school is out. I still have some small activities coming up in the summer but at least it is not as demanding on my time. I still work full time as a supervisor for the Sheriff’s Office and love it. I am also enjoying my time helping Dane with the distribution business.

Ethan just had a birthday and turned 20. He is still working for Dane but is now part owner of the irrigation company. He just bought another new car, well truck, and a new Kawasaki motocross bike. He was riding every weekend, but since summer is here most of the places to ride are closed, due to fire hazard so he will have to wait until October to get any good riding in.

Jake just graduated from 8th grade and will be a freshman this coming September. He is interested in playing freshman football in high school and started working out with the football team in February. It is weird seeing him with all the older high school kids, I want to say he looks like a baby compared to the seniors, but he fits right in. It is really hard to tell he doesn’t go to school there already. He has been riding motocross for almost a year now. He wants to get into racing but we’ll have to see about that. He is still working on his Eagle Scout project, he just can’t seem to get the write up done the way he wants it. He is collecting shoes for Soles4Souls and he will be working on it a lot this summer. He is also staying active with Civil Air Patrol, and as a cadet for the Sheriff’s Office.

Jared just finished 7th grade. He is really only interested in video games, movies, the computer, war movies, oh yea and girls. I swear that kid gets more text messages from girls then anyone I know, and at all hours. When I get home from work he’ll be asleep and his phone will be going off with new text messages that have come in. Although he is a bright kid, he hates school. Some days I think the teachers do not challenge him enough. But he has planned to do his Eagle Scout project for the school so that is a good sign. He wants to get one of the new electronic signs built for his schools bulletin board instead of the old put the letters in yourself sign. We’ll see if he can raise enough money to get it built and installed. Even though the price is huge, he is capable of raising the money; I think his biggest obstacle will be the bureaucracy of the school district.

Jordan struggles every day to be 8 years old. He has no friends his age in the neighborhood and the only time he sees anyone that is his age is at church or school. He hangs around with adults or the teenage boys, and that causes him some issues when he is in school. He talks like he is a teenager and acts like he is a teenage and when September rolls around he will struggle with learning to adapt to 9 year olds again. He loves animals and loves to bring home the vice-principals bunnies during the school year. He is a Webelos scout now and is looking forward to working on his activity pins.

Jessica is spoiled by everyone. She is the princess of the house and responds to the name of princess. She hates to have clothes on her body unless it is a dress, otherwise she is just in underwear most of the time. She loves to be outside all the time. She learned very quickly how to get out of the house to follow the boys outside. We finally had to put in a locking bar high up on the door just to keep her in the house. That lasted all of about 5 minutes and she learned how to open it so she could get out. She loves to sing and dance and has asked to start gymnastics. Not sure dad is ready for that

Congratulations Jacob!

Tomorrow Jacob graduates from the 8th grade and will be a freshman in high school. How time flies. Congratulations Jake!