My Crazy Life

Guess I'd better put something on it.

We have a friend that takes pictures. I talked him into taking family pictures for us and they turned out pretty good! We went to the library at USU to take them.

Here are just a few...

Last Friday we finished up merit badges that Bob and Spike didn't finish at scout camp. We went shooting with my brother David in the morning. Yes, I am lame and forgot to take the camera so there are no pictures. That aside. We had a wonderful time. We went out by promitory point by the salt flats on the north of the Great Salt Lake. In order to complete the merit badge, they had to shoot 3 out of 5 shots that would all fit under a quarter. This needed to be done 5 times. Spike needed to do three more and Bob shot all 5 that day.

Spike could not contain his excitement. He thought that was the best way to spend a morning. He is really good at it, also. Bob had a hard time finding a comfortable position to shoot from and couldn't decide if he wanted to shoot left or right-handed. So he whined about it quite a bit - but did complete the requirements. R2 and Isaac kept busy scouting out the area. They found - and caught - numerous grasshoppers. They also found quite a few lizards and some jackrabbits. But to top everything off and really make things exciting, David brought exploding targets. Bob and Spike got to shoot one when they finished their requirements. We all LOVED those. They made a great show!

When we got back to David's, Stephanie had tuna sandwiches for us and we were all very content with life.

After Garth helped David with some stuff he is doing at his house, we came home and sat down for a few minutes before we got our neighbor, Jeff, to help us with Bob's fly-fishing merit badge.

Bob needed to catch and release a fish and catch another one, keep it, gut it, and cook it. We went to the trout farm so our chances were better for actually catching a fish. That was really fun also. The fish are HUGE there! We spent 1 1/2 hours and caught three fish. We kept one. Bob cooked it for supper after church today and it turned out really good.

Now to explain the picture of the guts... Like I said, Bob had to clean the fish. The whole time, he was saying things like "This is sooo gross!" and "Oooh, yuck!" and "And now I'm supposed to eat this thing?" If any of you readers remember me (Linda) when I was young and caught the only fish I ever caught, this would sound very familiar.

Spike, on the other hand, was totally into gutting the fish. He was interested in all the internal organs and thought it was COOL. As you can see from the picture, he is having lots of fun and is totally excited about the guts. He wanted the head and had to dissect the eyes (which I did not watch and was not involved in at all.) He did not get that from me.

So... take a look at how big the fish is that Bob caught and if you are squeamish, just look at the smile on Spike's face.

Many years ago, my Grandma started to gather her family together to make gingerbread houses. This has become one of my favorite Christmas/Thanksgiving tradition. Now that Grandma has gone, I use her handy-dandy book of instructions to make my own gingerbread houses so my family can continue the fun of decorating a house while stuffing yourself sick with candy. Last year and this year we invited my brother and his family to join us.



This is Bob with his house. I must tell you, things are different with my boys than when I was little. We would decorate our houses with a color theme or make elaborate designs with the candy - or stuff as much candy on that could possibly be there. These things are also done with my boys but with a morbid twist... It is hard to see on this picture but there are gummy bear shrunken heads mounted in the front yard.


Spike made a cute sleigh with Santa on his roof - but there are also harpooned gummy bears in the front yard with more harpoons sitting by the front door. I'm not sure how this family got on the "nice" list with Santa...

Dad helped R2 with his house. Since we gave the other two houses away this year, he was charged with the task of getting as much candy on as possible. I think he succeeded at the expense of part of the roof falling off because of the weight of the candy.


Here is Isaac and my sister-in-law, Stephanie. He did a great job and was old enough to stay and help with the whole house.



My brother David helped Brooklyn which really turned out to be David did the house while Brooklyn played and ate the candy (which is I'm sure what David did when he was Brooklyn's age). But it turned out looking cute.

Fun was had by all!

It wouldn't be any fun if life weren't so interesting...

Bob is officially a teen now - 13!! We had a fun party for him with just our family. He chose orange chicken for supper and ice cream sundaes for dessert. After opening presents he spent his time putting together the bionicle and lego he got. What more could a boy ask for!

This year for our UEA break we went to Star Valley. Friday we went to Cottonwood Lake and walked around the lake. Then we went to my nephew's (Cameron's) football game. It was a really good game that ended with a huge win - always better.




We have wanted to take the kids to the Intermitting Springs while it is intermitting and this was our chance. Bob and Garth went with the scouts just two weeks before we were up there and it was really nice. Then three days before we went, it turned cold and snowed. So it was actually a first for me. I haven't been up there when there is snow like this before. But it was still beautiful - and fun.

We worked really hard for about a month (it seemed longer) and got three bedrooms downstairs instead of two. After we got all the sheetrock up, we moved the boys into their rooms so we could have some order (i.e. no more sleeping on temporary beds in the living room) for school. We will eventually get them painted and re-carpeted. While everything was out in the garage being stored, I re-stained the bunkbeds and painted an old dresser that Garth used when he was growing up. It was a lot of work but they turned out so nice that I decided it was worth it. So here are some pictures of the rooms so far...

Also a big THANK YOU to all who helped with our project.









This is the dresser. I found out that it is actually 50 years old. Its held up remarkably well. It had an X carved in the top and some other scratches that needed to be filled in - otherwise it was in really good shape!