Basketball Camp

The big kids had basketball camp on Saturday.  Justin was pretty excited for his first practice.  He didn’t realize it would be his only practice until afterwards.  He had a great time.

Emma pretty much didn’t want to do camp but of course once she gets there and into it she loves it, such a wishy washy girl!

 

Ashley is really enjoying basketball too.

Claire and I brought the backpack loaded with distractions while we waited for hours and hours.

Rett waited too, but not very patiently!

We are excited to have games next Saturday!

Back to Normal

We are finally back to normal at our house.  It feels good to be getting back to schedules.  Although I feel like our schedules are way to full.  We haven’t had much time for fun.  Especially not with the school kids.  The girls are playing basketball and so we are running to and from for practices.  They had their first game while we were still in Florida so I am excited for next Saturday when we can see them play. 

Justin is really getting better at his reading.  It is fun to see him read with out having to think about the word.  He is loving all of the boys in his K  class.  He is always taking some kind of motorcycle, truck or tractor to play with at recess.  Normally we have lots of snow to play with at recess but not this year. 

I have to admit I love not having to drive in the snow and it just doesn’t seem AS cold with out it, but Ryan keeps telling me we have to have it so we can water crops next year.  It would also be nice to have the yucky lawn and old deadness covered up too!

Claire and Rett and I have just been staying home.  We are trying to get a routine of our own including SOME work.  But it is much more fun to play.  Rett is still taking two sometimes 3 naps a day, I realize I am spoiled and we take advantage of the little breaks we get throughout the day.

We do have one dark task still looming;

I for whatever reason can NOT get the Christmas décor put away.  This has never happened to me before.  I normally put it away the day after Christmas but just haven't still!  How tacky is that!  I’m sure one of these days Ash is going to start bringing in boxes to get it all put away, she cant stand things out of order, at least I hope she gets after me…. quick!  She informed me that I needed to re make the schedule of after school activities for them because she hasn’t done her daily jobs once this week.  (which isn't true she has done it, once…) What 10 year old is upset about not doing her fair share?  This girl amazes me!

*Update, Ashley wasn’t in the door 5 minutes after school today and asked where the boxes are for the ornaments!  I knew she would get on it quick, I just didn’t think it would be that quick!  Love my Ash!

Ryan has had an eye appointment with the Bishop.  He is a good candidate for the corrective eye surgery.  He goes in next week!  I am nervous for him, there is still a slim chance that he cant have it, but I doubt that.  It will be SO nice for him to not have to wear glasses anymore!  He has worn glasses for 22 years!  I cant wait, I cant imagine what it would be like to not be able to see.  We are really excited, and nervous! 

I guess I should go bring in the Christmas tree box, yuck!

ALLIGATORS!

As we were headed down the road to have dinner (some serious southern barbeque and Cajun food) we came  across this road kill.  We thought it was a really big snake, but it was a little alligator! 

I was practically forced out of the car so I could get my picture with an alligator, but I do NOT trust  my husband with any kind of creatures, so it took some real bravery to get me to stand even near it, man it is creepy!

Finally I had my hand on Ryan’s back so I could push him away if he tried anything tricky on me, thankfully he didn’t.

I guess this is totally illegal to so I hope we don’t get thrown in jail now since I posted these pictures! 

We had a great visit with Burt and he was an excellent host and showed us lots of the ranch and part of the citrus farm down there too.  Our only disappointment was that we couldn’t bring him back home to Idaho with us!  Fortunately (for him) he kind of likes it out there.

Florida Church Ranch

We went out and saw Burt Bingham on the Florida Church Ranch. It was only about a half  hour drive so it was real close to Orlando.  All the guys were happy to see Burt and we had a great visit and he planned a nice tour for us.  We first stopped in at the visitors center which is right next to Burt’s house.  It is actually a couple missionaries home.  It was so southern, I loved it, check out that screened in porch!

Oh how dreamy, I love the rocking chairs!

It got not so dreamy real fast though, this was a real alligator (stuffed obviously) caught right on the ranch!  YIKES!

I didn’t really think we would see any, but that was not so, we saw 5 or 6 alligators out in the wild, totally creepy for me, but the guys loved it!

This one was sunning on the beach and finally had enough of us taking pictures and went back in the water.  I did NOT get out of the car, these guys were crazy!

Burt had an air boat ride all lined up for the guys.  They had a great time.  I was happy to wait in the car with Burt especially after a GIGANTIC mosquito flew in the car.  I thought we had mosquitoes, no we have tiny ones compared to the giants they grow down in Florida!  They saw lots more alligators on the boat ride.

We saw one of Burt’s friends with his afternoon catch of wild hogs.  They were pretty rough, and big!  I thought they would be little pigs, but they were big ol hogs!

It was such a different world from where we live, it was just crazy to me!

More Florida

This was a really fun restaurant in the Harry Potter theme park.  It was really interesting.  That fireplace was like 8 feet tall, and then it had the huge wall of horns above it.  It was so realistic, and medieval ish.  Ryan and I really enjoyed all of the details.

Notice the wooden spiral staircase. 

We had to take a picture with Hogwarts Express.  It was pretty big!

I loved the “Aladdin” tents.

Ryan felt bad that we left early, he couldn’t believe he really couldn’t feel good, it was 11 o’clock at night though.  We don’t always have to close the place down!  (The weather wasn’t really that cold, I just only had a cardigan or a coat, so I wore my coat but Ryan just wore a light jacket.)  It was cool there for Florida, but it felt great to us!

Candy Shop

This was my favorite place in the theme park.  I have a thing for apothecary jars and pretty things inside of them, especially if they are edible!  It was a kids dream!  (and a moms!)

Since I was hanging out with all of the “guys” we didn’t spend a lot of time here, which was probably good because I would have come out with a tummy ache!

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

We spent Thursday night in the Harry Potter theme park.  It was fun, it would have been a lot more fun if I had watched the movies or read the books, but Ashley was excited for me and she knew everything about it.  It was definitely not Lagoon!  Ryan went on the first roller coaster and it was like “all of the big roller coasters in Lagoon in one”  Pretty wild anyway!  He is a die hard when it comes to wild rides but he went a little too far and ended up in the bathroom the rest of the night!  I couldn’t believe that he would get sick!  It was a little funny!  There was one ride that I actually went on too in the castle and it was a motion ride where you watch the movie and the chair moves.  I really liked it, and Ryan did too, but twice in a row was too much for him!  We really did have a fun time though.  The best part is the whole park was rented just for the convention so there were no lines and everything was free!  It doesn’t get much better than that!

This was one of the short shows they put on.

Im not sure who this girl was, my kids know who,but we took our picture with her anyway.

The buildings were really cool and Harry Potter looking.

Ryan and I at the castle.

Florida Trip

At the last minute I got to go to Florida with Ryan (and his brothers)  It was really fun to fly clear across the country to a much warmer climate!  (ok so the flying part is never that fun, but the rest was)  We left early Wednesday morning from Salt Lake and got into Orlando Wednesday afternoon.  Rett did pretty well flying, we were all pretty much ready to be off of that plane by the time we got there.  We stayed at Universal in the Royal Pacific Hotel.  We went down to register for our meetings and then went out to dinner with the rest of the Idaho potato farmers.  We rode on a water taxi to the city walk.  This is Ryan and Bobby on the boat ride over.  (Jared, Rett and I were on the other bench facing them.)

 

We ate at a Brazilian restaurant.  It was nice, they had a big salad bar buffet (like Brazilian type foods on it) and then they served meat, meat, and more meat.  It was a bit much for me, but the men liked it.  The one cool thing about the meat is they brought it out to the table on a long sword and then would cut off a piece if you wanted it.  It was kind of different and fun.

Our hotel was of course full of water features, plants, trees, all sorts of warm weather landscapes.  It was really pretty.

It was cool the first day but warmed up after that.  The pool at the hotel was really pretty and fun.

Cue Ball

Rett’s hair was getting so long so I had Ryan hold him and I buzzed.  I didn’t intend for it to really get buzzed, but I could tell I would not be able to use scissors on my little moving target.  He looks bald because he is so blonde!  Ryan keeps calling him a cue ball.  He looks like he could be one of Sara’s boys.  I don’t like the first few haircuts, it makes my baby look not so babyish!

He is still a little doll, now I notice those long ol eyelashes!

Grandma’s House

While we were out in West Jordan we had to swing by Grandma Jones’ old house.  It is on 90th South and is the only house left for miles (it’s a main road through town and has a tire store on one side, Home Depot behind and a KFC on the other side).  Anyway it is getting pretty run down and just a matter of time before it is no longer standing I’m sure.  The property is actually for sale now.  Ryan has lots of fond memories of Grandma Jones house!