Hale Center Theatre

We attended a fun backstage tour of Hale Center Theatre in West Valley last week with a big group of kids and their moms that do a summer reading group. I'm not in the group but one of the groupies asked if I wanted to come. It was only for ages 5 and up, so I left Ezra with Aunt Lacey and brought her girls with us. It turned out to be such a great experience. I was really impressed with our host. He got the kids laughing and managed to teach some great concepts through acting games. They had to practice following directions. This was a big hit because they would "swim, stop, slop, roll" etc. If they didn't freeze when he said stop then they'd be out. He also used Nolan to demonstrate a little bit about physical contact. He was explaining that if you never touch the people you are on stage with then it doesn't look very natural. At one point he gave Nolan a line to say: "Dad, I lost the soccer game." Nolan got a confused look on his face and he said, "I haven't started playing soccer yet." He didn't quite get the whole concept. We've been talking about starting soccer this Fall and he just got his new cleats, so he was confused. He decided he didn't want to say the line and another volunteer was picked. It was pretty cute, though. Overall I was so impressed with how well he did participating and following directions.

 Later, the tour guide explained stage directions on a normal stage and an "in-the-round" theatre like that one. Kendyll was part of this demonstration and then he used Ryan to test if she knew all the right stage directions. It was like a clock with middle, in, and out spots and she knew all the answers! Then all the kids got to play a game standing in different areas. It was fun that all the kids could participate, learn, and have such a good time. The rest of the tour consisted of the green room, seeing the sewing room where they make costumes, the shop where they design sets, and the theatre itself. Nolan was very interested in all of the lighting. At the end they gave us a buy one get one free ticket to see a show. We're hoping we can see Tarzan next summer. I'm glad we could go on such a great tour!

A Few Pictures

On this day, we blew up some balloons and I drew some Ninja faces on them. The kids shot at the balloons with their Nerf guns. It was fun until I realized that the marker was coming off. Here's what the children looked like:

 While eating lunch, Ezra kept being silly and sticking out his little bum. I said, "Where did you learn to do that?" And he said, "From Bryson." Thanks, Bryson! I laughed out loud when he said that.

 We finally got around to doing a few sparklers. The boys had fun until they both happened to burn themselves at the same time. Yeah, I don't really love sparklers. It seems like they always end up touching the wrong end after it burns out, even though I warn them about it at the beginning.

Our neighbors pulled out their kid 4-wheeler and let the boys ride. Nolan should not be allowed to drive a motorized vehicle yet. I thought he was going to take out the other neighbors' landscape lights, but he narrowly missed. Ezra was a little nervous, even when Clairece was driving. The same neighbors also let the boys play with their turtle. Ezra loved holding it! I wish I'd had my camera at that moment.

 We made snake bubbles because these summer days are very long and boring.

That same day, we also gave our Legos a bath. Ezra peed all over them (oops, he still has accidents), so they needed a good cleaning. But I think I'd do this again even without the pee... the boys thought it was fun.

 The boys liked the excitement of a digger in our front yard. They are installing fiber optic in our neighborhood and Justin is excited to have faster internet. We were amazed that they dug down at least six feet in such a small space. Hopefully our tree survives since some of the roots were exposed for a while. Since the digger was parked at our house for a couple of days, the boys couldn't help but get a closer look. Even Daddy imagined himself working the digger!

Bryson's Day

 This past Saturday was such a great day for my family. My nephew, Bryson Lawrence, went through the temple for the first time. He'll be leaving for the Mexico, Tampico mission at the beginning of September. The Lawrence family was up enjoying our family's annual Park City trip, so they decided to go through the Jordan River temple so that Bryan's family (who live in Salt Lake City) could join in. It was a wonderful experience to be there with so many loved ones. At the end, they called "Elder Lawrence" and I heard a lady near me whisper to someone, "He'll be a missionary soon." And then someone else whispered, "Wow, they look so young!" Yes, he looks young, all missionaries look so young to me now. But I really thought as I watched Bryson in the temple, that he seemed so much more mature and wise. He seems so excited and ready for his mission. He is always asking questions, and every time he talks about what is coming he has a grin on his face. I'm thankful I was able to be a part of such a special experience. And it was great that I had no problems with my babysitter... yay! Congratulations, Bryson!

Keeley (my sister) and Bryan, the proud parents.

My Dad wasn't able to come, the flights were too full. We really missed him. But here he is with Grandma Sherri.

Marriage

I had my long time friend, Jacy, over yesterday for a visit. I've known her since first grade. We've had times when we were best buddies, times when we lost touch, and times when we wanted to pull each other's hair out. But now that we're adults it is so fun to be with her. She is the kind of friend that you can cozy up with and talk the afternoon away even though you haven't seen each other in years. She asked me an interesting question while she was over. She looked up at a plaque in my home showing that Justin and I got married in 2003. She said, "8 years! Wow! Has your relationship changed and become stronger in all that time?" Now you have to realize, I'm just not a really deep, thoughtful type of person. I don't spend a lot of time contemplating things, and had never thought about this subject much. I gave a stupid response like, "Well, things are good. I don't know that we've changed all that much. We're just going along." Later that day I felt kind of dumb that I didn't have a better response. I think I felt bad that I didn't give me and Justin more credit.
Now Jacy has been through a lot. She's seen about all the bitter that is possible in a marriage. Hers didn't work out and she's now an amazing single mom. You can read her amazing blog here. I felt like it was selfish of myself not to acknowledge how blessed I am, when so many marriages end in heartache. After thinking on it for a day, I can definitely say that Yes! Justin and I have changed. Yes! We have become stronger. There were lots of moments that made us stronger. Here we are at the beginning... don't we look happy and hopeful?

And then lots of stuff happened. School. Jobs. Church callings. Stress. Moving. Disappointments. And we've experienced heartache together. But we work through it and love each other. And all these hard things make us appreciate each other. 

And then came kids and I feel like I became a different person. It felt like I didn't have hobbies, talents, things that made me unique from the other moms down the street. It was just being mom. But Justin loves me through that and does a wonderful job of letting me know that I'm special. We've glued sprinkler pipes together, we've finished a basement together (with my Dad, of course), we've dealt with icky extended family stuff together, and we've gotten mad, and cried, and laughed. We're lucky if we get a conversation together every day, since the kids are always making noise or interrupting us, but we know that the important things always get said at some point. We say I love you every night and so we're doing good. We look at our kids and then look at each other and our eyes say, "We made something pretty cool together." So I don't ponder too often on what we've been through or how we've changed, but I just know we're still going through it and I'm glad we're with each other. 

If your friend had asked you, "Has your relationship changed and become stronger?" What would you say? Thanks, Jacy, for making me stop and think.

The 4th

I forgot to mention last week that we had a happy 4th of July. The kids got lots of candy at the parade and we enjoyed the fireworks show that night. Actually, Ezra didn't enjoy the big fireworks. He cuddled with his blanket and said, "I just want to wait in the car." Too loud, I guess. My mom was in town so we all got together for a yummy BBQ at Lacey's house and our traditional root beer floats. It was a nice, relaxing day.

Tired

Do you ever think to yourself that you probably have too many kids? I do. I think I might already have too many. Of course, I love them too much so there's nothing to be done now. (That's my attempt to be witty while in a cranky mood.) I wish I wanted 5 or 6 kids, but I don't. My kids are hard. Even my babysitter called tonight after about 30 minutes and said, "Nolan is being hard." And then she cried. And then I went home. Bless her heart for even saying that she'd give it a try. I want to cry about every 30 minutes, too, when the boys are hard. It's a good thing they still give me a big hug and kiss each night to remind me that they like me. They make me tired so I'll go to bed.
But one more thought: It's hard being the mom of a difficult kid. I've heard the way other ladies talk about "that" kid and the way he or she is not disciplined. You all know what I'm taking about: "If I was his mom, I'd....." or "If I was his mom, I wouldn't let that go on." Well, kids come with their own personalities and it doesn't always mean that mom and dad aren't trying their best. I'm more careful now when I think about difficult kids since I have one (maybe two, but the jury is still out). Next time I'm with the mom of another difficult child I'll know that she's trying her best and she's probably really tired. And Nolan, when you read this some day I hope you know that I love you more than you could ever know.

Unlucky Weekend

Do you ever feel like it's just not your week? That was us as we vacationed at our family's cabin. The trip started out great. Here are the photos of the good times:

TRUCK RIDES!

 FEEDING THE ANIMALS IN TOWN! My Dad had a special bond with this calf. We called him the "cow whisperer" because he could really get him mooing!

PROJECTS! Experimenting with Ivory Soap (it blows up in the microwave) and making our own colored soaps.

 RELAXING! Ez takes a long nap with Uncle Bryan.

The family went out for a little hike together. We did this hike a couple of years ago with Justin's family and it was so fun. In the past,we all crossed the log and then climbed down to have a dip in the cool river. Justin crossed the log and then decided to come back across to get Ezra. I was planning to follow.

 Here's where our bad luck starts. Next thing I knew, they slipped off the log, crashing into the rocks, and into the rushing river. I jumped in after them thinking that Justin might not be able to get a hold of Ezra before he rushes down the river and over the 15 ft. waterfall. It was scary. It turns out that Justin did an excellent job of protecting Ezra from a hard fall and he was able to get a good hold of him. I was grabbing hard to Justin's shirt collar. Soon Justin said, "Let go of me! We're fine!" I was certainly shaken and Justin was too. Ezra was just plain mad that he had fallen into the river. He did end up with a bonk to the forehead head (it goes well with his bug bite) but it could have been so much worse. We had been avoiding getting our feet in the water. But ironically we ended up entirely soaked. To get back across we went upriver and waded through with our shoes on. We'll just do it that way and skip the log next time.
On our 4th day, we saw a large plume of smoke coming over the ridgeline. There have been so many wildfires in Utah and now we could see that one was nearby. Justin had headed out with Nolan on a little hike and ended up coming back early because the smoke was too thick and more and more fire trucks were coming and might soon block off his way back. Unfortunately, on the way home he hit a deer that was among several escaping the fire. He said it happened faster than he even had time to brake. The deer hit the light and above the wheel and it's head seems to have swung around and caused the dent on the hood. Not pretty (for the van or the deer). After the hit, the tire was scraping against the fender so a guy helped him pull it away from the wheel. Here's the damage: we're lucky it wasn't worse, although we do have to replace 3 panels and the light. I was so relieved that they were okay. Nolan slept through the whole thing.

 Later that afternoon, we heard that the town would be holding a meeting about the fire in case there was a need to evacuate. Oh great... we hadn't had enough bad luck yet. Let's throw on a wildfire evacuation. Well, sure enough, we thought it was best to leave that night rather than taking on our chance on possibly being evacuated in the dark hours of night. We pulled away around 9 o'clock and headed for Hurricane, where my sister lives. I didn't dare drive 5 hours into the night to get home. We'd be too tired. So we got to my sister's house just after 11 p.m. and transferred stuff around. Justin had to stay the night there because he was driving Blake and his two friends to EFY and Darian home to Salt Lake City. I went on to St. George with my mom and sister and our car load of children. It was a long evening. The fire has grown but it has so far stayed on the other side of Highway 89. We would have been okay to stay, it turns out, but we didn't want to take any chances. 

 We had to switch cars around and Ezra didn't even wake up when Justin took him out of the car still in his seat.

That was the end of our bad luck. Our trip will always be remembered by 3 words: river, deer, fire. We did have some bad luck with picture taking, but that was nothing compared to the other incidents.My Dad bought the kids these 4th of July Skywest shirts and the kids looked so cute. But it wasn't happening. The annoying part is that Keeley's kids and Darian look so perfect! You'd think Nolan could at least keep his tongue in! 

In St. George the kids had fun making collages and the boys always like to visit Grandma and Grandpa's house because they have the Disney channel. They cuddled together while watching. A rare moment of brotherly love.

The good thing about going to St. George was that we could have a fun party to celebrate Bryson's 19th birthday. We had pizza, a delicious ice cream cake, and watched The Bachelorette. It was so much fun watching that show with everyone. Usually we skip commercials but we muted them and used that time for discussion. Bryson is a hopeless romantic (he loves chick flicks... isn't his future wife lucky?) so he was happy to watch that show for his birthday. He got lots of stuff to prepare for his mission to Tampico, Mexico. He has grown into such a great guy. I'm grateful we have him as a wonderful example for our boys.

What a trip, huh? It's been good to have some down time at home to recover (and fix the van). 

Swim Lessons

I keep thinking that I'll learn to like swimming lessons, but I haven't yet. It's a long two weeks of packing towels, floats, and lunches; lots of slathering on sunblock, handling wet clothes, and sitting in the hot sun. The good thing is that my kids usually love swimming and they eat and sleep well during lessons. However, these are the only two pictures I took of my kids this year. We look like we're having fun, don't we?

Ezra fought going every day. He'd start late and get out early. He loves swimming but he didn't want anything to do with the structure of a class. He'd crawl out of the water and pout on the cement and then slowly make his way over to me outside the gate. He'd scream and cry when his teachers would put the life jacket on. After getting out one day, and watching his class make their way over to the diving board, he decided it was worth it to wear the life jacket so that he could jump off. So he did do it and ended class on a good note. That was the only highlight, I'd say.
As for Nolan, he did great for the most part. That anguished picture was taken a while after he was escorted out by the pool manager. I watched one of his teachers plop him on the side of the pool and tell him he was in time out. Nolan was upset and saying, "I just didn't do anything!" Next thing I knew the teacher was yelling back at him. Not impressed with that teacher, needless to say. The other teacher tried to calm him down but by now he was inconsolable. That's when the manager brought him out. I was beginning to think he had done something really bad. We left early (Ezra was already done swimming anyway) and I had no idea what the problem was. The next day I asked his teachers about it and they said that they have a strict rule about not letting their feet touch the steps and that Nolan had had at least 6 warnings. I was fuming inside. He had been at the end of a long line of kids, squished up against the steps. Where else was he supposed to go? Didn't they think, "Maybe I should move Nolan to the other end so that I don't have to keep getting on his case for something he can't control?" Hmmm.... seems logical to me, but not his swim teacher. So I always put him at the other end for the rest of his lessons. I also told his teachers that I would appreciate it if they didn't yell at any of the kids anymore, it only escalates the problem. Luckily Nolan finished out the week doing a great job. I'm glad we don't have swim lessons for another year!