kicking & digging

First the kicking -- here's my current favorite soccer player : Jacob. I just love that his socks/shinguards pretty much meet the bottom of his shorts so he has no knee skin showing. I guess that's the way it is when the shorts are too big and the player is little!
Jacob is the little blonde kid in the center of this picture.

Here he is doing some kicking with the guys as they warm up for the game.

Jacob does a pretty darn good job playing soccer when he decides to actually play instead of being silly or lazy -- trust me, this is a conscious decision on his part.

As for the digging, I am slowly digging out of the aftermath of super saturday, canning, school projects, and the myriad of daily & weekly chores that have been piling up. I might even get a bathroom cleaned today. Yay for me!

super saturday

I've been feverishly working to get projects assembled and a bunch of details in order to pull off our RS Super Saturday tomorrow. We've got a home organization class, an exercise class, lunch, humanitarian projects, apple crisp cooking class, clay pen class, and these three fun projects: 1)These are paper seasonal home decor pictures that fit in a 12x12 frame:

Pretty cute, huh? The idea came from my parents ward, but these creations are the brain child of my backyard neighbor.
2)We've got these "family" blocks:

And 3) we've got these glass blocks (they make fabulous nite-lights) with the Bountiful or Salt Lake temple:

I have always had fun doing craft projects on super saturdays, but this year, because I'm in charge of it all, I think I'm mostly just going to be glad to have it over!

jackson hole

Over Labor Day weekend, we took a quick trip to Jackson Hole since we hadn't been able to do anything all summer, AND to try out the new van. We really spent most of our time at Grand Teton Nat'l Park though -- those mountains are just so gorgeous! This is Jenny Lake.

We started our adventure with a hike around Jenny Lake to the water falls.

Along the way, the kids had to stop and climb a few huge boulders. Jacob & Ryan felt like they were on top of the world.

Of course we can't go anywhere without someone whining or complaining about something, its just that I caught this little guy on my camera this time.

One of the highlights of the hike was finding this little spot to throw rocks in the water and take a little break.

Ryan and Matthew on one of those great climbing boulders.

Jared & Jacob checking out the falls and glad to be at the end of the hike.

For the boys, the whole purpose of the hike around the lake was to ride the boat back across -- here we are!

So many tourists miss out on the beauty of the area by taking the boat both ways to the falls. We totally enjoyed the hike --it's pretty easy and only about 2 1/2 miles one way -- and we were by ourselves for about 95% of the time. Bliss in a tourist hotspot!

In the afternoon we went back into Jackson to take a ride on the Alpine slide, but it was getting stormy and they closed the slide for awhile. We decided to wait a bit to see if it would open up again, so the boys entertained themselves by rolling down the grassy mountainside for awhile.

After the dizzyness wore off and the slide hadn't reopened, we headed back to the park to explore more stuff. We found a nifty little spot where you can ride this pulley ferry across the Snake River.

The ranger let Jacob wear his hat and man the ferry for a minute.

After the ferry ride and exploring some old buildings, we called the Alpine slide and found out they had reopened. We headed back up to Snow King and took a fun ride on the Alpine slide. Jacob rode with Mark and Matthew was just old enough to ride with me while Jared & Ryan took their own sleds. The slide is always a blast and just too darn short! I guess that's why it's always fun to go!

After our slide ride, we headed to my parents house for the rest of the weekend. Several of the cousins were there for the weekend as well, so that made things extra fun. On Monday morning Ryan & Jared helped Grandpa saw up a load of firewood while the rest of us gathered produce from my parents garden and my brother's greenhouse. We had a wonderful hot dog roast for lunch with fresh corn toasted in the coals -- yummy! What a way to spend a weekend!

15 years

Fifteen years ago today was one of the best days of my life -- Mark & I got married! I tried to find a recent picture of just the two of us and realized it doesn't exist. So, I chose a family picture to represent a bit of what our fifteen years together has brought. Sometimes life is very good. Happy Anniversary!

busy day

Carpool day. Cooked meals. Got kids herded to where they need to be at various times of the day. Went to RS presidency meeting. Made huge vat of salsa. Did a million dishes. Washed, folded, and put away 5 loads of laundry, or was it 6? Made phone calls. Helped with homework. Picked berries. Took care of the children. Exhausted. Didn't get everything done that I'd hoped to accomplish --again.

stuntmen

Jacob learned how to do "backflips" on the swing set this summer. Check him out!

Doesn't that arm position just look painful? He loves showing these off to anyone who'll watch. And just so you know (this is Jacob's story), only he and one other kid can do this trick on the playset at school!

At the recent cub scout olympics, Ryan was pretty stellar when it came to log rolling -- you know, trying to roll the log around so your opponent falls off while you maintain your balance.

Ryan was also the best at the caber toss -- that's tossing an 8 foot 2x4 as far as possible.

The above photo wasn't his longest toss, but it's the only one that actually shows the end of the 2x4 in the air. Pretty fun stuff!