Trot down memory lane

Halloween 1980. Lana and I were Olympic Equestrians. Did we go trick or treating? or to a ward party? I don't know. ( do you see a theme~ the whole please stop reminiscing about the past because you don't remember anything very well theme?)
I do remember that Joyce had given Sharon some old church jackets of Mark's for Adam. Lana and I went through the pockets and found a comb, which we assumed belonged to Mark. So I kept it, having the biggest crush in the world on him. We wore the jackets, which I also thought was so fabulous.
We LOVED horses and both desperately wanted one. We read books about them and drew pictures of them and from time to time would walk down to the feed store and buy assorted pieces of tack and hoof picks and what not in preparation for the day when we might one day have horses. We subscribed to Horse World and Horse and Rider and pasted posters of horses around our room.
Then one day the Dustins decided to get Lana a horse. I was SO jealous. I helped her shop for one. We visited lots of backyards and looked at lots of horses. Finally she settled on Goldie, who had belonged to Meredith __________ what was her last name? It's right on the edge of my brain??? Her family had moved into our ward not too long before this time and she was our friend. So Lana joined FFA and had Goldie. I still had my magazines, pathetic. Lana tried to share but we both knew the world was horribly unjust and that I should have a horse of my own.

I was lucky because Carol Markham had a pony named Velvet. They lived right next door to the place where Lana stabled Goldie. Carol didn't like horses and so some times in the summer we'd trade. I would take care of her and I could also ride her. Riding our bikes over to the stables (or walking) early in the morning to feed, water, brush and curry the horses was one of my favorite things. After they were taken care of we'd saddle up and go riding in the desert. Some times we'd ride into "town" and through the drive through of Nauglass for hot fudge sundaes. Sometimes we'd just ride around in circles. Sometimes when we were feeling nice we'd ride to one of our houses and take the kids for rides in the street.
I wonder if we have any pictures of Goldie and Velvet?
I loved to baby sit Velvet and am grateful for that chance. However I always wanted a horse not a stubborn pony and I wanted one full time.

...I'm over it now, barely.

Ward Christmas party.
The nativity scene. I was an angel. Alec is a shepard. I can't really see the people but I would bet that Brian Volmer is the other shepard and maybe Matt Banfield. The other angel is probably Carol Markham and I think Lana is Mary, Alan Markham is Joseph and Adam and Stan and someone are the wise men. I'm just guessing.
End of story.

....maybe I should have grown up in Alaska ;)

My cousin Sarah often does flash back posts to her childhood in Alaska. I love them. I love her big glasses and her big hair and her fun stories. Some day I'd like to visit Alaska, I would never want to live there, however, too cold.

Anyway I was inspired. Sadly I have no pictures of myself when I was growing up. Not quite literally none but pretty darn close. All the pictures I do have I got from my friend Adam so they are all of times when I was with his family. Which is great. Anna has mom's old photos and I believe she is making a project of scanning them in. Maybe she'll send me some interesting ones some time.

So, here's one of us kids in the Ferrari's front yard, with Bro Ferrari in the middle. I don't know why we were there. (great story so far, huh?) Alec and I are the ones in the matching sailor outfits. That was a favorite theme of mom's since we see it repeated many times through the years. I still keep in touch with several of the people in the pictures. Lana and Adam are in there, as are Kathryn and Stan and Tracey Brown. We all lived a few blocks from each other and would play outside together in the streets and in the desert near our homes. We also walked to school together each day. Our house was the farthest away from the school so we'd start out alone and as we walked by each house or corner we'd add more friends along the way. The corner of Jenner and Lorimer was half way between my house and Lana's. We often met there to talk. I remember sitting on the curb and laughing. I also remember running down there to meet and talk if anything important happened. I remember the last time we ever did. Lana was back home from Ricks and she called me to meet on the corner. It was snowing (which was unusual) and we had a good walk and talk. I guess we outgrew the corner after that.

I also remember that Sis. Ferrari's kitchen window faced out and she could look down her driveway and all the way to my house. She always knew what we were up to, always. I didn't love that as a teen and wondered what she was doing at her kitchen sink in the middle of the night :)

Pack meeting, Baby Splash, the many uses of a pool

Tonight the cub scouts had their pack meeting at our house. It's becoming an annual event. They have certification or whatever it's called to earn badges or pins or something and so they come to use the pool, BBQ, pass out awards and then the families swim. Very fun. Except today it was raining. They began arriving at the same time as the lightning and we quickly moved 60(ish) people and tables and flags and chairs, into our living room.

It was cozy but I think it went okay. The weather did clear up long enough for the boys to hop in and pass off their requirements. Sadly for the brothers and sisters it got bad again. Everyone was out of here around 8pm with a lot of crying along the way :( I felt really badly, because you know I am in charge of the weather.

Then the weather turned lovely and now DH is out in the pool with the littles and Alexis who is sleeping over.

The YW, BTW, were supposed to swim at the Shuldbergs and I believe there is a bunch of them over there chatting away in the house as well.

Last night, however the weather was perfect and we had a mom's only "Baby Splash" for Oriah that was so fun. It was really one of the most fun showers I have ever been to. We had yummy food and played some fun games and she got the cutest little girl clothes and there was massage therapist there with her chair so we each got to take a turn, that was lovely! We swam in the dark with tiki lights about and glowing floating orbs and no kids splashing, fun fun fun :)

Lemon Cake

Nana sent me this recipe today and I thought I'd make it for a post karate treat for the kids and DH.

Lemon Lulu Cake

Grease and flour a bundt panBake @ 350 degrees X50-55mins (cook 45 mins in a dark pan)

MIX: 1 package of Duncan Hines yellow cake mix
1 package instant lemon pudding (some recipes call for lemon jello)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup of water
4 eggs
1 tsp. lemon extract

GLAZE: juice of 2 lemons (1/4 cup)1 1/2 cups sifted confectioner's sugar

Pour half of glaze over cake bottom, hot, out of the oven. Repeat with remaining glaze when cool and taken out of pan.

Sunday Afternoon

We went to the cemetery to see where Grandpa and Grandma U are interred.
We walked around and visited the Wright Brother's burial site and enjoyed the trees and being outside.
The boys.

The Birthday Bash

Uncle Francis and Aunt Charlotte at the party for their baby brother.
We had lots of family there and it was so fun to visit with everyone.

Blowing out the candle!!

Jet Show

Abba and DH and brother went to the remote control jet show.

Air Force Museum

On Friday we went to the National Air Force Museum. Grandpa Thacker volunteers there many many hours a week. It's a lot of fun. We got to see some new planes and we saw an IMAX movie about dolphins.

After the adults went out to dinner at a nice steak house.

southern reading challenge is over but...

I just read, okay technically I am almost done, I'll be done today, a book that I am really enjoying. It's called The Wedding Machine by Beth Webb Hart. It's about four southern gals who have been friends for life. They live in Jasper South Carolina and are southern belles through and through. It's about their lives and struggles and the important rituals of life, like weddings, that have to be done just right. It's fun and touching. I hope the last couple chapters hold up and don't dissappoint.

hhmmm? interesting

You Are Mulan!

Strong and spirited. You're no one's girly girl; actually you are very determined person with a strong sense of self. Never let go of that! The only thing that equals your sense of self is your family, but the traditions of society can always be bent to protect something or someone you love.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

couple more shots from the game

we were watching a baseball game so here's someone hitting :)
kids with the green team
J and one of the mascots
kids and Abba

One fun thing that happened was the E and H were on the big screen during dance cam time. They were hysterical. If I can find the right video I'll put it on you tube tonight. Also eating dippin dots from the cool baseball hat cups was a favorite :) Hopefully the players will be suspended and then learn how to behave so the good parts, the family fun and ice cream and silly races and whatever can continue without the craziness.

Young's Dairy and a Dragon's Game

Today DH and Abba went golfing and Nana went to work. Uncle Brian and I took the littles up to Grandpa Thacker's house. We walked around his garden and admired his growing things. Even at 90 his yard is well kept and has many interesting fun things growing around.
The kids enjoyed seeing everything and smelling the flowers and watching the bugs fly about.
After that the 6 of us went to Young's Dairy. It was great. The kids loved feeding the goats and seeing the cows and climbing on the tractor. We had lunch there which was yummy, and ice cream which was even better :)

After we got home we took a quick swim and then went to the Dragon's game. Actually Lu stayed with Nana and UB, they went out to dinner and shopping.

The rest of us headed out to a very exciting game. Bob Evan's was having a sampling night outside the gate so we stopped there for "dinner" and some sliding on the giant bouncy slide. Then we found our seats. The first inning was unbelievably action packed. First a batter got hit in the head by a ball and had to be taken off the filed. Then not 5 minutes later the first baseman and the catcher collided and the first baseman broke his ankle and got taken out in an ambulance. THeN before that first inning was over a huge brawl broke out. Literally every player on both teams was out in the field punching and fighting. There were bloody faces and I don't know what else. The game took an hour break to sort things out and then started again. We eventually left in at the 6th inning. I don't know what happened at the end. I feel really badly about how things went. That is not an example of good sportsmanship. There were tons of families there with their little kids and it was frankly not the all American past time fun filled evening it should have been, it was more of a spectacle. I know most games aren't like that but it was still a bummer. We did have a good time, it just could have been a lot more fun and it's a shame the grown men act like that. It was not the example I wanted my children to see of how adults act when playing games, or ever.

Abba's shots

Starting the day
H and some girl in the front, E and DH in the back on the Runaway Raptors
Plankton Plunge

King's Island

Today we went to King's Island. I tried to take a nice picture of the kids while DH and Abba were in line for tickets. I took several, this was the best, sad I know.
After we got in the gate I took some kids to the bathroom and by the time we were out the big girls were off, never to be seen again until the end of the day so this nice shot does not have them in it.
We had such a fun time. We started by seeing the Dora show, which Lu LOVED. It was her favorite part, she sang and danced along.

E and H were anxious to play some of the games. E won a big bear, H won one too.

We rode lots of fun rides. The carousel, the helicopters, plankton plunge, scooby doo, runaway raptor and the log ride were some. I liked the log ride the best.

While we were doing that in Nickelodeon-ville, the big girls were on "boring" rides like the Beast, the Vortex, and other high speed, high adventure rides.

We lucked out and saw many characters. Lu loved seeing Dora! We saw Jimmy Neutron and Wanda and Scooby and some others.

We also ate. This is Lu with her Blue's Clues blueberry ice cream. We also had funnel cakes (Yumm) and icees and the big girls had dippin dots.

Books & Co and MiMi's Cafe'

Today was a shopping day. We went to Books & Co first. An hour and many books later everyone was stocked with reading material for the rest of the summer. It's our favorite stop.
It's nice that they provide chairs around the stores so we could sit and read and take the books for a test drive before making a final selection.

Then we went to eat. We eat a lot. S had the hugest sandwich.

DH had the yummiest dessert, it was a chocolate pecan pie a la mode that was as big as my hand (as you can see).

We spent some time walking around the Commons and enjoying the shops.

Tonight Dottie and Jim came over for dinner and we watched old family movies.

We made it

We made the drive. It was fine. Driving this summer has been better than any previous driving we have done, I guess because we don't have a baby this year.

It's not fun but it's better.

We watch movies and eat for 100's of miles on end.

Last night we stopped in Nashville. We stayed at a motel 8, which was fine. In the past we've stayed at nicer places but in the spirit of saving money we tried this. We will probably stay at one again, I will admit that we are spoiled and missed our Marriott's and Holiday Inns. We got two rooms so Lu, S and J and I were in one together. We were laying in the dark in our two double beds, side by side, singing ourselves to sleep. J and I sang such classics as "In the ghetto, the urban ghetto, the ______ sleep tonight. Ah Whooo Babum Ba Way" and "How firm a mattress"

This morning, after enjoying our complimentary bowls of froot loops, we headed off again and made it by 4 in the afternoon.

We're happy to have arrived and look forward to a nice week.

a recap

the past two days have been scheduled with a departure to Ohio in mind.

Friday morning we woke up and drove down to the new transmission shop with DH so he could drop off his truck. They we took him to work and went to the bank and McD for some breakfast.

We went to Friday swim day, cause kids need to have fun and I need to chat with my mom friends :) It was at Alison's pool and the kids had a great time. Which was nice because of the rest of the day was work work work.

We came home and had lunch then went to do all our trip shopping :( After that we had a fun filled afternoon getting stuff clean around here and laundry done.

Friday night was more of the same along with a RedBox movie "Bella". Kind of weird, I would not recommend it.

Today we got up and started cooking and doing more laundry.

DH and the kids went to karate.

J came home from camp. She had a fun time but was disgusted that they made them wear bright orange life preservers in the lake. After the high adventure trip they had earlier this year and being that she is an excellent swimmer it seemed kind of lame-o. Still it was a good experience over all.

We finished and folded all the laundry and got all the house clean, so we can come home to a nice house.

H went to the Chisholm Water Park for Kolton's birthday party.

We got everything packed. Took Millie to the Steers, got gas and went to the pool store.

Fixed dinner for the Meyers and took it to them.

Then J left to see Batman with friends and S left to hang out.



We got to play with new little Oriah. Lu LOVED holding her and feeding her. She's so tiny and cute. It almost makes me wish we had another.

We had KBT at our house! R won. The game was long (3 1/2 hours).

We made Monte Cristo sandwiches for dinner and apple german chocolate cake for dessert and Heather brought yummy fruit salad. It's always fun to get together and eat and play.

After everyone left we finished getting ready, cleaned again, quickly blogged, and now I will look over my lesson for tomorrow and after church we will hit the road.

Whew!

new list of things I love:

1. RedBox. Who knew?
Yesterday we tried it out for the first time. We watched "Fool's Gold", which was a cute summer romance.
Today "Bucket List", which was really good. For a dollar you can't beat it.

2. Photo shop, with a wizard to run it. Em acted like a body double when we took the world's worst family faux-toe in Florida. We put S's head on and gave her a tan and viola a new pic of us all looking pretty bad :)

3. the $3 car wash with free vacuum.

This morning we visiting teaching, the kids went with me and had a lot of fun. After we went to the mall and spent some happy hours playing on the play land, looking at stuff and eating noodles.
Tonight the kids swam with dad and I read Martha Stewart, who I am so not like.

friends

During the day brother's 6 good friends wait for him on his pillow. Unless they are needed to go into battle or set up a zoo or to go shopping or to act as bombs in an elaborate game that he makes up.
They are Harry Potter Frog. Jesus (pronounced Hey sous) the bear called Hercules, the unfortunate moniker is because he was a Christmas present and H helped him get adopted. Third came FyreSnake, followed by Fuzzy Wuzzy (frog) and SuperMonkey. The newest addition is Pink Death, the dragon. He plays with them every day and it's so cute I didn't want to forget their names.

S and her friend going rock climbing. It's not a "date" and she "doesn't like him". Whatevah :)

I'm just posting this to torture her, they have been good friends for a long time, and he's a really nice young man. That's it.

My Creation

I saw this on my friend Shauna's blog and thought it looked like fun creative thing to do. It was fun to see what images popped up with the search words I used. And to pick one to use.

To make your own:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?

8. Favorite dessert?

9. What you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One Word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name (or your blog name or handle or whatever)

the joy of owning stuff...

an essay on irony.

Stuff is sort of the bane of my existence. We need it and want it... and have to take care of it and organize it and make sure we have all million and two pieces that go with it that make it work.

I suffer from clutter. House clutter, body clutter, mental clutter. We've been de junking but frankly it seems to multiply just as quickly as we get it out of here...and I am not even going to the store very often so I do not know where it comes from.

On the plus side we've made progress on several of our closets, we have many more to go but my plan is to have them done by the time school starts (and I think we'll make it).

Recently we've had a lot of stuff break. Expensive stuff. We had two AC units that both needed repairs: cha ching. Then the fridge: which BTW, 3 trips to our house by the brilliant repair guy later and we still don't have ice at least things are being kept cold which is the more important of the two functions but ice would be nice. Cha Ching (jr). The transmission on the truck needs to be replaced. My car is in the shop with a funky AC error. While driving it will randomly switch to heat, just on the drivers side. Crazy huh? We can't drive 17 hours to Ohio next week with that problemo going on so : CHa CHing. AND S's car randomly doesn't start. We just put in a new battery but yesterday it wouldn't start and then it did and this morning when I went to take J to camp in the only working car on the property it didn't start. We waited and tried again, but nothing. Luckily Alison was able to come and save us and take her to camp. Can I hear a collective ARGH!

On the bright side... we still have food in the stores to buy, although it's expensive.

It seems like there is a lot of not depression but schlumpyness going around. I have many friends, real and imaginary who are struggling with issues some big and some just general blah's. I don't know if it's the price of gas, the lack of an exciting presidential candidate, the summer TV schedule or global warming that's causing it but I am tired of it.

So: 10 things that make me happy (right now)
let's see....

1. yesterday afternoon a HUGE wasp flew in the house when the Kings were leaving. I'm not kidding this was the size of a swallow (African). Debi and I chased it into the bathroom and locked it in. Then last night when DH came home he bravely killed it. H, E, Lu and I were outside the door shouting encouragement. At one point we heard a yell and a struggle, brother wanted to burst through the door and help but we held him back. In the end DH emerged victorious. I am very happy for some of the little known perks to being married (not that!), namely, having your own personal bug killer on call.

2. I am glad that the kids are all healthy. Not a sniffle or tumor amongst them. Yeah!! Good health is something that is underappreciated until it's gone.

3. I am glad that J gets to go to camp this week. I hope she'll have a great time. She wasn't super excited, knowing that it would not be the high adventure king of trip that she loves, however camp is always fun and I know she'll have a great time.

4. I can read.

5. Last night DH and I snuck out to Sonic and got treats when he got home from karate. Very fun.

6. DH has a job that he likes.

7. I have new soap from Bath and Body Works that smells so nice.

8. there are only 5 1/2 weeks left until school starts (just kidding)

9. the Food Network

10. I have the great blessing of spending another warm summer day with my bright and delightful children, swimming, playing, doing chores and cooking and reading together and really is there anything more important?

today's project

E has an airplane room. I've been meaning to paint on clouds and put up airplanes on one wall. Today I finally got around to it and he was happy with how it turned out.

Now we need to hang a couple more models from the ceiling and it'll be perfect!

a close up of one of the planes.

Friends

The kids had friends over this afternoon to swim. Amanda, Ryan and Austin came over and played and swam. It made the afternoon much more peaceful. Having friends always makes the time pass pleasantly.

the games we play

with the rising price of gas we are spending a lot more time at home this summer. Which isn't a bad thing, necessarily.
We have to find things to do to pass our time.
Lu loves to play "Starfall". She needs a partner so we all take turns.

H and E play monopoly, and uno and chess.
Here are the big girls playing their favorite game: clothes folding party :)

Saturday busy-ness

We had a Saturday that was a hair busier than normal.
We started with a crew meeting for J and DH. I thought it would take an hour or two. It ended up taking 4 1/2 but they both felt good about it and J is excited for the next year and DH got a lot of stuff worked out that had been on his mind and feels happy about how things will go. This is really the brain child of our friends Rob and Tori and they do most of the work but DH has been involved in it from the beginning and wants to contribute meaningfully so I know he was glad about the meeting and getting things rolling for the next year.

H had a book club to go to started by her friends Alexis and Kirsten. They are going to be reading the Box Car Children book 1. She had fun.

E went to C's 7th birthday bash. Where he had a blast.

I went to a baby shower for Holly.

By the time all that was done it was dinner time so I fixed dinner and then we headed to Lowes to get the supplies for a long awaited project: S's new bed.

7pmish we have our supplies and start the bed. Lu helped with the measuring.
9 pmish we are making some progress as DH stapes on the pillows and the sheet.
10:30 the finished product. It looks really cute. We have a fluffy headboard with pink and tan and chocolate dots on it and then her comforter is the same colors in stripes.