Better Late Than Never

At the end of April I weeded my Vegetable Garden and started to prepare it for planting in May. We have a membership to the Red Butte Gardens and we love to go to their plant sale the first Friday in May to purchase our plants, and then I usually plant everything the next day.

However, this year May was a little wild both with activities and the weather. I missed the plant sale completely. The weeds grew back in my garden and even though the thought of planting was in the back of my mind, the time to do it never appeared.

I had a coupon for $10 off at a local nursery that expired on Memorial Day. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get there, but Ryan's office is right by the nursery and since he had to work that day he offered to stop by after work and get what I needed. (Isn't he great!) The pickings were slim, but he was able to get most of the things we wanted.

Now that the plants were bought it was time to focus. So Tuesday, after the Kindergarten Talent show, I put on my work clothes and spent the rest of the day gardening. I finished about 8:00pm and am happy to say the garden is in.

It ended up being better that I didn't get it in until now, because if I had planted it when I wanted to it probably would have been killed by the uncommonly cold weather we had in May.

Now it will be up to Ryan to keep it alive while the kids and I are visiting my parents for the next two weeks. I know he will, because he enjoys the fresh tomatoes just as much as I do.

I Am Old

This Christmas season I can honestly say I only went to the actual mall one time. There were many small reasons that had kept me from going to the great and spacious building, and I was able to find what I was looking for at places I needed to go to anyway.

Christmas was approaching and my mom had sent me some money to buy the kids some clothes from her. I had found something for the boys, but I still had not found anything I liked for Emily. So the Tuesday before Christmas I finally went to the mall. As I looked from store to store I realized that one of the reasons I was not finding anything is because the 80's are back. While There has never been a better decade for music, the clothes should never be seen again, and lets not even mention the hair. Needless to say I started to feel a little old.

I ended up finding an outfit that I though Emily would like and headed back towards my car. Suddenly the cheap tacky jewelry store in the mall caught my eye. Emily had started wearing a few pieces of jewelry and I thought she would love a few more pieces. She is 10 so tacky is very in. I walked around the store and picked up a few things, but I was not really sure what was "in" right now. The bangle bracelets and slap bracelets were in many different colors and places in the store so I picked up a few. I also found a really cute bead bracelet.

Then I saw a girl who looked like she was Emily's age shopping with her grandma. She looked like a nice girl so I asked her how old she was. I was right, she was 11 and in the 6th grade. So I showed her what I had picked out and asked her if she would like to get any of them for Christmas. The look she gave me had confirmed what I had been thinking this entire shopping trip, "I AM SO OLD"

She pointed to one of the bracelets and said, "If those are the things I have to choose from I would want that one." I knew then that all of them were wrong. So I said "If you could have anything in the store what would you want?" She then took me to some bracelets and said "these." The shop keeper had caught on to our conversation and told me that she was having a hard time keeping those bracelets in stock they were so popular.


Then I noticed another bracelet that I liked and I asked the girl if she thought my daughter might like it. She asked me what grade my daughter was in. When I said the 5th grade she said, "Yeah a fifth grader would like that, but a 6th grader wouldn't." She then suggested that maybe I should just get a gift card. Not wanting to get anything that was out of style I put it back and bought the bracelets the girl had shown me.


Then I walked back to my car knowing I was old and way out of touch with the teenage world.

I was so happy when Emily opened the bracelets on Christmas morning and loved them.

At least she still thinks I know what I am doing.

Scrapbook Expo

Last Friday was the Scrapbook Expo. Once again Ryan took the day off of work so I could spend the entire day there. Unfortunately my regular buddy Tracy moved so I had to recruit new buddies. None of them were willing to get there at 6:00am with me so I made friends with the ladies sitting next to me in line. This is a strategy of mine. If you have friends in line with you they will protect your spot.

The tickets were sold a little differently this year. They usually have one big line in the morning and at 8:00am they start selling the Early Bird tickets and give you your gift bag. This year at 7:00am they handed out numbers to the first 150 people in line (I was #77) Then they had everyone leave our stuff and form 6 lines at the ticket booths. Then after you bought your ticket you were supposed to form one line again to get the gift bag. The only problem was that the front of a few of the ticket lines were towards the front of the bag line. So instead of going to the back of the line the ladies were just cutting in. I was towards the front of the ticket line so the bag line was not very long when I got in it, but it was not moving because of the cutters. I was standing by the ladies I had met that morning and so I told them to hold my place in line. Then I went up and stood where the lines were merging and I told anyone who had just bought there ticket where the end of the bag line was. After that the line moved quickly and I was able to get my bag. I know everyone would have eventually gotten a bag, but I wanted to get back to my place in the real line, the one to get in the door. (see what my Friends missed by not coming early) The numbers were a nice thing because it made it so those of us who got there early were able to be the first ones in to get our tables.

I have heard reports back that I get a little crazy at the expo and push my way into booths and stuff. Maybe I do. But hey that's how you get the good products. Tracy understands. (I still need to train my new friends a little.)

Here is a picture of some of the things I got at the Expo. It is all pretty cool and you would not believe how much I paid for it.

Thanks Jenny, Brenda, Cathy and Heather for coming with me. It was a lot of fun.

Girls Night Out

Every once in a while it is nice to take a break from life and just have some relaxation time. This last weekend I was lucky enough to get to go to my friends cabin for a scrapbooking retreat. I carpooled up with my friend Laura and her sister-in-law Lisa.
It was so nice to drive up into the mountain this time of year and see all of the pretty fall colors starting to show. It was lots of fun driving up together. I had met Lisa before, but I feel like she is more of a friend now. We only took a couple of wrong turns but that made the ride even more fun.
There were 7 ladies from my ward who were able to come and we stayed up almost the whole night chatting scrappbooking and having a great time. I was surprised that even at 4:00am, when I made myself go to bed, I still was not really tired. The next day we got up and continued the fun. It was great to have a time when all I had to worry about was what I was doing.

At one point we joked about the mess in the cabin from all of our scrapbooking, but when everyone packed up their stuff to leave it was amazing how quickly it cleaned up. I was able to get 12 pages done and I am happy to say that Josh now has the beginnings of a baby book. We made it back home around 5:00pm on Saturday. I was tired when I got home, but I also felt rejuvenated and ready for the busyness of life again. I think a little break now and then is a good idea.

Things are growing

I always wonder if my garden will produce when I plant it in the spring because I don't really know too much about gardening except to water it and keep the weeds out. So it always makes me happy when I see that food is really growing in it.

I was out giving my garden a much needed weeding this weekend and look what I found......

I love vegetables right out of the garden especially tomatoes. They taste so much better right off the vine.

One thing I have learned is the only thing worse than bugs for a garden is two year old boys. When Joseph was two he would tromp through the garden because he knew food was growing in it. The peas never made it in the house because Joseph was always looking for them and eating any he could find. When the tomatoes started growing that year he thought they would be like peas and picked a green one and tried it. Needless to say Joseph is not a big fan of tomatoes.

This year has been a little more of a challenge to keep the plants alive because Josh does not seem to realize or care what is in it. I have lost three plants already this year to his feet but I was able to replace two of them. I also almost lost a plant when I was weeding because Josh decided to help. He walked right over and pulled out one of my pepper plants. I quickly put it back in the ground and watered it hoping that the roots were not exposed too long. The plant seemed to be OK but a couple of weeks later Josh stepped on it.

Oh well it looks like we will have tomatoes.

Tag I'm it

I was tagged by my friend Laura a couple of weeks ago and I am finally getting around to it.

The Rules: Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

Share 5 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
or

Share the 5 top places on your “want to see or want to see again” list.
or

Share 5 things you never pictured being in your future when your were 25 years old.

Tag a minimum of 5, maximum of 10 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
The tagees have a choice of which they want to do.

I have chosen 5 top places I want to see or see again.

1. Paris, France. I have always thought it would be fun to go to France but I wouldn't want to go there by myself. Now that I could have Ryan as a tour guide (he went there on his mission) I think this would be a fun place to visit. I know Ryan would like to go back during the Tour de France season so maybe we will get there in a few years.

2. Washington DC. I went to Washington with my family the summer before I got married and had lots of fun. We were able to see a lot while we were there but there was a lot we didn't get to see and I would like to go back someday and see more.

3. New York. There are three main things I want to see in New York. One is the statue of Liberty another is the Church sites there (the sacred grove) and the third is a show on Broadway.

4. Southern California. when the kids are older I would like to go on a trip to California with them. We did a lot while we lived there but Emily and Joe were so young that they only really remember it because we have pictures. So I would like to take them there in a couple of years and do the whole tourist thing of Southern California.

5. Camping in Utah. Ryan will not like this one but I want my kids to see all of the fun national parks in Utah. Ryan will probably be willing to go to these places because he likes to mountain bike and hike, but I don't think I will ever get him to camp over night. I think it would be fun for the kids to experience at least one night camping out.

Now it is time for me to tag people. It says I have to tag 5 people but I don't even know if I know five people who have blogs that I can tag. So if you read this and want to do it, Tag Your It! (Is that cheating?)