Family Fun - Lagoon

The last week of June we were ready for some fun,  so we headed to Lagoon TWICE!

(Brevin, Joe, Josh, Ian, Emily, Me and Davis)

The first day (Monday) we had planned because my bother Brent was in town.  We met both of my brother's familys there.  

this picture is of Jon and Jenny with their kids Jaxson and Violet.  

My sister-in-law Amy's entire family was also there which made it really fun,  especially when we went on Colossus and our group took up an entire car.  I was not sure how joe and Emily felt about having to ride in the front seat the first time they went on it,  but they went on it a lot more throughout the day,  so they must have loved it.

Last year Valerie loved Lagoon,and her favorite ride was Bulgy the whale. This year she still loved it, and her favorite ride is sill Bulgy the whale. If you ask her she will tell you it is Bombora, but while we were there her face lit up every time she rode Bulgy. She did not ask to ride Bombora much. She hated the dino drop. I talked her into it, and she did not cry, but she did NOT like it. The people in line were very entertained watching her ride it though.

 

We ran into her friend Addie the first day at the park,  and the girls had lots of fun riding rides together.  

Emily Joe and Josh were not into kiddie land at all this year.  For them the crazier the ride the better.  They really liked the new ride Air race.  I had a hard time even watching that ride without wanting to throw up.  The first day I spent a little time with them in the morning riding roller coasters,  but then I stayed in kiddie land with Valerie while they headed off with their cousins.  

Ryan had an unexpected court appearance come up for work on the first day we went to Lagoon, so he was not able to come.   We prebought our tickets to get a group deal,  (if you have 25 or more people who buy tickets together....you don't have to go on the same day, you just have to buy the tickets at the same time......you get 25% off plus if you do go on the same day you get a pavilion and they will also sell your group food tickets so you can eat on the park for half the price......This is better than Costco)    

Anyway because we had already bought him a ticket we decided to take a chance and bounce back the following Saturday.  I was worried it was going to be crazy busy,  but to my surprise it was not too bad.  We really did not have to wait for anything for more that a couple of rounds.  

The kids knew we were going to be bouncing back,  so every morning Valerie would ask if we were bouncing back that day.  She was very excited when the day finally came,  and the kids were all very glad to have dad there.

Dad likes all of the spiny rides that make mom want to throw up,  and mom likes all of the roller coasters that dad is not a fan of like Wicked.  We did get dad to try Spider once.

Both days were pretty hot,  so the favorite ride for everyone seemed to be Rattle Snake Rapids.  That is a ride that you can't help but get a little wet on.  

The first time we went with Ryan we all got really wet.  

Especially Valerie and I .  We went right under the big waterfall at the end. There are no pictures of me,  because I had the camera, (it was in a ziplock during the ride) but I was at least as wet as Valerie.   

Ryan had the lucky seat and hardly got wet at all.  He started bragging about how he never gets too wet on those rides.  So we decided to go again.  

This time I positioned the kids weight a little differently and.....We got him.  Ryan went right under the falls.  Joe went with him,  but he liked it.  

Even though by the end of the day Lagoon reminds Ryan and I just how old we are getting, we love going and had a great day together as a family.  Once or twice a year is good for me though.  Valerie keeps asking me when we are going to bounce back again.   I tell her next year.  Luckily she is good with that answer.

The Dump Fire

On June 21st I wrote this on facebook.......

Proof we live in the sticks....... My boys come home dirty every day. I have weeds in my yard that are completely foreign to me. When a Vole got in my window well, the neighbor boy came and took care of it with his air soft gun, and told me I could call him any time. And.......... we have lived here two weeks and have now seen two wild fires. The second one was a little closer than I like them................ 

Here is the full story

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It was about noon on Thursday June 21st.  The boys were out with a friend riding their bikes. I looked out the window to check on them.   I saw smoke and a line of orange headed our way.  It was still pretty far out there so I grabbed my camera.  (because the picture lover in me wanted a picture)   by the time I got it the fire fighters had thankfully gotten the big line of orange stopped and the only orange left was the little bit you can see in the center.  A few minutes later it actually looked like they had gotten the fire out.  I was relieved.  There were quite a few houses between ours and the fire,  but it has been very dry this summer,  and there is a lot of kindle around us.  

I started going about the day again,  and then I saw more smoke.  The fire was not out.  It was raging again, but this time it was headed up the hill and away from us.   We spent the rest of the day getting things done,  but at the same time watching the fire climb the hill as the planes and helicopters flew over it to fight it.  That night the mountain glowed orange, and we were not sure what the winds would do with the fire.  

Friday Joe had cub camp with his old troop so we had to leave early to get him there.  We had planned to spend the day in Sandy with our friends while he was at camp and then return when he got home.  I checked the news websites before I left to see how the fire was doing.  Everything seemed OK.  The fire was still burning,  but away from us.  So we left for the day.  Around 10:00am  I started getting phone calls from friends and family.  Evacuations had started.  Were we evacuated?  Was our house OK?  I really didn't know.  I got online and looked and as far as I could tell we were OK, but  the evacuation line was just a couple blocks from our street.   The next choice was to go back and get things.....most of which was already in boxes...photos important documents..... or just stay out because we were already out.  

The fire still seemed to be burning away from our home,  so I decided just to stay away,  Ryan headed back to the house around 2:00 to check things out, and found everything was fine.  As long as the wind didn't change we would be OK.   Emily was away at Girls camp, and Joe was going to stay over night with a friend so we didn't have to get up quite so early to get him to cub camp the next day.  That night Josh, Valerie and I returned home.  We followed the advice of the local authorities and packed our bags and were ready to go.     

This was one of those situations in life where you can't do much but pray for your safety and wait and see.  As I was trying to decide what we needed to pack in our bags,  there was a point were I found myself laughing a little.  How ironic would it be if we did loose our house in this fire, before we even made our first payment on it. We waited so long to buy a house.  We knew this was the house to buy.  That would be a little mean wouldn't it?  But when it came right down to it the only thing I really cared about was that my family was safe.  Our bags were packed with a few clothes, photo disks and important documents.   Everything else would stay and I didn't care if it did.  It was just stuff.  

Packing our bags got Josh worked up a little.  His bag contained clothes, cowboy night night (his blanket), and his DS.  We watched the orange mountain a little before we went to bed to try to show Josh that the fire was way over there and he didn't need to worry. But he woke up a couple of times in the night to make sure we didn't need to evacuate.  Part of me wondered if he wanted to.   

We woke the next morning to find that while the fire was still burning, most of the evacuated homes were now out of danger.  Over the next few days the fire was put out.   Our community was very blessed.  The fire came within 200 feet of some homes,  but no homes were lost.  It is still very dry here and there have been other fires burning all over, many much worse than the one we had here.  I am very grateful to all of the people who are working so hard to put out the fires and keep everyone safe.   May they be blessed and protected.  

Unity Pass

      Joe was very worried about making new friends at our new house,  but he was the one kids I was not too worried about.  Every time I had gone to look at the new house I had seen a lot of boys his age running around in the neighborhood,  and I knew it would not take long for him to get to know at least one of them.

I didn't even think about the fact that he is also in Cub Scouts where he would also have a chance to do things with these boys and get to know them.  

      The Saturday after we moved in, his cub pack went on a "hike" (walk)  to Unity Pass.  The entire Family was invited so it was a great way for us to get to meet a few people.   

One of the things Ryan and I loved right away about Eagle Mountain was not the sage brush, but all of the Jogging/biking paths there are around the community.  Unity Pass is the point on the path where it is at Eagle Mountains highest elevation.  It is also located between the Ranches and City Center. The two communities of Eagle Mountain.  

Valerie decided that she was not going to walk.  So Ryan carried her for most of the walk. She has not been sleeping well in the new house,  and has been a little bossy,  so this is how he carried her most of the way.   She was fine with it, just as long as she didn't have to walk.  (Being new to the community we thought when they said hike that we would be hiking.  If we had known we were just walking on the path we would have brought the stroller)

Here is Joe with some of his new pack at Unity Pass.  He made a couple of new friends that day,  Hyrum and Jackson.  He seems to like our new house,  even though he still thinks it is too far away from the old one.

 One other thing........Joe noticed that the water at our new house tastes a little different.  It does not taste bad,  just different.  He asked me why that is.  I explained that in Sandy the water came from the run off in the mountains,  and out here the water comes from wells.  The next time we went to Grandma Bolander's house he got a drink of water and after drinking it told his grandma how much he missed the fresh mountain water.  Kids are funny.

Moving on to "Home Ownership"

     Six years ago we moved to our home in Sandy for Ryan's Job.  We really loved our neighborhood and all of our friends there, but we were renting and knew/hoped that one day we would buy our own home and have to move.  Buying a house was a goal our entire family had.  In family prayers our kids had been praying for a while that we would be able to buy a house.  Sometimes I wondered if that time would ever come,  but a few months ago we felt it was time to start looking to buy.  We then started praying that we would be able to find the right house for our family.  

     We loved the area we were in and did not want to leave it so we started our search there.  It was very discouraging,  but the feeling that it was time to buy became stronger.  So we started to expand our search.  Some were livable, some were not.  there were a couple we started to make offers on,  but we just didn't feel right about them, so we kept looking.  Ryan and I would spend an evening driving around looking at houses,  and I would get a pit in my stomach until we drove back into our neighborhood.  Then it would all feel calm again.  So I knew we had not found the house.  We continued looking, and praying that we would find a home.  

     One day Ryan had to drive from Provo to Tooele for work.  He took the back way just to see how it was.  When he turned off in Lehi, he called me and asked why we were not looking at houses there.  

     So I called our realtor Maryanne and we started looking.    The pit in my stomach lessened and I knew we were on the right track,  but as we looked at houses I still did not feel right about any of them. Even the brand new builds we looked at.  I LOVED the houses,  but something bothered me about them.  

     A couple weeks later I was looking online and found a few houses in Eagle Mountain.  Ryan and I decided that we would drive out and look at them  first before we drug Maryanne out there.  Just to make sure that was really somewhere we wanted to live.  As soon as we arrived in the Ranches we both felt that we had found the community where we would find our home.  

     The next day we went out with Maryanne and looked at houses.  We both found a house we liked,  but again I had a feeling that it was not it.  (Ryan was not happy that I still did not have a good feeling about a house)    There was one house we could not get into until Monday,  so we decided to wait until we could see that house before we put an offer in on the other.  Ryan could not come with me on Monday,  but as soon as I walked into the house,  it felt like home.  It was almost exactly like the other house,  but a little bigger and a few little details were different.  The biggest difference was this house was a short sale so it would be a little trickier to get.  We put the offer in right away and waited.  It was a short sale so we planned to wait a while,  but the waiting didn't take long.  It turned out it had already been through most of the red tape with another buyer and then the sale fell through.  So they just slid us in their place. 

      A monthe later we were told the house was ours and a month after that the yellow moving truck was in our driveway and we were moving into our new home.   

        

     Grandma Bolander provided our last meal in our old house... Kentucky Fried Chicken.......They didn't give us any forks though, and all of our silverware was packed away.  Luckily we came across Valerie's play dishes, so we didn't have to eat mash potatoes with our hands.

Although some of us didn't quite have forks.

The kids had some mixed feelings about moving

Joe was our biggest voice when it came to praying for a new house in family prayer,  but I he didn't realize that a new house would mean leaving all of his friends and school that he loved.   He was very nervous about having to meet new people.  

     Emily was the most excited about the new house.  My friend Laura was really surprised at just how okay Emily was with moving.  I was a little surprised myself.  I remember when my family moved when I was Emily's age.  I was more like Joe.  I did not want to leave my friends.  Emily told me that she has always known we would move out of that house though, because we were renting,  so she was happy we were going to have our own house.  I was glad.  She use to have a hard time with change.

Josh seemed excited about moving,  he was really excited that he was going to get his own room in the new house.  He has always been pretty dependent on Joe though, so we will see how he does on his own.

Valerie seemed fine with the move except for leaving her friend Addie.  I don't think they really understand what moving means.  I don't think we will really know for a week or two how Valerie feels about the move.

Our new home is in a community full of families and kids.  I know it will not take long for my kids to find friends.   I am so grateful for the knowledge we have in the gospel that when making these big decisions the Lord will guide us and help us to make the choices that will be the best for us and our family.  I am so grateful for this blessing of a new home.  We were blessed in many ways during our search for it and I saw the Lords hand many times during this process.  Our prayers were answered,  and I am excited to start making memories in our new home.

 

Playing Catch Up

I know that almost every blog has one or two of these posts eventually.............. so here is mine..............

I have gotten really behind on my blogging and I am very sad about it.  At first I tried to convince myself that I was keeping up by posting a few things here and there, but as I look back at what I have written lately I am sad.  I have missed so many important things.  I really love having a place where I can keep track of the goings on in my kids life as they grow up ever so quickly.  It is nice to be able to have a place to look back....with pictures... and remember those important things.  Facebook is ok,  but It is not the same as being able to write the stories out like you can on a blog.   I now feel that I am ready to recommit myself to this project of getting those moments down if for nothing else, me to look back on and remember.  So today I am going to start fresh.  I am going to do this catch up post,  and then I am going to move forward and once again try to stay up to date with everything  (meaning that things get posted at least within a week or two of them happening.)   So for those of you 2 readers still out there thanks for sticking with me on our adventures.  Here we go again...........

Emily had another great season of softball.

Her team this season was called Pink Adrenaline.  They were all pretty young for the league,  So they only won 2 games,  but they had a lot of fun together.  Emily loved playing with them and was happy to get to be catcher for another season.   

In May my mom's family had a big family reunion for the Workman family.   Growing up they were always good about having reunions,  and I know a lot of my moms aunts, uncles and cousins,  So it was really fun to get to see them all again.  

My Grandma and her 3 remaining siblings are in the middle.  Dale is in the blue shirt,  Eileen in the black and white,  Beth (my Grandma) in the pink and Gloria in the purple.  

While we were getting pictures of everyone we had my moms cousin take a 4 generation picture with my girls.  

 There were so many fun things going on at the reunion that I can honestly say I only saw glimpses of the boys except for when it was time to eat, but I did manage to get one picture of them with my grandma Atkin as they ran past us.

The next weekend Joe had his Karate test.

Where he earned his Full Green Belt.  Watch out.....This boy is dangerous!

Ryan is now a Blue Belt

 But in order to get that he had to break a board. I wondered if the boards would be pre cut or pressed board,  but it was a real piece of wood.   It was pretty impressive to watch him do it.

To wrap up the school year,  Emily had one last band concert, where she did great playing in both the beginning band and the Jazz band.  

Joe and josh Both had field trips that I got to go on with them.  

Josh went to the farm at Thanksgiving Point.  This was our little group. 
(the class pretty much stayed together though.)

Josh really liked the animals,  but his favorite thing was getting to ride on the bus.  

Joe's Class headed to BYU to the Monte L Bean Museum.  

 The highlight of their field trip was the reptile show.  The boys really likes touching the snake.  

 We also stopped by the paleontology museum for a few minutes.  The kids thought that was fun too,  but it was really small for the group that we had.

Early in May when the weather turned warm Josh discovered my stash of kool aid in the cupboard.  He decided he wanted to do a lemon aid stand.  

We talked about it and decided it would be a good idea for him to do it when the kids were walking home from school.  Josh did his stand for two weeks and made quite a bit of money.  The kids walking home started coming with their dimes in their pockets ready to go,  and our cute neighbors came over a few times and bought a cup and sometimes even left him a tip.   Josh was very proud of his stand,  and I was proud of how well he took care of his business.  I helped him mix the Kool-aid and then he did the rest.  

For Memorial day we headed out to Tooele With Grandma and Grandpa Bolander to clean up some of the family plots.  The Tooele cemetery  is fun, because I have family there too.  

The kids worked hard shining up the headstones.

But before we could clean them up we had to find them.

This big one had been on Grandma's list to find for a few years,  but we have never had the time to look for it.  When we found it we laughed at how easy it was to find.  There were a few other ones that were not so easy.  

The first week of June school ended, and for our family that meant big changes.  We bought a  house in Eagle Mountain and it was time to move from our home in Sandy.  (I will do a separate post with more on the new house later)

The boys each had a going away party  First Josh had his friends over for some fun.  

 Nathan, Rowan, Ryker, Jackson, Josh, Camden, and Devin.

The following night Joe's friends came over.  

 Jaxson, Max, Joe, Aiden, Cooper, Ethan, Max L, Jack and Josh

8 and 9 year old boys play a lot rougher than 5 and 6 year olds.  They all had a great time,  and it made it a little easier for the boys to say good-bye.  

This post does not quite catch me up,  but I feel like this is a good place to stop, because this ends our time in Sandy.  As I am writing I feel like I need to give our move it's own post because it is such a big thing in our lives. But this is a really good start to my new goal of staying on top of things here on the blog.