Then and Now - A Fun Flashback

So 101.9 The End radio station has this "Regeneration Tour contest" going on where you send them a pic of you in the 80's & then one of you now. The person with the biggest transformation wins front row tickets to next week's Regeneration tour concert up at the Usana. Groups that will be there are Naked Eyes, Human League, and Belinda Carlisle to name a few.
Any ways I had a friend totally encouraging me to enter this pic from high school so I thought "why not?" & did. Do any of you remember this particular picture? (Hill and Kris - you guys were involved in this - crimped hair, wild outfits & all so don't deny it.) I love the pic of the bomber in the background - that makes it so classic for back then. I really don't plan to win but thought it was fun to submit any way.

Here's my "now" pic:

If you go to http://www.1019theend.com/ website and click on the Contests area & Regeneration tour there is a "photo wall". I'm listed on the 2nd page there.
Personally I think my friend could win on his "then" picture, what do you think? (OK, I'm thinking he'd be a sure winner if this was a 70's regeneration contest. I totally can hear Barry White music playing in the background of his pic can't you??) Wait a minute - that IS Barry White!!! HA HA!! Fun (and somewhat scary) stuff!

Cooling Off In The Heat

Yesterday we decided to go check out the new Payson pool with sis in law Amber & cousins. Parker & Paxton had a great time on the slides, in the lazy river & playing in the kiddie area as you can see.

It was a HOT day and great way to stay cool & catch some rays!! In the kiddie area is this big bucket that will dump a huge bunch of water all over everyone every few minutes so Paxton & I had to try that out a few times.

I Heart Fiesta Days!

Today is the 24th of July, (aka Pioneer Day for Utah), which means Spanish Fork celebrates with its annual Fiesta Days celebrations! I love Fiesta Days as it's like a big high school class reunion. There is a carnival, sidewalk shopping, food & entertainment in the park, the rodeo, a 10K race and the parade. (Honestly, in my book this day ranks right up there next to Christmas and Thanksgiving! I'm "geeked" about it as a friend of mine would say.)

For me the day started off early this morning when I ran the Speedy Spaniard 10K race. This was my first 10 K ever & the 2nd overall race I've ever done. I managed to finish with a time of 56:41 so not too shabby (as my goal was under an hour) and came in 134th among the 308 girls.

(Susie, Sandra & myself all sweaty but smiling after the race)

After getting cleaned up we headed to Zions Bank to watch the parade with my family. Paxton looks like a total rocker in this pic. So the sign is a bit upside down but he has a pretty good satanic face going on there.

We went to the park for some entertainment as that is where everyone heads after the parade is over. The kids had already done the carnival last night with granny so today they climbed a huge rock wall (that Parker is a monkey - he was so fast and both times made it to the very top & sounded off the bell.) Paxton did really well and got 3/4 a way up and then as you can see in this pic, he looked down and no longer wanted to do it anymore. :) So we went and let him have a pony ride instead.

After hanging out and visiting with old friends, etc, in the park we had a BBQ at my mom's house with the family. Here is crazy Uncle Jonny with all the kids finding a way to cool down - it was so HOT! He was being a total goofball today. Poor Jonny was getting harrassed by all of us older siblings when we saw how white he was.

Scout Camp

Today Parker was able to go with the ward scout boys up to Jeremiah Johnson's day camp. He got up early around 6:20 so he could be at the church by 6:45. The group of boys got home around 1:30 & had a GREAT time. His favorite things were shooting BB guns, slingshots, archery, & sword fighting. Oh and lunch of course. :) At the trading post Parker bought a root beer, some squeaky balloon thing & a "make your own catapault" set. (Thank goodness he listened to his mom and did not bring home another pocketknife this year. We have too many of those already. :)

Another Concert......Again :)

So I feel a little guilty to see I just posted something about a concert & now once again I have went to another concert. Am I looking like the neglectful mother right about now? The boys & myself are usually such homebodys, all these "outings for mom" just happened to hit in a short time period. Because I work from home and am home all day with them they haven't even missed me & keep asking when I'm going out so grandma or Aunt Amber can tend.

So last night Kerri, Cristy & myself went to the John Mayer/Colbie Callait concert back at the Usana again. It was a bit of a different crowd than Saturday night (a lot of younger kids (girls) that like Colbie Callait) so a bit of a different atmosphere. It was a good concert though (nothing like The Police), but John Mayer is an entertaining guy & says some funny things. Let's see, to quote him just a few times, "his balls were being cut off by his GAP underwear" during one song & he "f'd up the words" during another song. (I was hoping the young kiddies around were asleep by this point since he let that word fly a couple of times in a matter of minutes - it was the end of the night.) Seriously he was singing & I guess the words weren't right because he sang the words "I f'd up the words" like it was part of the song & went on. Only disappointment he did not play "Body is a Wonderland"- what is up with that? Every girl wants to hear him singing about having skin like porcelain, a pair of candy lips & a bubble gum tongue....... :)

The 3 of us hit up Zupa's before the concert. (If you have not had their Nuts About Berries salad you've GOT to try it - it's the BEST!!!) FUNNY story regarding Kerri. We were walking in & I must have said something about shoes because all of a sudden Kerri is going "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." We are like "what? WHAT???" And she says "my shoes." And we look down & she had 2 different shoes on. I guess she was trying to see which looked better with her outfit & got distracted & never changed (and they couldn't both be brown shoes or anything - one had to be this great teal color - it was great.) We were laughing hilariously and I had to get a pic. I said "thank goodness TJ Maxx is next door" so as you can see in the next pic we got her outfitted with some matching shoes before concert time.

We are glad to have Cristy back home after living in San Diego for the past 10 yrs or so. She's fun to be around (esp after she's had a beer. :) (Now mom, dad & fellow ward members who may be reading this - I do not drink, I did not drink anything but water at the concert....but I can enjoy watching those who have & laugh with them.)

Thanks for the fun night Kerri & Cristy!

The BEST Night

Last night I had the opportunity to go see THE POLICE in concert!!!
Do you know how bad I had wanted to go?? Well on Friday a GREAT opportunity came up so I took it and had the BEST day.... in forever!

Yes Sting was really there for those of you that doubted it. (He looks GREAT by the way - my camera isn't very good so I didn't get any decent pics and quit trying.)

The opening act was Elvis Costello, who was really good. Then the Police came on & were awesome! I was star struck. I mean heck, as far as "stars" of any kind are concerned & seeing them in person, you are talking to a girl here who has only seen an MC Hammer concert (when in high school & we had the nosebleed seats behind the "special" group - do you remember that one Susie?), a few free concerts in Vail, Colorado & then once spotted Donny & fat Jimmy Osmond in an airport so seeing Sting just down the hill from me was cool. Yes I know I live a sheltered life & it's a bit pathetic, I'm working on that one though. :)
They played all the classics that I loved and remembered. It was great!
I find myself to be such a people watcher. A concert is a good place to see some interesting people. Add some alcohol to the mix and you have an additional show for your viewing pleasure. Fun stuff!

Completely unrelated to this but the kids are getting ready for bed as I type this and Paxton's new game that he loves to play is rock, paper, scissors. When we play, it doesn't matter if I win 4 out of 5, that one that he wins awards him the prize of getting to sleep in mom's bed (this is all according to him - what kind of rules are these???) Tonight I told him I was too tired to play so he said "just one, and that will be it, no more" so we did one and my rock beat out his scissors and he said "I get to sleep in your bed!" And I'm like "what? I totally won - see my rock busts your scissors." He said "the loser gets to sleep in your bed today, I love you mom." I guess I can handle another night with that little rugrat in my bed when he says it like that. Those kinds of things melt your heart.

One Man's Junk Is Another Man's Treasure

Our neighborhood had a yard sale yesterday at my house. We were up late on Friday and up early again on Saturday to get everything out on the lawn from the garage, advertising out around the towns, etc. For me this was a chance to get rid of Toots the Train, the wonder bouncy horse, a Little Tikes tool work shop, some kid's bikes & big wheels, Doc Marten shoes & baby stuff. Now for all you newcomers to yard sales let me explain a couple of things we learned (since none of us were seasoned pros):

Even though your sign says you start at 8am people will start showing earlier - like at 7am when you aren't ready so what is the boyscout motto? Be prepared (we weren't!)

Expect people to not want to pay much of anything for your items. It doesn't matter the brand name, or if new with tags, they want it for a dollar or less - cheapos!

Overall we did pretty good. Thank goodness MS is coming on Monday. They can pick up all the extra stuff we didn't sell. It felt good to dejunk.

The kids had fun with their own sale going on - little toys, otter pops and lemonade. Parker & Paxton made some money so Paxton treated himself to some hulk gloves and Parker got a new ripstik. He's ready for my friend to take him skateboarding he said. Thanks to all that participated!

Girl's Night

My high school friend Hillarie was in town from New York for a couple of weeks so on Thursday a bunch of us met up for some dinner at La Vigna (not to be confused with vagina people!) and some great conversation. We always have the best time together reminiscing about old times and the crazy things we did (and survived to tell about it!) Like me taking the bomber full of a bunch of us, no seatbelts of course & getting that baby up to 85 miles an hr on that straight country road by Eric's house (because we wanted to see how fast that beast was), before I hit that sharp turn. I don't know how at age 16 I managed to keep us from rolling but it didn't roll and we all laughed and went about our fearless (try stupid) way, none of us realizing how lucky we were. Man, we would kill our kids if they did crazy things like that. When the waiter came out after 11:30 we were still there loitering in front of the place. He asked if he could bring some pillows & blankets, fire up the grill again, etc, for us. We told him to just get the annoying italian music off. He was young and flirtatous and us old women loved it. Thanks for the great night ladies - see some of you on the 24th (Speedy Spanaird.)

Pictured above on the left side is Kris, Susie, Val, and Sandra. On the right is myself, Kerri, Hillarie and Cristy.

Many Hands Make Light Work

Is that how the saying goes??? It doesn't sound quite right, maybe someone can correct me on it - I'm too lazy to go search the internet to find it.

Any ways, our city finished putting pressurized irrigation in this past spring and so each household has been responsible to dig their own trench & put in the pipes to hook into the system's pressurized irrigation (preferrably by August 1st.)

Well Eric would have definitely been the one to do this for us but without him here my dad told me he'd take care of it at the end of July. On Saturday one of my neighbors from across the street came over and asked "when are we going to put in your pressurized irrigation?" I told him "oh don't worry about that, my dad plans to in a couple of weeks..." He said "nah, let's do it. Let's do it today." Later on that evening he and 3 other guys on our street came over with all the supplies needed (pipe, fittings, etc) and dug a trench, laid the pipe and had me hooked me up by 10pm!

We had the neighborhood kids offering their services as well. Paxton had a ball lending a hand.

(Parker was MIA - at the ballpark playing baseball with some friends & another neighbor.)

Look mom, just my size!

I love the tongue hanging out - that does look like hard work Paxton. You might want to try digging in the trench instead of trying to make your own.

I am so grateful for wonderful neighbors who saw our need and so nicely took care of it for us. They did a super job!!!!

THANK YOU Steve, Ryan, Ryan and Rich - you guys are great to us!

We love our neighbors & neighborhood so much!!!!!

Memories

Okay this little post has been going around and I love the concept so I am copying it from someone else. Let's see how it goes....

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.
Have at it!

Concerts in the Park

Because my dad has been a trumpet player from a young age & comes from a musical family (my grandma was the best piano player) I grew up in a family that enjoys music. Now my parents enjoy going to the band concert in the Payson park every Sunday evening. For the last 2 weeks the boys and I have joined them since we have nothing better to do and the boys like to get out and see the cousins (when they also decide to come.) The boys of course go play on the playground and I sit and listen to the music with my parents. It takes me back to when I was a child and we'd meet my grandma on Sunday's at the Provo park band concert. Everyone would bring their own lawn chairs and blankets and sit and listen to the music. The best memory I have of that is that at some point during the concert the band leader would leave his band and lead all the kids in a march throughout the park. All of us kids would follow him, marching along. I remember loving to do that each Sunday. They don't do that here in Payson but I wish they did so my kids could experience something simple and fun that they would perhaps look back and remember when they get older.


Band concerts have changed in the years - now they have benches to sit on and people bring their electronic devices (notice the guy in back of Paxton with his lap top.)

Fun in the Sun

In the summertime when the weather is hot........what better thing to do than head down to get even more sun down in St. George!!!

We took a fun little trip down to St. George with my brothers and their families this past week. Of course in 109 degree weather there isn't much to do but swim. Thank goodness the place we stayed at had their own swimming pool (thanks to my sister in law Amber's parents who were out of town and let us stay at their house - they had a pool, slide & hot tub.) The kids had a great time swimming several times a day & playing with cousins.

I did some shopping with my sister in law's (Ross & TJ Maxx & More) & had dinner at Cafe Rio one night with my brother's and their wives.

My highlight was getting to attend another one of Steve's (AKA the spinning god) spin classes with my sister in law's Amber & Karisa (pictured above.) The athletic club there has top of the line bikes. It was a great work out, I can see why his class is full all the time (OK, so he's easy on the eyes as well. :) This time I made sure to get a pic of him because my spin teacher trained under him so I wanted to show her that I attended one of his classes, she thought that was great.

(How embarrassing! My gum that I was chewing is totally showing when I smiled.)

The Annual Family Reunion

One of the highlights of the month of June for me is the annual family reunion. I love attending the reunion & seeing all my cousins, aunts & uncles. My dad comes from a family of 8 boys and 1 girl (there were 9 boys but one was stillborn - he was a triplet.) Oh yeah, so in my dad's family they had a set of triplets (born when my grandma was around 43) and a set of twins. I mentioned 1 triplet was stillborn so there are 2 sets of twins in the family. Each of those sons & daughter had between 2 to 6 kids each, then their kids have had kids so it makes for a big reunion if everyone shows up.


One tradition we have is a family auction. Everyone brings auction items to auction off - the money raised is used for next year's reunion, etc. Uncle Penny & Aunt Lois had a great idea to do a family quilt this year. Each family was given some squares they needed to design for the quilt. There were some special ones that some family members came up with. For example aunt Lois embroidered a lady on a square (who represented grandma) and her skirt was made from one of grandma's actual hankerchief's - it was very pretty. Uncle Leo's family had a square that showed our last name across it and one of the letters was made from a denim patch that grandma had used to patch some of his jeans for him. The bidding was high and I think the final price on that quilt went for like $600 - way to go Aunt Vickie for winning that prize. I thought I was being "spendy" by winning the popcorn/candle gift basket for $35. :)


Parker had his own $5 with him and guess what he came home with? A tire!!! Remarkably no one bid against him for the tire so he wheeled that baby back to us with a big old grin on his face. Everyone was laughing. Little do they know I plan to tie a big old rope onto that baby and make it a tire swing and return it to next year's auction so it can become someone else's treasure! Thank goodness Parker didn't have more money or he might have bid on the old truck bumper someone brought from my grandpa's old International truck. I would NOT have a place for that long thing.

Along with good food & great conversation, the kids had a fun bounce house they played in, there were sack races, 3 legged races & prizes. The reunion was once again a great success this year!