The first 10 seconds and the last 20 seconds are the best!

and the football team is fun to watch, also.

Survivor Lovers

This season starts in 3 weeks.
It will have two people from Utah on it.
One of them is an English Professor at BYU,
who says she is not afraid to play the game.
(I think that means she is not afraid to lie to people.)
I don't have a problem with people telling lies in this game.
I don't see it as being much different than a board game
I have in my game closet in which you try to decieve
the other game players into thinking you are telling the truth.
Survivor is just an extended version of it.
I do, however, have a problem with people telling lies on
this show if it gets my favorites voted off.
GO, BYU LADY!!

Interestingly

Our high school football team is highly ranked this year.

Despite the fact that there are only like 2 Seniors on the team.

Where are the rest of the Seniors?

Well, they were not allowed to tryout for the team,

because they wouldn't put in the work!

Yeah, the big group of Juniors last year for some reason

decided that they were not going to go lift weights

with the football team from January on.

So, when it came time to try out for the team,

Coach Hossner wouldn't give them the papers for the parents to sign.

He had been telling them for months

that they needed to come train in order to try out.

They didn't, so Coach kept his word.

Even the coaches own nephew got canned.

Pretty interesting stuff.

And, good for you, coach.

Kamarie loves Bubble Guppies!

I KNOW IT'S TOO SOON 

for her 

to be having a birthday already!

 But,

the Guppies

insisted that August 18th

was HERE!!!

She LOVES

LOVES

LOVES

her "poke a dot" book.

 Ingenious idea.

Cuter name.

Poke the dots like popping bubble wrap,

then

turn the page and poke them back the other way 

while counting or singing the song.

Costco!

 Do you like

the outfit she is wearing

on behalf of

Bubble Guppies Birthday?

 Blowing out candles 

could have lasted 

ALL night!!!

 I know, I know!

I'm Sooooo

Lucky!!!

Again! Again!

She learned how to blow out a match today to practice for tonight.

and

don't you dare try to sing Happy Birthday  to her.

We had her in tears tonight, cause we wouldn't stop singing to her when she said to.

It was funny, but yet it was soo mean.

It's All About Kamarie! It's about time!

Playing in the pool all day while waiting at the swim meet. Loved it.

You can't tell in this picture, but Kamarie is trying to hog the limelight and she is pushing Kauri out of the picture.

 A nap, FINALLY!

 She doesn't take naps very easily anymore.

This is how I found her one late afternoon.

Family Reunion at Halls Ranch up by Bryce Canyon.This is the dock in the middle of the swimmin'/fishin' hole.

Here, she is just getting back from a ride.

Here, she has just realized that she is not going to get to go on the next ride.

Breakfast! Pancakes!

 Kashton and Kamarie playing in the sand together.

Her favorite part of the reunion. Sand.

 Koby taking her for another boat ride.

Sand castle contest.

 Breakfast! She hardly eats, so I was tickled to have her gobbling all this food every morning.

We only eat pancakes when we camp, and we've only camped this year once until this reunion.

I guess she like pancakes. Yay!

 At the top of the hill at the ranch.

Bryce Canyon in the background.

Kortie is cruisin'

Kams knew it was his turn to get in, and she tried over and over again to push him in.

Unfortunately, I only got one of them on my camera.

Kinzie's turn on my blog

Thanks to my kids, we have to get on with life...

My favorite game on my DSi XL is Solitaire. No shuffling of cards. No wind or 1-yr-olds to blow them away. Key word here is XL! So 40eyetis doesn't keep certain people from seeing the cards.

Kinzie, bless her heart, just came in and informed me excitedly that YOU CAN PLAY SOLITAIRE WITH THESE...(holding up a deck of cards).

hahahaha

Me: I need to go in and visit my computer. (Meaning that I need to blog about it.)

Koby: Why, cause you need to go see how to do it? (Meaning how to play solitaire with real card.)

OH MY, A TWO-FER!! woot woot

Funeral week

I went to the viewing for Mr. Slack on the morning just before the funeral. I was taken aback by the lack of well-wishers that showed up. This man was hugely popular at the college, but I didn't see any college professors there. He was a politician for several years, but I didn't notice any others there. He was a Bishop, but there were only a few people there from the wards he had attended. He had lived there for 30 years, yet there were only 30 or so people there for the funeral besides the family. None of my friend's friends were there. Just me. I was sorely disappointed in the lack of support I felt this man should have gotten.

His funeral was nice, though. He comes from a family of 10 kids, he being the oldest. His sister and brother each spoke and a grandson spoke. His funeral wasn't much sad, his death had been expected for awhile.

Dixie's funeral was today. Hubby and I went early to the viewing to avoid the crowd. Her kids didn't cry as we went through the line. Hubby did though. He asked Todd how he was doing and Todd said he was hanging in there, but barely. Just barely. There was a video slideshow at the entrance, and that was hard to look at. She just was taken way too soon. They had some really nice family pictures on display that been taken within the last year. She even had her own hair in the picture.

Her funeral was pretty darn sad. Even though she's been sick for so long, her passing was rather sudden and way too soon. She was such a prescence that missing her will be easy. She had a way about her that made you feel that you were not alone and that the mistakes you made didn't so much matter to her.

She had a neighbor and a nephew-in-law each sing. The neighbor sang beautifully and perfectly. Later, the nephew, Ranse, who is also a neighbor, sang Families Can Be Together Forever. He added a few original verses to it, and he struggled through it quite a bit. I could tell he was capable of singing beautifully, but given the song he had to sing, and given how close he was to Dixie, he choked up all the way through the song, which made it even more tender and meaningful.

Her sisters each spoke and then her step-mom, who had done most of the caregiving in the last two months. Then her husband got up and spoke. Wow. I've known him a long time, at least 16 years, and he impressed me today with his tenderness and strength. They have been our neighbors for 14ish years, and they got sealed in the temple 11ish years ago.

It's a good thing Hubby wore long sleeves. His tissue didin't last more than 5 minutes, and short sleeves wouldn't have given him enough fabric to wipe on for the whole 90 minutes.

My friend Dixie Clark passed away.

Last night, Monday, Aug 8.

I have a lot of fond memories of being associated with her.

Today, I made what I call Dixie Caramel Popcorn in her honor.

She brought me some for a Christmas gift years and years ago.
It was so good that I never shared it.
She gave me the recipe, and if I make it, I can't quit eating it.
Everytime I make it, I think of her.

She was Koby's Bear Den Leader.

We were pregnant together with our 13 year old boys.

We took their family to the lake one time, and while on the two-man tube,
we laughed and laughed and smacked our heads into each other.

Kash played baseball on her husbands team more than once and my Hubby helped him coach.

Her daughter cheered on the high school team with my son.

She taught primary while I was a counselor in the presidency.

She stopped by my house and gave me a big hug when my unborn baby died at 19 weeks.
That's what meant the most.

I miss you, Dixie.

Mr. Slack passed away.

On Saturday. He was breathing raspily on Friday.
Funeral will be on Thursday at 11 am.
http://www.metcalfmortuary.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=1232220&fh_id=11516

Sad news is everywhere, it seems

For those of you who remember my "ex-best friend" who dumped me after he left on his mission, well, we met in US History Class at Dixie College. His dad was the teacher, but I didn't know it at first.
Oh, how I hated history! Nothing was more boring and such a waste of time!

The man at the front of the room was, well, a funny-looking sort of guy. He was skinny and tall and wore glasses and had slicked-back hair. He had a voice like I had never heard before, and had barely a hint of a lisp.
I wasn't sure what to make of this fellow. He seemed to say a lot of things and sort of laugh at what he was saying. As I grew to know him more, I learned that his sense of humor really got to me. I mean, it was the type of quick-wit humor that I realized that I loved because of being in his class.

He'd be talking about people in history, then all of a sudden drift off the subject to make a remark that not everyone got. I learned early on that if  you wanted to laugh with him, then you needed to pay attention to every word. I listened intently on every word. The man was hilarious, and I couldn't get enough of his humor. I eventually took 4-5 different history classes from him. What can I say, I loved the man.

Some things that I really enjoyed were watching him write on the chalkboard. You had to be listening to him as he was writing or you wouldn't know WHAT he was writing. His handwriting was sometimes what you'd expect of someone who was writing without looking. Which is what he did -not look-cause he was looking at his notes.
He dotted every time there was an i or a j, and he crossed every time there was a t. Only he would do it after he finished writing the word, so the n's and g's were dotted and never the i's or the j's. That was one of my favorite things about him. Him dotting every n cause he would do it without looking.

He had been nominated for teacher of the year every year he taught at Dixie. I think he finally won it a few years after I graduated. He was competing with such masters as Maxx Rose (who is a humorous genius) and Docc Heppler. (who is another humorous genius)  (misspellings intentional as to avoid random googlings of potentially scary people).

Oh, how I grew to love that man. He was Mayor of Washington Citty at the time, so he was very much into politics, which I knew nothing about.

One of my favorite memories of him was when he laughed along with me as I played an April Fool's joke on his son. His son had already dumped me, but was now home from his mission and hung out with me a few times. He could never stop talking about his mission to Rome, and how he wanted to go back worse than anything. One April Fool's, my friend had sent me a letter saying he was tracting and had taught the Pope. Okay, I was a lot on the naive side back then, and I had no idea that pranks could be this big, so maybe I believed it for a few sentences...Oh, how I wanted to get him back after that one.

I played like I had sent my mission papers in a few weeks before, then on Sun Apr 1st, I called my friend and told him that I had gotten my call and I needed to show it to him. (Prior to my friends mission, he had given me a copy of his mission call. All of it.) I took his call and retyped it with my name in it and forged the President of the Church's name. Thus, I gave myself a mission call to the SAME MISSION that he had gone to. Hahaha. Like he would believe it for a minute....

BUT HE DID!!!!

As I was showing my "call" to my friend, I handed a copy of it to his dad, only his dad's copy had a big APRIL FOOLS written across it. So, then his dad knew it was a joke and HE LOVED IT! I could tell when he stood up, walked over to me, and asked me if "this was for real." Meaning the April Fool's that was written on his paper. Then he just smiled big and sat back down.

Sadly, Mr. Slackk is dying. He is in the last stages of his life, and he has not eaten nor drunken anything for 5 days.

I am sad about all of this.

The world will lose a great one.

I am just sad.

I hate cancer.

I have a friend 4 doors down that has had it for about 10 years.

When she first got it, her youngest child was just about 3,

and you had to feel for a momma's boy that loses his mom at such a young age.

Now, she is dying, and I just want to say that I am sad.

She is in the last stages, can't eat,

lots of stuff going on inside her body tumor-wise.

When I see lots and lots of cars in front of her house at a time, 

I literally have to choke back my urge

to throw up cause it makes me so worried.

We aren't in her same ward anymore,

so I have to get info second hand,

and I don't know if the cars are there cause she has passed
or will soon.
.
.
.

I hear it will be soon.

I am just sad....

Guess what...

I ran a stinkin' 5K on my treadmill today without stopping.
.
.
My longest run was 2.5 miles on my 40th birthday, almost 4 years ago.

.
My longest run recently was 1.5 miles a couple of weeks ago.

.
What Was I Thinking?               I Dunno!

I thought it would never happen. A 5K, I mean.

For a NON-runner, that is a serious milestone.

I have to pass so many WALLS when I run.

Usually every lap is a WALL.

WooHoo for me.

(It won't be happening again any time soon.)

History of the Tree Swing on Kaibab

There was a man named James Nelson who was the father of the mother of my father. Haha sounded good, anyway.

Grandma Myrtle's father, James, had some younger brothers named Jonathon and Smith who were also loggers on Kaibab. Their father was, their brothers were, my grandpa was, my dad was.....

Jonathon and Smith are the ones who put up the tree swing in the 1940's for the kids to play on while their dad's worked. (This story is told by Bernice Pickett (Mich's mom) who is the daughter of Jonathon Nelson.)

The Nelson's logged at a place called Mile-and-a-Half Lake. They held their reunions there every year until about 10 years ago. They used to visit the swing.

About twenty years ago, my dad drove to Kaibab and my hubby and I followed. My mom, Bryce, Jana, and Cheryl were also on the trip. We went to the swing and had a picnic.


Fifteen years ago, 1996, my dad died of cancer.

Nine years ago, in 2002, my hubby and I bought a travel trailer, and started camping on Kaibab.

In 2002-2005, my hubby, myself , and our kids spent a lot of time driving around the mountain looking for the tree swing. We were looking for signs of what we could remember from when my dad had taken us there. We could never find it. We asked rangers about the swing, and they had no idea what we were talking about.

In 2006, we found the tree swing. We had gotten limited directions from Uncle Verl, "Go down, down, down, till you can't go down anymore...." and we drove right to it. The cable was only attached to one of the trees, and my kids loved swinging around and around the tree like a tether ball, then switching directions and doing it again. We always took a family picture there.

In 2006, there had been a fire that had swept across this mountain, and it burned the whole west side of the tree.
I think this may have killed the tree. The fire also burned the board that was used for the seat. It is still usable, but barely.

In 2007, it took us awhile to remember how to get to the tree.

In 2008, the wind had blown the top half of the tree to the ground. The cable had spent its years embedding itself into the tree as the tree grew around it. This made the tree vulnerable to the wind and it just snapped it off.
































In 2009, we went to Kaibab, but didn't make it to the tree for some reason. I think it started pouring on the second day of our visit and didn't stop. It was 3 weeks before Kamarie was born.

In 2010, we didn't make the trip to Kaibab, cause we were out of work and didn't have money for gas, and we had taken a long trip to Bryce Canyon for a family reunion.

                                               -insert no pictures here-



This year, 2011,  the cable fell off the 40'-50' stump of the tree with barely any force applied. It missed landing on my 8-yr-old's head by 8 inches.

On this particular trip, my dad's baby sister had asked to tag along. She had never been up to Kaibab. She and her hubby came as well as her baby who is 17. They happen to climb trees. Casey scurried up a new tree with the cable, and with the help of Kyson and Mike, secured the heavy, heavy cable about 30 feet up in a living tree.

Then Mike scurried up a tree that was about 10 feet away and using the old, old u-bolts and nuts that were already on the cable, and a wrench that he happened to have in his Rhino (a new fangled jeep), he secured the other end of the cable to the 2nd tree about 20 feet up. Voi La. A new tree swing.

My kids prefer the swing to be tether-ball-like.

Right now it is lopsided as you swing, and it is quite a balancing act to stay on.

I remember going there as a child. I was around 5 years old. That is the last memory I have of that place till I was married. I remember wanting to swing as high as the big kids, and they wouldn't let me. I remember two men had to swing the swing higher by standing on either side of the swing and flinging it with a rope, since the swing was too high to reach. I remember my brother, Bruce being a bit stubborn and not wanting to let them swing him, so he put his foot up to stop the rope. I was there also as a 2-year-old, I know, cause my mom has pictures.

I have no idea why I am drawn to Kaibab so much. I just am. I like to go there at least once a year. My kids will ask to go there if we miss a year. They enjoy it, also.

I don't know much of the history of the place, but that is my tidbit to add to it.

In honor of 7/11

Ahhh, Kaibab...

For some reason, I am always reminded of my dad when I am on Kaibab...

The year was 1969.

Doug, Dave, Danette, Mona

Doug is almost 7, Danette is almost 2,

Here's Doug in 1972, almost 10.

Here you can see how high that swing could swing. This is Mona and Doug in 1972.


The swing got higher every year. To get a good high swing, someone else had to use a rope to swing you higher. One person on either side, catch the swing with the rope, and fling the swing backwards. Bruce is trying to kick that rope.
Mona and Tina 1972.

Danny, Tina, 1972

In 1992ish, we went looking for the "swing". Danny hadn't been there in years. The roads were gone and new roads had been made, but once he got in the right area, Danny drove us right to the spot-no road necessary. Danette, my hubby, Danny, Bryce, Mona .