Three First Days

OK, it took me a little while to get to this, but we had three first days of school in one week.

Ryan was first. He started first grade at Renaissance Academy on Monday. His teacher is Mrs. Sylva. He is doing great at having a long school day. He enjoys eating his lunch at school.

Lauren's first day of school was Tuesday. She decided to go to the Junior High this year rather than staying at Renaissance. She is really enjoying junior high and has some fun classes. The seventh graders started a day earlier than the rest of the school so that they could get acclamated before the rest of the students showed up.

Mark started 11th grade at Lehi High School on Wednesday. He has a crazy schedule with 3 AP classes (Biology, History and Calculus), an early morning orchestra class (he couldn't fit it into his schedule during the normal day), and marching band after school. His parents are more stressed out about his schedule than he is. We've tried to talk him out of some of it, but he won't hear of it.

We have a fourth first day coming up this week. Joseph is starting preschool this week.

West Coast Tour

We had a great time on our trip that we took. We were gone for 15 days, drove about 2400 miles and stayed with 5 different families. We left Lehi on July 30 and made stops in Nampa, Portland, La Pine, Eureka and San Jose. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson, Aaron and Jenny, Jim and Becky, The Smiths, and Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey for letting us stay with them on our adventure. We did so much at each stop and between that a blog entry that detailed everything would be about a hundred pages long. Here is a list of the things we did with some pictures sprinkled in.

• Swim at the Nampa rec center
• Nightly Quiddler matches
• Visit to Larry and Tawana's with the Tophams
• Delicious apple and berry cobblers with home made ice-cream
• Checking out the animals with Hannah
• Shopping

Fishing with Grandpa in his boat at CJ Strike

• Everyone caught something
• Joe caught a trash fish
• Seeing a lizard
• Blowout on the boat trailer tire
• Ryan losing a front tooth in the car

Stopping at Multnomah Falls on the way to Portland

• Wrong turn across Fremont Bridge
• Giant bubbles with Trevor
• Visiting with Aaron and Jenny and Christine
• Finally a piano to play

Autobon Society Bird Refuge with Christine

• Seeing salamanders in the pond
• OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry)
• Portland Zoo
• Nirvanah of finding the big snakes
• Thai food
• Domino Effect
• Visiting Aaron at work and seeing the cool animation that people are doing
• Ben and Jerry's stop in Bend
• Throwing balls for Jim and Becky's dogs
• Homemade pizza

Horseshoes

Floating the Deschutes River in La Pine

Marsha, Derek and Joseph tipping the canoe and falling in

• Saving camera, keys and wallet, but losing a flip-flop
• Dinner with friends
• More horseshoes

Crater Lake

• Jedadiah Smith Forest and the big trees
• Skipping rocks 

Trinidad Beach (very cold)

• Another piano to play
• Blackberry picking

Sequoia Park

• Banana slugs
• Tennis with Alan Smith
• Old town Eureka

Feeding / chasing pigeons

• Gepetto's Toy Store no longer in business (we are so sad)
• Chinese yo-yos
• Carson Mansion
• Feeding chickens and rabbits
• Blackberry pie and ice-cream
• Mark performing on piano and getting to practice Chinese
• Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge
• Fisherman's Wharf
• Pier 39

Sea lions

• Joseph riding elevators/escalators
• Crazy hats
• Crazy socks

Crazy sign (details upon request)

• Ghirrardeli Square

Yummy ice-cream

• Crazy singer with handlebar moustache (details upon request)
• Fun with Meyers (rocket ball in back yard)
• Back to school shopping at Valley Fair Mall
• Bowling with grandpa
• Ice-cream at Sweet Retreat
• Trip to Oak Meadow park
• Ride the carosell
• Play on the fun equipment
• Frisbee

Riding the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

• Visit to Meyer's in San Juan Bautista
• Tramp jumping
• Catch Phrase
• Pulled pork sandwiches
• Uncle Brad's famous smoothies
• Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Body surfing

Sand crabs

Checking ocean current conditions

• Ryan losing a second front tooth this trip
• Home at last.

We had a great time. We have photos of most of the things listed above if anyone wants to see more.

Feeling Lonely?

If you are ever feeling lonely and like you don't have any friends, I have the perfect remedy for you. Here's what you do:

1. Go to the Home Depot
2. Pick up a plastic owl
3. Carry it around the store for a few minutes

 You will have more people talk to you in those few minutes than you would ever need. People who haven't spoken to another human being in years will feel the need to talk to you about how an owl worked in keeping the doves out of their mother's barn when nothing else would work. People will ask you if you have problems with woodpeckers. People will offer advice on how to place the owl just right so that it will work.

I bought an owl to try to keep the robins from eating our cherries. The owl didn't work, but I now have about five new friends that I talked to between picking up the owl and walking to the checkout stand. And yes, all of the above were things people talked to me about in the store.

Here is a picture of the owl.

Party at Our House

We have had a non-stop party at our house for the last two weeks. Let me explain - no there is too much. Let me sum up:

The Tophams showed up on Wednesday. They were in town for a family reunion. They brought Lauren, who had been to visit her Grandma and Grandpa Sorenson for a week, back with them. They had reunion stuff to attend to during the days, but we got to spend some time visiting with them in the mornings and the evenings. The boys had a great time playing the wii while the were here. We picked about 10 pounds of cherries from our tree. We didn't manage to take a single picture while the were here. The Tophams stayed until Saturday morning.

Jane and Matt Smith (in our Provo ward) were in town for the opening of their new pizza place in Highland. We spent some time visiting with them and had their boys over for the day one of the days.

Friday night Kathy Smith (no relation to Jane and Matt) from Eureka was in town. She stopped by for a visit.

Also Friday night, the Sumpters drove up from Phoenix. They brought Collin Stimpson with them to stay with us for a week. That's when the party really started for Ryan and Joseph. They had a great time with their cousin.

There is a small (very small) amusement park called Liberty Land less than a mile from our house. We had some free passes for that, so we went there on Saturday morning.

Ryan and Collin rode on the airplane ride

All Joseph wanted to do was mini-golf

We also rode the roller coaster. Collin wasn't sure he wanted to go at first, but after he saw Ryan ride, he decided to give it a go. If you ever ride the roller coaster at Liberty Land, be sure that the bigger person sits on the left. We also played a game of laser tag. We had a great time.

Our old trampoline died the death (to quote Grant Dearden) a while back and we decided that this would be a great weekend to replace it.

The boys kept busy for a long time putting together the new tramp...

...and using it

Collin spent the day Monday with his Uncle Brett. We decided to go see "Toy Story 3." We had a great time. You will have to ask us about the boy sitting behind us who yelled at the characters on the screen for the whole movie. It was pretty funny. We barbecued with Val and Camille Ogborn that evening.

The Sumpters came over on Tuesday and we headed up the canyon. We had fun visiting with them even though it wasn't for very long.

We went to Tibble Reservoir

We fed stale Cheerios to the ground squirrils and, of course, threw rocks in the water.

Wednesday was BYU day. Marsha and the boys met the Sumpters at the botany pond (one of our favorite places to visit at BYU.)

The kids (and Steve) fed the ducks...

...and caught a turtle

They would have thrown rocks in the water, but the rocks are pretty scarce around the botany pond. They also went to the Wilkenson Center for some snacks. They also met up briefly with Mark, who was at BYU for Chinese camp.

Thursday Marsha took the boys to the Museum of Ancient Life (Largest dinosaur museum in the world, really).

They played on the erosion table

Rode the dinosaur

Looked at dinosaur skeletons (They were having a birthday party. That's why the dinosaur is wearing a birthday hat.)

Saw the giant shark (again with a party hat)

and uncovered dinosaur fossils

Other things we did with Collin that we don't have photos of: We shot off our own fireworks for the 4th of July. The smoke bombs were an especially big hit. We attended our annual "Cul-de-sac of Fire" were all the neighbors get together and shoot off all the fireworks we have at the same time. We went to the blue park and played on the equipment, climbed trees and threw rocks in the water. We played the wii. We built Legos.

The boys had a fabulous time with their cousin, Collin. We are really glad he decided to come visit us for the week.

We are still waiting to hear when the Meyer Family is coming to visit.

Fishing with Grandpa

We had a really fun Memorial Day. Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson were in town for Camille's graduation from high school. We got to spend lots of time with them. Ryan has been dying to go fishing, so when Grandpa was in town, it was game on. We went to Vivian Park in Provo canyon. The main Provo River runs on one side of the park. The other side has a little pond that is fed by the river. The fishing in the pond is for kids 12 and under.

Here are the intrepid fishermen at the start of the day.

Joseph was the first to catch a fish. He couldn't figure out why his pole was jerking around. He was pretty surprised in this picture.

Here he is admiring the fish that he caught.

Ryan was an awesome fisherman. He has the patince of Job. He could stand there all day fishing. He loves it. Here he is with a fish on the line.

And here he is with the finsished product.

Lauren even got into the act. She didn't think she wanted to come. Marsha told her that if she had any fun at all we would buy her a milkshake on the way home. She broke down and actually had a great time fishing. She caught two fish. She even got pretty good at casting by the time we were done. At first we teased her abouot trying to bludgeon the fish when she was casting. She was pretty excited to catch some fish.

We caught eight fish all together, but two got away. Ryan ended up catching four and Joe and Lauren caught two a piece.

Lauren found a Monarch butterfly that didn't fly away. She was able to pick it up. Maybe she is the butterfly whisperer.

We had an impromptu picnic. Marsha brought a loaf of bread and peanut butter. Here is Joseph chowing down on a PB&J.

Here is a picture of Mark - just for the heck of it.

We had a really fun weekend and are really glad that Grandpa took us fishing. We did end up getting milkshakes on the way home. The were tasty. Ryan has been after me ever since to get him a fishing pole and take him fishing again.

Fortune Cookies

If I can rant for a minute...

Fortune cookies, all too often, don't contain fortunes. They usually contain some proverb or piece of advice that can't possibly be constued as a fortune. When I get a fortune cookie, I want it to tell me what is coming in my future. I recently came across my favorite fortune that I ever received. (Of course I kept it.) It made me think of a few other of my favorites. So here are my top three with #1 being my favorite.

3. You will do well in the field of wacky inventions.

2. You will be visited by a short stranger. (I got this one about a week before we found out we were expecting Ryan.)

1. You are going to have some new clothes.

Now those are fortunes!

Cool Pics

Here are a few cool pictures that I thought I would share.

The first is a picture of Ryan right after he woke up one morning. The sun was streaming in through the window and the combination of light and shadow (along with one of the cutest kids you will ever see) made for a great picture.

The second picture is of Mark practicing his violin. I drove up one night. He was in the piano room practicing his violin with the blinds open. I grabbed the camera and went back out and took this picture.

The third picture is of Lauren playing basketball. She had a great time playing this year. Her first basket of the year was the game winning shot in one of the games.