Easter 2011

Either I’m not a fun mom or I just don’t care to do all the extra stuff that comes along with most holidays.

We’ve never been to a pumpkin patch, we’ve never dyed eggs (until this year), we don’t go to Zoo lights for Christmas, no egg hunts and I don’t make my kids search for their baskets, nor are they filled with candy. So if you do any of those things, go ahead and give yourself a round of applause for treating your kids to fun times. And we only go trick-or-treating to see the Halloween house at the end of the street.

I do however, go to the Temple for Christmas lights and we drive around the neighborhoods looking at any and all lights. For Easter, they get a few items in their baskets and hopefully we are teaching them the true meaning of these holidays. Last year we went to the Easter Pageant at the LDS Temple in Mesa. I loved it! Loved it. It was a little chilly, but we had a great time with Beckers.

So we tried again this year. This time I got to go early and not save seats, but spread our stuff out enough to have seats for Beckers and her sister’s family. This year was much warmer, but when the sun went down, it was perfect. We brought the umbrella while we waited til 8 pm for the program to start. Did I mention we got there at 3:30……but the kids were great and we enjoyed some time just us before everyone showed up. Loved it this year too. My favorite part is when the angels sing and when the children visit with the Savior, oh and when Mary sings about her baby and the end when the whole cast is rejoicing because Christ is resurrected and he appears (this part is freaky just because of how high he is.) above the angels and is raised up another 10 feet above them. It’s beautiful!

Abbey & Ally

group shot…….close enough

Afterwards the actors were out and about (they are before the show too, talking with visitors and some have the animals too)

Lea wanted a picture with this cute Angel

Lucas did not want a picture with the angel, but the soldier – absolutely!! And he got to hold the sword. sweet.

Abbey chose her favorite actress……okay it was just me, but still her favorite.

No pictures of Jeff, but he was there – at about 7:00. Actually he's in the group shots of the kids wearing the white Cozumel shirt, just no face shot.

Go YOTES! (Phoenix Coyotes)

Not being a hockey fan, but wanting to use FREE hockey tickets, we went to an NHL game.
I called the one person I know who is avid hockey fan – the Bakers. Kim asked me if I knew who was playing, nope. Only know the tickets are free and the game starts at 7, wanna come?!

They couldn’t go, so we racked our brains trying to figure out who would want to go to a hockey game……….and with us. haha.

We decided to ask the Bucks. I used to VT Naomi and Jeff is currently their hometeacher. (Although last Sunday they announced they are moving to Boise in a couple weeks – we’ll miss them!)

Until then, we went to the Phoenix Coyote game and they played the San Jose Sharks (I guess it was the last home game before playoffs – yes please roll your eyes that I don’t know anything about hockey. football, yes. hockey, no.) Honestly the only thing I wanted to see was a fight and the goals – all of which I had to catch on instant replay – why did they score the second I looked away!? sheesh.

We got free flags and attached all 4 to Jeff’s car – we may have taken flight along the freeway or locusts may have attacked, not sure. Naomi and Adam treated us to yummy, delicious Cold Stone – perfect!

What good fans – they have jerseys!

Not such good fans, not even wearing red….in our defense it’s against BYU pride to wear red.

YES! A fight! Almost the end of the game and the officials jumped on it before it got out of control.

I made it on the jumbo screen thanks to the 3 boys in front of us – just ask Connor King – he thought it was the coolest. Of course I missed that too – Naomi pointed it out and I was too late to celebrate.   Dave got free tickets too and took his kids.

I might just go next year.

G&G Riz visit

General Conference weekend, the in-law parents came for a visit. We enjoyed baseball games, beautiful weather outside, cleaning carpets and yummy, yummy Spanish food, not so much of General Conference as we had gotten rid of satellite and spent most of the day watching baseball. Grilled up some carne asada, homemade spanish rice – it was delicious!!! Oh and we got a new freezer! wahoo!

One of my favorite pictures – Garrett is in our ward and is super sweet. Coach Farris is also in the Young Men’s program with Garrett. He loves to help the kids and this day was helping coach so he could earn some volunteer hours for scouts. He’s a great kid and was telling Luke he did a good job. Also gave him a little push to get running to 2nd base – funny.

And now, Lea’s game. It was a pretty hot day

Celebrating with Dad after a phenomenal hit! (not from the above picture) – I think she got out in that one heading to first base.

carpet cleaning and saying good-bye, oh and horsy-rides on grandpa

say ‘ahhhhhhhhhh’

the grandparents, the risenmay boys, the girls, the grandkids

Come again!

What do you do without TV???

I take on projects – not your run of the mill projects. Apparently I paint. The garage.

Why?? Because I hate it. flat paint, smudges, dead bugs, 5 years of filth.

We never use our front door. We go in/out the garage door all the time and spend time in the garage while the kids ride bikes, scooters and use sidewalk chalk in the driveway. Why not make the garage an extension of the house??

I was nervous, I’m scared of paint colors. What if I do all the work and hate the color….I’d probably end up leaving it and then hating the new paint job.

The before (notice the paint samples, the door dings in red – it’s the little row of ‘tally’ marks):

Yes all that stuff came from the corner to the right of the door. Had to make room for the freezer.

Paint: Sliced Cucumber, Bittersweet Chocolate

The door before:

After: Like a big chocolate bar….yum!

And because I was in the painting mode, I decided to paint the inside part of the door. There was a 3 finger print left when the door was originally installed, right by the lock. For 5 YEARS I’ve looked at that print and cursed whoever left it….now, it’s gone.

Before:

After: It only took Jeff and I a couple weeks to stop freaking out that the door was open every time we looked at it.

I LOVE IT! Now to add some vinyl lettering and we’ll be a little more at home.

Bomber Basketball

I belong to a school so deep with school pride, it’s almost ridiculous. But if you know anything about us, once a Bomber, always a Bomber. In fact, I know plenty of long-time grads who still sport the green and gold logo and not just the ones we wore in high school.

Over Christmas break, my high school alma mater: Richland High School Bombers had an all day tournament against the cross-town rivals Hanford Falcons. My niece Aubrey played in one of the first games at around 2 pm. About 4 games, 2 naps, dinner from Wendys that Jeff and Dallin brought in so we all didn’t have to leave and pay to get back into the games, and 8 hours later……we finally left the gym and headed home to my sister’s house. IT WAS AWESOME! So many great memories of Boys/girls basketball games, State tournaments and cheering on the green and gold (don’t you dare say it’s yellow because it’s NOT, it’s. gold.)

You might be curious or you might not care at all why we are so proud to be a BOMBER and why we were ever named the BOMBERS. See, we live near a nuclear reactor – called Hanford. And if you know your history, you’ve heard of Hanford, one time. They produced the plutonium that was used in the bombs to end WWII. Now I’m not sure how all the school pride got started, but we are definitely proud to play such a HUGE part in our Nation’s history even if you’ve never heard of us.  

And if you don’t really believe me that we still LOVE, LOVE our high school – try this story. Jeff interviewed for a job a couple years ago. The guy was from Richland and was of course a Bomber. One day the office decided to have a ‘wear your favorite jersey’ to work day. Did he pick the AZ Cardinals? No. Any professional team? No. none at all. He wore his high school letterman jacket – Bomber pride.

If you look at my niece Aubrey (she’s behind Dallin on the right with the BYU sweatshirt – also a school we still claim to be our own and hold the highest team pride for). You’ll see the infamous gold ‘R’ with a mushroom cloud. Controversial yes, but we love our school.

Lucas told Aubrey she was no longer his favorite cousin…..silly kid.

Ammon, Lea, Lucas, Calla, Lizzie

We’ve almost had enough – Abbey fell asleep in Ammon’s car seat. I only had one diaper left for Ammon and it was a size too small – hoping I didn’t have to use it. Lea tried to find a comfortable spot between the bleacher rows to take a nap – it was almost 8:30 pm.

 

Don’t you just love the pants!! Classic Bomber pin-stripes. I seriously loved every moment even though I only knew Aubrey who played out of 5-6 games.

Lea loved the half-time dance team. Lucas loved the treats and the other two I think were just happy to go home. Not sure about Jeff, but I enjoyed it. GO BOMBERS! I’ll spare you the fight song – I’ll sing that to myself.