Here’s Sai, Jay and Sophie enjoying our adventure!

Saturday we had a dinosaur-themed adventure. Joe has a friend from work, Jesse, who lives in Price. We drove out there and spent the day with Jesse and his family. Jesse took us to see some cool stuff and the boys were totally stoked!

First we drove out to the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. There are a lot of Jurassic-era dinosaurs—mostly carnivorous ones, too.

Sophie checking out the exhibits.

Jay and his not-so-happy face.

Sai checking out the dinosaur dig.

Boys checking out rocks. Sophie even got in on the rock collecting action. Surprisingly, no rocks came home with us.

Then we drove out to the Buckhorn Wash Pictograph Panel. These pictures are pretty amazing!

On our way back from the pictographs we stopped to find a fossilized dinosaur track. Sai was the first to find it and he was so excited!

Sai and the track. My hand in the track. It was pretty big!

Our final stop was The Wedge. It’s the “Little Grand Canyon”. I was super nervous and not wanting the kids to get anywhere near the edge!

It was a fun and dusty day. You can see all of the pictures here.

I haven’t been doing a good job of posting. I feel like there really isn’t that much going on around here!

Saturday Joe took the boys to the movies so Sophie and I could go sewing. I forgot my camera. But my sister Carrie documented some of our day. Sophie was a crack up! She kept taking my pieces and giving them to her aunts. I wanted to sew them together randomly and I sure did since she kept taking off with them. I’m making a quilt for Sophie’s bed. I’m using some cool fabric but I don’t know the name of the line. (I’m sure my sisters could tell you!) When, not if but when, I get it done I’ll take some pictures.

Friday was Lagoon day for us. My work rents out the park and has a big summer party there every year. As we entered the park I won a Leatherman. It wasn’t the 40” flat screen, but at least I won.  I’m having a very luck two weeks.

The kids had a blast. Here they are before we really got going.

Sai and Joe took off. They rode about every single roller coaster in the park. Sai was super adventurous. He went on the Bat and the Spider with me. I still can’t believe he went on Wild Mouse (twice–I’ve hated that ride since I was a little girl) and Wicked with Joe.

I hung out with Jay and Sophie. We had Joe’s sister Alina and her son Jared hanging out with us too. The kids did a lot of little kid rides.

We spent about five hours playing around before we left. The kids were exhausted! We put them in the pajamas before heading home. They quickly fell asleep in the van. But about half way home Sai started throwing up. And throwing up. And throwing up. It was not awesome. We cleaned him up as best as we could then continued home.

After we got the kids settled in bed Joe and I were outside cleaning out the van. It’s not very fun to be outside cleaning up after midnight when you’re exhausted and just want to sleep.

And today Jay has the throw ups. Or whatever. Some virus? He threw up all night. And once so far today. I stayed home from work to take care of him. And this is double more sucky because we are dryer-less. I have to wash the towels, pillows, blankets so they don’t smell but I have no dryer to dry them with. I hung them out on the fence until it started raining and hailing.

The dryer situation. We have this fabulous, fairly new dryer. It’s gas and our place is only set up for electric. So we borrowed an old electric one from one of my sisters. It had been dying a slow and painful death and finally bit the dust. I found one on Craigslist. And it destroyed some clothes. We returned it to the seller for a full refund. Joe asked our landlord if we could get the gas piped to the laundry room so we could use our awesome gas dryer. He said yes, so now we are waiting on the plumber to come and do it. In the mean time I’ve got quite the pile of laundry. Oh, this is the life!

Last night I went with two of my sisters to see the movie Julie & Julia. The more I think about this movie the more I love it! It combines food, blogging, and relationships which are three things that I’m much involved in.

As a blogger I felt there were some things said in the movie that were probably more humorous to fellow bloggers than the averge Jane watching the movie. Like fellow bloggers will probably laugh at this quote from my sister’s blog on her 100th post:

One of my favorite posts was in September of 2008 when I wrote this: “I called my husband at work and told him I would do dinner that night. Well, I got on the computer and starting checking out my favorite blogs and before I knew it he was home and no dinner was even close to being started on. He sniffed the air and said “Blog for dinner??” I’m guessing that won’t be the last time that happens.” Well, we have had a lot of blog for dinner a lot since then.

More thoughts after last night:

We went to the late show. 9:55 pm on a work night. I didn’t have issues staying awake for the show. I had issues when I got home. I laid in bed awake for an hour (thinking about the movie and about blogging). Then an hour after I finally fell asleep my kids wake me up. Nice. And my internal clock always wakes me up before my alarm now so luckily I didn’t have to worry about making it to work on time.

I dreamt about cooking and food. I love food.

I have a whole new respect for Julia Child. I think I need to read more about her.

I found the original The Julie/Julia Project blog and I think I’ll be reading it. I also want to read the book by Julie Powell.

Anyway, good movie. I would like to see it again. Maybe that will be one that I will buy.

With both Joe and me working we are a two car family. For the last few years we’ve had our awesome truck (2002 Dodge Dakota, four door, fits three kids in the back) and an ancient car (1990 Mazda Protege). For the last few months our car has been struggling along. We have had the pay to fix it or put the money towards something else conversation. We decided to put the money towards something else.

Joe first brought up the thought of a minivan back when we lived in Oregon. Slowly the idea has been growing on me. So when we went car shopping we were looking for a minivan.

And look what we bought!

It’s a 2006 Dodge Caravan. I must say, that now that we have it, I really dig it! The kids have so much space! All of the back seats can fold up and be stored in the floor of the van. It’s awesome! Sophie gets the second row all to herself and the boys share the third row.

Let’s compare kids squished in the truck and kids spaced out in the van.

I actually really like driving the van. It’s pretty sweet.

As a side note to this, we looked into the Cash for Clunkers program and our nearly 20-year-old car does not qualify according to the government web site? HUH??? But we weren’t looking for a brand new car so I guess it’s all good.

Sai’s school starts next week. NEXT WEEK?!?!?! This summer has flown by. We had such great plans for family activities and we’ve just not done them all. I think the kids had a good summer, though.

This summer the kids have grown a lot.

Sai’s lost six teeth and two adult teeth are growing in. He’s still skinny as ever even though he eats more than I do at most meals. He’s going into second grade!

Jay is starting to thin out and lose all the baby/toddler fat. He’s gotten pretty good at riding his bike.

Sophie has grown up a lot. She’s so big—I’m thinking she’ll wear size 2T this fall/winter. She jabbers like crazy and I can figure out more of her words. Tonight Empire Strikes Back has been on TV and she’s been mesmerized by it and has been dancing to it. Being a Star Wars geek I love it!

The boys had their first soccer games of the season on Saturday. Luckily it was overcast until the end of Sai’s game. Unfortunately, though, it was also very humid!

Jay’s game was first. We weren’t quite sure if Jay was going to play with his team but he did. I was so proud of him for doing it. His age group is the one where everyone follows the ball and there are a mass of kids and falling. It’s pretty fun to watch. Jay had a few good touches. But he kept looking over at us looking for reassurance. We’d give him thumbs up and he’d go on his way.

Sai’s game was second. There were quite a few kids missing because of the state holiday. But they still had a good game.

Even though they technically don’t keep score both of their teams won.

It was also an eventful weekend because Sai lost two more teeth. He’s up to six lost now, four on bottom and two on top.

Sai has quite the lisp now. It’s funny to hear him talk. I’m afraid he’s got the gappy teeth from my genes. Poor kids. I see braces in the future.

And to top everything off I’ve got strep. I started not feeling good Thursday. I went home from work early and crashed. I didn’t go to work Friday. I some how made it through two hot soccer games on Saturday then slept the afternoon away. This morning it was much worse. I went off to the InstaCare and found out I have strep. I’ll get one more day off work while I’m still contagious and pray that the kids and Joe don’t get sick too!

I had to post this. My dear friend Rhonda took this picture in the little Oregon town I used to live in. Rhonda’s comment:

See what you’re missing! 
Only in Prineville!

We had a GREAT 4th of July weekend. Both Joe and I had Friday off so it was a nice three-day weekend.

We started off with a hike to Stewart Falls on Friday. We have this book of fun family things to do in Utah and it said all this stuff about the hike being kid-friendly. Ha. Ha. Ha. It was an exhausting hike! Sai did the whole thing by himself — very impressive! Jay made it there but refused to walk back so Joe and I took turns carrying him. Sophie got to ride in the back pack the whole way even catching some Zs. At least it was a little overcast and not blazing hot the whole time. But my legs three days later are still sore!

Joe and the kids.

The boys and me. Yes, we look so happy and excited.

Sophie would not keep her head under her shade. Even when she fell asleep she kept her head out.

Sai in front of the big fall. We were so tired we didn’t walk down to the bottom of the falls to feel the cool water. We didn’t want to have to walk back up that much more!

On the 4th both of our families had parties. But we decided to only go to one. So we went to Joe’s family’s festivities. We had food, kids played, and watched fireworks.

Sophie

Sai going down the double slip and slide while Jay runs back up the hill. They LOVED it!

The kids in the pool.

Sai doing sparklers.

Jay doing sparklers.

Fireworks!

Yesterday was Sai’s 7th birthday. Happy Birthday Sai! I really cannot believe that he is 7-years-old. It has gone by very quickly. He has grown from a tiny little 7 lb baby to this big skinny kid!

He got back from California the day before his birthday. I was excited to pick him up from the airport. When he saw Jay, Sophie and me he came running. I got a great big hug from him. Here are some pictures from his trip.

In the pilot’s seat. I didn’t think that in a post-9/11 world they’d ever let kids do this. I’m glad he got the chance, though.

He got to go swimming. Look at the ribs on this kid! I feed him… a lot… but it doesn’t show.

He went to the San Diego Zoo with some cousins.

I was told that he wore these goggles EVERYWHERE! It makes me think of “Special K” from one of my favorite teen movies, Can’t Hardly Wait. (They’re even yellow goggles. Check out this picture.)

The purpose of this trip was to go to Sai’s Great Grandma Booth’s 80th birthday party. Here is Sai with his great grandparents. He is their oldest great grand child.

Sai with his Aunt Felicia.

Sai with Uncle Manny and Aunt Elyssa.

He had so much fun in California. I was told that he didn’t want to come home. But the last time I talked to him while he was gone he said that he missed me. Ahhh…:)

And now he is sick! Fever. Tiny bit of cough. Many people that he travelled with are sick too. Grr… It’s a little frustrating. I hope he gets feeling better soon.

Today Joe and I are celebrating our 13th anniversary. 13 years and three kids. WOW! I think we are going to take the kids (still just Jay and Sophie, Sai flys home tomorrow) out to dinner to celebrate.

Sai left for California today. He is flying there right now with his Grandma M. I can’t believe we let him go! He has been bugging Joe and me about flying on an airplane for quite a while. He was really mad last year when we moved back to Utah because Jay, Sophie and I flew and he drove the U-Haul with Dad and Grandpa.

When I dropped him off he was so excited! He was so ready to go that he almost forgot to give me a hug and a kiss good-bye. As I was driving home I got a call from him. They were on the airplane, not yet ready to leave. He said that he got to get a picture with the pilot.

I can’t wait until he calls me tonight to see what he has to say. The flight will probably go by in a blur for him—he’s got my iPod loaded with Star Wars the Clone Wars movie.

Sai will fly home on the 30th. One day before his 7th birthday. (I can’t believe he’ll be 7!!!)

Jay has been sad all week about Sai leaving. Last night when we put the boys to bed Jay was nearly in tears because he was already sad about his big brother leaving. So Joe and I told him we would take him to see the new Transformers movie. He’s so excited for that. So when we dropped off Sai, Jay was expecting us to go right to the movie. Saturday is just too far away for him!

This week marked an anniversary for me. Tuesday was the one year mark for being a working mom again. It’s been a good year. I really enjoy my job and have fun so the year at work has been a quick year. I always tell Joe that my job is easy. (Shhh… don’t tell my boss I said that! Ha ha!)

My job is pretty cool. Joe says he can never tell people what it is. So I’ll try to explain it here. My title, according to my business cards, is Business Analyst IT Business Integration Supply Chain-PLM. Basically, I work in IT. I’m a business analyst working specifically with our PLM (Product Life-cycle Management) software. My boss and I take care of configuration changes, requirements for programming changes, testing programming changes, and cleaning up messes people make when they don’t follow process (we end up being the “process police”).

When I started this job the team was in the process of creating an interface between Optiva (the PLM software) and SAP. Wow! What a way to jump in and learn the system. I did all the testing and it was a really good way for me to learn the system.

One thing I really enjoy is that I’ve had to learn some SQL. It’s fun to be able to write queries and updates for the database. I’m surprised at how well I’ve come to know the databases and I like being able to tell someone which table a specific piece of data is stored in.

So that’s a little bit about my job. I really do love it and I work for an awesome company; they really treat their employees well.

I was looking through my older posts and thought I’d send a quick update.

Joe’s knee: No surgery needed. YAY! The doc. said that it probably wasn’t a tear and that he’s lived with the broken piece of bone floating around this long so it’s probably OK. Yesterday Joe’s knee popped again and suddenly it is almost all better–no swelling, he can walk without a limp, YAY! And it’s a good thing because…

Joe started his job on Monday. He likes it. He’s so happy to be there working with all the people he got to know on his externship. Monday was spent in (boring) orientation. Yesterday he worked in Center Core. But today he gets to jump back into the OR. Nice. He’s on the Blue Team which means he does ortho, neuro, and eye surgeries.

Purse puddle: I threw the purse in the washing machine. That wasn’t part of the care instructions but I did it. Then I let it air dry. And it looks just fine now. However, I did buy a new purse. I found one at JC Penney that I liked and Joe was buying some pants and we ended up getting more money off because we were spending more than $50. And then I got a new wallet yesterday to complete it all.

It rained on and off the day of my team activity. We put the activity up to a vote and mini-golf lost out. We ended up going to lunch at Red Robin then going to the movies to see Star Trek. It was really fun.

Something new… We were trying to go as a family to California the last weekend of June for Joe’s grandma’s birthday. However, finances and Joe’s new job won’t allow it. But Joe’s mom asked if she could take Sai with her. So he gets to fly to Cali with grandma for a week. He’ll be so excited to fly. Especially since he didn’t get to fly with Jay, Sophie and me when we moved to Utah. I’m nervous, though. I know Joe’s mom will take extra special care of him. But he’ll be so far away and he probably won’t miss us. We had to get a letter notarized saying it’s OK for him to fly with his grandparent. Crazy all the rules and regs but it makes sense.

We were shopping on Saturday. Went to a shoe store. Joe needed new shoes. Sophie and I went to check out the clearance section. She’s just like her mom. She was attempting to try on shoes! Both Joe and Sophie walked away with new shoes. But Sophie’s, originally $35, only cost us $12.50. Way cute little brown and pink Skechers. She loves shoes. Just like her mom.

Jay, my second child, turned 4 on Saturday! I can’t believe how big he is getting!

Friday we went to the store and he selected a new bike and helmet. He picked a Spiderman bike and Ben 10 helmet and knee/elbow pads. He is so set! (He actually needs those elbow/knee pads for walking: he tripped earlier in the week and scraped up his knees and elbows pretty well.)

Saturday morning I took Jay to pick out his birthday cake. As soon as he saw the Spiderman cupcakes he wouldn’t even look at anything else. So funny!

We had planned a party in the park. However, the weather did not cooperate. We ended up doing cupcakes and presents at my parents (and I forgot the camera!).

I think Jay had an excellent birthday. Lots of presents and not all clothes!