Brothers and Brisket

Nothing caps a weekend of golfing, boating and general brother time like some Santa Maria sausage and some 15 hour brisket.  The meat took so long today that Matt had to delay heading down to Provo until around 10pm and we all had the meat sweats from eating at 9 at night!  It was delicious as usual, but man I wish we had started earlier!

Puzzlers!

The summer is a great time to do puzzles, it gives Jack something productive to do when he wakes up before everyone and something for Ava to do when everyone goes to bed!  I love that they can work on it together without getting too competitive!

Singer!

A couple weeks ago, Norah's class at church was asked to sing in sacrament meeting in front of our whole ward.  Norah was excited to do it and did a fabulous job.  They were only able to practice the song, My County Tis of Thee, twice-but everyone memorized the words at home and the musical number turned out perfect even if we had just sung the same song 15 minutes earlier as an opening hymn.

SNAKE!!!

We've seen two of these within a 100 feet of each other the past two weeks, luckily this one was still alive!  The other snake Ava and Ben watched get mutilated by a car and then crawl away to die on the side of the road.  We were mildly thrilled at the idea of watching it decompose just to come back a day later to find it gone!

Professional Baker Coming Through!

I could not believe Norah wanted to make this ice cream cake we found in our copycat cook book, but wanted to support her dreams and helped only where needed to bring to pass this amazingly beautiful and completely delicious Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Cake!  It had two chocolate cake layers sandwiched around a layer of cookie dough ice cream with crushed cookies and a chocolate ganache on top!  It was ready just in time for Matt to visit us for a father's day brother's weekend courtesy of Kenzi and I!

Potter Puzzle!

Everyone is so into Harry Potter lately, and this puzzle was the perfect solution!  When it was finished everyone got out their wands and cast a spell of remembrance so we could cherish thsi moment forever!

Youth Conference

I was super anti-youth conference when it was brought up in YW months ago, it sounded like a church funded sleep-over!  At first Ava and I were not planning on attending due to it being the week after EFY, but when none of the other YW leaders stepped up to the plate, Ava and I ended up going.

My hesitation was well backed, considering there were 12 girls and one adult chaperone (me).  We weren't even the biggest group, but somehow this ratio seemed like a good idea to the stake leaders who planned everything.

Things went from bad to worse and the 24 hours I spent at youth conference were a complete nightmare, other than the very short trip to walk around the Logan Temple.  I ended up getting a flat tire while I was parked for the night and once it was fixed and I got a rock chip in my window I was done and-so much so I did everything possible to not have drive all the way back to Logan to take some girls home.  Ava got a ride home from someone else and I was thrilled to be done with youth conference!

Gel Nails

The other thing we talked with Tessa about at piano on Tuesday was her amazing manicure.  Norah and I researched and collaborated on a gel nail dryer and gel nail polish.  We assumed that Ava would be interested, so we dealt her in and had our first go at it with this amazing set of gel nails on Norah!  The application/removal time is greater with gel nails, but the results and the length of time the manicure lasts outweighs those factors!

Seriously!

Ava has been at EFY all week with Rachel and Connor having a blast.  Her nightly texts or calls are so cute and I love hearing all the uplifting things she is participating in!  There are lots of games and firesides and all kinds of co-ed activities.  Kyle went to EFY when he was her age and loved it, I think Ava is glad she went and since this is the last year of EFY I'm glad she's doing it too.

I found out today that Tatum is staying in UT all summer while Jacob is working in AZ when she texted me to get permission to check the kids out from EFY and take them to lunch!  It was so thoughtful and sweet and from these smiles you can tell they all enjoyed the chik-fila and BYU Creamery!

Labor of Love

Since Cassie's visit, Ulli has been limping pretty badly.  He is so much trouble, and he has started to shed his winter coat-it's mind blowing how he could have this much fur even after vacuuming him for 10 minutes!  I sent this picture to Ava since she is at EFY and she was thrilled, that makes one of us!

Flat Tire!

Not sure if our luck with this boat could be any worse, especially after pulling out of the driveway, putting a huge scrape in it just to find out that one of the trailer tires was flat!  I couldn't believe our luck, especially since there's no flat in our entire neighborhood!

We were completely unprepared and even got online to figure out how to use the Lexus jack, our only option!  Once that was figured out we balanced the boat at the top of the driveway, since going back down would scrape the driveway again!  The jack was not ideal and it felt like at any moment it would tip over, but it didn't!  25 minutes later, we had the spare tire on and were off to the lake!

Teamwork!

Puppies!

While Aunt Cassie was here, we tried to stop by the girls' piano teacher's house to see if her dogs had their puppies yet.  Norah got nervous at the door without Ava around, so we didn't actually get to talk to Tessa, and boy did we miss out!  How often do you get to see 3 day old puppies!  Well this girl did when she went to piano and found that one of the moms had her puppies!  Poor Aunt Cassie missed out, wish we would have been brave and knocked on the door!

It was so fun to hold such tiny pups!  Best morning activity ever after our fun bike ride!  I was able to chat with Tessa and hold the puppies too, all 12 are completely perfect!

Secret Swing!

We found a secret swing on our bike ride last week and today, with Aunt Cassie and Ava both gone, I took the other kids ride around trail 365!  Norah and I were quite a bit behind the boys, especially after swinging and boy did they let us know how slow we were when they set a trap of rocks across the trail!  It was a beautiful morning, so glad we are so close to a great park!

Waterfall Hike

Aunt Cassie has hiked, boated and hung out with us all week and we have loved every minute of it.  We finished off the visit with a hike up to the waterfall in Northfork.  The .8 mile round trip hike was beautiful and steep, and we all had a blast while Kyle took Ava to EFYwith Connor and Rachel!

Yumm!

This Oreo Extreme Dream Cheesecake was the most complicated recipe I have ever made, but man was it tasty and stunning!

The layers of cookie crust, ganache, oreo cheesecake, oreo mousse and more ganache and a lindt truffle were so amazingly perfect, it almost hurt to eat it!

Puzzlers

The kids and Cass, and apparently Kyle too, worked on this fun Matterhorn puzzle.  I love these cheesy pictures of our family and puzzles and having a clean counter once we take the picture and put the puzzle away!

Fathers Day!

Even though Cass is here for Fathers Day, I don't think Kyle minded-we were still able to let him sleep in this morning and spoil him after church.

Scooters!

The scooters arrived in Ogden a few days before I lacerated my shin, and the kids have been begging to ride them ever since.  Today we made it happen.  They are all too young to ride them by themselves, but Kyle and I thought it was ok to get on with them and ride them around on the way back to the parking garage from the game.

Raptors Game

We really packed in today and were able to take Cassie to the Ogden Raptors game and eat pizza and cracker jack while they destroyed the visiting team from Colorado!  It was late when we got out, but still memorable and the fresh garlic Parmesan fries were incredible!

Big Ducky!

After one more day of coaching from our salesman, Jake, the boat was still not working properly.  Thankfully we were able to surf and Cassie, Ava, myself and Kyle were able to get up before Jack needed to take the boat back to the shop.

Fast forward to today and he met us at Pineview with the boat and we got it in the water and hung out for a few hours before Kyle needed to head back into the office to work.  The big ducky tube was a blast for everyone, even Cass and I got in it together!

Finished It!

Ben finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix today.  This 770 page book is the longest one he has ever read!  It was so cool to see him reading it day after day!  I wonder if being able to the watch the movie was motivational!

3 Teeth!

Poor Jack was at the orthodontist last week and got the news that a few of his teeth needed to be pulled for his big teeth to be able to come in.  We scheduled the extractions for today and boy was it a tough appointment!  This guy was not happy! He was able to have some laughing gas that apparently didn't do the trick, so he kept feeling everything.  After awhile they asked him if he felt pain or just lot of tugging.  He agreed to the later and I instantly knew how he felt.  We are both very sensitive in our mouth area!  Jack survived though and was able to walk out with an amazing souvenir case of his three baby teeth one of which had a massive and unexpected root on it!

Garden Time!

Not sure why it made sense to plant a garden on an evening when it was so cold the kids were wearing ski pants and hooded sweatshirts, but we did!  Kyle has been planning for these planter boxes for weeks and thought it was time!  The kids had a blast putting all the seeds and potted plants in the new dirt.  I enjoyed watching from inside where it was warm.  I had a perfect view of everything from the guest room!

Indoor Smore's

Today we slathered some soft and chewy chips ahoy cookies with marshmallow fluff and put a reeses peanut butter cup or hershey chocolate square in the middle.  It was amazing and then we headed outside and planted a garden!

Bike Ride

The weather is still pretty cool these days, so we took advantage of it and headed out on the trails.  Jack is not in any of these pictures, because he likes to race ahead and finish before everyone else.  While on the ride, we found a secret swing that the kids swung on for a minute before we continued on!

Hey Day!

Kyle and I have been renting boats every summer since the Ava was about 5, 9 years later we actually bought our own!  Kyle has been working with the sales for over a year, but because the boat he likes is always sold out, it's been hard to figure everything out.  A few months back, Kyle picked his parents up from the airport and to kill some time, he took them to the boat yard.  They actually saw the boat before the kids and I!  Fast forward to last month and Kyle signed the paperwork and we owned a boat!

The kids and I were able to check it out before we signed the paperwork, but I'm pretty sure Kyle bought it with his heart a while back.  He was not raised on the water, but wants the kids to enjoy the lake in our valley while he and I learn how to wakesurf-something we can do until we're 80!  This boat is a wakesurf boat, but is also strong enough to pull a tube as well as any other water sport toys!

We met up with the salesman today for our lesson on how to use a boat as well as get it off and on the trailer and hook the trailer up to the car.  I went into today with a lot of anxiety considering all that we needed to learn, but we were able to drive the boat around the lake and enjoy the cool 75 degree breeze.  No one surfed, but everyone seemed to be smiling!

The boat had some technical problems that required the salesman to take it back to the shop to work through, but he guaranteed we would have it back by next week when Cassie was visiting and that we would be able to surf then!  Can't wait, maybe it will finally be warm enough!

Obsessed!

Norah is such a great little photographer-taking a million shots to get the perfect one!

Her favorite muse is Ulli, can you blame her, and she took these ones of our model today!

Feeling Better!

This guy is doing so well, he's even been on lengthy mile long walks the past week or two!  Ben thoroughly enjoyed walking to Liberty park from piano lessons with this cute little pooch!

Daisies!

Norah has loved picking the wildflowers and making a bouquet since it has dried up a little bit around here.  Recently the field that burned last year behind our house has grown a field of these flowers.  Norah made us a bouquet and I took her picture with the beautiful backdrop of the snow capped mountains!

Sprinkles Copycat Cupcakes!

The copycat cookbook I bought a month ago has been a hit since then.  We've made some dinners, drinks and today we made these cupcakes!  These are red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  We even filled a few with more of the frosting and gave them to our new neighbors who recently moved in.