Halloween

This year since Halloween was on Sunday, we did our celebrating on Saturday. We started with a 7:30 am workout. Since this was a special Halloween workout, families were welcome and the kids were not about to pass up a chance to do CrossFit. It was so much fun to have the kids there. Naomi spend some time on the rowing machine, calling us over to see that after 20min. she had rowed over 2000 meters!

Gray impressed everyone with his killer box jumps.

Naomi did lots of hanging on the bars and even threw in some pull-ups, she's got some serious upper body strength.
After our workout, we loaded up canning supplies and headed to Kory's parents house to make applesauce.
Honestly, fresh applesauce is so much better than stuff from the store. I have no idea how many quarts we did, probably somewhere around 40. Notice that Gray and Naomi are nowhere to be seen? They were glued to the tv, trying to make up for all the tv they don't get to watch at home. I attribute that fact that Naomi can do pull-ups and Gray can hang with the adults in a crossfit workout to the absence of tv in our home. Finally, we headed out the door ready for parties and trick-or-treating. Gray spent the evening with friends at a party and Naomi and I braved the rainstorm to do some trick-or-treating.

Kory met up with Naomi and I then we headed home for pizza and a movie. It was a fun day and we all had no problem falling asleep that night.

First Day - New School

Gray and Naomi both switched to a new school district this year. When we moved about a year and a half ago, they didn't want to change schools and since it worked out pretty easily to get them to and from their old schools, we didn't move them. This year however, they decided it was time to change.

Here's Gray bright and early on the first day of 7th grade. It's been a difficult transition for him but he has had some good friends who try to make sure he doesn't sit alone at lunch (probably the number one fear of any middle school student).
Naomi was sure that no school could ever be as great as Hillcrest Elementary, but after just one day of 3rd grade, she was loving her new school (or maybe she was mostly loving riding the school bus).

Let the growing begin

We've had an incredibly wet and chilly spring. Last year our garden was ok, but I lost much of it to weeds and then half our tomatoes to an early frost. This year we finished building our grow boxes. Brooke, my cousin, has had grow boxes like this for the past few years and they always have lots of produce with very few weeds. I'm hoping to document my garden through the summer to see how it goes. We've been following the direction of a book called More Food from Your Garden by Jacob Mittleider. If you're interested in reading more about this kind of growing without buying the book, Food for Everyone is a great website that goes along with Mittleider's growing methods.

We started building our boxes last year then finished by building a few more this year for a total of five boxes. We put some gypsum on the bottom then filled them with 75% sawdust and 25% sand. On top of that mix we added some premixed Mittleider fertilizer and some more gypsum. Pretty much a custom soil mixture that doesn't involve any dirt and as of yet, not weeds.

Here we are filling the boxes. Gray's friend, Brian helped out a ton. In the end we used two truck loads of sawdust and load of sand. Gray and Brian would be quick to point out that it was two thousand pounds of wet sand carried to the boxes a shovel full at a time.

Here the boxes are, all mixed and ready for planting.

On Memorial Day we planted the garden. The seeds are all covered with burlap until the first sprouts show up.

After some gardening the kids stopped to play a few rounds of Ninja Attack. I'm really not sure how this game works, but it's amusing to watch and usually end in fits of laughter.

Here we are a week after planting. Since it's rained so much, watering hasn't been a problem. The three cats and I are now at war. I am usually armed with a hose, they have no chance. We still have some work to do with gravel. Probably another truck load will cover the rest of the space between boxes and make it look a little prettier.

The far box has the first of seven trellis's that we'll put up over our tomatoes, beans and cucumbers. I'll train the plants to climb the trellis strings, using vertical space instead of building bigger grow boxes.

I've removed most of the burlap. Amazing little seeds... Too bad I'm going to have to thin some, I'm sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere. More pictures to come as my garden hopefully keeps growing.

Sport-o

Gray and his friends formed a triathlon team. They participated in the BeWell/Joyride Triathlon. Brennan did the running, Gray biked, and Jordan swam. It was a cold, wet morning but they toughed it out and did great. I also think they had fun.

After the triathlon, we had enough time to pick up lunch and head to the lacrosse field for the first of three games. Gray's got a whole lot more endurance than I'll ever have. He does love his sweet pork burrito!

The sun was shining, but the presence of this campfire is evidence of how cold the day was. Gray and his teammates powered through two dozen hot dogs, a bag of marshmallows and then anything else they could find to roast (including Slim Jims and Oreo's). Oh, and they also played Lacrosse. Good games too.

Milestone Eight

Naomi has hit some exciting milestones. She turned eight in April. I think that being eight comes with losing just as many teeth! I love this smile.

I'm not a huge fan of putting on friend parties and as a result my kids get to have friend parities when they are 8, 12, and 16. On the the other years we have small yet fun family parties. Naomi chose to have a skating party and had such an amazing time. I enjoyed watching her and her friends, many of whom had never before worn skates.

Turning eight also meant another great opportunity for Naomi. She was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by her dad. It was a beautiful day we were surrounded by many loved ones. Naomi is growing into a wonderful young lady and we absolutely love her!

Packing it all in...

Here is my post to highlight some of the things that have been going on this spring. April and May seemed to be so full of activites. The kids both have piano lessons, Gray played lacrosse, Naomi danced, we had spring break, Easter and birthdays, new puppies, traveling, and playing outside between rain and snowstorms. Here are a few highlights.

We spent a day in SLC with cousins. Eliza, Phoebe, Maisy, Xander, Lucas, Gray and Naomi at the LDS Conference center fountain. It was a great day and so good to get out and explore!

Our spring cleaning was limited to the garage. The kids built all these shelves and we did some much needed organizing. I think the kids would have preferred to leave the shelves empty and I did feel kind of bad when they had to clean up their club house.


Gray and Naomi spend a lot of time in the pasture with shovels, hammers and bikes. This is one of the jumps they have built. I didn't know Naomi had been going off it until this picture and some excellent video footage showed up on my camera.

The Green Canyon nature park gets better and better. It a perfect place for the kids to ride their bikes and for us to walk our dogs. Yes that's plural. If you look closely you'll see a Munsterlander puppy, Benny, sitting between Kory and Naomi.

Naomi just after her spring dance recital. She had so much fun with Irish dancing this year and can't wait for August when she gets to start again.

There he is, no. 40. Gray played lacrosse in third grade but found it too intimidating and painful to play against sixth grade boys. His friends convinced him to start up again this year and he has loved it. Gray says that lacrosse is the most painful but the most fun sport he's played. It's fun to watch his team play. We travel kind of far for games and Gray frequently plays four games each Saturday. He plays teams from Roy to Pocatello, ID. There just aren't enough teams out there yet to play everything locally. We've had a great time, but I'll admit that I'm ready to have our Saturday's back.

I had a conference in St. George and we were lucky enough to make a quick vacation of it... just Kory and I. Crazy, I don't remember the last time we went somewhere without the kids. I'm definitely committed to doing it more often. We have some amazing friends who let our kids be part of their family for a few days. Thanks Jeff and Jaime!


It hasn't been warm enough to go lounge on the beach, but we did make an evening drive to Bear Lake for a picnic dinner. It was a beautiful night and I have to say that I love this picture of the kids.

Board Fever

My kids would go snowboarding every day if I let them. Here are a few of our recent adventures. Last Monday we went to Powder Mountain. It was bitter cold, but oh so fun to see how much Gray and Naomi have learned. Gray took one run with me to be my instructor. He was great, giving me pointers and telling me how great I was doing. He made me feel happy to be giving snowboarding another try.

This morning I took Gray and his friend to Beaver Mtn. then headed down to Beaver Bottoms for some cross-country skiing. It's been a long time since I last put on my skis and it was a good thing that the track was all but empty. I had forgotten how much I enjoy cross-country and also how much energy it takes. Hopefully I get up there again soon.

The groomed track I skied with Beaver mountain in the background. I love this part of the country! Every direction I turned there was a different winter sport taking place (including snowmobiling - is that a sport?) and on my way out two buses pulled up do deliver the Special Olympics athletes to compete in snowshoeing and cross-country skiing. How great is that!