A project, a 5K, and water

Samantha has already been given her first school assignment.  They are working to create an online slideshow to introduce themselves to their class.  She has to have 30-40 pictures showing various things about her (favorites, family, etc.).  We are working on collecting a few pictures here and there.  I'm hoping I can use a lot of pictures I've already snapped at different places.

Sam's first day back to Jr. Company at LaShar's with Teacher Jenny

 Sam's favorite books (these books are like 300 pages).  She's read the first two (got the third for Easter but has been reading other things since).  Part of what has deterred her from starting the third was that she read the first two books & neither one was an AR book & she was trying to make her AR goal this spring.  I hate AR for this exact reason!  Seriously?!  600 pages for two books that are 2 grade levels above her grade level & she gets no acknowledgement of that?  Yea, not so much an AR fan.

Look what I got today!  It's my Making Strides t shirt for the 5 K on Oct. 13th down at Liberty Park.  I'm excited.  Sam told me about three times how much she liked my new shirt and wanted to know if she was going to get one.  I told her if she does the 5 K with me that she can get one (they're only about $10 at the event).  So, who wants to come do this with me?  In the words of my ACS rep that I do Relay with "This is basically a big, fun, crazy party.  Don't stress about fundraising, you fundraised with Relay.  Just come have fun."  So, I ask again, WHO'S DOING THIS WITH ME?

Tonight I was out watering flowers and had a helper following me around.  She was completely intrigued by the sprinkler.  She kept bending over to try and catch a sprinkle of water in her mouth.  It was too cute.

 She was so happy and excited just to be there.  I decided I'd better grab my camera & capture it.  It's moments like these that I want to stop & remember.  It's making myself stop that's the hard part!

 When I moved the hose she realized there was a hole in the hose.  She kept trying to plug it with her fingers and then she'd try and catch the water spraying up at her.

 Notice the tongue sticking out in concentration?  Love it.

 Success!

More photos for Sam's project.  Our poor fluffy rat dog needs groomed so bad!  Everyone thinks we get a new dog when she gets shaved!  Her fur has grey to it when it's long and it's all a light brown underneath!

Sister decided it was a grand idea to come & sit on mom while mom was trying to take her picture.

 This is what I get when I say, "Brooke!  Look at mom!"  She gets as close as she can and says, "EESE!"

 There was just as much fun to be had when we came inside & I put her in the tub.  She's never let me put the "gogglers" on her before.  It was kinda funny to watch her with them on.

 My favorite one:

Another one for Sam's project.  She loves her some spaghetti!  I hope she doesn't edit herself out of this one.  I love her cheesy personality!  She's got so much of her Uncle Zack in her it's ridiculous!

And on a completely random side note: I'm starting to wonder if I should have told my boss to take one of my four schools and give me a different one in it's place when she mentioned this spring that four of us could just have three schools and one of us could keep four.  I volunteered to keep all four because I don't need two prep days.  I have prep time built into my schedule during my time at the schools.  This way I can take Fridays off.  So, against better judgement, I kept four schools.  I worked six hours on Monday and another three hours on Tuesday.  I wasn't suppose to have to go back to work until after Labor Day.  Why am I there already you ask?  Because certain people have neglected to do their job which therefore makes it impossible for me to do my job!  I knew this past spring that things weren't going to be followed through on certain ends but I didn't do it because it wasn't my job, I had a blow out with a principal, and I was in the midst of scheduling, coordinating, & attending 110 student presentations.  Well, I'm paying for it now.  Chalk it up to a learning experience I suppose.  I told Travis this cannot be a good omen for the year to be beginning like this.  I hope it isn't a sign of what's to come.  Seriously.  I'd have to quit my job, dig a dying hole, and crawl into it - never to be seen or heard from again.  I think I've got the mess sorted out...if the eight teachers that I need to do follow up work will do the follow up work I need them to do (does that even make sense?).  I have a meeting on Sept. 5 at this school and I'm hoping to see major improvement before then (wishful thinking probably).  I told Travis that if this year doesn't go better I need to either renew my license & get into a classroom full time or be done with teaching all together.  I'm tired of all the politics and red tape.  Yes, I realize there will be politics in any job I take on.  I also realize if I don't like them, and can't change them, I CAN change my situation and how I react.  So, we'll see how the next few weeks go.  I'm crossing my fingers that it was just a bad Monday and not a sign of what's to come this year.  I really, really, really want to LOVE my job again.

Sanpete County Fair 2012

When Samantha was talking on the phone to Travis just before he came home she asked, "Dad, when are we going to Manti again?"  Well, Travis admitted he felt guilty about not seeing Grandma Bown for so long and told her that he'd take her while he was home.  So, we went to Manti for the weekend and it just so happened that we were there for the fair.  I'm pretty sure we haven't been to the Manti fair in at least five years.  My kids don't remember any part of the fair so it was fun to take them (I've never taken them to the Cache County Fair either.  I know, Best. Mom. Ever.)

We got there in time for the demolition derby on Friday night.  Brookelyn LOVED the derby.  It was funny to watch her point and make noises.  She just soaked up every bit of what was going on.  I was worried she'd be a bit of a turkey and want to get down and run, but she sat on a lap and watched the entire time.  And let me just add, the derby lasted FOUR HOURS.  This was AFTER our FOUR HOUR drive to get there.  Yep, I was impressed.

This one looks more like her sister every time I look at her!

Love these cute boys and their cheesy grins they give me when they see the camera come out.

On Saturday, Grandpa Scott & Grandma Kris bought the kids an all day ride pass.  Yep.  Best. Grandparents. Ever.  Caleb barely makes the 36" cut off mark.  Nash is plenty tall to ride any of the rides and so is Samantha.  We had cousin Kash down there too.  He could make the 42" cut off, but not the 48" cut off.  Samantha was actually told she was too big to ride some of the little rides that Caleb wanted to ride.  They were all really good though because when Sam couldn't ride with Caleb, he willingly rode all by himself with no drama whatsoever.  Samantha did ten times better than I thought she would.  She was a big wuss at DisneyLand and wouldn't go on half the rides.  There was only one ride she wouldn't go on (the pirate ship that goes way up and then way back).  She even let her cousins spin the one that's like the tilt a whirl!  Travis told them to get on there and spin it because "I want to see some puke!"  I thought for sure she'd pitch a fit.  Nope, she actually helped spin it!

Caleb said his favorite ride was the motorcycles.  It was funny because at two different spots it would pop a wheelie and you could see him try to stand up and lift it at both those spots.  I'm pretty sure he thought he was making it pop a wheelie all by himself!

Baby sister was really good to just sit in her stroller and watch the kids on the rides.  I thought she'd get mad about not riding but she was perfectly happy to just sit and people watch!

We took the kids through the livestock barn and Brookelyn LOVED it.  She was so excited.  She would just point to every animal she saw and make noises at them.  I wish I could have caught it on video.

If Sam hadn't been holding on to her I'm pretty sure she would have scaled the fence and climbed right in the with lambs.

Travis got us to walk through the car show while the big kids went and did some more ride riding with Grandpa Scott.  We found the General Lee.  Travis was pretty excited.

I was excited to see this Bronco.  My dad had one like it when I was a kid.  Dad's was a maroon color though and we always joked that it had to have the dirt on it to run.  Every time we washed it it would break down!  Dad always said he wanted to be buried in his poor old Bronco.  He ended up selling it when I wasn't too old.  I thought the world was ending!  Dad LOVED that Bronco!

Brookelyn finally fell asleep when while we walked through the car show.  I don't think she slept too well and she didn't sleep too long.  She didn't go back to sleep until 11:30 pm when we finally got away from all the lights and noise!

More riding

Caleb was happy they had the swings for the little kids.  The big kid swing ride was called the "yo yo" and it ended up being Sam's favorite ride.  It would go up and down and the swings got going pretty good.  I think she rode the swings more than anything else and she rode the rides from about 12:45 pm until we left for the Mammoth Parade around 5:40 pm.  Then she rode the rides again after the rodeo ended at about 10:30 pm or so.

The parades in Manti are like no other parades I've seen.  They call this parade The Mammoth Parade.  It's way better than the Hyrum 4th of July parade for multiple reasons.  #1 There aren't chairs, etc. along the roadside for a week prior to the parade.  #2 People actually throw candy at the kids in this parade - a LOT of candy.  #3 The parade only lasts about an hour.  #4 The parade isn't a 2 hour advertisement.  Needless to say, we like this parade.

This was Brookelyn after she got a piece of licorice.  She wasn't in the stroller when she got the licorice.  I put her in the stroller after she got it because I thought that way she could watch the parade and eat her candy.  Sister was MAD I didn't open her candy immediately!  She was happy once we got it open so long as her daddy kept feeding her tootsie rolls!

Every year they have a King Cowboy.  This is just a man from the county that is a good old cowboy.  Grandpa Butter was King Cowboy in 1991.  When you become a King Cowboy you get a nice banner thing to put across the rump of your horse with the year in it and you get to ride in the parade & then do a ride around the arena before the rodeo.  We always love waving to Grandpa Butter in the parade.  This year marks the first year (in the 15 years I've been with Travis) that Grandpa didn't ride his horse Misty.  Sadly, Misty died earlier that week.  She was about 30 so it wasn't too big of a surprise.  My kids are pretty bummed about losing Misty the Horse though.

Check out the amount of candy Nash has in that bag.  I asked him if he let any of the other kids get any candy!  He swears he did.  I have my doubts!

Showing off their haul.

The King Cowboys in the arena before the rodeo.  Grandpa Butter is in the center.  This year's King Cowboy is right there in the front doing his lap around the arena.

Thought the look on Nash's face was pretty funny in this one.  Sister LOVED watching the bull riding and the bronc riding.  I think she's got a bit of a redneck streak in her blood!

Sister clapped just as much as everyone else did for the cowboys!

This year we got to witness Wild Cow Milking.  Seriously.  Not a joke.  Travis's Uncle Brad competed on Thursday night and took third.  There were a bunch that competed Friday night as well.  They took the top three teams from Thursday and the top three from Friday and put them into a finals competition on Saturday.  Travis's Uncle Brad was the milker and his cousin was the one that had to hold the cow.  His cousin's friend is the one that held the cow's head.  They only had to have enough milk to make some dribble out of their water container.  Uncle Brad's team took FIRST PLACE!  They won $300.  I think I'd milk a wild cow for that much.

 Waiting for the start signal:

Running to catch a cow:

Travis's cousin Zeb is the one in the white shirt laying down on the ground trying to get the cow to stop running.  Uncle Brad is the one approaching the cow.

Milking the cow

Thought this one of Sam turned out cute.

After the wild cow milking the rodeo clown put on a sumo wrestling match for us.  Not even joking. So hilarious!  I haven't laughed this hard in ages!  I so want some of these fat suits for my house.  We could sumo every single day!

Eating pixie stix at the rodeo.

We had lots of fun in Manti this weekend.  The kids and I haven't been down since Easter.  Travis hasn't been down since Christmas.  We were over due for a visit that's for sure.  We also went to Mayfield to visit Grandma Whitlock.  Grandma got new carpet in her house!  She said that the old carpet was installed in 1984 - I think they got their money's worth!  Our next trip to Manti will be Sept. 8th.  Travis's cousin is getting married.  I told her she made me feel old because I realized the other day that she was Nash's age when Travis & I got married and now she's getting married!  I told her "Just wait til Nash gets married and then you'll feel old!"  That weekend will be full of adventures for us I'm sure.  Not only will we be going to a wedding, but Grandma Whitlock is getting a new roof that weekend too.  Should be lots of fun for sure!  I told Travis on our way home that I'd probably be okay moving back to Manti, I actually kinda miss it there.  Wonder if either of us could find a job!  Something to consider anyway.