Work, exercise, visits and more!

On one of our walks this week Curtis and I walked from our house to our church building by way of cutting through neighborhoods since Midland doesn't have sidewalks that far. It ended up being about 2 miles each way. It was a nice walk but once again my left foot was hurting on the side of my foot. Sometimes even with these new shoes I still have problems but at least it's not every time. Some days I don't have any problems. Anyway, the sun was setting by the time we were coming back and even though this picture doesn't do it justice, it was a beautiful sunset looking out from the neighborhood we were coming out of looking at the fields and the mountains. I'm going to be sad when the fields are gone. They already started building a new subdivision in part of the field.

The only way I can get my little kids to eat corn is by eating corn on the cob because of course it's just so much more fun! This was actually only the 2nd time we've had corn on the cob this summer. Looks like I'll need to buy more of it and more often!

Last Saturday was the first Saturday in awhile that we really didn't have plans so Curtis took the opportunity to take his truck over to his dad's house to work on his brakes. His dad has the tools that he usually needs. However, after taking everything apart he discovered that his truck is going to need some specialty equipment to be able to do his brakes so he'll have to take it in somewhere to get it done. That's kind of a bummer because we can usually save money by doing brakes by ourselves. Oh well.

While Curtis and Garrett were over at his dad's working on the truck I was back at home working on spraying weeds. First I sprayed Round Up around the perimeter of the fence and house and other places that needed it. When I had extra I would spray weeds on our neighbor's driveways. Then I went through the lawn and spot sprayed with Zamzows Ultra which is safe for lawns. I ran out before I finished though. I did buy more but still need to finish spraying weeds in part of the back yard.

Curtis really wanted to play tennis and so he took the 4 younger kids with him to play tennis by the Rec Center and then drove over to a new park off of Midway that is barnyard themed. While they did that Nikki and I drove to Walmart to get her a skirt pattern, then went to Zamzows to get more of the weed stuff, and then on to Hobby Lobby where Nikki picked out some fabric that she really liked and is going to make a skirt out of. It's white with black owls all over. We're going to have to line the skirt so it won't be see through. So now Nikki will be making a skirt, shirt, and dress. She's so excited to do it that we already cut out the pattern for the shirt Saturday evening but are waiting to cut the fabric out at my mother in law's because it's been so long since I've done anything like this that I don't want to mess up.

Nikki wanted this shape of skirt. There was a different pattern she wanted at Hobby Lobby but it was $20. So she found this one at Walmart for half the price. She's not going to put the cummerbund piece on it though. She likes how it flares out.

Saturday was Grandpa Norton's birthday (I'm sure he celebrated in Heaven) and I felt bad that we didn't make it over to visit grandma that day so we made sure to get over there Sunday evening.  Curtis and Jack rode their bikes over to grandma's this time while the rest of us drove over in the van. Curtis and I have both been wanting to do more active things lately. While normally I would have wanted to ride bikes with him, it was too hot at that time of day and some one had to drive the kids who didn't want to ride bikes, lol. However, we put Jack's bike in the back for the ride home and Curtis rode his bike home alone since Jack didn't want to make the ride back. He's lucky his bike was small enough to fit. We visited, ate ice cream and played a game. This time we had Nikki choose the game so that she would play with us. She likes Mexican Train.

Last week I was about to go ahead and buy that Little House on the Prairie set that I had seen at Walmart that had the entire series in it but when I went back to the store it was gone. While I was disappointed, later I found reviews on Walmart's website about that particular set and many people said that the packaging wasn't good on the inside. That the discs slid into something on a piece of cardboard and also some discs would freeze up while watching. After reading those reviews I decided that I would just be content with what I had. But I had to at least finish off the set I had buy purchasing seasons 3 and 5 through Amazon Prime. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm so excited to finally have a complete series! I tried buying them years ago and had problems with the discs in both seasons so I returned them, twice! Hopefully these ones won't have any issues. I started watching the series with the kids on Sunday so that I could introduce Charlotte and Alice to the show. We watched the pilot and the first episode in season 1. They loved it! It kind of back fired though because after watching it Charlotte has been telling us that she really wants her own horse....again. Yes, we've been through this before, lol.

The nice thing about these is the boxes are the size of a regular movie box but it has 5 discs in it!

My Little House on the Prairie set. I love this show and am so happy to have the whole series now! Look how skinny the new ones are compared to the older sets. I may have to slowly replace them to save on space. 

Yesterday evening Nikki was working and neither Curtis nor I felt like cooking dinner so we ate a little bit of leftovers and then headed over to get some more food from Del Taco. It was the first time either of us had gone there and it surprised Nikki (in a good way). She was the one at the window doing the money tendering. She had asked us if we wanted sauce and we said whatever you recommend but she was looking at what we ordered and was partly still shocked to see us that she forgot to put sauce in the bag but that's okay because the chicken crunch burritos that we ordered were plenty good on their own! We also got churros and mini donuts for dessert. It was fun to finally go eat at the place our daughter works. She's grown a lot and become more confident. She's up to working around 40 hours a week now. Most of the time she's either taking orders or doing the tendering at the window.
Nikki decided to ride her bike to work today because she too wants to get more exercise and eat healthier. I wonder if Curtis riding his bike to grandma's might have motivated her, lol. All three of us also put an exercise app on our phones to help us with doing exercise at home. Nikki woke up yesterday and today around 6-6:30 a.m. to exercise before she showered and got dressed. I honestly was shocked to find out that she weighs a little more than I do now. So it will be nice to be on this being healthy/weight loss journey with multiple people. We can help each other! I also recently heard that my friend Whitney is trying to lose weight as well, so we're encouraging each other now. She even brought me some frozen fruit mixes for blending up and a couple of shakes.


Most days my girls don't like me doing anything with their hair. They don't even like me to brush it. Since Alice had an accident last night and had to take a bath this morning I took the opportunity to do her hair after she was dressed. She looks so cute in piggy tails. (I just looked over at Alice while typing this and saw that she took out her piggy tails already! And it's not even lunch time yet. Figures.)

One thing I decided the last couple of days is that I need to get my kids back on a routine and to practice things for school before the school year starts next month. Charlotte and Jack both have packets of papers that their teachers had sent home to work on over the summer. We are just now starting to do them. I think we had a long enough hiatus from school work. Even Alice did a little worksheet this morning from her preschool book. I have had this preschool book for years but can never really get my kids to do much out of it so there's plenty of undone pages in it. It was nice to take a break and not be on any kind of schedule this summer but it will also be nice to get back into a routine. School is just around the corner!

Roaring Springs

Friday evening Curtis and I were talking about what our plans were for Saturday and I said the only thing I had was going fabric shopping with Nikki and his mom for her shirt she's going to sew. Nikki didn't have to work on Saturday,. Curtis mentioned the idea about doing something with the kids and then I thought how about Roaring Springs? How often is Nikki going to have a whole day off after all? Jack and Charlotte had earned free passes through a reading program at school and because Garrett is hard of hearing he received in the mail a flyer that July 11th was Deaf Awareness Day at Roaring Springs and that we could get $13 off of each ticket. It was perfect timing! 

We also decided it would be nice for the oldest 3 kids to have a friend that they could run around with at the park while Curtis and I watched the little girls. Secretly we contacted the friend's parents before telling our kids about it. We wanted to make sure it was going to pan out with everyone having a friend. When I finally texted Nikki about Roaring Springs because she was just getting off work at the time, she said what about fabric shopping? I said would you rather go fabric shopping or go to Roaring Springs? ;)  Nikki was able to bring her best friend Angie, however Angie didn't get to stay the whole day since she had to work. She ended up leaving around 4pm and her mom picked her up. We arrived at the park around 10:20am. It opened at 11:00am but we were able to get in early to get our locker and get ready. Most of us had already put sunscreen on at home. Garrett had his friend Austin and Jack had his friend Rhett. Our tickets were good for us to stay until 8:00pm so that's what we did, although Nikki was ready to go around 5 or 6 since her friend had left. They all had so much fun though! Some had so much fun that they didn't stop to put sunscreen as often as they should so of course they got burned. I think Garrett, Austin and Nikki got it the worst. They are learning painfully that it would have been worth it to stop and put sunscreen on. I totally get it though, I've been there and done that so many times! Jack and Rhett were smart and wore swim shirts all day.

It was nice that the oldest kids were able to go on all the rides that they wanted. Curtis and I took turns watching Alice and Charlotte. They had the kiddie pool roped off to where you couldn't just hop in anywhere, you had to enter and exit at one end of the pool (they were counting how many people enter and exit because of COVID). We totally think they should make this permanent! Last year we had a hard time keeping track of Charlotte because she would just hop out of the pool from anywhere and take off. It was so much easier having one area to enter and exit. Alice didn't really do much but she did go on a few small slides in the kiddie pool. However, we managed to talk her into going down the big racing ridge slide, where four sliding lanes are next to each other and everyone gets their own lane and races down on a blue mat with handles. I was surprised that they didn't have a height restriction. We didn't learn that until after Nikki, Charlotte and I went down while Curtis and Alice watched us. Then I learned Alice could so she said she wanted to do it. Charlotte was mad though because we forced her to go on the ride again when she wanted to go to a different pool. Since there were only four lanes and 5 of us I went down with Alice and Charlotte. I was in the middle. Curtis and Nikki came down after us. Alice said it was fun but that she did not want to do it again. So cute! Other than that ride the only other slide I rode on was the family ride where up to five people can sit in a tube and ride down a twisty slide. It was called Mammoth Canyon. I did it twice. Charlotte loved that ride! Curtis was also able to do that one and another called Avalanche. Curtis and I were content though with not feeling the need to ride all the big slides this year. The oldest three kids had their friends so they could do just that and we watched the girls. It was nice.

This is what Garrett's back looks like today. He's been going shirtless every day. I wish it were that easy for girls! 

We packed food in a cooler and in the van so that we could eat lunch in the parking lot. We picked a spot by the grass and trees.

The girls and us were hungry a lot earlier than we had planned so the four of us ate by ourselves and later I took the boys out. I didn't think to get a picture of the older kids though.

This year Curtis and I both wore a shirt all day long because we really didn't want to get burned. I think we also put sunscreen on 3 times. Yay, it worked! No sunburn for us! The girls were pretty much burn free as well except under Charlotte's eyes got a little red.

We were all so worn out the next day that we slept in. Thank goodness it was a home church day! When we do go to church we have 9am Sacrament meeting. We spent a lot of time relaxing on Sunday.

Monday (yesterday) I did some deep cleaning in the girls room and I finally brought in the toy buckets and bag that have been hiding in the garage for months. I was able to go through the buckets first while the girls were swimming in our small pool out back with their neighbor friends. So I was able to get rid of a bunch of little toys and some stuffed animals. Now that the girls have big beds I decided that Charlotte's big stuffed dog and Alice's big stuffed bear could sit on the feet end of their bed. That left lots more room for the smaller stuffed animals in the corner net.

In the evening we took Curtis's sister Shauna and her husband John out to dinner as payment for their help on our patio last spring. We took them to the Indian Creek Steakhouse in Caldwell, the same place we ate for our anniversary in June. Their food is really good! We especially love their appetizer of BBQ'd shrimp. I'm not a huge shrimp fan but I LOVED these! I didn't get a picture of us but I did however get a picture of a sign that was by the front door that made me laugh.

Today I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods and while reading toward the end of the book I realized that I remembered these stories I was hearing and remembered that I had read this first book last summer as part of my summer reading program through the library. I thought that I had started reading the book and then for some reason didn't finish but nope, I did finish it! I just didn't read any more of the Little House books after that because for the program I was supposed to read different types of books. I can't believe how much work they had to do just to be self sufficient and survive back then. We have it so good today! I'm excited to read the rest of the books!

Getting Out More and Reading Books

Sunday evening we went over to my in laws to visit them since we heard that they didn't do anything with anyone for the 4th of July (sad we didn't know sooner!). They introduced us to a new card game called Five Crowns. It was a little confusing at first but fun after I got the hang of it. Garrett and Jack played with us while Nikki did some drawing and the little girls played with toys. Then we went out back to look at my mother in law's fairy garden. She had some new figurines and she wanted Nikki to help her decide where she should put them and other ideas for future fairy garden decor. Nikki seemed happy to help and took some pictures. The little girls also discovered a new little red rocking chair that grandma bought for them to sit in when they come visit.

On Monday I was so tired from the weekend activities that I decided to do a lot of reading from my book, "The Choice". I ended up staying up late that night reading and woke up the next morning and finished reading my book. It was a good one! I even cried a little.

The past couple months we have been trying to do better at how we eat so that we can lose weight. We're not doing any certain type of diet and haven't changed things dramatically. The biggest things we've been doing is trying to eat an earlier dinner, not go back for seconds and not eat anything else after (that doesn't always happen though) but we've also been going on lots of walks, usually in the evening after we've eaten dinner. Tuesday night we walked out around the golf course by our house again.

I am happy to announce that Curtis finally broke the 200 lb mark! He had weighed up to as much as 220 and just yesterday he weighed in at 199.5! I'm so happy and so proud of him!  I have been trying to lose a little weight as well but I'm nearly there with only wanting to lose about 5 more lbs. It's been great working on our goals together!

There was one point on Wednesday that I had to send Alice to time out. Well, I kind of forgot about her and she fell asleep in time out. I left her there to take a nap, which was not the best idea since she did not want to go to sleep later at bed time, even though we stayed up late.

Wednesday evening Jack borrowed a Wii game from his friend called Wii Sports Resort and I typically don't play video games anymore but I decided to play this time. Charlotte and I did some sword fighting, wake boarding, and bowling on the game while the boys watched. It was fun to play and especially fun to watch Charlotte when she did sword fighting with Garrett. I took a video but was unable to upload it here since the file size is too big.

I really wanted to go on a walk or bike ride after dinner that night but Curtis wasn't feeling up to it. So I asked the kids if anyone wanted to do a bike ride. Charlotte's bike was still flat and so she asked if we could go on a scooter ride. She had her scooter and I borrowed Nikki's (since we're pretty much the same size) and I have to say it was a lot of fun! I would definitely do it again. One thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I would do things with them. After I got back from taking Charlotte on a scooter ride I took Alice on a bike ride. Nobody else wanted to come by then because Curtis had started watching a movie.

We stopped at the church on the corner to rest and then Charlotte started rolling down the hill. She had so much fun!

She even started doing somersault rolls down!

I didn't get a picture of Alice and I on the bike but we just did a quick ride around our neighborhood. After we got back both the girls played with their next door neighbor friend, Brooklyn. Brooklyn recently got a new pink power car/RV and I watched the girls all play together and take turns driving.

Yesterday Nikki had the day off of work and so after I finished making a grocery list, she wanted me to help her bake a pumpkin roll. We had previously bought the ingredients for it a couple weeks ago but got so busy that we didn't make it yet. After we got it made and into the fridge we both went shopping, first to Walmart, then to JoAnn's, and then to Winco. I had to get a couple of things at Walmart and she wanted to look at sewing patterns. Out of no where Nikki decided that she wanted to make her own dress for prom (which would not happen until next spring). I told her now was not the best time to try and sew something with the shortage of fabric, etc. from Covid-19 and I also said she would need to practice on something simpler than a dress first. So she picked out a dress and shirt pattern. I haven't sewn any clothing items in a long time and even then I didn't do very many things. We went to JoAnn's to try and find fabric for the shirt and neither of us knew which type of fabric we needed for this shirt pattern and there weren't any available employees to help. So I called my mother in law and we will hopefully go in together tomorrow (Saturday) to see if she can help us. If we have to use stretchy material for the shirt then I may have to get help from my big sister, Melissa, who has a lot more experience with sewing clothes and stretchy fabrics.

Anyway, after JoAnn's we went grocery shopping at WinCo and that back home. I made Nikki do all of the driving today so that she can get more practice. I even made her back the van into the garage to unload groceries. That was a little challenging but she did it! We ate homemade sub sandwiches, chips and fresh fruit for dinner and then our pumpkin roll for dessert. It was delicious! I really enjoyed spending so much time with Nikki yesterday and was glad that she wanted my help. After eating that pumpkin roll for dessert I knew we had to go on a walk but it was going to have to wait until both Curtis and I took a short nap because we were both really tired. After our naps we did our walk and this time we walked on a path that goes between Fall River subdivision over to Lake Lowell Ave. When we came up Lake Lowell Ave we wanted to go look down a certain street and we happened to see a man we knew outside mowing his lawn. After all, we used to be in the same ward before it split many years ago. We had a nice little visit with him and then continued on. On our walk on Tuesday I got two mosquito bites so from now on I have to spray myself with repellent if we're going to walk at dusk. No bites yesterday!

Nikki wants to make the dress like the blue and white one. She likes the longer sleeves.

The last couple of days I had been trying to decide what new book I should read. I had many to choose from in our office but ultimately last night I decided that I was going to read the Little House on the Prairie books. I have had a nearly new set of all of the books sitting on our bookshelf for the past 15 years and I still hadn't read them so I decided it was time!

It was nice to able to have something to read this afternoon since my neighbor needed a ride to the DMV and I waited in the car while she went in. I recently saw a dvd set of all the seasons of the Little House on the Prairie TV series and I really want it! I currently have all the seasons on dvd except for season 3 and 5 but this new set would have the entire series and it's a lot thinner so it would save room! I told Curtis that I really wanted it but I don't think he'll take the hint and buy it for me. I have a hard time buying stuff for myself, lol, especially if it's not a need, only a want. Well for now, I guess I'll just be content with reading the books.

4th of July Weekend 2020

Curtis and I started out our 4th of July weekend by waking up early Friday morning to drive to Walmart to grab some stuff to fix our bikes and some food items. My bike has been notorious for getting flat tires this past year but we were planning on going on a bike ride Saturday morning so we needed to get it fixed. Thursday night we had gotten my back tire fixed and then while we were looking at the brakes on Nikki's bike I heard a loud air noise. My front tire just blew out also, and that's why we had to go to Walmart the very next morning since they were already closed.

While Curtis worked on fixing my tire Friday morning I started to work on trimming the yard. Our boys have been mowing the lawn but I do the trimming every other week. Garrett ended up doing the mowing that day. We wanted to get it done early before it got hot. When Curtis finished fixing the bikes he took off to Meridian to help my cousin Charlie with getting things ready to have two washers and dryers. I finished up my yard work, watered the neighbors plants, took Nikki to work, showered and ate lunch. Then the other 4 kids and I drove out to visit Charlie, Chelsea and the kids. We had a good time visiting and I'm glad Curtis was able to help them. Toward the end of our visit our boys played video games with their little boy Michael. I guess Michael was pretty happy to have someone to play games with since his older sisters don't really like to play them.

Jack really loved riding on these tricycles. You can spin around on them.

Playing with water balloons in their backyard.

Water balloons and games.

We went home in the late afternoon and were just content to relax for a bit but later we did make it to Lowe's to pick up some chains to lengthen our swings and then went on a bike ride with Jack and the little girls. Nikki and Garrett opted not to come but I was fine with that because I was making them come the next morning. When it got dark Curtis lit a fire while the kids were watching a movie inside. We roasted some hot dogs over the fire and the kids came out for that.

This morning (4th of July) we woke up around 7:45 to get up and ready to go on a family bike ride to Kingfisher Trailhead. We had previously walked this one and thought that it would be easier on bikes. Well, we were wrong...at least on the way back. Actually, I think my dad and the three oldest kids did alright but Curtis, Laverne and I had a hard time since we are not used to bike riding, and on gravel roads. Curtis was pulling Charlotte in the trailer and I had Alice in the bike seat on my bike so we both were pulling extra weight. There were times where we had to get off and walk our bikes because it was easier to do than riding, especially when we went up a hill. Dad said we went about 8.8 miles round trip. I thought when we got home that we would all crash on a couch and watch a movie or something but Nikki was the only one that did that because when we got home our neighbor friends, the Wallace's, were out front lighting some fireworks. So the four younger kids got distracted by that. I went over and visited with them a bit while Curtis unloaded the bikes from the truck. Then I had to head back and make frog eye salad for our 4th of July BBQ at my grandma Norton's house. Curtis decided to take Jack to go buy some fireworks to light off tonight. I didn't think he was going to buy any this year but it will be fun because several of our neighbors that usually are loud and have tons of fireworks won't be here this year.  They went camping instead.

This was early in the bike ride where we paused to take a little break and get a picture. 

We rode out to Gotts Point at Lake Lowell and took a little break looking out at the scenery. I didn't take these two pictures so I had to get them from Laverne's blog. Glad we got them!

We headed over to my grandma's around 2:45 where we had a nice BBQ dinner with dad and Laverne, Joyce and Bob, Melissa and Nathan and their girls, and Scott and Jill and their two youngest kids.We ate hamburgers, homemade potato salad, frog eye salad, watermelon, chips, baked beans, cookies and ice cream. After eating I set up our ladder ball game in the backyard and played with the kids. Then dad got his corn hole game out where some kids and some adults played.

While I was helping grandma set up for dinner outside the boys came in and played some Rummikub.

I think Nikki played a round with the boys but then she crashed on the couch and took a nap.

Smiling with a mouthful of food.

Dad brought another game for younger kids and played a little with Alice and Charlotte.

Playing ladder ball.

Time for corn hole! Garrett was getting pretty good by the end of our playing. He and I tied for getting the highest score of the day, which was 6 points (for one turn).

Jack had the bean bags stacked on his head but made them fall when he saw I was taking a picture.

The corn hole game looked nice and patriotic so we used them for a backdrop when we took some family pictures.

Charlotte wanted to be in our picture with us. 

The original plan was to go water skiing tonight with Melissa and Nathan on their boat out at Lake Lowell but our family was pretty tired from our bike ride this morning so we changed our minds and came home to relax. Curtis and Jack finished watching their movie "Around the World in 80 Days" while I worked on this blog post. Charlotte played Lego Harry Potter video games after their movie was done. After awhile all of us ended up outside. Nikki's friend Angie came over to join us. Curtis had gone to the store earlier to buy some hot dogs and bratwurst, chips, and soda to have while we did fireworks. He set up a table in the front yard and used our portable gas grill. We invited some of our neighbors to come have some food with us, including Jim and Ashlie Wallace, who we are pretty good friends with.

I finally got her to put on her USA shirt. I am surprised at how well she did with the fireworks. I thought she would have been scared but nope, she wasn't.

This year we let the boys light all of our fireworks. We weren't even planning on buying any until after our bike ride yesterday.

I can't believe how much Garrett has grown and changed. He used to be so scared of fireworks that he would hide in the house. Now he's out there lighting them up!

Nikki and her friend Angie.

Our neighbor friend Jim and his son Luke came over to get some food.

I noticed we had a full moon tonight and then saw fireworks shooting up right by the moon. It looked pretty cool I thought.I had to go over to our neighbors to get a better picture.

It was a great day even though the bike ride was tough. We didn't get to bed until 1:00 am. I was not looking forward to getting up for 9:00 am church. We decided to have Jack stay home with the two little girls since they were really tired and because Curtis said the Covid cases in our county have spiked. As much as I would love to have our whole family at church, I have to say it was nice to be able to go and listen without distraction. I was even asked to give the opening prayer. It would have been so tempting to say yeah I'll say the prayer if I don't have to speak any time soon but of course I didn't, lol. Today was the first time we sang hymns since returning to church and with it being Fast Sunday, they asked 3 people ahead of time to share their testimonies. One was Brother Tuha from our bishopric. Then our relief society president, Donna Fitzen. And then an older sister, Cathie Dixon.