Vidoes

Here's a Doctor Who music video. I thought that it was nicely done.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Here's a funny Star Wars PSA. It made me laugh.


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Here's a Harry Potter spoof from the Simpsons. Thought it would be appropriate since the new movie is due out next month, and the book soon after.



OK, so this Harry Potter one is pretty stupid, but it's a compelling stupid. I just couldn't turn it off. Sad, I know.



It's quickly becoming a Harry Potter theme. This one started off weird, but the weird worked for me. Made me laugh.

Tag, your......well, you know the rest

OK, apparently, I'm supposed to fill this out with stuff for myself, and then "tag" other people to get them to fill it out. Well, you can fill it out if you want, but I just like filling out these silly things. They help us all get to know one another. Did you know that even when Brent fills these things out, I learn things about him. Now that's a feat, for any of you who know Brent. 11 years is a lot of talking, and to find out a new tidbit is something!

4 Jobs I've held:
1. Bank Teller
2. Motel Maid
3. Apartment Manager
4. Telemarketer (does 2 hours count as "held"?)

4 Movies I Can Watch Over & Over:
1. LOTR
2. Harry Potter
3. Star Wars
4. Doctor Who (k, know it's not a movie, but work with me here)

Places I Have Lived:
1. Florence, Oregon
2. Kake, Alaska
3. Portage Bay, Alaska
4. Somewhere else, Alaska
5. Provo, Utah (3 locations)
6. Springfield, Missouri
7. Springfield, Oregon (3 locations)
8. North Bend, Oregon (2 locations)
9. Edwardsville, Illinois
10. Butler, Illinois
11. Hillsboro, Illinois
12. Joliet, Illinois

4 Shows I Enjoy
1. Doctor Who
2. Jericho
3. Lost
4. Kyle XY

Places I have Been on Vacation:
1. Disneyland
2. Nauvoo, Illinois (totally awesome)
3. Mt. Raineer (Washington)
4. Can Civil War reenacting count as vacation? We've camped all over the place if it does. We really don't vacation much, so I'm coming up with a blank.

4 Favorite Foods
1. Fresh seafood my Dad pulled out of the ocean
2. A nice rare/med. rare steak, still drippy and juicy
3. Au Gratin Potatoes
4. Grapes

4 Websites I visit
1. Friends/Family Blogs
2. Comcast
3. Weather.com
4. Movies on-line

Places I'd Rather Be right now
1. Visiting my parents in Oregon
2. On a Civil War Reenactment
3. On a play date with good friends
4. Visiting my in-laws in North Carolina

Friday Night

The "men" went camping this weekend, so the 3 little kids and I are at home. Here are a few pics from dinner time, right before they left.

Peek-A-Boo

Yes, that's what you think it is. The diaper isn't much good if the part that pee's is sticking out. Lovely.

Friday Random 10

OK, I saw this on someone else's website, and thought that it was clever, and would give us insight into each other. This is what you do. Go to your music player (ipod, or computer, or whatever) and write down the first 10 songs that it randoms. I use Winamp. It's pretty good.

Now you can't skip songs that will make you look silly, or "find" ones that will make you look cool. Just go with whatever comes up. BTW, if you scroll down after clicking on the link below, you can listen to a snip of the song. Pretty neat, eh?

1. Mark Keali'i Ho'omalu - He Mele No Lilo (Lilo & Stitch)
2. Rascal Flats - Bless the Broken Road
3. Blake Shelton - Ol' Red
4. Trick Pony - Just What I Do
5. Steve Holy - Brand New Girlfriend
6. Brad Paisley - I'll Be Home for Christmas
7. Graham Clarke - New York is Busy, Busy
8. Sheryl Crow - Real Gone
9. Graham Clarke - If I Live to Be 100
10. Rascal Flats - Stand

OK, that was my Random 10 for this Friday.

So Much Fun for a Buck

These fun water toys were from the Dollar Tree. Hard to believe that this much fun can be had for only a dollar!

MoTab on the Lawn

Here's some pics from the Ravinia website. We were not allowed to bring in cameras. And when I tried to take one from my phone, I got in trouble (Thanks Brent :)






What a fun evening we had! We decided that this would be our 11 year anniversary date, since we didn't get one on our actual anniversary. What a time we had!

We dropped off the kids at Joy's house around 5pm. They were so excited to go. They love Joy! Brent and I headed up to the city. We stopped off at Quiznos for dinner. I don't get to go out to eat much, so it was a lot of fun for me. I had a roasted ham sandwich and a diet Sobe. They had diet Sobe in the fountain, and free refills. Wow. Gotta like that.

We drove all the way up to the northside, and the traffic was good. Only slowed down for a bit right inside the city. We got to the parking lot at about 8:00pm. The shuttle came within 5 minutes, and we were at the gates by 8:10pm. We walked around, looking for a place to set up our chairs. There were people everywhere.

We knew that you couldn't actually see the concert from the lawn, but that was ok. Their PA systems was excellent. I guess it should be, though. The MoTab sounds beautiful. We wandered up to the front, and stood at the gates of the pavilion, where we could see the choir. They looked wonderful.

We stood there for a few songs, then wandered around a bit more. We finally decided on a place near the back, with a main path running from the pavilion to the buildings. Great for people watching. Do you ever do that? Just watch the people as they walk by, and critique them. Probably not the nicest thing in the world to do, but it was sure fun.

That kept us occupied for most of the evening. Too bad it got dark, as it's not easy to see people in it. Oh well. The choir sang a few songs that we knew. And even one from our Civil War MoTab album that we have "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Awesome song!

After the concert, we decided that it wasn't to our advantage to run out of there. We just sat on the lawn, and watched more people walk by. We were trying to decided which people we would want to look more like when we were old. There were a handful of good ones to choose from :)

When most of the people had cleared out, we headed back to the buses. No one else was making there way there. We started to get a bit panicky, thinking that maybe the last bus had left, and we'd be stuck there. We quickened our pace.

Luckily, there was still a line for the bus. Nothing to worry about. We waited for about 5 minutes, then were on a bus, back to our parking lot. We got in the car, and headed to Steak and Shake. It was in the area, and I'd never been. I figured that I needed to go at least once. It was ok. Nothing too special. I guess that now that I've been, I don't need to go back :)

We ended up getting home at about 1pm. That's way past my bedtime. I was almost falling asleep in the car. Poor Brent. I felt bad for being such a bad date at the end. Some nice conversation on the way home would have been nice. Oh well. He knows that I can't stay up late. We just listened to fun music, and sang along all the way home.

All in all, it was awesome! Thank you so much to those that made the day for us! We SOOOO appreciate it.

My New Summer Dress

Here's a pic of me in my new summer dress. Isn't it cute!

Swimming Again

These posts are getting repetitive, but that's ok. Summer is all about swimming, and water, and having fun. Here's our newest pictures of our fun.

Joe with his cool goggles. Funny, but he doesn't go under the water. I guess they're a fashion accessory.

Jimmy, with either nacho cheese or cake in his hair. Couldn't tell. And as I was posting these pictures minutes after I took them, the big kids came upstairs to say that Jim was bleeding. Lots of blood. Great. Turns out, he'd cut his lip, just a little bit. But mouth wounds bleed a lot. Got that all cleaned up, and he was good to go. I think He's gonna stay upstairs with me and watch Kyle XY. Sounds like a safe plan.

And here's the big kids in the big pool. Is it just me, or do they look like their being mean to each other? Play nicely kids!

Goin' to see the MoTab

Yep, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is coming to Chicago. And we get to go! A while back, Joy Simco said that she'd watched the kids for us if we wanted to go. She had the evening off. It sounded like fun, be we didn't know what point we'd be at with Brent's promotion.

Well, as it turns out, we're still here. No word on the promotion yet. But, I'd kind of forgotten about it. I didn't get tickets or anything. So I let it go. But then, last night at Young Womens, Jenny Householder said that she had a bunch of tickets that she wasn't gonna use. So I said that we'd take 2!

Joy is gonna keep the kids at her house for the night. The show starts at 8pm, in the city, so it's gonna be a long night. I'm so glad that we have "family" close by! Thanks so much Joy and Jenny!!!!!!!

The Yankees are Coming

Today, while the kids were playing outside, we heard a loud boom. I was upstairs at the time, so I went outside to investigate. When I got outside, Joe was all in a panic. He said "The Yankee's are coming", and was looking all around. I had to agree with the kid. I did sound like a cannon. I had to explain to him how there aren't any "Yankee's" today, how we just pretend at the Civil War events. I don't know if he believed me or not. He was still looking around, waiting for the attack to come.

After the Pool

After a long afternoon in the pool, the mail came, and we got our next blockbuster movie. We all came inside to have a little quality time with the TV. I know, I'm a great mom :)

Joe, with towel and goggles

Tom and the water gun. I think I told that boy about 5 times to leave that thing outside, but here it is, on my couch. Nice.
Jim and the George Forman grill, and fruity pebbles. Don't ask.

Jacob and the TV. Can you tell what he's watching?

Toothless Joe

Eme, freshly out of the pool

Swimmin' in the Rain

Isn't that a song.....it's singing, you say. Oh well, I was close.

Anyway, it was stinking hot today. 90 degrees with super crazy humidity. The sweat didn't have anywhere to go. Unreal! About 5 minutes before the pool was filled, a storm rolled in. The boys all came inside, saying it was gonna rain. Sure enough, rain it did. Giant drops. But the kids decided that they could swim in the rain without a problem. They were getting wet anyway, right. Couldn't fault them for their logic, so I joined them.

Crazy when the pool water is colder than the rain. I ended up just standing outside in my swimsuit in the rain. It was so refreshing. Like a cooler shower. I liked it!

Really you can't tell, but it was pouring down rain.

Golemn

Below are pictures of Golem, or Smegol from Lord of the Rings, some of my all time favorite movies. Under that is my own golem, who graces our presence with his nakedness almost daily.

Cherry Hill Park

Here's a few fun pictures from our Playdate at the Park. We met with the Polyaks at 10am. It was SO HOT! I would have gotten more pictures, but we only stayed for about an hour. Tracy and I visited the whole time, then the kids started asking to go home. You know it's bad when the kids start noticing how hot it is!

Here's Joe trying to stop Jim from running away out of the park

And here's Joe Joe. Isn't he cute!

Here's Mirko and Talia....well, just Mirko, I guess.

Talia, Joe, and Mirko. Talia is 6 months older than Jim.

And here's Talia running for the swing. Joe had so much fun pushing her on the swing. It was so cute to watch him be such a gentleman.

Civil War Battle

Here's my video from our last Civil War reenactment. It was in LaPorte Indiana, at the Hesston Steam Engine Museum. It was a great time.

Here's how the reenactment worked. The train went out every 30 minutes from the train station. The Union were on the train. The Confederate were in the woods, about 1/2 way through the ride. The Confederates attacked the train, and shot a cannon, pretending to take out the engine. The train stops.

The Confederate commander talks with the Union commander, and asks him to surrender. The Union commander declines, and both armies prepare to fight. The Union army leaves the train, and the all fight. Theres a cannon, and a calvary guy on a horse.

The Union army looses, and they finally surrender. The Confederates go on the train, and find the chest of gold. They take it from the train, and shoot off the lock. Inside is gold bars.

The Confederate army takes over the train, and leaves the Union forces behind, with a promise not to fight against the Confederates again. The train returns back to the station.

Then, in the next 1/2 hour, they reverse roles, and the Confederate army has control of the train, and the Union army takes it over.

Lazy Summer Sunday

Here's Joe and Jim on the front porch

Jimmy and Joe's Lightening McQueen car

My wildflowers

My bulbs ('cause they sure aren't flowering yet)