Surprise! It's a Miley Cyrus Concert...

Kristen has been dying to see either Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus in concert and when I heard she was coming to town, I thought maybe that was something we could do. My neighbor told me the tickets were really expensive, so I entered a contest to try and win some, but didn't. I wasn't even going to tell Kristen about it, but decided to, just in case someone at school mentioned it. She was sooooo bummed that we didn't win the tickets! Well, yesterday afternoon, I was just sitting here and I commented to Jon that I felt bad about it and he told me to go ahead and buy some. We thought it would be so much fun to surprise Kristen! I got the tickets and didn't say a word. Jon had a cub scout cookout and Kendall had a football game, so I loaded all the kids up and went to the game and then dropped them all off at home, before running out the door with Kristen. I told them I had an errand, an appointment that I needed to go to. Kristen kept asking questions (I told her it was a girl thing) on the way and then we parked and there were soooo many people. She asked what store we were going to, because it sure must be a HUGE sale for that many people to be going to the same place! We walked into the building and she could hear someone singing and she kept saying, "What's going on? Where are we going? Just tell me what's going on in there!" I had her hold the tickets for a minute and she didn't even notice what they said. We went and found our seats and there's Metro Station singing and she still had no clue. I told her that a lesser known band usually opens for a more famous person and asked if she knew who we were there to see. You should have seen the look on her face!!! Wide eyed shock! We had sooooooooo much fun, screaming and singing along. It was great! I felt so bad for Miley--she had the flu and at the start of her 3rd song, she looked like she was going to pass out and then she ran off the stage. The backup singer finished the song and then they came out and said she was sick. We waited for about 10-15 minutes and then she came out and finished. She was a little shaky/rough on the first couple of songs, but I thought it was a great show and that she did a great job!! We had a blast and it was a very fun surprise!

Billy & Belly

As I've mentioned before, I kind of use this blog partly as a journal. And it's time I blogged about Billy & Belly.

Kendall never really had imaginary friends--he liked to dress up and pretend, but that was it. Kristen had Bee & Assina---a bee with red hair who lived in a pink house and a pig with curly orange hair. She would always talk about them. And sometime, I may share the story of when Bee died. I thought that my brother Kolten would snort up a lung from laughing at that one. :) Jarren went through a phase where he WAS someone else--he insisted on being called Nathan (a friend of his) and refused to answer to anything else. He WAS Nathan! Jenna is following more after Kristen's style, thus Billy & Belly.

Billy is a 7 year old boy with white hair who is very very very naughty! Any time something gets messed up, ruined, misplaced, colored on, etc. it's Billy's fault. Apparently, he sneaks into our house and does these mischievous deeds without me knowing. Of course Jenna is totally innocent in all the naughtiness---not---but she sure thinks she is. Belly is his 15 year old sister. She has yellow hair and is naughty too, but not as much as Billy. I think it's hilarious when Jenna starts to talk about them, especially Billy. She gets so scandalized by the things he does. And one day we were even driving down the street and she started screaming--"There's Billy's house!! There it is!" Billy & Belly love money and "they want lots of it, so they take it so no banks can have any money." You've gotta love Billy & Belly. :)

Washer Bracelets

And last, but not least (for today), are my washer bracelets. I work with the Young Women and we wanted to challenge them to work on the value of Virtue for the summer. The project was a big one and we wanted to have some type of reminder (for those who completed it) of their hard work and to remind them that a virtuous woman is a good thing. The color associated with the value is gold. So...back up....my mom was telling me about a lady that she works with who's granddaughter made these cute bracelets using hardware washers and ribbon. Well...after some research and time, I came up with these. There are only a couple of "gold" washers (brass), but it's to remind the girls that when you are virtuous, you stand out and that's it's a beautiful thing to be that way. They really seemed to love them--phew!

Merit Badges

Okay...I can think of a couple of things to say I guess. Kendall turned 11 in July and the next week, his scout leader was put in a different calling, so....she's been double dutying for 2 months. Needless to say, they haven't always had a lot of activities. Jon took Kendall and Kristen and 2 friends on a merit badge outing, where the boys worked on their bird study merit badge. They worked hard, played hard, and had a blast!

It's Been Awhile....

I just realized that it's been about 2 weeks since my last post. I really don't have much to say I guess. We are in the swing of things now---the kids are all back in school and doing well; Kendall is playing flag football again; Kristen is dancing 3 hours a week; piano lessons are in full swing; etc. etc. etc. I've also had a taste of single momhood this month and let's just say, kudos to any single parent--it's NOT easy!! Jon's been busy traveling this month for business--California and Germany. Lucky! The German chocolate makes it all worthwhile. :)

Jenna

Jenna....where do I start with her? She has got an attitude! The other day I told her that she had watched enough tv for the day, so she huffed off, telling me that she didn't love me anymore. She swings one of her arms and marches off. Then she tells me that she's mad because she has mad eyes and then she'll glare at me up through her wild curls. Yesterday, she was mad because I wouldn't let her have a snack--dinner was 5 minutes away from being on the table--so she went and found some green teeth and told me that she was a mad "zampire"--could see her mean green teeth? Then, after awhile of holding her grudge, she comes back and tells me that her eyes are happy again and that she loves me again. Woe is me--how will she be as a teen?!

Anyway...Jenna has to have surgery on her mouth and I KNOW she's not going to be happy about it. She is tongue-tied--it's connected almost to the tip and her upper lip is connected to her mouth right between her top front teeth. Apparently, this could have all been taken care of in a doctor's office, but since she's so "old" now, we have to have it done at the Children's Hospital. The dentist pointed it out in June and they tried to do the tongue, but there was a misunderstanding with the insurance company, so after 2 months, we decided to talk to her Ped. They won't do it, so we had to make an appointment with an ENT and then the dentist office called back, saying that they could resubmit the preauthorization and it would take another 2 months to see what would happen. We just took her to the ENT. They're building a new hospital a mile down the street and it will have a Children's unit. So...the ENT suggested that we wait and do the surgery in November when he can do it at this new hospital. It will be good to have it done!

Family Vacation

We just got back (late Monday night) from our family vacation to Mt. Rushmore (among other places). Just a word of warning---this will probably be a long post, so feel free to stop reading at any time. I use this blog to keep friends and family informed, but also as a journal. :)

We left last Wednesday morning and drove to Casper, WY, stopping at Martin's Cove (a pioneer site) on the way. Casper is an interesting city--built all along the freeway and in the middle of nowhere! The next morning, we headed to South Dakota. The black hills are amazingly beautiful! Jon thinks they're called the Black Hills because from a distance they look almost black because of the heavily wooded areas, but I kind of thought it was maybe because all of the trees were actually black in the first area we entered, due to a forest fire years ago. :) We stopped at Jewel Cave, the second longest mapped cave in the world right now, and went down 250 ft. and looked at a "room" down there.

We headed to the Crazy Horse Monument after that. I was expecting some rock carving of maybe 6 feet high, but this thing is carved right into a mountain! They have the head done and they're working on the horse head now. They said every 2 weeks for 2 years they'll blast away rock with dynamite to get it ready for carving and they've been doing the blasting for a couple of months now. The guide's estimate of completion (nothing official, but just to give anyone an idea about when) is in about 40 years. WOW! There was a very neat center with a lot of displays and souvenirs set up. Poor Jarren had an upset stomach---strange since he'd had the stomach flu the week before we went.

The next stop was to get groceries and then check into our cabin in Custer State Park. Yes, it cost a little more than one of the lodges, but it was soooo worth it! Right in the middle of the park and we had wildlife wandering through--mountain goats and buffalo. On Friday, we took a very fun road (Iron Mountain Road) to Mt. Rushmore. This road passed by big-horned sheep, deer, antelope (or as Jarren and Jenna called them--"cantaloupe"), buffalo herds, a pack of burros, and had a few one car tunnels that offered a glimpse of the faces when we came out of them. Back to the burros...we stopped to see them and had the windows down. Two of them immediately trotted over and took turns sticking their heads right into the van--of course it was on my side and I was a little worried about being nipped.

Mt. Rushmore was sooooo cool! You walk up a pathway and they have this walkway set up--each column has the name of two states and when they became a state, along with the state flags on them and then to see these presidents heads looming above them--very cool. There was a trail that we took that you could walk right down to the base and it offered different viewpoints.

There was a mystery area a few miles away (Cosmo's) that had some fun (yet hokey) entertainment. We went in to Rapid City and found this FUN park---Storybook Island.

We toured the Wind Caves (4th longest mapped cave in the world) on Saturday--we spent about 45 minutes down there going along and through it. We also went to Mammoth Site--a place where 35 years ago they found a HUGE cache of two different kinds of mammoth (wholly and one other kind) bones/fossils were found.

Sunday morning, we started our journey home, by way of Nebraska. I had never been that far east in the USA before and always thought it was flat. Well...in a way it is, but it's more like rolling-hills-with-no-mountains-in-sight flat. We stopped at Chimney Rock, an important marker for the pioneers.

We stopped in Denver, CO for the night. On Monday, we took a tour of the US Mint--and yes, Jarren was sooooo hyper and thrilled to be there with all that money! They said they make between 10 and 20 MILLION pennies a day--among the many of the other coins. We then headed home through the majestic Rocky Mountains.

The kids did sooooooo great!!! But the trip home was long--Jenna's bottom was tired of sitting and Jarren was still obsessing over money and made up a song about burping to keep himself entertained and Kendall wanted it quiet and Kristen was tired of Jarren singing and talking so loud. But we did it! And we are soooo glad we did. It was one of the most fun vacations we've ever taken.