Good, Better, Best??

We still had 6 ski tickets left, and no takers, so I decided to take the kids skiing one last time to Park City. It sounded like a good plan. I was concerned because the weather didn't look promising, but we went anyway. When we got to Park City, it was snowing pretty hard, but we went anyway. The good thing was, there was close to an inch of new snow. The bad thing was it was ice underneath. The other bad thing was the new snow was extremely sticky, so it was hard to keep up your momentum. Makenzie took off her skis and walk a few feet, and had about 3" of snow stuck to the bottom of her boot. The other bad thing was that the visibility was poor. The other bad thing was that it was really windy up on the top, and surprisingly cold for April 7th. After 3 runs, the 3 younger ones, not to mention mom, had had enough skiing for the day and year. Makenzie couldn't seem to stay on her feet, and fell down again and again. So we left.

McKay got into a big snit because he didn't get the candy he wanted, and poked a hole in the seat of the car with a stick. So, I told them we couldn't go out for lunch and we just ate leftover pizza when we got home. I think some of the kids (!!!!) might be a little spoiled.

My alternate plan for the day was to go to the temple and then to institute. Sounds like it might have been a better plan. Less stressful and certainly less expensive. The institute lesson was the first 1/2 of the Easter lesson, and I hated to miss it. And, I won't have time to go to the temple later this week, or next week either.

But, Keaton said it was fun just to spend the day together as a family, and it was memorable. (I wanted to take some pictures of us being blown around in the blizzard, but my hands were too frozen.) Besides, although we skied downhill 6 times and cross-country twice as a family (I cross-country skied 10 or 11 times total myself), we probably won't do much skiing anymore, because Dave simply can't do it. It really damaged his knees this year and he regrets going. So, maybe it was the best choice after all.

Welcome to Kansas

We are experiencing the worst wind I've seen in a long time tonight. Our greenhouse is totally destroyed. We'd have to start over from scratch with it. So sad. Also, our little wood playhouse (that we use for garden tools) blew right off the terrace and down by the pool. It is in pieces now. So, so sad.

Dave's back is out. With all the work our children require (and yes, I do think many of them are extra challenging, we are in parenting 505) it is so hard for me to have Dave sick or injured so much of the time. But, we still have to get it all done. I think we'll have to cut back to smaller yard/smaller house for me to deal with it all. We'll see. HOPEFULLY, all this will pay off eventually, but I'm sure not seeing it now. Of course it is not all drudgery, but I tell the kids we would have more time for fun if they would be more diligent and organized about getting their responsibilities done. :)

Bountiful Baskets

On Saturday, we tried out a new option for produce. It's a co-op called Bountiful Baskets. You pay $15 (I guess that can vary up to $25, but we paid $15 Saturday) and get a basket of produce. You get 6 fruits and 6 vegetables. With the way food prices are going, I thought I'd give it a try. I know we eat a lot of fresh produce, so I got 2 baskets, plus an add on of heirloom tomatoes. Umm, it is a ton of food. We got apples, oranges, bananas, watermelon, strawberries and mangos; lettuce, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, bell peppers and green beans. I'm very pleased with what we got, especially at the price. You can also add on tortillas, breads, stuff to make salsa, and so on. We got extra food in ours because Dave helped sort everything out. It is all volunteer, and they try to use smaller and more local farms, so that is what helps keep the costs down. Of course, it's not really local stuff this time of year! If it sounds interesting to you, look at Bountiful Baskets and see if they have a site near you!

It's a Miracle

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been so long since my last post! Well, here's the thing--I've got to figure out how to add pictures to make my blog more interesting. And then take the pictures, I suppose. What a great weekend. Of course, Friday we went up to the wedding. It was such a nice day. It was fun taking the kids too Aggie Ice Cream. My kids are so indoctrinated to USU, especially Keaton. Getting married in the Logan Temple is even more of a tradition, I wonder who will break it??? I was definitely very tired by the time we got home, though. Saturday was wonderful, and gorgeous weather again. I went jogging (7 miles) and met some friends while out, so that was fun. It was lucky, too. They told me about their pact to not eat any sugar, snacks, white flour, etc. in April, except on Easter, and convinced me to join them with one caveat: we would go out to lunch and maybe have a little treat for my birthday on the 17th. When I got home, Dave had gone out for doughnuts and a bunch of treats for conference. So, I couldn't share in the treat fest. Yeah!! Conference was great, it was one of my favorites recently, and not only for the talks. The kids are getting so they listen better, although they are still so talkative its sometimes hard to hear. But, we watched all the sessions together, and I not only didn't fall asleep, I didn't even feel tired! Usually I crash during a few talks on Sunday, but I heard them all. We decided that service was a big theme. What other themes do you think there were?

We are usually pretty good about not doing work on Sunday, and keeping the Sabbath day holy, but we did quite a bit of work yesterday. First, we had terrible winds on Saturday night, and much of Sunday, along with snow and cold temperatures. Our greenhouse got ripped up pretty bad, so Dave had to fix it yesterday afternoon or we would have lost all our little garden thats been growing out there for more than a month. Hopefully it will recover.

The other thing is that I've been working really hard on, I guess you'd call it spring cleaning, and I want to finish before we leave for spring break Friday, so I scheduled to have the carpets cleaned Monday morning. So, we had to get all the of the furniture moved and the carpets vacuumed yesterday. Along with all the cleaning and scrubbing, we've also been patching the walls and touching up the paint, so things should look a little better around here after we are done.

Shall we guess whose bedroom was the worst? Keaton's, of course. But the kitchen is the biggest job, and that is still ahead of me. Whew.