Why not.

Mallerie got up early the morning of August 15th with Matt and I to run the Stake 5K. I don't think I've run since 7th grade PE. I heard someone yell, "Sister Bocanegra I didn't know you ran". I wanted to yell back, "Neither does my body!" I told Matt not to wait for me but he ended up finishing only three minutes ahead of me. Mallerie finished five minutes ahead. Since then we've run it on our own a couple more times and we stay together. I couldn't really tell from that first time if the 5K made me tired or if it was my day afterwards.  I came home and mopped the floor, then went to a funeral, then out for some one on one with Graham, then to a football banquet/auction, then back home to finish painting the boys room till the wee hours. Some days are like that! Other days, I do nuthin!

Meet Me at the Fair 8/2-8/7-10

In tow this year for the week of the fair were Sophie and Alivia representing the Goulding’s, and Adren representing the Geertsen’s (he was also there to keep Grayson entertained). Katrina was gone enjoying her week at Oakcrest camp. We attended our usual favorites at the fair as well as some new events this time around like the Battle of the Bands (mainly so I’d have an excuse to not to attend a jewelry party), and the Hypnotist. However, some of the stuff we did during the week was entertainment we thought up on our own like floating down the canal and then swinging on the tree swing, and enjoying a picnic at duck pond. A favorite event of the kids was cancelled this year because of lightening: the outdoor movie. For any of you who have seen Battle of the Smithsonian, you know the lightening did us a favor. Matt and I got a kick out of the article in the Wasatch Wave recapping the events of the Wasatch County Fair when clearly the writer was only looking at the agenda for the week and making up what he thought happened. About the outdoor movie he wrote, “It was a great time had by all and parents carried sleeping babes in their arms to their cars.” It didn’t even happen! Babes in arms…

MONDAY PARTY IN THE PARK: ALL YOU CAN EAT HOT DOGS, DRINKS, WATERMELLON,  PLUS BOUNCE HOUSES, AND ENTERTAINMENT.

TUESDAY:  AFTERNOON POOL PARTY. EVENING BATTLE OF THE BANDS

The kids participating in the money dive.

Even little Callie got a blue ribbon. Mallerie also did a one-woman skit called, "Herbert."

The chant I kept calling out was, "SSSSSUMMA!"

You can tell by the attire that it was a bit chilly because of the thunderstorm, which cancelled the outdoor theatre. We came home to watch our own movie downstairs with popcorn and snacks. Love that Jackie Chan.

THURSDAY: FARMERS MARKET, COUNTRY MARKET, AND A RUN IN WITH SPONGEBOB

FRIDAY: PICNIC AT BEAUTIFUL DUCK POND THEN OFF TO THE LIVESTOCK EXHIBITS

This was partly a clebration on the kids part that I had gone grocery shopping. I had enjoyed not having any snacks in the house during the week. The kids were hungry at meal time and the kitchen wasn't full of crumbs. But this left Adren asking Grayson, "Do you have a cupboard with like food in it?"

It was a little smelley.

SATURDAY: PARADE DOWN MAIN

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I hear of service that friends and family give where they go over and help clean or decorate a house or baby-sit kids for someone. Those opportunities don’t come up for me very often, maybe I just aint seeking them out. So I’ve had to switch my thinking…like the town of Sata Poco did. What can I do? Sure, I sew like them, but I aint sewing for anybody unless it’s humanitarian bags, or scout bandanas (and I don’t even receive blessings for them because I moan about it a bit). So I thought, “What can I do that won’t make me moan and groan?” I decided on: writing cards and baking. If it’s too daunting to take a treat to someone I can always send a note: Get Well, Congratulations, Thank You, Sympathy, or just Thinking of You. But if I get a nudging to bake, I bake.
There were some bananas starting to turn brown on my counter and the thought came to me, ‘you should bake banana bread for Ray Farrell’. The Farrell’s are an older couple in our ward that have always been so sweet to Matt and I. Ray is an electrician and he hung our new light fixtures in our dining room as will as tinkering in almost every other room in the house over the past several years. Ruth was my visiting teacher when the ward was first divided and we seemed to be kindred spirits. I remember going over to their house before she was going in for back surgery to film them on my Stone Soup video. I sat on their bed and chatted with both of them like I was a daughter. Any time I’ve stopped by I’ve been invited in and I end up visiting for a while. When Callie was born Ray picked out a darling white dress for Ruth to bring over. A 75-year-old man picking out a dress for my little Callie, they really are that sweet. I haven’t touched base with them for a while and so I thought that was why I had the idea to take bread to them. Well, I got busy and the week ended. That Sunday his neighbor was the speaker in church. Another older couple that just returned from a mission to Singapore. He got emotional when he mentioned that his good friend and neighbor, Ray Farrell, couldn’t be with us today because of health reasons. So that week I looked at those bananas, which were really getting brown but each day I found some other urgent need to fill, till finally on Friday I said, “I’m making this bread today if it kills me!” I brought Matt over with me that night to see Ray and take the bread and a card. He didn’t look well. Cancer. But they were sure it had been caught early enough and after some chemo he would recover. Wrong. The bishop called a week and half later to see how many tables would need to be set up for 150 people. I asked, “What do you need to set up that many for?” “A funeral.” “Who died?” “Ray Farrell.” I guess Ray went in to the hospital the following weekend and had one complication after another. Lesson learned, don’t put off ANY thought to do something for someone else. No, it doesn’t mean they are going to die, but there must be some reason they need that treat or card, or both. To me it was a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. Ray didn’t need another friend, it was apparent from his funeral. We stood in a two-hour line just for the viewing. And the flowers! I’ve NEVER seen so many flowers in my life at one funeral. The chapel smelled like a green house. So the tender mercy was for me. Heavenly Father knew I would feel badly if Ray died and I never got to visit one more time.

My only dilemma I’ve faced with making treats is Grayson. Besides begging to eat them (and I always do a little su’um su’um for my family as well), he can’t keep his paws off the goods! The banana bread I took to Ray had a big chuck taken out of the top where Gray had ripped into it while it was cooling. The peanut butter pie I took to a returned missionary had half the Reese’s cups missing from the top as well as finger marks in it. Grayson picked up the dish towel that was covering cooling lemon squares for a newly baptized member, and placed it back right on top of the squares so that when I lifted he towel the top of the squares came up with it. My dad’s homemade wheat bread loaf also had a chunk out of the top. I’ve learned to just wrap up the item and present it anyway. Otherwise, if I wait for things to be perfectly presentable, nobody would get a thing!

Also we really did get four wedding announcements all within this last month of each other. Three of them are not having receptions; the other was the night of the ward campout. Matt is getting lucky by getting out of going to receptions. Is this the new trend, to not have receptions? I suppose they would still like a gift. If only banana bread were sufficient.

A Sunset to make ya bawl! 8/1/10

I like to think it was the heavens welcoming little Christian William Whitmore. Born Sunday August 1, 2010 at 10:30 am. When I got home from visiting the hospital I started to go on a walk. As soon as I rounded the corner by the driveway I saw the house glowing. It was from this breathtaking sky at dusk.

Derby Time! 7/31/10

A couple of Saturday’s ago I was folding a pile of laundry when I realized the date, July 31st. It was the date of the Demolition Derby. For as long as we have lived in Heber I have wanted to go but I never get tickets in time. They go fast! I wondered if there would still be some available this year though because a new arena was just finished, which holds a lot more people. I called Day’s ticket counter and was chuckled at for even inquiring. I got on KSL thinking it was a long shot but sure enough there was a greedy guy wanting nearly double for each ticket, he reminded me, “Supply and demand.” I guess that’s what I get for waiting. I was able to secure two tickets, one for me and one for Grayson. Then my computer froze and was a big bother and it wasn’t till nearly four hours later that I was able to print them. Good golly! I didn’t tell Grayson exactly what it was that we were going to because I wasn’t quite sure myself. He was just happy that his turn had come up for some one-on-one time. He’s really a different person without the sisters pestering him. He’s no problemo at all. As we arrived at the arena I thought maybe everyone had trouble printing their tickets because we were all arriving at the same time. There were so many cars and people! The announcer told us that it was a sold out crowd of over 6,000. As the derby cars roared out to “Welcome to Jungle” blaring I knew, “This is going to be gooooood.” http://iLike.com/s/6Dv

At first it was a bit rattling to see the cars just banging into each other so hard and on purpose. But they weren’t any of our people inside the cars so we just enjoyed. I knew there were rules to the “game” so I asked the guy next to me about it to which he answered, “I have no idea.” At least we were in good company. After the first heat Gray and I both wondered if the show was over and it was time to go home. We had been entertained enough if it was but, oh-no, that was just the beginning of a show that lasted for over three hours and ended in a firework show. I can’t really describe the evening by doing it justice but let’s just say it was WILD WILD STUFF! And the view of Midway was sureal.

Yeah, enough of these pictures, let’s see some ACTION!

Gray absolutely LOVED the demolition derby. It was a real highlight that he got to go on the field afterwards and see the cars up close. Here is Grayson's reaction to all of it.

                           

2nd NKAAFN 7/27/10

With the Geerts in charge of the second No-Kid-All-Adult-Fun-Night we knew we were in for a treat. As I pulled up to their house the Black Eyed Peas sang, http://iLike.com/s/9lNb9“I gotta feeling, that tonight’s gonna be a good good ni-i-ight” on the radio. For dinner we dined at a place on Center Street in Provo. Matt flew in from Colorado that evening so he be busted a move to meet up with us. Would you believe he walked in right as we were in line to order? (here I almost used my own debit card). Looks like I’m back into my rut of ordering the wrong thing people. As everyone’s meals came (with the exception of Jon’s, which took forever) I thought how succulent they all looked. But when my salmon bowl was placed in front of me, the music in my head went, “Wa wa waaaaa.” It was too orange. The restaurant was sort of decorated in a galaxy-out-of-this-world theme and my food was straight from Mars, the red planet. It found a home with pops in a doggy bag though so all is well. Truth is I had snacked way too much that day and I wasn’t as hungry as I should have been to enjoy a meal anyway. The company was great and we moved our conversation over to Fat Cat’s for some neon-bowling baby! The first song to play was, you guessed it, “Tonight’s gonna be a good good ni-i-ight” We bounced up and down to the beat, “To-night’s the night!” I snapped a photo of my mom bowling to show the kids that Granny can bowl!