Hair cut

While I was out of town at Swiss Days, Ben took Owen to get a hair cut, he did such a good job sitting so well in the chair. He looked so handsome too.

Swiss days

Swiss days is the one thing I look forward to every year. It's my vacation with my mom and friends. Taycina even came with us this year. We love to have new faces. The more the merrier.

I love my honey so much for being so understanding and letting me go. He takes time off work each year so I can go.

On Thursday after mom got off we headed out to meet up with everyone else. We stopped at Taggart's for lunch on our way out to Heber City. We ran into Grandpa and Grandma Williams while eating lunch. It was nice to see them and say hello. The whole reason for going to Taggart's is the dessert. They are very expensive, but I reluctantly got one. Sadly, I didn't like it. I saved it for Ben when I got home. When we got to Heber we checked into our rooms and settled in. We did pretty much what ever we wanted while waiting for the time to pass. Just a relaxing time. We decided to head over to Swiss Days to walk around to see if anyone had their booths open so we could see what they were selling. Their were quite a few booths open getting ready and the rest of them were closed up to avoid getting their things ruined by the wind storm passing through. After walking through we stopped by KFC for dinner and took it back to the hotel to eat and relax some more. The rest of the night was chatting and visiting.

In the morning we headed out early to get a good parking spot. We have the best spot every year, you only have to pay once and you can come and go as long as there is a spot. We each go our own way once we get there and then meet up for lunch. Mom, Taycina, and I walked around fairly quickly. Surprisingly enough there wasn't a lot of stuff that interested me. It did get a few things, but not as much as I have in the past. I got a necklace and some earrings. I also got some new bead attachments for my swagger sandals. I even found a book to help me with Gabbi Joy School. The best thing I go was paintings. I bought two. The artist was painting pictures of Christ with kids. I bought one for each of my kids. They were beautiful and I couldn't wait to put them in their rooms. We were done walking through by lunch and we meet everyone else at the pavilion so we could have lunch. After lunch we decided to head to Park City to the outlet stores. I always stop at Old Navy to get the kids their Halloween costumes. They are the cutest. Gabbi's a butterfly and Owen's a monster. We also stopped by the Downeast Store to look at some shirts. Found a really cute one on clearance. Love clearance.

After shopping the outlets, we headed back to the hotel. Taycina wasn't feeling very well, morning sickness that attacks during the day, so once we got back we just rested. When it was time for dinner, half of us went to a bbq place and the rest of us went to Arby's. After everyone was done eating we visited and then had show and tell. Every one's favorite part, to be able to see what everyone found. There were some cute thing, that if they weren't so expensive, I would have.

Saturday morning we slowly got ready and packed up to leave. We headed into Salt Lake, hit a few stores and then headed for the play house. This year's play was 9 to 5. A Dolly Parton movie turned into a play. It was really good. I was surprised. It sounded really weird, but it was a fun show. When the play was over, we headed to City Creek Center. We each went and did our own thing. Taycina had headed home, her honey came to the show and they headed once it was over. Mom and I went to Macy's. Mom was looking for a shirt to match the new wrap around skirt she bought at Swiss Days. After shopping we headed to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner. The wait for the Cheesecake Factory was to long. After dinner they went shopping some more while mom and I were done and wanted to head home. It was a great weekend, but we were both ready to go home. 

Sadly I didn't take any pictures. But it was a blast.

Preschool

My baby started school. Well I guess I can't really call her my baby anymore. There are 5 kids her age that will all be going into kindergarten next year, so we decided to do the Joy school. Its a program that neighborhood moms can put together to provide a preschool at little to no cost. Each mom takes a turn teaching for the week and what ever supplies and items she uses for the lesson is the only cost. It has worked quit nicely. They meet 2 times a week for 2 hours each day and we have 1 field trip a month. The preschool consists of Gabbi and 4 other boys.

Gabbi is the youngest out of all of them. I was afraid that when she started she would get left out. She tries really hard to play the games that the boys want to play. On her first day, the mom mentioned to me that the boys were fasted pasted and that Gabbi just went with the flow. Hopefully as the weeks go on she will get more used to it, and will adapt well to being in a learning environment. She does love it though. She comes home each day so excited to tell us how her day went and what she learned. I am a little worried that she's not really taking it in. When I ask her what she learned she has a hard time telling us exactly, only that she had fun. Then when we are doing our own things and going about our business we'll ask her what a letter is or a number and she can't tell us. She'll guess and eventually get it right, but it makes me wonder and worry. She's really good at her colors and most of her shapes. She can recognized really well about 6 or so letters, but no number recognition. I just hope that when it's time for Kindergarten she's ready. 

Birthday

Summer months comes birthday's. I can't believe that I am almost 30. Its frightening. Well luckily I still have one more year. We didn't have anything planned, so I went on with my day as usual. I was hoping that Ben would have something planned or ideas of something he might want to do. Sadly he didn't, but I can't blame him. He has been really busy as work. A friend had been texting me to see if I had any plans and I was sort of venting in my text to her. Ben went to give me my phone when it went off and he saw my message to her. He felt really bad, as did I. I should have just told Ben how I felt instead of venting to my Friend. So in other words, I quilted him into taking us out to dinner.

He took me to El Matador's. The kids were really good, they generally are when we go out to eat. When we were done with dinner we went to the junction to walk around. Ben said he wanted to see how much it was to bowl. We hadn't bowled in a long time, and thought it would be fun. Sadly it was quite expensive and I told him no. We just walked around the arcade watching the kids have fun. They were fascinated by all the games and lights. Even though they weren't playing, they still had fun pretending.

The kids sang to me before they went to bed and Gabbi drew me a picture. I also had another friend drop of some really beautiful flowers and a piece of red velvet cake. It was yummy. Ben gave me a ring that we bought at the fair. It had our names carved in it and the year we were married. A very laid back birthday.

Journaling

So Ben and I have been talking about having baby # 3. We don't want to have too many years in between kids, but there are days that I tell myself that I couldn't handle it.

Gabbi is going through what I hope it a phase. She refuses to listen. We ask her to do something simple and it takes us 3 times of asking nicely and then it moves to yelling. I really do hate to yell at her, it seems like I do it more and more, but I don't know what else to do to get through to her. Sometimes she will even just walk away from us. Then she also has a problem with the sass and lieing. We have had to resort to a drop of hot sauce to stop the lieing. All we have to do is remind her of the hot sauce and she will correct herself. But the attitude and sass, I just want to smack her. Not to long ago we asked her to come up stairs, she screamed "no, I am playing, leave me alone." I just sat there taken back. Then when Ben asked her to come back she angrily said "what do you want." She has had episodes like this often. I'm at my whits end to figure out how to get her out of this phase. I know that it first begins with me. When I'm angry at her, I know I lose my temper and all attitude goes out the window. But its hard.

Owen is in the stage of when he doesn't get what he wants he hits. He will hit what ever is closest to him. Sometimes that's Gabbi and she's a wimp when it comes to getting hurt. He is getting such and ornery personality. He wants what he wants and he wants it now. There is no changing his mind and when he doesn't get what he wants he will hit or throw himself on the floor and cry/scream. I guess its just the terrible 2's everyone talks about.

Don't hear me wrong, I love both of my kids with all my heart, but after dealing with them, its hard to imagine having a third. I really do want another baby, but could I really handle it? I guess only time will tell.

Bear River Fair

After leaving the reunion we headed to Garland to meet Nelson and Deann. They we just getting done with their shift at the Temple Open House so we ended up meeting them at the fair. We went last year with them and we all had a lot of fun, we were looking forward to it.

When we got there we decided to get something to eat, the kids were bugging us to eat. Fair food it always good, so we got some hamburgers and corn dogs. We found ourselves a seat on the bleachers so we would have a seat for when Rough stock started playing. After the kids were done eating they went on the dance floor and started to dance. Owen wasn't that impressed by all the other kids dancing around him and poor Gabbi just wanted someone to dance with. Sadly Ben had to go out to the car and do some homework before he could join us for some fun.

When Nelson and Deann got there Gabbi was very excited. They brought their grand daughter with them, so she now had someone to play with. After a while, we decided to go and walk around. Nelson gave Owen a ticket, so he and I went for a walk. When we got the the merry-go-round, he was very excited. We got on and he loved it. I had to stand and hold him, because they weren't equipped with safety belts, but he still had a blast. We then went back and joined the others, by then Rough stock had started to play. Gabbi was on the floor non-stop. I had a killer headache and didn't really want to sit there anymore. So Ben decided that we could go walk around the booths. The kids weren't too excited, but at least they had things to look at. They are always fascinated by the farm animals.

When we were done walking through the booths, we decided that it was time to go, the kids were getting restless. On the way out we found some tickets on the ground and decided to take the kids for one more ride on the merry go round. We then headed for the car. The kids were in the wagon and thought that was a ride in and among themselves. It was a bumpy ride.  

Venable Reunion

After leaving the birthday lunch we headed up to Wellsville for the reunion. It was a nice little park, shady and lots of stuff to do. They had planned to do an Olympic games, bingo, and of course eat. Everybody loves the eating part, that's a must.

The Olympics were a lot of fun. We had 4 different events: the long jump (broad jump), dart throw, Frisbee toss (discus), and shotput (I think that's what its called). Each family worked together to win medals. Hate to burst a bubbles, but our family did awesome. Ben, Parker, and Angela took medals in all four events. Our family had the most medals. Way to go family. Ben took Gold in the broad jump, Silver in the shot put, and Bronze in the discus. Parker and Angela took Gold and Silver in the dart throw, and Parker took Gold in the shot put. So proud of our family.

When we were done with the games the kids played while the adults and older kids played bingo. The kids had a blast. There was a sand box and a lot of trucks and sand toys, a fun swing, and even a water slide landing in the stream. Owen had a blast in the swing. Gabbi and Cloie took turns pushing him. They all had a lot of fun building sand castles and the cutest past was when Ben put Owen on the teeter toter. He had never been on one before and he just had a blast. Even Parker and Greg had fun on the teeter toter.

After the bingo game was over and all the prizes were handed out, everyone just did there own thing. Ben and I had to go, we had plans to go to the fair with Nelson and Deann. The reunion was a lot of fun and it was a blast to see Ben's side of the family. We don't see them much, only at Christmas.  

Birthday Lunch

We try to get together with Grandpa Williams each summer for his birthday. This year mom planned on a lunch in the Park. We planned to go to the Riverdale splash pad, so the kids would be entertained while the adults visited. We got there around noon and the park was full. We didn't think that there would be that many people there with the temperatures changing. We were wrong. So after walking the park, we finally found three table in a pavilion free. Well they weren't free, another party had reserved the pavilion but weren't using the tables. So I called mom. She asked me to ask them if we could use the table they weren't using. Luckily they agreed, but somewhere there was a misunderstanding. I apparently didn't explain that it was a birthday lunch and once everyone got there, the lady who made the reservation had expressed her concern that we were going to make a mess and she would get her deposit back. Oh well, everything else went fine. The lunch was very yummy, mom made kabob's. They were the best. While we adults visited with Grandpa and Grandma the kids played at the park and made quick friends like they always so. They were very upset when it was time to go. It was good to be able to sit and visit with Grandpa and Grandma Williams. We don't get to see them very often.

Temple Open House

I was over at mom and dad's doing canned tomatoes when Jeff came home and asked when we were going to the Open house. I told him that I had tickets for me and a friend to go the next week, but when I had gotten those there was no times available in the evening, so Ben couldn't go. He then told me that he had just gotten his tickets a few hours before and asked if I wanted him to check to see if there was still spots available. We were in luck, there were. So he booked them for us. I was so happy because I really wanted Ben to go with us. So after tomatoes, the kids and I headed home to get cleaned up. When Ben got home we quickly had dinner and then headed out.

When we got there, the parking lot was packed and the line for the shuttle was really long. Luckily it was too hot, so the wait wasn't that bad. When we go onto the bus, the kids thought that was the coolest thing. Owen held onto the handle on the back of the seat and was bouncing up and down, he was so excited. When we got to the temple they ushered us to a room where we watched a short video about temples, and then we headed for the tour. We had to have booties on our feet so we wouldn't track thing on the the carpets from our shoes. Gabbi thought the booties were fun. She like the noise they made. The inside of the temple was just beautiful. It was breathtaking. There aren't many word that can describe the beauty that is the Temple. I was surprised that the kids were so good and quite. Owen had a few moments of screaming, but other then that, it was like they weren't our kids.

After the tour we had light refreshments and then went outside. The grounds were just as beautiful as the inside. When we were done, we waited in very confusing lines to get back on the shuttle to head back to the parking lot.

Lagoon

Lagoon was a lot of fun when we took the kids last year, so when Annie asked us if we wanted to go again we jumped at the chance. They had employee appreciation day at Annie's work and they provide tickets for all their workers and their families. So Annie was able to get us tickets to go for free. It was awesome.

Everyone in the family came. Amanda and us weren't able to go until the afternoon whereas Brain and Karen went for the morning and then had to leave in the afternoon so Brian could get to work. Annie, Greg, Beth, Parker and girls braved it all day. By the time we got there, sadly we had just missed Brian and Karen. Gabbi was really upset because she really wanted to see Ellie. But we were ready for fun.

We found were Ben's family was and then headed there. We did all the kiddie rides many times and even took turns watching the kids so the adults could go on some of the adult rides. It was really a lot of fun. The best part about this year, was Owen. He could actually ride the rides this year. Last year he was only able to go on 2, being as little as he was. Even better were the looks on his face.

Some of the rides really scared him at first and then he got used to it and liked it. Others, didn't scare him at all, and then there were a few where he was scared the whole ride and was really happy to get off. All in all, we had a blast and stayed til it closed. Thanks Annie for the tickets, we had so much fun.