A Project

One of the few benefits of not having Kimball around is I have been getting a lot more creative with what to do with my time.

Today I finished a dry erase calendar board. I saw this on a blog a while ago and loved it. It was really easy. I bought a frame at a yard sale for 5 bucks, then painted it and covered the back with fabric. The lines and days of the week I drew on the inside of the glass and used a paint pen, but the blog I saw it on used a permanent marker so I bet that would work too.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. It is really big 28x22 inches, but I love the space it gives me. And in case you're wondering, I'm not really that big of an orange fan; that's just my attempt at being festive for the fall season.

Baby Jo

This post is mostly for Kimball. Jocilyn had just decided to start walking before he left and I wanted him to see how great she is at it. Sorry if it bores the rest of you. Love you and miss you Hun!

Summer Fun

This has been such a busy summer by my standards. Partly by my doing to fill the void when Kimball's been gone and partly because so many great opportunities came up. Why would I say no?

I already posted about a lot of our adventures, but here's a few I neglected. So be prepared for lots of pictures ahead.

Thanks to my sister Monica we got free passes to some great things all over the valley! I took the kids to the Dino Museum, Farm Country, and the Gardens over at Thanksgiving Point. It was great, my cousins came with all their kids so we really brought some energy and chaos in with us wherever we went.



Hey look a cat! Jo's vocab is getting bigger, but for a while there if you weren't a puppy you were a cat.




We went to the Oquirrh Lake with Grandma. I loved it! We went to the little beach and within 5 minutes Kaden was jumping off the dock with the bigger kids. The water was only a couple feet deep, but I was still out there catching him. If Kimball was home that is so one of the things I would have made him do. That water was cold!



A few more "cats".



We also had a great time up in the mountains with Alvin and Amber. Amber's sister works at a ropes course so she made a bunch of swings and stuff for the kids to play on while we were there. Loved it!

Patterson Campout

Nothing could motivate me to post more often then a comment from Kimball. So knowing he can look at the blog and see what we're up to every now and then has pushed me to finally put a few new things up.

Just a couple of weeks after Kimball left my family had their annual Patterson Camp Out. We think of it as a reunion, but since everyone (including cousins)lives within a half hour of each other I don't know if it qualifies.

The place we went to was beautiful and by far my favorite location so far. It had tons of four-wheeling trails, a lake, and lots of trees for shade. We managed to go during a break in the heat wave so it was actually kind of cold, but I liked it this way; it meant no bugs.


The kids had a great time. Kaden became a "dirty dinosaur" as he puts it. One time I told him I was going to dust him off, and he said "but mom, I like being all dusted-up." Looking into that sweet dirty face I had to let him stay a mess until dinner. Jo was a born camper. She loved it and thankfully decided to start walking just days before we left so she stayed much cleaner.

At night my cousin Chad set up his surround system and projector so that we could watch movies. The first night we watched Twilight of all movies and the next night we watched a western. I can't remember the name of it, but it was fun.

A big thanks to my dad for letting me and the kids sleep in his trailer with the heater. I'm sure I would have been much more grumpy had I slept in a freezing tent with two freezing kids.

As Promised...

The Orange Monsters!

1 win, 9 losses, but lots of juice, granola bars, and a trophy so no one really minded that much.

Kaden opted to warm the bench for all but the last game; which happened to be the one they won. I'm not deluding myself though, thus far it looks like Kaden's athletic abilities came mostly from me (sorry buddy), but he's young maybe Kimball's genes are just lying dormant in there...waiting.

We'll see. It was great to watch him play that last game though, much nicer than chasing him when he would run away from us like in every other game.

All these pictures came from that last game by the way.

County Fair

Last week my mom and I went to the county fair. My dad had entered a photo in one of the competitions so we went to see how he did. 4th place! Way to go Dad!

It was a lot of fun taking the kids despite the heat. They loved all the animals. Kaden was running from one stall to the next looking at all the cows, sheep, and pigs. In my opinion one cow was pretty much like they next, but Kaden was ridiculously excited to see every one. Jo was also mooing like crazy which was pretty funny. We also got to watch the pigs getting their baths.

They also had a little petting zoo complete with a very feisty camel. Loads of fun!

Round 2

Well Kimball left for OCS, actually he left a week ago. All together he should be gone 8 weeks total which is 3 weeks shorter than basic training was. I'm hoping not having those 3 weeks will make the time fly by, but I don't know. So far I just miss him. It didn't help that the first night he was gone I had food poisoning and threw-up the whole night. Luckily my parents rescued me in the morning and took the kids while I recovered.

We stayed pretty busy while he was here though. Here's a bunch of pictures of the fun things we did:

Kimball turned 28! For his birthday we went to the movies and then to a sushi bar. I was so embarrassed because they only gave us chopsticks and I had to ask for a fork. So the waiter brought me back these pretend chopsticks they use to teach little kids. At least I was able to eat my food.


Happy 4th of July! We spent the 4th with Alvin and Amber and watched the Stadium of Fire fireworks from the grass across from the MTC. Kaden turned out to be afraid of them and hid under a blanket the whole time, but for some reason he was still sad when they were over. Go figure.





Trip to the Zoo. They had a special military day so that our whole family got in free. Every time we go it gets more fun. Kaden was so excited to see the animals. He was trying to find all the animals from the Madigascar movie, but they didn't have a lion or hippo so we had to tread carefully around that subject. But we had a great time.



I know I look really annoyed in this picture, but it was really fun taking Kaden to all the same things I did as a kid, including drinking water out of the lions mouth.