Birthday Boys

The boys of summer. Father and son nearly share a birthday (the 26th and 27th). Noble's request for the day was to catch the IMAX Hubble Space Telescope 3D show (his second time) at the planetarium. (It was so rad I really wanted to come home tonight and break out the telescope...but we had cloud cover.)

What else do you give a kid named Noble who's also into chemistry?

(He also scored a new Wii game.)

Mike's new long board. He says this is more of an 'old guy' ride than his regular skateboard - smooth and easy. (Sully liked it too.)

Another year older and wiser (and better looking).

It's all about Pick-Up Ball

Running my errands today I caught a little bit of an interview on the radio about the waning of unstructured play for kids, specifically the loss of sandlot style baseball. This is a subject I've thought a lot on and (ask Mike) have my own opinions about.  When I was a kid in Castle Rock, Colorado (oh my goodness, that sounds like my grandma) my siblings and I spent our summer days from sun-up till mom called us in, with each other and our gang of friends exploring the bluffs above our cul-de-sac, or in at the vacant fields down the road, building jumps for our bikes and challenging each other to death defying stunts. We rode all day on beater bikes, my brother had a battery powered radio duct taped to his handle bars, providing music for the pack of kids.

More than once I've bemoaned the fact that our children have no such creative universe to explore. When I was 13 in South Jordan every kid on the block got together every day for pick-up baseball, basketball, water fights, or other craziness. In the winter we pulled each other on tubes at breakneck speed behind motorcycles, 4-wheelers or whatever motorized vehicle we could get our hands on. I'm not going to say that we all became geniuses because of the freedom we had - but seriously, can you duplicate that kind of imaginative enterprise? The creativity and social development that comes from making it up as you go TOGETHER with other kids. The possibilities were infinite.

I try not to get too involved in overly competitive and specialized sports training for young kids. Which may cost my kids a starting spot on the high school team...but I don't care. Maybe I'm all about mediocrity - but I don't think so.
To me there is something vital about kid-invented play...and variety to make a healthy and correctly-prioritized kid. I'm totally going on gut instinct and common sense here, I'm no expert - except that I was a kid myself and I have about 80 of my own. I don't have anything against a little organized sport for kids...just when it becomes really competitive and driven by the motivator: "If you don't train hard now you'll never be good enough for high school/college - or have a professional athletic career (heaven forbid)."
My parental objective is to provide as much of that freedom and variety as possible in the world we live in now. I guess that's why we've gravitated toward less demanding extra-curricular (county rec karate, baby!) - or less popular (4H). But we encourage stuff like neighborhood night-games, or driveway basketball (by the way, thanks again Jacque and Howard for the sweet hoop!), fort building, sledding, skateboarding, animals, garage bands, art...with the hope that the kids will make up some of that creative and social magic themselves. I'm not quite the hippie mama who doesn't require certain standards in education, music & behavior. Don't get me wrong, structure is good. Too much is stifling.
Read the Sandlot article in the SL Tribune (subject of the radio program). I've thought about starting up a movement...but then that might defeat the spontaneous purpose, right?

Some Must Push and Some Must Pull

My mom kind of has a flare for the dramatic. And so, this year's Pioneer Day observation included a mini pioneer trek around the block, ending in the "valley" (her backyard) - where we all camped out Friday night after a pioneer dinner, camp fire and stories.

Great-Grandma Tiede (who happened to be in town from New Mexico for the occasion) warmed up the crowd before their trek with some of her own stories.

Move 'em out!

Forward scouting party

We caught some fireworks a little later that night before the big cousin sleep-out

It was pretty cool. I know the kids were loving every minute. Magic times.

AHHhhhhh...........

(That's a sigh of relief)

FINALLY, we made some time for a little summer hiking. With the house and all we've managed ZERO trips to the mountains this summer. Yesterday, I decided enough was enough - we were going to take a break from projects and get out of Dodge.

Cecret Lake this morning with the Bachands.

The wild flowers were unbelievable. They're a month late this year. 

:)

 

Don't Try to Live Your Life in One Day

It's not that our lives haven't been action-packed. It's just that none of it has seemed all that fun to write about OR I just haven't taken the time.

So in the way of a little catch-up:

Mike got a new(ish) truck. His old green truck finally proved itself "not worth it". So Mike threw in the towel bought this red Tacoma (or "Taco", as Mike informed me they are referred to in Tacoma circles). I'm just stoked that it has A/C. For all but about 6 months of our married lives Mike has driven without it, taking one for the team. (That kind of sacrifice has to count for something...) Here's his official new owner picture. I totally should have gotten one of him jumping, fist punching the air. (Remember those old Toyota commercials?)

Jessie's horse show (last weekend) was a fun two days. She did pretty well, but is frustrated at herself for making silly mistakes. She'll definitely make the county team this fall and there's an outside chance she'll go to state as well. Here she is on her new horse, Dolly, who was refusing to side-pass over that pole.

Jupiter the Space Donkey came to live with us permanently last week. We were a little worried. I'm not going lie to you, he wasn't considered the calmest, most problem-free dog in our old neighborhood. Something happened in the the month he spent on holiday at the Sullivans', or he really likes the extra room he has at the new house because he is a changed animal. Calm (no more leaping 10 feet in the air all day), relatively obedient...we actually keep hearing things like, "Your dog is so well-behaved." (ha ha ha. If they only knew.)

Then there is the never-ending punch list of projects around this place that we're working on. I could bore you to tears with it - so I'll stick to a few of the highlights.

The new playroom. We got rid of about a gazillion toys, invested in some Trofast. There are a few play things in the cubby/playhouse under the stairs, and the Legos still live in the boys room (we're working up a great Lego table for them - from the IKEA as-is section) - So this is the uncluttered result:

The garden plot gets a start (I can't wait to see it next year.) There's a rock the size of K2 behind the tiller here. I started digging out this smallish rock, then we realized we were going to need a crow bar, then we realized we were going to need a tractor. I'm serious, we haven't found the bottom yet. I guess it was left over from the last ice age glacier that moved through. Huge granite monolith.

There are other victories that I won't bore you with. But bit by bit, things are coming together. This morning as I was shoveling horse manure into the garden in the blazing heat, thinking about the 10,000 projects (some of them big & $$$), I thought, "What have we gotten ourselves into with this house?" But then, I remembered, this is what I wanted. A place we could create with our kids, teach them to work, learning and growing. By nature, I'm sort of an impatient person - so it's discouraging to see such a long road ahead of us. But that's something else I'm going to learn. And, as if to nudge me in that direction, we're speaking in church on Sunday.

My topic: Don't Be in a Hurry.

Simple Food: Chocolate

OK, I'm not sure that this exactly fits my original intent with the Simple Food thing. But it kind of does. I've been reading this cool book that my sister gave me - (I think that's 350 pesos not dollars).

It follows chocolate / cacao from its origins as a Maya drink (usually served frothy, unsweetened, & spicy) through its introduction into European cuisine, becoming the first alkaloid drink (before tea and coffee), and for a time extremely popular. It also covers the transition to sweetened & solid chocolate.

Green and Black's is a Mexican producer - and style themselves as authentic (though I think the authentic unsweetened stuff of the old days might not go over so well in the modern market). 

50%+ cacao solids constitute a true dark chocolate. The 85% pictured above really packs a punch. One of our favorites has been the red chili. The Maya & later the Aztec had a good thing going with that.

Every Kitchen Sink Should Have One

 On my list of my recent favorites:

This honey's hair can tackle your toughest dishes...and she looks sweet doing it. Don't you think washing your dishes would be better with her along?

Heads up to my sistahs - your birthdays are on my calendar.   ;)

8 Days a Week

Disclaimer: sorry there are so many photos - I didn't have a lot of time to create separate slide shows, plus I don't really know how.

Our summer vacation, though unfortunately timed with the move, was awesome. The last of my sunburn has just about finished pealing.

The Meltons have had this in the works for a year now. Mike's mom worked out the "day of service" project that we did to earn one of our days at Disneyland. She had us all making quilts back in February. It was a great thing for the kids to be able to do.

On Sunday we drove to Las Vegas where we met Mike's brother, Gary. We stayed the night and then on to California the next day to hook up with Mike's othr brothers: Tim, who lives in SoCal, and Jimmy and his family who flew out from Michigan.

We spent a little time in Long Beach, Mom's home town, eating at her #1 favorite spot: Hoff's Hut. We also stopped at the cemetery to see Grandma & Grandpa Searle's graves.

Dad put us up in a great hotel that night - just a mile or so from Disneyland. The next day was California Adventure day.

It happened to be Mom's & Dad's anniversary. At lunch, without anyone knowing, little Grace walked up to the mariachi band and asked if they would play something for her grandparents' anniversary. They were good sports. It was sweet.

The next day we checked into our beach condo in Newport. (Thanks for finding this place, Dad. It was amazing!) This was so cool. We were practically on the beach with plenty of sand pales, beach umbrellas, boogie boards, towels and chairs for our use - and a quick walk across the street to get there. The weather was PERFECT, and the surf was great. We spent 3 days soaking it up. When not at the beach there was a whole lot of World Cup watching.

Dad got us all up early Thursday morning to hike around the tide pools up the road. What a cool way to begin the day! We saw so many amazing things: star fish, crabs, muscles, anemone.

Friday afternoon all the girls got in the car and drove up to Beverly Hills to visit American Girl Place. In case you haven't heard about the whole American Girl doll phenom, let me just say that somebody totally nailed the concept of marketing to young girls. It was very cool. (Thanks, Jacque for indulging our girly side!)We ate lunch in the cafe there, including the girls' dolls. The dolls got their hair done at the salon (thanks aunt Tami!), and of course we shopped. Fun.

 

We said our goodbyes on Saturday at Newport. The Michigan Meltons flew home. Tim & Gary headed to Vegas ahead of us (For a wedding, we were told. We got our hopes up, but as it turns out, it wasn't for either of them. ha ha.)

With Grandma & Grandpa all to ourselves we went to Disneyland for another day of magic. We went all out, staying until 11:00 that night. Sully didn't even put up a fight.

A VERY late dinner - a mouse-ears pretzel at 10:00 PM.

After thoroughly wearing our kids out...

we drove on to Las Vegas the next day, where we checked in to the Golden Nugget for the night. When we told my mother, a native of Las Vegas who grew up right off Fremont, she said: "Why?!?"

HERE'S the reason (it certainly wasn't for the second-hand smoke):

Where else can your kids get a chance to swim with sharks? That's a water slide going THROUGH the shark tank. Only in a casino...

After a quick stop at Trader Joe's the next morning we drove the 300 or so miles back to SLC, with only 2 emergency pit stops at the side of the road.

 

What a great trip.

(Thanks again Jacque & Howard for making it all happen.)