Broken and New Faucet, Judging, Lettermans Jacket, Note, Soccer, Grandparents' Day, Field Trip, Pennywise, Homecoming, Quotes

It's been another two weeks and time is flying by.  Josh finally got his letterman jacket.  He lettered in Track at the end of last school year so he wanted the letterman jacket to go along with that.  Since they are custom we ordered it and finally just got it last week.  Since these jackets are a bit pricey we made Josh pay half of the jacket which he was fine with.  Here's my handsome model with his new jacket:

 We had to order it in the tall size and even then it is borderline being too short--haha!

 Daniel was cleaning out his backpack and handed me this note.  I guess it was from Mother's Day, but he forgot about it until he found it while cleaning out his backpack.  Hey, I will take it!!  It was a sweet note he made just for me.  It couldn't have come at a better time as I have been feeling like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders lately.

It says, "Mom THANK YOU!"

 "I love you Mom"

 "Dear Mom, You have been my role model.  You work so that we can go and do stuff as a family.  You help take care of us like you cook, clean and you love us.  You are the Most Overachieving Mother". I loved it!!  I tried to give Daniel and big hug, but you know teenagers, I just got a one arm slight hug, but I will take it.

 Josh had his cross country meet out at Soldier Hollow two Saturdays ago.  Two years ago when he went to this meet for the first time, the cross country team was discussing where they should eat lunch.  Josh was very familiar with the area since G&G T used to have a cabin around there.  He immediately spoke up and convinced everyone they needed to eat at Dairy Keen in Heber.  Since no one else had any better ideas that is where they went.  Ever since then that is where the team has gone to lunch when they hit the Soldier Hollow meet.  His coach made a trip up there one time that wasn't cross country related and texted Josh that he stopped by and had lunch at Dairy Keen just because it is pretty tasty.  Haha!  So the team had lunch there again this last meet.  Josh ate so much food.  He had a Train Wreck burger that is basically a heart attack and a half on a plate along with a huge order of fries and a shake.  Let's just say I am quite jealous of Josh's metabolism about now--Anyway, Josh and his friend decided to buy two Dairy Keen shirts and wear them to school the beginning of the next week.  Here they are sporting their new shirts:

 Noah has been enjoying soccer so far this season.  They even got their pictures taken last week.  Here's my cute soccer player:

I am glad Noah is actually playing instead of laying on the grass to take a nap like he did a few years ago.  It's the little things--haha!

 Last week at the elementary school they had a grandparents morning.  Sarah and Noah were excited to show G&G T around their school and introduce them to their teachers.

 After eating some donuts and milk they filled out a questionnaire together.

It had all kinds of different questions about the grandparents so the grandkids could know more about their grandparents.  It was pretty cool:

 It was a fun morning!

Aaron's poor thumb it has been quite abused this year.  From chopping the tip of it off with the mandolin slicer earlier and burning it a few times it really has been well used--haha!  This last week he burned it while using the smoker and this time he got a nice blister on it from the burn.  I told him he needs to be more careful because we have no more flex spending money for this year so if he hurts it severely enough he will have to wait until January when our flex spending money resets before he seeks medical care--haha.  Not really, but kind of....

 He got asked to smoke 5 pork shoulders (this cut of meat is also known as a pork butt as well) for a work party this week.  While he was preparing them he kept singing, "I like big pork butts and I cannot lie..."  He is such a dork.  Anyway,  he enjoys cooking for people so he was more than happy to help out.  It must have been tasty because there were no leftover meat after the party was over.  There were leftover hamburger buns, but no meat so I guess that meant it was pretty good.

Sophie has been missing the kids during the day.  As soon as they get home when they sit down she immediately comes and snuggles up with them.  They really love it.  Here she is snuggling Daniel:

 I got to go on a field trip with Noah's class as a chaperone this week.  We got to go to Wasatch Integrated Waste Management place (the landfill) and learn about how they take care of garbage and how we need to reduce, reuse and recycle.  We then went over to the Weber Basin Water Conservancy District and learn where our water comes from and how it is treated and cleaned so we can drink it.  We then had lunch and went to the South Davis Sewer District where we learned how they clean and treat our waste.  It was a pretty interesting field trip.  I was glad I was able to go with Noah.  Sometimes being the youngest he gets not as much of the attention since he has to share with 4 other siblings.  I was glad we could have some one on one time.

 We even got to see a live dragon fly up close which was pretty cool.

Josh lost his balance at school yesterday morning and fell flat on his nose right on the cement.  It looked like it hurt.  When he fell he also skinned his elbows, knees and hands, too--poor guy.

 By yesterday afternoon his nose was swollen, too.  I am hoping it doesn't bruise since Homecoming is Saturday.  Those will be some nice pictures--DOH!

Last night was family night at the scare maze.  All the employees families got in for free.  Since no one in my family wanted to go to the scare maze (Josh is my only 'anything scary' loving kid) I asked my friend Erin Einzinger to go with me.  She has a scary loving kid, Sara, who came along as well.   Sara is Daniel's age so since Sara Einzinger was going Daniel decided to go, too.  So as far as the maze staff goes, Josh has two moms--haha!  Anyway, it was pretty fun.  It was cool to see Josh dressed up and see him being scary.  I wasn't supposed to take pictures inside the maze, but I snuck a few of Josh aka Pennywise:

Here's Josh after the first time they put his make up.  He is practicing his scary stare:

 Other maze cast members:

 Josh got this in the mail yesterday.  He was pretty excited:

Our kitchen faucet broke Friday night--DOH!!  I never had really liked it from the beginning and had leaked from the beginning as well so I wasn't too sad to see it go.  I was mostly upset with the price of a new faucet--ouch!  However, Aaron, Josh and Daniel installed it Saturday morning and so we didn't have to go too long without a kitchen sink--thank goodness!  Being without the diswasher for almost two weeks just about did me in so I was glad this was a relatively quick fix!  Ta-da:

This week for our young men/young women activity they had a 'Chopped' challenge.  It is where everyone is divided into 5 different groups, given the same amount of ingredients and told to come up with a 3 course meal.  Now they needed some judges to judge the final product.  They felt like it would be best to have an adult male and an adult female judge.  The adult male was not hard to find.  However, the adult female judge was a bit harder to get.  The young women leaders were a bit skittish to do that, but after much pleading I finally consented to be a judge.  Now this was a difficult decision for me because I am a bit of a germophobe and watching a bunch of 12-18ish kids try and make something out of raw chicken, rice, noodles, peppers, potatoes, etc. it was hard knowing I would have to taste that especially when you would see them scratch their heads, wipe their nose on their hands, drop food and the floor and put it back in the pan to cook, ahhhhh!  Anyway, I had to not think about that when I was eating their creations.  Luckily none of the plates had chicken 'tar tar' which was awesome--haha!  Here's my fellow judge who was thinking a few of the same things I was--haha!

Getting ready to eat my food.  I try to keep my feelings hidden inside, but sometimes they escape in my facial expressions--haha!  This is when you really hope the blessing on the food is legit--haha!

I am happy to say I did not get food poisoning and the dishes were surprisingly flavorful.  Each team presented a main dish which ranged from chicken and rice, potatoes chicken with rice, and/or chicken fried rice.  Then we were presented with a side dish which ranged from rice with noodles, potatoes and rice, fried eggs, etc.  The last dish was a toss up between homemade V8 juice (which was a cup of water with tomato squirt into it) with some lemon juice,  or some sweet peppers.  It was an interesting, but fun activity.  However, I think that next year it will be someone else's turn to judge ;).

This morning Josh had a cross country meet in Roy Aaron and I were able to go to.  Here's Josh running:

 After the meet Josh hurried and showered and then got ready to go out on his day date for Homecoming.  Here he is before he left:

Last week for our combined young women activity we put some dry soup ingredients together in a pint jar and then went out to visit a few of the elderly homebound women in our neighborhood/ward. I didn't think to take a picture of our soup jars so here is what it did look like, but it is not my picture:

Here's the /recipe ingredient list:

SOUTHWESTERN Lentil Soup

6 ounces green lentils

1 T Cumin

3 T dried minced onion

1/2 teaspoon of powdered garlic

1 T powder chicken bouillon

3 T chili powder

5 ounces red lentils

Put all the ingredients in a pint jar layering them.  Then when you're ready to cook dump the jar in a pan and add three additional jars of water and simmer for 30 minutes. Feel free to add sour cream, crushed tortilla chips and shredded cheese.  It was pretty tasty.

I love quotes and inspirational messages.  If you have ever been to my house it is covered with them. Lately, I have had a lot of stress in my life and so I have found a few quotes to help me through things.  Between all the worries my kids give me from school issues, health issues, friend issues, responsibility, future decisions, etc. I feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.  I found these quotes and really enjoyed them so I wanted to add them to help me remember and stay strong:

Hopefully I can make it through this crazy time.  Sometimes I just have to ask for stronger shoulders to bear the burdens and then give up the worry and turn it over to the Lord.  Sigh. However, there really are more blessings than burdens.  I just need to remember that.