Well it's only been a little over a month this time! Part 2

 Does anyone else have what seams like a crazy busy life and find it hard to get online to do much at all. I really want to keep my blog up, since this is absolutely the only thing I have that is recording my life with my family. At least I keep trying and I will have some stuff. I am not use to the new way blogger uploads and so my pictures are not in any order at all. So bare with me and realize these all happened over a space of 2 weeks, but not all in the order they appear. We had a blast on our 2 week vacation and got to see so much of Southern UT. It is to bad that it took Todd and I so long to experience the wonders of our back yard.

 

 This is from our trip to the Anazazi State Park. We loved seeing the replica of their home and the remains of their real homes. Cool history we have here.

Near Bryce Canyon is this cool Animal museum. The guy that owns it has collected all of the animals and bugs himself. No donations, pretty crazy! He had it set up really cool and the kids couldn't get enough of it.

 Scenes from Bryce. I think for photos of landscape Bryce is one of my favorite.

 This is Cedar Breaks. This park was the closest to where we were staying, but because of the late snow, it was closed until the day we left. We got to sneak in about a couple of hours there. As you can see the snow is still very much around. Sun burns in Cedar City earlier that day and snow to play in, in the afternoon.

These where taken on our hike up to see Mossy caves. I have to say the waterfalls overall were more impressive and fun for the kids. I didn't get any good pictures of the cave.

We got to see all kinds of critters on our trip. We tried to take pictures of all the different animals, but I seem to be missing some of my pictures. So these are just a few. We saw all kinds of lizards, the frogs, huge bugs and ants. Ravens all over the place, chipmunks and squirrels, deer, big horn, wild turkey, vultures, and many different species of birds. What an experience for my kids to see all this wildlife.

 Grand Canyon, was an experience. The kids kept thinking there couldn't be anyway there was something bigger then what we were experiencing with Zions and Bryce. I kept telling them to just wait. The grand canyon is huge and we just saw the North Rim.

One of the days we just decide to stop in Kanab. They had a splash pad and the kids really wanted to play in some water. All the lakes near by were still freezing cold. We also stop at Mooqui Cave, which is a cave turned museum/gift shop, and best friend animal sanctuary. They house a ton of rescued and abandoned animal. Pretty cool place and it is set in "Angels Canyon" which is gorgeous.

The four collages above are of the kids and Todd exploring the muddy cave. They were about 10 minutes from our campsites. They had so much fun in them. Knightin and TJ struggled a little. TJ was fearless, but got tired. Knightin would cry and whine the whole time, but then would want to go again telling how awesome it was, go figure. Todd has a lot more patience then I do.

 This was pictures from a Pioneer state park, can't remember what it was called. It was located in Cedar City. The had a pretty good collection of old pioneer artifacts and things. The kids enjoyed seeing what the pioneers lived like and are very glad we don't have to live like that anymore.

At Capitol Reef, they had some pretty cool picture glyphs up on the canyon walls.  They were really big, but pretty far up on the wall. I love zoom lenses. All the pictures you see, were in a string across the canyon wall.

 We spent a day in St. George where we meet up with Todd's brother and his family. It was fun to get to spend some time with cousins, and visit some more of our pioneer history.  We went to the tabernacle, Brigham Young's winter house, the John Hamilton home, and the temple. We also visited one of St. George's splash pads and let the kids cool off.  We really need a splash pad in Mona.

 Pictures of St. George Temple. One of the few memorys Todd has of a trip to UT when he was young was getting a picture while touching the beehives on the temple stairs, so of course we had to have all our kids do the same.

This is the slick rock side of zions. It is amazing to me that Zions can look so different at the two different ends. Nature is incredible. I was able to get a picture of Checker Board Mesa.

 More pictures from Zions!

On the way to Pinewood Resort, we stopped by Cove Fort. I didn't take as many pictures this time, because I took a ton when Todd and I went a couple of years ago. So if you want to see some cool pictures of how they lived you will have to back track through my blog.

 Can you believe UT really has this much beauty pack in this desert. Capitol was yet another wonder to behold, though the drive to get there about did me in. I think I gave Todd permanent finger marks in his side. They have you drive across areas where you have cliffs (very high, high cliffs) on not one side, but both. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't even enjoy the sight seeing. I was concentrating to hard on the road and not the cliffs.

These pictures are from our visit to the KODACHROME BASIN STATE PARK. Not an all day thing for us, but worth seeing all the same.

My  cute kids playing in the water at mossy caves.

More from Grand canyon. We got to learn all about Brighty the donkey that lived at the Grand Canyon for many many years.

  

More from the pioneer stake park in Cedar City. 

 We didn't stay at the campsite very much, because there was way to much to see and do, every where else. The couple of times we did stay we enjoyed horseshoes, shooting arrows, 4-wheeling, hot tubing, playing on the playground, the sandbox, and cooking marshmallows over the campfire.

Out past Kanab, the was a place called the "Toadstools". This wasn't to hard of a hike and ended up being one of our favorite spots. Again, Utah and nature are amazing.!

More from Toadstool!

 

To end up June we celebrated Tays birthday the Sunday after we got back, which was a whole day! Her birthday was actually on Monday, but Todd gets home really late and she would be packing for girls camp, which she was to leave Tues. morning. This was her big birthday. The year she gets out of Primary and moves into YW. She is know longer in Elem. school and she finally gets to be involved in things like girls camp. I remember getting so excited for this time of my life as well. For her birthday we got her all her big girl stuff for church, like her tabbed scriptures and marking stuff and a little hymnal. Plus we got her, her first razor. My little girl is growing up. I don't hink she liked shaving as much as she thought she would, go figure!

I think that finally catches me up with June. What a very good month!

Thought I was going to be better, guess not!

 So I promised myself that I was not going to get behind again with blogging, but I let myself get caught up in other things and this was put on the back burner. Since my last blog a few things have happened, like school got out for the summer, TJ got her cast off, we hired someone to finish our yard, we fired those same people about half way in and still don not have our yard done, but we are getting closer, We put in our fire pit, had a cook out with some friends to celebrate school being out, oh yeah the kids had their spring fling dance (that of course was before school got let out. We finished the tile project that we were helping friends with, took the kids to Mona Lake to play in the water, Todd got to go to the UT County Sheriff Award Ceremony to receive an award, Went on a 2 week vacation to Southern UT (had a blast), came home got back into normal life. Went to Burraston Ponds a couple of time to fish and swim, back to Mona Lake, keep working away at our yard, had our puppy fixed, celebrated Taylars 12th birthday and Father's Day, sent Taylor off to Girls camp, the boys went with Todd on a fathers and son campout, and I took the kids to the dentist. Plus don't forget all the normal day life stuff that is just part of being a mom. So as you can see we haven't been sitting around. We got right into summer. Still to come this week. The kids are going with friends to Seven Peaks Water Park, Kelten is going to Cub Scout Day Camp, Taylor is going to the Temple to do Baptisms with her cousins, we are getting our ground tilled, we will be raking rocks and getting it prepped so that we can hopefully plant seed before the week is out, Then there is the 4th of July celebration in Nephi on Sat., our family isn't going but Todd has to go to help run some of the stuff and Cub Scouts have to go and clean up the park before the evening activities. This is a fund raiser for our stake for the young peoples programs and scouts. I'll be posting pictures probably in all kinds of random orders over the next couple of weeks, to share with you all the loads of fun that we have been having, so stay tuned more will be coming!

TJ so happy to have her cast off. I wish I had taken a picture of her leg before she got a bath to show her later. It was kind of gross. Dry scaly, yellow dead skin everywhere. But thanks to "pretty feet" you would never know it.

The Spring Fling pictures. Tay got to do the May Pole dance again this year. They grab 6th graders that had done it last year to fill in for missing 5th graders.

Just a random picture of Knightin. Tay got this swimming cap with a brain on it. Knightin thought he needed it to show off his big brain.

Yard progress. We got our little rock retaining wall done around the tramp and our fire pit in and everything is marked off as to where the grass will be. Plus we have our little steps for our garden area all done. I can't wait to have more pictures with the grass coming in.

Camp Fire fun with the Bandleys, to celebrate school being out for the summer.

 So this is Todd's official picture taken the night of the awards ceremony. I think I like him better with his glasses on. Next picture is the write up that Todd's Boss did about him to send in for the nomination. You'll have to click on it to read it. It is pretty cool.

 His Plaque he received.

Pictures with all of us there. We got lucky and his parents just happened to be in UT, dropping off his brother. Very nice timing.

The award ceremony was held in the old county court housein Provo. It is a pretty cool building so of course we had to get a picture.

 Mona Reservoir

The Kids had fun. It was a little cold for swimming that day, but they got in any way. Then froze afterwards. This was the day before we left on our vacation.

Isn't this Gross. This is a picture of aggressive muscles. Watch out for those suckers. I'm glad I'm not the one cleaning that off.

 Burraston Ponds

Tay swimming off the rope swing.

My kids love it here. They can go fishing and swimming and it is so close to home.

Well that is it for today. More to come!

Tile, Missionary, and Mother's Day

This week was pretty slow until the weekend. I told myself I would Blog at least once a week, but more often if there was something worth writing about. I didn't think I needed to remember for the rest of my life and you all as readers, assuming I have any, that I cleaned my house, killed weeds, did a little laundry, but mostly still felt very unmotivated with my lack of sleep. I know, I know you all feel very cheated that I didn't dedicate a whole blog to that, sorry! But at last the weekend came, and we had a full one. Thursday I went grocery shopping finally that evening, so I didn't have to worry about it Friday, when I was tying things up for the weekend. Got home put things away, waited for Todd to barely make it home so that we could go over with the Webelos scouts to do a service project. We also did  two different service projects with the Bears and Wolves the night before. Got home got the kids to bed. Friday was full of getting ready to go to the Airport that evening to see Todd's baby brother off the Plane from his mission to Hong Kong. I also needed to do some yard work that I had put off and get my commitments for Sunday taken care of since I would not be here then either. Then I picked up some Tile equipment and dropped it off at the Bandleys for our project we were doing Sat. Kids came home they play for about an hour and then we got cleaned up and ready, making sure we all looked at least semi cute, after all Peter had seen us for 2 years. Todd got off from work, changed, drop off one more thing at the Bandleys then we were off to the airport. We were worried about being late, because of all the road construction. We went the back way which takes a little longer but didn't have to deal with the craziness. We ended up not having the slightest issue of being late, we actually were 2 1/2 hours early. I guess the flight plans changed, but know one got informed, by time we all found out exactly what happened and when Peter was going to actually get in, it was still a long wait but not worth it to leave and come back. So we got to entertain our 5 kids in the airport for another 1 1/2 hours after they were already tired from being there an hour. It was all worth it in the end though. Taylar and I spent a lot of time with Knightin and Kelten going up and down the escalator and back and forth on the moving walk ways. Good times. Thank You Jonathon for bringing your IPad and entertaining my two big boys and TJ. A little after 9:30pm came and we all got to see Peter coming down the hallway, and the long wait, no longer mattered.  Welcome Home Peter we love you and can't wait until you get back to UT so we can see you again.

 Instead of making signs to welcome Peter home, we did it our family style and made homemade t-shirts all about Peter. Click on the picture and you'll beable to read the t-shirts. Peter loved them!

 TJ was grouchy (imagine that) and had to hold the sign grandpa made and Peter's gift, we will have happy days again, I think!

 TJ and Knightin having a drink break.

 Hug time. Ki and TJ got the first hugs, (which I wasn't to happy about. Parents should get first dibs), but Peter was really cute with them, and It was hard to stop them when they saw him walking in. Sorry Gayle and Jim. We were a little worried if TJ and Knightin would even hug him. They are usually pretty shy at first, nope not this time. TJ who really doesn't know Peter wouldn't let go and went with Peter and Grandpa over to the church to get released.

 More family hugs!

These are some more of the waiting pictures. The little kids and babies did amazing considering the circumstances.

 First day of Tiling! We were hoping to get more done, but it wasn't to bad.

 The kids got to do a lot of playing outside and some movie watching. TJ got pretty burnt, but the other kids didn't do to bad. This is probably one of the only things dandelions are good for. TJ and Knightin had a lot of fun playing with them. The kids also had great fun with the bamboo, that just happens to grow out in the Bandley's back yard. They made blow darts out of them, Good Times!

Saturday was project day for us, and probably will be project days for the rest of the spring,summer and into the fall. For a few weeks it will be helping the Bandleys, good friends of our get their house put together. The have had some crazy luck recently. The had a flood in their kitchen that ruined all the flooring upstairs and did some damage in the ceiling of the basement where it leaked down through. They had to rip out the floor upstairs and ceiling downstairs. They haven't had a kitchen for a couple weeks now I think and have enjoyed ( sarcasim) camp style cooking and washing dishes. They did have some happiness with it all, as their insurance is covering it all and they are getting new flooring, yeah! Then before they could get it all put back together, Phil had a work accident and messed up his hand and can't use it for awhile, not good. We are glad though because it gives us a very good reason to do some service, for some people we love. We would have helped anyway, but this way we get to give him a break, even if he already had to take a forced one. So tiling and what ever else is what we get  to help them with, then we of course still have our yard to fit in there, and any other time will be spent at Roger and Mindy's house. We told the kids on Sunday, we need to make sure we take full advantage of the 2 week vacation we are doing in a few weeks, cause it's going to be awhile before we get to play like that again. Hopefully we can do some good playing during the middle of the week when I am usless to those other projects. Cause it really is Todd they need, with me being his beautiful assistant, that what he thinks I am anyway!  :)

 This is the Update on my sisters house. They have a lot of the flooring in for the upper level, and stairs. It is moving right along.

Mothers Day, was like most Mothers Day for me. The kids usually seem to fight a little more and not much attetion is paid to me, at least no more them normall. Todd usually trys to get the kids to be better, but they are kids and sometime it just doesn't work. They did do a little better this year, when I brought to their attention, that really the only thing I ever ask for is good kids, that try not to fight and maybe help a little bit extra. They did respond and help get TJ and Knightin ready for me. Which worked out nicely since Iwas trying to get the food finished up that we were taking up north to Todd's aunts house for a get together after Church for Peter. We also made some cards to take to my Grandma (GG) onthe way to South Jordan. Once church was over( which TJ graced the whole ward with one of her very loud outburst tantrums, it was beautiful) and the kids could relax at Marylous. The day was overall pretty good. We had some good food and visiting with friends and family. Since Todd's parents were here for Peter, we got to spend Mother's day with his mom, which we have never got to do. We stayed to late like we always do, so we had 3 late nights in a row, a thing I don't like to do on a normal basis, but things like this don't happen all the time so we trudge on and just know in the back of our heads that it will take a couple of days to get back in the swing of normal schedules.

I didn't get much notice for Mothers day, on Sunday, no cards, no presents, but it's not that Todd forgot or anything. I actually got my present about a week ago. We saw it and it is something that I have been wanting, so we just picked it up. I love, love the sound of springs, rivers, the ocean. It is so very relaxing to me. I could sit by a body of running water and it would just wipe away all my worries, at least while there. We have been looking for a good waterfall that could be indoors for our room. We have tried a couple of the smaller ones, but they just aren't the right sound. The big outdoor ones are the best but a little hard to have that in my room. Well I finally found one, that is an indoor/outdoor one. And it does great. Not the perfect running over lots of rocks, but it is still a good sound. So that is my Mother's Day gift. Yeah for me. Thanks Hun I love it. 

I also got a 7 quart Crockpot, which I have been wanting. My kids are eating more, and when we make a roast we just can't get enough vegies in with the meat anymore. They love tons of potatoes, carrots, cabbage and mushrooms. For my family there is nothing like roast flavored veggies, yummy!

There is the McAllister Family for yet another week!

Camperworld and New House

So my parents have managed Camperworld in Nephi for about the last 5 or so years. Well in about January I think, they came to my parents and told them that they were closing that park and my parents would be without a job by March 1st...... Wait, what? My parents are now without a job and a home. Family Council happened and a plan was put into action, or at least within a few days a plan was decided. My sister Mindy and her husband (general contractor), had bought a lot back in Nov. and were just about ready to submit their plans into the city, to be what they hope to be their last home (they do the whole build and sale thing, to gain equity in their homes, they should own this one out right in a couple of year, how nice would that be). 

Anyway, my parents though retired and do OK, feel they don't have quite enough money without camperworld to have their own house payment. One idea was to do the whole live full time in their trailer, but that would be hard, so the final idea was for Mindy and Roger to redesign their house,with a full basement house( and I call it a house since I can't put it into the same category as an apartment or Mother-in-law suite, it's a house that just happens to be under another house and they even have a walk-out entrance. The house is big! This house will also happen to house my Grandmother(paternal). She is by herself and I think this will be good for her. Watch out Mona the Bassetts are taking over. Grandmother, my parents, my brother and my 2 sisters and their families, that is a lot of us, and we are all in the same ward, crazy I know, but I love it!

So this is the newest saga, in the life of the Bassetts. But it doesn't end there. Among normal life happenings of cars breaking down, kids going to ER, never stopping life, of school, work, and trying to make ends meet. We add trying to build a giant house in 6 months, finish yards, and now 3 families living in one house. And I say we, because Todd and I are very involved with what ever happens with the rest of the family. We help with whatever and whenever we can. Mindy put her house up for rent or lease to own, thinking it would take awhile to rent, but no, it didn't. They signed papers 2 weeks ago and finished getting out of their house Friday. They are living with Carry and her family until the house is finished. Lucky my parents do own a trailer and they get to live in that. How cozy is that! Fun, crazy, stressful times ahead, all worth it in the end though.

They started digging 3 weeks ago and are already framing. Good start. They are hoping that everything else keeps moving very fast, they got about a 6 week late start. They weather thankfully has been pretty good,at least good for construction. Not really warm, but hey you don't need warm for building, it would be nice, but not necessary. They will probably be begging for some cooler weather in a couple of months. This next week is suppose to be great weather!

Saturday Project

Is it just Todd and I, or does everyone tend to collect junk, garbage, things that you think that you need but don't really, and then it gets put in a place that you will take care of it later and put it away properly. Well, there are 3 places that this tends to happen in our house. My bedroom ( it is an easy place to close the door and not many people go in there), the office ( the collect all for the filing papers that never get filed and anything else that get in there) and the Garage (this is where everything else gets put, that we don't know where to put, plus we store our garbage that can't fit in the garbage can, but we don't have quite enough to make a dump run). These 3 places have to get re-organized and deep cleaned at least once in awhile otherwise they would take over your life, yet it ends up being an over whelming process, so gets put off for way to long. Yesterday was the clean out the garage day. It has needed to be done for awhile, of course, and between trying to finish up our yard, Todds crazy hours, and spending what ever left over time over at my sisters lot trying to help them get their new house built, I figure if I didn't steel him now, it would never get done. So here it is our before and after pictures.

I couldn't take a full picture of the after, because the van and some big items that we are going to atempt to sell are in the way, but you get the picture!

Yea, I love clean things!

Owies.

What happens when you combine this four things?

A nice little cut in between the toes. Not terribly big, but very painful. My toe is a little swollen and bruised. Don't even ask how I accomplished it, cause I have know idea except that I am and always will be clumsy, especially in the morning.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

 

So, I ask TJ where her shoe is, and she responds, "Oh, somewhere over the rainbow".

 

Where do they come up with this stuff! 

 

You Say it's your Birthday.........

IT"S MY BIRTHDAY TOO!!!!

This song wasn't quite as fun until after I got married.

These 3 #'s have givin' Todd and I many laughs over the years, and we still enjoy them today.

Here is a Conversation that I had just yesterday, over these 3 numbers.

Phone rings, I answer.

"Hi this is Anna (can't remeber if that is her name or not) from Dr. Schows office, is this Mrs. McAllister (still haven't got use to that)? 

Me: Yes

Anna: Hi, we just wanted to let you know that we got a rejection notice from your insurance office for Tanyda's claim, (me getting upset, thinking what now). They said that you have put your birth date in your husbands spot, ( me smiling now ) so I am just calling to get the right birth date.

Me: (still smiling, getting ready for the suprise on the other end.) Well, I put my birth date in Todd's spot because we have the same birthday! (heehee)

Anna: (shock) Really, the same year as well?

Me: Yeap!

Then we have a fun short little conversation about how that is amazing and they have never seen that.  It is so funny to have people try and tell us we made a mistake, which happens pretty much every time we have to write our birthdays down, then watch their reaction afterwards. You would think that it would get old after almost 13 years, but no, it hasn't! :)

The weird thing about this one, is it is our insurance company that rejected us, it is not like this is the first claim we have filed, or that we hadn't gone through the whole birthday thing with them 3 years ago, what did they have some newbie that didn't look up our account before they rejected it, seriously!

Pandas and Barbie

 Pandas, that is the animal that Kelten Choose to do for his 2nd grade animal fair project. This is not what it looked like, but these are the pictures that he used. I am a bad mom, not only did I not take pictures of his board, but I also didn't go up to the fair today. I told myself it was way to hard to go up when I don't have a car, and 2 kids that I'd have to take, one with a broken leg and one with a wondering problem, and it is cold and miserable outside, to take the stroller. I know all lousy excuses, I could have done it if I wanted to, but hey if you read the post before you know that I am tired and hormonal, don't judge (you might have stayed home too!)  Anyway I wanted to make sure I posted about it, because he did a good job and had fun doing it.

So, I got a knock on the door, which I was very embarrassed to answer, since when I am not in a great state of life, I don't get ready for the day, wait I'm in that state way to often, anyway not looking my best today. At the door was our sweet Secretary from the primary. She was thinking about TJ and how miserable she might be and wanted to bring her over something to do and a few treats. TJ loves barbie and anything princess and what kid doesn't love M&Ms, yummy. Is that not the sweetest thing ever, Thanks I needed that I think more then TJ, knowing that there are people out there thinking about us!

Now promise me you won't go telling everyone how terrible I looked!!

I am going to gripe!

 This is not Todd's car, but looks like it, and yes it is in the shop again.

So I am going to Grip and have a pity party for a little bit. Not that I believe that I deserve to be able to gripe, my life is pretty good, or that there aren't people out there that have it so much worse then me, but hey I am hormonal and haven't had good sleep for a couple of weeks so I'm grumpy. Anyway, Todd's Car broke down a about a week and a half ago. It was unfortunately kind of our fault, the unfortunate part being that we can't blame it on the mechanic. Anyway it was completely  dead at one point, and we towed it over to the mechanics after hours and just left it there to call them the next day. When calling them, they said, "well we don't do under the hood repairs, but we will get it running for you." OK I can deal with that. They called a little later, I went and got it and took it to a different mechanic, which I don't know and by the way we haven't had any luck with mechanic besides our one in Provo and our car wasn't going to make it there, and this one was no exception. We finally got a call about 6 hours later and said it was good to go. We were happy, because the whole thing only cost us about $57. Much better then normal, and I was a happy camper because I had a car again. Todd drove to work the next morning, but I had to go pick him up from Provo that afternoon from our Mechanics there. He had to cripple it over there, what would have been a 15 minute drive took him almost an hour. Who knows when we will get it back or how much it will be. Doug was very busy and said he would get to it when he could.  CARS, I DISLIKE LIKE YOU WITH A PASSION!  But that is not really where my gripping comes in yet. We went to what was suppose to be a great car sale in Nephi, because we thought hey if we can get a more reliable car that would be great, but to get the deals we would have had to have gotten there a lot sooner in the day. So we sat through, instead about an hour of talking by the sales guy of why we should buy a new car, and how it was better to spend the money ( that we don't have), then be without a reliable car. Yeah what ever, we don't live that way. We are trying hard to live within our means. So now we come to the gripping and pity party.

Remember, I am hormonal and tired, so I don't always talk rational. Todd and I do pretty good financially or so the stats tell us and probably make more then 75% of the world. Yet we feel like we still struggle. We have a small house and a fairly small mortgage, only have one small car payment, student loans, and a little debt besides, that is almost paid off. The rest is daily living expense. We have no flexible room in his set take home pay for anything else, like a clothing fund, entertainment fund, car fund, etc... Now we don't usually have to just live on his set pay check, he has had plenty of overtime since working at his current job, but we refuse to add anything to our monthly budget that we can't pay for, on his set pay. OT is never guaranteed. This is a smart way to live, right? If we do better then a lot of people and some of those I know we do better then, but they all have bigger houses, nicer cars, and toys. So in my tantrum of sleep deprivation, I cry and I wonder how everyone does it, how they have a house that fits their family or to big, cars that are reliable, and money to have toys and go on vacation. Is it priorities, do they have some dream money making job that is secure and amazing, or is everyone else living like crazy on borrowed money. I hope that it is the last one, because then I can  work my emotions through it. I don't ever want to live any worse in debt then I already am, been there, done that, and have dug ourselves back out.  I am not trying to judge others out there, I am just being a little envious. I want to know the secret to great budgeting if that is what I am lacking, and I  would love a house that fit my family better, and cars that don't break down, and to go on some vacations once in awhile and not worry about the cost, and I want a 4-wheeler, (I know random). Normally when I'm not hormonal, and tired and my cars are working, I can think this all through rationly, and realize that I have 5 beautiful kids, a home to shelter me, plenty of food to eat (I'm certainly not starving), 2 cars, An amazing husband, a small home, but that means a small mortgage (which when asked I'd rather have a small home then a much bigger mortgage, my kids are going to move away someday and then the house will be just perfect for Todd and I), a wonderful city that I live in and the gospel in my life. Life really is good, but every once in while it gets over whelming and it seems unfair and horrible.

Enough said, gripping is done until the next time.

Mac Madness!!

SO my husband likes to create, yes big surprise to all of you out there! He is always drawing, making videos when he can, creating games, lego designs, and what ever else he can. The kids about a month ago asked if we could make a family game, and of course Todd jumped at the chance. We have started it, and I'm sure it will it will be a work in progress for a long time, but we made it so that we could play it as we go. It was a lot of fun to play. The kids made up all the little things we have to do when we land on a square. We laughed a lot and acted all kinds of silly.

So this is the full game board, we mad it out of one of those display boards that you use for science fair projects and such, so it is a good size. Each of the big squares are named after one of us, like Tanyda Bay, Toddingham Forest, etc..... The squares have the things we have to do, some examples are Run outside and touch the car, say 5 nice things to the person to the right of you, jump rope 5 times, do 3 summersaults, (you can see me doing that one can't you), there are a bunch of silly ones that I can't think of, as well as your typical go back, move forward, go to one of the big square and so on. But even those are different. You never move back just one or two spots it more like 77. It seems just as you think you might be progressing you go back. You aslo just don't get sent to jail we also have a "Nut House" in our game, after all the name is "Mac Madness". Which ends up being a great name because the game is all kinds of madness!

 Here is a couple of close ups of the start of the drawings that will cover the board. It will be a work of art.

So with a game board that is oversized, we couldn't just use regular sized dice so we made some of those as well. We had my dad cut some 4 x 4 blocks of wood, and Ki for a scout project helped make them into our game dice. We will eventually have 4 since some of our squares have to use more then 2 dice. We made them kind of dalmation looking, because while Ki was painting the black, some of it accidentally escaped the little circles and didn't want to come back off. So we just made sure that a lot more escaped to keep it company. Poor Ki he was so sad that he got paint everywhere, but know big deal who else has cool 4" X 4" dalmatian dice, yeah that's right, KNOW ONE!!!