Lions & Tigers & Tornadoes, O My!

Yes, tornadoes. Ever since Britton learned about tornadoes a few years ago he has been deathly afraid of them. Last night he came into our room at about 3 a.m. and said to Adam, "Sorry to wake you up in the night, Dad, but I'm just so scared of tornadoes right now." Apparently he had a dream about a tornado coming and woke up pretty scared. I remember when I grew up my parents used to say things like, "A tornado would never happen here because of the mountains." (Unfortunately that all went out the window when one touched down in downtown SLC in 1999, so we can't use that one) Britton was fine after a few minutes and went back to bed shortly thereafter. This morning I thought it was so cute when he woke up and kept apologizing for coming in and waking us up last night. "I'm sorry Dad, I was just so scared." It was thoughtful and heartfelt. Now, if we could just get Korinne to follow suit! She marches right in almost every night and tries her best to sneak into the bed without us waking up. As soon as we notice her she gets banished to the floor, but not without some struggle. She feels it is her duty to wake us up several times in the night and is too young to feel any remorse. Adam gets the brunt of all of this, of course, because the kids always go to his side of the bed when they need something during the night. I have actually learned to sleep through some of it.

Jenna has always been our best sleeper. Not only does she consistently sleep in well passed Britton and Korinne, but even if she does come into our room during the night (which is not often) she quietly makes a bed on the floor next to our bed and doesn't wake us up at all. How very thoughtful.

3 Saturdays

Britton came down the stairs this week and said, "Mom, Korinne is on the refrigerator." I replied with, "Don't you mean IN the refrigerator" and he said, "No, she's ON the refrigerator." This is what I found:

When I found her she just looked at me and said, "Hi Mom" like being on the fridge was the most normal thing she could be doing. What a crazy kid.

We felt like we had 3 Saturdays this week. Thursday was July 24th which felt like a Saturday because Adam had the day off and we played with cousins and had dinner at my parents house. Here are the cousins after the "Crazy Costume Show" they put on for us. (They got such a great response from the adults they put on 2 encore shows) Their creations included the Elvis Presley Horse, the Graduating Koala with prizes, and the fly swatting Asian lady. Clever, Clever.

Our 2nd Saturday was on Friday when we went to Logan to check on the house and then stopped by Lagoon on the drive home. It was our stake Lagoon day so while we didn't pay for admission we did use the free tickets they give you for the Tilt-a-Whirl, Carousel, Musik Express, and the Train. We even fit in a show! We were there for a few hours in the evening and only had to pay for parking. We were DEFINITELY the poster children for cheap Mormons everywhere. We had to laugh at ourselves as we ripped out the little tickets to give to the ride operators. But, the kids were happy and had fun so we were happy. We did decide, however, we would go back another time and actually pay to go on all of the rides.

Our 3rd Saturday was yesterday. We had an open house and made it more of a work day. I went with my parents and my sister-in-law Tricia to see the MoTab/Osmond's concert at the Conference Center last night. It was awesome. Adam said he was more than happy to chill with the kids at home. So, a good time was had by all.

I think I'm converted to having 3 Saturdays in a week.

Parades & Reunions

This morning our stake participated in the Days of '47 Youth Parade. The kids loved walking by the float and waving their flags and ribbon wands. Jenna was definitely in her element. She waved her wand and walked to the beat of the band in front of us. Britton's quote of the day, "This is the first parade I've ever been in. . .this is definitely going in the blog!" I'm pretty sure there were far more people in the parade than actually watching the parade, but the kids loved it and had a great time so mission accomplished.

We went straight to the Hoopes family reunion in Sunset after the parade ended. Adam's Grammie's maiden name was Hoopes so she and her 3 living sisters were all in attendance along with various members of their families. Grammie was the oldest of 8 children. Two brothers and two sisters have passed on, but here is Grammie (Melba) with her sisters Vieda, Zella and Velda.

Grammie was the oldest and the shortest of all her siblings. :) She is 93 years young and a thundering 4 ' 9"! The kids love to give her lots of hugs and kisses.

Korinne and Jenna share a bedroom and they each have a bed with a very comfortable mattress. Adam and I can't figure out why we bothered to purchase said mattresses when time and time again the girls choose to sleep on the floor! In fact, they love sleeping on the floor so much it is truly the exception and not the rule to find them actually in their beds. What is up with that?! I finally went in one night after they were asleep to take a picture of their usual nighttime behavior.

My back hurts just looking at this picture!

A sack of potatoes

As I was cooking dinner tonight Adam was teasing the kids by saying, "I'm going to throw you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes!" Britton and Jenna were laughing, but Korinne entered the scene a little late and only heard the "sack of potatoes" part. Dutifully she went to the pantry and grabbed a sack of potatoes and and using all of her strength dragged them to to me. Adam and I kind of laughed but just left it alone. When we sat down to eat Korinne got to the table and said, "Where are the potatoes?" She immediately jumped down and went and grabbed 2 raw potatoes out of the sack and put them on our plates. It came as quite a surprise to her when she found they were too hard to eat. Poor kid, she tried so hard. Now, if I can only get her to be this excited about potatoes when we're actually having them for dinner!

The BIG Oakcrest Reunion!

I went to Kamas last night with zero expectations. I figured even if I didn't see anyone I knew it would be a great date night for Adam and me. Well, yeah for 1995! We had quite a group show up!



It was so fun to see everyone and remember our experiences at camp. It has been a long time since I've thought or talked about Oakcrest so I was truly on Oakcrest overload! (Adam just laughed at me. He says he thinks its funny when he sees me "in the zone")

As if seeing a bunch of my fellow counselors wasn't enough I was able to find both of my counselors when I was a camper back in 1989 and 1990! I couldn't believe it!


Quackie with Thunder and me. Thunder (Mary) and I met as campers in Quackie's group in 1989 and both returned to be counselors the same year. Quackie was so overwhelmed to find out that we had BOTH returned and were counselors together she actually got a little teary eyed.

This is Sneaker and me.


Sneaker was my counselor in 1990 and we had actually kept in touch for quite awhile after camp. There was a group of 4 or 5 of us that served at her wedding a few years later. (Although I didn't remember that until we were talking afterwards.) She hadn't known I had returned to be a counselor and loved hearing about it. I think our volume level went up significantly when we started talking and laughing about all of the stuff we remembered about our time together at Oakcrest and the years that followed.

And last but not least, this is Elizabeth (Tiki).


She came up and introduced herself to me the same way I introduced myself to my counselors. She was one of my campers who years later returned to be a counselor and she wanted to thank me for being such a big influence in her life and told me that during her summer at Oakcrest she really tried to be the kind of counselor that I was to her.

It was just a fun, fun night for me. Its amazing to me the sphere of influence you have when you work at a place like Oakcrest. Its never ending and truly life changing. Its just a reminder of why I have such a special place in my heart for Oakcrest.

We had such a good time reconnecting that we've decided to have another reunion for just our year--and I think they put me in charge! :-)

The camp continues. Here I am in 1995 returning after a weekend:

The same location 13 years later:


Good Times.

Oakcrest Flashback

During the summer of 1995 I was a camp counselor at Oakcrest Girls Camp. Oakcrest is a LDS camp for 12 and 13 year old girls and is located in Kamas, UT. My camp name was VaVeeka or VaVa for short (yes, I really did have a nickname for my nickname) and my girls each week were called "The VaVa Girls" I LOVED Oakcrest. And I don't just mean a little, I mean I really loved it A LOT! Our goals were to send the girls home at the end of the week with a stronger testimony of the gospel and have an incredible amount of fun in the process. What's not to love? You must know, however, that I was always very serious:

NEVER got into any trouble:

Didn't have any fun with the other counselors:

And NEVER started any ABBA dancing parties in my cabin:

Ok, maybe just a few times. . .but it was always before the girls arrived in camp for the week, so it's all good.

It was fun when my little sis Libbie came up as a camper. She had a hard time not calling me by my real name but never did give it away.

It wasn't hard to teach her the ropes.

Why the Oakcrest Flashback??? This year Oakcrest is celebrating its 50th anniversary and they are inviting all past Oakcrest employees to a huge reunion this week. Oakcrest had such a huge influence on me when I was 12 and 13 and later on as a counselor, and has certainly holds a special place in my heart even after all of these years. I haven't set foot on Oakcrest soil since August 19, 1995 and I guess it will be kind of cool to go back and relive some of the memories. (Hey, every once in awhile I can actually be sentimental about some things). I've actually kept in touch with some of the other staff members and we are still friends today. Even though our conversations about camp stopped years ago, the friendships remain. (The only thing I haven't been able to do is call them by anything other than their camp names).

I'm not sure if anyone I know will be at the big reunion, but even if I'm the only one there it will be fun to show Adam camp and be there again.

Swimming Lessons

The kids finished a session of swimming lessons today and made a lot of progress. Last summer I had them do 2 sessions, one at the community pool and one with my Aunt Raylene who doesn't live close by but has been teaching swimming lessons for over 35 years and has a nice little swim school going in Sandy. This year when I told Britton about swimming lessons he had one question for me, "Mom, are we going to the big pool, or the place where they actually teach us to swim?" Uh, point taken. So we made the trek out to Sandy every day and the kids have loved it. Well, let me rephrase that, Britton and Jenna have loved it. Korinne has only tolerated it. She is just a bit too young for swimming lessons and didn't enjoy being left out. Every day she would make me get her dressed in her swimming suit and she would march right into swimming lessons right behind Britton and Jenna like this:

Then, while the kids were in the pool I would try and distract her with books or treats or toys.

As soon as the kids got out of the pool and would grab their towels, she would put her own towel over her and walk out to the car as if she had also participated in the swimming lesson.


No temper tantrums, no screaming, just a little bit of disappointment and a determination to be in the middle of it all anyway.

Fireworks Fiasco

For the first time ever Adam and I took the kids to a fireworks show last night. Every year until now we've just put them to bed at the normal time on July 4th and called it good. For some reason we thought it would be a great idea since they are getting older now, blah blah blah. Knowing we were "going to the park on the 4th of July" rookies we went early to try and find a good spot, etc. To make a long story much shorter we were in place by about 9:30 p.m. in a "great" spot just a baseball field away from where the fireworks were going off. Firework shows typically start at 10 p.m., right? Not so, my friends, not so. In West Jordan (which Britton affectionately renamed "Wait" Jordan) the firework show didn't begin until 10:50 p.m.!!! We were already questioning our decision to have the firework show experience but we figured we had waited this long we had better just stay. Once the show did finally begin it only took about about 60 sec. before a bright ember fell on Adam and surprised all of us as we hadn't seen it coming. That totally freaked Britton out. 2 full minutes into the show Korinne was crying and stooped behind Adam's back for cover, and Britton was hiding behind the stroller to protect himself from other such embers. Jenna seeing the panic in her siblings got really scared once the first of the "finale" type moments hit about 3 min. in. She started crying and running away, Britton was running away with her at this point, both of them with a look of sheer terror on their face and Korinne was crying and holding onto Adam. I ran after the kids and told Adam to start gathering up the blankets. It definitely wasn't the picturesque moment we were going for, and it must have been hilarious for the many onlookers sitting right by us. So, while tons of people were enjoying the beginning of a great firework show, we were rushing back to the car with 3 terrified children. Once we got back to the car they actually watched a bit more of the show and enjoyed it much more than they did when they were close to the action. As we started the car and started driving away Jenna simply said, "Well, that was sure odd." It made me laugh out loud, but pretty much summed up the entire experience. Once we got our exhausted kids in bed Adam shut our door and simply said, "Talk about your all time backfire!" Needless to say, we will NOT be attending anymore firework shows in the future.

We drove north today to check on our new house. I hadn't seen it since before they started framing and they are starting the sheet rock on Monday! It was fun to see the progress and see the plans come alive. I'm most excited about the fact that I will have a great view of the Logan Temple from my kitchen sink window. Sure beats looking at my back door neighbor who refuses to wear a shirt from March to October each year. I know he owns a few as he manages to find them during the winter--perhaps someone should let him in on a secret the rest of us have known for years. . . shirts do come with short sleeves and they are actually quite comfortable, even during the summer months! Ok, I sound bitter and I'm not. . .well. . .I guess I might be just a little. 5 years is a long time to look at the random tattoos of an old guy.

Happy 4th of July!

Every 4th of July we have a little routine. It all starts out with our awesome ward breakfast at 8 a.m. We show up wearing our patriotic colors and with just a small amount of planning we usually end up being one of the first families through the food line. This, of course, is an essential part of the plan since we have to leave the breakfast by 8:50 a.m. to get to the Murray Parade on time. Every year my family sits in the same location for the parade--right in front of the State Street entrance to Murray park where the big trees shade us until the very end. My parents go much earlier to secure the spot and we usually arrive just as the parade it getting there. Heather and her family were down so the cousins got to watch the parade together.

The Murray parade is a candy parade so the kids come prepared with bags for their loot. Britton is very skilled in the ways of getting parade candy. He waves at every single person in the parade and give them his best smile. He has learned that looking sweet and innocent and enthusiastic brings higher candy returns.
Once the candy has been thrown Britton is FAST! He darts around and usually ends up getting twice as much as anyone else (he is good about sharing, however). Aggressive? yes. Annoying? No. Somehow he can pull it off. He is so quiet about it you don't even realize what is happening.

Then there is Jenna. Jenna is not nearly as aggressive and doesn't get as much candy. She casually strolls to a piece of candy and picks it up but only if it is a) thrown directly at her, or b)no one else saw the candy so she doesn't have any competition. Jenna's favorite part of the parade is watching all of the beauty queens wave in their pretty dresses. Her reaction when a bunch of young baseball playing kids were using super soakers on the parade watchers? "They're going to make my hair lose its curl!!" No kidding.

Korinne wanted to be in the middle of the action. She didn't get a lot of candy, but she made sure she was right with the other kids.

They throw out a lot of salt water taffy at the Murray parade. If you know me you know that salt water taffy is one of the food groups in my book. Don't worry, I NEVER grab any taffy that could potentially go to a small child, but I have no problem "helping" my kids get rid of the taffy they have already accumulated in their own bags. They get so much of it it really becomes quite bothersome i.e. their bags get too heavy, etc. That's me, the "super helpful" Mom.

Good-bye Tif!

My sister Tiffany and her daughter Abigail have been in town for the last 3 weeks and flew back home this afternoon. I've gotten so used to being able to see her all of the time at my Mom's that it will take some time to readjust to the norm. We worked on my Mom's business stuff a ton while she was in town but still got to do some fun things with the kids.

Here is Korinne and Abigail tickling the ole' ivories. I'm pretty sure they were playing something by Beethoven.