What's More Embarrassing than Driving a "Grasshopper?"

Driving a "Grasshopper" that someone (or many someones) decorate for your birthday! Let me introduce you to "The GEO." I bought this cute little green Geo Metro, brand new off the lot, in 1993... about a month after my high school graduation! I loved that little car. It got KILLER gas mileage, and was just the right size for a single, college student. Fast forward 17 years... it's not quite as cute. It's been rear-ended, hit by an ambulance, hit and pushed out into the street by my dad's truck, hit on the side by my mom's car, pummeled with golf-ball-sized hail in Indiana. It's been the "rear-ender" in one accident (my first). The hood has flown off on the freeway, skidding across the street, then put in the back hatchback to bring home (ask Jared about THAT story). It's even been in a high-speed chase (no, Jared was NOT the one being chased... and I supposed that technically it was not high-speed, but we like to embellish the story a bit - another "ask Jared" story. He had the police convinced that their fleet should be made up of all Geos after he successfully followed a hit-and-run suspect while on the phone with 911. HEHE!!) It's been through a lot. And my poor, sweet husband is the one that has to drive it! Luckily he's only forced to drive it to the park-n-ride so he can get on a bus to SLC every day, and occasionally to mutual or the grocery store. It's "loved" by all... or should I say "made-fun-of" by all! Our kids have lovingly nicknamed it "the Grasshopper." So what do our sweet friends decide to do for Jared's birthday? Well, unfortunately a new car was not involved... but they did THIS:

Gotta love the sweet decals they added to the door:

Then my sweet sis-in-law went to the park and ride and added some streamers, and some balloons to the inside... Hayden and I had to drive over to check it out!

Needless to say, Jared was a little bit embarrassed. Our friends had come at 10pm the night before, so when Jared left at 5:30 am on his birthday he about DIED! He didn't have time to remove any of the decor (except the sweet hood ornament - a matchbox car), so he had to drive to the bus stop all decked out. He honked it's measly little horn as he drove past the home of the "decorators." He was surprised to find more from his sister when he arrived BACK at the park and ride later, and was dying when he had to drive it home in the light of day where EVERYONE could see him dragging milk jugs and rootbeer cans behind him. The road construction workers got quite a kick out of it ;)

Atleast he came home to his favorite cake: German Chocolate, and a sweet birthday sign. Welcome to the "even-closer-to-40" club, honey. Happy Birthday! We sure do love ya!!

Happy Birthday to...

... ME! Well, as my mom so kindly informed me, I am now closer to 40 than 30. Thanks. When my mom was 36 she had two teenagers - I was 16 and my sister was about to turn 14. Atleast I still have another month before I have an official teenager! It was a fun, busy day. Jared made me a delish breakfast - best. eggs. ever. Not even kidding. Then we headed off to Bryson's basketball game. He was so excited that he scored a basket for me on my birthday! Thanks little buddy. Then, about as quickly as we got home, we hurried and got ready to head to the BYU game. Some nice people in our ward gave us tickets. We took the boys with us, but the girls didn't really want to come.

We arrived a little bit early, and peeked over the gate to see the players warming up.

We grabbed some hot dogs for the boys, and Jared said "Hey, I'll be right back." The boys and I waited... and waited... and waited... then finally gave up on the wait and headed up to our seats. Apparently Jared ended up selling our extra tickets. It just took him a little longer than he had anticipated. The Cougars had already scored by the time we found eachother and our seats.

I love football games. I love the crispness in the air (however, today was WARM), I love the cheering crowds, the cheerleaders leading the cheering crowds, the funny mascots (my kids LOVE Cosmo), the band playing, all of it!

It had been a while since I had been to a BYU game, however, and I had forgotten what a beautiful view you have from the stadium.

My boys LOVE seeing Cosmo. They think he is super cool.

Here we all are, having a great time.

It wasn't long, however, before ONE of us (who shall remain nameless - but not pictureless) was B.O.R.E.D! We told him he wasn't allowed to ask how much longer... so he suffered in silence.

At half-time, we went for a walk. That helped "Mr. Bored" a little bit.

We got the boys some popcorn on the way back in, hoping it would keep them happy through the next little bit of the game. It helped.

Don't know if you noticed the scoreboard in that last picture. But here is what we were seeing through the majority of the game. Quarterback Jake Heaps with the ball in his hand one minute... then the refs with their hands up the next. Touchdown after touchdown, the Cougs dominated!!

A nice guy behind us offered to take a picture of Jared and Me (since I was NOT getting anything good using the "hold-the-camera-out-as-far-as-possible-and-snap" method. It was a great DAY (thought NOT a great HAIR day, so don't judge ;)

We left just before the end of the game, and grabbed a couple of pics with the "cougar."

The rest of my day consisted of a massage (thanks to my sweet sis-in-law who is a massage therapist) then dinner with Jared at the Olive Garden. Then back home to cake that Kaitlyn made. Thanks family for a wonderful day! Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the pretty flowers and earrings that Jared surprised me with that morning. He's so great :)

Fall Break

Let's step back in time a few weeks... I totally missed posting our Fall Break activities! Let me apologize in advance for not being able to click on the pictures to see them bigger. I've started using Flickr to post pics, because it is SO MUCH FASTER! But... then you can't click them. :( Fall break came so fast this year. It felt like school had just barely started, but at the same time we were needing a break badly! We almost went to Colorado to see Jared's Grandpa, who has lymphoma, but we decided it wasn't the best time. Everyone who kept coming to see him - the crowd of people coming in and out - really was wearing him out, so we decided to put the trip on hold. Thankfully, it sounds like they will be able to successfully treat it. The advantage he has, even at his age, is that he is in remarkable shape. He had been teaching aerobics a couple of times a week!! Jared had taken time off already, so we just decided to play!!

Having kids in soccer, sometimes we are given free tickets to soccer games. We happened to get tickets to the UVU Women's soccer game, and Jared took a few of the girls from his (Kaitlyn's) team! Eryn and her friend Daphne went along. They had a good time, and UVU won!

We are big BYU Basketball fans, and Jared was excited to see Jimmer Fredette there at the UVU Soccer game. We weren't sure why he was at UVU, but Jared took advantage of the opportunity and got a picture of him with Kaitlyn. Of course, K had NO CLUE who he was, but smiled, shook his hand and said "thanks!" We had to show her a picture of him in uniform playing basketball when she got home. Then she thought it was pretty cool ;)

On Friday, we headed up to Trafalga (which used to be called Liberty Land). Apparently the rest of the world decided it was a good day too. There were too many people!! So we went back on Monday, because our kids' school also had Monday off, while the rest of the Alpine School District did not! We went right when it opened, so we got to play Laser Tag as a family with NOBODY ELSE THERE! It was so fun! We usually get a family pass somewhere. We've done the Zoo, Thanksgiving Point... but this year, we saw an amazingly awesome deal for "The Pass of All Passes!" It includes Trafalga (both Orem and Lehi), Owls games, Flash games, and SEVEN PEAKS! It has been so fun, and definitely worth the money. The kids had a blast and saw a ton of their friends from school.

And of course, the airplanes!!

But MY FAVORITE ride is the roller coaster. It's not BIG, but it's fun!! Our kids love it! And sometimes when we go, there aren't a lot of people (like this day in particular) and they just let us stay on and ride it multiple times if there aren't any other people waiting in line!

There are fun things inside as well. We don't play the arcade games, because they aren't included in our passes, but there are a few rides inside, plus a climbing wall and LASER TAG!! So much fun :)

It used to be called Liberty Land, so there are fun patriotic facts, statues, and things like that all around. The mini-golf has the Liberty Bell, and some other fun Americana, and the roller coaster looks like Mount Rushmore :)

It was such a warm day, that we finally decided to let the kids do the bumper boats. They got completely SOAKED!

Gotta love the biggest kid, with his glasses down on the end of his nose because he couldn't see through the water spots!

After the bumper boats, they decided to race one more time. They almost froze, since they were soaking wet, but it was fun anyway!

It was fun to see all the families that we recognized from our school. Eryn loved having friends to hang out with (even if she looks bored out of her mind here! I just caught her at a "winding down" moment ;) )

We all had such a fun time. There are so many fun things to do there! We've only taken the kids to the Lehi one so far, but Jared and I went the next week to the Orem Trafalga and played "Black Light Golf" which was fun, and watched some fun little 3D Ride-type movies. I loved Fall Break. It was so fun just hanging out with Jared and the kids and just playing! It was hard to send them back to school. Now I'm just counting down to Thanksgiving Break! It will be here before we know it :)

HALLOWEEN!!

Halloween. I gotta say, this year wasn't like other years. We bought one - that's right ONE - pumpkin, and we DIDN'T EVEN CARVE IT!! I was feeling kinda loser-ish for not ever carving it. In fact, it's still sitting on the desk in the kitchen completely in tact. Maybe we'll turn it into a turkey or something ;) The good thing, is that I was MUCH less stressed this year. Maybe it's because I wasn't having to fashion some sort of vehicle out of a box this time. Whew!! It wasn't until quite late Saturday night, after everyone was out of their costumes, that I realized that I never got a picture of all four of my kids together in their costumes! Good thing I took a bunch of them individually... and I gotta say, they looked pretty cute!

Eryn decided (just a few days before) that she would be a gypsy. She had the head scarf, the blouse, and the skirt... and she knew she could borrow some jewelry from me. All she needed was a little something to wear around her waist. I found the cute coin trim at Walmart, sewed it to a super cheap piece of fabric, sloppily cut a piece of red, frayed fabric for a sash, and tied them around her waist.

Kaitlyn had decided quite a few weeks prior to the big day that she wanted to be a hippie. We get Family Fun magazine, and they always have such awesome Halloween costume ideas... and they had instructions for making wigs!! PERFECT! It was really a lot easier than I thought it would be, and actually kinda fun to make. I made her vest in about a 1/2 hour one night out of a brown piece of fleece... then cut some triangles from some sweet, psychadelic fabric to make her jeans into bell-bottoms, and there ya have it! (Plus we had this awesome flag shirt that is AUTHENTIC hippie! Thanks mom!)

B-man... sweet B: "Mom. I want to be Aang from Avatar for Halloween." When the movie Avatar came out, my children were so confused. It looked NOTHING like the cartoon series they had been watching for so long. Nickelodeon has had a series called "Avatar: The Last Airbender" for years, and it is my kiddos' favorite!! When they made a movie just recently, they obviously couldn't call it Avatar, since the one with the blue alien guys came out right before it (which is quite a good movie actually), so it was just called "The Last Airbender." Eryn is our only kid who has seen the movie... and she says the series is WAY BETTER. So anyway, after all that rambling, we made B a costume that looks like Aang. It only took 3 packages of Golden Yellow Rit Dye to finally get the almost-right colored sweats... then a cape made from red fleece, K's red soccer socks, and a bald cap with a blue arrow cut from craft foam. He felt like he was really Aang!!

I did a little photo-shopping to make his "bald head" look a little more real on this one ;)

The Haydster saw this firefighter costume at Target in September, and that was it!! Hooray for wanting to be something easy, instead of a backhoe or a train this year!! It really saved me a lot of grief ;) And he looked pretty dang cute.

As for trick-or-treating... Eryn's gotten too old to do that, but she WAS going to come along just for fun to be with us, and she ended up not feeling very well, so she stayed home and watched a movie. Jared stayed home to hand out candy. And I headed out with the other three - it was POURING rain, but we thought we could tough it out. We got across the street and decided to go back and get the van. They would run to a door, knock and get their candy, and come running back to the van to go to the next location. We got a little break for about 15 minutes, so they just walked from house to house while I hung out in the van, but then the rain came back. Poor kiddos - they were SOAKED! B's bald cap was getting all funky and stuck together, luckily our little fireman had his plastic hat and jacket, and the rain didn't bother him too much. Needless to say, our kids got WAY more candy than any kid ever needs!

After our neighborhood, we picked up our peeps who were still home, and headed over to see my Grandpa. Then it was off to Grama Cheryl and Papabob's house for dinner and fun. We watched Michael Jackson's thriller with all the cousins (only a few got a little scared) and headed home. Another Halloween come and gone... I still can't believe it. Welcome November!!!