Lagoon!

This year we got season passes for Lagoon. The kids have already been several times but I hadn't gone yet. Yesterday I decided it was time for me to go. Today I feel like I was in a car accident. I forget I'm not as young as I think I am.

Here we are getting ready to go on Wicked. 

Here we are on Wicked, we are in the back row.

For those that don't know what Wicked is, it's this ride. It starts out by shooting you right out that silver tube straight up and then straight back down.

It's a little nuts but at least it's a quick ride.

I promise I will not sit on this fence. I mean seriously, why do they even have to post this? For the record it is the only fence I saw this type of sign on. 

Now let's go back in time. Why? Because I love this story and I love looking at my kids when they were little. In August 2006 my mom and I took the kids to Lagoon. Andrew got bitten by wasps and to make him feel better we let him play one of the games and he won the grand prize. Here is a scrapbook page I made four years ago about it. 

How freaking cute are they? 

Anyway, this year Emma and I were on a ride together that Andrew didn't want to go on. While we were on the ride my mom and Andrew waited for us in the shade. While they were sitting there they saw one of the kids that run the carnival games holding a monkey in a banana. They both thought it was so cute. It was the same game that Andrew had won four years earlier. My mom decided to get them a mess of balls let them each have a try and guess what....Andrew won again! 

It wasn't the grand prize this time (thank goodness, those things are HUGE!) but it was the large prize. 

He was so excited with his prize but Emma was pretty sad that she didn't win one. I'm a sucker when it come to a sad child so I paid for another mess of balls and guess what...

Andrew won a small prize (the banana) and another large prize. He knew that he was playing for Emma so she got a monkey too. They both were so happy with their toys. 

We drove to my parent's house the night before we were going to Lagoon. On the way up Emma asked if I would go on the Samurai with her. I didn't know what it was but I'm pretty good with any ride so I said sure. Once I got there and watched how it worked I was a bit nervous. 

The whole thing lifts up and rotates around. While you around each bar rotates. You go forward, backward, upside down and right side up. It's crazy. 

You can be upside down for what seems like a long time.

The ride lasts almost two minutes. 

We survived but I think it is why I am sore today. After that we took things a lot easier. 

This is honestly like a dream come true for me. I love Icee's. The sad thing is I wasn't in the mood. Maybe next time. 

We all had a lot of fun and the kids got along great. I'm glad we got to go before school starts. 

I recently finished a few books...

and enjoyed them all. A while back I blogged about the books I had that I was planning on reading. 

I finished Angels and Demons and really liked it. I got my mom to read the DaVinci Code first then gave her our copy of Angels and Demons that we picked up at Powell's in Portland. One of these days I will read the Lost Symbol but I needed some fluff in-between.

I finished Late Night Talking a while ago. I thought it was cute and it even made me a little weepy at the end. The main character hosts a late night talk show on the radio where she talks about people and their bad manners. She is pretty dang judgmental and truth be told annoying at times. She is out to change people one by one but she eventually realizes that maybe she is the one that needs to change. This is a break from my normal murder mystery genre and I didn't totally love it (as I said some of the characters annoyed me) but I am glad I read it. 

I had also mentioned Designer Knockoff in my previous post. The first book took a while for me to get into but it was good enough that I was willing to try book two. I found Designer Knockoff to be much more entertaining. I knew the characters, I knew their personalities and the story picked up much faster this time around. 

In this book the main character, Lacey, finds herself trying to figure out the link between two mysterious disappearances. It was a quick and easy read with fun, over the top characters. 

                               

Next in the series is Hostile Makeover. I plan to get it one of these days so I have it on hand when I need it. I think there are seven books in the series. Perfect!

         

The same blog that gave good reviews to Late Night Talking recently reviews Insatiable by Meg Cabot. (I want to read it really bad but I haven't ordered it yet.) In her review she mentioned the book Size 12 is Not Fat. Now that is a title I can get behind since I am indeed a size 12.(I'm not going to touch whether or not I am fat.) 

I knew nothing about this book but I didn't care. I wanted to read it. I ordered it from Amazon Marketplace so I could take it to Chicago but it didn't make it in time. (I was so sad. I slowed down my reading pace and made Designer Knockoff  last the whole week of vacation.) When I got home I couldn't wait to start it but I put it off while I was doing laundry and all the things you do when you get home from vacation. 

Finally I picked it up. This was just a couple of days ago. It had me grinning from page one. I loved the way this is written. It's like a girlfriend is telling you a story over the phone. The writing is so laid back, not prim and proper at all. It was funny and clever and imagine my delight when someone ends up dead!!! I couldn't believe it. It was a murder mystery! I was so excited. I finished this book in no time and I can not wait to read all the other books by Meg Cabot. The next book in the series is called Size 14 is Not Fat Either LOL! The one after that is Big Boned. I can't wait.

                                                  

I also have my mom's copy of Water for Elephants. I took it to Chicago as a back up if I finished my other book but didn't really want to read it. I'm afraid I'll cry or it will make me sad. I don't want to read to feel sad, I want to escape and have fun. She wants me to read it, so I'm still hanging on to it. I feel like I need to read it so I can return it but I really don't want to! I'm still in a fluffy mood.

                                                        

Paul recently bought me Sizzling Sixteen so I have that to look forward to also. 

                                                         

American Fork Canyon ~ Take Two

If you will remember, the last time we went to the canyon I forgot....just about everything. We didn't have plates, utensils, or buns among other things. 

This time I obviously did better. See, they have plates, sides to eat and smiles!

I did better this time because I had made a packing list after the last time, you know, after I had screwed up. It had just about everything on it that we need to take with us when we go. (I had forgotten to put ketchup and mustard on the list but Paul added that before we left. Whew!)

FYI~We were suppose to go on Wednesday night but Paul was sick and there were storms so we stayed home and had hot cereal, eggs, bacon and toast. We were going to try the next night but it was a repeat of the night before only we ate some different crappy food for dinner. We finally made it up on Friday. Paul still isn't feeling well but since I did 95% of the work he figured we could go anyway. He actually felt better in the cooler fresh air.

See that fire in the back ground? There was something sinister going on there. I'm not even kidding. They had garbage bag after garbage bag and box after box of papers, documents and scrapbooks. They were wearing gloves, the kind you wear when you handle old papers, and they were BURNING everything. The whole time we were there they were leafing through books gently and then they would TEAR them apart and throw them on the fire! It was so hard not to stare LOL!

While we were getting the food out and the fire hot the kids played in the water and burned things. 

He's putting on a brave face and trying to be happy but he just doesn't feel well.

Hey Andrew, don't play with your food. The kid can't eat Bugles without making claws out of them.

I finished my first dog and went right back for seconds. 

I wasn't the only one who had seconds so there. (But I Was the first since I eat freakishly fast.)

We were pretty excited tonight about the s'mores. We decided to jump on the Giant Marshmallow bandwagon. The marshmallows have been taking the blogging world by storm. I first read about them here. I showed Paul and he was like "we have to have those!" Then Emily posted about them here and then they showed up again here. They kept popping up on my Google reader taunting me, but it wasn't until I read this post that I knew where to get them. WinCo! After Emma's appointment we headed to WinCo and sure enough they had the giant marshmallows. (WinCo is our try someplace new for August unless we add something more interesting later.)

Can you tell how big these are?

Andrew kept torching his. 

I did too but I did it intentionally.

He was making a giant mess but having so much fun!

I thought I would still use two marshmallows but then quickly realized that was totally unnecessary. 

One was plenty. 

It was hard not to get messy. 

After dessert it rained. It only lasted for about a minute or so but a lot of water fell in that time.

We had to re-stoke the fire.

The kids went back into the water and Andrew fell in. They both got partially wet but he was soaked through on the bottom half. We got him changed and then discouraged any more water play since it was getting dark and cooling off.

Emma suggested a few round of charades. This is her being a fairy.

We had fun playing charades for quite a while. Emma started getting cold in her wet pants so we decided to pack things up.

We got out of there right in time. It started to sprinkle again. It never fully rained but we were glad we didn't have to carry everything back to the car in the sprinkles. Since this time was such a success I am thinking we have a few more trips in us before the end of the season. At least I hope we do. I love it up there. 

Yesterday was NUTS!!!

(This is not my photo. Thank you Google images.)

At 5:15 am on Wednesday morning I woke up to severe thunder and lightning. The storm was right over our house. (Not always, but usually, the lightning storms are on the west side of the lake.) There was so much lightning. It was like someone was switching the light in our room off and on. Each strike of lightning was immediately followed by an intense crash of thunder. I peeked out my bedroom window and watched the lightning bolts strike the hills behind our house. It was quite the show! It didn't take long (maybe five minutes) before everyone was up. Paul and I started scurrying around the house turning off the computers and unplugging things. I kept looking out the windows watching the rain, wind and lightning. It was insane. Within 20-30 minutes the storm had moved south and we had to work to settle down and fall back asleep. 

Apparently I managed because Andrew brought in my cell phone at 9:15 am saying that it had just woke him up. I looked fuzzy eyed at who had called. It was Paul. I texted him asking what he needed. It took a few minutes but he texted back asking if I remembered Emma's doctor's appointment. 

CRAP! 

No, I hadn't. Her appointment was at 9:40 and if I obeyed the traffic laws it takes 10 minutes to get to the doctor's office. I shot out of bed and looked in the mirror. Skipping my shower was not an option. I yelled down the hall to Emma to get up and get dressed. I don't think she had a clue what was going on but she obeyed. I showered as fast as I could. We were all dressed and out the door by 9:35 but I had wet ponytail hair and no make-up. I miraculously managed to get to the office only two minutes late.

Emma is in the 50th percentile for weight

and the 75th percentile for height (She's 5 feet 1.5 inches)

Since she had *just* gotten up and had already used the potty so she needed to drink a juice box to help her muster up a "sample" LOL! 

She was so nervous about getting her shots. I thought I was going to have to wrestle her to the ground right there in the office. Finally she settled down and got them. She did great. By that evening she looked like this. I don't think she looks like she is suffering do you? Her arm is sore today and she still thinks there is "just something wrong with sticking a needle in an arm." I have to agree. 

After we were done we went grocery shopping and got some lunch. We weren't done with the storms though. We got rained on again that afternoon and then again in the evening. It would only rain really hard for about 10 minutes.  Each time there was major water pooling in the roads. (I don't want to say flooding since it went away as quickly as it came and I don't think it caused any damage in our area. Thank goodness.) 

This was right as the rain was starting to slow down.

 The water was just rushing right down the hill like a small stream. It had started to recede by the time I got my camera.

The kids thought it was pretty great.

It was an intense 24 hours. Mother Nature was having a good time. The wonderful news is our house finally cooled down and we didn't have any damage from the storms. We woke up this morning to 65 degrees on the thermostat. It felt so nice after being as hot as we've been. 

Date Night!

One of my most favorite places on the planet is the Sundance Resort. Somehow I missed the fact that they had annual summer theater performances. I knew they hosted concerts, but not shows. A few weeks ago my in-laws asked if Paul and I would like their tickets since they would be out of town for the opening night of Big River. We would be going as guests of Lexus. Of course I answered with an excited YES! 

The night started with a buffet barbecue dinner in that amazing room right by the pond where they have wedding receptions and important gatherings. I have always wanted to be part of a private event at Sundance and finally I was!!! It was so cool. I wanted to take a million pictures but thought better of it.

After we finished eating our delicious grilled chicken sandwiches, baked beans, watermelon, pasta salad and dessert we lined up for the tractor to take us up to the outdoor theater. It was a total kick riding on a tractor up the side of a mountain.

Sundance does everything to the nines. They had a bluegrass group playing as we arrived.

Here are a couple of glimpses of the set. We were asked not to take pictures during the performance, which I totally understand, but it would have been so easy to do. I have to admit I was really tempted since we were seated so close. I could have gotten some great shots before the sun went down. Oh well.

Paul and I really enjoyed ourselves. The play was great. I knew nothing about it going in but ended up really enjoying it. It is based on the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  It was funny and touching and of course the actors were wonderful.

 

The atmosphere could not be beat. I got to wear jeans and a light sweater. It actually felt cool up there. I haven't felt cool for months. I was loving life. After the show was over Paul and I opted to walk down rather than ride the tractor. We got to hold hands in the dark under the stars. It was the perfect evening. We've asked David and Nancy to make sure they are out of town next year so we can go again. LOL! I'm already excited to see what show they choose for next year.