Splash Pad - Wednesday, July 31, 2013

All year Tremonton has been asking for donations and support to make a splash pad here in Tremonton.  This is the picture they have been using to entice us.  The post with this picture attached to it said, "Would you like to see this in Tremonton?  Of course you would!  Please come to our awesome fundraiser at the site of the future splash pad, library park on tremont Street!"

 Finally the splash pad is finished!  Above is what they said they were building.  Below is what they actually built.

Kind of poopy, huh!?!  But still fun.  Just a big disappointment. I just think they should have advertised that they were making a cement slab with water shooting out of it.
So we made plans with Hannah Rizzuto to meet at the splash pad at 1:00pm.

Side note about how Hannah and I know eachother :  Hannah is Laurie Fife's step daughter.  She recently moved into the Fife's house (across the street from our old house on Tremont Street).  I met Hannah when we worked together at Little Brigham Aggies.  I was working there, when the Fife's moved in.  Hannah and I were talking one night and we realized that her dad and his wife were my new neighbors.  It was a funny coincidence.  I became good friends with Laurie Fife (married to Hannah's dad).  Laurie passed away unexpectedly in November last year.  So it is really weird to go over to her house and hang out with Hannah (who is living their now).  All of Laurie's furniture is still there.  The house looks pretty much the same as it did the last time I was over there.  It makes me sad.  I miss Laurie.  She was a lot of fun.  It makes me sad to see her family without her.  Her family is doing okay.  Tom has met someone else and they will be getting married soon.  They are renting another house in the same neighborhood.  That way the kids can go to the same school and that will make things easier on them.  I'm happy that tom found someone else.  It will be good for his kids to have a mom around.

So, we planned to meet Hannah.  The kids love to play with her kids.  Hannah texted me shortly after we made our plans, that she just got invited by someone else to meet at the splash pad.  She still planned to meet us, but let me know the other people would be there.
The kids had a lot of fun at the splash pad.  We ended up seeing a ton of people that we knew there.  We also ended up running into Tiffiny duke, who we had plans to meet there tomorrow.  So that was kind of funny.  Tiffiny and I still decided to keep our plans for tomorrow, even though we were there at the same time today.
Seeing people from our old neighborhood on Tremont street brings back a lot of hurt feelings.  I wish I cold let things go a little easier, but some of those people over there were absolutely horrible to us.  That put a little damper on the day, but besides that we had fun.

 Brinley was so excited to see her friend, Bethany at the splash pad.  They have been trying to arrange a play date for a few weeks now.  I'm glad they got to play for a little while.  Bethany is going on a big vacation to California for the rest of the summer, so they won't get to see each other again until school starts.

Visiting Friends in Salt Lake - Monday, July 29, 2013

I took to long to get back to writing about this.  Now I can't remember our visit with friends in Salt Lake.  I feel bad, that I didn't get back to updating my blog sooner.  But here are some cute pictures of my little Brinley.  She dressed like Belle and wanted me to take pictures of her with her little Belle doll.

Tremonton City Days - Saturday, July 27, 2013

We love Tremonton City Days.  Our favorite things are the bounce houses, the fun contests, and the fireworks.  This time we arranged for some friends to meet us there.  When we first got there, we met up with the Dukes.  Later in the day, the Rizzutos met us there.  Alissa had been practicing for the hula hoop contest. But she ended up dropping it when they asked them to hop back and forth on one foot.  None of the kids ever really try to win the hotdog eating contest, we pretty much just take advantage of the contest and use it as a way to get a free lunch.  Parker's friend, Jeshua, won the hot dog eating contest.  After the hotdog eating contest, they have the soda jug.  The kids don't really try at that one either.  They just enjoy their free soda.  The pie eating contest is my least favorite, because they make everybody share pies.  So, there are 4 people to one pie.  So, they have to make sure they have 4 people in order to enter.  I just don't like pies and I think it's yucky to share germs.  So, I never enter, but Alissa loves pies and she always enters.  This year her team was, Olivia and Audrey Rizzuto, and Jeshua's brother (I can't think of his name right now).  They did good, but they didn't win.  Alissa always just goes for it.  She always ends up getting super messy.  They make them eat the pie with their hands behind their backs, so they are only using their mouths.  This year, I entered the hula hoop contest, because my friend, Tifini, wanted to do it.  I knew I probably wouldn't be very good at it.  I was surprised though, at how terrible I was.  The good thing was, that pretty much every body in my age group was just as bad.  It was really funny.  They said, "Go."  and a second later, everybody but one lady had dropped their hula hoops.  It was funny.
Another thing the kids loved was the dunk tank.  Alissa did it a few times and she loved it.  She wanted to do it more, but we needed to leave.  I told her she could do it one more time.  so she ran over and waited in line.  Right as it got to be here turn, she got a really bad bloody nose.  She gets bloody noses a lot.  She was really frustrated.  We had to hurry to the bathroom so she could get cleaned up and so that she could gather enough toilet paper to get her home with out bleeding all over the truck.  That was a bummer to end our fun that way.

 Brinley was too afraid to enter the hula hoop contest.  This is her age group, but she refused, even though her friend, Taylor went up, she was still too scared.  So, these pictures are of Brinley's friend, Taylor Duke.

 Alissa's age group in the hula hoop contest.

 The hotdog eating contest.  They are sitting with Alissa's friend, Riley Duke.

Pie eating contest

 Time for the soda chug.

 Here's the dunk tank Alissa loved.

Playing at Jeanne Steven's Park - Thursday, July 25, 2013

Every Thursday we have our play date with the Duke's.  Today we went to Jeanne Steven's Park to play.  Also, we've been babysitting Samantha every Thursday.  So, she was also at the park with us.  When we got out to play, the kids noticed some water in the rocks.  They had a lot of fun playing in the rocks and water.

Color Guard and Visit with Family - July 23rd and 24th

The girls did the mini colorguard again this year.  Usually, Brinley is too scared and she refuses to do it, but not this year.  This year she was brave and participated.  She ended up loving it.  She definitely wants to do this again.  So, on the 23rd they had their mini colorguard camp, where the girls got their shirts and they learned the routine that they will be doing in the parade tomorrow.  At the end of camp, the parents get to come and watch the kids perform their dance.  This year, they let the older girls that wanted to try, learn how to use the rifle.  Alissa was excited to try, so she got to be in a small group (the ones who were brave enough to try) and perform what they learned with the rifle.  Alissa  loved it!  She loves the colorguard and can't wait until she is old enough to actually be in the colorguard.

 Alissa's friend, Erin, always does the mini color guard camp with Alissa.  They both really love it.

Posing with the color guard girls that taught them.

 Every pioneer day, there is a parade in Bear River City.  That's the parade that the mini colorguard gets to march in.  My dad, Kari, and her kids came to spend the day with us.  It was nice to have company over.  Kiara is in the colorguard in her school, so she was excited to see Alissa and Brinley marching in the parade.  We sat with the Beverleys and two other families from our ward.  Tammy Beverley was surprised at how many people I knew there.  A lot of people that I knew, just happened to walk by.  I told her the only reason I knew so many people is because we've moved around so much lately.  I hadn't really thought about it, but we really have met a lot of people over the last few years.

After the parade, we went back home and sat around in the living room relaxing and visiting with Kari and my dad.  Kari wanted to go out adventuring, but we couldn't really come up with anything close and inexpensive that we could do.  Also, Roger had to work and we didn't have a lot of time to do anything.  Kari wanted to check out the Bear River, so me and her drove over to the river to see if it was a place that we might want to play.  It wasn't too inviting, so we just headed back home.  We visited a little longer, then they headed back home.

Annoying Ants - July 21, 2013

We have an ant problem.  I've never experienced this before.  Ants are horrible!  I keep trying different things and nothing has worked yet.  I vacuum the living room and the kitchen everyday and at least once a week I break the couch apart and move it so I can vacuum underneath it.  Our floor is cleaner than ever, yet the ants are still here.  It's driving me nuts!

Mantua Reservoir - Thursday, July 18, 2013

We invited friends to meet us and go swimming at the lake in Mantua.  We had fun the other times we came and we were so surprised at ourselves for not realizing that there was a fun lake so close by us.  The kids loved it and were so excited to have so many friends come swimming with them.  After swimming for about an hour, somebody noticed a sign warning people that they are swimming at their own risk and beware of getting swimmers itch.  I'd never heard of that before, but I figured that is probably why this lake isn't too busy and probably why most people don't swim here and I hadn't heard of people swimming in it before.  I felt a little embarrassed for inviting so many people to come and play in this lake where people get swimmers itch.  I had no idea.  It wasn't as fun after we saw that sign.  We didn't stay for too much longer after that.  But we all still had fun.
There were someother people there who had a big fun island toy that they let the kids play on.

Lava Hot Springs and news about my dad - Monday, July 15, 2013

On Saturday, July 13th, my dad had a heart attack.  Linda called me that night after all the kids had gone to bed.  She said that dad had a heart attack and he's in a hospital in Alaska.  They kept him in the ICU overnight.  In the morning, they ran some test to see how much damage was done.  They said that he is not too bad, so they will let him go home and go to a hospital in Utah to be treated.  They said that he is very lucky to be alive.  Especially considering that he waited so long to come to the hospital.  When I got a chance to talk to him, he told me about what had happened.  He woke up feeling kind of funny that day.  He was spending the summer in Alaska, helping Lonnie and Cy on their mine.  He just wasn't feeling right.  He felt a little dizzy and nauseous.  He told Lonnie and Cy that he wasn't feeling well and they told him to take time off and relax until he felt better.  He was laying in his bad and he could tell something just wasn't right with his heart and he thought he might be having a heart attack or something.  While he was laying there, trying to decide what to do, his heart made a big thump (or something like that - I'm having a hard time remembering all of the details of the story).  After that he started to feel better.  He told Lonnie and Cy about what he was feeling and they thought that he should go see a Dr.  Someone was planning to go in to town the next day and they told him to go with and see a Dr.  That's where he found out he had a heart attack.  I'm going to have to call and have my dad tell me the story again, because the details are so fuzzy in my mind right now.  I'm pretty sure I'm not telling it right.  The good news is that he is okay.

We went to Lava Hot Springs to play and get our minds off the worrying about my dad.  He is still in Alaska, so there isn't much we can do for him.  We had fun playing here.  I got a little carried away taking pictures this time.  I took way too many pictures.  When we went inside to play in the kiddie area, Alissa and Brinley made friends.  I don't know their friends names, but I'm just telling you to explain who the other girls in the pictures are.