"Joy in the journey"

President Monson's recent counsel to "find joy in the journey", is the inspiration for this posting. It seems like it's the little things in life that bring the most joy, such as carving a silly face in a pumpkin. Children seem to have that innate ability to find such joy. When is the last time any of us have ran around the house naked, with only our pants on our head? ( O.K. maybe that's not a good idea for some of us.) The video is a scene that I often come home to. Ty singing dancing queen or some other musical rendition at the top of his lungs. I hope I can do a better job finding joy in the journey. I just don't know if it will be with my pants on my head (:

Pumpkinaze

With Tracey gone on her semi-annual scrapbooking getaway, the kids and I decided to head down the road to the pumpkinaze. We all had a good time going down the slide and getting dirty. We even made it through the corn-maze without too much trouble. The kids favorite part was the slide. I didn't think that they would ever tire of going down it, but they finally had their fill. The best part was that Ty was free because he is still 3 yrs. old. I guess that wasn't the best part, it was just being able to spend some time together. I'm already looking forward to next year (other than I will have to pay for Ty to get in). Too bad they can't stay little forever, I guess that is why we always need to enjoy the time we get when we get it.

Looking for buried treasure!

Mountain Man Rendezvous

Today was Tristyn's big 4th grade mountain man rendezvous. She's been anticipating this for weeks. We were a little worried because just yesterday she had a high fever of 104.9! She had been sick for a few days, so we took her to Dr. Watts and got some antibiotics for strep, which he thought she must have. We lubed her up on meds and hoped for the best. Thankfully she felt great the whole day. It was a lot of fun for both of us, as I was glad I was able to be there with her. We left the school first thing in the morning, and walked 3 miles or so to the rendezvous point. They had all kinds of things for the kids to do and learn about. They had a b.b. gun shoot, and taught them how to shoot a bow and arrow (Tristyn hit the target on both, and a bulls eye on the b.b. gun shoot)! They were able to go for a canoe ride, and pan for gold(Tristyn's favorite, she's always loved bling-bling). They learned about trapping animals, and all about the pioneers. Some folks from the nature center brought some birds of prey for the kids to see and learn about. Overall it seemed to be a lot of fun for everyone involved. Around two o'clock we took the hour trek back to the school and then headed home. Sure made you appreciate having a car. It was a lot of fun spending the day with her. One man asked her if she was a Comanche, Apache, Blackfoot....? Tristyn responded "no, I'm a Ferguson"! I got a good laugh out of that.

Sharp shooter Tristyn(must have got it from Grandpa Fred).

Tristyn with her teacher Mrs. Holmes(Sacajawea)

open wide

We all had dentist appointments yesterday, but for Ty it was his first ever. The hygienist was so cute with him and made everything fun. He sat in the chair like a big boy and did everything she asked him to do. His favorite part was playing with the mouth sucker thing that sucks all of your spit away. I think we need to get one of those for the house, maybe then he would sit still while we brushed his teeth. We all made it out of there with no cavities thankfully. Our hygienist was so thorough on cleaning I think she scraped off two or three layers of tooth enamel, but other than that we'll chalk it up as a successful visit.

Mom's Halloween dinner '08

Mom's annual Halloween dinner has come and gone. This is something we all look forward to every year. The kids all come up with their costumes and get to hang out with their cousins. We had everyone here this year except Jason (Cindy's husband)who we missed, he had school and work. The way it works is Mom gives you a menu and from that you have to pick your three courses. You only get one course served at a time, afterwich all of it is removed. So you usually end up eating one or two courses without any silverware, as that is part of the course. If you're a good guesser you can split up your silverware and get one with each course, but that rarely happens. I usually end up with my dessert first, or some odd combination. Mom and Dad go to a lot of work preparing and serving all of us dinner. It sure is a lot of fun to get together with everybody. The kids all looked great in their costumes! Since Ty was Scooby-Doo this year, Tracey thought it would be fun for me to be Shaggy(yes I need a haircut but that's why they call him Shaggy), so she found me a costume. Tristyn is a beautiful princess (I told her she didn't need a costume for that since she was a princess anyway, but she didn't buy it). Thanks Mom and Dad for all you do to make fun memories and traditions such as these.

The kids filling out their menus.

Time well wasted

Saturday Tracey had the unfortunate "opportunity" to have an all day pharmacy training, so that meant a good opportunity for Dad to spend some time with the kids. Tristyn had her friend Avery spend the night, so she got to come along as well. First we went and braved the cold to watch Tristyn play in her soccer game, then we had the rest of the day to waste time. We were able to get in a mean game of bowling, followed by an afternoon of doing nothing. I considered it time well wasted. It was fun to hang with the kids and not worry about a to-do list. We felt bad that Tracey was stuck in classes all day and couldn't be with us. Grandpa Fred came over and helped us top off the day watching BYU win their football game. Nothing like a day of good well wasted time!

Friday Night lights

Most guys when they think of "Friday night lights", they think of football. Well this is only the case half of the time. Tracey was good enough to go to the BYU football game with me last Friday night so I thought it would be only fair to accompany her to her version of "Friday night lights", which happened to be a Reba McEntire- Kelly Clarkson concert. She had been hinting about how fun that would be, so I surprised her with tickets. She has always loved Reba (if you look closely in the picture that is her on the front row swinging a bra). I went for the people watching experience. There were people from every walk of life (some of which was a painful walk). The two guy "friends" that sat next to us was an extra special treat. Overall I will have to admit it was a fun evening, although I think I still prefer the guy version of "Friday night lights"( however I can't wait to wear my new Kelly Clarkson t-shirt).

(Sidenote: BYU 21 UNM 3)

Basketball time

We recently had a basketball hoop installed in the back yard. The kids have loved it so far. It provides a great place to ride scooters and bikes, and even shoot some hoop every now and again. Dad looks forward to lots of fun times with the kids, shooting hoop and creating some memories. Those are some of my favorite memories, shooting hoop next door at the neighbors with my Dad or friends in the neighborhood. We hope to get many fun hours of use out of the new hoop. (Plus it makes you feel really good lowering the hoop enough to dunk on your kids).

Sweet memories!

Today was picture day for Tristyn! She went to bed with curlers in and woke up with a frizz! After a little drama from combing it out, Tracey made it look beautiful as always. Now I just got to worry about the boys I'll have to chase off. She's our little princess. After Tracey got her all beautiful, and we dropped her off, I took Ty to pre-school. As we got out of the car he saw this little girl in his class and ran over to her. He was so excited! Her name is Montana, and Ty calls her "Hannah Montana". He ran over and held her hand and they walked into school together all giggling, and flirting(Is flirting possible in pre-school?). I was so glad I had the camera with me. I could hardly take the pictures I was laughing so hard. We're blessed to have these little ones in our life, they bring so much joy! They just have a way of loving life that is so refreshing. I am grateful for such beautiful children!

Raspberry beret

Our ward's time to volunteer at the D.I. came around again, so I got volunteered by Terry (paybacks for volunteering him last year). Truthfully it's a lot of fun helping out, as few experiences can provide as much fun for free. I was assigned the dock where we would unload the cars that pulled up with donations. After carefully reading the work contract I got to work. I think we saw everything come through there except a raspberry beret (which I had my eye out for). I got to hear all about Merrells plans to open up a 30 different sauce hot wing restaraunt. Dave and I spent some quality time looking at the magic eye book that came through (I wish Dad had been there, he's the best at teaching people how to see those). I saw lots of people I knew dropping off donations, garnering comments like "oh, I didn't know you worked here..." My favorite was when Dave (magic eye book) picked up a bandana that fell out of one of the bags, said "I've been wanting one of these", blew his nose in it, and stuck it in his pocket. All joking aside it's a neat program that they have, and a fun opportunity to be of service. I even got all Tracey's christmas shopping done (just kidding honey). I'm already looking forward to next year!

(sidnenote: BYU 34 USU 14)