Friday, July 27, 2012

London 2012!

We are such Olympic junkies around here!  We just love them!!  I cannot tell you how excited we have been for the London Summer Olympics to start!  We're the type of people that have them on all day everyday for the full 3 weeks! So in honor of the opening ceremonies, we planned a fun Olympics party with the Oveson's! Of course we started with traditional British food - Fish and Chips (chicken and chips for our allergy conscious folks) wrapped in newspaper.  It was so yummy!  And for dessert we had a British Trifle.  Yum!  What party is complete without yummy food?
 
While Mary and I were busy cooking, the boys played Olympics Charades, and built Olympics Lego things.  The only one I got a picture of was the High Jump, but they were all very clever!





Then of course we had to have some girly stuff:) Mary made this darling Olympic head band that we all had to model. And I found these awesome nail stickers!  
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As for the actual opening ceremonies.....I LOVED them!  The best part was the skit with the Queen and 007 :) So clever and I was amazed at what a good sport the Queen was!  I honestly was shocked that she did it!  I also loved the shout outs to the literary greats that have come out of the UK.  All in all it was an amazing night and I can't wait for the events to start!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Cousin Adventure #8 Mini Olympics

This is one of my favorite cousin adventures we did this summer.  We set up a mini cousin Olympics:) We had a popcorn torch relay (use sugar cones, fill with popcorn and relay to the bowl at the other end), balance beam, hurdles, discus, javelin, trampoline, archery AND of course a medal ceremony!  Funniest part of the day? Tyler and Matt getting into a fight over their hurdle performances:)  








Friday, July 20, 2012

Boys..Bike Jumps..& Big Owies!

It's not shocking to anyone that I have a house full of boys.  I have a house full of very active and adventurous boys.....lead by a father that fits that same description.  Lately they've been talking a lot about Mountain Biking.  There is a different level of skill needed for technical mtn biking and so Mike and the boys decided to build a little jump to practice jumping and landing said jumps.  I was wary but I figured Mike could either build a fairly safe one or the boys would create one on their own:) SO they spend tonight  going off of....and crashing off of said jump.

Ty had fun.  It took a few runs before he felt comfortable but he had a lot of fun!
 
 Matt got frustrated because it was easier for Ty (Ty has more weight to help control his bike).  Then he got upset when he crashed and got pretty hurt. But in true Matt form he got back up and kept doing it until he felt like he had it down:)


 
Isaac was very cautious.  Of course he also had to go first..... He crashed and totally skinned up his elbow.   He did it again (no quitters here), and he got to where he did it pretty well.....but it stressed me out because it would have been so much easier if he'd just ridden faster!  It cracks me up how CAUTIOUS he always is:)


 
Lucas is an insane dare devil.  He always is just on the verge of disaster and LOVES every second of it! Silly boy.


Nick wasn't to be left behind:)  He started out with Mikes help but before long he was doing it all on his own.  This one isn't ever going to be left behind!


Oh and Mike of course had fun too:)

Yay for Scout Camps and Brothers!

  This weekend was Tyler and Matt's very first scout camp together!  It's so great that they are both now old enough to be there!  This time they went up kinda by Snowbasin and they went somewhere that had Mtn biking trails:)  Dinner made Matt so sick that he was up all night and yet he still went biking with Mike and Tyler.  I LOVE my boys and I LOVE watching them grow up together.



Thursday, July 19, 2012

Hot August Nights....In July!



My Mom decided to surprise Don with tickets to Wicked.....problem is she got them for the same night as the Neil Diamond tickets that she also gave Don for Christmas:) SO she decided to surprise Mike and give him the tickets for his birthday.  So tonight Mike and I went to Rio Tinto and had a BLAST!  He sounded great and I probably enjoyed it more than Mike did! Thanks Mom!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Wolfman Isaac!

 Yay!  Isaac finally earned his Wolf!  He works so hard and tries so hard to do his best that it's just fun to watch him! I'm also thankful for the Jaspers and for how hard they worked to help him!


Monday, July 16, 2012

Wicked!

I have been SO excited!  Months ago my wonderful friend Emily called to see if we wanted to go see Wicked with her:)  She was able to get a great deal through another friend....and of course I said YES!  I hadn't ever seen it but MAN I sure wasn't disappointed! It was AMAZING!  And to make it even better I got a great date night with my hubby and my friends!

Cousin Adventure #7 Pioneer Museum

Since it's almost Pioneer Day Mary and I decided to take the kids to the Pioneer museum in downtown Salt Lake....which we didn't even know existed until we were getting ready to go!  We were going to go to the Church History Museum and then Mary heard about this one so we went to find it, and I'm SO glad we did!  It was amazing.  There was so much stuff in it!  They even have the wagon that Brigham Young rode into the valley in!!  Definitely one to repeat!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

R.A.C.E.R Century Ride!

The R.A.C.E.R century or the Roy Athletic Century Epic Ride....was my favorite ride we did this summer.  It was my favorite because I got to ride it and train for it with my boys and my hubby and my friends!  We started out with the idea that Tyler would ride it with us for sure and with the hope that Matt would be able to do it too.  Mike was a little worried that Matt's body wouldn't have the reserves it would need for that long of a distance.  We shouldn't have worried!  Tyler and Matt were amazing!  They started training with the plan that they would ride their mtn bikes with road slicks.  THEN Mike got hit by a car while riding his bike (Another post all together), and Danny got his parents to buy him a new road bike....those 2 events lead to Tyler getting Danny's old bike and we were able to use salvageable parts from Mike's bike and put those with a frame that Tom found in St.George to build one for Matt!  They were fast on their mountain bikes but on their road bikes they kicked my tail! Matt lead most of our rides and he and Ty competed on every hill we came to.  Some times Ty won.  Some times Matt won.  I never won LOL.  During the week that Mike and Tyler were at scout camp David Frandsen and I took Matt and Angelo and Logan and Sophie on a training ride that went from here to North Salt Lake and back.  It was supposed to be about 70 miles but when we got home it was only 63.  Matt was determined to make it 70....so he and I went and rode the river side trail until we finally ended up with 70.  The kid's a machine!

ANYWAY....back to the century ride:)

The night before the ride we had a fun dinner at our house with everyone that was riding and their families.  Yummy pasta, chicken and other yummy stuff.  Then it was off to bed and hopefully a good nights rest!

Our morning started out early again and Michelle came to take care of my kids.  She's a saint for sure!  She took them all day and even came and met us at one of the rest stops!  Of course her son was riding with us so I'm sure that helped:) Mike, Tyler, Matt, Logan and I rode our bikes to Roy High where the ride started.  We met Emily and David, Broc, Angelo and Joe Porter there.  We all posed for pictures, danced a little for Mikes video and got on our way!  It was such great weather!  For the middle of June I was really worried.  The heat isn't my favorite.  BUT instead we had rain clouds!  We flew to the first rest stop where Jamie and Allyson (Broc's mom) met us.  It's so fun to roll into a rest stop and see people you know! 


Then it was on to the hill climbing.  I wasn't to stressed about the climb because we had just done it the week before.  BUT it's really not my favorite thing:) Mike and Ty and Matt decided to burn up the hill.  They flew so fast!  David and Angelo and Logan were faster than me and Emily too BUT oh well we made it!

They we got to enjoy the down hill!  Phew!  Then it was out to Layton and out west by the lake.  We ate lunch (visited with Jamie and Amanda and the girls) and then rode into Kaysville and back to the rest stop by the lake and were met again by more cheering fans! It was so great to see the kids but OH Nick wasn't happy that I wasn't done.  Poor kid!  About this time I was.....tired.  We were at 85 miles and still so far from home!  And then the rain started.  At first it was just a sprinkle.  Then it was a pretty steady drizzle.  Then it was a DOWN POUR!  As I rode I could feel the water sloshing back and forth in my shoes.  I had to stop in Hooper and wipe the mascara off of my face because I couldn't see!  Bike computers got so wet they stopped working.  It was nuts....but it wasn't hot!  Everyone else on the ride took the SAG vehicles back.  Once again we wouldn't quit.  So we had a SAG vehicle in front leading the way ( we couldn't see the markings anymore) and a SAG vehicle behind us (so we didn't get hit) and we kept on a pedaling along.  Best SAG support every by the way!  We hit 100 miles and were  still in West Haven and I wanted to quit.  I'd finally proven to myself that I could do 100 miles and I was beat up!  Mike said I could but that he and the boys were going to finish.....well of course I couldn't let my boys see me quit so on we went.  We turned onto 1900w off of 3300s and I realized that we had to ride up that stinkin hill.  I wanted to cry.  I didn't but I wanted to.  I had to just put my head down and pedal.  It felt like one of the hardest and longest hills on the planet.  In reality it's not even categorized:) We made it though!  And then.....we had to ride up the hill from Sandridge to Roy High.  Again the biggest hill ever!  Not really but UGH!


The ride organizers felt so bad for us and also proud of us for finishing that they fed us the post ride meal even though we didn't pay for it.  That was one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten!
I'm so thankful to Mike and the Boys and my wonderful friends for this amazing ride and the memories that will last a life time!