Lake Powell

We let the kids go to a whole week of school before we pulled them out again for a week of fun in the sun. I'm not sure we made a very good impression with our teachers, but oh well.

I feel that this year might be the beginning of a relaxing week at Lake Powell again. My kids are all reaching the point of independence. Of course I still watched them, but I didn't have to stress about their every move. I was even able to leave to go the bathroom or wash my hair a few times without worrying about them drowning while I was gone. :)

The weather this year seemed to be about 10 degrees hotter then usual. Which is great when you are in the water, but when you get 24 people in a room with crappy air conditioning it is another story. After a day and a hot night of this, Marc and my dad went back into Page and brought a portable air conditioning back. We loved it so much we named it Kevin. Kevin is now part of the family and will go with us to Lake Powell each year.

There were a lot of first this year. Some that you might see in the video are Tucker going down the slide by himself, Cooper going down the slide at all, Ivan slaloming, Kaden and Ivan surfing and Tucker skiing. We were proud of all our boys this year! They all had great attitudes about trying new things and made the week great.

School...Hurray!!!

This summer marked our longest summer yet. We had 6 weeks off! How did we spend our precious summer time you may ask? I'm not quite sure, but I know that we fit some fun in there somewhere. :) Some of the hightlights: a lot of swimming, the Mills Cousins campout, Grandma Hale camp, Marc & I went to the Tour of Utah, scout camp, a night movie on the garage, boating, lots of night games and countless hours of playtime.

After all the fun was had, I happily sent the kids to school. Kaden started 5 grade this year, Ivan 3rd grade, Tucker Kindergarten and Cooper will be going to preschool. Yes it is true, there will be two short (45 minutes & 2 hour) periods when I will be childless. What do you suppose I would do with that precious time? Volunteer at the school of course. :)

4th of July

As to follow our usual tradition, we headed up to the mountains for the 4th of July. Unfortunatly as we arrived at my parents house, my dad told us that my mom had come down with something that afternoon and was up sick in her bed. :( We were all so sad for her. The 4th of July is one of her favorite holidays. We all crossed our fingers and said our prayers that she would feel better by morning... and she did. We were able to have a great time together.

It was great to be in the beauty of the mountains. Because of all the moisture this year, they still had patches of snow around their house. Cooper and Lincoln thought this was great and had a grand time sliding down on their bums.

The boys before the Brighton parade.

We had a circle of fire with a bunch of our neighbors that night. It sure makes it a lot more fun with aerials.

My cute neighbor doesn't like the noise, so she wears these stylin' earmuffs.

Another One of Marc's Crazy Schemes

When we bought our house, there were a few things that we didn't love about it. Slowly over the last few years, we have been tackling these one by one. Last year we expanded our kitchen a little to add some much needed dinning space. This Spring we filled our empty wall with some more cabinets and new appliances. After the cabinets finally went in, it was time to put in our ovens. Maybe you don't know how heavy ovens can be. Marc loaded it onto the dolly and we both heaved and hoed it up the front steps. We guided it right were it needed to be, unpacked it, took off the doors (pretty heavy themselves) and tried to lift the ovens in place. It all went about like this...

Marc, "Ready?"

Gretchen, "I guess"

Marc, "Come on, don't you have muscles from always going to the gym?"

Gretchen, "Not really"

Marc, "1,2,3 lift"

Gretchen, "ugggh, yeah right."

We couldn't even get it more than an inch off the crate. At this point, smart people would call a nice strong neighbor or a professional to put in their ovens. Oh no, not us. Marc was leaving in the morning for Youth Conference and didn't want to leave me with out any way to cook my family very nutritious, complete meals while he was gone. :) (That is always what happens when he is away. ;)) Really he was being very considerate. He tried to get everything as put together as possible before he left.

So what are a girl and a boy to do when they can't muscle the ovens into their spots? Just give Marc a little time and he will figure out some way to rig it. My suggestion was to get the car jack to lift it up, but he said that wouldn't work. Anyway, this was his master plan and it actually worked pretty well. He tilted the ovens to one side and I would shove three or four left over floor boards under it. We then changed sides and he tilted it the other way and I did the same on the other side. We continued this until we had teeter tottered it all the way up to where it needed to be and we slid it in place. Really who thinks of crazy schemes like this? Marc :)

A Sad Loss

This last June my Sweat Grandpa Rasmussen passed away. After a few years of decline, at the age of 95 he peacefully left us.

Some of my favorite memories of him include... him acting out the stories of Briar Rabbit, as a young girl, him sneaking me pieces of the Easter ham as he carved it, and the kindness and love he always showed towards my Grandma. He was an amazing man. The following is his Obituary which includes more details of his life.

Ellis Theo Rasmussen, 95, died peacefully at his home in Orem, Utah, on Monday, June 6, 2011. Ellis was born on September 21, 1915, to Wilford and Katie Johanna Nelson Rasmussen, in Redmond, Utah. His dear mother Katie died when he was almost twelve, and five years later, in 1932, he welcomed into his life a beloved stepmother, Myrtle Jeffery Blackburn Rasmussen. Importantly, she strongly encouraged his getting a full education.

He married Oda Fonnesbeck, of Weston, Idaho, on May 20, 1943, in the Logan, Utah, LDS Temple. They are the parents of five children: Ann (J.D.) Hancock, currently LDS temple missionaries in Kyiv, Ukraine; Paula (David) Thomas of Orem, Utah; Mignon (Gary) Mills, of Brighton, Utah; David (Sue) Rasmussen, of Marysville, Washington; and Leslie (Paul) Williams, of Lehi, Utah. Ellis and Oda have 28 grandchildren and 47 great grandchildren.

After completing his elementary schooling at Redmond Elementary School Ellis attended high school at North Sevier High School in Salina, Utah, where he was student body president. Ellis attended Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, obtaining his elementary education certificate and serving in student government. For three years thereafter he taught fifth grade at Redmond Elementary School. Then he attended the Utah State Agricultural College in Logan, Utah, for one year before departing on an LDS mission to Germany and Austria in June, 1938. Late in August, 1939, he was instructed to leave the country as World War II was about to break out, and was one of the missionaries whose harrowing escape experience was enabled by a series of miraculous events. He completed his mission service in the Southern States Mission in the U.S.

Early in 1941 he resumed his higher education at BYU, completing work for his BA degree and secondary teaching certificate. His first professional position was teaching high school and LDS seminary students in Weston, Idaho. There he met, courted and married his wife Oda, who was teaching elementary school in Weston. In 1951 he completed his master's degree and was invited to join the BYU faculty in the Division of Religion. After graduate studies in Hebrew and Old Testament he earned his Ph.D. degree in 1967. In 1963 he began a 24-year period during which he directed many summer-time BYU scripture-lands study tours and Bible Lands Semester Abroad programs.

In 1966-67 he served as a member of the Orem City Council.

In 1972 he was called to be a member of the special committee assigned to prepare a new LDS edition of the King James Bible, and ultimately a new edition of other LDS scriptures, to which projects he made profoundly important contributions. In the 1960s and 1970s he chaired departments in the college of religious instruction and in 1976 he was appointed Dean of Religious Instruction at BYU, a position he held until his retirement in 1981. In 1985, Ellis and Oda were called by the LDS Church as special representatives to the International Mission in Israel and to assist in planning and developing the programs for the new BYU Jerusalem Center. He served on the Encyclopedia of Mormonism board of editors and authored A Latter-day Saint Commentary on the Old Testament, published by Deseret Book in 1993. During his long career, he published dozens of articles in church magazines and scholarly publications, and his course syllabi and other study materials were used in religious instruction for decades.

During all his life, Ellis served faithfully in LDS church positions, including bishop in two wards, high councilor, counselor in the first West Sharon stake presidency, temple ordinance worker, patriarch in the Cherry Hill Stake, and service on the Church's Correlation Committee.

He is survived by his wife Oda, his children, his brother Kay Rasmussen, and his sister Camille Humphrey of Washington, Utah.

The funeral will be held at the Cherry Hill 9th Ward Chapel, 135 East 2000 South, Orem, Utah, on Saturday, June 11, at 1 p.m. A viewing will be held Friday, June 10, from 6-8 p.m., at Sundberg-Olpin Mortuary, 495 South State Street, Orem, and at the Cherry Hill 9th Ward prior to the service from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the LDS Perpetual Education Fund.

Ensign Peak

This is when I try and catch up for the last few months...

While my kids were off last time we went for a little outing to Ensign Peak. It was such a pretty hike and the boys had so much fun.

We finished the adventure off at Bruges Waffles and Frits. It was delicious!

Ivan our Rock Star!

For Ivan's second grade program they did a 2nd Grade Musical. They each were able to choose which part they wanted to participate in. The choices ranged from 50's greeser, hippy, rocker to animals. Ivan, of course, chose to be a rock star. He had a great time rocking out with his best friend Nate.

Preschool Graduation and a Rock Concert

Tucker finished his second year at our neighborhood preschool! How did he get so old so fast? His teachers Miss Heidi & Miss Marie Ann are the greatest. Not only do they do a ton of fun stuff, Miss Heidi gets them reading, fast. Tucker is our earliest readier so far.

Something you might not know about Tucker is that he is pretty shy. He doesn't like attention solely on him. Last year during his program, he didn't sing any of the songs. This year as we were loading into the car, the older boys gave him a pep talk and told him they were going to show the movie to his wife when he got married, so he better sing. I'm not sure if this is the reason, but he did a lot more singing this year. :) However, he did have his moments. Whenever he made eye contact with me, he would shyly look away.

Some of his favorite friends

Kindergarten, here we come!

Roadshow

This year our Stake decided to bring back the Roadshow. To Marc's dismay, they not only wanted the youth to be in it, but the Bishopric too. Marc doesn't like to go to plays, let alone be in one, so this was way out of his comfort zone. Each time he griped about going to a practice, I couldn't help laughing. Props to those that could get him to do something that he would never in a million years do for me. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for Marc, the night of the performance his Mom and Grandad were in town, so they were able to come with us to cheer him on.

The theme they were given was "Put your shoulder to the _______". Our ward chose "Put your shoulder to the Wall". The whole thing is based around Facebook. The whole things was about 15 mintues, so I tried to just show some highlights that would kind of give you the gist of the entire thing. The Farmville part is my favorite. :) Sorry about the crappy filming, I was trying to watch, film and keep an eye on Cooper. Multi-tasking :)

Spring is here....maybe

It has been a very rainy, cold spring, but in spite of the weather, our yard has exploded with color. The pictures don't do them justice, but enjoy some of our flowers anyway.

Pinewood Derby

What does Spring mean? It means and will be for the next 8 years, Pinewood Derby time at our house. The boys always have so much fun designing their cars with Marc. He does a great job involving them in all aspects of the car. They love working on it together. Here are the cars for this year:

Can you guess who belongs to which car? They don't fit their personalities at all do they? :)

Unfortunately neither of the designs were very speedy, so they didn't win the race. But it was fun and they will look great on the huge shelf I'm going to have to build to fit all 12 of our pinewood derby cars when we're all said and done. :)

St. Patty's Day

Our green dinner to celebrate the green day.

Spring Off Track

Each time we go off track, I aspire to be one of those really fun moms that have tons of things planned and go to lots of fun places and do memorable things. To my dismay, this rarely happens. Usually the time is spent doing mundane things like workbooks and going to the gym. This last time around, I was determined to be more adventurous. We were going to do some fun things!!! Don't get me wrong, we still did get in some workbook work and I didn't miss any of my gym time, but we also tried to go out and do something fun (and cheap) a couple times a week. Thankfully, Sunny and kids are on the same track as we are, so we had some partners in crime. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of most of the stuff we did. Just imagine 2 ladies chatting together with 8 kids swarming around them. Can you see the chaos? :)

A few of our adventures entailed;

The Gale Museum: a hands on pioneer museum with really grouchy older ladies who don't really want you to touch anything and to keep your voices to a whisper. I'm not sure why, but we keep going back a few times a year.

The BYU Bean Museum & bookstore: Kaden is a avid Cougar fan, to his dad's dismay. He has been asking to go down to the BYU campus for ages, but we never go down. Neither Marc or I went to the Y and therefore have no loyalty to their campus. For this reason, we haven't taken our kids down to tour the campus. With the help of Sunny, we were able to have a lot of fun looking at the dead animals at the museum and then going to lunch at the...(place where all the food is. I can't even remember what it is called. woops) We also made our way around the bookstore so that the kids could buy their souvenir of the trip.

The Sweets Candy Factory: This was by far my favorite. The Sweets Factory gives fabulous tours and they are free! You actually get to go into the factory and watch the candy being made. (they even give you samples) After to tour is over, we enjoyed choosing our favorite treats to bring home. What made the cut? Taffy (our favorites: cherry cola, licorice, root beer float), cherry sours, orange and cherry sticks and my personal favorites chocolate cinnamon bears.

And those were a few of our favorites. As I write them down, they don't seem very exciting, oh well. We had a fun few weeks and it was a good break from the busy day to day life. We had fun while it lasted, but after week three, we were all tired of each other and were all glad to go back to our regular schedule.

Our Happenings lately..

It never seems that much is going on, but here are a few highlights of the last little while. Mike and Christina came down for a fun visit, Tucker learned to ride a bike without training wheels, Ivan is getting more height on his jump, Cooper is learning words to all sorts of songs :) & Kaden had is 4th grade program (This one makes me smile. I remember doing these same things.)

Blue and Gold

Having 4 boys, the inevitability of infinite scout meetings is a given. This year our cub troop did a cake auction for a fund raiser. This sounded like a great activity until it came down to making the cake. If you remember from a previous post, I don't make cakes. After much searching on the internet, I found the one that we could do together with the boys doing a lot of it. This is what we ended with.

I thought we had done pretty well....then I saw cakes such as this...

Can you see the Angry Birds theme? Who are these people? This is amazing!!! This is what we brought home for a price much higher then what ours went for. It was a fun night. And now to prep for the big event...the pinewood derby.

To all my Valentine boys...

Marc and I aren't terribly romantic. We don't go all out for the so called day of love. The holiday usually entails us going out sometime within in the week and Marc bringing me some beautiful flowers (which come from the best place to get flowers, Costco of course). This year our family decided to get sick a couple weeks before the day and stay that way until a few days after. So, I turned our day for two into a day for six. They plan? We had a manners dinner. I set out the china, which hasn't been used in years, and had a lesson in the do's and don'ts of eating a nice dinner. There was to be no burping, potty talk, and please and thank you's were a must. We had a great time. Hopefully some of those manners will be remembered for future dinners.

Cooper had just had a quick power nap, hence the grouchy face.

January Birthdays

Tucker

Cooper

January is our other crazy birthday month. Tucker's is the 16th and Cooper's the 18th. This meant for a week of celebration. I can hardly believe my babies are 5 and 3!!! My kids are getting so old.

We partied all week long. My family came over on Tucker's birthday and my mom made a fabulous cake. (I don't have cake making skills and therefore don't make my kids fun cakes like this)

Marc's parents then came down the next day to celebrate the two birthdays. Because we were continuing the endless birthday party, we celebrated Cooper's birthday a day early by going to dinner. I'm not sure how I swung it, but we went to my favorite place to eat, Trio. It was delicious.

This kid will never have enough boats. He loves them.

On Coopers real birthday we went to the Children's Museum with Sunny and Lincoln. The boys had so much fun. It was a little too crowded for me, but the kids still had a blast.

Tucker then had his first friend party on Friday. He wanted a superhero theme, so that is what we did. Each child got to decorate their super cape and mask. We then played as superheros as we fought the bad guys, danced like them, and found our magic green lantern rings. I love 5 year olds. They are so much fun.

Christmas

I know this is a month late, but better late then never. :)

We had a fun and exciting Christmas this year. We enjoyed the usual traditions, but added a few surprises as well. About 2 weeks before the big day, I had gone to the gym and left Kaden in charge at home. As I walked in the door, I was greeted by my crazies all running out of my room with very guilty faces attached. Of course being the mom, I asked what was up to see what kind of answers I would get. Can you guess what it was? "Nothing!" they all chimmed. Well, it took a few carefully craft questions before the truth was told and they confessed to looking in my cedar chest and at the presents inside. I could feel the anger rising inside me. This year I had had a hard time deciding what to get the older boys for Christmas and had finally found some things I thought they would love. To my dismay, they had not only seen what I had purchased, but they had showed the only Santa believers as well. I angrly told them they ruined Christmas and that I was going to take all the presents back. After the threat was out there, I didn't know what to do.

As a parent have you ever had one of those moments when your kids do something that you know your were guilty of doing when you were young? At that moment you finally realize why your parents had been upset with you. This was one of those times.

Marc and I talked it over and we knew we had to take the stuff back, if only for Tucker and Coopers sake. 4 &2 are too young to realize Santa's true identity. So, during the next week, I made sure Kaden and Ivan saw me load the toys into the car and take them back to the store. As they slept at night, I then ordered all new things online and had them shipped to Marc's office (a safer hiding spot).

As Christmas Eve arrived I was gathering everything to put out, but Marc had other plans. Even though we had been guilty of the same deeds as kids, Marc wanted to teach our kids a lesson. He took the note the kids wrote to Santa and had Santa leave an elaborate one for them...

Kaden, Ivan, Tucker & Cooper,

I have been reviewing your record over the past year and it seems that you have spent quite a bit of time on the naughty list this year. It also seems that just a week ago you were being a bit sneaky and found all your gifts in your parents room. So when I took off in my sleigh tonight, I loaded in a big lump of coal for all of you.

My elves keep pretty good track of all you do. I know that you can be really good boys. Let me offer you some suggestions:

1. Quit poking around in your parents private stuff.

2. Try to be more reverent in your church meetings (no running in the halls)

3. Help your mom. She works way to hard.

4. Give your dad a big hug every time he comes home from work. Especially before you ask him to play his awesome Ipad.

If you can do those things and be good boys you won't be on the naughty list next year.

When I stopped by to drop off your coal, your mom and dad happened to be awake and I sat down and talked with them for a while. They convinced me that there are times when you are so nice, so I have left a few gifts around your house hidden in very good spots. Have a Merry Christmas.

With Love,

Santa

This was all that awaited them when they came running out Christmas morning. Cooper's reaction was classic...

You can see the bewilderment in his face and the coal in the background. After Kaden read the note, they all ran around the house to find their presents, which they loved doing. I know, we are mean parents, but hopefully we have both learned a lesson. They won't sneak and we will hide stuff in better spots. :)

This was the best picture I could get of them after the excitement was over

We then headed up to my parents for days of fun with the Mills family. We played games, played in the snow, and ate way too much delicious food.

Playing the Great Dalmuti. A family favorite game.

It was especially fun to have my sister Emily here from Vancover. We missed here husband Marcelo, but he was spending the Holidays with his family in Brazil. It was so fun to visit with her. My kids are so spoiled by the attention their aunts and uncles give them.

It was a great Holiday Season, but I was more then happy to get the kids back to school (after being out for a month) and back to our regular routine.