Long time, no blog

It has been a long time and I am the record keeper in my family. Even though I love Instagram, it is not allowing me to keep a written record of the happenings in my life. So I figured I'd better get back to blogging. October started with a bang.  Taz was heavy into the middle of Cross Country and had meets every Wednesday.  I went to as many as I could before piano prevented me from attending.  He did have several Saturday invitationals and I was able to go to those.

Tanner turned 18 on the 5th of October.  He is not a big cake person, so I made him Tapioca for his birthday dessert and he was over the moon. 

Grandma and Grandpa were in town to celebrate with us because...WE MOVED!!!  We signed papers on our new house on October 2, 2012

That was also a great night because we went to Wicked at the new Smith Center.  That is all Tanner wanted for his bday and so we had to tag along.  It was wickedly awesome and we all LOVED it.  It was only here for 6 weeks and totally worth the money we paid for it. We actually got a third row seats for $99/person and they were perfect.

We started moving on Tanner's birthday, Friday the 5th of October.  We had snuck in earlier to clean the carpets and work on the pool, but we officially got our keys at 2:30pm on the 5th.  Tanner's friends tracked him down and found him at the new house and gave him some cookies and a card they had made.  That was fun.

Saturday morning, we had friends come help us load and move.  Don Sawyer, Joe Zach and Lawson Borla Jay Shafer, Bishop Holland.  Don was a work horse and brought his trailer and really moved us a long.  It was exciting.

The kids started painting their rooms.  We let them do whatever color and design they wanted.  This is Tanner and his tentacles.

We cleaned a little at the old house.

Mom and Dad were such a big help.  Garry was so glad they came and commented after they left on how much they helped (he wasn't thinking they'd be able to do much when they said they wanted to come down.)  Needless to say it would have been a lot harder and much more work if they hadn't come down.  I carried on with piano and preschool and Garry with work, so they were able to do a lot at the old house while we continued with life.

Dad managed to get Sudoku in whenever he found a newpaper piece we had used to wrap things with.  It was humorous.

So much to tell about our move and all the tender mercies that happened to get us to our new house. So I'll save that for a later day.

Homecoming

Homecoming was last night. Tanner was the ring leader of a group with 4 other couples. Gavin Thatcher was in his group.  His Aunt has a beautiful house up above Coronodo High School and a big, beautiful backyard.  She let us have dinner up there for the group.  Cynjyn and Maggie were the servers.   

Tanner's date was Emily Olds.

The group was Dustin Marshall and Katie Barker, Aaron Schwarze and McKenna Borla, Emily and Tanner, Miranda Quinton and Bryant Nielson. and Ashley Eddington and Gavin Thathcer.

Gavin's Aunt Wendy has a beautiful landscaped "hill" leading up to a golf course. The kids loved playing around on it, and we got a lot of fun pictures.

Toni had the table set simple, but beautiful with Wendy's gold plates.  We served them dinner starting with grapes, strawberries and cheese and crackers and my slush punch while they waited for their turn for pictures.  Then we served them ceasar salad with some plates of three different kinds of breads.  Then for the main course, they had pork loin, crockpot potatoes, and green beans. 

They sure loved posing at the top of the hill.

 After they kids left, Maggie, Cynjyn and I walked to the top of the hill and enjoyed the view of the city lights.

 After dinner, they were supposed to go to the planitarium and do a star gazing show, but they didn't make it in time, so they just went to a park and talked. Earlier in the day they all went to Bite of Las Vegas which is an all day celebration and they saw Philip Phillips perform. Anyway, after their non visit to the planitarium, they came back to Toni's and we had her walk way lined with our Christmas lanterns and the back yard set up as a dance floor and they danced a little and talked a lot and played some group games.

 We filled balloons with glow sticks to put around the "dance floor".  They looked pretty cool.

 Earlier in the week, Toni, Cheryl and I got together with Debbie Witt who helped us make the corsages for our son's dates.  (Toni's, mine, Cheryl's).

 We were all thrilled with how they turned out.

  About half way through the dancing and games, we served them cheesecake and then I went home and they continued to party.  Tanner was home by midnight and had a great time.  So did Cynjyn, Maggie, Toni and I!!

A funny thing happened...

So, I was moving right along in my own little blog world. I've been happily taking a picture a day for Project Life.  I am on my third year now, and this year I'm doing my first digital version and so I am faithfully uploading and recording our life weekly.  I got a little behind on blogging due to a busy summer, but all in all it was good.  I managed to get some pictures of Taz turning 14.

And Taz's road rash injury.

And Alexa and Cynjyn making One Direction T-shirts.

I even captured the first day of school.  Tanner is a senior,

Taz is a Freshman,

And Cynjyn is in 6h grade starting her first year of Middle School!

Taz is on the cross country team and this is a picture of him crossing the finish line at his first meet!

Then sometime over the summer, I discovered a new app on my phone. Instagram! I know it's been around for awhile, but it was new to me.  Suddenly, I didn't have to have my big camera with me at all times.  I had never really taken advantage of my phone camera.  I just never thought of it...but here it was with me at all times and I could intantly post something happening in our lives and put it out there for my loved ones and friends to see.  I was never a big fan of Facebook, I didn't really care for the idea of putting my thoughts and what I was doing at the moment out there, but if I can do that with a picture involved...I'm sold.  And that's exactly what Instagram is.  The thing I love about it is that I can take a zillion pictures of one little moment in my life and that moment is visualized and remembered forever!  I love all the free templates available online that allow me to quickly and easily put my pictures in a scrapbook format and I can print them out and collage them as I like.  Here was our evening at the Knights of the Roundtable dinner show!

And the randomness of spending time with family while they are here on vacation in August.

I can even make a collage on my phone and post to Instagram.  It allows me to document the picture also by putting a camption when I post.  Now, the thing I don't like is that once you've posted, they are just out there, waiting, no physical evidence.  That is what I like about bloging, I can slurp it into a "book" and print it out and have my life story here in my house for me and my family to enjoy!

So, I've been happily taking pictures and even uploading them onto my Project Life book, but blogging seems to have taken a time out for awhile.  I do know for sure that I will continue taking "snippets" of our lives on my phone camera and now I will collage them and post to the blog.  I will try to keep the blog more frequently updated and you will surely be seeing a lot more instagram collages as I "catch up" on life in the Goon household. (even though most of you who read my blog also follow me on Instagram) To bad, this is my journal and it must be documented!

And then there were three

Eagle scouts that is. My personal goal of having all three of my son's become Eagle Scouts was acheived on August 5, 2012. Taz had his Court of Honor. He is officially the youngest scout in the Las Palmas ward to receive his Eagle.  Luckily, he had great examples from his two older brothers and was eager and ready to begin his scouting career.  That helped him get his Eagle so early.  He worked very hard at it and made it happen.  It even didn't take too much prodding from us to make it so.

Even though his Board of Review was earilier in the spring, we had decided to have his Court of Honor in August because that is when most of my family could be here for it.  His friend Lawson asked if he could join in with us and have a joint one.  It was great having the added help and ideas from his family.

Linda (his mom) made this awesome cake.  Lawson actually made the Eagles out of Sculpey clay.  It turned out so cute.  We had asked a friend of ours to make the cake, but she was pregnant and wasn't doing cakes so Linda said she'd do it.!  Love her.

We had a table set up with their Eagle pictures.  I took Taz's pictures myself and edited them.  I think they turned out great.  I'll show a few at the end.

Linda's mom and sister made some cookies, I made two batches of homemade ice cream (Peppermint and Coconut cherry chocolate chunk) and Garry made Salsa.

Lawson's dad is a fireman and so he had a few of his fellow firemen come and do the flag (John is second from left).

He also had a friend who played the bagpipes come for the flag ceremony.

His scout master Charles Thomas had just moved out of the ward about a month earlier, so he came back and talked.

Garry was the scout master before him and so he talked. (We had a slide show going during that)

My dad did a flag folding presentation.

Tanner and Talon folded the flag during that and presented it to Taz afterwards.

We had an Eagle's nest.

Then the awarding of the parents pins and Eagle to Taz.

And here they are with the Young Men's president, Dave Tanner being presented as the newest Eagles.

Here is a picture of my three Eagle son's, their Eagle Grandpa and Garry (No he isn't an Eagle Scout, but is very instrumental in them receiving theirs.)

Grandma and Grandpa with them...always supportive and making sure they try to attend all the important events in my children's lives.

Krissy, Clay, Ky, Kres and Beckham all made it up for this event.  They are the best and always supportive of my kids and me.  Love them!

And a family picture depicting a great night.

He even had an early birthday celebration and got his presents from Krissy and Grandma early.  Krissy painted him this Eagle.

Grandma got him three new model planes to work on.  He was so happy!
Here are some of the pictures I did from his shoot. I had been taking a photography class online in the spring and decided to give it a try. I think they turned out really good.

These below are my favorites!

And my top two favorites.

And my favorite, the one I choose for my wall.!

Great job Taz. We love you and are so very proud of you!