Getting Popped and other adventures called Life

Our new love is...wait for it...Frozen Popcorn!  Tanner went to Popped with some friends after school one day and really liked it.  He came home and told us all about it and how good it was and that we should go.  Then Taz went with a friend and raved about it.  So on MLK day after volleyball, we decided to give it a try.  It was so fun.  You order a gourmet flavor of popcorn and then freeze it with nitrogen oxide.  They give it to you and when you take a bite, frozen steam (is that an oxymoron?) comes out of your mouth.  It is very hard to catch it on camera, so these first few pictures are our attempt at that.  But you can see it really well in person.

We finally gave up and Taz and Cynjyn just blew on it to get the smoke a really going!  The frozen stuff only last a couple of minutes, but it sure is intersting to the palet.  We've gone a couple of more times.  One day I took Talon after he took me out to lunch and it's always fun to try it with people who've never experienced it before.

One night for a combined YW activity, we did "Stump the Bishopric".  The girls brought an object in a sack and the bishopric opened it they had two minutes to find the scripture it represented.  If we stumped them we each got a piece of candy, if they figured it out, they got the candy.  It was about equal and they did a great job.  They could confer with each other and they had two life lines of using the topical guide.

January 18-20th brought mid-term week.  That means the boys get out at 10;40 and 11:40, so I started the tradition of taking them out to lunch one of those days.  We chose the first day and Tanner wanted Claim Jumper.  Here we are with a timer set on the camera to take our group picture.

Tanner and I ordered the tri-tip and it was delicious.

Taz got the widow makers burger.  It was huge and he was more than pleased.

The idea is they get out early and have plenty of time to study...or in Tanner's case, plenty of time to play Zelda!

Cynjyn and her friend wanted to dress up as nerds on one of the days they had GATE, so here she is.  She's getting quite the reputation for her quirky fashion style.  Her PE teacher actually called her out one day for matching!  She said she never matches and how dare she break her tradition of quirkiness that the PE teacher LOVES.

She had some friends over last Friday for a girls night out and they watched a video and played just dance 3.  It was a PJ party and everyone brought a treat to share.  It was from 7-10 and they had a ball.

Taz got to go paintballing for Lawson's birthday last Saturday.  They went up to Bunkerville.  He LOVED it!!

And only came home with one bruise from Lawson's mom no less!

Thanks to Pinterest, I've found a website that shows fun things to do with long hair.  Cynjyn lets me experiment once a week.  Here is her waterfall braid.

And she got new socks that are...wait for it...MISMATCHED!!  Imagine that.

Talon dropped his phone in the toilet, yes you read that right, he didn't hesitate and fished it right out, anyone that knows my germaphobe son knows that is a miracle.  Anyway, it didn't work.  And he was phone less for about a week.  It KILLED him!!  He sent his phone off to California to a man who swears he can fix it.  In the mean time, Garry used his upgrade to get Talon a new phone.  It came and now Talon is a happy camper once again.  Here's two funny stories to go along with that:  One day we went to Tanner's school for lunch, we found Tanner and Talon asked him if he'd gotten a recipe for him for the steak salad.  Tanner said no, he forgot.  He told Talon to text him to remind him, Talon yelled "I don't have a PHONE!!".  Oh.
Then Talon came home from work a few days later and he asked Tanner and I if we'd seen the sunset.  We said no and he said, oh it was beautiful.  He took us outside and we caught the tail end of it.  He said it was at it's best on his drive home.  I said why didn't you pull over and take a picture?  He yelled "I don't have a PHONE"!  Oh.

Cynjyn dressed up for sports day at school.  It just so happened Taz had a Partiots jersey.  She looked so cute.  We had a great January!

New year, New look!

I don't know what it is about January, but when it hits, I just want Christmas down and a new look! This year was no different.  After we got back from our road trip, Garry had a few days off and I made him take down my main wall in our living room.  I had been wanting a new look for quite awhile and had been brewing some ideas in my head.

I found a tutorial for these $10.00 ledges on Pinterest, so Garry was kind enough to make them for me in a timely manner and attack them to the wall.  Because my ceilings are so high in this room, I wanted to take advantage of all the height. 

Here is a close up.  My brother's wife (the one we helped move) was getting rid of some stuff, so I inherited it (actually I asked if I could have it!!).  I took home from our trip the magnet board in the middle and the Be's plaque on the left.

My sister Krissy painted these portraits of our kids for Garry and I for Christmas.  They turned out so good and I was so happy they fit perfectly between our window and window cubby.

I kept this wall about the same except added the Tree of Life picture to it since I'd taken it down from the other side.

We moved our big TV (someday we'll get a thinner updated one) to in front of the fireplace that is useless.  It is a little taller than the mantel, so I had to have some decorations with height to balance it out.

My mom got me the vase in the middle for Christmas thinking it would go good on our new dinning room table, but I thought it was perfect for the mantel.

I took apart the sectional and put it in three different places in the room.

It makes the room seem bigger to me, but the biggest couches are on the sides, so it's not as comfortable watching TV with more than a couple of people on the couch.  I love the new look!

Almost caught up!

We love January, especially this year. There was no school on the 16th and there is no school today. It makes our weeks seem shorter and we can do fun, relaxing stuff.   Taz has had friends over every holiday.  He organizes a big football game and we have kids coming in and out a lot.  We bought them pizza once and now, unfortunatly, they kinda expect it.  Oh, well, open your doors and your fridge and everyone's happy, a small price to pay:)

With the new year came a new theme in YW:  Arise and Shine forth.  So I made a new bulletin board for the YW room.

It's a spoof of Pinterest and each week a girl can grab a card and pin it to the board and can tell how that card can help her to arise and shine forth.  I got the idea off Sugardoodle and so far it's worked great and the girls seem to enjoy having something to give a spiritual thought on.

Over Christmas break, Taz decided it was time to start shaving that peach fuzz!.  So this was his second time shaving and Cynjyn and I enjoyed cheering him on!

Tanner got asked to Sadies.  Now, being a bloggers son, he took a picture with his phone of his car, but we have a hard time figuring out how to take our pictures off our phone around here and he's asleep, so I don't want to wait, maybe I'll post it later (maybe I won't).  Anyway, he came out of school and his car was covered in Oreo's and there was a sign on it (down below a few pictures) saying:  Nothing like an Oreo treat to lead you to something really sweet!  Pick up a cookie to have a lookie, to find out who, look for the clue.  So he found the Oreo with the message inside that told him to go look in the freezer deep.  When he got home this is what he found in the freezer:  A block of ice.

These are the Oreo's cleaned off his car

and the note

After he thawed the block of ice by running it under hot water, he found an Oreo inside and opened it and it said Heidi.  She's his dance partner from the preChristmas dance posts.  More to that story later to come.

Cynjyn decided one day she wanted to try fresh squeezed OJ.  So she got a peeled cutie and attempted it.  I said stop wasting the cuties and one day bought her some real oranges so she could give it a go.

She loved it but realized it's a lot of work for a little amount of juice!

Talon and I love our Thusday lunch dates at Tanner's school, this week it was steak salad and boy was it good!

Cynjyn went to Toy Story three on ice with the Sawyers, they had an extra ticket and she was so excited that they asked her.  She loves Amanda (well, we all do!!)

Here was her Buzz Lightyear souvenier!  (It came on her cotton candy, but she's had fun with it.)

Now the rest of the story:  Here is how Tanner chose to answer Heidi back for Sadie's:

Dear Heidi,

The Oreos on my car were very dirty and

annoying. I didn’t like them at all and I found that it was not

creative. I wish that I could say that

I could go with you, but I just cannot because of the fact that

I was unhappy with how you asked me.

It was a pain to clean and I stood outside at 8 just so I could drive to school.

I couldn’t believe that you would ask me that way and

I can’t find another way of saying this, but here it goes.

I would like to go to Sadie’s with you, however

I cannot because I didn’t like how you asked me and

the Oreos are still a pain and I do not even like them and

If you would have asked me any other way I would say yes but

I will definitely, no matter what,

not do anything that involves me having to

go to Sadie’s with you.

Your friend that you’ll

love always,

The boy

Tanner

P.S. I change my mind, so begin at the beginning and read every other line as this is what I truly mean.



Garry had remembered seeing this a long time ago at the mall in Orem in the missionary section and it was a "dear John".  He found it on the internet and Tanner personalized it and left it on Heidi's car.

The rest of the trip

While in Boise, after Christmas Day, this was the amount of snow we got.

Cynjyn and Taz had to scrape enough snow off the sidewalk to make their big snowballs.

Those of us that have to drive in it appreciate it, but come one, just a little bigger snowstorm in the middle of our vacation would have been nice!

Cynjyn got to spend a day with Ella.  She came down from Roseburg after Christmas and Cynjyn went over to Ontario to spend the night with her. Something about two girls and a new camera just conjures up images of fun.  I don't know what they did...

...but clearly they had fun doing it!!

On Thursday, we headed to La Grande via Ontario to help my brother Randy and his wife Traci move into their new home.  They had most of the work done by the time we got there, so Garry and Tanner put together their new pool table they got for Christmas.

The girls cheered them on!

Taz sat in the corner texting while his phone charged.

When we got to Grandma's we broke out the new Wii game Just Dance 3 and danced the night away.

Beckham's got the moves like Jagger!!

At the Waite reunion, we played volleyball and ate and worried as it was pouring rain outside and we needed to head back to Boise to shorten our trip back to Vegas on New Year's Eve.  So finally at 4:30 we left the church, headed to Grandma's and loaded our stuff up and were on the road by 5:00pm.  Of course it was dark and between Ladd Canyon and Baker, the rain turned into a blinding snow storm where the snow was coming at an angle and made seeing virtually impossible, but Garry weathered his way through and we got to Boise by 9:00.  We were up and on the road by 6:00 am heading back to Vegas.

We got into Vegas by 4:00 and Taz and Cynjyn both had NYE parties to go to.  Tanner went to one until 10, but came home because their dog was making his allergies act up.  Garry went to bed at 10 due to exhaustion from driving all day and here is Tanner and I at midnight.  Shortly there after, I went and picked up Cynjyn, then Taz.  It was a great vacation!