Can you read this?

Last week the kids had their annual eye appointments. We knew Taz would need glasses, but we didn't think Tanner would need them. Cynjyn is sad because she is the lone Goon left that doesn't need glasses (actually Garry had lasik, so he's no longer in glasses, but I think she forgot that).

Here's Tanner in his new pair. They both only need them in school to see the board, so they aren't wearing them all the time.

Taz, can see so much better with his though, so he's going to wear his all the time.

Aren't they cute?!

Cynjyn's turn finally!

Cynjyn has sat by numerous times while her brothers have had friends parties. I asked her if she wanted to have an end of year bash and she quickly said "YES!" So last Friday, she had 7 friends come over. She'd invited 9, but two couldn't come. We partied from 6-9 and she had 2 friends from school, 4 from church and one neighbor. It was a good mix and everyone had a blast. We started out with a light dinner which Cynjyn picked out the menu. She was adamant about having finger sandwiches, crackers and cheese and a relish tray. I made PB&J and three layer ham and cheese sandwiches. We added pepperoni to the cheese and cracker tray and had pickles, olives and carrots for the relish tray. They drank soda.

After dinner, we took them to the park and Cynjyn wanted to play tag, so they did that while Garry and Tanner set up an obstacle course.

It was so windy that night!!

While they were waiting for Tanner and Garry, I made them divide into teams and come up with a team name and a team cheer. Cynjyn's team was the warriors. It was her and Kayla, Alexis and Autumn.

Bethany, Maggie, Tommie and Danielle were the Tigers. They did such a cute job and I got their cheers on video.

Here they are ready for the course. Maggie, Bethany, Danielle, Cynjyn, Tommie, Alexis, Autumn and Kayla.

We came back home and they played Mafia and Murder in the Dark, then we had a Sundae bar. I had put little cocktail umbrellas in their ice cream just for fun and they had SO MUCH fun with those. Most put a lot of goo on their ice cream and then didn't touch it.

Taz and Jaden were banned to the game room, but we let them surface to add toppings to their ice cream.

We ended up putting the box of umbrella's on the table and let them go at it. There were 144 and by the time they all left, there were only about 6 umbrella's left. As you can see, they were put to good use! If you want a cheap way to entertain kids, buy a $4.00 box of umbrellas and let them go at it!!

Tanner's eagle picture

Go over to the right side of my blog and click on the "Life as I Know it" This talented lady did Tanner's Eagle Scout shoot and she has a picture of him on her blog. She also has a link on #3 right below his picture. This link will take you to her photography facebook page and she has 5 pictures from his shoot there. Become a fan while you're at it.

FHE

We FINALLY used our fire pit this Sunday for FHE treats. It is almost getting too hot for it, but it was a fun way to end FHE.

Talon, of all people insisted on making the fire.
Then he was too impatient to wait for coals and burned at least 4 maybe 6 marshmellows.

Garry also made smoothies, so we all enjoyed those while we were waiting for coals.

He finally got a smore made and ate.

Here are the patient ones in the family, with our golden brown marshmellows, as we waited for coals.

The evidence of the goodness!

It was a fun night and afterward, Tanner, Taz and Cynjyn even took a dip in the pool!

Tanner's car

We had been looking for a car for Tanner for awhile now. We had cash saved so we could by the car when we found the perfect deal. We'd been concentrating on trucks because we've wanted one for a long time. The are pretty expensive though and so we figured we'd start looking now. All of a sudden, Tiffany decides she wants a new car. Actually, she's wanted one for awhile, but we are just hearing about it. She wants Garry to go with her to negotiate and she wants a VW Jetta, 2010. So she informs us that she's just going to trade in her car or maybe try to sell it. Garry, being who he is, does a bunch of research and her trade in value for her Toyota is only $3800. Blue Book is $5500. So we talk about it and decide she'd get a better deal if we buy it. She thinks she only has around $4400 left to pay it off. So, her and Talon have already test drove the Jetta she wants. Wednesday, her, Talon and Garry go to do the bartering. They get $3000 marked off the sticker price and get her 2.5% financing. Turns out, her Toyota financing was 16%, she got a terrible deal on that. Plus she has $5100 left to pay it off. So Garry and I pay if off and we'll give her an additional $400. She got her car Thursday morning and we got Tanner's. Here they are: Tiff's Jetta

Tanner's Matrix

Tanner happy with his new (to him, actually a 2004) Matrix.

I can feel the grey increasing!

Last Saturday, I took Tanner to the DMV to get his permit. He failed the test, so we were in and out in 20 min. Today was our first chance to go back and retake the test. We got there at 2:00 pm and walked out the door with a new official Nevada driver at 5:00pm. Here is Tanner waiting...and waiting...and waiting...I told him to bring a book or homework or something, but no, he didn't.

Here he is driving home happy as a clam,

until he noticed I was taking his picture when he yelled: "Mom, don't distract me!!"

He has to carry this big ole piece of paper around with him until they mail the official card in 7-10 greys, er I mean days. I did survive the ride home. It still amazes me how one minute he's illegal and then because of a little piece of paper he can drive. I made him go surface streets and luckily, he's only really ever drove Grandpa's big farm truck, so he didn't do too bad driving the big Suburban. When we got home, he said: "Wow, there sure is a lot to think about and pay attention to when driving". Ya think?? We also bought him a new car yesterday even though he won't be driving on his own till November. I'll save that post for later. I've got to get a few picutres for that.

Almost done

Several things to catch up on our week. Garry went to Sam's a few days ago and came home with these beauties. Just because...carnations are my favorite flower and purple is my favorite color!!

Last Tuesday, we bought fabric to make our curtain wall to seperate the garage from the game room. We didn't realize it would take two hours to pick out and find material, but we did and chose blue because it matched the floor. It took both of us to roll and cut it the right length.

Garry sewed them while I taught piano.

We got our new TV and it is mounted and functioning.

In between garage duties, Cynjyn had a big hole in her jeans, so I cut them off at the knee, hemmed them and put some fun patches on them.

She now has a cute pair of shorts for summer.

We brought two of the gaming systems into the "game room" and filled some bins with games and hung some guitars.

Garry put the mock wall up!

I had a wonderful mother's day. I got new cookware, and Cynjyn made me a cute bookmark.

Talon and Tiffany got me See's Nuts and Chews!!

It's been a good week!

Happy mother's Day

I have the best mom ever!! She is:
A learner
A giver
A sacrificer
A peace maker
A daughter of God
A righteous woman
A grandmother
A mother
A daughter
A homemaker
A wife
A sister
An example
A friend
A geneologist
A collector
A story teller
A temple goer
A covenant maker
A server
A communicator
A cook
A worker

Her price is far above rubies and I love her!

It's here! (and a school project)

Taz came home yesterday asking about 6 stanza poems. I was suspicious and asked why. He had a project due TOMORROW that he got on Friday but conveniently forgot about over the weekend. So now it was rush time. This was 2:30 and we were leaving at 3:30 to go to Tanner's volleyball game at Foothill. He had to find and copy a 6 stanza poem, find it's tone, explain it's meaning and find the figurative language throughout the poem and draw pictures of each stanza. Luckily, thanks to some Shel Silverstein books upstairs we found the one and only 6 stanza poem in one of the three books of his we had!! It was about a kangaroo and it didn't have a lot of figurative language in it, but we pulled out three that may be questionable. We came up with a game plan and began. At 3:00 I got a phone call from the volleyball coach that Tanner had just thrown up on the bus and they had to leave and could I come get him? Luckily he had managed to throw up most of it into his WATER BOTTLE (how you can do that is beyond me, my throw up usually goes everywhere, now that you're totally grossed out, I'll continue). So I ran and got him and Taz and I were relieved to have the whole night vball free to finish the project. We had to take a break and go out in the back yard when Tanner threw up in his bowl at the table we were working at...thanks Tanner!! Anywhoo, we got it done at 8:00 pm!! So cute.

Friday night, we moved the old couch out into the garage as the new one was coming Saturday morning. Now, I have had many questions concerning the garage, so I'll try to answer them here. For Ron and Carol, we made a half wall because we still are using a portion of the garage as a garage, so we wanted a separation and we wanted to be able to back the couch with something sturdy so it wouldn't slide around. We are going to put up some funky curtains behind the wall to hide the garage part of the garage. For my extended family: We bought a swamp cooler for the room and Friday night we all sat out in the garage with the swamp cooler blowing and had a great time. Course, it was only 60 degrees outside, so it felt great, but we are hoping that it will cool the room enough during the heat of the summer to be bearable!

So, here's the new couch! We love the ottoman and we'd told Cynjyn that it would be big enough for her to sleep on , so that's why she's laying on it.

Luckily, our kids are grown enough that we don't need a lot of extra space in the living room for toys and stuff, because the couch and ottoman take up A LOT of space!! We LOVE it and enjoyed watching Harry Potter 4 together on Sunday and we were all quite comfy;)

What a day!

Today was a very emotional and spiritual day for me. It was fast Sunday and last week at FHE, we had decided as a family to fast for several things that our family needed. We were going to fast for Talon's knees. They are not feeling much better and it looks like surgery might be his next option. Tiffany has a job interview for a job at Garry's work tomorrow. It is a full time job with great benefits and so we are fasting for her interview to go well. We decided to fast for my wrist as they are just hurting all the time due to arthritis and I can't open things and they are just bothersome. So, we were all going to church with these specific things on our minds. Of course it was fast Sunday too. Talon and I both got new callings today. I was put in as Young Women's secretary and Talon was made the President of the singles in our ward. We have several kids his age that are less active and we have a lot that go to our home ward as opposed to the singles ward, so they called the Van's in our ward to be in charge of the singles. Well, they made Talon the "president" over this little group. I was scared to death of my calling. I've never been in young women's and feel very inadequate. Luckily, it is secretary, so I'll be more of a support for the President. But still I was nervous. Well, we had a jam packed testimony meeting with tons of people going up to bear their testimonies. With only a few minutes left, two women were up there and all of sudden, Talon goes up!! Then a girl went up, it was already way late and time for Sac. meeting to be over, but Talon let the girl go then he went up and gave a simple, short testimony on how grateful he was for families and how his family stuck by him through all his trials as a teenager. Of course, I was balling by the time it was done. Then after Sac. meeting a lady who I visit teach and has had problems with her daughter came up to me and gave me a big hug and said she can't wait for her daughter to do that in a few years and how Talon's testimony gave her hope. So, I started crying again!! I went to YW and stayed in with the beehives and actually participated in the lessons which was on journals and related how I had been a big journal keeper at their age and how fun it is now to go back and look at old entries. After church, we went as a family to the bishops office to be set apart. I love our bishop. His blessing for me was very powerful. He said in it how hesitant they were to put me into another demanding calling after having served so faithfully in an already demanding calling, but that he knew without a doubt that I needed to be there to help not on the girls, but the women that were in that calling. Then oddly, he named each one in my family by name and basically gave them a mini blessing saying how this calling would affect each one of them for the better. Of course I was crying all through this blessing. Then it was Talon's turn and he said how much Talon had grown in his spirituality and how he was turning into a fine young man who would do great things in his life. I could not stop crying for that!! He said many more things about Talon too, but they were all good and very personal. Then, tonight at 5, we had our home teacher come over to help give Talon a blessing for his knees. He had asked for a blessing Monday, but we decided to fast this weekend and then get him one. Actually the bishop fasted with him and then commented on the knees in his blessing for Talon. Garry anointed the oil and Craig gave him the blessing. Talon has a huge testimony of fasting and blessings. I am so grateful for that. He has asked Garry and I to fast with him on several occasions for many things and he has asked for a lot of blessings too. So, I hope things go well for him in his new calling and with his knees. I really enjoyed being in young women's and think I will learn to love that calling. I am so grateful for principles of the gospel and the blessings they bring into our lives. I am also thankful to have been so touched by the spirit all day. In my blessing from the bishop he said that the veil between heaven and earth would be thinned for me during this calling and I would have a lot of spiritual experiences. Well, that has already happened today and I loved the feelings.