A Fair is a Veritable Smorgasbord

Last week I took Sammy and Riley and Zeke to the county fair. I decided that it would be a much better experience than the state fair, mostly because it is tiny. Some people judge fairs by how much cool stuff there is to see and do. I judge them by whether we can see everything we want to before the boys are so tired they fall apart. This one was the best ever.

We spent a lot of time looking at farm animals, all of which scared Zeke immensely!




We participated in a local sport complex's fitness challenge: doing pushups, shooting baskets, kicking soccer goals, etc. (Turns out I had the high score for the whole weekend in my age group for one of the challenges--not sure if it was basketball or pushups!)



We got free balloons and goodies, gave out our phone number to a few insurance agents, had a free pony ride (which also scared Zeke into hysteria), and ate our brownbag lunch.

Next we headed to the midway, which I wouldn't recommend for anyone over age 7. It was perfect for us--an assortment of rickety little-kid rides. We spent $20 for a few tickets, which only took us about 15 minutes to use up. Good thing admission to the fair was free, since rides are always and forever a rip-off! Then we went to the food booths to find our treats, and ate them while watching a great pie-eating contest--the boys thought it was hilarious and now want to try eating their pie without using hands. If we had only gotten there a few minutes sooner, Sammy and Riley could have entered. I thought about joining the adult competition, but managed to resist the temptation.


My only disappointment of the entire fair: the booth selling deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos did not have Snickers as well. The lady said they tried it once and it was too messy. I think that's because they didn't start with frozen candy bars. So my craving is NOT satisfied, and I have decided to attempt this culinary delicacy myself. I will choose a date soon, and invite anyone who wants to experience complete chocolate bliss to come over for a homemade deep-fried Snickers bar!

Sixteen Pounds!

We had a great camping trip in Idaho this year, even though it rained most of the time. The frustrations of wet weather were tempered by two things: first, the rain cheered me up and got me out of a weeklong grumpy funk; second, we wimped out and ended up cooking meals and hanging out in Leo and Tricia's convenient rental condo. Since there were four families of us (including 6 small boys), we couldn't all sleep there, but sleeping in a tent during a rainstorm is actually just great as long as most of the water stays outside.

Really, what we mostly did was pick huckleberries. Day 1 was in the rain, Day 2 was partly sunny. A late, wet spring made for the most fabulous huckleberry picking any of us have ever seen.

For those who don't know, huckleberries grow only in the wild, and are usually sparsely scattered on low bushes. They are tiny and take a long time to pick, but they are worth every hour.

This year the berries were huge and grew very densely on the bushes. We found several wonderful patches near our campsite. We brought home 16 pounds of tasty berries, and we have a happy, full freezer now.


We have already had the most incredible huckleberry bread pudding with pecans and homemade caramel sauce. Future goodies await for visitors we like a lot, or who pay us enough money. As Sammy learned, huckleberries are as precious as gold (currently trading at $957 per ounce, though we do offer a small family discount).

Summer

Here's a brief (okay, lengthy) rundown on our summer activities:

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit from New Mexico over the 4th of July weekend, and brought Melissa with them. We visited BYU for a day, and overwhelmed Melissa with all the exciting campus activities that await her.


We had a fun time with the Barbers at the Independence Day parade. We ended the day with them and also Dan and Deanne's family, watching local fireworks displays from up on the mountains. Sammy loved it that the fireworks aren't noisy from far away, although the noise of a few crying (way too tired) kids was louder than any fireworks display I've seen.


Here are pictures from Sammy and Riley's water party in July. We invited all the kids their age that we could think of, and almost all of them came--I think it was about 25. Deanne helped keep order, but the kids were surprisingly good--with two wading pools, a slide, sprinklers, and a slip-n-slide!


Sammy cried and moaned and finally tried out his training-wheel-free bike. It turned out not as scary as he thought, and he's getting pretty good. If only we lived in a flatter neighborhood so he could practice on his own! He's also overcome his fear of swimming, as long as he's wearing a scuba mask that covers his nose. He's a great little fish underwater, so if we can get him to let go of his "magic feather," he'll be all set! Lately he spends his time wiggling his first loose tooth (almost ready to fall out) and counting the minutes until he starts first grade (which happened today.)

Riley has gotten pretty comfortable in the water too, by which I mean he will sometimes put his face in the water a little. He keeps asking me when he will get to be in a triathlon, so we might let him try a kids race next summer. He has started sounding out words, and hopefully will be reading on his own soon. (He gets really bored when Sammy is off reading by himself, which is a lot of the time.)

Zeke is talking up a storm--and the first word out of his mouth every time we go to grandma's house is "cookie." We love his words for grandma and grandpa: "ba-gam" and "ba-gamp." He cries a lot as more teeth try to poke through his little gums.

I got my own wetsuit and have finally started to enjoy swimming in cold lake water. Bruce apparently thinks it looks like fun, and has started swimming a lot at our pool. He's making great progress and will maybe do a triathlon with me next year.

Finally, a picture of all the jars of apples I helped my friend Stephanie can. Some have cinnamon, some are plain. Aren't they beautiful?

And with that, summer is just about over! It went too fast this year, but I guess it's nice that we had lots of fun stuff to fill it with!

New Mexico

This post is way overdue, and I'm sitting here hoping I can remember enough details to make it worthwhile.

Last June we loaded up the kids, some clothes, and a whole bunch of snack food and made the long trek to New Mexico. This is the highlight of Sammy and Riley's summer every year. It amazes me what kinds of details they remember from previous visits--and they expect the same or better on every new visit. The biggest excitement comes from the "Magic Treasure Box," whose mysterious fairy leaves small gifts for the boys each afternoon. This year they scored magnifying glasses, bubble wands, piles of pennies, and candy, among other treasures.

Another required activity is hiking up to the nearby mesa and feeding the family of bunnies that has lived in the bushes for at least 20 years. Grandpa and Dad usually orchestrate that outing. We also had fun with my friend Rachel and her two boys at a really interesting park--it has the most unusual climbing toys I've seen at a park.

Grandma spoiled the kids (and us) with fabulous food, as usual. Pancakes, strawberry shortcake, banana cream pie, etc. Zeke was in heaven, since no Grandma can resist a baby's request for "cookie?" Sometimes I fight against the nonstop flow of treats that come from grandparents, but I fully plan on doing that for my own grandkids someday, so I might as well be resigned.

The big event every year is a fishing trip with Grandpa. We've given up on driving 2 hours to a really great fish pond in the mountains. Instead, we drive for 20 minutes to a little trout farm in town. After trying for an hour to catch a big fish (they are big because they've been smart enough not to get caught for so long!), we moved to the small fish pond where the boys quickly caught their prize fish. Unfortunately, the water is so warm that all the fish taste like mud, so while the boys ate their trout for dinner, the rest of us ate wild Alaskan salmon (from the store).

All three boys cried when it was time to go, and are already talking about their plans for next summer's visit.

Miracles!

Tonight in our home we experienced a significant miracle that brought a tear to my eye. You may think I'm kidding when you read what happened, but I really did tear up. You see, our sweet baby boy Zeke is not so sweet about eating dinner, unless it involves sweets like fruit or syrup. We actually worry quite a bit about his nutrition (or lack thereof), and frequently make him fruit smoothies with a bit of spinach blended up in the mix. Other than that, and the occasional mashed yam or chicken nugget, his diet rarely includes meat or vegetables.

This evening, Zeke ate dinner.

He climbed onto my lap, grabbed his spoon, and without a word from me started scooping up peas and eating them. All of them. He was suspicious of the bite-sized chicken pieces on his plate, but eagerly chomped a larger, nugget-sized piece. Then he asked for another. And another. I handed him off to Bruce while I cut up some cantaloupe, but even knowing that treat was on its way to the table he ate a few more bites of chicken. Needless to say, I happily gave in to his request for cookies later in the evening--for once I didn't feel guilty because that was the only thing he'd eaten all night. GO ZEKE! (Unfortunately, I still foresee many nights of utter refusal to eat any dinner, but at least now I have hope!)

A few other minor miracles have been keeping us happy lately. Sammy and Riley are both overcoming their fears of water, and get their heads and faces plenty wet in the pool and in the sprinklers. Bruce solved the murder in an Agatha Christie novel (and he will point out that this one even had Poirot stumped for awhile). And I came in SECOND in my age division at my triathlon yesterday, which also happened to be my first event in the open water (at Scofield Reservoir). It was a half-mile swim and I was very nervous, but it went really well and was fun. Also, I was riding a heavy, slow mountain bike, so I got passed a lot, but still managed a decent overall time. Still, even though racing is fun, being done with a race feels better!

Back to the grind tomorrow. Any suggestions for more Zeke-friendly dinner menus? I'd love to hear your ideas!

Suh-wing, batta batta batta, swing!

Riley has really enjoyed playing t-ball this summer. He's in an "instructional league," which means they just learn how to play for several weeks, and only have a (non-competitive) game on the last day. Unfortunately, we only made it to two out of five (or was that six?) games, because we were out of town or just plain forgot a few times. Kind of not worth the money, except that Riley loved those two days he got to play.

Fielding practice:


What an arm!


At bat:


Why am I writing captions? You can see what he's doing!


Zeke's almost ready for the majors:


Sammy has been less than enthusiastic about t-ball this year. Okay, to be honest, he loves his team hat and shirt, and he REALLY loves getting a treat after each game. We're not sure if this makes it worth the money and bi-weekly treks to the baseball diamond, though.

Sammy at bat:


Running:


Standing his ground at first:


Upping his teammate's RBI:


Celebrating another game over and done with:

School's out!

Yes, school was out about a month and a half ago. Yes, I'm way behind on blogging. Yes, this day of overdue posts is totally making your day!

Due to unfortunate miscommunication, photos of Riley's preschool "graduation" got deleted. Good thing he didn't graduate, so we can take more pictures next year. Not much else to say--he loves preschool and does well.

Here are some pics of Sammy's kindergarten farewell party.

"Sammy, what did you learn in kindergarten?"
"How to qualify for the card trick section at football games."


Apparently they learned to dance in kindergarten as well:


Proud kindergarten graduate:


We went to the Thunderbirds air show with some friends after the kindergarten festivities:


Sammy in the cockpit of a big plane: