2012 Blue Jeans Week 35

Monday holidays always mess me up.  I am always thinking, "so is tomorrow a Sunday or Tuesday?"  Where am I and what do I need to do?  But it is always so nice to have a holiday.  Our weekend was really fun.  We played more on Saturday, so we could really labor on Labor Day--like doing our Saturday jobs and painting our new windows inside.  So here is some pictures from our week.

We are so extremely blessed to live near my parents.  They came over for Sunday dinner, and after Mr J likes to read with Grandpa.  

Three years ago we replaced half of our windows, and this week we replaced the other half, so all our windows are new--yeah!  Cross that house project off the list and move onto the next.  They are vinyl outside and wood inside, so now we get to paint--another item to add onto the never-ending house 'to-do' list.  Anyone else have a list like that???

Okay, I did finally get up to see Ben's seminary class this week.   I am so not a morning person (at least not a  happy one) and waking up early is not my thing, but I did it today and got a picture of the awesome kids and my amazing husband who occupy our basement every weekday morning for New Testament study.  Way to go Ben and kids!

Today was Miss A's first ever high school cross country meet.  She is a freshman, and her coach felt she was good enough to run in the varsity girls race.  Gulp!  My freshman baby running with juniors and seniors, I was a little worried, but she did awesome!!!!  There were about 90 girls running, and freshman Miss A got 10th!!!  Way to go!  She was amazing!  It was so hot that day, and her cute teammate has a glass of water ready for her as she runs by on the 4K race.  Go Miss A!  It is going to be a great season!

If you know us very well at all, you know we are huge BYU fans.  Ben and I both graduated from there.  Both sets of our parents graduated from there also.  We sadly don't live anywhere near the campus and miss the games, but we always check the schedules to see if our team is playing anywhere near us.  This year the BYU women's volleyball team was playing in a tournament a few hours from our house this weekend, and we decided to go.  It was so fun!  We were able to see them play 2 different teams, and they won the whole tournament.  After the last game they had a big team huddle, and we saw the coach look over at us and then the players and then when they broke their huddle the whole team came over to us (there were not many people there, and we were sitting court side) and they gave us hugs and high fives and thanked us so much for coming.  The kids were super excited!!!  They got autographs and pictures.

This is Jennifer Hamson who is 6'7" and is an amazing player for BYU.  She is also on their basketball team.  The girls were super excited to meet her.

Mr J was excited to have her sign his shirt :)

Thanks for visiting and have a great week!

** A special note to my Japanese friend Marie, yes, my browser translates your blog so I can read it.  I am happy you are going to church!  I love you and your family!

Blue Jeans Week 35

A week to remember. . .

Sunday:  This is one of my favorite of the thousands of images from the 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I think the memorial is beautiful.  I went to NYC  as a teen and went in and ate in the basement of one of the Twin Towers.  I would like to go back now and see it again.  It is so important to remember.

Monday:  We have a big garden 50' x 50' and we planted over 24 tomato plants and none of those plants are dead, but we have not seen a single tomato yet either, but we have had a huge harvest of zucchini and yellow squash.  We can never get sick of zucchini, but I think my family has had their fill of yellow squash.  Miss O chops some up for dinner.

Tuesday:  Over 2 months ago in July, before we left on vacation, we had a strong storm, and it blew some shingles off.  Ben hurried and bought a tarp to cover the part of the roof that was bare, and we left on vacation hoping for no rain.  Well, waiting on insurance and contractors we have had this lovely blue roof now for over 2 months, and finally this week we are getting a new roof and getting rid of the blue tarp.  Thank heavens this was on the back of the house :)

Wednesday:  Homework, homework, homework is a constant thing at my house "Did you get your homework done?"  is probably the most common question asked after "Did you practice your piano?"  and "Did you clean your room?"  Miss A is quite comfortable doing her homework on the floor.

Thursday:  I snap pictures all the time, all the time, and my kids are used to it and just ignore me.  Ben is not so used to it :)  Gosh, I love that cute boy.  Today he was helping Mr J with his piano.     

Friday:  I actually worked and got paid for my work today--first time in almost 14 years :)  Being a stay-at-home mom is the best job in the world, but the monetary pay isn't so good :).  My mom is the librarain at my kids' elementary school, and today she had to be gone and her para also had to be gone, so she begged me to come work for her that day in the library.  Little did I know the paperwork and hoops I would have to jump through to help out my mom for 7 hours.  I had to get a TB test done and a drug test.  I thought--serioursly?  Oh my, but I had a fun day at the school library.  I checked out 186 books and shelved about that many.  I got to check out books to this cute little guy too--it was fun seeing Mr J and Miss E at school.

Saturday:  This is one of the big trees in our front yard.  The kids love to play in it and under it and around it.  It has a tree swing in it.  We were so sad to find out that the power company is putting in a new powerline down our street, and it looks like our trees are going to have to be cut down.  We are so sad and just sick about it.  Makes me want to cry.  Of course they say they will pay us for it, but how do you appraise the value of a tree?  I love trees.