Recap

We have been super busy as usual the last 2 weeks. I am trying to remember what exactly we have been doing but I know it's alot. Cody got to go to Les Mis at Tuacahn in St. George with his Encore class last Saturday. He loved it! Cody has sang with the Encore choir 3 times. Twice in performances and once at the Homecoming football game. For the game they sang the National Anthem. That is probably one of the very few times Cody has actually gone to a football game here. By the end of the week he is so exhausted that he would rather stay home. He had to go to this game though and sing but he left pretty quick after half time because he was dragging. That is what we do most Friday nights here in Logandale. The MHS pirates are quite popular and as the entertainment around here seems to be lacking we see lots of people there of the same opinion. The band plays the Pirates of the Caribbean song and there are Tshirts and always food to buy so it is a fun Friday activity. It is by no means cheap though-with the cost of getting in, food, T-shirts, pirate flags, donations to the Booster club, and tickets for the various raffles that we never win we can't get out of there for under $100. It's quite ridiculous but what are you gonna do. Football season is almost over. The team that Don has been coaching had their last game this past Saturday. Thank goodness! We did not have to go though because Don took Connor and Caleb deer hunting with his dad and his brother, Dave. They got a small buck on Friday and had fun riding the 4-wheeler and Rhino and hiking all over. They did have a flat tire on the trailer on the way up and on the way back which put a damper on the festivities but only for a bit. Don and Caleb had some serious quality time on the side of the road while they waited for Connor and grandpa to go to Ely and get another tire and come back. They had the same problem on the way home with the other tire but this time both Connor and Caleb stayed with dad on side of the road. Connor spent an hour setting up camp while they waited. What usually is a 7 hour round trip took them 15 hours. A little frustrating! The good thing is that they did not run out of gas on top of that! After the 2nd tire blew and grandpa went to Alamo to get it fixed, they started off again and then both Don and grandpa had the same thought at the same time that they needed to get gas. Good thing they listened to the spirit! Don was kind enough to not take pictures of the deceased Bambi for my benefit although it would have been nice for the boys. The boys had a great time and Cody and Cayden and I did nothing all weekend-ok mostly nothing. Cody was supposed to go to a Forensics tourny but he woke up Friday morning with a fever and it hung out with him until Saturday afternoon. He was pretty bummed that he could not go because he stayed up all night on Wednesday night getting his boards done for his presentation. The boy literally stayed up all night-he said that he went to bed at 4:30 and slept for 30 minutes before he got up at 5 to go to school. That is probably why he got sick because he was so exhausted. No worries though there is another tourny this weekend. I worked on some sewing and watched all of season 3 of NCIS plus a little bit of season 1-yes out of order but that was how they came from the library. I had my procedure on Wednesday and was told to take it easy for a few days so it was a perfect excuse to not do anything. Don and the kids even cleaned the house Thursday morning before they left so that I would not have to. I have been to a few doctors the past 2 weeks determining if and when to do this procedure. I finally decided that it needed to be done because nothing else is working and this is really getting old. Unfortunately, the procedure did not work. I went to a surgery center Wednesday morning, waited an hour and a half for them to knock me out for 10 minutes and stick a really long needle into my neck to shoot cortizone next to the herniated disk all to no avail. I was pretty loopy most of Wednesday and then waited all weekend to decide that it did not work. I had a screaming headache all day Sunday-yes we sluffed church and then the same pain in the neck that I have had is still there as of today. AAARRRGGGHHH! Don was in Dallas the week before last and gone hunting last week and now this week he is going to South Dakota. It is hard having him gone so much but when he is home-he is home. The past 2 Mondays we have gone to Mesquite for lunch and for the weekly Walmart workout and wallet washing. That is one of the perks of him being gone so much-afternoon jaunts to Mesquite or to the few eating establishments locally. Connor is doing really well with homeschool. His math tutor just raves about him and says that he is doing so good. This kid really does need one on one attention because he learns so much better. The kids are having a good time with karate and staying busy with scouts and lots of homework. Even Cayden has homework-one of my pet peeves but oh well-gotta pick your battles. We do what we can when we can and then just send in our apologies via a note to the teacher on the nights that we can't get to it all. I have been trying to upload pics of the many events since I started this post but we seem to be having technical difficulties so I will try again tomorrow.

We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet-and The Apostles

I was reading in Alma 4 today and thought this was particularly appropriate with Conference just happening. Alma 4:19 Stir them up in remembrance of their duty. "The gospel is preached and testimony is borne to the Saints in order to stir the memory, refocus the heart on covenants and commitments, and rededicate the mind to a life of service and obedience. The Spirit- conveyed through the inspired servants of the Lord brings things to remembrance (John 14:26), particularly things of lasting worth, things that matter." Robert J Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon I Love Conference!!

Good Night, Sleep Tight

Don is in Houston this week and last night he had a rude awakening. He said that about 4am he woke up to this horrific screaming from somewhere close by. He sat up and listened and heard it again. It was a woman's voice screaming really loudly. He called the front desk and told them what he heard and they sent up hotel security. While he waited he heard thumping and more screaming. When security arrived to his floor they could not hear anything so they told Don that they were going up to the next floor. Don went back to his room and heard the woman screaming "you beat me up" so he called security back and said that it was in the room right next to him. While they were returning he not so discreetly beat on the wall so that they would know that he knew something was going was on. Security came and escorted a couple who were having a fling in the next room out of the hotel until the police came. The hotel profusely apologized and assured my husband who assured me that the hotel was a nice one and that they had never had that kind of problem before. Needless to say Don was unable to go back to sleep because of all the excitement and I will be unable to sleep tonight thinking about wife/girlfriend beaters in the next room.

Cody Can Can-Can

Cody has had 2 performances so far in the last 2 weeks with his Encore group. This is the singing gr,oup that he auditioned for back in May. They have learned 4 or 5 songs but they have only sung one song-Can Can. Last Thursday was a Back to School Open House at the high school and they performed at the beginning and then this week there was a community performance at the high school that featured numerous acts from the town. There is a group out here that is called the Moapa Valley Arts Council that puts together performances from the community and also brings in other groups like the BYU singers and Shakspeare plays. This one on Monday was the first of the season. This was our FHE. We had to pay to for a Tux for Cody and the group wore them Monday night. I am extremely technically challenged and can't for the life of me figure out how to upload the videos from my handy dandy newish Camcorder onto my computer. If I can figure it out I will post the video so you can all see our talented son.

Jump Everybody Jump

So the kids got a new trampoline for Christmas from Grandma Dottie and Grandpa Don. This gift was from 2 YEARS AGO and has been in the box ever since because WE WERE SUPPOSED TO MOVE!!!! At first we were supposed to move to Utah so we left it in the box thinking that we would not want to set it up just to take it down and then we never moved. Then we were supposed to move to Texas but that has not happened yet either so after much cajoling of the "head of household", Connor and said "head of household" dragged the thing to the backyard and put it together last Thursday. Connor and Cayden had a great time jumping on it with the hose. Yes, you can do that in September in Logandale-it was still 100 degrees outside. Then the boys had a campout on the tramp on Friday night complete with hobo dinners and "shmoes". Cody actually joined them. The kids all got cold about 4am and came inside but it was a nice effort! We even had FHE on the trampoline on Monday night in attempt to mix things up a bit and it really helped us have a better FHE because the kids were so excited to be outside and in a different place than the living room. (see previous post entitled White Flag)
ps-please ignore the fact that my yougest child is in his undies-I NEVER let them do that but he came home from school, saw the tramp, dropped his backpack, and stripped down to his skivvies before I even knew it. It was just easier not to fight him-pick your battles ya know!)

White Flag

We will be attempting another fun (fighting?)filled Family Home Evening again tonight. We will try to redeem ourselves from last week's disaster. Please watch for the white flag of surrender or the bat signal coming from my house as the children may bring out the big guns (arguing, eyeball rolling, vacant stares and inaudible responses) in an attempt to thwart our efforts to have nice, happy, hand holding evening. If you see the bat signal or the white flag please enter slowly so as to not spook the snipers hiding behind the couch. I am trying to find my body armor-has anyone seen my helmet. I think I need to find the Zanax too. If we passed that around as a pre-home evening appetizer we might get through the evening without anyone crying-including me. Could someone tell me why this is so hard when we are just trying to do what it right? Maybe we should just raise the black flag of death and not even bother!

Food Storage 101

I have been trying the last few weeks to really look at our food storage and how we need to use it because we have not been really good at rotating the stuff in the #10 cans. I bought 2 of the smaller can rotation units that store on the shelves in the pantry. I really would like to have the big standing units that hold like 300 cans and can hold the #10 cans too but I have no where to put them unless I make Cayden and Cody share a room and turn another bedroom into a storage room. I don't see that happening though. I have been looking at various blogs where the women are super organized and also give out helpful tips, advice and recipes on how to use food storage. Some women have even listed 60 or 90 day recipes using just what you can store and then telling you how much of each item you need. Some days I think that it is helpful and then other days I just get depressed because of all that I don't have or use or even know what to do with. Here are the sites-An Old Fashion Girl and Safely Gathered In and Oh The Places You'll Go. The one with the food storage room is amazing and I am vacillating between awe and despair. A few weeks ago me and the kids pulled out all the big boxes of #10 cans that were in the pantry under my stairs and went through them and made a list of what we had. We also made an inventory of all the other food in both pantries to see what we really have on hand. I have some wheat, rice and macaroni that we canned in 1995. I have actually used the rice and some white beans already a few times and it actually still tastes fine. I got out a can of macaroni a year or so ago and tried to use it but it tasted funny. Also potato pearls I have noticed that have been in a can for a long time have a darker color and a stronger flavor than the new ones. After opening a can of dried apples from our food storage the kids decided that they did not like them. They are too dry for them yet the Walmart ones that are fresher in the packages they think are too chewy. So we will not be purchasing any more of those. I want to find Grits in bulk to can and also butter beans. My kids like those best but the last time I bought them they were frozen and I can't find them here in Logandale or at Walmart where I shop mostly. I have definitely found that you should can what you eat and eat what you can. As stated in my previous posts I have bottled peaches and tomatoes, made peach jam and froze corn off the cob and peaches. My mom and I were trying to decide how economical it was to bottle the peaches because of the work involved. If you buy cases on sale than it is probably cheaper unless the fruit comes from your own tree which it certainly does not here. I guess the point is to know how to bottle and have the equipment on hand to do it if you had to. My amazing friend Serena is drowning in apricots and pears not to mention her huge garden full of peas and beans and squash. She lives in Idaho and has to worry about getting all the produce in before it freezes where as here in lovely Logandale you have to hope that the blazing hot sun does not suffocate and fry whatever you can save from the Squash Bugs. She has been bottling her heart out. I don't think that I could, would, or would want to bottle 47 quarts of apricots but she did and I am impressed but feeling quite exhausted for her! My idea today is to turn my rarely used linen closet into another food storage pantry and get all the boxes out from under my stairs and put them there. If you noticed in the pictures on the Old fashion girl blog she used those see through shorter plastic totes for pasta, brown sugar and powdered sugar. Those will fit nicely in that closet and I am wondering if those can rotation things will fit there as well. I would have to move the blankets and towels from that closet to the other closets in the house but it would work. We do have the closet by Cody's room dedicated to our 72 hour and medical/supply needs. The backpacks are there as well as the totes that have our extra items like hotel size shampoos and stuff like that. Now is a good time to go through our backpacks with Conference coming up and the seasons changing. That is just how I remember to go through our stuff. I coordinate it with Conference time. The next project is to figure out how to use all that wheat we have. That Safely Gathered In site has alot of ideas and just recently there was something about wheat use. I need to get a wheat grinder but those suckers are expensive. I guess if the end comes and we need to use the wheat and can't grind it into flour because we don't have a grinder we can just go outside into our lovely desert and get a few rocks to grind together and make our own mortar and pestle.