Moab Pre-Wedding Party

David and Lieve are getting married this summer! Hooray!  They are getting married in Belgium, but wanted to celebrate with some of their Colorado and Salt Lake friends, so they picked a midpoint to do so: Moab, one of their favorite places.  We were happy they invited us and quickly said yes, as we love spending time with them and we love Moab! We shared in renting a cabin in the beautiful La Sal mountains, with four other families.  We had a wonderful time with all, exercising, talking, playing games, eating and resting.

We realized that we had not seen David and Lieve for over 1 1/2 years, so everybody was excited to see the changes in the boys.  Here is the first meeting (in real life it wasn't as blurry).  Spencer is taller than Lieve (join the short club) and nearly as tall as David (join the nearly short club with Mark).  Though it looks like Spencer is taller than both, he's stretching a bit. Or David is shrinking.

After a bagel/cream cheese/omlette breakfast, we went on a great hike to fisher towers, which is east of Moab.  It was a perfect day for a hike, not too hot, and cloudy enough for  sun protection.  We thought we were only going to hike for 2.3 miles, but it ended up 4.something.

Spencer, David, Lieve, D.J., Mark, Stephen and Jenny.

James's pack started leaking and I just couldn't refuse a picture. Hee hee!

There is just something amazing walking among structure such as these.  The world is an amazing place.  What's almost as amazing is that there were rock climbers climbing these things!

Two of my favorite shots on the hike. Cactus flowers and the Colorado River winding through the landscape.

I also just had to include the picture of the trail end because I was the only one who saw it.  It was much farther than 2.3 miles and we thought we would be at the end after every turn, but I hit a groove and walked ahead until I found it.  It's a good thing there is a sign marking the trail end, or I might have walked off a cliff!  I realized as I got back to the trailhead that I should've taken a selfie with the sign, just to confirm that is was me taking the picture. You'll just have to trust me.

David helped James see through a window we found in the rock, walking back to the trailhead.

David was the only merciful hiker toward James at the end of the hike.  He gets the Uncle of the year award for giving James a piggie-back ride and listening to the boys talk about Clash of Clans ALL THE WAY THERE AND ALL THE WAY BACK.

This is a great family picture (thanks Dave), although slightly depressing for me as I am clearly at a height right in between Spencer and D.J. (and I'm standing on higher ground!).

Saturday night was the big party where more of David's and Lieve's friend gathered to celebrate their upcoming nuptuals.  We were entertained by stories about how David and Lieve met and how their engagement came about. Sweet stories indeed!

Sunday was rainy in the La Sal mountains, so all Mountain biking was cancelled.  But we decided to meet Stephen and Jenny in Moab for lunch at the Blu Pig, a visit to the rock shop where we all bought souvenir rocks ("Hey, Lisa, if you scratch my back, I'll but you any rock you want." - Mark)

We followed up the Rock Shop with a river side walk.  Stephen gets another Uncle of the Year award for first, suggesting that he give Spencer, SPENCER, a piggy back ride, and then actually attempting to do it!  Spencer ended up getting dumped on his face and laughter ensued.

After we returned to the cabin, Spencer wanted to go find the pond with the canoes.  It was still sprinkling a little bit, but not enough to impede us.  David showed us the way on the "Shot gun trail" and we came to a pond with a paddle boat and a canoe.  It started raining a little harder, but that didn't stop the boys from playing bumper boat.

Then it started hailing. Just to memorialize it, I made my poor husband go out from under the protection of the little fishing shelter so I could take a picture.

The hot tub was probably one of the most favorite activities, rain or shine. James ended up in the hot tub with the two girls Erica and Emma (5 and 8) one day and when he came in he told me that they were playing imagination with him.  He said they were imagining him to be an animal and they listed all these "girlie" animals.  But then they chose him to be a dolphin and he was ok with that because a dolphin is the second smartest animal in the world.  Whew!

Another favorite "game" to play with the girls was to hide their stuffed animals or keep them hostage.  This was fun for them, but in the end was put to a stop as my ear drums couldn't take it anymore.  Along the line of games, David and Lieve played a new board game with the boys Sunday night and all had fun.  We are glad Lieve will be in the family!

By the way, I bow at Lieve's feet.  She took it upon herself to make her own wedding dress.  Just to make sure she could do it, she made a mock dress.  The dress she is wearing in the picture above is the mock dress.  You can't see all the detail, but I and everyone else was and is impressed!  AND the tie David is wearing is also hand-crafted by Lieve, made from the same material as the dress.  Did I also mention she is a microbiologist?  AND, on the morning of this photo shoot (there were other people there with better cameras than my lowly iphone), she went out with wet hair and it dried beautifully in the great outdoors.  Had I done the same, my pictures would have prompted people to make donations.  Just one more thing on the amazing list of Lieve!

The next Uncle and Aunt of the Year award goes to Stephen and Jenny.  They took the boys on a hike while we rode 30 miles to Potash and back.  It was a perfect day, around 70 degrees and it looked like this:

That little spot down the road is Mark, he is usually ahead of me (in many ways) and I have to pedal hard to keep up with him (in many ways).  I love sharing one more aspect of life with him.

All in all, we had a relaxing, invigorating, entertaining, mind-stimulating, educational, and just plain fun time.  It's good spending time with the Astlings!

Snuggle Huggle

James's last big project for third grade was the Invention Convention.  He had to think of a problem and solve it with a new invention.  Of all three boys, James likes to cuddle the most and doesn't like to be lonely.  So he came up with making a pillow that would hug you.  We googled "hugging pillow" to see if there were others out there.  I would not recommend this google searches.  There are others out there, but James's is by far the most appropriate. I thought we had good filters for internet searches, but apparently hugging pillow is not picked up on the searches!

James drew a prototype, we gathered the materials and I taught him how to sew in a straight, well, semi-straight line.  Straight enough to keep the pillow case together.  He used a pair of gloves and some elastic covered in the same material for arms that wrap around.

He was required to make a project board explaining the problem, displaying an inventors activity log, material list, patent certificate and a report on an inventor.  He chose the inventor of Legos, Ole Kirk Christainsen.

Even Superman needs a hug sometimes!

 James sleeps with his Snuggle Huggle (a name he was reluctant to use, but he couldn't think of anything better than my suggestion) every night.  He actually had one request for purchase.  But I think we'll just keep this as an original.

Third Grade Opera: Moon War

Every other year, James's teacher, Mrs. Parrish, has the children research, write, stage, make props and costumes and then perform an opera. An opera is defined as a performance in which the actors sing all or most of the words.  In general operas last over 2 hours at least.  Moon War lasted 13 minutes.  I don't think Mrs. Parrish could've handled a longer one.  The basic story line is this: monkeys exist on a moon and are happy to be the only ones to inhabit the moon.  "Strange Creatures" come and threaten to take over the moon. The strange creatures bring cheetahs and peacocks as their slaves to begin chopping down trees, but the monkeys don't think having slaves is a good idea.  War ensues.  Explorers enter and want a piece of the land as well.  The monkeys don't like all the fighting and realize that there is enough land to share with work and cooperation.

James was one of the monkeys (the cutest one in my opinion), a perfect role for him because monkeys are his favorite animals.

It was my pleasure to accompany the opera.  This is my second opera, since Spencer's class landed on an opera year as well.  We performed twice, once for the school and once for family.

For their Christmas program, Mrs. Parrish teaches the students to play the ukelele, so when they wrote the opera, they decided they wanted to use the ukeleles again.  While it didn't really fit in the opera genre (I don't think Mozart would've written ukeleles in), it was a fun addition.

In this picture you can see most of the characters: a cheetah, two peacocks, two monkeys, three strange creatures and two explorers.

Seriously. Is there a cuter monkey?

I loved working together with James.  As I practiced at home, he would help me with the tempo and sing along so I could get a feel with the playing a singing together.

Double the Fun!

My sister, Loni and her husband Matt, decided that they needed a vacation.  She asked if we would watch her twins, Chloe and Chase for a week while they were gone.  Of course we would!  My boys anxiously awaited the week of the vacation, asking every week if this would be the week.  The boys went on the annual Father and Sons campout the Friday before Mother's Day, giving me Friday night quiet before we nearly doubled the voices in the house.  It was perfect timing!  The twins arrived Saturday morning and we played together until the boys came home from camping.  The first three hours were spend behind the gate on the stairs because they were scared of Roxy.  I thought this week would either go really well with them upstairs all the time, or it was going to be a long week.  Fortunately, the barriers for Chase broke down when we went outside and I started throwing a tennis ball to Roxy, Chase happily engaged in the game.  After watching their favorite movie "Frozen" that night, Chase proclaimed that Roxy was his best friend.  It took a little longer for Chloe to come around to Roxy, but by the end of the week, Roxy was the one who was timid around Chloe.

That night we all went to dinner with Priscilla to celebrate motherhood (thank you for having a wonderful son!) at Romano's Macaroni Grill.  All children behaved well, until Priscilla tried to help Chloe out of her chair, which resulted in a small fit of independence.  This was foreshadowing for more stands of independence from her.  There's certainly nothing wrong with doing things yourself, it just requires a little more patience coming from a 3-year-old.

Mark peeked in on Chase and chloe while they were sleeping in D.J.'s room.  He couldn't find Chase and then realized that Chase was sleeping on Chloe's pillow.  He said his heart melted when he realized they were holding hands.

Another cute sleeping picture:

Even though we had two extra kids around, Mother's Day was great!  Mark and the boys treat me well and they don't let me do any work. Even when I get up from the table and start taking my plate to the sink, they rush in a grab it from me and go tell me to sit down.  Spencer and James gave me sweet gifts and I got the tiller I wanted (I'm weird like that) and D.J.'s gift was this ensemble:

You can't tell from the picture very well, but he's wearing a blue and white plaid shirt, with a different plaid bottom and a camouflage belt.  He thought it was just fine and I smiled for five minutes while watching him swing in the back yard in his outfit.

Monday, I took Chase and Chloe to Home Depot to get some new sand for the sand box. They had a great time riding on the sand and potting mix.

But before I could put the sand in the box, I had to fix the wheel barrow tire.  Chase was so helpful in the endeavor and tried to get the tire on the rim with Roxy's rubber chicken.

Spencer had a band concert on Monday night, so the two came along with us.  Spencer joined the Jazz band this term, in addition to beginning band.  He played Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Bad. The picture is not great because the lighting for pictures is weird, or I don't know what I'm doing (probably the later), but he is the trombone player on the left.  I only caught the last of Bad, but check it out.

Hopefully this will work: Click on the picture and turn your sound up.

This is what Chase thought of the band concert.  He started falling asleep, Mark asked, "Chase, are you asleep?" He said, "yes."  Mark: "Don't you want to stay awake for the concert?"  He shook his head no.  We let him sleep for a bit then tried to wake him up by standing him up.  He started heading for the stage, then into another aisle, then Mark took him out to walk around.

Chloe didn't think the concert was that boring:

We spent a lot of time on the swings in the back yard.  I actually did get some gardening done, but swinging was priority.  We had Damon and Andrew come over to play as well and while I cared for the raspberries we traded name calling: "oh yeah, well I'll call you giraffe eyes!" Giggling.  "Oh yeah, well I'll call you twinkle toes!"  Then they said, "Oh yeah, well I'll call you Raspberry Lisa!"  I told them that's what my Mom and Dad used to call me!

Chase found that the bathroom soap made a lot of bubbles, and if we weren't paying attention, he'd get a lot of cleaning done:

After one of Chloe's shows of independence, I set her on the couch for quiet time and she promptly fell asleep. It's safe to say that I still know the name of the game with toddlers is: who can wear who out the fastest.

I think this is the night that we had pack meeting and Mark came home just in time for me to go to my Recreation Volleyball league (we are undefeated, thank you very much), and for him to take five kids to Pack Meeting.  After Chloe was less enthused about me not going with them, they made it to the church, but Chase caught his toe in the door and required a few band-aids.  Mark was calm and collected and helped the little man out so he could play crab soccer in high spirits.

Friday, the PTA had their annual Spring Carnival fundraiser.  I spent most of the morning finishing up this photo op from the LEGO movie for one of the activities.  It's a good summary of our week with Chase and Chloe "Everything is Awesome!"

 Toilet ball was a one of the games next to my "Wheel of Fun" so Chase and Chloe were participants.

The highlight of the evening was an appearance by the "Frozen" princesses, Elsa and Anna.

Chloe stuck by me at my booth for most of the carnival, but ventured out to do some line dancing with a 6th grade boy.  

All in all is was a good week, reminding me that toddlers ask lots of questions, even if I've answered them before, it's nice to have children that can pump themselves on the swings and buckle themselves in their seats and dress themselves, and I am not getting any younger.  It was fun to be reminded of my toddler raising years and realize that "to everything there is a season and a purpose under the heavens."  It was also nice to watch my boys care for the two little ones and they did a great job with them.  I'm glad we were able to give Loni and Matt a little break!