A Dam Vacation

We all needed it! WE NEEDED A VACATION! So we took a dam vacation!

To Hoover Dam that is.

Long, long, long, long, long ago, I went to Hoover Dam with my elementary school class. I haven't been back since.  Mark also remembers going there with his family just a little while ago. But he hasn't been back since.  So, we decided that our children needed to go to Hoover Dam so that when they are older they can tell their kids that long, long, long ago they visited the dam.  There was no short supply of jokes.  The kids, especially James, were all-too-happy to "fake swear."  We even made Granna laugh when she texted me and asked, "How is your vacation?" I texted back, "We are at Hoover Dam." She replied, "How exciting." I replied, "It's dam exciting!"  Which made her laugh for 3 1/2 minutes straight, give or take a few seconds.

Now for the dam pictures (as you can tell, I myself, jump at the chance to "fake swear").

 We are on top of Hoover Dam and in front of the new bridge that my brother Ryan helped engineer.

 In two states at one time: Arizona and Nevada 

On the dam tour we were taken into the one of the turbine rooms. It really is an amazing place!

The small museum shows how the dam was built, how power is made and distributed.

And now for the best part! ESCALATORS! Really long ones that just begged the boys to ride them up and down numerous times.

That same weekend we went to a bird show in Moapa Valley where we played bird games like, "help the birds survive and the environment too," or something like that.

When presented with a very large statue of a lizard, one must sit upon it, he had the most relaxing seat for the bird show!

Halloween Booty

This was a year of firsts for me where Halloween in concerned.  The boys did not have their costumes planned out in July, so we had last minute costumes.  Well, they had their costumes all planned out in their heads, but since I had no idea who they were talking about, I let them make their own.

Here they are:

James is Bane turned clown, Spencer is Leo and D.J. is Jason.

Do you recognize them?  Me either. Here's what I learned: Bane is a bad guy in Batman. Jason is a demi-god in the Percy Jackson series and so is Spencer's character, Leo.

Here's how the season played out:

We went to a trunk or treat at the church.  James was all muscley at the beginning of the night, but by the end of the night, his muscles fell around his waist.  One of the men commented that that is just how life goes.  I don't think James was too thrilled with that, so when actual Halloween rolled around (and Halloween party at Mark's work) he opted for the clown costume standby, which required very little effort.

Spencer and D.J. wore orange and purple t-shirts with jeans and a few significant weapons that each character had.  I love that they dressed as characters from a book and they had a great time with it.  They just had some explaining to do at every house. . . and they were more than happy to do it.  Let me back up a little though.  Not only did D.J. and Spencer dress up as demi-gods, they put together a vehicle called the Argon, using the red wagon as a base.  They thought it was brilliant because instead of walking around the neighborhood, they would take turns riding, plus they wouldn't have to use a bag for their candy, they would just put the candy in the wagon (separate chambers for each boy).

Not only did they take the red wagon every where they went, they commenced with dialogue every time they got on and off the ship.  It went something like this:

Arriving at a new house:
"Dock her here!"
"Anchor's down!"
"Oars up!"

Out for candy and back in the Argon:
"Oars down!"
"Anchor's up!"
"Forward Ho!"

I thought this would last a house or two, but it lasted a good 30 minutes before they stopped the dialogue.  What they didn't stop was calling the wagon their "booty chamber."  Here's how that dialogue went:

Arriving at a house (a proper older lady in particular):
Boys: "Trick or treat!"
Lady: "Oh, what are you dressed as?"
Boys: "Demi-gods."
Lady: "Where is your bag?"
Boys: "We don't need bags, we put it in our booty chamber."
Lady: "Oh my!"
Mom: Sigh.
Boys: "Thank you!"

The best thing I created this year was the deal that if I didn't hear them say thank you, I got the candy from that house.  I'm pleased to say that I didn't end up with any candy. It all went into the booty chamber (which is not code for my rear end).

Here is the pumpkin carving night.  I only had to help scrape the guts out.

 I knew we turned a corner with jack-o-lanterns when all three had weapons sticking out of them:

And let it be known that the pumpkins that have the warts on them are very, very hard to carve.  I ended up painting mine.

James with his post-candy tongue:

D.J.'s school class performed a great Halloween program.  D.J. performed Jerry Seinfeld's "Get Candy."

I figured I'd better go to Spencer's last Halloween parade at his school.  He paraded in character - as always.

Spencer is 12!

 It's true.  Spencer really is 12! And he only has three more inches to grow before he's taller than me.  Sigh.  He wanted a "late night" for his birthday party this year, with sausage pizza from Little Ceasar's and a movie.  Easy Peasy.  He has some great friends that really make me laugh.  At one point, there was a group a friends in the back yard playing with Roxy, a group of friend dancing in the street waiting for another friend to arrive and a group of friends playing Rock Band in the house.  All were noisy.  Good noisy.  They watched Alien's in the Attic and laughed and laughed and rewound the funny parts and laughed again.  Success.

Spencer received the game Munchkin from Granna and a bonus Munchkin Fu.

Cool dude with a cool jacket from Grandma and Grandpa Wheeler.

Hexbug habitat was the birthday wish that came true for this 12 year old.

Spencer's birthday party was three days after his real birthday, so he just wanted a pumpkin pie for his birthday dessert.

But for his birthday cake, he wanted Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

Spencer's friends serenaded him with "It's you birthday I've been told!" Military style.

Other Summer Fun

I was just going through pictures and realized there were a bunch of other fun things we did this summer that need to be remembered!

Some 4th of July pictures at the Centerville parade.  Our friends, the Chinsky's joined us on the Pierce's lawn this year. James, cool guy, is hanging out with Timothy and Noah.

 The Pierce's also had an out-of-garage-band party in their driveway. Rock band was projected onto their garage door.  The kids were zoned out, but pulled themselves away  long enough to do some fireworks.

We went on a family hike in a canyon near Mueller Park.  It was drudgery for the boys until I suggested they dip their heads into the stream and make mohawks/spikey hair.

We had a visit from the Minnesota Davis family (Bart and Loni) so we went to Lagoon with the whole clan and then bounced back with just my clan.  The boys were overwhelmed with amusement parks this summer!

We fit in a visit to Salt Lake's new (and very awesome) Natural History museum with the Larsen's and Stringham's.

Spencer, D.J. and James were employed to babysit two neighbor boys, Damon and Andrew, to give their expectant mother a little quiet time.  They were great babysitters and didn't tire too much of entertaining two "little brothers."

We had a visit from two Minnesota family friends in one week! The Harris boys spent a few hours with us and the Ames family came through a few days later.  It was like no time away had passed between us, except for the noticeable difference that they are all two feet taller!

We also went to Pineview Reservoir with the Davis family and had a great day getting wet, skiing, tubing and ski-doo-ing.

The weekend before school started I followed through on a promise to have a Star Wars marathon.  We fit four of the six movies in and a couple of spoofs. At one point I had 16 boys in the house! We went through lots of candy, 12 pizzas and multiple bags of popcorn.  I'm going to have to do it again as I have just discovered that one of Spencer's friends has not seen "Return of the Jedi" when he asked, upon viewing the Han Solo frozen in carbonite cake: Did he ever get unfrozen from that? The party stopped and there was silence.

D.D.D.J (Double Digit D.J.)

D.J. is in double digits now!  He was so excited to have a friend party this year! He decided to do a "late night" party, in which his friends came for dinner and stayed late (9 pm) for a movie and games.  D.J. wanted to watch the movie The Lorax and have ravioli and pizza for dinner.  Breakfast was roll-up pancakes and bacon.

D.J. is the most independent thinker of our three boys, and he decided that he didn't want a character or movie cake, he wanted a three-tier cake of varying blue colors.

Besides getting a dog for his birthday, one of his most used presents was a watch. He rarely take his watch off and reminds me of the correct time often and will not settle for my time estimations.  He uses the timer on his watch often for screen time or piano practice. 

Friends Brock Gregersen, Tanner Nelsen, and Jack Stringham joined the birthday fun. They all knew D.J. likes building so they all gave him Legos! 

Happy Birthday to D.J.! 

In the spirit of the Summer Olympics, in the remaining time before parents came to pick up kids, everybody participated in impromptu games - even Roxy!