{Randomness}

I can't believe the summer is half over already. Is it just me or is time going faster? The boys finished summer school last week and we've been trying to adjust to our new schedule (or lack there-of, if I'm being honest). We enjoyed a fun Fourth of July weekend. I love the Fourth in our little community. Carlie and I enjoyed watching the parade with our families, while Derrick, our boys and Sydney represented Dearden Equipment. After the parade we spent some time in the park. We ate yummy Navajo Taco's, visited with some friends and waited in long lines. I have to say we had the most generous (and cutest) candy throwers. I think they dumped almost half a box of taffy on the road in front of us!
For a small town we have a pretty great fireworks show, and this year was no exception! After the big show, we had a little one in our back yard, but the rain cut it short.
Carlie finally got her cast off on the 6th. I was proud of her she was super brave!
Saturday the kids came running in the house yelling, SNAKE! Sure enough there was a big blow snake on the patio. I swear it was almost 3 feet long! Somehow, it ended up in the window well, with Obi our cat. He kept batting at it, but the snake got him a few times too. The kids ran downstairs to look through the window for ring side seats.
Poor Obi, can you see his fur-less chin? When he finally got out of the window well and we were looking at the snake, we could see fur in that sneaky snakes mouth. Poor kitty.

Last night was Bunko at Sheri's house. The food was yummy, the company was great, and the prizes were fantastic. Isn't that the funnest, funky, darling apron! It's the one I got and I L.O.V.E. it! Bunko Rocks!

What fun things have you been up to?

{A Camping We Will Go....}

A camping we will go, off into the mountains- a camping we will go!

This last weekend was the annual Beckstrand family camp out! We go at different times every year, and each of us takes a turn being in charge and picking our spot, but every year we go and every year we have fun! This year it was my brother Shad and his wife Julia's turn and they chose...

Tropic Reservoir
Derrick and the boys had been there before, but the rest of us hadn't. I was seriously wondering about their choice as we drove the entire way into a headwind. Once we got there and got settled it turned out to be a great spot, even though it was a bit chilly!

This was the first real camping trip we've taken in our new trailer, and I have to say it was a big improvement! I was especially thankful for the heater and the hot water. Brock spent the first night in a tent with his cousin Carson and everyone had their own beds and the extra room was spectacular. Carlie loves her bed and woke up both mornings with crazy hair. We all split up the meals and it was so great to only have to cook once, actually I just had to help a bit, since Derrick made omelets for us all, another thing that I think has become a tradition.

We all split up a bit on Saturday, part of us going on a hike and the other going down to the lake to fish. Brock and Kaleb both caught fish of differing sizes, and they were both happy with them. Derrick cooked them up and that was their lunch. (We probably wouldn't have kept Brock's but it swallowed the hook) We all split up again that afternoon, some of us napping, others reading, riding four-wheelers or playing games.

What sweet (but dirty) little girlies!
Tylie, Kamryn, Carlie & Addison

And the silly (and dirty) boys!

Kaleb, Brock, Bryson & Carson

My mom and dad have 4 grandsons, and then 4 granddaughters. Shad and Julia are expecting....wonder what the tie breaker baby will be?

The Entire Fam-Damily

Robert (aka Dad), Carlene (aka Mom) Shad, Julia, Kamryn, Bryson, Kyle, Katy, Brock, Tylie, Carson, Lisa, Jeremy, Kaleb, Addie, Mo, Derrick and Carlie

Derrick and I

Me and Lis

I really didn't want Carlie's cast to get all dirty, since she has to keep it on for 3 1/2 more weeks, so we wrapped it with and ace bandage. It still got a bit dirty around her hand, but for the most part it worked wonderfully!

And here we are all hooked up and ready to go home! That's quite the load wouldn't you say? I have the best family and I really love spending time with them.....I'm already looking forward to next year!

{Busy, Busy, Busy}

The last few weeks for us have been....busy, busy, busy! Because of that, a few things have been neglected, namely my blog and my house. I've been trying to work on the house this morning and it's time for a little bloggy break to share a few of the things we've been up to lately.

• The Race for a Cure
  

I finally got our pictures off my moms camera. Unfortunately, the group shot we took with my Aunt and cousins turned out really dark, darn it!

Lis and I always have such a great time together, and this weekend was no exception. I laughed until I cried (I wish I could share the pictures of Lisa's fantastic PJ's, but she made me swear I wouldn't) and we shopped until I was ready to cry (I have a time/patience limit when it comes to shopping) and it was just fun to spend a little girl time with my momma and my sis, and of course my dad too. I have to say dad was a good sport and didn't complain about the shopping at all!

• Baseball

Both Brock and Kaleb are playing on a coach pitch team this year, and their dad is the coach, which makes me the team secretary! So, we've been busy with games and practices and such.
Carlie thinks baseball games are the best and runs all over the place and just can't understand why she can't go out on the field with "my boys".

• Yard Work
  I think the biggest drawback to building a new house is starting a yard from scratch! We've been in our house for two and a half years now and I'm still overwhelmed by the yard.....there is just SO much to do! We put the lawn and a few trees in two summer ago, but that's as far as we got, no flowers, shrubs, bushes etc. I think this is the year that's going to change and we've done a lot in the last few weeks, and we spent the entire day yesterday working on things.

My mom got a set of these washtub containers at a yard sale last year. She gave me one, and I loved it, but didn't have a place for it. Well, with a few holes drilled in the bottom, it makes a pretty cute planter.

Derrick brought this old broken down wagon home when we lived in Santaquin. We've moved it with us at least 4 times and Derrick tried to chuck it every time. I finally planted some flowers in it, and I'm glad I made him keep it. Unfortunately the planters are the only things that have flowers right now, since we still need to get the sprinklers in the flower beds, but we are working on it!
An old wheelbarrow made into a cute planter, it also doubles as a nice shady spot for Licorice the kitty.
This old wash tub was my Grandma's. I claimed it awhile back, but it's been sitting out behind my parents house for quite awhile waiting for me to come get it. What a cute planter it finally made! I'm pretty sure the weeds still out-number the flowers, but I am making an effort.
We took a break from yard work to have a BBQ at Gram & Papa's. Derrick drove the four wheeler with the new yard trailer hooked to it and all the kids just had to have rides. They ended up filthy, so he brought them home to spray them off and ended up filling the trailer with water. They thought it was the best thing ever...silly boys!

The little girls found the ideal spot to eat their ice cream cones.

Are you all as busy as we've been? I always things things will slow down as summer comes, but instead it's crazy for us. We've also had the kids school program (not one of my pictures turned out), a quick visit from Ann and her family, the end of school stuff, Bunko and Derrick's been busy with the town park, among other things. Hopefully things will slow down soon and I can get caught up!

{Super Weekend}

Our SUPER weekend, started at Kaleb's first tumbling competition. He was the only boy his age that was able to compete at the level he did. I could tell he was nervous standing in line waiting his turn, but he did so good. His first pass was round-off, back handspring, and his second was round-off, back handspring, back handspring. He ended up taking first place for his age group, not hard when you are the only one, but he did great and I was proud of him! What a SUPER cute boy who is a a SUPER good little tumbler!

From there we headed to the SUPERcross races, to meet James, Kami and their family. The parking was horrid and we spent lots of time looking for a space, we finally just gave up and drove down and parked and rode Trax back up to the stadium, which was a first for all of us. The ride up was great, but after it was SUPER packed, and pretty miserable. We weren't sure if we would end up going because of the weather, but the rain stopped and it cleared up. It was still cold and the track was muddy, but that made it more exciting!
What SUPER adorable kiddos, who managed to have fun even in the cold!

The main event race was SUPER close between Chad Reid and James "Bubba" Stewart, which made it all the more exciting!

That picture is not of the main event race, and not of either of the above mentioned races.

Brock wanted Chad Reid to win and was SUPER bummed when he didn't....but it wasn't for lack of cheering from our little man!

We spent the night at Grandma Jeannie's and had plans to meet James and Kami at the zoo. By the time we got there it was raining/snowing and it just didn't sound fun. We (James and Kami had already gone into the zoo) decided to head to the Living Planet Aquarium. The kids love it there and it was out of the weather, which sold me!

The boys love the touch pool, and both ended up with SUPER soaked shirts. Miss Carlie like to look in the pool at the stingrays and fish, but drew the line at actually sticking her hands in.

She did, however, love the little play area and had a ball playing peek-a-boo at us through the cracks. After we had lunch with Grandma Jeannie and Grandpa Mike we took off for the SUPER long drive home, at least the kids thought it was SUPER long!

Yep, we really had a SUPER weekend!

{Riding, Riding, Riding...}

Saturday Derrick, Brock, Kaleb and I went on our first ride with the Sand Rock Ridge Riders ATV club. We've been talking about joining for quite awhile, but never did it. Sheri ended up signing us up when she did their registration for this year. Thanks Sheri! We went to the San Rafel Swell area outside of Castle Dale, along with 65 other bikes and 82 other people! We ended up riding 67.4 miles and 65 of those miles were great, but the other few I could have done without. At one point we dropped 1, 800 feet in elevation in a mile and a half! Derrick didn't think it was all that steep, but it was steeper than I like. About three fourths of the way down, my hands and arms were killing me from riding the brake and I finally just pulled off and made Derrick go down the next steep part and then climb back up and take me down. What a good guy he is, he didn't even complain that I was being a baby, and in my defense, I did ride 90% of it. Ann and Suzanne, you'd have been proud of me.... I bought a new helmet just for the ride and I wore it the entire time. I have to admit, I started out wearing it too keep my ears warm, I really didn't want an earache, but there were a few moments going down the steep stuff that I wondered if that helmet may end up protecting more than my ears! I was surprised that the boys did as well as they did, it really was a lot of riding, but they were troopers and did great. I was glad that we left Carlie home, it would have been much to long of a day for her and she had a much better time having a sleepover at her cousin Addie's. I have to say looking forward to the upcoming rides! We really saw some pretty scenery that we would have never found on our own.

Dad and Brock checking out the scenery.

Chimney Rock. This is where the steep stuff was. See the ridge in the background, that's what we came down. The picture from this angle is deceiving, the back area is actually taller than Chimney rock.

Stopping for a little break. Check out the hot new helmet!

This rock says.....

John H. Averett H.A. Petty

June. th. 6th. 18.81

Holy Cow, 1881, that's crazy!

Pretty cool Indian petroglyphs.
Derrick, Oct. 25th, 1990
For some reason Derrick doesn't recall being there?
Many, many rocks to be climbed by two cute little boys!

{Funny, Funny....}

I just had to share some of our funny pictures from the last few weeks. My kids sure keep me laughing!

Last week it was crazy hair day at school. I'm not all that creative when it comes to boy hair, but I don't think I did all that bad! We came up with four stripes for Brock, every other one was painted black too. Kaleb got 9 spiky ponytails all over his head. What handsome little punks I have!
The boys came running in last Friday and said Carlie had fallen off the trampoline...yup, right on her head! That's the first time I'd ever seen grass stained HAIR! Try explaining that one to the neighbors, oh wait, Lisa had to! Hehe
I guess the bath toy bag is the hottest new hair accessory! Maybe I need to get me one of those. What a silly girl!
For the most part, my Dad is a pretty well dressed and I'd have to say handsome guy. I guess the fashion sense all went out the window right in time for the family Easter egg hunt....Yep, cowboy boots and slicker pants, a winning combination, if I do say so myself!
**I do have to add in my dads defense, he would NEVER leave the house like that (ok, the yard), the boots were just the closest shoes he grabbed to go out and watch the kids!**

Kaleb has always been my best sleeper. When he's tired he either goes into bed or just lays down where he is and goes to sleep. Yes, his head is hanging off the side of the couch almost to the floor......and he slept like that for over an hour! I sure wish I slept that good!

Ok, this one may not be quite as "funny", but it's crazy all the same. My mom called me yesterday afternoon, and said in a very panicky voice "Mo, send Derrick fast!" Yea, instead of being the good daughter and just sending him and then asking questions, I immediately said "Why? What's wrong?" "There's a snake in my living room!!!" Yea, I sent him quick! My poor mom is terrified of snakes, and to have one in her living room, not good. Derrick saved the day, and then promptly BROUGHT IT HOME TO MY HOUSE! My kids loved it, especially Kaleb who thought it would make a spectacular pet.....ummm, nope, not in my house!