Summer Work Trips:)

I occasionally have to drive to southern Utah and stay overnight for work.  During the summer months I always take some of the kids with me when I go.  Usually we head to Cedar City.  We swim in a hotel pool and go out to dinner and see a movie.  But last week I went down to Moab.  I dropped Xander, Lexi and Sophi off in Ferron with Grandma and Grandpa Nelson.  The kids were so excited to be able to stay with them for two nights.  (To any of my children who are reading this, remember how awesome it is to have grandparents who live within reasonable driving distance!  Don't move across the country once you have kids!!!)

Of course it was a wonderful getaway for all of us.  While I was overnight in Moab, I hiked out to one of my favorite places on earth: Corona Arch.

Bowtie arch is a "pothole arch," meaning the water pooled above and eroded through over millennia.

Corona Arch

To give you an idea of the scale of this massive arch, here are two pictures of it with people directly underneath.

The people are the tiny dots towards the right side of the arch opening.

Also, this complete awesomeness was filmed at Corona Arch (sadly I was not one of the participants;)

Meanwhile, the kids were kept entertained with a visit to the community pool, Millsite state park and the complete joy of staying with grandparents.  Sophi and Lexi got in some sewing with Grandma:

Lexi made a pillow for her stuffed animals.

Sophi made a sleeping bag for Cooper, her new, very lifelike, puppy.

 And Xander was schooled in the finer points of shooting BBs by Grandpa:

And since six of the kids were gone on trek, Christi had close to three full days with just Elli at home.  Not exactly a vacation for her, but a bit of a respite:)

Family Night with the Greens:)

Every Monday night our family gathers for an evening together.  It is something our church has advocated for years, and it something the kids really look forward to each week.  (Admittedly, the older they get, the less they look forward to it.  But honestly, even the older kids usually enjoy it and they are always really good sports about it!)  We open with a song and a prayer, we have a lesson and an activity and a treat and close with another song and prayer.  Sometimes the activities are really short, sometimes we go to a park or a movie.  But it really is nice to have a night where everyone knows we will be spending time together as a family.

Yesterday had been a hard day at work and I really wanted an activity that would take my mind off of those stresses.  So I came up with this: anyone who wanted to could put their name in a hat.  (Those who did not want to participate just watched the hilarity:)  We would draw one name as the winner, who would then get to spray one of the other people with the hose for 12 seconds.  But we wouldn't know who was going to get sprayed until the water hit us.

Parker won the draw and the rest of the brave souls (Lexi, Sophi, Xander, Jesi, Christi, Taylor and me) lined up in the back yard.  Parker walked back and forth behind us, sometimes squirting the water near us, to ramp up the tension.  At the beginning you can hear Graci narrating the events to Conner.  Then you hear poor Lexi asking Xander "who got squirted?" because she kept hearing Parker tormenting us with the hose.  I also love Lexi's squeal when Parker gets even vaguely close to her.  Park did a great job of making us all squirm and definitely chose the victim with the biggest payoff:)

Parker ready to dish it out.

All of us lined up and ready to take our medicine!

Best dance moves ever!!!

I love our family💖

-Jer

Lost!

Sweet Sophi is absolutely enamored with her stuffed animals.  She has dozens of them and has named  and cares deeply about each one of them.  She plays with them and pets them.  She ties ropes to laundry baskets and gives them rides around the house.  She defends them vociferously if any of her siblings treats them in an unkind manner.

On Thursday I took Sophi, Xander and Lexi to Ferron.  They stayed with Grandma and Grandpa while I went down to Moab for work.  On our trip down we stopped at McDonald's.  I told the kids they could each get a $1.00 drink and something from the value menu.  Then Sophi saw the display for the current toy available with a Happy Meal.  It was a Beanie Boo!  Sophi delights in these darling little palm-sized animals, and I was wise enough to just give in before it could become a power struggle.

Me: "A Beanie Boo comes with the Happy Meal?  Then of course you can get one!"
Sophi: "Yay!"
Xander: "Wait, if Sophi can get a Happy Meal then why can't I get..."
Me: "Suck it up, buttercup!"

And so Sophi's life was enriched with a 2.5 inch tall stuffed penguin named Waddles.  She loved Waddles in Ferron.  She loved Waddles on the drive back home.  Then tragedy struck.  Waddles was gone.  We don't know where he wandered off to.  We have searched the car and the house with vim and vigor, but Waddles is nowhere to be seen.  Sophi really struggled with this Saturday night.  Tears were shed.  Prayers were uttered.  All to no avail.  But her indomitable shone through.  The next morning, Sophi was determined to enlist the aid of all those around her to find her beloved pet.  Much as someone might do if they lost a cat or a dog, she created posters and plastered them up around the house:).  These are four different posters she made:

They are on the fridge, the microwave and two walls.  Dear Waddles remains top of mind with all of us.  If you notice a very small penguin that looks like he doesn't know which way home is, please call!

-Jer

In the desert west...

...we don't deal with hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes or many other natural disasters.  You may, however, take the garbage out one evening and find a visitor right next to your house!

Xander was the first to see it and called us all out. It was kind of eerie to see Sophi's little shovel in the dirt practically next to this 3-foot-long rattler!  Thanks to our jack-of-all-trades neighbor Bob Harris for wrangling this thing for us:)  BTW...in 20+ years of life in Utah, this is the first rattlesnake I've seen in a residential area.

Bob gave the snake to a another family in the neighborhood who had the intestinal fortitude necessary to skin and preserve the snake for posterity.  They brought it over for us to look at.  I can't believe how unafraid Lexi and Sophi were.  Yes, that is Sophi's cute little foot showing me the severed head. Xander was pretty proud that he survived a face to face encounter with the thing while it was still alive!

Fun times!

-Jer

Xander's First Overnight Backpacking Trip

A couple of weeks ago I had the fantastic opportunity to go with Xander's scout troop on an overnight hiking trip.  This was Xander's first backpacking campout, so we kept his pack relatively light at 22 pounds.  We went to Fifth Water Hot Springs in Diamond Fork Canyon.  The hike itself was beautiful.  We went in about 3 miles with an elevation gain of about 800 feet, so not too steep.  Once we set up camp, we enjoyed soaking in the natural spring water.  It was a bit slimy, but lots of fun!  Xander did very well and is excited to try some more aggressive trips with Dad and his older brothers later this summer.  I love the outdoors!

Learning from the scoutmaster.

That's my hammock:)

I wish it could capture the beauty of the falls.

I love the snow capped mountains peeking out in the background!

A New Park!

The city of Bluffdale recently opened a brand new and beautiful park.  It has great slides, swings and other playground equipment.  It also has a huge splash park area.  They located it conveniently about half way between our house and the home of my younger brother Tyler.  We visited the park on a day that followed several days of heavy rain, so in addition to the splash park, there was a natural pond that kids had a blast playing in.  Our kids loved meeting their cousins there.

Uncle Tyler powers the teeter totter. 

Sophi and her cousin Lilly

I think Ben may have had it at this point:)

This one sure loves to pose!!!

Jesi invited one of her best friends.

Happy Birthday, Jacob

On June 8, 2004, we lost the first of our little angel babies.  The loss of Jacob Michael Green, and then Emily Anne a little over a year later, started us down a road that continues to amaze and bless us.  Christi detailed the beginning of our adoption journey in a blog post a few years ago.  If you're interested, you can read that post here.

Our two little ones born into the arms of God are buried in the Herriman cemetery.  Here are some pictures of our most recent visit.  Christi does a great job keeping their headstone adorned.  I love the white theme she chose this Memorial Day.

Elli vs. the piano. Episode 88

The back and forth between Elli and me, as she attempts to destroy her piano and I attempt to make it destruction proof, has been well documented in this blog.  I thought I had done a pretty good job.  So many brackets in place.  Mounted to the wall.  Combination locks to keep the key cover open or closed.  Pretty much every possible place she could use her fingers to pry something open was screwed shut.  (I admit I finally just gave up on the bottom portion of the piano.  She never uses the pedals, so their destruction was irrelevant.  And the strings are too strong for her to break (I think?!?)).  We had gone along without incident for weeks, perhaps even months.  Then Elli found a new trick.  She couldn't completely pull out the keys, because I had screwed in the long piece of wood that keeps them in place.  But she found that if she pried up on the very front of the keys, she could snap them off right where the wood crossed the key.  Awesome!  She did this with five keys before we stopped her.

This is a significant problem, because it is pretty much impossible to get replacement keys for a 50 year old piano.  We will try to glue them, but it's not a very promising prospect.  Not to mention that once we restore her access to the keyboard, it will only be a matter of days before she starts snapping them off again.  We are pretty sure of this because that is what she did to our $1500 digital keyboard when she was left unattended for a matter of minutes.  Oh, Elli!

Notice the myriad brackets and locks keeping it shut until we can get the keys fixed. 

Why play the piano when you can play ON the piano?

This one keeps us on our toes!!!

-Jer

Special Needs Rodeo

Every first weekend of June, Herriman hosts a PRCA rodeo.  (If you read the post from yesterday, you'll realize the first weekend of June is a pretty busy one around here!)  On Saturday afternoon, a lot of the people involved in the big rodeo volunteer at the Special Needs Rodeo.  They give our kids a chance to ride horses, pet small livestock, ride on a hand-powered mechanical bull and enjoy other rodeo activities.  Our kids LOVE this Saturday and several of them look forward to it all year.  We are so grateful to all those who work together to put this on!  They also give us tickets to the big rodeo that night.  We have not been rodeo people in the past, but last year we took a couple of the younger kids and we really enjoyed.  This year, seven of our ten kids went to the big rodeo. I think it's a fun new family tradition:)

Elli loved the bouncy horse!

Conner mostly loved the attention from all of the cowgirls!