Thanksgiving 2008

We flew to Salt Lake to spend Thanksgiving with the Thompsons. It is always an adventure getting all of the cousins together, and this trip certainly had its share. It was so nice to see our kids getting along so well with their cousins, and they would disappear for hours at a time. Luke with Nathan, Hank and Will to play DS or shoot air-soft guns. Isabella with Emme, Caitlin, and Thomas to create plays and color. Simeon with Andrew and Carter to ride on the bikes or play cars. Sophie would just follow around whatever group of kids she could keep up with.

We had amazing weather and had a huge soccer game Thanksgiving afternoon which ended up postponing dinner. When we finally went inside there were 45 people in all for dinner. Turkeys beware.

After dinner there was the customary football and crashing. Simeon is picking up on this tradition quite well.

We had a great time seeing all of our family in Salt Lake.

watch where you walk

During our Thanksgiving trip in Salt Lake, Nate unfortunately injured his foot. We've all heard stories of kids leaving toys out and them getting stepped on by unsuspecting adults. This is one of those.

One night shortly after our arrival, Izzy (as she often does) fell asleep somewhere other than her bed and needed to be transferred. Everyone else was asleep as Nate carefully and quietly carried Izzy to her bed. On the way he stepped on a toy. Now, having grown up with five younger siblings and now with four kids, this was not a new experience. In all experiences stepping on toys in the dark, it is generally acknowledged that Legos are the worst. Nate now begs to differ.

Instead of meeting up with a stray Lego, Nate stepped on a die-cast metal bulldozer, complete with pointy smokestacks, that proceeded to rip through his foot leaving a big cut. Somehow Izzy was successfully transferred without stirring and none of the other kids was woken up.

Seriously, toy companies need to recognize that every toy will be stepped on in the dark at some point and should do some testing and have a warning label or a rating scale for what kind of damage they can do.

Halooween 2008

Halloween week began with a visit to City Hall on the 28th. The City Hosts a trick-or-treating event during the day for little ones 5 and under. We were able to meet all the people who help run the city and even got candy from the mayor. It was a great event.

Halloween night was perfect. The weather was in the 60s and we sure enjoyed walking around our neighborhood. We couldn't get an individual picture of our cutest little bunny. She just kept running away. Nate and I walked around together for about 30 minutes but our bunny ran out of steam so we headed back home to give out candy. We had tons of trick-or-treaters and even ran out of candy.

Simeon enjoyed being batman and wore his costume on and off all week. Izzy was Miley Cyrus and Luke was his namesake Luke Skywalker. My favorite costume find was with Luke's top. After looking at Halloween stores and others and just not finding the right look, I was able to find a Karate top at the thiftstore for $3! It was perfect.

carving pumpkins

Carving pumpkins this year was great! I was a bit last minute in getting the pumpkins. I was hoping to have a time that we could all go and get pumpkins but our schedule just wasn't letting that happen. So Tuesday before halloween, the only night open for carving we raced to the store before dad got home from work. The first store we went to didn't have any left, I was panicking. Luckily we went the next store we went to had a few huge pumpkins left. I decided to only get two because there just wasn't any way we were going to be able to carve six in one evening. So a 10 minute trip turn into 45 minutes but we got our pumkins and had a fun night carving. Everyone help get the guts out of the middle and then we lost Luke to the Cavaliers game. So Izzy became the designer for both pumnkins and Dad was the carver. So they became the rock star pumkin and the first grader with a few lost teeth

izzy turns 7!

I can't believe it, Izzy is now 7 years old. We celebrated with a movie and pizza party. We turned our basement into a movie theatre, with tickets, popcorn, & candy. The kids watched a movie and then had pizza for dinner after. It was the easiest party ever!
Izzy loves having rice crispy cakes. This is the 4th year running of the crispy cake. We've done castles, mutli layer, however this year she just wanted candy pumkins on it. They are fun and easy and everyone eats the whole thing!

Fall

Fall has been a fun and busy season. Nate, Luke, and Izzy started school again. My coaching for my diving season began. We were busy with soccer, Nate coaching Luke's team. Sophie and Simeon and I started our visits to the zoo, Natural History museum and our Storytime at the Library. We have enjoyed some great fall weather, the best time of the year here in Cleveland.

Simeon, my crazy three year old said something funny that I just had to share. First I need to give a little background. One evening during dinner when Nate wasn't home I was being silly and teaching the kids the cheer , You got Spirit ? yeah yeah you got spirit? yeah yeah, you got a what a what a what a what a what, what what what what what what what You got Spirit! From my pep club days. So fast forward to last sunday during the primary program. Simeon was sitting with his dad while I am on the stand with the primary kids. He hears one of the children say spirit and he starts sayings, "a what, a what, a what, a what, what, what, what, what, what what, You got spirit!" Well, at least I know he was listening to some part of the program.

Downata Hot Springs

One of our favorite days was spent at Downata Hot Springs in Downey, Idaho just 2 hours north of Salt Lake. We arrived at 9 o'clock since my Dad, brother and sister had to be there for a board meeting. So Nate and I volunteered to watch all their kids. We had 10 kids ranging in age from 1 to 11 that we were responsible for. We got to enjoy the big pool all to ourselves for an hour before it opened to the public at 10am. The kids enjoyed the waterslides, spray ground and the huge pool, all of which was filled with warm water.

Simeon who is scared of the deeper water was so happy at the spray ground. The spray groung was right near the end of the big water slide. So while some of the little kids were playing at the spray ground I would just count everyone going up and coming down. All the kids could not get enough of the place. At the end little Laruen and Molly were going down the big waterslide all by themselves with their brothers making sure they were okay. It was so cute seeing everyone look out for one another. I was quite pround of all my neices and nephews and my children as well for getting along so well and helping each other. We all had a fabulous time and didn't leave until 4pm with everyone pretty well exausted.

Night at East Canyon

We arrived in Salt Lake on Friday night, and Saturday night we met with all my side of the family (Thompson side) at East Canyon Reservoir to have dinner and enjoy boating. Luke and Izzy enjoyed the tube and I actually got a good run on one ski after not waterskiing for a whole year. It was a fun evening, unfortunately I had forgotten to download my pictures and only had room on my camera for one more picture. Here is Luke and his cousin Jack on the tube.

Des Moines stop

So the first night of our trip we had reserved a room at a Ramada just outside of Des Moines, Iowa. We arrived around 5:30pm and the place looked deserted. Nate and I had been excited about the price of the room and when we pulled up we understood why it wasn't very expensive. It had promised a pool and now we were really scared that our evening might not turn out so fun. Luckily it all turned out great. The hotel was under construction, our room was nice and when we arrived many of the people staying for the night were not there yet. The pool turned out to be just great and after dinner we played for almost 3 hours! It help make the travel days feel like it was a part of the vacation.

heart warming August

We have had a wonderful August! It all started with our vacation to Utah. Since Airplane tickets weren't getting any lower and our family keeps getting bigger we decided to make the drive as a family for the first time. I was expecting a bit of a nightmare however was pleasantly surprised to say the least. We didn't drive more than 10 hour days, started early each day took an hour break at lunch time and then finished around dinner time. It took us 3 days there and 2 and 1/2 days back. To be honest we had 3 DVD players going at once at some points of the drive. For the most part everyone stayed happy. I was worried about Sophie the most. During the first day she kept on saying to us, "all done?" I think she just got tired of waiting and would take long naps in the afternoon. When Simeon had enough he would just yell "I WANT TO GET OUT!" Luke and Izzy were pretty easy when they didn't fight over what movie to watch (hence the 3 DVD players everyone can watch their own movie and stay happy). Nate and I enjoyed reading The Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer while we were driving. (We got through the first three by the end of our trip and got back just in time to start the last book!)






Our lunch time stops were really quite fun. We packed tons of food for the trip so we didn't have to stop and eat fast food for 3 days. So we would find a rest stop and stay for an hour to enjoy the fresh air and some food. Mostly the kids just wanted to run around. All of the rest stops we visited were very nice and we got a little look at the state and community we were passing by.

Luke and Izzy love the pool and swimming.

Simeon turning browner by the minute loves the water, just not the deep part!

Sophie our bathing beauty spends more time wandering around the pool than actually in it.

Izzy getting set for her backstroke race. She took 2nd place in the 5-6 year old age group!

Luke getting set for his freestyle race. He took 2nd place in the 7-8 age group!

Our summer has been tons of swimming! Luke and Izzy had enjoyed our neighborhood swim team. They just compete with 3 other teams and then have the big meet with all four teams. The Quad meet! That was thursday the 24th of July and they both swam great! Luke took 2nd in Freestyle and Izzy took 2nd in Backstroke. They have improved sooooo much this summer it had been fun to see. Thanks to Chris, Carlo and Monica for being a great coaches.

The official blog of the Johnsons has begun. We are in the midst of a very busy summer. We just finished being in the production of This is Kirtland! We have enjoyed swimming and swim team, softball and rehearsals. We are almost done with all of our activities and are excited to settle down for the last few precious weeks remaining. We will post more pictures soon.