Clawing his way on up

It was so fun to go up to St George and watch a Dixie practice. It took awhile for us to find a hole in our schedule but we finally made it happen. I have to say though it was very weird to see Hayden with a red helmet on. The practice was brutal to watch in some ways. It was hot out that night but just like high school they cut you no slack for that. It wasn't fun watching the guys limping off the field or throwing up. They ran their butts off. They worked very hard and very fast. I was impressed to see how well organized it was. Hayden said one night the coach said their tempo was too slow after about an hour and he made them start all over again even stretching! Hayden got a few reps in and they even threw him the ball. He was worried about being able to get open in college but he has really learned alot about that and was open every time we saw him so he's doing good. He said he is learning so much from watching the other receivers and players.
There are 6 players all fighting for his position. He was just pulled up from the scout squad today so we are very excited for him. Go Coop! Looking forward to the season opener this Saturday night.

Where did all the time go...

Seems like just yesterday we were bringing this guy home from the hospital and now he's all grown up and off to college! We got him loaded up and moved out the first Monday in August so he could go up to Dixie and start working out with the team. He packed things up very slowly and went through just about everything he's saved in his treasure boxes for years. He even managed to weed out a few things. I know he wasn't excited to go yet but he ripped the bandaid off and headed up there.
His roomates are Kelan, Casen and Sawyer so he's in good hands up there. They found a gorgeous townhouse that they have been furnishing with lots of odds and ends and Sawyer's stuff. My favorite has to be the ping pong table for the dining table. I am guessing food will never go near it. There are 2 boys to a bedroom and each bedroom even has its own bathroom and walkin closet. Seriously these boys are not suffering. When we got up there we searched all over town for a bed frame and finally found one but the mattress didn't work with it so...
We got creative. Instead of buying a new mattress set we "adapted" a couple of pallets and it worked like a charm. We would never want Hayden to forget his red neck roots so now when he misses us he can just look down at his bed.

I need to get a photo of the finished product but at this point Kelan wasn't finished moving his stuff in so maybe later. So for one whole day we were officially empty nesters. The good news is Jeff is home for about 4 more weeks on his between semester break so he has saved us from ourselves.

The Blum Family Reunion

Let me just say that of all the stupid things I have done in my life and we all know there have been many this ranks right up there with the best of them. I went to my mom's family reunion, the first one in 4 years and didn't pull out my camera! Seriously I should be fired. Well I pulled it out a little tiny bit but didn't take hardly any pictures which is even stupider. Is that a word. SO this post is lacking photo updates of my long lost family:

We spent Friday picking up kids and driving up to Brigham City to join everyone. It was the coolest thing though cause we had everyone of our kids with us. Well Benjy had to work so everyone but Benjy. I got us rooms at the Hampton Inn at Tremonton because we didn't want to drag all our camping gear up there. By the time we checked in it was hard to gather up the grand kids and get over to the reunion since they ere enjoying being out of the car. Can't blame them one bit. They had spend a fun after noon with Aunt Christina at the Children's Museum in SLC and apparently had a ball (also minus a camera hahaha) while we were fighting through construction to get there.


We found Mom at the campground and had a lovely dinner. We were just finishing up and Dad and Wilf & Laura got back from golfing. The only time I thought to take a picture was when Rees was coloring with his new friend/cousin...

Rees & Tate

The next day we met up with everyone at the air museum at Hill Air Force base. I thought it would be cool but it was extremely fun too. Who knew! We had fun checking out all the old planes. After we toured this huge room full of them.

We pretty much lost Mom & Dad in there because they were reading plaques and things and the grand kids were not so much into that not to mention at least one of our kids! This is the only picture I even have of my mom and dad this whole weekend!!

Rees loved the planes and got lots of info out of Grandpa. Not sure which one of them had the most fun.

It was really an amazing museum that I highly recommend. And its FREE!

Hayden entertaining Cooper who had had it with the stroller by then. We wandered all over and stumbled into a hall that lead into another huge room full of newer planes.

Loved the jets, bombs, missiles, helicopters you name it they have it. The best part went unnoticed by us for awhile. Tucked away in the side of the 2nd room is the coolest room ever. It is full of old cockpits that kids can play in and simulator games etc. They even have little uniforms and helmets the kids can dress up in. It was amazing and super fun. Again take the grandkids people!! They will love it.

Hayden having just as much fun as Rees and Cooper! You can push buttons and flip switches to your hearts content and nobody yells at you.

Getting some help from Aunt Chrisi

Two more big kids at play!

Cooper enjoying a cookie. It took him some time but by Monday he had really warmed up to us. He's doing pretty good here at least as long as you feed him!

We had lots of fun playing cards and visiting. We were so busy with the card games we didn't get to see lots of the family hiding out in the air conditioned 5th wheels and rvs but it worked out. We met Slater's new wife Melanie and saw his kids running around with their cousins like a blur. We saw Justin and Tawnia and their fam. Wilf & Laura and Karlie who was babysitting Amber's kids. Andy & Kathy were there too. I was hoping more family would have been there but really we didn't have enough time to really visit with the ones that were there so oh well.

So this was our returning home adventure. Ashley was always running around trying to take care of her kids and was getting frazzled thinking we were getting frazzled. So by Sunday she was on her way to super frazzled. We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel. She was hurrying changing Cooper and getting everything ready to go in and unbeknownced to her Cooper dropped her keys he was chewing on inside the car by the door. We didn't discover her keys were locked in until we were loading up to drive home. Luckily I have AAA and they showed up in less than 20 minutes. It took him about 45 minutes though to break into her car enough to unlock the door for her. All was well and off we went in our 3 car caravan headed for Overton.

Hayden was kind enough to point out this sign right by her car while we were waiting.

He's started...

Pretty exciting...Hayden has started working on his mission papers. This is different from Jeff because everything is online now. The Bishop gives him the necessary passwords and he just gets started filling things out. Mendis was telling us he had to hand type everything on a typewriter when he was Bishop so things have come a long in the last couple of years. So much faster and easier now! He is finished the eye appointment, his physical and just needs to get the dentist done this week then he can get started on his interviews.

The Salsa Story

This is one of those stories that just goes from bad to worse. We had oodles and tons of tomatoes this year from our garden. Sounds great until you have to do something with them before you loose them. Believe it or not I still have tons bottled from last year that I haven't used yet so I decided to do something different this year. I have always made fresh salsa but this year I decided to bottle some. I went big on this. Lots and lots of tomatoes. I got a recipe from a friend and got started. I had this whole canner full as you can see. It takes hours for it to cook down so it is safe to steam so it tool me all night after work. During this process I wasn't very careful measuring (apparently) and I ran out of garlic powder so I used garlic salt. Well I like salty so no worries right? Wrong. I bottled 20 pints THEN decided to have some. It tasted ok until I really got into it with the chips this time. Way salty!! This was supposed to be for Christmas and it was yucky salty.
So the next day I opened up all the bottles and dumped them in the canner and started over with a bunch more tomatoes and peppers. I had to go back to the store first and get more onions and lids and everything...I put everything in but the salt this time. It was pretty good but still a little strong and vinegary after cooking for 2 hours. So I had some bottled that was for us and got started on the adding more ingredients for the rest of it. After I added a bunch more tomatoes and peppers etc it dawned on me that I was going to have to cook it for like 2 hours more!! By this time it was about 8pm or so and my little project was getting very old. So in my stupor I turned up the heat to move things along. Well the next time I tasted it there was this lovely smokey flavor. Yup scorched the last batch. Honesty if I make any more salsa in my life time it will be too soon. I have 40+ bottles of the stuff. The smokey stuff is now ours I guess which works out because believe it or not it tastes great and we like that one the best. Maybe some friends will get some of the smokey salsa for Christmas this year.