Jim and Janet

Jim got up early this morning and after eating a good breakfast, and an hour of seminary got on his bike and rode it to, and from mitchell, giving him a 50 mile bike ride. He is now almost done with his cycling merit badge.

Janet finished reading Little House in the Big Woods today. she has been reading it since Nana and Poppie went to DeSmet with us at the beginning of July.

Some interesting things

I forgot to say that Tom has started a fantasy football team in a league with some of the guys from work.

and that Echo is up to date in reading Schlock Mercenary.

Katie has discovered the Readers Digest, a friend was given a subscription and doesn't like to read it so offered it to our house.

summer is almost over

Well since summer is almost over, We are trying to crowd in as many trips to the pool as we can. it closes on the sunday the 17, with me going back to school on monday the 18 and the kids on tuesday the 19.

We went to the pool yesterday and swam in the rain, (no lightning so it was still open)

In the morning, I went to Mitchell to grocery shop, I took Echo with me so she could help in a YW. birthday celebration for one of her leaders. They decorated her door and then had doughnuts. I took Jim and the bike with me and dropped them off at the edge of town so he could do his second 25 mile bike ride for his cycling merit badge. It took him less than 2 1/2 hours.

Last week we went with another family from our branch to family night at the drive-in theater. We got to watch Wally. The little boys had more fun climbing in and out of the car, and around the car than watching the movie. The older kids said it was a very slow and boring movie. I kept waiting for something to happen. The mother of the other family says that they try to go once each summer.

tidbit: there used to be more than 4,000 drive ins in the U.S. now there are less than 400. The one we used to go to as kids is now apartments.

FW: Memories

This is a carry over from Carrie's blog but it sounded intriguing.

For fun!!
Here are the directions:
1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!
2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

This memory could be about anyone in the family.

summer fun

We have been having a fun summer. At least two kids have gone to the pool every day, and on sundays after lunch danny is sad when he gets a no. to the question of "pool now"? The girls all took a session of swimming lessons and are looking forward to taking more next summer. the kids have been having fun riding bikes and playing outside.

I am glad softball is over. I enjoyed the last couple of games a lot more than the first one. Is this because I was figuring out the game. (not having played it since highschool) or because My girls were doing better? I think the girls only lost one game. there were enough girls on the team that for their final game, the coach split them in half and had them play them selves. it was fun to watch.

Jim went to youth conference. It was a quad stake Youth conference in Fargo, N.D. There were 250 youth from the four stakes which included youth from the Souix falls, South Dakota, the pierre District (not technically a stake but quite large.) the Bismark and Fargo North dakota stakes. There were kids from S.D., N.D., Nebraska, Minnesota. Jim says it was lots of fun. he was the only youth from our branch, He met a lot of kids, enjoyed dancing with the girls (especially Treva) and saw a t-shirt he wants that says: I love mormon girls.

We enjoyed both visits from my parents, they stopped by on their way to and from the palmyra pageants. On the way back they had two of my nephews (dellas boys) with them and we took them to the pool. We made pizza for dinner while they were here, Chris seemed surprised that we would MAKE pizza. but no one delivers out of mitchell.

After the kids were all in bed we WII'd with dad, mom just wanted to watch. I like to WII before bed. My favorite is golfing and bowling, there is a cow race that is kinda fun and so is fishing. the three younger girls like to play cooking mama.

Busy Week

Well this has been a very busy week for our family. We finally got pool passes (Thanks to Emery city for their scholarship program). The kids start swimming lessons today, but now back to the past week. Needless to say the children and Lillie have spent considerable time at the pool. All are coping well with their various stages of sunburn. This was also Lillie's first week after finishing her Summer math class (she got an A in college algebra y'all). And I was asked to make chili for the Aurora Plains Academy chili cook-off. I made some good chili and then prayed that I wouldn't win. The winner got the privilege of preparing 10+ gallons for the Mitchell Stampede Rodeo chili cook-off as the APA entry. Well my luck is holding and the Lord may have been trying to teach me to make plans more carefully because I was the lucky winner. My prize was that I got to spend all day Saturday cooking the 80 lbs. of chicken needed for the chili. and Then I spent half the day Sunday putting it together and babysitting it. We had fun but didn't place. My friends from work said that we had the best chili. By the way, I used to keep recipes like this secret but if you're interested in a spicy but not to spicy chicken chili I'll post the recipe. It's really easy to make and everyone that has dared to try it has really liked it, well except me, it's a bit spicy for my taste but I can eat it without problems. I almost forgot for our 16Th anniversary (last Thursday) Lillie took my bike to the shop and had the shifter cable fixed. This posed a problem as the only way to get it home is in her minivan and she and all of the kids were at a Branch activity. Jim begged to be allowed to ride the bike home. There were two main problems with this 1) I haven't ridden my bike yet since it has needed repair the entire time I have owned it (I got it second hand from a friend who is fanatic about bikes, it's a Burley recumbent.) and 2) it was 25 miles to home. Long story short Jim completed the trip in about 2.5 hours which isn't a bad time considering that he has never ridden a recumbent, the longest bike ride he has done in the last 10 months has been 5 miles, and he didn't know how the shifter worked so he did the whole thing in low gear. Just one more thing, By this time next year Jim should be an Eagle scout. He needs 3 merit badges and his project. He is finishing his time for life right now. He lost six months in the move because our Branch is so small that it does not have it's own Scout troop. We worked out a deal with another troop in the stake to enroll our boys (both of them). As counselor to the young men's president I was given the assignment of assistant scoutmaster to the other ward's troop. Well I guess this has gone on long enough we'll report the outcomes and post pictures later.

You know you live in a small town when...

You know you live in a small (wonderful) town, when...
the mailman (regie)sees one of the older patrons drive up on his golf cart and then Reggie meets him on the sidewalk with his mail.

way to go reggie