Cramming "Summer Break" into 6 weeks!

(And then narrowing it down to 5 pics to represent said break...)

Thanks to the boys' year-round school schedule, we have been commissioned to squeeze 3 months worth of activities into just 6 weeks! And let me tell you... we have been BUSY accepting this challenge!!

Here are just a few pics of how we've been spending our limited time this summer:
There's been swim lessons, golf lessons, Little Gym day camp, Cub Scout day camp, hiking all through these beautiful mountains on as many different trails as we can find,

visiting water parks, museums and botanical gardens,

followed by more hiking, lounging by the pool, playing at the Daybreak "Lake" (it's more like a pond, but it has a beach so we'll take it!),

spending as much time as possible with cousins and friends and other family, BBQing almost every night (Will's been asking if we'll ever have Beef Stroganoff again), and more that I can't think of right now!!

Some days I am overwhelmed and therefore turn into the grouchiest mother in the world, other days I am loving all this running around and quality time with my boys! Such is life... and I'm just taking it as it goes!

So here we are with our final week of Summer upon us... Drew heads back on the 27th & Will on Aug. 4th. Man time flies when you're cramming 8 million activities into a small block of it!

Recipe for a fabulous 4th of July: Head North!!

I just love the 4th of July! You get to hang out with family & friends, picnic and watch parades... and you don't have to buy anyone a gift! How awesome is that!

This year we hit the traditional Riverton Town Days parade (and for the 1st time in 3 years, Jeff actually got to come with us!), then the boys and I headed up to my cousin's place in Plain City. All my life I've wanted to participate in the festivities in Plain City, but have never had a chance until now. It was awesome! Everything I'd hoped it would be and more!

Friday night we decorated the boys bikes so they could ride in the Children's Parade the next morning, then the kids all set up their sleeping bags with hopes of sleeping outside on the trampoline in my Aunt Julie's backyard (unfortunately they got rained out by midnight.)

Bright and early the next morning, nine cousins dressed in red, white & blue paraded down the street in the Children's parade each in their own special way... (my boys thought it was a race and sped down the route as quickly as they could.)
In this pic is Marley, Jake, Denim, Troy, Dakota, Drew, AJ, Will & Austin (Braxton was at the front of the pack... he too thought it was a race and wanted to be right on the starting line!)

This is what parade watching is supposed to be like... our group of family took up an entire block of space! The boys loved having so many cousins all around them. They all scored tons of candy!

After the parade we all regrouped at the Plain City park for all sorts of games and fun! (I wish I could figure out how to post more than 5 pics because I have lots of fun ones I couldn't fit on here.) The boys each caught a fish with their bare hands in the "Fish Scramble", they competed in a pie eating contest (a total joke seeing as my children are the SLOWEST eaters EVER!), dug for goodies in sawdust, bounced in bounce houses, dunked and got dunked in the dunking booth, had their faces painted, got balloon swords from a clown, watched the ATV Polo match, ate candy, hot dogs and ice cream and had an all around FANTASTIC day!

Seriously! This was the best 4th of July ever! We've had some fun 4ths before, but the combination of fun family members and all sorts of fun activities made this the best one yet! The boys will be planning on going to Plain City for the 4th from now on, I just know it!

Then after the fun died down in Plain City (when everyone else was settling in for afternoon naps), Jeff met back up with us (he'd just gotten off work) and we headed up to his Grandpa Evan's house in Pleasant View, just 15 minutes from Plain City. Jeff's cousin's were visiting from Illinois & Texas and we hadn't seen them in over 10 years! (His cousin Tyler I'd NEVER met and we've been married for 13 years!)

We had a fun visit and the boys met their cousins and before long they all grouped themselves up and began playing as if they'd know each other all their lives. I wish adults played as well as children do. We all just sit around and talk and it never fails that someone feels left out... if we were all kids, we'd just start playing a game together and everyone would feel part of the group!

Anyway, it was so good to see long lost family members and it was a great way to spend the evening. After our visit, Kelly & Dan and their boys joined us down at Weber High School where we all watched the fireworks display. It was a LONG day and we were so ready to head home! Will fell asleep in the car before we'd even gotten down the hill from the high school!

I hope you all had a great 4th of July as well. I just realized that I've officially been blogging for a year now... One of my first entries was about how we spent the 4th last year!

So Happy 4th of July, and Happy blogging! Thanks to all of you who read this, and to those who don't read it, it's your loss:~)

MS 150 - We did it AGAIN!

Ta da! For the 7th year in a row, Jeff & I rode in the MS 150 Best Dam Bike Tour through beautiful Cache Valley Utah. Though this was our 7th year participating, it was only our 2nd year riding the ENTIRE 150 miles (75 on Saturday/75 on Sunday)! Hooray!!
And this time we each rode our own bikes, saying farewell to the tandem for a while (thank goodness!! We were both really happy about this decision.) I borrowed my neighbor's bike and Jeff borrowed his brother Josh's and we totally kicked butt, riding faster than we ever have before! We averaged 18 mph the first day and 17 mph the second day... not too shabby if we do say so ourselves.

I am particularly proud of two accomplishments I made on this ride:

1) On the first day during the last 3 miles, Jeff was drafting behind me trying to keep up and I was hardly even tired! It was probably the first time in my life that I've been happy to have such large thighs!! I've always had a complex about them, but after seeing what they can do, I was truly thankful for them! This is HUGE for me... I hope everyone who reads this understands the enormity of this statement: I've got legs, and I know how to use them!!

2) I made it to the top of Blacksmith Fork Canyon in great time! True, Jeff got there 4 minutes before me, but I did the entire thing and still had a smile on my face! It was a series of tough climbs and I contemplated turning around and giving up several times, but I am so glad that I didn't give up and that I made it all the way!!

So another MS 150 ride and training season is behind us and I must say this has been the absolute best year yet! I was in great shape after training more than I ever had, I had the best partner to ride with (but thankfully not on the same bike with), we raised $790 to help find a cure for this devastating disease (thank you to everyone who contributed), and we just had the best time ever!

Now I need another goal! I'm thinking a half marathon... the sky is the limit!!

Our Summer Solstice Celebration!

This week-end we went up to my Grandpa Pilgrim's Cabin for our own little Summer Solstice Celebration. It was cold and rainy the entire day so it was impossible to notice the sun's position in the sky (in order to notice that this was the longest day of sunlight of the year), or go on the nature hike I had planned, but we made the most out of it and had a great time anyway!

We read books about the Summer Solstice and learned about ways that people all over the world celebrate this special day. We learned that the Summer Solstice reminds us that nothing lasts forever and that whenever something is completed, we must let it go. Because things don't last forever, we love them all the more while they are here. We took these things that we learned and then tried to incorporate some of the traditions we read about into our own celebration.

Starting with Lugh, the Sun God. Jeff fashioned him out of some old wood scraps he had left from past projects he's done (the shed and a new work bench), which is part of the process of creating a "Wicker Man"... using bits and pieces from old projects you're ready to move on from in order to make room for more creative possibilities in your life. Each of us found something from our own lives that represented something we were ready to let go of so that we could open to new possibilities.

Drew chose to put a corner of his baby blanket near the heart of Lugh to represent letting go of his babyhood. Will chose to put a pair of underpants on him to represent his newly mastered skill of wiping all by himself. I put on a West Jordan Journal to represent that I'm moving on from the freelance part of my life for a while. Then we painted him and wrapped him in leaves and flowers that we'd collected from around the cabin.


Then we said a special blessing on him and set him a blaze! It was both sad and happy at the same time. Will said "he was my best friend!" and Drew kept asking if Jeff could make another one that we DIDN'T burn. It was cute! As he burned we said good-bye to him and sang and danced around the fire. The boys each took turns making up their own beats to lead us in as we danced.

Then, the boys acted out the battle between the Holly and the Oak King (just like we do at Winter Solstice) and this time, the Holly King prevailed as the winner. Once Lugh finally fell, we roasted s'mores and then went back into the cabin and read A Midsummer Night's Dream and books about Stonehenge. Then Will and I stayed up together until 1:00 am while Jeff & Drew went off to bed.


All in all it was a great celebration and I really think the boys learned a ton! They can't wait to make this an annual tradition!

This is the best of the Sun we saw on the Solstice. It came just before sunset and went too quickly, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

Happy Summer Solstice everyone!!

Hooray for Max!

Last night Max "graduated" from PetSmart's Puppy Education Class! Hooray! It was an 8 week course that was designed to help teach us how to train our puppy to "sit", "down", "stay", "come", "take it", "leave it" and more useful tricks!

Here is Max illustrating his wonderful "sit, stay". He does most tricks very well, as long as we have treats in hand.

Overall, the boys found these training classes very boring (they'd beg not to have to go) but Jeff and I both learned a lot! I just wish they could teach us patience! At the beginning of the course, Will would work the room and play with all the puppies and drive me crazy because he was constantly distracting the dogs and keeping them from being able to train. Once we convinced him to stop doing this, he decided that these classes were the most boring thing's EVER! Hence, my wish that they would have taught me patience (to deal with Max AND my boys!).

Thankfully we made it through and are now the proud owners of an officially trained puppy. This does not mean, however, that he is fully potty trained... oh, no! That is still a work in progress. But at least he's mastered the "sit"! So we'll take what we can get!

Lucky 13! Celebrating one of the best decisions I ever made...

Today is Jeff and my 13th wedding anniversary. So in honor of this momentous occasion I decided to make a list of my Top 13 memories of our last 13 years together as a married couple.

1. Our first house in Cedar City, Utah... (well, the basement of a house that is). It was a tiny little one bedroom place with no heat so when it got really cold during the winter, we'd turn the oven up to like 500 degrees and open it up to let all the heat warm the place. When I think back to that time I think of cable movies, cookie dough and unlimited free time together! We were so poor but we were living on love!

2. The $700+ phone bill from when I was in Europe with my study abroad and Jeff was in the U.S. supporting my adventure. We missed each other terribly the entire time! We were so crazy for each other that we couldn't stand not being together 100% of the time. So we talked on the phone every chance we got and wound up paying the price with a huge phone bill when I returned home. But we thought it was money well spent!

3. Valentine's Day when we were living at the University of Utah. Jeff wanted to do something really special for me so he made reservations at what he thought would be a romantic place, then we both got all dressed up and set off for a nice evening. But when we arrived at the place, they sat us at a table with 12 other strangers dressed in ski clothes and we felt WAY out of place. So we decided to leave and go somewhere else, but we couldn't find anywhere nice that would let us in without reservations, so we ended up going to Jamba Juice for a smoothie and then went home. It's one reason why now we don't make a big deal of Valentine's Day. We just tell each other how much we love each other everyday!

4. Seeing Jeff again for the first time after 9 weeks of basic military training and not being able to recognize him! (Even his mom took a photo of the wrong guy!) I wrapped my arms around his skinny little body and never wanted to let go! We spent our whole 2 day visiting period together snuggling in our hotel room, not wanting to do anything but hold each other and be together.

5. Driving from Mississippi to Utah in our little white Dodge Shadow and getting a flat tire, running out of gas (having to push the car to the nearest gas station and having it be closed!), getting a speeding ticket, and still having the best time ever traveling across the country together! Somedays I long for the freedom we had back then.

6. Packing up the picnic basket and bringing dinner to Jeff at work at the RAPCON in Valdosta, Georgia. He worked nights and I worked days so it was our quality time together each day. I'd load up entire meals and tote them up to his work every night so we could sit and eat together in the break room and watch Jeopardy. Those were good times!

7. Working diligently together to overcome my infertility. Jeff would lay by my side with his legs up in the air along with me as a sign of his support (if that doesn't make sense to you, don't worry, it makes perfect sense to us). It was a dark and depressing time for me but Jeff was literally there by my side through it all!

8. Seeing Jeff transform from the coolest uncle ever, into the best father ever!! I used to love to just watch Jeff make Drew laugh when he was a baby... and simple things like watching him and the boys build Lego creations together always makes me smile. Our boys see him as a hero and they want to be with him and be like him in every way. There is something so attractive about watching him in his role of father. I am so proud of him!

9. I have countless memories of us sitting down together to make plans and set goals together -- meal plans, vacation plans, budget plans, etc. We debate (let's be honest here... we argue) and we don't always agree with each other, but we support and understand each other and always find a compromise. I love that we have a shared vision of the future.

10. The year he gave me the exact same anniversary card as he did the year before... the EXACT SAME ONE! He didn't do it on purpose, and we didn't notice it at first, but when I went to put it away in my box journal, the card from the year before was on top and that's when I realized it was the SAME card! We laughed and laughed! It's funny because there are only so many ways (or cards) to express your love and affection for each other, and in the period of a lifetime, the chances of repeating the same card are probably pretty huge! So now at every card giving occasion, I'm always wondering if it will be a repeat again or if someone figured out an even more creative way to say "I love you!"

11. Marriage counseling... I will always remember it because it reminds me that Jeff has never and will never give up on me. He has always been willing to do whatever it takes to keep our relationship happy and alive. Over the years, we've experienced a roller-coaster of experiences and emotions and yet through it all I know that Jeff is my very best friend and he always will be!

12. All the times he has allowed me to dress him up... from Captain Hook, to a Jedi Knight, to a hill billy in a cotton field, to a white trash rocker... so many costumes! So many fun memories! Most guys would say "hell no!" to dressing up, but Jeff just goes along and fakes a smile. I know it's not his favorite thing to do, but he knows I love to dress up, so he supports me (and now the boys love it almost more than I do so Jeff's in for a lifetime of dressing up).

13. I think my favorite memory of the last 13 years is more of a constant FEELING... Looking back, I have always felt loved by Jeff and that is my most favorite memory because that is my most favorite feeling. He's always been there for me, always been on my side, always supported me and encouraged me to follow my dreams. I feel safe and loved and blessed with Jeff.
So happy anniversary to my wonderful and amazing husband! 13 years may seem like a long time, but we're just getting started!! Here's to our future together... still living on love!!!

Cool cuts for summer!

My boys are the most beautiful things on the planet, but let's face it... their hair was getting LONG! So after much begging and pleading, I convinced them that they needed a short summer hair cut. (It helped that we just talked about how Great Grandpa Bergstrom was a barber and used to give Jeff and his brothers an annual hair cut every summer... see Memorial Day.)

So today was the day! YAY! Here is their "before" pic...

And here is their "after" pic. I am SOOO happy to finally be able to see my boys necks and ears!

Drew insisted on a "faux hawk" (which he keeps calling a "fro-hawk") but I told him he could only do it every once in a while... he can't wait to get to school tomorrow and surprise his friends!

Will's was a little too short on his forehead for my taste, but I know it will grow back quick. I have to be very careful what I say about their new do's because they both LOVE their hair and I wouldn't want them to change their minds on my account:~)

So here they are with their cool summer cuts! Man I love these guys!

Afterwards I treated them to ice cream just because I think they're awesome. I'm the luckiest mom on the planet to have these guys in my life!!