Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Today I tried to burn the house down.  Here is the evidence.

We had to leave it smelled so bad.  It still smells bad now, but instead of smelling like something-burned-in-the-microwave it smells like scentsy-trying-to-cover-up-something-burned-in-the-microwave.

What did I do that was so stupid?  I guess I forgot to put water in the instant macaroni and cheese.  Without water, the result is burned macaronis and the plastic bowl melting and possibly catching on fire.  All of this creates quite a lot of smoke and a terrible, terrible smell.

Why did I let it get this bad, you say?  Well, I was also vacuuming up missed crumbs from the previous high chair meal, smelled burning, and thought it was the vacuum. I turned the vacuum off, pulled off the top part to empty it . . .  Hmmmm . . . still burning . . . By that time there was smoke inside the microwave.  Yup, it was pretty bad.

A Week of Summer

Monday - Swimming lessons.  Home.  Lazy.  Yard work once James came home.

Tuesday - Grandma Camp #2 - My mom has taken the last two weeks off of work and has spent a couple of those days doing Grandma Camp.  Last week she took the 3 big kids on an adventure to see the 2-headed lamb at the DUP Museum. This week the mom's, Jack, and Quinn got to go, too.  We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon to walk around Silver Lake and then had a picnic lunch (with lots of bugs that were freaking out the kids, well mostly Elliott).

Tuesday night we also headed out to help work on rebuilding Grandpa Huber's deck.  It has been an ongoing project that my dad, my mom, James, Ross, and Willie have all been working on.

Wednesday - Swimming lessons.  Dentist appointment.  Played outside. Ate a good dinner of pulled pork sandwiches.  Played outside some more.

Thursday - Spartan Station playgroup at the Wild West Park (West Jordan).  My cousin, Melinda and her kids tagged along, and so did Annie and her kids (as well as a handful of Spartan Station families).  Here is the only picture I took while we were there.  Jack did get out to play eventually, but he was content to watch for a while.

We had never been to this park before and it was a little crazy.  It's made up of all these wooden structures for kids to climb around in and get lost.  There were lots of people there and it was a bit stressful because I really had no idea exactly where Molly was most of the time.  I just kept looking in the general direction I thought she was and hoped that her head would pop up again and usually it did.  Here is a picture of it that I stole from the internet.

Friday - Swimming lessons.  Molly has been cooperative for 3 of her 5 lessons so far.  The first one was rough and today's was rough.  She just didn't want to cooperate with her teacher.  Oh well.  After she tried to get out and she and I had a little talk, she at least did better for the rest of the lesson.

Home.  Laundry.  Watch movies day.  Around 2:00 or so, Jack woke up from his nap and we decided (mainly for reasons mentioned in the next post) that we needed to leave our house for a while.  We went to my grandpa's house to see my mom putting the finishing touches on the stone deck and then we followed her back to her house and just hung out for a while until we thought James would be home.

This is what was in my back seat when I pulled in the garage.

Back at it again

A few months ago a got a phone call from a friend of ours who lives in our town home complex.  She wondered if we would be willing to get back on the HOA board because she was frustrated with a lack of communication and follow through by the current board.

We said, "sure," and helped get an annual meeting organized and were voted back onto the board.  There are 3 current members who stayed and 2 new members.

Last night was our first board meeting and I am now the secretary, so I'm back to writing minutes and creating newsletters.  We are in it for a 3 year commitment (or the sell of our house).  It's not in bad shape and the group of people we are working with are great.  If we can help, we will.

July 4th, Independence Day

Today we celebrated our nation's independence by hanging out with our family.  James was supposed to work, but then ended up not having any visits scheduled, so that was nice.

We went north again, though this time only to Ogden.  My cousin Jodi, her husband and new baby are moving to Roseville, California and decided to use the 4th of July holiday as a chance to throw a going away party.  We used to always have Petersen parties on the 4th, so it was fun to do that again.  Molly, Kate, Hyrum, and Jack played on the not-so-slippery and not-so-slidy slippery slide that my aunt LeeAnn set up.  Had bigger kids been playing on it, we probably would have had to move it to a steeper slope, but for the little kids, it worked great.

We left Ogden for Magna and my Grandpa's house, swimming, and a barbecue with most all of my mom's family.  The food was tasty, Molly and Jack had fun swimming, and it was a good day.

I feel bad because Jack got a little sunburned on his back.  I thought we had used plenty of sunscreen, but obviously not.  Molly is fine, but Jack's shoulders and top of his back are pink.  I guess we either missed a spot, or should have applied sunscreen a third time.  He's probably a little uncomfortable, but I think he'll be ok.

By the time we got things cleaned up and finished at my Grandpa's, it was almost firework time again.  Instead of going home, we (along with Annie and her family) just headed over to my mom's house.  The kids all had a bath and got their pajamas on and then we lit some fireworks.  Jack zonked.  Molly had her first experience with sparklers.  Quinn grazed on the grass.  It was nice to just sit outside and enjoy the slightly cooler temperatures.

When we got home, our neighbors had just started their fireworks display.  Molly and Jack had fallen asleep on the way home.  Jack stayed asleep, but the noise of the new fireworks woke Molly up and we went back outside and watched the neighbors for a little while.  They had tons of huge fireworks launching into the sky and they were SOOOO noisy.  They were setting each firework off inside and open Winder Dairy cooler.  I guess they were doing that because it was probably safer - can't explode and won't misfire into someone's garage - but, it made them so loud it was ridiculous.  I thought our house was being bombed.

Eventually it ended, Molly went to bed, and all is well.

I'm grateful for our country and for holidays where we get to sit back and appreciate the fortunate lives we have!

July 3rd, Independence Eve

For the 3rd of July, we headed to Garland, hung out with Grandma and Grandpa Binggeli, ate pizza, then drove to Logan to watch the fireworks.  We didn't go in the stadium, but instead sat on the grass across from the stadium where Jarrell and Whytnee had been saving a spot (though Jarrell is on call this week and had to leave before we actually got there).

Molly loved the fireworks.  Jack was super nervous at first but then really liked them. He held still for almost all of the 35 minute firework show.

We got home late, but had a great night!