THE LAST EAGLE

Yeah!!! Jason finally received his Eagle Scout Award last Sunday. As is with most boys, Jason left it until the last minute and we were all pulling our hair out. If you have boys, have them get their Eagle before they turn 16. After sixteen they just lose interest because there are so many distractions.

It was a nice evening and we had so many family members and friends that came to help celebrate! It is so nice to have so many family supporters!

Steve Chindgren (The Eagle Guy) came with his bald eagle named Liberty. He does a wonderful presentation liking the eagle to the eagle scout award. It is so amazing to see this bird close up! When he is done he holds the eagle in front of each of the candidates so that you can get great pictures. Steve does a show at Hogle Zoo with his eagles. I would like to go see it sometime.

We are so proud of Jason and his accomplishment. The most touching part of the evening though is that with the set of pins Jason received there is a mentor's pin. Jason can give this to someone who has helped him with his scouting or who has influenced his life. Jason thought of about three people and then he decided to give it to his brother Daniel. In his comments that night Jason announced that he was giving it to Daniel and gave a wonderful tribute to his brother and the influence Dan has had on his life. As a mother could you ask for anything more?! You always want your children to be close and to love each other so much. It was great to see Jason receive his Eagle award, but I think the best reward was brother's honoring each other and loving each other so much.

I NEED YOUR HELP!

So we are updating our kitchen, first of all because it needs it and second because we plan to sell soon (in the next 5 years we hope) and we know that it will help the resale value.

My dilemma is this. The space for the fridge is very, very small. I can only fit a 20 cubic foot (33" wide) in the space for the fridge. To get one this small is more expensive than a bigger one by about $100.00 - $200.00. We plan to put in a new stove, microwave and dishwasher all in the stainless. My current fridge is black. Scott says that we should just keep the refrigerator we have because we can just use it as a second fridge at the next house and spend our money on a bigger fridge then. I say why not get the new fridge so that I can enjoy it? With the new fridge I could fit bigger platters and things in it instead or using the garage when it is cold or bringing up a cooler when it's warmer. When we sell the house it would be a great selling point to just leave the refrigerator with the house because nobody has one that small. (When we moved in I had to put my bigger fridge outside in the garage and buy a smaller one to put in the house.) Or if they are first time buyers they might not have a refrigerator at all.









You can see how close the fridge is to the dishwasher, so is it going to look bad to have the black fridge next to it?

What do you think? I need your advice! Stay with the black or go with the stainless and hope we get our money out of it when we sell?

SIX MONTHS ALREADY

We received a box from Daniel the end of last week with some discs that had pictures and videos that he took on his camera. We have had so much fun looking at them. One of them was of him burning a tie. I guess that you burn a tie when you reach the six month mark on your mission. I hope to find out more about this from him. I am also wondering which of his ties that he burned! (Isn't he so handsome?!)



I loved this scenic photo he took. I can't wait to go to Hawaii and see it for myself!

SOME NEW FRIENDS

I had this coupon for Build-A-Bear and I have always wanted to take Carter and Easton to build their favorite animal. We were in the mall, (which I rarely go to) and I decided now was as good as time as any so I took Carter in and had him choose his animal. He chose this cute black dog. The cute girl helped him fill it with the fluff and put the heart in. He gave it a bath and then went over to the computers. He didn't know what you were suppose to do at the computer but he knew that was next. He named his new friend Toby. The whole time Easton was watching on and I was watching his reaction to see if he would be interested. I could tell he was feeling a little left out, so we had him go next. He chose a darling little dog too and he was so cute as he watched the girl stuff it. He stayed his distance from the machine because it scared him. He put the heart in and gave it a kiss (without being prompted) when it was given to him. It was so absolutely darling. They had to get these cute red vests for them so that they could go to the cabin Carter said.

I really thought these would be a passing thing but Carter still carries his wherever he goes, and Easton is still liking his. It was so fun to do this with them and to see them be so excited about them.

FIRST WINTER CABIN TRIP

Well last weekend we went out to the cabin for the first time this winter and it was a trip full of surprises!

Scott, Carter and I went out early Friday afternoon so we could get the cabin warmed up and everything ready for the rest of the family. Scott had worked hard to get the trailer and snowmobiles ready and we were so excited for this trip.

When Scott and I finally got there that evening it was a little later than we would have like, but fortunately it was a warm evening and so the ride in wasn't too bad. Usually we have to ride the snowmobiles into where the cabin is from the parking lot which is about a 2-3 mile ride. This year they won't let us park where we usually park we have to park at the marina which adds another 2-3 miles. This isn't bad if you are just riding, but when you are bringing in all the food, water, luggage, etc., it makes for a long journey.

Scott, Carter and I got into the cabin and found the power out. This was disappointing and we soon learned that we need to get better light sources out at the cabin because it was really dark, especially in the bathroom! The batteries where low in every flashlight and the candles barely gave off any light at all. Between the wood burning stove and the fireplace we got the temperature from 31 to 50 degrees by the time everyone else arrived. We got everyone settled for the night and I kept Scott alerted every time the fire would go low and we needed more wood so that the cabin would stay warm. It made for a very sleepless night.

We cooked pioneer style on the wood burning stove the next morning. It made us realize how awful it was for those women to cook around such heat, especially when the temperature was 90 or more outside! I literally slaved over a hot burning stove! The power came back on around 10:00 that morning and we were so happy. It wasn't a great day for riding on the snowmobiles because it was raining so hard. We spent most of the day just playing games and taking naps. It really got warm in the cabin during the Settler's Of Catan game! The competition between Brad and Christine gets pretty heated sometimes! They crack me up how competitive they both are!

We settled down for a good nights sleep Saturday night and about 2:30 in the morning I heard some beeps. I woke Scott to ask him if he could hear them. I was concerned that they were the smoke detectors or the CO2 detectors. We heard two more beeps and then the power went off again. We then realized that the beeps was the microwave coming back on as the power was spiking. We again spent a sleepless night as we had to keep fires going and the answering service at the power company barely knew her own name let alone anything else and so we had some troubles with wrong phone calls coming in. It was nice of Uintah Wireless to call, but it wasn't our wireless service we were having trouble with!

We awoke to about 12 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. It was a beautiful sight! We again had to cook pioneer style. Some people did some riding and playing in the snow. We played some games and then we got Brad and Christine off since Christine had to be home for a meeting. Scott, Jason, Cole and I stayed for a few hours more which was a mistake. It just kept snowing all day long and by the time we got out to the car we had over a foot of snow to dig out of. We couldn't get our vehicle and trailer out of the parking spot. We tried for almost 45 minutes to get out and we were totally stuck. I was beginning to think that we were going to have to stay at the Inn there at the marina when a very nice man came with a huge truck and pulled us out. Jason then slid off the road as he was turning onto the highway. All the rain from the day before had turned to ice and then there was the snow on top of that. Luckily his car hadn't got in too deep and Scott and Cole were able to get him out without too much trouble. It was a nail biting ride home, but we made it without any more incidences.

Despite all that happened, we are anxious to go out again!