misc summer stuff

We're on our way out of town tomorrow morning headed back to California. (In fact I'd better hurry since Scott will be mad at me if he catches me blogging before all the suitcases are packed.) We are sincerely hoping for cooler temperatures, as these days over 100 degrees are getting really old. Believe it or not, the boys have actually OD'd on Seven Peaks and we didn't go once this week. Scott says it's like when you want to teach your kids not to smoke by making them smoke a whole pack of cigarettes to see how bad it is and decide for themselves. In either case, I'm not complaining!

Anyway, here's a run down of this weeks Camp Wiley activities.

We broke down and got a wading pool and were so excited to try it out we couldn't even wait for the proper attire.


As an incentive for doing a few chores (cleaning up the basement and unloading the dishwasher) we got to go to Color Me Mine. A good time was had by all, including June and I who spent most of the time walking around outside (and practicing her new favorite trick -- walking up and down the curb a million times in a row). The boys painted bowls to use for storing their jewelry collections on their shelves.


On Pioneer Day we went to Provo's festivities at the park and walked past booths selling marshmallow guns and tie dyed t-shirts. It was hot and I was grumpy and not in the mood to spend money on that junk, so I just said something like, "I don't want to buy that stuff here, we can make that ourselves." Little did I know I was going to be held to that commitment and over the next few days we did indeed make both marshmallow guns out of PVC pipe (Scott went all out and made some for the neighbor kids too) and tie dyed t-shirts (gotta love the internet!). Maybe I should have just forked out the $10 at the park, but the boys were excited so I guess that makes it worth it, or something.



Yesterday some friends invited us to go on a hike up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls. Unfortunately there was a huge forest fire up there, so we went to plan B and rode the chair lift up the mountain at Sundance Resort. We had a little picnic and went on a hike at the top, then played in the stream at the bottom. Of course the best part about going to Sundance is always the suckers. Afterwards Oliver, who had been quite reluctant and nervous before going on the lift, kept saying, "that was so fun." Well said.


Poor Scott's been so busy at work and no matter how late he gets home, he first tends to our household needs (i.e. glues stuff back together, takes out the trash, fixes the garbage disposal, changes the water bottle on the cooler, mows the lawn in the dark, builds marshmallow guns out of PVC pipe, fulfills church responsibilities, etc). But I think he's taking some consolation riding this new little number around town these days. He just got it painted with authentic vintage paint and got some new parts for it on ebay and is having a good time restoring it piece by piece. We even re-organized the garage to give her a little more space. What a beauty.


So when we get back from the beach, we'll have one more week before school starts. Phew!

what did you have for dinner?

we had . . .

Angel Hair Pasta


literally.

the sweet sweet sound of nothing

This morning Brenden went to Cub Scout day camp bright and early -- before the other kids were up. Usually, the boys get up pretty early (Brenden first, then Oliver) and come downstairs and watch TV for a while before June and Scott & I get up. Today Oliver and June slept in until 8:30 am and then I noticed that when we came down for breakfast, it was unusually quiet. With Brenden gone, no one had turned on the TV. I decided to do a test and see how long we could go with it off. Oliver ate breakfast, played with June, watched the trucks working in the back yard (yay!), rode his bike, played with a friend -- all without ever turning the TV on, or even asking or suggesting it. It was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed the quiet!

Brenden came home from camp at 2pm and within 5 minutes the TV was on and the quiet spoiled. Brenden does all those same things Oliver does, plus art projects and lego projects and his latest favorite hobby jewelry making, but he doesn't like the quiet. He's not even very particular about the show that's on, but he gets anxious and unsettled when nothing's on. Turns out this is a lot like Scott, and he's a nice well-adjusted productive adult, so I don't need to get concerned that Brenden's brain is getting fried or anything. I recognize it's just a personality trait and a different way of working within your environment. It just would help if the sound of the TV didn't grate on my ears like nails on a chalkboard so much.

go ahead, help yourself

We drove home from church today at 2:30pm to find this deer just helping herself to our daylillies. She paused for a second and looked up and saw us watching her, but then turned back and kept munching. Complete brazen disregard for all my hard work -- hours put in every day to keep those flowers alive and flourishing. Go ahead little deer, help yourself. Nevermind us.

I'm a geek - but we already knew that

Certainly this isn't just from my pizza choices. Maybe they are snooping around my computer and following my browsing history or something. Weird.

What Your Pizza Reveals

Your appetite is pretty average. You don't go overboard - but you don't deprive yourself either. You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are dominant, edgy, and risk taking with your choices. You are deep and thoughtful. You should consider traveling to Paris. The stereotype that best fits you is geek. You're the type most likely to order pizza to avoid leaving your computer.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

Here was my day today. Nothing really special -- just for the record:

4:30am -- put June and Oliver back in their beds. try to go back to sleep.

5:30am-6:00am -- wake up (very quietly so as not to disturb anyone else) and get ready

6:00-7:15am -- Yoga at It's Yoga at Soel Boutique. Literally drenched in sweat today.

7:15-7:45am -- Boys are awake when I get home, but self-sufficient for at least another hour. Go out front and prune the roses

7:45-8:45am -- finish movie I started last night. The last 10 minutes were impossible to get through as the gang had gathered at my feet at that point. But very interesting movie The diving bell and the butterfly. Sounded uplifting from the back of the box but didn't realize it was in French -- pleasant surprise. (take "uplifting" with a grain of salt)

8:45-9:30am -- can no longer ignore the kids. Breakfast time. Cold cereal (woohoo!) and peaches for June. Leftover pizza for Oliver. Pancakes for Brenden, Scott & I (thanks to Scott). June practices her new word "NO!". Comes in handy when she doesn't want the boys to get in her way, take away her things, doesn't want certain things to eat, doesn't want to hold still to brush her hair, etc.

9:30-10:00am -- clear side driveway *just in case* landscapers might come today. get dressed and ready for the next few activities. hurry and put the new vinyl lettering we picked up at Michaels on the front of Oliver's motorcycle. After much consideration, he went with the racing number 19876.

10:00-11:15am -- take boys to Progressive Power Tumbling. June keeps herself entertained on the sidelines by spotting and eating dropped skittles from the candy machine. Brenden wants to learn a back flip. Oliver gets hit by kid on rope swing.

11:15-12:45pm -- Seven Peaks. Brenden goes on Vortex. Oliver goes on the little blue slides but the water's too cold. June, Oliver and I play in the kids pool. Brenden gets bored and goes home. June falls under water 3 times -- once when I didn't see (seriously turned away for one second to help Oliver with his goggles) but another mom grabbed her quickly. She seems completely unphased and undeterred.

12:45-1:45pm -- home. Showers/baths (we are meticulous about rinsing that yucky ultra-chorinated public pool water off) . Lunch (all 3 amazingly have the same thing -- leftover pizza). Practice piano for the first time all week. I ran out of time for my shower. gross. Noticed landscaper dropped off a trailer and some pipe. Something must be happening soon! Old Helaman Halls buddy Keith (in town preparing to move his family back to Provo from CA/ID) stops by to use our business center (i.e. internet/fax/print/air conditioning). Oh man we missed the water delivery truck AGAIN.

2:00-3:00pm -- piano lessons. June sleeps in the car. I sit in the car for a work conference call. Hope it's ok that we didn't practice this week. Learned how to surf the web on my new iPhone.

3:00-3:30pm -- Krispy Kreams. What the heck -- the piano teacher lives right next door and we hadn't been there in quite a while, afterall. Might as well get a dozen.

3:30-4:00pm -- Blockbuster. We had two of our mail-in movies to return, which means two free rentals. Oliver picks Cory in the House and Brenden chooses High School Musical 2. June is like a tornado in that place.

4:30-5:30pm -- Home so I can finally shower. Boys watch High School Musical 2 (Brenden won the coin toss). June doesn't feel like taking a nap.

5:30-6:30pm -- I need to drop past Courtney's house, so turn it into a family bike ride to the elementary school (across from Courtney's) where they have a great bike riding hill. It's still pretty hot, but the boys are strong riders. Oliver is amused by my shortcut through the church parking lot.

6:30pm-7:30pm -- back home so boys can ride their motorcycles around the cul-de-sac. Brenden takes on all the responsibility of helping Oliver and starting the bikes. I have remained blissfully oblivious to the inner-workings of the motorcycles so when Oliver asks, "when the grey thing is up is the gas on or off?" I can in all honesty plead ignorance. Make sure DVR will record the new season of Project Runway starting tonight.

7:30pm-8:30pm -- dinner time. What should we have? Guess I should have thought about it sooner. Half package of bacon is all the meat in the house -- I opt for omelets and toast. Delicious since I grilled onion, pepper, corn, squash and zucchini for mine. Oliver had white rice with soy sauce. June had her eggs scrambled.

8:00pm -- June simply cannot be awake any more.

8:30pm-9:30pm -- boys watch Cory in the house. I answer emails.

9:30pm -- boys to bed. they are tired.

9:30-11:00pm -- quiet house. Scott will be home soon. better clean up. maybe I'll blog first. can't. keep. my. eyes. open. better keep moving to stay awake.


Things that didn't get done today:
* grocery shopping (I tend to put that off AS LONG AS I POSSIBLY CAN)
* mail baby gift to Lyndsey
* get a babysitter for Saturday
* write a resume
* any actual landscaping
* re-pot the house plants
* practice making soap for Primary pioneer activity on Saturday
* call to remind teachers about Primary pioneer activity on Saturday


I'm tired.

Letterboxing on a Sunday afternoon

Letterboxing has become our new favorite Sunday activity (I use the terms "our" and "favorite" loosely -- but at least it's something to do!). For those not familiar with letterboxing, it's sort of like geocaching but without the GPS component. Basically people go and hide little treasure boxes around the world, and then put together clues for searchers to follow to find it. In the box is a rubber stamp and a notepad, and you're supposed to bring your own rubberstamp and notepad too. You stamp their book with your stamp and their stamp in your book. Some people get really into the stamps and carve their own. For us we're just into the journey.

This week we followed the clues for the BYU duck pond box, which made for a nice destination on our bikes. We found the box and then tried to feed the ducks, but apparently they are way overfed on Sundays. June loved the ducks, the boys had fun looking through the [muck that's otherwise known as] water searching for turtles, I enjoyed the lack of TV noise, and Scott stayed on his toes avoiding snakes and keeping the kids from falling into the yucky pond.

It's still summer here

I feel rather inadequate competing with the adventures my sisters are having. Our daily lives here in Provo seem rather mundane compared to this and this and this. But nonetheless here's an update...

This week I decided to outsource camp counselor responsibilities.

Oliver got to go to the Little Gym for their summertime camp class a couple of days with his friend JoeB. They keep the kids for 3 hours and get them really tired out.

And we signed Brenden up for rock climbing camp at the Quarry. He had a great time learning climbing skills as well as repelling and playing on the giant rope swing. That kept him busy every afternoon for 4 hours!

This is how June felt every time we dropped someone off and she realized she wasn't going to get to go too. Poor girl always gets left out.

So between the camps, we managed to go to Seven Peaks 4 times, go to Chuck E. Cheese's, go motorcycle riding, go to the duck pond, and go to piano lessons.

Two more weeks until our next trip to the beach. Then school starts a week later. So this is it. We're down to the home stretch. But the big question is... what should we do today?

recap of the 4th

Provo is one of the best places to be for the 4th of July. This little town really does it up right. My absolute favorite part is the hot air balloon launch. It is breathtaking and unique and exciting and like nothing you've ever seen. I really appreciate Scott humoring me and helping me go year after year. This year we invited the Tanners down from Salt Lake to go with us, and since it is so early they decided to come down the night before and we had a sleep over party. We had a great time making flank steak sandwiches and homemade ice cream, and had our own little fireworks show in the back yard.

In the morning we managed to get up bright and early, get 5 kids dressed and all accompanying paraphernalia assembled, and were at the field to see the balloons lift off at 6:30am. It was awesome.










Then through Gondolfo's drive-thru for some breakfast sandwiches and on to the parade route. I don't know when or why or how it happened, but somehow this parade has grown in popularity to the point of being pretty hard to find a spot to sit if you're much later than 6am. So we settled for the west side of the street (HOT!!!) and had a great time squeezing in with Emily's family. The marching bands, bagpipe band, and giant inflatable Curious George balloon were highlights.



Then we parted ways with the Tanners for a bit and went home for a much needed nap. June, Scott and I all managed to sleep for 2 hours - what a treat! Then the boys were getting restless so it was on to the next activity: the Freedom Festival in downtown Provo. We walked through all the booths (I think I need some of those stained glass flowers), got some lunch, the boys went on a couple rides -- freefall was the favorite. Then we stopped for snowcones and funnel cakes and headed out. It was fun but way too hot and way too expensive to stay very long (not to mention the rather lame entertainment).



Then back home for a bit and then out again for fireworks. The Tanners invited us to join them at Sugarhouse park. It was awesome. Great spot on the hill, good company, and a spectacular fireworks show. They didn't start until 10pm and lasted a half hour then there was the walk out and the traffic, so needless to say it was another late night. There were a few fights over glow sticks and blow up slides, but nothing a good mint chip shake can't fix. I'm pretty sure June's ready to adopt Ryan to be her new dad. Thanks Tanners for a great time!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

try to spread out just a little farther

Here is a map of the current Zackrison family distribution. Seriously, could we be any more spread out? This is almost ridiculous. We've got Zack on the west coast, Steve on the east coast, us somewhere in between, Christine in Ireland, Rachel in Jerusalem, Annee in Korea, and Mom & Dad in Germany. We span 4 continents, 7 time zones, 5 countries, 5 forms of government, 5 currencies, 3 oceans, and 10 official languages. I know we were raised to be independent, adventurous, travelers, but come on! I miss you guys. I miss R&C dropping by, and I miss Annee being available for stupid cooking questions, and I miss the comraderie we all share and the good times we had at the beach last month. Why is this better than all living in the same town together?

Camp Wiley

Well, in spite of my aforementioned distaste for the season of summer, we are doing our best here to run an entertaining summer camp. We start off each morning with swimming lessons at Seven Peaks. The boys are actually really enjoying it this year and are making some great improvements. Lessons end right when the water park opens, which means if we stay we can be the first ones on the slides. So most days that's what we do. Generally we're done swimming by 1pm, go home for lunch, and are ready for an afternoon activity.


The kids in our neighborhood are crazy about lemonade sales (actually, I have yet to see anyone selling lemonade). Every day the boys will run in to ask for $0.50 to buy this or that from someone or other. I make them do a job -- clean up the rubberbands, or strip the sheets off the bed, etc. I figured one of these days we'd probably have to join in the fun and Monday was the day. The boys wanted to do a sale, and I couldn't bring myself to either sell countrytime lemonade or to make fresh squeezed lemonade @ $0.79/lemon. So we settled on snow cones. The boys thought the traffic on our cul-de-sac just wouldn't do, so we set up shop right across the street from Seven Peaks. We used our handy car A/C power adapter to run the snow cone maker. We set up the table and the sign and the supplies and waited for customers. They trickled in until Seven Peaks closed and then there was an onslought. The boys ended up making $24.27! Pretty impressive.

We ran out of ice once, and had to borrow some from the neighbor. The same neighbor who turns out I was supposed to make dinner for that night (I do a dinner exchange with her and Monday was my night!) but didn't remember until it was too late! So we borrowed ice, I profusely apologized, they went to KFC, and then they came and bought snow cones from us.

So of course by the next day (yesterday) all that moolah was burning a hole in their pockets, so the afternoon activity was to go to Toys 'R Us and the mall to spend it. Oliver got a little monster truck and a used DS game. Brenden got a used XBox360 game. So that was a success.

6 more weeks to go until school starts.