Never-ending Adventure

Homeownership is a never-ending adventure... I must stay positive... I must stay positive...

Our latest adventure involved the water main! I'd been smelling "wet" in the basement recently and couldn't find the source until I tried to vacuum Jonathan's room and the vacuum wouldn't go over an area near Jonathan's closet. I touched the carpet and found the "wet" I'd been smelling. Water had been getting into Jonathan's closet in the basement. The water main enters the house in the back of J's closet. We thought we were dealing with one of two problems... #1) big foundation crack and with the tons of rain and snow we've received, water was entering the basement that way, or #2), the hole around the water main wasn't sealed where it entered the house. On Saturday, Dan decided to "dig around" to see what he could find. I'd just gotten out of the shower and was rinsing the hair gel off my hands and noticed that there was very little water pressure. Just then, Dan can running into the house to tell me that we had a "big problem". I went outside and water was gushing all over the front yard. I told Dan to call the city water emergency line and to shut the water off at the street. I went and grabbed the bags of sand we use to weigh down the basketball standard and put them around the window well so Jonathan's room wouldn't flood and scraped a drainage channel away from the house. The water stopped flowing, Dan started bailing. The city finally showed up (and was useless... "yep, you have a problem"). Dan found the problem... a lovely design fail from whomever built the house. "T-ed" off the water main was a PVC line for a sprinkler system to hook into. Our system runs off the secondary water system so it isn't hooked into the main line. The cap on the end of the PVC line blew which released a 1" line of water all over then yard. Easy and cheap repair!!! Also, no water got into the basement so we really think we found the source of the water problem (prior to the blow, the cap was leaking just enough to saturate the area and the water seeped in through the concrete instead of through a crack. Dan still wanted to explore the area to check for additional leaks and to look for foundation cracks. He dug a big muddy hole... 48 hours after all the excitement, the basement is dry, the pipe is capped, and there's a big hole still in the yard. Dan says he's not done digging yet. For some reason, he wants to go a little deeper before filling the hole back in... I guess he wants to be sure there isn't anything else wrong so he doesn't have to dig the hole again!

Field Day for Nolan

Today is field day at Nolan's school (Jonathan, and the rest of the freshman class at OCJrH, is at Seven Peaks today). Miles, who got another drink from another mud puddle this morning, and I went to watch Nolan run the "mini marathon" and the 4 x 50 yard relay where Nolan was the lead-off man for his team.

The rest of Nolan's morning was spent busy with other outside activities. Hope he is having fun! Today is the last full schedule day of school. Tomorrow school is only 90 minutes long, then the boys are out for the summer.

9th Grade Awards Night

Tuesday was 9th Grade Awards Night at Oak Canyon. Jonathan was a busy guy. The percussion ensemble performed and Jonathan received 4 awards... something for the Geographic Olympiad, one for having a GPA of 3.95 or higher, and 2 department awards- outstanding science student and social science student awards. Oak Canyon has a policy that a student can only receive one department award, but for some reason, Jonathan was exempted from that policy.Oh, and he's wearing his hapi coat (taiko drumming uniform) because he had to wear it for his performance..

Gantor's Day!

Yesterday was Jonathan's birthday. He's the big 15 now and is eligible for a driving permit (but not getting one... yet). His first gift was from Mother Nature as she sent that lovely snowstorm yesterday in his honor. Jonathan had to go to early morning band on his birthday. I came in at the end of class and passed doughnuts out to the class to celebrate his birthday. The rest of his school day was status-as-usual. He came home and had a regular afternoon. Finally, everyone was home and it was presents time! Jonathan got a book, a cell phone, and (the best gift of all) a Timpanogos High School sweatshirt. Go T-wolves! As per Jonathan's request, we went to dinner at his favorite place to eat... Sweet Tomatoes. He wants to go golfing on Saturday for a birthday activity. Happy Birthday, my Big One! Sure love you!

Dance Festival

The end of the school year is just hours away, so while nothing academic is going on in the classroom this week, the boys are busy with end of the year activities. Today was the dance festival at Nolan's school. Each grade did a dance and the 5th grade did The Swing. Nolan was awesome. The only way that his dance could have been better would be if his partner showed up for school. Nolan danced partner-less, but it looked like he still had fun!

Miles was not interested in watching the dancing at all. He found other ways to amuse himself, like splashing in a muddy puddle. He also liked the playground. If it's not all about Miles, then he's not interested. I thought it was charming what he called the turtle he was riding in the above picture.

Lagoon 2010

MegaDiamond's annual Lagoon Day was on Saturday. It was lovely day... a balmy 53 degrees with rain showers. But, since it was free, we went anyway! Because the weather was "so ideal", the lines for the rides were very short! The Big Ones loved all the crazy-spinning-upside-down-jerky-fast-loose-your-lunch rides!
We weren't sure how Miles was going to react to Lagoon, but it was all good! He thought that watching the rollercoasters was awesome! He liked the fountains and seeing the ducks/geese/swans. He thought the train ride was lame, but he liked everything else though. The little kid rollercoaster was scary at first, but by the end of the third lap, Miles wanted "more". He rode the carousel twice with Dan, then once with me when he completely freaked out and was scared. Later in the day we walked by the carousel again and Miles about launched himself out of Dan's arms to get to the carousel. His favorite ride had to be the Kontiki. This wild-little-kid ride was a cross between the swinging pirate ship and the tea cups. It went back and forth for a while then it started spinning in a circle while going back and forth. Miles thought it was great. We stayed about 6 hours and rode everything that was on the list, then left. Other than it being cold, it was a fun day!

May 20, 2010 was a...

BUSY DAY...

Fifth grade is U.S. History year. Nolan chose to do his state report on Alaska. The final project associated with the state report assignment was to make a poster about Alaska. Then all the 5th graders set up their posters in the lunchroom and the other grades in the school come through and "toured" the USA. Here's Nolan and his poster!

Jonathan was in the seminary talent show. He and a few of his friends did the Monty Python skit "The Argument". You can see it on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4clN2ndk6S0

Finally, Miles had a busy day being 19 months! He loves to play toys! He loves to dump toys out! Toys! Toys! Toys!Miles is turning into Wolfgang Puck as he loves to cook!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

No, it's not. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of another May 24, but only 15 years ago to the day. The weather was very similar to today's mess when we drove to the hospital to have baby Jonathan! It rained a good part of the night, flooding part of Jonathan's bedroom (nice...), and by 6 a.m., it started to snow... Here's how things looked around 8 a.m. There was one person happy about the weather... Miles took one look out the window, yelled "Snowman!" and demanded to get his boots put on. He excitedly went outside, only to inform me that it was "cold". Anyway, I took Nolan to school today, rather than make him wait for the bus in the Slurpee that was falling from the sky, and then went to the store with Miles. I got back 40 minutes later and the damage from the storm was amazing. Big tree branches were down all over our neighborhood. Many had fallen into the street and were blocking lanes. I pretended I was a slalom skier as I drove home making "S" turns down the street to avoid the trees. The snow has stopped and it's melting FAST. The gutter on the other side of the street is overflowing and the water spilling over into the parking strip. What a mess! Happy Spring!

Dan's New Goal

The other day, Dan informed me that he has set a new goal for himself... to eat the food in the house. Well, duh! I looked at him perplexed and said... "Where do you think the food you eat comes from... I think it's found in the house!" He clarified and said that we have A LOT of food and that he's going to utilize it. I thought we did, but evidently Dan doesn't think he does. I've been into the coupon thing for about a year now, and yes, we have accrued quite a bit of food storage... Here's a peek inside the food storage room.

Looks pretty full to me and this does not include most of the buckets of bulk stuff on the floor, plus the buckets in the back room or on the other side of the storage room.

Today I decided to add to Dan's goal... I went grocery shopping and got the longest receipt of my life. It is 53 inches long (yes, I am a geek and measured it!). I bought lots of stuff...

• 1 gallon milk
• 1 pack Trident gum (because Miles grabbed it and HAD to have it)
• 12 Yoplait yogurts
• 4 large Tide Stain Removers (goes in the wash and I love it)
  
• 6 bottle Shout stain remover (pre-treater)
  
• 6 packs of Irish Spring (8 bars per pack)
• 6 bottles Dawn dish detergent
• 15 cans Rosarita refried beans (Miles was excited!)
• 12 cans Dole pineapple
• 6 bottles Kraft salad dressing
• 6 bags Wacky Mac
• 6 bags (2#) C&H powdered sugar
• 6 3 Musketeer candy bars
• 4 Star vinegars (1 red wine, 1 white wine, 2 balsamic)
• 4 boxes Cheerios
• 1 box Kashi Heart to Heart Cereal
• 1 box Fruit Loops
• 6 bottles Tabasco Sauce

For the visual learners, that list translates into this...
So... to the good part... What did all this food cost... For those who like to pay the price on the shelf, this would cost $215.35. For the coupon psychos (me! me! me!), it was $64.00, and I got $6 in "like cash coupons" back for my next shopping trip, AND I get .15 off per gallon of gas on my next fill-up! Good luck on your new goal, Dan. I will be doing my best to not let you succeed!

Spring Band Concert

Jonathan's Spring Band Concert was last night (and Dan didn't get hit by a car on his way to it this year). Jonathan played with 3 of the 4 groups that performed last night. The percussion ensemble showed off all 3 styles of drumming they learned this year... drumline, ensemble percussion, and Taiko drumming. Jonathan was a cymbalist in the drum line, a marimba-ist in the ensemble piece, and the "chief head boss" cymbalist in the Taiko drumming pieces. The Symphonic band played 3 numbers. Jonathan is the one and only allowed saxophonist in that band. The Jazz band played 4 numbers. Jonathan had solos in 2 pieces. He had to do an improvisation in the piece "Low Rider" and wrote his own solo for the funk piece "Honk". The video clip is of him playing his "Low Rider" improv. Jonathan has loved being in band, even if it meant he had to be at school everyday at 6:30 a.m. He's become quite the versatile musician with a great comprehension of music theory. I asked him if he was nervous about having to improvise. He told me it was easy... you just need to vary the theme on the tonic, use the 3, 5, 7, and 9 and blah, blah, blah, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't understand!

Science Demo Team Finale

Oak Canyon has a unique extra-curricular activity. It's called the "Science Demo Team". Jonathan has been a member of this team this year. This group of 9th graders travel to elementary schools along the Wasatch front and do a science show full of "Whoa!" and "Wow!" experiments. I got to see part of their final show. It was fun! They teach about pH, air pressure, surface tension (via bubbles), use a vortex cannon, and more. Jonathan part of the pressure group. The day I got the see the show, his group leader was absent so he got to assume that role and explain to the audience what they were about to see and how the experiments worked. His group has someone walk barefoot on broken glass, and another person recline on a bed of nails with a second bed of nails placed on top of his chest and then a cinder block is smashed on top of the second bed on nails (smashed with a sledgehammer by a teacher and on a teacher or administrator). Jonathan really liked being on the demo team and was sad to tell his tie-dyed lab coat good-bye.

Bad lighting + back of auditorium = bad pictures...

Jonathan's glass-walking volunteer freaked out when she saw what she volunteered to do...So he got a second volunteer...The principal of some elementary school on the bed of nails...
Jonathan's demo group...The 2009-2010 Oak Canyon Junior High Science Demo Team!

Spring Orchestra

The Rocky Mountain Elementary Orchestra had their spring concert on April 20. Nolan had a great time in orchestra this year. He ended up being the the section leader for the second violins. He says he will be sticking with the violin (instead of trombone!) and has started taking private lessons.

Arrow of Light

Nolan turned 11 a few weeks ago (yes, I'm playing catch-up, and I also just discovered that somehow all of his birthday pictures were deleted). That means he is done with cub scouts! Nolan was a cub scout maniac and earned all 20 activity badges available for Webelos. He also earned his Arrow of Light. His Arrow of Light ceremony taught him about 7 important virtues that will help him be successful in life... wisdom, courage, self-control, justice, faith, hope, and love. He received a feather for each virtue that he tied onto an arrow. So, good-bye cub scouts (for another 6.5 years until Miles turns 8), and hello Eleven Year Old Scouts!

Two of My Favorite Words

Miles is a talker. We can figure out lots of what he is trying to say. It's fun watching his language evolve. Last summer, I posted a video of Miles saying the word "flag". He said it like "aaa-tch". Lately he's tried to correct the way he says "flag" and now has a funnier way of saying "flag". He also is learning manners. He says "thank you"! I managed to get Miles to say both "flag" and "thank you" in the same video clip.


I also love it when Miles says "banana." He says it in the same style as he says "flag". I haven't been able to get a video clip of him saying "banana" yet.

He's Da Man

Another brag post... all about Jonathan. Two Saturdays ago was the Utah State Geography Olympiad competition for the junior high kids. Jonathan was on one of the 2 teams representing Oak Canyon. The competition was a series of Geography tests and challenges. It lasted most of the day. The competition was in Bountiful. I didn't go because Dan was on his psycho trip to Manchester, England (there and back in 59 hours) and Miles wouldn't have like it at all so Jonathan got a ride. At 3 p.m., someone was knocking on the front door. It was Jonathan returning from the competition. This is what I saw when I opened the door.That's a lot of hardware! Jonathan's team won the Geocaching competition and the team Problem Solving competition. His team took Second in the overall state competition. So that covers 3 of his medals... did you notice there are 4 medals? The fourth medal, which is also a gold medal, is for Jonathan winning the State Individual Geography title! Wow! He makes me feel stoopid! What a great accomplishment!

A New Look

Dan finally hit the "I've had it" point with Miles' hair. He said it didn't even look cute anymore. Off we went to Cookie Cutters, a haircut place that specializes in kids cuts. Miles loved the "salon" at first. You get to choose which car or motorcycle you want to sit it/on for your haircut. You get to choose a movie to watch during the haircut (Finding Nemo was Miles' choice). They blow bubbles while cutting your hair and give you a lollipop to keep your mouth busy! Well, once we had to strap Miles into the blue car he chose, the fun was over. Add the cape, and Miles really started to wail! Nemo occasionally distracted him, but it was only temporary. In the end, Deanna, the haircut lady, prevailed and Miles' locks were cut. First haircut... one day before turning 19 months.

Daddy & His Little Helper

As I type, Dan is installing a new cooktop in the kitchen. He's pulled out the drawers under the unit and is unhooking the gas line. Miles thinks that the space Dan is working in is a great place to play, I mean help. Miles even has his own wrench to help Daddy with the installation.

Hi Shauna, and Everyone Else!

There Shauna, are you happy now? Obviously I've been on a blogging vacation. April turned out to be exceptionally busy... we took a trip over spring break, and it's taken a while for me to get back into the groove of blogging. But, I'm back and will back-date "stuff" as I get to it!

Hope of America

Last night was the Hope of America Student Showcase at the Marriott Center. This is part of Provo's Freedom Festival which culminates with the Stadium of Fire over the 4th of July weekend. Yes, it's quite the long city celebration. Fifth grade students throughout Utah County are invited to participate in the Hope of America program. There were more than 4,000 students involved this year. The bulk of the students make up the chorus and wear shirts that make a large US flag. Nolan was in the chorus and was part of the bottom red stripe on the flag. The fifth graders at Nolan's school have been working on learning the patriotic songs and actions for weeks now all which lead up to last night's performance. Nolan had a great time! I've got a video of one of the songs posted on Youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7SxyLEbDsg

Here's the big flag...
And here's Nolan! I shot this picture from across the Marriott Center and about as high up as you can sit and under horrible lighting conditions... I'm glad it's as in-focus as it is!

Laundry Adventures

Nolan's teacher is expecting her first child and tomorrow his class is giving her a baby shower. I've had a rag blanket made for her... it's been sewn and clipped, but not washed and de-pilled. I hate to do the initial washing of rag blankets in my washer because they fray so much and make a huge mess in the washer and dryer, so today Miles and I went to the laundromat to wash the blanket there (and ruin their equipment instead of mine).

The laundromat is always an adventure; however it's the kind of adventure I like to avoid. Laundromats attract an interesting group of people. Today there was a social misfit who wasn't there to do laundry, but to use the bathroom... 3 times in the 45 minutes I was there. The only other person there was a man/woman (not really sure which, but I'm leaning towards female) who looked like a Boohbah, but with human colorization. What's a Boohbah? Let me find a picture...
I was prepared to the hilt to entertain Miles at the laundromat. I had a car, a bus, and a rock for him to entertain himself with. I also had a package of M&Ms! Who needs toys at the laundromat? Miles loved the front loading washer. He was hypnotized by it's swishing and all the suds! The spin cycle made cool noises too. After he tired of the washing machine, I took him for a ride all over the laundromat in one of those carts on wheels that people use to transfer their clothing from the washer to the dryer. That amused him for about 15 minutes. He spent the last 5 minutes at the laundromat watching the blanket flop around inside the dryer while he ate M&Ms. I think Miles really enjoyed our laundromat field trip, and what a value... all that entertainment for only $2.25!