On again, off again......ON AGAIN?!

I must be in a blogging mood! Just wanted to make a update of mine and 'Gym's' relationship...evidently it is on again. Sheesh, can I tell you how sick I am of this back and forth yo-yo relationship?!! Gym and I broke up back in January and I refuse to post my weight on this blog, but I have put on almost 15 lbs. YIKES! My thighs are OVERFLOWING with cottage cheese and I just can't take it anymore. So I broke down last week and got a new membership. Can I tell you how much I have missed the smell of 'gym'???? I love it! It feels good to be on good terms again. Let's see how long this time around lasts. Special thanks to my good friend Chelsea who actually is brave enough to post not only her weight but her measurements online. She is hoping that posting this will be motivation for her, it inspired me to do the same (minus all the measurement crap!) Thanks Chelsea for reminding me how good visiting 'Gym' feels!!!!

DISCLAIMER

To get the full effect of the following three posts it is best that you start with 'STRIKE ONE'. Then you can appreciate the stories in their finest!

camping at Bear Lake.....a.k.a STRIKE THREE, your out!

Ok people, is our family just not destined to camp this year???

Chris had a race this weekend so I took off work and we decided to make it a family event. I grew up going to Bear Lake each year and have such awesome memories, I wanted my children to have those type of memories. Our friend Blake was also racing so he decided to spend the night up there with his two small boys, Dash and Husdson (way cute kids!). Then our friends the Hills, found out about it and mentioned that they were going camping somewhere that same weekend and we told them that they should come with us. The original plan was to leave as soon as the kids got out of school (which is 12:30 on Fridays), but as you read in the previous post we have a history of not leaving at the scheduled time. We ended up leaving around 3:30. Blake was about an hour ahead of us and the Hill's were about an hour behind us.
Let me back up.... earlier that week our oil light had gone off so the day before we left I put three things of oil in the car.
We decided to drive by way of Evanston and had just summited Parley's canyon and was headed down the other side towards Coalville. Chris mentioned that the oil light was on and right about then I heard a sputtering sound and then the car just shut off. Chris pulled to the side of the road and tried to start the car again....no luck. We contemplated him hoping on his bike and riding into the town that was a few miles away to buy some oil, but then decided to let gravity work with us and try and coast as far as we could. So down the hill we started coasting, at one point it started to flatten out and all of us in the car where jerking our bodies forward to try and keep the car going....I'm sure it was quite the site! We hit another hill and picked up speed. Can you believe that we were able to coast all the way down to the next exit, down the exit ramp and as luck would have it, drive right into the parking lot of the Sinclair gas station that was located at the bottom of the off ramp. There was some MAJOR divine intervention there!
We filled the car with oil and still nothing happened, at this point we were worried that the engine had seized.
We called our friends to find out where they were, the Hill's had just left and decided to turn around and get their other car so that we could drive in their car. Blake had just made it to Bear Lake (2 hours away) and he turned right around and drove back to help. (Remember he had two small children with him....talk about a sacrifice).
We waited around for help for about two hours before our friends arrived and we started dividing up our stuff into the Hill's car and Barlow's car. These pictures describe the next hour pretty well.

Mile marker 155 a.k.a our expeditions tombstone.

The gas station that we pulled into. The store owner was super nice, he bought all the kids icee's.

This one says it all! Actually I was in rare form during all of this. I actually kept my cool and did not freak out or blow up at anyone...very rare for me!

Chris calling the tow truck. We had it towed to a local mechanic, we find out today what the prognosis is.

Help arrives and we begin loading. We packed this thing to the max! It reminded me of the Clampets "Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed" all that was missing was Granny sitting in her rocking chair on top of all the junk! lol

Kevin loading the truck. What a SUPERMAN!

Finally getting everything loaded at about 7:30, we had been there since 5! My kids did great and wandered around the empty fields that were next to the gas station. Luckily Sienna stayed home (with my mom) on this trip. She had dance rehearsal and couldn't miss it, if she had come we wouldn't have had room for her in the car. Plus, she just wouldn't have handled this experience well at all!

Me with all the kids. This was taken while the men were transferring all our stuff.

We finally arrived at about 10:15pm and started setting up camp in the dark. The next morning Chris and Blake took off for the race while the rest of us ate the best dang pancakes around (Thanks Rachel!) The weather was overcast, but not too cold. I just could not handle another trip in the cold or rain. I crossed my fingers really hard!

Rachel's son Josh playing at the beach...this kid is a FISH! Notice the clouds....please don't rain, please don't rain!

The bear lake monster!!! A.K.A the sand man or Austin Dean-The country singer!

me and FAze, this was taken with Chris' phone so it is not too clear.

For dinner that night, Kevin made a delicious meal of b-b-q ribs and baked beans to die for!!!

The water is beautiful!!! But oh so cold!

AT the beach! Check out the clouds.....remarkable it did not rain!

The kids had so much fun playing in the sand. It was such a great time!

A great one of me and Rachel....you ROCK girl!

Blake and cute little Hudson.

Our friend Brett was at the race as well and had to get a shot of the two guys together. Here is the happy ending to our story, Chris took 1st place overall at the race! Wahoooo!!! To bad they didn't give out a car to the winner, wouldn't that have been nice?!

Our last day there it was bright, sunny and hot. WE spent the bulk of the day at the beach and then packed up our 'Clampet' mobile and headed home. Although the trip did NOT start out ideally it was a super fun trip. Now we just have to hear back from the mechanic hoping for the best, but expecting the worse. We need a new car sooooooo badly, it just is not in the cards right now financially. Fingers crossed that this story will have a happy ending!

To be continued....

Pineview camping #2 a.k.a STRIKE TWO

Due to the fact that the first trip was A: so cold and B: Chris was only really there on the last day, we decided to give it another go. Our friends the Lindsey's were going to the exact same campsite the following weekend and invited us to come. We were supposed to go from Friday- Sunday. I had to work until 5:30 on Friday so Chris said that he would get off work early and head up there by 2pm. Well as luck would have it, he didn't get home until right before I did (I got off a little early and was home by 5). NOTHING was packed. I mean NOTHING. I was very frustrated because it was an hour and ten minutes away and I did not want to set up camp in the dark. The entire time I kept trying to push the though out of my head that I DID NOT want to go. Sienna didn't want to go either and wasn't putting on her happy face, so pretty much her and I were in a sour mood. We finally hit the highway by 6:30 and got to the campsite at dusk, we knew that if we hurried then we could set up our tents before dark. We got our tents set up just as the sun dipped behind the clouds and then the winds started. The weekend before we had a night of tornado like gusts so I knew what the wind was capable of doing. We decided to move both of our tents into an area that was more enclosed by trees to help with the wind factor.

By the time we re-located our tent and our friends tent it was close to ten, windy, cold and me and the kids were tired, so we went to bed. At about one-0-clock the thunder and lightning started and then the drizzle of the rain began. I had put the rain tarp over the tent when we first set up the tent but forgot to put it on when we moved the tent. Of course in my head I thought that it was on, so I just buried myself into my bag so that the thunder wasn't so loud. Then the rain picked up and was pouring. I reached over to make sure that Faze was covered and felt his bag wet on top, then I felt mine and it was wet on top. It was then that I realized that the tarp was not over our tent. I woke up Chris and we ran out into the rain to cover the tent. Drenching ourselves in the process. From that point on I could not get warm. The girls were asleep in a different tent and I worried about them waking up and freaking out due to the loud thunder and lightning. It poured all night. I froze all night. We learned that our tents are NOT waterproof and there was actually rivers running under our cots....luckily we had cots or we would have been drenched. I woke up at about 7 to hear our friends say that they were already packed and headed home, I guess their 25 year old tent wasn't water proof either and everyone and everything was soaked! After I spotted the rivers I announced to Chris that we were done as well. Chris made us breakfast in the rain and as soon as it let up we packed our bags and headed home.
Notice that there are NO pictures from this trip, we were there barely 12 hours. It was MISERABLE!!!
P.S. I woke up to find my cell phone laying in one of the puddles in our tent. Nice. A dead phone. Just what this trip needed to finish it off.

Camping in Pineview....#1 a.k.a STRIKE ONE

For the past several years it has been our family's tradition to go camping up at Pineview Reservoir. Sometimes we go with family members and sometimes we go with our friends, this year we went with our friends the Barnes and Murpheys. The trip started out not so great....Faze and Chris were sick so they did not join us for the first three days, so it was just me and the girls. I was pretty proud of myself being capable of setting up camp all by myself.
The first few days had not so great weather, in fact it was down right cold and of course I did not pack anything that was warm enough so I had to make a trip into town and buy the kids some warm clothes. Other than the lack of my husbands presence we had a great (cold) time hanging out with our great friends. We just LOVE camping at Pineview!

We even rented a jet ski and pulled the kids behind on tubes, Faze just loved riding on the jet ski...I was surprised that he didn't freak out on it.

Taelynn and her good friend Taylor...they just love playing together.

Taelynn is such a ham! Her and Taylor and Izzy made up this hilarious "top five" things that are soooo important and they recited them to us complete with actions and hilarious facial expressions.

1- To eat at Red Robin- 'Red Robin.....YUM"

2- To be Greek

3- To sit in a chair

4- To drive a car

I can't remember the 5th one. I know that this might not seem funny but to watch the three of them recite them so animated just made everyone laugh.

I thought that this was a darling pic of all the kids- minus faze and mya

loved this pic of our good friends Jake and Amy

eating watermelon...well none for me, that stuff can kill ya!

playing at the beach! The beach was literally 20 yards from our campsite.

Good times for the kids!

Jake and I have a brother/sister type relationship.....just gotta love him.

It got so cold that we had to hunker down in our tent and just play games for the afternoon. Hard life, I know.

the three amigos!

Crazy girls!

Thanks guys for the great memories!

"A dream is a wish your heart makes"

Yes girls, dreams do come true! Ever since I got married I have WISHED for the chance to go to prom and to go to prom with the most good looking guys in town... my hubby! Well in June the opportunity presented itself and lucky for me, my hubby was willing to accept the date. A local school was having a fundraiser called "second chance prom". I know, I know this was TWO months ago, but life has been so crazy that I STILL have not blogged about it and wanted to document this momentous occasion. We managed to convince some of our friends that they should participate in this event with us (thanks guys!)

I wanted to have the FULL prom experience, so me and some of the girls in our prom group went dress shopping. None of us had much money to spend on such frivolities so we needed to be thrifty. I LOVED this part! It is sooooo much fun to try on fancy dresses. Last year when I was judging a pageant I fell in love with one of the evening gowns that one of the girls were wearing and have wanted a reason to buy it. I tried it on and of course it was AMAZING.....and...$200! I just couldn't justify spending that much money for it. Sigh. Maybe someday. So here are some pics from our fabulous night.
Me and my HANDSOME date at dinner.

Kayla and Jody when we were dress shopping.

Taking a drink break....man, shopping can be exhausting....but oh so fun!

A cute shot of Jen

Jen twirling in her BEAUTIFUL dress, this one also cost $200!

I found this dress and LOVED it, they had it at Dillard's in turquoise and I bought it for $26!!! The deal of the century!

Me and Jen
Me, Kayla and Jen waiting for our dates to arrive. All the girls waited at our house for our men to show up and pick us up. I knew that they had a surprise for us, little did I know that it was some set of wheels. No, not a limo.... they rented a huge RV! What a totally awesome way to arrive in style! LOL

Jody, all dolled up and looking FABULOUS!

The beautiful Jen, sitting in the RV
Kayla looking good!
There was so much hairspray in my hair I am amazed that it didn't fall out due to product!

Our WAY HOT limo...I mean RV driver!

Pinning on his corsage.
Stealing a kiss!
Jody and Dion at dinner. We ate at Thanksgiving pointe....so yummy!
The dance was held at the Apollo in AF. There was a live band and we had soooo much fun getting jiggy wit it!! LOL

Seriously though, Chris was in RARE form this night, I have not seen him let his hair down like that on the dance floor in FOREVER. Yes people, he did the worm (which did cause injury to some important areas!)
Jaron and Elizabeth showing us their moves.

Jen and Kelly dancing it up.

Chris and I on the dance floor.

There was even a photographer at the dance taking group and individual shots, we talked the guys into doing it! The pictures turned out so AWESOME!

We left the dance at about 11pm to go to our 'activity' we drove up to boondocks and did something that I have always wanted to do.....go lazer tagging!

I love this pic! This was all the girls in our group posing in our lazer tag gear! Look out Charlie's Angels!!!
The girls posing in front of our RV!

The men posing for the camera...... what a bunch of crazies!

After boondocks closed we drove the motor-home back to the neighborhood and parked it so that we could overlook the valley and then we watched a movie. We did not get home until 3:30 AM. Can I tell you how fun it is to not have a curfew?! (My mom had the kids spend the night at her house, thanks mom!)

This was better than ANYTHING that I could of done had I gone in High School. Finally my dream of attending a prom has come true! Thanks to all of our friends that made this night so unforgettable. And especially thanks to my prince charming for making one of my biggest dreams come true! Chris has said that if this school does it again next year then we are going again!!!! I can't wait!