A round of birthdays...

Even though it has been over a week since we had the first round of birthdays, it's never too late to post about them :). But, before I do that, I have to share a fun Family Home Evening we did...

BUBBLES! I don't know what it is, but I have this huge facination with bubbles and they really make me happy. I don't know why, but they do. So, we were all just feeling blah from the events of starting school and worries of normal life and I saw a picture in Family Fun Magazine of a girl playing with the big wand bubbles and decided that is what I needed...so that is what we did. We invited the Blackhurst family. Thelissa (the mom), I knew my Freshman year at BYU because she was roommates with my cousin Kim and they pretty much saved me my Freshman year. They let me tag along and I was so grateful. And, here we are again, in the same ward. Then Dennis (the dad) has a sister that works with Scott at the funeral home and so we have a connection there, too. Anyway, they had invited us over the first week we were here and since then we have tried to find ways to do things together, so I invited them to do bubbles with us (they have five kids...three boys and two girls...their oldest is the same age as Ashton and their next son is just a year younger than Dallen). Even though it was a "heat advisory" day, the wind was just right and made it a really fun time...here is a video from that...

Later that week was Scott and Alec's birthdays. Alec turned 17 and Scott the big 40! Scott usually tries to hide behind Alec's birthday and never lets anyone do anything for him on that day, but a couple of the gals that he works with at work wouldn't let it slip by. So, they "friended" me on Facebook and we kept in touch as to when and what to do for the party. He had no idea. They made him a "coffin" cake, which I found to be very funny and found out that it was their first attempt to make a cake for someone...they did awesome. It is weird to me that others don't do that because it is something that was always done in my family and also raising my kids was to make their birthday cake...now they just want pies! Anyway, Scott had no idea and they sent him on an errand and then told him to come back for a "first call" to get the information and as he walked in, he saw me first and was really surprised. They had pizza and cake for him and it was a really good time...then a real "first call" came in and it was back to work! Alec just wanted the keys to the car and his birthday money and Calvin to go with him on the town. So, that is what he did, but I had to get pictures of them blowing out the candles...except I forgot to buy the candles! So, Alec did toothpicks and lit those! We had a fun treat because it is tradition to get pies from Croshaw pies in St. George for their birthdays...well, it just happens that Croshaws had opened a store right here in Mesa...right by the boys' high school! It's the same!!! So, Alec got to have his "Very Berry" pie and all Scott wanted was strawberry Gelato from the place that we love...so that was his "cake". It was perfect. Then Scott also wanted to go to the temple for his birthday, and so after pie and gelato, Alec and Calvin left to paint the town (this is a picture of them eating at "Tasty Joes" a Chinese restaurant they heard was good and they agreed) and Scott and I went to the temple. Dallen and Ashton were more than happy to stay home! Alec and Calvin actually beat Scott and me home. They need some lessons :). Anyway, it was a fun day.

The next day Scott and I went to Flagstaff for the Bowler Adult Getaway. Everyone had already been up there since Thursday, but we weren't able to go for that long and just went for a visit on Saturday. It was fun seeing Mike and Laura, Jeff, and Kent and Amy (all the rest we get to see more regular).

Not much else has happened this week. Scott took the Priest Quorum (and Calvin) to the Mortuary. The Bishop talked about how it was a spiritual experience for him, which is a big reason Scott wants to do this for this period in time...and yes, they saw bodies (they were covered...but they were there). The boys seemed to handle it pretty good. Now they know where their dad works and what he does (mostly...Scott didn't show them the details).

We had an interesting walk the other day. Scott and I go exercise/walk every morning and we were walking past this tree and all of a sudden we hear a "plop" sound. We had walked past this tree and startled a bird, literally to death! Scott had to put it out of it's misery because it was not doing well. So, then we continued the rest of our walk and on the way home, we cross paths with a baby rattlesnake! It was coiled and trying to warn us, but he had only 1/2 a rattle because he was so small...we decided to end it's life because there were kids getting ready to ride the bus and didn't want any of them to get bit. So...on our walk, we killed a bird and a rattlesnake. It was interesting.

Derrek's 18th birthday is tomorrow (Sept. 5th). He said he was going to be doing some stuff, but I am not exactly sure if all his plans are coming together. I hope he has a great day. I will post next week about it...hopefully I will get some pictures :).