Don't know what to call this...

First of all, before I forget, we get to go see "Kid History" here in Mesa. They are premiering their 8th video at the high school down the street from us (Mountain View). Our friends got us tickets because we got them hooked on it. So, we are going with a few of our friends from our ward. Very excited. If you haven't heard of "Kid History", check them out on YouTube and #6 is my absolute favorite. We get to meet the cast, watch #8, see out-takes, etc. It should be fun...in MARCH! So, we have to wait a little while, but something to look forward to.

Okay, now for the week...

Monday night for family night, I had the activity. I get so tired of not doing things that I like to do, so I was in the mood to play with my craft stuff...especially my pipe cleaners. I don't know why, but I was just wanting to do something silly. The boys looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was! I have played plenty of their "capture the flag" games and so forth, so it was time they got to play with my craft stuff. So I printed of some helps on how to make people or what-not and here is what they did (they didn't use my instructions, but that's fine...we had fun! That's what matters!).

This Alec's monkey (we were calling it "Sandy Squirrel") hanging from the light fixture (with a twig in it's grasp).

This is Dallen's multicolored dinosaur

This is Ashton's person that has turned Ninja

And these are Calvin's Ninja's that he gave to Dallen and Ashton as bookmarks!

I did a "Brittany Spears" looking figure and I was singing "Oops I did it again" and Ashton, while smashing her sang "hit me baby one more time". We laughed...it was funny. Scott actually didn't finish a person because he was on call and had to take a call.

All week, Ashton has been having to stay after school for EDP, which is a forced homework hour if you didn't turn in your assignment during one of your classes. He doesn't get home until 5:30 pm when he goes and by then, getting him to do any other homework is almost pointless! He was there Monday-Thursday! Every night I say "Do you have any homework?" and they will either say "yes" and do it, or "no". Ashton would say "yes" and then not do it! So, Thursday night, I said, "I know you have homework...get it out and start working". He had 4 pages of math (front and back...so 8 pages!) of math homework he hasn't been turning in. I just looked at him and said "page one". He finished two pages that night and then got up early the next morning (by force) and did page 3. Then he had 10 minutes left before he had to catch the bus. I said, "I'd rather take you and you do your homework, than you make the bus and you have to stay another day at EDP". So, he managed to get another page done and was able to finish the rest at school. He had a test that day, too...thank goodness he did his homework! He came home on Friday at his normal time of 4:15 and said "wow, it's seems like I'm home so early"...I thought that was funny. It's amazing what happens when you do your homework!

Ashton also did his pre-ACT testing and got a 100% in the reading category. He was excited about that. So, we praised that, and ignored the math and science :).

I got a new calling at church today. I will no longer be doing Primary Singing Chorister. I am so sad. Today was hard. I couldn't think about it because I seriously was almost in tears a couple of times. They sang me my favorite song, "Army of Helaman" (that's the shorter title). One boy came and gave me a hug and said he was going to really miss me! It was so sweet. I really love that calling. It's funny because about 15 minutes before I was called, I had just finished organizing my Primary binder. I mean...really organized it. I had told Scott a couple weeks ago that I felt that I wasn't going to be in this calling much longer. I said I felt a change in the air, kind of feeling. So, it wasn't a surprise. Anyway, so, I am now 2nd counselor in the Relief Society. I am over the Relief Society Meetings during the week, among other things. I have never had that responsibility, and I know I am crafty, but coming up with the ideas is a lot...I know, though, that there is already an amazing committee in place and the things they have done already, well, let's just say they look like they just popped off a Pinterest page (those that do Pinterest know

what I mean!). I'm excited. It will be fun. I really don't care where I am placed. I haven't found a calling that I don't enjoy.

Yesterday I got to go on a REALLY FUN tour of Old Town Scottsdale with my friend/visiting teacher, Kristy Duncan. And...I found out that it was her birthday yesterday, too. I really enjoy being around Kristy. We have a lot in common and have learned a lot of the same life lessons. Her kids live in St. George with their dad and her oldest is a Senior at Desert Hills High. When she comes for the month by her self (sometimes that happens), we end up talking for like 3 hours! I love it! This is a cruddy picture of us, but we literally were losing our group and had to like run across the street that was about to let the traffic go! We were just standing weird.

Anyway, so she had signed up for a food tour of Old Town Scottsdale and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her because her husband couldn't. I was all over it...food...yes! I had never been down there. It was so busy, but very energetic. We tried all sorts of foods. We had hamburger sliders with green chilies, real potato chips with hot sauce and blue cheese, or a pico/shrimp salsa, we tasted all sorts of balsamic vinegars and olive oils (we went back there after the tour to taste all the other ones we wanted to try!), we didn't taste the wine, but interesting to learn about, we then had a "cowboy salad" and it was amazing, and then we had vanilla ice cream, while everyone else had "spiked" ice cream (ice cream made with alcohol). We met others from Mesa (literally across the other side of Power Road from us) and a couple from Washington DC. Our tour guide was very good at her job and made the tour very enjoyable. It was fun getting to know everyone. It lasted about 3 hours and then Kristy and I headed for the oil/vinegar store. The lady was mixing all things to try together.

She did a Raspberry vinegar with a lemony oil and it tasted exactly like Raspberry Lemonade! It was so good. Who would have thought? They had an oil with a pepper from Tunisia. I had to try that one. I can't remember what it was called, but it was spicy and yummy!. The vinegars were my favorite. It was hard to imagine that the oils were okay to just drink...I mean, who just drinks oil (okay, I know there are people out there, but it just seems wrong!). It was a really good day. Then we just chilled out with the boys that night. Calvin and Alec were mad because we kicked them off the Xbox (they were playing Halo with Derrek and friends in St. George...Derrek said that was really fun). We watched Kung Fu Panda 2. Cute movie.

Everything else is going good. Calvin and Alec had planning this last week to kind of see what classes they need to take and where they want to go. Calvin is thinking of maybe do a tech school and going into auto body repair. He is going to see the school counselor this week to see how that will work with the classes he needs to take (and Seminary). Alec realized that he could just go to school for half a day next year and then maybe work in the afternoon/evenings. That would be good for him. He didn't see any tech school stuff that he wanted to try and isn't really sure what he wants to be when he grows up :).

One last thing I had to show...LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS LEMON! Dallen was so gracious to be our model with the normal size lemon, the freak-of-nature lemon and his head!

Who knew lemons could grow that big? I didn't. It was fun to play with, though (and for those of you who think my house is clean all the time...that is cereal on the table from the morning!). Well, here's to another week :).