Happy Birthday, Henry

Henry is 9 today. This past year has certainly been interesting. He was baptized the day after his 8th birthday. He started 3rd grade and Cub Scouts. He went to Ute football games, Ute and Jazz basketball games, and Yankee baseball games. He played basketball, soccer, and baseball. He became interested in Star Wars and Harry Potter and all manner of books.

He also had a major surgery, two CT scans, a couple of whole body scans, a radioactive iodine treatment and multiple blood draws. He had a cancer diagnosis.

It's been quite a year.

He's a great kid and we love him so much. We're hopeful that this coming year will be the year we can say he is cancer free. Until then, he is going about his business. He's still reading Harry Potter, because I told him if he finished the entire series before the next movie comes out I'd take him to see it in the theater. He's looking forward to 4th grade and another year of Cub Scouts.

We are celebrating his birthday with a party on Monday for his friends. Today we're in Salt Lake City (we've been here since Thursday having fun) and we'll let him choose where we eat lunch. Hopefully he'll have a nice day.

Happy Birthday, Henry. We love you!

Raspberry Patch

Our garden is finally coming in, slowly but surely. We had a very cool and wet spring so it's taken a while for the plants to really start growing and flourishing. This time last year we already had corn and onions and peppers and tomatoes - we're still a few weeks away on most of that stuff, although we've gotten a few little tomatoes and our lettuce and spinach did really well. I think our potatoes are a bust - again. They seem to be growing up, with big leafy tops. I thought one was a weed and pulled it up and, well, things aren't looking good. Everything else looks fine.

The raspberries are coming in well right now. The other day William and Tessa kept running out into the garden to pick and eat them. Tessa even took a bowl to gather some to share with Jay after work. We will have lots to freeze for cereal and oatmeal and smoothies this winter. If I feel adventurous, I might even attempt some jam.

Here is Tessa showing off a raspberry that she picked. You can see William in the back, right in the middle of all the raspberry plants. All of the big, green bushy area is raspberries.
William really, really loves to pick raspberries.

If anyone wants some raspberries, come on over. We seem to have lots this year. Just don't ask for potatoes. At those we've failed.

Happy Birthday, Jay

Dear Jay,

Happy Birthday! Thanks for indulging your little family and enjoying the mini-birthday party that we had for you last night. We tried to come up with some gifts that you would enjoy and we are looking forward to the day when you break out the beignet mix from Cafe DuMonde and make us some yummy treats. We were all glad that you chose cupcakes for your birthday treat, since it allowed us to make another trip to Temptation Cupcake and everyone got to choose their favorite. Rhonda is also happy that there isn't leftover cake to tempt her for the rest of the week.

We're sorry that you spent most of your birthday on an airplane to New York City. It's no fun to have to be up and out the door before 6 am. We refuse to feel sorry for you, however, as you will be enjoying a Yankee game tonight. Catch a foul ball for us, eat a hot dog, and enjoy your birthday in style. We'll see you on Saturday.

We love you!
Rhonda, Henry, William, and Tessa

Celebrate the Hyde Park Way

Saturday was the Hyde Park 24th of July celebration. I think. It was a full week before the 24th and was positioned this year as more of a Founder's Day Celebration since Hyde Park is officially 150 years old this year. But it always happens the weekend before Pioneer Day, so that's what we'll go with.

This year our parade seemed longer. I don't know if there just wasn't that much going on around Cache Valley, but there seemed to be more action at the parade. We always have the Sky View High School band and the local royalty floats and Hyde Park ward primary kids but this year we had military folks and Utah State Aggie football and basketball players and even Big Blue (the Aggie mascot). There were more miscellaneous floats and more candy. William was in heaven:

Henry and Tessa wanted to ride on the Hyde Park 1st Ward primary float. They had fun and got to throw candy to the crowd.

After the parade we played games and had lunch and a sno-cone before heading home. Hyde Park sure knows how to throw a city celebration; the parade is just perfect for the kids and you can buy cute crafts and your kids can play cute games and ride cute rides and it's all just cute. Which, on a Saturday morning in mid-July, is just about perfect.

Camp Grandma

We've been indulging in Camp Grandma since last Tuesday. We've gone mini-golfing. We've gone to lunch - several times, actually, as Grandma wanted to take each of the kids on a special lunch by themselves. We've gone to the park and played. We've watched movies and played on the Wii. We've gone shopping. We've played games - lots and lots of games. The kids are having a blast!

Jay and I are benefitting from Grandma's visit as well. We've gone on two dates in the past 10 days - shocking, I know. Even more shocking is the fact that we're considering another movie date this weekend. It's been nice to have some company during the day and I've been able to go run simple errands by myself, which takes so much less time than loading and unloading the whole family from the minivan.

So yay for Camp Grandma. We'll be sad to see her go but we're sure having a great time while she's here!

The Boys are Back in Town

The boys are back from their road trip to Oakland. They had a blast, as expected, even though they got caught in 4th of July holiday traffic from Lake Tahoe to the Bay Area and spent an extra night in a hotel due to a late start home on Wednesday. They saw the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf. They ate at Jay's favorite Chinese restaurant in the entire world and went to Ghiradelli Square. They rode a cable car and browsed through Chinatown. And they saw the Yankees beat the Oakland A's in baseball, including a grand slam by one of the Yankees. All those things, coupled with the complete lack of nutritional balance in their meals for the trip, made it the Best. Trip. Ever.

This video just about sums it up:

Jay secures his legacy as The Fun Parent and I am just the nagging mom who makes them eat stuff like fiber and fruit and vegetables with their meals. I guess that's what vacation is all about. Oh, by the way, if anyone has an idea how to get the permanent orange tinge off William's face, please let me know. If it helps, it's from a combination of Cheetos and orange soda. Lots and lots of Cheetos.

Cul-de-Sac of Fire

One of the benefits of living in a cul-de-sac is the lack of traffic. The kids can ride their bikes and play and I don't panic if someone runs into the road because we just don't get that much traffic. Everyone who lives in the our cul-de-sac knows that there is a possibility that kids will be present and drives accordingly. Of course we teach them to watch for cars and not run indiscriminately into the street, but generally it's pretty safe.

We also have a perfect venue for setting off fireworks. Our neighbor Josh coined the term Cul-de-Sac of Fire; since we don't want to drive down to Provo's massive Stadium of Fire celebration every year (or even any year, I guess), we make due with whatever legal fireworks we can buy here in Cache Valley. It's nothing too complicated or crazy but it's fun.

This past Saturday we decided to set off a few fireworks - it was really windy and we were the only ones out that night (aside from the babysitter of our neighbors). Frankly Jay and I would have just skipped the whole thing but Henry and William were adamant that we do something with fireworks, since last July 4th we were travelling to Southern California.

The result:

We pulled the plug shortly after 10 pm. A few hardy souls in our general vicinity went a bit later, which is fine. But whoever was shooting off fireworks at 3:30 am, I just have one thing to say - Really?

The Boys of Summer

Baseball is over for our boys. They both had good years. William did well in t-ball and is looking forward to moving up to coach pitch next year. At least I think he is. Yesterday he said, "Mom, this is the last t-ball game of my career." He's an emotional kid, that William.

Henry, on the other hand, is excited to graduate to The Minors next year. That means that the kids pitch to each other. I'm not sure I'm that excited about it; I've heard that it can be kind of boring because the kids are still learning how to pitch and they have a lot of walks. Oh well. He likes it and that's good enough for me.

I was going through my camera and realized how negligent I've been in taking pictures of the boys playing baseball this year. Seriously, I don't have any. I have a few videos of William hitting the ball and hanging out at 2nd base, but that's it. It's not that I don't care; it's just that I completely forgot to take the camera to the vast majority of the games. You'll have to take it from me; they were awesome. I think I got all pictured and videoed out during swim lessons - I wanted to show Jay how the kids were doing so I have about 50 videos and umpteen pictures of the kids during swim lessons.

Baseball continues to be on the docket for the men of our family next week as Jay, Henry, and William embark on a road trip to the Bay Area. They plan to spend a day in San Francisco and then attend the Yankees game against the Oakland A's that night. It'll be a quick trip but they'll have a blast. Tessa and I are planning to hang out here and do girl stuff like get haircuts and go out to lunch. The bonus is that we get to pick up Grandma at the airport on Tuesday; she's coming for a nice, long visit. We can't wait!