Ice scream, you scream, we all scream for ...

AN ICE CREAM PARTY!!!

So for those of you who haven't heard, I won an ice cream party from Dreyer's Slow Churned ice cream. I entered the contest in May, about 2 weeks after my knee surgery. I was feeling very grateful because at the time I was basically worthless and had to rely on so many people to help take care of me and my family. I thought that it would be a nice way to say thanks and give a little something back. I had to write a paragraph telling why my neighborhood should win the party, and lo and behold- I won! This was a great surprise because anyone who knows me must also know that i am just about the unluckiest person ever! (Matt was sad that it wasn't a trip. He has encouraged me to do better next time!)
Anyway, this past Saturday was the 'Neighborhood Salute' block party. Dreyer's did EVERYTHING...they sent a big box full of supplies- ice cream scoopers, all the paper goods, wet wipes for sticky hands, invitations, an apron, and so on...right down to the sharpie marker to write on my sign! Two days before the party fed ex delivered a big box of ice cream and all we had to do was put up some tables and dig in! It was so fun! We had over 150 people show up and it was wonderful to watch people talk and laugh and enjoy some sweet ice cream. I feel so blessed and grateful to live in such a wonderful neighborhood!!

(My apron said, "I won a Dreyer's ice cream block party!)





The Clawson family was kind enough to set up their awesome movie screen and after eating ice cream quite a few people made their way over to watch a movie. It was a wonderful night! (They rent the screen/sound system out...if you are interested let me know and i will give you an email address)



oh, and we made the front page of The Daily Herald! We're famous! Here is the link. (please pardon my super excited smile...i was having fun!)
http://heraldextra.com/news/local/central/orem/article_c9a68693-29aa-56cb-8b2f-a2ac53c1890e.html (you'll have to copy & paste...for some reason i can't get that link embedded..oh well!)

Josh turns 8.... & The Party

Happy Birthday to Josh.... yesterday. Josh spent his birthday in Tennessee with Melissa's family going to a movie, dinner, etc. He had a great day.


Before everyone left for Tenn., we held a birthday party for both Sam and Josh. I know we were a little crazy getting more than twenty 6 & 8 year olds together in one backyard.... but it worked and it was a blast.


We had the kids do a few relay races and then we moved around front for some pinata fun. We had two set up, one for Josh and his friends and the other for Sam and his buddies. It took some effort, but Batman and the Blue Power Ranger didn't have a chance.

The end of Batman.

Video of Sam finishing off the power ranger. I think I am going to sign him up for baseball...

Of course we had some present opening. Do you think Sam was excited about this one?

Then the best moment of the night, we had a silly string battle. Each kid got a can and went at it. Get's pretty crazy with 25 people running around with silly string cans. Check out the look in each of the kids eyes.... they can't take their eyes off the silly string or was it the belly in their face...

The end of the silly string battle turned in to a "bring the big guy down" game. All of the kids piled on to try an tackle me. It's a good thing that I didn't go down, there would have been some squished little boys.



Not everyone ended up enjoying having silly string everywhere. Look at this face.

We had a great time, the boys loved it. Happy Birthday Josh and Sam!

Birthday Bliss

Today is Sam's birthday and he has been happy to tell anyone who will listen that, "Now I am six AND I passed kindergarten!" Way to go buddy!



More to come on the birthday party!

Pretty, Pretty, Princess

Sam and Ellie decided to play some sort of beauty shop the other day. Sam spent a lot of time and effort getting Ellie dressed up and whippin' up a new hair-do, and this is what happened...



Nice.

Josh's 1st Pinewood Derby

Josh is not quite 8 yet, but they decided to let Josh join scouts a month early so he could participate in the annual pinewood derby. Glad they did, he loved every minute of it. He helped design, build, and paint his car. He ended up with a really nice, sleek black car. He was up against some tough competition and 15 other cars, but he was ready.




Josh's car was pretty quick, he did really well in the heat races finishing 1st, 2nd, 1st. After the heats, he ended up in a tie for second so they had a head to head race for 2nd. Josh won the first run off by two car lengths. Then they switched lanes and did it again. You can see the results in the video below. Check out the catch up speed on Josh's car. If you look close, the orange car even leaves just a little early.



So Josh ended up with a very good 2nd place finish, not bad for his first pinewood derby. He had a blast watching his car win just about every race of the night.

Ok.... I know it was just a pinewood derby and it was just for fun and we should be happy with second, but.... There is an asterisk in the record books for the 2009 pinewood derby. The folks in the BCS.... I mean the scout leaders, had some tricky formula that prevented Josh's 2nd place car from ever racing the 1st place car. That's right, #1 and #2 never raced against each other. In fact, the 1st place car never raced against the 3rd place car either. This was not a timed race, it was all about placement in each race, so you might ask how could this be? Wouldn't the first place car have to prove itself against the fastest cars? How could they award a car 1st place that didn't even beat the 2nd or 3rd place cars? What's even crazier is that the one car that beat Josh in the heat races didn't even place in the top 3.... What? Oh well, what are you going to do. I don't really have a case that I can take to Congress but we will always wonder who really won that night.

Here is one more video of the heat races. Josh is in the far right lane, the other black car in the middle lane was beating everyone pretty easily in its races so we were a little nervous about the outcome of this race.



It was a great night, Josh had a blast. We must say a BIG thank you to Grandpa for helping put together another really fast car. The Clark Pinewood Racing Team legacy lives on.

Posted by Matt

What I've been up to...

If anyone was wondering how my week was, here is the answer....



Why did I have both knees operated on at the same time? Its a long story, and honestly, I am struggling with coherency as it is, (aaahhhh...painkillers...) but it was very necessary, and my recovery is actually going quite well. The procedure on my right knee was pretty standard, but the work on my left knee was fairly extensive so I had to stay in the hospital for a few days. While I was there I had this cool drain in my knee.

There was about 8-10 inches of tubing inside my knee...constantly draining...
It was there to help with swelling / bruising. Imagine how swollen I'd be without it!


Anyway, I am home now and on the mend. (Matt has taken wonderful care of me!) Even though the surgery was more complicated than we expected it seems that we have finally gotten a big clue to what is going on in there. I have a follow-up with the Dr in a few days and we will get the pathology results. I can see that things are just falling into place and I feel very optimistic about the situation. I have a lot of be grateful for!!! Thanks for the support and prayers of so many friends/family members-we have certainly felt a lot of blessings this past week or so and we appreciate you!

Spring Break

So last week was "Spring" Break for the kids. We were kindly greeted by 10" of snow.... so we had that going for us, which was nice.

We took the kids up to Park City for a few days and stayed at the Canyons ski resort. Most of the ski resorts had just closed for the year so the crowds were gone. It is only an hour away, but when we got there the kids asked what state we were in now. Sam's answer... "the city of Park". Sam is always full of good information.

It was very nice and very relaxing to hide away in the mountains for a few days and spend some time with the kids. We did a lot of arts and crafts things, painted aprons, made bead designs, etc. It was great to see how creative these kids can be.



We also went into Kamas, about 15 minutes outside Park City, and went to their very nice indoor pool. If you are in Midway or Park City and looking for something to do, I highly recommend it. The two favorite activities at the pool where the high dive and the slide. We spent a good three hours there before the lifeguards quickly got everyone out of the pool, someone found a.... "Baby Ruth" in the pool, wink, wink. Anyone that has seen Caddyshack knows what I am talking about, if you haven't seen the movie, first, what's wrong with you, second, I think you can figure it out. Don't worry, no one pulled a Bill Murray (again, watch the movie).

Here is a video of Sam flying through the air and a couple pictures of the kids on the slide.

We all had a great time over Spring Break this year.


Posted by Matt

Ellie Gets Glasses

So, we found out that we all look like blury blobs to Ellie. No wonder she likes Jeff so much, she can't really see what he looks like.

As a father I am always proud to see specific things that my kids got from me; blond hair, blue eyes, smarts.... wait a second! I think I need to ask some more questions about that.

Anyway, Ellie did seem to get my eyes. We found out she is nearsighted. Sitting really close the TV, not a big deal by itself, but she squints to see a lot of things as well. We decided to get her checked out and sure enough, the little girl needs glasses.

So, here is a picture of Ellie stylin' in her first pair of glasses.


Posted by Matt

Maybe one day....

....that is what I say to myself every time I think about updating my blog. Over the past few days I have decided that maybe the time has come to announce that we are, indeed, still alive and kicking, but then it took me a few days to even remember how to post. I know...I'm awesome.
I was planning on posting a big Christmas update, but that didn't happen. We had a great holiday season. The kids were so much fun and we really enjoyed spending time together and with family. At the beginning of January I had sinus surgery, so January was pretty low key for us, but I kinda liked it! (not the surgery, but the month of winter hibernation) We are starting to wake up from our long 'winter's nap' and over Feb-Mar we enjoyed a fun visit from "Nana" (my mom), had a great trip to Mesquite, celebrated Ellie's 4th birthday, and I have even attempted to cook a few meals here and there! Life is good!

Thanksgiving in Washington

I know that this is a little late, but oh well! It's not like I have the best track record with this blog! For Thanksgiving this year we drove to Vancouver,Washington, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We weren't so sure how things were going to go when Ellie yelled out after only 30 minutes into the 14 hour drive, "I can't take it anymore!" and then 45 minutes after that Ellie and Sam simultaneously threw up! Sam did have a rough journey, but all things considered the kids did a great job.



Once there we did a lot of fun things. We took a little trip to Seaside, OR. It is the cutest little town. On the way there we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and Arcadia beach to play around for a while.
Can you imagine how many 'say cheese' jokes we used while taking this picture?



Arcadia Beach, The Oregon Coast

Aside from our trip to the coast there were other fun things that we did. For those of you on Facebook you can see more of our photos there. Here are some of your Thanksgiving Day highlights. The kids ended up taking most of the photos, so some of them are kind of wacky, but I actually love them! We had a great time.
Jesse, our RM. It was great to have him back home.

Here are all of the grand kids that were there.

It was really fun to have Grandma & Grandpa Dunn there.

We had a wonderful time with our family, and really enjoyed spending so much time with our kids. It is amazing to us how quickly they are growing up and what wonderful personalities they have developed. We have been mindful this year as we have gone thru certain trying times that we have so much to be grateful for and we were certainly thinking about our many blessings these past few weeks thru the Thanksgiving season.
As my brother in law would say- "Peace out!"

I heart Edward, and now everyone knows it!

So the time has finally come, the release of the Twilight movie! I know that there are some people who think that this is annoying, a big waste of time, all Twilight fans are fat,ugly ladies who neglect their kids (not my opinion), blah, blah blah... I have heard it all, but who cares! I HAVE SEEN TWILIGHT!!!This was actually one of my favorite scenes!

This has been a big day for me and my 'I heart Edward' t-shirt. It started this morning with being quoted in an article that happened to be on the front page of the Deseret News. If you care to check out the article,(thanks for caring Mom!) here is the link: www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705264485,00.html
I must say that while I am very grateful that I am still represented well, I am completely misquoted. That said, I have never been in the paper before, much less the front page!
This afternoon I 'neglected' my family yet again and headed out for a night on the town. First stop- The Cheesecake Factory. Yum.
Here are the twins, Karen & Kay, and Char.
After dinner we headed to the theater where our wonderful friend Melanie had reserved 2 entire theaters for a 7pm premiere!!!On the way into the theater they actually checked our purses and wanded us! Since my purse is so big the usher wanded the inside of my purse too! I wish I could have taken a photo, but they were checking for cameras and recording devices. My friend Abby was asked if her baby had any hidden recording devices on her...nice.
Here is a large chunk of our group...


and of course, no event would be complete (see jason mraz post...) without a 'long arm' self portrait with Candice. What a great night!!!!

I'm Getting Excited...

Things are kicking into high gear around here! The Christmas tree (in all it's sparkling grandeur) along with all the other decorations (indoor, anyway) have found themselves in their rightful places all around the house, the majority of our Christmas shopping is done, and the Christmas music is finally organized into various helpful play lists on the ipod....so now what? Now we can focus on:



Tomorrow my brother Jesse gets home from his mission to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. He was part of the evacuation that took place several weeks ago and finished these past few weeks in the Lima, Peru mission. We were certainly grateful for his safe arrival in Peru, and we will be relieved tomorrow when he arrives at our Mom's in Washington. ***Can I just take a moment to brag about my brother? of course I can, he's wonderful. By the time he graduated from high school he had his associates degree and a full time job at a bank! He will be joining us here in Utah in January as he attends BYU, so if anyone has any cute, single sisters.....

Anyhoooo....Friday night we kick off our Thanksgiving holiday with an early Thanksgiving dinner with Matt's family, and one of our famous game nights! They are so fun! Scott will be in town for the BYU/Utah game so we will have a fun filled night of food, family, & fun...all while playing Scott's "fat dog" game I am sure. I was going to take the opportunity to learn to bake pies, but will be going to Costco Friday morning instead! Then Saturday morning we are driving to Washington for a family Thanksgiving/reunion with Jesse. We have been busy scurrying around making the necessary arrangements for the trip and things are finally starting to fall into place. Today I was able to find us a hotel that is right across the street from a sports "restaurant" so that we can stop in Boise to watch the BYU/Utah football game.(GO COUGARS!) I felt kinda silly calling hotel after hotel asking them if they got 'the mountain' channel, but all worked out!


In other great news, in exactly 48 hours I will be sitting in my seat with warm, buttery popcorn watching a premiere of TWILIGHT!


What a great week.....

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year. I have to say that it is one of my favorite holidays, second to Christmas, of course! Trick or treating with the kids is such a blast! I am not sure what I love most- the boys racing from door to door, Ellie announcing every piece of candy she got at the top of her lungs, or just walking around with my hubby enjoying the evening and our kids. We spent the evening with some family and some friends, and made out with loads of candy! The kids still fit into last year's costumes, so that was nice. The boys were power rangers and Ellie was Jo-Jo of 'Jo-Jo's circus'. We hardly took any pictures, but here are a couple from our pit stop at Grandma & Grandpa's.



The weirdest thing was going to bed that night, full of candy and thinking about ghouls and goblins, and waking up Saturday morning to the radio in the boys' room blasting Christmas music! I thought that I was freakish about Christmas, but this year I look perfectly normal. I usually have our decorations/tree up around our anniversary which is Nov 12th. It drives my hubby crazy, but I love it. This year, though, I have been shocked at how many fanatics out there have beat me to the punch. The radio is playing 24-7 holiday tunes and last night I actually saw a tree up and lights on! I guess I'm not the only one feeling festive this year!

Jason......

For some reason I have been especially busy the past 2 weeks or so. Why? Beats me. But on Tuesday night I took the evening off and went to the Jason Mraz concert!! It was fantastic. After seeing MUSE (my favorite band) in concert I figured that I need never go to another concert again- it was so amazing I was ruined for all others(and as my sweet hubby pointed out, it was so loud I would probably never even be able to hear another concert.) It wasn't MUSE, but Jason certainly didn't disappoint! He is an incredible musician and it was a wonderful night, despite the horrid smell in West Valley! I went with my wonderful friend/cousin-in-law Candice, who has had her own very busy week. (congrats on the cutest baby ever!)Here is a picture of us in the parking lot just before the show.

We really enjoyed watching the brass section dance...they had sweet moves!


Thanks for a great night out Candice! And even more thanks to the best hubby ever for holding down the fort!

Fun at the Fire Station

This week the fire house in Orem had a safety fair. This was the 2nd year we have gone and it is a lot of fun. The fire fighters and EMTs do demonstrations with the fire hoses, the jaws of life, putting out a live fire, loading the ambulance, etc...Here we are with The Murdocks and The Normans. Maybe our kids would take us a little more seriously if we wore uniforms like this on a regular basis.

Also, we went to Cornbelly's fall fun place a few weeks ago. It is a family favorite.

this was before we went into the belly of the beast...the smiles weren't so plentiful afterwards.

here we are on the hayride...i put this picture on so that you can see the beautiful pumpkin patch behind us....which was not captured in the family photo!

nice bus....

anyway, it was a beautiful fall...all 2 weeks of it! now we move on to the snow. (I can't believe it snowed yesterday!) I love Halloween, and it is a good thing because it is the only thing keeping me from busting out the Christmas decorations. I am going to get a head start on the holidays by loading my Christmas tunes back onto the ipod. I wont listen to them yet, but i want to be prepared for when the time comes!

Dancing Queen

We were outside one evening and decided to capture Ellie's sweet dance moves

Pictures from Summer / Fall

Here are some random pictures from this summer & fall...

Yes, we're still alive!

Ok, so i know that we have been terribly pathetic when it comes to updating our blog. Sorry about that. I won't guarantee that I will post faithfully, but I will give it a try.
There is no way that we could really catch you up on all of the events of the past several months, but I will try to fill you in a little. The main reason we stopped contributing the the blog-o-sphere is because I (Melissa) got very sick. This happened towards the end of January (happy birthday to me!) and stretched out month after month after month. Finally things changed this summer and i am now feeling so much better. Hooray! We are really grateful to so many friends and family who offered prayers on out behalf, helped out with the kids, brought meals, etc.
Now we are busy with all the normal activities that fall brings. Josh started 2nd grade and loves it. He is a great student. Sam started Kindergarten and is a good student as well, but i was informed at parent/teacher conference the other night that he has a problem with kissing all the girls! Ellie is in preschool 3 days a week and LOVES it, as do I!

Matt had the opportunity to go to Louisville, KY a couple weeks ago to be a volunteer at the Ryder Cup Golf Tourney. He stayed with his sister Niki in Lexington and went to the tourney with Jared each day. For those of you unfamiliar with the Ryder Cup, it is only in the USA every 4 years and it is the USA vs. Europe. (USA= 16 1/2 Europe=11 1/2. GO USA!)


For some reason I decided that I needed to make lots of jam, so yesterday I did 4 batches of peach and today I did 3 batches of pear. I haven't even used half of my pears! (guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!) After I dig out from this project I will try to do some more posts or slide shows with a few of our other summer / fall activities. Be patient with me. Also, if you would like to see more pictures of the fam I post quite a few more more on my facebook page than I will in the blog. (I lOVE facebook!)