Steve's birthday!

On Monday Steve celebrated his 17th birthday. This year we just had a family party, we went to Flowrider in Ogden. It's like indoor surfing. I took a lot of pictures, but not many of them turned out. Steve and Conner were the only ones from our family that wanted to actually go flowboarding, Kaylea, mom and dad all decided we would be safer to just watch.

By the end of the day, the boys were actually pretty good! This is the best picture I could get of Conner. Doesn't he look great?! Grandma and Grandpa Collings came to watch the boys, they brought our cousins: Kelton, Cameron, and Zoe.

Afterward we went out to pizza at Robintino's in Bountiful, we finished a large pizza, salads, and garlic bread. Hopefully Steve enjoyed a wonderful birthday with his family.

TOUCHDOWN!!!

As you can tell from this picture, Conner is extatic! (Okay, mom is extatic.) He got his first touchdown today. The cowboys played against Olympus and they won 32 to 0. Conner ran into the end zone and was wide open, and they passed it right to him. I know I'm just the mom, but it was the BEST touchdown all year!! This was the last regular game of the season. Next week they have the State playoffs, and if they win that, they have the State Championships the week after that. It's been a really fun season. Woohoo!!

I lied...now it's finished

I have had some door trouble for the past few months. I've lived here for 8 years this week. After about 7 years, the front door was looking like it needed a new paint job. My neighbor had painted theirs a year before and I noticed that the paint had bubbled. I wasn't about to let that happen to me. I made sure I used the same paint that had been used when my door was first painted. It bubbled. I sanded it off and purchased paint specifically for high heat. It bubbled even worse. I sanded it off again, and then tried to strip off the paint. That's not an easy job to do. I decided to have a painter come and do it right. Each time a painter was called, they said they would be over to look at it and give us a price. They never even talked to us. I actually had people that thought I antiqued my door on purpose! When they complimented me on my lovely door, I just thanked them. Well today Erin came over and helped me to paint my door black to go with the new house color. I'm so happy with how it turned out. Here is the front of the house before the new stucco with the door waiting to be painted. The shutters have been removed.

Here is the house with the new stucco, and a newly painted black door.

And here is the door! It is not perfect, but it is so much better than before. I'd just like to thank Erin for her help with this project, I have tried to do it by myself 2 different times and just made a mess of it. She helps me to think through things a little more clearly. It's nice having her so close.

It's Finished!!

Yesterday they finished putting the stucco on the house. We decided to change the color after all, and update it a little bit. I'm so happy with how it looks.

Region Cross Country

Kaylea's last race was today. She ran in Ogden and did pretty well. She came in 12th place overall, but 2nd place on our team. We are so proud of her hard work this season, she has really done great for a freshman! This picture is the beginning of the race... a thumbs up!

Homecoming Week

Last week was homecoming week. Kaylea is in student government, which means her week was really busy! They had to decorate the freshman hall, paint the sidewalks, serve lunch to the class of '89 alumni, and decorate a float. The classes compete in each of these areas (except serving lunch) and the freshmen won first in hallway decorations, and second in sidewalk painting. This is the float they made for the parade, it's only about half way done. Kaylea took pictures with her camera of the finished float and all of the officers on it, and we have had upload issues! Erin took a video of us in the parade... I got to pull the float... but that wouldn't upload either. So you get to see a half done float, but it was a lot of fun. I think Kaylea is relieved homecoming week is over. All in all, very busy, and very fun... but they lost the game...terribly... 34 to 7... And I'm missing half of the pictures I wanted to show... uugh!

Almost done!

The workers came by Monday morning, and put stucco all over the house. I'm thinking it looks pretty good!

It has to dry and then they will come back in a week and put the color on. We are keeping it the same color as before, so it shouldn't look too much different, just no more siding!

Wow, they're fast!

We were told that a crew would be here on Thursday to set up scaffolding. We were going to use the scaffolding to reach the siding that was too high to remove. Steve and I went to pick up our trailer on Wednesday night. When we got home Thursday at noon, this is what we came home to. The men had pulled off all the siding we had left up, and all the paper wrapped around the plywood. They had already put on new paper, and wire around the entire house. By about 2:00 they were done. Their boss told us they would be putting on the first coat of stucco on Monday. I'm amazed how fast they worked, and what a great job they are doing! This is so fun!

kids in the car

You think as kids get older, they get easier when you're traveling in the car... NOT! We were coming home from Salt Lake City on Monday where wer hung out for FHE, and Kaylea had her camera. It was pretty distracting having the flash go off every couple of seconds. But they were having such a fun time, I couldn't complain too much about the flashes of light, or the noise. These are only 3 of about 50 pictures taken. Kids are fun.