Thanksgiving 2009

We spent Thanksgiving with my family this year. Because we raised 6 turkeys, we decided to bring the biggest one for Thanksgiving dinner. This turkey was Conner's 30 pound tom. He didn't win any awards for it, but that made it really nice for our family. This was the largest pan I could find to cook it in, but I was afraid there would be juices all over the bottom of the oven. It was really crammed in there. I ended up spending the night at Lee and Tricia's house so I could get up at 6:00 am to stuff and start it. I was scared to death to cook such a large turkey, but I think it turned out okay. Look how it completely filled the oven. It was pretty cool.

I love getting together with m y brothers and sisters. We have so much fun. Here are Jared and Casi, with Lewis. Lewis is walking now, his hair is always spiked so cute, and he has such bright blue eyes.

It was nice to have Jessica and Chris spend the day with us as well. My brother's love to be obnoxious, if Chris decides he still wants to be a part of this family after all of their teasing, I'll be surprised.

Here is the "girls" table. Uncle Steve kept trying to sit down at one of the seats, and they all got really mad at him. He said we should all love each other, and should share our tables with our Uncle. They said no. They didn't think Uncle Steve was very funny...

Here is the little kids table. I think it's so funny what cheezy smiles you get when you ask younger kids to smile. They were REALLY HAPPY!

And of course the older kids table. Dallin had just left when I snapped the picture. He was at the end. You notice Jessica is missing...she graduated to the Adult's table when she got engaged!

Tricia had each table decorated so cute. We really enjoyed each other's company. My brother David and his family were planning to come for the holiday. They live in California. As they were leaving, they noticed that one of their daughter's had a fever. They took her to the doctor and found out that she had swine flu. We were all so disappointed, we were really looking forward to spending time with him and his family. We called him on Thanksgiving, just to see how Mia was doing, and found out that Dave had gotten sick as well.

It is hard having my family so spread out, but we did have the four siblings that live close by all come. Lee and Tricia, Erin and Brayden, Steve and I, and Jared and Casi. We also had my cousin's son Bryce, he dodged every picture I took, but he is serving a mission in Salt Lake City, and was able to join us for Thanksgiving. We had such a fun day!!Here are a couple of cute pictures somebody took.

I'm in, and Kaylea's driving

I found out Monday that there is an opening in the Nursing Program, and I was next on the Alternate list, so Starting in January, I will be training to become a registered nurse. I have waited for this for years, and have been so anxious just to get started. Now life gets a little bit complicated. I start in January, Jessica gets married in February, Steve graduates in May. Much to do, but all good!

Kaylea got her driver's license on Tuesday. It was pretty funny, they had her take the eye test, she read off 8 letters on a screen before her. The lady told her she missed the first four letters. She insisted there was nothing there. The lady insisted there were four more letters. Kaylea totally thought she was joking. After a couple of minutes, Kaylea admitted that she forgot to put one of her contacts in. She couldn't see anything out of her left eye...how do you forget to put in one contact??? Surprisingly after a short lecture, they gave her her license. She's not allowed to drive until I check both eyes... so funny.

Kaylea turns 16

Kaylea turned 16 on Wednesday. She was actually sick, and had kind of a boring birthday, but we had planned a birthday party for her on Friday instead. She didn't want to make any of her friends feel left out, so she just invited everyone on facebook. It's hard to plan a party where hundreds of kids are invited, how many will come? Well, she ended up with 30 friends at the house for 5 hours.

Bump let us borrow his projector, they were going to watch movies on the wall downstairs, it was set up so nicely. But they ended up playing games most of the night. They had about 10 pizzas, and soda pop, and tons of chips and candy.

I think the kids had a lot of fun, and mean old mom kicked them out at 11:00pm so they could get home before midnight.

This game is called "Baby if you love me smile", Kaylea wasn't very good at it, she kept smiling and would have to go in the middle. I don't think she minded that much. She's very flirty.

Thanks to everyone who came, and made Kaylea's party fun! And thanks Bump for your patience in lending out your projector.

We have been trying to get Kaylea in to get her driver's license, but she's been so busy, being sick, New Moon, this party, going to the temple, and yes, going on her first date. Breathe easy Grantsville, she's not driving yet...but soon, very soon...

The Long Awaited Auction

As most of you know we have been raising turkeys. The kids were trying to earn some money through 4-H and FFA. They pick their favorite Tom and Hen and sent them to be judged. We first went to the State Turkey show in Tremonton, you had to go to the show to find out if your bird placed. The picture below is Kaylea and Conner at the State show. Basically, this is the only picture I took because neither one of them had a turkey place in State. They did serve us breakfast, and it was fun to see how they do the auction. On Tuesday we went to the County turkey show at Tooele High School. We had a little more luck with this one. All of the kids who submitted turkeys got to auction one off. Conner's Hen placed 15th (19 pounds) and Kaylea's Tom placed 16th (26 pounds). There were 80 turkeys that were auctioned off that night, so they placed really well. The kids would pick up their turkey and take it to the front of the room and the auctioneer would start the bidding.

It was really fun to listen to him, he would talk so fast, and was really funny. At one point a woman was talking with a friend in the back of the room, waving her arms, and he said she almost bought herself a turkey.
It's hard for me to imagine people buying the turkeys for the price they do, Kaylea sold hers for $175.00
Conner's also sold for $175.00. The Grand Champion Tom sold for $450.00. Of the turkeys we raised between our four families, I think the most expensive one sold for $350.00. Pretty amazing.
When all was said and done, I think the kids really enjoyed the experience; both of them said they want to do it again next year. I, on the other hand, will have to be convinced. I'm so glad it's over, no more early morning feedings, stepping in turkey poop, etc. The kids were really good about taking their turns and not complaining, and I think they learned how to work towards a goal. We saved a yummy one for Thanksgiving... can't wait!

Crazy night

Last night Steve and I were awakened to a loud rumbling sound. Steve thought someone was running accross our deck, and went running out the back door to see who it was. I was waiting for an earthquake to start. This morning Steve sent me this link, which would explain the sound we heard. I guess there was a giant meteor flying through the sky last night. Pretty crazy!

Jessica's Engaged!

Most of you already know from facebook, but Jessica got engaged last week. His name is Chris Hoskins, and he's from Oregon. He has been attending BYU and living in the same apartment complex as Jessica. I'm really excited, I couldn't ask for a better son in law.

Turkey time

This week is the last week we have to deal with turkeys. Today we got together with several other families and weighed and tagged them. Tomorrow they get to take a ride up to Tremonton to be processed and judged, and on Saturday we get to auction them off. Here is a picture of all the kids that helped. This was at two different homes. We had 7 of these kids taking care of our turkeys

Look at these amazing turkeys. Conner's weighs 37 pounds, and Kaylea's weighs 35 pounds. Don't they look cool all fluffed up? They each have a hen too, Conner's was 25 pounds, and Kaylea's was 22.5 pounds. Hopefully they will do well at the show.

California

So I've been a little bit stressed out lately with school, work, kids, young women's, and such. Steve decided it was a great opportunity for us to just get away for the weekend, and just relax. David let us come crash at his house for a couple of nights, and we had a blast. While driving to California we stopped at the roller coaster at Buffalo Bill's in Nevada. We have never let the kids actually get out and ride it, but thought they would like it.

Of course you can't make a trip to California without stopping at In n Out for an amazing hamburger. My boys all like it Animal Style.

When we got to David's house, Abigail was so cute, she decided that she was going to have us make some music. She pulled out a box full of musical instruments and gave us each one of them. And then she led us in some amazing tunes. As most of you know, the Collings aren't a musical family, but she was pretty insistent. We played these sticks, bells, and a triangle.

Abby taking charge.

Dave and Julie took us to Steve's favorite restaurant ever, Ruth's Chris. We enjoyed amazing steaks, and the best cheesecake ever! We had such a nice evening, and the cousins just hung out together at Dave's house.

We spent Saturday at Disneyland, David and Abigail came and hung out with us for a while, we tried to go with Abigail on the "it's a small world" ride, but it was closed. We enjoyed both parks, and had such a nice day. I was surprised that you could buy turkey legs to snack on. The kids really loved them.

They went a little crazy taking pictures on the carousel.

And this is their third time on "California Screamin' " You notice Steve and I aren't there. We rode it, but once was enough for us.

I think the person who invented swinging ferris wheels should be shot. They have got to be the scariest ride at any amusement park. I don't mind going on roller coasters, but ferris wheels make me feel like I am going to fall, and there's no safety net.

As I said, it was a really short trip. We woke up the next morning and went straight home. It's so nice having 5 drivers in the family, it really makes time go by faster. I really got a nice break, and am ready to tackle anything that comes my way. Thanks so much for your hospitality Dave and Julie, you guys are great!

Halloween

I guess my family is getting a little bit boring when it comes to Halloween. All of my kids are too old to go trick or treating. Stephen went to a party with some friends, Kaylea went to a Stake Dance, and Conner stayed home playing Xbox. I cooked a big pot of stew...for myself, because nobody else was around to eat (Conner hates it). My hubby went on a 3 day horse-back ride to Southern Utah (Moab area). I will be posting about that later, when we get pictures. He came home at around 7:30pm on Halloween night. Enough time to see some of the trick-or-treaters.

I have a funny story: There was a knock on the door, and I went to pass out more Halloween candy. When I opened the door a little girl, about 5 or 6 years old said, "WHERE'S THE VICE-PRESIDENT?!" I was a little bit confused, I did have a trick-or-treater dressed as President Obama come, but she seemed to think the Vice President was at my house. "Huh?" "THE VICE-PRESIDENT, IS HE HERE OR IS HE SNOOZING?!!" "Um..." I was still confused. Then her mom in the back ground said, "No, the STAKE President." I got it. "Oh the Stake President is right in here." She leaned in the door and said, "HI PRESIDENT COLLINGS, I'M SARAH STONE, DO YOU REMEMBER ME??!!! I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING A GOOD HALLOWEEN!!! I AM!!!" (I've changed her name.) She continued to talk to him about her WONDERFUL costume, and was so excited, and so animated. It was really cute, it made my whole night.

I hope you all had a happy Halloween.

COOL PHONE CALL!

I was driving to Tooele today when my phone rang. It was a number I didn't recognize. When I picked it up, it was the Nursing Administrator from SLCC. She said I was an alternate for the nursing program, and if all went well, I will start the nursing program in January 2010!! In 3 months!!! I was so excited I started to cry, and could hardly talk. I have waited so long, and thought I had another year to wait. AWESOME!!!

Conner's Choir Concert

Conner is in beginning chorus in Jr High School. They had their first concert tonight, and I LOVED it!!! I don't think I've ever actually heard Conner sing. During church he opens the book, but if he sings it's really quiet, and I think he just mouths the words when I'm looking. But they did such a good job, I thought I'd try to upload the video of my favorite song they sang. Conner is on the back row, in the center of the picture, when I'm not moving too much.

I absolutely love beautiful music, and even though this was a beginning chorus class, it brought tears to my eyes. (It's a mom thing...)

Happy Birthday Steve

It's hard to believe that 18 years ago, my oldest son Steve was born. He has always been such a fun boy, always sweet, and positive, and obedient.

He grew very slowly, and I noticed that by the time he was 9 months old, he looked the size of a 3 or 4 month old baby. I was okay with it, but people in the grocery store would stop me when I was buying finger foods for him to start eating, and ask me how old he was; they didn't think finger foods were appropriate for such a small baby. Others would worry as they picked him up, they said they thought they would break off one of his arms, because they were so skinny.

As Steve got older, he was still always the smallest in his class. I bought him size 3T for his kindergarten clothes, and when he became a deacon, I bought him a size 8 suit. But Steve never let his size stop him from doing the things he loved. He has always had a love for basketball, he'll practice for hours on end, and has become really good at it. One year when he was just starting Jr. Jazz, his coach was having all the boys shoot free throws. When Steve got to the front of the line, his coach told him he could move closer to the basket to shoot. Of course Steve wouldn't, instead he shot a free throw from the free throw line and made it.

Steve has always been very smart. When he started kindergarten, I couldn't get him to hold the pencil right, and he would only draw spiders, but as soon as another adult started to teach him, he caught on really fast. He has never had homework, has always had straight A's, and I've never had to worry that he'd miss a report or project that was due.

Steve decided about 4 years ago that he wanted to try to graduate from High School with an Associate's Degree. He never lost sight of that goal, and encouraged several of his friends to attend college classes with him. Now that he's taking college courses, he does have homework, and has to work a little bit harder to keep his grades up, but he never asks me for help (he's too smart for me to help him now), and never turns in anything late. I have started college, and have asked him several times to help me with my homework...

He is an excellent leader, he is an eagle scout, and is the 1st assistant in the priest quorum in our church. He always has a positive attitude, and a great sense of humor.

Today Steve is 18 years old, he's 5'8" and still growing, and I am still so proud of him. I am so glad he came into my life, and only want him to be happy. I hope you know how much I love you, and I hope you have had a Happy Birthday Steve.

Unexpected Dinner

Conner and I went to feed the turkeys last night and Grant was there working in his back yard (we keep the turkeys in a pen in his back yard). He said that there was a turkey who was struggling with a deformity and he thought it was suffering, and should be put out of its misery.

"Do you want to take home some fresh turkey tonight?" I was okay with it, but wasn't sure how Conner would deal with it. It took us about an hour to kill it and clean it up. Wow, that was the last thing I expected to do when I woke up that morning. But I have to say, there's nothing like fresh turkey. I came home and marinated the breast over night, and boiled the rest for turkey noodle soup. It was way too big for my family, so I split the meat with Erin. Tonight we had the marinated turkey breast, and it was YUMMY!!!

Tricia, it was one of the turkeys with Drop Crop. Not exactly what I thought it was, I'm getting quite an education raising these turkeys. Molly, I'm dealing with my fear quite well now. I haven't run screaming into the night yet... none of them have started chasing me, which has been nice. I think this is the last year we will be raising turkeys though, it's a little more work than I want to be dealing with right now in my life.

SALSA!!

This year I have had so many tomatoes! I decided I'd make some salsa. I usually have enough to make about 4 quarts of salsa every couple of weeks.

About a month ago, the weather was getting colder, and they said it was going to freeze over night, so I decided to pull up all of my tomato plants. I kept the green tomatoes in a bucket to see if they would ripen. Apparently my neighbors had the same idea. When they found out that I had been making salsa out of the tomatoes, they would bring me all of their ripe tomatoes too!

This morning I had this many ripe tomatoes....

This afternoon, I have this much more salsa to go in my food storage. I LOVE being able to put up the fruits and vegetables out of my garden. Thanks for teaching me to love canning mom!!

A fun tradition

About a year ago, we had the Young Women come over for chocolate facials. I decided it was a tradition I'd like to continue. Conner decided to help me test out the chocolate mask. Isn't he cute?? The girls are all really good sports. We had facials, and then watched a classic, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It was a really fun night.

It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we had this same activity, but there were only two girls who were here when we did it the first time. One just left this week, and the second will be leaving in November. They sure grow up quick.

Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs!

Jessica has been dating a young man named Chris Hoskins. Steve and I decided it would be fun to take them out on a double date, and get to know him a little bit better.

We went to Tepanyaki, as many of you know, that is Steve's favorite restaurant. We had a fun show, along with some really good food.

After dinner, we decided to try and find a movie to see. It was a little bit late, and there were not a lot of choices. We picked "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs". I didn't realize that it was in 3-D! It was quite a funny show.

I forgot to take pictures while we were at dinner, so I decided pictures of us in the cool 3-D glasses was the next best thing! We ate too much, laughed a lot, and really enjoyed spending time with Chris and Jessie.

Aren't they cute? Okay 3-D glasses aren't that good looking, but it was worth a few embarrassing pictures to have a really fun night.

Homecoming Week 2009

Last week was Homecoming week. Kaylea is the Sophomore class president, so she had an extremely busy week. She was in charge of decorating the Sophomore hall, decorating the float for the parade, and decorating the sidewalks. She was gone every morning at 6:30 and didn't come home until 10 or 11pm each night. She did a great job of planning and delegating. Their class took first place in the sidewalk decorating. (The ONE project I didn't get a picture of.)

They put together the float a week early, because she knew she'd be under a lot of pressure throughout Homecoming week. Their theme was Roast the Bears. They decided to do a little camp fire and have bears roasting over it. they would all sit on camp chairs with different trees around. They even talked about holding roasting sticks with teddy bears on them, kind of like roasting marshmallows.

On the day of the Homecoming parade, Kaylea came home on her lunch break and painted 3 large posters. One for each side of the truck that said "Sophomores, class of 2012", and one for the back of the float that said "Roast the Bears", they played against Bear River. She wanted to tape them on the truck right when she was done, but I talked her out of it. I could just see it ripping off as I was driving to the beginning of the parade. I said just roll them up and put them in the back of the truck, and we'll tape them on before the parade begins. About an hour later I was feeling pretty ambitious and thought that the truck would look better pulling a float in the parade if it was clean, so I took it through the car wash...with the posters in the back. I didn't realize it until we were attaching the truck to the trailer to haul it to the parade. When I got about 1/2 way to the start of the parade route, the entire contents of the float tipped over and were rolling all over the place. The next 1/2 hour was spent setting up the MANGLED float, drying the two posters that were quite soggy, and using what little bit of paper was left to replace the poster that was SHREDDED! When we finally had them all dry and ready to tape on...right before the parade...we realized that the sign for the back of the float was too wide and would drag on the ground, and not be seen anyway. We just slapped it on the back window of the truck and called it good. I think by this point Kaylea had had it with the whole thing, and didn't care what it looked like. She was just glad to have Homecoming week over with.

Steve helped out the senior class by using his little truck to pull the seniors "KILL a BEAR" workshop. They showed all different methods of torturing teddy bears, while Steve pulled them along the parade route with a shredded bear wired to the front grill, and a pole that had a bear hanging from a noose attached to his roll bar. He had his wheels spray painted red with "GHS cowboys" spray painted in black. The seniors in the back of the trailer would rip off the heads of the teddy bears and toss them to the kids watching the parade, or use a drill and drill into the head of a bear. Steve thinks they traumatized a few kids on the parade route. I couldn't see them because there was a float between us, but I did see fluff flying every once in a while, and heads rolling down the street...a little bit morbid. Steve took pictures on his cell phone, but I'm technologically challenged, and can't find a way to get them from his phone to my computer...sorry.

I LOVE living in a small town, Friday was such a fun day. The grocery store had a Homecoming party with TONS of blow up slides, jumping gyms, and obstacle course, and they gave out free treats. It looked like a huge carnival. Then when we came down main street for the parade, you would have thought it was the 4th of July. I couldn't believe how many people were watching. We finished at the high school where there was a FAN FEST, another fun party with games, treats, and more blow up play equipment for the kids for 2 hours before the game even started.

After a fun week, the football team lost the game....little bit depressing...but spirits were high, Grantsville is an amazing place to live.