Percy Jackson

At the end of January, on our trip to Disneyland, I took Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to read if I had some spare time. I managed to start and finish the book on my 3 day trip. Loved it. After we got home, the following week, my sister let me borrow books 2 - 5 of the Percy Jackson series. I finished the fifth book today. LOVED THEM.

What I realized was that I don't know JACK about Greek Mythology, except for what I learned in Disney's animated feature film "Hercules." So now I'd like to read something else on Greek Mythology.

I was excited to go see the movie this weekend. Of course the book is always better than the movie, but the movie was still good and entertaining. AND it has something that the book doesn't.....Logan Lerman. A VISUAL Percy Jackson.

I wonder how he must feel; joining the ranks of Daniel Radcliff = Harry Potter, Robert Pattison = Edward Cullen, Taylor Lautner = Jacob Black, Logan Lerman = Percy Jackson, Zac Efron = I don't care who he is as long as he's in the movie.

I'm not sure he understands!

Which brings me to my next thought: I either like "little" boys (mentioned above) or I like "older" men. I don't ever find myself attracted to the boys my age, or in their 30's. Why is that??? Are you 17, 18, 19, or 20 = Sign Me Up! Are you 45, 50, 60 = Sign Me Up! I mentioned my young crushes. My older crushes = Bob Costas, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Matt Lauer, George Clooney, Pierce Brosnan, and the list goes on!

Anyways.....back to the books. If you haven't read them, I think you will enjoy them!

Oh I also read Hunger Games and Catching Fire and can't wait for the next book!!

Disneyland

For the last 3 years, my family has gone to Disneyland. Who ever can make it, goes. We go at the end of January, midweek, and avoid the crowds. And did we EVER avoid the crowds!

First things first. In my previous post I mentioned the rain. Well the rain screwed up our plans. BIG TIME! We had originally planned to do Disneyland on Tuesday/Wednesday, but there was rain in the forecase on Tuesday, so we switched it to Wednesday/Thursday. Paul was greatly affected by the rain, and though he had planned to come along on this trip, he had to stay home and work.

But we still had a great time and can't wait to go it again! Hooray for Annual Passes!!!

I did a horrible job remembering to take pictures, but I did get some of the kids with the characters.

Hunter did a great job and rode the Matterhorn (only because I bribed him with some Legos.) Riley rode the roller coaster in Toon Town. Taylor was so happy to see all the characters. I'm glad my children love Disneyland as much as I love Disneyland.

Now...I just need to get Paul there!

Lesson from Hunter

Paul asked Hunter to go with him to his car to get some lettuce.

Paul grabbed some iceberg lettuce and told Hunter that it was "head lettuce."

Hunter grabbed some romaine lettuce and told Paul that it was "turtle lettuce."

We had to laugh. We feed romaine lettuce to our turtles, so it only made sense to Hunter that romaine lettuce is "turtle lettuce."

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Yes, we all know it rained in Yuma last week.

What is funny to Paul and I is that while the rest of Yuma looks forward to rain and enjoys it, the farming community DREADS it! Which in itself, is an oxymoron. You would think that farmers would be happy that there is rain for their crops. But No! We are fortunate to have the Colorado River to do the irrigating. All rain does is create muddy roads, ruins fields, and makes it hard to harvest. The only good thing about this rain is that they were done with planting. Rain is horrible for a freshly planted field.

And that is your Agriculture lesson for the month. Stay tuned for next month, when I discuss some other random produce farming tidbit!

Back to the rain. I just wanted to post the pictures I took of my backyard. First let me explain something about the pictures.

1. There is horrible drainage in Yuma.

2. My neighborgood has NO drainage. When the Builder created our subdivision, instead of spending money on drainage or creating retention basins (which is 'wasted' land, because there isn't a house on it, which equals no $$) they instead created Self-Retaining lots. So all of our houses sit up higher than the street, and up away from the water. Now in the 5 years that I have lived in my house, we have had rain, and our lots have retained water, as expected. We'd have a little puddle and that's it.

Well when you get an entire year's average of rain in one day, this is what happens when you have self-retaining lots.

Could there BE anymore water??!?!?

I'm Being Summoned

I'm coming!!! See you Wednesday!

What the....

I've been a slacker on my blog since August. Not because I haven't had time, not because I haven't had anything to say. I just haven't. I'm too busy reading other people's blogs, or on Facebook, or other ways that I ignore my kids. I mean cleaning the house!

Here is our year-end review.

September:

Grandpa Paul Nelson passed away in September. He was 94 years old. It was a sad but happy occasion. It was nice to have the whole family together and reminisce about Grandpa.

Many of those memories happened here at the Bard Store.

The Gray Family moved to California in September. Hunter and Dylan are just a few months apart and have always been the best of friends! They had a great time playing one last time together before they moved!

On September 19, Hunter turned 8 years old and was baptized! I can't believe that my baby Hunter is 8! It was nice to have family and friends there with us.

Later that night, Hunter and I participated in a Missoula Children's Theatre production of "Pinocchio" Hunter was a Toy Soldier and I accompanied on the piano.

And what month wouldn't be complete without a quick trip to Disneyland?!?!?! My sisters and I got together for our annual NTA sister weekend. We had a great time! Then I stuck around one more day and did the Disneyland Challenge with these guys!

October:

October was pretty uneventful, except of course for Halloween. Have I ever mentioned I hate Halloween. But I know it's about them...not me.

November:

The Pioneer Woman was in Phoenix promoting her cookbook. The stars aligned correctly and Edna and I were able to make the very quick, but fun, trip up to get her to sign my cookbook. I even asked her a question!! Edna had never heard of the Pioneer Woman, but as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I LOVE her! A few days later, as she posted her Recap of her PHX trip, I saw this:

Edna and I made it onto her website! She posted the picture again when she did her "Thankful" post for Thanksgiving!!! She's really nice and it was awesome to meet her!




I also got the chance to play in a "band." I played "keyboards." I always think of Ross from Friends and how he played Keyboards in college. Haha. We did all 80's music, which is why I dressed up that way. Paul now thinks that I should wear big hoop earrings with every outfit! We played at a party one weekend and then got to play a little bit at the Youth Dance the following weekend! I gotta tell you...it was fun having a bunch of kids singing "Don't Stop Believing" with me! Thanks GLEE for making that possible!






I'm ashamed to show the following pictures, but it has been a work in progress for me...5 years in progress. I always "clean" my office, but it never manages to stay clean. It's the room that I can just close the door on, or gets left for last, so mainly gets ignored. Well we were going to be hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so I set my deadline.

Before:

After:And I'm proud to say...IT'S STILL CLEAN!!!!

**my incentive to keep this room clean is that my dad changed the door out...it's now a french glass door! No more hiding!

What's sad is I have no pictures from Thanksgiving!

December:Riley and Hunter both lost teeth around the same time! Riley lost her first tooth and received her first visit from the Tooth Fairy.

Hunter started Scouts in September, and that has been a learning experience for me!! He earned his first badges and loves it! In December Hunter and I experienced our first Pine Wood Derby. And I must tell you...we're in trouble. Paul was all over the Internet trying to figure out how to make the best, fastest pinewood derby car. Let me just tell you now that Paul will be starting in June preparing for next year's Pinewood Derby!!!

Chris took our pictures for our Christmas Card. Considering the getting ready portion of these pictures was horrible...children crying, people yelling...everyone behaved themselves wonderfully and smiles beautifully. Taylor was especially hilarious!


I attended my friends Homemade Gift Exchange party and decided to take a Topiary like I had made at the beginning of the year, except I made it with Christmas Paper. I have to say I really liked how it turned out, except I think I would have painted the pot and stick green, or a different color. But as I thought of this, I thought it would be cool to have different Tops for different occasions and just swap them out as wanted...so then black would be a good base. Just a thought....

And in case you're wondering what Paul has been up to......

Back to School....

Back to School...to prove to Daddy, I'm not a fool. (movie anyone?)

Last Monday was Hunter AND Riley's first day of School! The summer went by so fast, but they were both excited to go!

Hunter is in 2nd grade this year. He has a brand-new teacher to HLS, she comes from Texas and seems very nice. He has enjoyed her so far.

Riley started Kindergarten...and of course Kinder was switched to HALF DAY this year! I was all geared up to enjoy my whole day with just Taylor, but now I have 3 hour increments! Oh well!

Here's to a great one!

Girls Camp

I went to Girls Camp at the end of June. It was awesome. We laughed. We cried. We looked like dorks. But it was awesome.

We were the Happy Heifers of Hill-Valley Farm. So we did a lot of cow stuff. We thought we were funny...most of the time!!!

I'm glad that I get that week each year to get to know the Young Women of our Stake better, but also the leaders that I work with.

Its been so long that I can't even remember a whole lot about camp!! I'll need to finish this post another day then!