Snickers

Meet Snickers. We adopted her last Monday. She is part Shih Tzu and part Toy Poodle. She's adorable. Tyler wanted her so much he's been willing to be the point person for everything dog related...she thinks he's her mommy.
He is frantically trying to potty train her in a week before school starts. This includes taking her outside every 4 hours...around the clock. Yes folks, he gets up and goes outside at 3:00am. She's been sleeping curled up on his neck...he tried to put her in the kennel after the 3:00am bathroom break and she whimpered so much he gave up and let her get back in bed with him. (Sound familiar to any of you parents out there??? Hee.)
This afternoon I came home from work to a frantic family. Snick had been throwing up for 2 hours. She looked terrible. Her little doggie eyes were listless and sad. I called the vet and Ty and Kenzie took her right in (I had to be at the school for the Back to School night...I'm PTA President again this year....it was a crazy enough day already!)
The good news is that she's going to be fine. We only had to give her droppers-full of doggie pedialyte EVERY FIVE MINUTES FOR 4 HOURS. I'm not kidding. Even Ryan took his shift. The bad news is that the whole event cost me $70. Sigh.
Pets are good for a family, right??? It teaches unconditional love and responsibility and all of those marvelous pet-related things.....
Anyway. We welcome Snickers to our family....dubiously.

My Athletic Offspring

The First video is my son WAKESKATING. That's right. Just his bare feet on top of a rubber board. The second video is him wakeboarding. He's crazy good at both sports. He certainly does not get his athletic ability from my side of the family :)

Lake Powell '09

Just home from a fantastic week long trip to Lake Powell. Gracie conquered her fear of riding the tube...
Zzzzzzz.....
Tyler conquered the wake-skate, wakeboard, skis, and tubed...I'm going to have to dedicate another post entirely to him :)
Best. Brothers. Ever. (I look so goofy because they're tickling me. Sigh.)
AND Andrew and I tubed together. All in all a fun filled week....family, sports, sun, water!

I Saw My Boy Today!

We got to go to BYU tonight for a semi-authentic Chinese open air market. My boy has been gone for almost 2 weeks...it was so good to see him!
The baby is clearly very happy too ;)

We had to ask prices and haggle in Chinese. They gave us a DVD when we dropped him off 2 weeks ago that we were supposed to watch and study...we pulled it out yesterday and tried to learn the key phrases. Then I made a cheat sheet to use. Grace and I actually tried it and bought a hair clip, some ice cream and watermelon and played a game. My favorite part came when we walked up to the ice cream booth. Grace walked right up and asked for ice cream in Chinese, and then haggled the price down all by herself. In Chinese. Awesome. She IS learning something at this school that takes up so much of our time!

But the best part came when we bought some water balloons...it was Ryan's turn to be the target. Grace loved pelting him and getting him soaked.

He's having a ball. It was so funny to hear him casually conversing in Chinese. He's in the highest level they offer and they basically speak the language exclusively. He actually had a hard time talking to us at first.
One of his teachers came up to meet us and raved about how great Ry is. I'm so glad he's had this opportunity!

The next generation of fans....

Big news at our house. Most of you know that I read all 7 Harry Potter books out loud to my oldest 3 children. We began our adventure in the Summer of 1999. My dear friend Joy turned us on to the books BEFORE they became well known or popular. We were among the first to discover the magic thanks to her! The kids were 9, 7 and 5 at the time we began.
The last couple of books were released when the baby was much too young to enjoy or appreciate our marathon reading parties. We would read whilst she napped, after she went to bed, or we would beg Andrew to take her out to the park so we could get in a few chapters without interruption.
I've been patiently waiting for her to reach the age where I could begin reading the series to her. I decided this, the summer of her 7th year, was the time. I lovingly unearthed our hard-bound copy of HP1, only to find to my horror that it was loved/read into tattered oblivion. Held together by a few raggedy strands of binding, entire sections separated from the spine.
I of course ran right out and purchased a cheap soft cover copy. And we began.

Yesterday, we finished the final word. We had 3 chapters left, so when I got home from work we clambered up on my bed and started reading. I figured we'd get through a chapter, maybe 2, and then finish the book today. But no. The magic spell had been cast. I read 2 chapters, and to my delight my youngest slapped her little hand on the book before I could close it and said "OH NO! We HAVE to finish it right now! I have to find out what happens!!!"
Music to my ears.
We're starting on HP2 tonight.
(side note: this afternoon we pulled out our HP1 trivia game. We three girls sat down to play. I was slightly...horrified? Bemused? Stunned? by the minutia my oldest child knew about this book. "What is the name of the Slytherin Quidditch team's Captain?" "What colors do the Gringott's Goblins wear?" It went on and on. She quickly accessed the information buried deep in the recesses of her brain and spewed them out as fast as we could read the questions. Disturbing.)

cucubers

I was in Salt Lake today, and saw this sign at an outdoor market...
"cucubers for sale! 8 for $.99"
Do you think they had a head-cold when they wrote the sign???
"I deed to buy sub cucubers to eat to get by vitamids so I can get bedder...."

Maybe Always Means No

Grace has slept in Ry's bed for the last 2 nights since he's gone to BYU. She misses him, but is also jazzed by sleeping in a different place. Tyler has been sleeping on the family room floor because it's too hot to live OR sleep upstairs.
She and Ty just had this conversation as he was tucking her into bed:
G: Will you sleep in here with me tonight?
T: Maybe.
G: Sigh. Maybe always means no.
T: Well maybe I will just to prove you wrong!
G: (quickly and perkily and with a big smile) OK!!!

Ty comes in to my room chuckling and shaking his head. "I was just served by a 7 year old!" He's convinced that she reverse-psychologied him.

All Jill and I could think is how tragic that she's disillusioned enough to know by now that maybe always means no. Sad day.