Marilyn Monroe

Career Step threw a company party in celebration of reaching 800 sales in one month. At the party we played the GO Game. We went to Center Street in Provo and were given specific places to go, pictures or videos to take or trivia to solve to via text message. Some of our challenges included taking a picture that recreate a famous piece of artwork or pop culture image. We went into Taylor Maid which is a local costume shop and they helped us out by letting us borrow a Marilyn Monroe costume complete with wig and 3 inch heels. I got to pose it was a lot of fun. We also had to go into Juice and Java and use a pick-up line on "Captain Hotpants" and the he would give us a code so we could move on to the next stage of our game. I got nominated to do that one. I walked into the Juice shop and saw the guy who I thought it was and walked out again cause I was afraid of "hitting on" someone who wasn't playing the game, but I gained courage re-entered and got the code after my great pickup line was delivered. There were several more fun missions like this. Afterwards we went to dinner and our entertainment for the evening was a comedian named John Moyer he wrote "the Singles Ward" and "Mobsters and Mormons." He was pretty funny. We were also entertained by the photos and videos we had taken throughout the afternoon and voted on the most creative ones. My team came in 8th out of 12! Woo Hoo! Our Prize was an assortment of false teeth! I love working for Career Step! I think I will have access to the photos within a week or two and I will post them when I do.

Bear Cub

Nathan has been working hard with his den leaders to earn his Bear. I am so glad he had the Johnsons to help him cause we were kind of slackers at home. I am really pleased that he was able to reach this next rank and he is ECSTATIC to be turning 10 next month and join all his friends in Webelos. It has been lonely being the only scout in the bear den for the last 3 or 4 months. Here he is with the "markings of a Bear."

Holy Halloween Parties, Batman

So Career Step seriously goes overboard on the whole Halloween Party thing. Apparently each department chooses a theme and decorates their offices in accordance with that theme. there are prizes for decorations and costumes and everything. I heard that last year someone actually painted a mural on the wall for Halloween. Out of Control. So the marketing Department has decided to go with a Batman theme (a la 60's TV show--totally cheesy) and we are going to decorate our offices as the Batcave. There aren't that many girl characters to choose from and all of them have nice curves. The other girl in the dept is going to be either Batgirl or Poison Ivy. I'm thinking I will be Cat Woman. It will be my incentive to truly exercise so I'll look good in my costume. Meow!

Grape Stomping

We had a great time at our YW activity stomping grapes. We hooked up the iPod to speakers and blasted ABBA and the Beatles and other upbeat dancing tunes. We picked green grapes so our feet wouldn't get stained and we weren't planning on actually consuming what we had stomped anyway. We might have if I could have found sufficient directions on purifying the juice, but alas, I could not. We had a great time picking and stomping. I think the music was essential to the overall mood. We did drink some juice I had made earlier with my Juice Steamer and I showed the girls how you would make juice with the steamer so that it would be educational as well as fun.Yummy. Aren't you getting thirsty?

My kids came out and joined us for a while too and got in on the action. Here's Kielle, Ryan and Tessa getting messy.

Best Friends

This is Nathan with his best friend Jarett Pittman. They have been friends since birth. They were born exactly 4 weeks apart. They are moving to Ohio tomorrow. We are going to miss them a lot.

Harvest Time

These are my beautiful children with our grapevines last fall. It is grape harvesting time again. So I need to be working on picking grapes and making juice and jelly. That is one of my many projects for the week. Actually, the YW in my ward are going to come over on Wednesday and we will be grape stomping! It should be lots of fun!

Our washing machine is dying so I need to attempt to get that fixed and I need to get our green sticker put on the furnace. I think we have one more year officially to get that on.

Ryan just celebrated his sixth birthday. He had an awesome birthday. He started off the day receiving a Tom Sawyer Wishbone book. We then took him to Build-A-Bear Workshop to make his own Wishbone dog. At school he received balloons from his teacher, Mrs. George. I came in and read the kids the first chapter of his book he got that morning and gave the kids popsicles.

That evening he had a party with family and friends and he got decked out in the latest spy gear. He has to practice now for his future job (secret agent.) He also received Legos Star Wars and Vehicle types, a remote controlled tractor and money which he is trying to decide whether he should buy stuff for his "doggies" or star wars legos. I think Nathan is hoping for more Star Wars Legos. He really wanted a Yoda cake--which Nathan refused to eat because he didn't want to eat Yoda. On Ryan's cake Yoda's words were "Happy. your birthday will be."

Aaron took him to the BYU football game the next day. we have a Father's Day tradition where we buy 2 season tickets. Aaron gets to go to every game and the kids take turns having one-on-one time with their Dad. (And I only have to go to one game at the most.)