family business

Sixteen years ago I married into the "family business" of lawn care and landscape maintenance.  Daren had been mowing lawns since he was 14 years old, and ultimately it's what paid for his entire college tuition and it was our sole income the first six months of our marriage until he was hired on to the fire department.  I LOVED mowing lawns and it was a great time when Daren and I worked together for six years, side by side, day after day.  He did all the mowing, while I did all the trimming, edging, and blowing.  It was a great time of life.  We gave up the lawn care business 11 years ago when I finally got pregnant with Ben and Daren got accepted into law school.   

Eventually we had our own lawn to take care of in the house we built, and throughout the years we have picked up mowing a couple of the neighbor's lawns around us.  This year we almost doubled our lawns we take care of, so now we have 5 lawns to mow around us, including our own.  Ben turned 10 this year, and he's finally putting together that money is a good thing, and in order to get money you have to work, and sometimes work can be hard and hot and sweaty and just a pain in the rear.  But with the help of Daren as his teacher, Ben has picked up on the "family business" and is ready and willing to learn so that he can get more of the green stuff.  So, with a gatorade in hand, and a full tank of gas in the mower, he sets out once, sometimes twice, a week to carry on what HAD to be in his blood.  

w

it all ends

The final Harry Potter movie opens today, but for some of us it started very early in the morning.  

I started reading Harry Potter to Ben years ago before he could read, and since then he has read and re-read the books so many times they are literally falling apart at the seams.  He looooves Harry Potter and was so excited to see this last movie.  

I was talking to my friend, Tami, a few weeks ago, and we decided to buy tickets to one of the midnight movies and take Ben and her son, Ben's friend Josh.  We met early, got wands, t-shirts and dinner, and then headed to the pre-movie party.  It might have gone better if Josh hadn't been at scout camp that whole day plus the day before, and if Ben hadn't been doing...

this...

 ...and this all day long!  (Look how much snow is left in them there hills!!  Crazy!)

 But they both tried hard to get through it the best they could.  They rode the "hippogriff,"

 and met Professor Trewlawney,

 some death eaters,

 and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Professor Dumbledore, and even Harry; 

 drank butterbeer,

 and had a crash course on Care of Magical Creatures. 

 The costumes we saw were so fun, including this group as Hogwarts Castle.

 Ben went to the car around 10:30pm to have a quick 30 minute nap to help cheer him up, which it did.  Our movie started at 12:40am, and it did not disappoint.  We all loved it, but it's also kind of sad knowing that it's the last movie in the series.  J.K. Rowling is absolutely brilliant!  

 As if Ben hasn't had enough of Harry Potter, he's going to see it again this afternoon with his Uncle Dakon, who is taking all the nieces and nephews who wanted to go (the nieces politely declined).  Maybe I can get a little more shut-eye then.  But I doubt it.  

celebrating the fourth

As we do every year, celebrating the fourth of july lasts days and days, starting with the ever-annoying carnival (the boys just read through this and can't believe I put that in there!  "How come it's annoying??" they ask).  We can't ever get out of going to it because you can see the carnival every time we drive anywhere and you can hear the music going every night until 11pm from our house.  The boys and I went with Julie and Thomas to the carnival on the first night.  We ran into many of our neighbors there too, and as hard as we tried, we couldn't get out of there soon enough--people who were leaving kept giving the boys their tickets so we ended up there until 11pm, walking out just as they were turning out the lights.  

 This year was a big deal for Ben--he tried a couple of rides that he had never tried before, including the Starship 2000 and the Fire Ball, and he LOVED them!  Both of them make me want to throw up just looking at them.  

Daren thought the boys would have fun riding in Riverton's parade, so he borrowed this old 1921 fire engine from the Fire Relief Association.  We picked it up when we had Brenda's kids with us on our way home from getting haircuts up at her house last week.

july 1

The day of the parade finally came.  It was a perfect evening, sunny and not too hot.  

 The boy's friend, Nathan, rode in the truck with us.  (His mom, Shelly, delivered twin boys the next day--been there, done that, good luck!!) 

july 2

And, as usual, we had everyone over for festivities and fireworks the evening of Saturday, the 2nd.  I know, weird because the 4th was on a Monday this year, but someone at city hall decided to do it all on the 2nd.  Once the whole family got here, Daren gave out more rides on the fire engine and then we sat down for some good food from Pat's BBQ.  

Chris Thompson and his family were staying with us for the weekend from Mexico.  

july 4

Without anything going on around here on the 4th, we decided to go boating with Brenda, JD and their family.  We got a late start out to Utah Lake, and our normal marina was closed because of flooding, so we had to drive to Provo, which part of that was flooded too.  

Will was NOT interested in putting on a swimsuit that day, and just wanted to hang out in the boat in his pajamas the whole time, drinking his Dr. Pepper.  That kid!

 Will and I both got sick (he threw up over the side of the boat), so Daren dropped us off back at the marina to go rest in the truck while the rest of them played out on the water until dark.  

As a finale to our day, we had dinner at In-n-Out.  By the time we left there at 10pm, there were fireworks going off all over the valley that we watched on our way home, only to get home and stay up another hour shooting off fireworks with the neighbors.  We cannot get to bed earlier than 11 lately!  

I have been so busy with the end-of-school stuff in May and then making scrapbooks for the boy's teachers in June that I haven't had time to blog much.  Hopefully I'll get back on track now,  because there has been lots of stuff going on.