Menu Board

I've never been good about meal planning and I feel bad that Lee does most of the cooking. While on Pinterest one day I saw a great idea to help with meal planning and I finally made one of my own!

 

 

I bought a 12x12 frame, some scrapbook paper and clothespins. I painted the clothespins to match my color scheme and hot glued them to the glass of the frame. The boxes on the right are from a rice pilaf box from dinner that day. I just cut it in half and covered it with scrapbook paper. The top box is the meals I haven't used yet and the bottom box is where I put the meals from this week. That way I can rotate through my meals and not eat the same thing all the time. The hardest part was figuring out how to print to index cards. On the front I wrote the name of the meal and on the back I have a list of ingredients. That way I can pick the meals for the week, then flip on the paper and make sure I have everything I need. It was so much easier grocery shopping because I knew exactly what the get and I knew I had meals, not just snacks. I also have extra index cards so that as I acquire new favorite meals I can add them to my menu board.

Family Reunions

June 30, Ty and I set out for our first long drive alone together. It was an 8 hour trip to Utah and it went great! I had to pull over to the side of the road about 3 times from Ty getting carsick (he refused to take his medicine until later in the day), and we took 2 different stops for food and stretching, but we made great time! It also feels great to know that I am capable of making a long drive like that on my own.
July 1 was Ben's baby blessing and it turns out almost all the family came for it. The rest of the family came a little later in the week. It was kind of a spontaneous family reunion! For more pictures and details you can check my sister's blog, maniacmonsons.blogspot.com. On one of the nights we went bowling and Ty loved it! 

 Ty learned how to take pictures with my camera and this is one of his.

 Mommy and son. Ty fell earlier in the week and bonked his head on the bath, so he had a bruise, but at least the swelling had gone down.

 Watching it hit the pins

 Sharing a turn with Kaylee

We also found a really cool new playground at a school nearby shaped like a pirate ship.

 

 

 

 

 

  

 For the 4th of July we went to the MTC field to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks. It was like a party for the kids. Tiffany's mother in law had given the boys bubble guns that lit up and they loved it! We also had glowsticks so we could keep track of our kids running around.

After everyone else had returned home, Ty and I were still in Utah and my dad suggested taking him to the Bean Museum at BYU. Unfortunately they were closed for construction. Instead we took a short walk to the Museum of Art and look at the awesome game-inspired sculptures they have on display right now.

 Finally on Saturday we headed up to Brigham for a pool party held by Lee's grandparents. Lee and his parents had just gotten there a little before me so I got to see Lee for the first time in a week, as well as all the relatives coming into town for the Allen family reunion starting Monday. The pool we went to had a big slide that Ty wanted to go down. When Lee asked if it was okay for Ty to go down the lifeguard said that as long as Lee was at least 16 he could take Ty down. I guess Lee literally shaves off 10 years when he shaves. He hasn't been mistaken for a junior high student since we first got married. We did take Ty down the slide and he loved it! He kept pointing to it and wanted to go down more, but since it was cold outside the water we stopped taking him up after about the 5th time. Instead we showed him the kid slide that he could do himself.

On Monday we headed up to Little Bear River Resort for the family reunion. Unfortunately Tomtom couldn't find the address, so we just put in the road and he found that just fine. We had a safe drive until we reached one road that scared me. It was a dirt road that was super bumpy and near the edge of a hill. I swear we slid a little at one point. When we reached the end of that road I had no idea which way to turn. After being lost for a while we finally pulled over at a nice looking house and asked if they knew where to go. Luckily they're uncle was the owner of the place where we were going and knew exactly where to go. Turns out we had driven past it while we were lost, but hadn't noticed since the signs were facing the other direction because most people come from that way. We also warned Lee's parents about how we got there and saved them from being lost as long as us. They still took the scary dirt road, but they knew where to go from there. Now at the camp, we found a spot and set up our tent. We found out later that we needed to move because they were going to set up a bouncy house for the kids in the morning, so we moved that night and I think our new spot was better because it had a lot more shade so our tent was cool all day long.

The next morning Ty was excited to go through the obstacle course blow up... over and over and over again. I'm surprised he had that much energy.

 

 Ty could do almost the whole thing by himself. Any parts he had trouble, his cousin Cora was so sweet to help him through. He couldn't climb this wall because the footholds were torn and too far apart for him to grab.

 Family was very nice to help all the little kids up the wall. Here's Uncle Devan helping Ty.

 

After playing on that for a long time we headed into town for games and bowling at the Fun Center.

 Watching his bowling ball. I love how cute he looks in those shoes.

 Pretending to drive tanks with his cousin Ren

 After returning to camp, I decided to take a shower. Bad timing on my part. While I was in the shower the power went out. At first I thought someone had just turned off the light so I tried calling someone to turn it back on. When someone did come they said it wouldn't turn on. I was a little confused but I figured I'd just hurry and finish my shower in the dark. I put my conditioner in and was starting to rinse it out when the water stopped. I tried turning the handle off and on, but nothing worked. Then I heard someone say the power had gone out, so I figured there was nothing I could do and I didn't want to stay there and wait. I'm glad I didn't too. We didn't get power back on until much later that night. With the power off we didn't get dinner until 9:30, so Ty went scavenging and found marshmallows left out from the previous night.

The next day Lee and I had planned to leave early but we stuck around for a while. We got packed up, then ate lunch with everyone before heading out. I'm glad we stuck around because I had almost forgotten to get a four generation picture.

In order left to right: Lee Niel, Vee Nard, Lee Justin, and Lee Tychus.

It's always so fun hanging out with family and I loved that Ty got to meet his cousins on Lee's side finally. A big thank you to Cora for being such a sweet cousin to Ty and watching over him so much. Thank you so much to my parents for letting us stay there and also a huge thanks to Nard and Beth and the Dukes for putting together such a fun reunion. I'm sad it's the last one and I hope we'll have reasons to get together in the future.

Also, I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was busy enjoying the moment to take pictures most of the time.

Imagination

This is Ty's idea of fun on Monday night.