Cha-ching....I am the winner!

At my school, we have a little contest...... We take our weight and our body fat percentage and whoever loses the most body fat wins $500.00. Well, I am happy to announce that I am the winner! Wahoo! I have lost a total of 38lbs since January (22 just this summer) and I have never felt better. Anyway, I am so excited.....I have already made my list of things to buy with my winnings.

In all reality, losing the weight is worth so much more than the money. I feel SO much better, have a ton more confidence, and I have so much more energy! I am super proud of myself!

Softball, School, and Girls Weekend

I just had to post a picture of my softball team because we ended up taking 2nd in the entire league. It was awesome! No one expected us to do well at all....so when we made it to the championship game, we thought that we were BAD A@#!! I was quite the hitter this year......my Happy Gilmore swing was lethal. Too bad I SUCKED at fielding the ball.

Don't look too close, but I think I am one of the oldest girls on the team..ekkk!

The weekend before school started us girls decided to get out of town for a well deserved shopping trip. We went to St. George and had so much fun just being away from our kids.

Jamie, Mom, and Jasa on the way up

School started this week but not classwork. We checked in on Monday and got our classrooms ready (mine is literally BRIGHT purple) and then on Tuesday we took a group of 7th and 8th graders up to Boondocks for some team building and some fun. My favorite part about boondocks was the 4D theater. The roller coaster ride kicked butt. It was fun to hang out with the students and even better laughing til we were crying on the bus ride home. Some of us teachers sat at the front and who new our principle was so hilarious! Actual classwork starts on Monday... I am excited for it to begin. I am not teaching P.E. this year, so it is going to be weird wearing regular clothes to school. I have always wore my p.e. clothes and my whistle. I will let you know how it goes.

Don't you all wish that Mrs. Larsen was your health teacher?

My cool group (if you can consider 8th graders cool)

Fair Days

I can't believe that the fair has already come and gone. The end of the fair means that school is about to start and I am just not ready for that yet. Anyway, the fair was pretty fun this year. We attended all of the activities including Bingo, "Here Come the Newlyweds", the free BBQ, the parade, and of course the free concert featuring "Emerson Drive". Kade entered some crafts and some suckers that he made in the fair as a clover bud 4-H'er and he thought that getting ribbons was pretty cool. Kade's favorite part of the fair was all of the bouncy toys and Tyce's was again running around like a crazy person.

Now that the Fair is over, I better start busting my butt to get ready for school.....like today when I spent the day painting my classroom purple!!!

Getting ready to catch candy at the Fair

Tyce loved playing at the playground at the fair. He especially like playing peek-a-boo.

After the parade, we cooled off with some water games for Chase's Birthday party.

It's Rodeo Time

Well its bulls and blood, it's dust and mud, its the roar of the Sunday crowd, it's white in his knuckles, the gold in the buckle he'll win the next go 'round. It's boots and chaps, it's cowboys hats, it's spurs and latigo, it's the ropes and the reins and the joy and the pain and they call the thing a rodeo!!

Going to the Rodeo has been a tradition in my family probably since rodeo was invented. My dad used to be the rodeo announcer and back in the day he was a pretty good bull and saddle bronc rider. One time my dad got hung up on a bull, and his face came around and smashed right into the bulls head which made him go unconscious. Later that night he woke up in the hospital with his entire face wired back together. Another time when my dad was announcing a rodeo out on his horse a bull stepped on this kid's ear and ripped it right off his head. My dad got off his horse and started searching for the ear. Luckily he found it out in the middle of the arena and it was sewed back onto the cowboy's head.

I love everything about the rodeo, I just miss enjoying it with my old man.....especially dancing with my dad afterwards. I wonder if their are Rodeo's in Heaven?

Splish Splash

All of the boys headed out to the Bookcliffs scouting deer this weekend so us girls got together to have our own party. The kids love swimming at Huntington Lake, so we decided to make a sleepover out of it. It was really fun and Kade and Tyce actually sleep great under the stars.

Here is Tyce still sleeping at 9:00 am.

Finding treasures that were hidden around our campsite
Late night swim

Tyce being a goof with the blow-up toys

We have to take the dump truck with us everywhere.....even into the lake

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The day before, we took the kids to the new pool in Castle Dale. Kade and Tyce are in heaven when we are there. Tyce could stay there all day if I wasn't so exhausted from chasing him around.

Here comes Tyce down the slide

Splashing around

Kade head first

Our Mini Vacation

Someday we will take a wonderful vacation somewhere outside of Utah, but until my kids get a little bigger, it just isn't worth the money. So, for our mini vacation we took the boys to Salt Lake to see all of the cool fish at the aquarium. Kade loved the jellyfish (thanks to Spongebob) and he loved holding the star fish. Tyce loved the sting rays and he loved running around like a crazy man.

Checking out the Jellyfish

The Sting Ray's

More Jellyfish

Our next stop was the hotel. As soon as we went into our room, Tyce freaked out. He couldn't figure out why we would stay anywhere but our house. He finally calmed down when we took him swimming so he could jump off the side of the pool into the water.
The next morning we tried to do some shopping. I have NO school clothes this year because for the past 6 I have taught both health and P.E. so I would wear my P.E. clothes to school. Now I am only teaching health and jeans are not allowed. Needless to say, shopping was a nightmare with my kids and I did not accomplish anything.
Our final stop was at a little theme park thing called Hollywood Connections. It is all indoors (thank goodness because it was 103 degrees outside) and they have a few little roller coasters, bumper cars, a roller skating rink, and laser tag. Kade had so much fun crashing into me and Kyle with the bumper cars. He could have stayed there all day, but Tyce wasn't having it. He would scream every time we put him on a roller coaster.

Bumper Cars

The Carousel
Roller Skating
Balloon Ride

So we are back home and we are SO glad. I hope that next year we can do something a little bit more exciting and maybe Tyce will not scream the entire time.

Our Eventful Fishing Trip

Yesterday we decided to head out on Ferron Mountain and do some exploring on the South end. The mountain was beautiful and the trail that we ended up taking was pretty cool. After we got home from our ride, Kyle's brother called and asked if we wanted to go up to Willow Lake to go fishing, so we headed back up Ferron Mountain. Now for the eventful part: all of a sudden Tyce started screaming so I bent over and picked him up. There threaded through his tongue was the hook end of a spinner lure. I started freaking out. Kyle, Kory, and Chris went to work. Kory held his body, Chris held his mouth open, Kyle pulled the hook out and I stood there crying. It was scary because they couldn't find a pair of pliers that would cut the barb off the end of the hook and Tyce was moving around so much that it was starting to get stuck in his lip.

Tyce was such a trooper. He immediately stopped crying and went and played with his dump truck. Needless to say, we ended up sticking around and everyone caught quite a few fish.

This is Tyce right after it happened. He is showing you how sore is tongue is.

I didn't get a picture of the hook actually in Tyce's tongue (for obvious reasons), but here is a picture of it after it was removed. Check out how huge the hook is!

This is Kyle explaining how we NEVER take anything out of the tackle box. NO, NO, NO!

Here is a picture of the Larsen's fishing away after the trauma

Pictures from our ride:

It started raining so Kade decided to hide under Grandma Jo's poncho.

We stopped at Muddy Creek for Lunch and the kids had fun playing in the water