Work

I have been working a lot lately. Actually, I have been working a lot since Spring. I usually have a few days off between projects to gain my sanity again before I start on the next project. But I have been going from one big project to the next big project pretty much all year. Which is a good thing, but I rarely get out of the basement away from my desk. One project in particular gave me A LOT of grief and caused me a few melt downs. I celebrated when the last piece of steel was erected on that job. I am starting another big project tomorrow that will occupy the next few months of my life. So I thought I would post a couple of pictures of what I have to deal with while I work.

These are the faces of a child who needs attention:

She likes to sit on my desk and "help" me work. She gets her red and yellow pencil like me and marks up my old drawings. She tags along with me when I go into the office. The guys at work like to give her treats and entertain her during meetings. I actually really do like being a checker and I am very thankful for my job these days.

My advice for the day: Update your blog often or Merodene will bug you until you do. :-) I love you Merodene! (sorry for the nasty email response I sent to you)

The Shirt

Thanks Shereen!

Halloween

Bryce was a clone trooper and Kendal was Super Girl for Halloween. We went to our ward Trunk or Treat.

This is the product of Bryce being a different Star Wars character for the last few years:

Fall has Returned

Happy Birthday Kendal

Kendal finally turned 4 years old!! She was so very excited for her birthday! We took her to the zoo for her birthday. She had never been to the zoo before. So we chose the busiest day of the whole entire year to go to the zoo. It was trick or treating at the zoo and there a million and 4 people there.

I didn't any good pictures of my kids. They don't like there pictures taken. I have no idea where they get that from.

Kendal is a true girl. She had to have a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and double chocolate brownie ice cream.

So It Begins Again

Here are some pictures of our Sunday afternoon today.

Bryce's Baptism

Here are some pictures of Bryce's baptism. We are very thankful for very wonderful and supportive family and friends. We do love and appreciate you all. Thank you all for making it a special day for our family - especially Bryce.

Swimming

We went to Brian's work party the other night. It was a pool party. I got this shot when Brian was jumping off the diving board trying to catch Bryce coming down the slide.

Last Camping Trip of the Year?

We braved the cold temperatures this weekend and went camping. It was 55 degrees at 1:00 in the afternoon and got down to the 30's at night. That doesn't include the windchill. We went to Washington Lake in the Uintahs again. This time we went with our friends, Bill and Christofer. This will probably be our last camping trip of the year (unless we head South) since they closed the campgrounds for the season as we were leaving.

Here are a few pictures of our trip.

Bryce and I caught our first fish on this trip. Bryce cast and reeled it in himself. And I caught a little fish on Kendal's pink fishing pole. Her pink fishing pole still has caught the most fish.

Here is a picture of Kendal that shows how cold it got. (She also had two shirts on).

The kids built a chipmunk trap and sat back and watched it with their binoculars. No, they didn't catch the one chipmunk in the campground.

It did get warm when the wind wasn't blowing. So we went on a couple of hikes to look for some geocaches. Once again, we had a wonderful time camping. We were sad to leave - again.

First Day of School Pictures

Bryce started 3rd grade last week. The start of school does not bring me joy. I have more anxiety than my kids do. Brian keeps telling me to "cut those strings". Kendal started Pre-school this week. Of course, she loves it! Who wouldn't?

Tiger Scout

Bryce got his Tiger Scout Award last week. He is excited that he is officially a Cub Scout.

Love in a Bottle

Brian loves very spicy homemade canned salsa - the hotter the better. He has been out of salsa for a couple of months now. So I decided to show him how much I love him and make him salsa this weekend. It takes so much work to make that I decided that I would quadruple my recipe so I only had to make it once. He showed me how much he loves me by helping me chop pounds of peppers on Friday night. He stirred it all afternoon on Saturday and even helped me process it. (I even had 2 canners going). It is amazing how a Camp Chef makes canning manly. Brian was the Quality Control Manager. He stirred and tasted it all day while he watched the Olympics.

We ended up with 33 3/4 quarts of salsa. We would have had more, but SOMEONE tasted too much of it during the day.

Happy Birthday Bryce!

Bryce had the BEST Birthday EVER!!! All he wanted to do was go camping at Grandpa and Grandma Crook's house. He loved hanging out with "Big" Jacob (that is what we call him at our house) and Terena. It seemed like we celebrated his birthday for about 5 days! He will be getting baptized (if he is good) on September 13th. He is pretty excited about that.

The Bartschi Family Campout

Here are a BUNCH of pictures from our Bartschi Family Campout with Brian's mom and most of his sister's family. We went to Washington Lake in the Uintah Mountains for three nights. Kendal informed me that I was too old to do this:

I had to prove her wrong.

Here is a picture of Uncle Mike bugging Bryce:

Here is a picture of Kendal bugging Uncle Mike:

Here is a picture of Kendal bugging Gavin: (do you see the pattern?)

Bryce put A LOT of miles on his bike.

Brian bought Bryce a new pocketknife, so if Bryce wasn't riding his bike, he was carving on some sticks.

Here are Smart Bart and Kiershta. Where's the muffins?

Here is Briana. She was Bryce's audience. He loved to make her laugh.

Chris was a good burger flipper and a self proclaimed "perfect marshmallow" roaster!

Gavin fishing. What a life!!

Grandma and her "hardly used" paper plate:

Here is Jolene before she got giggly tired.

A rare smile from Kendal:

And you didn't think that I got any pictures of you Mike.

Awake Rochelle...

Asleep Rochelle:

Tempes, the Yahtzee Queen! Bryce still talks about all the 5's that you got.

We did do some fishing.

Here is the only fish that we caught:

Of course, it was caught by Kendal on her pink fishing pole.

Here are some photos of everyone eating s'mores and making a sticky mess of themselves.

It rained a little bit. Here are the chicken adults under the canopy.

Bryce was not so chicken.

Here are some photos of the "Freaky Tongue Club":

Bryce is working on joining your club next year.

These next pictures are for Brian. He made fun of me for taking so many pictures of the "foilage". (I did take a lot)

We had a lot of fun and were sad to leave. We hope that everyone will be able to come next year so we can have a bigger and happier "Happy Circle"!