Laser Tag Day

Logan turned the BIG 8 in October....

hooray, next month he is getting baptized!

On his birthday we told him we were taking the whole family to a "special" place to eat...

We had never been to "Logans Roadhouse" and kept telling Logan "how did they make a whole restaurant just for you"... ha ha.

And lucky duck Logan had a Laser Tag birthday party during fall break. I had never played laser tag before... it was kind of fun. However in the end when you get your scores for everyone... my score: a BIG ZERO. Seriously, not a single point scored. The worker really told me that my gun must have not been working, but Bruce and my kids didn't believe that. They just think I am a Laser Tag Loser. ha ha.

And I made Logan a homemade ice cream cake for the party, per his request... just like my Grandma Blake use to make... mmmmm so yummy!

Pretend Camping

In October Lily turned FIVE!

This year Lily had a mock

CAMPOUT BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Bruce set up the tent in the backyard and we had a fire pit where the girls roasted hotdogs for dinner. They each got their own flashlight that they loved running around with and even used to go on a NIGHT WALK (in the dark park behind our house). They had dirt cups for dessert and we told "scary" stories in the tent. Then the girls went home at 9:00pm.

My older kids LOVED helping as "camp counselors" at the party. My boys especially loved "scaring" the girls while they were playing in the tent. The girls loved it.

Bruce gets the award for BEST DAD this weekend because after the party was over our kids begged to sleep in the tent. And we would have let the older kids sleep out there alone, but Lily really wanted to sleep out there with them. So Bruce said his last birthday present to Lily was giving up a night of sleep... and he slept out there with them so Lily could camp out too!

This is late at night and Bruce is in here asleep with all our kids.... aaaw, sweet dad:

Note Crazy

So I happen to take a picture from October General Conference weekend... this is Sunday morning, what it looked like watching conference at my house. How many Vernon kids can you FIT on a couch? ha ha. I can still taste the homemade cinnamon rolls.

I LOVE Conference weekend where we watch the Prophet of the Lord and His apostles speak to us. So beautiful. I LOVED all the messages about family this fall.

I want to record this for posterity... my dear sweet 15 year old daughter and her friend Vanessa you can see above taking notes during conference. Ashlin told me that it's easier to pay attention if she takes notes. That precious child of mine took, I AM NOT KIDDING, 23 pages of notes from Conference!! WHAT??? And THEN she spent hours sunday evening typing ALL of her notes up!!! Bruce and I were cracking up... she ended up with 9 typed pages of notes from conference. Please remind me of this next time I am mad at her.... (like when her friends TP our house and spread shredded paper all over my newly planted flowers... yep that just happened) What joy to have such a good girl, and since you could use notes in our Family Home Evening conference trivia game... she rocked that game and got the best prize! :)

Colorado Trip

In September Bruce and I went by ourselves to Colorado!!

We went to Vet school and lived in Ft. Collins, Colorado for 4 years. We lived in a trailer, had tons of friends and We LOVED it. Now my cousin Casey is in Vet school there, they also live in a trailer, and he graduates in May. We have wanted to visit since he's been there.... but it is NOT easy to get away from all our kids!!! We finally made it work. I LOOOOVED staying in their trailer.... aaaah, felt like home.

Casey and Tiff:

Our WAY good friends from our school days still live there. It was SO fun to go visit them also. This is Jen and Alan. Oh how I love them, they are both so funny, so fun to be with. AND I HEART their children too!!

The first day I get there with Jen to make plans for the week she tells me, "Well on friday theres an Elders Quorum social. I told Jolene you were going to be in town and she told me you have to make salsa for it." HA HA!!! Cracked me up that we've been gone from the ward 11 years, but we come visit and BAM, I have an assignment. So you know I was on it. I fulfill my church salsa duties faithfully. SHOUT OUT TO JOLENE, who I found out stalks my blog. Ha ha. It was so fun to see you! If I was there longer I would have made you and Jen go Karaoke with ME downtown to whatever bar you went to with your sister when she visited!!

Us 3 couples went out to Tepanyaki one night. Check out Bruce's dragon shirt, it was perfect for the occasion.

Afterwards we went bowling. Who else is jealous that Alan is so photogenic?

This is me making an X, because you know I rocked a Strike!

It was so fun to go back somewhere we use to live and reminisce about all the good times and good friends. Loved the weather, bikerides, RELAXING, sleeping in, staying up all night, and visiting my wonderful cousins.

We knew the Clarks kids when they were wee babies, and now they're all teenagery and so fun to be with, so neat to see them grown, they've all turned out so great.

We love you Colorado!!!! I want to move back!

Highshcool Friends

HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS GETAWAY

I sent out an email last fall to see if a bunch of girlfriends from highschool wanted to do a weekend reunion getaway... and, so fun, EVERYONE did!

This is a picture of us around graduation day:

So last month we all went to MB's parents cabin in Prescott for the FUNNEST weekend ever! We left our kids at home and just relaxed for 3 days, well and ate lots of yummy food.

This is us now:

Only a few couldn't make it. Kelli flew in from Texas and Tanya flew in from Utah. Even HEIDI came with a 3 week old baby, her SIXTH baby, and ofcourse she's as beautiful as ever!

We watched videos we filmed in higschool, and laughed laughed... and took lots of pictures:

I made an AWESOME highschool playlist of songs from the day and we played name that tune. You know it had some Guns N Roses, Depeche Mode, Tiffany (JR High days), Erasure, Cranberries, UB40....

Looking at pictures...

Hanging out on the deck...

I was so excited to see Kelli, we hadn't seen eachother in almost 15 years. Oh my, I forgot how much I LOVED Kelli!!! We laughed all weekend. Her and I are probably the funniest people you will ever meet.... ha ha. We took pictures of each other on the deck:

Kelli took the missionary discussions in highschool and was baptized. I hadn't talked to her in years and we found each other on facebook. I wondered if she was still active in church. I cried and cried when I heard that she was. When we talked she had just moved from North Carolina where she had served as Primary President for the last 4 years, and I was Primary President at the same time. We both cried!! The neatest ever.

MB took us on an awesome hike saturday, so beautiful:

And Saturday night we went out to downtown Prescott for dinner. Jeni made us all matching flower clips, we wore them out.

And my dad happen to be in Prescott with his motorcycle gang the same weekend. We saw him downtown, this is my dad and I:

There was also some live bands downtown... um, yah, we danced for a few hours! Hilarious. We rocked the dance floor. The live band literally in the microphone thanked the "solid gold dancers" up front... that was us. ha ha, so funny.

I came home in the BEST mood. We laughed from friday until sunday. I realized even more what awesome friends I had in highschool!!

Scripture Study

Can you count the sleeping bodies?

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Post 5:50am Scripture Study:

This is the first year we have to wake up our children in the 5:00am hour for scripture study and family prayer. After driving Ashlin to school at 6:10am and exercising, I sometimes come home to every person in the family back asleep on the couch. (And actually this last week Dallin started football in Jr. High, and they start practice at 6:00am. So everyone now has to wake up at 5:35am.)

I am so thankful for children who don't even complain!? How did I get so lucky? I am so thankful for that time reading scriptures as a family. We use to read at breakfast time. I love it so much more now. There is no food or chaos going on. It's quiet, everyone has their own scriptures, snuggled in blankets on the couch, and we take turns reading and talking about Gods plan for us.

I mess up so many things as a mom. I yell, even though I pray every day for patience. I respond impatiently, even though I pray every day for charity. I know I am better than I would be without prayer... but I wish I was even better!! I am full of hope that God can make up the difference.

I Looooooove This Scripture..... Such a powerful promise:

1 Nephi 15:24-25

"And I said unto them that it was the Word of God; and whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would host fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction.

Wherefore, I... did exhort them to give heed unto the word of the Lord; yea, I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul, and with all the faculty which I posessed, that they would give heed to the word of God and remember to keep His commandments always in all things."