BYU or Bust

BYU or Bust

1. Got Marisa all packed up and ready for college. I must admit Bob said we would fit it all and I had very serious doubts. He was correct. Thanks to the giant bag we had on top of the car. You should have seen the effort it took to get it up there.

2. Day 1- we traveled from Cedar Rapids to Paxton, Nebraska. A long and very boring drive. Thank goodness for the humor of Brian Regan and Redbox!

3. The kids travel SO MUCH BETTER when they are older! A lot less fighting, whining, crying, etc.

4. Day 2- we traveled from Paxton, Nebraska to Provo, Utah. We were able to stop by Missy and Clark’s to say hi, have a wonderful dinner, and drop off most of Marisa’s stuff.

5. I will say we have a real knack for picking out quality hotels. (read this with as much drippy sarcasm as possible). We have a history of hideousness. Basically it comes down to hotels are so dang expensive and most only take 4 to a room. So, we can usually only get ones with a green slime pool, etc.

Today I think we topped it. We got Knight Inn in Provo. We found a place that would take 6 people and actually had 3 queen size beds as well as a glorious pool (see the pic on website). When we got here, 1^st thing we see is that the pool has been declared closed by the County Health Inspector. Lovely. Then we find that they gave away all 3 of those 3 bed bedrooms! Dude! We reserved that! Then we see the actual hotel….I guarantee you NO actual knights would ever stay here. They gave us 2 rooms for the price of one (since they botched our reservations). They are like old apartments from the 1960s. A fist through the wall, cigarette burns on the bedding….Alayna even said, “Ok so we have established that this hotel totally sucks right? Can we leave now?”

Then to top it all, Bob went to go get something from the car so we left the door part way open.  Suddenly some lady walks in like she owns the place, then realizes she has the wrong room, then apologizes and leaves.  Oh my.

6. Tomorrow will be a full “Get Marisa set up and oriented to BYU” day. Wish us luck!

View from our hotel room- the ONLY redeeming quality

View of leaving the Iowa Cornfields behind so Marisa wont forget us!

Picture of Marisa and Dave

Odds and Ends Before We Go

Odds and Ends Before We Go

Marisa spent the week trying to pack up. Im still not sure how we will fit it all into the car.

Alayna did volleyball camp this week and really enjoyed it.

Alayna has been loving viola and practices a lot at home. It was sweet to see her and Marisa spend time playing together.

Notice anything odd about my shopping list?

Watched the dogs again.

Is this Pinterest Worthy?

Yesterday Alayna spent some time on a craft because she was in the mood “to be crafty”.  She was very excited with the final product and wanted to know if it was good enough to be on Pinterest.  I told her of course I can put it up!  She was so excited that she raced in and wrote out instructions in case any one would like to make their own.  Here are her EXACT instructions:

“All you do is rip a stirofome Bowl and color it than tape a pencil Than cut the sticky part of a green sticky note and put it on (no tape included with the sticky note). Than put on the middle tape a penny or quarter.”

Top Nine of the Week

July 15, 2012

Top Nine of the Week

1. Alayna started Viola lessons! She loves it so far although she developed a giant blister from all the plucking she did. I love seeing her practice and excited for it. She starts volleyball camp this week too!

2. Kayla got checker-trained! This means she can be a full-fledged cashier. She had a few long days of training, but she is ready to roll. Yesterday she worked “Kids Day” at Hyvee and had the awesome opportunity to supervise the bounce house outside for 4 hours!

3. Marisa has been working quite a bit, as well as packing and ordering books for her classes. We leave in less than 2 weeks. It’s all becoming so real. She is dating Dave, an RM, but he will be at a different college next year in medical school. He is very sweet!

4. It’s the year of the pests for our garden! The Japanese Beetles have never been this bad!! They destroyed my roses so badly that I had to cut them and dig them up. I’ll try lilies there next year. They shredded me green beans and sucked the juice out of the raspberries. Bob calls them “jerks” and I agree! Then we got our zucchini and they have been overtaken by grubs, both inside and outside!! Could be the beetle grubs? The warm winter and early freeze ruined our apple trees. Those dang pests! And of course, this is the year Iowa (and everywhere else) has a drought so food prices are going higher. We plan to can as much as we can!

5. Our family officially signed up for the Color Run in Des Moines on October 6! I am so excited!!! I figure its good incentive to keep our fitness going and its not nearly as brutal as the Tough Mudder, which is still my goal!! I told Tyler he has to run it with me before he goes on his mission!

6. Speaking of fitness, our group has rocked on workouts this week. We did the track 2 days (5K each time), did tennis, swam laps at the community pool, etc! I guess using movies as incentive actually works! So, Tyler, Bob and I went to see “The Amazing Spiderman” yesterday and I loved it!!! I like him better as Spiderman and was entertained the whole time! This week? “The Dark Knight Rises”!

7. We also watched “Three Musketeers” at home and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Bob thought is was too much like “Pirates” but I think that’s a good thing. And Tyler must have enjoyed it cause he watched the whole thing without opening his iPod once!

8. You will be impressed to know that I actually semi-relaxed this week. I was working on my hugely ginormous blog project (going through every pic and newsletter from 1993-2004) and putting them into chronological order. By Day 2, I was feeling homicidal, so I packed it up into my storage room and labeled it “Retirement Project”! I am still working on meals and recipes, but I am taking the time to relax and be with the kids and watch “stuff”

9. In my relaxing I came across an amazing find! A YW leader told Kayla about a book she just HAD to read. I ordered it through our library in March and Kayla never read it. One of Kaylas friends let us borrow it and its been sitting by my bed (I haven’t read a dang thing this summer- too worn out I guess?). So this week, to force relaxation on my broken down body, I started to read it. I finished within 24 hours and made Bob take me to Walmart yesterday to buy Book 2! Anyway, it is called “Divergent” (Book 2 is “Insurgent”, Book 3 should come out next year). It is very much like Hunger Games, but very different. I LOVE the idea of the factions and what they represent. Its my new obsession! Note: Yes, it gets violent. I don’t think more than Hunger Games, but it is more personally violent, than far away (like a bow and arrow). But if you like stuff I like, you must read!

*How sad that I forgot to take pics all week….

If ye are prepared, ye shall not starve!

It’s 72 hour kit/Food Storage week at the Hart household!

Cleaned out the 72 hour kits.  Good thing because if this is what we were stuck wearing in a crisis, we would all cry.  Alayna said, “If I’m gonna die, I’d like to at least die with dignity!” and then she promptly got new clothes for her bag.

 

We made awesomely sweet 72 hour kits.  I got it from this great website! Be Prepared

My kids are actually looking forward when we get to clean it out next year so they can eat it all!

(Yes, I even labeled the Lazy Susan!)

Cookie Contest, Games, and Exploding Mentos

Cookie Contest- making them without a recipe!

 

(Tyler was the judge!)

 

Games, Games, and more Games

Exploding Mentos

Pontoon at Coralville Lake

(kayla pushing Bob in)