Smokin'

Yesterday I ended up with a 16 pound brisket that I didn't know how to cook. After researching for a while we decided that almost all recipes required a meat smoker. Amazingly a smoker appeared in our driveway that very day and we were ready to begin our first Texas BBQ! It was an all day event, starting with soaking the wood at 5am and finally eating at 6:30pm. Of course the smoker did most of the work, but it required some babysitting and feeding! Here it is smoking away.

And 11 hours later we open the door, held our breath, and found this:


Which turned into this on the dinner table that night! Yum!

100th day!

Monday was the 100th day of school for our kids. McKinley's class had a celebration and did everything with 100's that day! Each child had made a poster with 100 things on it...100 different, 100 the same, 100 whatever. McKinley and I made a huge 100 and filled it in with 10 groups of 10 foam shapes. It was fun. She had a great day and made this crown to go with all the excitement. Only 90 more days to go...it goes so fast!

Look what I made!

I'm still working on McKinley's room. It's painted, it's arranged, but it needs decorating. Like the cute girl stuff on a shelf....pink towels for her bathroom...pictures on the wall. I feel like I have such a perfect picture in my mind that I just can't find the right stuff. But I found this idea online and ordered my blocks for my project. It was my kind of project...delivered in the mail, pre cut and ready to assemble. I had to pick out the scrapbook papers to go on the blocks and that was hard enough. I'm really excited about how they turned out. At least I now have 2 items for her shelf.

Check out www.iasign.com if you want ideas!

Cheerleader!

McKinley told us that she wanted to be a cheerleader for Evan's basketball team. She remembered a friend of hers cheering last year and was ready. We were a little hesitant with her personality, but we always let her try things out. We figured she would do great at practices and shrink like a violet on the court in front of 100's of strangers. But....we were wrong. This girl loves to yell and cheer on the court and sideline. She beamed, she jumped, she screamed. She's got spirit...yes she does!!

Kitchen Hardware

So after two years we finally got the hardware for our kitchen cabinets. I'm hoping it keeps the fingerprints off the wood! I love the new look and it was something easy that I could do to change things up around here...

Before:

After:

Our last day...

By our last day in Utah we were ready to come home, but still didn't want to say goodbye. We'd been gone for 17 days and wanted to go home and sleep and come right back!! But that is not to be right now...so, we said our goodbyes.

Goodbye to all our cousins...so many little girls for McKinley to play with...

And the last picture before we walked out the door...Nana and Grandad Smith. McKinley was too sad to be in the picture!!
A great big thank you to both our families! You took us in and fed us and housed us and loved us. We love you all!!

Snowboarding or Skiing??

This post is out of order because I forgot that I took these pictures with our old (and smaller) camera the day we went up to Brighton....

David and Austin decided that they were going to try out the sport of snowboarding. Since I knew that the new sport would slow them down a bit I decided it would be a good day for me to ski. Also we were able to meet our friends the Volks and the Mismashes from Maryland out there too, so I would have people to hang out with.

The morning started out well with getting our lift tickets and skis/snowboards. Then the fun began. David and Austin (and I) headed over to the bunny hill to see how things worked. I was amazed at how easily skiing came back to me. Kind of like riding a bike I guess. I haven't been in 5 years, but I was still at my lovely green run level!! And I was (and still am) happy with that!

Snowboarding for the boys was another matter. They had about 30 minutes before their lesson, so they tried to figure it out on their own. No good. Bad. Worse.

There are no other sports that have ever given David (or Austin) trouble. They are usually naturals and can figure things out. But not snowboarding. It kicked (and bruised) their butt!!

Things did get better with the lesson. 2 hours of instruction greatly improved their one skill of using their heals to move around. But the falling continued for hours, and hours, and hours. I do think they had some fun mixed in there, but it was very frustrating for them and not a sport that David would like to talk much about.

It boiled down to one conclusion for us: Since we get so few chances to ski...ski, don't snowboard.

Maybe one day if we live near snow they will have time to fool around and pick it up. It's been said that the learning curve on a snowboard is pretty fast once you get the hang of it. It's just that we don't have enough time to waste on learning that when you could be out there skiing!!

My experience that day was great! I spent most of the day skiing with my good friend LeeAnn. She is my kind of skier...probably better than me, but content to stay on the blues and a few stray greens by accident all day. It was the best weather for skiing and we were never really cold. I wasn't sore the next day and I only fell once and it was with David on the last lift of the day when I got off. But I didn't dare compalin after seeing his sore black and blue butt the next day!!

I'll stick with skiing!