This is what happens every time we play "Real in Rio" from the motion picture Rio.

She has the moves like Jagger.

My moment in the sun

This year for the ward chilli cook off I decided I would bring chilli and cornbread instead of corbread and a dessert. I actaully thought about what would make good chillii and went to the store and bought the ingredients. The fact that I thought ahead and went to the stroe instead of just making due with what I had was quite the effort. I decided that the key to good chilli was sausege and velvetta cheese, those two would make a beautiful combination.  They had three tables set up "hot", "medium" and "mild" I turned to Benjamin and asked where I should put it, with a laugh he tells me mild. Unfortuently we got there just before it started and the mild table had the most entries, my pot was at very end. It was a great turnout with a lot of people and the best table decorations I have ever seen at the annual cook off.

There were were 5 categories:
Best mild chilli
Best medium chilli
Best hot chilli
Most unique chilli
Overall favorite

When they announced that my chilli won for  fan favorite I was so shocked and embarrisingingly excited. I shot out of my chair like a girl at a family reunion and danced my way to the announcer. I then asked for the mic to give a speech, yes thats what I said, I asked to make a speech....As soon as I did this I realized this wasnt a family reunion and what was I thinking. I then just said "I win." Yeah a real graceful winner. I would never catergorize myself as a good cook so this was so exciting, what added to my victory was that I didnt vote for myself neither did half my children. A true victory. peolpe afterward kept asking me which pot was mine so they could get a taste,  I had to suppress a laugh, like chilli  that good would have any left, hah. It was licked clean.

The next day I woke up to find the kids watching cartoons. I told them I had the most fantastic dream that I had won the ward chilli cook off , then I said oh wait, that was reality!! They asked how long I would keep talking about this and all I could say was, quite some time.

Sadly this gave me such a smile for like a week, what a happy diversion. One sweet boy from church came up to me with a pipe cleaner ring he had made me for winning the chilli cook off, how sweet is that! He must have known how excited I was by my dance  :)

40 Years of Wedded Bliss

For my parents 40th wedding anniversary we had them over for dinner, we celebrated their years together with a "home made game" called Nanpaperdy, based off the Jeopardy game (my sister in law Melissa did this for her birthday once and it was so much fun).

Each of their four kids made a category with questions and answers.

Hillary did "Take me to Ajo" a category about family vacations.

John did "Lemon-aid" a category about family cars

Lindsey did "mi casa es su casa" a category about family houses we lived in.

Lesley, I did "creature Feature" family pets.

We also had a potpourri category with random questions.

We had a ton of fun watching my parents battle it out for the best memory. It was close but mom pulled it out (in large part because dad missed the double jeopardy question, it was hard! They had to tell us the license plate number of a car they had over 10 years ago!How John remembered this is beyond me). Bella announced the winners and she said it best, "Papa did great and Nana did better."

Benjamin made little cake toppers for their lemon anniversary cake too funny.

We love you Mom and Dad, your example of love, forgiveness and especially laughter are all things we admire and look up to.

First Day

School has been underway a couple of weeks now and between piano lessons, swim team and pickups I am in the car for way too long. Glad school is here and grateful preschool has started, I like routine it helps me from becoming lazy. Parkin (4) and in his last year of preschool sniff sniff. Holman (6)is in 1st grade in a class with 10 boys and 19 girls, almost 2 to one people. Olivia(8) is in 3rd grade and is a great big sis to Holman. Bella (10) is in 5th grade and at middle school, yikes. It feels like fall is just around the corner, can't wait for football season.... just kidding.

Adrianna at nursery

Adrianna has turned the coveted age in the LDS church, she is 18 months. This means Benjamin and I can go to class without having to entertain her in hushed voices. Unfortunately she has been less than thrilled to be going to nursery. This picture was taken closer to 20 months. The girls and I occasionally watch a show called called toddlers and tiaras, it is a train wreck show, that makes you feel like you are doing a good job at being a parent because these moms can be a bit wack-a-do. Anyway we having taken to putting hot rollers in AJ's hair and she loves it, its really funny. So this is her all dolled up.

Swim Champs

This swim season was awesome. Our kids had both sets of cousins on their team, Benjamin's sister Melissa and my brother John. The kids loved knowing that despite having to wake up early on their summer vacation they at least knew they would be spending it with their cousins. We also had good friends of ours from the ward the Mendell family on the team, who were our adopted cousins. Their daughter Lyndsey and Holman plan on getting married, they talk often of their future and how they will name one of their children chocolate chip, true story. The two of them are too fun.

Holman did great. This was his first official swim team season. He managed to swim backstroke individually and for the medley relay. He also cut his breathing down to only 5 breaths in a 25 meter race. Great job H-Man!

Olivia did awesome perfecting her butterfly stroke. Her underwater stream line is picture perfect. She rocked the finals winning herself the County Champ in her age division. She loved being on a relay with her cousins Madison, Bridgett and Kate.

Bella was awarded the coaches award for her "outstanding attitude and work ethic." The coaches said she was relentless in trying to perfect her individual medley race. She walked away with a 3rd place medal in the IM, a 3rd place medal in the medley relay, and missed 1st place in her favorite stoke the backstroke by .03 seconds. It was a photo finish. She did great

Swim team really helped to get the kids out of bed and do at least one thing productive a day. I will miss that for the reaming weeks of summer. I will also miss meeting, Robin, Melissa and Kim at the park as we entertain our kids who are too young to participate.

Oh I almost forgot at the championship meet there was a parents relay. I had so much fun racing, mostly because it was so dang hot and any excuse to get in the pool! Next year Benjamin wants a parents competition to see who "qualifies" for the race, hey man I am up for that!

The last of the land

For something that has consumed my family for several years (which has felt like a decade), I must record how we were able to sell the land and the incredible timing of it. Benjamin and I have been working so hard on eliminating our massive amount of debt, none of which is credit card debt, it has felt very consuming, pinching pennies with our number one goal of paying off the land. We had set a very aggressive plan of paying off the land. I was at peace with knowing that there was nothing more we could do, I had "run " the numbers so many times I had it memorized. With this new acceptance I had decided I would make a chain representing each payment to Flagstar until we had the debt paid in full. My sister in law Sarah had reminded me of how I made a chain for Benjamin's last semester in college. I made a link for every day until he graduated. Bella was 3 at the time so when he would come home from school he would lift her up and she would snip a link. I made our "freedom from Flagstar Bank" chain last month.

I talked to my other sister-in-law Robin, who is a Realtor, about the trends in the market and when she thought it would bounce back, like others in her field she said, vacant land is just not selling right now, but usually spring and summer is when most buyers are out looking.

I talked with Benjamin after looking things over and even with our aggressive payment schedule, How long would it take for it to sell? How long (if ever) would we come out even? If we sold it at a loss now it would save us interest even if we could sell it later down the road, hoping to get out from under. The difference was a whopping 6 months of "hoping for a bird in the bush." We decide that taking the smaller bird in the hand would be the wisest course of action. And because we had been paying so aggressively this last year it was going to be a lesser blow.

I told Benjamin of my new plan and asked him what he thought. He said it made sense and that we should pray about it. The following Sunday was a fast Sunday. Which for our church means we skip two meals (typically breakfast and lunch), donate the money we would have used for food to the poor and needy and offer our will to Heavenly Father. It is a time of prayer and meditation. We were, in particular, praying for guidance on what to do with our property. That night Benjamin said he thought we should go ahead and list the land at a loss. He thought we should call our old neighbors who wanted to buy our property for that price years earlier (years earlier wouldn't have worked because we owed too much).

The next day was Monday, I was leaving for Girls Camp, a camp that our church puts on for 12-18 year old girls. Throughout the day I was really feeling the urgency to put a sign on the property. I had called my friend Amber who lives out there to tell her about the new reduced price and how I wanted to get a sign out there. She suggested we should because there was a home that was getting foreclosed on and so there was a lot of traffic of people checking to see the area.

That night at 7:30 pm we drove out to Mescal, put up a sign and hoped for the best. I went to girls camp the next day and I got a call three days later from Benjamin saying that the neighbor wanted to buy the property. I can't help thinking that since the sign was up he knew this price wasn't just for him, and it lit a fire of urgency for him too. In fact I got a phone call from another person interested in the land, all without an internet listing.

The week that we closed, that foreclosed home sold as well, it went for the same price as our land with one less acre and a home on it!

Not the ideal ending, but it rarely is. Our unofficial girls camp motto was " Life is all about how you handle plan B." That could be our motto over this experience too.