not afraid of heights...

My kids didn't inherit my fear of heights, for which I'm grateful ~ I think. Nathan has spent most of summer pushing himself a little more each time we go to the pool. I like that he goes out side his comfort zone. I try and do that, but I couldn't do this. He started on the diving boards last year and was quite confident jumping from the first platform earlier this summer. As summer progressed he made it to the second platform and last week he jumped from the highest one. He flailed his arms and legs like his life was depending on it, but he didn't scream (I would have, not that I would have ever made it up the ladder). What made it even cooler is three of the kids he goes to school with saw him jump and were super impressed.


Why is that while Monday was the last day the pool was open it was barely made 80 degrees and now that the pool is closed it's back up in the low 90's?

lost tooth

Andrew lost his third tooth! Actually more like he made it come out. He was eating nimonnims (M & M's for those of you who don't speak Andrewese) and must have felt a pop. He checked and there was a little blood around his tooth. I'm pretty sure it wasn't ready to come out yet, but he spent the next two hours pushing it back and forth with his finger until he made it come out. He really wanted the tooth fairy to come.

City of Rocks

Remember last year on this post when I said I needed to get back to City of Rocks..

http://isteppedout.blogspot.com/2010/08/twin-falls.html

Well, we made it back there a couple weeks ago with my honey this time. The weather was ridiculously hot and we spent Saturday afternoon in the fifth wheel with the A/C on watching a movie but it was still fun. We timed the trip also to watch the Perseid's meteor shower that we usually view from Payson Lakes but the full moon illuminated the whole sky, almost to the point I could have read my book by moon light. I was still able to see five shooting stars the first night ~ one that was spectacular, but it would have been nice to see the twenty or so we usually see. With out the full moon it would be a great place to watch from and with the full moon... well it reminded me of when I'd go camping in Goblin Valley when the moon was full to play hide and seek in the dark (it was when I was in college). We had a very nice campfire the last night, but the kids opted on their own to go to bed instead of making smores. What's up with that?

Wear Lipstick

So somehow a marketing firm in New York found my blog (I'm still trying to figure that one out) and thought it was good (trying to figure that out too), and sent me some products to do a Back to School review on for the morning news. Really, wow! That was kinda out of the blue. Not really my style. But, I've never done anything like that before so it seemed fun and different.

I wasn't going to tell anyone but my husband so that I wouldn't be as nervous. If I didn't think people I knew where watching me (you're all asleep still at that time right?) I could just pretend I was only talking to the few people in the room and try and forget the big boxey thing with the lens. I finally broke down and told both sets of parents the night before, and my step mom gave me the best advice: "wear lipstick". I would have forgotten that too, even though I carry about five in my purse all time. So I showed up there dark and early this morning ~ the sun still wasn't up when I left their building. Put my lipstick on in the car and tried not to get nervous while waiting for breaking news to throw things off a bit. It went a lot different than I thought it was going to. The presentation order was different and they didn't have me go over the last product and they didn't want me to "read" from the script that was sent to me. It was supposed to be more like a conversation so I was trying hard to remember all the product talking points.

At least my teaching training helped a bit. I only said "umh" four times (yeah, I went back and counted), and I didn't do the dreaded "and umh" over and over. I guess it could have gone a lot worse. Anyway if you are interested... here's my television debut.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=16945095&nid=165

Andrew doing tricks

Andrew told me: Mom, come outside I want to show you something....

zucchini

What to do with all that zucchini... I love zucchini. Our whole family does. We make lots of grilled veggies and bread. Last year I found a great recipe for lemon zucchini cookies (I'll post it later) but I found a great new main dish we tried last night. Everyone at the table cleaned their plates and it was easy - bonus! It says the prep time is about 22 minutes, which was about right so it's quick too.

Rather than re-typing the whole thing, here is a link to the recipe:

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/greek-style-stuffed-zucchini-tomatoes-recipe-ghk0510

It could have used a bit more red pepper (our family likes spicy) and I doubled the garlic and it could have used even more of that as well., but still really good. I liked the flavor of the spices it had.

Starvation

I took the kids up camping this weekend with some friends and their boys. I used to go up there all the time when I was younger. Brought back lots of fun memories. Our friends had brought a canoe/kayak thing that we blew up and took turns (okay Roger had the most turns) paddling the kids around the bay and over to the rocks to cliff jump. Andrew was so proud of himself for being brave. He went off the highest rocks on the north side of the bay where as he says "the teenagers go". We also went crawdad hunting at night. That was a lot of fun to watch - I'm not touching those things -ugh. The kids thought it was great though.

Nathan doing a crazy jump.

Andrew jumping off the little rocks.

Crawdad hunting

getting ready to swim.