I found something to say

I have nothing to say.

No  really. I have nothing planned to post here today.  So we'll see where my meandering thoughts take me.

Its just that I finally unwrapped my July issue of the Ensign and was reading through it today and there was an article on keeping journals.  Kinda hit home because I'm truly sucky at journal keeping.  Well, maybe not as sucky as some; I write in my journal sporadically.  I will be really good for a period of time, and then it all falls to pieces until I get the yen (read: guilt trip) to write again. 

I was super good at it when I was a kid. I started around 8 years old and wrote nearly every day.  And wrote just about the same thing every day.  I was still pretty good about it in junior high, except all my entries are dumb things about dumb boys, which makes 44 year old Lari really frustrated and annoyed with 12-15 year old Lari.  Things started to wane some in high school, even more so in college, and turned non existent when I got married, except for the aforementioned periods of feast preceding the famine. 

My blog would be an excellent journal, if I would just post in it.  But I get busy.  Or I forget.  Or (and seriously, this one is the biggest problem) I can't get my hands on a computer with all the other members of this household.  I refuse to attempt to blog on my phone.

So in the spirit of catching up, here goes:

Lane is finally, FINALLY on a day shift.  Its been such a long time coming.  Its been nice to have him home, mostly awake, and especially nice to have him coming to church with us every week.  And speaking of church, we are no longer Webelos leaders, but have been moved to 12-13 year old Sunday School teachers.  They boys are our former Webelos and we are really enjoying the class.  The kids actually participate rather than staring off into space or writing notes to friends like we did in youth  Sunday School.

On an unrelated note, I would like to apologize to all of my youth Sunday School teachers, one of whom is our current Stake President who walked out on us once for behaving so badly.  I'm grateful he signs my temple recommend in spite of that.

Why do summers always fly by so fast?  It hard to believe that July is nearly done and the kids are back to school around August 20.  Jack is finally done with the big FCCLA trip and all his scout camps, but now its time for Marching Band to really get going, so there is no let-up with him.  Plus we have to try to fit in the remainder of his driving hours so he can get his license close to his birthday.  Bad mom that I am, I refuse to spend any more time than is necessary chauffeuring him to all his stuff.  And naturally, as my luck would have it, now that Jack is at the high school, marching band has been moved back to the junior high because of construction at the high school.  Seriously, can you believe the timing?  So he will need almost daily chauffeuring to the junior high, plus he has early morning jazz band, his music lessons, and hopefully some sort of job that will fit in with all that.

Taylor is anxiously anticipating getting the heck outta here and back up to school. She is living off campus this year and is hoping to find a job in Logan, which means she is likely to come home even less than she did Freshman year, if that's possible.  She has changed her major from elementary education to secondary (English and deaf ed).  We've enjoyed having her home this summer, but I think she is not a huge fan of living at home again after the freedom of living away.

As for Lane and I, we are both just muddling through this parenting thing, trying not to do anything to really screw our kids up too much.  Some damage is done, we know that.   Jack is a butter snob.  I turned Taylor into a soda addict. And all 3 are under the impression that pancakes is a typical American "Sunday Dinner." 

Well, looky there.  I found something to say after all.

Don't go in July

 Another Strawberry Days parade.  Jack was with the marching band again, but this year he is in the percussion section (tenor drums) rather than the trombone.  He had such a blast with the drum line last winter, he decided to stay with it for marching band this year.  The drums weigh about 45 pounds, so it was rougher than carrying his trombone.

Taylor was off work and was able to join us for the parade.  We haven't seen too much of her this summer, and its hard to believe that in just a month she'll be going back to Logan.  :(




Jack and his friend Derek won the FCCLA state competition in Entrepreneurship (Junior Division) and earned themselves a trip to the FCCLA National Leadership Conference in San Antonio.  I went along for fun. 

Here's everything I knew about San Antonio before this trip:
1)  San Antonio is in Texas.
2)  It's hot there.
3) The Alamo is there.
4) It's hot there.


It was VERY hot there.  Although I really liked San Antonio, and I would totally go back, I wouldn't go again in July.  It was sooooo hot and humid.  Our last full day there wasn't so hot, and we did spend a lot of time inside the convention center, but still . . . . so hot.

Jack and Derek on the plane as we left from SLC.  We flew on Southwest.  I hate Southwest, only because they don't assign seats.  Seriously, in this age of technology, how hard is it to assign seats?  When I book my own flights, I rarely even bother to look at Southwest. I  would rather pay for my luggage than not have an assigned seat.  

Shortly after we arrived in San Antonio, we headed for dinner and the Alamo.  I really liked the Alamo, but it's much smaller than I had imagined.  It also looks really out of place just plopped down in the middle of a busy, modern city.  The line to get in was very long, probably because all the other FCCLA people (there were 7500 FCCLA people) all had the same idea.  Since we had to walk every where we went, we passed the Alamo many times, and I never again saw a line like there was when we went for the tour.

 We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, but the Conference didn't actually begin until Monday.  We spent part of Sunday at the Schlitterbahn just outside of San Antonio. I spent the day sitting in the shade while the boys had all the waterpark fun they could fit in.  Somehow even with sitting in the shade, I managed to get sunburned. I haven't figured out how that happened.

 We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe one day as part of one of our tours.  My opinion of theme restaurants remains unchanged: overpriced "meh" food, small portions, and mediocre service.

 Jack and Derek presented their STAR event on Tuesday morning.  This is right after they finished.  I attended a lot of the meetings with our group from PGJHS.  It made for very long days, but I'm glad I did.  I learned a lot about the FCCLA organization that I didn't know.  I even got to judge the Nutrition and Wellness event on Monday.  That was a great experience!

 We went to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and the Guiness Book of World Records Museum on Wednesday.  Here is Jack as the Fattest Man Ever.  (the lighting was terrible in both museums)

 Thursday morning was the Recognition Ceremony.  Jack and Derek were awarded a silver medal.

 Dinner Thursday was at the Rainforest Cafe  (sigh - theme restaurants).  Jack got so full . . . "food coma" full.

 The San Antonio Riverwalk

 Thursday night we finally had time to take the boat ride on the river that goes through town.  It was really fun and I was glad we were able to fit it in.  After the boat ride, we went back to the hotel and went to bed early; everyone was exhausted from such a busy week.

One last selfie at the Alamo on our walk back to the hotel.