Arise, Mexican Food, and Cherry Hills weekend

This weekend was fun with a lot of things planned. The grand kids were having a sleepover at Mom and Dads house on Friday night. Mom had tickets to take them to see  "ARISE" the LDS youth extravaganza at Weber state on Friday night. They went to the Clinton fun days parade on Sat morning. 

    I was having lunch with my friends on Saturday for my birthday. We went and ate some good Mexican food at Bella's and their fried ice cream was D-delicious.   I went with my two friends, Deena and Lili. Lili she is such a sweet heart she is always so happy, she is the best!  She hates having her picture taken, but I got her to have one with me.

Mom and Dad was taking the kids to Cherry Hills to swim later in the day. Me and Brian came up later by the time we got there they were getting ready to close the pools so we hung out and watched for awhile. Braxton was really tired and said he would have no problem sleeping tonight.

 

We were craving a treat, we wanted to try the new Yogotogo in Kaysville, so we “had” to stop and try some yummy yogurt ice cream.

Multiple flavors of  soft served ice cream that changes daily with a big bar with toppings,  I had strawberries, pineapple, mint chocolate chips, snickers.  Braxton got piecrust,  cheesecake, Butterfinger,cookie dough, Kit Kat,   just to name a few. Brian had his own mixture with lots of chocolate syrup.  Than we stopped and watched the Clinton fireworks from Mom and Dads backyard… than we were on our way back home.  Today was actually a pretty hot day so when we discovered Kitty our cat looking like this  it didn't surprise us, you can find him in some pretty funny deflected positions.

                           

My blog will be changing

Hi everyone,

For the last few months I have been seriously thinking about doing something different with my blog. I will still post about what is going on with our family and keeping everyone updated with pictures and events, But at the same time I would like to begin posting things about other subjects it wont be all the time .....if you didn't know Braxton will be having his blog next year in 9th grade, he wanted to have one and is excited for seminary. So you may go there to see what is going on if you are interested, I have already put his blog link under my "Blog List" on the right side column.

I got kidnapped!!/Story #5

Its winding down to the last couple of weeks till my birthday.  This will probably be my last story, from my journal. I had  fun telling my stories from my past, I might not of interested everyone but it was just a thought of trying something different. This happened around my birthday in 1987 We were going to be moving from our Clinton house that summer that we had lived in for 17 years.

I was in the kitchen trying to get my mom to go somewhere so we could get out of the house, when my dad called from the living room "Oh Jackie" I knew that voice that somebody was here for me but I didn't hear the doorbell ring. I went walking in the living room and my friend Jill was standing next to the wall. The next thing I knew I had a bandanna over my eyes and my hands were tied. I was put into her car and they took me up to Fruit Heights where Jill's aunt lived, still blind-folded  and tied up for the whole ride.

 They had all got out and left me in the car. Than Jill came running out "Jackie why are you still sitting here?"  My thoughts were "Well nobody helped me to get out of the car." When I got to the house there was a bunch of people there, some of my friends were still coming later, but a lot of people I didn't know but they were Jills friends.   I was  blindfolded when they took me down some skinny small curly stairs into  the family room, when they untied me it was decorated with balloons, crepe paper, presents, and a big Happy Birthday sign. We had a barbecue out on the deck, and there was a lot of food.  When I opened my presents I got a lot of makeup and fingernail polish. Candy, notebooks, markers, and the best of all to me was some Goody banana clips all different colors, they were the coolest thing in the 80's for hair.  I had a white cake with pink trim and 3 roses, and white frosting. They were all gathered around the bar and sang.

We played the Embarrassing moments game, The bean game  where you say things you never did, and watched a movie on the satellite channel. We had talked about going to the 49th Street Galleria, or Lagoon but realized how late it was and everything would be closed soon. We went to 7-11 and got a bunch of pop, and candy, there was people coming and going the whole time, and doing different things. After midnight two people  were dared to go across the street, switch shirts and than come back . When we got in trouble with the neighbors, we were all scared and ran in the house to hide  we thought "oh no" a search warrant. But Jill was mostly scared what trouble she would be in with her Aunt when she found out. We all eventually fell asleep all over the furniture.  Alot of my friends went home early the next morning but I stayed with Jill to help clean up the house again and do the dishes. We spent time talking and had a bowl of Cocoa puffs, we both stayed till about noon when we left to go home. Me and Jill went and apologized to the upset neighbor and he was really cool and nice about it.  It was definitely a surprise birthday,  I felt so awkward in the middle of the night I got really sick and had to lay on the bathroom floor for at least an hour, Just the mixture of all the sweets and food.

Happy 4th of July

For the Holiday we went down to Provo to see the Stadium of Fire at BYU. We made it a mini-vacation and stayed at a motel after the fireworks. When we first got down there on Saturday we went to the Provo city day festival, later on we checked into the motel. Everybody liked Mom and Dad's room, and wanted to sleep in it, it was luxurious. Me and Brian didn't care either way we had the less pretty room.  We made a special effort to eat at the In-N-Out burger for  the first time in Utah and for some of us the first time at all. We did a little bit of shopping too AND trying things on. 

Red White and Blue very patriotic Braxton and McKenna

   

We had adventures along the whole trip but the very best part was when we couldn't find our chairs, we had set them up earlier in the day so when we came back later with the Tahoe we didn't realize how far away we were and we walked and walked looking for them. It felt like we had walked the whole city of Provo, OK maybe not but it felt like 10 miles round trip. Brian was sick back at the motel so he wasn't with us. We watched the fireworks as we were walking still to find our chairs. When we finally found them at the Marriott Center the fireworks just got over. We would of loved to have sat in them Oh we promise you that!

  We also had stopped along the street as we were walking and watched Carrie Underwood perform up on the screen at the stadium.  We saw Carrie if anybody asks us, because yes we did!!  We stopped at the Hoogle Zoo for the 4th and saw  Zuri the new baby elephant almost a year old now, she was so cute! She would get a drink of water and half of the water would run out of her mouth.  We were all pretty tired of walking by the end of our 2 days,  I am glad that my parents were able to go with me.   I didn't think I was going to be able to go at first.  I appreciate, and I am lucky to still have parents that are willingly to go places and still do things with me. We also appreciated McKenna for going,  it gives Braxton someone to hang out with.  She has done so many things with us as a family, Braxton and McKenna have always been best friends as well as cousins.


The best part was being able to swim in the pool at the motel, that water was really cold,  it wasn't bad after you got in, but right at first it was BURR COLD!!

Disneyland trip/story #4

I am going to tell about another one of the journal entries that I wrote about, it was when my family went on our very first trip to Disneyland. It was also around my 12th birthday when it was the time that we went. The reason for the trip was because Brett was on a All-star soccer team and they were playing in San Diego.

Early in the morning on Tuesday July 20, 1982 Grandma Bingham called and wanted to  know if we were ready to go, she said they had the camper on the back of the truck and everything in it. My Grandpa and Grandma and uncle Kevin were coming with us . My mom said that we hadnt sold our car yet so we couldnt get the money to go.  That morning we went to look for a car but couldnt find a good one so we went over to their house to talk to them to see what we could do. They offered to give us the money that we needed (six hundred dollars) to go. We went home and loaded up. Our stuff was already packed so we planned a meeting spot at 1:00 pm.  It was more like 3:00pm by the time that we got there. We realized that we had lost one of the sleeping bags off of the top of the car. So my dad and I went back to look for it.  We had borrowed some sleeping bags from the Wayments and they were nice enough to let us borrow them. We found it in the ditch a little ways from Skagg's which is a  drugstore like Walgreen's now where the meeting spot was.

 We drove till 7:00 that night where we stopped and ate and rested, we were still in Utah at this point.  We kept going till it was really late at night and we were all tired, we stopped at a KOA in Cedar City. The next morning we left between 5-6am. It was nice for us kids, we had the seats laid down in the station wagon so we had a nice bed to lay out and sleep and eat candy and fruit and drank lots of water. We played alot of games too!  

When we got to California we camped in a little campground right next to Disneyland. We got there about 6:00pm. Me and my whole family walked down the street to find a store but stopped at a hotel, we took some ice and I put some of it in a pocket on my shirt and let it melt because it was so hot. The next morning we went into Disneyland, I rode the Matterhorn, the submarines, the safari boat, and the World of Tron, the Monorail and a bunch of other rides.   My Grandma and Grandpa Bingham were really tired and they had left early to go back to the campground,  but we had stayed till about 9:00pm and saw a little bit of the Disneyland parade.  We  went back to have cake and ice cream and watch the fireworks from the campground. When me,  my mom, and Grandma  were all in the campground bathrooms getting showered and ready for bed the fireworks started going off, they scared us half to death when we heard the first boom, they were right over us and they were big! They made all three of us jump out of our skins! My poor Grandma just about had a heart attack.  On Saturday and Sunday the 24th and 25th was when  Brett had his soccer games.  They had lost 2 games, won the third game and lost the last game.  That was a very special birthday to me, I never would of thought I would be celebrating my birthday in Disneyland in a lifetime!!!!

Daddy Daughter Date/Story #3

Since it is Father's day tomorrow,  I thought that it would be appropriate to tell this next story.  I found my journal that I had written alot of little entries about.  I found one about my Daddy Daughter date, I was 11 yrs old,   it is a activity that the LDS church does for the youth at that age .    So I was  excited that I had something written down that I can share about my dad. It was on Jan 31,1981 and the date was fun. I got to wear Brett's cowboy shirt because it was a Wild West party. I  wore some pants and boots and a side piggy tail.  I had to give a talk and we had to introduce each other I said "This is my dad Malin." We had for dinner sloppy joes, vegetable sticks, jello, homemade Root beer and ice cream sandwiches. We played some games, they were Peanut catch wagon races, and we had to bring our Baby pictures which my friend Bridgette  and her dad won Sugar Daddies. We played Wanted Posters which mine said "Malin Johanson dish washer is a  wishy washer " Because he worked at Hobart.  We also played darts and I got one all by myself with my eyes closed. There was square dance music and at the end  there was a box with a bunch of flowers in it and I got a yellow one which is my favorite color to take home.  I just want to wish my Dad a Happy Father's Day, I appreciate and love him very much.

Lost Pictures/Story #2

  I met my friend Brandi when I was working at Hardee's, we worked the morning shift together alot and she was a supervisor, and thats how we became friends.  Some of my high school friends were working at Hardee's as supervisors as well and thats how they pulled the strings and I got an interview.   I really took to her and felt so bad for her and the hard life she had.  She talked so highly of one of her friends Kyle and how much he meant to her. When Kyle got home from his mission in Sept of 1993, because we were both friends with Brandi, the three of us hung out together.
 Brandi was getting married to Jeff on Oct 31,1993 and it was a very small ceremony.  We had went to go get our pictures taken as couples at the JcPenney in the Ogden City Mall that exact day they got married.   I will never forget on Nov 4, 1993 me and Kyle had a misunderstanding and we were no longer friends, It was the saddest time of my life.    Me and Brandi  were supposed to go get our pictures about 2 weeks later. We both went back to the mall  to pay and select the ones we wanted   but only half of the pictures was there. It was like my friendship with Kyle had broken,  so the pictures were lost. The lady at the studio had no history of  any pictures of Kyle and I together. We asked her to double check and she said there was no negatives, nothing!!!!!  I gladly accepted and paid for what pictures I could get of my friends. It was indeed a mystery to me at that time.

Exploding Biscuits/Story #1

I thought I would try and do something a little fun for a month  up until my birthday which is next month,  I would try and tell a different story once a week about things that really happened  in my past. I didn't want to offend anyone or make me a target for teasing. But just to have some fun.

When I was in high school my family  had moved from the house that we lived in for 17 years in Clinton.  While we were in the process of waiting to move into a rental home in Clearfied we lived with my Aunt Connie for a brief time.  One night for dinner while we were living with Connie my mom was going to make little personal pizzas out of Pillsbury biscuit dough. She needed to go to the store and get everything to make them and so I went with her. We must of been in a hurry or it was late in the evening because we didn't grab a cart. We just grabbed all of the items that we needed for the meal and carried them all over the store in our arms. I mean between the both of us we could handle it right?
Well that's we thought, but the longer we stayed in the store the cold biscuit cans started  to warm up to our bodies. The more that we tried carrying everything in our arms the harder it became because one of us dropped a can and guess what those Pillsbury cans are great for doing?   POP and those biscuits exploded all over the floor.  We were trying to clean up the dough mess up off of the floor, when another can hit the floor. POP  those biscuits exploded all over the floor. Trying to clean that mess up another one did the same.  By this time me and my mom are just laughing uncontrollably,  we looked like we were crying we had tears just a streaming down our faces.  Somehow we managed to finish  and got thru the check out and  home.  But I know we were both still laughing with still some tears  as we re-told the story to everyone and days later each time we re-told it I know I did.

Nicholas and Visiting with Family

Tyler and Tiffany came out for a visit they arrived over Memorial Day weekend. It was our very first time to meet Nicholas on Sunday! We had a barbecue with everyone even Grandma Bingham.

Saturday morning (yesterday) we had family pictures taken and I cant wait to see how they turn out. Tyler and Tiffany had planned  a barbecue later that day with their friends and family at Barnes park. It was really nice and relaxing and we went for a walk and watched the ducks.  We enjoyed Nicholas so much with his happy personality and his excited laugh. He entertained everyone and made us all laugh. It really was a nice week and we enjoyed spending time with them.

 

I Got My Answer, and the Latest

Like all of us I woke up for the second time this week at 3:00am thinking about certain things. It is pretty useless to try to go back to sleep because I know I wont so I always grab the good ole laptop. In this case this morning I am going to write some of those feelings out. I was thinking that I am going to call these feelings "stuff " a part of me wants to write so much more about this "stuff" on the blog but I am not quite there yet. I was always made to feel a certain way growing up like by keeping quiet was exercising self control. On the other hand I feel differently I feel that you should express your feelings. That is my personal war that I am in, but my side is finally winning now! OK getting on with my point I think it was really funny because somehow I came across exactly what I needed to hear and it helped me with my answer to my personal war. I was pulling up a blog entry done by someone that I don't even know and it was also about her concern of expressing her feelings at ALL times too. (with respect of course) She wrote how her husband had identified it as a sign to her problem when a certain song on the radio came on in the car. Her husband was with her and helped her to understand that it is ok To say what you need to say. Life is to short to leave things unsaid or unwritten. It is very important to express your feelings because that is who you are, and for exercising self control can only lead you to emotional destruction. It truly can I have experienced that.

The latest with me;  I was asked to take on a new responsibility at work. We have a new process starting with NYK that I will be the rep over, I will handle all the paperwork and be the contact person with all the NYK managers. It is still in the beginning process, and someone from our building has to visit the six NYK states to train them this process.  It will get time consuming at times so another girl in my office is going to help me with my old job so I wont be overwhelmed.

For the past week I have felt such a good feeling that everything is going to be OK I was a little concerned about this new responsibility at work , but I have felt so calm. I get the feeling that another job opportunity is around the corner and to leave Icon would be pure joy. I am proud of myself for a lot of things in my life, I had my yearly checkup this week and the Dr stated I was healthy and for me to keep up the good work. Even though I feel sometimes from others because of my weight that I am not. Well from time to time out of the clear BLUE sky I probably will express myself and even though it may not interest everyone I will be the one to gain from this I am sure.

EGGS

For Easter I thought it would be fun to try something different and make Monster Eggs. Braxton liked both but he preferred the Glitter ones. It was hard keeping the hair on the eggs, to me it wasn't really great glue ( but that's my personal opinion)but I had fun anyway oh and Braxton too!!!

Braxton's haircut

Memaw always does a good job and takes Braxton somewhere to get his haircut. He doesn't like it really really short, so with her help she takes him to get it cut the way he likes it. Thanks Mom, and Memaw as always!!!

Flat Stanley

Braxton got a envelope in the mail today from his great Aunt Rheyma in Pa. for Leah, Stanley will go around with us to some fun places.

Bowling

We also went bowling for Brian's birthday. Brian is the best bowler in our family, he was on a bowling league a few years ago with Icon.

I got a picture of the scoreboard with all of our scores, it was pretty close to our ages. Take a guess to who scores are whose.

Brian's Birthday

For Brian's birthday we went and ate England style Fish N Chips at the Little Taste of Britain. We haven't ate there for awhile so Brian couldn't wait to get his hands on it and start eating.

Afterwards we stopped at the brand new 1960's Iceberg diner for a thick shake. Bubblegum and chocolate delicious!!!!

I decided to do something fun, and it's a way for all of us to get to know Brian a little better. I thought I would use a idea like some of the chain emails that I get sometimes from friends at work. I asked Brian some questions and these were his answers.

1. Where were you born? Easton, Pennsylvania

2. Where did you go to High School? Wiesbaden Germany General H.H. Arnold High School

3. Whats your favorite color? Blue/green

4. Whats your favorite food? Pizza

5. Whats your favorite drink? Pepsi

6. Where have you lived? Las Vegas, California, Utah, Pennsylvania, Japan, England, Germany, Florida, Saudi Arabia,

7. How many siblings do you have? One, a sister

8. Whats your favorite TV show? X-Files

9. Whats your favorite movie? The Green Mile

10. Whats your favorite sport? Football, Baseball,

11. Have you ever been married? Yes

12. How many kids do you? Three, Thomas, Matthew, and Braxton

13. Do you have a nickname? Yes, It's Fatman.

14. What was the first car you owned? 1971 Chevy Malibu

A new haircut

It was time for a new haircut. The Mild to Wild Salon is always great I love that place they do such a good job cutting your hair just right, I like a couple of the girls there they are so fun! Everyone was waiting for me in the car because I just popped in at the last minute, I freaked Braxton and Brian out they had no idea who was trying to open the car door, Taia started barking at me like I was a stranger. That's pretty bad in a good way I guess it was very funny.

"Acting" like Marie

This is for my nieces, and for any poor victims that might choose to read this, yes I am a goof-ball and so is Marie, that's why I like her so much and her dolls. This was just done in fun, I hope  this might make you laugh just a little if not thats okay I had fun doing this.
Marie walks out onto the stage and yells " HELLO! Welcome to the Flamingo here in Las Vegas for the Donny & Marie Show!" (Marie laughs)
"It's good to see you all here! How are you? Well I will tell you all a secret, promise not to tell"

"Well our producer came and knocked on my dressing room door about a hour ago and told me he couldn't find Donny!!

"I thought Oh that's typical Donny knows that drives me crazy so I looked in his usual places"

"YEP HE REALLY IS GONE!"

" I guess we will have to call it the MO show from now on. You know "MARIE'S OWN SHOW"

(Marie laughs) "Did we ever tell you why me and Donny chose the Flamingo Casino to do our shows here. It's because Flamingo's flock in herds of hundreds much like the Osmonds." (she pauses the audience laughs)

(She laughs and cackles) Here's the song that you helped make #1 when I was just 12 years old, that was just last year by the way, (Marie sings Paper Roses) "I realize the way your eyes deceive me....."

" Well I think Donny sweated away from doing the show here at night and doing Dancing with the Stars, he's probably just a pool of sweat water somewhere. YOU THINK?? I better watch it I might be stepping on him. "

The audience starts to applaud and Donny starts to run out onto the stage. Donny yells "Hello everyone sorry I am late. I got caught up in some stuff, yah some personal stuff, (he lets out a sigh)" You know I feel great, I feel like I am twenty years younger, all the hard work doing Dancing with the Stars and the Vegas shows here has really toned me up."

Marie looks at the audience and says "I dont think he realizes that besides feeling good, he LOOKS twenty years old again, we might be signed on again to do The Original Donny and Marie TV show, we should be concerned. Here we go again!! Donny says " Oh Cute Marie, real cute!"

The End!!! (It was fun)