...all that and an Albino Turkey!

It all started a few months ago when we got the hare-brained idea of going to Hocking Hills for Thanksgiving. So we packed up the family and hit the road! We should have known we were in for a rip-roaring weekend when we stopped into Psychoville, Ohio, to make pit-stops and buy a bite to eat. This little town made Cleveland seem like paradise. It was just off the freeway, sort of in the country but the gag was on us when it was filled with some of the most wigged-out looking folks we'd ever seen. Must be the water. Anyway, we quickly returned to the car and Purell'ed everyone and drove the last leg to our cottage in the hills. Upon arriving, I thought it would be nice to make some cookies while Cam took the kids to explore the surrounding terrain. I set the oven temp to 375 and put the cookies in and then sat down to read my book. Not 10 minutes later, the smoke alarm was going off and charred, chocolated chunky cookies were coming out of the oven. Conviently, there was a thermometer in the oven which read well over 500 degrees! I reset the oven and retried again, only to meet the same fate. This is when Cam and the kids came in and I broke the horrific news that not only were the cookies burn beyond recognition, but I was cooking our only other food source, Dinty Moore which was on the boil! We did a quick calculation of pantry items and realized it would be a sad Thanksgiving without a turkey if we couldn't get the oven working properly. Throughout the rest of that day and into the evening, Cam fiddled with the oven hoping to unlock its secret. Around 8 pm, he decided it was holding steady at 325, so he put the bird in to cook for 3 1/2 hours. Midnight came and the bird was lukewarm!! So Cam decided to set his watch alarm for 1 hour increments to check the bird. We were not going down without a fight. At 3 am Cam threw the towel in and the turkey was put in the fridge due to its albino-like color and pink interior. The kids also had trouble acclimating to their new surroundings and were up at 5:30 am on Friday. Claire was adamant about staying in her PJ's all day including going on hikes! Whatever. We decided to give the turkey one last hurrah, it was going to be eaten...or burnt trying. We threw it in the oven and left and didn't look back. We hiked around some really cool places and came back to find a delicious, golden brown Thanksgiving turkey. We had a wonderful feast of turkey, potatoes, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, rolls, corn, cranberry sauce, cherry pie, etc. Don't forget the cherry 7 Up that was spilled about 15 times! Once we cleaned up we explored some more of Hocking Hills and came home and ate again. The kids watched Charlotte's Web and went to bed at 7:00 pm. Cam and I went to bed soon after...serenaded by the crazy fridge that made a recurring sound remenicent of the beginning of "Fur Elise" by Beethoven over, and over, and over again. Fun, Fun! Cam and I both awoke at around 2 am on our hide-a-bed mattress. We lit the gas fire to stay warm and waited for morning to rescue us from the faint wails of Brig occasionally, and the fridge and the furnace coming on and off, etc. Whew! We got up Saturday looking and feeling like we had survived a taffy pulling machine! We packed up and began the journey back to good ol' Cleveland. Home, sweet Home! P.S. It sounded horrible, but it really was an amazing trip. We would highly recommend Hocking Hills to anybody. Just leave your kids at home!

Beat the Blue!

Got up this morning and had to make sure that I let all who may be crazy enough to look at our blog know where this family stands on a day as important as this one is. So even though I am in Ohio today, I am still a Utah Man!!!!! Go Utes!

"Psycho" Saturday"s

We thought Saturdays would be calm and down right boring since soccer ended. Wrong!! Last Saturday was a clothes trip to too many stores-our poor little kids looked like orphans with what they had to wear. Why do they have to grow so fast(and why does Brig have to be so FAT! He doesn't fit in to Grant's church pants he wore at that age) little stinker. So last Saturday we started out at Toy's R Us to get a great deal on some costumes for NEXT year! Grant had no luck but Claire is set. We headed over to Target picked up a pair of pants for Claire(She only had 3 pairs and I do wash every 4 days, you do the math) We were then FORCED to go to the "W" store I can't even write the whole name it's a swear word as far as I am concerned. Here's my tangent-get a cup of hot choco and relax- So I had bought Cam a pair of pants there last week-the real reason I went was to get Claire some pants since Target didn't have any. Well I should have know that "W" wouldn't have any either. They were either funky jeans with too many designs all over them, pencil pants or the best were the ones for like 4 dollars that the crotch was so low it would be down to probably the kids knees-and ya wonder why those aren't selling don't ya? So on my way out I found some jeans for Cam for like 16 bucks! Wahoo, I thought even though I knew in the back of my mind I would be taking them back-follow your instincts. So here we are to last Saturday again. I stood in their STUPID customer "service" line for like 20 minutes-two women were behind the counter one was helping customers but the other was SO concerned about moving CRAP around the counter that she couldn't be bothered to help any of the 500 people in line! I finally made it out of there and what a relief to be done. It was about 11:00 and our crasins and pretzels were getting low. (luckily we still had our stash of Halloween candy) The real reason we had to take this adventure was to get Grant new church pants also-he had a serious case of floods! We decided to head out to the Aurora outlet mall about 40 minutes away. We did but on the way made a quick stop to Wendies for refueling ( I don't know why we by kids a meal from a resturant, we should just by 1 meal for the three of them instead of wasting all that food) We got our stuff-pants for Grant and Claire and a few shirts. By the time we were done it was around 3:00. Brig really had a hankering to go to the zoo so off we went-in the opposite direction of the outlets. We got there around 4 and had a great time, it was cool but there were hardly any people there. We made sure to see all the highlights the giraffes, zeebas (as Brig calls them) and the bears (polar, black,brown). As we were walking up to the Gorilla and aquarium place we were "briskly" told that the Zoo closed at 5 and it was 5:15. That ended that trip. It was a crazy day but we really had a good time. I am glad we did what we did because it was daylight savings that night. We wore our kids out so well that they slipped nicely into the time change!

Onto this weekend if you are still reading. So every Saturday Grant has really enjoyed the idea of Saturday morning cartoons. I don't know who enjoys them more the kids or Cam and I becuase we go back to bed for another hour.In our pic the kids are watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as you can tell they are freezing and completely enthralled in the show. Cam had the great idea of going to the beach! (Why not its a balmy 39 degrees outside) We bundled up-big time and headed out. The kids had a great time walking along the shore despite the STIFF constant wind. We couldn't be done with our day yet, we thought about going to Pattersons Fruit Farm for some fritters but we decided to go Lake Farm Park instead. It's like Wheeler farm. They were having dry land dog racing. Brig couldn't get enough of the dogs, he was just laughing as they licked his face and hands. We saw the other animal and decided to head home-did I mention it was COLD? I headed out to a baby shower and Cam took the munchkins shopping. The great thing about Giant Eagle where we shop is they have the Eagles Nest where 3 years and older can go play while parents shop(Brig could pass for 3 couldn't he?) But sure enough as Cam was shopping he hears Cameron Beck please come to the Eagles Nest in so many words they told him they had a dancing child who needed to let out some bodily fluid in the VERY near future or they would have a major accident on their hands. So Cam took Grant to the "potty" and went on shopping. That reminds me that we didn't have time to go shopping last Saturday so we went Monday. I don't know if people just had butter fingers or what but there were spills all over the store. Some poor girl dropped her pickle jar right as we were walking in (no she wasn't expecting) there will spills all over the store, to add to it we were on our way to check out and I tossed Cam's Diet Pepsi onto the bottom of the cart well we added to the mess, one of the cans exploded in the box I just started laughing so hard, all we could do is take it off the cart, put it on the floor and walk away. Those store janitors were sure to have an uphill battle that night! Enough of the ramblings-it's Sunday night the kids are asleep, and my AWESOME bed warmer that Cam's WONDERFUL parents gave us last year is on and ready for me to sleep warm tonight!! Until next time.....

Halloween Update

Just another one of our hodge podge, potpurri of pictures! Enjoy!

Here is our bunch of trick or treaters!

Claire's fashion taste takes a sophisticated twist....shinguards and heels.

Brig the friendly dragon.

Should Cam be worried about this sly young chap?

Claire is such a pill. She has absolutely no desire to be potty trained. I got the potty training book from the library. If only Claire could read, maybe she could toilet train herself. HELP!!!