Arcadia Stake Pioneer Trek

Here is a link to a site with lots of Pioneer Treking Photos for our stake:

Arcadiastaketrek.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

thanks Cornwalls!

It's Flying By!

Can't believe it is TUESDAY already!

On Monday we played tennis yesterday after dinner. Fun! Very Sweaty!

Steven got to go to the Dodger game!

The rest of us watched it on the TV.

Still need to get the boys to clean up their PIONEER stuff!

Candice brought Tigger over so we could watch him for 2 weeks. Griffin is pleased. The cat is not.

Kylie, Griffin and Tanner went swimming on Monday.

Kylie - tennis lessons...she got 15 points!

Griffin - swimming

TODAY: (Tuesday)

Kylie - achievement days - she made a beautiful flower arrangement, went swimming and ate a hot dog!

Griffin - swimming lessons; his favorite stroke is Monkey/Airplane/Rocket

Steven - got to go to work at 9:00!

Christopher - went out to lunch with a "friend"

Oh, here is a picture of Q, Z & G doing one of the things they do best!

And here is a picture of ONE of the things I do best:

Now I've got to go and do other stuff!!

A Few Promised Pictures

Kylie told me that she really liked her hair when she say some waves in it. I told her, "I can help with that!" So I gave her a permanent!! Here she is with her regular, non-wavy hair: With the rollers in it!

All done, a little wavy!



from the back





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ON FATHER'S DAY

I made Kerry a homemade lemon meringue pie!

Here is the crust:

I got the recipe from Elizabeth - thanks. She also told me to roll the dough out between 2 pieces of wax paper. I had never heard that before. It worked like a dream.

Here we are with the lemon in it. This part came from Paula Dean.

And the Meringue

I think it took around an hour from start to finish.

It was VERY good!

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On Friday, June 26th, Kylie's friend, Lydia called and asked Kylie to go the beach. Griffin was so disheartened, he wanted to go to. So, all the "we" that was left at home picked up and went to the beach too. The "We" was: me, Griffin and Christopher! We met the Jensen's there. It was fun.

Look up close, Kylie is loaded with sand in her newly permed hair. So nice.

Kylie and Griffin

Christopher

You Don't Have To Push A Handcart, Leave Your Family Dear....Or Maybe You Do

The Arcadia Stake YM/YW sent the kids on a Pioneer Trek...
I sang that song (the title of this post), (page 218 in the children's songbook), several times to Zak and Quinn. I thought it funny, I don't know how funny they thought it was.
Here they are dressed for the part.


They come home tonight, Saturday. Hopefully they will have lots of stories to share. The trek is taking place at the Riley's farm in Apple Valley, just one of the many services they offer.

Summer - Day 12 Tues

I did laundry all day! Washing, hanging out (not the kind you do instead of dateing), folding...Kylie and Zak both pitched in a bit. Thanks.
Scouts for Z & Q
Kylie got to go to Olvera Street in LA. She had a great time! She gave a great report. Ate great Taquitos...I want some.
Kylie also got to spend the night at Lyida's!
My JW friends came to see me. That is always interesting.
No OFA
We did watch Superstars...if was funny...T.O. first one out!

I will try to get pictures in on other posts!

Summer - Day 11 Monday

Steven's first day of work!
Lots of laundry! It is getting less stiff
Oops, I forgot to write to Chase last night!
Good thing I wrote during the week!
Griffin is back to swimming lessons
Kylie 1st day of tennis lessons
Z & Q played more than 9000 Internet games!
3 more days until the TREK
Chicken Almondine for dinner
Glad it's summer because everyone is going to bed late!
Played 3 on 3 tennis - very funny and fun

Summer - Day 10 Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!
Thanks for baking
Thanks for playing
Thanks for all the sports talk
Thanks for all your working
Thanks for your Priesthood Power
Thanks for always CTR
Thanks for being YOU!

Summer - Day 9 Sat

Another Garage Sale!! Our last for awhile; draining, not fun, did I say stressful. I called for the Salvation Army to come and get all of the unsold items on Wednesday. We did make a little more than a Bennie, not bad.

Griffin knew that Steven was driving home today. When he woke up, he said - "Is Steven here yet, where is he?" Dad told him that Steven was on his way, but not here yet.

Later, Griffin said, "it's a good thing that Steven is one of our boys that know how to drive or he would just be crashing into people all the time!"

We will have Chicken Devon for dinner, yum.

Summer - Day 7 Fri

Hmm, where did Friday go??
Can't remember what we did. I don't think there was any OAF.

Kylie did play with Brianna.
Griffin did play with Cole.

I hung 4 loads of laundry out on the line. It takes 2 hours to dry. Not bad; just a bit rough.

Summer - Day 6 Thur

I had to ask Kylie, "what did we do yesterday?" She has a brilliant memory, this is what she remembered:

We went around to several tennis courts after dinner, but all were filled, we just came home. I remember enjoying the driving because I had the A/C going full blast, blowing right on me. I felt cool and comfortable.

So, sadly, no tennis OFA.

Because I ran several important errands, then busied myself with other household duties, sadly, Griffin watched TV a lot of the day...oops.

Our Dryer broke. We are now using a clothes line! It dried a big load of laundry faster than I thought yesterday. Today, I will time it...Its been 15 minutes so far.

We had yummy sloppy joes for dinner.

We watched the Dodgers win yesterday. Dad said he heard that "they" are sending Manny down to Rancho Cucamonga, a Minor League team, just to get his groove on. That is very close to where Dad works.

Steven only has one more day with........

(appropriate?)

Christopher is at LAKE POWELL! Fun for him!

**Editor's comment: the spacing may be weird. I have tried to fix it several times. I have accidentally erased pictures several times. Can't bear it anymore. We WILL like it the way it is!

Summer - Day 5

Apparently, a new grocery store opened up in Monrovia on this day. It's called Henry's. A friend, Tammy Harvey, invited me to go to the "event" with her. We were hoping to be one of the 1st 200 people there so we could get a free bag of groceries. No free groceries, but I did buy a few good groceries. It was a fun morning.

• Our BIG event, which I am counting as our OFA was dinner with the Harmon's at Tokyo Waco!! It was very delicious and fun. Sis. Harmon is Kylie's primary teacher. She wanted to take our whole family out for dinner! They love Tokyo Waco (who wouldn't), so we went there. They took Kylie's picture for her birthday celebration. It was all fun and we enjoyed visiting with the Harmon's! THANK YOU!
  

• Kylie went swimming over at the Jensen's. Griffin played with a friend, Cole (!). Z & Q played computer games and I am sure Zak gleaned all the info he could about sports on the computer.

• Dad was an expert witness in court! It took all day, but he said he enjoyed it. He may be called in another case to give his expertise again!
  

Do We Have A Motto?

I must say, I (we) loved Steven's choice of motto; Dominators! Very funny.

One day while we were going somewhere in the car, I believe it was to play tennis, Zak made a comment that we don't sit around, We Are Doers! I said, "Yea! That should be our family motto!"

That lead us to OFA.

Zak has told us about Professional Football OTA's.

Organized

Team

Activity

You can apparently only have so many during the off season.

We decided that we would have as many OFA's as possible this summer.

Organized

Family

Activity

I have tried to keep a list - I think I will also keep a running tab over on the right of the blog.

It seems Tennis is the thing we do most....and not just any ordinary tennis either.

My tennis teacher, Danny, taught my class how to use these large, Nerf like tennis balls. I thought the game would be dorky, but it is very fun. A different pace - you can really plan your shots. I highly recommend it. We always play at least 4 games with the large Nerf ball, then we play real tennis.

MOVIES WE NEED TO SEE:

Zak has never seen these movies - I think we should see them:

1. Cast Away

2. Saturday Night Fever

I just need to find them. If you know where we can rent (not blockbuster, see below) or borrow these, please let us know!

Happy to add on to the list.

Zak will also be completing his Driver's Ed on-line; thanks Christopher!

And YES, we will also be OVERCOMING THE ADVERSARY!

Things I'll Blog About Later

1. New Cole Family Motto

2. OTA vs OFA

Tales With Pictures...No Tails

Note from poster (not impostor): I had this idea for a catch-up (not ketchup) post, I got the pictures in ALL wrong; just enjoy them in whatever order you see them; then make a comment (not a comet).

Coming home in 1 1/2 weeks Still working on his Master's - diligently, right?

Not sure when he will come, but he WILL come

Where I am NOW getting my entertainment from:

Who I have fired for being WAY too expensive! I showed them!



Went to the beach in Oceanside with cousins! Enjoy that front tooth because you won't see it for much longer.

Daniel, Tanner, Kylie, Jenna, Griffin, Sophie at the beach

Building sandcastles at the beach

I really wanted a Lakers T-shirt; thought I could easily make one....3 hours later, here is my first effort. It was not easy, happily Griffin LOVES it! Makes me happy too.

Oh, and I have done laundry....of course; but not folded.

Lost that front tooth! His adult tooth is already coming in!

Sophie, Griffin, Jenna, Kylie at the Beach

Had fun with cousins; had some good meals and some not so good meals; had thunder, lightening and rain; finishing school; doing stuff.

Loosey Goosey

Griffin lost his second tooth during lunch today! The red circle is where you can see his tooth; if you look very carefully.

The blue arrow is pointing at the next tooth to fall out...if is VERY loose and cockeyed.

The tooth in his had used to be in the front, bottom. Yes there were tears. Then it came out; joy.

Zak's Sports Moment

Zak likes to try his new "Throwing the Basketball Through The Hoop While On The Trampoline" shot most days before he comes into the house from school.
Will he make it?




He has made it before, but not on camera. Sad.

**EDITOR'S NOTE: afer several tries this afternoon; Zak made the basket! He was happy


Ok, now, here is Zak jumping on the trampoline:

Scripture Study Monday....from Sunday

Yesterday, in church, there were 4 people that were asked to give their favorite Book of Mormon scripture. I enjoyed hearing their favorites; they were so different than mine. Here you go:

Cynthia Carlson: Alma 32:27
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than a desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

She said that she liked that you just must want it, to try; just a particle of faith - you don't have to start out with perfection.

Clemincia Ludwig: Mosiah 18:9

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—

This is the Young Women theme. She was baptised when she was 15 - this scripture is still very special to her. She also said that she has always been with non-member people, so she had to stand as a witness of God.

Eloise Wayment: Helaman 5:9

9 O remember, remember, my sons, the words which king Benjamin spake unto his people; yea, remember that there is no other way nor means whereby man can be saved, only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, who shall come; yea, remember that he cometh to redeem the world.

She likes the part where it says there is no other way; only through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Zachary Cole! Alma 41:10

10 Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness.

This was one of my seminary scripture mastery scriptures. I am sure you have heard all my thoughts many times about wickedness never was happiness. Zak learned the lesson well.

Bro Stiemle 1 Nephi 16:29 The scripture references the Liahona and in particular the spindles, how they work "according to the faith and diligence"...we can have the power over our destiny, it is up to us, our faith and diligence. Then he said how isn't it great that so long ago Heavenly Father was texting Lehi. ha ha

29 And there was also written upon them a new writing, which was plain to be read, which did give us understanding concerning the ways of the Lord; and it was written and changed from time to time, according to the faith and diligence which we gave unto it. And thus we see that by small means the Lord can bring about great things.

Tonight I read a new favorite:
2 Nephi 5: 27

27 And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness.

I just liked the thought. We can live in happiness; no matter what our circumstances. At the time Nephi wrote this, they were living in tents.

Chase, Chase, Chase

Go look at Chase's missionary blog - lots of pictures and a few videos.

Enjoy!