Summer time fun with the Christenson kids

Doug and Sherri went to Doug's youngest brother Ed's wedding in Atlanta Georgia and I had the privilege of watching their kids for a few days. It was a lot of fun!

Carlie was the life of the party. She was always making me laugh. She wanted to know if her parents were on an airplane or a hawk. She always calls me "Soupie". Hugs and kisses are always free from her.
Mackenzie modeled her school clothes for me. She is such a great helper. She was willing to help me with anything and I didn't have to ask.
Luke came in early one morning and jumped in bed with Kenzie and me to snuggle. It was nice.
Austin is the official garden monitor. He checks it everyday without fail. He showed me how he can master the rubics cube. He is one smart young man.
We spent one afternoon with the Green's. We got some food from Wendy's and went to a Park. The ice cream truck came while we were there. It brought back good memories of years ago in Plain City. Whenever the boys heard the musical sound coming down the road, they would dash into the house to look for coins so they could run out and get their treasure. Korgan and Rylan are enjoying their ice cream bars.
Pretty Ayva wanting to walk on the picnic table. Mackenzie took her for a ride in the stroller around the park.
Luke enjoying his ice cream bar.
Austin building sand castles at the park.
Good times with the girlie girls.

Thanks for the fun time everyone. You guys are awesome! xoxoxox

Good times in Pokey

Remodeling our bathroom gives us an excuse to go to Pokey. It was nice to visit with everyone and hit some early morning yard sales.


We had fun going out to eat with all of the family in Pokey.

                                                                                                                                                                           Gracie liked swimming in her little pool. It cooled her down after a hot day.

  

She had a nice warm bath after her swim.

Gracie likes to jabber on the phone. Thanks for entertaining us Grace!

Happy Fathers day on July 29th

We decided to get an extra special Father's day gift this year for dad. We picked something that could be used by all of us. I had Tarl help me pick out a 50 inch plazma TV online. I didn't get it ordered until June 17th, but I figured it would be worth the wait, or would it???????? ?
Well, because of the size, it took longer than I thought for a free rush order. It was suppose to come on the 27th of June. We waited for three days to hear from them. Finally I called the shipping place to see what was going on. What was going on was a robbery! It had made it all the way to Burley and then someone had stolen it. They suspected a worker there and did a search warrant at his home, but nothing was found.

So, we had to make a claim and ordered another one. Well, it takes time to go through the claim process. Eventually it was shipped and we waited for the arrival of the second TV. On June18th, a month later it finally arrives. I decided not to open it and give the opportunity to Dad since it was his Father's day gift. He gets home from work and sees the big package and is very happy. He pulled the 80 lb. TV out of the box and laid it on the couch to take a look. All of a sudden he says "ah oh." At this point I am not amused. Deep down I am hoping he is kdding me, but I knew it was true. There are two layers of glass, and the second layer had cracks in it. The biggest crack was probably 18 inches long.
Apparently Someone had dropped the corner of the box. We are pretty mad and bummed at this point.

When I called New Egg to tell them about the damage, we decided not to re-order. This really bummed the boys. So, after a couple of days of being angry, I called up customer service and asked to speak to someone higher up. They transferred me to Ashley, the Lead in Escalations. She was nice and listened to my story. She asked what I wanted them to do. I said that the $50.00 they offered previous just didn't seem like enough. So she gave us $100.00 off the TV and the price had went down $50.00 since the last time we ordered. Also, we get $70.00 off of our next purchase. I guess waiting all this time paid off. The boys wanted it bad enough that they offered to chip in. Cherie from the shipping company AIT called me and said that she was going to track every move of this package for us and to make sure that we received it at soon as possible. She called the day it was shipped from the warehouse and followed its every move. She knew we had went through a lot and she wanted to please us no matter what it took. On the 29th of July we receive a phone call from her saying that our TV had arrived in Burley and they would be delivering it to us that day sometime between 1:00 and 4:00 that afternoon. I made sure that I didn't go anywhere because they were suppose to call me when they left Burley. At 3:30 I figured they weren't coming. I called them and sure enough, they were not planning on delivering until the next day. I called Cherie because she wanted me to call her when it arrived and to let her know that everything was okay. She was fuming. I told her that one more day would be fine, but she wouldn't accept it. She told me she would get back with me. A few minutes later she said that I would be getting the TV from a privately owned company and that AIT had fired Dats. She had called the Vice President of the Northern division and they decided to quit using Dats anymore. As soon as their company's packages would reach SLC, they would contract out to them. This will make them lose a lot of business. I felt kind of bad about that, but it was out of my hands. Truthfully they were not professional at all, so I guess that is what they get.

Well, at 9:25 that evening, our TV arrived in a minivan. The couple had come from Idaho Falls just to bring it to us that night. They were really friendly. Needless to say, we opened it with them there, and guess what? No cracks or anything. Yeah!


Isn't it pretty? The thing we like about it is the sleek front glass. Now, let's just hope we don't drop it! I guess it was worth the month and a half wait. So, let's have a movie night sometime soon. We'll wait for you. We are good at waiting. And remember, three time's a charm!

A big "Happy Birthday" to Grandma Barrett

            JoAnn, Barbara, Terry, Karen, Lynda, Royce, Marva, Dad

                                    and Grandma and Grandpa

Grandma Barrett turned 90 on July 19th.

 

9 of her children were able to come to the 

 

birthday party. Byron wasn't in the picture

 

because he had to work. He visited on her 

 

birthday and the party was on Monday. 

 

Bridger and Dylan snuck away from work

 

to visit and have a fast lunch. 

It was fun to be able to visit with different

 

family members. I was especially excited to 

 

renew our friendship with Curtis and Marja. 

 

She is a blogger and we will be able to stay in

 

touch better now. Cute kids! Grandpa Barrett

 

will turn 94 on Oct. 4th. That is crazy. 

It's a Girl!

Yes, it is true! Our family is going to have another addition to our family in November. Her name will be Brylee. It is hard for me to believe that we will actually have more granddaughters than grandsons. Congratulations to Braden and Suzi! We can't wait.

Our Harry Potter Adventure

Tarl invited our family to come to Layton and go and see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The plan was to get reserved seats at the Cinema in Ogden for the 10:15 showing on Saturday night. That way we could make sure the boys could work all day and still make it. Lucky me, I was able to stay at their home and tend Ayva! We were surprised to see that she can stand by herself now. She will be taking steps pretty soon. Much to Tarl's surprise, he found out that the tickets he bought were for Thursday. Oops! What a bummer. He had to go and beg the manager for a refund and they would only let him get back half. Kog had a hard time staying awake but I think they all had fun. Tanner and Bailey came too. Then back to Malta the next morning in time for church. Thanks Tarl for inviting us! 

Our campout at Lake Independence!

We decided for the Fourth of July that we would go camping with Braden and Deryk's family. They chose Lake Independence for the place. So after a bit of planning for food assignments we were ready. Our family was the last to get there. They all arrived on Thursday looking like a bunch of rednecks. It was amazing how much stuff they had loaded in Braden's truck. This place has very bumpy and rocky roads so you don't want to go in a car. They all went up to the lakes on Friday morning. It is quite a hike but very beautiful and worth it so they say. I have yet to hike it. We arrived Friday afternoon. The weather was funny. Hot for awhile, then a downpour of rain and then on Saturday we had a downpour of hail. They were pretty big and it was very fun to sit and watch the storm. Then it stopped and was sunny again. Saturday everyone but me and Deryk's family went back up to the lakes. Of course I am going to stay where Gracie is. :) She is a good camping partner and for the most part a happy camper! That evening Deryk, Braden, and Bridger went on a motorcycle ride. Deryk came back first because he was on dad's bike. I asked Suzi when they were gone if she ever worries about Braden when he is out riding and she said no. When they got back Suzi ran up to where they were to maybe get a short ride. They were taking a long time and then Bug came down to where we were and went and got something out of Braden's tent. That is when I figured out that someone must have gotten hurt and so that left Braden. I was right. He hurt his shoulder and arm pretty good and had a pretty good scrape. He is slowly recovering and didn't have to miss any work thanks to Deryk I would guess. :) Other than Braden getting hurt, it was a fun campout. I will always have fun as long as I get to spend it with my family. I am not very good at dutch oven cooking, so luckily Deryk helped me with that. I still need some more experience in that department. My favorite part of campouts are when they are over. jk My favorite part is when everyone sits around the camp fire and talks and eats smores and melted starburts. Good times. Oh and by the way, we were able to watch Malta's fireworks from up there. That was pretty cool.