Bronson's Big Day

I received a HUGE surprise 11 days ago when I received a text from Bronson at school telling me that he was going to ask a girl to Prom. A couple of hours later, he sent another text with the exclamation, "She said YES!" You can imagine how eager I was to ask Bronson who he was taking to Prom and how he'd asked her. It turns out that she likes to read, and he slipped her a book with a note inside. That was so Bronson! The girl's name is Rachel, and Bronson met her in Debate class.

We decided to buy Bronson his first suit instead of renting a tux. He and Del made a trip into Provo and found an awesome suit. We already had a tux shirt and ended up renting a vest and tie that matched Rachel's dress.

Bronson pulled another surprise on me by announcing that he offered our house as the meeting spot for the group day date! This is only the second time this year that he's invited anyone over to our house, and this is quite a milestone for his improvement in his social skills.

The day before Prom, Bronson drove Rachel home to see where she lived and to meet her parents. Rachel's dad ended up showing Bronson his firearm collection :) I guess that Rachel is the youngest of 5 girls, and their father has the tradition of showing all the girls' dates his guns! Luckily, Bronson thought it was funny.

Last Saturday afternoon, 5 couples showed up (all from the debate team) to hang out downstairs. They played pool, air hockey, and all sorts of video games. Judging from the sound level, they had a great time! After the girls went home to get in their dresses, two of the guys stayed here to get ready.

Doesn't Bronson look handsome? I don't have any pictures of Bronson and Rachel; we didn't see her again after she'd left to get ready, and it was all I could do to get Bronson to let me take these pictures :)

At 5 p.m. Bronson picked Rachel up for dinner and was reminded by Rachel's father that he keeps his guns fully loaded. After dinner, the kids participated in the promenade (Bronson wouldn't let us come), had pictures, then went back to the dance. When Prom was over, Bronson took Rachel to Sonic for some ice cream.

When Del asked Bronson the next morning if he'd kissed Rachel, Bronson said no. However, he did admit to holding her hand :)

Way to go, Bronson!

A Popular Guy

This past week has been rather busy as it was finals and graduation for CEU. There seemed to be banquets every night, and on the occasions I was able to attend it was fun to see Del interact with his co-workers and students. It was obvious that he has made a positive impact on those around him in his short time on the CEU campus.

My observation proved correct during the Honors Banquet held Friday night, where Del won a special award. The Student Association gives out two special awards each year: one to an outstanding professor, the other to an outstanding staff member. The students chose Del as the outstanding staff member this year! This is quite an accomplishment, especially since it is only his first year at this campus. Del was quite surprised and pleased to be singled out for this honor.

My Brother, My Friend

Sometimes I worry about the huge span of years between Mathison and our other children and whether or not he'll feel close to them as he grows older.

All of the kids are great with him. However, Mathison's relationship with Bronson and Krissia is definitely a vertical one (caretaker and dependant) rather than horizontal (equals). While this is nice for babysitting, it doesn't fill Mathison's desire to have a "friend" in the house.

That's where Jefferson comes in. I don't know whether it's because Jefferson's still young enough to still do some "true" playing, or if it's his personality, or both - but Mathison has definitely pegged him as his buddy. It's so cute to see Mathison follow his brother around, picking up and waving around one of the toys Jefferson is playing with and thinking he is part of the "game". And Jefferson is so good about it too; when Mathison interrupts one of his games and wants to "play", Jefferson will often simplify or change what he is doing so that his little brother can be included in the fun for a few minutes. I really appreciate Jefferson's efforts to pay attention his baby brother, and I know that Mathison feels special during these times.

Because everything seems to be better when you know you have a friend :)

We're Only a Flush Away

From disaster, that is.

In an earlier post, I described Mathison's fascination with toilets, especially flushing them.

Now, he's found an even better activity - throwing items in the toilet water.

A couple of days ago, I noticed that he'd begun tossing small pieces of toilet paper in the bowl. I didn't do anything about it at the time because I reasoned that he was just modeling our behavior and it might spark an interest in future toilet training. Besides, I thought it was kind of cute.

All that cuteness came to an abrupt halt today as I caught Mathison tossing a Tide-to-Go stain remover stick into the toilet right as I started to flush; I fished it out just before it went into the pipes. Later, it was a crayon and a brush that I found floating in the water. I'm just glad he hadn't tried to flush them down the drain.

And what is Mathison's attitude about his latest "discovery"?

My Right-Hand Gal

What does one do when they suddenly lose their right-hand man?

Or should I say, right-hand girl? Perhaps left-hand girl would be more appropriate, as the arm Krissia broke was her left one.

However one looks at it, the past few weeks have been tough - for me, that is. I knew I depended on Krissia to help out; I just didn't realize how much until she was out of commission for a while. Bronson and Jefferson tried to step up and help out; although I appreciate their efforts, it just wasn't quite the same.

We did receive some good news at Krissia's last checkup; the cast is off, the elbow is healing nicely, and she can slowly begin resuming her regular activities. Hopefully, the injury shouldn't affect her long term career in athletics, especially swimming.

As Krissia resumes her chores after her break (no pun intended), she is welcomed back by a very grateful mom who is a lot more appreciative of the huge help her daughter is around the house! And now that Bronson and Jefferson are in the habit of helping, I'm going to make sure that they continue to share the load :)

We'll Make it Worth Your While

We don't get many visitors our way. The city of Price is usually NOT a destination for most people; rather, it's a place you drive through on your way to somewhere else. We hope to change that perception - at least for our friends and family!


When Del's cousin Daren Gates announced that he and his family wanted to swing over our way for a couple of days this weekend, we decided to show them just how much fun we could offer.
Daren and his family - wife Crystelle, and children Gabrielle, Ashlyn, Parker, London, McCall - arrived Friday afternoon; after a tour of the house, Crystelle and I took the kids to Dino-mine park, where they had a great time playing tag, swinging, climbing, and just messing around.

Afterwards, we changed into our swimsuits and went to the Price City Wave Pool, which is open year-round. We had a blast riding the waves and trying our hand at body surfing. There was even a little bit of excitement as one of the lifeguards mistakenly thought that Ashlyn was drowning and shut off the waves :) It turned out that she was fine. Afterwards, we had a BBQ on our deck. To end the night, the adults ended up going to a late movie.

After a yummy breakfast of pancakes, bacon, hash browns, and eggs cooked by my wonderful husband the next morning, we drove down to Moab to visit Arches National Park. I'd never been there before; it's very rugged and beautiful. In some ways it reminds me of Zion National Park, only more arid. We enjoyed viewing the arch formations, and the kids loved scrambling around on the rocks.

After hiking a few trails, we drove into Moab and met Del's sister, Eva, and her family at the park for a picnic. Because Eva lives in Moab, she knows several places of interest and wanted to take us on a mini tour of the area. We drove to an area called "Wall Street" by the locals because of the 200 ft. cliffs looming right next to the road. These cliffs draw professional climbers from all over the world, and we saw several on their ropes as we drove by. There are a couple of areas of the wall with petrogliphs, and we stopped to see a section of them. The one we saw had a drawing of a bear, which is really rare.

Next, we stopped to see some dinosaur tracks before heading down to the Colorado River. The kids had fun skipping rocks in the water and wading near the shore.

We got home just in time to share some taco soup with the Gates family before they had to drive home. I think everyone was worn out at that point, but we'd all had a good time. Del and I even got to watch the 2nd half of the Jazz's 1st playoff game; they ended up winning, which created the perfect ending to our day.


So, as you are thinking about planning a cheap, fun, family adventure in the future..........consider coming to Price. We'll make it worth your while!