Saturday: The Backyard Beach

We were up really early on Saturday monring.  Like 3:15 AM early.  Which, technically, was 7:15 Colorado time, but I figured with a long day of travel and a late night the night before, the kids would sleep in a bit.  Ah, well.  After listening to McKay sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and I'm Trying to be Like Jesus until about 6AM, we were up for the day.  The good news at least was that we were able to watch the sunrise over the ocean.  It required all of about 10 steps into the backyard to have a perfect view.  In a word:  breathtaking.  The photos will just never do it justice. 

The back side of our beach house

We spent the better part of the day Saturday playing on the beach in the backyard.  I had my first ever snorkeling experience with my cousin-in-law, Heather.  I seriously loved it.  I just wish I had an underwater camera.  Just trust me that it was awesome.  Until Heather got stung by a jellyfish on her hand.  Though she said it hurt like crazy, she was a total trooper and kept right on snorkeling! 

My Little Surfer Dude

Seriously, this kid LOVES the ocean

He's was a regular Tarzan on the rope swing, too.

He learned it from his Uncle Sean.

Or maybe his mother?



Yep, Ty was loving his life!

  Meanwhile, McKay spent a lot of time doing this:

He actually was enjoying the water until a big wave knocked him over.  Then he was done.



My father-in-law rented a kayak for the week, so Saturday afternoon was also spent taking turns rowing out in the ocean. 

Did I mention that Ty had a really great day?!

Uncle Spencer also helped some of the kids construct a huge sandcastle,

Which evolved into a volcano.  And no volcano would be complete without some diet coke and mentos, right?

We didn't think so, either.

The guys rounded out Saturday night doing some guy stuff.  6 brothers in 1 house = plenty of ping pong and arm wrestling. 

There was much debate in the family about what the caption for this photo should be.  In order to remain in my brother-in-law's good graces, I will not mention who won this particular arm wrestle.  Happy, Greg?



It was a red-letter day.  Absolutely perfect.  Almost, anyway.  I forgot to mention that Ty consumed approximately 40 vitamins on Saturday morning.  He asked me around 9AM if it was lunchtime yet, so I knew he was hungry, but was distracted doing something else and didn't get him a snack.  A few minutes later, he said to me, "I ate many, many vitamins."  Upon inspection, I found that he ate the entire bag of gummy vitamins that I had brought (2 vitamins a day per boy x 10 day supply).  There was a bit of panic on my part, but after Adam called a Kaiser RN and Michelle called a local pharmacy (who in turn called poison control), we were assured he would be fine.  Thank goodness there was no iron or flouride in those particular vitamins!  It didn't seem to bother him a bit.  Thank goodness. 

ALOOOH-HA!

Aloha from beautiful Hawaii! As I am typing this, I am gazing out at the crystal blue waters of the Pacific Ocean, just 40' away out the back door. It is incredible! The last four days have been among the most amazing of our entire lives. It will take me a very long time to get it all recorded, so I decided to start now, while McKay is napping and Adam and Ty are hiking. Yep, life is good!

These next several posts are going to be extremely photo-heavy, and for that I make no apologies. As this may likely become the only scrapbook we ever have for this vactation, I am going to load it down with the pictures!
Our vacation began with a 7-hour direct flight from Denver to Honolulu. The rest of the Marchants flew from SLC to Denver, and then all 29 (yes, you read that correctly) of us flew on the same flight to Hawaii. I have to say, the flight was far better than I anticipated it would be. There were a few rough patches, to be sure, but the kids did remarkably well for how lengthy the ride was.
In true Rosemary fashion, my awesome mother-in-law didn't go halfway on anything, and gave each family their own bright color of T-shirts to wear while we were traveling. Kind of fun.

Lei Greeting at Honolulu Airport

The Whole Group

As it turns out, the colored T-shirts were a life saver. We lost one of the Marchant brothers and his family after leaving the airport. He didn't have a cell phone on him and he didn't have the address of the place we were staying. The only information that he had was that we were planning on stopping at a Costco on the way to the beach house to pick up groceries. So he used his GPS to locate Costcos in the area, and he found us at the third one he stopped at, thanks to our bright shirts. Good thinking, Rosemary!

Arriving at our home in Paradise!

After a long day of traveling, the boys fell asleep in the car on the way to the rental house.  We brought them in and changed them into pajamas, and through the entire process, they did not crack open an eye.

Adam's cousin, Doug and his family, are on Oah'u this semester doing an internship at BYU-H.  We were happily SHOCKED to find out that they live literally two doors down from the house we are renting.  According to Google maps, it takes 24 seconds to travel to his house from ours.  Um, awesome!  What are the chances of that?!  We met up with them briefly on Friday night after all our kids were asleep.  Doug's cute wife, Heather, hand-made us all plumeria leis.  They were gorgeous and smelled like heaven!

Try to Remember

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

(Photo Courtesy of Beth G.)

When grass was green and grain was yellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When you were a tender and callow fellow,

(Photo Courtesy of Beth G.)

Try to remember and if you remember, then follow.  

Lessons Learned from "Hair CUTastrophe"

General Advice: If in your marriage, one spouse is a Utah fan, and the other spouse is a BYU fan, it is highly recommended for the former to specifically prohibit a haircut performed by the latter on the day of the Utah-BYU game :).

Just imagine what my head might have looked like had the haircut occurred after the game :). Go Utes!!

I told Meggin on Saturday that someday this would become a laughing matter, but that Saturday would not be that day. We're all good now. Love ya Meg! Here's to many more haircuts.

Hair CUTastrophe

At Adam's request, I gave all my guys a hair cut on Saturday night.  None of them really needed it too badly, but Adam thought it would be nice to have a fresh cut before the big trip this week.  But, alas, disaster struck in the Marchant home.  As I was just beginning Adam's cut, the guard fell off the clippers and I shaved a full-on bald spot in his head!  It was in a highly conspicuous place, too--direct center and about 2-3 inches back from his forehead.  I was dying!  Um, did I mention that we are having family portraits taken on the beach in Hawaii this weekend?!  Hair cut suspended, he spent some time in front of the mirror determining if he could do a comb-over to cover the spot.  Then I tried to see if an alternate hairstyle might be an effective method to use as cover-up this week.  It was a hopeless cause.  In the end, Adam just asked me to cut it really short, so I did.  It certainly looks better now that it's shorter, but it's still pretty bad.  Can I just say how really awful I feel about this?!  Notice how this happened two days ago, and I am just now writing about it?  It was traumatic for both of us.  The good news (if there is any good news in this situation) is that at 6'4", Adam is taller than most.  Looking up at him (as from my perspective), the bald spot is not too noticeable.  It's only when he sits down or bends over that it becomes obvious.  I have a feeling Adam may think twice before asking his Sweeny Todd-of-a-wife to cut his hair before a major event again.  Sorry, Ad.

Fort Marchant

This morning before he left for his church meetings, Adam helped the boys construct a "fort" in our living room.  Ty then took it upon himself to stock it with enough books and games to keep us entertained all morning long.  

Yep, my back was pretty stiff after sitting on the hardwood floor all morning, but there is something magical about being in a fort.  My older brother was a fort-building whiz when we were kids.  I hope my boys remember these times with as much fondness as I remember them from my own childhood.

Puddle Jumping

Our ward dutch oven cook-off activity was cut short tonight by a downpour.  Gratefully, my family was all finishing up when the rain started, so I didn't have to come home and make dinner.  Unfortunately, I was planning on hanging out and letting the kids run around and play up until bedtime.  On the sodden drive home, I asked, "Now what?"  I wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect of my wet children clamoring around our immaculate home (I cleaned ALL DAY LONG!).  So when we pulled up at home, we all slipped our shoes off and ran out to the street to find some awesome puddles!  

 (Please ignore the fact that I look like a crazy pregnant lady in this picture.  I can truthfully deny being pregnant, but I may less convincingly claim sanity.)

The boys' reactions?  McKay was not entirely sure why we were running up and down the gutter, kicking water everywhere.  Ty, on the other hand, thought it was a riot, and I agreed with him!  And in other good news, it kept us entertained long enough that after haircuts and showers, it was time for bed!

Spiritually Fed

We had our stake conference this weekend.  Wow.  I seriously feel the same at the end of this weekend as I do at the end of a General Conference weekend.  Our local leaders are so inspired.  I feel so blessed to be a part of the Parker Stake!
One thing that was extra special about this weekend was that I was able to sing in the stake choir.  I would probably have never volunteered to do this on my own, but with a gentle nudge from Adam, I found myself a a member of the choir.  Hey, if he was willing to bite the bullet and wrangle both kids alone during conference while I sat in the choir seats and actually got to listen, who was I to argue?  Besides, I had two good friends also joining the stake choir, so we were able to carpool together and even go out for ice cream after the adult session last night.  A win/win situation!
It's been years since I have sung in a choir, though.  Because we have small children, it is difficult/impossible for both Adam and I to sing in the ward choir.  Since he is so musically talented and enjoys it so much, it seems like a no-brainer for him to be our family's choir representative.
All that being said, I loved, loved, loved being part of the stake choir.  I feel that music is one of the things that invites the Spirit the most readily into my life, and I certainly felt the Spirit strongly at each of our rehearsals.  It was a blessing to attend.  As we sang Mack Wilburg's arrangement of "I believe in Christ" today, I was amazed at how palpable the Spirit was.  It was very difficult to get through.  I was literally shaking.  It was incredible to be a very tiny part of something so intensely powerful.
I am so grateful for this weekend.  I feel refreshed and ready to take on the world again.  I feel more in love with Adam, more happy to be a mother, and more ready to open my mouth and share the gospel.  I am thankful for the very specific spiritual impressions I have received.  I love stake conference!

Food Storage Extravaganza

Last Sunday, our awesome neighbor, Melodee, dropped off a 5-gallon bucket full of apples from her yard.  The next day, our neighbor, Sheila, came by with a bunch of peaches leftover from a basketball fundraiser her daughter did.  In addition, strawberries were 97 cents a pound last week at Sprouts.  In short, we were in produce up to our ears (which is really not a bad problem to have)!  Though we had never done it before, Adam and I decided we should bottle it.  

So, Monday was strawberry freezer jam day with my friend, Kim.

Wednesday Adam and I made and bottled regular, cinnamon, and strawberry applesauce.

Thursday I bottled peaches, and Adam made an amazing peach cobbler.

And for good measure, we made and bottled salsa on Saturday.  

Here is a small sampling of our labors:

It feels good to have put up so much food storage for free/very cheap.  What's more, we had a great time doing it!  It was really fun for Adam and I to have a little project to work on together.

Happy Harvest!

We pulled the first of the veggies from our garden today!  So far we've just gotten a handful of tomatoes and peppers, and one giant zucchini.  But considering we didn't put the garden in until the second week of July, we are pretty happy!  We've come a long way since then. We've got dozens more green tomatoes that we are still waiting on, as well as our carrots and cucumbers.  Hopefully everything keeps growing so well!  Zucchini bread, anyone?

 

Lying Low.

I went to the doc early this week with an earache that I thought might possibly be an ear infection (although I wasn't even sure if adults could get ear infections--I for one haven't had one in the last 20 or 25 years!).  It turns out I was right--it was an ear infection, and I had a sinus infection, too.  Yuck.  So my boys had to put up with a cranky, low-energy mommy this week who didn't want to leave the house more than was necessary.  As a result, we found all sorts of ways to amuse ourselves at home.

I had a doctor and a firefighter come to my rescue.

This was Ty one night (Wednesday?) after we asked him to get his jammies on.  He put them on over his clothes.  

This picture is totally blurry, but also totally Ty.  He thought he was beyond funny when he came back downstairs dressed like that.  Incidentally, I thought he was pretty funny, too. 

Yesterday the boys were playing in the backyard while I was working in the kitchen.  I glanced out the window to see McKay riding Ty toboggan-style down the slide.  Pretty hilarious, actually.

Sure do love these two.

In the last day or so we have been venturing out again.  Last night the boys attended a friend's birthday party, and I went to a going-away party at the Cheesecake Factory for my friend, Jenn, who is moving to Indiana next week.  (Sniff.)  This morning we hit up the park, and McKay somehow acquired a handful of splinters while we were there.  Even still, it was well worth the trip.  They SO needed that run-around-outside time.  And I'm all about being outside while the weather is so beautiful.  I can sense that cooler weather might be making its unwelcome appearance again sometime soon.