Full of Hot Air

   This morning we woke to strange noises outside.  The noise itself wasn't so strange, it was the sound of a hot air balloon giving the balloon an occasional burst of hot air to stay afloat.  The strange part was that we were hearing it from inside the house.  That meant that the balloon had to be REALLY close.  We ran out the front door to confirm our suspicions and there it was...a huge hot air balloon barely above the ground just across the street from us.  It was right in the middle of the fenced off area where the Temple is being built.  The kids and I got in the car and went to the new parking lot for the visitor's center for the temple to see if we could get a better view, and boy did we ever.  Turns out the balloon had to land and that parking lot was the only space in that area that he could land on.  We watched as the balloon chasing crew guided the pilot and his passenger down to the ground in just the right spot for the balloon to land, be deflated, and eventually rolled up.  The kids (especially the big one...me) couldn't get enough.  It was soooo much fun to watch this going on just a block from where we live.  Sorry for the bad pics, this is from my camera phone and the camera is obviously not very good.

The balloon is red and black.

Lizzie holding Alexander.  Megan and Dakota  watching the balloon land.

Deflating the ultimate balloon.

Still deflating.  It takes awhile to let out so much air.

Talk about big things from little packages.

   If that wasn't enough, the pilot let the kids help fold up the balloon and put it away (actually, the pilots love it when the audience volunteers to help because it is such a big and heavy job that they welcome as many hands as they can get to make it faster and easier for them.)  Dakota was the one who jumped right in to help when the pilot gave the okay.  As the balloon was being rolled up we were allowed to take pictures of the kids in the basket and the pilot and I had a really good little chat about ballooning and how he ended up in our neighborhood.  Turns out the pilot lives in Santaquin, just 5 miles south of us, and ballooning is just his family's hobby.  He is training to get his balloon engineer license.  He has only a few flight hours left before he takes his test flight and can finally fly his family any time the winds permit.  He and his instructor lift off from Santaquin quite frequently and fly south but today the winds picked up faster than they anticipated and it took them north.  His instructor lives in Payson so they decided to touch the ground in the middle of the temple site before packing up the balloon for the day and sending the instructor home.  What a fun hobby and a great start to our weekend.

Dakota helping to pack the balloon in the bag.

Dakota holding Alex while sitting on the balloon bag to get all the air out.

Alexander, Dakota, Megan, and Lizzie in the basket.

Fun Finds

   Here are some fun pictures I found on my cell phone.

Rebecca as "Alexander" in the play SLEEPY HOLLOW.

Rebecca at the Orem mall with her theater group for a Christmas performance.

We got the girls "glitter toes" for Christmas.  The lady came to our house to glitter up the girl's toes.  They loved it.

Vote Shelly for President

   Utah's voting system is very different than what I am used to.  We still vote delegate style.  It takes a while to explain but essentially our cities are divided into precincts that vote for a small number of delegates in a caucus meeting to represent them in the preliminary vote.  Those candidates who make the preliminary vote will go on to a general election where everyone can vote.  If you have a favorite candidate you better hope your Delegate likes them too or you may not get a chance to vote for them in the general election.  I understand why this voting system is in place but I can also see downsides to it too.  Putting those feelings aside I wanted to get involved in the political process more intimately and went to our precinct's Republican caucus tonight.  At the caucus we are voting in the delegates that we want to represent us for the next two years.  I actually went with the intention of running to be voted as one of our precincts Delegates.  I had no idea what to expect but I wanted to be more involved.
   What happened at that meeting tonight was totally unexpected.  I didn't stand up to run for Delegate, instead I stood up to run for Precinct Chair.  That is equivalent to running for president of our neighborhood's political interests (at least the Republican's interests anyway because it was a Republican caucus.)  I was running against one other person so I had to answer questions.  You would have thought that I was running for President of the United States.  I was asked all kinds of questions on my political views.  I am normally so shy and afraid of people looking at me that I am still in shock that I did something so totally out of character for me.  
   I thought I did rather well answering the questions considering that this was my first caucus attendance and I was totally unprepared for the grilling I had just received.  I didn't win as Precinct Chair but I did ultimately become an alternate Delegate.  I had many people come up to me afterwards and tell me how much they liked my answers and that they were hoping that I would win.  I have been wanting to get out of my comfort zone more and this was a huge leap into the very uncomfortable zone.  Funny thing is that even though I was terrified, I rather enjoyed the experience.

Who's dog is that anyway?

   So now that Rascal has recovered from his procedure and has had the Cone of Shame removed (for good I hope) I decided it was time to break down and give him a hair cut.  I cut it very short this time to give me more time between hair cuts.  He looks so different now.  I forgot how skinny he was underneath all that fuzz.  I didn't realize how tall he was or how freakishly long his neck is.  I have to do a double take when he enters the room because I wonder who's dog that is before I realize he's mine.  Still a fun little fuzz ball though.

This picture doesn't do justice to his long neck.  I swear he must have giraffe in his lineage.

AGAIN!!

   I don't know what Megan's fascination is with painting her whole face and hands with lipstick.  Here's her latest round.  This time she decorated the door as well.

Not so easy TV Installation

   Okay, so we have a flat screen TV and I wanted to make sure that the kids didn't destroy it at all, let alone in the first week.  They love to touch and climb on to everything they see.  I knew that this TV would be too much of a temptation even for the older girls who would want to turn it different directions to watch in different parts of the house.  What to do?  I looked at so many options out there.  I researched, I learned, and ultimately I made a decision.  I want the TV up on the wall to keep the kids away from it but I need to know that it is not coming down so I didn't want it on a shelf.  I also didn't want it to be stationary because I want to be able to turn it so that we can have more room when we play the Wii.  We have these beautiful new blue walls so I don't want any cords hanging down (let alone giving the kids something to pull on) so I don't want to have those cord cover things running down the wall.  In conclusion, the only option I could see was to use a wall mount that allowed the TV to be re-positioned as well as installing a new electrical box that would allow the cords to run down the inside of the wall and out stay safely of sight.  No problem since the instructions looked simple enough and I am mechanically inclined enough to follow instructions.

   Two days and several frustrating hours later it is done! Here are some pics from my installation project.

The TV mount and all the test holes I made before finally getting
the mount in the right spot.  Also the spot for the new outlet.

All painted and fixed.

The area by the floor getting ready for the new outlet.

All finished.

This was by far the WORST part of  the job.  I figured that I would be able to run the cords down the empty space between the wall studs...30 min. tops.  NOT!  Because this was an outside wall it was full of insulation.  I couldn't get the cords to move down the wall more than a foot.  I sat and thought and tried to problem solve a solution that didn't involve any more holes for nearly two days.  As you can see, I ended up punching 3 holes in the wall so that I could reach up and grab the cords, then push them down the next section of the wall until they finally made it to the bottom.  That's what took so dang long.  I did everything I could think of before punching even one hole in the wall and by the end there were 3.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but after the wall was repaired and re-painted it looked as good as new.  Not a bad job for a first timer if I do say so myself.

 I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Payson 500

   We were looking for something fun to do with the kids and boy did we find it.  The first Saturday of every month Home Depot has a free craft project for the kids from 9 to noon.  We went expecting this little project that the kids could do in a minute and off we go but that was not the case.  The project was really COOL and the kids loved making the cars from scratch.

Rebecca and Megan
crafting away.

Xander using a hammer
for the first time.

Dakota putting on the
 finishing touches.

   Not only did they get to make a racing car they got their own little aprons and a race car pin to put on it.  After their cars were made they went in to the next isle and raced them with other kids.  Xander's little car was the BOMB!  He won every single race he was in.  It was so much fun!  We can't wait to do it again next month.

                                          

Long day at the Payson 500 but it was so worth it.