mud football at its finest...

This is the recipe for a good mud football game.


1. Find yourself a nice big field of dirt and water it for at least 12 hours nonstop.
2. Fill the field with people that are not afraid to get really, really muddy and like football.
3. Tell them to break into teams and get ready to get dirty.
4. Have a good quality control guy on hand to keep the field nice and wet.

5. Let the little ones play too because they are so much closer to the mud and they can absorb a lot of the shock your body might feel when you fall.
6. Put your mark on all your players so if they get lost, or decide not to play anymore you can identify them.
7. Tell your husband that if he gets any muddier you are throwing away all the clothes he currently has on.
8. Then watch him fall into the mud, heave a big sigh for the dirtyness, and laugh at his misery.

9. Watch as the dirt becomes worse and worse mud. Watch as the people you love sink deeper and deeper.

10. Make all the players come together at half time to take a mud picture for all posterity.
11. Tell them to act like warriors and then see the reaction.
12. Watch in utter horror and is gets worse and worse.
13. Be grateful that you weren't the one playing and that your husband doesn't need any help washing himself off, because you just spent the last hour washing your dirty children who DID need help.

This was one happening mud football game and I was glad that I was on the sidelines taking pictures and not in the thick of it. There were many bruises suffered by mostly the adults playing because they made it a tackle football game...OUCH! Everyone playing said that they had a good time so I guess I'll believe them...it was really, really fun to watch. (And we did end up throwing away the majority of the clothes worn by everyone seen in the above photos)

Now to the vacation

After Legoland and before we journeyed to our family reunion in Paso Robles, CA, Joy and I called our cousin who lives in CA and met her at Huntington Beach. My boys had a blast. No matter that the sky was overcast and the wind made it down right chilly on the beach. They thought they had died and gone to heaven. My boys are IN LOVE with the ocean. I happen to love it too but for a different reason. I love the peacefulness that you have laying on the beach, I love watching the waves roll in one after another, and I love watching how happy the beach makes my boys. This was still the part of the vacation that we didn't have Alex or Darrel with us. They were still at Scout Camp in San Diego. This beach day was the morning of the day we traveled north for the reunion. Darrel and Alex ended up joining us later that night at our motel in ButtonWillow, CA., way later....like 1am. They had spent a whole day at scout camp and then attempted to drive 6 hours north without dying. I'm glad we got a motel that they could stop and sleep at before making the rest of the trek to the reunion. We got up early the next morning, ate breakfast, said goodbye to the Layton family and headed another hour and a half to the reunion where they were just getting ready to play mud football. (that would be tomorrow's post...stay tuned)

a detour

I do have lots more pictures to post of our trip but I'm taking a detour for a minute. This is a picture I took of Caitlin on Huntington Beach during our trip. I just wanted to share with you what I did to (I believe) enhance the photo. Joy posted the SOOTC (straight out of the camera) shot on her blog and someone mentioned in her comments that it would be really cute in black and white. I thought so too, but when I changed it into black and white it didn't do the picture justice because of all the people in the background...so I removed them. What do you think?

From Wimp to Warrior

Joy said I had to update my blog because in yesterday's post I told you all that Zach was a WIMP. Well, today he went from wimp to warrior. He was a champ today. We made great strides. He tried so many rides today it was so awesome. Once he tried them he wanted to ride them again and again. We would get off a ride and Zach wanted to go right back on. What a change a day makes. Holy Cow - we had such a fun day today and it was such a joy watching his happy face discovering new things and having fun. Take for example this first picture. Yesterday the kid wouldn't even get on the ride, today he rides it with no hands. I tell ya what...the joys of motherhood...this is some of the fun stuff. The best ride he did was the dragon roller coaster. That was fast and furious and even though he was nervous when he got off he just wanted to go again. It was so great!

This next picture is at the pirate water area. My camera got wet about ten seconds after I took this picture. It was a very dangerous spot to be taking pictures. We won't make that mistake again. The kids loved shooting us with water, though.

I couldn't just have a post about Zach, though. This picture is of Daniel getting ready to be a dancer in one of the shows. He was absolutely hilarious...we're trying to post a video on you tube so we can link it here....it's SO funny. Anyway, he loved being a dancer and out-shined and out-danced every kid on that stage.

Kenneth and Johnathan got to program robots in mindstorms. They programmed the robots to do sports. The mission to mars thing is better but this was still fun for the boys and they enjoyed some time doing their own thing.

Another fun day at Legoland and we're off for some more fun. Tomorrow we're going to the beach and then on to my sister in laws for our family reunion. It ought to be a kickin fun weekend, and then back home to the hot. Enjoy all of your weekends...I'll try to post again if I can.

Hello from Legoland

Yes, we are in legoland. We decided (at the last minute) to use our passes that expire next week and take one last trip to legoland. We are having a great time. Thanks to Joy, who convinced us to go and is footing the bill for the majority of our stay, we are loving sunny California. Zachary won't ride hardly any of the rides at legoland. We are now up to a total of three and two of them are boat rides...I tell you what, this kid is a major WIMP!!! He is still having a lot of fun though, which I'm glad about. We are looking forward to our family reunion at the end of the week and seeing Alex and Dad again. They have been at scout camp since last Saturday and according to Darrel are having a very good time. So, until the next batch of pictures...enjoy!

Our 4th of July camping trip

Over the 4th of July weekend we went camping with some friends up at Mount Charlston. We had a GREAT time. It was so nice because it's only about an hour away and we enjoyed temperatures in the mid 70's while in Las Vegas they were suffering through temps around 112 degrees....nightmare time!! We loved being in the cool weather for a few days and had fun playing games, eating yummy food, and enjoying wonderful company. We hardly saw our boys. They loved running around, hiking, playing with their friends, etc. I've put some pictures here on the blog...they are in NO particular order. I have a hard time adding pictures to the blog, I never know what order they are going to post and I can't figure out how to move them once they are on here. Anyway, enjoy a little glimpse into our weekend with friends. Thanks Erin and Jen (and families) for the awesome time we had. We'll have to do it again sometime.


our campsite and tent
looking down at our camp from the little hill

the band of wanderers that I happened to catch

we had our share of owies, but we had cool band-aids too
playing "knock down the water bottles" with Darrel
enjoying the radios that Kevin and Erin brought along
roasting hot dogs on the grill over the fire for dinner

Darrel traversing the hill by the campsite with the little boys

Alex and Sam enjoying being able to use the hatchet
Erin taking a picture of me taking a picture of her
Sydney, Abbie, and I did a flad craft for the 4th
this is a light saber conference the boys were having


Brooklyn enjoying her watermelon

Will enjoying his watermelon
Sydney talking on the radio
Sam playing the name game with everyone
Johnathan showing his "sign" playing the sign game



Zachary showing off his smore

Those are some good looking marshmellows, Sam
We plum wore Zach out
We also got VERY, VERY dirty in the three days
Backgammon was the game of choice, Alex played it a lot during the day


Hopefully you've now made it through...thanks for hanging on. We really did have a great time and were sad to come back to the hot, hot, hot of Las Vegas. We ARE happy, however, to have access to showers and bathrooms with flushing toilets. Some modern conveniences are just worth whatever price you must pay. On our way down the mountain as we watched the temperature rise in our van we were already planning our next camping trip up the mountain.

repeat image

I know that I've already posted this photo but I was sending Elise some photos from our trip and this was one of them. I really think this photo is a cute one. Zachary's look and Emily's pure innocence in bestowing her kiss on his cheek. I mean, it just doesn't get much cuter than this. Have a great weekend!!! Stay safe on the 4th and say an extra prayer for our troops.