Sometimes it makes me want to cry . . .

Those of you who know me well know I am just one of those blondes that seriously has blonde moments sometimes. Okay, sometimes meaning quite often. I was just not blessed with the gift of quick common sense, or the gift of seeing the obvious. And I've always been like that . . . evne before I started dying my hair. cough.

Anyways, so we were so excited to expand our garden this year. We kept the little box out in the yard, but added 2 more square foot gardens. We decided that it would be fun to grow lots of tomatoes and peppers and can our own salsa, since that is a commodity we never seem to have enough of.

Well, we seemed to plant at the perfect time, and our garden has really grown HUGE, as you can see!



These are just our tomato and pepper plants. The peppers... grew some blossoms but then all seemed to die. Probably some bug I didn't spray for. Oh well. I was mostly excited about the tomatoes, not only because of the salsa, but also because I have been finding and saving lots of yummy tomato recipes over the past few months.
Well, the tomatoes really started blossoming a few weeks ago, which was really exciting. I noticed that there were LOTS of tomatoes growing all on one little branch of the plants. I thought that was kind of weird but then shrugged it off assuming it was because of the SUPER SOIL we put in those boxes. (See, people? BRAINS!)
Anyway, well those tomatoes have now turned red and are FULL SIZE:

Which means about the size of a grape. Yes, I planted 9 GRAPE TOMATO PLANTS! Words on a family-appropriate blog cannot describe the explicatives that ran through my mind when I realized that. I still cry every time I go out there. What the freaking heck are we going to do with 8 million grape tomatoes? And who is the moron that didn't look close enough at the plants she bought?

Generally, I'm pretty chill with the fact that I am not the smartest tack in the shed, but sometimes.... it really makes me want to cry.

If that's not true love....

I don't know what is.

Party at our house!

A couple of weeks ago was Collin's wrestling camp he runs with another coach. This was their 3rd year running the camp and they had over 100 kids attend! It's fun to see it growing. It's a LOT of work for Collin though!

Anyway, this year we had 3 of our nephews come up for the camp! James came from Florida (he's in high school), and Aiden and Scottie, who are 5 and 7, came up from Utah. We also had Lana, Savannah, and Tienna here, and Morgan stopped by a couple of different night, and we also had Darby and McKinzie here one night... and Collin's parents were in town over the weekend too! We had a full house!


The kids jumping on the tramp! Basically all this gets used for these days is me laying out on it, so it was fun to see it get good use! Kids slept on it every night too!

Lucy loved having so many new playmates and loved all the attention she got! She was recovering from getting fixed so she couldn't play as much as usual but she was very sad to see everyone go. She loved to have new friends to snuggle with at night too.

I tried to get a better picture of these 2...this is Collin and James, and they really looked like twins out there when Collin was coaching him! They have the same exact hair color and James is just an inch or two taller than Collin..and they are about the same size! It was so cute.

Savannah got lots of practice on her gymnastics with the many hours we spent at the camp! Here she is with Collin in a handstand contest. ( by the way, I really can't say I personally spent hours there.. but Lana, Tienna and Savannah did! They were troopers.) We did have a fun girls afternoon at Red Robin one day... and we had movie nights every night too! It was great to have all you guys here, hopefully this can be a tradition every year!

Tonya's Book Picks

I feel like I have been reading SO many good books lately! I am kind of picky about books I consider "good." Basically if I stay up late (even later than I usually do) reading it, or can't put it down once I pick it up, I consider it good! Also, the writing style totally gets to me... I am an English nerd and always have been a creative writer myself, so if it is written too transparently I don't consider it worth my time. I know this makes me sound like a snob. I guess I am kind of a book snob. Maybe I will write my own someday.

I usually don't have this good of luck with finding good books, but my mom has joined some book club and it is AWESOME because I get to read all the good books she passes along to me! I really wanted to share these since it's summer and if you're like me, you waste even more time than usual . . . though, is reading considered wasting time? I guess it depends exactly how much time you waste reading, eh.


A Thousand Splendid Suns... absolutely fabulous! Tara actually recommended this one to me. So sad but SOO good!

The Forgotten Garden--this one took a little while for me to get into (lucky I even kept reading, since usually if it's more than a chapter's worth of background I give up.... I know I am picky) but it is totally CRAZY. That's the only words to explain it. Freaking crazy! I don't know how she wrote this!


Still Alice is AMAZING! This one had me crying. But whether you know anything about Alzheimer's or not, this one is totally, totally worth it.


The Help.... Now one of my all-time favorites! I LOVED this one! It's about well, all kinds of things but mainly race issues in the South back in the 60's. That sounds lame but it's not. You really have to read it.


If you haven't read this series yet.... come on! These were great too. I am anxiously awaiting the final, and I'll be sad when there are no more coming! I can't wait for the movie, it will be INSANE!


WOWZA!!!! That is all I can even say about The Glass Castle. This book is CRAAZY! It is a memoir of this totally crazy family who chose to be homeless and destitute, basically. Another fabulous one. I read Collin like half of it outloud, I felt like I was constantly saying "listen to this ...."


This is the one I have just started! Heard lots of props about it! It's already sucked me in so I think it'll be a good one! I'll let you know.

So, good luck. Does anyone have any other fab books they've read lately, or read any of these and have thoughts??

4th of July and Camping

We went to Idaho Falls for the 4th....although being the Mormonville it is, everything actually took place on the 3rd. But we froze! It was SO cold. I was not amused, especially because I had a cute summer dress I was planning to wear, and instead I ended up wearing pants and a coat ALL DAY. Yes, I care that much about things like that.
We had fun at our traditional family festivities anyway though. The parade.... I swear gets lamer every year, or maybe I just realize how lame it is more acutely as I get older? either way it seemed to last forever and seemed like they let anyone who could pay the $50 entry fee in!
The fireworks were great also. I don't know about all that "best show west of the Mississippi" stuff but it really is a great show and fun to watch every year.

After all the festivities we headed up to Wildhorse Campground for a few days of camping with a crew of 20 of us!

On Tuesday we drove a LONG way to find a trail to hike that someone had found on a map. I never did find out whose idea it was to do that hike....probably no one wanted to admit it! All but 2 of us headed up the trail to what was supposed to be North Point Lake. But after a while . . . like 2 miles uphill. . . no lake! Most of the teenagers and Collin and I trekked on about a half-mile further, and even though we rounded the face of the mountain we were climbing there was no lake in sight, and the trail kept getting worse and worse. So finally, we decided to head back. It was lame since a lot of the guys had packed all their fishing gear all the way up there! It was a really pretty view though, we were higher than snow!

McKae next to the huge mountain we were opposite

This is the view from the highest point we hiked, and as you can see from where Collin is coming from, we did a good amount of bushwhacking! It was the most randomly marked trail! It was good to go on a big hike though, and I was impressed with how well everyone did--from Andrea and McKae clear up to my old parents! :)

Another view from a high point

Everyone hanging around camp.... I admit we did not take many good pictures but we did all have a lot of fun hanging around camp, singing and playing games. We even did some night games the last night, Collin, me, Megan and Sam even joined in. Fun times!

mm mm!

Roastin some dogs

See how we're all bundled up! The cold weather seemed to follow us wherever we went last week. We all still had a good time though. Most of the guys went river swimming at some point, which I thought was absolutely insane. :)

Aw, what cute brothers I have.The 2 of us looking pretty as ever....

This is my favorite picture, although it is blurry! Mom wore Alex's weird little yetti coat like the whole time. I especially loved it when she was sitting by the fire looking all creepy! ;) just kidding mom.

Thanks for the fun trip guys!

Did I mention

That we are going to be a Ma and Pa on our stake's Pioneer Trek next month? Kill me now. Just joking! (sort of!) I am not a hiker so I have really been trying to get myself in shape so as not to die on the trek myself. But as of right now I am pretty nervous about it, not just because it will be hard--but because we also have tons of equipment to round up and get ready, pioneer stories to learn, more physical prep to do, plus making sure our "kids" (there are 8) are ready too! Busy times I tell you.

THANK YOU Tam for loaning me the dresses though! We are still working on rounding up some hip pioneer gear for Collin but I am SO glad I didn't have to make myself a couple of skirts! We got all dressed up for mutual last week. Fun times!

Short but Sweet Seattle Trip!

How could we stay a week on the Puget Sound and not stop in for some fun in Seattle?

Well, we couldn't. Even though we were just in Seattle a year ago I really wanted to have some fun to wind down and relax after a busy week at camp. We left camp about 1:00 and headed right into Seattle, until about 8:00 (I know, we are such night-lifers) when we headed to Yakima to stay with Collin's aunt on our way back home. Notice the Hulk-Hogan stache? Yeah, ultra-gross.
We at at the Crab Pot! I have always wanted to eat there. It was delish! Who doesn't like having a huge pot of seafood dumped in front of them and then banging it to pieces with a little hammer? You even get to wear a little bib.

mmm mmmm. Rockin the bib.

View of the water front--it was the first time I've seen it in summer so it was way prettier!

We also visited SAM--the Seattle Art Museum. You know, I'm just not that big of an art fan. It's interesting.... but well , also so super weird.

This was Collins' favorite and it was just the exhibit in the lobby. A bunch of white Ford Taurus's hanging from the ceiling with neon lights shooting out of them. Like I said, huh? ?

We wandered around Pike's Place again too. It was SOOO packed though, being a hot summer Saturday. So we didn't stay too long in that area.


It was fun to have a little "break" before we headed back home! I heart Seattle.

Camp Oasis 2010

Woot! My 5th year as a Camp Oasis counselor. Can you believe it? It seems crazy. For the past 4 summers I have gone to Camp Oasis in California, but this year I was finally able to go with my own chapter to camp up in Washington State. Collin came along! This was his 3rd year being a counselor!

We were at teh YMCA's Camp Colman, which is outside of Longbranch, WA, right on the Puget Sound. It was beautiful!
I didn't take a lot of pics while we were there this year. I guess I kind of had the whole "been there done that" kind of feeling a lot. It was still a ton of fun, but I am starting to get kind of old for being a counselor at that type of camp, and after 5 years it kind of starts blurring together of which year I did what.... so anyway, what I'm saying is, it was fun, but will probably be my last year for a while. I feel like I've done my part! I did get a few other pictures though . . .

Like this Olympic gold medal I got to check out! I can't remember her name (curses!) but a U.S. Rowing team member came to give us a motivational speech. I don't remember getting too motivated, but I do remember learning a lot about rowing. And hey, checking out a gold medal is pretty cool.

My fave co-counselor, Emilia. She was a sweetheart. We are "gangsta" style in this pic.... for some reason our cabin had the whole wanna-be gangsta theme going on all week. I've never said WORD TO YOUR MOTHA more in a 7-day period! Or....ever!

One thing that was BEYOND AWESOME about this particular Camp Oasis (and I think it is like this nationwide, just not in California, where I have always gone in the past), is that EVERY SINGLE CCFA counselor that came has either Crohn's or Colitis! Check out this picture, of the GREAT people I worked with and had fun with all week, every single one of them is a Crohn's or UC patient (besides Collin)! There were even 2 others with the same surgery I have had. I think that really helped us all bond and have a fantastic time. Poop humor was definitely encouraged and definitely utilized! It was awesome.



A few more pictures for you....

Collin and Mark did the bellyflop contest.... as hillbillies. (Actually Collin was the only hillbilly. Mark.... )

Collin also got hoisted up as a human pinata--his campers got to whack him with noodles and try to get the candy that was taped to his arms. I guess one kid kept hitting him in the crotch on purpose so Collin started chucking candy at the kid!

Great year at camp again!

Robertson Mania!

We had the first of what Collin is hoping is "annual" Robertson Reunion this June! Everyone who could (4 of his 6 brothers---we missed you Brock and Jim!) congregated in Utah for some fun times! The only really stinky part was the weather! It was like 50 degrees the whole weekend! lame. We tried to make the best of it anyway.

Friday, most of us slept at Collin's parents' house. it was a full house! We brought Lucy along and she loved all the attention from the kids.

Saturday we all went to the Utah Scottish Festival! (you know...ROBERTSONS!) It was so cool. Like I said, the only lame thing was the weather. It was freezing! I was wishing I had brought a coat, even though it was mid-June! Collin found this. Not sure what it is.

I have never seen so many bagpipers at once! It was SO COOL!

Me, Scottie and Aiden watching Massed Bands

Morgan, Collin, Tyler and Papa enjoying Nana's delicious lunch, and trying to warm up! I had never seen so many guys in skirts either. I mean, kilts! They had all these Scottish games that were awesome! I can't remember the official names but it was like, throw this huge metal ball with spikes as far as you can . . and try to toss this giant log over a 90 degree angle . .. and pitch a bale of hay over a rod! It was really fun to watch. I think I might try to compete next year.

Tyler and Collin

We finally gave up halfway through the day. We were all frozen, and it started to rain. So.... we headed into a giant movie theater and watched the Karate Kid. I don't know how Collin actually got this picture of both Nana and Papa smiling at the same time, but isn't it great! I guess they were just pretty happy to be out of the cold too.

We all headed back to Nana and Papa's house for the rest of the evening and had a giant sleepover with everyone but Beau and Donna. But they came early the next morning and we all had a delicious breakfast together and then all headed to church together. Then...home for more food! After we had a family home evening, everyone eventually headed back home. Collin and I stayed one more day.... and guess what, the weather got nice! Of course.

Anyway, it was a great time and fun to see everyone!

Robertsons 2010!