Surprise!

Dustin's dad, Glen, has a side job working for a car dealership in Colorado.  Say you wanted to buy a specific type of car....if your dealership didn't have it, they would negotiate with a different dealership for a car trade. Glen drives the car between the sites for the trade. Today Glen was hauling a Jeep Cherokee from Colorado to a dealership in Sandy, Utah.  He was able to stay the night with us...and of course we didn't tell the kids ANYTHING.  We were conveniently playing out front tonight when this rolled up....

The truck (which was hauling a Jeep Cherokee) stopped in front of our house.  Dustin tells the kids that this is the surprise for them....I think the kids thought the truck or the jeep being hauled was the surprise...until they saw Grandpa Gray get out of the truck!

They were all excited (as we expected).  Grandpa Gray was back at our house and he was driving a cool looking truck and was hauling a trailer.  We've hauled a trailer with our 4runner before - hauling ThunderPig.  I think Logan though the Jeep on the trailer was for us.  He crawled on the trailer and laid under the Jeep.  Check out his face!

Then the focus shifted to the big white truck Grandpa Gray was driving.  The kids took turns sitting in the back, eating treats that Grandpa Gray and brought with him to share with the boys.  Grandpa then took them for a drive in the big white truck.

The white truck with the trailer and the Jeep slept at the end of our street tonight - it was headed back to Colorado tomorrow morning.

The kids stayed up late playing with Grandpa Gray.  Even though it was only a few hours of time before bed - they cherished any time they can spend with him.  We were able to keep the kids from shedding tears in the morning when Grandpa Gray left - because they knew he would be back in just a few short days to celebrate the 4th of July with us!

If you trip over your kid....

Dustin learned a valuable lesson this morning.  If you trip over your kid....you fracture your finger.

Lowe's Build and Grow

Today Zach and Logan attended their very first Build and Grow at Lowe's.  It is so cute to see them using the cute little hammers, and watch their creations come to life!  What kid this age also doesn't like to put stickers on their creation?!  This summer Lowe's partnered up with Dreamwork's - so the projects are based off of kid movies.  Today was the luxury assault vehicle from the movie Madagascar 3.

Ssuccess! I think we will be back...

Because he loves us!

Zach came in our bedroom this morning and told us he loved us. He then ran back into his bedroom and brought us this from his secret stash.

Zach said he loved us so much he wanted us to have a quarter, a stick of gum and a piece of candy. Now if that isn't LOVE - I don't know what is!

Garage Sale Score

Our neighborhood was having a garage sale today.  Dustin is addicted to hitting up garage sales.....he loves the hunt of finding a great deal on something you don't necessarily need, but would be fun to have.  Well.....we did find an item that fit that description within our neighborhood.

Toddler drum set - $5

It is literally made for toddlers, which means - easily breakable and not loud like normal drum sets.  We were entertained all day long....

Summer is heating up (literally)

We always know something is up at work when mass amounts of people start crowding around the windows to look out. This morning this is what we saw from work.

There had been a small fire in between Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain the day before....we thought it was under control and put out. Apparently the strong winds that blew in changed that scenario. The fire was up, raging, and getting scarier by the minute. By 9:30am they had issued mandatory evacuations for specific neighborhoods in Saratoga Springs. After a few days the whole thing was out - no homes damaged, just a lot of black mountains.  The start of the terrible air quality of the summer.

Father's Day

We were prepared....we were oh so prepared for Father's day today.  Dustin's favorite breakfast in bed, a massage, afternoon at the neighborhood swimming pool, dinner out as a family, gifts from all of us.  We were prepared.  

Apparently we weren't prepared enough.  Dustin woke up at 5am with the beginning symptoms of food poisoning.  By 7am, Dustin had accepted the fact that YES he did have food poisoning.  He went and hid himself in one of the bedrooms in our basement (with personal access to his own bathroom).  He stayed hidden until early evening when he came back upstairs and just laid on the couch.  The kids were concerned...they took turns putting a wet cloth on Dustin's head.

Jen kept the kids entertained all day.....the kids were looking forward to the cake we bought for dad to eat after dinner.  Dad told the kids they could have some today as long as they saved him a piece for when he felt better.

So even though we had a day full of fun things planned....Dustin did get lots of piece and quiet (I don't think the food poisoning part is what he wanted!).

Logan's 1st visit to the dentist

Today was our family dentist visit with all four of us. Zach has been to the dentist twice, but today was Logan's first time. We were worried how Logan would react based on our first experience with Zach (he wanted to have nothing to do with it....but now, he is a pro!).  Lets just say Logan turned into a pro as well!  He watched his big brother Zach get his teeth cleaned and was quick to jump into the chair when it was his turn.  The TV in the ceiling turned out to be quite the hit!

Dr. Losse looked at both boys teeth and proclaimed - "No cavities!".  Wahoooooo!  Now lets keep it that way.

Missing an arm?

Ummm...note to self - do not take Logan shopping to Kohl's. He may just decide that he wants a mannequin arm to carry around with him. When we saw what he was carrying we couldn't stop laughing. We didn't know where to put it....not sure what part of the shopping trip in the store he picked this up from.

The BIG screen

Our 2002 Mitsubishi  65" big screen (yes the old school box style) - tried to die on us recently. Being the engineer type that we are - we did some research and found other people with the same particular problem we were having (thank you google). The fix seemed simple - replace 7 capacitors on one of the boards. Well - Dustin and Jen are pro's at soldering from college and decided to take up the challenge. We hit up the local Radio Shack store to buy the capacitors....our grand total came to around $15. We had to plan the 'repair' time when the kids were down for naps today. It took Dustin longer to take the back of the TV apart and get the correct board out than it did to replace the 7 capacitors.

The black cap looking things are the capacitors that needed to be replaced.

The blue ones are the new ones...

Dustin happy when then work was all done.

And.....it LIVES!  Our fix worked!  Our 2002 TV box is up and running and is as good as new!

Dustin's Birthday

Today is Dustin's bIrThdAy!  He was able to take the day off work and do what ever 'guy stuff' he wanted to do....Zach still wants on the mend from having his tonsils taken out so he hung out at home with Grandpa Gray.

Jen told Logan he could pick out what ever balloons he wanted for his dads birthday....check out the dinosaurs!

The kids were super excited to help dad open his presents...

Yum...some hot sauce!

BBQ grill mit!

Hamburger stuffer....

Huge water guns (these were from Zach)...

Video games!

Jalepano book with cooker stand!

Color bubbles (from Logan)

Secret Box (from Jody)

This year Dustin got a brownie cake...the kids had fun helping dad blow out his candles!