The Art of Begging

Even though this is the pose most of you are used to seeing of Charlie.....

As soon as there is food around, he becomes alert and at the ready. As soon as Kenny sat down to eat dinner last night, Charlie was immediately at his feet. His lightning fast reaction and ease of stealth made me wonder if he has had special ops training.

(Sorry about the demon eyes, I think it's time to start paying more attention to the photography section on Pioneer Woman's blog)

Of course Kenny can't say no, so he begins to share his dinner with Charlie. Pretty soon I'm wondering if Charlie spent some time with the circus to learn this kind of balancing after he was done with his special ops missions.

And of course, who can say no to this kind of talent? Not us!!!!!

Before long he is back to his lounging in the sun and resting for his next mission. You never know when or where food may appear next, and he must be ready.

4th of July

This year we went out to the Grantsville parade for the 4th of July. I thought our boys were going to burst waiting while we got ready and ate breakfast. They couldn't wait to get out there and see their cousins and friends.

Here's Kelton, Taylor, and Seth trying to be patient and wait until we had everyone together so we could walk down to Main Street to watch the parade. I don't even think my boys made it into Grandma's house, we pulled up and they were ready to leave and get to the parade. Eventually, everyone got together and we were able to walk down and find a place along the street to watch.

We bumped into Danny and his family and they were nice enough to let us invade them. It was fun to see Kenny get to visit with Danny and catch up a little. Whenever we come out to Grantsville, we have just enough time to come see family and then leave. Kenny doesn't have much time to catch up with friends. He was able to do that a lot this day. He was also able to visit with Adrian for a minute and see his friend Kent at the park when we went after the parade.

This is Kenny's Grandma. We were trying to make sure and keep her out of the sun as much as possible. She had sun block on, but we were still concerned for her, so Susan draped the flag over her to keep her arms covered. Doesn't she look patriotic? She was a good sport and it was so fun to have her with us at the parade. It is getting harder and harder for her to get around and leave the house much. It was a good surprise to see Aunt Pat pull up with her.

Now, for those of you who don't believe me when I tell you about us attending a redneck parade I took lots of pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. I didn't get any pictures of the three actual floats that were in the parade, that would be no fun when there was so many other things to take pictures of. Just so you know, there was a float for the city royalty, the county royalty, and a float for the only grocery store in town, Soelbergs.

I was, however, very disappointed that there wasn't a dump truck or Semi in this parade. In Tooele there is usually at least one of each. They must have stayed in Tooele because we didn't get that in Grantsville. But, here is some of what we did see:

Here we have a Tooele County Sheriff SUV pulling a trailer. I'm glad to know they have a trailer to haul stuff in when they get called out.

This one was kind of fun. It is a trike pulling a casket. On the glass surrounding the casket it says, "Last Ride". Carrie announced that this is how she would like to be taken to the graveyard when she dies. She said,"who needs a Bentley when you can go in that." Don't worry, none of us will ever forget that this is your wish.

Here's Seth, Kelton, Taylor, and Brinlee watching the parade, and yes that is a dirt bike. About this time there was a break in the parade that lasted several minutes and then finally we saw a boy on a bicycle ride by and then someone on this dirt bike. When things finally got moving again, you will never guess what we had waited for. I would let you try to guess, but I know you would never get it. We had waited for the cheerleaders to come marching by holding lawn chairs. None of us understood this, can someone who was there maybe explain why they were walking down Main Street carrying lawn chairs?

Or, maybe after you see what they were doing you can explain this. I can't believe we all stood there waiting and anticipating what could be coming. It reminds me of the t'shirts we all used to get that said, "my grandma and grandpa went on vacation and all they brought back for me was this t-shirt." We all stood there waiting and waiting and all we got was lousy lawn chairs.

Here we are watching a Tooele County Sheriff's SUV pull their snowmobiles. Sad to say, but this was not the only truck pulling snowmobiles in the parade. I think it was a theme for this year.

This little video has to be the best redneck presentation of the whole parade. I need to apologize for the video, I'm still learning how to really use my camera. Be patient because the last car is the best! I took several little video's of different things. I have the old Military vehicles and the fire trucks. It's a good think there wasn't a fire anywhere because I think most all of them for the town, the BLM and the Depot were in the parade.

We went to the park and looked at the car show and got shaved ice after the parade. We had tons of fun out there with Kenny's family. It was fun to watch the kids run around and get candy and make fun of the "floats". We had the typical BBQ dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs.

We really didn't want to stay out in Grantsville to late and have to deal with the stupid people on I-80 on our way home and my cousin was going to the drive in movies and invited us, so we ended up leaving Grantsville a little early and meeting up with cousins to watch The Last Airbender.

We had tons of fun sitting around and visiting until it was time for the movie to start. We ate pizza and junk food and laughed and laughed while we told stories. It was fun to hear the kids talk about the other times that we had all gotten together and gone to the drive in before. I'm always amazed at how much they remember.

This is my Uncle Ron and my cousin Jessie. I'm so glad they invited us.

Contrary to what I was told about the movie, we liked it. I guess most people I know did not like the movie, but Kelton and I had fun talking about different parts and comparing it to the cartoon. While we were watching the movie, it started lightning and the wind was blowing a little and then it started to rain. The movie takes place mainly in the different water tribes that are at either end of the world in the snow. When it started raining Kelton said that the movie was 4-D because we could feel the rain like what was in the movie. You would think that it would have ruined it for us, but it didn't, because it made it 4-D.

This ended up being a very long fun day. It was fun to spend so much time with family and the little bits of time with some of our friends. I am so thankful to have each and every one of them in our lives.

Bella

We have added a new member to our family. And, please no more questions as to why I did this. I know I'm not a real animal lover, but there is this one soft spot somewhere in me that thinks I need to help every animal (and sometimes car) that needs a good home.

A girl that I work with went to the Manti pageant and there was a woman there giving away kittens. She decided to take one and bring it home, with out talking to her mom first. Well, come to find out her mom hates cats and her brother is allergic to them. The poor kitten was banished to a kennel outside. I had to do something. I couldn't just leave it in a kennel outside.

I sent Kenny a text to ask him if he was okay with me bringing home a kitten, thinking he would say, "no, remember, Charlie is our only and last pet!" But he surprised me and said sure. Plans were put in place for my co-worker to bring the kitten back when it was time for me to leave work and I asked Kenny to start thinking of a name. He quickly said I needed to name her because he named the dog. He never gave me a chance, he text me back within minutes and said, "how about Bella?" Perfect! I mean what kind of a Twilight fan would I be if I didn't name at least one member of our family after a character from the books.

This is Bella! She's a whinny little shit, so the name fits her perfectly.

We thought it would take a while before Bella and Charlie would be okay together but by the next day I got this picture of them from Taylor. So far she has been a wonderful kitten. She hasn't had one accident and is getting along with Charlie. In fact, they are both sitting at my feet asleep right now.

Moon Lake Cont.

I need to add what happened to Taylor our first night there. We finally had put everything away, had dinner and some marshmallows and had just gotten into bed when I heard this;

Taylor: "MoOoOm.......MOM....Moooom are leaches nocturnal?"

I laid there thinking, huh? What's nocturnal, a leach, huh?

Taylor: "There is something stuck to meeeee!"

I was still trying to wake up and figure out what in the world he could be talking about, he hadn't been anywhere near any water yet, a leach?

Taylor finally made it over to the light switch and got a light turned on and announced, "OH, it's a fruit roll up!"

Oh my word, I don't think any of us have ever laughed so hard. I still can't figure out how he ended up with fruit roll up in his bed and I feel really bad that he was so scared and thought that a blood sucking creature was stuck to him. On the other hand, it was such a priceless moment. We are all still trying to figure out why he thought it could be a leach, but for further warning to any of you who want to stay in a cabin that has wood paneling:

Leaches are nocturnal and they live in wood paneling!