I think she is like you Mom . . .

I am pretty sure that some of the funniest and sweetest moments that I have listening to the kids are after a scripture story. One day we were reading the scripture story about the widow who cast in her two mites and all of the rich men were casting in much more than that into the treasury; yet Jesus said that the widow had cast in more then them all because she had given all that she had.

I turned to the kids and said, "How is that possible? The rich men were puting in all of that money, and the widow only put in two little mites . . . but Jesus said that she put in more. How is this possible?"

I wasn't really expecting the kids to come up with the answer. I was ready to explain it to them. But then Drew said, "I think I know."

"Ya? What do you think Drew?"

Then Drew said, "I think that she is like you Mom . . . "

I was very curious at this point. "Ya?"

"Ya." He looked like he really thought he had the right answer and he said, "I think she went to garage sales!"

I love it! It makes perfect sense though right? Of course going to garage sales would make it possible!

I don't want to give away all of my stuff!

A couple weeks ago I was reading the story in the New Testament about the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to get to Heaven. Jesus told him to sell all that he had and give it to the poor and the rich man walked away sorrowfully. I then tried to explain to the kids that nothing that we have is really ours because God has given us all that we have. Because of this we should be willing to share the things that we have with others. I told them that we needed to love God more than our "things."

After my commentary Hayden said to me, "Mom . . . I don't want to go to Heaven."

I said, "What? What do you mean Hayden? Why don't you want to go to Heaven?"

Then he started to cry and explained, "I don't want to give away all of my stuff!"

Oh my funny little boy. It's been a couple of weeks since this happened. Last night the kids wanted me to tell them a story. Before I began with my story Hayden wanted to tell a story first.
His story went something like this:
"Chapter one (It cracks me up that he has chapters in his short little stories.) Once there was a little boy named Hayden. He didn't want to give away all of his stuff to get to Heaven."
He was talking in such a quiet voice I didn't catch a lot of what he said after that, but it sounded as if the boy Hayden in the story learned what he needed to learn and the story ended with Hayden getting to Heaven. It was pretty cute I must say. I had no idea that this story that I read like two weeks ago was something that he had been thinking about!
He ended his story like this:
"Chapter 2. The end."

Family Vacation Day 4: Yosemite w/Todd & Betty

Todd and Betty are so awesome! They drove 4 hours to Yosemite with us in order to spend just a couple hours and then have to turn around and drive another 4 hours to get back to their house! We went on one short hike with the kids to a waterfall, and on the way back down this lady passed by us and in passing as she looked at all of the kids with us said, "Wow. That's a lot! You're brave!" I thought to myself, "You think three is a lot? We are barely half way done!!" :)

It is quite an adventure to bring that many kids on a trip somewhere, but it is so worth it. I am so glad that we attempt it.

At the visitors center we had to chase the kids around and round them up a few times before we got out of there, we also took the kids to a semi-nice restaraunt to have some pizza in which they were a little boisterous at times and were the only kids in the room. We got a few looks from people around us. At one point in the day when we stopped to do our hike, Kimball got out of the car and puked all over the parking lot. Poor guy! But who thinks of those things when all is said and done? At the end of the day, no matter how crazy it might be during the experience, we almost always say . . . "Man, that was a fun day!" And it was. Yosemite is a beautiful place to be. We only wish we would have had more days to spend there!

It was funny. When we got home Aunt Suzie asked Hayden what he did on the vacation and Hayden looked up at her and said, " We watched movies. . . We ate crackers . . . and fruit snacks . . . " That is what we did and what we ate while we were driving in the car! Yes it was a lot of driving for four days. But it was fun! Thanks Marybeth for coming with us! And thanks to Todd and Betty for joining us in the fun too!

Family Vacation Day 3: Todd and Betty's and Half Moon Bay

On Sunday morning our plan was to wake up early and start for Palo Alto where we would drive straight to Todd and Betty's Stake Conference. Well, we almost made it on time! When we go there though, we were all still in our camping clothes. We all had to change into our Sunday clothes in the car. Well, except for Marybeth who was the one fortunate person who took a shower and was ready before we left.
Hayden had another one of his meltdowns when we got there. He didn't want to go to church because he didn't want to change into his church clothes. I told Hayden that it was either get dressed and go in with Kimball and Anahi, or he and I were going to stay in the car the whole time. Well he just kept crying, and I sent the rest of the family in while we sat in the car. Hayden finally, after crying for quite sometime, decided that he would get his church clothes on. After getting his pants on though Hayden started crying again. His pants were a little big, and he just threw a fit! "My pants are too big!"

I went on to tell him, "You know what Hayden? . . . I packed myself some church clothes, I brought this skirt . . . and you know what? I put in on and look . . . " I then showed him my gaping open skirt that wouldn't zip up because it was too small. I said, "Hayden, I didn't know that this skirt wasn't going to fit me . . . but you know what? I want to go to church so bad . . . I am going to wear it anyways. Do you think that just like me you can wear those pants even though they don't fit because Heavenly Father wants us to be in church?" So he agreed. Thank Heavens! We were going to get inside! At least I thought so. Suddenly Hayden asked me, "Where are my Sunday shoes?" . . . Oh great! I realized I had forgot them. "Hayden, you are going to have to wear your tennis shoes." . . .

"Nooooo!" Suddenly we were back to square one. Hayden was wailing. "Hayden, it's okay. You can wear your tennis shoes. It will be okay!"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I won't be handsome!!!!!" I thought that was pretty cute. I did finally get him to go in. We had missed like half of the meeting, but the last half was really good! We sat in the room where Todd was translating for the Spanish speaking people in the Stake. It was kind of fun. Drew even got quite lucky. There was a little boy in there who had multiple bakugans that he played with throughout the meeting. At the end of the meeting Drew approached the boy, and was checking out his bakugans and the boy told him that he could have one of them. He asked his mom if that was okay. She said yes, and Drew was in Heaven!

Later in the evening we went to Half Moon Bay with Todd and Betty, and Todd took some pretty cute pics of the kids.

Family Vacation Day 2: Yosemite

After a lovely night (a few hours for Lamon and Marybeth who stayed up late) we woke up and packed up our stuff and left Lake Tahoe. It was quite a shame to leave so soon, seeing that we had such a lovely suite to enjoy! But Yosemite was waiting for us, so we wanted to get off to an early start. It was a couple hours of driving until we entered the park. When we did enter the park we were looking out the windows enjoying the scenery. No one actually admitted this to anyone, but we were all wondering to ourselves what was different about these mountains compared to our own in Utah. And then . . . we got to Yosemite Valley. Oh boy . . . can I just say SPECTACULAR!!! It was absolutely beautiful. We were surrounded by these amazing sheer granite cliffs. The biggest waterfall in Yosemite was dry, which was a disappointment. I can't even imagine how breathtaking it must be when the waterfalls are all flowing at full capacity. That must be a site to see! But we did go on a 2 mile hike to one of the falls. It was really fun. It was a really steep climb, and the kids practically ran up the whole thing. Drew and Hayden were having a bit of a contest to see who could get to the top first. Drew was winning, and I was the lucky one who got to hold Drew's hand on the way up! So needless to say . . . my pregnant self was a little winded when we finally got there! :) I love that my kids love to hike. Sometimes Hayden complains when we are hiking, but he was right behind Drew the whole time on this one. Even Ada hiked almost the entire way herself! I have cool kids.

We had to leave before it got too late because it was going to take a couple hours to get to our reserved camp site. It took a little longer than we expected to get to the site, and we were less than impressed when we got there. It was pitch dark, and when we pulled up to the site it was very small and not very well maintained. We had to move the picnic bench in order to make a spot for our tent. And when we pulled our canvas bag full of our tents, sleeping bags, and camping gear off the trailer in the back of the car we had a bit of a surprise. Unlike some cars who's exhaust goes off to the side . . . our cars exhaust comes straight out the back. And the exhaust burned a hole right through the canvas bag, all of our sleeping bags, our tent etc. After acknowledging that that was going to take a bit of money to replace all of the that stuff, we decided not to let it ruin our vacation! Good thing we had so much luck in Lake Tahoe!

Lamon set up the tent while me and Marybeth practiced our camp cooking skills making instant packaged noodles on the camping stove. After dinner the kids went right to sleep. And if I haven't mentioned it before . . . I have cool kids. The kids slept right through the night not waking up once. Ada slept so long we had to wake her up in the morning after puting all of the camping gear away except for the tent she was sleeping in. She was a sight to behold when she woke up. Her hair was sticking up everywhere. What a cute little girl! :)

Family Vacation Day 1: Lake Tahoe

The Lamon Mack family is not known for their planning skills. But although it was out of character for us, many months ago we penciled in a trip to Yosemite for the second week of September. We even went as far as making a hotel and campground reservation ahead of time! Of course that is as far as we went with the whole planning thing, and the rest of the trips intinerary was sort of up in the air. We decided to make it a quick trip and drive most of the first day and stay in Lake Tahoe. We reserved to cheapest place we could find on the internet. We arrived in Lake Tahoe at about midnight. That was much later than expected. It was a long day of driving, but we were armed with fruit snacks, crackers, pistachios, bagels and cream cheese, and lots of movies. The kids did just fine. That is of course until we arrived in Lake Tahoe. The kids had all been sleeping for a few hours, and suddenly Hayden woke up and was not in the happiest of moods to say the least. He started crying uncontrollably. We were trying to figure out what was wrong, and how we could make him feel better; but he wasn't making a lick of sense at all. We would tell him, "Hayden, don't worry we are almost to the hotel." Then he would respond by wailing, "Noooooo!!! I don't want to sleep in the hotel!"
"Do you want to sleep in the car?"
"Noooooo!"
"Hayden, you aren't making any sense! What is wrong? Why don't you want to sleep in the hotel?"
Crying he said, "It's just . . . I don't know what it looks like!"
And that was it. For the next 45 minutes, or however long it took us to get inside the hotel, Hayden continued crying because he didn't know what it looked like inside.
When we got to the hotel, I was a little worried. It didn't look like the Ritz. We reserved the cheapest room available, so I wasn't expecting anything too grand . . . but after getting there I was a little worried about what we would find.
Lamon went to check in while me and Marybeth listened to Hayden cry about not knowing what the hotel looked like inside, and a part of me was feeling the same way at that point. Lamon finally came out with a key, and was trying to get into our room (which didn't have a non-smoking sign on the door) and after trying for a few minutes the door wouldn't open. He finally went back to the office to have them rekey it, and he came back and tried again. But still there was no luck. He couldn't get the door open. He went back to the office again. At this point I was thinking to myself, "This is really going to be a dive, and we will never hear the end of it from Hayden! But then Lamon came back with a huge smile on his face, and walked to a different room entirely. We were thinking maybe he was trying the wrong room the whole time, but then Lamon came back and told us that the front desk guy asked him, "How would you like a free upgrade? We have this $450 dollar Suite that never gets used because no one can afford it. Would you guys like it?" We were pretty stoked! So here are some pictures of our 79 dollar room, I mean suite, at Lake Tahoe! There was a gas fireplace in the master bedroom, flat screen tv's in every room, a full kitchen and dining area, another bedroom with a nice little couch, and a very nice bathroom with a huge sweet shower.

August: Feed the Fire 50 Mile Bike Ride

Lamon organized a Feed the Fire Event for the family in August. Inspired perhaps by his 100 mile Tour de Cure race, Lamon thought it would be fun to go on a 5o mile bike ride with the family. Unlike Lamon and his in shape buddies who did the Tour de Cure, this bike ride would be accomplished on mountain bikes by some of us who perhaps had ridden a bike once the whole summer . . . and we didn't break any speed records I will just say that right now! I (an out of shape pregnant woman) was in front of the pack a lot of the time. That's about how fast we went. But it sure was fun!!!!! We rode about 30 miles and then stopped at a park in Genola and pigged out on some yummy food that Lamon had waiting for us. Todd and Betty came with their kids and joined us for the last 20 miles. It was a fun day!! The people who participated in our Feed the Fire Event were Mom and Dad Mack, Annie, Janie, Marybeth, Jeanine, Spencer, Aunt Nan, Todd, Betty (and kids) and me. Lamon rode the support vehicle, and for the last 20 miles had a sad Alicia in the car with him. Lamon, you rock! Thanks for the fun!

August: Lagoon

Yes, I know it is October already! I just have been a little lazy at catching up on all the summer events. Every time I have the intention of just getting it all done, I end up being so long winded with each entry, that I give up without finishing. But here goes another attempt at catching up.

In August my brother Jim's little boy Eli visited from Colorado. It is not very often that we get to spend time with that adorable little guy, so we wanted to make the best of it! We decided that it would be fun to go to Lagoon. It's been a long time since I have been to Lagoon!! The last time I went to Lagoon I was a newlywed. I went with Lamon and some siblings and it didn't turn out too well. I kept calling Lamon a partypooper because he wouldn't go on any of the rides. And he pretty much didn't want to go to an amusement park with me again after that. I now know that he really does have a weak stomach! He has passed it on to all of our children. There was no chance that I was going to complain about his partypooperness this go around. This time it would be just for the kids. No big kid rides or anything. It helped that I was pregnant, and couldn't go on any of the big rides anyway.

It was nice because the kids were just tall enough to go on most of the kid rides. And I was really impressed because they weren't scared to go on any of them. The only problem we ran into was when there was a possibility of getting wet on a ride. Everytime that Ada got wet she started crying like a madwoman! It was pretty funny actually because you could tell that she hated it when she would get wet, but if you looked at her with a huge smile and said, "Ada! Wasn't that so fun?!! Did you like that ride?!" She would say, "Ya . . . that was fun!" But oh did she hate getting wet! When we went on the Rattlesnake Rapids Ride Lamon pretty much huddled over her the entire time trying to keep her from getting soaked. She's a trooper though and endured the wet rides, and had a fabulous time. At least we convinced her that she did . . . ! J/K!

The kids loved the waterpark. It was crazy busy in there though, and we got a little nervous a couple times when we couldn't see one of the kids. I think at one point it took us a few minutes to find Drew, and a few minutes can be pretty nerve racking! We thought Drew was tall enough to go on most of the slides, and we took him without any protest from the staff on them. But on one of the tube rides we got to the top of the slide, and I was thinking to myself, "I don't know if Drew is quite tall enough for this one." But the lifeguard motioned him ahead and Drew got on his tube. It is hard to explain, but there is a part of the tube the is big where you would put your head, and a part of the tube that is smaller where your feet would hang over. Well, Drew got on the tube sitting on the small part with his feet pointed towards the bigger end. It made the weight distribution not quite right, and before he even got started he was tipping backwards. People in the crowd were grimacing and saying, "Oooh! . . . As they watched Drew start going down the slide. We were all waiting for him to tip over! But instead of tipping over . . . in the middle of the slide he just came to a complete stop. The lifeguard ended up having to ski down the slide on his feet and push Drew down the rest of the way. Everyone had to wait a long time for the Lifeguard to return, and I just looked at the ground embarrassed vowing to myself that I would never bring a lightweight kid on that slide again no matter how brave we both thought he was!!

At the end of the day I was wishing that it didn't have to come to an end so soon! The kids had such a fun time. And I never thought I would think this, but watching kids have fun on rides is a thousand times better than going on them myself! And that is coming from someone who loves rides! Fun times. Grandma and Grandpa Barksdale, John, Karyn, Gabbie, Charlie, Eli, Liz, Blake and Tyler were all there with us to join in the fun! Hope we can go next year . . . and me and my unpregnant self will be going on some rides!!! Lamon thinks I have a bit of white trash in me for liking Lagoon so much . . . perhaps I do . . . perhaps I do! :)