Through My Eyes...

A Day at the Beach

This morning I packed up Justin and Tyler and met up with my friends, Kaylynn, Bethany and Kelly, and their kids to caravan to Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast. The beach is about an hour and fifteen minutes away from our house. I love that it is close enough for us to make a day trip. What's better than a sunny afternoon at the beach?




The kids had a fabulous time playing in the sand all afternoon and trying their luck with some dollar store kites! Justin was so happy to play with his good friend, Aidan, and Tyler was just happy to play with Aidan's trucks.



I was wondering why we don't do this more often. It was so refreshing to get away and to enjoy the SUN! And to end the fun day with a trip to a candy story to buy salt water taffy, who could ask for more?

Summer begins with S

Strawberries - I ordered 30 pounds of fresh Oregon Strawberries last month and they were finally ready to harvest last week. I picked up my bucket on Thursday and it took me two days to freeze and vacuum pack the bunch. Mmmmm...there is nothing better than the smell of fresh strawberries. I'm in love.



Smelling the campfire - One of my responsibilities as second counselor in the Primary presidency is to oversee the Cub Scouts and also the 11-year-old Scouting program. Friday night I got to go join our 11-year-old scout campers at their campfire program. They camped at Camp Ireland and I enjoyed walking around the camp and smelling the campfires.


I love that smell! I'm looking forward to the time our boys get to participate in the Scouting program. It sure looks like a lot of fun!

Selling Juice Boxes - Our neighborhood's HOA hosted a big garage sale this weekend. On Friday morning, when I set out with the boys on their bikes to check out all the garage sales in the neighborhood, I gave each boy $2.00 to spend however they liked. It was funny to see how frugal Justin was in deciding how to spend his money and how clueless Tyler was to what was going on. Justin ended up "helping" Tyler spend his money.

Well, after coming home and enjoying their "goods", Justin started making big plans for Saturday at the garage sales. When we woke up Saturday morning, he had already written out a sign for selling Costco Kirkland juice boxes for 25 cents. He moved the wooden kid table over to the door and was ready to go start his business. What could I say? Off we went to open his "store" on our driveway.



I thought he might sell only a few juices, but he sold out in less than an hour. He had big motivation for making some money so he could go buy more treasures at the garage sale. I was secretly hoping we wouldn't come home with junk. Off we went with our little wagon and they boys both found a cute little lion flashlight that opens its mouth when it turns on.

Staining the fence - Travis hired two teenagers from our ward to help him stain the fence in our yard. They were trying to earn money for Scout Camp and Travis was so glad to have their help. They worked hard all day on Saturday and Travis even hired Justin to help for a while so he could earn money to pay Mom back for the $3 he borrowed earlier that day to buy a tiny pool table at the big neighborhood garage sale.



Sharing time - It was my turn to teach sharing time on Sunday. I'm really beginning to enjoy it. The part I like the best is how excited Justin gets to help me with my lesson. I keep it all a secret from him and sometimes the anticipation just about does him in. But he always pays attention and since this time we ran out of time to finish all I had prepared, he begged me to finish it for our Family Home Evening lesson tonight. So, tonight we are going to learn about how we can prepare to go to the temple by being reverent, dressing modestly and speaking kindly.

Sleeping - Sunday afternoons are just the best. We try to trade off naps and it is really funny how much I look forward to it. Now if I could get Justin and Tyler on the bandwagon, too. That would be fantastic!

You can run, but you can't hide...

...from JURY DUTY!

I've never been selected before for this joy of all joys. Until now. It freaks me out. You know, it is just one of those things where I'm glad someone else is doing it, but I don't want to have to do it myself. I feel like it is such a life-changing thing to read that verdict and I don't want to be one of the jury who decides someones fate. Travis showed me the envelope with a big teasing smile on his face and my heart started to race. Luckily (I think), we'll be in Montana on that day and so I deferred...until October.

Travis was picked for jury duty last month and I actually LAUGHED at him! He called in the night before and didn't even have to go at all and that counted for his duty. I should have knocked on wood when I laughed at him. Well, now the tables have turned and this time he is the one laughing out loud! Serves me right. Please say someone you know has had a positive experience with jury duty. Hopefully I'll follow this up with a nice post afterwards to tell you I've had a change of heart about the whole thing.

Happy Father's Day!

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Bribes

Travis was on a business trip to California on Wednesday and Thursday. Since I wasn't any fun on Wednesday and we just cleaned the house all day, I promised the boys we could go to the library on Thursday. So yesterday, we went and signed them up for their summer reading program for the kids (and me, too!). The boys got a special packet with a few different charts they will fill out by reading books to earn the following: 2 free kids meals (The Old Spaghetti Factory and Noodles & Co.), a McD's yogurt parfait, a game of miniature golf, an ice cream cone, a discount to Oaks Park, fast food coupons, and a free paperback to keep! Oh, and a pencil, too. Could that list be any longer? They also can enter a drawing each week as we visit the library.

I'm all for reading and I agree it's fun to join a "summer reading program" because you get to fill out a fun little chart, but do these kids really need all that extra stuff? My boys love the library and are so happy to just pick out 5 books each and a video before we head out to see the ducks and geese and to hear our echos in the tunnel. They'd be happy just to have the reading chart to fill out. It was a beautiful day and we had the best time running around the duck pond. I actually remembered to bring some bread and so we had fun feeding the quackers, too!



The little "teenager" geese were so cute...and hungry! The mom wouldn't let them go on the sidewalk and would hiss at us if we got too close to the grass.



I like the idea of encouraging them to get excited about reading...but, you know. Last year, I think half of those silly coupons just magically disappeared...or they might still be lost in my wallet. Don't get me wrong, we did have a fantastic time at the library and running around the pond. But, I just don't want my kids to start expecting a reward every time they read anything. Although, you could argue that I knew what to expect when we went to the library in the first place so I must like all the bribery on some level. O.K., I'll admit it, they gave me a bag of skittles for signing up for the adult summer reading program. And I kept it for myself. So, there you go.

Yesterday night I hired a babysitter and I went to our Relief Society's Enrichment Night to do a silent service auction and to make little baby binky pillows to donate to the hospital. I always look forward to going because I don't see all my friends on Sundays since I'm in Primary early to set up and late to finish up. It was a fun night for me!

When I drove up to our house, Travis was in the driveway putting away the garbage cans. I didn't expect to see him until a little later that night, so it was a good surprise! Then he gave the boys little airplane gliders. They love these things and we took them over to the school today to throw around.



Travis, they'll want you to go on a business trip every week if you keep bringing back such cool presents! Um...don't do that, though...the traveling every week part...I'd have to bribe them all the time and besides that I'd miss you too much! "Keep cleaning and I'll take you to the library, read all your books and you get a prize, be good while dad's gone and he'll bring you back a surprise." O.K., I'm guilty. But I bet no other mom would blame me.

Gotta Love Living in Oregon!

What does daylight savings time mean in Portland?

An extra hour of rain.

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A newcomer to Portland arrives on a rainy day. She gets up the next day and it's raining. It also rains the day after that, and the day after that. She goes out to lunch and sees a young kid and, out of despair, asks, "Hey, kid, does it ever stop raining around here?"

The kid says, "How should I know? I'm only 8."

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"I can't believe it," said the tourist. "I've been here in Portland an entire week and it's done nothing but rain. When do you have summer here?" "Well, that's hard to say," replied the local. "Last year, it was on a Wednesday."

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What do you call two straight days of rain in Portland? An average weekend.

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What did the Portland native say to the Pillsbury Dough boy?

"Nice tan."

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Kindergarten Graduation

Justin and his friends who are also in our ward, Aidan and Magdalena

Today was Justin's last day of school. He was so excited and I was a little bit sad. I'm happy for him to go on to learn new things, but I'll miss this fun Kindergarten stage. He had a fun field day today and then after lunch, both Kindergarten classes put on a concert in the gym for all of the parents. The kids sang several cute songs and we all got to join in for the big finale of "A-Tu-Ja-Ta" with all of the silly actions.

After the concert, we moved into Justin's classroom for their little graduation ceremony.



Mrs. Zielke handed each child their diploma and a little butterfly as she read aloud each child's own thoughts on kindergarten. Here is Justin's:

The best part of Kindergarten was P.E. because I like games like "Teacher, Teacher, What Time is it?" I learned that moths aren't butterflies. I know that there's one butterfly that looks like a Monarch because a Monarch tastes yucky. I am proud that I learned about plants. They start out at the top of the food chain.

When I grow up, I want to be a paleontologist because they dig up dinosaur bones and I love dinosaurs!

Tyler just wanted to sneak off and play with all the dinosaurs. He'll really be happy when he can finally go to Kindergarten.



Justin wanted to ride the bus home one last time, so we waited with him and took a picture of him with his nice bus driver. She told me that Justin has been her favorite this year and that he reminds her of her nephew. I have appreciated her this year knowing that someone is watching out for him on the bus each day.





Justin told me that he wishes 1st Grade could begin next Monday and that he wouldn't have such a long summer vacation. He really loves school and I'm sure he'll miss it. But, when I told him he has 12 weeks to play this summer, he said, "I better get going!"

Guess What Happened at School Today?

Justin lost a tooth! Another one? Yep, this is #6. It fell out during circle time when they were reading "James and the Giant Peach". He tells me, "I knew it was going to fall out right then because I was turning it and it got stuck half way around." His teacher gave him a cute little plastic tooth-shaped holder for his tooth along with a red cord to wear it as a charm around his neck. He was so excited that it happened while he was at school. And in the nick of time since his last school day for the year is tomorrow.

Tonight, after dinner, Justin immediately wrote a letter to the tooth fairy and addressed an envelope to put under his pillow with his tooth. He showed it to me and asks, "Can I go to bed right now?" It was 6:45 p.m. After that comment, I think it wouldn't be so bad for him to loose a tooth every day! At least I think the tooth fairy will need to start working overtime with all these teeth falling out! I hope he saves some for the 1st Grade. Wowsers!

Three's of Me

This post took me over two weeks to finish. It's tough to nail down these things about myself. I definitly learned a thing or two about the good old me, myself and I. Well, here we go:

Three Joys
1. Holidays. I love the togetherness of holidays! I love planning for them! I love getting together with family and friends to celebrate whatever! I love that my birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, Tyler's will sometimes be on Easter, and Justin's will fall on Mother's Day when he turns eight. Double the fun and double the anticipation!

2. Family. I love my little family! Travis and the boys bring me joy every single day! I look forward to spending time with them and they always make me laugh! I am so happy to have them.

Guptill Family December 2005 (Tyler 7 months old and Justin 3 1/2 years old)

3. My flowers. I feel joy when I see my pretty little flowers thriving and blooming. My little piece of heaven. The sun on my face feels so good when I'm working in my yard.

Three Fears
1. Spiders. Creepy crawlies, webs, googly-eyes and bites. Can't be good and I'm training my boys to squash them for me. I figure since I have two strong boys, they can learn to protect their mother. I do try to put on a strong face when we come across a big one. Nah, they don't bother me! I don't want Justin or Tyler to be afraid of the creepies. Who would get rid of them for me? But inside I'm yelling "Yikes! Get me out of here!"

2. Lost Child. I'm worried that Tyler is going to get separated from us and become really, truly lost. He's a runner and I have to keep my eye on him whenever we are out in public. He isn't really trying to get away from us, he just has no fear and wants to go wherever he wants to go. Today at Target (again), I had to assign Travis to Tyler and he still was trying to take off the whole time. It makes me shop faster. Maybe that's a good thing. We buy less this way....

Our happy Ty Guy!

3. Running out of gas. Can't be a good thing. When I had my learner's permit in high school, our station wagon ran out of gas while I was driving it and my mom and I coasted into the high school parking lot. How embarrassing! I'm sure it would be even crazier these days with a car full of kids! Or if there was some sort of emergency and we had to leave town right then. So, I always like to make sure the tank is at least half full. Travis is so good to keep gas in our van and I definitely appreciate it.

Three Goals
I know everyone thinks of their own "save the world" goals. I'm thinking smaller here. I'm thinking "save the fam" goals. Here are my three "get us through the day" goals:
1. Plan dinner. My day will rock if dinner is rolling by lunchtime.

2. Shine the kitchen sink. The whole house becomes magically clean if this happens first thing in the morning. Yup, it really works.

3. Happy Mommy. If Mom is happy, everyone is happy. The opposite also applies, so I plan for the first.

Three Obsessions
1. Rachel Ray. I love her cookbooks and my family loves to eat at our table when I use her recipes. The talk show is fun too. I record every episode.

2. Washing Hands. Gotta do it kids. No ifs, ands or buts about it!

3. Popcorn. I don't know if this is an obsession for me, but I can't live without it. Well, in that case, you could say it is definitely leaning torwards an obsession. A yummy one!

Three Surprising Facts
1. Brush with Celebrity. I stood next to Marie Osmond once at the doctor's office's front desk in Provo.

2. Travis kissed me for the first time while we were breaking up.

3. I love mustard. I used to eat mustard sandwiches and the funny thing is that it actually sounds good to me right now!

Time for a Top 5

Busy week, no new posts. I think it's time for "Our week's Top 5":

1. Gotta love Kball! For those of you who don't know, just imagine t-ball for a team of kindergartners. I know I'll miss these games. Only two more left....





2. Well-child doctor visits. I love the "well" part of that.

3. "Mom, yesterday was my best day ever!" - Justin watched the space shuttle Discovery's launch on Saturday and then played all afternoon with his five 6-year-old buddies down the street. He was so happy!



4. Sunday dinner with our friends, Kirstin and Jeff. I'm getting excited for summer barbecues!

5. Update for Justin's leg: I took him to get fitted for orthopedics today (crossing my fingers) and then Tyler begged for a celebration picnic lunch in the backyard. We even lucked out with an airplane flyover! Good idea, Ty!