More than a cold

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm sick. Turns out it wasn't a cold though. I have a really bad case of strep throat. It came on suddenly Friday afternoon and I have been out of it ever since. After waking up Sunday morning to a horrific looking throat and bad fever, I went to the doctor and got a pennicillin shot. I should start feeling better soon.
I'm writing this to thank my husband for all he has done for me lately. He has been coming home from work early to take the kids places, going in to work late and taking short lunches to get kids to school, cooking the meals, running kids to the store and parties, and canceling meetings all weekend long to stay home and take care of me and the kids.
Yesterday he got up early to arrange for the Stake President to teach for him in a Ward conference so he could take our kids to church. It was our Primary Program, and I'm a Primary teacher, and I was so upset to miss not only my own kids in it, but my class also. Then he made blueberry pancakes, got the kids bathed and ready for church, took me to the doctor, fed everyone lunch, started dinner and headed for church. He has been so amazing and wonderful.
My kids have been helping out so much also and I am so grateful to them too. They've been bringing me chicken noodle soup in bed, refilling my water bottle, helping David with meals and supplying me with movies to keep my mind off my illness. I have such a great family and I am so thankful for them. I love them so much. I am hoping and praying now that none of them get sick.

Too Old for Parties

It's sad. I now have a 14-year old, and he's too old for parties.

Being the party-planning mom that I am, I began asking Logan months ago what he wanted to do for his birthday party this year. None of my suggestions were enticing him, and he wasn't coming up with anything on his own. (His sister picks her next party theme the day after her birthday.) So in frustration during another brainstorming session I suggested that we just forget a party and David and I would take him to dinner and a movie. Finally I got some excitement from an idea! So that's what we did.

On the Saturday night before Logan's birthday we had Stauney babysit and we took him out. He picked Marie Callendar's for dinner (so he could get pie with dinner). With an entire menu to choose from, anything he wanted, no price limit for a change, what does Logan get to eat? A hamburger. Teenagers. Then we went to see The Fly Boys. This was an independent movie filmed in St. George that I had heard about on the KSL Movie Show. (Two pre-teen boys stow away in an airplane owned by a mob boss.) It was only in select theaters for a certain amount of time. There were only David, Logan and myself and one other couple with 2 kids in the entire theater for the movie. WE LOVED IT! Everyone else was missing out. It was funny, adventureous, exciting, and heartwarming, and I highly recommend it to those over 13. It was PG-13 for some language and intense excitement that had me screaming in the theater.

The next day was Sunday, and Logan's birthday. He was ordained to the office of a Teacher at church that day. Logan picked lasagna for dinner, and a cheesecake for his birthday cake which I bought at Sam's Club. We ate, he opened presents, we ate cake, and that was it! No balloons, no cute party plates, no invitations, no custom cake masterpiece. I really didn't have much to do for his birthday except make dinner. I think I liked it! Logan was perfectly content, we had a great time spending some time with just Logan, and the other kids are thinking that dinner and a movie with mom and dad might be funner than a party. But, being the party-planning mom that I am, I won't encourage it, until they get too old for parties too.

Top Nine List

I seem to always be about a month behind on my posts. We went to the Utah State Fair in September, but I just have to post this.

First, I have to give you a little goat lesson. As we sit in the barn for the goat shows at the State Fair, multitudes of students, groups and families come through to see the animals. We soon found out, the first time there, that many don't know anything about farm animals. We always get asked questions about the goats, but one question we get 98% of the time, "What happened to their ears." The LaMancha breed of goats have little stubby ears. It actually looks like they have none. And most questions and comments revolve around their ears - or lack of.

Here's a picture of a LaMancha.

Most people think of Nubians, with Roman noses and long floppy ears, when they think of goats, and probably don't even realize that there are other breeds.

Anyway, enough goat lesson, here's what I wanted to post:

The Top Nine List of Funny Comments We Heard About Goats While Sitting at the Utah State Fair.
(Sorry, I only had nine, not ten.)

#9 - Abt. 15 year-old girl: "I have to take pictures of all their butts! They're so weird."

#8 - Abt. 9 year-old boy spots brown LaMancha across the barn: "Hey look! They have a llama."

#7 - Abt. 6 year-old girl: "Mommy, do these lay eggs?"

#6 - Abt. 15 year-old boy: "Hey, a Billy Goat!"
Owner: "That ain't no Billy Goat. Look underneath her, see the udder?"
15 y.o.b.: Looks confused at word 'udder'. "But it has little horns."
Owner: "They all have horns."

#5 - Grown man: "So, are these the goats?"

#4 - Mentally challenged man points to a blank white banner hanging from the ceiling and says confidently, "See that? It says 'goats'." Other mentally challenged adults in group look at banner, nod approvingly, and walk away. Only one man stays behind and looks at blank banner confused. Steps around to look at other side of blank banner. Finally shrugs his shoulders and walks off to join the others.

#3 - Abt. 10 year-old boy to his classmates looking at a LaMancha: "Yep, they cut the ears off. They use animal parts to make things."

#2 - Abt. 8 year-old girl referring to the teats: "See those? You have to touch those and push them up in to get milk out of them. They do it to cows too."
Her classmate's response: "Eww!"

#1 - Grown man with wife and four young children: Confidently, "The boys have ears, the girls don't."


Logan and Stauney raise Oberhasli's. Here's a picture of them at the State Fair. They did really well in the 4-H show with Logan getting 4th and Stauney getting 1st in their age groups in Showmanship. Then Stauney's goat Penelope got 2nd place Jr. Kid, and Logan's goat got 2nd place Dry Yearling, and Jr. Reserve Champion.
In the open show Penelope got 1st place Jr. Kid, and Ruby got 3rd place Dry Yearling. I won't go into detail of what that all means, but it's really good!
(Stauney is actually showing Clover in this picture, and if you read my previous goat posts of why she no longer owns Clover, I'll just add that despite her recent cosmetic surgery for which we dubbed her 'FrankenClover', she hilariously won 1st place in the same show she got disqualified in last year!)

And finally, I had to show a picture of these awesome tigers that were in a show at the fair. They are from the Marcan Tiger Preserve Tigers of India show. They were so beautiful!

The State Fair is a lot of work and effort, but very entertaining and rewarding in the end.

It Rained on our Parade...literally.

Payson, Utah celebrates Onion Days on Labor Day weekend every year and it's a huge Hansen family tradition in conjunction with a family reunion. We love this weekend and plan for it every year. The cousins of similar ages combine, find their spots and have a big sleep-over at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma Hansen bakes huge amounts of delicious food for us to gorge ourselves on, the women have their 'Girls Night Out' movie night, we all play volleyball, usually watch the band concert in the park, some run the 5K (and even 10K this year), and we go see the parade.Do you kind of expect Shrek and Fiona to be waving from inside the big onion like me?

In the 17 years that David and I have been married, I only remember missing one Onion Days Parade because I was sick with the flu. Almost every year it's so hot by the time the parade starts you can hardly stand it. Well, this year we had a rainy weekend, but it seemed to be clearing up, and was even sunny for a while. So we headed to the 'Hansen spot' on the parade route. We've never sat anywhere but there because Grandpa stakes it out with about 20 chairs and rope every year. But not far into the parade - it poured. Raining cats and dogs definitely applies here. We were wet, cold, and trying to stay dry with blankets over our heads. But, we ran. Lots of people ran. We tried to be brave, but with two screaming boys on your lap it's just not worth it. So we sprinted to Grandma's only to be faced with wet boys crying because they hardly got any candy. We had a niece and nephew in the parade somewhere that we never got to wave to.

Logan stayed, and hid with some other family members under a nearby carport. He heard one man who was handing out candy ask another how long they had to keep going. The reply was, "We're done when the candy is gone." To which he promptly walked over to a brave family still on the side of the road, dumped his entire bag of candy in their laps, said, "Done!" and headed for shelter. And to the credit of most people in the parade, they kept going, marching forward to a dwindling crowd. Brave souls.

Despite the rainout, we had a great weekend. Logan ran in the annual 5K for the first time and did a great job. He and a cousin got big bags as prizes. Since all the runners wanted hot cocoa instead of icy sports drinks from sponsors on that cold morning, they loaded the drinks into their bags and lugged them back to Grandma's. Happy teenagers.

I think we all had happy husbands in the end too. Instead of heading to the shopping booths after the parade, the wives all stayed and chatted where it was warm and dry.

Love-a-Fair

Whew! Another major event in our lives completed. We had two weeks after getting back from vacations to switch gears and get ready for the county fair. Just before vacation I got asked to be the new 4-H Goat Club secretary due to last minute - lets just say, conflicts. I really don't know much about goats, and I've tried to keep it that way to avoid positions like this, but they were desperate, and I'm too nice. I won't go into boring details, but my spreadsheets got completed, the show got organized, and I actually really enjoyed it.
The kids had been working at leading their goats during the summer, but sporadically, so it was time to get down to business and show those goats who was boss (or at least try). They also worked hard getting them trimmed, and shaved and their hooves clipped, last minute tattooing (oops, forgot about that), baths (the goats and the kids), and finally shopping to replace all the kids outgrown showing clothes. Logan only grew 6 inches since the last fair so his pants should have fit, right? Anyway, we got it all done and got everyone and animal there.
There was a Utah Dairy Goat Assoc. double-ring open goat show one day and the Davis County Fair in conjunction with a UDGA youth show the next day. Hence, long hours in barns.

This is at the county fair. Stauney is showing Clover and Logan is showing Ruby. These are the goats they got last year. They ended up taking 1st (Ruby) and 2nd (Clover) in this age group and got to compete in the Star Class where Logan won Reserve Champion for Ruby. Stauney also competed in the Star Class with her other goat Penelope who got 1st place in her age group. Logan also showed a market goat, Copper. He sold him at the auction for $150.00. Stauney got Reserve Champion in showmanship. I won't explain too much since most of you wouldn't understand what all the terms mean, but they did really well and brought home tons of ribbons and they both got a big belt buckle again. They basically competed in 4 shows in 2 days. They also entered numerous exhibits and did really good in those also. Stauney made a set of cards that got selected to go to the State Fair.
Evan and Noah got to compete in the Pee-Wee goat show a few days later. Evan was in the youngest age group and showed Stauney's goat Penelope (Penny). He had no idea who the judge was, so he didn't know who to watch, and spent most of the time waving at us in the audience. He was a little distracted, but so cute and got 3rd of 3. He came out and yelled, "Yes! I got third place!" He received a medal and a lead rope. He was thrilled.

Noah was in the intermediate age group and showed our neighbor's goat Mississippi Mud. He placed first and got to come back in to compete again, and won Grand Champion! He did so awesome. He can show a goat better than a lot of kids in the 4-H/FFA show. He deserved it and received a medal, a bag of candy, and a belt buckle (if you look at the sack in his hand you can see the cute little belt buckle in it). He was beaming and proud when he exited the arena and pointed to Logan and said, "Two years. You and me." Logan accepted the challenge.

This photo of David and Stauney reflects how we all felt by the end of the fair. It was worth it.
But we better rest quickly, we are headed to the Utah State Fair in 2 weeks. Come see us!

Vacation #2

A dream come true. That's the best way to describe my second vacation in July 2008. My whole life I have wanted to go to Hawaii, all it took was a deadline on our Skymiles to get us there! That's what we had been saving them for after all. After about 5 months of planning, we were so excited to finally be on our way. I won't do much writing because the photos are the best part. If you want to see more you'll have to come over to see the other nearly 1000 photos I took.
Our house, Honu C, one of three Tropical Waters rental houses in a gated area in Pupukea. It's on the edge of Papa'Iloa beach of Oahu's north shore. (Our van is the white one. Apparently every rental agency in Hawaii rents the same model of van. I'm sure it makes it easier for the locals to spot the tourists.)
This is the beach from behind the rental houses. Just up from this is Sunset beach and the Bonzai Pipeline, one of the top surfing spots in the world in the winter months. There were steps leading from here down to the beach where we had a short walk through some lava rock before the sand.
Mine and David's footprints in the sand. This is near the tidepool on our beach where we could see little fish swimming around in the lava rock. Our beach had the most beautiful sand I have ever seen. It must be due to the huge waves that crash here all winter making the perfectly tumbled sand. We walked down to the beach the first night we got to Hawaii. It was already after dark by the time we got back from dinner. There were little specks in the sand that glowed in the dark. We don't know what they were, but they were cool.Our beach at sunrise. David got up early one morning while I slept in and walked down to the beach to see the sunrise. This is the tidepool in the foreground.
Our beach at sunset. After being out and about all day, we almost always headed for the beach in the evenings to watch the sun set.
Sharks cove was just down the path a couple minutes from our house. It is #12 of the top snorkeling spots in the world. This is the sunset from there after we finished snorkeling one day.
We were so lucky to have Shark's Cove so close. The 3 D's (David, Dannie and Dad) tried out snorkeling at Turtle Bay one morning, but said it was nothing compared to Shark's Cove. This is a photo David took of some fish in Shark's Cove with a little disposable underwater camera. It's not the clearest, but you can see how many fish there were. We had so much fun snorkeling and wish we could have done it more. We only had to be knee-deep in the water to see this many fish. We didn't even wear our fins because we didn't have to go far out to be surrounded. David did once, but said there were just as many fish near the shore. We saw all colors, and sizes. One cute little fish even fell in love with David's water shoe and followed his foot around.It was really amazing.
The Laie Hawaii temple. On this day we just toured the temple grounds and took photos. It is so beautiful there and I love the view from the front of the temple looking straight out to the ocean. On Saturday we went and did a session. The temple was a lot smaller inside than we thought it would be, but very pretty.
Waves crashing near Hanauma Bay. On our second day in Hawaii we toured the island, stopping here and there to shop, wade at a beach and take photos of amazing vistas like this. The colors in the water were breathtaking.One of the beautiful sea turtles on Laniakea beach on the north shore. Every afternoon around 3:00 p.m. the come onto the shore to bask in the sun. That day we saw about ten sea turtles in the area. Some on the beach, some in the water. The oldest female, Honey Girl, was slaughtered just a few days before we got there. Please read her story and more about these amazing creatures on this link malamanahonu.org. Earlier that morning a news crew was there because one of the other turtles had crawled up to the grave of Honey Girl and rested her head on it in front of Honey Girl's photo. So sad.
David and myself at the Polynesian Cultural Center. This was such a fun day. I could talk a lot about it, but I won't. I'll just say, go to Hawaii, and be sure to visit it.

This was taken right before we went in for our Luau. Me, David, Dannie, Sherilyn, Mom and Dad, and of course our new 'cousins' in purple on the ends. Don't you just love our hats that scream "TOURIST"! Well, I didn't care, I have naturally curly hair, and it does not mix well with humidity. I have photos with my hat off that prove it. (Sorry, I won't post those.)
We really enjoyed the food and the entertainment. They sang Dad and I 'Happy Birthday' (and everyone else with a July birthday), and Dad and Mom got to go on stage and dance to 'The Hawaiian Wedding Song" because it was their anniversary month.

We had several hikes and walks that we took to see some of the amazing plant life on Oahu. We hiked to the waterfall at Lyon Arboretum. It was barely a trickle, but we saw amazing flowers and trees along the way. This photo of the double hibiscus was taken at Waimea Valley Audobon Center, another must-see place on the island. SO many amazing plants to see. My favorite was the unique and unusual Cannonball Tree.

The view from the top of Diamond Head. Quite the hike, but worth it for the view. Hey, I just remembered we paid a guy for T-shirts that say "I hiked Diamond Head" to be mailed to our house. They better show up soon. I'll have to get back to you on how that worked out.

I'll end with this photo because it's one of my favorites that I took at Lyon Arboretum. Hawaii is wonderful, but no matter how many photos you take and see, it just doesn't compare to being there. It feels great to have a dream come true. I can't wait to go back.