Jelly Bellies

This blog is dedicated to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Will and I drove in the night before to Reno and Stayed the night in a 4 star hotel. Yeah it was not a 4 star. I preferred the Marriott that we stayed in with my parents on Saturday night. Both the sinks and tub drained slow. It wasn't bad until I was taking a shower and the tub was filling up with others hairs in the water. I was pretty grossed out. Any ways...

We drove the rest of the way and picked up Jason, Matt, Mickie, Suzanne, Braden (Matt's brother), and Ryan (Matt's friend). By the way I did cry at the airport when we dropped Jason off with Matt and Mickie. It was only the second time that he has not stayed with us over night. I blame the pregnancy hormones on that one. 2 minutes later I was just fine with the situation.

We then headed to the Jelly Belly Factory. Matt had to pick up his tux, so while we were waiting we went and bought our belly flops (jelly beans that are to big, small, or stuck together). We did a lot of playing around too.

We ended up doing a lot of waiting... They got really lost so we did the tour with out them. None of us realized that both the cell phones were in our car, woops.

On the tour they make you wear hats (health code). It was pretty tough making Jason keep his on.

Colton is King Bacon in his Knights of Meatlumbis group. They eat a lot of meat on Mo' Meat Mondays. He is a strange kid. Here he is eating a bacon jelly belly. He said that it really tasted like he was eating bacon bits. I don't think I would like my jelly beans tasting like bacon.

Jason loved this car. He played while the rest of us ate our jelly bean shaped hamburgers and pizza.

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Idaho

Wow, it has been a long time since I have bloged. Life has just been crazy, and still is. Last night we got home pretty late from Cali, and both Jason and Will picked up a bug while we were there. Will is staying home from work today, so it is a lay on the couch movie day.

(Check out what is in between his toes.) Idaho turned out pretty well. Jason was a pretty good kid. I was able to help do dishes and prepare meals for HD and Britany. I keep myself entertained by making a ton of cookies* for HD and Britany. I stuck them in the freezer, so when they wanted some cookies, they could let it thaw and eat them. (*HD and Britany are on wick and receive a food allotment. The get a ton of peanut butter and HD asked me to do something with it, hence I made 3 batches of peanut butter cookies.) After making so many cookies, I am truly thankful for my cookie scoop. Rolling that may cookies by hand got tiring.

Jason watched a lot of movies while we were there. HD and Britany also live 1 block away from a park. Every day we would go take a walk to the park while Britany was taking a nap. Jason loved it. I wish that we lived that close to a park.

Baylee is a cute little girl. She had a little bit of Jaundice, so she looks a little yellow in the pictures, but it cleared up by the time that I left. None of the pictures that I took do her justice, but I will put them up any ways.

Jason handled Baylee pretty well. He didn't freak out when I held her. He was OK with her. I think he is going to do just fine when we bring Sierra home. He thought she was a pet more then anything. He would touch her toes, and watch her. He was very gentle with her. Visiting them eased my mind a lot about how he would handle things.

He even shared his toys with her. (I can't believe that Jason use to be smaller then Baylee.)

One time he was looking at me, he all of a sudden turned towards Baylee and said BOO. I laughed so hard. He was trying to play with her. Don't worry he was a good 6 feet away from her, but what a funny kid.

Lastly HD and Britany have a turtle. Jason was afraid of it and would run away from the turtle. In this picture I asked him where the turtle was and he is pointing it out to me. I was surprised that at one point he actually said turtle with out me coaxing him. It is amazing how fast they learn things at this age.

I will have to tell about the wedding tomorrow. Right now I need to take care of my 2 sick boys and make them lunch.

No time

• I over scheduled my self today. I am so glad that I came home last night.
• The trip was good. You probably will hear more next week.
• I made lots of cookies and did a lot of dishes this week.
• Jason was a pretty good traveler. He had his fits, but for the most part he was good.
• Baylee is a cute little girl. Jason thought she was a pet. He was pretty funny about it.
• Now I have to unpack to pack again for this afternoon, and sew on some sleeve for the dresses Mickie and Suzanne are going to wear this weekend. Yikes. I hope I get everything done.

Will's Entry: She'll be comin' back from Rexburg when she comes . . .

Yay, after a quick 3 days, Kristin will return tonight. I'll pick her up from the airport in the evening. I imagine we'll have our favorite Chinese food downtown too. Should be a good evening. The short calm before our trip to "Jordan's wedding".

A big THANK YOU goes out to the Maxwell clan for making the last few days so enjoyable. I almost feel bad that I had fun while Kristin was gone. Hopefully we can get together still. We'll just need to get Jason on a schedule where he can stay up til 10PM. Yeah, that sounds good.

This will be a short entry. I was thinking to myself, "When do I miss Kristin the most?" I'd definitely have to say that I miss her when I get into bed and know that she's not next to me and she's not going to be joining me any time soon.

Will's Entry: Funny Stuff

So, leading off, I had a great "Will" idea. I think every April Fools, they need to do a prank on the spectators for a sport. This could be anything from running out in the wrong uniforms, to a fake play, or maybe spontaneously breaking out into a funky dance. I think it would get great coverage and people would definitely tune in to see if their game would be the "special one".

Last night we introduced Steph to the world of Killer Bunnies. Let's just say that she's the nicest player ever. She wouldn't play a weapon on someone! She got the hang of the game. Trish and I both won even though we spent the majority of the time in last - waiting for bunnies. It was a blast and apparently we have a date to play again tonight since Jeremy didn't get to play with us. I love games so I definitely am enjoying this.

Sad note: Kailye, Parker and Bright were so excited when they heard I arrived. I went to the back yard and when Kailye was coming to see me she forgot the boys were behind her and slammed the door on Parker. Really happy and sad moment at once.

Well, on the way home I got to thinking . . . even a few years ago, if you'd told me that I would be staying up past midnight to play Killer Bunnies with Ray, Trish, Bobbie, and Steph, I would have been "Who? Really? and what Bunnies???". Interestingly enough it all makes sense now. I definitely consider them Family despite the fact that we share no blood relation. It kind of made me miss my cousins. We'd always be playing games and it was always a fun time.

Last, but not least: Kristin deserves a big hand. I definitely wouldn't have volunteered myself so easily. Especially not with taking the shuttle AND Jason along. She's a great sport.

Will's Entry: I'm Mr. Lonely

So as she was leaving yesterday, Kristin said "While I'm gone, it's up to you to keep the blog going." Oooohhh, that left me feeling like the guys in the Civil War whose sole job is to hold the flag and keep it from touching the ground or maybe I felt like Frodo with The Ring. Either way, I feel the pressure from something relatively meaningless.

I apologize for those who have been waiting all day for me to post on the blog. For those who haven't heard, Kristin is with Jason in Idaho helping HD and Britany with their new little one, Bayleef. She caught a shuttle (van) to go up and will return Wednesday. Apparently Jason didn't mind the trip too much. I wonder how he'll feel about going an entire day without Kristin and I when we send him to California with Matt, Mickie, and Suzanne for Jordan's wedding? Did Kristin ever mention that for our drive, I got a $40 hotel room in Reno - four stars! I'm pretty happy about that.

After church yesterday I went home to an empty house. Fortunately Roger Federer kept me company for a few hours. I'm actually grateful that I get to witness "The Best EVER". I missed Gretzky, only appreciate Michael Jordan as "great", and Tiger doesn't make me go WOW. As an ex-tennis player some of the things he does just makes my jaw drop. I could go on and on about him.

Well last night got incredibly boring, so I headed over to the Maxwells. In a weird way, it was actually nice just "hanging out" with no responsibilities. I've decided that for better or worse, 35% of my brain is always on Kristin and Jason (that can go up if one of them is hungry). Anyway, it was real relaxing having 100% of my brain and wasting it watching The Office with them for awhile. I'm going back tonight for game night. We're supposedly playing Killer Bunnies and teaching Steph. I get nervous because it's one of those games that you're never Sure they'll like.

I guess the last thing I'll add is that I managed to get Mickie a $50 room at the Hilton for Jordan's wedding from Priceline. Yay me!

FOUR more days until we get to go to the Mecca of Disc Golf, Delaveaga Park in Santa Cruz (Art, you will be with us in Spirit). Here's a quote from Wave Magazine:

“There are courses . . . all over,” says Price. “And then there’s DeLaveaga, which is like the Pebble Beach of disc golf courses in the whole nation.”

Cornball

Jason has enjoyed taking showers lately. I have put up the shower head so that he could see what it was like. He loves it so far.

What a cornball. I was trying to take a picture with him in his booster seat. I have been letting him sit next to us at dinner. He really has been enjoying it.

Anyways what I didn't realize was that there was a shiny pot that he was making faces in. Silly kid.

So one of the sweetest things happened yesterday. There was a knock on the door and I answered it. It was a kid from our primary class. Earlier in the day he had herd on the radio that there was a tournament at Solitude this weekend. He came over with a piece of paper to give to Brother Wu. He wrote down that it was this Saturday, was 5 dollars for a lift ticket, and that there were going to be real professionals there. How cute was that. He went out of his way to let Will know about it. He thought that Will would be interested (he is, but it is Saturday and Sunday).

Baylee

Here are the pictures I promised. What a cute little girl.

Will's Entry: Explanation

Well, here's the explanation, though it probably won't make me any less weird. Our work makes us change passwords multiple times a year. They have to be over 9 characters and include letters, numbers, AND punctuation. I've completely used up all the easy-to-remember ones so I thought music would be the way to go. Using certain keys, I've put them to the music of:
"Mama's little baby loves shortnin', shortnin"
I don't actually do the entire song . . .

Little didy

Last night I wanted to use Will's lap top. Not un heard of. He did how ever change his password the day before and could not remember what it was. He is a little strange and pretended the keyboard was a piano, played a song, and that is his password. What the heck. He could not remember the song for the life of him.

I got out of him that it is a kids song. Yeah so I am listing off tons of songs that I sing to Jason and finally after trying for 30 min or so he finally gets the song. It is called Shortnin' Bread. Mickie and Suzanne you would know the song from the Chip and Dale cartoon with the pancakes. Well in case you all are interested here are the lyrics. What a dumb song.

Put on the skillet, put on the lead
Mama's gonna make a little shortnin' bread
That ain't all that she's gonna do
she's gonna make a little coffee, too

Mama's little baby loves shortnin', shortnin'
Mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread
Mama's little baby loves shortnin', shortnin'
Mama's little baby loves shortnin' bread

Three little children, lying in bed
two was sick, the other 'most dead
Send for the doctor, the doctor said:
give them just some shortnin' bread

Mama's little baby ...
Put on the skillet ...
Mama's little baby ...

When them children, sick in bed
heard that talk about shortnin' bread
Popped up well and dance and sing
I get by 'round, got to be
Mama's little baby ...

Late start

Will gave me the usual kiss good bye for work, while I was in bed. I fell back asleep. When I woke up I looked at the clock and it said 9:00. What are you serious? I went into Jason's room and he was just starting to wake up. No way. What is up with our kid? I wonder if he is feeling ok. He seems normal to me... My alarm clock is broken.

Last night Will and I hit up the smith's sale. They had chunky soups on sale for $0.66. That is a really good deal if you eat caned soups. Will likes to eat them when he doesn't have any left overs from the night before. They also had prego spaghetti sauce on sale for the same price. How exciting. We stocked up for the winter on both.

Because of the sale, I was a little late for my cooking class at Maceys. Oh man that was a packed class. I was sitting at the door. There were about 70 people there. Crazy I know. It was a class on freezing meals. I think I will start doing that more often along with freezing cookie doughs, and muffins. Well the class was how to cook for 2 days and not for the rest of the month. So you make a months full of meals, freeze them and then you just have to warm them up to eat. I don't think I will do that, but I did get some great ideas from the class. They showed you how to shop and prepare for the big cooking day and it looked pretty simple. It really is just a plan a head kinda thing (which I am terrible at).

Baylee Kay Bragg

Yes she was finally born after 3 weeks of Britany being in labor. She was just born 20 or so mins ago at about 2:45 PM. HD said that she looks healthy and weighs 6 lb 6 oz.

Jason has his first cousin... Now hopefully I don't have as much problems as Britany did. Hopefully HD will send pictures, but I don't think that is at the top of his list.

Mini-golfing

Labor day Matt, Mickie, Will, Jason, and I went Frisbee golfing like usual and then we headed out for dinner at red robin. It was a pretty good day.

Where was Suzanne you ask? Well she was set up on a blind date with a co-workers brother (or something like that). She said that the date went pretty well. They went to a Bee's game and then out to Wendy's for dinner. She said she would hang out with him again. I was trying to be sneaky with the camera and take a picture of him, but I was to slow. So you get a picture of him threw the blinds. Hey at least he was smiling when he walked around the car.

This is Jason's new hiding spot. When he knows he should not have something, like dad's wallet, he hides here.

Here is a picture of the huge slide that Jason likes to go on. I am surprised that he goes on it all by himself. Look how tall this thing is.

He did have fun at the park last night, but there were some big kids playing tag there, so it was a little harder for him to get around. Jason and Will are going to hit up a different park tonight while I am in a cooking class on freezing meals.

Game Day

Saturday morning started of pretty well. I got up to the sound of my alarm clock known as Jason. He is so reliable, he is up with in 15 min of 8 am. He did how ever sleep in for me on Monday. He sleep till 8:45. Yeah I know it was amazing!

I made breakfast for every one. I have to say I really like that vanilla syrup. I made a little extra so that I could have pancakes later. We pretty much just hung out until the opening BYU football game started. Oh no I was mistaken, my dad and his friends went to Cabela's. They got up early and headed over so that my dad could spend his Christmas/birthday/father's day gift (haha it was the $150 gift certificate that Will won at his work party). He was pretty excited to show us all what he got. He bought some rain gear. I guess he had been wanting some good rain gear for a while. Well at least he found last year model and bought it for a good 35% off the regular price. Way to find the sale dad.

I think we get our dorkyness from my dad. What do you think...

We had Travis watch Jason while we went to the football game. It is nice that we have family here that we can have watch Jason. It is so nice to be able to relax and watch the game with out worrying about kids. Our seats were the best we will get for the season. We were 5 rows up from the field. Pretty nice...

Touch down!!!

Dang, we missed the extra point.

Nice throw.

After words we all meet up for dinner at Tucanos. I love that place. Jason was pretty tired, so I spent most of dinner walking around with him so that he would not throw a fit. It was a good thing that I had already eaten dinner.

We then said bye to my parents and sent them off to Peru. It is still weird to think that they are there visiting my grandparets this weekend. I wonder if they were able to recover from the earthquake down there quickly.?.?

Anyways, we hung out with Colton for a while on Sunday and then he went home. So it was pretty boring after that. We did take a walk and picked some peaches off of some of our neighbors trees. Man, if we did not have so many trees in our back yard already, I would totally plant a peach tree. They were so good!

Spa Night

Ok I have tons of pictures and not enough patience to load them all right now, so I will just show pictures from the spa party right now.

Mickie and Suzanne put on a spa party at her house... We played around with some of Bobbie's Mary Kay samples and Suzanne painted all of our toes. Can you tell what was going to happen the next day? Humm there are a lot of BYU toes. You can't miss them. (Side note, there was one out cast who got her toes painted for the Utes).

The boys (Jason and Parker) got into the spa party as well. If the dads only knew. Parker ended up with painted finger nails and toe nails (hence the little feet in the above picture). Jason ended up putting make-up on and was the make-up artist for Suzanne. He was pretty concentrated on in.

Before... Yeah it really does look like a mug shot.

After... Yes she forgot to put on foundation, so she is a little shiny. Linda did a little photo shot with my mom. Some of the pictures are pretty scary. I will save you all by only putting up one picture.

Mickies transformation was a little more scary. Ok maybe not that dark lipstick on my mom looks pretty horrible.

Putting on make-up...

BOO. It looks like she went back in time a decade or too.

All in all we had a great time hanging out and playing around.

Will's Entry: Simi High (funny name, say it out loud!)

First off, let's just say that I have a "thing" about finding the unadulterated survey. No missing #25 or 33 for me!

1. Who was your best friend?
Probably Carlo Cruz.

2. What sports did you play?
For school: Tennis, but I played a fair bit of basketball on the

3. What kind of car did you drive?
Didnt have one

4. On a Friday night what where you doing?
Probably watching the X-files

5. Were you a party animal?
Probably not a surprise, but No

6. Were you considered a flirt?
I really doubt it

7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
Nope, quit that in 10

8. Were you a nerd?
Affirmatory
9. Did you get suspended/expelled?
No

10. Can you still sing the fight song?
Did we even have one?

11. Who was your favorite teacher?
Mr Wickwire - he was my coach too

12. Where did you sit during lunch?
Middle of the Quad

13. Name the school full name?
Simi Valley High School

14. School mascot?
Pioneer

15. School colors?
Red and Yellow

16. Rival high school?
Royal

17. Did you go to Prom?
Nope

18. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
Only if I don't have to be as small.

19. What do you remember most about graduation?
I threw my hat and my mom was mad because then I didn't have one for pictures afterward.

20. Where did you go senior skip day?
I am pretty sure I went to class

21. Favorite memory -
Winning Co-MVP & 1st Team All League for Tennis my senior year. I was shocked - didn't even play Varsity until my senior year!

22. Were you in any clubs?
No, but I will say that I beat the president of the Chess Club one rainy day when I was bored. (I started the chess club in Jr High, but didn't play at all in High School. I don't think my rep would have survived. :)

23. Where did you go most often for lunch?
Taco Bell

24. Have you gained some weight since graduation?
Yes, but I'd rather be this size

25. Who was your Senior prom date?
Not applicable

26. Are you planning on going to your 10-year reunion?
Can't say that I am, though it's this year.

27. Who was your home room teacher?
Didn't have one

28. Who will repost this after you?
probably no-one

29. Who was your high school sweetheart?
I always did have a mini-crush on Natasha (don't laugh Tracie), but I think the other person has to like you in order for it to be a "high school sweetheart"

30. Do you still talk to people from high school?
Not lately

31. Did you win prom queen or king?
Ha - What do y'all think!?!

32. Where did you work at in high school?
Best job ever - Field Trip Counselor at the Boys and Girls Club

33. what were your grades?
Not as good as one would think - I kind of missed that memo about being a nerd