Twilight Party: in Celebration of New Moon

This past Friday night I had a Twilight party before New Moon comes out this week. For all you Twilight Saga fans, I'm sure you know how fun it is to go with the craze and celebrate! My friend Colleen was so kind to host it at her house. She has a beautiful basement that just got finished with a home theater system. We had Stephenie Meyer, and Edward and Alice look alikes there. Everyone brought lots of food: cupcakes, peanut butter bars, brownies, artichoke dip, and lots of other mouth-watering food. There were lots of pictures taken with the celebrities, then we started the movie, and afterwards had a raffle with New Moon gifts. My sister Liz crocheted a little Edward doll for the raffle. He was holding a little apple. It was very cute! We dressed up in Prom dresses or vampire attire. I decided the easiest way to go would be vampire. Needless to say I look like a cardboard cutout with my pale face and strange black hair. It is so fun to dress up though. Who ever gets that chance once you are a mom? Later on during the movie, my friend's husband (Richard) decided to come and scare us. He has custom made vampire teeth. The girls thought he was just plain funny. He was sucking on cinnamon breath mints and blowing it in people's faces. Needless to say, he wasn't very scary, just funny. It was a fun night out with the girls. Don't feel bad if you couldn't make it this year, because we will probably be doing a New Moon party next year!

Edward: where is he going to be next?

For my birthday this year my friends gave me this life-size figure of Edward from the movie "Twilight". He is pretty scary when you walk into a room and aren't expecting him to be there. You really feel the presence of someone watching you, it is way wierd! So John thought it would be funny to take it a little farther and try to scare me even more. He tried to put Edward in the least expected places: behind my door, in the kitchen, in the shower, and even in my bed! I thought it was so funny and so did all my kids! My boys have been begging me to put him in their room because they think Edward is very cool. So after my Twilight party, I put him in their room and just this morning as I was putting something in there, he scared me again! Edward, where are you going to be next?

Girl with Glasses

Rachel was born with a lazy eye in her left eye. So eventually her doctor told me to take her to a pediatric eye doctor. I went to one that was located in Orem and didn't have a very pleasant experience. He was very pompous to say the least and jumped to the conclusion right away that Rachie needed surgery. So I wanted a second opinion and took her up to Primary Children's hospitol to Dr. Larsen. He said that Rachel has a very mild case of youth far-sightedness which is different than that of an adult. He recommended that she try glasses before surgery. Glasses are a more mild way of fixing her eye and will strengthen the muscle over time so that when she is around four or so she won't need them anymore. If the glasses don't work, which we will know around eight weeks, then we will opt for the surgery. I think she looks pretty cute though, don't you? It was hard for me to get a pic of her without her glasses glaring. She seems to like them though and doesn't take them off except when we are driving in the car. I think it's because I tease her in the rearview mirror so she takes them off and throws them. Cutie!

A Happy Halloween!

I had a fabulous birthday this year. Since my birthday falls on Halloween, it is literally a treat every year. This year my Mom and Sam came down from Idaho to celebrate with us. It has been a long time since they both have been with me on my birthday. John and I woke up early that morning to run the Halloween Half Marathon which took place up by Sundance and down through Provo canyon. I ran it with my friends because of course John is way to speedy for me. Four of my friends and I trained for a long time for this race. We decided it would be fun to dress up as Cheetah girls. A lot of people wore costumes. It was a fun race. The first five miles were a very steep downhill so my legs really took a beating. When we reached the Provo trail, it was really foggy and kind of spooky: perfect for halloween. Then as we came out of the canyon it turned really sunny and beautiful: a perfect run. I was pretty happy with my time: 1:59 which was my personal goal. And of course John ran it like in 90 minutes.

It was a surprise to me when we got home to see that my yard had been decorated with every halloween decor you can think of. I thought it was awesome but my friends were hoping I would think it was discusting because it was major overkill. I loved it though and felt loved as well. The tombstones read stuff like: here lies a hottie, and i ran here.... and the date of my birthday. I thought it was so fun. They even put Edward from Twilight on my front porch! Liz and Sam helped decorate as well. I thought that was pretty surprising since Liz came up from Provo and then came back down and met me at the end of the race. I had no idea what trouble she went through that morning. Sam also went to Krispie Cream and bought us all doughnuts! My friend Colleen and I went off sugar for two months and Halloween was the day that we could eat sugar again so that doughnut tasted so good!

I went out to lunch with Sam, mom and Liz and we went to Iggy's to eat. Then I went and got some new jeans at the Buckle because John gave me some birthday money! I got a lot of fun gifts from everyone this year and feel so loved!

That night we went trick-or-treating at the church trunk or treat. Liz and David and their kids came up as well. Liz made a yummy white chili and brought me my favorite sugar cookies topped with candy corns! I decided not to have a cake this year because all I wanted were those cookies! It was worth every bite too! I think I ate like four!

This year the kids were very cute in their costumes: Enoch was Michael Jackson and was "thrilled" because he really loves his music! Isaac was a zombie-mummy(anything to look as scary as possible). the twins Ben and Jake were ninjas and Rachel was a little unicorn. I was going to dress up but by that time I was dead tired so I just painted my face and called it good.

Afterwards we took the kids around the block trick-or-treating and then hung out the rest of the night. I think I crashed at like 9 because I was wiped out. What a fun and Long day!

Thanks so everyone that made this day special! Earlier on in the week my friends surprised me by having John take me out to dinner and they all met me at the restaraunt..... I also got the treat to go to my favorite restaraunt with John, mom and Sam: the Red Iguana. Then on Sunday after my birthday we went to Mom and Dad Fossums and they had a special birthday dinner for me with everyone. I think I'm all birthdayed out now! Thanks everyone!

Family Times

We just went to a family reunion for my Dad's side of the fam - the Packer reunion. It was a short one, only a couple days. I wish it was longer because by the time we all got reaquinted it was time to go home. It was up at the Snowbird resort. They have awesome summer activities up there: the Alpine slide, Zip line, bungee trampoline, tram ride, to name a few.We all got day passes so that we could go on anything and everything as many times as we wanted. The boys really had a lot of fun because they have never done anything like that before. When we went up the mountain to the top of the peak, we all got out and took pictures. It was very beautiful and the pictures don't do it justice. John got a second wind and wanted to run down the mountain on the trails. We watched him on our way down and could see him running along the edge of the peaks. It looked like he was in a movie, it was so pretty. We went swimming and hung out in the condos we stayed in as well. It was all a lot of fun. We took a family picture the last day we were there. It is a rare occasion when all my Mom and Dad's kids are together. We also had a birthday party for my 80 year old grandma, Lola. She is the cutest little lady and so genuinely charitable. We also played games: Dudo (dice game on Pirates of the Carribean) and Scum (a card game). What a fun time! I love Summers because of family reunions. Now in a week or so we are going to a reunion on John's side of the family. We are looking forward to more fun times!

Remembering Michael Jackson

I grew up listening to Michael Jackson. In fact, I was so in love with him when I was eight that I consider him to be my first boyfriend. After all, sometimes kissing the tv or a poster isn't too far off from the real thing. Even now I am a devoted fan and made a promise to my siblings that if he ever came to the USA in concert we would pay big bucks to go see him. He is the King of Pop and by far the greatest entertainer of all time. Sure, he does look like a freak. If he wouldn't have changed his skin color he would still look okay. But being the boy who never had a childhood he thought he had to look like Peter Pan, the boy who never grows old. Instead, he turned out looking like a freak. There was no way he could have looked in the mirror every day and thought he looked okay. What a sad life in the end. But despite all the sadness he was still one of my favorite artists. Therefore, it was a very sad day when we found out that Michael Jackson died. I told Isaac (my 8 year old) and he hung his head down and started crying! That is how much we love MJ in our family. So the boys have been watching MJ's music videos, all of which are brilliant I might add. Enoch has been begging me to buy him a glove. So I looked online and almost every store online that carried the MJ costume glove was sold out! I finally found one for $7 on ebay and that includes free shipping! So today the glove came in the mail and immediately Enoch put it on..... only to find out it was too big. (I tried to tell him that a million times before we bought it but he still insisted on getting it). So I told him I would try to fix it with my sewing machine. When all was said and done and after three attempts of turning the glove inside out and losing sequins while doing so, the glove finally fit! Although in these pictures you aren't seeing that there are sequins inside the glove that are jabbing at Enochs skin. Oh well, let the King of Pop be reborn. His music will never die and he will always be alive in our house! We love you Michael!