Worst Vacation Ever

 Poor Byron...we were supposed to head off for Moab on Friday for some fun family time. Instead he landed home in bed for nearly an entire week. He did go to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but by Thursday that wasn't an option. We cancelled our vacation and he has been trying to recover. Last night he was finally able to move for the first time in a while and what does he want to do? Go shopping. He has had his eye on this gun for a while now and he just needed it so we headed to his favorite store, Sportsmans Warehouse and he spoiled himself a little. He said he felt lots better after his big purchase. I have felt so bad for him this week he could have bought two or three new toys and I wouldn't have said a thing. The good news is he seems to be perking up a big. These photos are from this afternoon, he is just like a kid playing with his new toys. He even ordered a dueling tree on-line so we can go out next weekend (hopefully) and try out his two 22's. He is excited. We are all just glad he is feeling a bit better.

Restaurant manners

 There is a popular pinterest blog right now about the 5 manners your children should know before they turn ten, or something to that effect. I just thought in retribution I would post a photo of our Tyler the last time we took the kids out for dinner. He handcrafted tinfoil earrings for anyone who would wear one. We all ended up with multiple loops in our ears and a few with nose loops. I doubt this will make the top five list of restaurant manners but we did have a good time.

 Ali is the only Pollan child who wanted to play soccer this season. Here she is with her team. She scores at nearly every game, sometimes more than once. The boys are happy to come and cheer for their little sis since her scoring means they get slurpees. You will also see the boys up the closest tree during a game. Ali is our little soccer star and she loves it more than dance I am sad to admit. Byron has finally found his athlete. 

How much do I love those dirty knees poking up at me while we were eating lunch at Jimmy Johns? Another restaurant trait that I doubt will make the manners list.

Promise Kept

 Lagoon....how I hate thee, let me count the ways.  So Carter's school has an end of the year party where they take the whole school to Lagoon. Actually it gets worse. It's high school day at Lagoon and any high school that wants can give their kids discounted rates and head up to Lagoon for the day. Well Carter is only in 6th grade but happens to go to a school that is 6-12 so all the kids were allowed to go. I am not a big fan of Lagoon day but really not a big fan of my sixth grader heading out with a bunch of high schoolers. So I was the mean Mom and told him I didn't want him to go but....we could go later as a family. We usually do anyway so no big deal.

 We managed to put it off as long as possible. We finally made it to Lagoon after school had already started again for his seventh grade year. I am no good for any of the amusement park activities. Spinning makes me want to puke. Actually I have thrown up before after riding roller coasters, I don't even have to actually spin. So what do you do? Find my brave face...put it on.
We did have a fun day of spinning, swirling, turning, you name it we did it. Thankfully the day was broken up a bit with trips for ice cream, and a giant hail storm with marble size hail. It gave me a few chances to re-cooperate between rides. We also rode the train, my suggestion, not too much crazy motion on the train ride. Surprising how they had an awesome collection of animals on their train ride. Some that the Hogle Zoo doesn't even have. I think they have inherited Siegfried and Roy's white tigers because they have their fair share of white tigers.

Yummy ice cream stop! So good. I love the sunlight on Ali in this photo, picture perfect.

The kids had fun running in and out of this hail storm. Whenever they were out they were shouting in pain and anguish over the hail pelting at them. But of course they would continue to go out into it. Strange summer storm.

Ropes Course-Snowbird

 We have a yearly tradition of heading up to Snowbird for Labor Day and playing at Octoberfest. Strange tradition for a non-drinking family but the brats are good. Byron usually heads up early and meets an old work friend of his for a hike up to the top of the tram. The kids and I rode up and met them at the top.  We hiked around and went through the semi-new tunnel in the mountain. It connects Alta and Snowbird together. After hiking around we took a chair-lift down to play at the bottom of the hill.

 We ate delicious brats on pretzel bread, yumm, and enjoyed the awesome German Oktoberfest musik and dancing. The kids played musical chairs and almost won. Then we headed out to pick our activity. They had a new ropes course so the kids gave it a try. Ali got nervous at the last minute so Byron headed up to help her out.

 They look like circus performers up there dangling from their rope harnesses.

 When we were in Lake Tahoe this summer they had a very elaborate ropes course, too elaborate we decided. That did end up being our one regret from our trip was that we didn't do that crazy ropes course. This was a good warm up course so next time we are driving through Tahoe we are definitely going to stop and try the mega-course.  The kids all had a great time balancing and dangling from great heights.

Ali's world

 So I didn't realize it as I was loading these photos but they are all about Ali so we will just go with it. Our boys, Ali and my boys like to go backpacking in the woods. You never know when it is gong to happen it's not planned weeks in advance or scheduled onto the calendar it just happens. Byron will call on Friday and say I'm taking whoever wants to go backpacking this weekend. The boys always want to go! So off they go. Ali and I sort of love it when this happens, I hate to admit it but then we get to have girls night!!! This last time the boys headed out for a backpacking trip Ali and I decided to sew a skirt for her. Ali designed it and drew up her sketch she is holding. Then we went and bought fabric and wah-lah.... her first Ali brand design skirt. She is wearing it in the photo above. It turned out darling and she loves it. Plus we had lots of fun sewing it together and getting just the right colors.

 This is Ali and her pride and joy...her corn. I added a new planter box this year for more garden space. It is of course on my neighbors property because mine is all filled up already, luckily they don't mind. Ali decided with a few squares of my garden she was going to grow some corn. Now she is mostly proud because her corn grew way better than my corn did two years ago when I tried. Mine wasn't getting consistent water and only made it about two inches out of the ground. Hers grew to be taller than her and she was so very pleased with her corn the entire summer long. It was fun to watch her excitement as her corn stalks kept getting bigger and bigger. She did a find job.

 For one of our ladies nights Ali invited her friend Gabby and I invited my sister Sonja and we went out for dinner and some light shopping. Claire's boutique holds hours of fun for all of us girls, but especially these two. They had a ball dressing up in all sort of different outfits. Love those two little ladies. They are so fun and energetic.

 Ali was reading Luke her cousin a bedtime story. Luke got to spend the night with us while his parents went on a work retreat. He was a little champ and very brave sleeping away from his usual house. Of course it does help when you have three cousins doting over you. They had a great time. Some of my favorite quotes from Luke were, "You are not my parent." Followed shortly thereafter by "I love you Erin." Also in the mix was "I hate you Erin" only if he wasn't getting exactly what he wanted. He also told me to go get in my car and pick up his parents from Park City. He is a sweet boy who never leaves you wondering what he is feeling. He did even eventually go to sleep after his snacks of peanuts and popcorn at around ten after he had brushed his teeth. It is fun not being the parent and knowing you can't really ruin his teeth in one night.

How much do I love this photo?!? These dance concerts are a common occurrence in our living room. The kids bop CD lives in the CD player next to the TV and whenever Ali catches the mood there is much dancing and singing to be done. She lulls you into watching her concert and then drags you up to join her in her performance. Who can resist her charms? Definitely not her Dad. You will frequently catch them dancing and spinning together in the TV room with a baseball game being ignored in the background. We are lucky ladies!

 Carter was so pleased with himself when he made the cross country team at his junior high school. He made a lot of improvement this year and is running a much quicker 2 mile race.  His last race was a bit over 2 miles and he came in at 17 min and 24 seconds. Over the month he was racing he dropped 5 minutes from his time. Way to stick with it Carter. He is looking forward to doing cross country again next year. 

 Last weekend we had a little  moving crew head up to Idaho to help Cynthia my sister move into her new house. They moved about a block down the road from their old place. Their new home is marvelous. Very pretty. We sure worked hard and still didn't get enough done. Thankfully we ran out of time and had to head home. We were all exhausted after our three days of hauling boxes.  Rachel is in the photo above showing off the entry-way and in the photo below we packing up the car getting ready to head out of town. It was fun to go up and spend time with Cynth, Sonja, my Mom and my fun nieces and nephews. They rock!

 This weekend we headed to Wheeler Farm for hay-rides, mazes and cousin time. I kidnapped Deborah's kids and we had a fun time playing at the farm. The kids were all really nice to each other. Chandler bought candy for all the kids from the country store and they had a good time racing through the maze to see who could beat their last time. They got pretty fast. Everyone picked out a pumpkin at the end. They have put in a really cool park across the parking lot from Wheeler Farm which was a nice addition to our outing. It has a super high slide that even the bigger kids had fun on.

Temple Square in the Fall

 As one must who lives in Utah I got online to enter the lottery for the Christmas Concert tickets. They are highly coveted come December and honestly hard to come by. While on the web-site I noticed all these other awesome events to attend. One of which is the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy Theater. I am ashamed to admit that we hadn't even seen it yet. It has been out long enough that you don't need to bother with getting tickets anymore so on Saturday I hauled the kids down to temple square to watch the Joseph Smith movie. 

We were supposed to be in Moab this weekend but had to cancel our trip due to Byron being on the D.L. list. Last week I had the worst cold of my life, the week before that Ali was puking up her guts and now Byron is having a turn. Watch out boys...they have been warned. So we are doing our best to have some fun on our Utah Fall holiday, UEA weekend. The kids had half day Wednesday and no school Thursday and Friday. So Moab would have been awesome but alas it was not to be. 

The  movie....it was good. I cried an in appropriate amount, like is normal for me. Carter was enraptured by the movie. His eyes were glued, his face was appropriately forlorn and concerned and you could see his brain processing all of the new information. Tyler was slightly less engrossed in the film but also right there with the storyline. Ali was asking me when it was going to be over. Annoying but she is six. 

This week I had been reading a book called The Expected One by Kathleen McGowen I believe. Very good book. Interesting read.  This book definitely stretches your mind and makes you wonder about what you believe. I have not adopted the book as doctrine by any means but it was an interesting read and I have been rethinking what we know and how we know it, which is what I believe the author intended to do. History in general and at large is called into question.

It was interesting to watch this movie on Joseph Smith's life right on the heels of this "rethink what you think you know" book. This should be the point where I put in my big mind blowing conclusion but I don't really have one. I am thinking though and as I listen to things I have heard all my life it is good to re-think and re-commit and assess exactly where you are and what level you are living at. 

Joseph Smith was an amazing teenager. He was born into an environment that allowed him to find truth at his own speed and question what he was learning. I hope we are able to allow our kids to do the same. He endured much in restoring the gospel of Christ back to the earth. I always like to believe there is a possibility of more knowledge that God may someday send us. I am excited about new doctrine and progress in the church. Sometimes it challenges or faith to wait for it. Maybe the reason for the church seeming slow in it's release of doctrine is the Lord allows his children to find answers on their own and then he confirms what they have learned with revelation from the leaders. This has been an interesting week for me of thinking and re-assessing what it is I really believe. Joseph Smith was the prophet of the restoration and I am so grateful that my kids are able to learn more about him and understand a little more about the early days of the church.

 We spent a little time being tourists in our own city. We walked through the visitors center and looked around. We watched a few fun Mormon Ads they had playing inside the south visitors center. The kids peered into a diorama of the Salt Lake temple where you can see what the rooms inside look like. 

As we were leaving we decided to take a carriage ride around town. You should have seen how excited Ty was when the driver let him hold the horse whip. His smile was from ear to ear. That boy has an affinity for weapons.  It was a fun afternoon and I hope it will be a memorable one for them.