Mormon Bloggers

Don’t be jealous, but the EC and all 5 FOMLs just finished up a week at the beach. Nevermind, feel free to be jealous while I gloat.  It was a great time.  While I was enjoying myself, and on the rare occasions that my brain was working, I made a few mental notes to share with you.  Here are a few observations from my week: Most of us don’t look so good in a swimsuit. Unfortunately, this makes many of us feel bad. But, no matter how bad you look on the beach, wait a little while, and someone will come along that makes you look freakin’ FABULOUS. Tattoos are the plague of this generation. (Well, one of the more visible plagues) Chaffing. Shudder. I love watching parents teach their kids how to love the beach and ocean – whether it be swimming, sand castles, boogie boards or paddle ball. It makes me smile and respect that parent. It also makes me wish that one of them would take one of my kids and teach them all that cool stuff while I read my book. The... Read the rest of this entry »

As you can probably tell by my sporadic posting, I am on vacation with the fam. One of the beautiful things about having older kids is when you have just about had enough “quality family time” you and the EC can declare it “Date Night” and leave them to their own devices. Tonight those devices consisted of RedBox and Mac n’ Cheese. I imagine they are as glad to get a break from us as we are from them. So we went out to dinner, just the two of us, to a nice Mexican restaurant that we have loved for years. We were seated in a quiet corner of the patio, away from the masses. Perfect. The strolling Mariachi band even found us and played us a romantic song. It felt like it should have been for a special occasion. My EC was particularly lovely, laughed at my jokes, and only ate about half her food. Perfect. I was able to enjoy mine, and also her leftovers – after I reassured her there was no point in taking what little was left back to the four boys to fight... Read the rest of this entry »

You may have noticed that I have been away for a few days… The boys and I took off down south to visit my little sister and her family for a while, since Ben was in training down there and staying with her anyway, we got to have him at nights.  It was nice and a lot of fun… and I bet they couldn’t wait to get rid of us!! I really enjoyed spending time with my sister, Amy, her hubby, and her darling four kids.  I am positive that I am the favorite aunt of little Seth (2 months old) because he really seemed to take to me and liked to hang out in my arms.  As for the other kids, the 5 year old told me she didn’t like me because I made her clean up and pick up trash when she dumped it out on the floor.  I am sooooo mean!!  How dare I make her pick up her messes?!  Oh, well, I am certain that I will quickly be forgiven of my sins and loved once again in a few days. Ben, however, is the all time favorite, and I can’t hope to... Read the rest of this entry »

So, I totally forgot I had a giveaway going last week… what a dork I am.  I guess I just don’t get as excited about them as I used to.  Or maybe my mind is just on other things.  Who knows? Anyway, you may remember the Cold Plasma giveaway… the winner is: Kristin F Congrats!  Just get back to me with your shipping info and phone number and we’ll get your prize shipped your way. Now that’s out of the way, the Nutshell household is headed down south for a fun filled weekend of Utah Holiday family time on the farm.  For those of you who don’t know about it, the 24th of July is a holiday in Utah, it’s the day we celebrate when the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley to settle.  It’s a pretty big deal, lots of parades, BBQ’s, fireworks, etc.  Kind of like the 4th of July at the end of July too. Our little town that we are from has a huge celebration.  It’s a blast, just exactly what... Read the rest of this entry »

Everything at Disneyland is expensive.  They don’t make their money from the admission price.  They make their money on the food and the souvenirs.  I should know.  I bought some food there, and way too many souvenirs.  Including glass ornaments for the Christmas tree so we remember our trip.  They were so cute! When we went on our trip to Disneyland, we were introduced to the PhotoPass card.  There are photographers everywhere and when they take your picture, they scan the bar code on your PhotoPass card.  We were trying to pass on letting them take our pictures, and we told them it’s because the pictures are so expensive.  He told us that you can buy a CD with all the pictures on it for $60.  Honestly, I thought that was a pretty good deal because I knew they charged around $15 for an 8×10.  So we just let them take whatever pictures they wanted. When we got home, one of the first things I did was get on the internet and... Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t ever allude to the fact that I might not be able to do something.  Because it makes me all that more determined to do it!  And not only will I do it, but I will drag my family out on the journey so we can accomplish it together! The Wind Caves… Sounds awesome doesn’t it?  Well it is! But it is a 1.8 mile hike up a mountain side on a very thin trail.  By the time you get to the top, the uphill was worth the trip, even if you are carting two kids with you under the age of 5. Earlier this week, I had a good friend tell me they gave it a good try but could only make it half the way up due to a bunch of factors.  I asked her if she thought we could do it.  She said:  ”Ben could probably do it, but…” I could fill in the blanks and I sat up a little straighter.  What is she saying? All week I stewed in the fact that there was a trail out there to some cool caves and I might not be able to do it…... Read the rest of this entry »

I am going crazy.  I have so much to say, but I feel like I am almost caught up.  I finally got my journal done.  Our 8 day vacation took 9 pages in Word!  Yeah, I might be a little obsessive, but I wanted to remember everything.  I have a voice recorder on my phone, so while we were standing in lines for the rides, I would pull it out and talk about what we had done so far.  So I had to listen to them and add more detail.  It was fun to relive it all.  Now I need to scrapbook it.  I am about 5 years behind in my scrapbooking and I scrapbook chronologically, but I want to do this vacation now while it is still fresh in my mind.  I am going to make one set, and then make color copies for the kids.  That way it’s not quite so overwhelming to me. I also had to dump all the videos off my camcorder and phones and get them edited and put onto DVD’s.  That took a while too.  Then I had Father’s Day to do,... Read the rest of this entry »

As some of you know, Ben and I took the boys down to Southern Utah this weekend for an awesome family reunion!  We had a blast getting to see the family again and playing around in the sun.  It was a nice change in weather status, and we took advantage of every minute! Since my side of the family is rather large (although, not as big as Ben’s) most of us were staying at a hotel.  Which was super awesome because we had a pool and spa just down the stairs from our room.  We hadn’t taken the boys swimming in over 2 years, and even then Nephi was just a baby and can’t remember anyway — so we thought it would be great to reintroduce the little guys to the joys of swimming. I remembered to pack all the swimming suits, but we stopped at Target and bought the boys some “water wings” or “arm floaties” (whichever term you prefer), so they would have a little confidence in the water, we didn’t have to spend a fortune on a life... Read the rest of this entry »

I posted pictures on my private blog with our vacation pictures.  I also sent a bunch of invites out.  If you didn’t get an invitation and want to see the pictures, just reply to this and I will send you an invite.  Mom, you already can read it.  Just log in.  Love you all!  Read More →

I am so sorry!  I am trying to get caught up.  Between work and housework, I have so much to do.  I haven’t even gotten my journal written in for my trip.  I did get my pictures dumped onto the computer, and sorted through.  I deleted a bunch of pictures, going from 1,354 to 519.  Much more manageable! But we are going out of town tomorrow and Saturday again.  And then Sunday is Father’s Day.  So hopefully next week I can get the pictures put on and give you more details about our trip.  Hang in there.  I will be back!  Read More →

Editor’s note: It’s summertime for many of us, so over the course of the next few months, we’ll be sharing a few of our summer activities. Please feel free to share yours, whether it’s currently summer for you or not! ~by Heidi A couple of years ago, my husband and I took our children to spend a week in a castle–in California! It had real turrets . . . and medieval style carvings . . . An actual dungeon . . . weathered stone steps, slippery with moss that led down to  . . . the moat! We had picnics on the beach along the river . . . played in the water that made such beautiful music, night and day . . . played games  . . . and enjoyed being out in nature as much as possible. The castle was a wonderful place to stay because it was so close to the beach. We also went for a ride on a real train . . . spent some time at our favorite amusement park. . . (they don’t look very amused–I think they might be nervous) and had the chance to... Read the rest of this entry »

I’m home.  We survived.  I want to go back.  I am trying to make my way through the mountain of laundry.  I want to take a nap.  I don’t want to go back to real life.  I’ll blog more later.  But let me leave you with this picture.  It is a picture of what happens when two people are too happy!  Read More →