Brock's 15!

    We celebrated Brock's 15th birthday this week. We also had some fun Sunday night with the grand-babies and neighbors.

Harley slowly crawled up on the counter when she saw the hot chocolate supplies coming out. She knew marshmallows would be coming soon.

Our frequent Sunday-night-visitor brought his amazing new R/C truck over and was pulling this other cute friend around on a sled. Pretty cool!

    Brock wanted Sushi for his birthday and Greg was happy to accompany him for lunch to a nearby asian restaurant with some pretty great sushi. (I was happy to go too, but I'm happy with their sweet and sour pork, no sushi for me.)

 

    Brock also wanted apple pie, instead of cake, and a NASA hat to go with his NASA coat. According to Carter, "Brock is going to the moon or Mars."

 

He's definitely developing a style all his own.

A couple of Brock's buddies stopped by to say hi.

And with some of Brock's birthday money he bought himself this cool Delorean.

    McClane got a haircut! He was finally tired of the mullet and is now going with a faux-hawk style.

Handsome boy/young man!

    We're still dealing with car issues. The Armada is still dying regularly when driven. Carter's 'new' car has several oil leaks and is going to require hundreds of dollars of repairs, and that's only if Greg and Isaac do the work. I do wonder when we'll be done with all these car headaches, but hey, I sure love my Avalon! And Carter is still without a job, so his car issues are a real 'treat', especially on top of the fact that he now has regular car payments! Welcome to the real world! And only 339 sleeps until Christmas!

New car and new treats.

    Our weekly trips to Fiiz are still a hit, especially with these two girls.

 

    Carter is officially the owner/car debt holder of this awesome Volkswagen Golf. He's also recently unemployed, so that's fun!

 

     And last week I think I mentioned something about the most delicious corndogs ever and here's a photo, which obviously doesn't do it much justice but it will at least remind me of our most recent find of a new favorite place to eat.

The 'epic' and also a deep fried milky way.

    And sometimes Charlie gets ahold of my phone and takes silly selfies.

 

    And, side-note, we picked up our Armada this week after the mechanic had it for a couple months and apparently drove it for countless hours but could never get it to die on him. He did replace a couple oxygen sensors that came up as bad, according to his computer, and $550 later we had it home all of 8 hours only to have it die on Greg! What is wrong with this dang car?! And why can't anyone figure it out!? It's a real conundrum! Either the mechanic is not being honest or his computer, that was plugged into the car every time he drove it, was somehow preventing it from doing its usual malfunctioning. Who knows, but for now, we're just going to keep it and drive it as we need it and pray we don't have an accident and continue to look into what the underlying problem might be.

New Year! Hello 2023, don't screw this up!

    We began our New Year celebration driving to Oakley to shoot off fireworks for our teenage neighbor. It was awesome and a real adventure. 

Andy knows how to do it!

We've got some of the best neighbors that ever existed.

 

    We ended our night playing 'cards against humanity' and drinking sparkling cider. 

    Brock was reunited with one of his best friends over the Christmas break and his mom treated them to a fun day in Park City and Midway eating fancy food and swimming in the crater.
 

Brock, Will and Mason 

The crater is so cool.

    And Carter finally found the car of his dreams and it's pretty awesome/cool! It should be all bought and finalized before the day is over.

2015 Volkswagen Golf 
It even has a sunroof!

    And last night I got suckered into helping with this crazy Disney puzzle.

Late night/fun night.

    So there's our first week of 2023, so far so good! (Not pictured are the best corn dogs I've ever had and neighbor trips to the ice cream parlor.)

Christmas 2022!

    Starting with Christmas Eve gifts. Cute grand babies were excited to open a gift.

An old school 'speak & say' 

Christmas Eve gifts. 

 

 

Matching hoodies with their initials, which number child and Kmetzsch on the back.
 

    Carter may or may not have known that Mark's initials actually spell Mark.

    Christmas morning!

Matching polka dot dresses.

Traditional lineup. 

Books, clothes, and money! 

Happy Beau. 

    Sadly, Kayli and Tanner's gift was lost, $200 cash missing! Hopefully it turns up sometime in the future but in the meantime I just transferred $200 to their bank account instead. But here's photos of the rest of the kids opening their main Christmas gift.

Mark was thrilled to get this pressure cooker/air fryer appliance. 

 Custom gaming remote for Isaac.

 Roller skates for Carter.

Clothes and $ for Brock. He was especially excited about this jacket. 

Air pod pros for McClane. 

And a variety of things for Charlie, including new shoes, clothes and a few fun things. 

I got several great things like these adorable little garbage cans for the car. 

    Then we had the sibling gift exchange.

Kayli got Carter cologne. 

Carter got Kayli Chick filet gift cards. 

Mark got McClane a cool hot wheels track. 

McClane got Isaac this cool tiny drone. 

Isaac got Mark a cool r/c car. 

Charlie got Brock a cool lamp and soda and he got Charlie LED lights for her room. 

Greg got some great gifts, new shoes, a chain saw sharpener and a little money to help buy some beef.

    The photo below is to document this years Christmas miracle gift. I really wanted a new iPad, one that was just for me that I didn't have to borrow or share. Of course they're not cheap and Greg really didn't have the budget for a new one but he put out a few feelers for a used one and initially had no luck, but then a good friend's dad said he'd happily gift me his iPad that he got last year and hasn't touched once since receiving it. (Our good friend actually bought it for his dad last year for Christmas, so really this generosity can be turned on him too.) He refused to take any money for it but insisted I have it! I was blown away and so thrilled, this is going to make my life so much easier in a multiple of ways!

 

Cute girls! 

 

   I also got a new TV for my kitchen and so Greg put the old TV in the garage and now he takes time to himself to watch TV in the garage where he's kind of hidden from family and friends. Kind of funny!

Photo courtesy of our garage camera. 

    And outside of celebrating Christmas Charlie's happiest when she's with friends doing anything and everything, including drives up American Fork canyon.

 

Silly girls.

    And last night we had a much awaited dinner at the local 'all-you-can-eat' sushi place. 

I'm just a witness to the insanity, no sushi for me!

    Hopefully weather doesn't wreck our New Years Eve celebrations but only time will tell. We're going to enjoy a few more days off from school either way.

Weird Week

    This first week of Christmas break has been weird for multiple reasons but because it's been weird I failed to take a lot of photos. I did get this cute one of Charlie and her friends. Charlie loves spending time with friends and she loves hosting them and even went to the trouble of grilling sandwiches for everyone and mixing up tall glasses of chocolate milk. She takes after her Gr. Elaine, feeding the masses.

 

    Two more sleeps until Christmas! Wild! Bring it!

Winter fun

    We've had a very snowy week! Poor Greg has spent countless hours in the snow plow truck and he's ready for a break. Monday we had our annual neighborhood food drive/burn barrel gathering, which was great. Our neighbors got a leg lamp, which made my whole Christmas! We have 4 leg lamps on the street, so far, and 6 total in the neighborhood and, if I can, I'm going to convince others to join the fun. 

Four burn barrels!

 

    These two girls are the cutest and make me smile. 

 

    I may have mentioned my weekly institute class, Inklings, that I watch live on Instagram every Thursday morning with Emily Belle Freeman as the instructor. I love this weekly discussion that includes scriptures and conference talks from our most recent General Conference. When these sweatshirts were put up to be ordered I knew I needed one. The back of the sweatshirt is a quote/mission statement that is very powerful. 

 

   

 

    It says, "Chess has three parts: opening, middle game, and endgame. The opening is the development of the pieces, you're setting up your strategy. The middle game is the implementation of your strategy. The endgame is hopefully where you're seeing the fruition of your strategy-you're closing the trap. The queen is the most powerful piece on the board, and it is conventional chess wisdom that you postpone playing your queen for as long as you can. The longer you can delay playing your queen, the more likely you will have your most powerful piece for the endgame. The Lord is the Master Strategist and knows exactly how to win. Current pleadings from the prophet appear to be the Lord bringing His queens into play in preparation for the end game." Lynn Beard.

    I love this!!!