The Happiest Place On Earth

Our fabulous family vacation started out with a stop at my Aunt and Uncle's house down in Richfield. They are like a second mom and dad to me, and the boys just love them. We ate yummy food and played games with them. We slept there Sunday night, and set out for Disneyland, 2 1/2 hours closer the following morning. The road trip was great, and we got into town with plenty of time to swim and eat a good dinner.

We spent two fun filled days in Disneyland and California Adventure. We LOVE both of them and have been lucky to visit them several times in the last few years. This year was a lot of fun as there was no throwing up (refer to humorous stories of our last visit to the happiest place on earth! If you haven't heard the story, feel free to ask anytime!) In fact, every time we passed the lovely restaurant where we all got food poisoning last time, at least one of the boys would say, "This is where we got sick last time! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING!" It was pretty funny, especially when Eric yelled it out loud while passing several diners at said restaurant! I'm sure they really appreciated us. Other reasons why this year's trip was so fun: We took Grandma Barfuss with us; the weather was fantastic; everyone got along; there were practically NO lines and we rode all the big rides at least 5 or 6 times; and we finally convinced Jordan to try rollercoasters again--he rode all of them, including California Screamin' for our very last ride of the trip! Way to go Jordan!!! After traumatizing him when he was quite young by forcing him to ride the Matterhorn with his dad, he has refused to ride any of them. Like I said, he rode them all this year, and even said that Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain were his favorite rides. Eric was also very brave, riding all of them but California Screamin'. I love that my kids are all old enough and big enough to ride everything together. It is really a fun way to experience Disneyland. It's fun when they are little too, but oh so much more exhausting and very limited to what they can and want to ride when they are little. Here are a few photos of the trip.

One of the super fun bonuses of the trip this year was running into one of my best friends, Jocelyn. We went to high school together, and we still keep in touch now. It was so fun to see her so unexpectedly, and it was really fun to meet her kids. She has met mine when she has come to town for our high school girlfriend reunion weekends, but I had yet to meet hers.

I love this picture because it just says it all. It's the end of the first day in the parks, and we are all exhausted and starving, waiting for our food. I think Eric is actually asleep in this shot. We had to wake him up to eat.

Another fun thing about the time we went this year was that it was right when they were switching over the Halloween decorations to the Christmas decorations. The first day we were there, everything was still Halloween. The next day, there were several Christmas things up as the transformation had begun.

The trip continued the next day at Legoland. We have tried several times to take the boys there when they were younger, but everytime we had a free day when we were in town, it was one of the days Legoland was closed during the week. The boys still had a good time, but it is definitely geared to younger kids, and it was a little bit of a let down after Disneyland, in my opinion. However, it was a fun day, and I'm glad we got the kids there finally. Eric was in heaven with all of the Thomas and Handy Manny models in the park. Everyone loved Miniland with all of the amazing models there. The model of the capitol below is from that part of the park.

This is, unfortunately, all we saw of the ocean this trip. We made a quick stop there after Legoland, but it was already just past sunset. The boys were a little sad, but that just gives us a good reason to go back!

We finished up our visit at Paul's brother's house. We had such a great time with them. The kids love to see their cousins and play with them. Justin got to go to a high school football game and tail gate party with his cousin, and the little ones just played and played. We had Alisha do a few quick family and kid photos for a yearly update. Some of them turned out hilarious. You've got to love kids when you are trying to take family photos! Anyway...a few of them turned out great, and I'll post them later. We are so grateful to have been able to take this trip! We had a great time, and everyone is looking forward to the next one!

Fun Fall Days in October...

I love Fall. I love the colors, the cool weather, and the fun activites. October brought with it the end of another season of soccer for Justin and his friend Brett. It was an awesome winning season! Justin always seems to be on a team that is a little challenged, and it has been discouraging for several years. This year, most of his team were 9th graders, and they played really well, winning all of their games up until the very last one. Bummer way to end a season, but they did great!

Here are a few of the other things the Hammonds have been up to this month...

Tyler's first Pinewood Derby with the cub scouts. He worked really hard on his BYU car, and he ended up taking 4th place. He had a little melt down thinking that was last place. Guess we need to work on that sportsmanship a little! But he had a good time, and he felt a little better about all his hard work after we explained the places and no matter who took last, everyone was a winner for trying!

A favorite fall tradition of ours is going to a pumpkin patch and picking out pumpkins. This year were went to the patch next to a corn maze and did both activities in one night. The kids picked out some great pumpkins, and we all had fun in the maze!

We always love going to the ward chili cookoff, eating some great food and visiting with good friends. This is Eric and his buddy Tyson having some fun after chowing down.

One of Paul's least favorite things to do in the fall after picking out the pumpkins is carving them. But he is always a good sport to help the boys do it. They had a great time for family night drawing their faces and watching Dad get dirty carving them!

And lastly, in anticipation of the many hours we will spend in the car this week on our trip to California, Eric got a little early birthday gift so there wouldn't be any fighting over whose turn it was to share their DS with him! He was very excited!! We will be too, if we find enough ear buds hanging around so that the children will be seen and not heard!!

We are now all patiently waiting for Dad to get home from meetings so we can hop in the car and head off to the happiest place on earth! Disneyland....here we come!

Happy Birthday, Justin!

Friday morning we woke up to some fine chalk art renditions on the driveway courtesy of some of Justin's friends from school wishing him a happy birthday.

They also decorated the tree. We were just glad it was a happy birthday sign and not a case lot of TP!

Later that night, Justin and a few of his friends met up at the park for some football, soccer, and capture the flag. He even had a girl (one of the same who decorated the yard) call to see if she could come to his all boy party. Nice. It has begun. Not sure if I am ready for it. (Did I happen to mention he is now officially old enough for proper documentation that allows him behind a wheel to drive?! Very scary!)

His real birthday was Sunday, so there wasn't a lot of major partying going on that day, but he did enjoy presents and two cakes...an ice cream cake by mom, and a yummy chocolate cake by another one of his friends.

Loser Mom forgot to make sure I had enough candles, so from the few we had kickin' around in the cupboard, he chose to be 1 again. Sorry buddy!

Some of the great things about Justin:

He is kind to everyone.
He has great integrity.
He is a good example to others.
He is a leader.
He knows what is right, and he isn't afraid to tell others.
He keeps us all honest!
He is a great student.
He is responsible.
He is quick to help those in need.
He is fun to be around.

Thanks for being who you are, Justin. We couldn't ask for a better son! We love you!

The Long Awaited Rematch!

Last spring, Justin and Crazygirl were dishing out some serious trash talk about who was the better soccer player. This, of course, led to a challenge game between families. After about an hour of "serious play" we ended the match tied--one game to one. All the old people decided we were too tired for a tie breaker and opted for ice cream instead. It also allowed us all to save face. Well, that may have been an error on our parts because ever since, Justin has been begging for a rematch! It has taken us over a year to arrange it, but it finally happened! The kids decided to make it just a kid rematch, which suited us just fine! Here are all the happy (and friendly) participants before all the fun began.

Stretching is critical! (At lease it is critical to making you look like you know what you are doing. I'm pretty sure the girls completely dominated in this pre-game skill!)

Here are the two "captains," playing nice and exchanging words before the game begins.

That didn't last long! The gloves came off pretty fast and the trash talk and fighting began!

A friendly kick here, a little shove there...it's all fair in a friendly little game of soccer!

Well, the girls started off with a bang, scoring 2 goals in the first few minutes! Justin was getting a little worried and was complaining about something. I believe Kim's comment was along the lines of "Give me a break! You're wearing shin guards!!" The boys were decked out in shin guards and cleats. The girls were wearing no socks and cute little tennies I believe! We'll unfortunately for the girls, those were their last two goals. The boys scored 5 of their own, and play continued until Dancingqueen declared game over! Just in time for us to get home for the REAL game of the day.....BYU vs. Oklahoma!

What an AWESOME game! We grabbed some pizzas and sat down to enjoy the first game of the season, in pretty high spirits, even though we were all sure of the beating about to come! So we were completely surprised and ecstatic with the winning outcome instead! There was a lot of cheering and yelling coming from our basement that day! It was great to enjoy the game with good friends and some good grub! Thanks for a fun day, Fosters!

Here are some happy, true blue fans!!

Ward Camp Out

The boys always look forward to going to the ward camp out. I personally think it is a whole lot of work for a very short trip, but I'm just the mom and the only girl in the family. What do I know? Luckily, once we got there, most of my work was done. I sat back and let the boys get busy putting to use all of their scouting skills.

For the last two years, our ward has gone to a campsite in Wallsburg. It is actually pretty nice. Very beautiful scenery and nice facilities, so once we get there, it's usually pretty fun! This year the camp out unfortunately landed on the same weekend as an activity for some good friends of ours. Their son has juvenile diabetes, and Saturday was a 5K walk and fundraiser for JD. Since Paul is over activities in the ward, we decided we needed to stay overnight at the camp out to support that. So to show support for Parker and his activity, we decided to wear our "Parker's Posse" shirts that everyone in his group had for the walk to the camp out. They were pretty sweet shirts, and it was easy to find all my kids since they had on matching shirts!

Once camp was set up, the boys got right around to having some fun with each other, friends, and playing some stick throwing game called Coob or Cube or something like that!

This was the nice little bridge and river that ran past our campsite. I could hear the gurgling river all night. On one hand, it was very peaceful and naturey sounding. On the other hand, that may have been one of the many contributing factors to me not getting any sleep!

We were up early to break camp and help with breakfast so we could make it back for a friend's baptism. Here are the boys cooking.

And for those of you who have patiently been waiting to see if Justin's second attempt at camp cooking went any better than the last....well, see for yourself...

He was very proud! And they tasted good!

Opening Day at Oquirrh Mountain Temple

Today is the "opening day" (for lack of a better term!) at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It is also the last day of summer for the junior high kids. I figured what better activity than to partake in something spiritual before being bombarded by real life in the junior high, so I took Justin and two of his friends, Brett and Victoria, to do baptisms this morning at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. I'm so excited that they had a chance to not only serve and be uplifted, but also to be among the first to participate in that ordinance at this new and beautiful temple! Not many people can say that they attended a temple on "opening day!" The only bummer was forgetting the camera to record the event!

Along the same topic, we had a great experience on Saturday at the temple as well. I mentioned a few months back that I had been asked to sing in one of the choirs for the 5th session of the temple dedication. It was such an honor to be asked and an amazing experience to be a part of! From the very first meeting we had with all the choir members from all 9 choirs, I was in awe of the talent around me. When we sang just the opening song for that first meeting, I was almost literally blown out of the seat by the pure volume, talent, and spirit! It was awesome! (If only it could sound that way every week in church!) My choir was no different. It was obviously much smaller than that initial meeting, but full of so many talented people! 4 of the 31 in our choir were from our ward, and our choir consisted of 3 stakes! Speaks to the talent in our very own neighborhood! The whole experience was just fun.

We were able to have a practice in the temple before the dedication where we realized just how closely we would be standing to the prophet. I ended up directly behind him, about 1 1/2 feet away. We joked about rubbing his head, being as close as we were, but we were informed that should we get rowdy like that, his bodyguard in the second row was trained to jump over everyone to land directly in front of us and take us down! :) We decided to refrain.

Since I was in the choir, Paul received a ticket for that session as well. He was able to get 3 more tickets for all the boys but Eric. They were sitting in one of the endowment rooms. What a neat experience to have almost all of my family in the temple together to participate in such a great event! The boys were amazed to see me on "TV" and kept commenting on me standing right behind the prophet!

The meeting was really great! The spirit was incredibly strong. I have never sung the choir part of the Hosanna Anthem before, and it was an incredible experience. Many times while practicing that song, I was moved to tears. I know there were choirs of angels singing with us that day! I'm so grateful for the chance to be a part of the dedication, doing something I love that evokes such feelings of the spirit. I also feel very blessed to live where we do as it affords us many opportunities to be involved in experiences like this!

Father and Sons Camp Out

After weeks of wedding planning, the boys were definitely ready to go do some male bonding! The day after my sister's wedding was the ward Father and Son Camp Out. Before going off to get dirty, Paul and the boys had to make a quick stop back at Mt. Timpanogos temple with me. My oldest brother and his wife were sealed in the same temple, and in fact, the same sealing room as Denise and Dale the day before. Paul popped in long enough for that ceremony, and then he and the boys hit the road. It was a small group of campers this year, but they said they had a lot of fun.

Of course a camp out wouldn't be complete without a good breakfast and some goofing around. Apparently Justin told the cook that he could make better pancakes. He was given the chance to prove himself. Unfortunately, this was his result! Better luck next year, Justin.

The boys also had a great time on the lake. They fished, skipped rocks, and rode around in the boat.

Good times for the boys! I, on the other hand, also look forward to Fathers and Sons...it means girls weekend for me! After my brother's sealing and grabbing some lunch with a lot of the family, I headed back home to go out with a girlfriend. We shopped, went to the movies, and grabbed a late dinner. Then I went home and slept in until 10:30! A much needed reprieve after all the wedding madness!