55 And Pioneers

It's tradition in our family to celebrate my dad's birthday when we get together for the 24th. Usually we do fireworks and stuff but this time we didn't break those out. We ate dinner out on the patio and ended up there all night talking and laughing. I had a great time.

My sexy husband:

My funny dog:

Me and my funny dog:

The new Nielson family:

Morgan and Sam:

Amber:

The birthday boy:

Singing to the birthday boy - never a dull moment in the Madsen family:


Goofing off...and somehow we ended up talking about broken bones and stuff and we brought out Morgan's x-rays from when he busted his leg during football practice back in high schoo. If you enlarge the picture, you can see all of the pins in Morgan's leg. Nasty:

G-Force On The 24th

Hope everone had a fantastic 24th!

I kick started my 24th of July with a good workout, some tanning, grocery shopping and then a trip to the movies with some of the fam. My sister, Amber, took her boys to see G-Force and me, my mom, Bronsynn and Kevin joined in.

My favorite part was the popcorn fight I started with this little guy during the movie! We really got into...and then Grandma would shush us...and a few minutes later I would start it again:

Dallin was a little sleepy and that means he was a lot grumpy:

But we had a lot of fun goofing off and I was glad I got to see them before they had to go to their dad's:

Progress Is Being Made!

This last Thursday we were gifted with our patio!

Yessssssssss!

My dad did this, with me as his side-kick and fellow concrete-er, and he did it on his birthday. He turned 55 Thursday and this was HIS present to ME!! What a great dad!

Behold, The Process:


The Before...and After:

That's my dad's good buddy at Alta View bringing in the cement:

And this is my poor zucchini plant that was smushed by the cement truck (I didn't do a garden this year for this exact reason, but this plant came up all on its own. I didn't expect it to get very far though):

Getting started:

Smoothing things over:

Throwing on some pixie dust:

Me taking a break and playing with the neighbors dog. He is sooooo cute. He will come to this hole and bark at Bacardi until Bacardi comes and pays attention to him. He would be a good snuggle dog:

Stampin' it up!:

The next morning I woke up to the sound of a diesel idling out front. I thought that it was just a truck waiting to turn onto 3200 but after a few seconds it hit me that it could be my dad. And there he was, just sitting in my driveway. I had no idea he was even heading over - that's my dad for you.

So he brought over the power-washer and washed off all the stain:

And then he took to the saw and and sawed the lines in:

And wallah! We have a patio!! Yay! Now that the wedding is done and gone, things should start moving a little quicker...we hope.

It's About TIME!!!!!!!!

Paul and I have been on a quest. This quest has taken a buttload of time and lots of manpower and lots of input and help from neighbors and friends and family. I am talking about trying to find our blasted water line so that we can put in our sprinkling system.

Our first designated area to search for our little treasure was Hole #1. Straight line from the water meter to our shut-off valve. This hole is about six feet wide and went six feet down. No line.

We didn't even think we would have to dig Hole #2. My lawn is just a mess now. Just great!! The funnest part of all of this is the extremely hard dirt that we encountered in every hole. This hole is probably eight or nine feet wide and went seven feet down. No line.:

It most certainly should have been in Hole #1 or Hole #2. We even had a kind neighbor who does this thing for a living and he showed us where it would be....so we dug two more feet to the east and went down seven feet and....no line!! We had a neighbor with a metal detector...that couldn't detect it. We had several landscaping neighbors trying to help us figure out where it would be and our good friends, the Edmunds, even came out and helped us dig. NO LINE!!

Hole #3:

We finally found it!!! After everything, we decided to dig in the park strip right next to the bloody meter itself. There it was....only THREE bloody feet down. THREE!!!!!! And you know where it heads??? Straight for Hole #2....that was seven feet deep. Where does the line go once it goes under the sidewalk??? That's anybody's guess.

But here it is....finally. Right below our cable and gas lines. That was sure fun. DON'T call us if you need help digging for anything - WE DON'T DIG ANYMORE!

Pre-Wedding Hang Out

The wedding was two weeks ago and I totally should have blogged before now but I was hoping that I would have more of the wedding photos to post. Such is not the case and I must be getting on with some stories. So as soon as I do have pictures from the wedding I will post them in a jiffy.

But before the wedding, us girls had us a swell old time. Thursday the five of us went and got pedicures so that our feet were all cute in our wedding shoes. It was really great - my first one ever! - and we had a super great time.

My mom, Amanda, then Amber...and Me and then Bronsynn:

This is Amber's super happy face because we are all getting cute feet:

See how cute my toes turned out? I took this picture upside down so that it would look like it was right-side up, but my camera goes ahead and changes it on its own....so it's upside down anyway.

We went to dinner afterward at Applebee's and we laughed and laughed. I believe it was the last un-stressful moment we had because then the crazy began. More on that later!

I loved hanging out with the girls in my family though. It was so great.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

One of the many things that Paul and I have going on this week: tickets to the Sneak-Peak of Harry Potter!!! YAY!! My sister works for a dentist and every Harry Potter movie, this guy rents out theatres at Jordan Commons for his patients and employees and their families. So we got to go see that tonight. In my opinion, I loved this movie!!! Paul and Benny didn't think it was spectacular...that it didn't have a very good ending and that it was just a pointless story, but I didn't think so. Everyone has their opinions. The thing I loved the most about this movie was the humor. It's so cute and there is this particular part that is really really funny - obviously I can't say because I don't want to ruin it for everybody. So if you are super excited about seeing the new Harry Potter movie, I think you won't be dissapointed.

By the way...Dr. Keith Poulsen Pediatrics is the dentist...just in case anyone's looking for a really awesome kid dentist.

Confession #4

Okay so I just saw the New Moon trailer and O.M.G.!! I have to confess that it sort of kick started my interest in Twilight again. After Twilight, I wasn't very excited about any of the other movies. I learned that Catherine Hardwicke wasn't going to be the director anymore and that was encouraging but I still wasn't feeling it. Twilight the movie just sucked hard. BUT!!! This one does look good. I was curious about what they were going to do with the wolves. I thought that whatever they came up with would be super corny. But, in the one shot that I saw of Jacob becoming a wolf, it looked pretty dang good. The acting looked a little better...but that's all irrelevant until the movie comes out. There was the one part where Bella gets the papercut and Kristen Stewart's acting was less than stellar. She can really suck. I hope that the dude that plays Jacob has better acting skills in New Moon than he did in Twilight. But if he doesn't, then at least his muscles will keep me entertained. He looks fantastic!! Anyhoo...I'm not counting down the days or anything but I do like what I saw. If this movie turns out super good my only regret would be that they should have had this new director do the first film.

The Funny Things Kids Say

I'm out at my parents' house right now...there's lots to do for the wedding so I have been spending my days here this week. Anyway...my nephews are here and we took a trip to the Maverik to get some Gatorade to make some popsicles. While we were loading the boys up in their carseats, Aiden showed me his pennies and said "I brought you these dollars so that we can buy, like, 50 Gatorades!" And then he proceeded to count each penny and say "One Gatorade, Two Gatorade, Three Gatorade...." But obviously I had to tell him that seven pennies couldn't buy even one Gatorade and so we would have to buy some cheap candies.

At lunch time, my mom asked Aiden how many chicken nuggets he would like. "Ummm, about 55."

Swimming With The Chil'ren.

Yesterday the summer fun continued with a trip to the Taylorsville swimming pool with my sister, Amber, her two boys and Bronsynn. It's the first time I have been to a public swimming pool since I was in Junior High!! It was strange when I realized that. This pool is nice and the kiddie area is super fun...I assume...if I were a kiddie. Okay okay I had a ton of fun in the kiddie area, too. I just couldn't help joining in with my nephews. My niece and I spent some time diving for toys in the deep end...well, deep to her. And later my sister came out carrying the boys and we all had fun searching for the toys and making Bronsynn dive for 'em.

Some pics of our afternoon.

Bronsynn being the diva that she is:

Amber helping Dallin toss his water frisbee:

Dallin had a hard time sharing his toys. He was here to take his frisbee back from Bronsynn:

Aiden does this super cute thing where he swims through the water with his hand up as a fin pretending to be either a shark or a dolphin. This was the best I could get out of him when I had my camera. He wasn't interested in giving me what I wanted:

But he was interested in the grasshopper that found itself in the pool. We got the grasshopper to safety, only to have it jump back in the water a nanosecond later - twice!! The second time, he jumped onto a man's shoulder. Luckily Aiden was there to save the man.

Dallin bundled up like a little bug when the wind picked up.

And this is him dancing while we were all snacking on the break:

I love hanging out with these kids. My niece is like a sister...and so totally a teenager right now but she keeps me laughing....and my nephews are the cutest kids I know (of course, I am a little prejudice cuz there are other super cute kids I know...like Jensen Edmunds :).

And guess what? No sunburns!! Go me! It was so so so SO hot but I lathered up like crazy so I wouldn't have any lines. It probably also helped that I was super tan to begin with. But whatever. No lines is a triumph!!

Mr. GQ

Church this past Sunday was enlightening. Apparently I am married to our ward's chosen hottie! This comes as no surprise to me, of course (duh!! I have impeccable taste in men :). I learned this through a Young Women's leader. The girls in our ward just got back from Girls Camp last week and one night the girls gathered and played Truth or Dare. The truth was 'Who's the hottest guy in the ward?' Paul is very honored by his title. As am I because that automatically gives me an award right??...for being the hottest guys wife?? And, as I told Paul when he asked me where his trophie was, I'm it!!

When we got home I couldn't help but be silly and I made him pose for me. So ladies, I present the Westbrook 6th's Ward Hottie!!:

And the Hottie with his trophie :):

Oh we were so retarded...and we had a great time!

4th Festivities

After our day of yard work, we continued our celebration of the 4th by doing more yard work!! I can't remember a funner 4th, for realsies! We weren't doing our yard this time though. My sister's wedding is coming up this Saturday so the whole family came together to get things looking top notch. It's a lot of land so it's a lot of work - we worked until 4:00 and then we started getting the pork loins and hot dogs started and the salads put together. Dinner was sooooo goood. I love me some good ol' American BBQ!

Our families old dog, Jagger, loved going in our canal. He always went in for a dip when he needed to cool off and we always enjoyed tossing the ball in for him to retrieve. So why not Bacardi? Well he wouldn't go in by himself so of course we picked him up and tossed him in. It didn't take him long before he was retrieving his own balls...wow that sounds bad.

My dad brought a few of the horses out to pasture and we put the boys on our 1 yr old while she was being led out front. They are so cute!! I love them!!

Among our favorite 4th activities is making bombs out of Piccolo Pete's. They make a monster-size boom and we have a riot with them!

It's fun to see how high it gets once it goes off. Or sometimes we bury the bomb a little and when it goes off, the bottle AND the sand goes sky high.

The kids watched the show from their perch in the bed of the truck:

And mid-bombs, the boys had a chipping tournament:

After all our work to get Bacardi IN the canal, we could hardly keep him out of it! But once he came out, he would roll around in the dirt and come back looking like this:

The kids always have a hard time waiting for it to be dark to do the fireworks, so they get do some sparklers to tide them over. The neighbors kids came over a bit to play and see the horses in our front pasture:

We had icecream and then it was finally dark enough to start the fireworks...although they were still more interested in sparklers than the actual fireworks themselves. They are so cute.

We took a break from those once the city fireworks started. From my parents north patio we can see the fireworks going all over the entire valley. They live near the Oquirrh mountains so we are higher up and we have a fantastic view. Riverton's is the best show cuz it's closer to us but we can also about six or seven other shows at the same time. It's amazing!! And always the perfect way to end the evening.