Ice Skating

Since everyone was home for Martin Luther King day we took the kids to Station Park in Farmington to go ice skating. I have to admit that I had never been in the heart of Station Park before. It was kinda fun. The ice skating rink is really small but when there aren't very many people on it it's about my speed since this is about where I stayed most of the time.

 Zach's a pro. It's probably because he can roller blade and I cannot. In fact as a teenager when I tried to learn on our three car garage driveway I fell on my backside and my neighbor and parents laughed and then I was embarrassed  and that was the end of rollerblading for me.

 Although there was that one time when my roommates up at Ricks got me to go roller skating and I did pretty good.

Then there was that mishap with Josh in 2000 that involved the emergency room :)

 Sam did great. We only had a couple falls but everyone was just fine. Sam's told me a couple of time that we need to practice rollerblading so we can ice skate better :)

Lego Robotics

Zach had his Lego Robotics Competition at Weber State a couple weeks ago. He had a great time! They got to be there at 8 am and we got home at about 4pm! Long day but lots of fun for sure. The kids get to do presentations to judges about their robots and how they designed it. They also have to do some research and do a display board. Zach was able to get his robot to do what he wanted it to so that was good. Here are a few pictures.

 The Theme this year was natural disasters so they had star wars storm troopers there. It was really cool for the kids!

 Here they are watching their teammates during the competition.

Here they are just waiting for their turn to go see the judges and do practice runs. They made a good showing and had a great time!

2013 Summer Road Trip Day 1

So our first day of driving to West Lafayette, Indiana consisted of driving in the car for about 10.5 hours. Yes it was long. Yes there isn't a whole lot to see... but we found the best book on CD by accident! It's a series called Children of the Lamp and the first book is called The Akhenaten Adventure by Philip Kerr. It's 10 hours long however we didn't listen to all of it that day. We need to mix it up a bit.

We saw mountains like this in Wyoming.

 We saw Lots of windmills the whole way.

 We drove through a tunnel.

 We even saw one of Grandpa's Trucks!

 We were excited to see this sign.

 And there was plenty of playing with guys going on!

 The kids were excited when we got to the hotel. We were lucky and stayed in one that had 2 water slides and a little kid pool to swim in. Then that night they shot off fireworks just across the freeway and we could see them from our room!

 Sam loved climbing in the squid.

 Zach loved going on the water slides. I think he did that about 20 times! It was a fun place for sure!

And then it was time to go to bed so we could get up and drive some more.

Vacation!

Our bags were ready to go,

 We were ready to go,

So off we went on our driving adventure of the Midwest!

More later on all of our adventures!

Elbow Cheese....The rest of the story...

Okay so some of you might not know about Elbow Cheese. Let me enlighten you about this! First of all elbow cheese is located at ones elbow and extends halfway up ones arm. This term was first coined by Aunt Jeni one day a few years ago when talking about getting older and how older women have what we affectionately call relief society arms. Which lead to the the flap of skin on your elbow being called your elbow cheese.  Sam made elbow cheese famous as he squired the need of comforting himself by rubbing any unsuspecting woman's elbow cheese while sucking his thumb. He is very determined and will wiggle his little hand up your sleeve if you have on 3/4 length sleeves. You know he likes you if he does this to you so it is a good thing! Dad just thought it would be fun to make up lyrics to Grandpa Harrison's favorite Christmas song and then get him to sing it. There are plans for a music video featuring Sam. However production is very slow going.

Christmas and New years Fun!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years! We enjoyed staying close by our house for Christmas and then going to Grandma and Grandpa Harrison's for New Years. I'll get more pictures up later but I did want to post the video of our new Christmas song "Elbow Cheese" sung by the infamous father and son duo, Grandpa and Great Grandpa Harrison. So with out further adieu.. and an explanation in a future post... May I present... The Elbow Cheese Song.  (the song starts at 1:10)

More Wedding Bells!

It's been about a month since my my brother Aaron married Elisabeth. It was such a great day! They were cute and my Grandpa Johnson was able to seal them for time and all eternity in the Jordan River Temple here in Utah. Here are a few pictures.

Isn't her bouquet just gorgeous?

Here's all of us except John who had guard training that weekend

We enjoyed Cafe rio for the lunchoen and yummy cheese cake and brownies for dessert. The day was beautiful and went so smoothly!

We're so excited to have Elisabeth in our family. She really fits Aaron well and is fun to be around. 







Our Family was invited to dinner with Elisabeth's family the night before and we had such a great time. She come from a good family. I really enjoyed talking to her brothers and sisters and their families and my kids loved playing with all her nieces and nephews.

We've been busy in August!

Well August kept us busy! We had Aaron and Elizabeth's wedding and then we took lots of opportunities to play before we started school!

We made lots of pillow forts

Became cake decorators for an afternoon

Ate Watermelon from our garden

And finished sheet-rocking, taping, and mudding our downstairs bathroom!

Wedding bells!

Aunt Melanie got married this weekend! Zach and Sam were way excited to get to sleep in a hotel room for the first time ever! There was even a pool! We walked into our room and Sam said "This is our room? There's a bathroom too? Thanks Mom!" with a big hug. He just couldn't believe it! We got to be at the Logan temple, enjoy a luncheon there in Logan, and then go to the reception just over the boarder in Idaho. We also got to meet Elisabeth, our soon to be sister-in-law. She's great and Sam loves her so she's been Sam approved!  Here are some pictures.

Melanie and Colby

Uncle John and Zach

The whole Family!

Easter!

Happy Easter!

It's been a good Easter here at the Marshall household! We were able to go to Grandma and Grandpa Marshall's for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. Dinner was fantastic and the Easter Bunny that goes to Grandma's house likes to put candy and money in the eggs so Zach and Sam made out like bandits! They both had lots of fun. We enjoyed going to church today and being reminded of the Atonement and of the resurrection of Jesus. I loved talking about the Plan of Salvation and how we don't have to sorrow so much when our loved ones die because we know that there is life after death and that through the sealing power we can be eternal families! What joy and peace that brings to me! I love to look at the earth beginning to wake up and the flowers and trees are starting to bloom and grow. Such growth and renewal reminds me that it's my time to grow and to recommit myself to do the basic things that will lead me to eternal life so that I can be with those that I love.

I guess it's time for the obligatory Easter pictures of the egg hunts and the new Sunday ties. Enjoy!

Kites!

It was really kinda blustery on Sunday and we needed something to do so out came the kites. It took us about 10 minutes to get them untangled but then we were ready to go! It was fun to watch the boys hold on to their kites after we got them up in the air. A perfect thing to do on a Sunday afternoon!

Family Pictures

We were able to have a pictures taken by a great photographer last weekend. It was fun and Zach just loved being in front of the camera. Sam on the other hand was not so excited. It was a busy day though. We were invited to attend a baptism and then had just enough time to each really fast and change our clothes before we needed to be there to have our picture taken. When we got there our friends were there so the kids loved playing with them while things got finished up. By the time that it was our turn Sam was kinda done being good and so all the smiles you see are the effort of the photographer and his trusty helpers. It turned out good though. Here are some of my favorite ones!