Home Depot

Why would you, on a Saturday morning, drive to a place filled with noisy kids hammering away at a block of wood? To make these of course.



Derek usually takes the kids to Home Depot’s kid workshop on the first Saturday of every month, but this time he was busy tilling the garden (which incidentally ended up taking ALL day since we decided we didn’t like the tiers in our garden, and we still haven’t quite finished). I’ll admit I was a bit nervous about my ability to put together one of the extravagant creations they have come home with in the past, after all I don’t often use power tools or anything close, but Derek assured me it was easy, so we jumped in the van and headed over. Once we found the large mass of people in the back of the store and got our kits we were lucky enough to find an empty table, which we had all to ourselves until the very end of our project. We had a little bit of trouble getting one of the nails on Julia’s pencil box to go in straight, we ended up just leaving it crooked because it didn’t want to be fixed. That was the only hard part though, luckily they were very easy to put together and the kids had a great time.


Two pictures of the finished product since I can't get one picture with both of them really smiling:

Twilight

The official Twilight trailer:

Happy Birthday Char!!

Happy Birthday Charlotte!!!!!!!!

We celebrated Char's birthday this past Sunday so she didn't have to have her birthday dinner on Mother's day. It was kind of a last minute thing so we didn't get her a real birthday present, and I forgot my camera so I didn't get any pictures either... But even though the celebration wasn't elaborate we hope you have a great birthday today, and know that we love you! I'm so lucky to have 5 great sisters who I love to hang out with, and I'm glad that you're in Utah so we can see you lots!

Oh, and sorry I fed you mustard when you were a baby!! :) You really did used to like it.

And just like that, it's over

And just like that----- it’s over! Soccer has consumed our lives for the past 6 weeks. Ethan and Julia have both been in this year, and Derek is the coach for Ethan’s team. The kids each had 2 games and one practice a week-- two practices on Tuesday, one game Wednesday, one game Thursday, and two games on Saturday, it was crazy! And the weather knew it was soccer season too, every game was freezing, and it didn’t help that the wind down at the Lakeside Sports Complex is always out of control. With 16 games you'd think we would have had nice weather for at least one! But we made it through. :)

Julia with her team:

Julia wearing her medal:

A video from Julia's last game. She made lots of goals this season but I wasn't able to get video of any of them. Can you hear the wind? It was freezing!

Here's Ethan and his team (Can you spot him?):

Ethan wearing his medal:


And a goal Ethan made at his last game:

Revolution Money Exchange

I keep hearing about the new Paypal competitor RME or Revolution Money Exchange. Right now they're running a promotion and if you sign up before May 15th they'll give you $25! I wasn't sure if I should sign up or not, but I've had many friends sign up and they all love it. I just signed up tonight and sure enough I have $25 in my account already! The great thing about RME is that they don't have all of the fees that Paypal does. If you want to sign up you can click on the link over to the right on my blog, or just click here:
Revolution Money Exchange

And a little more info:
MoneyExchange is the new way to send and receive money online between MoneyExchange accountholders. It's a great way to exchange money with friends, colleagues, or online sellers. Share restaurant, travel, or household expenses. It's easy, secure and, best of all, it's FREE to register and FREE to send and receive money between MoneyExchange accountholders.It's a quick and easy sign up, and the $25 credit is applied to your account INSTANTLY. They ask for the same information you would need when you open a bank account, including a SSN. If you've done any online banking, you're probably pretty comfortable with the security of online banking systems.Account issued by First Bank & Trust, Brookings, SD, Member FDIC and part of the Fishback Financial Corporation

Gazebo? Not for long!

What would you do if you loved being outside in the summer but it was too hot unless you had some shade? And every time you tried to have a backyard picnic the bees came to join you until the kids ran back into the house? Yes, we love being outside in our backyard in the summer but we didn’t get to as much as we would have liked because of the aforementioned problems. So we went to Home Depot the other day and found this:

"That's perfect!" we thought. The netting went around the entire structure and zipped closed to keep out the bugs but still let in light. It would provide lots of shade in the summer, and would be a place all of us would love to hang out together! On Saturday we spent almost 3 hours putting it together, in the freezing wind, and we were so excited about enjoying it this summer!

...Until the wind storm yesterday... It wasn't hurricane force wind, it was just a slightly windy day, and apparently we hadn't anchored the gazebo very well yet. When I got home from picking up the kids from school we found it on its side in the backyard. Derek got home just in time for us to rush off to Julia's last soccer game, and when we got back the gazebo had blown even further, and most of the rods holding it together were bent or broken.

DO NOT buy this particular gazebo!! It was only after the whole thing had broken that I found mostly negative reviews for it on the Home Depot website. What a waste of money and time, and a major disappoinment for all of us as well!

UPDATE!!! Home Depot let us return the gazebo, so we at least got our money back, YAY!

And on a Home Depot note, if you rent tools from them make sure you get the damage waiver (it's 10% more or something like that). We rented a tiller from them on Saturday and while Derek was using it the front wheel broke off!! We were so worried about it, Derek returned the tiller to them and asked what their policy was for something that had gotten damaged. The repair to the tiller would have been hundreds of dollars, but we had gotten the damage waiver luckily, so it cost us only $4! Another YAY! What a blessing!

Back from Florida

We're back from Florida and we had a great time! It was so fun for the kids to see their grandparents, and they even made some new friends.
The first few days Derek was working on some projects at their house, so Susan, the kids, and I got to do some fun activities on our own.

This is on the little roller coaster at Adventure Landing in Jacksonville.

The weather was warm enough to swim for the beginning of our time in Jacksonville.

Ethan liked warming up on the side of the pool.

And we made it to the beach before it cooled down. It was a perfect beach day!

And I even got a picture of Ethan, who hates having his picture taken.

Check out their cool sand castle.

And then they added a sand dragon.

Here are some of Ethan and Julia's new friends-- Michael and Jacob. They came to dinner with their parents, who are from the Ukraine, and the kids had a great time.

Another pic with Michael and Jacob.

We even got a little hike in at Castaway Island, a small nature preserve really close to Buzz and Susan's house.

This is also at Castaway Island, we got there at low tide and we were able to see little hermit crabs all over the place.

Ethan decided he needed a closer look and fell into the mud, see his feet and legs?

We took Grandma Susan miniature golfing at Adventure Landing, and I think she won.

When the weather was cooler we took a trip to the Jacksonville Zoo and met up with some friends. Julia loved having Ruthanne there, thanks for meeting us there Carla!

Here's Ethan feeding the giraffe. Julia had a turn too, but I missed it.

The kids even got to feed some birds!

Derek and the kids with Grandma Susan right before we left.

Here's our attempt at getting another great family picture at the beach, thanks Grandpa Buzz!

Grandpa Buzz took us to the driving range and the kids had fun hitting some balls, and missing some balls altogether.

The last part of our trip we stayed in Orlando at Regal Palms. We've stayed there twice before and we love it so much we keep going back. It is starting to get quite crowded at the pool area though. Here the kids were ready to jump in the lazy river.

Julia and her friend from the pool, Briney Meyer from London.

Even though we didn't do a park this trip we wanted a tiny bit of a Disney experience, so we went to Downtown Disney.

Julia was very pround of writing her name with Legos at the Lego store at Downtown Disney.

Here Julia is in front of a dragon made entirely from legos!

Julia with Buzz Lightyear and Grandpa Buzz.

This was our last day at the pool. We had a great trip and even came back with a little tan.

Here's a link to all of our pictures (I hope it will work).

Char's wedding

The day of Charlotte's wedding was freezing! It was super windy, I was glad that we didn't have to be in too many pictures outside (but I did feel bad for Char and Andrew who had to stay out there in the freezing wind).

This was right after they came out of the temple.

All of the Hendriksen side of the family at the temple.

All of the Hendriksen side at the reception.

All of the bridesmaids.

The quartet, they sounded great!

Tamara and baby David.


Robyn on the flute, aren't the girls so cute watching her?!

The cake.

Char and Andrew cutting the cake.

Here's Melodie catching the bouquet!

My cute sisters!

Julia with Aunt Char.

Silly Ethan and Julia.

Grandma Hill and Char, right before they left.