little visitors

I watched these two cute boys this morning. I thought their mom could use a break since her husband is at Philmont Scout Camp because my husband couldn't go. He went for John! So nice of him. John couldn't take 2 weeks off work right now, he has too much going on. So I offered to watch the kids so she could go do something fun. As it turns out, her dad is real sick and she spent the day helping her sister get her dad checked into the hospital. I am so sad. Her dad is our home teacher and we love him lots! Please pray for him.

The boys love my turtles and they loved swimming! We are having a fun day!

Workin Boy

Mitchell got a new job! Yahoo. He is working at Raising Cane's. They serve yummy chicken strip, fries and Texas toast. It was a tough interview process! He had to be interviewed 4 different times by 4 different managers! He started last week. So far so good. He needs to stay busy this summer and make some money. Hopefully they give him lots of hours!

blogger finally updated the photo upload for a mac! yahoo! so much easier to upload photos now!

Half Birthday

Yesterday was Ashley's half birthday. Being born on Christmas Day was always ok with her. We often asked if she wanted to celebrate a half birthday and she said no.

Our little girl is all grown up. And leaving home soon. She's getting married in November. 11-11-11 to be exact. We will miss having her around the house when she goes off to start her new life as a married woman. We'll miss her smile. We'll miss her energy. We'll miss how she can make every situation fun and exciting.

So we'll make the best of the next 5 months with her and look forward to the opportunities we'll have in the future for her to come visit and bless our home with her presence.

Happy Half Birthday Ashley. We love you. Dad

Wyoming Visitors

John's sister Edie came to see us this week! She lives in Wyoming, so we don't get to see her as much as we would like! She only had her 2 boys with her... we missed Luke and the girls! Hopefully they can make it next time!

We spent a lot of time out by the pool, jumping on the trampoline, bbq-ing and playing with the turtles.

Ashley just got her new iPhone, so she was a bit occupied... Carter loved building towers with the blocks! And he loved the little car. He even ate his lunch in there! You can see him eating his taco! Caden loved jumping and swimming! He was a fish!

On Tuesday morning we went to the park. It was lots of fun. We were the only ones there, probably because it was 104 outside... silly us! We thought we left early enough to enjoy it before it got to hot. Edie and I were ready to leave after 5 minutes. But the boys were having fun, so we hung out for about 1/2 hour. The loved all the fun toys!



Thanks for driving out of your way to see us Edie! We loved having you and the boys! I can't believe how big they are already! Carter goes to Kindergarten next year... crazy! We love you guys!

yummy...

We have been trying to eat a little healthier at the Barnes house the last few weeks. We had a great speaker come to a Relief Society activity a month or 2 ago and he talked about how important the enzymes are that you get from fresh fruits and vegetables. They help with the digestion process of your food. I have always known that fruits and veggies are good for you, but the way he explained it, it all made sense! So, we have been eating our enzymes found in raw foods. More raw veggies, fruits, nuts and etc. And no pop! I haven't had a pop since I was in Seattle several weeks ago. He said if you drink pop with a meal, it takes 12 more hours for you stomach to digest the food you ate with it! yuck...

We made a nice healthy dinner today...
fresh veggies from a friends garden, whole wheat noodles and fresh fruit! (and some bbq'd steak!)



We threw a little fresh basil in with the veggies! yum!

Temp Work

While I was in Seattle a few weeks ago I ran into an old friend of my family (I think she was my Merry Miss teacher)... we got to talking and she comes to Vegas a few times a year to set up a showroom at the World Market Center downtown. She asked if I would ever want to come help her and make some extra money... with a wedding coming up, I jumped on it. So, I have been working the last 2 weeks down there. I have a new appreciation for working moms. How do you do it?? The first day I came home SO tired! My feet hurt, my back hurt and my head hurt. I was a wimp. And I did not want to make dinner, help with homework, go to church meetings or anything else that was on my list. It has gotten better... not so tired. It's been fun to learn the ins and outs of those buildings and what goes on down there. There is a big show in August and we are taking old product out of the showroom and bringing in the new stuff. Everything has to be crossed of lists, numbered, bubble wrapped and boxed up. I think we boxed about 50 boxes of product that they will ship back to headquarters. I guess they used to have sample sales and then they got bought by another company and that company makes them ship it back. It's so stupid.

Anyway... this is the company...



They have home decor and lots of Christmas lines. We took down about 6 trees FULL of ornaments and boxed them up!I wish I could have bought some of it! So cute! Click here and you can see their website... I have met some nice ladies that I work with and it's fun, low stress work. I guess it gets stressful the week before the show...

I can work as much or as little as I want... I will see how summer goes and how much I need to be home with the boys. Tanner gets pretty bored, I need to find him some projects. I came home today and the photo booth on the computer was open and I got to see what Tanner did while I was away today... take a look at his boredom! (I may need to go in early so I can get home before noon when he should be waking up... so he doesn't injure himself with staples!)



He even made a little video...





Silly boy!

Sunday Evening...

Sunday evening at the Barnes house...

Mitchell doing a school project that he has known about all weekend... (i am actually ready for school to get out!)

Scotty and Ashley snuggled on the couch...

John checking his Yumz Facebook account...

Tanner getting a glass of milk... looking at me crazy!

An almost empty container of cookies that Ashley made 2 hours before... yes it was almost full at one point. (in our defense we did take a few to our neighbor in the hospital...)

Now everyone is off to bed... goodnight!

Slumber Party!

My little Jack and Afton came and spent the night last night so their mom and dad could have a romantic birthday celebration for Jenn! John and I ran to the store real quick and Ashley and Scotty were in charge of them... Jack decided while I was gone that he liked Ashley better than me... he wouldn't come to me when we got home... but Afton cried for me the whole time we were gone! Aunt Allison! Surprisingly though, Jack loved me at 2:15 this morning... I should have let him sleep with Ashley! Good birth control right??

Anyway, we had a fun night and they went home this morning... I think being a Grandma will be fun some day... but not too soon Ashley!

Breakfast!

Don't worry, I didn't let him eat the ring pop that is in his hand... the wrapper entertained him while he ate yummy rice cereal!

I wish all my nieces and nephews lived closer for slumber parties!

Memorial Day

I love weekends that aren't full of things and we get to spend some good family time together. We played out back on Saturday morning and then went to the mall together, followed by the new Pirates movie. It was great! Sunday evening we played lots of games and had peanut butter popcorn. yum!

Monday we had Scott and Jenn and the kids over for a BBQ. Scotty came and Mitchell's friend Michelle came too. It was a beautiful day for a BBQ, not too hot. A little chilly for swimming, but we turned on the hot tub to help with the cold pool. We've had such a mild spring that the pool hasn't warmed up yet. I am sure it will in time...


I made some delicious ribs! They cooked all day in the crock pot and then we put them on the BBQ for a few minutes... yum! jack got a hold of a bone and chewed it for a long time. I twas so funny. Jenn absolutely hates pork, so she was totally disgusted. I was surprised she didn't take it away. She kept telling him it was a pig... haha. jack and Afton have been sick for a few weeks, so it was good to see them happy again! We wish we had more family nearby! We miss you all!

State Champs!

We won! We won! We won! I kept saying that last Wednesday after we won the state volleyball championship! The boys played great and pulled off a hard win. We played Coronado High School from Henderson. Everyone who stayed to watch Coronado play the night before said they didn't think we would win. They looked really good. I think it was good going in as the underdog. It made our boys work hard. We lost the first game by a few points. Then came back to win the next 2. Both were really close! In the 4th game it went back and forth and then we finally went up and it was 24 to 19. We realized we would win... then the unthinkable happened and we lost the next 4 points! It was 24 to 23 and we finally won! Here is a link to the newspaper article about the match.

Price getting our crowd fired up! We had the best fans! At Tuesday nights game Silverado had like 10 kids there. Our school rented a fan bus and we had about 60 kids there. I am sure that helped us win! (The Championships were way across town)

Our fans stormed the court after the win!

Final Score...

Churo, Brock, Kohl and Brandon came to almost every match all season in these silly Morf suits and the big BHS flag. It was great!

# 1 !!!!!!

Woot Woot!

Mitchell getting his medal...

They were awarded the state plaque. all the boys are taller than Coach Cap! He is an amazing coach and the boys really respect and love him.

I looked over as all the kids are on the floor and Churo was still waving the BHS banner! He has the best school spirit!

What a fun season! We ended the league season 23 - 0!



Here are a couple videos I took on my cell phone. One right after the kids stormed the floor and when they got their awards...

Volleyball update...

This is the last week of volleyball season. It's been a great year for the Bengals! I am so sad it's almost over.

Our JV team ended the season undefeated in league play. (14-0) We never lost a match or a game with in a match! The boys had a great season! The last match of the season Mitchell got to start varsity. We were pretty excited. It was a fun surprise. He played great. He and Ben (the other jv/varsity player) played the whole first game and half of the 3rd game. We won all 3 easy.

great set!

Check out how high Parker got on this hit!

This is our front row for next year... the juniors.

May 7th was the JV tournament at the end of the season. We played great on Friday night. Won all 3 matches, 2 of them were close! We made it to the gold bracket for Saturday.

Saturday didn't go as well. We lost the 1st match, it was close. Then we won the second and lost the 3rd to Centennial. It was so close! I think it was a disadvantage to our boys that our league was not very challenging this year. We had never lost a game or been behind by more than one or two points, so when we played the tough teams in the other leagues, we didn't know how to fight back. They boys got frustrated with each other and the coach when we got behind. It was a bummer. They had the talent, they just didn't know how to work together under pressure. The last ref was terrible and that made the loss even harder. It was sad. But they had a great season and should be very proud of themselves!

Varsity is in the state finals this week! We had some close matches last week! The match against Palo Verde to determine who would play in the regional championship match was way too close. We won the first game and then lost the next 2 and then came back to win the last 2. I think I almost had a heart attack. Then we played the regional championship game against Shadow Ridge on Friday night and we won the first 2, lost 2 and won the 5th. So, crazy! But we won and we are the Sunset Regional champs. The State semi final match is tomorrow night against Silverado. Wish us luck!