Camping

I went camping with Luke for the annual father's and son's campout.  It was pretty fun.  We hiked all over the mountain finding sticks and rocks (not for a fire, just because Luke thought they were neat).  Then we roasted some 'mallows and hit the sack.  We didn't put up a tent.  I just threw a mattress in the back of the suburban, so we laid in there watching Tangled on my ipod until Luke fell asleep.  Not very traditional I guess, but it was comfy and warm.  He looks kind of bored in this picture, but he loved it.  I let him play with the fire as much as he wanted (with some guidance) and let him carry around my pocket knife and whittle sticks.  He loved it.

New Truck

My car died.  It turns out that when they say you should change your timing belt at a certain interval (every 60,000 miles in my case) they say that for a reason.  I changed mine at 60k miles but that was 75,000 miles ago.  I had put off doing it again thinking that I might try to do it myself this summer.  But the summer didn't get here soon enough I guess.  The timing belt broke, my engine's pistons shot up into the valves, which shot out all over the place, and so the valves and pistons were pretty busted up.  The car just stopped.  I got a couple of quotes to repair the motor and they were both about $2400.  But the transmission has been shifting pretty hard for years and something in the exhaust system kept causing the check engine light to come on.  So I decided not to get a new engine.

Instead I bought a new truck.

 A new to me truck anyway.  There is nothing else new about it.  It is a 1984 Toyota pickup and it is pretty beat up looking.  But it starts easily and it drives nice.  It has over 184,000 miles on it, but I think I can get a few more out of it.  Molly doesn't seem to be very impressed with it.  She knew I was looking for something cheap, but I think she wanted me to get something a little nicer.  But it was only $600 so I figured even if it lasted a half year or so, it was worth it.  And it might last longer than that.  I am done with school now so I only have to drive a couple miles to catch my vanpool everyday.  So at five miles a day, it should last pretty well I hope.  And the kids love it.  Luke likes to stand in the bed and shoot baskets.  The kids want to name it Mater because it is pretty rusty on the back and I guess it reminded them of Mater from Cars.  And they said Mater used to be blue.  So I told them they could call it whatever they wanted.  I am happy to have something that drives and I have always wanted a little truck like this.

Graduation

I have officially graduated.  They gave me a diploma cover and everything.

Walking away from my last final I felt great until the thought occurred to me that I wouldn't be back.  Then I felt a bit sad.  I will miss school.  I just like learning new things.  It does feel good to be done though.  I can now watch all those movies on my netflix queue that I never got to.  And who knows what else.

I should thank Molly for going through it with me.  Thanks Molly.  You are the best.

My mom came up all the way from St. George and my dad came down from Brigham City.  So that was nice of them.  They are great parents.

Chickens and Chicken Coop

We thought it might be fun to have some chickens.  And we like eggs.  So we got some little chicks a month or two ago.  They are called Buff Orpingtons. They are pretty cute.  We bought some for us and some for Jenifer (Molly's sister) who was going out of town and couldn't keep them herself for a few weeks.  So for a few weeks we had a dozen or so.  But only four of them are ours.  We kept them in the living room for a few weeks in a big plastic tote and the kids loved to sit and watch them and get them out and play with them.  Especially Ethnie, who calls them the little babies.  Here is a picture of her laying next to them and just watching them.

After a few weeks they started kinda stinking up the house, so we tried putting them in the laundry room for a while but that got pretty stinky too.  So then they moved out to the garage and my car moved out to the driveway.  A few times in the last month or two it has been warm enough to take them outside.  The chicks seemed to enjoy that and so did the kids.

Well, they couldn't stay in a plastic box in the garage forever so I was slowly trying to build them a coop.  Molly had been looking at different coops online for about a year and she decided the one she liked the best was this one.  So I bought the plans (which was hard for me to do, but I was so busy with school that I wasn't sure I would have time to make my own, so thought it would be best this time) and started working on it.  There was one Saturday about a month ago that was not snowy or rainy so I got the legs and the floor put on it that day.  Since then, I have just been going out for an hour or two anytime it is not raining or snowing and working on it a bit.  But it has been raining or snowing almost every day all month, so not much got done.  Then yesterday it was clear and I got a whole day to work on it.  I almost finished it.  Here it is so far.

We put the chickens in it last night because it is finished enough to live in.  I still need to add the trim and paint and what-not but it is getting close.  And I have to build the chicken run.  The chicks are about 8 weeks old now I think and they will start laying eggs at about 20 weeks.  We eat about 18 eggs a week, which is about what these four chicks will give us (18-20).  So that will save us about $2.00 a week.  The materials for the coop cost about $400 so, not including feed, it should take us about four years to save any money.  So I guess this is not about saving money, it is mostly just for fun.  So far it has been fun, but I will have to get back to you on that after the novelty has worn off.

Snowboarding With Zoe

A week or so ago I took off some work and took Zoe snowboarding. She has been wanting to go for a couple years and I told her that when she was ten I would take her.  So I did.  We went up to a small resort up Ogden Canyon called Wolf Mountain.  They had a good deal on a lesson and lift ticket.  So she took a lesson and I boarded alone for an hour.  During her lesson, the instructor was just having her walk up the hill a little and showing her how to strap in and out of her bindings and then coming down the hill 20 feet or so.  At the end of the lesson, she was supposed to go up the lift with the instructor and come all the way down the hill (the bunny hill).  But she refused. She wouldn't get on the lift.  So the instructor gave up trying to get her to go up and handed her off to me.  She told me she wasn't going to get on the lift.  She was afraid she would fall off from up high in the air.  So we went to the lodge and had a piece of pizza and just sat there for a little bit. After awhile, she felt rested again and I told her about the safety bars that you can put down on the lifts to keep you safe.  She wasn't exactly convinced, but I told her in the nicest way possible that if she ever wanted to go again, she was going to have to get on a lift.  So she relented.  And it was fine.  Getting off the lift with a snowboard is not very easy, especially for beginners.  But I just held onto her tight and kinda held her up until we were out of the way of the lift and it worked out fine.  The first time down the hill took us about an hour, but then we went again and again and again and again.  And by the end of the day, she was doing really well.  Much better than I thought she would.  I mostly just held her hands and went down backwards on my toe edge while she went down forward on her heel edge.  By the end she was going back and forth across the hill with some comfort on her heel edge. Next time maybe she will be ready to try out her toe edge.  Here are some pics.

Zoe and I on the lift.

Taking a break.

Coming down at the end of the day.

It was a great day.  Zoe said it was one of her best days ever. 

Santa Claus

So I know some people are going to really not agree with me here (Shelli) but I don't like telling my kids that there is a guy named Santa Claus.  It has bothered me ever since the oldest ones were small. I just don't know what the guy adds to Christmas.  I think Christmas can be fun and exciting without him.  I admit I was super excited about him coming when I was younger.  But I am starting to think that it was mostly just the presents I was excited about and that the delivery method wasn't that important.  I don't know for sure, but I think that had I known the presents came from my parents, I still would have been excited.  I may have even been more amazed come Christmas morning.  I mean we lived a pretty poor childhood (as far as money goes; I suppose you could say it was rich in other ways), but somehow on Christmas my mom always seemed to pull off the biggest feats of magic.  We always got what we asked for.  Or at least a reasonable part of what we asked for.  The main thing we wanted was always there.  We may have had to wear shoes with holes in them and get all our clothes from thoughtful neighbors because there was no money, but somehow on Christmas my mom always came through.  And Santa Claus got all the credit.  And she loved it that way.  But I just don't get it.  I don't mean to say she should have wanted to hog the glory for those wonderful Christmas mornings, but I think I would have been even more amazed if I had known it came from her.  And Christmas would have seemed even more magical.  I think one of the main reasons I believed in Santa for so long was because we were so poor all the time and I knew there was no way my parents could have given me what I got for Christmas.  And that never let me fully appreciate what I got for Christmas.  I was generally excited about what I got, but if something broke, it was no big deal.  I mean, it wasn't like someone had to pay for it.  Some fat man and his elves could just make up another one with their magic supplies of natural resources and callused hands.

Santa Claus was a big part our life when I was a kid.  I mean my brother Adam wanted to be Santa when he grew up for much longer than most kids play with that idea.  And my mom just loved the idea of Santa Claus.  She would go out of her way to prove to us year after year that he was real.  She would make up elaborate yet somehow believable stories to convince us if we ever started to doubt.  We would try to put our letters to Santa in the mailbox without her knowing so that if we got what we asked for we would know once and for all that he existed.  And somehow she would always manage to get them out of the mailbox before the mailman got there.  She must have checked the mailbox every morning the whole month of December.  And she wrote back to us sometimes.  Posing as Santa Claus of course.  So I was convinced.  Did I get made fun of in school because of my continuing belief long after my classmates had stopped believing? Yes.  Yes I did.  But you know, I am a person of faith, and a Mormon at that, and I was used to believing in things that other people thought were silly, so their ridicule never bothered me.  All I ever really thought was, "you people of little faith, how can you be so unbelieving?"

I simply believed, and the one thing that clinched it all for me was that my mother told me it was true.  And because she said it was true, I believed it.  I believed pretty much everything she told me.  How was I supposed to know that she would mix truth and lies together in that same convincing voice.  I never suspected.  And to be perfectly honest, when I finally found out the truth, I was devastated.  I didn't break down crying or anything - because I was almost 13 years old at the time and by then I was way past the tearful stage - but it hurt.  I was reeling inside.  I didn't know what I could believe anymore.  It wasn't finding out that Santa Claus wasn't real that hurt, it was finding out that I no longer knew what I could believe.  I mean if this thing that my mother had spent so much time convincing me was true wasn't true, what was? What other things had my mother told me were true that were mere fabrications for her and my amusement?  I questioned everything she had ever told me.  I even questioned my faith in God, though by then I had received enough witnesses of His existence to know that questioning my faith in God wasn't necessary.

So I think, is that really what I want my kids to look back and remember?  If I tell my kids something, I want them to know it is what I believe and never have to doubt it.  They may not believe the same things as me all the time, but I don't want them wondering if I really believe the things I tell them to believe in. 

I suppose my experience with the fat man has negatively affected me and my desire to pass this "fun" tradition on to my kids.  I think there could be a happy medium between what I experienced and the other extreme of never mentioning the man to my kids.  And that is what I have tried to achieve with the kids so far.  But I fear I may have erred on the side of keeping the tradition in mind instead of keeping the truth in mind.  I have told them about Santa and that he is watching and that it was his reindeer that ate those carrots we left out.  But on the other hand when asked directly if he is real,  I usually dodge the question and say something like, "well what do you think?" 

So anyway, what does Santa Claus have to do with Christmas?  I mean, some might say he represents the spirit of Christmas or the love of children or the spirit of thoughtless giving or some other thing like that.  I don't agree.  I mean if Christmas needs some guy to represent the spirit of the season or the love of children or the spirit of thoughtless giving, why do we need someone other than Christ to fill that role? Do we really need some jolly old saint?  Sure, I think in certain doses, he might add a little zing, but for the most part I think he just distracts from what Christmas is all about.

So a few weeks ago Lila and Zoe and I were hanging out and they asked me if there really was Santa Claus and I said no.  They were somewhat surprised, I think, that I would answer so directly but it felt so good to say it.  I had been wanting to say it for years.  The kids were a bit unsure of what to think.  Zoe asked, "well who brings all those presents then?"  I told her it was me.  That I was Santa Claus.  They were really skeptical.  Lila said, "I don't believe it. How could you be Santa Claus?  There is no way you could deliver all those presents to all those kids in one night."  It is hard to argue with that kind of logic.  But I explained that I was only Santa to my own kids and that everyone else's parents were their Santa.  So after talking about it for awhile I thought it was pretty clear.  But I was wrong.  A week or two later they brought it up again and were talking about how Santa could bring then anything they wanted.  And I was being a stinker and said that I would only bring them what I wanted them to have. And they both looked confused and one of them said, "but I thought you said you weren't Santa Claus."  Now it was my turn to look confused.  I just don't know where the confusion came in.  How could I have been more clear than, "Santa Claus is not real.  I bring you the presents."?  But apparently after our conversation they had had their own conversation and decided I was just messing with them.  So I had to assure them one more time that it was me.  So I think they now know that there is no Santa Claus.  And I hope they let the other smaller kids know about soon too.  Leisel won't be hard to convince.  Last year she told me that she didn't believe and that she thought it was me.  She is a smart girl.

I have told my kids to not mention it to others outside of our family and to definitely not make fun of anyone else that still believes, so hopefully that will happen.  But if you haven't told your own kids, this year is a good one to do it in.  May as well get it over with and stop all the deception.  Let's find out how fun Christmas can really be without all the lies.  That is what I am hoping will happen anyway.  I guess I have either ruined it for them for the rest of their childhood or not.  But I don't think I have.  I am convinced they will still enjoy Christmas without Santa.  I guess I will know in a couple months.

It's been awhile

Been awhile since I posted (do I say that every time?).  But we are always busy doing something, so here are some pictures (but not nearly as many as I wanted to post).  Ethnie is as cute as ever, so I will start out with her.  Here she is sharing a fat boy with Leisel.

And here she is checking out the cookie dough. This girl LOVES food.

One day Lila was whining at me that she wanted monkey bars, so I said, "well let's build some them."  I had all the kids pitch in some money from their piggy banks and I pitched in $20 and we all took a trip to the Home Depot and bought some pipe.  Then me and Luke nailed together some boards and drilled some holes and put in some pipe and voila!, instant monkey bars.  Well, ok it wasn't really instant.  It took about 4 hours to make.  Or maybe it was 8 hours.  I don't really remember.  But they loved them.  We will see how long they use them.

 

It is kind of a tradition now for me to take the kids camping on Father's day weekend and this year was no exception.  Grandpa Ellis likes to come with us too.  And I am glad because we like him and he makes breakfast.

Lila and Leisel spent most of their time hiding up on the side of the hill in their "secret hiding spot."

The kids love being out there.  We like to go up to my dad's property in Mantua.  It is nice and shady and private and there is a little river that is nearby.  It is great.

Fathers day was pretty good this year.  Molly decided to go big and bought me a big tv.  It is a nice 50" LG and it came with a blu-ray player and surround sound system.  It connects to the internet and we can watch netflix movies, and it connects to my home network and I can see all of my photos and videos.  I love it.  We watched Avatar on blu-ray the other day and it was incredible.  Now I can't stop watching tv.  But the tv didn't fit into our old tv cabinet so I had to build a new one.  I started out with these plans and made the cabinet a little bigger and added a top piece that goes around the tv to protect it from flying balls or shoes or whatever.

Molly chose the paint color and painted most of the cabinet.  I think it turned out great.  Looks almost as good as the tv.

And I guess I will end with a picture of Leisel and the first harvested blackberry from the blackberry bush we planted this year.  It is actually the only blackberry we have harvested this year.  But we have our fingers crossed that their will be more.

That is it for now.  More updates to the fascinating life of the Ellis family in a few months.