The Beach

I am back to being a single mom since Vaughn started his first day today as a Resident at UT. I don't mind...I actually love it. The kids and I decided to check out this beach at the Clark Center Park. It is nothing compared to the St. Maarten beaches, but hey, I live in Tennessee, 6+ hours from a beach so this works for us. It had sand for the kids to play in, and an area roped off so the boats can run over anyone, nice huh!

This is our unfinished Sand Shark. Tyson wanted to build a sand castle, well.....mom sucks at making sand castles. They are my nemesis. So I suggested to build a sand creature. We did pretty good until Tyson decided he was finished and left me the task to complete it by myself. I would have abandoned it, but my son really wanted it finished, he just didn't want to be the one to do it. And since he wanted to play in the water, so did Taryn, and she cannot swim. So..... this is all of the shark that we finished. Tyson felt bad when we left that we didn't get it done, and was distraught that it would be gone when we go back again someday. I had to reassure him that we would make another one.

Quick shot of the kiddos just before Taryn had a meltdown. 5 seconds after this picture was taken Taryn decided she was tired and was done with the whole beach thing. She screamed so hard you would think she was in some horror flix. Jeez, the girl has a set of lungs. I hope that means she will be a good singer someday. Even though we had to leave, we had been there over 2 hours, and it was time to go. Another fun place for us to play here in Knoxville. On to new places tomorrow.

Clark Center Park

I have to say, right off the bat, I want a boat someday. (I don't want many things, but I want a boat) We have some family that is relation to the Jackson side and have been able to get to know them a little in our short time here. Kendal, Great Aunt Loraine's son (Grandpa Alfred Jackson's older sister), has been so sweet and nice to us. He invited us to go with him, his wife Barbra, daughter Pam and son-in-law Steve to Clark Center Park for some fun times out on his pontoon boat. We were thrilled to get to see some more of this beautiful place and to hang out on a boat.Wouldn't you know, it was about 90 degrees and about 75 % humidity today, luckily we were able to get into the water. They had a tube on the back of the boat and the kids were excited to try it out. Taryn actually had a pretty good time, until the water splashed her in the face, then she was done! Tyson decided he could ride it by himself, and he did pretty well, but the kid weights as much as a bird and wasn't heavy enough to hold down the tube. Vaughn got on with him and cousin Pam did as well. I think he rode it about 3 times for about 5+ minutes.The water was warm. It felt like you had turned on the warm water in the bathtub. You really couldn't cool down, even if you were completely wet. Well.....the water GODS smiled down upon us, because they could see how freaking hot is was, and turned on the water works in the sky. Out of nowhere came this crazy thunder storm. Kendal tried to out run it and get up back into the boat dock, but we were quite a ways a way, and didn't make it. I was ok with that. The cold rain was refreshing. It down poured for about 15 minutes and then the HOT SUN came back out and the steam started to rise off of everything and we were all sticking again.
Look at the trees in this picture. They are covered in this vine stuff called Kudzu. I think it is beautiful, but the Knoxville residences say it is a nuisance. It just grows, quickly, everywhere and is very hard to get rid of. I think it is awesome. We spent a total of 4 hours out on the river/lake. Loved it. And we found out that there is a little beach not too far from the boat docks that is free to swim at. I will be checking out that spot next week. Look for the post!

Time In Kanab With Friends (May 2010)

Ah...this picture brings tears to my eyes. Wendy has been my best buddy for about 15 years. (Holy Cow it has been that long since my Dixie years) We first met at Dixie College on the Rebelettes. Instant kinship and have been close ever since. She married a good friend of Vaughn's from high school, Paul Kabonic (Skinny) and it just so happen that I knew him from living in Kanab for a few summers. So we all get along so well and so do our kiddos. We haven't seen Paul and Wendy in about..........well can't remember, a long time(since we lives across the country in MI). So before we left Utah we scooted down to K-town for a little reunion.The two K-town boys. They broke the mold when these two were made. "There is just something different about a Kanab boy", any girl that has ever married one will tell you that same thing. They all have about the same personality, which is totally out there and funny as heck.

Vaughn went golfing with some of the K-town boys, while Tyson, Taryn and I headed over to Wendy's to hang out with her and the kids, Cooper and Avery.Wendy and I took the kids to this new, well it was new to me, park in Kanab that was just awesome. The ground wasn't those notorious wood chips, hard cement or pebbles, no-----it was made out of rubber stamp remnants from the Stampin Up Company. So way cool. The kids could fall and never get hurt. My kind of play ground.

Wendy being the mom of the year, pushing her kiddos in the swing, while some random kid gives me his "Yahoo" face.

Taryn has a love for swings. She could stay in a swing for quite a while and be happy as a lark. I would throw up after 2 minutes, but not her, she loves to swing.

Tyson and Avery also got in on the swinging action and Avery was a little show off with all her cool tricks. Needless to say, it was such a great time hanging out with them. We miss them terribly and so do the kiddos. Hopefully, someday, we end up in Kanab or somewhere nearby. That would completely ROCK!! Love ya Kabonics. See you in October in Tennessee.

Family Photos (May 2010)

During the middle of May, when we were in Circleville with my mom, my side of the family got together and had family pictures taken. We had a local lady, Sundee Dalton, take our pictures on the SUU campus. The campus was beautiful for May and made for perfect pictures. Mom and Danielle color coordinated us and we looked pretty sharp. I don't have all the main pictures from the shoot, these are just the ones from my camera. So you can get a little bit of an idea of how we looked. Above: Danielle and I. It is funny how the years go by and we still follow what the other one does with her hair. Notice we both have short hair, next time it will be a different length. Love ya sis!

Jesse and Danielle: my cute sister and brother-in-law. Jesse was a hoot at the photo shoot. He was all about the posing and positioning of ourselves. Maybe you need to go out in Photography Jesse. HA HA HA Just teasing...keep it just for us.

Three HOT dudes!! Tyson and his buddies. I love this picture.My handsome little boy. He takes the best pictures. Maybe he will be a little model someday, who knows. He has such an infectious smile, just lights up the whole place. He was a dream during the whole time, smiled when he was supposed to and did what he was asked to do.

I loved this picture of me and my boy!!! He gave me this tulip and said, "Mommy I love you." AHHH. Just melted my heart. I will cherish this picture forever.

Taryn and Grandma T. ; Grandma T did everything possible to get her little granddaugher to smile, but the little pistol wasn't going to do it. She just wanted to run around and hold the chapstick. Funny thing is, most of the good family pictures we took, she is holding a Berts Bee chapstick, which is a goldenrod color and sticks out like an eyesore. Oh well. The little stink!! She is the rooster in this hen house and if it isn't her way it isn't going to happen, and I doesn't matter what you bribe her with, it isn't going to happen.

This is one of few pictures that Taryn sore-of-kind-of smiled and held still during the photo. She loved to put her hands around Tyson's neck, what a child!

When we get the others ones back from the printers, I will post them. It was such a fun time, the only thing missing was my dad. The last time we took family pictures he was still alive. I wish he could have been here for this time around, then maybe Taryn would have held still for Grandpa!!

Time Here In Knoxville

Well....yes I am behind a lot. I need to be like my good buddy Wendy K who will blog about a whole month, keeping her blog in chronological order, but I am not that good at this. So instead of telling you about getting here to Knoxville, which I will do later, I am going to tell you what we are doing in Knoxville, TN.

First off, this place is HOT! I feel like I am back on the island of St. Maarten. My hair is very frizzy and the kids cheeks are flushed 24/7 because of the heat and humidity. Guess those two years in Michigan turned our blood too thick and so now we have to thin down a bit. It may take a year or two to get used to this.

We heard of this cool drive in movie place out in Maryville, TN about 20 minutes from us and decided to take the kids to go and see TOY STORY 3. We had to get there about 2 hours before the show started just to have a space to watch it and having never been to a drive in we had no idea what to expect. I must admit, the movie on the big screen out in the open was cool to see, but the temperature was still 80 degrees at night. Taryn was a sweat ball and didn't want to sit outside and sit still, so we sat in the car, with the windows rolled down still sweating. They show 2 movies for the price of one, but after Toy Story 3, Taryn and I were done. Next time we will bring the truck and sit in the back where she can be corralled and it won't be AS hot!Our next fun trip was in the downtown area of Knoxville at the World's Fair Park. They have this coolest splash pad that is gigantic. Tyson was so excited to get it. Look at the kiddo run towards the water.The middle of the fountain was so powerful it could lift up your swimming shorts. Tyson was a bit leery of getting too close to the middle.

This is the famous Sun Sphere in Knoxville. Kind of like a major land mark in the World's Fair park. I like it.Taryn did not want to partake in the water festivities, oh well. Tyson still had fun.His good side. HA HA

We are finding all kinds of cool things to do here. So far so good, if it just wasn't so gosh darn hot! Oh and the best thing about being here is that I don't sound like such a hick, my Southern Utah drawl is nothing compared to the East Tennessee drawl. Nice!!!

As The Years Go By.....

Happy Anniversary to us!! It is our 8th year of marriage. That is pretty good by today's standards. I looked it up on the Internet and the year for a divorce was in the 7th year of marriage, they used to call it the seven year itch. But now it is the twenty-four month itch. After just two years of marriage 1 in 12 coupled head for divorce. WOW!! That just blows me away. Why did they get marriage in the first place? So since we passed the two and seven year itches, I guess we are in our golden years? Anyways, I am still in love with Vaughn after this amount of time and each year just gets better and better. He is my best friend, the one I laugh with, banter at and have the time of my life. Thanks babe for 8 fantabulous years.

Since we have only been in Knoxville for about a week, and we don't know anyone yet to babysit the kiddos, they went with us on our anniversary date. We ate out at the Macaroni Grill, loved it, and then came home to hang out. It was a great day.