The Grubers: March 2017

At the beginning of the month I had a really fun girls' night with Kerstin and Alisha. We met up at Chili’s and got to meet Kerstin’s new baby, Gracie. She is so cute! We had a great time eating, chatting, and laughing!

The show we were hooked on this month was Stranger Things. We finished the season, and while others said it wasn’t scary, it totally freaked us out! I’m telling you, it scared me so bad! I would get scared in the dark, I would be thinking about it when falling asleep; it was horrible. I loved the show, but hated the show because of how spooked it made me. One night we stayed up late watching it and were particularly spooked. We had just turned out the lights and laid down when our door burst open and we heard quick footsteps into our room in the pitch dark! Oh my gosh my heart stopped and I was frozen stiff from fear. Then I hear this whisper in my ear, "Water...."...it was Charlie running in wanting a drink of water!! That had never happened before! Jason reached over and touched my arm reassuring me that he was just as freaked out as I was. It was funny, but I was still shaking and sick trying to fall asleep after that. It was crazy! It may not sound like much, but in the moment it was crazy scary!

I can’t remember if I have mentioned this before, but there is a family in our ward that we do date night swaps with. They watch our kids while we go out, and we watch their kids while they go out. We usually trade off about once a month or so. For our date night we got dinner at Zupas and went to see the new Jason Bourne movie. I love a good date night with free babysitting! Later in the month, we switched and they brought their kids to our house while we tended them. Those nights are always fun and different too because they have three kids that help entertain/fight with our kids.

For Labor Day, we were invited to a friend/neighborhood hot dog roast at the Coburns. It is so great to have such nice friends in the neighborhood and several kids for our boys to play with.

While my friend Amy is in school at UVU we like to take advantage of the time that she is down in Orem. Some days we meet up for lunch, like at Chik-fil-A, and sometimes she just comes to our house between or after school classes to veg, watch a show, or just hang out. It is so fun! I’m loving this time with her, and the boys love her too! She plays so well with them.

We had another game night with our PG friends: Bairds, Gibbs, Paces. We got dinner at 5 Star BBQ and then we headed to the Gibbs to watch the BYU vs Utah football game. After the game, we played Curses and Utter Nonsense. Thanks to Kim and Kyle for watching the boys.

We had a fun family night up at Sundance just walking around the paths and enjoying the nice weather. The boys loved it. They love to explore and to be outside together.

I told Colson to fold his arms, so it would be cute as he leaned on the rocks, he took that to mean bow your head for a prayer. It was pretty cute.

Jason started up soccer again at the Lindon indoor field with his old friend Mike Monson and has games once a week. The boys and I go to watch occasionally when the games are at a decent hour (and not at like 11:00 pm). However, the boys and I were able to make it to one of Jason’s soccer games. Jason played awesome! Their time finally won...and REALLY won: 9-1. It was so great! Jason even scored two of those goals. It was the perfect game to come to. The boys loved it; they ran around and chased each other the whole. I even found them wrestling each other on the floor.

Jason went with the Young Men on a camp out up behind Nebo Mountain.

Charlie was invited over to Grandma and Grandpa Arbons for a special date and sleepover with them. They had a great time; he was really spoiled! Friday night they went on a bike ride to the park and then to the Homecoming football game at Corner Canyon. Charlie loved all of the excitement! On Saturday they went to Wheeler Farm and then went swimming. He loved it! It was very thoughtful of Grandma and Grandpa to want to spend that one-on-one time with him.

September means Utah State Fair time! We love going with the Grubers. Nancy usually submits her tallest sunflower and always takes home some kind of prize or ribbon. We were stoked that the circus joined again. The kids love that! We had dinner there and had a fun time looking at all of the animals. This time we even let the kids go on a small roller coaster ride. We were in complete shock that Charlie rode and LOVED it. He is full of surprises.

We had Amy and Johnny over for Sunday dinner, dessert, and games. Always a hoot with those two.

We had a fun and new event with my family; they did an Electric Maze at UVU and my mom set it up for all of us to go for family night one night. We met there at 9:00 pm for the sake of others getting off work, so it was a late night, but the boys just ate it up. They had a blast! They loved the whole thing and enjoyed the glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets my mom brought for us. At the end of the day, it basically felt like a glorified backyard fun house. Not totally impressive for adults; it didn’t quite live up to what your imagination might think of when paying for an electric maze, but like I said, the boys LOVED it. They just ran and danced the whole way through. So their joy made it all the more fun for us. We even got ice cream at McDonalds afterwards. the boys were living the dream, and were totally exhausted as we pulled in at 11:00 pm.

We had another date night swap with the Watts. They watched our kids and we went shopping at Called To Surf and saw the new Star Trek movie. Frankly, we were a little disappointed with the movie, but we always enjoy the event of going to the movies.

We made our own homemade grape jelly for the first time using the grapes that hang over our fence from the Hansens. Half of the grapes are legit Concord grapes. It was quite a process, and I was skeptical at first, but the jelly turned out awesome! We were stoked and I am sure it will be an annual tradition as long as those grapes make their way over and through the fence. Thank you Hansens...and Merry Christmas, because we gave small jars out as Christmas gifts to neighbors.

It was Women’s Conference time again. This time my sisters, mom, and I picked up Cafe Rio and took it to Kim and Kyle’s new place. They are renting the top floor of a house that is like across the street from BYU campus. It is awesome. We took a quick tour and ate, then headed to her church building for the broadcast. I had to jet right after because our friends Mike and Kate were coming over. Kate brought and made roasted cinnamon peaches with ice cream. It was amazing! We had a good time just chatting and catching up at our place.

Amy Thackeray took our family pictures up little Cottonwood Canyon, I will post more about that in the next post.

Charlie’s friend, Ryder Stone, from PG had a birthday party at Cabelas. It was a lot of fun and included pizza and tokens for the shooting game. It was fun.

The leaves were just awesome this year so we went up the canyon again, this time up Provo canyon/Alpine Loop, and we took our DSLR camera and brought Camry along to take some more pictures. It was just too beautiful to pass up.

We happened to see our friend Mark Tuttle mountain biking while we were up there and he spilled the beans about Jaleah's being pregnant! So excited for her first baby!