Merry Christmas 2013

 BRADSHAW FAMILY TOP TEN FROM 2013:

10) Sign seen on a Phoenix, AZ freeway in October: “Winter Driving Conditions: Drive with Care!”  Outside temperature noted: 86 degrees.  I know people acclimatize in AZ, but that’s just ridiculous.  (Other 2013 travels: Redwoods, Oregon Coast, Bear Lake, Caribbean cruise [sans children], Idaho-sers, and Bryce Canyon.  We live in a beautiful world!)

9) Adam: How old will I be when I’m an uncle?  Will I be 16?  6?  7?

Sarah: Definitely no on the 6 or 7.  Maybe on the 16.

Adam: Argh!  I want to be young!

Sarah: Adam, 16 is still young.  You will be a young uncle.

Adam: A young uncle?  Will that make me a yuncle?

8) Lucy (while trying to list all my siblings in order as fast as she could): Matt, Micah, Becca, Sarah, Katie, Camille, Uncle Shark-Bait Ooh,Ah,Ah, Seth, and David.  (Long story short, when the kids saw Jacob’s massive shark-bite-looking scar on his leg, he told them they could call him Uncle Shark-Bait [ala Finding Nemo].  I guess the name stuck.)

7) Despite my best attempts to stop it, Slugbug, Out of State License Plates, and Twinkie (yellow school bus) sightings all warrant a punch in our family.  And if the kids aren’t near enough to punch someone, they save them up.  I had to laugh one morning when the kids flew out of the van like bats out of you-know-where, trying to avoid Kye and the Twinkie-sighting punching rights he’d gotten on the drive to school.  (He saw 17.  Truth.)

6) Eli (running excitedly into the bathroom one evening): IWANNABRUSHMYTEEF!!  IWANNA BRUSH MY TEEF!!

Lucy: Sheesh!  I’ve never seen a 2 year old so excited about personal hygiene before.

5) Baptism day for Zeeky boy.  Biggest smile I’ve seen on that kid ever.

4) Sarah (On the freeway en route to AZ, looking vainly for a place to stop and eat):  We could stop at Kelly’s Taxidermy.

Zach: Naaaaa.  That’d just make us stuffed.

3) From Isaac's 2nd grade vocab book:
Word: Affection
Meaning: to show feelings of love and caring
His sentence: My mom shows affection on Christmas.
Awesome.

2) Eli (to Zach this morning while waiting for his morning cup of almond milk): Dat’s just MESSED up.

1) Zach: Can you just sit down like normal children?!?!

Sarah: That’s an oxymoron.

Lucy (laughing): Mom just said that “normal children” is an oxymoron!

Actually, I meant “sitting children,” but if the shoe fits . . .

In other news, life seems to be accelerating the older our children get!  Zach’s travel has cut back significantly and he’s only gone 1-2 times a month.  It’s pretty much awesome having him around.  I’m at that stage of life where everything feels busy, yet I’d be hard pressed to tell you what it is I do every day.  Lucy is involved in choir, play rehearsals, piano practice and her ASL classes.  Kye has repeatedly told us just how much he loves math.  He’s recently discovered chess and started city bball as the shortest kid on his team.  (Ummm, you’re welcome for those short genes, kidJ)  Isaac loves to build, create, and serve others.  Adam keeps us laughing (and sometimes crying) with his nonstop chatter.  Eli is Eli (or, as we call him, “Schmeety.”)  And that about sums it up!  As we come to the close of the year, we want you to know how much we love you.  We are blessed to have friends and family like you.  We are also so thankful that we can remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  He lives!

Love, The Bradshaws

Summer Happenings: They Say It's Your Birthday

Zach in Vietnam.  Kids at Gma and Gpa's in Idaho in preparation for Girls' Camp. Dinner out with sibs.  It was a good day.

p.s.  37 is my favorite age so far.

Summer Happenings: Girls' Camp

I loved Girls' Camp as a kid.  Having so few opportunities to be around girls who believed the same as I did made it an event to look forward to.  I met my best friend/eventual college roommate, Dorothy, at our first Stake Camp Activity when I was just 11.  And we had so much fun together.  Some of my best girls' camp  memories were also the craziest.  Like the year we camped in what must have been Tick-a-palooza, and we had to look through each others' hair every night after dinner during our stake devotionals for ticks.  We found a lot.  So many, in fact, that Mere-tick and Jen-tick rightfully earned those nicknames.  And the year we had showers with no ceiling and every time a gust of wind came through (Ummm, hello.  We lived in South Dakota.  It happened a lot.), and our shower curtains blew out, we yelled, "EXPOSED!!" and everyone else turned their backs to the showers so the shower-ers had their privacy.  And the year we had such bad thunderstorms that they brought us up to the indoor pavillion to sleep so no one got struck by lightening.  And the year we didn't really know where we were going on our overnight hike, and we ended up having to cross a river with our packs over our heads, with reeds and cattails so thick on the other side that we came out with our legs cut to shreds.  Yeah.  Good times.  (Our saintly YW leaders put up with so much to give us those experiences.  Thank you, saintly YW leaders!)

So I was excited when I was called to be an assistant Camp Leader this year.  I was especially excited because it was Lucy's first year at camp.  And I was triply excited that we got to camp at what is known as the Heber Valley Hilton.  They have cabins.  (I didn't know people used cabins for Girls' Camp until I moved to Utah.)  And although I loved camping in tents as a YW and we had fun cooking all our breakfasts and lunches over a fire, it seems that as a leader, cabins and bunk beds and running water and flushing toilets and showers with doors and gas grills are pretty much awesome.   

Very little sleep, lots of hiking and eating (our "lunch ladies" were the best ever), some amazing firesides, a spectacular testimony meeting (where I might have accidentally almost let the 4th years start our campsite on fire--apparently Heber Valley gets some pretty good gusts, too), and being with my ah-MAZ-ing Lucy made for some great memories. 

Other highlights were when the 1st years pranked the 4th years and YCLs after the infamous snipe hunt.  They got them good.  Also loved Lucy and co's Shoulder Angel skit, playing the jelly bean game, cups and the amazing race, the miracle of the garbage, and feeling the Spirit testify of truth as we had devotionals.  Good times were had by all.

Leader Cups tournament, sort of.  And hiking pictures:

 Lezlee and Lucy practicing The Shoulder Angel:

 Awesome beehives, challenge course, and late night activities:

 Lezlee, Randalee, and girls playing Cups:

Channeling our inner Katniss, and Lucy as Elli, from UP!:

 Snipe hunters, hula hoopers, and Big Booty:

  Our campsite at the Heber Valley Hilton:

Summer Happenings: July 4th

I'm pretty sure my two favorite holidays are Independence Day and Thanksgiving.  Expectations are so, so low.  You give everyone a little food and they're happy.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the other holidays, too.  There is just so much more to do for those ones.  Maybe I'm just lazy . . . 

Anyway, we spent the Fourth doing our traditional restaurant breakfast (though the kids serving the breakfast have officially outnumbered the ones being served, and as they will be quick to inform you: tips are kind of scarce with so few parents to wait on . . . ).  Afterwards, we let the kids decorate paper rockets and we had a BLAST shooting them off.  Eli could have watched them take off for hours.

After nap time, we had an awesome family dinner and headed to Dave and Lizi's place for fireworks.  Their back yard faces the BYU stadium and parking lot.  We were so close we could hear the Stadium of Fire and if you stood up on the very tip top corner of the lot, you could see what was going on on the screen.  The kids had a blast doing the zipline and downhill slip-n-slide, and we had some yummy treats to munch on.  The real show began around 10:30 with the fireworks.  Everyone loved it.  Everyone except Eli, that is.  He screamed in terror and had to be taken inside Dave and Lizi's apartment, where he practically clawed up the walls every time he heard a firework.  So it was fun for most of us, anyway. 

I doubt we'll ever have such an amazing view again, as Dave and Lizi moved shortly after.  It was awesome while it lasted, though!

Summer happenings: Miscellaneous

Brandon Mull, author of the Fablehaven and Beyonders series, came to speak at our library.  After having our names drawn to win two of his books (we gave one back to be given to another lucky winner), we got to meet him.  He signed the kids' books and inscribed "Harness the crazy!" (as requested) on the inside of Isaac's.  Aptly done.

Isaac, Kye, Brandon Mull, Lucy:

 Clearly we love to read.  There was a LOT of that this summer:

 Celebrating Father's Day with Zach, kids, gifts, and a mancake:

 Add some snow cones, and this was a typical summer night for us:

 We spent a lot, A LOT of time at the new splash pad:

 Isaac danced with a turtle:

Enjoying ice cream:

 Eli covering himself in lotion and digging for gold:

 Enjoying more ice cream at SOS Drug:

 Getting ready to run/walk/scooter the Provo Temple to Temple 5K:

 

Watching a lot of spectacular summer sunsets:

I love warm weather and green trees.  I love walks at night and viewing the sunset from our mountain.  I love bike rides in the full moon.  I love summer afternoons at the library and playing at the splash pad.  I love flip flops.  I love vacations.  I love summer.

Summer Happenings: 17 years and Counting, Baby!

I remember introducing myself in a Church meeting after we got married, "I'm Sarah.  We just moved in.  We've been married for two months (or whatever it was)."  Two months seemed so, SO long.  How did the time fly by like that?  In contrast, now I can't remember not being married to Zach, but when you're looking at eternity, 17 years seems short.

17 years equals a lot of learning, growing, laughing and crying together.  And to celebrate our 17 years together, we went to the Provo Temple and out to dinner.  After we got home, we walked down to Reams and got a movie and some celebratory ice cream.  All in all, a good, good, relaxing day!

I have learned more from this man than from any other person I have met.  Love him more than I can express.  And I love how the perspective of this picture makes my head look 1/2 the size of his.  Makes me laugh.

Summer Happenings: Coaching PreK Kickball

Lots of twirling, nose-picking, sitting, and staring off into space.  Pretty much my favorite sport to watch as a parent:

Adam in his stride:

 Made it home again:

 Coach Zach with Adamy-schmadamy:

Best tip picked up: spray the kids with a water bottle when they get hot.  They love it!