Mini Powell

This is our mini (totally fake) Lake Powell vacation - actually it is at Lake Roosevelt in Arizona. We took our camp trailer and the boat and the Palmer's (Kens sister and boys) and headed to a campground at Roosevelt Lake for a long weekend. Hurricane Dolly gave us some really pretty sunsets!! Luckily our campground had plug-ins and we had A/C or we would have roasted. It is different at Powell because the water is right there to cool off - here we were in a gravel lot and it was HOT!!
Brenn and Jason on the tube - Jason also skied like a demon but since most of us were in the water helping we got no pictures.
Here is Scott he tried and tried to get out of the huge wakes (when you only go 13 mph they are wide and really tall).
Jason, Sonja and Brenn.
Da' Boys!!! Jonny, Nate, Logan, and Dallin - when you camp with 6 boys things are just a little crazy!!! Poor Brenn - only girl and all.

Logan tore it up!! He skied so well I could hardly believe the change from last year!!!Nate did really great too!! He had really rough water and still did well - it is hard when the water is choppy, it feels like you are being beaten up.Brenn is an amazing skier!! She has to watch out for Logan!

Jonny skied like a champion - I got out the camera and Sonja told me to let him warm up - well he really did not need to he skied all over the lake and then rehurt his foot and did not go again!! So no Jonny pictures!!

My little Achmed!! Dallin was so burned he had to cover up - this is how he choose to do that!!Gotta eat!!Our usual Lake Powell trip was a casualty of the gas prices and the catastrophes that have befell the Cole household this summer. This is the first year in about 10 we have not gone to Powell and we are all suffering withdrawal!! I am grateful my kids understand and are up to just about anything we come up with.

Jason could not figure out the camper - he kept waiting for us to put it in the water!!! After all that is how we usually camp at the lake - on the lake!!

I read Mark and Tamara's Blog http://www.thevoiceofashby.blogspot.com/ she talks of school starting. Sonja'a kids started yesterday - thank goodness we still have two weeks. I am a little scared for Brenn to start her senior year - first because !HELLO! last year totally at home and because then Dallin follows so fast!! 2 years and I am down to one!! That is a good argument for more children (well kinda).

I have felt Tamara's pain at what is right for our really bright kids - schools have such great programs to help those who are behind or who learn differently, which is so important. But they do not do alot for those kids who are super smart. We as parents are responsible to figure that out with out a lot of guidance - and of course try to get the little buggers to pay attention and see the same opportunities we see (after about 7th grade they get a mind of their own and then we have to take a back seat and just try to motivate them). I am rambling but mostly kids seem to learn and grow, sometimes in spite of us. We have the world to beat us up we should give ourselves (the mommies) a break and realize if our kids don't live up to their "potential" they will still be really nice and productive people who will supply us with grandchildren to play with! So chin up!!

Slip 'n' Slide!! Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

Well the boys wanted to slip and slide so they came up with their own version - Lots of tarps and soap and water - what else would be so much fun?! Dallin in a picture of poetic grace!!
There goes Kai - he told me you have to keep your eyes closed or the soap stings!!!
Jake at his best!!
Whoa whoooo!!!!!
Three handsome men!!! They spent so long having fun they are all sunburnt!!! What a fun day. I came home from shopping and Logan had 2 girls in the house - they wanted to slip and slide too, hmmm is that ok with no adult home?? Grandma said she kept an eye on them but I am not sure she is the best chaperone, after all she told Brenn about seven minutes in Heaven!!!

Whew!!!

After 6 weeks we are finally done.. well almost. Still a few touch ups and putting the garage back together. But the floor turned out beautiful and the paint looks great - Ken keeps kidding me that I am going thru a dark period and that I am painting everything black.

The walls in the family room look green in this picture but they are a med brown. They look so nice with the floors. I spent days going to find the perfect rug for the family room. I found it the first day and when I went to find someone to help me (at Costco) someone else bought it - 10 Costcos later I have a different rug.
The kitchen looks so nice - the new light fixtures and I painted the table black. That table I bought when I was single at a garage sale for $8, seems like such a bargain and it looks great with new chairs and the black paint.
This picture shows the color of the wood really well - it is a cherry finish and looks really rich and elegant. Now I can go back to Spain and maybe a little about the kids - this project has kept me working long hours since Ken has been busy and the kids had finals and summer school, scout camp, and trig. Brenn has helped me so much, my Mom too, I am grateful to have such great help.

We painted Brenn's bathroom purple and all of the cabinets black - it looks really nice!!

It is nice to have it done and looking so nice - I shouldn't have to do any of this for a long time!!

Thirteen!!

Logan turned 13 on the 30th and he was really excited to open his presents!
He of course has the best parents in the worls and he love his new cell phone! We are still trying to recover from the flood and as long as there is no floor we decided to scrape the popcorn off of the final 2 ceilings and paint. My mom and I tried our hand at faux painting and this is how it turned out - the picture does not seem to do it justice.

I tried to update the light in the kitchen - it used to be gold with a white and gold fan and very yellow plexiglass. This is my favorite thing I got done!! it looks so much better! Ken and Dallin hiked Havasupai last tuesday thru sat. Brenn, Logan, My Mom and I worked really hard to get all the painting done and the lights hung. Hopefully only 1 more week and we will get the flooring in and be DONE!!!

Big hole in my garage!!

Here is the offending pipe - and the accompanying hole, at least it looks like it will be confined to the garage.
Every time the jackhammer starts I hear cha ching - cha ching and money going down the drain!

Derailed again!!

This is my Laundry room and a nice big hole into my garage. 2 Weeks ago my washer drain backed up and flooded the garage and the laundry room, ruining the laminate floor and stressing me out. So we decided to pull up the laminate in the Laundry room and replace with tile, lesson learned.

When I started to pull up the laminate - it was a whole lot soggier than previously thought and we called the insurance company.They decided since the water went into the kitchen that the whole laminate floor had to come out - I thought crap - but hey new floor and a chance to scrape the final 2 ceilings and do a little updating would be ok, I could get behind that. The timing is not great but.....

I found some one on craigs list to buy my good flooring and took it all up - isn't the linoleum underneath groovy?

But alas - when my plumber friend was cleaning out my drains he found the line from the washer and kitchen is collapsed under the concrete slab - Yikes! and then got his snake so stuck even his truck couldn't pull it out. THEN on the way home from mutual Brenn's Beast blew a tire and we had to put 4 new tires on it!! Hard to spend $600 on tires when the whole car cost $1800. We seem to be having such bad luck! Then on Thursday I was rinsing some paint brushes in the kitchen sink and the water came up thru the drain in the laundry room so no kitchen sink and no dishwasher!! No washer either. AUGHHH!

I cannot start on our repairs until the plumber is done and he hasn't even started! I have to admit when he said we had to clean out the whole garage (ours is a huge storage space) to jack hammer up the concrete and find the break and maybe even go thru my living room, which has all the furniture from the rest of the house, let's just say I am not really having a positive attitude.

The only good news is only 3 more days of school, but then I can't bug my kids to help me because they all have finals! And only 3 more days and Brenn is a Senior, that is a big YIKES!!!

All in all - i am slow to blog when every day there is something else going wrong! I did buy a lottery ticket - usually I don't even match one number so I thought if it is opposite week..._ any way I won $3, maybe things are looking up!

Fuen Castle

OK here we are on the top of the castle!! Ken, my Aunt Linda and my Mom Judy. This is a birds eye view of the courtyard - it was surprisingly big and organized. I did wonder how many people lived here at once.
Notice the skinny walk way to the tower. We started a tradition of climbing every staircase we could find and going thru every door - this was a great way to see it all but very taxing in many ways!!

Here is Mom and Ken at the door way to the tower - we figured it must have been built that way to limit the access by men in armour.




Thru the doorway is a little room - seemed nice until we noticed another door - look how small the door is...

There goes Ken - He hates this shot, butt you have got to use it!! The steps were very tall and the passage way was really skinny - again we thought a couple of men with bows could hold out for a long time - the men in armour would never be able to get thru the door or up the stairs.

This is the top door. Here I am helping my mom - it was really a hard climb because the steps were tall and no hand holds and no turning around.
Here is one of the arrow slits up close.
This is the zoomed out of the same arrow slit.

Guns - what else would interest a man?

This is the stairway to the other tower - I loved the look of the brick work. This stair way was slightly wider and had some hand holds.

View of the top of the 2nd tower - isn't the water blue!! That's the Mediterranean Sea and it was so pretty.
Top of the 2nd tower - more square footage then the first but less protected.

The Castle in Fuengirola (Fuen)

We loving called Fuengirola - Fuen - because some of us are not able to do verbal gymnastics. Anyway this castle was cool - I think the oldest we visited. You will notice the way the side walk goose necks up the hill - it was a very steep hill - and I thought the steepest we would encounter, silly me!!
As we approached I notices the walls had holes where the birds had nested, and the plants had grown! I cannot get plants to grow in the ground in my yard and here are orange trees sprouting out of a rock wall, go figure.
We have put in a bird feeder for my Grandma, they make a mess - I did wonder if that was part of the reason the wall seemed so pitted - bird doo doo everywhere!!

I cannot find the name of this castle - I will have to investigate further but it was built around 1000 a.d..
You have to pay to get into just about everything and this was no exception.

You walk into the doorway on the right and down a walkway -

And out you come this doorway with a large courtyard - below is straight ahead - we figured this was the kitchen area.The picture below is to the left of the door - it seemed to be rooms, maybe this is where the nobles lived? There are several steps to the upper walkway and some bigger platforms for the cannons and tower rooms.This was also along the back wall.

These seemed to be the soldiers quarters and the well. I would imagine a water source was really important.

This was up on the tallest bluff just off the beach - Great view of all surrounding area including the sea. I am amazed at the quality of the engineering (it is still standing after 1000 years) and the thought put into the defense (you will see more on that in the next post). I will continue this castle in the next post as I am trying to keep them to a shorter length. We took soooo many pictures and I am making this my travel journal so you will have to bear with me :0!