Proud Family Moment!

Such a proud moment in our family!

You might be a redneck if three members of your family are the reigning Pig Wrestling Champions of the County Fair! So my sister-in-law, Mandi, calls me up and says, "I have a proposal for you and you're gonna like it!" She wanted me to be on her Pig Wrestling team at the county fair. So I succombed to the peer pressure and drug Mataia (very willingly) into it with us. What do you know.....we won! With a very impressive time of 13.38 seconds! That pig was no match for us!

Then, not to be outdone by his girls, Jeff joined a team when one of their members was not able to make it. So his team is basically 3 tough high school athletes and him. As much as they wanted to win the men's division, they wanted to beat our time more. One of the boys was Mandi's little brother, Regg, so his competitiveness was coming through, too. They won the men's division and beat us by less than a second with a time of 12. 87 seconds! Dang!

Morgan was on a Pee Wee team and they ran out of time before they could catch the pig. But she still had fun getting dirty and chasing the pig!

So we've been making fun of ourselves all weekend. It's actually a little embarrasing, but it was pretty darn fun. And we came home with $240 prize money between the three of us!

Vegas, Baby!

For Jeff's birthday, I gave him a session at the Richard Petty driving school at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He got to drive the #07 Jack Daniels car for 18 laps. Being a girl, I don't get what it is about fast cars, but it was a hit! He had a blast and I quite enjoyed watching him have so much fun!

Jeff gets ready to start his laps in pit road.

This is Jeff posing like a dork in his jumpsuit before he drove.

Landon and Lindsay Saurey went with us. Landon and Jeff discuss their first round of driving as they wait for their second round. They got to drive 8 laps, then they took a break and got some pointers from the instructors and then drove the last 10 laps.

This is Jeff on the track.

On Sunday we drove out to the Hoover Dam. It was amazing! If you haven't been there, you should put this on your bucket list! Pretty cool!

This picture shows a bridge that they are building across the canyon next to the dam. It was crazy!

Sunday afternoon we drove out to Pahrump to see Jeff's mom and his brother. They were having a BBQ at the park. So we got to spend a little time with them. In this picture from left to right are: Whitney (our niece), Jeff, his twin brother, Joe and his mom, Sue.

Shanda and Joe, and Jeff and Hali.

On Friday before we left for Vegas we went to Grand Targhee. Jeff and the kids snowboarded and I skiied. We couldn't have had more perfect weather for it. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast!

This is Jeff and the kids on the ski lift.

This is our nephew Foster and the view from the top. It is a gorgeous view of the Grand Tetons! This is God's country!

Finally a new post to the Roderick blog!

I'm finally taking a minute to update the Roderick blog. We have been busy, as usual. I'll give you a little update on each of us.

Chad played 3 on 3 basketball this year. It's a lot of jungle ball. In this picture, they are trying to figure out the difference between wrestling and basketball. (He's the one on the floor.)

Chad started wrestling a few weeks ago. He and his dad are having a great time with this. He has won some and lost some. Whenever he loses, he always thinks the other guy is "cheating." Jeff has been waiting a long time to have a son he can help wrestle. We can only hope that Chad will enjoy it as much as Jeff does!

Morgan has been taking dance this year in Rexburg. She has really enjoyed it and done very well. She got to perform at half time of a basketball game at Madison.

Morgan also played basketball. Jeff coached her team. She loves having her dad coach. She really surprised us how agressive she was. She progessed a lot!

Mataia (#4) is back in volleyball season. She has had 4 tournaments in Salt Lake and they have done pretty well. It's fun to see how much they are learning and getting better each week. We have 4 tournaments left in the season - two local ones and two more in Utah.

How did this happen? Our little girl is not little anymore. She had her first night dance at the Junior High in December. She looked more like 16 than 12! She was beautiful and had a great time! This is a picture of her and her friend, Joslyn before the dance.

We are big American Idol fans around here. The girls are especially fond of David Archuleta, the runner up on last years' season. (They call him David Hotchuleta!) He had a concert in Pocatello and we got tickets and took the girls and a friend. They had a ball! Jeff and I had a ball watching the girls! In the above picture are Morgan, Mataia, Peytan Crapo and Bradyn Bartschi.

Kace is still mom's little buddy! We are both enjoying our time together while the other kids are in school. He has preschool twice a week and we both enjoy that also!

Kace LOVES his big brother, Chad! They are such good friends. He is Chad's little shadow. Kace is still a little clown. He says some funny stuff and keeps us all laughing. He pretty much gets whatever he wants, too!
Jeff's twin brother Joe and his family came to visit over New Year's. It was tons of fun playing in the snow and hanging out with them. This was a picture at the nearby sand dunes where we went tubing. Left to right: Morgan, Jeff, Kace and Joe.

Kace really took a liking to Uncle Joe while they were here. He wanted Joe to sit and watch him play the Nintendo DS for hours. I think Joe kinda likes him, too!

We are ready for spring to show up here in Idaho! We thought we were done with winter, but then Mother Nature hit us with a full on blizzard yesterday. We have had a couple nice days where the weather teases us with what is to come. Mataia informed me yesterday that there's only 45 days of school left until Summer Vacation. Yahoo! I'll try to keep this updated a little more often......no promises, though!

The crazy days of summer are over at the Roderick house and the kids are back in school. Along with that comes the welcomed routine that comes with it. Even though our schedule is full, at least we know what's coming for the most part.

This is our "First Day of School 2008" Picture. Chad is off to 1st Grade, Morgan is in 4th and Mataia is in 7th. How did that happen?

Because we kind of miss the "vacation" part of "Summer Vacation" we seem to wring every last drop out of the break. The following are some of the pictures of some of the things we have done in the last couple weeks.

Grandma Patti wanted to take all the grandkids on a hike before they went back to school. On the day that we decided to go, our niece Peytan was sick and Mataia had volleyball tryouts, so they were not able to go. So Grandma took them and a friend to Harriman State Park on a hike of their own. What a good Grandma!

For the Big Grandkid hike, we drove over the Jackson Pass into Wyoming and hiked 3 1/2 miles into Taggert Lake. In hindsight, it was a pretty ambitious hike with the little ones. But we made it and everyone had a great time and the mom's got a great workout packing the little ones.

The kids were catching frogs at Taggert Lake and Chad decided to try and keep this one. It wasn't looking so good on the way down, so he let it go in a spring along the way.

Morgan (showing her muscles in the back), Chad is right in front of her and Kace is in the front. Our nephews Wyatt on the left and Nathan in the center. It was so beautiful at the lake with the huge mountains in the background!

Grandma with the grandkids at the beginning of our hike when we all had fresh legs. We ended up ditching the strollers about 1/2 mile into the hike because the trail got a little rough.

My sister Mindy and her husband Brett invited us to go to Ashton Reservior boating with them. Their boat has a nice stereo system and so we would crank the song "I Like To Move It, Move It" and the kids would dance and bounce around the whole time they were on the tube. It was a blast!

Our niece Libby on the left, Chad and Kace getting a big squeeze from Nathan.

There were several families in our ward who rented a cabin in Bear Lake and went down for a few days. There were 22 kids under the age of 12. It was pretty crazy, but lots of fun.

Kace is famous for taking a nap on the boat. Our trip to Bear Lake was no different.

Jeff took Kace on a tube ride with Carson Crapo at Bear Lake. The water was turquoise blue and beautiful. But it was a little windy and there were so many other boats that it was too rough to do anything but ride the tube.

We recently had our family pictures taken and this is one of our favorites of all of us together.

Kace is Mr. Photogenic. He always has the "Cheese" smile on his face. What a fun kid!

Chad - our Big First Grader! He started piano lessons this summer, too. He is also playing NFL Flag Football and his team is the Green Bay Packers and Jeff is his coach. I'm not sure who is having more fun!

Morgan is looking forward to learning about Idaho History in 4th grade! She is in piano and violin lessons and we are thinking about dance.....

Mataia is growing up too fast! She has 8 classes a day which are going to require some studying this year! She is on the 7th grade volleyball team and she is still taking piano lessons.

What more can a mom ask for?

July 15, 2008

This is the first time for our family blog. I am hoping to be able to add to this and keep in touch with family and friends a little better. If you don't have the time or desire to read up on what's going on in our family, that's fine. We just want you to know if we send you this that means we are thinking about you.

We have had a very busy summer so far with the girls both playing softball. Morgan played on the Crapo Custom Applicators team and they took 2nd in the Upper Valley Youth Association tournament. She played first base and was a great hitter! She had fun and made some new friends.

Chad played on a knothole (coach pitch) team that our business sponsored. He had a blast. There were not enough games for his liking! Now he's gearing up for NFL Flag Football that will be starting in about a month. Chad is ready for a ball to get hit to him on 3rd base.

Mataia also played softball on the Capital Ventures team that her dad coached. She played 3rd base on this team. They did very well and won the end of year tournament. She is now playing on an All Star team and we have been traveling to some tournaments on the weekends. They haven't done so well at these tournaments, but they are getting better each weekend. She plays 3rd base, or catcher usually on this team. It's always exciting when she gets up to bat because she is known for her great hits - even several home runs! I'll have to post this picture later - I can't find it right now.

As you can imagine, we have been very busy following these kids around this summer. In between all of this we have squeezed in some volleyball and basketball camps for the girls. We got a big inflatable water slide and the kids have been having a ball in their spare time playing on that and jumping off the bridge at the canal behind our house.

We took the girls to the American Idols Live concert in Salt Lake City last night and they had a blast! We had awesome seats and they got to touch hands with almost every one of the "idols." David Archuleta was the definite favorite of both the girls. Even Jeff and I had a great time!This is the girls reaching up for David Archuleta at the concert.

Kace is just having fun being a little boy.

We went camping with my parents last weekend. Grandpa and Grandma got everybody up in the morning and we went on a really pretty hike along a river. When we started seeing signs of bear activity, the kids were done and decided it was time to turn back.

While we were camping, Chad decided that he needed to become a fisherman. He pestered us until we went and got fishing licenses and took him fishing. Luckily, he caught a little one, but he's having a hard time understanding that you don't catch a fish everytime you throw your line in. It hasn't discouraged him, though. He wants to go every day and he's even begging to get up early and go at sun-up. He hasn't got his dad convinced of that yet.

Jeff is still busy at the office, which is a great thing. He is still the ring leader of the early morning men's running group. Many of the runners come and go, but he is always constant. He has even inspired me. I am training to do an overnight relay race with a group of other moms. It is 217 miles from Crystal Lake, Oregon to Bend, Oregon. We will each run 3 legs in a 24 hour period. It should be a challenge and an adventure. Hopefully I will survive.


Other things that have been happening:
-We helped my parents get moved into their new home. (They had to totally rebuild after their home was destroyed in a fire in November.)
-Mataia is finishing up the last few requirements for her "Faith in God" award before she turns 12 soon.
-Mataia is also preparing to attend Girls Camp for the first time at the end of July.
-Jeff is serving in the Bishopric of the Parker 1st Ward.
-We're trying to keep up with the weeds in our garden and crossing our fingers for some big "Super Pumpkins" that we have planted.
-Working on potty-training Kace so he can go to preschool in the fall.
-Working on potty-training our Toy Poodle, Maggie so she doesn't get given away.