Minnesota Tradition.

We are about to walk into the best place/experience in Minnesota. One would ask themselves, is it worth the cost, the crowds, the heat, the smell and the parking chaos? Obviously from the above picture....a lot of people, would say, "YES!"

Benjy absolutely hates the shirt I am wearing because of the color, but they were all glad I wore it to the fair because they didn't or couldn't lose me in the crowd~

It Takes a Village To Raise A Child.

Baking isn't my strong point and to be honest, I don't like to do a lot of it because then, "a lot of it," tends to get eaten by me. It seems very selfish and I do break down at times and bake. I know that I have shared this with others and thank goodness that there are people in our lives like the Kastels. She invited Daydee, as Kycycle calls her, and one of her friends over to have a baking day. I am so thankful for all of the people who influence our children, love them, take them in, teach them and nurture them. It brings me peace to know that others will help fill in, in the areas that I need to improve on.

She made these adorable aprons for them, of course when they got home, she had to share it, not only with her little sister, but brother, too!

They also whipped out a couple of pizzas for lunch in the process.

Of course they were all smiles when I picked them up! Who wouldn't be?
I guess they decorated special cookies for B. Kastel.
They both went home with a load of cookies like this. Do you ever feel like you are just blessed beyond measure? It meant so much to us that they would take time out of their busy schedules to make one of our children feel so special and of course they have done this with many others, too! There are always people in our lives who inspire us to do a little better and give a little more!

What to do?

As we feel our summer winding down, we always try to get in those last minute fun summer activities before school starts. We went to a car show and the girls thought they were so cool riding in a really loud muscle car. Our girls pretty much think we are the boring old parents and our friends are the young fun ones!

The guys found a treasure for the kiddos to play with.
Oh, this just grosses me out! ahhh, yuck, ewwww.... I dislike frogs/toads very much so after having a giant toad thrown down the back of my swimsuit and it being squished to the point of where I could feel it's guts running down my back and it's legs twitching.

oh, why, please don't do this. I think Benjy does this to torture me, sometimes.
And then to have my little boy willing to kiss the frog, is just too much. Are there poisonous frogs in Minnesota, will he get a wart on his lips?

The Art of Fondant

One of our Activities for Relief Society (Women's Group) at Church, this month, was learning how to make Fondant. It was a lot easier then I thought it would be. To do this one round cake we used two jars of marshmallow cream and a full bag of powdered sugar. Mixed it until creamy, added food coloring and then added more powdered sugar until it was a harder texture that could be rolled and kneaded like bread. Then we cut out circles with the lids and had a finished product. Even though it isn't a secret that I don't always enjoy cooking and baking, I am trying and learning new things to make. It was fun and it's always good to get the ladies together!

It Felt Really Good

to be back at home for a week. Funny, how I call going to my parent's house, HOME. They didn't move into this house until after I was married and had a child, but it is HOME to me. There really is truth to the saying, "Home is where the Heart is..." Yes, we have our HOME, as in, where my little family lives, in the cities, however going to my parents and not only being a wife and a mother but a daughter, granddaughter, cousin and niece is really nice. At the last minute we changed our schedule and the kids and I took a couple of days to spend down at my parent's house.

I sent this picture to Benj while we were there and he said, "I can tell that he has been with Grandpa, He has Grandpa's hair style, the comb over!"

The kids helped freeze corn and can tomato juice. They absolutely love doing this every year, as for me....not so much.

We then went to my Aunt and Uncle's house, out in the country, for dinner.

A little boys, Heaven!

The girls want to bring their dog, Cooper, home. It was funny watching him try to keep the kids in one area, when one would wonder off, he would go over and try to bring them back together.

The best part was that half way through the week, I left the kids at my parent's house and met Benjy for our Annual trip to Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria. We have gone for the last 4 years so Benjy can take some Continuing Legal Education courses and attend meetings and I can chill out and read a good book! We are required to attend two dinners and a luncheon. We dress up for the Friday night Banquet and I always look forward to enjoying a meal that I am not rushing through or entertaining a toddler at...

This year...the bonus was this cake. For the record, I have not had a diet soda with caffeine since July 8th. That is my hubby's in the background!
I did however, enjoy every bite of this cake! I guess it was alright...? ;-)

What Little Boys like Best..

A few weeks ago the girls were busy with their friends and Grandpa and Grandma, so we took our little boy fishing, but he ended up screaming like the girls with reason. If someone put a fish that close to my face, I'd scream too!

You Have to Try This...

If you have an opportunity to try something fun over a campfire, try orange peel cupcakes.

Our Sister Ward, Elm Creek, invited us to do a fun dessert with them up at camp. We met the night before to have walking tacos with them, which were fabulous, and then their leader showed me how to cut the orange and dig out the insides. I didn't realize that we needed to keep both halves...yikes, so thankfully they saved us, again!
It was messy, but fun.
WE mixed chocolate and vanilla cake mixes, poured some in one of the halves, stuck the other half on top and wrapped them in tin foil and baked them over coals for 20 mins.
WE then added some frosting and they were sooooo good!

The Feeling of Being a TEAM...

I love the sense of belonging, like being on a team. I started running track when I was in third grade. We traveled all over... with The Brighton Colorado team. Coach Martinez and his family, were like a second family, to all of us. My favorite memory was after running in the heat and being super tired and hot, he always pulled out the snow cone machine! I was also on a gymnastics team, at the age of 10. I loved being on the swim team, gymnastics and track team in High School. In the summers, I loved to play on a softball team. It is that sense of getting through things together, supporting one another, cheering each other on and having fun that reminded me of what it was like to be at Girl's Camp.

I loved having matching shirts, a flag to represent us, a cheer and a skit that we worked on together and being able to enjoy it, when we were done. It was just as important to get through and even laugh at the difficult times as much as we enjoyed the fun. Together they made for a very fun and spiritual experience.
More matching shirts! Yay.. I have been known, to go with a color scheme for our family during important events and sometimes on Sundays. It's a TEAM Villarreal...thing. So cheesy, I know, but there is something about it that makes me feel unified or more put together.
The girls and Sister Dailey made an amazing flag!

The theme was, "Live Like You Believe." Lovin' it, again.
There were times to be serious and then there were times to have fun. There was a perfect balance in the week. This was during the goofy skit.

As I was writing this, I had the thought...why is it that I enjoy a sense of belonging, a sense of being together. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is, but I know that it something that has and still is a part of who I am...and for that I am very thankful.

Scared Stiff in a STORM.

Yes, I am a wimp when it comes to storms. Correction, was a wimp. After my experience on the first night of camp, I believe that I have made significant progress in my ability to weather a storm.

When I was in High School, we went camping at Lake Miltona with some family friends. The kids were in a tent and the parents were sleeping in a motor home. Some straight line winds or maybe a small twister came through the camp ground and it was the eeriest sound. You could hear it coming through the trees and then it hit. The tent blew down and we were stuck inside with water pouring in and we couldn't find the zipper right away. Let's just say, that this experience, helped me develop a certain fear of storms.

Well on the first night of camping with the Young Women, we knew that a storm was coming and so we started asking the Stake Leaders what the protocol would be for severe weather. They told us to listen for horns honking and told us to run for one of the shelters that were at least a 1/2 mile away! It was going to be the only night that I was alone in my tent because another leader was coming up the next day. I had the thought, "of course the storm would come on the ONLY night that I am alone in the tent!" Well as we were sitting around talking before going to our respective tents, the thunder started in and my heart started skipping beats.

As the storm intensified, I could hear the girls giggling, with hoots and hollers. It made me smile and think of it as an adventure that would make for a good story later, however, then I felt the first little drip on my forehead. Oh, how fast my thinking changed again, I thought, "Are you kidding me?" That drip just started the flood gates. We got 3 inches of rain in about an hour or so and it was really windy so it was raining in sideways. After getting wet for a couple of minutes, I decided to throw my rain gear over me with our dish tubs on my stomach and later the other one on my legs. This picture was taken around 2AM. I also texted Benjy something like this, "This tent is crap, crap, crap. Love your wife!" I was actually laughing at the time, I took this picture because I knew if I wasn't laughing, I would have been crying!

I found in the morning that every tent leaked and two other groups of girls were evacuated in the night because they were sleeping in ponds of water. Our poor girls also woke up soaked!

And yet, they woke up smiling, laughing and ready to go on their 3 and 5 mile hikes! Again, what an example they were to me!

A Fantastic Adventure

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to a Young Women's Camp up in Northern Minnesota with 7 girls and 2 other leaders. We piled our camping gear and food into our vehicles and believe me, you couldn't fit another item into our van. We had two planning meetings that required us to do some tie dying, making up a camp cheer, a skit, a camp flag, mail box and to go over our menu. We set up the tents ahead of time and celebrated with pizza and a jello cake. It was a blast even before camp started~ I only had to work out someone to watch the kids for a couple hours on the first day that I was gone. My wonderful husband believed so much in the importance of supporting these girls on this adventure, that he made sacrifices so that I could go. His response, even knowing how difficult it would be was, "We will make it work." I was so excited to go, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't a little nervous or feeling a little like I was leaving a piece of me behind to go camping. I would also be lying if I didn't say that it didn't last that long because as soon as we were on our way, you could just feel the excitement in the air. These girls had so much energy that it was contagious.
The idea of being with these amazing and very talented, hard working and extremely able Young Women is that we as leaders are there to support them, but it is their camp, their decisions, their time to learn how and to do these things, such as setting up camp.

We worked along side them, but they all knew what to do and since we stopped to eat and were the last group to show up, we had to hustle and they didn't surprise me when they whipped out those tents in no time!
This was just the beginning of these Young Women being a great example to me. There is a saying, " There is no "I" in TEAM WORK." They worked together and we were off and running!

Seriously Talented

Our wonderful friends informed us that a fantastic juggler was going to be at the library. So we met them there to partake in the fun.
Alan Johnson (http://www.gigmasters.com/Juggler/Alan-Johnson-Comedy/) is amazing. Kyce actually sat still for over 5 mins. This just doesn't happen for Kyce, so you know his attention was being captured and that is a big thing to do for an almost 2 year old BOY! It was very entertaining!

I don't know who enjoyed it more, the kiddos, or I? It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

If you ever have a chance to watch this act, do not pass it up. I had to pluck Kyce out of his crib and cut his nap short, but it was way worth it. Thank goodness for friends who thought about us and invited us to enjoy this with them!

Who is THIS MAN?

Benjy and I attended a U2 concert in Las Vegas during our 3rd year of marriage. I remember watching him scream, jump around and sing every word to every song. I was thinking, "Who is this Man?" Of course it's obvious that he is a huge U2 fan but I had never witnessed so much enthusiasm in this way before from my somewhat reserved husband. It was really fun to watch and I enjoyed the experience immensely.

Our sister-in-law had recently attended a concert in Salt Lake and we were talking about it with her a couple of weeks ago and Benjy was dying that he hadn't bought tickets for their last concert.

About a week later, his friend, who he hadn't talked to in months, called him up and said, "I have two extra tickets. Would you and your daughter want to go, I am bringing my oldest daughter." Of course I was a little jealous but I was so excited for Kaydree to have this experience with her dad. Then she said to me, "Mom it was kind of weird seeing dad so crazy!" She was such a trooper, after swimming at Bunker Beach all day with a friend, she came home, changed and ran out the door. She was so tired and it rained really hard on them and they didn't get home until 2AM. Benjy said they were stuck in the parking garage for an hour and a half. She woke up without any complaints and made it to church at 9AM, on time. My dad use to say, "You can't party all night and sleep all day!" Benjy felt like it wasnt' the best parenting having her out so late but it is an experience she will treasure forever....

Of course, Benjy, was the Man behind the camera, so I don't have one of him and the smile on his face, but trust me, it was there for days and while reading this post, I am sure he is still smiling from ear to ear!

This really was a dream come true for Benjy and the fact that his friend offered it so selflessly, still brings tears to my eyes. The kinds acts that amazing people do always inspires me to be a little better and try a little harder to bring joy into someone elses life.

USA Cup

This last week I had the opportunity to go camping with the Young Women in our Church in Northern Minnesota. I have some fun stories to blog, however I have to get caught up on some events that took place before I left. The USA Youth Soccer Cup in Blaine was the weekend before. Grandma, Grandpa and Kenna came up to watch and our good friends The Marrotts came to one of her games. It was raining all day and there were some nice puddles and mud for Kyce and their little boy Trayson to play in.

Then Kaydree let her dad have a friendly conversation with a boys team from Ecuador and she got a free hat.
Kaydree's Striker Team has the pink flag, so girly and so cute!
Kaydree had a blast trading pins. She got some from Brazil, Columbia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Hawaii and many more. The Opening Ceremonies are so fun but the heat index was over 100 with 80% humidity, so I stayed home with Kyce. It was just way to hot for him to be out there for very long.