Love is a Battlefield

So everyone knows that song by Pat Benetar, We Are Young, right? Start singing it in your head, then imagine this:

You are walking up to your neighbors' house to talk to them, and you don't think they see you. The neighbor is
a). a grown man
b). working on his yard
c). singing very loudly to, We Are Young (it was playing on his radio) and playing air drums while working.

You walk within 3 feet of him, and he finally notices you and is totally embarrassed. He just got caught singing....(apply tune) love is a battlefield.

Now let's pretend that the neighbor was one of our neighbors, and the "grown man" was Ben.

Oh man, I died laughing! I wonder what our neighbor thinks of us now? Probably that Ben is awesome.

Saying Thanks

My friend had the ingenious idea of bringing treats to the Fireman who have worked so hard and for so long on the Herriman fire. I had Ryan & Ethan color them a picture (they were so cute!) and say thank you. We made them cookies and brownies and brought them to the "command center" (The Herriman Fire station). The road is blocked off so we had to sneak in the "back way". These fireman shown above just got off the graveyard shift and were so tired, but so grateful for the treats, and so sweet to the kids.

There are 400 + fireman working not including police officers and military. Here are some tents set up for them. We are so grateful for all the hard work they've done to protect our homes. The chief was telling us about a fire in San Diego that took blocks of homes and he was grateful they were able to stop that from happening here.
So are we!

Thank you!


To my readers: I love all your comments. Thanks for all your kind words!

Fire Photos

We are back in our home now. There are still 450 homes evacuated, and they only have the fire 25% contained. We feel safe though, if it got bad again, we know they'd let us know and kick us out again. And surprisingly our home does not even smell like smoke!
There are a lot of photos here, but I wanted you to get some perspective on how close we were, and how much closer other homes were but did not get burned!

Helicopter lowering the bucket

After we ate dinner with my parents, we decided to go up to the reservoir above our home to see the helicopter come scoop up the water. It was really cool to see! The kids also loved it...until the fire started to get closer and closer. We were not up by the reservoir for too long, the fire was going faster and faster.
Okay perspective time: See that mountain behind the helicopter, it is completely black now. The fire came right down to these homes' back yard!

Helicopter dipping the bucket

Taking it to the fire

We felt pretty safe here. Just seeing the smoke.

We could see the flames in the reflection off the smoke. We're getting more nervous.

Smoke going clear across the valley. The fire is scary close the the homes. These homes are still evacuated.

Looking worried. Poor Ryan was the most scarred. He was squeezing his bear pretty tight.

It's getting bigger.

Where we start to see flames. Ethan just thought it was cool to throw rocks in the water.

My camera is not meant to be used at night, so sorry for the bad pictures.

Flames getting higher. And coming down the mountain.

Here we saw the fire "jumping" down the mountain. This is when we decided to head back home. And see what we were supposed to do. We live a 1/2 mile from this fire. Other homes were a lot closer though!

This picture was taken from my back yard. This is when we heard the bull horn saying it was time to evacuate and get out now. We took 10 mins. to pack up some belongings and headed out with the rest of Herriman.

Thankfully our home is just fine, so are all of our neighbors homes (that I know of).
We are currently hearing helicopters and planes fly over head still trying to beat this fire. The winds are supposed to pick up this afternoon. I better go shave my legs just in case we have to go again :-)

(I'm just teasing, I'm sure we won't have to evacuate again)

It's Getting Hot in Here (so hot we can't stay)

Yes, we live in Herriman. Yes, we are a 1/2 mile from the Herriman Fire (click here if you have not heard). Yes, we have been evacuated from our home.

My parents came over for dinner Sunday evening and showed us the fire on the mountain behind our house (we were oblivious). We watched it all during dinner, then decided to go up to the lake above our house to see the helicopter scoop up water to fight the fire. We sat there for about an hour and watched the fire start to come down the hill. We decided it was time to go pack up. We took some valuables (you know, like our season tickets to the U games) no really though, it was tough going through the house choosing what you were going to take. We decided on medication, birth certificates, passports, computer (it hold our photos), and clothes to get by for a few days. We left when we heard the policeman with the bullhorn saying, "leave your homes now, evacuate now". We are staying with my parents in Stansbury Park until we are told we can go home. Poor Ryan is really worried for our home, and his friends' home. We've assured him our home will be just fine. And that even if it did burn we still have each other and that's all that matters.

Our personal opinion is that our home will be just fine. They have done a great job at keeping the fire away from most of the homes. I feel awful for the people who have already lost their home though. Right now the fire is still considered, "out of control".

Pray for the people who have lost their homes.
Pray for rain.

(Photos to come later)

(p.s. some of you have asked about my "classes". It's no big deal, I've just started going back to school. I'd like to be a college graduate one day) :-)

Bison: They Really do Ram Trains

I get out of class on Monday nights at 10 p.m. So by the time I get home, I'm pretty hungry. Good thing Wendy's is open until 1 a.m. because I sure crave me some chili and baked potato (seriously, it costs $2 and it's super filling and delicious). Although, this last Monday Ben took a picture of it. Apparently he thinks drinking chocolate milk with chili is super gross. He asked if I was pregnant. I said, "No I am not, but who does not like chocolate milk with just about anything??" Except for Ben I guess.
Side Note: That is my favorite green t-shirt you are seeing above. I gotta have me some ugly green comfy shirt every night! I put that thing on and I go, "aww, that feels nice".
And Ben goes, "Kelly, that shirt is really frumpy".
And I go, "You're just jealous you don't have a pooh green colored shirt that flows over your body so nicely".

Warning for this next picture: Don't look if you get scarred easily.
Just sayin'.

Oh my goodness, is that my favorite green shirt again...yes it is!

I am not an attractive sleepy person as you can tell. I should just be like all the movie stars and wear natural looking make-up. Or maybe I just shouldn't wear that unforgiving color of green? Anyway, I guess Ben thought it was amusing that Ethan I sleep the same.

Don't mind my messy room. I like it that way, really.

We love the zoo! Especially when it's not busy.

Proving a point:
Do any of you remember that story I told in 2008 about the zoo train and buffalo? Click HERE and read before you move on if not.

waiting...
waiting...
waiting...

Okay, so I took the boys on the zoo train when we went to the...wait for it, wait for it...ZOO.
As we were riding past the Buffalo I noticed a brand spanking new fence around them next to the train tracks.
I got home and informed Ben of this ASAP. Ben, see I was right! Buffalo really do ram trains, that's why they put up a safety fence! HA!

And Ben replied, "No Kelly, they did that because of the passengers. You see the zoo train passengers have been jumping off the train to try to wrestle with the Bison...it's a new thing now. They were protecting the bison from the human."

Boys - they just can't admit when they're wrong.

PMBA Blagging & I Think I Must be Creepy

Yesterday Ben went golfing with friends he graduated with for the PMBA Golf Tournament. They had dinner after at the Country Club and were able to bring "a guest". I was that "guest". I love the wives of those 3 guys in the photo above, so it makes it a lot of fun to get together.
Also, each person was given 2 raffle tickets. Ben gave me one of them. Yeah, I won. I'm awesome. I won a new golf bag (Ben thinks it's his), golf towel, golf balls, and a $50 gift card to La Caille (which we probably won't ever use, have you seen the prices of their food!).
I just wanted to make all you kids out there jealous that I won a golf bag...booyah!
Thanks Ben for graduating so I could enjoy all the perks.
p.s. Ben's hot (like attractive hot, not sweating in his pants hot)!

Today: Utah vs. UNLV
Ben is currently at the game with Ethan. These are the photos he has sent me so far. Above - Ethan at the Rio of Cafe before the game.

Here he is now, at the game, asleep. He's taking a $22 nap! I'm sure he got some $47 cotton candy out of it though (isn't that how much it runs these days?).

Ryan and I went on a date during the game. I told him he could do whatever he wanted. So we went to Wendy's for lunch. Then to Target & got a Lego Camper that we built together at home. Next we're going to make cookies. Love this boy! (sorry for the gross picture of me)

Something to think about:
Do you ask friends to hold their babies? If so, how long should you hold them before it becomes "creepy"?

*Break from thought because I had another thought *
See how my quotation is before the question mark after creepy? I know if you're saying something, then the quotation goes after punctuation mark...but what if you're not saying anything, you just saying "creepy" with air fingers? Anyone Anyone?
*Break 2nd thought, back to original thought*

So how long should you hold a friends' baby? 5 mins, 10 mins, 1 hour? You don't want to hold it for way too little time or it seems as if you don't like it...but too much time...borderline creepy right?
Heck, I'm only 98% positive I would not ask to hold a strangers baby. (don't think I'm crazy, I said 98%).

The Bet

As some of you may know my Father is a BYU fan. The rest of my family are Utah fans. Don't get me wrong, I think BYU is an excellent team. But I prefer Utah. I've always liked them, and Ben just recently graduated from there, so it seems fitting. (It also seems my dad should be a fan of the U, since no one in his family graduated from BYU... but to each his own).

The Utah vs. BYU game
will be extra exciting this year for two reasons.
A). We have season tickets, so we will actually be able to be at the game. Oh man, so fun!
B). My Dad and Ben made a crazy bet this year - Here are the terms (click on it to enlarge):

It is signed by: (Red) Benjamin M. Clegg & (Blue) Jeff L. Harris

Witness 1: Brant M. Harris
Witness 2: Christopher W. Harris

As some of you may know (look at the hot tub photos below), my Dad is one hairy dude. So this will be no small feat for him. I actually think he should just wax a big U on his back, instead of his whole back...what do you think?

It'll be a fun game for sure.

Go Utes! Save Ben's back!

Requested Update

It has come to my attention that I have not blogged for a while. Apparently I do have followers out there who actually read my blog: Crazy right?
Sorry guys-I've been super busy.
So this is going to be to the point with pictures in between.

Remember that storm a couple weeks ago that flooded some parts of Herriman, Draper, and other areas in Salt Lake? Yeah, this is part of it. Look at all that hail!! It was hot outside, but I had a pile of ice in my backyard for 2 days. So freaking crazy!

This was after Ryan lost his first front tooth. He lost his second front tooth the day after. My boy is sure growing up!

We put the kids to bed at 8 a week ago, and were excited that by 10 we could start getting ready for bed because it had been so quiet (usually quiet means the kids are sleeping). I went to my bedroom and found Ethan in the dark putting on my eye shadow. At least he knows around about where it is supposed to go, right? I could not get mad at him either, he's just too darn cute!

Uncle Kit (Kelly's brother) surprised us and came home to visit. I'm glad he took the time out of he busy schedule to come hang out with us. Kit and Ethan both love baseball, so they played together. It was cute.

My parents are pretty excited about their new hot tub. So they had a hot tub warming or hotting party (haha, I'm funny). Above is my Sister Summer, BIL Jarom, and Brant...telling me I was super fat so he could not get up...nice.

Sum, Jarom, Kell, Brant

Ben, Summer, Brant, Jarom

Grandpa got in with all the grand kids - then got out and watched a movie with them so the adults could get in. Thanks Dad! You're the stuff!

The "adults".

My Mother has been requesting (nagging) :-) I put up pictures of our side wall. We just finished it and are now working on the front retaining wall. Yeah, I totally stacked a lot of those. Seriously...not jokingly. Ben is the brains though and got it all level.

Yeah, it's awesome.


Side Note/Story: So I was in class last week, I sat by a fairly young gal. This was our conversation:
Her: How old are you?
Me: 28
Her: Wow! You look really good for your age.
Me: Nothing is coming to mind
Me a minute later: Uh, Thanks I think.

I did not think 28 was old enough to be able to say, "for your age". I guess I was wrong. Can we make it a rule that we don't say that for people who are younger than 35-40? That would be great, thanks.