19th Anniversary

Today we celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary! I've officially been married for half of my life - that's a pretty darn cool thing to be able to say.

I'm so proud of us!

Ben's 14th Birthday

Last week we celebrated Ben's 14th birthday, and boy did we celebrate in style! Being born around a holiday, especially a holiday with fireworks as its signature component, Ben's birthday tends to be quite a party :)

Ben decided to celebrate his 14th year by doing all five spans of the Sundance zip line. As one has to be 10 to ride, this was Sasha's first time and as you can see, she was just a little excited...

Mom and Sasha on the training span

The boys continually reiterated how not nervous they were

Down Bishop's Bowl they go!

Ben glides by Mt. Timpanogos

Ben and Daddy coming in for a landing

The party continued with the traditional Fourth-of-July cookout, board games, lazing about, and, of course, fireworks!

We never understand why the dog doesn't maul him.

We spent a wonderful weekend celebrating our fabulous 14-year-old. Happy birthday Ben!

Tragedy (sort of) Averted

Long-time Morningstar Happenings readers will recall a short-lived but highly-memorable column called "Tragedy-averted Tuesday". Every few weeks we would showcase some terrible idea Ben had. It was always Ben. And it was always entertaining.

After this week, we may be reinstating the column.

Our Monday evening went like this:
Mom: Boys, why is the oven on? The timer is done. [opens oven]

Mom: Aaah! Dear God, what happened? [turns oven off]
Ben: [rushing upstairs] I was playing video games and forgot about the pizza.
Mom: Aaah! Dear God, what happened? [stuck in endless loop of incredulity]
[removes very well-cooked pizza, sees strange disc beneath]
Mom: Aaah! Dear God! [note the theme] Ben, you baked the cutting board in the oven!
Ben: [eyes widen in terror at the recognition of what happened] Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. [walks out of front door. Just can't handle it]
Dad: Did you make him eat the pizza?
Mom: No! That's like cancer pizza now!
Dad: Did you at least take a picture?

So, we spent a good portion of our week scraping up molten plastic off of the bottom of the oven, pulling hardened plastic off of racks, and melting/burning/scraping the oven clean.

The miracle is, it all came off and our oven is cleared for cooking again!

I'm not the only one hearkening back to four years ago when we narrowly stopped Ben from microwaving an unopened can of soup, right? The boy is nothing if not an adventure!