Gough Family Pictures

A cute picture of the grandkids heading to the boat and the deer we saw everyday eating grandma's flowers.




With everyone together we took a bunch of pictures. Here's a few of the good ones....

More Reunion pictures

Water seemed to be the theme of this reunion! We spent a lot of time at the lake and playing with these really fun water guns grandpa got. That picture of Ty was during an all out assault on grandpa after he snuck up and stole the hose from Blake and proceeded to drench the boys!

Jake is an amazing wake-boarder. Those buff little shoulders sure come in handy when you're kneeling on a little board being pulled behind a boat going 25mph! He was so cute out there, he would just sing to himself as we went around the lake with the huge smile on his face.

The only downside of it all is that it was still Washington, which means you get cold pretty fast in that water, so about when his lips started to turn blue, we'd pull him out and wrap him up.

An impromptu decision on my part, the three of us hopped into the inter-tube for a spin around the lake, I was still in my clothes! Lucky for me Grandpa was nice and didn't tip us over!

The Gough Family Reunion 2010

Three weeks after our trip to Washington was the Gough family reunion. So we packed up our bags and headed northwest...again. We had a great trip up and a ton of fun while we were there! Everyone of Brian's siblings came which was really nice and we had visits from both Grandma Marge and Grandpa and Syble. We stayed in a tent trailer on their property, while others bunked up in the house, the garage, a 5th wheeler, tents and even cars. We boated, tubed, swam, played, ate...a lot... and just had a darn good time.

On the way there we stopped at Snoqualmie falls. The boys were less impressed with it than we thought they would be.

We had a good time getting out of the car and playing a little football, getting cocoa, and picking up a postcard for Jake's class, which was his homework. The last part of the drive went quicker than usual, probably because we had just made the same drive barely a few weeks ago.

The boys had a great time playing with their cousins. I spent most of the time in pain and sick from what I thought was my gallbladder (more on that later). Brian had a great time seeing everyone in his family. The weather was really great for all but two of the days so we were thrilled!

We went on the intertube, knee boarded, swam, played on the fun island, ate, played track ball, water fights, and a lot of hanging out. It was really fun. I'll post some more pictures in the next one.

And he's off and riding!

With the older kids riding their bikes to school, Jake was on a bit of a deadline to learn to ride a two wheeler. From the day school started, there was only 2 weeks until Claire got her cast off and then Jake would be expected to ride his bike with the big kids. So, we went to the old house and performed that age old rite of passage of learning to ride a bike.

Jake was amazing! After we got past the initial fear of falling, he was a champ about trying it himself. We didn't have to do any of the run along beside the bike for hours stuff, which is good since I don't think Brian's back could have handled that!

He picked it up quick and soon enough was racing Tyler around the cul-de-sac. Just look at that big smile!

Walking to school study

So my neighbor works for the land developer that build Daybreak and they wanted a photo shoot of kids walking to school, so a camera man followed us all to school one day and this is the cover photo of the article that was published in the Daybreak Paper and the website. I included the study they were trying to illustrate below. Tyler's arms are behind Eric's head.

August 11, 2010 – SALT LAKE CITY – Walking to school is as natural as gravity, right?

An individual’s decision to walk to school is actually quite complex. It is influenced—perhaps—by distance and an attractive walkable environment, but also by intertwined social, psychological and environmental perceptions that sometimes differ between parent and child.

Because walking has important health consequences, researchers at the University of Utah set out to learn how the interplay of factors can help reclaim the walk to school and promote a healthy physical and environmental lifestyle.

“In the last 50 years, the prevalence of youth obesity nationwide has tripled,” says Melissa Napier, the study’s lead author. “Coincidentally, the number of kids walking to school declined 68 percent from 1969 to 2001. We wanted to explore the confluence of psychology and design that keeps kids from engaging in an easy, social and healthy form of physical activity.”

What they learned from the study, to be published this fall in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, is that walkable design results in a vastly higher number of walks by students living in Daybreak which was designed to be walkable, than in a community with a peripherally-sited school, a street system of cul-de-sacs and larger lots.

In the planned community, 88 percent of students reported walking to school in a week, compared to 17 percent in a similar, less walkable neighborhood.

In addition, the study shows how other factors also influence the decision to walk or ride, which led researchers to conclude that understanding perceptions can be as important as designing walkable communities.

Researchers found that parents living in the less walkable community agreed that more barriers to walking existed than their own children did. These barriers included perceptions of unsafe traffic, street crossing danger and crime.

“Parents’ perceptions are key because it is they who decide how to get their kids to school,” says Napier. “Changing their perceptions—by mapping out walking routes, adding crosswalks and walking school buses for example—can go a long way in creating a supportive walking environment in any community.”

“Further, get children actively involved in making changes to their satisfaction. Children who perceive fewer barriers to walking—regardless of what their parents think—were more likely to walk to school in my study. Both children and parents have to agree that the environment supports walking in order to maximize the number of children who will walk to school,” Napier continues.

Researchers polled 193 fifth-graders in two schools in South Jordan, Utah. The study was designed to compare Daybreak, a neighborhood designed along “new urbanist” principles, with a standard suburban school. Daybreak’s design places the school in the heart of the community with well-connected streets, walking paths, sidewalks on both sides, small lots and multiple front porches, all of which have shown to support greater pedestrian activity.

“This is an early indicator of success of the design goals at Daybreak,” says Stephen James, manager of planning and community design for Daybreak’s developer, Kennecott Land. “Daybreak villages are scaled to the human pace and provide a diverse set of every day destinations such as parks, schools, churches, shops, offices and community centers interwoven with the homes. The routes must be safe and direct, conveniently connecting everything via paths, trails and sidewalks that are buffered from traffic and shaded from the hot summer sun. At Daybreak the car is not central to experiencing life. It is just one of the many ways to get around,” James concludes.

The students in the study were divided into three groups. Students in the “walkable community” group lived within Daybreak and within a mile of school. The “mixed community” group attended the same school, but lived in an area with larger lots and cul-de-sacs. Three-quarters of the students still lived within a mile of school. The third, “less walkable community” group attended a different school in a nearby area. That school is on a busy street with a single sidewalk. The area, a more typical suburb, has homes on larger lots, many circuitous cul-de-sacs, and fewer walkable features. Over two-thirds of students lived farther than a mile from school.

The study was conducted by Melissa Napier for her master’s degree in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah with funding from a University of Utah Synergy seed grant for interdisciplinary urban systems research.

Digging our way out

So in an effort to get ready for all this moving we've got coming up in the future, which I probably should talk about a little more, I decided that it was time for a huge purge of all our worldly possesions. When I say all, think big scale. We kept a few pieces of furniture that we love, our clothes, toys, holiday decorations, books, and computer and that's all folks. I didn't want to store stuff and we didn't want to move it every year for three years.

Here's our plan:

Move in with mom and dad, sell our house, save money, and Brian start a Master's program in Coucneling

In August 2011 move to Ft. Leavenworth, KS to live with Jim's kids while he deploys to Afghanistan. Jim will be gone a year so we'll be there for about a year so the kids don't have to have their lives too shifted in the process. Our kids get an adventure out of it so everyone wins.

Around August 2012 move back to UT to continue the Masters program at which point I might start a Yoga therapy training course, we'll see how the 500 hour certification goes.

Back to the post...I cleaned out the garage and here's what 10 years of stuff looks like.

1st Day of a New school

The boys have transferred to Daybreak Elementary this year. Jake will be in 1st grade and Tyler will be in 3rd. I'm mixed emotions about Jake being gone all day. I'm really gonna miss that little dude but at the same time, I recognize this for what it is and know this is prime "me" time. Time to get my stuff done, explore myself a little, and re-take up hobbies I'd long since abandoned when Tyler popped into our lives.

This is their group of friends they go to school with, play with, pretty much spend all their non-at-home-time with. Jake and Claire had to walk the first few weeks because of Claire's cast, but you can bet, the day she got it off, they were on those bikes and independent of me!

Freedom run!!!

LET FREEDOM RUN!

That was the theme for the Provo, UT 10k/5k freedom run. Jim and Lindi were registered to run the 10 k and Tyler, being the amazing runner that he is wanted to run it too. We trained for 3 months, he was up to running 4.75 miles without much of a rest so I figured he'd be OK. Then I guess I got nervous about having an 8 year old run that much and the day before the race, told him we needed to just do the 5k. He was reluctant, but agreed. Morning of the race it was COLD!!! We had layer of clothes on as we drove to Provo at 5:30am shivering. We got there and the excitement and adrenalin took over and we were able to shed some jackets. We re-registered for the 5k, met up with Jim and Lindi for some pre-race photos. My parents came down with the other kids to watch and take pictures.

Tyler was so nervous at the starting line, he really didn't like all the crowd of people around him. We were a little late getting there so the posts for lining up with people in your time rank were down. We ended up with a bunch of walkers and strollers which was super frustrating.

We spent the first mile dodging people and trying to catch up with our time group. I finally just told him to run first, fast and around anyone he could squeeze by, I'd catch up. He amazed me! I was working it to try and catch up. Ty ran like a champ! He only walked two times for about 10 steps each time, one of which was to drink a cup of water. He busted out his speed at the last 1/2 mile and finished with a time of 37:37 which is 11 minuets faster than he's ever run this far. This being his first competitive race over 1 mile, I was so proud of him! First thing he says to me after finishing was: "We should have done the 10k, that was weak!" Well son, don't you worry, the world of racing is far from through with you!

4th of July

This year was a little bitter sweet. There are so many changes in our family right now that this 4th of July was the best ever, and the worst ever. This was the last year we will host the annual Young family celebration due to moving. Jim will potentially not be with us next year due to deployment and it was just sad. So we decided to go out with a bang....literally.

We did the usual, way too much amazing food, a fire in the fire pit, pictures, rockin soundtrack created by yours truly and fireworks. Not just any fireworks though. Jim and the kids took a little field trip to Wyoming a couple days before the 4th and bought an arsenal of really amazing fireworks. We waited for dusk and mixed in one or two illegals with the little legal fountains and hoped for the best. The neighbors all came out to watch, or maybe to just watch their roofs for fire, and they were worth the money. Preston still doesn't like fireworks, so he spent the evening inside watching from a window. One of the teenagers from down the street came running over to tell us the fire marshal was in the neighborhood so we all went inside which Jim stayed outside to clean up. Two minutes later Jim sets off this grand finale-amazing display of all he had left. It was really really beautiful. And one minute after that a pretty red truck pulled up to talk to him.

Jim pulled the I'm from out of state thing and the guy let him off with a warning and gave all the kids

stickers. I thought that was pretty nice of the guy. I was a really great celebration and a good way to finish out a tradition that's been around since we bought that house.

Hey should we go to Seattle tomorrow?

....Uh sure, let's do it!

Yes, I know, we say those words way too often, but when you come from somewhere so beautiful, it really doesn't phase you at all to pack up your whole family and drive 17 hours with 4 hours notice. This was the conversation we had at about 11:49pm Sometime in June. We wanted to leave the next morning at 5:00am. So I sent everyone to bed and got to work. Fortunatly we've got road tripping down to a science so it was just finding everything we needed which actually was easier than I thought and we didn't forget a thing! We left at 7am after a quick trip to Walmart for socks and ice and headed up. We stayed in my Grandpa's house in Bellevue for the first couple days since he was living with my parents in UT. Then we went to Shelton to see Grandma and Grandpa Gough. We had a really good trip. Very relaxing and VERY fun!

We went to the waterfront for Steamers and candy....

Dics for the best burgers and fries in the world!!

To see the troll under the bridge which the boys loved the best! Tyler even thought it might be fun to see if the troll had any buggers in his nose, EW!

And to the ocean, as you can see, it was not a warm sunny ocean experience, but the kids survived without any frostbite so I consider it a success!

This about sums it up, they were all funned out!

Jake's Birthday

Jake's birthday was pretty cut and dried. Spiderman cake. Spiderman webslinger. Birthday party at the Nickel-caid. As long as those three elements were part of the party, it didn't matter what else happened. Well I like easy and it doesn't get easier than this! Here's how it all turned out...

The webslinger was a serious hit! I was pretty impressed with it's ability to spray silly string at such a crazy distance!

Here's the cake, not my finest writing but the spiderman turned out great I thought.

Here's some of the nickelcaid pictures.

April Fools

As is tradition, I just couldn't help myself from tricking the family with dinner. This one turned out amazing except for when you bow you head for dinner prayer, you can smell what you are eating, which got people giggling before the "Amen".

This is definitely not tomato soup and grilled cheese! You're looking at Vanilla pudding dyed red and Angel food cake sprayed with light oil and pan toasted for the grilled look with orange frosting in between. Yeah, it only takes about a bite and even Tyler was asking for real food. Super sweet overload!!

I grew a garden!

Actually, that is inaccurate...I planted a garden. All I really grew from it was tomatoes, corn (which died before it could be harvested), Bell peppers and Dahlias. What I planted was corn, bell peppers, strawberries, carrots, onions, green onions, Beans, Sugar snap peas, tomatoes, Cilantro and Dahlias.

My dad made me these beautiful planter boxes for Mother's day, Brian bought me the dirt for mother's day (yes, my husband gave me dirt for mothers day) and I planted everything. Things were growing and looking beautiful until...something. I still have no idea what happened, but something did. Oh well, The tomatoes were amazing and the Dahlias were the size of Jake's head. So that's something!

Brothers

Just a few moments caught on camera to prove that brothers aren't always in the classification of worst enemy, they can also be a best friend.