The Zohner Family Blog

A New School Year

Jeremiah — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:27:26 PDT

Well, another school year is underway. Emma is now in fifth grade, Alex is in first, and Hannah has started kindergarten. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there to send them off, but Holly walked to school with them and made sure that they found their teachers without any problems.

Yesterday when I came home from work, I made sure that I asked each one of the kids what their favorite part of the day was. Alex liked lunch. He told me that his favorite part is “always lunch.” I thought that making the transition from a half day to a full day would instill a deep love of recess in him but I apparently the kid likes to eat. I guess when you run around as much as he does, you need to eat a lot to have the energy to keep going.

When I asked Hannah what her favorite part of kindergarten was, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. There are so many new things for her to experience that I didn’t know what it was that would stand out in her mind. Her response? “Mostly kindergarten.” I take that to mean that she had a good day.

Emma’s response sort of surprised me. She told me that her favorite part of her first day at school was meeting new people. I know that she likes to play with other kids and that she has quite a few friends but I didn’t realize that she enjoyed meeting new people as much as she did. That being said, it may not have been the meeting new people as much as it was how she was able to meet new people. Apparently there were some pretty fun games that the teacher used to get the kids to know one another.

Thankfully, all of the kids seem to have really good teachers. We’ve been pretty impressed with their school since they started attending last year. The principal has made some highly questionable personnel decisions, but in the end, the kids learn and have fun which is what is really important.

All Camped Out

Jeremiah — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:28:09 PDT

Summer has almost come to an end. You wouldn’t know it by looking at a calendar, or stepping outside for that matter, but it is true. It is a well known fact that once school starts, summer is over. School could start in the middle of June and summer would be over. That’s just how it is and there’s nothing that anybody can do about it.

Since school starts on Wednesday for the kids, we decided that it would be good for us to squeeze in one last camping trip before weekends become filled with homework and soccer games. This was no spur of the moment decision though. We have been planning this trip for months. Actually, I think that the seeds of the idea were planted last year after our very successful Zohner family camping trip where my side of the family retreated into the mountains for the weekend.

This year’s trip was extremely similar to last year’s – awesome food, family, fishing, firearms, and lots of fun. (That’s a lot of “f’s”.) There were a few different faces (we were sad that some people were unable to attend but pleased that some of my cousins were there) and we were at a different campground. Given the amazing fishing that we enjoyed last year at Hades, we decided that it would be good to go someplace close enough to fish the same spot on the river. In the end, we chose to set up camp at Aspen which is about four miles closer to civilization but still basically in the middle of nowhere. Our fishing efforts weren’t as successful this time around but there was an abundance of gun fire earlier in the day which helped me feel better about all of the fish jumping in the river laughing at our vain attempts to get them to bite onto our hooks.

There is already talk of getting the same campsite next year. I’m good with that but part of me would really like to find a campground that is closer to Salt Lake so that my dad can come up for a few hours. Finding a site with access to good fishing isn’t too tough in Utah but finding good fishing with someplace close to go shoot guns is proving to be a bit more tricky. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know.

Checkmate

Jeremiah — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:23:00 PDT

For some reason, Holly thought that it would be a good idea to teach Alex how to play chess. Apparently she taught him too well because he ended up winning. Not bad for a kid of six.

I was at work at the time so I wasn’t able to see Holly and Alex play their game of chess, but I imagine that the conversation that took place as he was winning went something like this:

Holly: You can move that piece there or that one there.
Alex: (moves piece)
Holly: Now you can either go there or there with that piece or this one here can go there.
Alex: (moves piece)
Holly: Oh… It looks like you just beat me.
Alex: (maniacal laughter worthy of a super villain)

So Puzzling

Jeremiah — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:59:10 PDT

I have always enjoyed doing puzzles. This is something that has been passed on to Hannah who will sit down at a puzzle, it doesn’t matter the level of difficulty, and start trying to put it together. In fact, Hannah will choose to do a puzzle over playing video games or just about anything else that her brother and sister want to do with her.

Sometime within the last year or so, Holly has also decided that puzzles are fun. I’m not sure what brought about this change, but she now loves to do puzzles. It used to be that I would suggest a 1000 piece puzzle with a really cool picture and Holly would complain that it had too many pieces and that puzzles were dumb. Now though, she actively seeks these large puzzles and looks forward to doing them. She has even gone so far as to hitting up garage sales and thrift stores looking for them at discount prices. Since I’m always up for a good puzzle, I have no complaints about this since people usually do a puzzle once then either get rid of it or leave it on a shelf to collect dust. Almost new puzzle for 50¢? What’s not to like?

Recently Holly came across a 2000 piece puzzle from her favorite puzzle company, Springbok. It is a picture of various scenes from Gone with the Wind. This is one of her favorite movies of all time so she was extremely excited about her find. Personally, I find it funny that the woman who used to think that 1000 pieces was too many just completed a 2000 piece puzzle. I kept finding myself helping her with it and have to admit that it was a very fun puzzle. Not surprisingly, even Hannah sat down on more than one occasion to see what pieces she could put into place.

Now that Gone with the Wind is finished, we have started a 500+ piece puzzle of rolls of Life Savers candy. Surprisingly, this is proving to be more challenging than Gone with the Wind was since everything looks pretty much the same. I’m sure though once we can get a few sections put together, it will all start falling into place.

Too Much Zucchini?

Holly — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:00:13 PDT

Ever wonder what to do with that pile of zucchini that you get from your garden in the summertime? Try this recipe for chocolate zucchini sheet cake brownies.

1 ½ Cup Brown Sugar
½ Cup Sugar
½ Cup Butter [1 C Applesauce can be used in place of butter and vegetable oil]
½ Cup Vegetable Oil
3 Large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
½ Cup Buttermilk
2 ½ Cup Flour
½ tsp Allspice
½ tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Soda
7 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder
4 cups Unpeeled Zucchini (grated)
1 C Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips

Cream the wet stuff. Add the dry stuff. Stir in zucchini. Pour into an 11×17 pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. Bake 325 for 40-45 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar or frost with chocolate icing.

More Camping

Jeremiah — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:08:04 PDT

A few months ago, Holly had decided that we needed to go on a camping trip over the 24th of July weekend. I had Friday the 23rd off and she didn’t work at all that weekend so she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get away. For reasons that I can’t seem to remember at the moment, the camping trip for the 24th got moved up a few weeks leaving us with a three-day weekend full of nothing to do. Sure, there are plenty of things that need to be done around the house, but where is the fun in doing chores over a holiday weekend? After a quick call to invite my sister, Chelsea, it was decided that the Zohners would once again travel into the mountains.

Because our camping trip was planned only a few weeks ahead, we didn’t have a lot of options on where we could go. After looking at a lot of different campsites online, we finally settled on Iron Mine near Duchesne. I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that it is in the same canyon as Hades which, thanks to awesome fishing, is one of my favorite places to camp.

Speaking of fishing, we went to our favorite spot on the Duchesne River to wet our lines for a bit. There was something different this time though. I’m not sure if the water was higher than it has been in years past or if the beaver dam had been dismantled. Either way, the water was flowing freely and much faster than normal so the fishing wasn’t great. We all had fun though as we were reminded why it’s called “fishing” and not “catching”.

Once we were done fishing, it was time to get out the guns. Last year when I took the kids shooting, Alex was the only one who wanted to give it a try. This year, Emma and Hannah decided that they needed to get in on the action and stop watching their brother have all the fun. Alex and Emma were able to shoot my .22 pistol and all three kids had a lot of fun shooting my Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. You’ll be happy to know that no eyes were shot out. We ended up putting about 80 rounds through the .22, another 40 through my 9mm, and countless through the BB gun. Both Emma and Alex had a blast and seem to have caught the shooting bug.

Other than the things I’ve already mentioned, there really isn’t a lot to say about the trip other than my mom came up for one night. Holly and I both wondered if she would once she realized that we were actually going into the mountains but she didn’t let us down. It was a lot of fun to see her roughing it in the middle of nowhere. I’m not sure that she realized just how much we enjoy camping before seeing it with her own eyes but we’re glad that she was actually able to see it with her own eyes.

Stuck In My Head

Jeremiah — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:28:07 PDT

I’ve had the song “I Hope That Something Better Comes Along” from The Muppet Movie stuck in my head for the last week. There are two versions to this song. The version that I’ve had running through my mind is the soundtrack version. It has a second verse which was deemed too racy for the movie when it was released in 1979. (This is the superior version in my opinion mostly because the second verse is just plain awesome.) If you have a chance to pick up the soundtrack, I highly recommend it since it has a lot of really good music. Plus, who doesn’t like the Muppets?

Who Doesn’t Love Puppies?

Jeremiah — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 10:44:50 PDT

The answer: nobody. Unless, of course, their heart is as black as the night. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t think that puppies are awesome? At least until they start chewing on everything and pooping everywhere. Up until that point though, they’re awesome and you know it.

It’s no secret that we’re a dog family. We love dogs. Not having dogs in the house is like not having furniture or carpet; it just feels empty. In my opinion, everyone should have at least one dog. They’re great companions and, unlike most cats, they return the love that you give them. Plus, if you drop food on the floor, you never have to clean it up because the dog will take care of it for you.

Last year for my birthday, Holly got me a female basset hound. She was an awesome dog but lacked in the manners department a bit. She also shed like nothing I’ve ever seen before. After the birth of Lincoln, we had to get rid of her because of her shedding issues. He seemed to be a bit allergic to the pet hair everywhere. While I was sad about this, being the good father that I am, I couldn’t put the health of my child above my dog. A few months later, Holly decided that it would be a good idea to get a lap dog to fill the void created when we sold Hailey. This brings us to Dayzee.

Dayzee is a black and white two-year-old female shih-tzu that Holly found online. A few months after we welcomed her to our family, we decided that it would be a good idea to breed her. We found a stud and arranged for Dayzee to have a romantic getaway. When all was said and done, we weren’t sure that it was a successful venture. Last month though, we decided to take her to the vet just to make sure. I hate being wrong, and in this case I was. Dayzee had at least two pups inside of her.

Yesterday we were out running some errands as a family for the better part of the morning. When we arrived home, Dayzee was desperately wanting to be alone in her crate. Holly and I figured out that she was in labor and started setting up a box for her to deliver her puppies in. She immediately jumped in and started making herself comfortable. Within 20 minutes we had one puppy and the second came about 20 minutes after that.

Despite having to take a trip to the vet to make sure that Dayzee didn’t have anymore puppies that weren’t coming out, delivering her litter went really smoothly. She is a great mother and seems to be very protective of her new pups. (Oscar came too close last night and she let him know it!) The kids are loving the puppies and can’t wait to see them grow into little dogs.

A New Car!

Jeremiah — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:37:34 PDT

I hate to buy cars more than anything in the world. I can think of any number of things that I would rather do than buy a new car. This is mostly because of some bad experiences that we’ve had. A few years ago, we bought a Kia that was a complete lemon. Then there was the Auction Direct incident that ended up costing us a large sum of money thanks to some fraudulent business practices. Buying cars is just not something that I like to do. I can’t understand how people can do it every few years without developing sever ulcers.

Imagine the stress that I started to feel when I realized that our 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan with almost 200,000 miles on it needed to have a new computer installed. Since the van is only worth around $1,000 on a good day when all of the planets are aligned and the repair would likely cost as much as the vehicle was worth, Holly and I decided that it was time to get something new. Let the stress begin…

Thankfully Holly and I learned our lesson last year so we did our homework this time around. We both researched vehicles and had an idea of what we wanted and what we wanted to spend. We also had ideas of what we could expect to pay and what the vehicles were actually worth. (I love the internet…) This time we also had “a guy” that would take care of us. Holly has a friend that married into a car family. Because of this friendship, we were fairly confident that we wouldn’t get screwed over.

The dealership that we chose to get our car from this time is Beutler Auto Sales in Clearfield. Jordan Beutler took amazing care of us. We told him what we were looking for and he told us what he had that would best suit our needs. Not surprisingly, he told us about a 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan that Holly and I both had interest in. We took it for a test drive and were sold. This would be the vehicle that we purchased.

After some discussion, we were able to negotiate the value of our trade in and come to a purchase price on the vehicle. To be honest though, negotiation isn’t really the right word. They offered us a more than generous amount for our old van and the price for the van we were buying was thousands less than we expected to pay based on our internet research. I did some negotiating just for the sake of it but the price was already so low that they couldn’t come down much more, but they still did. To top it off, they offered to put a tow package on for the price of materials. Since we just put one on our old van, I know how much I’m saving there. These guys are great!

The way that we were treated by the guys at Beutler was amazing. I have never walked onto a car lot and been treated so well. It’s amazing how far a little bit of customer service combined with honesty and integrity will go. These guys have made me a customer for life and I will recommend them to anybody looking for a new vehicle.

Back To The Wilderness

Jeremiah — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:19:23 PDT

Those who know us know that we’re avid campers. We go camping multiple times each summer and hate to see each weekend go by because we know that it’s one less chance for us to go camping. This year though, I was a bit concerned about going camping because of Lincoln. In the past, when we’ve taken our babies camping, it’s usually an exhausting experience that involves listing to a baby cry for a few days. Being the family of campers that we are though, Holly was determined to not going to let a little thing like the potential for a crying baby deter us from sleeping in the wild.

Because of the crazy weather we had in June, we were late in scheduling our camping trips this year. This left us with few options that didn’t involve driving for hours and hours. Fortunately, global warming finally kicked in and Holly managed to find a place near Mapleton that claimed to have great fishing so arrangements were made with her sister’s family and we were off to the mountains. Before we could go though, certain preparations needed to be made.

Since we have added a new person to the family since our last camping trip, we decided that a larger tent was in order. I would have preferred a Springbar, but to get one that is large enough to fit the entire family, including a portable crib, we would have had to spend at least $800. If we actually had $800 to spend, this would not have been an issue. Since we didn’t, I had to settle for a Wal-Mart special. It fits 10 people who don’t like comfort or 6 people who like air mattresses and cribs. Since we like comfort and have a portable crib, this was a great choice for our family. A lot of people don’t like Ozark Trail tents but we’ve had no problems with any of ours. We’ve had two and they’ve both worked well for us. But they’re not Springbars… Man, I really want a Springbar…

The next thing that we had to address was our vehicle situation. Last year we realized that when we load up all of our camping stuff, the van gets full very quickly. With a crib, a stroller, and another person, we knew that we would have to do something different this year. Holly came up with the idea of getting a trailer hitch installed on the van and then getting a rack that fits into the hitch that we could pack stuff on. This was a brilliant idea. We had the hitch installed and purchased a rack then loaded it up. We ran into problems though because the hitch is very low and the rack kept scraping the road. Gouging actually… After making a few stops at trailer stores on the way to our campsite, we were able to find a hitch attachment that raised the rack by a few inches which resolved the problem quite nicely. Between the trailer hitch rack and the luggage rack on the roof, we were able to fit everything with only minimum squishage of the children so the transportation/hauling stuff issue was resolved.

Once we finally arrived at the campground, I was appalled to learn that there was no fishing. Despite so many reservoirs being filled to capacity, the river that ran adjacent to the campground was dried up. (I guess it didn’t get the memo that this is a good water year.) No water obviously means no fish. I was so bummed. Thankfully the campsite was beautiful and so I was able to at least enjoy that aspect of our trip. If I could be guaranteed fishing every time I camped at this site, I’d never go anywhere else.

All in all it was a fun trip. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins and Holly and I were able to enjoy nature. Plus, Lincoln did amazing on his first camping trip. He hardly cried at all which isn’t really surprising considering the fact that he loves being outside. I’m excited to see how he does on a two day trip next month.