Randomness

~Swamp coolers don't work very well in 90 degree weather with 60% humidity.
~Why is there 60% humidity here?! I think that must be some kind of record. Or at least it has to be a record for most continuous days with 50-60% humidity. Seriously!! I've lived here for 21 years and I've never experienced this. It's like living in Kansas again. Especially in the town we live in. Maybe up north where there are lakes and stuff but where we live is usually dry as a bone! Our skin was cracked and bleeding this winter from the incredible dryness. Usually when we come visit for a weekend our skin dries out so badly that we itch like mad. So humidity like this is unusual. The nice thing is we aren't bleeding from the dryness anymore. The bad part is...we're MELTING!!! Our swamp cooler is not working well at all. All of our chips, cereal, and crackers are grody mush! Not good!!! Oh well, whatchya gonna do?! At least it's hot and not snowy. That is definitely a good thing!!!
~International Days was so much fun this year! The kids were in the Kid's Day parade. They got to go to the Kid's Day activities and had so much fun on the climbing walls, bounce houses, getting their faces painted, winning stuffed animals, getting snow cones. The best part for me is that it was ALL....FREE!!! (FYI: Nice looking men in their 70s look weird with earrings in their ears!!!) We walked over to the fun craft booths and I bought a super adorable hat at the place De got hers last year. They are so fun and cute and I can't wait to wear mine! It's too stinking hot now to wear it but some day I will wear it and it will be so cute! I never buy myself fun stuff so I am so excited!!! Saturday Zack was in the grande parade with the scouts. He had so much fun! And he looked adorable in his new Webelos scarf and slider. He's the cutest scout ever!!! Later he got to help out at the Scout Expo. They had a fun rope bridge to climb on and they got to make rockets and shoot them off. They LOVED that!!!
My FAVORITE part was that they opened up the log cabins at Pioneer Park and let us walk through them. That was so neat! And I got to look at the incredible quilt that the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers made to raffle off. What talented ladies! It was such a great day! The heat and humidity made it horribly hot and sticky but we still had a lot of fun! Brian missed all the fun since he was picking up jet skis in Wahweep Friday and picking up a boat in Bullfrog on Saturday. So grateful for his willingness to work so hard for our little family!!!
~To finish off our great weekend we went to church. What great meetings! Testimony meeting was wonderful and Relief Society was just lovely! Our bishop's wife taught the lesson. This was her third week teaching in a row for various reasons. Her husband has cancer and is going through chemo now and I think she works. How many of us would have said, NO WAY!!! I'm too busy, or I have already taught 2 times before?! So glad she taught because I totally needed to hear her lesson! What an incredible lady! The spirit was very strong in that meeting. I felt truly uplifted and edified as they say and ready to face the new week. So glad for a great ward!!! After dinner we walked the Helper walking path. That was nice. We hadn't done that in years! The kids hadn't been except Zack and he was too little to remember. They had so much fun climbing the fun steep staircase, walking through tunnels, watching the water run over the little water fall, and eating plums they picked from the tree. It was such a fun time!

My cute flashy hat. Won't I be cute when I'm having a bad hair day and I throw this on my head! I can't wait to wear it!

Spiritual Pictionary

I've always wanted a dry erase board but never bought one. I found one Saturday morning at a garage sale for $1. Yesterday I was trying to decide what to do for Family Home Evening and decided a game of "Spiritual Pictionary" would be fun. Brian and I thought of words and phrases to draw. We had things like:

Love at Home

Jesus

Temple

Family

Missionaries

And harder ones like:

Noah's Ark

Jesus touches the stones for the brother of Jared

Daniel in the Lion's Den

Samuel the Lamanite

Nephi slays Laban
The Holy Ghost

We made enough so that each person could draw 3 times. It took longer than we thought which was kind of nice. It was a lot of fun! We laughed a lot! The kids had never played pictionary of any kind so it was such a fun time for them. I've always LOVED Pictionary!

Stephanie and I used to play Pictionary for hours on end on many a lllooooonnnggg Sunday afternoon as we desperately tried to entertain ourselves since mom had banned us from watching tv on Sundays except for The Wonderful World of Disney and Little House on the Prairie. We took turns drawing for each other because no one else liked playing Pictionary so much, but we totally did. We had so much fun doing that and I was so excited to play again.

The boys liked it so much that I had to bribe them to stop playing it last night by promising to write up a bunch of random words for them to draw this morning. Brian finished off the night by scooping us up some ice cream cones. It was a fun night!

I'm glad I found the dry erase board. I just LOVE a good garage sale!!!!!!!

GRODY!!!

So, I decided to tackle the pile of laundry I had on my dryer that needed to be stain treated. I picked up one of the shirts Max wore camping and I found one of these crawling around...

A tick!!!

When I was a little girl I had a "scab" in my ear. One day, Dana and I were opening a can of dog food to feed our dog and Dana saw my "scab" move!!! My parents were like, that is not a scab, that is a TICK!!! I remember Stan holding a match to it and taking it out of my ear with tweezers very vividly. Been a bit freaked by them ever since.

Ever since I found the tick this morning we're all a bit jumpy. Brian checked the kids for ticks when he came home for lunch. Thankfully they were tick free. He had checked them all over when we came back from camping but he decided to double check just to be safe. I'm so not a fan of creepy crawlys and ticks are so GRODY!!!

A Confession and fun...

I confess.......I DON'T IRON!!! I hate ironing! I am terrible at it! Things look worse when I get through ironing them than they did to begin with. If you can't put it in the dryer with a damp towel to get the wrinkles out of it ... you don't need to wear it!  A few months ago I got a wild hair and decided to iron one of Gracie's skirts and my shirt for little Emily's blessing. Emily's mom (my sister Stephanie) irons  EVERYTHING!!!  I think she might even iron her underclothes but I can't be sure! HAHA jk Steph! Anyway, I thought I'd try my best to look nice...BIG mistake!!! Gracie's skirt turned out perfect which is amazing but then I burned a whole in my shirt. My BEST and most FAVORITE shirt! My only shirt I really felt like was stylish, cute, and nice enough to wear to church or nice places. It was white and had cute, girly, short sleeves and cuteness on the front that made it so cute! And it went with EVERYTHING! It looked especially adorable with my cute black, white, and red skirt that I LOVE! And..it was FREE! Last year a friend in our ward in Salem brought us bags of clothes she was planning to take to the clothing exchange. They fit our family perfectly and were WAY cute! And that shirt came from her. Brian is the ironer in our family and I just should have let him do it instead of trying to be all domestic and stuff. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! 

So last night Brian saw the iron cooling on the washing machine and said, Did you actually iron something today?  I said, why, yes, yes I did iron something.  This....

It's really the only thing I should be trusted to touch with an iron!!!

OUR SATURDAY DRIVE

As I mentioned in a previous post, a couple weeks ago we had a free weekend. We caught up on a bunch of things that desperately needed attention around our house and yard and then Saturday afternoon Brian suggested we take a drive up Huntington Canyon. We LOVE doing that! When my family first moved here this became one of our favorite places to be. We enjoyed just driving up for the day and picnicking and enjoying the beauty of everything about it. I remember many hours spent fishing, hiking, playing, and just relaxing and visiting.

When I was 8 months pregnant with Matthew my family decided that the family get together that summer was going to be a camp out at Old Folks Flat in Huntington Canyon. One of my favorites. Well, what 8 month pregnant woman in her right mind would want to go camping in a tent, in the woods, without a bathroom!! (Yes there is one in the campground but I'm also a chicken and would NOT be walking to a bathroom in the middle of the night thank you very much! I moaned and groaned about going but went anyway. I was in PURE HEAVEN!!! We didn't have air conditioning in our apartment and it was at least 20 degrees cooler in that canyon than it was in our house. And I slept so well because the air at night gets COLD in that canyon. It was glorious!!! We even stayed an extra night because it was just so wonderful!!! When we lived in Spanish Fork area we had Payson canyon we could escape to if we wanted to take a beautiful drive and "get away from it all" for a few hours. In Cedar City we loved taking drives to Cedar Breaks. What a spectacular drive and destination that is! We would picnic along the way and it was just wonderful. When we lived in Pleasant Grove I missed having a special place like that to escape to. I hear that American Fork canyon is beautiful but I also hear it's WAY crowded and you have to pay to drive through it. I missed our Huntington Canyon days so much!

I was so happy when Brian suggested we take a drive up there. It was so beautiful! The kids had never been except Zack when he was 3 years old and they had such a great time! I was sure to point out how brown and beautiful it was when we drove through Emery County on the way to the canyon and then pointed out how green and beautiful it is in the canyon once we were up there. WOW what a contrast!!! We let them wade around in the lake a bit. We all had fun skipping rocks. We drove through the camp grounds showing them the fun places there are to camp up there. We drove up to Mammoth Lake and got out and walked the little path to where the display of information is about how the Mammoth was discovered and how they extracted it. It was so interesting to the boys. 

Once we left the canyon we drove on over to Castle Dale and visited the Zebra farm and the long horn steers. 

We had such a wonderful day and enjoyed spending time together and being in such a gorgeous place. So glad we live close to Huntington Canyon now and can share our love for it with our little family.

 

Yes I look freaky, deaky! I didn't put makeup on that day. And, yes, I'm fat!! But it's rare for us to have pictures with us in them, especially together, so I thought I'd throw it in...

The zebra farm..I'm glad we went that day because zebras are Zack's favorite and there weren't any at the zoo when we went.

Camping

My parents decided it would be fun to take our kids camping last weekend. The kids were so excited! I couldn't bring myself to let them take Max with them. He is one wild and crazy boy that hasn't learned to listen and I didn't want to put that kind of strain on my parents!! My sister Steph invited him to come to her house and play with Josh while they went camping. He LOVED it!! They all had so much fun! I enjoyed being able to relax a bit! The first night (Wednesday)  I made a delicious and super easy chicken scampi and Brian and I watched Better Off Dead. We hadn't seen it in years and got a good laugh out of it.  I even painted my toenails and fingernails!! Thursday night Brian, Gracie, and I went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Spanish Fork. We slept over at my parents since Brian had a delivery in Wahweep Friday. My parents and the boys came back to Spanish Fork Friday morning and they took us all to Hogle Zoo. Steph, Josh, Emily, and KayTee met us there. We hadn't been in a couple years and it was a lot of fun! We always have a great time at the zoo! Our most favorite part was the adorable baby elephant that followed it's momma around and played with it's own trunk trying to figure out how it works. It was adorable! It was 100 + and we were hot but I wasn't complaining because I was just so happy it isn't snowing anymore!!! There were a few freaks that had their poor little kids dressed in fleece hooded jackets or long sleeves and long pants or can you believe...SNOW BOOTS!!! Seriously!!!  Other than that everyone was so nice!

After the zoo we headed to Wendy's for lunch and then back to mom's for a few hours then we went back to the campground in Hobble Creek and camped for 2 more nights. The kids had a lot of fun going for walks, swimming in the creek, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows, eating smores, getting dirty, and spending time with grandma and grandpa. We got up bright and early on Sunday and drove back home for church but missed getting here in time. We had good intentions! We had a lot of fun camping. We don't camp nearly enough because I hate tent camping but my parents took their camp trailer so it was great! We NEED a trailer and a truck so we can do super fun things like that!

The misting fan!!! Gotta love those in 100 degree weather!!!

This is a group shot! Mr. "I'm not afraid of anything, Max" was terrified on this! He's a funny kid! Josh was simply adorable with his "yee haw's" as his hippo went up and down! He is so dang cute! Sorry Steph! I know you aren't a big fan of having your picture on my blog but you look GREAT!!! Can you believe she just had a baby in March!!!

The water globe is always fun!

And of course the train is a must do!

Cute little Emily!!!

 

Gracie was so filthy and LOVED it!! She likes eating dirt. She and my cousin John would get along swimmingly! HEHEHE

Grandma and Grandpa set up a movie outside the camp trailer at night. Matty is behind Max in the picture. Gracie's poor stroller was brown at this point. I was afraid it would never be the same but after some stain spray and a good washing it is good as new!!!

It's WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!

Isn't it a perfect day to be alive!!! I marvel at this gorgeous earth that our Savior created for us! It is truly AMAZING!!! From the most breath taking "Wonder's of the World" to the tiniest ladybug. The true "wonders" like snow falling from the sky, green leaves on trees changing to the most magnificent colors in the fall providing the most amazing afternoon drives imaginable. The way 2 of the tiniest things ever, can come together and create a person. A very detailed and intricate person. Every blood vessel, cell, eye lash, fingernail, heart valve, fingerprint, bone, crease and crevice, is in the right place and doing the right thing, working together to make a life.  A PERSON!!! Now that is INCREDIBLE!!! We are so blessed to live in this time of unbelievable medical technology and breakthroughs! And with so many conveniences and luxuries at our fingertips. It is a gorgeous day and I am so grateful for it! Grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who loves me and helps me through this crazy life! Grateful to have sweet little angels to raise, to nurture, to teach, to read to, to encourage, to pat on the back, and kiss and love!! I have a sign in my house that says Life doesn't have to be perfect to be WONDERFUL!!!! SO TRUE!!!! Not always easy to remember but SO TRUE!!!!

A little randomness...

~We discovered that a child safety thingy for the refrigerator door keeps cute, silly one year old little girls from throwing random, possibly important things in the garbage if you attach it to one of those handy garbage cans that has a lid that you open by stepping on a little pedal with your foot. It's amazing what a little child proofing can do for a person's sanity! Brian put those little locks on the cabinet doors as well so now the kids still have their plates, cups, and bowls low enough to reach and they can open the child proof locks but Gracie stays out! It has saved me so much time cleaning up that stuff several times a day and rewashing everything that she was dragging everywhere. Especially had to rewash them when we had our dog. YUCK!!!
~2 weekends ago Brian said he would do anything I asked him to. He's been so busy working 10 hour days and then delivering for J.J. on weekends and then we've been running around a lot so it was wonderful to have a weekend that was freed up so we could get caught up on some stuff that has been neglected. He mowed the lawn, bought and put together a weed eater, mowed down the weeds I couldn't cut with the weed eater, put weed killer and fertilizer on the lawn, he built a book case, built some shelves in our closet for our shoes, took a bunch of stuff to the cellar, cut and spliced back together the hose that had a hole in it, helped me hang pictures, fixed the broken handle and the broken shock absorber on the front screen door, took the tv out of the dining room and hooked it up in the bedroom, baby proofed the garbage can and cabinets...I can't remember everything but it has been wonderful having those things done!!! He did SO much and never complained, sighed, or rolled his eyes once!!! I am SOOOOO grateful for everything he did and does for our little family!!! I know I don't say it often enough but I love him and appreciate him!!!
~I cleaned up the boy's room today and it looks so good!!!  The computer is in the kitchen and right by their bedroom door so as I'm typing I sneak a look every now and again. I'm hoping to remember how nice it looks since I'm sure it will be completely destroyed in about 5 minutes when Gracie wanders in there and starts throwing everything around again. It's always nice to enjoy those things while they last!!!
~I'm thinking that pink car seats and strollers are super cute but not very practical. Not for my daughter anyway. We took her poor stroller camping since we didn't have another one. It's DISGUSTING now!!! YUCK-O!!! Keeping her car seat clean is quite the chore, too! But they are SOOOO cute I just couldn't resist!!!!  Oh well! At least she had fun, eh! I refused to try to keep her or her stuff clean when we were camping! What would have been the fun in that?!   :) 
~I'm so glad that I can use the internet to listen to my favorite radio stations, from where we lived before. We can still listen to them even though we can't get them on the radio here. I love the internet! And I LOVE music!!! It makes me happy!!!!

Hooray!!!

We are bottle FREE!!! I'm not a fan of washing bottles so I am always so happy when we kiss them goodbye!!! When we got back from our little trip over the 4th of July weekend I decided to just not give her anymore and see if she cared.  She didn't!!!  She takes her sippy cup just great and hasn't complained at all. She will even drink the milk cold, if you can believe that. I wanted to get rid of the bottles sooner but she was still quite into them and HAD to have warm milk still. I don't know what made her decide she was cool with giving it up but I'm super happy about it!!!

I'm melting...

Wowzers it's HOT today!!! Oh, I'm not complaining!

I welcome the sizzling hot days of summer!!

 It's nice to see a little variety in our lives besides snow and freezing cold!!

 I'm loving it!!! 

Happy hot summer day everyone!!!

Like a bandaid...

Well, we took poor ol' Tex to the animal shelter yesterday. We decided that once we made the decision we better just take him quick and get it over with. Like ripping off a bandaid! There were a lot of tears once we started talking about it but they were actually really calm and great when we actually took him. The people there were super! They suggested that we get a Maltese or a Labradoodle next time since they are supposed to be really hypoallergenic. Brian read online that if you are allergic to the saliva of one dog, you are usually allergic to all dog saliva. We think that is the main problem with our boys. Although Zack had been snuggling the dog in the morning with his shirt off and ended up with HUGE hives all over his upper chest, neck, and face from him so it may just be the dander. We are going to try having the kids spend some time with those breeds and see if they are allergic before we get one this time. Anyhoo, it's over and they survived. I took them for an ice cream cone from McDonald's right after to boost their spirits. It seemed to work!  It's all good!

A bit of a dilemma...

So, we are all having allergy problems because of our dog. Zack and Matthew even have hives all over their faces and necks. Zack and I keep having to use our inhalers. We keep telling them not to let him lick them since we think that is causing the hives but telling our kids to not let a dog lick them is like telling them to not chew hard candy or to walk not run. IMPOSSIBLE!!! If we give him away it will break the kids' hearts but I just can't see living like this forever. We need an outside dog or one that is more hypoallergenic. We've given him 2 baths since Wednesday and it hasn't helped. Other than bothering our allergies and breathing, he has been such a sweet little dog!!! Our kids are going to hate us!!! Oh what to do to cushion the blow....

What a fun day!!!

So my brother, Rob, his wonderful wife Jenise, their son, Tyler, their daughter, Erin and her hubby Travis and their baby, Noah came to visit from Kansas in June. It was so great seeing them!!! Everyone pitched in on a beautiful cabin in the mountains above Heber for several days...NOT CHEAP!!! We couldn't afford to do that but they were all great anyway and invited us to come up and hang with them even though we hadn't pitched in. They invited us to sleep up there and eat the food they had all paid for and everything but we just didn't feel right about doing that so we decided to just go up for one day. We had SO MUCH FUN!!! It was AWESOME!!! It's so beautiful in the mountains and so relaxing. We LOVE 4-wheelers and J.J. brought a bunch up from his rental company (Toy It Up Rentals in Spanish Fork  :)    )   for us to ride and it was THE BEST!!!! We haven't had that much fun in a long time! We have had a lot of stress and junk going on and it was JUST what we needed!!! My family was so great to let us still participate and were so generous to invite us to spend the whole time with them and we appreciate it SOOO much!!! They even asked us to stay several times more when we were leaving. I know that there are a lot of people out there that if they had spent the kind of money they had for something like that and others couldn't afford to do it too, they would NEVER have offered for them to stay with them anyway. If they did they would have considered them mooches and would have made them feel terrible about being there so I am just so grateful to have such a great family that would be so awesome to us!!! I know they aren't perfect. No one is! I certainly AM NOT!!! But it's great to know that they are good, decent, honest, LOVING, people who care about us!!! It was so great seeing my big brother and his fam! I HOPE they do this again next year and we can save up for the trip!! Just one day was awesome, I'm sure several would be WONDERFUL!!! And I hope next time David can come and Dana and her family, too! Anyway, here are some pics from the fun day!

 

Rob and Jenise

Max, Brian, and Matthew

Me and the gang I rode with.

The whole fam.

Zack and Grandpa

Josh and Isabelle playing

Josh and Isabelle. Aren't they adorable!!!

The rides

We saw a moose on our 4-wheeler ride. I was STOKED!!! I have always wanted to see one!!! I used to decorate my living room in wilderness decor and I mostly used moose because I just like them so much!!! It was just right there off the road. So cool!!!

Adorable Noah!! He is such a cutie pie!! Look at those chubba wubba legs! TOO CUTE!!!

Jenise and Noah, KayTee and Emily, Me and Gracie

What a great cabin!!!

Getting ready for the guys ride

This dirt doesn't taste as good as I thought it would...

Little Mikey doing what guys do..playing with trucks in the dirty outdoors! :)

Be Careful What You Wish For...

We (mostly Brian) have always wanted a dog. Our boys REALLY wanted one and have begged relentlessly for years for one. When we rented this house the realtor told us we could have a small dog or a cat which prompted an almost daily beg from the boys. Brian was listening to Barter Bar on the radio on Wednesday and heard about a little one year old Shih Tzu/Chiuaua mix for FREE!!! Well, we drove over right away and checked him out and in a moment of pure insanity I decided we could keep him. He's pretty cute. He reminds me more of a Terrier. I think of Eddie from Frazier. But he's not his mom is a Chiuaua and his dad is a Shih Tzu (or vice versa).

Gracie was positively TERRIFIED of him the first day but by the end of last night was chasing him around trying to "love" him. With 4 kids vying for his attention and showering him with "love and affection" (I guess that's what you'd call it) I have the same fear with him that I had with Max and Gracie when they were tiny babies...that he'll be loved to DEATH!!!

The kids have been so happy! Matthew and Zack have both at different times said, out of the blue..I can't believe we actually have a DOG!!! 

Zack even cleaned his room so the dog could come in there the first night. WOW! I've been trying to get him to do that for weeks! Once he cleaned half of it. Literally half. There was practically a line down the middle. It was pretty funny. 

The biggest problem we've faced so far is that he keeps running away constantly. We have a fenced front yard but he's small enough to squeeze through. We're working on it. He took off this morning and ran across the highway. Zack took off running after him...without looking...across the busy highway...giving his parents heart attacks!!! Luckily there weren't any cars coming which is unusual! What a blessing! We explained to him that if that happens again he needs to just let the dog go because although the dog is important he is no where near as important as Zack is!!! Seriously...what was he thinking?! Zack was upset and scared and frustrated when he came back and said he hated the dog. He can't understand why he keeps running away even though Zack loves him so much. SAD! 

The thought of a dog is much better in a lot of ways than actually owning one. For me anyway. The best part for me is that he's house broken already and he is very sweet and loving!!! He is scraggly looking and we want to let his hair grow out for a bit and see how he looks. The owners had him chained up in their back, dirt yard, on a short chain and he was FILTHY and pretty neglected looking. He needed us I think! They had a child or grandchild that was allergic to him so they put him outside and decided to give him to someone who could care for him better and give him more attention. He's definitely getting attention!! His name is KuJo...we're changing it to Tex (Brian grew up in Texas and I think it's sweet and kind of manly).

We (again...mostly Brian) also wanted a yard. WHAT were we thinking?! We've managed to live only in apartment complexes or houses where the HOA fees covered lawn maintenance so we've never actually had to care for our own yard. We've experienced caring for a yard when we lived with Brian's mom in the past and mowed, weed eated, weeded, planted flowers in her HUGE yard. Our yard is tiny! Brian mows it in like 5 or 10 minutes. It's awesome!!!

 But the weeds!

 It's ridiculous! And there isn't a sprinkling system. But at least it's a yard and even though it's lots of work we are happy to have a nice place for the kids to play. We have already spent a small fortune between the weed eater, fertilizer, and weed killer. Thank heavens my sister KayTee and her husband Chris had an old lawn mower that only works part of the time so they bought a new one and gave us the old one. WE ARE SO GRATEFUL!!! There is NO way we could have afforded a lawn mower!!! Next spring we are planning to plant a nice little garden in the garden spot to the side of the yard (once again Brian's dream!!!)

It's kind of fun having added adult responsibilities of a dog and a yard.  Lots of work and patience but still enjoyable!!! 

Give away!!!

Check out this fun apron give away!!! Good luck!!!  http://www.holidaywithmatthewmead.com/

An adventure...

This is the dam. The view on the other side of the bridge and dam is absolutely gorgeous!!  That canyon is beautiful!! Wish I had better pics!!!!

My brother in law J.J. (Stephanie's husband) asked Brian to take some jetskis to Wahweap at Lake Powell this weekend for him for his "Toy It Up" rentals business.  He would have to get there Saturday night so he could deliver a boat by 6am Sunday morning so J.J. got a hotel room in Page, Arizona for Brian for the night. I've been wanting to go on one of these trips with Brian but hadn't been able to yet. Usually he just drives down and back in the same day. Not fun with a new baby so there was no way we could do that last year and usually he drives a truck that doesn't have a lot of space for 6 people. Well, when I looked at the confirmation email from the hotel and saw that kids were free and there was a free continental breakfast and a swimming pool I jumped at the chance to go!  It was the closest thing we would be getting to a vacation this summer and all we had to spend money on was food! It had been a LLLOOONNNGGG week of being cooped up in the house staring at sick people, and being one of them, and a trip sounded so incredibly fantastic I just can't tell you! I had never been to Lake Powell before and thought it would be a fun adventure! We excitedly left home at about 10:15 Saturday morning.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the drive between Spanish Fork and Beaver! When we lived in Cedar City we made the trip oodles of times.  It's only about 2 1/2 hours from Cedar to Sp. Fork so the kids don't have time to get too crazy and the gas wasn't too costly and we live in such a beautiful state that just about anywhere you go is going to provide you with gorgeous scenery. I have missed those trips. We would hook the kids up to their dvd players and head phones and Brian and I would take turns picking music from our cd collection. We would sing together, visit with each other, and eat sunflower seeds. It's hard to find  the time to just sit beside each other for so long and catch up and reminisce and just BE!

I had only ever been as far as Panguitch before this weekend so it was exciting to see a new area of our beautiful state.  It is a simply gorgeous drive! The little towns from Panguitch to Kanab are so charming and cute. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive! Singing and visiting and seeing part of this great country we celebrated this weekend. We didn't get to light fireworks, attend a bbq, or see a parade but we had a lovely holiday.  We saw an absolutely gorgeous sunset, saw some of the most beautiful creations on this earth, listened to our Lee Greenwood's "American Patriot" cd and thoroughly enjoyed singing along to all those great patriotic songs, and we even caught a few illegal fireworks in the sky as we drove along in the dark. (We got home around 12:15 early Monday morning.)

The Glen Canyon Dam is so incredible to drive over. It is breath taking!!! The lake is so pretty too. We were going to take some pictures from the dam but didn't get a chance. Saturday night poor Brian was hit with the virus the rest of us had had during the week. It made Sunday's 3 deliveries interesting and the poor guy had to suffer through it while being in a car most of the day. He said he was glad I went with him since he really needed my help. I was so happy to be able to!!!  Can you believe I backed a boat trailer in the water while he loaded the boat on?!
 
Steph and J.J. let us take their Yukon on the trip instead of the truck Brian usually takes. It was so roomy and nice and we are so grateful to them for being so thoughtful and generous as always!!! We are just praying they don't get this virus! NOT FUN STUFF!!!

After taking this fun little trip I have decided that one of these years I want to take a trip across Utah. I want to not have a single agenda. I want to just go where our curiosity leads us. I want to stop at antique stores, and little museums, and tourist attractions along the way. I want to know the story of that big ol' bell in one of those little towns we drove through. And that cute church! I want to know it's story! I want to see the handmade porcelain dolls and stop at Cove Fort again and go to Jabob Hamblin's home, and stop at pioneer museums.  I want to stop at scenic overlooks and eat at mom and pop joints. I want to hike. I want to put my feet in rivers and swim in lakes. I want to sleep in mountains and go to Lagoon. I want to eat cheese curd from that cheese factory. I want to EXPERIENCE this gorgeous state!  There is so much to offer here! We can't afford to go to Europe or New York or even to Lagoon this year but I had so much fun just experiencing a bit more of this great state. I look forward to exploring it more  some day.  Hopefully we'll have a truck and camp trailor by then and we can just sleep where ever the road takes us. Just take it easy and relaxed and just ENJOY!! Wouldn't that be FUN!!!!

All Mom's Should Watch This!!!

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=bd163ca6e9aa3210VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&locale=0

I'm the first bomb to go off...

I woke up this morning and sure enough I have the virus.  Not fun!!!  The worst of it is pretty much over now.  Thank goodness.  Of course I have a LOT of catching up to do on the house work. It never ceases to amaze me how much more work I have to do after missing a day.  Tomorrow is going to be super fun!!!!  :)

A couple of thoughts...

>My apologies to everyone at my mom's church building Sunday who will probably get the stomach virus Gracie had.  She was just playing and normal and happy and then suddenly blew chunks all over the floor during Sacrament Meeting.   This falls under the "Least favorite motherhood moments" category of my life!!! We all have them!!!  Crazy how fast that came on.  Who knew!?! Matthew got it too. The rest of us are ticking time bombs...
>Gracie is in that super fun stage where she throws random things in the garbage all the time. Yesterday morning I was sitting at the computer and within 15 minutes she threw away her empty bottle, a set of toy keys, and one of her sandals. She just waltzed up to the garbage can and threw them away as if it was the most normal thing in the world.  Heaven only knows what she has thrown out when we weren't looking!

Hooray!!! I found the floor!!!!

My kids were so incredibly helpful when we moved in here.  They were so excited to see all of their toys that had been in storage for 8 months and they couldn't contain the excitement!  I begged, pleaded, commanded them not to unload boxes.  I have a system that works really well for me and I wanted to follow it the way I have followed it each of the 16 times we have moved.  Of course, they didn't listen. They unloaded box after box of everything imaginable looking for their beloved toys.  There was crap strung everywhere!!!  As if unpacking, organizing, D.I. piling with 4 kids, baseball and soccer season, summer break, no dishwasher with 6 people and making 3 at home meals a day, a clingy, confused 1 year old who also got an ear infection and has been getting molars wasn't challenging enough!  Now you add crap strung everywhere to the mix and it was bad!  Very, very...bad!  You know how when you move it's best to have a place where you can pile all the boxes and such so that you can kind of gradually unload one box at a time and have some organization to the madness.  In Salem we used the garage as this area.  Here we don't have a garage and apparently we live in a wind tunnel these days so we can't leave anything out on the carport so we just had to make due with having random piles of boxes strewn throughout the house.  My favorite!!  Well the dining room became the biggest area of craziness.  Tons of boxes were being stored there.  The kids unloaded the most crap there.  It was a danger zone!!!  Early last week I found the table.  It was so exciting!  We were having our first corn on the cob of the season and you have to have a table for corn on the cob!  Yesterday I actually found the floor of the rest of the dining room.  I have widdled it down to like 10 boxes in that room and they are stacked neatly to one side and I could even vacuum the wonderful, ugly carpet!  I feel like a new woman!!!  I have been telling Brian that I think those horders on t.v. just moved during baseball and soccer season and just never found the time to finally get the last of their crap unpacked and then life happened and it just got worse and worse until their houses just became a mess of junk they never had time to get to.  I can't handle living in clutter and mess.  We always live in places that are too small for us and it's hard to keep up with them but I HATE living in disorder!  I am a perfectionist!  I absolutely LOVE organization!!!  So living in a crazy mess in a basement for 8 months was just TOO much and the slow process this organizing, unpacking thing has been here was just about to put me over the edge!!!  But I found the floor!!!!! I.found.the.floor!!!  I feel so much better now!  I don't feel like those crazy horders anymore!!! It's awesome!!!!   I like our house more and more each day! I LoVe the feeling of US that we have here!  Sure cosmetically there are some kind of crazy things. For instance, there are holes in the ugly green carpet and your knees touch the bathroom cabinet when you're on the throne, and the 90 year old kitchen carpet made me want to hurl but you have to look at the positive things.  If we have a stomach virus where it's coming from both ends we're set!  Grosse I know!  And luckily we have a huge carpet remnant that we used in Salem that covers most of the floor in the kitchen so I don't have to be grossed out constantly over that!  The front yard is great!  The size of the living room is great! The ward is great!  The huge 2 car carport is great!  Having storage space in the cellar is great so we don't have to rent a storage unit. It really is a great little place for our little family.  Like Brian said,"If love grows best in little houses, we're really going to love each other!!!"

Happy Birthday Brian!!!!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband Brian!!!!  I love you!!! I hope you feel loved today!!!!!!!
P.S. This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Brian. This picture of him holding Matty when he was 2 is just precious! Even Superman needs his Daddy sometimes!!!   :)

Facebook virus warning..

Most of you know that I am truly addicted to Facebook! It has been such a fun way to get in touch with old friends I had growing up in Dodge City, Kansas, and from high school in Utah. It has been super great catching up with some of my relatives that I haven't talked with for a long time.
I used to LOVE playing Farmville and Farm Town. It was so fun to play. Well, in January Brian got me a mini laptop for my birthday. It has been so much fun!! Well, I got a virus on it from Facebook. I also got a virus on our PC from Facebook.   They seemed to be a total loss until Brian was able to do some research on the internet using a different computer and found the instructions for restoring the computers. THANK GOODNESS IT WORKED!!! It seemed to happen when I was on Farmville but I wasn't sure. I continued to do Farmville and it happened AGAIN to our PC. I immediately stopped using Farmville and it seemed to be just fine for me to use Facebook. Well, one day I was opening an email from Facebook that was one of the comments that was made from someone else on a post that I had "liked". It immediately gave my computer a virus.  Yeah...a virus...from Facebook...through my EMAIL!!! Not a happy camper!!! My sister, Dana and her son, Anthony, and my brother in law Chris, have all contracted viruses from Facebook on their computers.Well, I just have such a hard time getting over this addiction so I continued to use Facebook. Last night I was just reading people's posts on Facebook and then exited it and I got the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death", which is usually irreversible and means your computer is just.plain.DEAD!! Well, I immediately turned off the computer and some how it didn't kill my computer. It some how stopped the virus from completely attacking the hard drive. THANK HEAVENS!!! Well, I LOVE Facebook, but I also like actually having a computer that works so I can blog and surf the internet. I'm trying so hard to stay off of Facebook today so I don't take the chance of getting another virus. The withdrawals are tough but I'm sure eventually I will get over it...  :(    So long Facebook buddies! Thanks for the laughs, the tears, the fun! Thanks for the memories........


By the way:  We have virus protection.  AVG.  At the college they have the some of the best virus protection you can buy and an email was sent around a while back saying that the Facebook viruses had penetrated their system.  Apparently virus protection isn't a guarantee!!!

Beautiful things...

-So yesterday we splurged and took the kids to the matinee showing of Toy Story 3. It was so good!!! We all just love the Toy Story movies and I was a bit nervous that the 3rd wouldn't be as good as the rest but it was so great!  I'm such a bawl baby that I cried.  Everyone knows the premise of the movie is that Andy grows up and goes to college and the toys are donated to a daycare. Well, it made me really sad to think about my own boys growing up and going to college and not needing their toys anymore. Their toys drive me crazy! They have TOO MANY and I just can't stand all the clutter that goes along with all of those toys. I've been taking a lot of them to D.I. these last weeks and feel like I need to take even more! After watching Toy Story 3 I have a new perspective on the toys. I still need to get rid of more of them but they are a really wonderful part of the kids' childhoods. Another thing I should just enjoy while it lasts!!!
-It's been so wonderful to be in our own home again and to feel more relaxed with the kids and get back to just being US! It's amazing how much different the family unit works when you have your own place to relax and enjoy each other! Our kids are the best and I am so happy to be their mom! They bring me so much joy and happiness! I love feeling like I can slow down and take the time to notice their individual personalities and gifts and what brings them joy. It's so fun to be able to laugh at their cuteness and just breathe easier and not have to worry so much! Freedom and space and boys and babies and motherhood are BEAUTIFUL things!!! 
-Happy Father's Day to the wonderful dads in my life. To my amazing husband who loves his kids so much and finds so much joy in them! It's fun to be living the parenting dream with such a great man! Each of our children has wrapped him around their little finger and Gracie is no different. Maybe wrapped the tightest yet!!! I have loved watching his interaction with our kids over these past 10 years! He has been so hands on and involved and wonderful! Our kids ADORE him and it makes me so happy to watch him with them! He's awesome and I love him! I also want to wish Stan and my brothers and brothers in law Happy Father's Day!!! It's a wonderful thing to watch the men I know as they father their beautiful children. They are so involved and nurturing and loving and kind.

Happy Father's Day, all!!!

You deserve a wonderful day!!!

Another of Holly's thoughts...

There comes a time in life when you have to let go of all the pointless drama & the people who create it & surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus solely on the good. After all, life is too short to be anything but happy....

For more of her the great quotes she posts on Facebook, that I just love, check out my post entitled Loveliness on March 31. 

It's a gorgeous day here!!! Yesterday the wind blew like MAD!  It was cloudy and gray.  Today...blue sky, no wind, warm and lovely.  Enjoy the day!!! Be HAPPY!!!I'm gonna!!!

I posted a ton of posts on my Word From The Zoo blog!!!! Check it out!!!!

AAAHHH!!!

~It seems the older I get the better it feels to crawl into my bed at night.  When I was a kid I HATED crawling into my bed when the sheets are cold.  Now I LOVE how that feels!   It soothes my aching knees and the muscles in my legs. It's the BEST!!!
~Today is Zack's last baseball game of the season.  His coach (Andy) is so awesome!  He's wonderful with the boys.  The game the other night was intense.  This was a rival team and the coach and team REALLY wanted the win bad!!! The coach isn't usually driven by that but this game was different.  They tied and had to play an inning in overtime.  INTENSE!!  Zack's team won by 3 points!!!  I have no idea what Andy said to the team during the game but he is usually really positive with them no matter what but apparently he said something he wasn't feeling good about because he apologized to the kids and was so great with them.  I was so glad to have heard that because it just made me even happier that he was our boys coach.  We were already so impressed with him after the coach Zack had last year.  Sure, they took 2nd in the division and made it to the state tournament so he was a "good coach".  But he was such a jerk to the boys and especially his son.  His poor son (the pitcher) SOBBED for at least 15 minutes after they were eliminated in the state tournament.  I looked at that poor boy, with the weight of the world on his poor little shoulders, and realized at that moment that I NEVER want to put that kind of pressure on my children with sports or anything else in this life.  Andy would NEVER do that to a child and I am so grateful Zack had such a great guy coaching him this year!  They are playing for 3rd place in the division today.  Last night was a fun skills competition and Zack's team won the "around the horn" event.  So fun!!! They had a BBQ with brats and burgers.  Course we were sweltering at the game on Thursday and it was in the 50s with strong wind and some rain last night.  Fun times!!  Zack's team has played 22 games since April and, as much fun as it has been wrestling a baby girl in the car most of the games because of cold, windy weather I am glad it is coming to an end.  It has been awesome watching him play and watching the team progress and everything but it will be nice to say goodbye to baseball season until next spring.  It won't be completely over until Max finishes tball and Matty finishes soccer at the end of the month but no more, 2 games a night, so that will be a relief!!!
~It's amazing how calming a priesthood blessing can be to the soul!!! It's just wonderful! I am so grateful that my husband honors his priesthood and can give us blessings when we need them!!!

IT'S ROUGH!!!

So when life gets really rough I have to count my blessings so that I don't let the negativity take over, so, here goes (in no particular order)....

I am thankful for:
blue skies
HOT summer days
seeing friends for the first time in 5 years
brown eyed baby girls
watching my kids run through the sprinklers
having a clean bathroom
the rubbermaid tote we found in our cellar that is FULL of novels
bbqs
Max's big blue eyes against his green tball hat
feeling the spirit
being married to my best friend
my wonderful brother in law, JJ. All I can say is I'm sorry you had to get hurt in this after you were being so generous and kind and thoughtful and good.  It breaks my heart!!!
ice cold Cherry Coke
Mississippi Mud Cake
AND...
last but not least
air conditioning!!!!

Rocks

Our boys LOVE rocks!! They have very extensive "rock collections" that consist mainly of random river rocks they have found in our yards over the years.  I finally convinced Zack that he needs to try to stick to "special" rocks for his collection like geodes or a rock that is shaped like something cool or that he found somewhere fun or that has some sort of meaning to him before we ended up with 10 tons of river rock in our house.

When we went to Zion's National Park a few years ago with our friends John and Jan, they let their sons each pick a special rock while we were there to have as their souvenir for the trip.  She said they pick a rock everywhere they go and they write the place and the date on it to remember the trip.  Now that's my kind of souvenir...FREE!!! 

Well, yesterday they were having a FREE "Rock and Fossil Show" at the college.  We decided to take the kids to it.  They LOVED it!!  We actually enjoyed it a lot too.  It turned out it was really a sale. It was set up like a craft show is where tables are set up with crafts to buy but there just were tons of rocks and fossils for sale.  It was still fun to see all of the neat different types of rocks and fossils. 

Zack really enjoys geodes.  He used his allowance to buy a geode. It was actually quite cool!! You buy the geode as a solid rock (his cost $4) then the guy puts it in some sort of hydrolic jack that has blades on the top and bottom and it breaks the geode open and you get to see the coolness of the inside. Of course each one is different on the inside.  His is really neat!  My Grandma Zickefoose liked geodes and rose rocks and things and I just couldn't help but think of her and how neat she would have thought that was.

 Matthew is totally into sharks so he bought a large shark tooth with his money.  Max got a star fish.  Anyway, it was fun, free entertainment that the whole family enjoyed.

Not MEEE!!!

As I've mentioned before, I have many ghost children roaming around my house.  I have to say the most annoying ghost child, by far, HAS to be the one my children have dubbed; Not MEEE!!!  I tell ya, he is SOOO naughty!!! He wreaks havoc on this place like none other!  When I get my hands on that little bugger,  ooooeeeeee is he going to get it!!!!!

Time.........

~Yesterday was a gorgeous day!  The sun was shining brightly.  It was warm.  And the wind only lightly breezed by a few times.  I love days like that!!!
~I'm still unpacking.  Brian and Zack brought over the last of our things in storage yesterday so I don't have to worry about adding more to the mix, which is a HUGE relief!!!  This place is bulging at the seams.  I've already taken out something like 5 boxes of things we are getting rid of which is nice but there is still so much more.  Our boys have always LOVED dressing up in costumes. They are so cute!  You never know "who" is going to walk in the room.  As I've been unpacking and organizing and sorting I've run across many of the cute little costumes our boys have always loved dressing up in. Of course Matthew and Max were so excited to see them again after being away from them for the last 8 months.  They put them right on and much to my surprise and both of our disappointment...they have grown too big for most of them.  I knew they were growing like weeds this year but I had no idea just how much until now.  It's sad that they are growing up so quickly.  It's wonderful that each new phase brings new joy and excitement for them and for us.  It's so exciting to watch them grow and change and progress in so very many different ways.  I'm a little scared of what the future brings.  It's kind of a crap shoot.  You raise your kids the way you believe you should and some of them turn out great and others...not so much.  There is no secret.  There is no magic potion or formula that will ensure that they will turn out the way you hope they will.  I have seen so many people that have been very good, decent, people and they raise all of their kids in the same way, in the same home and each result is different.  I just hope and pray that our children will turn out to be happy, good, kind, decent, loving, family oriented, successful, spiritual, productive, honorable, upstanding, members of this world we live in.  They are growing so fast.  I hope we are doing it right.  I hope they are taking the good things from life.  I hope they hold onto the good things of their childhood and not the bad.  I hope I can try harder to enjoy the moments before it's too late and they are grown and the opportunity is gone.  I see my nephews and nieces and I can't believe how quickly they have grown.  I blinked and they are all in their late teens/early twenties.  Some are parents.  I just can't believe how fast time flies by.  I want to capture this time somehow and remember it forever.  Everyone that is past this stage tells us to savor the time, enjoy it more, it goes too fast, don't let it slip by without taking time to just ENJOY.  I'm trying.  Really, I am.  Sometimes LIFE gets in the way and time slips away a little more and I stop and think, wait! Hold up! SLOW DOWN!!!  Crazy how it doesn't.  It just goes by faster.  One thing that might help is to take more pictures.  The more kids I have, the fewer pictures I take.  Too busy taking care of everyone to think about capturing the moments.  If I do though I will at least have the pictures to look back on and help me remember this time after it's gone.  Scrapbooking is so great for this.  I should do it more often.  If you scrapbook you are thinking all the time of the scrapbook and what moments you want to capture in their books forever and you take more time to really look for those special, sweet moments to capture on film.  I am so grateful that our children are so healthy and can grow and flourish.  I wouldn't want it any other way.  I will ENJOY this time more and appreciate it more and try harder to make this time more enjoyable for all of us!!!!

Randomness...

~So, Brian and Zack spent the morning moving stuff from our storage unit to our house. It is such a tedious process seeing as how we don't have a truck and have to use the van with the back seats taken out. Well, they put everything on the driveway under the carport thinking we could look through things there and decide whether it needed to be taken in the house or stored in the cellar.  After a while we got sick of sorting and decided to go to Walmart for some much needed supplies. When we got back home we discovered that the STUPID wind had blown over my "special" box of memories from high school, etc.  Most of the contents had blown all over the driveway and across the street into the big open field that is surrounded by a barb wire fence. Luckily Brian was able to carefully lift Matthew over the fence and he collected everything he could find and Brian carefully lifted him back over the fence.  I am SOOOOO incredibly sick and tired of WIND!!!  First it was super cold wind. We have watched most of Zack's baseball games from the van where we wrestle Gracie. I don't want her out in that bitter wind!  Now it's fierce wind that's warm. I don't care what the temperature of the wind is....I...HATE...WIND!!! It reminds me of growing up in Kansas. I loved growing up in Kansas but I don't miss the wind!!! 
~I feel I should offer my condolences to my friend Emily. I hear her super fun, fellow Santaquin resident, Gary Coleman, has passed away. I am sure she'll miss his tirades and all that positive publicity he brought to the community.  ;)  HeHeHe  May he rest in peace...
~I'm wondering if the chick I saw today in town that rats her hair up in the back so that it makes sort of a tiara shaped ratty mound on top of her head, thinks she's a princess.  I think I would rather see her walking around with an actual tiara on her head than that mess. I know I am no beauty queen and certainly no princess but even I know that that looks ridiculous!!  I do think it is an improvement over the ratty, box on the head shaped mess people were doing for a while there, though. 
~There are tons of lizards (or maybe just the same creepy one) in our back yard. The boys are in HEAVEN!! They have had more fun chasing lizards the past few days.  I'm cool with them chasing them, touching them, holding them, whatever, but I about jumped out of my skin the other day when my nephew brought one in the house!!!  And when I took the garbage out and one scurried across the ground in front of me.  Shiver, shiver!!
~Just a little tip for the people at the dentist office...if you have like 12 patients in the building at the same time and there is only one dentist working...you MAY have overbooked.  I'm just sayin an hour and a half to glue Max's crown back on was a bit excessive!!!
~Have I mentioned how much I HATE moving?! We move so much you would think it is our favorite pass time but, no we really, really hate it! It's GLORIOUS to be in our own place again but I can't stand the state of disarray the house is in while we are trying to figure out where to put everything.  All the craziness going on in our lives right now and the every day duties of a mother with 4 kids that are all home for summer vacation keeps me busy enough!  This putting the house together thing feels like it is taking FOREVER!!!  Especially with my kids destroying all progress I seem to make as soon as I make it.  I told Brian the next time we move we better be able to eat out a lot because trying to cook for 6 people and clean up after 6 people with no dishwasher while trying to get a handle on this place is just TOO much!!! 
~June is going to be very interesting around here. It will be fun too but more than a little crazy. Zack is in baseball and has been since April, Matthew is in soccer, and Max is in Tball.  There is one game or another almost every night of the week in June. Sometimes there are 2 games a night. Sometimes both at the same time. I know many of you deal with the same thing.  My sypathies...jk.  It really is fun to see the kids having so much fun and progressing and succeeding at something they love so much. I just hope the weather in June is better than the weather in May has been so the games will be more fun to watch!!  I think May and June are busier than November and December are for us at this point in our lives. Crazy times but oh so fun!!!!  We love it and we LOVE our kids!!!  I'm planning to post some fun pictures on my Word From The Zoo blog soon. If anyone doesn't have an invite to it since it's a private blog feel free to request an invite from me.  Just give me your email address.  I just like to control who sees it so some wierdo from some crazy far off land isn't looking at pictures of my babies.  I once had several of those show up on my feedjit and that made me go private with the blog.  Anyway, I hope everyone is having a fun summer vacation so far. Hopefully soon the weather will actually act like summer so we can all enjoy all the really fun parts of summer!!!

Finally....

We FINALLY found a house to rent here. It's taken us such a long time to find a house. It's hard to find a house to rent when you have a large family and no one wants to rent to that many people.  We also ran into an interesting situation where people offered the home owners $200 more a month than what they were asking because the market is so tight for rentals here that people are desperate!

The house we found is right by the highway but it has a fenced front yard so hopefully the kids won't wander off and get run over...I'm a worrier... I'm sure they'll be just fine! It's old and outdated on the inside but some of the things I like least about the house (for example: bright orange carpet in one of the bedrooms) are the things the kids love most about it (Matthew begged for that room because he thinks that carped ROCKS!!!). 

I am SO looking forward to having our own place and being our own family again. It's been some of the hardest 8 months of our lives living here, which was especially difficult after coming from our last place we lived where we were so darn happy! I am looking forward to being in our own environment where joy is encouraged and inspired. I am so grateful for my precious family and look forward to everyone being able to be the free little amazing spirits they used to be.

Money will be quite tight. We are spending about $250 more a month on rent than what we planned which is so much better than the $400-$600 extra we were afraid we would have to spend.  We aren't going to have internet and cable for a while. Yes...you heard me right...just as the boys are getting out of school for summer vacation...how will we EVER survive?! I'm going to try using the internet at the library (thanks for the tip Emily). We may have to get rid of our cell phones. Yes...you heard me right...how will I ever survive?!  Brian is positively THRILLED with the idea! He HATES having a cell phone! Weird, I know, but I still love him.  He never has his ringer on if he even bothers to take the stupid thing with him anyway. I can't tell you how many times he hasn't known I called because the stupid ringer was off. Or how many times I have gone to call him and it has started ringing in the house where he left it. That's my favorite! So he found this super great package deal where you get a home phone/landline, internet, and cable for the same price we are paying for our cell phones now.....grEAt...NOT!!! I just want to have both...like normal people...this is a tougher decision than one might think. Oh, well. Life could be worse.  At least we'll have a roof over our heads, food to eat, you know the basics that really do matter more than cell phones and cable and INTERNET. In the grand scheme of things this is really not a problem. It could definitely be worse. For example...we could have to live here longer........I'm giving up internet, cable, cell phones, haircuts and color, having any new clothes,  going anywhere that costs money EVER, I would even eat ramen every day if that means we can be done with the loveliness of living here any longer!!! 

So anyhoo, that's the scoop and now you know why I haven't been on here much lately (scrambling to find an apartment after getting kicked out of my mother-in-law's house through a note on Mother's Day night has taken up all my extra time along with all the end of the school year festivities and activities and Zack's baseball tournament this week and all the other fun things we've had going on) and why I probably won't be on much for a while.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father! We have been desperately searching for all this time for a place to live and now that we HAD to find a place or live in the gutter, one magically appeared. It was the only one in town available. There weren't any listed in the paper, KSL.com, no for rent signs on houses that we drove by in 4 towns up and down every street, and it was the only one out of all the realty offices in town that was available. We got it in the nic of time since someone else looked at it that night. We are blessed and happy to finally have a house to live in. So looking forward to that!!!!!!

I seem to have misplaced my magic wand...

UGGGHHH!!!!