This and That

We have been in San Antonio now for six months, two months in our rental house (we lived with our friends for four months), and it still doesn't feel like home.  We were in Vancouver/Portland for 14 years so I think it will take some time.

A few things I have noticed:

*The trees are ALL as tall as a two story house and lots of them don't even look like trees, just overgrown bushes on steroids.
*There are no gutters on the houses so you walk out your front door and through a waterfall.

*There are no drains for the rain water to go into.  The water either floods the street or it flows to a huge drain randomly placed between houses.

 

*Drivers here don't know what a Yeild sign means.
*Driver licenses expire in 6 years.
*Instead of registration stickers going onto the license plate, they're put on the inside windshield of the drivers side.

*There are no major landmarks (like Mt Hood) to know if you're heading North, South, East or West so I'm constantly turned around.
*You can make a U-turn at almost any major intersection, I love it!

I have started working for an older couple as a CNA.  The woman had a stroke in January.  I go every morning for a few hours to get her ready for the day and then go back in the evening to get her ready for bed.  I absolutely love this couple!  We have been the answer to each others prayers.  It drained all of our money to move down here, who knew there would be so many deposits and fees?!, so it has truly been a blessing for me to pick up a few hours of work.

For the most part, Doug is enjoying his time working for Pepsi.  He especially loves the discounted price on soda!  We attended a company picnic two Saturdays ago and had so much fun.  They had games for both the adults and kids, face painting, a clown making balloon sculptures, chair massage, free food and drinks.  Towards the end of the night we played BINGO and Olivia won $50.  I should have kept track of how much money they gave away but if I had to guess, I'd say it was around $700-$1000. Doug was saying he heard talk of a Christmas party with big ticket items they'll be giving away.  We'll definitely be there!!!

In church, I've been given the calling of 4th Sunday Relief Society teacher.  That's a huge change from YW President and I love it.  Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed working with the youth but I love only having to teach once in a while.  Doug was just called as an Assistant to the Wolf leader in Cub Scouts.  I think he'll like it.

We do Sunday dinners with the Walker's and each week (or close to that) we take turns inviting another family over for dinner.  It's been fun to finally get to know some more families.  It's a really young ward with lots of people moving in and out; lots of military and internships.  This is something that I had wanted to do back in Vancouver but never quite got around to it.  Plus, it helps having another family doing the meals every other Sunday.

It's not set in stone, meaning they haven't signed the contract yet, but I have the opportunity to help a young couple in the ward with a home birth.  Her husband is from Beaveton, Oregon and his sister was in my primary class many years ago when I used to live there as a child.  The doctor that delivered him was the doctor who helped me with the twins.  It's such a small world!  I'm super excited to be working with them.  I just pray that it will work out well with my other job. :)

Fun in the sun

The kids are enjoying the sun.  They can get pretty creative with the sheets and jungle gym.

When we first got here, I couldn't find the kids' birth certificates and SS cards so I couldn't register them for public school.  The whole way down they kept hounding me to home school them (Leslie home schools her kids) so I decided to as well.  Doug ended up finding the documents in storage a few day later but the kids really wanted to keep home schooling.  So far it's going really well.  I had tried home schooling a few years back but it didn't go so well.  I had to check in with the state every month and twice a week had to drive the kids to the Parsley Center so they could go to "school" with other home schooled kids.  The kids weren't thriving and I was stressed and really didn't enjoy it.

This next year, I was looking forward to having the kids in school all day, having a few hours a day for myself.  This was a hard decision for me but by not being able to find the papers right away, I felt that was an answer to my prayers.  Shannon has struggled so much in school, learning is not her thing and she has to have an IEP (individual education plan).  Although she's in 7th grade, her learning level is the 4th grade level.  I was having to go in every year and sit with couselors to go over the plan for the following year and to see how she's progressed throughout the current school year.  I always felt deflated at the end of those meetings, like somehow it was my fault she wasn't progressing they way they felt she needed to be progressing.

So far, this new school year has started out great. I still sometimes wish I had more time during the day just for myself but it is nice having the kids home and not having to worry about school lunches and activities.  If I need to run an errand, the older kids are home to watch the younger ones, which makes things real nice.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it continues to work out well.

Day 8

*In the morning, Doug went out and bought some groceries so we could have breakfast.  Since it was a kitchenette room, we had to fend for ourselves.
*After breakfast we went to buy some things to have for lunch later, then we were off.

The sign shortly after we got back on the road.

I have never seen a speed limit like this!  Too bad we couldn't actually go that fast.  Darn you moving truck! 

Another cool rock formation.

*Finally arrived in San Antonio around dinner time!

Day 7

*Enjoyed another complimentary breakfast.

*Headed out for Texas.

*Missed our exit and drove an hour passed where we needed to be. I called Leslie to have her help us get going back in the right direction. Thankfully we had passed a town 20 minutes earlier so we turned around, stopped for lunch, and mapped out our new route.

*Decided to stay the night in Fort Stockton to split up the last leg of the drive.

*Because of the detour, we drove on some interesting roads to get back on the main road. It was a pretty boring drive over all.

(lots of this)

(and this)

(our view the majority of the trip)

*Arrived in Fort Stockton and got a nice kitchenette room

Day 6

* Had a great complimentary breakfast. I love how hotels are starting to do that now. So much better than just coffee, donuts, and muffins. Now there's eggs, biscuits and gravy, juices, pancakes, etc.

* Let the kids swim some more in the morning while Doug took the U-haul trailer back. Don't ever go through U-haul! They would not refund any of our money back because we didn't go all the way to Texas with it. Plus they wanted to charge us a service fee for dropping it off at a different location, which Doug refused to pay.

* On our way to Albuquerque. That was a LONG drive.

(cool rocks we saw)

(not the whole in the rock the previous picture was talking about :) )

* Arrived around 1am to stay in a Best Western. We were so tired. It was a cool room though. I've never stayed in a suite. The kids slept in one room that had the hide-a-bed and Doug and I had the other room that had a king sized bed. We had a glass door that separated the rooms.

(enjoying the nice flat screen TV before we left in the morning)

Day 5

Monday morning

*Called Penske in SLC to say we were coming in and they said we needed to call the emergency line and have them arrange things

*Doug calls and they said they needed to send out the mechanic again to look at things AGAIN and they had to send out a different guy to look at the tires (who said that the tires were fine)

*Same mechanic comes out and says there's a radiator leak and transmission leak

*Penske then tells us they will put us up in a hotel while they switch out our moving truck

*We have time to kill so the kids go to a pool and spend some time with their cousins

*We're then off to SLC

*Stop at Uncle Joe and Aunt Wanda's to say hi and get directions to the Penske yard

*Arrive at Penske, leave the old moving truck there while three men unload it and re-load our things into the new moving truck. They loaded the new truck properly and were able to get all the things out of the U-haul trailer I was pulling and into the new truck

(Shan playing with the camera. You can see the trailer I'm pulling in the background)

*While the men were busy with the trucks we went and had dinner with some friends of ours

*After dinner we checked into a hotel, the Holiday Inn Express. We chose this because it had a water slide for the kids

*Kids and moms played in the water while Doug and Pat went to get the moving truck since it was done

(pictures are dark because my flash doesn't work)

heading up to the water slide

playing on the kiddie structure

*Bedtime

Day 4

*Sunday was a very relaxing day
*Slept in
*Hung out with family
*Had family pictures taken
*Hung out with family some more, ate yummy food and played games.

Our little nephew wasn't feeling well so his parents decided to take him to urgent care. He's four weeks old. They were told to go to the ER right away. After a few hours waiting in ER he was diagnosed with RSV. ***He ended up having to stay in the hospital for a few days but is home now and doing well.***

Day 3

*We left Caldwell around 11:30am
*Stopped in Burley for lunch and tried to fix an issue that a warning light was telling us about
*Got to I.F. at 5:15pm
*We had dinner with Julie and her family, David and his family minus Holly, James and his family and Richard and Amber (and with the parents of course)
*Doug called Penske about the light on since he couldn't get it fixed. They sent out a contracted mechanic to take a look. He said the truck had bad tires, too hot of an exhaust and a transmission leak. We were told we needed to go to SLC on Monday for the repairs. It was Saturday and we were planning on leaving Monday anyway.
*The rest of the evening we hung out and played games

Day 2

Doug and Dad up at 6am
U-haul trailer picked up at 7am for the stuff that couldn't fit into the moving truck
D & D back to the house to finish loading our things
Both of them back to pick us up
Said goodbye to the folks (so hard and many tears)
Finally on the road at noon
Had to stop by FedEx to pick up Doug's paycheck and turn in his uniform
Took 9 hrs to get to Caldwell, Idaho when it usually take 6 (moving truck could only go up the hills at 35 mph)
Went and saw The Hunger Games with our friends Melanie and Trevor (we stayed the night at their house)
Got to bed at 1:30am

New Big Adventure-Day 1

Went to bed the night before with it snowing outside
Woke up to snow on everything
Took Shannon to her dentist appointment
Kids had 2 hour late start due to the snow
Dad and Doug show up with the moving truck and carrier for the van
They do a dump and DI pod run
Packing, packing and more packing (I had thought I was almost done but things kept jumping out of the woodwork)
First helpers show up
Start loading boxes into the truck
More people show up to help
Lots of loading
Mom takes the kids to her house
Truck is almost too full, was told not everything will fit
Had to leave and get pizza because I was starting to freak out
After eating, a few more things were loaded and the help goes home
Said good-bye to one of my bestest friend, Marissa, and her family
Loaded the van up and onto the trailer
I left and went to my parents house where we were all staying for the last night in Vancouver
Dad and Doug finished with the van and went home to rest
It was midnight when Doug climbed into bed

WHAT?!?!

Yikes, I'm actually blogging! It's been 1 1/2 years since I last wrote. That's so sad. Looks like I also need to update some pictures. Unfortunately this is just a teaser since I don't have much time to write at the moment, story of my life. I promise though to write more within the next week....so stay tuned. :)

First day of school

Today is the first day of school. I now have two 5th graders and a kindergartener. Yikes where has the time gone?

(heading out to catch the bus)





(waiting her turn to go into class. She got the same teacher Shan had last year which is great since we loved her.)

Mt. Adams

I've been so bad with journaling so this is an attempt to catch up a little. This is going to be a long entry so feel free to read on but I won't be offended if you just look at the pictures. :)

There are some advantages to being the YW president. Not only am I able to get to know some great youth, I get to participate in things I normally wouldn't have. The end of June (24-26) was Dance Festival. Along with going to the practices, I volunteered to help at the actual festival. One day I worked a few hours in the girls changing tent during the dress rehearsal. The next day I helped during the lunch time. At that time, Sis. Cook, 1st counselor in the YW General Presidency was there and I was able to get a picture with her and hear her speak. Watching the festival was amazing. There were seven different stakes there with over 2,000 youth and it was fantastic.

July 9-10 I took part in climbing Mt. Adams. There were a total of 11 youth and nine adults. My pack weighed 40 lbs. The water is what made it so heavy. I was carrying 5 liters, 2 liters for the climb up, 2 for the summit and one for coming back down. The climb started out fairly gentle on a dirt path with some melting patches of snow. It was a warm day, the weather was beautiful and it didn't take too long to get hot, sweaty and thirsty. We left as a group around 1:15 and soon after that you could tell who was going to struggle. I had to stop twice at the beginning to apply moleskin to an already forming blister. Not a good sign. We had to rent our boots, cramp-ons and pickax so we all were wearing shoes we weren't used to. But after puting on the moleskin and using duct tape, we were on our way again.

The climb up to the lunch counter(where we were going to be spending the night) was hard. We didn't have very long with the dirt paths before it became all snow. Because of all the snow, we basically went straight up the mountain rather than a gradual accent with switchbacks. I didn't like to stop very often because I didn't like how I felt once I had to get going again, so I tried to rest as little as possible and took it at a gentle pace. There were a few places where I'd take 20 steps and rest for 5 seconds then take 20 more and rest again and only once did I have to take my pack off.

By 7:30 I finally made it to the lunch counter where the first section of our group was already starting to set up camp. I had been in the middle of the pack and the girl I was sharing a tent with was clear at the back. It was another hour before she showed up with someone else carrying her pack.

We put on warmer clothes, it was cooling down very quickly, set up our tents and climbed inside to warm up and get ready for the next day. I hardly slept that night. Soon after putting on my warm pants, I discovered I had forgotten to put sunscreen on the small portion of my exposed legs and I got sunburned. The ground was extremely hard, I had no pillow, my muscles were starting to feel the strain of the climb and the minute I laid down, it was as if I got an instant cold and I couldn't breath out of my nose anymore.

(the view from the lunch counter, looking up to the first summit. The very top summit is beyond that)

Around 7am people were starting to stir and I was feeling restless so I started to get ready for phase two of the climb. It was quickly obvious to me that I might not make it all the way to the top. I had no energy and wasn't feeling very well (two of the youth had gotten altitude sickness the night before). It turned out that four youth stayed behind. We all got our cramp-ons on, pick axes in hand and our small back packs on with only water and a bit of food and we were off. The second part was much harder than the first. Because I was so weak, it was much slower going. There was a time I got real worried that I was going to be sick. I soon caught up with a group that had to stop and re-adjust their cramp-ons and they fell in behind me and offered encouraging words and chatted the rest of the way up. I kept telling myself, just another step, deep breath, sip of water, keep going and eventually we got to the first summit. From there you could glissade back down the mountain or continue up to the top. There was just no way I had enough energy to climb another two hours to the top and then get back down. The Granges, who had been behind me, decided to keep going while I waited for the last two, who were way behind me, to get to where I was.

(At the first summit, just over 11,000 feet)

(Looking down at the climbers from the top of the first summit)

(Mt Hood in the distance)

(Looking up from the first summit to the top of Mt. Adams)

Once Haley and Linda finally reached the first summit where I was, they had a quick rest and then we took our cramp-ons off and prepared to slide down the mountain. I was thinking this was going to be the best part but I was totally wrong. I let Linda go first, then Haley, thinking that Haley could go between the adults in case anything happened to her, one of us could help. So they take off down the hill and I sit down on the slide and start off. Immediatley I notice that it's not going to be as fun as I thought. The pants I was wearing weren't your regular ski pants, they were extremely slippery and I found myself going way too fast and out of control. I was using the pickax and my heels to slow me down but it wasn't much help. One of the times I managed to stop myself I actually got up and walked over to the side to rest and figure out how I was going to get down. My arm was killing my from breaking and I had absolutely no friction to help slow me down. One hiker passing on his way up gave a few suggestions. I could make my own slide that might not be as slippery, I could sit on my back pack and use that as some resistance or I could hike back down. His buddy suggested I take my pants off, which I replied that I might as well, my butt was already frozen. Well, the thought of making my own slide scared me, I couldn't use my pack because we had put all the cramp-ons in it and I could easily maim myself with them, and it would take hours for me to hike back down. So I climbed back onto the slide and eventually made it to the bottom. I did a lot of praying and shed a few tears during that ride. My pants were so slippery that when I got to the bottom where everyone else had stopped and gotten up, I continued sliding another 30 or so feet, extending the slide.

I make it back to the lunch counter where everyone is breaking camp. We get our packs loaded and start heading back down the mountain. The snow was very soft so it didn't hurt the knees coming down. In several spots there were slides that we would go down on. These were much easier to slide down on, they weren't as steep. There was at one point a split in directions; either go down and to the right or go to the right first, then down. I chose to go to the right first because it was the most traveled path There were only two other people in my group who went that direction. As I was walking behind Jay, my foot slipped off the path and I started sliding down the hill, heading right for trees and rocks. There was a little part of a tree sticking out of the snow that my foot caught and stopped me. To the right of me was a slide that I could go down, if I could work my way over there, then all would be well. So I started inching my way over. I would dig my heels into the snow and scoot over. At one point, the snow gave out and I started sliding down again. There were two rocks sticking out of the snow that were able to stop me again. By this time I was so freaked out that I actually said a few choice words. I hear, "Sister Ward, are you ok?" One of my Laurels was standing up above me on the path I had just slipped from. I apologized for my language and she laughed and mentioned that considering my situation, she totally understood. I managed to get my ice-axe detached from my pack and used that to help me get the rest of the way over to the slide. For the remainder of the hike down, we all stuck together more closely.

I wouldn't say it was fun but definitely an experience that I will never forget. I ended up with a huge weeping blister on my heel, despite the moleskin. My boots were so full of water that nothing would have helped prevent blisters. The underside of my nose got so burned it blistered and for days felt like dry crusty boogers were stuck to it because of the scabs it formed. My neck, shoulders and back were so sore that I ended up going in for a massage (darn). I now have the ugliest tan line from the sunburn and hopefully by next summer it will be gone.

I did manage to get these two pictures of the kids when we went out to get a Christmas tree. My parents live up the street from a tree farm so mom and I walked down while the kids rode with Papa. It got too dark after I took the one of Aiden so that's all I got of us picking out the perfect tree.

This was too funny. The kids had lots of fun playing in the boxes.

Aiden is so funny to watch play video games. He does this everytime he plays.

Happy New Year

At least we're hoping this year will be happier. Doug's last day with May Trucking was December 23rd. Christmas was nice having him home. He started working for FedEx Ground December 28th. Right now he's still in training, although there's not much training he needs. The guy he's riding around with won't be quitting until the end of this month, something neither Doug or his supervisor new about. We both thought it would be sooner but oh well. Right now Doug's just trying to get a feel for the route. Apparently it's a rather large route and FedEx does things a bit differently. He'll have to go through his truck every morning to memorize and organize all the packages, something he didn't have to do with UPS. The pay isn't the greatest (but more than May) and we don't have benefits but at least he's home every night.

We've rented out our bonus room to a couple in the ward that just got married. We thought long and hard about doing that and had some concerns but so far it's been alright. We've been having fun getting to know them better. With the huge pay cut Doug got we needed to do something and I'm thankful the Lord planted that seed for us.

My camera flash is still broken so I don't have any good pictures to post. Hopefully we can get that issue fixed within the next couple of months.

Black Friday

No, I'm not talking about shopping. Today feels like a black cloud's been hanging over us. The whole year has been feeling like that but for a moment there, it seemed as if it was starting to clear up. Now, who knows.

It all started this morning. I get up with Doug at 6:30am to take him down to the Jubitz yard where his rig is. I was planning on just dropping him off and hurrying back home but he asked me to stay a minute and when he tried starting truck, it wouldn't turn over. He tried again, nothing. Great, the battery's dead. So for the next half hour, we tried to jump his truck, all the while I'm thinking he's going to blow up my car and there's no way my vehicle is going to give him enough power to charge his three batteries. Just when I'm ready to start crying because I really need to get home and he's really got to get on the road, a lot attendant comes by and Doug asks him to help. I go home and a while later Doug calls to tell me it only took about another 10-15 minutes to get his batteries charged. Mind you, it took an hour just last week to charge his rig when he had it in the shop for some repairs he needed done while he was down in So. Cal. That was a headache.

So I get home and a few hours later I decide I need to call the bank and see where we're at with the paperwork they were suppose to be sending us in hopes of saving our house. This process started back in July. I was told in Sept. that we no longer qualified for the program we were trying for so now we qualified for a different program and that we needed to wait up to 45 days for a packet that was going to be sent to us. During those 45 days, I called numerous times to see if anything had been sent out and everytime we were told we just needed to wait. Finally one guy told us if we hadn't gotten anything by the 18th of Nov to call back. I called back on the 19th and after a lengthy time being on hold, while he was trying to get more info., he comes back on and tells me that they were going to be puting a rush on it and if we didn't get anything by the 25th to call back on the 27th. I was told today that the request was never pushed through to the loan modification department so there is no paperwork being sent out to us. Excuse me!?!?!?!?!? Then what about all those other customer service reps I had talked to? Why wasn't this addressed to me all the other times I've called? They're looking at the same screen, the same information, the same notes! She didn't know but she'd be glad to see if we qualified for one of their programs now. I was so mad I hung up on her. I thought it would be best to give myself the weekend to cool down.

So Doug makes it to his stop, delivers the load, picks up an empty trailer and heads back home. Yay, he'll be home tonight then tomorrow afternoon he'll be off to pick up another load. About an hour later he calls to tell me his truck broke down........AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's 104 miles away. We've lost count of how many times that dumb truck has been in the shop. After descending a hill, he notices a knocking sound when he tries to accelerate and it is also losing power and he's barely crawling, with an empty trailer. That's not good. He pulls over into a truck stop, checks his oil and notices it smoking. That's really not good. Then his check engine light comes on. He calls breakdown and after waiting an hour it's decided that he'll be towed back to Portland. It's 9:30 pm and we're down in Portland with the kids complaining they're tired and it's cold and "when are we going home?".

So, his truck is in the shop now, for who knows how long, and we still haven't heard anything from FedEx regarding whether or not he got the job. We were suppose to have known Wednesday. Now it's the weekend, he's ready to call May and tell them forget it, I quit but if he does get the new job, he'll have to start on the 7th which is a week from Monday and odds are his rig won't even be looked at until next Wednesday.

And, I've been trying to sell a few things on Craigslist to 1) get rid of some extra stuff we've accumulated and 2) try to earn a little extra $ for Christmas, which is going to be very small this year. I had some chairs posted and have faithfully checked my email to see if anyone was interested. I checked it about 9pm on Wednesday and then this morning, seeing how surely no one would be checking craigslist on Thursday. Well, someone wanted to buy them for Thursday because he was having extra family come in and needed some more chairs. He sent the request at 10:30pm on Wednesday. Ugh. I had tried selling these chairs a few weeks ago with a few nibbles but I still have them. The other thing we're selling in our waveless waterbed. It's still in good condition and I have/had a man wanting to come look at it. He was going to come over Wednesday but traffic was terrible so we scheduled for him to come tonight and he was going to be bringing his girlfriend because he was really interested. Nothing.

On the bright side of things, Doug will be here tomorrow to help with the twins birthday party.

Happy Birthday!

Today Olivia is 5. Happy birthday cute girl!!

More job update

We went to court yesterday for Doug's trial and it went well.

We dropped the kids off at our friend's house at 6:30am on Tuesday and headed down to Newport. We got there about 1/2 early so we sat out in the hall, not knowing if we were suppose to go in the court room or not since there were already some people in there. Three more people showed up and five minutes to ten we all filed into the room. The case before us still hadn't been resolved and the judge told them to come back in 45 minutes. I was thinking it was surely going to take longer than that for the four cases but it went rather quickly.

The first lady gets to plead her case after the officer makes his statement. She was ticketed for going 20 over the limit. The judges verdict: guilty. $110 please. The second man also pleads his case for his speeding ticket. Verdict: guilty. Another $110 please. The third victim, ticketed while speeding and with a suspended license. Guilty. $322 Great, it's not looking good for us. It's now Doug's turn. He and the officer are sworn in and the officer (whose last name is Jennings) makes his statement. In it, he explains how suprised Doug was to discover that his license had been suspended. At the end of his speech, he asks that the state dismiss the case. The judge was very suprised and immediately says "why?". The officer then explains that the addresses didn't match up because he had move (thus the reason we never got a notice telling us his license was going to be suspended) and because he went the following day and took care of the problem and filled out the necessary paperwork. She asked for his evidence, looked it over and told Doug, "I was going to find you guilty. It is your job to notify the DMV when you move. Case dismissed." Uhhhhhhhhh.......Thank you very much your Honor! Doug stands up, turns to shake hands with the officer, tells him thank you and we walk out the door.

We walk down the hallway and start talking about what she said, it's our responsibility to notify the DMV. Well yes, we know you have to let them know when you move within the state but moving out of state? We turned around and went back to ask the officer if he knew if we were suppose to do that when we move out of state. He had no clue, and told us to drive safe. I don't know what the judge was thinking with that comment but I'll definitely make sure all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed next time we ever move.

Whew, what a relief. So this morning Doug had an interview for FedEx Ground. He was offered the job but he still needed to go fill out an application. We had been given this man's name through a friend and Doug had only talked with him over the phone. Today they met and he liked what he saw in Doug. It's not the job that he really wanted, working for a contractor, no benefits, no paid holidays, but he'll be home every night, it's better pay and will hopefully get him to an even better job with FedEx, driving the big trucks. It's not final, they still have to do background checks and all that. It was never brought up the reason why he left UPS so we're hoping that won't be a problem. If all goes well, he'll start Dec. 7th.

These past few months have been so stressful but that light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. Thank you, everyone, for all your prayers! We have been greatly blessed.

From the mouths of babes

I've been collecting these for a few weeks now.

Bryson: "It smells like he wet his pants" (Referring to Aiden)
Mom: "Did you wet your pants?"
Aiden: "It's almost dry."





Olivia toots
Mom: "Why are you so tooty today?"
Olivia (very seriously): "My body just does that."

Olivia: "Do you know what I dreamed?"

Mom: "What?"

Olivia: "There were these two guys and they were in the toilet and then they flushed it and had their hands up in the air."







Olivia: "I on askident (she can't say accident) swallowed my gum. It went through my throat."






Mom: "What do you want for your birthday dinner?"

Olivia: "Steak.........and jello."






Olivia has been in bed for a while, we heard a noise then she starts crying. Dad goes in to see what happens and she has bonked her nose on the bed. How she did that, I don't know but Doug comes out of the room chuckling. He said she told him she would put water on her nose in the morning so it won't be bruised. Explanation: The last few days she's had smashed fingers and burned her arm so we immediately put her owies in cold water so they won't be very bruised or blistery the next day. Don't worry, by morning she had forgotten all about it and there was no bruise to be seen.

Doug is playing a video game when his phone rings. He turns the game and tv off and answers his phone. In reply to a question asked on the other end he says, "not much just sitting at home doing nothing."

Olivia in the background: "No you're not, you're playing a game."

Aiden: "What are you doing?"

Mom: "Puting Carmex on my lips because they're chapped. Do you want some?"

He nods his head yes.

A few minutes later I see him sitting on the couch touching his lips.

Mom: "What are you doing, Aiden?"

Aiden: "My lips are spicey, that's why I wiped them on my jammies."

The sun was setting and the sky was a beautiful pink.

Olivia: "Mom, you see that over there?" pointing to the sky.

Mom: "Yes, what about it?"

Olivia: "That's Jesus' heart."

Since we've been home

Shortly after we got home from North Carolina, we went to our local Clark County Fair and enjoyed some time with dad while he was in town.

We let the kids all choose one ride they could each go on. We would have loved to let them ride more but A) it was raining and we were all cold and B) tickets for the rides are expensive and when there are four kids, it adds up quickly.

This is what Shannon chose. She was so excited and once the ride started going higher I thought she was going to throw up. I wish I could have gotten a picture of her face during the ride. Afterwards it took a few minutes for her to get back to her old self.

Aiden and Olivia wanted the bouncy cars.

And Bry wanted the roller coaster, so of course I just had to go on with him. :)

I tried to get a picture of the eagle when he spread his wings but someone walked right in front of me so I had to settle for this one. He's still beautiful.


With Doug being gone I've had to have dad come and do the repairs that I can't. Water was leaking down under the sink and the whole garbage disposal had to be removed and a new seal put in. Dad had lots of "help" from the little ones.

One exhausted girl. She fell asleep waiting for me to tuck her in.

Bry got stuck. It took about 10 minutes to get him out.

Doug was able to make it home for his birthday so we had some good friends over for dinner. His cake was a KrispyKreme doughnut with a scoop of ice cream on top. How do you like his candle? Yup, that's a lighter. Thanks, Cory for lighting it!

For Labor Day we went to Agate beach with our dear friends, the Giffords. It was just gorgeous.

Usually it's pretty windy on the coast but there was hardly a breeze so the kids had a hard time flying their kites.

Wish dad could have been there with us. :(

One evening while Doug was passing through we took a drive down to the temple. We got there just after they closed the gates so we weren't able to go inside the grounds but the kids still had fun smelling the roses and posing for the camera.

On Friday nights, the kids like to camp out in the game room.

Doug's truck was in the shop the week of Halloween so he was able to help us carve pumpkins. I wanted to get a shot of them lit up but the flash quit working on my camera and they just don't look the same in the daylight.