Last Day of School

It was Daniel's last day of school today. He is sad. He came home with his report card. In Idaho they have a Reading Indicator test that they take 4 times a year. The last test was a couple of weeks ago. Daniel got a perfect score! We are giving him high fives for ending the year so well and with such a great attitude! This is the boy that would crumple his paper and throw his pencil when we made him write 3 lines of letters each afternoon! Next year we have to get him on the bus @ 7:30 instead of 11:30. Ugh.

Blessings

OWWW!!! My foot is slowly healing. But it can sure grab my attention! My kids keep asking me how the bump (bunion) on my foot grew there and if they will get one on their foot. It must seem pretty scary to a 4 year old! I got the dressing changed yesterday and got to see an x-ray of the screws in my big toe. Chad, of course, made a joke about me having a screw loose! My foot was swollen and black and blue, with a two inch long scar running up my foot, right over the bunion site. One more week with a bandage on, then a regular sock. I have to wear the boot for a total of 24 days. It's a pain to keep dry in the shower. So Monday I was still numb from the surgery and just sat in the rocking chair in the living room until bedtime. In the middle of the night, I got up (put the boot on) and went out to the kitchen for a drink and more ice. That was painful! I didn't get out of bed the next day except for 2 or 3 times to go to the bathroom. I finally left my room at 11:30 PM! Wednesday my foot felt a little better and I wasn't so bedridden, but I still stayed down much of the time. Thursday morning I spent in bed and then had my dr's appt in the afternoon. We went to Wal-Mart afterwards and I drove one of those motorized carts around. :) Today, I haven't been in bed much at all. Of course, I didn't get out of bed until 9 AM. My eye is infected with the dreaded pinkeye and so I feel like crawling back into bed since I can't open it all the way. It feels like one of those weird dreams where you can't wake up all the way and see what's right in front of you. Chad is taking the boys on the Father Son Campout tonight, so I have to prove that I can be self-reliant!

We have had some meals brought in and I have an awesome friend who brought me some movies and watched all four (pinkeyed) kids yesterday while I went to the dr. Another angel neighbor watched the kids in the morning (pinkeyed, also) while I had my surgery and got Daniel on the bus for school.

The kids have been coming into the bedroom to visit with me. Leah was especially attentive one day and sat with me for quite a while. They help Chad deliver meals to me and always come back in to ask if I want any more food. They have never complained about taking my dishes to the kitchen for me. There have been a couple times when all 6 of us were on the bed at the same time. My heart was full of gratitude for such beautiful children! I am truly blessed!

And on another level, Chad has been beyond amazing. He hasn't complained at all about having to be the mother and father and kitchen master. He has had pinkeye through the whole thing as well as just generally being sick (sore throat, etc.) Meanwhile, he's been trying to get work done while he waits on me hand and foot. How do I effectively express my gratitude to him? Make him a pie? Give him a night out by himself? (I don't think he'd go.) He is so amazing. It's earning him major points!

And so I just wanted to share how grateful I have been for my little family here and friends who have served so well. I feel undeserving such a reward!

Happy Mother's Day!

Hope all the mothers out there had a nice day. I went to church without my kids to celebrate!
Chad has pinkeye, Daniel had it last week but has a cough now, Leah has been coughing, but she and Nathan started pinkeye today...and Rebekah is too hard to take to church if I can leave her home instead! I'm crossing my fingers (with very little faith) in hopes that I don't get it. We got potted flowers in church today and my plant was very droopy from lack of water (the foil was covering the dirt). I thought it was very fitting! Luckily, it perked right up with a little water. So Chad has been looking like a prize fighter the past two days, and Leah and Nathan are starting to swell up. They should be in great moods for the neighbor who is coming to watch them tomorrow while I'm having my bunion removed. (She is fully aware of our germ condition.) YES! I'm finally getting rid of this ugly bunion. I'm hoping for better fitting shoes and a pain free (eventually) foot. I'll have to keep you updated...sometime soon. And now I'm off to get one last drink of water before midnight and take a quick shower!

Call the Orkin Man!

We have got serious Mole problems! Or maybe these are gophers. It's kind of hard to tell.

Chad was digging holes for the trellis for our grapes. I should have a picture of that, but of course, I don't.

Bison and Deer and Bears...Oh My!

We went to Yellowstone Bear World recently and drove right through groups of real, live bears. The park is about 35 minutes from our house (not really in Yellowstone, but they're hoping you'll stop by and visit on your way to the Big Park!) and has bison, deer, goats and, of course, bears. It was the closest I hope to ever be to a bear! After you ride through the park, you can get out and go into an area that has kiddie rides, a petting zoo, some picnic tables (to eat some really over-priced food) and a pen of the cutest bear cubs you'll ever see. I should be getting commission for this. We got some pictures and some sunburns. I'm sure we'll go back soon.

Boys will be boys, regardless!

So here's a story to help you appreciate your own kids a little better!

A few weeks ago, earlier in the week, the boys were outside playing and asked Chad if they could fill up the window well of his office with water. I think they wanted something like a little pond. So Chad, of course, told them that would fill the house with water and so... NO!

Fast forward to that Friday when I was helping B get a costume ready for a Mutual activity that night. I heard some giggling in Chad's office when I went by, but was distracted and didn't investigate. (I've learned a lesson!) About 20 minutes later (or so), B came up stairs and said something about something. Chad went down to look, thinking she was talking about a spider. Seconds later he came rushing upstairs and said there was a flood downstairs as he slipped (literally) to the back door to turn off the hose.

There was an inch of water on some parts of Chad's office floor and two feet of water still waiting to come in from the window well. All of our towels and most of our blankets went downstairs to try to absorb the mess. It was already halfway down the hall and some of it was heading towards a drain in the water heater room (too bad Chad's office didn't have a drain!). Chad had quite a bit of stuff on his floor (you already know this if you know much about Chad) and the window is directly over the baseboard heater. The power strip for all of the computer/printers/phone, etc was sitting in water. It's a miracle he wasn't electrocuted!

So meanwhile, the boys have gone off to play at the neighbor's house and I send for them pretty quickly. They really were shocked to see what their trick had done, but it didn't keep us from sending them to their room for the rest of the night. I still had to get dinner on the table, get B to the church for a practice, rent a carpet shampooer from the grocery store, drive to Idaho Falls to get some carpet blowers and take the girls with me to the church to the Mutual variety show they were doing for the ward. Poor Chad stayed home and worked on his office. A neighbor lent us 3 box fans and we had 2 stand fans in addition to the carpet blowers. We were almost lulled to sleep by the noise coming through the floor to our bedroom upstairs. Poor B must have lost some hearing that night!

The boys were grounded from friends, bicycles, and playing in the front yard for a week. It was a hard lesson for everyone! A couple of days later, I went into Chad's office and noticed how clean the floor was. I told him we should lift the boys' grounding and thank them for the nice clean office!

Just tonight (two weeks later) Chad is finally replacing the last pieces of office equipment. We just hope that there isn't any mold in the walls.

What's the worst thing your kids have ever done? :)

Welcome Spring?

This is what we woke up to the day after Easter. Surprise! It was beautiful, but I'm glad it melted quickly. I was worried about my prized tulips that were already emerging!

Easter!

I planned ahead for Easter this year. It seems we always forget to color Easter eggs and then cram it into Saturday night, along with whatever else we plan. So I made it the FHE activity and was ready nearly a week early. It was nice just knowing that they were done. The night before Easter, I was making a quick trip to the grocery store and won an Easter basket with candy and cheap-o toys in it (at least it was free). When I came home, I told the kids that I'd met the Easter Bunny at the store and he sent them this Easter basket. Daniel was very skeptical! So they had fun ripping into the basket.


That night we set out the kids' Easter baskets and scattered some plastic eggs around the house. It looked like a pastel Santa had visited! All the kids were pretty excited and Daniel lost most of his skepticism. (He's easily convinced!) It rained that afternoon, so we hunted for our decorated eggs inside. When Daniel questioned why the Easter Bunny didn't hide those, too, I told him that he was too busy and asked us to help with that part. We found all the eggs (we double counted to make sure), B even helped.




After dinner that night we had an Easter Bunny cake (not the real one of course, that would put a damper on next year!) and it was very cute! I may have out-done myself. I don't know if I'll ever get really creative with cake. I just really prefer to eat it. Anyway, it was a good Easter, and we made a valiant effort to include the real Easter story in it all.

Spring Break (the bank) PART FOUR

Day Eight: Long Beach, CA to Las Vegas, NV We woke the 3rd morning of our motel stay to more rain. I did notice that it stayed nice for the two days we were out and about. We checked out of the motel and headed back to Las Vegas. Daniel and Nathan were acting up on the trip, including throwing crayons, coloring books and shoes at Chad and me. The more we threatened, the more they enjoyed themselves. So long about Baker, CA, we decided it was time for a stop to get rid of some energy (to say the least). We pulled into the parking lot of a newly built outlet shoopping center and went for the back, where it was still pretty empty. We released Daniel from the car, but then all our frustrations came out and Daniel's rear end paid for the disrespect he dished out before. Then in was Nathan's turn, but as he was still in the van, he only got it from me. They were quite shocked! I felt better, and then wondered if there were any cameras around. (Do you remember the story of the woman caught on a Wal-Mart security camera beating on a little girl?) Anyway, they all ran around a bit, despite the freezing wind. They were much better behaved after that. We tried not to spank, but actions really do speak louder than words (occasionally)! We arrived in Las Vegas with the rest of Southern California, mid afternoon. We had decided to head back to the Strip and go to M&M World. It took us forever to get to it. In case you don't know, Californians flock to Las Vegas on the weekends. We were swept up in the traffic. We enjoyed the M&M's and B bought a T-shirt (her only souvenir of the trip). Because of the hour, we went from there to the Price's house, stopping to get some things for dinner. We visited that evening and bedded down.

Day Nine: Las Vegas, NV to Shelley, ID We got a pretty early start as it was General Conference weekend and Chad was trying to make it to the Priesthood Session in Taylorsville. We said good-bye to Steve and Amber through their girls as they weren't "up" yet when we slipped out. We made another stop in the St. George area (Santa Clara actually) and visited with Michael's (my step-dad) parents. Before the boys could actually break something, we were on our way again. We stopped in Beaver, UT for a snack and ice cream. I bought a little Easter train that was marked down (a souvenir for me! ;) ) and wished we had more room in the van to get a windmill they had there. We made it to Taylorsville with just enough time for Chad to have some dinner and then head to the Stake Center with everyone. The girls stayed home and visited while the cousins played/fought. When Chad came back, we loaded everyone back into the van for the last 3 hours of our trip. (We had intentionally planned to stay one more night, but this way we could actually watch a day of Conference and have some time to recover from our trip before Monday). We traveled fairly well until the last 40 minutes. By the time we pulled into the driveway, it seemed all 4 kids were crying. B may have been, too. I nearly was myself!

All in all, it was a good trip. We hadn't had a real vacation as a family yet. We're poorer than we were, but I guess paying that every 5 or 6 years equals out ok. You may notice that there weren't as many pictures near the end of the trip. Another sign of burn out! :)

Spring Break (the bank) PART THREE

(click on a picture to see it better)
Day Six: After a TON of rain, we woke to blue skies (Yahoo!) We had a pretty spacious pair of rooms at the motel and the laundry room was right next door. That came in pretty handy since we did several loads of laundry. We were about as far away as you could get from the free breakfast each morning. So ANYWAY, our first day was action-packed. We drove into the heart of Long Beach and started at the Queen Mary. We bought tickets for that and for the Aquarium of the Pacific at the same time because they were cheaper. We toured the engine room of the ship. Daniel and Nathan thought that was the best part. Next, we walked all over the outside and top of the ship. It was fairly breezy, and a little cool, but DRY! While we were trying to find the way to the observation deck (at the very front of the ship), Daniel and I paused for a 5-minute time out. How many people can say they had a time out on the Queen Mary? We happened to be on the Queen Mary the same day that CSI: Miami was there to do some filming. We didn't see any real action, but we did see one of the lead characters goofing off for the camera. Must be one of those behind the scenes things. I hope they enjoyed Leah's bloody-murder screaming as she threw a tantrum just below them! :) We got some ice cream from an over-priced, not so cordial ice cream shop and then went out and around to take a Ghosts and Legends tour. B wasn't sure she wanted to go. Buddhists are very superstitious and extremely nervous about ghosts. This tour was Long Beach's attempt at Universal Studios, complete with fog, lights, sounds and shadows. I was constantly waiting for Daniel, Nathan or B to tell me that they wanted out! Leah slept through the entire thing! I don't know how she pulled that off, but it's probably a good thing. Poor Chad had to carry her though. I jostled Rebekah around. It was fairly entertaining though. I would recommend it.

After we left the Queen Mary, we stopped at the van for some PB&J sandwiches. The girls in the ticket booth said we could catch a shuttle to the Aquarium and leave our van there. We were glad for that so we didn't have to pay for parking twice. As it turned out, the "shuttle" was actually the city bus system and we had to change buses halfway through the trip. At least we were in a "fare free" zone!

The Aquarium of the Pacific was really fun. We saw lots of neat things (including a sea dragon...a relative of the sea horse...picture included) and got to pet some stuff.




The manta rays were very tame and half came out of the water to be touched. One surprised Nathan and I, getting Nathan fairly wet! If you've never touched one, they feel like spit. There were some small sharks in the pools, too, but I just couldn't bring myself to go for it. A week or so after we returned from our trip, Daniel was giggling. He asked if we remembered when the manta ray waved at him. :)



At the aquarium, there was a lorikeet aviary. We bought a teeny cup of nectar to feed the birds. Wow! They really flock to you! We all had birds landing on us. I found some stuffed lorikeets at a good deal for the kids. Go figure: visit an aquarium and take home stuffed birds as a souvenir.

By the time we got back to the van, all the exit gates were wide open, so we ended up with free parking for the whole day. That was a nice surprise. We slept well that night.
















Day Seven: We spent the morning at the LA Zoo. We got in half price because we have a membership to the Idaho Falls zoo. (We love getting discounts!) As we were walking up to the zoo, B got confused. She wondered if we had left California and gone to LA. :) I guess they don't get that specific in Thai geography classes. There were a lot of school groups at the zoo. We were almost run over a couple of times. We knew we had left Shelley, ID when we didn't see any other blonde heads for hours! It was a pretty nice zoo and there was lots to see.


From the zoo we hit a beach. It was a pretty cool and breezy day, so I didn't get into a suit or the water. I stayed by the van with Rebekah wrapped up in a blanket. Chad took the kids out to the water, but Leah didn't last very long. Daniel was the only one that got completely submerged. Nathan had to be torn away from the beach (and the garbage that littered it)! We were the only ones in sight that were in the water. People now have one more reason to think Idahoans are strange! We slept well that night, too.




Can you find Daniel and Chad in this picture?

Spring Break (the bank) PART TWO

Days Three & Four: Las Vegas and LV, NV to Lancaster, CA We stayed two nights in Las Vegas, with our old friends, Steve and Amber Price. (They aren't old, but they've been friends for a while!) Daniel and Ashley picked up their friendship right where they left off 3 years ago. With new births, we each had 4 children = 8 kids under 8 years old! We went to church with some former ward members. The original ward has split twice since we left, so we had 3 wards to choose from. It was fun to see old faces and watch the confusion as they tried to place our familiar faces. Seeing Leah and Rebekah confused a lot of people. The weather was beautiful and not too hot yet.


Amber made a cake for a little get together. It was very cute and yummy. It didn't last very long.













We spent some time in Las Vegas before getting on the road. First, we stopped to visit with Rochelle Zobrist.















The boys thought it was neat to see some big turkeys up close and they found some turkey eggs. (Unfortunately, one of the turkey eggs didn't survive us.)















After we visited with Rachelle, we made a short stop at Mary Eagar's house. She was my first visiting teaching companion in Las Vegas! We enjoyed a tour of her nice, spacious home and met her little son.


From there, we went to Circus Circus to have lunch ($ouch$) and play at the Adventure Dome.






The kids got to ride some things and the boys had some fun being silly.
















Funny story: As we entered the Circus Circus parking garage, Chad and I mentioned how low the ceiling was. We said, "Duck!" And then from the back seat was heard, "Quack, quack!" Nathan probably didn't even know how funny he was, but we're still laughing!

We finally pried ourselves away from the fun and got back into the van to head to CA. We had to make an emergency stop at a Dollar Store in Baker(?) because it was just time to walk around and find a distraction or two. We stayed one night with my high school friend, Wendy (Paras) Warner and her three girls. (Her husband was away.)

Day Five: Lancaster, CA to Long Beach, CA We spent a leisurely morning with Wendy and did some laundry. We didn't leave until about 3 PM. By then it had been raining a bit and we hurried out to the van to find a soggy parking ticket! Apparently, you can't park on the street on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays between 8 AM and 12 PM. A whole 8 hours per month and we caught 4 of them! We are currently contesting it. The only sign nearby was faded by sunlight and would never have been visible at 9 PM (when we arrived). We got on the wet California freeway and headed to Simi Valley to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum. As luck would have it, this was the day that a severe winter storm was hounding the area. Guess who got to do ALL the driving that day? It was a mad dash to the museum doors (because of course the walkways aren't covered in Sunny CA.). We got to walk through Pres. Reagan's (retired) Air Force One plane. Chad and I were surprised at the cramped quarters. We expected it to be more luxurious. But then, that's probably why they retired it. I understand that the one they use now is nicer. (I don't doubt it, with the taxes we pay!) Regardless, it was very interesting. We walked through the rest of the museum and read some interesting things, but then decided it was time to go when we were yelling at Daniel more than anything else. From there we drove to Long Beach (Signal Hill, actually) and checked into our motel room (home for the next 3 nights).

Spring Break (the bank) PART ONE

We spent the last week of March on our Spring Break trip to Long Beach, CA. We were gone for 9 days, which is a lllooonnnggg time to be on the road with little ones. We didn't get nearly as desperate as I feared, although the last 4o miles nearly killed us all!

*Note: Some images contained in this post were taken and posted without the subjects' permission. Sue if you'd like. We don't have anything we'll miss! ;)

Day One: Shelley, ID to Taylorsville, UT We stayed the night at Grandma's house and got to play with cousins. We LOVE to play with cousins! (Good thing we have a ton.) It was a short visit, but on the way out we stopped in Lehi, UT to see Cody and Amber's new house. Here are pictures.

Nathan, Daniel & Rebekah







Leah, Jacob, Caitlin, Matthew








Amber and Matthew

Cody...Master of the Manor

Day Two: Taylorsville, UT to Las Vegas, NV Includes the pictures above. We made a stop in Cove Fort, UT on our way south.

It was very windy! We got a tour of the fort and got to stretch our legs for a bit. We saw a big black bird fighting the wind...going nowhere. B thought it was a kite.

We stopped to visit (Great) Grandma Russell in St. George, UT. We used to visit Grandma all the time when we lived in Las Vegas, but hadn't been to her house in 3 years! Of course, the boys didn't remember anything.

On your mark...

DEEP BREATH.... I haven't had a good chance to post anything for a while. I have a ton of stuff to catch up on. So if the kids go down for a nap right now, I'll have some good time to spend on my rear, here at the computer! It's been so long, I have to go back through my pictures to remember stuff.

I'll have to post several different times, so you'll know I'm not finished until you see some pictures of our huge moles (in the yard, not on my face - YUCK!) and read about our window-well fish tank.

To keep you interested, here is a picture of our 3 monkeys: "Speak No," "See No," "Hear No." Ha ha.