tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16747954270618720382024-02-07T03:25:29.472-08:00Big Ed and Her PigletsSome of the happenings with Amy Eds and her sweet little family.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-51693282225532030582022-08-29T15:22:00.002-07:002022-09-05T20:48:14.426-07:00First Week of SchoolFor our My Tech High learning log I will start with a quick summary:
Amelia-we worked together on math problems that she was struggling with-i started racing her to complete the problems to practice/solidify the concept and it worked well.
Isabelle-we are working on making Language Arts more enjoyable and the new Good and Beautiful did not disappoint. So far the booster cards and read along book is awesome. She aso enjoyed her lessons each day-fingers crossed.
Walter-was adorable with both math and language arts. He understood both quite well and has been figuring out how to spell out words on his own.
<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZghE9FB2Rs96WHLvaq6D1l3Gz4Xx3m3PWxYKbJiYv4LfrIHHh8RylJ3qaMJG0uT0vTTg_LQ3gYqTaLquiRFOGUDYx8w91jnWOtV-MAx3ofeLn3mX7FxOzlBzf3xgWtvmyozi9RZIOQmLnkUWeEezJSguDbAK62x23hLZ2SDJw3qrQC6NGrnZvTkTC/s4032/77FF96B4-24B8-4FBC-85EF-0698DA82A34F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZghE9FB2Rs96WHLvaq6D1l3Gz4Xx3m3PWxYKbJiYv4LfrIHHh8RylJ3qaMJG0uT0vTTg_LQ3gYqTaLquiRFOGUDYx8w91jnWOtV-MAx3ofeLn3mX7FxOzlBzf3xgWtvmyozi9RZIOQmLnkUWeEezJSguDbAK62x23hLZ2SDJw3qrQC6NGrnZvTkTC/s320/77FF96B4-24B8-4FBC-85EF-0698DA82A34F.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nature Journals</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCIF_1bTtJ3Zh2uUr659YlIeaACXYDh9yq-bga4VcoUQca3G3YwvtWWkZlPi3XgxUdQ7Kuy8N714Ik5EyUJeKBtQeOrxmYZ2ywyXtCys5BVYEFUAgtQ8aEEdZRTdd4icWOmKy6kqnJ_Ain2cclXp5vXh6iW3bF45SAM89x-xwZZYXLbpiJD-6TUDg0/s4032/942BD4EB-F3A6-42AB-83B1-983C2FC38D64.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCIF_1bTtJ3Zh2uUr659YlIeaACXYDh9yq-bga4VcoUQca3G3YwvtWWkZlPi3XgxUdQ7Kuy8N714Ik5EyUJeKBtQeOrxmYZ2ywyXtCys5BVYEFUAgtQ8aEEdZRTdd4icWOmKy6kqnJ_Ain2cclXp5vXh6iW3bF45SAM89x-xwZZYXLbpiJD-6TUDg0/s320/942BD4EB-F3A6-42AB-83B1-983C2FC38D64.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking at the ducks-there were so many that just kept coming to that area. It was fun to watch them drink and swim around.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiURfELavTyVAheExXJQpGEtzwSJ5GTBsxVM6A3Iw5oGFdt55rvLYLkZxPpseQ2QhUo_JPMsTnu3B9TgOi8NZSxqwU5DZOMgrwM8NZjn0zPAWbuZYVHPjd9oaCxJR12J7CGAukmYxbEJ6Hk_Oag3fYtLRw-SXXZ-E6zKN4K9D-Nc2XpMb88YIod5q4r/s4032/DDB87007-3752-4E2C-8FFD-3F59F77988C3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiURfELavTyVAheExXJQpGEtzwSJ5GTBsxVM6A3Iw5oGFdt55rvLYLkZxPpseQ2QhUo_JPMsTnu3B9TgOi8NZSxqwU5DZOMgrwM8NZjn0zPAWbuZYVHPjd9oaCxJR12J7CGAukmYxbEJ6Hk_Oag3fYtLRw-SXXZ-E6zKN4K9D-Nc2XpMb88YIod5q4r/s320/DDB87007-3752-4E2C-8FFD-3F59F77988C3.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Waddle Fields Park-both Isabelle and Walter loved climbing to the top. They also had a blast on the zip line and slides. </td></tr></tbody></table><br />I almost got our homeschool room completely ready-but not quite-still a few things to finish up, so no official pics of it yet-those will follow soon. </p><p>I really want to instill a love for learning and make our homeschool something they really look forward too. I have several ideas that I will be implementing through the year. The first one is our helper badge-someone gets to be the helper for the day. They lead us in the pledge, a song, and prayer. Then they help with gathering things or whatever else I may need help with through the day. They get “Hansen Bucks” for being the helper. “Hansen Bucks” are from my public school teaching days-but it is paper money and then they can purchase items out of a prize box with it. They love Hansen Bucks! 😊</p><p>We then start out with our “treasure box” that has scriptures in it and we work on memorizing a scripture-we are starting out with “The Articles of Faith”. We spend about 5 minutes writing it and memorizing. Then we are also reading out of our scriptures-everyone reads 1 verse and we discuss what it means so that they can learn to understand scriptural language better. It’s been really sweet to do with them.</p><p>Another thing I’m working on being more regular about is a morning basket. There are little things I want to do with my kids that I often don’t get to. So I am putting things in the basket that I want to be sure to get to for the week. Then some items are daily and some are once a week and we will loop through them. They do not like to write, so my goal is to help them have fun writing and come to enjoy it. There is a daily read aloud story/picture book. Then we have a poem journal (they learn, write, and illustrate a poem each week-they are taking a long time, but trying to make their poetry book really nice, which I think is great 😊), they have a silly story day where they make up a silly story, and then an educational game. I plan to add other things as I gather them-a music lesson, a great person in history, etc. so far it has gone really well and I am loving it. </p><p>For the core subjects, I start with Walter and then when he is done he plays with toys that are school toys-and he’s pretty good about doing that. He knows that if he is going to be noisy, he needs to leave the school room and play somewhere else-which he is generally fine doing. Then I work with Isabelle and end with Amelia-since she has the most independent work and mostly I just help her with what she hasn’t understood. </p><p>My kids love the science units from The Good and the Beautiful. We just finished up Botany and we started Safety today. On my homeschool wall I have posters hanging up that correspond with our units we have done to help them remember. </p><p>For History we are doing the Constitution unit from The Good and Beautiful. We started it last year with Jonathan and we enjoy doing it with him so the trick is we have to do it later after he is home from high school. We plan to do it 1 day a week after school. Then next week the girls will be attending a history class that a lady teaches under the wing of 4-H. It’s 1 day a week. The parents volunteer and help make things and activities run well. I have not done that before so we will see how it goes-it sounds really neat. </p><p>This week didn’t work out because Jonathan had an orthodontist appointment on our day for history. The orthodontist is 45 minutes away, but close to an awesome park and IKEA. I needed to go to IKEA for some things for the schoolroom so it worked out well. We made it a field trip and I took the younger 3 with us. I took them to the park during the appointment and then we all went to IKEA afterwards. They had so much fun and we got dinner there too-we tried several different food items to add to our adventure. </p><p>Thursday Thursday we finished our read aloud, "The Little Princess". Such an excellent book-I teared up several times while reading aloud. The girls loved listening and thoroughly enjoyed the book. Jon and I took Isabelle out with us on our weekly date. We never took her out after her baptism. So it was her special night. She got pretty tired of sitting at the restaurant and wanted to head to the store asap. We explained that you visit and talk while you eat and enjoy the time together. She was super anxious to get on with the evening though. It was funny. So after we finished eating we went to Deseret Book for Isabelle to pick out a set of scriptures and a scripture case. She then wanted to go to Hobby Lobby (one of my kids’ favorite stores-we all have a lot of fun looking at all the fun stuff there). We let her pick out something to buy, and she had a really fun time with us. </p><p>Fridays are our official “Adventure Day”. This is when we go on field trips or work on school projects. This last Friday we went along a path by a stream of water in a park. There are ducks and plants and we looked for flowers that were in our botany book. We actually found several, so that was neat. We then sat at a table and I read about a famous Botanist while the kids ate snacks (you definitely need lots of snacks for homeschool to go well 😂). Then we drew in our nature journals. On our way home we passed the library, and I realized I haven’t taken them to the library since we moved here due to Covid!! So we went to the library, signed up for library cards and got a pile of books. Isabelle thinks she hates reading, so one of my goals is to help her gain a love for reading. It was fun to see her be so excited about her books and want to read them immediately. We came home, ate lunch and then had a read-a-thon. It was a good week 😊.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtu2ECwWzc7u261EH10ZfkfozvmBzgIjP1i2qx-qZBVKdHl1D62RIwfJCKNZ_gVGkXZMpq6XnWjLyOJMHgPAQG0d4tk01EXyq6bBO-QS_r779GJrb06FrS1SFA3ZVE4uAL0Xv18LHa6e5zNJvAYJbR9_jxdzULiIE84NPrVT55hqmbs6DoFWuUMEmv/s2592/C91DD31C-D2D9-4850-9BCC-2E71AEDFBA5F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="2592" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtu2ECwWzc7u261EH10ZfkfozvmBzgIjP1i2qx-qZBVKdHl1D62RIwfJCKNZ_gVGkXZMpq6XnWjLyOJMHgPAQG0d4tk01EXyq6bBO-QS_r779GJrb06FrS1SFA3ZVE4uAL0Xv18LHa6e5zNJvAYJbR9_jxdzULiIE84NPrVT55hqmbs6DoFWuUMEmv/s320/C91DD31C-D2D9-4850-9BCC-2E71AEDFBA5F.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dinner with Isabelle</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83wkNx5sRr38Rt11DJiTUHHMbsi04ONkFKxbpY5rvEkREGq8osCLKE41WacFJIZi_LLJddR1ah0I5zyJz1U2BfB7W5uxvY3j1WObfjRDwJ9zz_kuFTvCwSVrbcWg29z-KsPUHHvfoawp_WFIwMN08tjcjWDihxgFQ6irbgkwHSY8EDjhPSa_OToQG/s1936/A20CB064-A214-4EB8-8724-749BA7EFE150.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="1452" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83wkNx5sRr38Rt11DJiTUHHMbsi04ONkFKxbpY5rvEkREGq8osCLKE41WacFJIZi_LLJddR1ah0I5zyJz1U2BfB7W5uxvY3j1WObfjRDwJ9zz_kuFTvCwSVrbcWg29z-KsPUHHvfoawp_WFIwMN08tjcjWDihxgFQ6irbgkwHSY8EDjhPSa_OToQG/s320/A20CB064-A214-4EB8-8724-749BA7EFE150.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She loved her milkshake!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpqI6RnJLjuaokz-uzOrse4U6y-ORDhN8sS6bqkESQrbrmIDxwotJlgA4DPEa8xe3_NxcadVJpWI549_0yiBmUnO9KXYJFMDjMUgLkTJjZO4eMTxGZAIlaPJat-4B-mR6OgxBe7hSWkG-J-vK5gCGfer0WwLDgb4jX7o73D1uCAKO-lhq1dhCgE2k_/s2592/0677A5F2-15D3-4CD3-B302-BF924BB19A3E.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="2592" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpqI6RnJLjuaokz-uzOrse4U6y-ORDhN8sS6bqkESQrbrmIDxwotJlgA4DPEa8xe3_NxcadVJpWI549_0yiBmUnO9KXYJFMDjMUgLkTJjZO4eMTxGZAIlaPJat-4B-mR6OgxBe7hSWkG-J-vK5gCGfer0WwLDgb4jX7o73D1uCAKO-lhq1dhCgE2k_/s320/0677A5F2-15D3-4CD3-B302-BF924BB19A3E.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First day of school!! <br />Amelia-6th grade, Isabelle-3rd grade, Walter-Kindergarten </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVKqTiBeBCRjvxeOMucBk-kVOhDWAySLV906_oGok8I_VZeMSBgmBtULqyH36qt5gba2I3nWy_nNc4m9H391oFSXhzBONNXlZ66l0JZQckUHwzUyj8IC_75kA44uOHWqFv8uiRCy-v9gMjkXKqnec57luVyvVmxnsby89rwqyNeZIgcD7AtYl9HkL/s1936/43EE61CC-DC47-4810-B9CC-08289AD7665C.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1936" data-original-width="1452" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVKqTiBeBCRjvxeOMucBk-kVOhDWAySLV906_oGok8I_VZeMSBgmBtULqyH36qt5gba2I3nWy_nNc4m9H391oFSXhzBONNXlZ66l0JZQckUHwzUyj8IC_75kA44uOHWqFv8uiRCy-v9gMjkXKqnec57luVyvVmxnsby89rwqyNeZIgcD7AtYl9HkL/s320/43EE61CC-DC47-4810-B9CC-08289AD7665C.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First day of school-working on Language Arts.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-38160682689139405852018-07-10T19:11:00.001-07:002022-05-08T20:35:14.393-07:00Yosemite-June 2018<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picked up Jay from the airport on the way out of town</td></tr>
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I haven't blogged in so long. Who knows if I will get to again, so I thought I would go for it. I had the opportunity-incredibly last minute-to go to Yosemite with my Dad, Jeremy and his family, and Jay and Emily (2 of my brothers and one of my sisters). We went there a couple of times as children. My dad on the other hand went there many many times as a child and teenager. I was very hesitant to go because going entailed taking Walter with me-who still nurses and I wasn't wanting to suddenly wean him. So in about 36 hours time, I packed up Walter and me and we headed out carpooling with my dad, Emily, and Jay.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the Road-headed to Yosemite</td></tr>
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I had no idea how Walter would do camping-he's an amazingly good baby, but I had not slept with him in a sleeping bag in the cold. Well, it was supposedly going to be cold, but he and I were never really cold-we thought it was pretty darn hot. Anyway, he was amazing and awesome and I actually loved cuddling with him. Originally I thought it was going to be hiking in the day here and there and hanging out at the campsite in the evenings and possibly some in the day. Boy was I wrong. Yosemite has so many hikes and views that you don't have any time for campground jollies. We only made a fire the last night just for the sake of making a fire. What we learned was that if you aren't staying in the valley, you needed to be there around 9am to get a parking space. Then the hikes we did were generally very long and by the time we got done and back to our campground it was usually 9pm. We were at the Wawona campground, which is about an hour away from the Valley. The Valley has shuttles to the places you need to get to, so you find a parking space and then shuttle to where you need to be. Walter and I stayed in our own little tent-which I was nervous about at first, but it worked out great.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old Nevada Pizza in Hawthorne Nevada</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't tell in the pic, but the tables were the shape of the state of Nevada</td></tr>
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So on to the trip-we stayed in a hotel in Hawthorne Nevada on our way down. It was a tiny little town that we were sure the movie Cars was based off of. There were a total of 2 places you could eat there. One was a casino type diner and the other was a pizza place. The diner had over an hour wait for food. The pizza place had great reviews, so we went over there...and it was only a 40 minute wait-ha ha. Boy do they know how to make pizza though! It was legit homemade, with fresh toppings and looked gorgeous and it was super delicious! We had a blast paying games together-Dad was hilarious as we played phase 10. I forgot he can't shuffle cards very well and he struggles with organizing his cards. After waiting for him to get his cards organized for while to start a hand, Jay asked him if he needed help and he peaked over at Dad's hand and exclaimed, "How are you organizing those?!?!" Dad gave the best answer, looked at his hand, started laughing and said, "Randomly?"<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-W0eRpSOn6sekMkvovgCzY7HAUBytEp7RSR9ckC_t_B1qU2aokMuYJJzY7AsCOKnIuqQMgKEHNnQ1vAr1kCIlAca-VMJSt9DQGR_Py_X17mol5f-ZpjL-hhVvRfL060_B6NJZxBYcCc/s1600/0603181107.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-W0eRpSOn6sekMkvovgCzY7HAUBytEp7RSR9ckC_t_B1qU2aokMuYJJzY7AsCOKnIuqQMgKEHNnQ1vAr1kCIlAca-VMJSt9DQGR_Py_X17mol5f-ZpjL-hhVvRfL060_B6NJZxBYcCc/s320/0603181107.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance into Yosemite</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-KCbKLqA1CbolckKMoqlLg8Py_2EU6JFlLXVwMfVQ2mJAZqirTrYR3EqPZZHudRqjLECkKJfWKScqyzHLzrouRPNAtVakEOWC3bH3lXA4umRV4T1WB5ofikPnwFVlxhVbRfrc6pjh5I/s1600/0603181639a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib-KCbKLqA1CbolckKMoqlLg8Py_2EU6JFlLXVwMfVQ2mJAZqirTrYR3EqPZZHudRqjLECkKJfWKScqyzHLzrouRPNAtVakEOWC3bH3lXA4umRV4T1WB5ofikPnwFVlxhVbRfrc6pjh5I/s320/0603181639a.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter and I at the Tunnel View</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibCWdwSF-X0gHR4lsaJ9jnKrR28XxO8WSQpxt4RCucAQNe4JOyxNGIndwJZlIQfxUDP-wbH6ou6I1JOIqpPz0vx0-7Gg2JNJHxDEWNM3EHC_ue5a78V9Vv3ZJSsmTVhG1hJkLyZu-Hlk/s1600/IMG_2560.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiibCWdwSF-X0gHR4lsaJ9jnKrR28XxO8WSQpxt4RCucAQNe4JOyxNGIndwJZlIQfxUDP-wbH6ou6I1JOIqpPz0vx0-7Gg2JNJHxDEWNM3EHC_ue5a78V9Vv3ZJSsmTVhG1hJkLyZu-Hlk/s320/IMG_2560.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lookout point on the road to Glacier Point or Wawona (Tunnel View)</td></tr>
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The next day, Sunday, we arrived in Yosemite-it was quite majestic. I hadn't realized that it was all granite and huge bolders and mountain range of granite. It wasn't as green as I thought it was going to be, but it was really amazing. We drove through the valley to get to our campsite. We got to our site and got set up as quickly as we could so that we could head back to the valley. We started off by doing a simple hike to Bridal Veil Falls (not to be confused with the one up Provo Canyon). It was a very simple walk to a beautiful waterfall. Then we headed over to hike Lower Yosemite falls. It's really more of a nice walk to a very majestic and beautiful water fall-we went there again on our last day-it was Dad's favorite and he loved going to it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1rf7gvZ64gWBSXVGbNbeQakDOhEO6FXPn7yy1op0B7bWdgT47B1JFC3vOcwZxVHqPR5OZNuWjnj9B6TDzjbteq2BSDs_lEkuR1RDp4AXPWC2p8OZpj6JQa8VEGO8keBz2a_TjDPsBrk/s1600/IMG_2581.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1rf7gvZ64gWBSXVGbNbeQakDOhEO6FXPn7yy1op0B7bWdgT47B1JFC3vOcwZxVHqPR5OZNuWjnj9B6TDzjbteq2BSDs_lEkuR1RDp4AXPWC2p8OZpj6JQa8VEGO8keBz2a_TjDPsBrk/s320/IMG_2581.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bridal Veil Falls</td></tr>
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Monday morning, a bird was sure to wake us up a little before 5am. That was ok though because we had a lot to prepare and I did everything I could to take care of Walter and not to keep anyone waiting on us. We were doing the Panorama Trail-supposedly an 8 mile hike that was mostly downhill. You start at Glacier Point, which is about a 45 minute drive from the Valley up above the valley. There are several hikes from that point. The Panorama Trail begins there and you hike back down to the Valley. I was really nervous packing Walter as I am not in great shape at this point in my life. I had hiked it one other time as a young teen with my dad, grandpa, a couple uncles and cousins. I didn't really remember much from that and was excited to be there again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRizEyyRViolt5u5K7rdrBw3dTomkBi_PD9XhyanUGuyCiQyFe6nwqxZPIaK0wJW8z8dTquNi7MwmHZWQGliaGOMyB-EGCfbFeq6eswmgurKoT91wNgpgYHP_caQSsC3ymXDpVWYDO_Y4/s1600/IMG_2690.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRizEyyRViolt5u5K7rdrBw3dTomkBi_PD9XhyanUGuyCiQyFe6nwqxZPIaK0wJW8z8dTquNi7MwmHZWQGliaGOMyB-EGCfbFeq6eswmgurKoT91wNgpgYHP_caQSsC3ymXDpVWYDO_Y4/s320/IMG_2690.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panorama Trail hike</td></tr>
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It was a really neat hike. It was really fun to hear Dad talk about the hike and point out the views and what we were looking at. He clearly knows Yosemite well. He was like a giddy school boy. I loved the different views and I loved loved Nevada Falls. It was so amazing, raging full, huge, and majestically. You really just can't tell how majestic it is unless you are there. Walter was adorable and would wave to people and smile and kick his legs and make cute noises. People thought it was pretty awesome that I was hiking with him. Going down the path from Nevada falls to Vernal falls was the hardest part for me. I think mostly because I was carting a baby and the trail was large rocks with sand around them and quite slippery. By the time we got to Vernal falls, I was actually really struggling physically. I was out of energy and realized I had not been drinking or eating enough. I felt we had gone more than 8 miles already. I sate, ate, got regenerated and decided I needed to just move forward as quickly as possible to get to the bottom or I wasn't going to make it. So I did. And I would stop here and there for amazing views. I was blessed and able to get down safely and quickly. Though I kept wondering when we were going to get to the end of the hike-my legs were so so tired of going downhill (as most of the hike is downhill and going down granite steps or rocks). We finally arrived and I nursed little Walter who had been awesome, but gotten a very sore bum and was also a little famished. It was an awesome and amazing hike, but it was very hard (as most things worth doing in life are). Everyone was exhausted as we all arrived at the bottom within about 40 minutes of each other. The hike was longer and harder than we all expected. And we came to learn something about Yosemite-the term "Yosemite miles" became a common phrase. Pretty much on all the hikes the miles are way off- less than what it really is. Everyones GPS watches stated that we had hiked 11.4 miles. We thought those "8 miles" took longer than it should have.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKR9JQir8ogLDzWyeHtIIliDJ4XG5gAvOfxwh3kaG_p5AkSlRy9hAF2vah8Y736dcS6K8AX2-v5gsq-ibGHAXhwFrsnYcdGTkwHbOOwOeZUqgULuqfiTLVbG8QfJkobDQHSWxJZqQPHl0/s1600/IMG_2721.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKR9JQir8ogLDzWyeHtIIliDJ4XG5gAvOfxwh3kaG_p5AkSlRy9hAF2vah8Y736dcS6K8AX2-v5gsq-ibGHAXhwFrsnYcdGTkwHbOOwOeZUqgULuqfiTLVbG8QfJkobDQHSWxJZqQPHl0/s320/IMG_2721.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panorama Trail-lunch break</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVoGPQhP4G-Q14HeSriFIMRnt6Iau51S_5CKQtfYjqiC8i8pOtoCceey6VbhXLMVo2sFeFHf-NFBvB_3n8O02EdZpeR3YfrYxMn6I_c3JdYi1kohDZmwl6nKNfwS1J9_-cDmiD_k0KD4g/s1600/IMG_2715.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVoGPQhP4G-Q14HeSriFIMRnt6Iau51S_5CKQtfYjqiC8i8pOtoCceey6VbhXLMVo2sFeFHf-NFBvB_3n8O02EdZpeR3YfrYxMn6I_c3JdYi1kohDZmwl6nKNfwS1J9_-cDmiD_k0KD4g/s320/IMG_2715.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dad taking a pic. We ate lunch on these huge rock slabs in this river</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0qyNbb8xyBlDw5XgOH5O_4gYrVb8DJYWwxpB6gpc72zq34FIULBvyM5wT9LpbcdzQwrm4ylih8JADgJqTu9oTPOsSJEHuVrxzt2Z56pGis4WQy4j6pIYRUSH5cxgIS6JVAeMrVg3dgY/s1600/IMG_2743.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0qyNbb8xyBlDw5XgOH5O_4gYrVb8DJYWwxpB6gpc72zq34FIULBvyM5wT9LpbcdzQwrm4ylih8JADgJqTu9oTPOsSJEHuVrxzt2Z56pGis4WQy4j6pIYRUSH5cxgIS6JVAeMrVg3dgY/s320/IMG_2743.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the bridge over Nevada Falls</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zBeg1wB6SXBS5YpFboSfMoOt-65SuEy4hdCVVm3AvfEcy2U3QNLqvgpEAYYJPf08aYQm8mGsyNI2_o5JGElnfBAGHkrW_K-5uZiUAKklA62AB6p2mKiZim5u0UAdiJa258cCJlPsr70/s1600/IMG_2731.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3zBeg1wB6SXBS5YpFboSfMoOt-65SuEy4hdCVVm3AvfEcy2U3QNLqvgpEAYYJPf08aYQm8mGsyNI2_o5JGElnfBAGHkrW_K-5uZiUAKklA62AB6p2mKiZim5u0UAdiJa258cCJlPsr70/s320/IMG_2731.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Raging Nevada Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZZdpY2SJHRGHoSl2uNluasUc7diO-VBSS3gY_ba__jgNZ6FPmfu-Nw1955xlgYT5XQJW-wNp9ZEAtd_dagTdOemNxqFgHn-SARUkgItH1zeQEdXY2ZDVW5B_dhRTrS4No2S9ijjH1QY/s1600/IMG_2747.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiZZdpY2SJHRGHoSl2uNluasUc7diO-VBSS3gY_ba__jgNZ6FPmfu-Nw1955xlgYT5XQJW-wNp9ZEAtd_dagTdOemNxqFgHn-SARUkgItH1zeQEdXY2ZDVW5B_dhRTrS4No2S9ijjH1QY/s320/IMG_2747.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lookout next to Nevada Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgle5FR7FOLts8UsJejeQrO4zHJdVU6jKMBHFrah1EebkhE8O0217Ixi5Q64C6DTXBB48Gs5TG0XAy773JxzCGqehgffpyAyXsiOQdsjDNuvBNtBX9KdCCXoW1K4cuye28ObTMRKj2qfiI/s1600/IMG_2689.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgle5FR7FOLts8UsJejeQrO4zHJdVU6jKMBHFrah1EebkhE8O0217Ixi5Q64C6DTXBB48Gs5TG0XAy773JxzCGqehgffpyAyXsiOQdsjDNuvBNtBX9KdCCXoW1K4cuye28ObTMRKj2qfiI/s320/IMG_2689.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panorama Trail hike</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFv_qwMuwvuY8e7-50JsLhDiRr5MeKzshgr5qMB5T6qUj9ffH6Wg4lzYFG1EJgeDReQ0Jv_wW1xE5pdmP_FP2UUmmg_drjOaoiiRLSa4nXwpD2N2K79YEUvQMxnmyKgza8CRW5RnYMZuM/s1600/IMG_2772.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFv_qwMuwvuY8e7-50JsLhDiRr5MeKzshgr5qMB5T6qUj9ffH6Wg4lzYFG1EJgeDReQ0Jv_wW1xE5pdmP_FP2UUmmg_drjOaoiiRLSa4nXwpD2N2K79YEUvQMxnmyKgza8CRW5RnYMZuM/s320/IMG_2772.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vernal Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWT5TrIySwLtvYkF1LzdhabdaydY1QnqZibA8ecT5FY9lwgP3031r47nDAqZ9daxdNoM64hDR1pbjgVbWkg_aj780WWsByKgIf8TNbOJsdIziMZ_26LdUfe3IBgtHQTGsItA3OFkNRys/s1600/IMG_2752.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBWT5TrIySwLtvYkF1LzdhabdaydY1QnqZibA8ecT5FY9lwgP3031r47nDAqZ9daxdNoM64hDR1pbjgVbWkg_aj780WWsByKgIf8TNbOJsdIziMZ_26LdUfe3IBgtHQTGsItA3OFkNRys/s320/IMG_2752.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panorama Trail-awesome dome next to Half Dome</td></tr>
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We now had a problem though-our vehicle was at Glacier Point. We were tired, it was getting late and we wanted to get to camp. Rosanne (Jeremy's wife) had their mini-van and small kids with her in the Valley. The original plan was for Rosanne to drive Dad or Jay up to Glacier Point and then they come back down and get us. That would take about 2 hours-and then we would still have to go to our campsite-3 hours. She was so kind and let us all pile into her van along with Jeremy and her other kids and she took us all up to Glacier Point to our vehicle. I was a little nervous-if we got pulled over we would be in huge trouble. Jay and Emily got in the trunk. I was squished on the front bench with 2 other little kids and holding Walter. Jeremy, their friend and 2 of his kids were on the other bench. Dad sat in the front. We were very blessed as we drove to Glacier Point for driving safely-Rosanne is an excellent mountain driver, and because we passed 4 cops on the way that didn't notice-one was following behind us for quite a while and then turned off another way-phew!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPB9dvD4lFXu2iuXnMV5Ekg9dwQ7EGzJ9CPpdq98_8XB1xS_4HAXt5bORKGhFKEj6DI5KHPLmexBxaPmyAyl8N2SLdW08NK355zhMySA82i0bJY19RvcMbFpYYvOEhCyAOA66fxWRShQ/s1600/0604181820.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilPB9dvD4lFXu2iuXnMV5Ekg9dwQ7EGzJ9CPpdq98_8XB1xS_4HAXt5bORKGhFKEj6DI5KHPLmexBxaPmyAyl8N2SLdW08NK355zhMySA82i0bJY19RvcMbFpYYvOEhCyAOA66fxWRShQ/s320/0604181820.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All of us squished into Rosannes van</td></tr>
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The next morning, Tuesday, my legs were so incredibly sore, I could hardly get up and barely walk-pretty much everyone felt that way as they started getting going for the day. This was a big day for Dad, Emily, Jay, and Jeremy. They were hiking Half Dome, there was no way I was going to hike that with a baby-not even sure if I could without a baby. Rosanne and I were going to take it easy and do simple hikes in the valley. We hiked to Mirror lake with the kids-it was really fun to play in the water and was a relatively simple hike. We got to camp later than we had planned-8pm. We got a fire going and started getting dinner ready. We were getting pretty nervous that we hadn't heard back from the Half Dome hikers when 8:30 rolled around. Though just after we started getting really nervous, they called saying they were on their way-they had all made it to the top-alive!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu4NCI8ZbYfTEWj81dSeQg9EmzztJAJboLns9SH7oQTxvliSQ7M7SLPHwHD7Els9ZZW3-4MAvApOrUrx0gn-PDBwqIG5yFa4mvY_Cynu6MtvRgatt-1luGg1mWbpalKmgC6hHv_l5FzXI/s1600/0607180631a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu4NCI8ZbYfTEWj81dSeQg9EmzztJAJboLns9SH7oQTxvliSQ7M7SLPHwHD7Els9ZZW3-4MAvApOrUrx0gn-PDBwqIG5yFa4mvY_Cynu6MtvRgatt-1luGg1mWbpalKmgC6hHv_l5FzXI/s320/0607180631a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I loved waking up to my snuggling baby</td></tr>
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Wednesday was a day we had planned to go to the Valley, do some laundry, shower (you can pay to do laundry and take a shower) and eat out (they have different restaurants and stores in the Valley). It was really nice to get a shower and wash some laundry. We explored a few places in the Valley and looked for some fun souvenirs. We did a little bit of hiking as well. It was nice to look around and enjoy the Valley-you really could just hang out in the Valley if you aren't a hiker and have a really nice time.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41DSBMzR4Cnkh0SXJipp6IAjFvNMxQnvMu7B1GlHKi6KKbak04Tj6JqEKDxn6EO2Ud84fubnaNO1y_38puDVZCXKDTXG1zYlMepaMaUEv3N1Lfvd4uXoRZgUMNhNSMf-oFGe8EiF-Blo/s1600/IMG_2980.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41DSBMzR4Cnkh0SXJipp6IAjFvNMxQnvMu7B1GlHKi6KKbak04Tj6JqEKDxn6EO2Ud84fubnaNO1y_38puDVZCXKDTXG1zYlMepaMaUEv3N1Lfvd4uXoRZgUMNhNSMf-oFGe8EiF-Blo/s320/IMG_2980.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating lunch in the Yosemite Village</td></tr>
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGDLKB-zjZ8XLIUqV5b6JABpmIJlriFwB4h06tHVpJA7FcPF59QU81oIG66l2_iz4X5h3u1PLzhdd4hj_A92Y37GjSyQmMLsY74hZm3g2z7XjTAtZ6n2rtj10L-inUlwXOrex4pRC64g/s1600/IMG_2993.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnGDLKB-zjZ8XLIUqV5b6JABpmIJlriFwB4h06tHVpJA7FcPF59QU81oIG66l2_iz4X5h3u1PLzhdd4hj_A92Y37GjSyQmMLsY74hZm3g2z7XjTAtZ6n2rtj10L-inUlwXOrex4pRC64g/s320/IMG_2993.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eating Haagen Dazs in Half Dome Village</td></tr>
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Thursday we were hiking Upper Yosemite Falls (a pretty hard hike) and those that were really tough (Jay, Emily, and Dad) were going to continue on to El Capitan. My plan was to hike for the first half of Upper Yosemite Falls-to a lookout point. I wasn't up for a really hard hike carting a baby. It was a good hike though-I did about 2.2 miles to that point and then headed back down on my own while they continued on. Walter was again, adorable and people loved smiling at and waving at him and he loved it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPWRGx-TWEeR7Ws2YHufZYrt6V3bE7r84MUwCi0nKH-rdUzlCWmxhzdfLCIujw5nPGtDZ5zA1ZpHkLITDva9udMQlXIc2vc9tENBdjljxxz5Sm368qJs-uyDnMDYPT9euVVxHlp23yMgY/s1600/IMG_3051.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPWRGx-TWEeR7Ws2YHufZYrt6V3bE7r84MUwCi0nKH-rdUzlCWmxhzdfLCIujw5nPGtDZ5zA1ZpHkLITDva9udMQlXIc2vc9tENBdjljxxz5Sm368qJs-uyDnMDYPT9euVVxHlp23yMgY/s320/IMG_3051.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upper Yosemite Falls hike</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllF890VJJDmD-HLSpqLcGZmuLsQ9Q4UhubTcRPhIrDFvJQHuMbb99UpeCssqEYASFEn_0Fg426AoAV1ShqxEDFNwBRbenN8PFaLAXpYvL7xIojYN6PmCJfrqXfrPCrs6swUI4oQyCCTI/s1600/IMG_3045.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhllF890VJJDmD-HLSpqLcGZmuLsQ9Q4UhubTcRPhIrDFvJQHuMbb99UpeCssqEYASFEn_0Fg426AoAV1ShqxEDFNwBRbenN8PFaLAXpYvL7xIojYN6PmCJfrqXfrPCrs6swUI4oQyCCTI/s320/IMG_3045.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Upper Yosemite Falls hike</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCbBytExoVX8js9HOLqCl9Qj-RClAuHt9awSmd999UqFJMfpJY71aWPwlcP5YonrDvQCz0pRw_e6wRByoLOhdpBLJ2r2qyfRXyBfL-2sm2z32Roe2tn1KNq1asOEjkqMzva4rvicp5tU/s1600/0607181540.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipCbBytExoVX8js9HOLqCl9Qj-RClAuHt9awSmd999UqFJMfpJY71aWPwlcP5YonrDvQCz0pRw_e6wRByoLOhdpBLJ2r2qyfRXyBfL-2sm2z32Roe2tn1KNq1asOEjkqMzva4rvicp5tU/s320/0607181540.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from a trail on our bike ride around Yosemite Valley</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjccp9huAnw0TzEu2wzsOgjkcj0sGyqgFvQ1EUZ4i1mZOUy2NjE_ym61AQeSUimE8W8JQPPIhC-nOSDgDYHOprLBtd4VTwyYb0UvYgQSMAWjRWKbRKW7RKp_ncfsNCZ7ki_qFoNW_ZdU8/s1600/0608181853.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjccp9huAnw0TzEu2wzsOgjkcj0sGyqgFvQ1EUZ4i1mZOUy2NjE_ym61AQeSUimE8W8JQPPIhC-nOSDgDYHOprLBtd4VTwyYb0UvYgQSMAWjRWKbRKW7RKp_ncfsNCZ7ki_qFoNW_ZdU8/s320/0608181853.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bolders along the Lower Yosemite Falls.</td></tr>
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When I got to the bottom of the trail, I had the day to do what I wanted in the Valley. I ended up hiking or walking on over to Lower Yosemite Falls to nurse (found a boulder to sit on a little out of the way). Then I was really tired of carting Walter. My back was pretty achey. I had heard that you could rent bikes and bike around. So I decided to look into that. And I rented a bike with a Burley trailer on it (we have the exact same trailer). It was so nice to take Walter off and put him in the trailer. Then we went for a bike ride. My legs needed that too-they were so tired from the hiking and walking and it was good to have a change in movement. And I loved the bike ride! That is a great way to see Yosemite! They have a path you can bike around. I got to see some incredible views and places as I biked around. It was really fun-it turned out to be one of my favorite things I did there, and I would highly recommend it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFVklZBLfL_OHXPocGKBPNcpbfbeRbE3-UhxhrsOfNzmqL5cEFDCxljeHTm_Q6iEH_IqUSiE1HFpUXCP0lD8xQUabep9s1OldqudG17o0NvrZJXyvSG-YVdWWQZYBQlkgVL-50V9OatM/s1600/0607181550.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyFVklZBLfL_OHXPocGKBPNcpbfbeRbE3-UhxhrsOfNzmqL5cEFDCxljeHTm_Q6iEH_IqUSiE1HFpUXCP0lD8xQUabep9s1OldqudG17o0NvrZJXyvSG-YVdWWQZYBQlkgVL-50V9OatM/s320/0607181550.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter and I on our bike ride</td></tr>
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After I turned my bike in, I found a place to nurse off a trail again and called Jon and the kids and realized I could do a video chat. So then I walked around a bit and tried to show them the beautiful trail, river, boulders, and whatnot that I was around. And then I hiked over to Lower Yosemite Falls again to show them that. I realized I hadn't been taking any pics or videos because carting Walter I just hadn't pulled out my phone much. So I got some footage for them to see. It was fun to try to give them a glimpse of the beauty I was in. Then Jay texted me that he was down the mountain and to head over to the car. We all went out for Pizza in Half Dome Village and snuck in another shower while we there (you get so so dirty hiking all day).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQRSesincIC6VQzuUdtHpZSxpZRw7P9JHskoVVzGy2haHXkCvShcw-X9Rv_GcgsNyjTnCvibhPNBbaARZuVLIiCYVoEbuD5JLQ6_EpnD1zMbxUeSz0zAAJjnSarAEodtlONTR0Y4B4ng/s1600/0607181319.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQRSesincIC6VQzuUdtHpZSxpZRw7P9JHskoVVzGy2haHXkCvShcw-X9Rv_GcgsNyjTnCvibhPNBbaARZuVLIiCYVoEbuD5JLQ6_EpnD1zMbxUeSz0zAAJjnSarAEodtlONTR0Y4B4ng/s320/0607181319.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter did great in the backpack! He loved waving and smiling at people.</td></tr>
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<br />
Friday was our last day. It was sobering. I hate saying goodbye. We had planned a simplish hike-sentinnel Dome, and Taft Point to see the Fizures.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmDetM6fzEXcj0o2snwX9egusvlYtg-MDllGj7XnqAgnIvM089Df2i56N9eOBCMZj7oqP75FNLhXWlUkHL0IYv_-5-Tot1irfdWDxqNTPj_5gSiZ3owFc1r6cFTydV6gLCfbRF57GNLs/s1600/0604180930b.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqmDetM6fzEXcj0o2snwX9egusvlYtg-MDllGj7XnqAgnIvM089Df2i56N9eOBCMZj7oqP75FNLhXWlUkHL0IYv_-5-Tot1irfdWDxqNTPj_5gSiZ3owFc1r6cFTydV6gLCfbRF57GNLs/s320/0604180930b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glacier Point lookout</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIjzQIXLe-ISF44CxFt6Jomsc1rwiPE7v_RxzjmFbSH57HHmtUnl1Cfh8qknFznhSBmHjGdoxutwGHh8ODrX28oJe8WKRJRARJ0toUy2pC17lXBE_jeASmOR61IhuTOMuGEsZonUdOT7M/s1600/0608181339a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIjzQIXLe-ISF44CxFt6Jomsc1rwiPE7v_RxzjmFbSH57HHmtUnl1Cfh8qknFznhSBmHjGdoxutwGHh8ODrX28oJe8WKRJRARJ0toUy2pC17lXBE_jeASmOR61IhuTOMuGEsZonUdOT7M/s320/0608181339a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is at the top center of Sentinal Dome. It's showing all the views that you can see from that point.</td></tr>
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We started at Glacier Point again. We discovered they had a nice gift shop there as well and got some yummy icecream after the hike. Anyway, as we got started, we realized this was going to be a bigger hike than we realized. We decided we probably had enough fluid and food to continue. We ended up barely having enough-but we made it. But I will say it was my favorite of our hikes-well, maybe. It was for sure super awesome and beautful and majestic! We ended up doing a large portion of the Pahono trail-which included hiking to senntienal dome, then on to taft point and fizures. And then we hiked back a different way-doing a loop. I was very nervous about the fizures and had decided that if it was too scary when we got there, then I would just wait while they went on and came back to me. Well, it was not too scary. It was super neat. It was nerve racking in that we were so so high up and on the edges of cliffs, but there was plenty of flatish space around us that you didn't feel too much like you were up high on cliffs.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJzGnBzpP3DLRyq34X65LZGQlmblbLTk6ZxZRErz6wHWkv2vgVbi6RFBncGAgD1kyoIHYb6IRPb-aq6_jL6LdzpOqaHHklwOzb5zO7aQiEN5U8nWAXQaiFG4449LoHVSizM_225RpZXCU/s1600/0608181337.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJzGnBzpP3DLRyq34X65LZGQlmblbLTk6ZxZRErz6wHWkv2vgVbi6RFBncGAgD1kyoIHYb6IRPb-aq6_jL6LdzpOqaHHklwOzb5zO7aQiEN5U8nWAXQaiFG4449LoHVSizM_225RpZXCU/s320/0608181337.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the top of Sentinel Dome</td></tr>
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Taft point and the fizures were awesome and I couldn't believe that I was brave enough to go up to the edges. I discovered that without my kids with me, I was much braver than I am when I hike with my kids and they get close to edges and I freak out. I don't know if I could have hiked taft point with my kids.<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZjLGKd5n5SK9upkkyu3p1IcKiGxbgO7u0N6s25pRME473e4gmRGbh3-K5514gMz5QsWN0mfdFKI2gYajZ2Z3W8dGuEdx99gLrLgKoJTT_myRdxtm0c_YGmZvxa52VfgrENjofdM5XKo/s1600/0608181516a.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHZjLGKd5n5SK9upkkyu3p1IcKiGxbgO7u0N6s25pRME473e4gmRGbh3-K5514gMz5QsWN0mfdFKI2gYajZ2Z3W8dGuEdx99gLrLgKoJTT_myRdxtm0c_YGmZvxa52VfgrENjofdM5XKo/s320/0608181516a.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By the fissures at Taft Point-someone had hung a hammock across three points over a complete drop off down by the valley</td></tr>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzgJLZ4OZZaMEkkWbzKrqOJiRNMBjDq_YSPRE9_RBIFcjf_SaqCO5Rv_3Sh_FEnhIBBwh0KT0h5r6v8GgvlFWKjRpWm2wvtpvU3vLB0kruTJLIrqa1B4tHSDCMZ5E3Z8MjTeP4_9muvdc/s1600/IMG_3266.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzgJLZ4OZZaMEkkWbzKrqOJiRNMBjDq_YSPRE9_RBIFcjf_SaqCO5Rv_3Sh_FEnhIBBwh0KT0h5r6v8GgvlFWKjRpWm2wvtpvU3vLB0kruTJLIrqa1B4tHSDCMZ5E3Z8MjTeP4_9muvdc/s320/IMG_3266.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taft Point-we are on the edge of an extremely high cliff</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkRe0ZvgPsS0K6txqEHg4b5rOeLK-bNl4Arv3jLbNsJq-xEoTaRtlaSUiC5v0gtHjP2bJ-did4_A6Zf8E9WFBaLrL6CPP6p9Zv29GVkqRsb_XIbEjkhHVnnkJwxSwYlnaTlj3sk7SfDI/s1600/IMG_3261.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTkRe0ZvgPsS0K6txqEHg4b5rOeLK-bNl4Arv3jLbNsJq-xEoTaRtlaSUiC5v0gtHjP2bJ-did4_A6Zf8E9WFBaLrL6CPP6p9Zv29GVkqRsb_XIbEjkhHVnnkJwxSwYlnaTlj3sk7SfDI/s320/IMG_3261.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Standing next to a fizzure at Taft Point</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GLAW2eyJ077tVuUY7dBwFvZwPUdk4du_E2DgGTPvvzYSXjVJ2ecPSNN46mzJTRjG0IdJT1dNgmD7Vgy6W3PAvngd3tSo1Yf1UkHrzD5vMiKTHV7cuRHGfv3XuqrUC3EM4mYpSreYN58/s1600/IMG_3271.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4GLAW2eyJ077tVuUY7dBwFvZwPUdk4du_E2DgGTPvvzYSXjVJ2ecPSNN46mzJTRjG0IdJT1dNgmD7Vgy6W3PAvngd3tSo1Yf1UkHrzD5vMiKTHV7cuRHGfv3XuqrUC3EM4mYpSreYN58/s320/IMG_3271.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taft Point</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jay standing at the edge of a fizzure</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I loved the huge granite bolders throughout the park. This is on the Pohono trail.</td></tr>
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The way back from taft point was a loop and part of the Pohono trail, so a different way than the way we came. It was my favorite-gorgeous veiws of the Valley along the whole way. Essentially it was another panorama trail on the opposite side of Yosemite. Dad loved it too and couldn't resist stopping at any good lookout.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A look out off of Pohono Trail</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here we are at the trailhead after our hike. Walter was completely out-he did awesome.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCPnezortVHnviaD5LMEX-jtXhKoWr7e23cDxU3qND6z63EPBGl8yigaKTkiU6n4RdnuTLljzqwnBJusF-Nsv7zo3lHdbWlvoPYXi6gL5B8fSY-rdkYTdz-NsWEgVBuf1dlTtj9QxoRZU/s1600/IMG_2988.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCPnezortVHnviaD5LMEX-jtXhKoWr7e23cDxU3qND6z63EPBGl8yigaKTkiU6n4RdnuTLljzqwnBJusF-Nsv7zo3lHdbWlvoPYXi6gL5B8fSY-rdkYTdz-NsWEgVBuf1dlTtj9QxoRZU/s320/IMG_2988.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bridge on one of the paths to Lower Yosemite Falls</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dad on our final hike to Lower Yosemite Falls</td></tr>
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It was so fun to see his excitement. He told us that he had dreampt of returning to Yosemite many times and loved being back. It was awesome to be a part of this trip with him! I was so glad I had gone because I really almost didn't.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Final hike/walk to Lower Yosemite Falls (you can see upper and lower falls here)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59BOXWfDrRiHUFp-cu53d0LRlNIu0TSQyKLXfRCKbSI7QxMAiJEhwZ8n6ubn_0Cqn5aqKtXVPReab_JwvtaA9p4nCYlKUzKPN0wm5VtqLQTrMZyVP5Yy7r4zQSu784OKm4jooOpNi3AQ/s1600/0608181840.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg59BOXWfDrRiHUFp-cu53d0LRlNIu0TSQyKLXfRCKbSI7QxMAiJEhwZ8n6ubn_0Cqn5aqKtXVPReab_JwvtaA9p4nCYlKUzKPN0wm5VtqLQTrMZyVP5Yy7r4zQSu784OKm4jooOpNi3AQ/s320/0608181840.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grandpa/dad with Walter</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walter and I on our last walk to Lower Yosemite Falls</td></tr>
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Saturday we got up early and packed up camp as quickly as we could so that we could get on the road as we had to get back to Utah that evening. It was so sad to leave. It was such a wonderful trip and I can't wait to take my own children there and show them the many neat things I got to see.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the way home.</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-35836803545222510482017-08-12T10:49:00.000-07:002019-07-20T13:45:59.050-07:00An entry while at Primary Children's on Aug. 2017It has been quite an adventure since having little Walter. It has been hard on all the kids, but they have been awesome. A sum up-Walter was life flighted the night of his birth to a higher level NICU due to breathing struggles. He turned out to have fluid in his lungs as well which turned to pnemonia-which possibly came from Strep B. That night he was put on several different ventilation items. In the process somewhere his stomach got filled with air with a misplaced ventilator This caused his belly to be quite large and distended. I was quite concerned that it was still distended when he left the NICU 2 weeks later. They said it would resolve itself via gas and poop. After 2 weeks of it not resolving and him seeming constipated and then every 2-3 days having explosive, and I mean explosive, poops, and 3 visits to his pediatrician about it, the pediatrician ordered x-rays and a kidney ultrasound. That was on a Monday. Tuesday the pediatrician said there was major blockage and it was putting pressure on the kidneys as well. To rule out Hirschprungs disease, which is in Jon's family and we were worried that it might be what was going on, he ordered an enema procedure where they veiw the colon under an xray. The technician was pretty positive that Walter had it. We got a call about 2 hours after the procedure from our pediatrician letting us know that Walter needed to head up to Primary Children's Hospital to have a biopsy and then likely surgery. They wanted us to head up that evening and get him admitted and on an IV, ready for the biopsy in the morning. The biopsy results take 24-48 hours to confirm. The results came back Friday afternoon-the results were positive-he has Hirschsprungs Disease. They scheduled the surgery for the following Tuesday and were going to send us home, but because of the regular vitals taken while at the hospital, they discovered that Walter had high blood pressure. That could be due to the pressure of the abdomen on the kidneys and pain. But they wanted to run some tests and make sure that there wasn't something else going on. We ended up staying until Sunday afternoon. They didn't find anything else that was really concerning. We got to go home for 2 nights before coming back. So many family members fasted for him and so many family and friends were praying for him. He did really well the day of the surgery-I was amazed that he stayed calm the whole day. His surgery wasn't until that afternoon and he couldn't nurse after 8. He did get some pedialyte at 11, but that was it. I expected him to be super fussy and wanting to eat for the rest of the day. Instead he was totally calm. I realized that he was really being helped through the prayers and fasting for him. They were delayed in surgery so he wasn't taken back until 4:30. At 9pm the Dr came out and let us know that the surgery went really well and that we would be able to go back and see him soon. I was so anxious to see my sweet baby. When we went back he was crying such a sad weak, full of misery cry. It was so heartbreaking to see him in such pain. I just held him and hurt for him. He looked up at me and it was so hard to not be able to do anything to make him feel better but hold him. My poor baby. We are still at the hospital recovering. He is doing well overall and we hope to be going home soon.<br />
My other kids have been awesome through all this. They have had to do a lot on their own and take charge of a lot of things. I have been away from them quite a bit. They have visited here once when we were here last week and then once this week. If we end up spending tonight, they will come again this evening. My poor little Isabelle went from being my baby to not only being replaced as the baby, but being away from her mom a lot. It has been very hard on her. Jon brought her over a couple of days ago and she was so cute and sweet. I love her little hands and I love to hold them and hold and hug her. <br />
The older kids were looking so forward to having their little brother and helped prepare for him, pick out cute outfits and get his room ready. Little did we know that he wouldn't be home much to enjoy those things for the first couple months of his life. He won't fit into some of the cute outfits the kids picked out before he was born. He will be 7 weeks old tomorrow and he spent the first 2 weeks in the NICU and we have been at Primary Childrens Hospital for 10 days so far. I hope we get to go home soon (possibly today).<br />
Jon comes to visit each day. Walter loves his dad so much. He loves his voice-it is very calming to him. I think part of the reason it is so calming is because Jon was with Walter at the NICU and talked to him and read to him quite a bit. I didn't get to hold and nurse him until he was 6 days old. So all he got before that was us talking to him, singing to him, reading to him, and holding his tiny hand and rubbing his head.<br />
While Jon was here the other day, the kids decided to surprise him and cleaned the whole house, including shining the bathrooms. They are such thoughtful kids. They are great helpers and are very responsible. They areUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-68990350393753441372017-05-08T09:05:00.000-07:002017-05-08T09:05:57.229-07:00The Day Our Sweet Isabelle Arrived<div dir="ltr">
So I just found this-unpublished. Finishing things is not my strong point. Oh well, I will post it, 3 years later. I am now 7ish weeks away from having another baby, so maybe I'll post about him this year or maybe I'll wait 3 years again, ha ha. I will have to say that this pregnancy has also been quite miserable, though it is really neat to feel him move and I'm getting very excited to meet him-and Jonathan is ecstatic to be having a brother! So on to my post from 3 years ago about our dear, sweet Isabelle. </div>
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We were so excited to find out we were expecting this past summer (2013)-though also very nervous. I will admit that it was a hard pregnancy-maybe because I'm older, maybe because I was used to feeling pretty good most of the time, or maybe it really was just making me super miserable, but I felt absolutely awful for the first 25 weeks. It was a long pregnancy, that's all I can say. It wasn't so bad for about 8 weeks, and then the end was rough with stomach acid and lack of sleep, but that's for sure normal. The night before I couldn't sleep. I went into the baby's room and decided to work on some burp clothes I had wanted to make. Aubrey came in. She couldn't sleep either. We talked about the new baby and made the burp clothes together. It was really sweet. I took the kids to school the next morning. The c-section was scheduled for 5pm, getting to the hospital at 3. My kids were going home on the bus with friends. I didn't realize the bus driver would not let them get off on another stop than normal-I got a phone call from the school while I was being admitted saying I needed to pick up my kids because the bus driver wouldn't let them on the bus because they were getting off one stop earlier than normal-same bus, just getting off one stop earlier. I explained that I was in the hospital having my baby and that I had arranged for my kids to get off with their friends one stop earlier than their regular stop. Apparently the bus driver was being a real stickler and saying she wasn't going to allow it. I apologized and explained that I hadn't thought it would be a problem because friends had gone on the bus with my kids before. The bus driver insisted that the district bus supervisor give permission-the school had no authority over her. Anyway, the school secretary said she would work it out, though I was nervous about my kids getting to the homes we had planned out. I had 2 kids going to one home and I had dropped Amelia off at another home where Mariah had a friend she was coming home on the bus with. I was good friends with both the mom's. I called them both to let them know the situation and they said they would let me know as soon as they had my kids. So that was a nice way to start out my delivery-ha ha.</div>
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I do not enjoy being prepped for a c-section, but I always do appreciate my anesthesiologist. Mostly you just feel a lot of pressure and i all Jon how it's going. I heard little Isabelles cry right as they ppulled her out. Out was so precious and I couldn't wait to see and hold her. I think it is so dear to be able to hold your baby as soon as she comes out. My Dr. knew this and was so good to me and laid her on my chest and I got to talk to her and touch her for a minute before they checked vitals and whatnot. Then they brought her to me as soon as I was out of surgery. That's the hard part about a c-section, probably the hardest. Finishing up and getting out of surgery to a room where you can really hold your baby. I loved holding her close and starting to nurse. It was so precious. I think after having a miscarriage I was more attached to her. (I was the same way with Amelia-didn't let her out of my site and hardly put off my hands). I kept her not only in my room my entire stay, but tucked into my shirt on the hospital bed and we just cuddled and rested together. The whole time. It was really really sweet. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-43558143487563252512017-05-07T20:00:00.001-07:002017-05-07T22:51:24.069-07:00Hand Quilting<div dir="ltr">
I've wanted to teach my kids how to hand quilt for a long time. One of the main reasons we started homeschooling was to be able to do projects and activities as a family. I have had this piece of fabric for a long time and figured this would be a great item to learn on, as the kids have also been learning their states & </div>
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capitals. Hand sewing (along with many other hands-on activities) supposedly helps with hand writing and in helping with brain connections vital for reading and comprehension. If that's true, great! But my main reason was the fond memories I have of hand quilting with my mom and sisters-visiting, watching movies, and enjoying each others company while we accomplished something neat together. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-11744025502569235432015-03-29T16:15:00.000-07:002015-11-19T07:55:50.007-08:00September 2014Amelias Birthday!<br>
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Amelia had her first friend party-which was super cute! We made homemade pizza and a cupcake horse. Great grandma and grandpa came it's always fun to have grandparents on your birthday! They were both so impressed with how much Jon helped with the party-and he did! Having a baby this year has given me more opportunity to rely on Jon and the kids for help and they have just been awesome! Aubrey and Amelia made the cutest pin the tail on the donkey game. Then we did the typical treasure hunt-kids always love that. They loved the pizza and Amelia and I had a great time making her cupcake horse cake together before the party. I think she had a great 4th birthday!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5nLIEo_TEnVzz-2bPWTCvk-5AKorSI5KhDv7lkOrqXJfcRw1nvSZ4asE_c0A-Pvn4yQL1pG2nNoGxzJg1bhdZSgLI30sOuTPr_HffnnZ5N2XYzjLTAwwOj2A5k96wXjJ7_2wGAAvMfw/s1600/1033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv5nLIEo_TEnVzz-2bPWTCvk-5AKorSI5KhDv7lkOrqXJfcRw1nvSZ4asE_c0A-Pvn4yQL1pG2nNoGxzJg1bhdZSgLI30sOuTPr_HffnnZ5N2XYzjLTAwwOj2A5k96wXjJ7_2wGAAvMfw/s1600/1033.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's the birthday girl ready to pop her 4 balloons-birthday tradition to pop as many balloons as you are turning and there will be a nice surprise inside.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLrcCSvzJjsWgwEmywrx_ndntaHrmV4yGRdPIT4pKgVRfUrrlk3In8itfh4spMAtdq5eK_TpF4yXFrHBDyIYdFkwjptjbMwktkbsE1CNiC8h9TID39MQGTJRW4fMcVuTSN12N0-XT7F0/s1600/1044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsLrcCSvzJjsWgwEmywrx_ndntaHrmV4yGRdPIT4pKgVRfUrrlk3In8itfh4spMAtdq5eK_TpF4yXFrHBDyIYdFkwjptjbMwktkbsE1CNiC8h9TID39MQGTJRW4fMcVuTSN12N0-XT7F0/s1600/1044.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aubrey drew the outline and Amelia colored it. The kids each colored their own tail.</td></tr></tbody></table>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-eFbonNgHdeElqtHP0NQF8dbcwKqm6mPEaCtBvyPDJEDMWEvctZh3nl47b7sgmkDGAP-5SYhM-0mkmSxh-9c6OxL1GIGntci7a0LHg-7T1WbPe-pkn4OwLKOgjH2kPp1Fc08ywFftUOo/s1600/1046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-eFbonNgHdeElqtHP0NQF8dbcwKqm6mPEaCtBvyPDJEDMWEvctZh3nl47b7sgmkDGAP-5SYhM-0mkmSxh-9c6OxL1GIGntci7a0LHg-7T1WbPe-pkn4OwLKOgjH2kPp1Fc08ywFftUOo/s1600/1046.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Funny faces!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPyJJaat3GNfbDKbqGoIGtkpO3CUv_1ZbG20zlxQEfzWx8H5EZW-m1QJzURtlr5lC3uuw-UALwDx1nsX4IV0j-PXs6ftb5asnIEiBGH5baYeNcvymYzQgF_0LdO5Z6kotc6LI0OS5NxPM/s1600/1047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPyJJaat3GNfbDKbqGoIGtkpO3CUv_1ZbG20zlxQEfzWx8H5EZW-m1QJzURtlr5lC3uuw-UALwDx1nsX4IV0j-PXs6ftb5asnIEiBGH5baYeNcvymYzQgF_0LdO5Z6kotc6LI0OS5NxPM/s1600/1047.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Little dishes with little food-it's become a birthday tradition!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmY1s7Pm2zkqfjtymgBRj7GVVktFTLzVGaO5LAbAlHyvWCSGjwuRf0YdP1XJK91v_5t18eQOwKFUkwfRWs6L-ttN9H4gzxpd4BGuTPVbs8rR2KWImb6wIvQ6a4KSKNmKKWqMME8zRcVM/s1600/1051.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfmY1s7Pm2zkqfjtymgBRj7GVVktFTLzVGaO5LAbAlHyvWCSGjwuRf0YdP1XJK91v_5t18eQOwKFUkwfRWs6L-ttN9H4gzxpd4BGuTPVbs8rR2KWImb6wIvQ6a4KSKNmKKWqMME8zRcVM/s1600/1051.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a><br></div></div><div><br></div><div>And I don't know how to move this picture down, so here is me making one of Jons favorites-scones (with honey butter of course).</div><div>
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Aubrey sewed a spider man, batman and hulk for Amelia. She loves those characters. She also got woody, which she also loves.<br>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1y6u7j8htB-edDDgxnABc8KCx2kfHOuZ40APeWOhqefSWujfnUzRWRS0tfrw5SOeBCBl8eX9BroJeY3T0ETAGmO7ivogUoW_N_ox9DXrv7spOExC6ali7fCVV8CbkpbXqWBp464-rXcg/s1600/Amelias+4th+b-day15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1y6u7j8htB-edDDgxnABc8KCx2kfHOuZ40APeWOhqefSWujfnUzRWRS0tfrw5SOeBCBl8eX9BroJeY3T0ETAGmO7ivogUoW_N_ox9DXrv7spOExC6ali7fCVV8CbkpbXqWBp464-rXcg/s1600/Amelias+4th+b-day15.jpg" height="179" width="320"></a></div>
Horse shaped cake with cup cakes. Amelia loved helping frost it.<br>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCez0JmcNTilRVZ2Ob3S6-cK75QPK2bhgWcRTABVJpJvW4CbN_v-klPQoQsRG4yfjM_CZdn9tEEAOE8b7axYwNwAfob51phSeHh1jCppXPSForoSh2wboGTloLfu6oazHDFlyJt_NNZc/s1600/Amelias+4th+b-day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimCez0JmcNTilRVZ2Ob3S6-cK75QPK2bhgWcRTABVJpJvW4CbN_v-klPQoQsRG4yfjM_CZdn9tEEAOE8b7axYwNwAfob51phSeHh1jCppXPSForoSh2wboGTloLfu6oazHDFlyJt_NNZc/s1600/Amelias+4th+b-day.jpg" height="180" width="320"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">We did ab ripper for family home evening. It was hilarious!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMGeo81tHZJ0jU5BikMuNIJplktiaHY65WXxBj3Pjjr9IId8GEzGBSghewgfmd4kmQaLo8TtU3yghJIBNX2SWERPAo-DaGOsUTQu9IYqmRbpKBxDorXAPSN5F5WnS-_7Zh_yriKWBb3c/s1600/abripper2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMGeo81tHZJ0jU5BikMuNIJplktiaHY65WXxBj3Pjjr9IId8GEzGBSghewgfmd4kmQaLo8TtU3yghJIBNX2SWERPAo-DaGOsUTQu9IYqmRbpKBxDorXAPSN5F5WnS-_7Zh_yriKWBb3c/s1600/abripper2.jpg" height="179" width="320"></a></div>
<div><br></div>Canned pinto beans.<br>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKbahSVFlk3FUVSsvYjuq6GlL8y0bL8eTYqg65s-MK87KtJbuuUAe550hqH0BML7FjL0eohM-vgSPfIepNcXlSK7bPU9WAt4FdhQl_Pap6XT52bfMxpuUxn9lDVYx6HRQqwZeB0hDNPWk/s1600/canned+pinto+beans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKbahSVFlk3FUVSsvYjuq6GlL8y0bL8eTYqg65s-MK87KtJbuuUAe550hqH0BML7FjL0eohM-vgSPfIepNcXlSK7bPU9WAt4FdhQl_Pap6XT52bfMxpuUxn9lDVYx6HRQqwZeB0hDNPWk/s1600/canned+pinto+beans.jpg" height="239" width="320"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Amelia folding laundry-she's such a good helper.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNYBen-NEFaF_-O72nms0o9ajuMOIEae_NZzUGLEOKrQD9pkEeuWQUEGeixEug-UTHDKoiXkstIY4wcWbRbIxmuPXlK3ATzmTwjyZdQWegxNM_6NyhwWzla43fn0DpjeqPHJ-6D70i-mk/s1600/amelia+doing+Jonathans+chore+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNYBen-NEFaF_-O72nms0o9ajuMOIEae_NZzUGLEOKrQD9pkEeuWQUEGeixEug-UTHDKoiXkstIY4wcWbRbIxmuPXlK3ATzmTwjyZdQWegxNM_6NyhwWzla43fn0DpjeqPHJ-6D70i-mk/s1600/amelia+doing+Jonathans+chore+1.jpg" height="240" width="320"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgML87PSVNj27cotz72qA35klo22MbWRnWVQQdCaq8J0CSc65DWYK3dY6J6zUh6T9M0M7DbfLlNwfV6gL8W8ie6wYymAWCAMhcigtrgkGUhqDWd6JB-38Cjc9uvJ6RfImjhv6j4teZ_FhY/s1600/amelia+doing+Jonathans+chore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgML87PSVNj27cotz72qA35klo22MbWRnWVQQdCaq8J0CSc65DWYK3dY6J6zUh6T9M0M7DbfLlNwfV6gL8W8ie6wYymAWCAMhcigtrgkGUhqDWd6JB-38Cjc9uvJ6RfImjhv6j4teZ_FhY/s1600/amelia+doing+Jonathans+chore.jpg" height="240" width="320"></a><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br></div>
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Isabelle taking a bath in the kitchen sink. And below she is sitting up and staying up on her own for the first time.<br>
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I was really into trying new homemade food this month. We did homemade egg noodles-which were amazing! I don't I will ever buy them again! Here they are in chicken noodle soup-homemade of course and delicious!<br>
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This was a fun find! I can't believe how many things I have found on the street for free! I was taking the kids to school and saw a huge free TV. I wanted to stop and get it but the kids didn't want to be late for school so I hurried to drop them off, came back and it was still there. I got it into the can-which I discovered I had to fold the seats to make it fit anyway so it wouldn't have worked to get it before dropping off the kids anyway. Jon was super surprised! It does have pixels on it, but it's better than our old TV and it's fun to have such a huge TV!<br>
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Here is our adorable Isabelle! She is really trying to copy faces we make. This is one of our favorites.<br>
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And of course this is adorable too!<br>
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So we got into homemade pizza hut pan pizza-deliciousness!<br>
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Everyone made their own.<br>
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Really LOVE homemade ice cream! A LOT!<br>
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And it's also amazing on chocolate waffles with homade carmel and chocolate sauce!<br>
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Homemade pasta noodles with the most amazing sauce-recipes found from the pioneer woman.<br>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-35451763718039459622014-10-12T22:34:00.001-07:002014-10-12T22:34:43.733-07:00August 2014School started the first week of August-we got back from Utah Sunday night, had meet the teacher on Monday night, bought our school supplies Tuesday and started school up on Wednesday. On Monday we were able to finish reading the last 2 chapters of A Little Princess-that was really fun to read aloud to my kids and they really got into it-so fun! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aubrey-first day of 5th grade</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mariah-first day of 4th grade</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jonathan-first day of 2nd grade</td></tr>
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Isabelle started smiling more and we finally got her to laugh more! She laughed for Jon a few times before we went to Utah in July, but the first time she laughed for me was in Utah while I was cleaning her hand with a wet wipe! It tickled her hand I guess and she just started giggling! It was adorable!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23L8tAGKvsmn_NTAjvu9Lw0YsU75kgvNLO7_mtG3YL8Kdpt_fXGJzErZ3ZUy_hykiS8WsnwPeYsA3sZkBYi3iKZo5BMLmnXogC0UTH5zVmu2L5m8oY5as-_xEnxORYVvfBn_U21HL1ng/s1600/916.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg23L8tAGKvsmn_NTAjvu9Lw0YsU75kgvNLO7_mtG3YL8Kdpt_fXGJzErZ3ZUy_hykiS8WsnwPeYsA3sZkBYi3iKZo5BMLmnXogC0UTH5zVmu2L5m8oY5as-_xEnxORYVvfBn_U21HL1ng/s1600/916.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love this face! She is such a cute baby!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoDytvK-TBEYF4VFQx3i97pxNoxOoyR1jS31907OJGbozr8q5X3sx1bHkejpbcV6rKdwy_ZaFl752MO72porpyC68HTP2uUazi-icYcJKxdadkrQ1RTRxSYAPDuG1Nl8bq0I6HwnrGdI/s1600/918.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisoDytvK-TBEYF4VFQx3i97pxNoxOoyR1jS31907OJGbozr8q5X3sx1bHkejpbcV6rKdwy_ZaFl752MO72porpyC68HTP2uUazi-icYcJKxdadkrQ1RTRxSYAPDuG1Nl8bq0I6HwnrGdI/s1600/918.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jon started his new Job as the recruitment manager for Corestaff-he hires Shutterfly employees. He is loving being a manager (and he is a good one too-doing a great job!)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjJtPWkS59eCxQbDebXKwgyeb4otzRYVLR8QMXZ_hJS7l_WktBGQ4_ii2ebnwvjyD5krduVP9QHMKktmN32fy8OQJeUb6mlZZeElWKM770JBXGHpjUtd35dmTYhyrtlrVZnQRrsIuF-D0/s1600/940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjJtPWkS59eCxQbDebXKwgyeb4otzRYVLR8QMXZ_hJS7l_WktBGQ4_ii2ebnwvjyD5krduVP9QHMKktmN32fy8OQJeUb6mlZZeElWKM770JBXGHpjUtd35dmTYhyrtlrVZnQRrsIuF-D0/s1600/940.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We took first day of school pics of the other kids and grandma needed an updated picture of Amelia-we did a little photo shoot and got several adorable pics-this is one of my favorites.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMszVDd5eCwUlK-767OlQMxveJf4WYAzNFogNhBTX2AfPdbFJhfQQgV9MmDNpvuv8sUnSHf0ul7W6slScBPqUSRhEgqjRqfDiq8BEW9NR0jRB8shZDpCsNmLJZiyQ157dQ1qdA30g2lhg/s1600/962.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMszVDd5eCwUlK-767OlQMxveJf4WYAzNFogNhBTX2AfPdbFJhfQQgV9MmDNpvuv8sUnSHf0ul7W6slScBPqUSRhEgqjRqfDiq8BEW9NR0jRB8shZDpCsNmLJZiyQ157dQ1qdA30g2lhg/s1600/962.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jon is the EQ president and as such helps many people move, set up chairs for things, cleaning assignments and . . . you know how it is :) Our kids have been amazing helpers! They helped move someone, set up chairs, clean and really worked hard. We rewarded them with Sonic slurpees-they were pretty excited about that!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJ6zR9VB-HFElNqXCnwa0_TQdspXpW3mS_M82g64hyphenhyphenMqjwdX6lYIUDcRIXkjpeLRlKJe56xv2i9rEcbbkjhCI-inMKhuTzwEtHL0PS2eSU1Os-GS9OXpKzCiAvxPPxEeNb03YpvQQyKQ/s1600/963.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtJ6zR9VB-HFElNqXCnwa0_TQdspXpW3mS_M82g64hyphenhyphenMqjwdX6lYIUDcRIXkjpeLRlKJe56xv2i9rEcbbkjhCI-inMKhuTzwEtHL0PS2eSU1Os-GS9OXpKzCiAvxPPxEeNb03YpvQQyKQ/s1600/963.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pizza Hut pan pizza is our favorite. We decided to try out a copycat recipe and guess what!?! It is actually really delicious! Unfortunately we didn't have any real toppings when we tried it out the first time, but it was still delicious!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBqaXzzdadD-DlDBiexCVKwe5al2lJrFsh4xL_z89IJOGElUasOHLnc8hFOE8l0ntRwdO51uY4oJoh68rWNtIRFef8AsZShQWKcfxAlo7b7byroHRyDcyDYOT64wqk_WD14q5Ogfh-2s/s1600/968.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEBqaXzzdadD-DlDBiexCVKwe5al2lJrFsh4xL_z89IJOGElUasOHLnc8hFOE8l0ntRwdO51uY4oJoh68rWNtIRFef8AsZShQWKcfxAlo7b7byroHRyDcyDYOT64wqk_WD14q5Ogfh-2s/s1600/968.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We visited Great Grandma and Grandpa one Sunday evening-Grandpa just adored watching Isabelle-he loved her chubby legs and toes and her smile. He kept smiling and giggling watching her-very precious!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAIkGbcWuCbhxkMhA-SlwwdFleYDDU5zMhPR8s2VFSgvZxdcrM573A1nUHRJBil2xvaQfIpYHX49sNDtjN7kVHD2iKjr4egZeQZD7ciWeHidZJMgfqO0SADBIRm3AH_gzXC9pBftVmv_Y/s1600/Mariah+&+Isabelle1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAIkGbcWuCbhxkMhA-SlwwdFleYDDU5zMhPR8s2VFSgvZxdcrM573A1nUHRJBil2xvaQfIpYHX49sNDtjN7kVHD2iKjr4egZeQZD7ciWeHidZJMgfqO0SADBIRm3AH_gzXC9pBftVmv_Y/s1600/Mariah+&+Isabelle1.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mariah was playing with Isabelle and walking around with Isabelles feet on hers-Isabelle loved it!</td></tr>
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The kids school holds a back to school pool party-we had a really fun time-the kids were a little too scared for the high-dive though-it was kind of cute, maybe next year :)<div>
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I am so happy to say that I finally love my new washing machine-thanks to my dad and Jon!! We bought a front-loader back in November and were so excited as we had an old top loader that we had since we got married. Unfortunately the front loader didn't seem to be washing the clothes that well. It had long loads and sanitizing loads, but they just didn't smell fresh. I even quit using my homemade laundry soap and bought Tide, which helped a little (but shouldn't be necessary). I came to the realization that the washer wasn't using enough water to actually wash and rinse the clothes. I started adding about 3 gallons of water to each load and that helped substantially, but was such a pain. I mentioned this to my dad on one of our runs in Utah and he suggested looking for a regulator on it-and that it must have something that can regulate the amount of water to fit different countries energy efficient crap codes-I think Al Gore doesn't know that it takes more than 4 gallons of water to clean a large load of laundry-oh and that's total water-4 gallons for wash and rinse-let's just say that you could just tell that the clothes were wet-you couldn't actually see ANY water swishing around!! So, I googled and I found several videos that were the answer!! Jon and I took the washer apart, adjusted the regulator (a large screw that you turn) and took out a plastic piece that was in the rinse hose. We started up the washer-it was a beautiful sight! I actually saw water in the washer! It actually was swishing around in the clothes!! It made my heart happy and now our clothes smell clean again and I have gone back to my homemade laundry soap :) :) :)!!!</div>
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We had our good friends, the Merrills and the Halls over for an FHE night-it was really fun and I loved having the kids be together during the lesson and hearing a friend bear their testimony. We had a lesson, scripture, swimming, and Aubrey made an Atlas Cake (Texas Sheet cake) that was super delicious! </div>
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My girls, myself, and a couple other friends threw a surprise shower for our good friend, Stephanie. She is the activity day leader and so we had the girls be a part of it-they helped decorate and set it up. We had so much fun throwing it all together. I think she was surprised, but I am not entirely sure. . . </div>
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Then last, but not least, I was released as Primary President-I was super excited to not have the responsibility, but I was sad too. And now that it's been a couple of months, I really miss being there with the kids-I especially miss being there with my kids-they are all in primary right now and it was super sweet to be with them, bear my testimony, sing, teach, and see them learning and growing in the gospel with the other primary children. I didn't know that I would really love being in Primary so much, but I did.</div>
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Here I am-blogging again-I am hoping to really stick to this month blog thing that I am starting-we have so many good memories we have shared as a family and I want my kids and myself to remember them. Life is so busy and I am so bad at writing things down or keeping records. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-66870480139216889362014-09-29T14:34:00.003-07:002015-03-27T16:33:11.165-07:00Women's Conference Sept. 2014I just found this in my drafts. I'm not sure why I didn't post it, so here it is-ironically the day before the next woman's conference.<div><br><div>It was really neat to be able to attend the Women's conference with my two older daughters-Aubrey & Mariah. We watched the first part here at home while I nursed Isabelle and we hoped the crazy rain would subside because we had a monsoon right when the meeting started-and we had already had a huge one earlier which had caused quite a bit of flooding in the streets-the water level was higher than the bottom of our car, so I wasn't too keen on driving in it. Infact, I had already been out driving when the first one hit hard and it is so amazing how hard the rain comes down. You can't even see out of your window. I was close to home and in neighborhood streets so I kept going-wondering if I should keep going or pull over. But I had picked up the kids from a primary activity and the rain started as we were leaving and just from walking from the activity to the car, we were soaked through-dripping as if someone had dumped huge buckets of water on us, and the kids were cold and wanted to be home-well mostly Amelia, since the older kids went outside to play in the rain when we did get home-they played for an hour in it! This wasn't a typical monsoon either-usually they last 5-15 minutes. This lasted more than an hour and then picked back up about 30 minutes after subsiding. We barely had made it home from the activity. I had to drive on sidewalks at really deep water levels to keep the car more out of the water-it really was crazy!<div>
The rain subsided just as I finished feeding Isabelle and we were able to leave for the Stake center. Our stake does something called the errand of Angels where all morning on Saturday people bring any of their "DI" donations to the cultural hall and then after the Women's meeting the women get to collect anything they would like. There was so much stuff and we got quite a few nice things-some clothes, Christmas gifts, and whatnot. The girls loved that!</div>
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Back to the meeting though-as I sat there and listened with my daughters, my heart was really touched realizing that I am their mother and they are growing and learning and listening with me. I felt the spirit strongly several times during the conference and I knew my girls had been touched too. It was just a really sweet feeling and moment as a mother.</div>
</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-55675358018253584012014-09-22T14:46:00.002-07:002014-09-22T16:06:04.236-07:00The rest of July/Summer, 2014<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielEBLkPSLzjg9wlGm3SjtErc-iAZE2bQdUylnPTv0fw3_J5wv6fh_tC_3_QskSPAFL46UJbl3trQa6J0Ocp88jtte75Zvsj2455SVyAM9ZWrRSdVf3RXfs-V4AHfZFhDCgY_iM2UBheM/s1600/Hummingbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielEBLkPSLzjg9wlGm3SjtErc-iAZE2bQdUylnPTv0fw3_J5wv6fh_tC_3_QskSPAFL46UJbl3trQa6J0Ocp88jtte75Zvsj2455SVyAM9ZWrRSdVf3RXfs-V4AHfZFhDCgY_iM2UBheM/s1600/Hummingbird.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Baby Hummingbird-aka: Elsa Cutes</td></tr>
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The kids and I were done with the heat in Mesa, so it was off to Utah to spend some time with my parents. We really wanted to enjoy the beautiful mountains as much as we could. My parents live very close to Provo canyon and I miss that canyon a lot! Our first day there the kids found a baby hummingbird-likely fell out of a nest way up high in a tree. The kids were super diligent with it. We were able to get it to drink some sugar water. The kids made it a "natural" home with a cardboard box, leaves, and branches. One morning it was gone, and I'm pretty sure it flew away on it's own. It was so cute and tiny-this picture is a child's hand, so that should give you a perspective on the size of this baby bird.<br />
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My kids and I and Emma (one of our favorite older cousins) went with us one of our first days there up to visit Riverton (where we used to live). We spent most of the day visiting my dear friend Renae and then we found the Up house in Herriman-it was super awesome! I had forgotten just how neat that house actually looks! We decided to go on a hike in Herriman that I had done with the youth. I don't think I remembered it quite right though because it wasn't very green and it was super dirty-lots of dry dirt. I couldn't believe just how dirty we got, but it was a good opportunity to test out a small hike before hitting some real mountains.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12pIDQHO99rEqObOoW4MaY1Z8u21OkEKYeArsKFEf6lBPP7TdxVAx2GeGl2fXrA-5QKAMm4ZZ7v1DeYP-lr7Lfn90_B5ar5-nRtMXiyvGvpfN-S_s7hfDx2yaIV9rYGw493e3nVV0FqE/s1600/Isabelles+first+hike+7-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj12pIDQHO99rEqObOoW4MaY1Z8u21OkEKYeArsKFEf6lBPP7TdxVAx2GeGl2fXrA-5QKAMm4ZZ7v1DeYP-lr7Lfn90_B5ar5-nRtMXiyvGvpfN-S_s7hfDx2yaIV9rYGw493e3nVV0FqE/s1600/Isabelles+first+hike+7-14.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Isabelles First hike! <br />
We needed a hat to block the sun, her lightweight <br />
blanket and elastic bow actually worked out quite well!</td></tr>
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After our first hike, we realized that Amelias crocs were not going to work for hiking-duh. So we went to buy her some new shoes. There was a pair of these funny, cute shoes on clearance-the only pair left actually and they fit Amelia! She fell in love with them and for the remainder of the trip, they hardly left her feet.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She even slept in them on many occasions.</td></tr>
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On another gorgeous evening, we hiked up 1st and 2nd falls with my parents and my sister Mary and her family one evening. It was really beautiful, though harder than I thought carting a baby on my back-mostly because it strained my neck so much. But it was such a beautiful overcast evening and the mountain air was just wonderful! <br />
My kids love Grandma and grandpas yard-it is an awesome and beautiful place! They have a pool, a sandbox, playhouse, tramp, and wonderful grass all over!! <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It started to rain, and not hot, muggy, mesa rain-real rain that feels how it should-nice and cool. The other cousins started to run right inside-any of my kids that weren't already outside ran right outside screaming for joy of rain!! The other cousins were inspired and joined my kids on the tramp since it did look pretty fun to be so excited!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPLo3U9IP-KS2DWF8uFOzmV-WBF6x2FMmdUkol128Md19BMTvg_6k1Y7x9t8tRniKeeA5rcQbw7SKVQn_6OnefD-t_oehznFVIAkkwEtm4Ydker9-DQHv9iBIs3lth5Pj1Oy0xHvPF-U/s1600/Jonathans+bee+sting1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuPLo3U9IP-KS2DWF8uFOzmV-WBF6x2FMmdUkol128Md19BMTvg_6k1Y7x9t8tRniKeeA5rcQbw7SKVQn_6OnefD-t_oehznFVIAkkwEtm4Ydker9-DQHv9iBIs3lth5Pj1Oy0xHvPF-U/s1600/Jonathans+bee+sting1.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unfortunately, with luschious yards, come insects and bees-<br />
Jonathan stepped on a bee our very first night there. <br />
His foot was so huge! Poor kid!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9tYsjl4geLa7xgRSnq33LpCiXVmGioORkRf_4Z0TFfWJnzY4q2Q339BmMB6HLT6k-6kUvk-v8HdZESgRRYx2VSEJ9uj78gymYSixNjKK8ladnxa_njKIeJGKWuy2byVoYQbEC2zj3Ds/s1600/amelia3+7-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9tYsjl4geLa7xgRSnq33LpCiXVmGioORkRf_4Z0TFfWJnzY4q2Q339BmMB6HLT6k-6kUvk-v8HdZESgRRYx2VSEJ9uj78gymYSixNjKK8ladnxa_njKIeJGKWuy2byVoYQbEC2zj3Ds/s1600/amelia3+7-14.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amelia was being so cute playing so adorably!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeF8egAGNgwy3N-kMi1MmTDMY2ABIk5Ng8rmtxgHHN0hiksqkvn8N3AmHm3GT4rK85QIP_7HH09vTFwoYdu1droW9vd0WiaG-2euZjj4ehuA_4w_4x-CuPhp3LeYsWDgOEzYJ9Wgfvdu8/s1600/amelia1+7-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeF8egAGNgwy3N-kMi1MmTDMY2ABIk5Ng8rmtxgHHN0hiksqkvn8N3AmHm3GT4rK85QIP_7HH09vTFwoYdu1droW9vd0WiaG-2euZjj4ehuA_4w_4x-CuPhp3LeYsWDgOEzYJ9Wgfvdu8/s1600/amelia1+7-14.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVy-6QfhujDW5g3kxFfMBpB6J6bDjJZkHTQI-S_W0Atgbe7ec7aeOChTOCe0aowK-yrnlt_ptitSKkHXsoJ2xWO0EF1nrjwKjmapLIewfjtbmuDhgJDZiBSB4yWjoiy9PmlcgxesBG04s/s1600/amelia+7-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVy-6QfhujDW5g3kxFfMBpB6J6bDjJZkHTQI-S_W0Atgbe7ec7aeOChTOCe0aowK-yrnlt_ptitSKkHXsoJ2xWO0EF1nrjwKjmapLIewfjtbmuDhgJDZiBSB4yWjoiy9PmlcgxesBG04s/s1600/amelia+7-14.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love that face!</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7gYVPO91cep4jvDi5nl7O6qK-_D7VwVhVjnqVrMfHFmpAFHr8v-hYz-S6T6oBLUmJv9Z4t0RS1-CQyaD2sZ5CrvDM3XisbPI0abmshmqNoR05xB7-H99nL3d09qDYusoelHh83b45EY/s1600/amelia4+7-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY7gYVPO91cep4jvDi5nl7O6qK-_D7VwVhVjnqVrMfHFmpAFHr8v-hYz-S6T6oBLUmJv9Z4t0RS1-CQyaD2sZ5CrvDM3XisbPI0abmshmqNoR05xB7-H99nL3d09qDYusoelHh83b45EY/s1600/amelia4+7-14.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr27Jkk-A5LwNkGKfVbDY1pefkc8kmc4CUOedYzaiJ4xcg1o6f8h2xma8Ssqu2PVXRK8zxF_GZm1Lqa5i_SfNI2V2kfg__oY4Hdq8BlkmPM2u8qJUXjNngl-xH-tuiVg1boekJDC_dmoc/s1600/July+2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr27Jkk-A5LwNkGKfVbDY1pefkc8kmc4CUOedYzaiJ4xcg1o6f8h2xma8Ssqu2PVXRK8zxF_GZm1Lqa5i_SfNI2V2kfg__oY4Hdq8BlkmPM2u8qJUXjNngl-xH-tuiVg1boekJDC_dmoc/s1600/July+2014.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The kids were outside quite a bit, enjoying grandma and <br />
grandpas amazing yard and the amazing weather! <br />
Aubrey decided to jump very gently with little Isabelle.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0QmRNWS9O3LIvYq6qdbYcRIFis3eSdguwIMUzBpUK7tEt08KYp_aGst1VeIHICkvbyiuzPGDDm-5NHIyLjsZeQL5TY7H93KSq27a7PWsjpdlzOBK5u5u0_erow62Zzi_s009f-ey8nZM/s1600/gghansens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0QmRNWS9O3LIvYq6qdbYcRIFis3eSdguwIMUzBpUK7tEt08KYp_aGst1VeIHICkvbyiuzPGDDm-5NHIyLjsZeQL5TY7H93KSq27a7PWsjpdlzOBK5u5u0_erow62Zzi_s009f-ey8nZM/s1600/gghansens.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digging for "gold"</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxXGRVkrVQ7-XVO1WkxTE90mCqv8_yQj2Hk9qfurVMzjaX1IZF-6H9ZpH_dUz7TN66Ax_9aXmY4uSj1KaCWgFmPPeL3B4__UqfAh95d1vyHmLwLsKagTLQcw9rbQa2n9pftv01I2j_nP0/s1600/gghansens1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxXGRVkrVQ7-XVO1WkxTE90mCqv8_yQj2Hk9qfurVMzjaX1IZF-6H9ZpH_dUz7TN66Ax_9aXmY4uSj1KaCWgFmPPeL3B4__UqfAh95d1vyHmLwLsKagTLQcw9rbQa2n9pftv01I2j_nP0/s1600/gghansens1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Salamander-aka: David</td></tr>
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We went up to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa Hansen. Several of our Hansen cousins met us there for a big lunch. Jonathan was so excited to see Taylor-one of his cousin idols. It was so cute to see Jonathan talking to him and wanting to sit by him and whatnot. Grandma and Grandpa Hansen burried a bunch of quarters in their sandbox for the kids to find-I think there were 50 quarters total! The kids had a lot of fun finding them. They found an extra surprise while looking though-a salamander that desperately needed water! They got it in some water and helped revive it back to life. Before we left, they took it back to where it likely came from-across the street in a water reserve. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGyGYfMQvbrzsHxjSQyUDCjJC3oDOialHeEQW2xRoIewdURuE59eU1q3MFqhxOt1HXVpxc96KO2zADWQewpC4752Uunpnw8Vry2-4yEBrq5qtY8zyrNzSPNCl4s8RXHAE6eL1o97gEO8/s1600/gghansens2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDGyGYfMQvbrzsHxjSQyUDCjJC3oDOialHeEQW2xRoIewdURuE59eU1q3MFqhxOt1HXVpxc96KO2zADWQewpC4752Uunpnw8Vry2-4yEBrq5qtY8zyrNzSPNCl4s8RXHAE6eL1o97gEO8/s1600/gghansens2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jonathan is a brave, good sport!</td></tr>
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One of my favorite holidays is Pioneer Day-it is a Utah and Mormon holiday. I have many fond memories of that day and I really love to learn about my pioneer ancestors and the lives and lifestyle they had. I know I romanticize it, but I still would love to adopt more of it into my own life at times. Being in Utah over Pioneer Day made for a super fun day and I hope my children will have fond memories of this day as well. We started off with a new tradition-as of last year-of the Temple to Temple walk/run. It is a 5k that goes from the Provo Temple to the Prove Tabernacle Temple. The neat thing about this race is that it is so family friendly! It is completely free-unless you want a shirt, then you pay $6 for a shirt and the shirt is really neat, so I paid for the shirt :)</div>
<div>
I loved when I signed up for the race that the shirt sizes that you could choose were 12 months, 2 T, 4T, and so on. That means this is really a family race! So even my little Isabelle got a shirt that actually fit her!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-bdVxj4YJ_M4yD46c5yTTbEJ5SKoLyIBi2XLU8FhZ1rYdWLhuaKxvQ2E68fjlDit2TXX034Lirn8pWrCYxkvWzBgNC6uFPuIC88T87-K6IS3HLqQbvBf9NVsXf8fzYkwBU_OYnQWW9_0/s1600/templerrace2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-bdVxj4YJ_M4yD46c5yTTbEJ5SKoLyIBi2XLU8FhZ1rYdWLhuaKxvQ2E68fjlDit2TXX034Lirn8pWrCYxkvWzBgNC6uFPuIC88T87-K6IS3HLqQbvBf9NVsXf8fzYkwBU_OYnQWW9_0/s1600/templerrace2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ready to start-though Amelia and Isabelle are still waking up :)</td></tr>
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We walked together with my kids cute cousin, Emma, and Jon's sister Lisa. It was really nice overall. It was fun to see all the people that were doing it-in fact it was actually amazing-there were 10,000 runners! We were at the start off to the side and thought we would just wait for the main crowd to go through and then move through. The stream of people seemed endless and after 10 minutes, we decided to go ahead and squeeze our way through the start line! My dad and my brother Jeremy did the race as well, only they actually ran it and then ran back to the start to get our cars-cause you know, 6 miles is really nothing to run to us ;)</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4F0whKQJS9rHpuNLimnmQD90_vZ-dC9l3POmcbDpv8q1GeMSpWzfe7OlMR-E7tzmgADG9M-YqSSeeZ0bJdXGlDKyGBWy1lUVWnBUJo4rzXUzMsfSK11YHxEo3011ULlHMCgAjlSMU-I/s1600/templerrace3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4F0whKQJS9rHpuNLimnmQD90_vZ-dC9l3POmcbDpv8q1GeMSpWzfe7OlMR-E7tzmgADG9M-YqSSeeZ0bJdXGlDKyGBWy1lUVWnBUJo4rzXUzMsfSK11YHxEo3011ULlHMCgAjlSMU-I/s1600/templerrace3.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watching the thousands of people going through the finish line, <br />
wondering when we should try to jump in.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Afterwards, Jeremy bought a bunch of BYU Creamery chocolate milk (the BEST, most AMAZING chocolate milk there is!!!) and french bread and we made french toast and had chocolate milk at my parents after the race. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVv_h0uN-xOBfRbiAUmiFAN4U-BiyQx_q3Hl8w5YYaYSVJcV8tzu2JHYK5yli7IXDFRCipfjRs6oMkYiO_zN8jyv1L55GLEdiTMO8sdEu0U_kzOBcsDHhG7tdL1sw9nAaGBVC5YwhURK4/s1600/templerrace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVv_h0uN-xOBfRbiAUmiFAN4U-BiyQx_q3Hl8w5YYaYSVJcV8tzu2JHYK5yli7IXDFRCipfjRs6oMkYiO_zN8jyv1L55GLEdiTMO8sdEu0U_kzOBcsDHhG7tdL1sw9nAaGBVC5YwhURK4/s1600/templerrace.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me with the kids and Lisa.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then my mom and I went on to one of my favorite things-the pioneer cabins on display in Spanish Fork-next to/part of their quilt show as well, so a double bonus. What I love about it is showing the kids the cabins and the blacksmith (they always have a blacksmith, who will make horseshoe rings upon request, which he did for the kids :)</div>
<div>
Then they also have a couple of ponies that they let the kids sit on, feed, pet, and brush. They had baby chicks this year and last year they had bunnies. My kids loved it and absolutely loved the ponies! They each got at least one turn sitting on them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNibf_xw6nJbtL0MKK1zy1_lpBBjGPqm8s8G4piYz387yHADYJJfGOzfWaoESREX_MBhU7a7TKAXIJ9rDhPBi9KONQPbgIvwY9paOV5zv8tN0Qqs5_Jp006DoZlbFwM4UrXSXT9yeJ3HI/s1600/pioneer+day1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNibf_xw6nJbtL0MKK1zy1_lpBBjGPqm8s8G4piYz387yHADYJJfGOzfWaoESREX_MBhU7a7TKAXIJ9rDhPBi9KONQPbgIvwY9paOV5zv8tN0Qqs5_Jp006DoZlbFwM4UrXSXT9yeJ3HI/s1600/pioneer+day1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mariah is my animal lover-all of my kids love animals, <br />
but Mariah just adores them. She's a natural when it comes to animals.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hBLelIDysba0e24cvlcasYrkhrlRdN1a9ycP3A_JP4z6wZudzXORftX1_Wlc0FYZ538sUD5dY3xKbHAEo8ODhH-V366oN-4mhrHo2gC22faEUb0Elk3bW3lyZeVnjQeONlfswMhu1XM/s1600/pioneer+day2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-hBLelIDysba0e24cvlcasYrkhrlRdN1a9ycP3A_JP4z6wZudzXORftX1_Wlc0FYZ538sUD5dY3xKbHAEo8ODhH-V366oN-4mhrHo2gC22faEUb0Elk3bW3lyZeVnjQeONlfswMhu1XM/s1600/pioneer+day2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So cute! I love Jonathan's sweet smile!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlhgGJzLap9l0tuT-JtQ2u08vHqX4EAK_vCQ51_JlYcOOJiNTHZ7SXOFzuuItVJduA7uCC3WpSt3zmgrgaG9xdgKO_DijchBSv0lSpMyr5gynBVxJazlsB3Sx72o7LOescgcPHyHAo-A/s1600/pioneer+day4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlhgGJzLap9l0tuT-JtQ2u08vHqX4EAK_vCQ51_JlYcOOJiNTHZ7SXOFzuuItVJduA7uCC3WpSt3zmgrgaG9xdgKO_DijchBSv0lSpMyr5gynBVxJazlsB3Sx72o7LOescgcPHyHAo-A/s1600/pioneer+day4.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHaOqueexO_D-sUkwUCu6ybdPkqm4-qr-7dgyrGwyfoe2JM9SZmWM6AHkOnyHFRuMMEb_N3921MlRkyFRhXN28ddNg1hbVJWdjoc6rU8aDiGqj4EMEMVfZbsZjT-uqiAkIlsWX2MmgYE/s1600/pioneer+day3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHaOqueexO_D-sUkwUCu6ybdPkqm4-qr-7dgyrGwyfoe2JM9SZmWM6AHkOnyHFRuMMEb_N3921MlRkyFRhXN28ddNg1hbVJWdjoc6rU8aDiGqj4EMEMVfZbsZjT-uqiAkIlsWX2MmgYE/s1600/pioneer+day3.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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We then went to Jon's brother's home (Eric) and many of the Hansen cousins and families were there and we had dinner and fireworks. Eric let Jonathan light several rockets-boy was that crazy! The kids had a super time helping with and watching the fireworks!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LwA2XcasenBpCUw0OcJKu6OOZWMah-GtbqC2G62YEQaiZUFd2kiGFya9oW-v8SsHlAWkYhc5qwlMuFwLQ_kzJzCzW0q-LULi3Xy08PSEbFLCTe33CKZqWA4nqAQ2PeLqQHXgYpYeHOw/s1600/Buggy+Ride1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LwA2XcasenBpCUw0OcJKu6OOZWMah-GtbqC2G62YEQaiZUFd2kiGFya9oW-v8SsHlAWkYhc5qwlMuFwLQ_kzJzCzW0q-LULi3Xy08PSEbFLCTe33CKZqWA4nqAQ2PeLqQHXgYpYeHOw/s1600/Buggy+Ride1.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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We visited the bean museum, small BYU dinosaur museum, and then walked up to Bridal Veil falls another day. We lucked out because when we parked the car to hike bridal veil, a man with a horse and buggy came up to us and asked if we wanted a ride. He said he had just finished a job and hadn't packed up yet and would be happy to give the kids a little ride! Pretty fun! Then they had a super fun time playing in the water at the bottom of the falls. We of course had to end our fun day with a Macey's ice-cream cone (we did that a few times while in Utah :)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTc-f4p3jELRqYsc-F172Z0-SqPlyCer7-SuXFnWOS3TYPqVCFuxg8nVhnePdPDw1npLe9-PaDNnRNby8XGhMygKQ3eFhCTiffOa6eTSwnyMJYRO15nmTsfmv8TOww4-bb8tinp3doHI/s1600/Buggy+Ride.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTc-f4p3jELRqYsc-F172Z0-SqPlyCer7-SuXFnWOS3TYPqVCFuxg8nVhnePdPDw1npLe9-PaDNnRNby8XGhMygKQ3eFhCTiffOa6eTSwnyMJYRO15nmTsfmv8TOww4-bb8tinp3doHI/s1600/Buggy+Ride.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our lucky buggy ride! Jonathan said he got nervous<br />
when the man started driving away-kind of cute. I knew<br />
I could take down a buggy in the parking lot if not by foot,<br />
for sure with my car-I wasn't worried to say the least.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUPSplAVwmGVEFwHTGf988aELz4MsqI7rOv2X7h4pOegjtWgeyqzui152hrupEZRkdayGd05sCa44cwqqVqJ4vAUxvOqFRTrFjYkAezjJ8w7bndo4qT5TlEwOKCu9dhFPRD6a4i1RaVsE/s1600/Bridal+Veil+Falls+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUPSplAVwmGVEFwHTGf988aELz4MsqI7rOv2X7h4pOegjtWgeyqzui152hrupEZRkdayGd05sCa44cwqqVqJ4vAUxvOqFRTrFjYkAezjJ8w7bndo4qT5TlEwOKCu9dhFPRD6a4i1RaVsE/s1600/Bridal+Veil+Falls+1.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bridal Veil Falls-my kids are the ones in the middle, I think. . . though that's Mariah on the left walking away.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8FjXEYauc31rO117ugOMM_JWTY0LYJj-UiQecohzytpkE2cbPo821bc6-RH-_f1JY4d6Xh0mRLSz2Zz04oomHjNbQuXvVyVFvh4B3dy-gP5dbb17Z2zEirS2DJJGtXqn1salIrsYpyBQ/s1600/Bridal+Veil+Falls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8FjXEYauc31rO117ugOMM_JWTY0LYJj-UiQecohzytpkE2cbPo821bc6-RH-_f1JY4d6Xh0mRLSz2Zz04oomHjNbQuXvVyVFvh4B3dy-gP5dbb17Z2zEirS2DJJGtXqn1salIrsYpyBQ/s1600/Bridal+Veil+Falls.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aubrey, Mariah, Jonathan, Amelia & Cousin Matthew behind Amelia<br />
-at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls.</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy1Xs71jXMlkugq3KtGu3H5odOoCUPQNydQpsNZILhMMwgVvB0CjQFV4YpmzDJxjqGwIWERdWhSQ3S1bHoFRQuw_DJI9loHECGbx3-huOaNZh0VOQOtXugxGR0uGx57PIPliHzKIIMZjM/s1600/isabelle,+aubrey+&+Amelia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy1Xs71jXMlkugq3KtGu3H5odOoCUPQNydQpsNZILhMMwgVvB0CjQFV4YpmzDJxjqGwIWERdWhSQ3S1bHoFRQuw_DJI9loHECGbx3-huOaNZh0VOQOtXugxGR0uGx57PIPliHzKIIMZjM/s1600/isabelle,+aubrey+&+Amelia.jpg" height="320" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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And then we of course had to hit moms and my favorite fabric stores, and Salem Pond is right in the middle of them, so we had a picnic there with my cousin Maida. It was so pleasant and the kids had a really nice time playing in the pond/beach area. It was a beautiful day and mom, Maida and I had a really nice visit.</div>
<div>
We got to play in the irrigation at my parents and Jeremy was so fun with the kids on several occasions. We met at the park one evening to have dinner and then play. It was a pretty neat park and Jeremy was a super awesome Uncle and played tag with the kids for over an hour!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LL5C0unWQdsyJnMOsSh3eCmrd6XxUMqvaPcP6wi0eV-xTUdIe3DAhH5IT7AwQ4yRY-fDsaseOPh_MFznJ3Ku_eS4DO1S04coEtMhtHnd5e5DSHI1tM-prMvXklGh-jermjIC5jzZH2A/s1600/isabelle+and+aubrey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8LL5C0unWQdsyJnMOsSh3eCmrd6XxUMqvaPcP6wi0eV-xTUdIe3DAhH5IT7AwQ4yRY-fDsaseOPh_MFznJ3Ku_eS4DO1S04coEtMhtHnd5e5DSHI1tM-prMvXklGh-jermjIC5jzZH2A/s1600/isabelle+and+aubrey.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This isn't the park Jeremy took us to, but one of the <br />
parks we went to while we were there. <br />
The park Jeremy took us too was one of those <br />
awesome wooden structures that has a fort feel to it. <br />
The kids LOVED it!</td></tr>
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Aubrey and I went to a card class with Mom-that was really fun as well! It got me wanting to make fun cards and use fun scrapbook stuff that I have again!</div>
<div>
We were there for Mom's birthday-Aubrey went all out! She made her grandma an adorable card, decorated, made her breakfast (scrambled eggs) and was so super thoughtful! We went up to Ogden and got to go to the Ogden Temple open house. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNgFEF4Hpy1tF6_yaCNPc57WR4xEeJzPqGp6ZvriPTKITxahbLCGLSve8vntI0QaXAJ0QFNvfShPUzwPcAV4iQ4OH4yii0qPZoZjHhm-dm5X9ODCCuw7VojnprkwLEvKmtR9VJH1kj4Q/s1600/Ogden+Temple+Open+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvNgFEF4Hpy1tF6_yaCNPc57WR4xEeJzPqGp6ZvriPTKITxahbLCGLSve8vntI0QaXAJ0QFNvfShPUzwPcAV4iQ4OH4yii0qPZoZjHhm-dm5X9ODCCuw7VojnprkwLEvKmtR9VJH1kj4Q/s1600/Ogden+Temple+Open+House.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ogden Temple Open House with Grandma Robertson-aka: Mommy Granka</td></tr>
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We had so much fun and such a nice time while we were in Utah-we enjoyed the outdoors as much as we could. I read <i>A Little Princess</i> outloud to the kids while we were there-that was more fun than I thought it would be. Oh, and I can't forget, little Isabelle cut two teeth while there! At 5 months old! I was completely surprised-and they are sharp little things!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJa3ekyjCMRgayfFfFgaNOgw4kw_ZXJzhgqju13QeapUPfCoKiE-PMhQSYbf7nyrBCchJAZDINKnIa48ekGlYJ28tkDCPjdZC_T65NeIoiqpjwtE9o15ICcsRhJ99PwddXZeM_shVwkR4/s1600/Snow!%2B%2BTimp%2BHike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJa3ekyjCMRgayfFfFgaNOgw4kw_ZXJzhgqju13QeapUPfCoKiE-PMhQSYbf7nyrBCchJAZDINKnIa48ekGlYJ28tkDCPjdZC_T65NeIoiqpjwtE9o15ICcsRhJ99PwddXZeM_shVwkR4/s1600/Snow!%2B%2BTimp%2BHike.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A snow cave-water was streaming under this hige patch of snow,<br />
so we didn't venture far under it, just under the very front edge.<br />
We had a little snowball fight as well :)</td></tr>
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Our final hike was Mount Timpanogous. I wanted to hike it with the kids, but knew I could really take Isabelle, but she is exclusively nursing-she hasn't ever had anything else, not even a bottle, so I wasn't sure what to do. We decided to get up super early and hike early. It was really nice to hike when it wasn't quite so hot, but the fact that it wasn't cold either meant it was going to be a hot day and it was. It took us longer to hike it that I thought, but it was such a great hike. Aubrey and Mariah went, Mariah for her 1st time, Aubrey for her 4th time. Jeremy, Dad, and 2 of Johns kids (Adam & Johnny). They all did really well. They had their weak moments and they had their fun and exciting moments. That's something I love about hiking-it's something that's hard, but it teaches you that you can keep pushing yourself and you get to enjoy the beauties of nature, ending with something awesome-like looking down the top of a mountain, or getting to a big lake, or a snow glacier, enjoying waterfalls, flowers, streams, and other beauties along the way. We got to have some of all of those. At one point Aubrey said she couldn't keep going. Then she heard a waterfall and ran on to it in excitement. It's great to have moments like that! Mariah was by far the most enthusiastic about everything, but especially the snow! She was so excited to be in snow-she just kept playing in it and sliding on it and jumping in it. It was awesome! She made a little snowman that she carried back down the mountain for quite a while. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_kjnrSQFrmP3XHVNSTXBEqu-Kup4JlN_yTiGPfgsIMCchpmB9BdpQMGvo4UlGOmSXHnviFTbg8Rfaw_Uwm14irMLdr6lEsn1hpJzUz0M8cQZjBVU9aZva7Zzj2edK76v-gHQQorpxxoc/s1600/Mariah+on+Timp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_kjnrSQFrmP3XHVNSTXBEqu-Kup4JlN_yTiGPfgsIMCchpmB9BdpQMGvo4UlGOmSXHnviFTbg8Rfaw_Uwm14irMLdr6lEsn1hpJzUz0M8cQZjBVU9aZva7Zzj2edK76v-gHQQorpxxoc/s1600/Mariah+on+Timp.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mariah and her snowman. <br />
A 4th grade teacher saw Mariah up there and asked if she could take a picture to show her class how <br />
enthusiastic Mariah was about hiking so high and finding snow!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitocY3NlzIjXp_FE2cujj8ogxdLaW9FgvSpajhcmMpqauTDz_Zi71KRk33q5xVoYpA1F7_mEPw2bPukOwIufRmrN1j8SII7_TuYn-9zF4n9BuegU2TIhhiRE6ZPTxo2HutuD9wocinlpA/s1600/Timp+Hike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitocY3NlzIjXp_FE2cujj8ogxdLaW9FgvSpajhcmMpqauTDz_Zi71KRk33q5xVoYpA1F7_mEPw2bPukOwIufRmrN1j8SII7_TuYn-9zF4n9BuegU2TIhhiRE6ZPTxo2HutuD9wocinlpA/s1600/Timp+Hike.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A gorgeous view of the meadow-almost to the lake.</td></tr>
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The hardest part of the hike was of course, the way back down. They got pretty tired and worn out. I had to push them as well because Isabelle was waiting for me and starving. Mariah wanted this rock-it wasn't small either. She really wanted to carry it back down (it was from the lake). I told her that if she went as fast down as I needed her to, that I would carry it for her (I had previously said that we weren't carrying any rocks down-I knew she couldn't carry it down). I carried that rock for her in one hand and a bunch of wildflowers of Aubrey's in the other. They really struggled, but made it down-it really is so tiring and hard on your knees coming down. I am really glad I was able to do that with my girls and family. Jeremy and Dad are always good sports and willing to hike with me and my kids :) <br />
Dad loves to build trains and train models. He and Jeremy have really gotten back into it the last few years. When I was young, there was train building going on here and there. Dad did a great deal of it when he was a kid. He and Jonathan spent many hours working on building these mountains and tunnels. Unfortunately I only took one picture. But Jonathan treasured those memories and thoroughly enjoyed that time with his grandpa.</div>
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Oh, and of course Dad and I went on several great runs together and Jeremy got to join us a time or two as well! We had great discussions and got to enjoy the beauties around us. We would run down by the Provo River-so nice to see trees and water-I think I needed to get a break from the desert. I know I live in a super nice home and a really nice area, but it was so nice to get a break from the super heat and just enjoy the outdoors so much!</div>
<div>
And that's a quick sum-up of our Utah fun!</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDdHDEVDJe2ERqmlE_riikc-4zxzUBVQzVWXfPe-TSf2wyoyGHsMcv7amb264mGgyMnWGmJKsfaejF52xLGSAZZT3w3st54w8MEUjIAhLtmB2dqU7_F0TAMDecB3J0OVG0i37HOuNUhs/s1600/Gourmet+Cookies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZDdHDEVDJe2ERqmlE_riikc-4zxzUBVQzVWXfPe-TSf2wyoyGHsMcv7amb264mGgyMnWGmJKsfaejF52xLGSAZZT3w3st54w8MEUjIAhLtmB2dqU7_F0TAMDecB3J0OVG0i37HOuNUhs/s1600/Gourmet+Cookies.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If you know me-you know I love to eat delicious food and if I am given the opportunity to make something yummy even more yummy-I will do it. I like to enjoy things to their fullest :) This started out as a regular, yummy chocolate chip cookie. After adding homemade chocolate sauce, pecans, and chunks of french vanilla dark chocolate. . . it was amazing!</td></tr>
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Here are a few adorable pictures of Isabelle that I took-I know I have such a crappy camera, but she's still adorable even if my camera sucks :)<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ZoXzuND64kExAjRuLVVvGzGdz2nRDLp-fh5ZR5CiKiaG5PBFUY8SBs9wzY6LsOe571VDcN51TV2opNggdKMk7EAGz_DPouoCDndyVt6MGwUlaMHkVf-Z4zOJ5ZyN-3BYLnFNMJxP62Q/s1600/isabelle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5ZoXzuND64kExAjRuLVVvGzGdz2nRDLp-fh5ZR5CiKiaG5PBFUY8SBs9wzY6LsOe571VDcN51TV2opNggdKMk7EAGz_DPouoCDndyVt6MGwUlaMHkVf-Z4zOJ5ZyN-3BYLnFNMJxP62Q/s1600/isabelle.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just love the smile! She broke a tooth the first <br />
week we were there! What a good sport, because <br />
I didn't think she was old enough to do so yet :)</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgvspLSoN0RFILlHhX9UOtHUUCr-6-3MRig-3kbxoCfbTEBR8tq5_npEYyRdzhqZrml_1zwUNrMX_bxoqe2SUp51mOrYJan8TCUeYCPahWfyRAnIOc5x2ZAR_z3Svu0FzaVtij1jnqbM/s1600/isabelle1+july+2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsgvspLSoN0RFILlHhX9UOtHUUCr-6-3MRig-3kbxoCfbTEBR8tq5_npEYyRdzhqZrml_1zwUNrMX_bxoqe2SUp51mOrYJan8TCUeYCPahWfyRAnIOc5x2ZAR_z3Svu0FzaVtij1jnqbM/s1600/isabelle1+july+2014.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Love those eyes and eyelashes!</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNaoF4BmlwQRqXwA10iYejedrMxZRQCNr5K-1cKW-j0s-WTOANyPBUPuCIBe1ESwIvmvXFcAFs6l9uuB9lvIUi-Lc9kJgrJlZiwW1O7Bhnn7nMQOVEUFF2jrK4TCogda7DgnZbmxDqvg/s1600/isabelle+july+2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNaoF4BmlwQRqXwA10iYejedrMxZRQCNr5K-1cKW-j0s-WTOANyPBUPuCIBe1ESwIvmvXFcAFs6l9uuB9lvIUi-Lc9kJgrJlZiwW1O7Bhnn7nMQOVEUFF2jrK4TCogda7DgnZbmxDqvg/s1600/isabelle+july+2014.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1kaGzNU4F5K1a30cvkYIZO8IfQb345Ho6tGi6JGuP0v4bhKvXd6nDRVn1fWZP_7BWTSXVCD1gLUSRCGWiJQF0I0sMfqWNzIdn_xEz5PHyAVX1_U2IQdqhUZWldzbG6AH5hqM-qm6amc/s1600/isabelle2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ1kaGzNU4F5K1a30cvkYIZO8IfQb345Ho6tGi6JGuP0v4bhKvXd6nDRVn1fWZP_7BWTSXVCD1gLUSRCGWiJQF0I0sMfqWNzIdn_xEz5PHyAVX1_U2IQdqhUZWldzbG6AH5hqM-qm6amc/s1600/isabelle2.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The classic Dad hands-the way <br />
in which she is holding her hands.</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-16846690398139405602014-08-24T16:31:00.000-07:002014-08-24T16:31:04.682-07:00Isabelles blessing and Independence Day 2014I haven't blogged in so long, but I will just start where we are now. Its been a fun and busy summer! We started off with Isabelles (newest addition to the family) baby blessing. Jon blessed her, it was very sweet. We had several friends join us at church and afterwards at our home. We also were blessed to have grandma and grandpa and several of our siblings in attendance. For dessert I wanted to try homemade icecreams. I made 3 different flavors-2 of which I had tried earlier this year (Santa got me an icecream freezer, so we have been enjoying making one of my most favorite treats of all time-chocolate icecream :). We made chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip. They were all delicious! The following week was Jays med school graduation (the reason we were able to have more family in town and why we waited until this particular weekend to bless Isabelle). It was really neat to see Jay graduate, I'm really proud of him :)<br />
Becca was in town for all this-it was so fun to have her visit. Her oldest daughter and Aubrey are such cute friends. Aubrey is several years older than Grace, but they are just adorable little buddies. We had everyone over for pizza and swimming after graduation. It is always bittersweet when company leaves. I'm usually pretty worn out from late nights and entertaining, but thoroughly enjoyed visiting and being together. I also hate saying goodbye to people as well.<br />
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4 generations photo at Isabelle's blessing.</div>
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Jon, Myself and Isabelle</div>
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The kids and I made several plans for the summer-we had movies to see, swim days at our home and one on one time together-each child got to have an hour each week to spend with me working on a sewing project or making a treat. We didn't start that until halfway through June, but I really enjoyed it and so did the kids. We had a friend/neighborhood bbq and swim evening. It was really fun. Its been fun to have held several gatherings at our home and gotten to know so many good nieghbors that live around us. At that gathering we decided it would be fun to do a breakfast together sometime. We got right on it and decided we needed to do something super fun for the 4th of July. Its one of my favorite holidays and my parents had always done a huge party and we don't live close any more and its too hot in Mesa to do any celebrating outside for a good portion of the day. When we lived in Utah we would go to morning festivities in our town or nieghboring towns, which often included a race or parade or breakfast. In mesa, its so hot and there just aren't any city celebrations going on throughout the day. We decided to do our own thing. We invited several neighbors and friends to join us for a morning race, potluck breakfast and swim. The kids and I made kerchiefs and "goodie bags" for the racers. We thought for the temperatures and to make it so everyone could participate and to be funny, that a .5 k would be a good distance. The kids were amazing helpers in the preparation-i cut out the kerchiefs, Mariah ironed them, Aubrey sergered around them, I sewed on a blue star, Jonathan clipped all the threads, and helped hold the template I made for the center in place while I spray-painted. We got 36 kerchiefs put together in a few hours. Jon helped get everything decorated and in order the evening before. We had a haboob roll in that evening though which made everything a dirty mess and blew down some decorations, but it brought with it some overcasting clouds and a small amount of rain which was beautiful after having had such hot weather for so long it was still hot, but it made it more bearable-i would say it was even a bit pleasant and with the fun we had, it was a very nice morning! We had 42 of us all together. The race was super fun and everyone brought delicious breakfast foods to share. We had put 1000 pennies in the pool for the kids to gather. Our cute little elderly neighbor thought that was really fun and was enjoying watching the children and went home and got another 400ish pennies. I think everyone had a fun morning. We then went on to Tuscon and spent the afternoon and evening with the Merrills, Murdocks, and James and Emily and their family. It was even a beautiful day (which is unusual in the summer in AZ) because of the monsoon the previous evening and a little more rain that came down that morning, cooling things off a bit. Tuscon was super nice and I just enjoyed sitting outside, watching the kids play, visiting with family, and enjoying the beautiful fresh air.<br />
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Enjoying breakfast on the back porch</div>
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Great Grandma & Grandpa enjoying watching everyone.</div>
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Diving for pennies in the pool. </div>
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Everyone before the .5k race.</div>
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The race-our finish was the flag streamer connected to the city sign pole and a ladder.</div>
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Running the race</div>
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Our cousins in Tuscon</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-41126120137599801982013-06-28T14:57:00.003-07:002013-06-28T14:57:59.595-07:00Goal Setting 2013We had a really good Family Home Evening lesson at the beginning of the year on setting goals. We all wrote down some goals and were planning to re-check our status on our goals weekly. We haven't done that very much, but Aubrey set several goals that were really really hard goals. I actually thought they were pretty unrealistic goals and tried to convince her to make them a little easier. With setting goals, they also got to discuss a reward for accomplishing the goal. Aubrey really wanted to see the movie Epic, which came to theaters at the end of May. She wanted to go see it so badly and asked if she read the whole Book of Mormon by then, could going to that movie be her reward? We thought that sounded like a good reward, but really thought she would forget about her goal and that she would realize that this was a very hard goal for a 9 year-old. Well, every Sunday she would catch up on any Book of Mormon reading that she hadn't gotten done that week so that she would be as far as she needed to be to finish her reading in time. There was a few Sundays where she didn't catch up on reading and she was quite behind a few times. She read for over 2 hours a couple of times to catch up on reading. We were super amazed when she finished a week early! She and Jon got to go see the movie the first weekend it was out! Good job Aubrey!!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-83119787735837687682013-06-26T14:00:00.001-07:002013-06-26T14:00:48.822-07:00Date with Dad<br />
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The girls got to go on a Daddy-daughter date for a fundraiser for their elementary school. They were so excited to get all dressed up! We even put make-up on! Jon sqwoze into his old high-school orchestra tux and off they went! At the dance they had dinner and danced (and of course, had cookies and soda pop). They had a really fun time together! </div>
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They are all so good lookin'!!</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-19814763072011707582013-04-12T14:43:00.003-07:002013-04-12T14:43:57.646-07:00Fun Friday, Conference and Learning some DIY!!Last friday we had such a fun day with some of our new friends in this area. They have 3 daughters-pretty much the same ages as my older 3 so it works out great! The kids had school off for the day and we decided to get together and bake some little goodies and put together a little tea-party for lunch and then go swimming. Before they came, the kids and I ran to Winco-I am slowly becoming a fan- and grabbed a few things for conference treats-which was super fun! I let each kids pick any one bulk cereal and get a small bag full to snack on and then I got Jon a huge bag of their granola (which is delicious). We also got some blue-berry muffin mix and a few other things! The little bags of the kids cereal were each under $.50!! A win-win because it was super cheap, super fun, a great fun snack, and the kids thought it was so cool! <br />
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We got home just in time for our friends to come over. The older girls made the blueberry muffin mix into mini-muffins, the younger two helped me make biscuits and the middle two-they were pretty happy to just run off and play and didn't want to help much in the kitchen, which was probably good because we were on the crowded side, but we are good at that! We cut up fruit and carrots small and set out the little dishes. We also cut up some little cheese slices and some peanut butter and jam in small containers. It looked really cute and it actually all tasted quite delicious! The kids all had a really fun afternoon together swimming and playing and I really enjoyed visiting with their mom-so it was all-around a nice day.<br />
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--pictures will follow soon--<br />
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Saturday and Sunday were General Conference-and quite good to listen to. I didn't hear it all (I have small children and I fell asleep a bit) but I really enjoyed it. I am so glad I can re-listen to it any time on lds.org and also re-read it any time in the Ensign! There were many powerful and inspiring talks that I am excited to study more and apply the lessons and guides taught in my own life. I remember one thing that I really want to do is make a copy of the quote from President Monson's closing remarks on my wall. They were very meaningful and powerful,<br />
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"I invoke the blessings of heaven upon each of you. May your homes be
filled with peace, harmony, courtesy, and love. May they be filled with
the Spirit of the Lord. May you nurture and nourish your testimonies of
the gospel, that they will be a protection to you against the buffetings
of Satan."<br />
President Thomas S. Monson, April 7, 2013<br />
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His entire closing remarks were awesome and a perfect close to all the good teachings we had just been hearing the past 2 days. <br />
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This week I have really been working on focusing on living within our means-a constant struggle for just about everyone, especially for everyone with children and a home to take care of. There are always "rainy days" it seems, but I know we can get on top of things and get it figured out. I have also come to learn that Heavenly Father will help us and guide us, but it does take so much patience, effort, hard work, and a lot of time-ie: a lot of patience. I have come to realize that money means nothing to Him. It just does not matter if we are rich or poor-and I know that, but I hate having debt and even though it's not a lot, I have a hard time with it because it seems the second we get out of debt we just get right back in-cars and medical are our main Achilles heel. I have come to the realization that that is not going to change-we are always going to have medical costs and we are always going to have vehicle costs and it's only going to get more as our kids get older and need dental attention and whatnot. <br />
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So it's back to the drawing board of my life goal: be a stay-at-home mom and run my household well and figure out how to do this on less than I already am. I have done and still do coupons, but I also have changed a lot of our eating habits since we moved to AZ-more healthy-and coupons don't help too much in that area. They are great for all the other things-household and personal care items and the times that we get things that aren't healthy (cause yes, I still buy junk food at times-we still celebrate parties in many traditional ways because we enjoy it, ie: chips, soda, cake, treats, etc.). So I am in a transition right now-trying to decide if my newspaper subscription is worth it-is this a way I want to cut back and does it really pay off? In my efforts in this area this week I have discovered some things that I have heard about but never really looked into. <br />
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At this point I don't have a solid answer, but I am excited about what I have learned and made so far and that is more DIY items for the household and personal care items-and even for a non-healthy item-american cheese-not processed, but you make it yourself (from regular cheese-essentially making the soft velveeta cheese block you can buy) so that it tastes like the processed kind-more fun than anything with the kids and for our toasted cheese sandwiches last night--anyway, I made homemade laundry soap and homemade dishwasher tabs! I am way excited about how easy this was and how cheap it was!! I looked on-line at many recipes and they all are very similar so I figured the main two ingredients in every recipe was the super washing soda and the borax. What was used for the soap was different in many recipes. I want to try another recipe, but I didn't have the stuff (I will say that I did not have borax and super washing soda, but I knew I wanted to try to make soap and I knew those were in it, so I picked those up while at the store and they cost a total of $7). In my looking there was one site that I kept going to that had pretty much exactly what I was looking for in many different areas and here is the link for the laundry soap: <i><b> <a href="http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/03/super-concentrated-no-grate-liquid-laundry-detergent.html" target="_blank">Laundry Soap</a></b></i><br />
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<b>Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap <i>(the light blue liquid in the large arrowhead water container) </i></b></div>
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I used the<i><b><a href="http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/04/make-your-own-dishwasher-detergent-tabs.html" target="_blank"> dishwasher tabs</a> </b></i>recipe from that site as well, only I tweaked mine a bit after reading comments on it and because I was trying to make do with what I had and my soft water. I only made half a batch and I measured out the 1 TBLS into the ice-cube tray compartments and mini-muffin pan to let it dry (in the link, she filled them full and she did not use real-lemon, she used her essential lemon oil, which I don't have. I also cut the salt in half because I have soft water and I added 1 TBLS dawn to the mixture rather than adding 3 drops when I start the load. We will have to see how it works! <br />
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<b>Homemade Dishwasher Tabs<i> (drying in the ice-cube tray and mini-muffin pan) </i></b></div>
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It has been really fun for me to try these out and find even more ways to spend less money! I am going to explore soap and shampoo next! With our swimming-pool we are going through both of those items quite a lot lately and the summer hasn't even really begun! It is always a rewarding feeling to make something for your home that you regularly buy. I am very pleased with the laundry soap-it washed my laundry up really well. I have a batch of dishes washing right now to test out my dishwasher tabs that I made today. I need to buy a few ingredients before I can make the soap and shampoo, but I am thinking I am liking this homemade stuff which I am also sure is far better for you anyway!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-6157049641414528322013-03-22T14:16:00.002-07:002013-03-22T14:17:23.652-07:00Making a blog post instead of getting the chores done. . . Little does my family know that I have the super-power to accomplish what is an arduous task of cleaning the house after a week of falling behind due to devotion to an awesome event I was in charge of last night (that turned out great thanks to so many awesome women) in 1/4 of the time I have allotted to accomplish such tasks. I guess it's really not a super-power, its more like super speeding up as you approach the finish line because you stopped too many times to take a break along the race. I am supposed to be spending the morning doing dishes, sweeping, mopping, laundry-oh was that the dryer, I better go get the next load in. . . straightening the rooms, bathing the dog, and vacuuming the house, oh, and don't forget, dumping the garbage.<br />
You see I only have 2 more hours before I need to leave to get the kids. What have I been doing? Hmmmm, I biked with my kids to school (we have been opting to not take the bus several days a week and biking the 1.5 miles to school instead to get in the needed activity level that kids don't get now days, unless you sign them up for sports, but I can't afford that, and I hate spending time in the car-sorry, it's true, I hate being a soccer mom and can't live my life in my honda oddyssey, no-can-do, and I hate sitting there. . trying to keep the other kids in line in beautiful weather that I want to enjoy myself (or sometimes not so beautiful that I don't want to enjoy), so instead I try to find ways to help my kids be active just in their regular daily life and keeping them in good enough shape so that we can also do some fun adventure type activities together as well, not to mention Gunther, our dog, needs a good brisk walk and he is great at going alongside me on the bike. So we biked to school.<br />
I had planned to meet a friend to do some strength training with, but she had to cancel, so I did some strength-training in my yard (and discovered ways that I can turn my yard into quite the great place for a great workout), and then I decided that I wanted to get in a really good aerobic workout as well, so I went on a real bike ride without gunther (oh and he was so sad, but he can't run that long, that fast-we went 10 miles on an old bike-which is like going 20 on a new bike and 30 or 40 on one of those amazingly awesome bikes that my brother has that is really expensive that someday I will own-but for now my 30 year-old bike that I bought at a garage sale when I was a teenager still works pretty darn good-retro without the price-right-ha ha).<br />
And it was a GREAT bike-ride-did I mention that I LOVE being outside, I love the wind in my face, I love having Amelia there with me to share this awesomeness with and we discovered a GREAT park with a lake, a pond, fishing, playgrounds, an awesome path, and I am so excited to take the kids there-and I mean bike with the kids there-I wore my watch, so I know that it is 2.75 miles away from our house and they can totally do that. So then I got home, took care of some yard things, fed Amelia lunch, got some laundry going, cleaned the kids rooms while getting Amelia fed and down for a nap. Then took a stop here at the computer, checked my email, called and chatted with Jon while he was on his lunch for a bit and I had another letter from my nephew that I keep meaning to write (on his mission) and decided I better sit down and write a quick letter to him. As a fellow runner, I got telling him about my latest marathon. And then I realized I had just made a blog post in this letter, so then I decided to just "hurry and post" a bit of what I had just typed to him! So here I am and I better hurry, because my super-power-to-clean-superly-fast is going to have to really kick in hard and good in just a bit here! I added in a whole bunch more detail so if parts don't make sense, so sorry, but I have to hurry-such is the life I have at this point!<br />
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So my nephew had some really hard challenges in his life and he waited a bit before deciding to go on a mission-which is totally fine-I think it was good for him to figure some things out and go when he was ready to make that choice. In his letter he talked about how it was hard to make that choice and now he is so glad that he did. Anyway, this really got me thinking about hard choices and hard things that we do and accomplish. You see, it’s the hard things that help us grow and become a better
person and help us discover who we are and what we can become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like running-so many people that really could run, think they could never run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well if you focus on your weaknesses and how hard it is and therefore, don’t give it a real fair try-you
are right!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
I NEVER thought I would run a
marathon, let alone 3!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Infact, I just PR’d
(personal record) at the Pheonix marathon a few weeks ago!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4 of my siblings ran it with me (and two of
them also PR’d) and my dad ran his first race ever-he did the half
marathon!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so neat to be a part of
that with my family!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cool thing was
that all 5 of us siblings came in within 20 minutes of each other!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came in at 4:04-which I was very pleased
about (I kept under 9 minute miles most of the time).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so hard to keep myself going, but I
realized at the beginning that I could run it in under 4:10, and possibly under
4 if I really concentrated the whole time and not loose track of my goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
Disclaimer: <br />
At this point of my blog, if you don't want lots of detail about my race, I have just summed it up in the previous paragraph and you can stop now. The last couple of paragraphs of this post are more reflective on life in general if you would like to just enjoy that portion of my post. Enjoy!<br />
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I hadn't trained as hard as I had hoped, so I didn't go into this race with an original thought of doing super awesome. But my awesome, amazing little sister, Emily and I got talking about how we need to decide what we can run this race in, and then figure out where we should be at certain miles with our time and then if we are on track with our goal, we should come in at the time we want to.<br />
Now this got me thinking. I had to be realistic. I had trained good enough-not the best, but really good enough. I knew I could at least beat my previous times. So we started the race and I was running with Emily. She is in way better shape than me and she is faster and trained super super hard. She gave me some running tips that I had never tried-to take smaller, quicker steps to go faster and that was more easy than longer, big steps. She said to just watch my arms and if I needed to speed up, move my arms faster and my legs would follow. I started to do that and I was surprised that I seemed to be doing just fine running just a bit faster than what I had trained. We ran the first couple of miles together and I knew she had goals to do awesome, so I fell back a bit and let her go on. But as I did so, I thought, you know, you are doing pretty good, why don't you just keep your eye on EMily and stay up with her as long as you can. IT was then that I had some serious thinking going on in my mind. I realized that I could not only beat my other times, but that if I really focused and I really pushed myself, that I could come in at 4:10 and possibly even 4 hours. I re-thought about how we had discussed setting small goals through the race and so I figured out where I would have to be every hour to come in at 4 hours. Though I was pretty sure I couldn't do it in under 4 hours, I knew I could come close if I really focused. Besides, this was my 3rd marathon. Why not go with a different strategy? What's the worst that could happen? I have to walk at the end because I pushed myself too hard at the beginning? But I knew the route, I knew the hills, I had run them many times, and I knew that I could run this. I had trained-not as hard and as amazing as I had originally hoped, but I had trained hard, and I had trained as good as I could in reality with what else was going on in my life. I determined that I would regularly check my watch and be sure that I was right around 9 minute miles. I would only walk through the water stations, and I would not stop at the bathroom unless I REALLY had to go REALLY bad-for longer than a mile. I also have to mention that my incredibly sweet, loving, and thoughtful husband downloaded several new songs onto my "clip" for me the day before while I was gone with my dad and siblings getting our race packets, checking out the course and whatnot. I had really wanted some new music, but hadn't had the time to do it. And without me even knowing until the night before, he did it for me! I attribute enjoying my race so much greatly to having some really awesome new music to listen to-and I am picky and I love "modern classical"-movie soundtracks, trailer soundtracks, that kind of music just really sings to my soul and that's what really gets me going and he found some great songs that gave me that extra boost at times. So with these new thoughts and my new running style in mind, and my new music to thoroughly enjoy, I moved forward. I kept my eye on my watch and any time I
was over 9 minute miles, I sped up-I would move my arms faster. I didn't think about my legs. PRetty early on my foot starting hurting. I didn't let it get to me. It hurt throughout the entire race and I just kept telling myself-you have trained for this, you are just fine, just keep going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> It was very hot-probably one of the hottest days we had had in Mesa at that point. I was worried about hitting the wall at the classic 18th or 20th mile. I knew if I kept well fueled, that would be less likely to happen-or at least not happen so intensley. So at every stop, I took what they offered-gus', drinkage, chomp type things. I did feel pretty sick to my stomach because I was likely over-fueling, but I just ignored it and kept going. I focused on my music and enjoying it and my arms-just kept them moving. At the biggest hill, I knew it well-I had run it many times and I knew I didn't need to slow down too much, so I pushed myself up it. When I got to the top, I knew this was my only good down hill so I didn't hold back, I flew down it. At every stop (every 2 miles) I would think, alright, I am there already! </span>It was really fun to see my sweet little Aubrey along with my sister in laws at mile 10 holding up a sign cheering me on! I ran right up to Aubrey and gave her a big hug! I also even saw my old Gilbert workout buddy! That was really fun to see her along the way! Anyway, I just kept focused and I
only stopped and walked for the drinks (I never even stopped for the
bathroom-and I did go-you can take that how you want-but I knew that if I
stopped, I wouldn’t make my goal).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> About at mile 23 I was feeling pretty wasted. I wanted to walk, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't make it under 4:10. At this point in the race I knew I couldn't make under 4, but I could still make it under 4:10 if I kept running and I knew that I was actually pretty close to making it closer to 4 than to 4:10 if I could keep up my speed. I did slow down a bit for the last few miles and kept finding myself to be closer to 10 minute miles and making my arms go faster to speed up. I had to really really focus. I really wanted to get in as close to 4 as possible. As I finally reached the end, I was so focused on that finish line that I couldn't even look to the side-lines. I just knew I had to keep running for that finish line or I might collapse, yet I was so so excited that I had run this race so well and that I had pushed myself so hard! I ran as fast as I could through that finish line! It was an incredible feeling to know that I did it and I did it in 4:04!! I had done a great job, and I knew it! </span><br />
<br />
It’s
super hard to train and do, but if you follow the training schedule and utilize
the tools out there, you can totally do it!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> And no, nobody needs to run a marathon, but life is like this! There are so many awesome things out there. But if you never set out to do some of them, it's never going to happen. I couldn't just run a marathon without a lot of planning and work. The same is true for any worthwhile accomplishment. Our world or at least our country is so so so lazy! We aspire to things, but aren't willing to give the effort it takes to really gain from our aspirations. Good things take effort! Great things take work!</span>
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The gospel is so similar!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I call running my anti-depressant because it teaches me so much and it
makes me feel great! But I need to expound on that, because I feel great in the long run-after I have gotten up and gotten out and on my way. Often it takes me a mile or even a few before I feel like I can really get going. And some days it really sucks to get up and go
running, let me re-phrase that-most days it is really really hard to get myself out of bed and on my way-I NEVER feel like getting out of bed, but I am so glad when I do it)-and I seriously mean that because so so so many moms that seem so on
top of things take anti-depressants to help them (I am not saying anyone shouldn't be on anti-depressants-I am just stating a fact here).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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Being a mom is super hard. I have come to the realization that being anything with eternal value is going to
be hard and I think we forget that!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
I think we figure that because it is of eternal value and because it is a wonderful, good thing to be doing, that it will be easy because we know it is what we should be doing. The truth is, as we all know, that it is super hard to be a mom. </span>Sticking with it, fixing meals, cleaning house, tireless hours-it’s a
lot of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are a lazy lazy
society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not stick to things that
require too much effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am no
different than a billion other moms out there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am tired-the work seems endless at times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life is hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>BUT I am coming to learn that the mind has so so so much power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perspective-having the gospel is really what
it comes down to-knowing the end result-knowing I get to be with Jon
forever-knowing that I get to enjoy my family and my sweetheart after this life
is over, and knowing that this is only a small portion of my existence is what
really keeps me happy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>And with that in
mind, I can generally not let the hard times get to me and just keep going,
knowing that the end of this hard moment will come, there will be great moments
of joy and the more I keep my eye out for them, the more I will see them and I
keep going-just like in a race-moments where you are flying and you are feeling
on the top of the world, yet in the same race, moments where you are hurting a
lot and you think you might puke, and you just wet your pants a little-hopefully nobody will notice because we all stink so bad anyway, but
with each long run, those moments bother me less and less, because I know that
the great awesome moments aren’t coming along if I don’t have these moments to
build and strengthen and help me appreciate and joy in the great moments.</div>
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When we take the "hard path" and work at "hard goal" I know
that it is where we will find true joy and peace and in all actuality it is not
the harder path-it takes more effort, but what you will gain will strengthen
you in times of need and help teach you how to push yourself and essentially
make you a better, stronger person and you will look back and wonder why you
thought it was so hard to do in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great accomplishments are the result of hard things, and ultimately these hard things help in discovering our own strengths and capacities and ultimately joy!!
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-28294260011129371242013-01-02T19:53:00.000-08:002013-01-05T22:18:11.331-08:002012-Our First Year in Arizona!<div style="text-align: center;">
I thought I would post several pictures from 2012 and tell a little about them for our year "finale" to share with family and friends. Enjoy!</div>
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My kids at the beginning of 2012-it was the first time I bought the
girls Christmas dresses and Jonathan a
new Sunday outfit! Living so close to so much family, we had always been so blessed with hand-me-downs
that we never needed to buy Sunday clothes! Thank you so much to all of
you that have given us hand-me-downs over the years! </div>
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We love them!</div>
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Jon let the kids climb up there when he was taking down the Christmas
decs and putting up his movie posters-they were pretty excited!</div>
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We went to the Pheonix children's museum for Jonathan's birthday-it was a pretty neat place! The kids had a really super fun time! </div>
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Happy 5th birthday to Jonathan! He was lucky and got to have Grandma and Grandpa Hansen over for his birthday! They came and spent several days with us which was really nice. Here is Jonathan's "Thor Hammer" birthday cake-I should have looked at the picture from the movie rather than just his toy hammer. I would have realized that the hammer is placed differently in the mound of dirt and would have been much easier to place as a cake that way. But he loved the cake and we had a fun time making it together! </div>
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The kids at the school carnival. They had a lot of fun doing different activities-one of which was wall climbing. I failed to get a picture, but they really enjoyed trying that! </div>
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Amelia and I on a bike ride-we really enjoyed many bike rides throughout the year. We even got to go on a few with great-grandpa Robertson! We would bike to his house, stop in and visit with him and Grandma for a bit and then ride a couple of miles with him. We don't live as close anymore, but we may decide to go for a long bike ride and try it again soon! </div>
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Dying Easter eggs!<br />
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Easter morning! </div>
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The Pat Tillman run-the kids ran a .44 mile race at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. It was amazingly crowded (there was a 4.4 mile race as well and 30,000 people ran it)! We had no idea how popular of a race this was and expected a nice little race in which we could see the kids at the start and finish. Nope. It was so full of people everywhere that we decided we better stay right with the kids while they ran. We split up and through it all we actually lost Jonathan for a bit and that was so scary! We were so grateful to find him and held him extra close the rest of the day! The race was pretty fun though and there was so much fun extra stuff going on along with lots of free food from Jamba Juice, Chik-fil-a, McDonalds, and lots more-it will surely become a tradition, only this time we will know just how crazy and busy it is!</div>
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Aubrey and Mariah sewing. Mariah is working on her stick horse we had to make for a school project. Aubrey is making a finger puppet. </div>
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Mariah with her completed stick horse. I think it turned out pretty sweet especially since we made it up from the scraps in my fabric scrap drawer! </div>
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Amelia helping me cook in the kitchen. All of my kids love to cook with me! For a while they each had a weekly turn helping me make dinner. Now it's more sporadic, but they all love any opportunity to help me cook! </div>
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Jon's birthday!</div>
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Mariah's 7th birthday! We had a fun little food party on the small dishes. We made a small cake for the party and then had an icecream cake with family later. </div>
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My birthday-well Jon and the kids celebrated it a day before my birthday. On my birthday I went to Portland for my little brother's wedding! We were so happy for Jay to find such an amazing woman!! So for my birthday, I flew out a couple of days before the wedding, along with several of my siblings. We had a super awesome time together! It was a beautiful place to visit and it was so fun to be with my siblings goofing off!</div>
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4th of July goodies we made! These were my first cake-pops! The only problem is they were so yummy and I ate way too many!! The flag cake was pretty fun to make as well. The kids helped me and were really confused how it was going to all turn out, but they finally got to see when we cut the cake! We got to enjoy the 4th of July here in Arizona! We went to Jon's sister, Kathy's home and had a really nice time with them and James and Emily's family. The funny thing was there was a huge rainstorm and it was the coldest 4th of July we have had!</div>
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The kids made mickey mouse cookies with Grandpa Robertson while we were in Utah over the summer. He made enough for all the grandkids that were there to make their own and then showed them how to frost it to look like Mickey. Then he let them go at it. It was really cute and the kids had a fun time, of course, who wouldn't want to decorate a sugar cookie with their grandpa! </div>
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Our first trip to the ER-not bad since she is our 4th child. </div>
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Mariel's wedding!! It was really neat to be a part of our sweet little nieces wedding while we were in Utah! We love her dearly! </div>
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We heard that it was so hot that you
could cook cookies in the car while you were at church. We gave it a
try! The cookies were cooked through and very yummy!! It was nice to
come out of church and have a treat ready in the car! We will for sure
be doing that again this summer!</div>
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First day of school!</div>
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Mariah-2nd grade </div>
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Aubrey-3rd grade</div>
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Not sure where Jonathan's first day of school pic is, but he started kindergarten this year! This picture is actually from when grandma Robertson came to take care of me after surgery. The kids had a lot of fun having them visit and I got a lot of rest as well as good company and good food!</div>
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Amelia being cute!</div>
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Amelia has great grandpa Robertson wrapped around her little finger! He adores her and she also adores him! She is always sure to get and give a hug and kiss from him when he is around! </div>
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Mariah washing Amelia's hair in the tub! </div>
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The kids playing legos with dad-he took good care of them while I was healing from surgery! He got out the totes of legos and dumped them in the living room. They built and played out there for about a week!</div>
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Emily came out to Utah in September, so I took the kids out of school for a few days and we headed up there! This is us running up beautiful Provo Canyon in the beautiful fall colors all around! </div>
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Girls night out-Emily, me, Mom, and Becca. After going out for a delicious dinner at Costa Vida, we went to Forever 21 and picked out something super ugly for each other to try on. It was pretty fun! </div>
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Hiking Stewart Falls with the kids! Aubrey, James, Ben, and Grandpa Robertson hiked Timpanogus while we hiked Stewart Falls with the littler kids. It was a beautiful hike! I just couldn't get enough of the beautiful mountains! Aubrey and I hiked Timpanogus early in the summer as well with Jeremy and Grandpa Robertson. And the kids and I hiked almost to "hamburger rock" with Grandpa Robertson while we were there in July. That is a ways past 2nd falls on the Aspen Grove trail on the Timpanogus hike. We didn't realize how close we were until we hiked Timpanogus later! We were only one switchback away when we had decided it was time to turn around!! They all did really well! </div>
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The kids at Maceys getting a king-kong cone! We are always sure to hit Maceys and get an icecream when in Utah! You can't beat their soft-serve 50 cent cones!</div>
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Amelia helping make her birthday cake! </div>
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The kids made "animal" balloons for Amelia's birthday. They were super cute! </div>
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Amelia loves dogs. She got tons of dog things for her birthday. Mariah made these dog ears for her to wear on her birthday-she was so cute! </div>
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We made a doggy cake! </div>
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Happy 2nd birthday Amelia! Great-grandma & grandpa Robertson came. Grandma loved the little dishes-pretty much a birthday tradition at our house! </div>
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Aubrey's 9th birthday! We made an icecream cake that was pretty much like a giant oreo! We frosted on "Blue" from the movie "Rio" on there. She had a fun pajama/movie night birthday party and they watched Rio. They also got in a cake fight afterward while eating cake-even Jon joined in, which greatly shocked the kids at the party. It was pretty crazy and fun!</div>
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Halloween! </div>
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Aubrey carved her pumpkin all on her own! Jon helped Jonathan and I helped Mariah. Amelia was fine just eating cookies and watching while we carved. </div>
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Halloween night-Amelia was very upset to be wearing a costume-but after the first door of trick-or-treating, she was very happy to be in a costume! We had a really fun time trick-or-treating together as a family! </div>
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The girls before church-so cute! </div>
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Aubrey had a performance at school just before Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa Robertson were in town to help with our move and for Henry's baptism. It was really nice to have them visit again! And it was nice that they were able to come to Aubrey's performance! It was really cute-she was an alligator (I helped the room-mother make hats for the kids in class).<br />
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Thanksgiving at James and Emily's house. It was so nice and Emily had adorable party favors for the kids and the tables all set so nice. We had a really nice, relaxing Thanksgiving-it was the first Thanksgiving in which I haven't cooked in probably 15, maybe more, years! The reason for that was we were busy packing and getting ready to move. We also got to attend Henry's baptism that Saturday, which was really nice to be a part of too!<br />
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Grandpa Robertson was so kind and made his amazing truffle centers and brought them along with amazing, good quality chocolate to dip them in while he was here over Thanksgiving! We had great grandma & grandpa, and Jay & Em over for dinner (hamburgers and homemade fries-yum, yum) and then we all dipped chocolates together! The kids had a blast dipping their own and then we also came up with some great fillings-toated coconut, toasted almonds with toffee chips, cashews, and of course the amazing truffle flavors-mint, dark mint, orange, and lemon. It was all so incredibly delicious! I think I gained 10 lbs over the holiday!<br />
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In the nick of time, we finally were able to sign on our house and get the keys-24 hours before we had to be out of the home we were renting! It was a close call, and I don't think I have been that stressed in a long time! I about had a heart-attack! We kept thinking we were going to be able to sign and get everything through for about 3 weeks before it actually happened and the seller almost backed out! Thank you so much to family and friends for their prayers and faith because it was seriously a miracle that it actually all went through in time! So here is our new home as of Dec. 1st. We hope we will get to enjoy it for many many years!</div>
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Jon visited Jonathan's kindergarten class and played the violin. He really enjoyed doing so and Jonathan loved having him come too!</div>
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The kids making Christmas tree ornaments-we made the dough, rolled it out, cut shapes, waited several days for it to dry and then painted them! It was really fun and it kept the kids busy while Jon and I unpacked!</div>
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Jonathan and Aubrey sewing a present for Mariah for Christmas. They worked very well together and worked hard on this wall-hanging. </div>
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While walking home from school with the kids one day, Aubrey noticed that these two trees made the star-trek symbol! The kids were super excited to take a picture and send it to Jon! </div>
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Our cousins, Henry & Wesley spent a night over the holidays. Great grandma and grandpa came over and the kids performed a nativity together & we sang songs together. Then the kids each decorated a section of this giant gingerbread man that my kids and I had made earlier. That night it ran away! But the kids found it and ate it for breakfast! We had a really fun time playing games with James, and Jay & Em. Fun times!</div>
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Emily, Emily, and I (daughters that live in AZ) made mom 3 pillow covers for her Christmas gift. They really turned out beautiful! I want to make a set for me! Maybe I will make some for whomever I have for Christmas next year!</div>
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We actually got our Christmas tree up only a week after moving in! It was a live one and it barely lived until Christmas! I don't know if we will go for a live one again here in Arizona. It was really pretty and smelled really nice though! <br />
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Great Grandmas's 93rd birthday! She had mentioned when coming to one of kids birthdays that she thought it was really fun that they got as many balloons as they were turning for them to pop and there would be a prize/toy/candy or something in each balloon. Jokingly, she said she wanted someone to blow up 93 balloons for her birthday. Well, the kids and I thought that would be really fun. We put chocolates in each one and blew them all up! We put them in garbage bags and delivered them to her house! She was elated! She just loved popping them and had the kids help her too! <br />
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New Years Eve! We made some yummy food! White bean dip, guacamole, a bacon cheddar cheese ball (it was so delicious-the taste you hope for when you buy one, but it has that processed flavor-this was homemade, no processes flavor), artichoke, garlic, spinach dip-also amazing!!-little smokies with bacon wrapped around them, apple toffee dip, and the classic onion dip to go with potato chips-only this year I used greek yogurt for 1/2 of the sour cream and it was delicious and far less bad for you! The kids helped me make most of the food too! In-fact, Aubrey made muddy-buddies all on her own while I was making the artichoke and bean dips!<br />
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Jon built a big fire (burned our Christmas tree) while the kids jumped on the tramp and I sat close to the fire freezing cold (Arizona has really made me not tolerate cold at all). They taped glow-sticks to them so they would glow in the dark and did funny moves on the tramp. The pictures show the kids well, but in the dark, we could only see the glow sticks. Jonathan and Aubrey are insects of some type and Mariah is an animal/ninja of some type.<br />
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We could pretend we are in the snow, but really this is just a gust of ash that blew in front of the camera right when I took the picture.<br />
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Here is Amelia smiling for the camera! While we were out there, we also did sparklers. We didn't get any pictures though. The kids love those things though!<br />
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We came in, took hot baths, and got some more snacks and sat down for a fun game of "Word on the Street" (a Christmas present). <br />
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I just had to try it and they turned out SO adorable! Amelias first braids! And, as you can see, we played some Mario Cart on nintendo 64 as we waited for midnight to come around! It was a super fun New Years-ending with the traditional singing of "Scumps" with drinks in hand (from Sleeping Beauty-a tradition started by my brother James-not sure when or how or why, but it began and we have carried it on). Then we linked arms and drank to the new year!<br />
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It's been a full year with many memories-some wonderful, some fun, some hard, and some close to the heart. We look forward to another wonderful year! Each year we see the blessing of our Heavenly Father in our lives and we are so grateful for our knowledge of the Savior and His sacrifice for us. <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-19695294642517716082012-12-10T13:04:00.000-08:002012-12-23T22:31:00.786-08:00The 3 Gifts of ChristmasSo in the hustle and craziness of moving and trying to get our home set up and fit in Christmas activities and whatnot here and there, I have been really pondering on Christmas and how to tie it in more with it's true meaning. I try to do lots of fun and good things with my kids each year and it is always a really fun time of year and each Christmas is a wonderful day. But this year I am wanting to make Christmas even more meaningful. I want to start something that could make an already wonderful day into an even more wonderful day, with more depth. I want the actual day to also reach back more into it's original meaning, the birth of our Savior.<br />
Now I am a lover of Santa and the magic of Christmas. I love the Christmas season! We are not deleting any of that wonderfulness. Jon is a lover of presents! He is a youngest child and had and has MANY toys. Christmas is always huge at our house and it is really fun. But I don't like that we save up all these great gifts and have almost too much on Christmas day (please no comments on how you feel that we have too many toys or gifts as well, I am completely aware of this fact). I want to make it more special I guess.<br />
So I was listening to President Eyring's Christmas devotional talk again for my scripture study on Friday and I felt touched by his meaningful and heartfelt gifts. I don't have time to make something amazing this year. I don't have time to do all the things I want to do for everyone. It is so hard to fit in what you want to do and what you feel is most important. I sat there thinking (well actually I was unpacking and listening and thinking all at the same time) and I remembered hearing about the 3 gifts of Christmas. I had heard about this from some friends at a play-group about a year ago. I
really didn't catch much of what was said as I was watching my
adventurous 1 year old (and I thought she was adventurous then--yikes,
now she is just fearless)! I just remember that there were 3 gifts; a
spiritual gift, a physical gift, and a fun gift. I remember thinking
that I never have specifically thought of giving a spiritual gift. I
hadn't really thought of spreading out the gift giving/thinking that way
at all and I thought it sounded really neat. <br />
So I decided to google this and see if I came up with anything. And yes I did! I really liked what I found and it was even more neat than what I had remembered because it ties in so well with the true meaning of Christmas, without making it feel like we are trying to make Christmas into family home evening lesson or a Sacrament meeting. I know, you are all waiting to hear what it is, but I will make a disclaimer here first that most of the families that do this only give 3 gifts TOTAL. Some do not believe in Santa and some do not even believe in giving big gifts for the 3 gifts. I also know that there is NO WAY ON EARTH that Jon would agree to only giving 3 gifts total (and only one that is a toy-like gift) for Christmas. I don't really quite agree with that either, but to each their own, and I think it's a really neat tradition.<br />
Okay, so here is what it is:<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>The three gifts of Christmas symbolize the three
gifts the Wise Men brought to Jesus:</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh</span></b></i>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><i><b>Gold</b></i></u> </span>symbolizes something precious and greatly desired by
the receiver.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><u><i><b>Frankincense</b></i></u> </span>was an incense used on the altars of the
temple, so frankincense will symbolize our spiritual growth-a gift that will
strengthen our spirits and souls.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><u><i><b>Myrrh</b></i></u></span> was used medicinally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This will symbolize our physical needs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The more I thought about this, the more I loved it. Now it was on to convincing Jon--I sent him an email so he could ponder on it through the day and we could talk about it later. He was hilarious in his response as he usually is and stated that there was no way we were only going to give 3 gifts total to each child (as I suspected he would say). So I made it better by a compromise, at least to just try this out. The kids each will get 3 sets of the 3 gifts of Christmas, plus Santa will come, plus presents from Grandparents and cousins will still be under the tree, aka: <i>there will still be plenty of presents</i>. And he agreed! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So tonight we are having an FHE to discuss this. I am working on how to present it and how to have the kids draw each others names and whatnot. </div>
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I am actually superly excited about some of the ideas I have had! I have always wanted to frame the <i><u>Christ with the Children</u></i> picture for my kids' rooms. So I plan to make frames out of (I know, I am funny) the dark stained slats under the kids bunkbeds that broke (and we replaced, but I kept the wood because I knew I could make some kind of frame or something with it) for two of the large <i><u>Christ with the Children </u></i>pictures for my spiritual gift to the kids. I had a bunch of other good ideas-a mini Book of Mormon, a CD/download for you higher-tech (could go lots of places with that-I would for sure count Les Mes as a spiritual gift), a good book, a mini-primary children's songbook, a special CTR piece of jewelry, etc. For Myrhh-that's my personal favorite kind of gift-clothes, make-up, oh and did I mention clothes? And of course gold seems so obvious, but now I want that gift to be more special-something that the reciever really wants-one really special item from me rather than a bunch of fun items. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This will be fun and I plan to make special re-usable tags to go on the gifts that say what they symbolize, so I better get going on that. Oh, dear, I have to unpack my sewing and craft stuff first-yikes-maybe the tags won't be re-usable this year! Better get with it! Have a Merry Christmas!!<br />
<br />
After I did some research on these items and prepared our FHE a few weeks ago, I learned so much and so I am adding to my blog post here to just share a little more about these items-just quickly about what I remember-I will try to add more detail later, but no promises. Gold-like the life of Christ-always the standard to follow-I learned a lot about how gold mixes with other metals and substances and it could really tie into having a change of heart and having the pure love of Christ. I learned that Frankincense was not only used in the altars of the temple for incense, but for the animal sacrifices that represented Christ's sacrifice for us. Myrrh was used at Christ's death as they prepared his body for the tomb. Also used for medicinal purposes-Christ is the ultimate healer. Anyway, I learned a lot about all three things and it was fun to talk with the kids about what they meant and the kids came up with neat ideas for their gifts for each other! <br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-64297081993867469712012-11-18T16:06:00.002-08:002012-11-18T16:07:27.205-08:00My Recipe'sSo I have been realizing that I get recipes off of the computer quite often. I also have people ask me to send them a recipe every so often. I saw a blog where a mother put her recipes-for her more than anyone else-just to put them all in one place, pretty much her own personal cookbook. I thought, "What a great idea!!". So now I am giving it a try. I think I will like having all of my recipes in one place. I am working on figuring out how to organize them since each time you post, it just puts it on the home page. I made other pages and I am just copying the recipes to those at the same time that I post one. I will have to play with it a bit to figure out exactly how I want it organized, but I am excited to put all my recipes in one place! Now I just need an ipad or a smartphone to have in the kitchen with me when I cook--ha ha!!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://amyedsrecipes.blogspot.com/">Amy Edna's Recipes</a><br />
<br />
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-26174451634751613602012-11-04T18:55:00.001-08:002012-11-04T19:00:16.914-08:00Halloween!<div style="text-align: center;">
Our ward had a super fun halloween party in a neighbors backyard a few days before halloween. They had a chili contest, cornbread, scones, hotdogs, cotton candy, tons of fun booths for kids with prizes and a bounce house and haunted garage. It was super fun! Jon and I didn't dress up-which is not our style, but generally when we go to things like that most adults don't dress up and we just hadn't had time to think about it. This was a time we wished we had because almost everyone was dressed up! It was awesome! We didn't recognize many of the people at first! Anyway, the kids had a great time and it was really fun to see so many adults enjoying themselves as well! Our kids were ecstatic to dress up, of course! I had been super slacking on halloween and so focused on other things. I realized a couple of days before this big party that I needed to figure out what we were doing for halloween. Aubrey wanted to be Mario or Luigi. Jonathan wanted to be pretty much any super hero. Mariah wanted to be a scary guy, she called it, "the shadow", and wanted a black robe with a hood, and long white scary teeth. Well, I thought we could at least run to Ross and/or some second-hand stores and find things we could turn into costumes. So we went to Ross. Right on the front store rack there was about 10 costumes. In those costumes was a black robe with a hood and a bumblebee costume/mask-both superly cheap and the right sizes, amazing that out of the few that were there, we found exactly what we were looking for! PERFECT! We looked around for a costume for Aubrey and found some green pants--we figured we could make those into pants like Luigi. We bought our stuff and left. We hopped over to another store and saw a picture of Mario and Luigi and much to our surprise they both have blue overalls with colored shirts (we were thinking their overalls were the colored thing, not the shirts). Then we saw a Mario costume for sale--not much more than the green pants. I was sold. We bought the costume, returned the pants and we were ready for halloween! The kids were ecstatic and I really felt like it was a tender mercy that we were able to get exactly what they wanted for super cheap and in less than one hour! </div>
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We went to grab pumpkins on Monday night. We went to a farm, picked them out, and headed home. The kids drew their ideas on their pumpkins and we helped them carve them. Aubrey did hers all on her own and we were way impressed! Mariah, as usual was absolutely grossed out by the inside and wouldn't touch it. We were mean and made her touch it though-ha ha. They all turned out really cute!<br />
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On halloween night Amelia would not put on her costume. She was so upset about it. We gave her a sucker to sooth her while putting it on. She was still pretty upset, but we wanted to give it a try. At the first door she watched the other kids and followed them and was pretty pleased to get a piece of candy in the bag we had given her. By the third door she loved her costume, was jumping up and down and beyond excited to be trick-or-treating! It was really so adorable! She would just jump up and down when people would put a piece of candy in her bag. She even started saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you". It was really fun to trick-or-treat here. So many of the neighbors were in groups in their drive-ways and had pot-luck and had made it a neighborhood party. Then they would sit in chairs with their candy to hand out in one of their driveways while people came around. It just was a really nice and fun atmosphere! Plus we got SO SO much candy with the homes being so much closer together than in Utah!! One house had candy dishes with skeletons or ghosts and whatnot on them. When you would reach for candy, the skeleton/ghost, would snap down ou your hand. It gave Mariah a really big scare! She threw the candy she was grabbing really far and screamed. The owner really got a kick out it, and so did we, actually! Amelia was more fascinated with anyones pet dogs than candy if there was a dog around. She would yell out, "goggie!!" and pet it and even let them lick her on the face! She is for sure our animal lover! It was really fun to go around together as a family! It was really fun to see so many friends and neighbors out as well--just a fun night! We all had a super fun time!</div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-76717613822487587962012-10-23T14:58:00.001-07:002012-10-23T14:58:35.890-07:00Fall Break<div style="text-align: center;">
The kids have a full week of fall break here. I was very excited to not get up quite so early each day (so lazy I know, but true)! Anyway, I would have probably gone up to visit Grandma, but we had done that two weeks previous. I let each of the kids plan a dinner to make with me for one of the days (they love love cooking with me) and also they got to each pick a treat to make with me one of the days. Aubrey is getting really good at cooking and pretty much made her meal all on her own (and passed off an Activity Days goal doing so). </div>
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It is still pretty hot here, but I am so anxious to enjoy the outdoors and have my kids enjoy the outdoors (probably partly due to feeling crowded and messy when we are home all day). So we went on a bike ride to the preserve. It's about 1.5 miles away just to get to it, so I wondered how my kids would do. It was actually really fun and they did great. Jonathan got pretty tired on the ride home, but we ended up going about 5 miles total, so he really did awesome. It took us a while to actually find the ponds that were full right now, so we didn't get to see much at the preserve before it got too hot. But on our way to the preserve we go through the irrigated/farm animal lots and see horses, cows, chickens. That always excites my kids. There is a particular lot that has pigs, mules, tortoises, goats, sheep, and lots of birds and other small animals. The kids loved petting the mules and goats and for the first time we got to actually see a tortoise super close and it was eating watermelon. That was pretty neat! They also love to see the huge fish in the canal and gather shells along the edge of the canal (don't ask why there are shells, I have no idea, but there are).</div>
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The next day we just took it easy, wore pj's, did some sewing and our own projects or whatever we wanted. So we headed out, all of us
on our bikes, in matching yellow shirts. We wanted to also go to the
library and get some books and DVD's (the library is just past the
preserve). We looked at the area on a map before we left this time and had a better idea of how to get to where we wanted to go. We found that there is a nice lake right next to the library (between the library and the preserve)! We saw so many birds and we also saw several bunnies and a turtle! Aubrey and Mariah also got to get their own library cards-which they were so excited about! The kids did really well again on their bikes and I really enjoyed being out with them all on our bikes enjoying the outdoors!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-8937153016217837442012-09-14T13:29:00.001-07:002012-09-14T13:36:39.596-07:00Bike Ride with Amelia<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Amelia and I finally went on a bike ride again! It was our first since last spring because it just got too hot to go, not to mention all the craziness through the summer! (This picture is actually from last spring, she has grown a couple of inches, but still fit just fine in the seat). She was so excited as I got the bike ready, put her helmet on and buckled her into her seat! I love the seat because we can talk and point and I can hear her and see her excitement! We went up to the trail and someone was "walking" their horse, sitting in a buggy! It was pretty fun to see and to pass a horse and buggy on the trail-that's not something you see everyday! We got off the trail and went over into an area of irrigated homes and horse property. It was so green and pretty and refreshing and there was a nice breeze in the air! Amelia LOVED it and would wave to animals, telling them hi and goodbye ("bye cow" "HORSEY!!!" "Hi doggy"). We stopped at a park and she went down the slides a bit before we headed back home. It was so cute and one of those moments when you feel like a good mom while having a really pleasant time yourself.<br />
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Oh, and this was after we came home-Mill walking around in some of my super high heels! She did pretty good, though I could tell it was quite the workout for those little legs! Sorry for the sideways picture-not sure how to remedy that yet!<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-87092185096593212632012-09-07T17:40:00.000-07:002012-09-07T17:42:32.608-07:00Life is never dull!So I came close to death a few weeks ago, not really, but it sounded good. But it really has made me think. The crazy thing is that I didn't realize that I was in that much trouble. The pain came on gradually and I learned to live with it-not realizing just how bad it was. Life is really like that too. I think sometimes we let something eat at us and we don't let go. We don't realize how much it is affecting us and can kill us in some way. If you let it go too long, it could leave scars. And now I have 3 new scars. I know, so, so cheesy.<br />
Some things just change you-for better or for worse. I hope to let this change me for the better. I couldn't believe all of the kindness and service and thoughts and prayers that were given in my behalf. I spent the first day out of surgery answering floods of texts/calls from friends, family, and neighbors that wanted to know if I was okay and what could they do to help. I had to turn down so many sweet offers of kindness because I had so many. I have so many thank-yous to give and have shed tears of gratitude from the love and kindness I have felt from others. I want to be a gracious giver and sincerely serve others as so many did to me. <br />
I will now share the story, but as is my usual style, it is lengthy and detailed and may be too personal for you, so I have in all fairness warned you.<br />
So it all began in July. The kids and I went to Utah for the month, Jon would be joining us for the last week and we would head home the first Sunday of August, just in time for school to start (this was our way of handling our first summer in Arizona-ha ha). Soon after arriving in Utah, I found out I was expecting, only I found out because I was having abnormal bleeding. I knew from the start that things were going to be rocky. The HCG tests came out odd-the number that should double only went up a little each day, but it was still going up. The number should also have been much higher than it was for how far along I should have been. The doctor checked to see if he could see anything and did see what looked like a normal pregnancy, but it was too early to see a fetus or heartbeat. He scheduled another appointment a few weeks out to recheck things.<br />
So it was a few weeks of waiting and wondering what was going on, meanwhile I was continuing to have abnormal and sporadic bleeding. Jon flew out a few days earlier than planned for the appointment so that he could be there with me to check and see what could be determined. The doctor wasn't my regular dr-(mine was on vacation). He thought the order for another ultrasound was silly and said the numbers from before were too low to see anything and everything might be just fine-I just needed to be patient and that I should just try to forget about it for another 2 weeks and see a Dr when I got to AZ. I was not pleased because I had been waiting, assuming this would be resolved or at least we would learn more, but we didn't. 4 days later I miscarried. It was the last day of the month. We would be heading home in not too long and I was ready to be done with all of this.<br />
After getting home from Arizona, I started feeling pains on my right side every so often. I didn't think much of it-assuming it might be after-pains from the miscarriage. The bleeding was slowing down and I was ready to move on, I tried to get into my regular routine of going running in the morning, working out and then getting the kids off to school. It was much harder than usual and I felt so out of shape.<br />
Not a week later the side pain got intense and the bleeding did too. The nurse from the Utah office happened to call me that day to check on me. I told her what was going on and she said that I needed to find a Dr. in Arizona (I didn't have one yet). She said to take another pregnancy test the following Tuesday (2 weeks after the miscarriage) if I was still bleeding. She said if the test was positive that was not good and I needed to see a dr immediately or even go to the ER and have them do an ultrasound to see what was going on.<br />
Tuesday came around and the test came out positive. I had been asking around for referrals for a Dr. and wasn't getting any great ones (I wanted someone to refer me to their dr because they thought they were an amazing dr). I remembered this really nice sister in my ward that I had met just before going to Utah that was a nurse and she had mentioned how she went to the best OBGYN. So I gave her a call and she gave me a couple of names of Dr.'s-one was even LDS (which I like to have if I can and if I think he is really good too, of course). So I called. There wasn't any new patient openings for any of the names she gave me for several weeks. But someone had just canceled their appointment with Dr. Wilson (the LDS one) for the following morning and they gave that spot to me.<br />
I told him my whole story and he proceeded to do an ultrasound. He did not like what he saw. My pelivs and around my uterus was full of fluid-likely blood. He had their ultrasound technician come in and they looked at me for quite a while and even looked up in my upper organs to see if I had fluid that high (which I didn't). He could see some fluid in my uterus, but not much else. He was concerned that I likely had a topical pregnancy and that could mean surgery-infact with the amount of fluid I had, it could mean immediate surgery. But, if I wasn't in too much pain and could wait a few days to answer some concerns, I could opt to do that. He was concerned about a few things-obviously all the fluid. But he was also slightly concerned that I possibly had a new pregnancy and that was what the HCG reading was-since it is incredibly rare that you have twins-one in the uterus and one out, and that is what it appeared to be (having miscarried the one in the uterus 2 weeks previous). He wanted me to take an HCG test (which his nurse did right then and there) to see what the number was at and then if I could wait 48 hours and do another test and see him afterward, then he could determine some things before doing surgery.<br />
I was alright with waiting (I really didn't want to have surgery unless it was for sure that I needed it). He told me to be very cautious and if I was in tons of pain or if I felt certain things, I was to call immediately and head to the ER and he would meet me there. That was quite disconcerting. It was a long 2 days, though he had his nurse call me the next day to check up on me and then I would be seeing him the following day. I did feel pain and I was worried and stressed about the whole thing. I had been in pain for weeks now, but I didn't feel like I was in enough pain to warrant going to the ER. My appointment was for Friday afternoon. Jon met me there and Dr. Wilson was still waiting on the HCG. He checked me and saw nothing in my uterus, but still saw tons of fluid everywhere in my lower abdomen. He got the results and the number had gone down. That was a very good sign-infact he was very pleased. He said that meant that there wasn't a living fetus and that it was ectopic and at this point, since the number was going down, as long as I wasn't in too much pain or having the signs he had told me to watch for, then I didn't have to have surgery and it could resolve itself. I did have the option to go into surgery right away as well and get it removed and done with, but then I for sure would lose my fallopian tube and have to recover from the surgery. So we all discussed and opted to wait it out. I was to take an HCG test the following week to see how much the number had gone down and was to continue to do so until the number was 0.<br />
I was greatly relieved and so glad it was finally resolving and we knew what was going on. We went home. That evening my side pain got worse. I figured that was normal and didn't worry much about it. That's just how I am-as long as the pain is normal for the situation, I am okay with it, generally. The next day I wasn't hurting as much so I was excited about that. That night-more pain on my right side. Sunday morning I wasn't hurting as much and was pleased that I was on the road to recovery. That changed early afternoon. The pain got worse and I felt really sick to my stomach. It only continued to get worse. I could only just sit on the couch. Jon told me to call the Dr, but I didn't want to bother him over the weekend and I was sure that this was just normal and my body was just working at getting rid of all the blood. Before bed, one of my kids barely bumped into my stomach. It was excruciating. I told Jon I would call the Dr. first thing in the morning. That night it was really hurting, and I really wondered if it was my appendix. Infact, I was sure it must be. I wondered if we should go in to the ER, but I really didn't want to and decided that if I fell asleep, I wasn't in enough pain to go in. I fell asleep a while later.<br />
That morning I got the kids off to school and hobbled around getting things done-shined the bathrooms, did all the laundry, and just kept busy. I knew I should call my Dr, but was afraid to for some reason. I finally called that afternoon and left a message. He called me back on his cell phone, asked me a few questions about my pain and told me he was very concerned and that his nurse was on the office line scheduling my surgery for that evening and that he was making it so that I could bypass the ER and head straight into surgery and to get there asap.<br />
I was extremely shocked. I called some friends who were so kind and willing to take my kids for the night (on a school night too). So I got the kids packed up and ready to go while Jon hurried home to come drop kids off and take me to the hospital. We were also able to get a hold of a friend to come help Jon administer to me just before we left.<br />
My stomach was so tender and so bloated. When we saw Dr. Wilson I told him that it just might burst when he cut into it. They got me all prepped and into surgery. I told Dr. Wilson that I was sure it was my appendix. The next thing I remember was coming to afterward. Dr. Wilson came over and told me it was a huge mess and that he couldn't believe I had held out so long. I asked if it was my appendix and he said that he couldn't even see my appendix because it was such a mess in there and it was obvious what the problem was-and it wasn't my appendix. It was my right fallopian tube. There was a fetus/placenta and whatnot in the right tube and it had grown so much that it had stretched out the tube and then burst at the bottom of the tube. If it had burst at the top of the tube, I would have hemorrhaged, but this was a slower, less explosive burst. The tube should be about the size of a finger, but it was about the diameter of an arm and was covering up the left side completely and bleeding all inside of me. He was just grateful that I came in and that he got it out. Jon and I were grateful too! I already felt so much better than I had in a long time-even with the incisions. I just hadn't realized how much pain I had been in until the pain was gone.<br />
I am so grateful for all of the prayers and kind acts from so many! My parents came out and helped take care of (and made me rest) which was so nice! And it was nice to have them here and see where we live and whatnot. I had so many kind acts from others-bringing us cookies, bread, notes, and sending me texts, calling, and just letting me know that they were there for me. It was so sweet to have so much love during a hard time in my life. It's been almost 3 weeks now and I am so anxious to get back in shape and be a good mom again, and go for a good run!<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-28465256303878030802012-09-07T13:01:00.001-07:002012-09-07T13:01:12.840-07:00Summer just flew by!I haven't posted in forever-but that's pretty normal for me. So much has happened in the past few months! Jay's wedding was incredible! I loved going to Portland, Oregon. I met some siblings there early and we hung out together for a few days-it was so so so much fun! Emily, James and I coordinated our plane tickets to land within a couple of hours of each other, then we rented a car and shared a hotel room. I have never gone a trip like that before and it was such a blast! I want to do it again only next time with Jon as well. Portland was breathtaking and I just couldn't get over how beautiful and green it was! We hiked Multnomah falls, went to canon beach, ran around the river in the city, and lots more! It was just a delightful and fun trip! Jay's wedding was beautiful! I just started crying when I saw him come into the sealing room of the temple. Finally my awesome little bro was getting married to an awesome woman! It was just a beautiful day! Emily and I were on the same flight on the way home so that was really fun too! It was hard to come back to my desert home!<br />
School was over (I had left on the second to last day of school) and our first summer in Arizona began! We planned to go to Utah for the month of July so we just had to get through June for starters. We actually had quite a fun month! Every Wednesday we went to a neighbors pool to swim for a couple of hours and a few times we went to lunch with friends afterwards. The library had a fun summer reading program and so we went to the library and did quite a bit of reading and each of the kids earned a free new book. We went the Mesquite Aquatic swim center every Friday as soon as Jon got home from work. We would grab a pizza on our way down and eat in the car then enjoy the swim park for a couple of hours until it closed. It really was a fun June!<br />
July came and our plans to go to Utah for the 4th got changed because of Jon's work. So we stayed in Arizona and we actually had our coldest 4th of July ever!! There was a huge rainstorm and it wasn't super cold, but it wasn't hot either! We went down to Tuscon and had a really nice day with Jon's sister, Kathy and her family and my brother, James and his family. We played games, ate good food, and enjoyed good company! We had an adventure driving out to Jon's other sister's home to swim in her pool. The rain had flooded out many of the roads and we even slid in one of the washes as we tried to drive through it! It was pretty crazy! <br />
I left with the kids for Utah 2 days later to make it in time for Jay's wedding open house at my parents. It was beautiful! Becca (my sister) had decorated it amazingly and my parents had worked hard to make their already beautiful yard even more beautiful! It was really fun to be apart of it all and to be with so much of my family!<br />
We spent the month of July in Utah and enjoyed the beautiful weather, the green grass, the beautiful mountains, grandmas swimming pool, irrigation, and good company! Jon flew out to join us for the last week of July and beginning of August-in time for our neice, Mariel, to get married. It was a beautiful wedding in the Draper Temple and then they had a very nice luncheon and reception up Provo canyon. It was so nice to see Jon's siblings and family and be a part of Mariel's beautiful day.<br />
We returned home to Arizona 2 days before school started (we start early here). It was craziness getting ready and back into a routine, but it was good to be home! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-75575991143834742482012-04-13T13:05:00.002-07:002012-04-13T13:06:54.057-07:00Love Fridays!I am so so glad it is Friday!! I love Fridays--I love knowing we have a
break from all the weekday craziness, even though the weekends are crazy,
it's a different kind of crazy. We vacuumed out the van this
morning--it was nasty! I didn't think people would appreciate the
pizzas I am picking up this afternoon for the school "Dad's Club Campout" being in a dirty van, so that's
what pushed cleaning it out to a high priority!<br />
So I have a super huge nice bathtub and I LOVE baths. So I decided to take a bath after my run-it sounded so nice. Amelia
made a huge mess of herself at breakfast. . . so we bathed together,
rinsing off our grime first of course. It was relaxing and so nice and warm.
Until Amelia tooted. I quickly got out and got her out. I wrapped us
up in new clean towels and started to put on her diaper when I saw she
had a buster brown (that means a smear of . . . poop) on her towel. So I sat her on the toilet to see if
something was going to come out. Nope. I wiped her and put her diaper
on when Jonathan pointed out that two little brown things were sitting
in the bottom of the tub. Yikes!! So I showered off, put the towels in
the dirty clothes, cleaned the poop out of the tub, and so on. A bit of
an adventure for sure! <br />
After doing some chores and cleaning out the van, we packed a lunch and
hopped on our bikes for a little bike ride to a park to have a picnic.
Amelia LOVES the seat I got her on my bike. The seat sits on the bar in
front of me--weeride kangaroo or something like that (got it on
craigslist). It seems a little flimsy, but I really like having her
right there with me so that I can hear her, see her, and whatnot. She
points at things, talks to me and just thoroughly loves the ride! We
played at the park a bit and then headed home. Jonathan did quite
well. We went about 1 mile to the park, so 2 miles total. He got a
little tired a few times, but pressed on.<br />
We have lots going this afternoon and evening (school pizza
dinner/movie/activities-even camping out on the school grounds over
night if you want and having a breakfast in the morning). We are just
going for the evening activities. I really like our school and this
area. It really is such a great place to live. Well I better get on to other things I need to get done!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-85155892366571279022012-02-17T12:34:00.000-08:002012-02-17T12:34:40.639-08:00St George Trip: June 2010<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
Okay, so I just found this post that I never posted. I never finished writing it! Sheesh!! I did have a baby at the end of the summer that year, so probably what part of the problem was along with being SO busy that summer! Anyway, I thought I might as well post what I had written:<br />
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So many fun memories--where to start I don't know and I don't have the time for detail--I think I will just make a list to help me remember and add detail another time.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>St. George--one of the highlights of our summer!</b></i></span> </div>
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Our first family vacation with just our family that we have taken since Aubrey was a baby. We left Sunday morning, stopped in Filmore (Jon's families' stomping grounds--they built their first house down there and his dad was the county doctor). We went to a Sacrament meeting and then visited an old family friend. Then we headed out to Cove Fort, ate lunch, went on a tour (the missionaries were very excited to do a tour and it was a little too long for 3 little kids, but it was fun and there was some really neat stuff). I do enjoy old-fashioned things!<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Then off to St. George!! We checked in, went to dinner and then got in the pool! The kids LOVED the pool! I was really surprised how much they enjoyed it and weren't afraid of it in the least! They had to wear arm floaties of course since they don't know how to swim. Aubrey and Jonathan would jump in at the deepest parts over and over again. All three of them would "swim" all around the pool and just had a blast! The next day we did some touring--Brigham Young Home, DUP, hiked Snow Canyon (the kids are a little too brave and were freaking out their pregnant mother hiking those cliffs!!). Then we went to the Dinosaur museum--which isn't that exciting, but our kids loved it and enjoyed the little intro-movie thing. before leaving for St. George I looked up parks and whatnot on-line. They have a great city website and they have a ton of great parks and several with splash pads. So we had a picnic ready and we went to a splash park. We ate and then played. It was an awesome park! The kids loved playing in the water, then on the toys, then back to the water. Jonathan loved the water the most and loved stepping on where the water would be shooting out. Aubrey was very good with him and helped push him on swings--it was really cute. We went back to the motel, changed out of the wet clothes and then it was off to the St. George D.I.--they have great summer clothes down there and our main reason for going is pretty funny--the motel room had a really nice huge flat screen tv--but we couldn't hook our DVD player or Nintendo into it--you could only watch cable on it, which we don't waste our time with--commercials and lack of choice on what to watch. So we decided we would see if DI had a cheap TV to buy and watch what we wanted to and play nintendo (2 things we had really wanted to do as a family in the evenings). And yes, DI had a pretty decent TV for pretty darn cheap! Everyone picked out a toy and I got some cute maternity clothes. Then we went out for dinner and back to the Motel for swimming. Then popped popcorn and started a movie--The Music Man--which the kids really enjoyed but got too tired to watch the whole thing!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Climbing the Red Rocks </span></div>
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The Dinosaur Museum</div>
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The Splash Park--Aubrey is pushing Jonathan on the swing </div>
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The kids being silly </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Tuesday--we got ready and got on the road headed to Grafton and Zions National Park. We went to Grafton on the way there (a small ghost town up a canyon just before you get to Zion's that my anscestors helped settle). It was fun to see that it is being fixed up and restored. There were little lizards all over and we almost caught one!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">We continued on to Zions--ate lunch, attended a "kids" workshop/class" that was really boring--but Aubrey enjoyed it. They did have several "Stuffed Animals" that the kids really enjoyed seeing--the highlight for Mariah being a bald eagle--her favorite animal. Then we got on a shuttle and started a hike. The kids did an awesome job and I loved how they thoroughly enjoyed nature and the beauty around us. They even saw a frog, hundreds of tadpoles, lizards, and a mouse! And they even held the mouse--it was quite cute and they were amazingly brave. Mariah was especially sad to leave the mouse. She wanted to go get some food for it and take it home. Then we went to a museum and headed back to St. George. We went out for dinner, went swimming, and then back to our room and finished watching "The Music Man". It was such a fun day!</span><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674795427061872038.post-20534330577081897372012-02-17T12:28:00.000-08:002012-02-17T12:28:34.225-08:00Valentines DayI started the day off with a 4 mile run--holding a 8:30 minute mile average--which I was pleased with--I am hoping to be able to start holding 8 minute miles for my average. My first mile is generally my slowest, unless I am doing more than 6 miles, I sometimes start to slow off and on through longer runs. Anyway, I got home just in time to make pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast. The kids loved them and it was really fun to do. Then it was off to school and back home for strength training since I didn't meet my partner as usual and I need to do it as I am really wanting to get better and stronger at running. It was intense, hard, and ultimately awesome. <br />
After getting cleaned up and ready, I decided to go to Jon's work and get lunch together-which I have never done actually. We went to Subway and I got to see Jon's office, which is really nice. He's on the 7th floor of the building and he has a nice window view of palm trees, homes, and desert. Then it was off to do the coupon shopping I had procrastinated and now it was the last day of the sale, but we did awesome and got some great things. <br />
We got home just in time to meet the girls coming home from school. They enjoyed opening up their school valentines and some that had come in the mail (they got more in the mail the following day, so that was really nice-and we still haven't sent ours--on my to-do list, I know, so behind. I am just so good at being behind on things, it really is a talent and I think I haven't hidden that talent and it has really grown-ha ha!). <br />
Jon got me roses and my favorite treat, "Chocolate Extreme Blizzard" from DQ, only substituting the brownie chunks with oreos--yum yum yummy!! What a sweetheart! <br />
Our Relief Society hosted an 80's prom. Jon and I really didn't have any 80's clothes-more like 90's, and we meant to go to Savers and find something, but we didn't, so we just wore something close. Jon wore his high school tuxedo and I wore a dress I had made for graduation that wasn't in style then--more of my own style, but could be looked at as 80's since it was pastel colors, puffy sleeves (not 80's puffy, but some puff to them for sure), and a belt made out of the same fabric. But it really was fun to get dressed up (even if it wasn't what I would ideally like to have worn) and go on a dance date. <br />
As we got in the car it made us both feel like we were "dating" again in High school--going to a dance. They did an amazing job at the church. They had tables set up on one end with a buffet table to get dinner, a photo booth (which we got some really cute pictures of ourselves), arcade like games set up on tv's, a chocolate fountain table with all kinds of things to dip, and then of course, a DJ and music. It was really fun and so many people looked so awesome! Then we came home, got comfy, popped popcorn, cuddled, & watched a Remington Steele (currently our favorite tv show episodes). It was a really really nice Valentines!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1