Swordfish Rock

Full House

2011-01-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Well the last week has been BUSY. That is only one of the few adjectives I have to describe. I will outline this past week and try to keep it short. In November I offered for my best friend to come and live with us if they needed for her husband to find new work. There is really next to NO work in Washington, so she took me up on my offer. Needless to say I was very very excited. I missed her so much. So the day after Thanksgiving her husband Josh packed up a Uhaul and drove down here to Millville. I had only met him 1 time but I was sure he would fit in and find work, and he did, the next day :) So the plans were made and Catina and the kids were scheduled to follow him here the day after Christmas. She had kids from a previous marriage so it took 30 days before they could leave the state. Well we were not sure that Josh could take the time off work to fly to Spokane and then drive back here, so it was decided that myself and Bowen would make the trip with her. Last sunday, the 26th Bowen and I flew to Spokane and my wonderful Uncle David picked us up from the airport and drove us to Colville where we got to spend about 15 minutes visiting family there and saw Katie and Ian's new baby who was only 5 days old, Oh My Gosh, I want one....anyway, then Catina came and got us and our adventure began. She had some great helpers who loaded the Uhaul and we spent some time doing last minute shopping at Walmart and then packing sandwiches and drinks for our drive. We got into Colville a little after 7 PM and we went to bed at 11 ish and then woke up and 4:00 AM and left her mother's house at 5 AM and after getting the kids from their dads' house and last minute stuff, we pulled out of COlville at 5:30 AM. I was driving the Uhaul truck with Bowen being my co-pilot and Catina drove the mini van with the kids. What a trip!!! It was long, and it was made even longer by the slow going of the Uhaul, 70 was the top speed except for the few, very few downhills then i actually hit 75. Bowen was great and handed me stuff and kept me going. I actually think I listened to all 2000 songs on my ipod haha, I don't think Montana has very many radio stations, wonder what those people do?? Anyways we made it to Idaho Falls and had to stop. We were only 3 hours from home but the kids were absolutely done. Fighting and screaming. So we got a cheap hotel and let them loose. I was physically tired but could I sleep?? NO!! UGH, so I napped from 10 to 3 then i was awake. everyone else was asleep so I read a book on my ipad. Thank goodness for that. Then at 6 i started to wake everyone up and by 7 we were on teh road again. Seriously teh last 100 miles were the longest. I was asking "are we tehre yet??" Well we made it home with no incidents. WE were safe and everyone is here. We now have 7 kids and 4 adults in my home and believe it or not it works. I am happy Catina is here, I missed her and while I know she misses her family in Washington, I am so very happy, how selfish huh?

Well that has been our last week. Now school starts and I am very excited to get the kids out of here. They are stir crazy cause of the cold weather, if it wasn't for their new xbox they got for Christmas I don't konw what we would have done.

The New Year

2010-12-31T21:47:00.000-08:00

So I am kind of up in the air about the whole New Year's resolution thing. I have some for me personally and then Scott and I have a few as a couple.

For me I want to continue to attend the gym and go even more. I find I really have a "purpose" if I get up and get to the gym, it seems to get me going for the day. I am sure I would see more results though if I changed my eating, but I will work on that slowly. I find it enlightening now that I was able to play the dance game on the Xbox today and was only very slightly winded, not sweaty or felt like dying, last year the Wii kicked my butt, so progress is there, just slow.

I also want to work on finding a hobby for myself. Reading is not a good hobby so I need something extracurricular, so here I come. I could use some ideas. I am not crafty, so it has to be something that I would not feel inept at.

I am gonig to start grocery shopping with coupons. I refuse to be a "crazy cupon lady" but I am going to be sensible and utilize offers for items that I buy regularily. This is totally new for me and I hope it works out.

As a couple we are going to buy a home this year. That is a big one. Also we are going to make it a point to go on our first "couple" vacation. Everytime we have gone on vacation it has been family orientated, which is fine and we have ALWAYS visited family, so this year we want to go somewhere as a couple taht has nothing to do with visiting family, so this ought to be interesting. Scott even said he would consider actually flyuing on a plane, woo hoo.

As a family we are going to work on keep the house more picked up. The kids are more than old enough to do this. And they do pick up after themselves, but we are going to put more responsibility on them cause I am tired of feeling like I clean something to turn around and do it again. If people would pick up then it would stay cleaner longer right?

I hope these are all resolutions that we can keep. They seem practical to me and within grasp. Have a great New Year everyone.

Help I have lost myself....has anybody seen me?

2010-12-21T07:03:00.000-08:00

So I am feeling "lost" It seems that for so long (since before DeLoy died) that I have been spending all my time taking care of my family at home or my extended family who is in need. It has literally been years and can I admit that I am getting burned out? Does that make me a bad person? I hope not. I don't feel like a bad person, but i catch myself praying that things slow down. That life slows down. I have not had a paying job in over a year and ironically enough I feel like I have been busier this last year than when I did have a job. I liked having a job. It got me away. It let me interact with the public, I felt normal. I am suppose to be the Humanitarian Aid leader in our Ward, but honestly I have no more time to give. In order for me to give time to that project and try to motivate a bunch of ladies who haven't done any humanitarian work in YEARS I have to either take that time from my family at home or extended family. Guess what? My extended family needs me more, especially with my mothers new cancer. I was talking to my Relief Society President the other day and I said "any project I put together, no one participates and I do the entire thing myself." If I had teh capacity to donate and serve in a humanitarian way I would. I told her what had been going on and what I was doing. She said I was doing exactly what I needed to be and they need to release me cause when given the calling it was not taken into account my previous committments. But how was she to know what this year held?

So back to lost Charity......

Who is this lady? What does she like to do? Who are her friends? Does she have any hobbies?

Well I am going to be honest and say that I am not sure exactly who Charity is right now. I am 30 ish and deffinately different than I was before, but I have gotten sidetracked and kind of lost my love for a lot of things. I spend so much time catering to other people that I don't remember what I used to be like.

What do I like to do? Well I am an avid reader, and this is good and bad. I read and I read fast. I get lost in books, but maybe that is because I need the break and that is teh only way I know how to get it right now. I will read instead of do housework. I even read in teh bathtub. Whenever I think that I shouldn't read so much I freak out. Sounds like I have an addiction huh?

Who are my friends? Now let's clarify friends, I am refering to friends outside of my immediate family. So my mother, sisters and grandma don't count. I have 1 friend, she is moving to Utah next week. I am so excited to have her around. I miss friendship so much. I have a million acquaitances but alas, friends I can count on one hand. I don't seem to fit in with the ladies in Millville, except for the non-member lady on teh corner who I enjoy a lot and I look past her drinking and smoking because we all need friends right? Maybe it will turn into more than neighborly and we can truely be friends......maybe.

Do I have any hobbies? Well sure my hobbies are whatever anyone else is doing in the family. So I am learning how to snowboard right now. Do I like it? Not particularily but I will conquer it so I am not left out. I also ride 4 wheelers. Do I like it? Kind of, but I do it to spend time with Scottie. Cooking? Well lately it's been more of a chore than hobby. Honestly after 15 years of being married, I am tired of figuring out what is for dinner, so if we have spaghetti more than 1 time a week, you know why. Reading? well it is more of a obsession used to "get away". Going to the gym? I hate going to the gym, but it is good for me and Scott goes so I do to spend more time with him. See what I mean? I have no idea what I would like to do for a hobby. I have no personal interests, sucks huh?

Well so this year, as we move forward I am working on myself. I want a hobby. I want a friend (that one will be easy, she will be here the day after Christmas) I want Scott to do something with ME because I like it and I am passionate about it. I will figure out who Charity Renee Kidman is and then I will be a better person because of it. I wish I could say that I would stop giving myself completely to other people, but I am not sure that will happen because my mother will need me this coming year to help get through chemo, but we are going to cross fingers and toes that that is the end of our family drama.

Not lacking in content just motivation....

2010-12-11T14:38:00.000-08:00

So there has been a lot going on in my immediate and extended family since the Holiday season began it just boggles my mind.

First off Thanksgiving was great. Thanks for all of those that attended whether it was for dinner or dessert. I love putting together get-togethers and cooking for a lot of people. The turkey was great and so was all teh side dishes, we could have served 50 haha. It was great seeing everyone, I only wish I could have stayed longer to visit more and help more cleaning up but we had other family I had put off to do this dinner. We really enjoyed our break until Saturday after Christmas when Uncle Scott was rushed to the hospital having suffered a heart attack. This just made me sad. I was sad for his family and my extended family. We have had a rough couple of winter seasons and it would be nice to have one, just one where something major didn't happen to/in our family. Oddly enough I was right behind that ambulance that saved my Uncle Scott that night talking on the phone to my husband Scottie and I asked him if he was ok because there was an ambulance going our directions. Kind of ironic. That next Monday I started working at Ellis Equipment in place of my Aunt Vickie. I must say I have enjoyed the distraction but my Aunt is much better at it than I am because I can't sit at a desk and answer phones with nothing else to do. I guess I am spoiled but I need constant work for 8 hours or I loose my mind. It has been great getting to know the Ellis guys (cause I am the only woman there) and they have been very understanding and gracious to my and Aunt Vickie while she goes through this hard time. Imagine my surprise when my grandmother calls me the next Friday evening asking if I was out shopping at 9:00 at night (which I was at Al's midnight sale) and Emily had taken Lydia to the ER and could we possible swing by and get Mallory and bring her to grandma's house? Lucky us we were out and about so we left Al's and did that for them. What a family!! They made it through. Lydia had her appendix take out 2 days later and Uncle Scott made it through his surgery and they are all on the fast track back to full health. I realize this was my extended family but it is hard to hear of people you know going through such things in this season and I spend so much time with Grandma and Grandpa that when they worry and stress over the family I do also cause I hate to see how much it worries her and makes her get ill cause of it.

Well the next Friday the 3rd of December my mother went into the doctor with a suspicious lump in her breast and guess what? You guessed it......cancer. She has invasive ductal carcinoma, level 3. So she has a 1 inch square (almost) lump in her milk duct that is the most aggressive on the scale of how fast cancer moves, 1 being slow and 3 being fast. Yup, what a blow. So this monday she is going into surgery to have a masectomy of her right breast and any lymphnodes and after 4 weeks of recovers back to Chemo. we go. UGH. The oncologist who was the same one who took care of her previously said if the multiple meyloma (her lukemia) did not kill her than breast cancer certainly wouldn't either. It is hard to realize that a few years ago, maybe 5 or 6 we were told that my mother had terminal lukemia and our best hope was to push it back and give her more time. Well now it is dormant and we get to deal with this. I know she will be fine, it's just the road to take to "fine" sucks.

Also (wow this is long) back in November my best friend from Colville was talking to me and her and her new husband were having a hard time getting good work in Washington and were getting to the point where they were going to be forced to move cause of lack of work. Well I had mentioned how there is plenty of work here in Utah for those who are willing to work and I was sure her husband would have no problem finding work and they could stay with us while they made the transition if they needed. So Josh left his job at Walmart in Colville, packed up a Uhaul and was at our home the 1st of December. Catina had to stay back to get loose ends tied up and get everything together and she adn the kids will be here right after Christmas. In fact me and Bowen are flying up to Spokane on 12/26 to help her pack up and make the long drive back to Cache Valley. They are so excited because Josh got a job the first day he was here and is now working for Autoliv full time and has a few interviews for some other great jobs in the coming weeks. They are in such awe at how Josh has been accepted in Utah and the people have been great and the jobs he found are wonderful. This is a great missionary opportunity for our family cause they want to attend church with us and learn more about our religion.

Whew.....we have been busy. I hope you all have a great Christmas. I know I will since it looks like everyone is going to be healthy and we all have a lot to be thankful for. Here is a vide from Youtube of a flash mob singing the Halleujah chorus and it is beautiful, I still tear up when I watch it. Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXh7JR9oKVE

Catching up.....Again

2010-10-23T17:37:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the lag time. I will try to be brief catching y'all up and it may seem all over the place, but if you know me, you know that is how I roll.

Football is over. Bowen's team got to play in post-season and played Kaysville and got beat, bad, they got really beat, oh well. They weren't sad because last year they did not make the playoff's so they were so happy this year to improve so much. I am glad it is over. Basketball season is upon us but Bowen has made the monumental decision to NOT play, I repeat, NOT play basketball and would rather play tennis instead. That is good with me, he is a good tennis player and Colton would like to play also.

Colton is turning 10 on Monday. Poor boy, not because of the 10 thing, but because the weather is crappy and I am going into surgery that day. Oh well, we will celebrate with family on Sunday or TUesday and Scott vows to take the kids and friends to the corn maze this week. All Colton is waiting for now is snow so he can spend his winter shredding up Beaver Mtn. Sounds like I will be spending multiple weekends in the Lodge at Beaver Mtn.

Rainee is doing well. We are having some drama problems at school already, Her teachers will find her crying in the lunch room and saying all her friends won't sit with her, and said they dont' like her, so the teacher will talk to her friends and they all say they did not say that. She is just making things up so people feel sorry for her. I didn't think this kind of girl drama started until middle school, well maybe I was hoping it would wait until then. She is having a hard time with friends cause she is really high maintence and honestly she does NOT stop talking. We are working on taking turns when in a group. Part of the problem is she really cannot hear when others are talking and will just break in so I am working on her watching people's faces to tell when others are talking. HOnestly, she does not stop talking. EVER. She talks in her sleep, she talks in class all day to NOBODY, it is an intersting dilema we are still working on it.

Mason is doing well. We call him Magoo cause he touches everything. Great Grandpa started calling him Fingers Magoo, so we just shortened it to Magoo. We love him and he is now not swearing anymore, crazy huh? He picked up bad words when I had him in a large preschool and we have gone through every single swear word there is, ending with the F-word, and if we just tell him those are bad words and ignore him when he uses them he quits. The end of the F-word was when he told Great Grandpa Elder to F off, and guess what? Grandpa smacked him. Good job to cause it worked and no more F word. I can't wait for Mason to start Kindergarten next year. He seems to be taking after myself and Bowen and has an excellent memory and can memorize songs off the radio after 1 or 2 times, same with primary songs, so he should excel at school.

Scott is doing great at his job. He still loves it. It has now officially been a year and he has been off probation for a few months and all is well. He is shuffled all over Ogden to the different stations and he enjoys it cause he meets a lot of different people. He is very often tired after work, but he gets a big week long paid break each month. So each month it is like having 1 week paid vaction and unfortunately we treat it as such. We need to stop doing that, but we seem to feel that we NEED to do something big-ish and family oriented each month. I am hoping now the newness of this schedule will start to wear off and go back to life. It always messes up our schedule when he does that. He went elk hunting this year and got nothing. He saw a bunch but had a spike only tag and only saw bulls. This weekend is deer hunt and he is right now hunting in Blacksmith Fork Canyon for some meat for us for winter.

Charity. I am hanging in. I finally went to my OB again after some issues arised and decided that I needed ot have my cervix removed. TMI I know but you are also saying, "didn't you have a hysterectomy?" Yes I did and the doctor left my cervix. Nobody really knows why but now, 2 1/2 years later I am having problems, so back under the knife I go, I will also be having 3-4 cysts removed and tested. I am sure all is good and I am assured I should only experience a "slight bellyache" after surgery, we will see. I was offered a job on Friday at a local accountats' office, and after my surgery I will go in and get details and see if I want it. Other than that it is life as normal.

Jr. Midget Football

2010-09-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, I normally would not do 2 posts so close together but we had a big and busy weekend so here is more.

Bowen is playing football again this year. Well what a difference a year makes. This year his team is almost unstoppable. I say almost cause the Sky View team did stop them but that is another story. They are a powehouse and Bowen is key to the defensive line. He is playing nose guard (i think that is what it is called) and he loves it. He is also the team punter. That was kind of a freak position but he is really good and his punts are long and far, I guess all that time kicking over the house and me yelling when he hit the house actually paid off. They needed to beat Bear River on Saturday to be in 2nd place in the region and secure their place in the playoffs. Well we had a great lead going into halftime.....3rd quarter was harsh and Bear River took teh lead 20-19 and we were desperate. Since this age bracket does not kick field goals yet the only answer was another touchdown with 5 minutes left in the game. IT took almost all of those 5 minutes but we got it. We sat on teh 1 yard line for 3 downs and got penalty after penalty before we finally got our much needed touchdown. We then had 30 seconds left with the kickoff to Bear River, which they attempted to run for a TD and i'll be honest we were scared, they almost made it, but we stopped them and then Bowen's tough defense was able to hold them for the last 30 seconds for us to win the game 25-20. Here are some pics. I am trying to be positive but post-season play COULD last 4 weeks. I don't know if our team really really stands a chance in the playoff's but our coaches seem to think so, but I think coaches always think like that. IF we make it all the way it would be 4 weeks more of play and that brings in the possibility of playing in the freezing cold and snow. Is it bad if I silentely wish our team would loose?

Here are some pics. Enjoy.

This weekend

2010-09-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Wow what a week and weekend we had. First off Scott was on an 8 day break and was off work from Sat the 18th until tomorrow, Sunday the 26. That is a lot of time off. We are still getting used to his schedule. It has been a year now and I enjoy it, but seriously have a weeks paid vacation off every month is crazy. We feel like we need to do lots of stuff to make up for the time he is at work, so the time can get hectic.

The Ball:

So a few months back we found out it was time for the annual Lords and Ladies ball for Our Own Quiet Way Charity. So we got together with 3 other couples and bought some group discount tickets with Tamy and Rick and started to get ready. I have wanted to go to this ball for the past 2 years and finally I just got the tickets and said we are going. Scott had to work but once he saw how important it was to me he traded his shift :) Thanks Honey!!! So he was off for work this week and decided he wanted to make his own costume, so Tuesday night we headed to Joann and went through pattern books and found what he wanted, it was a complicated pattern and he picked a very complicated fabric to work with, but he was not dissuaded. We borrowed my mother's sewing machine (thanks mom) and started to work. Now everybody I am very clear on this, I did NO work on his costume. I cannot sew, my lines are crooked and I always, always mess up the machines and I also am a horriable pattern cutter cause my lines are never perfect. So I sat back and cleaned house and silentely watched him lay out his fabric and cut and then sew. In 4 hours he had an entire coat made. A gentleman's coat. It was beautiful, and people who know how to sew can appreciate that Scott is tall and has long arms so he had to alter the entire pattern for his height and it turned out perfect. Seriously he didn't unpick anything, the first time and teh entire thing was great. I guess my contribution was running to JoAnn to get stuff we needed. I posted pics below but you can see how neat he looked.

Now for my dress, well I picked out a dress pattern, a difficult one so I am told, and found a seamstress to make it for me. I loved it!! It was civi-war era, reminscent of Scarlet O'Hara and I am seriously in love with it.

So we could safely say there would be no one else dressed like us at the Ball, and boy were we right. Tamy and Rick had beautiful outfits, so did the other couples in our group, but we stood out, and that was mainly cause of Scott. Not only was he one of the tallest there, except for the stilt walkers, BUT he was so bright and dressed up from head to toe you couldn't help but notice him. We had a great time and the weather wasd beautiful, especially since we were outisde most the time. We ate food, watched ballroom dancers, magicians, acrobats, belly dancers and stilt walkers, oh and there was also a couple who were ghosts who would go random places and just freeze, I have a pic of them also. We took pics and walked around for 2 hours and then it was time for the awards and promanad. So 2 members of the committee came up to Scott at different times and asked him about his costume, where he got it, how he chose that and so on, and he told them he made it and he was having a great time. Next thing we know another guy comes up to us and tells us we were selected for the Most Spectacular couple at the ball. Another couple in our group, Dave and Amy, were also selected for Most Outrageous so we had an AWESOME group to hang out with. We then danced........I was in heaven. I did not attend prom while in High School so this was my dance. Scott does not like to dance, so we never have. It was great. It was dark, nice music and an awesome looking man. We swayed and held each other, but no kissing, really.....look at the pics his nose is huge and he NEVER took his mask off until we left. Oh well :(

I wish I could put into words how much fun we had. We are already planning for next year and will deffinately be regulars at the ball. Please enjoy some of our pics.

Life as normal

2010-09-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

So nothing big going on here. Scott works and works and then when he has a day off, he works more, I am grateful that he works so hard for our family but sometimes I wish he could just slow down and enjoy the moments, I am hoping and praying this time comes soon.

The kids keep us busy with football, dance and scouts. Mason is at that wonderful age that requires preschool but I can't find a good one near my home and I do not wish to drive him all the way into town to go home to just have to go and pick him up, that is almost more work that keeping him with me. So a few days a week he goes to his old babysitter's house on Cliffside to play with his frineds for a few hours. It seems to keep him happy and he doesn't feel left out with the school activities. He is my only child not able to attend Head Start cause we are over income, oh I wish he could attend it, I loved head start.

Scott has to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday then he is off for 6 days and we get to attend the ball. I am excited, and he is excited to not work for a bit.

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the fall weather.

Today......Tears

2010-09-13T17:45:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone......

Well I woke up today knowing it would be a hard day. Knowing DeLoy died today and I figured I could hold it together, but I expected today to be an emotionally charged day and it was. I was on edge most all of the day and cried at the drop of a hat. Actually I started crying last night in bed. What a boob. So got up this morning and called Jenny and she wanted to go to lunch so got it all arranged with the family "girls" for lunch. It was nice, but Jenny and I cried when we first got there, she gave me such a sweet card, I just love her, and then we both cried as we left. I felt bad cause the people at Olive Garden kept asking what we were celebrating and we didn't know what to say, we weren't really celebrating more than "remembering" and it was a nice time. Grandma said we would make this our own Memorial Day and hopefully keep it up for years to come, I think that would be nice. Then I made it home and was upset, but not really, funny thing is I was upset at things that would normally not bother me at all, but I think cause of the day I let it get to me and I cried most afternoon. I cried to Grandma, I cried to my mom, I cried to my hubby, and my sisters via email, see big cry baby. Then I went and got my ball gown and it is beautiful and she is just making a few alterations, but I took my new cell phone and snapped some photos to share only to find out later I can't text them, have to put them on the internet and I don't pay for that, so no way to get pics off my phone so what did I do? I cried again. Now I have a headache cause I cried so much. I went up and visited DeLoy and cried more, OH then I got an personal email from Dallas and just sobbed over that. See I cried all day, now dinner is done, my head is throbbing and my legs are sore from a long 4-wheeler ride yesterday, so hopefully I am out of tears and going to have a calm night.

No pics but a funny story...

2010-09-11T16:31:00.000-07:00

So we have a 4-wheeler in our family. It is our newest addition and we LOVE it. For Mason's birthday in June he got a little 110 4-wheeler, well he is afraid of it, so the other kids ride it and it is the perfect size for them. Everyone was having so much fun we wanted one for ourselves. So there happened to be a firefighter who had a nasty divorce and needed to get rid of his machine so Scott traded some shifts w/o pay for the 4 wheeler. We have had it for about a month now and are totally in love.

So....we live at the mouth of Millville Canyon and we go up that canyon all teh time cause it is close, so after chores today I took Colton and Mason up the canyon about half way, it was a beautiful warm day, and about 3/4 of the way up the canyon I felt this bumping against my back and couldn't figure out what it was then Colton told me that Mason had fallen asleep. Sure enough, that boy of mine had fall asleep in the middle of a 4-wheeler ride on a very very bumpy road :) I was shocked. So we woke him up cause I needed to go back down the hill and needed him to lean back cause it bugs me to have him bumping into my back, and that little stinker refused to wake up. We went down, down, down Millville Canyon with him asleep and bumping into my back the ENTIRE way, then if we woke him up he would scream at us, silly boy.

No you are not imgaining things.

2010-09-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well so I ready Kristie's post the other day and I feel the same way. I need to blog, I need my records and this is the best way for me. After DeLoy's death I just had a hard time doing it, then I lost my job and I didn't want to do it and had so much crappy stuff that I didn't really have anything good to write about so I didn't. I am going to spare you my summer drama....crap....I mean life, and just pick off right now. All the kids are in school Bowen 7th grade, Colton 4th grade, Rainee 3rd Grade and Mason in preschool. I actually get some "alone" time now and it is lovely, turns out I somewhat like doing housework more when it is quiet and I am alone. I am sure I will NEVER enjoy cleaning house, but it doesn't suck as much when I don't feel pressured and I can listen to whatever music and loud :)

So Grandma and Grandpa Elder are looking to buy a home in Arizona and grandma wants and Ipad to take with her to read blogs. They play on my Ipad a lot and think they are ready for their own. So when she told me that I also thought i needed to blog again so she has something to read and see pics of my kiddo's.

This Sunday was a nice day, but I had a bad day at church and I came home crying and sobbing like a baby with my feelings hurt and a headache and feeling crappy, so after everyone else got home and I had sterilized my bathroom Scott wanted to go for a drive up Providence Canyon. It was nice and we made it up to the 2nd gravel pit. Up there is a nice waterfall. The kids and Scott climbed up but Rainee had on flip flops and could not keep up, I teased her that she kicked in her 4-wheel drive when she had to climb with all 4 while the boys could do it just on their feet, poor girl :) So here are some pictures, I hope you can get the idea of how large this waterfall and how steep it is and the fact that Scott and the boys made it to the top, even little Mason with the help of Daddy. Hope everyone has a great Fall :)

Update

2010-03-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

So I know you are all wondering, so i'll tell you.....Yup, I am still unemployed. Sucks huh? OH well. I am still getting unemployment, and the only reason I point this out is that my employer actually challenged my unemployment. What? Can't believe it huh? Me either. I was fired, blindsided, just so that the previous bookkeeper could have her job back. Want to know what sucks even more? She lives in my ward. She got me the job cause she went and bought a business, so she was too stretched out on time and couldn't do it, so she actually recommended me when I moved into this ward in Millville. Well her business wasn't as good as she had hoped so she asked for her job back. So now why would they even try to contest my unemployment? Well that was the same question the judge asked and then ruled in my favor. So guess I am unemployed and legally getting unemployment since they did a crappy thing. Oh well.

I have been applying all around, at least 2 contacts a week is what is required from Utah State. Unfortunately I am, in some instances, required to apply for jobs that I am grossly overqualified for, but it's the system right? I had 1 job interview for Cafe Ibis which would have been fun if you could get over the constant smell of roasting coffee. I made it to the final 3 but they offered it to someone else, which was fine with me. I do have another interview tomorrow with Specialized Pest and Lawn Care (SPCLA) for their office manager. It is full time from March - October, and then part time in teh winter months. I think that would be great cause then it is more time at home over the holidays. The ironic thing is I was their assigned bookkeeper while at my accounting job, which shall remain unnamed. So they were totally excited I applied and wanted a interview immediately. Tomorrow at 4:00. So I will update after that.

I have been spending the past few months (wow it didn't seem that long) since I lost my job assisting in tax preparation for Grandma and Grandpa. I have also been doing DeLoy's taxes for him and Elder Auto and for Cody and Dallas also. Needless to say it has been a long long project. Grandma and Grandpa switched accounts are are now at Jones Simkins. This has been crazy but it has been good. We are actually addressing issues that should have been addressed 20 years ago. It has been funny cause I have been spending so much time at Jones Simkins we joke that it's just like I worked there again. Now there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I can't wait to call it done. Next year won't be bad cause now we have it all set up, but what a process!!

Scott is still working away at Ogden City as a Firefighter/EMT and he LOVES it. He may be exhausted, but he is happy. He enjoys serving the people down there and will be there for a long long time. Even if he had the chance I doubt he would work at Logan cause it isn't as much action as Ogden. He is also teaching a first responders class here in Logan and volunteers on the Nibley/Millville EMS squad. He is the only working EMT on the crew so it is very beneficial for the area we live in.

All the kids are doing great. Rainee got baptised in January and Bowen turned 12 in February and is now a Decon and passing the Sacrament. I still can't believe it. They all started snowboarding this winter and LOVE it. We are now a winter sports family. I can almost snowboard and will continue my education next winter.

Well that is us in a nut shell. Busy busy. Hope you all are doing well.

Guess I needed something to blog about.....

2010-02-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

Yes it has been a long time. Did you miss me? Probably not. Well this last week has been soooooo much fun I just wanted to share. I know this is going to be long, but hang in with me ok?

So Scott started 8 day break last Sunday. I know 8 days, it was AWESOME. We did "Spring" cleaning in February. Who knew we had so much junk, i mean stuff, that needed to leave our home and find a new one via the DI? Wow!! Anyway we spent 3 days sorting and organizing and going back and forth to the DI, then on Thursday we went snowboarding at Beaver Mountain cause it was Bowen's 12 birthday. I have a 12 year old, how crazy and surreal is that? Anyways for his bday he got outfitted for snowboarding. He got pants, a cool coat, a used snowboard from a pawn shop and used boots from the DI. He loved it. So Thursday we took our kids and a friend and a niece to Beaver Mountain. What a beautiful day. I even hired my private instructor to teach me how to snowboard. According to Scott we paid him to hold my hand for 2 hours, but I disagree. By the end of my 2 very tiring hours (legs are out of shape) I am able to snowboard down Little Beaver backwards (on my toe side). Yes I said Backwards. I am all kinds of messed up, but in a short explaination my calf muscles are stronger than my quads so I am unable to stand up facing forwards on my board when I fall down. I am only able to get myself up without help from my toes, so that is why I snowboard backwards. I fully plan on torturing my quads into shape for the next few weeks so when we go again for Scott's Bday (in March) I may be able to actually see where I'm going.

So Friday we recover from Thursday cause I am sore. I fell a lot but I took a few "flyswatter" falls on my bum and bruised both my right and left cheek (TMI I know) . So Saturday rolls around and I am SUPER excited cause this is the day we leave for Wendover.

Back in December Tamy decided for her 30th birthday she wanted a party with her family and friends in Wendover. So she booked rooms and set the date. I have been looking forward to this for sometime, and saving up for it. So our day started with packing for our 1 night trip, but since the kids were going to Grandma Kathy's we all had to pack. Then we dropped off our kids, waved goodbye, and very happily turned up the radio and left Cache Valley. We stopped at Maddox for lunch, can I just say YUM, cause I knew the casino food sucks, and we were throughly stuffed and sated for our long drive. Then we stopped at Amber's to see her. She had surgery on FRiday and she was also in possession of the gift we bought Tamy. We filled up with gas in Layton then we're off. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast with that time to visit and talk like grown up's are suppose to do.

So we are literally just 1-2 minutes behind Tamy and Rick, but we never caught up. Dang BMW is faster than our Tahoe. We go to check in together to have the hotel not find our reservations. SO while Rick is working that out we sat and just chilled. Finally they found them and we were off. Our rooms were nice and ours was very very purple. Tamy's was teal, i am not sure which one was better, LOL. Then off to the floor to play while we waited for dinner at 7. We went to the Nugget and signed up for the poker tournament. THat's right you all heard me POKER TOURNAMENT. This is what I had been looking forward to. One small fee gets you lots of chips and hours and hours of competative poker. But first we had to have our birthday dinner. RIck had reservations for us and all 25 people at the cafe with Rick once again picking up the bill. THANKS RICK. Scott and I had to leave a little early to get to our tournament on time. We checked in and there was 75 people and only 3 girls!~! I was a little nervous but once I got started I was unstoppable. I took out so many guys it was almost laughable. I even made it to the last table. Now Scott was trying his hardest but only made it to the 3rd table. So I am playing and having a blast. It took over 2 hours, but I ended up coming in 6 place. I can't believe it 6th place!! The bummer is they pay $$ to the first 5 places, so I was soooo close to getting some extra moola, but not quite. So just to quote my brother-in-law Rick "I am still a looser" but it was sooooo fun loosing.

Scott and I hung around and played real poker until after 1 AM and then we hit our totally uncomfortable and lumpy beds. I did win more and was up $100. Here comes morning and it's breakfast with the group and then we go back to the Nugget with Tamy and Rick where Tam and I play Blackjack while Scott plays Poker until it is time for checkout at 11. Tam was low on chips so I kept her in teh game for a while, then we both had enough to keep going. Overall it was great. Aside from the smoke, which made me cry the entire time, it was a great weekend. THANKS TAMY AND RICK. We will always remember the adult weekend.

So there, I had someting to blog about.

UPDATE.....Hallujuah.....Not Depression

2010-01-07T21:59:00.001-08:00

More details but i'm not depressed. THe meds I wernt on thinking i was depressed were BAD for me. I am now back to myself and have tons to do to catch back up. But we are now exploring a hormonal issue that may be related to my hysterectomy i had while livingin in Washington and forgot to tell my Family Doc. So on monday I am going in to tell him that I messed up. This isi great news really.

My Hiatus

2010-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it has been a long time since I have blogged. So here is the short of a long story and why I am taking a break. I am pretty positive I will resume my blogging once again I just need some time.

Yes the rumors are true, I am going through a little depression right now. Yes I am getting help for it. Yes I will be okay. Yes my husband still loves me. I like to point out the fact that I had 4 kids and 1 miscarriage and NEVER suffered any post-pardum depression. This is the FIRST time in 13 years (can you believe it?) that I have ever had a problem such as this. We will make it through. With the help of the Lord, modern medicine, and family we will make it through. So yes if I seem a little down it's cause I am. If you are wondering where "chipper ole' charity" went? Well she is still here somewhere, we are just working on getting her back out here.

So no comments on being sorry for me ok??? That isn't what I want to hear and it will just make me mad. I am okay and I am working through it. My sisters are helping, most of the time, JUST KIDDING!! My husband still loves me and my kids think I am lazy and sleep a lot and let's be honest right now that is a pretty good description. Oh and I did loose my job on Monday, so that did not help much either, and now my van is permanetly out of commission.

So now it is literally hour by hour for me. If I do not have a reason to move or do something I don't . Right now I am getting kids ready for school then I will probably hit teh bed again. Why you ask?? Well doesn't it sound like the best thing to do?? It does to me.

I will be back. I know I will. This cannot last forever. That's what I tell Scott and I think he believes me, well I hope he believes me.

Thanks for understanding guys.

Baby it's cold outside...... Have we just lived through the Worst Decade Ever?

2009-12-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Seriously it's cold outside. Wow!! So after my much thought out previous blog post I just don't have it in me to do that much thinking again. Though I must say I have been reading Time Magazine at work and it does have some thought provoking articles. The one I read today states that we have just finished up the WORST decade ever. Ever? I wonder if I agree with that. While I agree the first 10 years of the 21st Century (2000 - 2009) probably haven't been the best, but I wonder if they have been the worst ever? I think back to the era of the Great Depression and the many wars we went through. Granted we are now fighting a few wars and 2 major ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we have not had a draft and for that I am thankful. If you compare money spent on war and troops these have been worse than the previous ones, but call me dumb and blind but it seems that we as a country are handling it better that we did in earlier years.

So while this has been a trying decade as a whole and as a family we have lived through prosperity, poverty, health, illness, murder and everything in between and for some reason I don't know if I agree with the name of Worst Decade. I may feel differentaly if I was older and had lived through some of the earlier conflicts but as I see it and studying history with my son I think we held our own. I think we learned from our history and while we had bigger struggles like never before seen (9/11) I think that we made it through.

So I am going to say that I don't think that last 10 years have been the worst to live through, there have deffinately been worse, but I guess if you look at $$ and the economy and markers like that then yup we are in trouble, but that isn't me.

Do you think this last 10 years deserves the title of Worst Decade Ever?

Life is what you make of it

2009-12-03T17:58:00.000-08:00

I am a firm believer that your life is what you make of it. I get down sometimes but that is because I allow it, not because others cause it. I totally get and accept this. Life is going good right now, I have barely anything to complain about except the normal, my kids didn't pick up their toys and we have Way to may extra-circuricullar activities, but otherwise we are all healthy and happy. It has been an adjustment getting used to Scott's new schedule. Even though he is home every other day, he isn't really "here" because that is his re-coup day and he mostly sleeps and does laundry, but at least his body is here right? We look forward to the 4 and 6 day breaks and that is when he is really "here." So I just go on with out life as normal on days when he is home and he can choose to join in if he can and if he can't we just go about our plans. It seems to work fine. The only problem is when he is home for 1 day and isn't tired and wants to do "something" he doesnt' know what it is but he wants to do "something" so then it throws a wrench in the plans, but I am good and just going with the flow. We are soooo extremely blessed to make it through these last 2 years and now we are getting rewarded for it.

So what do you make of your life? Are you a positive person? Are you negative? Do you call yourself a "realist" and see the negative in all things just claiming you are trying to be "real" about the situation?

You are probably wondering what brought this about? Well I read a report in Time magazine about people with low self esteem and that have thoughts about themselves that are less than favorable and people who choose to see good in life, in the world and in themselves. They took these "sad" people and had them write in journals for an hour at a time once a week and during that week they did exercises we have all heard of, look in the mirror and repeat after me "I am a good person. I am beautiful....." and then write in the journal. They were also suppose to stop intermittantly while writing and repeat those self-affirming words and continue to write. You know what they found??? It doesn't help. Seriously. You know what they found does help??? Taking these people with low self-esteem and with less than favorable thoughts and perspectives about themselves, life in general and the world, help them to accept their feelings and move on with it. In other words it's okay to feel that way!! Can you believe it? It's okay to have low self-esteem. So now that you have accepted this what do you do with it? Well they then teach them how to deal with it. How to work on raising your self esteem, but in little steps and in such a way that it does not seem they are actually "doing" anything. In the end, though it took a considerable amount of time their journals started to become more positive and they actually changed their outlook on life. All this from accepting who you are, what your life is and either deciding to change it or not. But the big point in my mind is it did not come from standing in front of a mirror and saying "I am beautiful.....I am a good person...."

So I am here to say I am not a strikingly beautiful person, I have never been. I accept myself as I am. I actually think I have my days where I look ok and I am good with that. I do think I am a good person. I do not think I am a great person most of the time, but I am fine with being good. I have accepted my life, the good, the bad and the ugly. There was a time when I did try to force myself and my family to change who we were and it was not pretty. We all rebelled. I thought what I was doing was right and basically I stood in front of the family and said told them this is how we were going to be. We were going to do this and that and look a certain way and on and on and on and I thought that by reaffirming this everyday it would work, well guess what??? It didn't. So I accept my family and my life for what it is and I love it. We are soooooo far from perfect and we may never be where we want but we are always striving and I have learned that change in moderation is the way to go. Small steps that are barely noticeable and it doesn't seem like we are trying to hard.

So if you get nothing more out of this rambling you can just know that I dont' think I am pretty, and I am an ok person.......JUST KIDDING. That isn't what I want to you to remember. Please sit back and look at yourself, accept you for who you are and then decide where you need to work and do it slowly. Look at your family and also love them for who they are and then go about change in a slow manner. Remember life is what you make of it, but you can't make it how you IDEALLY want it all at once.

I love you all.

PS I dont' even have a good picture to put with this one. Sorry.

I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.........

2009-11-23T17:09:00.000-08:00

You may think I am refering to my job at Lynn's Audio Video, but no I am refering to my "real" job as a mother to my 4 wonderful kids. Today is just one of those days where I walk around the house reminding myself to take deep breaths and muttering to myself "I love my job" "I love my life" "I love my children" "I wish Scott were coming home.......I love my life" Nothing BAD has happened today just a lot of odd things that have made the day wear on and on. So let me start with this weekend. My birthday was on Saturday and I spent most of the day feeling sorry for myself and crying. Really please don't feel bad, I am over it and there wasn't anything anyone of you wonderful people could do. It all boils down to one simple thing and I am trying to fix it I swear. I don't have any friends. And even though I use that word in the plural form, I really just want 1 good friend, is that so much to ask? You will all have to agree with me that there is a difference between family friends and friends who don't "have" to be nice to you. Thank you all for being nice to me, but I just wanted another girl to go to the movie New Moon with me. I was happy that Scott went, but it was ovious he was tired and wanted to sleep and he was only there for me. He even took me out to sushi for dinner before hand. What a great man. He knew I was sad and there wasn't anything he could do. You have all heard me say I get sad at times, I miss my friends in Washington. They didn't have a lot of money but for my birthday we got together for lunch and a girl time at a lunch space, it was great!! I Guess I just miss that companionship. It also doesn't help that my best friend in Washington makes me sad when she says how much she misses me, I wish I could just jump a plane and rush right up there.

So I forgot to mention that it is basketball season and we are having our own little struggles with basketball this year. This is our first year playing at Mt. Crest and let's just say I am less than impressed and basically threw away $100. That's right you heard me it was $50 a kid for basketball. But I was all for it if they liked it and it was a good program. Boy was I let down. First off Colton's team didn't have a coach. THe first game came and we were told they had a coach, we get to the game and no coach and only 4 boys, that isn't enough to play. So a dad and myself decide to coach. We had another boy show up so we finally had 5 but it was sad. These are 3rd grade boys and most of them have never played basketball with rules. Colton has, but he was less than impressed. He is so grown up sometimes. He hasn't had a single practice and he did not want to go to his game this last Saturday and I can't say I blame him. Believe me that lady in charge is getting an earful from me. Now I come to Bowen. HE has been playing basketball since 3rd grade. He is good. In 4th grade he played on a competative team. He is tall and talented. I don't say this being his mom, but it is true. I put him in the Aggie basketball camp this summer to help him improve and get ready for the fall season. Well he is on a team that also had no coach, then a dad stepped up who does not know how to play basketball but thought "how hard can it be?" Well Bowen is teh only kid who has played before so the other boys cannot even pass teh ball correctly. So we spend the entire game watching them try to pass teh ball and it getting taken away. Poor Bowen is very discouraged but this is a good lesson is patience and helping others to learn and grow. It just frustrates me that I spent money on this. Here are some fuzzy pictures of Bowen.

So here is what we do for entertainment while at Bowen's games. Mt. Crest has these totally wierd hand rails and they are the perfect size for a 3 year old to climb in or for a 9 year old to get his butt stuck in. What we would do for entertainment if we didn't have these guys around?

I digress, sorry. So Saturday, crying, birthday cake (that Mason fed to Titan), sushi, New Moon. Then Sunday came and Scott went to work. We ran out of time on Saturday and were unable to get dinner ready for the guys at the station so I went to Wal Mart at 8:30 AM (please don't judge or yell at me) and got the ingredients for their dinner, then I put it all together and rushed the kids off to church. Right after church we came home and got ready to head to Ogden to finish dinner for the guys. IT just so happened this was right when the snow storm hit. Oh well that is how my luck goes. So I ran the kids to Amber's house to play (Thanks Amber!!!) while I finished up dinner at the station and ate with the guys. It was a hit. I made alfredo noodles with baked chicken breasts, green salad, french bread and a chocolate cake triffle (recipe at end of post). Now it is really snowing. So I go back to Amber's and grab the kids (Thanks Amber!!!) and we go home. Luckily the storm had made it to Ogden and had left the canyon and Logan was clear by this time. The drive home was uneventful. We got home late and I did not pay attention to the time and made chex mix at 9:00 at night. What was that about??? so since it takes an hour to bake i was up till 10 cooking. Oh well. Today has been odd but it is almost over and I am no longer sad. RIght now I am a little lonely because Scott is working today so that is 2 full days with him gone. I have been doing just fine with him gone 1 day at a time, this is my first 48 hour stretch. I am sure I will survive.

Sometimes I surprise myself

2009-11-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I was making one of my standard dinner's for myself and the kids which was meatloaf and augratin potatoes. Boring right??? Well I would say in the last 5 years we have really been expanding our foods that we have been including in our meals and adding new flavors. Needless to say we have had great outcomes with this and now my children....read that again.....my CHILDREN love such things as Indian Food, Chineese Food, ARTICHOKES, and most any kind of peppers be it red, green, orange or red. I have been loving it!! We have also become conisures of such flavors as balsamic vinegar, red pepper flakes and Umami. Since you are just dying for my surprising meatloaf recipe I will share it because it turned out to be the BEST I have ever made.

Ingredients:

Zucchini
Onion
Green Pepper
1 pound Ground Pork
1 1/2 pound lean ground beef
1 large egg
bread crumbs
salt & pepper
1/4 - 1/2 cup catsup
balsamic vinegar

I chopped up some zucchini, green peppers and onions and I cooked them on the stove top in a little olive oil to make them soft, set them aside and let them cool down.

Then you take 1 pound of Ground Pork (this is important) and 1 1/2 pounds of Lean Ground Beef and add the rest of the ingredients: egg, salt and pepper, 1/4 c catsup 2 tbs balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup bread crumbs. Mix well with your hands - Yes use your hands.

Now add the cooled vegetables. It shouldn't be to moist. If it looks moist and extremely "wet" then add more bread crumbs and make sure you mix them in well so you don't bite into a chunk of crumbs.

So now take your cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper or aluminun foil and plop the entire mixture out onto the sheet and form it into a wide loaf that looks like this. The only thing I would do different is I would make it shorter and wider so that you get more of teh loaf covered with the glaze you will make. And this recipe won't make a loaf this big!!

So now for the glaze. It is an American tradition to put catsup on top of your meatloaf and who am I to mess with tradition? I only ask that you take your 1/2 cup of catsup and spice it up with 1 tablespoon or more of balsamic vinegar. When this cooks down it make the yummiest sweet and tangy topping on your meatloaf and with there being some vinegar in the loaf itself it just all comes together like a wonderful choir.

So I spent all my time on my wonderful meatloaf that I will admit to paring it with a box of Augratin potatoes but I have taken time before to make cheesy funeral potatoes or bakes sweet potatoes goes well with this. I will do artichokes with this also to add in more vegetables and a good dose of fiber.

Let me know what you think. Try it, your kids will love the flavor and won't know they are eating all those veggies especially if you chop them up small.

I Do It Cause I Should

2009-11-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

What am I refering to? Well blogging. So I will make another admission to you all out in internet world. I am a horriable blogger. I am not referring to the actual blogging part of it, but the "doing" it part. I have about 10 started journals from my youth until about 2-3 years ago. I always start them but that is about it. I like to write, I am just bad about actually doing it. I feel I need a topic. I just can't write the same stuff every day, which is where the journal stuff comes into play. I would like to blog more often but I feel my life is rather ordinary and I don't have much interesting to say so why would anyone be interested? Why would my posterity be interested in things like "Scott went to work, kids went to school, I went to work, cleaned the house, ran kids to activities......" see what I mean? So before I blog I actually spend time thinking of what I should write about. I then lurke in other blogs to see what they are writing about and maybe get some inspiration. I will admit this works sometimes. Mandy is a good source of inspiration. I will admit I couldn't even make up her story about the primary program, but often times real life is bettern than fiction. I sometimes wish my life were more interesting but in a good way, not the tragic way it has been for sometime now.

So that brings me to what is going on now which is not much. This week marked Scott's first 6 day break. Luckily enough he had an EMS Conference to attend in SLC and I was able to go. Millville/NIbley paid for the fees to attend and for our hotel room for 3 nights and dinner at PF Changs on Friday night. I went along and on Thursday I spent the day with Tamy Christmas shopping then Scott and I had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (LOOOOOOVE IT). On Friday I scored some coupons from Layne Bryant and I hit the Gateway. I also love shopping there but on a different level. There are stores there I never get to go into other than when I go there. There are stores that have great items I would never and could never buy but looking at them are great. It was very cold and I am glad for my wool peacoat to keep me warm, but I was able to buy clothing that came to over $250 and I only had to pay $110 by the time I used my 25% Friends and Family coupon and then an additional $50 off for spending more than $100. SO it was one of those shopping trips where I showed Scott how much I saved before I told him how much I spent. I was excited, he really didn't care. We then had lunch at the Lionhouse on Temple Square. It was nice. I spent some time on Temple Square after lunch while Scott went back to his conference and I watched some couples getting wedding photos, then I wanted to walk back to our hotel but I was soooo frozen that I just took a cab.

We were going to stay on FRiday night but neither one of us were sleeping well in our hotel room and our kids missed us so we came home late friday night. Saturday was rather uneventful. It just snowed. We went grocery shopping and did housework and then caught up on the DVR shows we missed while in SLC. We will just hang around Sunday because it's Stake Conference and then Monday starts Scott's next 8-day shift. He is anxious already. He gets worn our working but he is recovered after 1 day and has nothing to do the rest of the time. WE will have to find a hobby for him for sure.

So about Thanksgiving. I am soooo excited for all of you who have decided to attend. We are up to over 30 people and it will be exciting. I am "organizing" the entire meal and I would love everyone who is attending and who is ABLE to contribute what they would like. Please let me know if there is a special dish you would like to bring and I will make sure to put it on the list. I will be making phone calls this week, but I am just excited that so many of us can get together. Have a nice weekend and I love you all.

Catchup.....or catsup, however you prefer

2009-11-08T11:47:00.000-08:00

So it has been a while and I am not sure why. I do prefer facebook because it seems simpler and I don't feel compeled to do a long thing. Here are some pictures from this last week. I hope you all are ready for the holiday seasons that are upon us. I know I am.

As a note, we have moved Thanksgiving Dinner to Grandma Elder's basement. She is considering it practice for Christmas Party. So everyone is invited to dinner at Grandma Elder's house for Thanksgiving Dinner. Please let me know if you plan to attend as I am the Executive Chef for this meal. I may even get one of those chef's jackets.....or maybe not, but it would be cool (hint hint). So far our menu will consist of turkey (not cooked by grandma LOL) prime rib, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravey, green bean casserole, 7 layer salad, carrots and a lot more followed by a palethera of pies to include but not limited to pumpkin, lemon meringue, pecan and maybe some creme brulee` So you are all welcome and like I said just let me know so I can plan and get enough prime rib (for adults only) and make appropriate side dishes. Oh and if there are any special requests please let me know and I am sure we can fit them in.

So, back to my original purpose my pictures. Here you go and I hope you like them.

The other night I was checking on everyone to make sure they were in bed and this is what I found. Bowen & Colton together in Bowen's room along with 1 bulldog and a kitten. This happens quite often, even though they both have their own room they always end up together. I guess I just assumed that kids want their own rooms because growing up that was the only thing I wanted was to not share a room with Amber, but in this situation it is the other way around. THe only thing these boys want is to SHARE a room with each other.

Visiting dad at teh station. This is Scott's bed. The kids have sooo many questions. Do your feet hang over? Is it comfortable? Do the other guys snore? Are you warm enough? You would think they were his wife, LOL.

Trying on the clothes dad wears when fighting a fire. Aren't they cute???

How cute is he? He has a long way to go. He has now decided he wants to be a firefighter also but in Paris France. I say go for it!! I will visit a few times each year. Guess I should start studying french.

After Scott got called out again we decided to go and visit Amber since she isn't that far. She was very very excited to see teh kids.

As you can see, while I was happy to see my younger sister she was very very excited to see me. She sat on my lap and showered me with love. We can thank Justin for the not so flattering shot of her behind, but I think it is a good picture of myself, so that is why I included it. Thanks Amber we had a great time and good sushi.

So that was our week. Let me know about Thanksgiving.

This is one ginormous size post

2009-10-24T21:08:00.000-07:00

Well this week has come and gone and while I have a goal to blog more than 1 time a week, I am trying to use this as my journal, I had a hard time getting to it. Since Scott has been working I have been doing housework. It is amazing how hard it is to do housework when your significant other is home and not helping, it just takes the wind out of my sails. As soon as he goes to work I feel like cleaning.

Anyway tomorrow, October 25, is Colton's 9th birthday. I can only say I am glad that he is past 8 and we don't have to baptise him again, I don't hink I could handle organizing a family party right now. So finally Colton decided he wanted to have a party at the Sports Academy in the gymnastics gym. Cliff and Josie did this for Bailey's birthday and my kids LOVED it, so he decided to do it again. I rented it for 1 1/2 hours. I'll tell you it was great. The kids needed no direction they just spread out and went all over. There are 4 olympic trampolines and they were in use the entire time. Mason had 1 dedicated just to himself, I think he jumped for an hour straight. Here are some photos of the trampolines (the ones that turned out). Ok so none of the trampoline pictures turned out, they are just a bunch of blur. But trust me they were fun, I even spent some time on them.

So then we move on to the balance beam. It was also a popular attraction. Here are some pictures. As you will see Misty if showing us how good her balancing skills after hours of practice on the rail of her bed when she was younger. She did a cartwheel on the balance beam, she fell off, but she did it. Cliff was not to be outdone so he did one also. It was great fun. Oh and he also fell off so they are even.

Here is a pic of Bowen on the vault. I am sure he has olympic potential with the way he was trying to break his arm, I mean show off his manly gymnastic skills.

Ok, that now brings us to arguabley the most sought-after activity of the afternoon, the Zip Line. There was a line up for that thing. It wasn't very long, but you did get to drop into a lovely soft "pit" of mats and every kid loved it. Our wonderful host Thomas (I think that was his name, if not that is what I will refer to him as from here on out) spent most of his time taking kids back and forth on that.......

Does Mistly look a little bit big to be on the zip line?

Everytime she hit the ground. Josie and I laughed and laughed and so did Misty, but she finally figured out how to pick up her feet so she wouldn't smack into the mat anymore.

Bailey tried, but would having nothing to do with it. Neither would Mason.

Bowen being a ham. He is also to big to be on the zip line, which was a contributing factor to the next pictures.

My nephew McKay (Michelle's oldest son) was standing in line behind Bowen waiting for the zip line up on a pad, and Bowen was getting ready to go, McKay looked up and Bowen jumped on the line and the line came down so much and as McKay looked up the steel cable smacked him in the forehead and split it open. Wow did it bleed, like head wounds do. So I immediately run over and his mother is just standing there not knowing what to do (she is "slow") and goes to get some papertowels, as she hands them to me she decided she wants them wet, but I just grab them and slap them on his head with a lot of pressure. She then just stands back and says very loudly and in mono-tone voice "Are you ok McKay?" over and over and very loud. I take charge, tell her he will be fine and to get him to stop freaking out I just tell him to take big deep breaths in adn out and try to calm down. I am hearing talks of him having a seizure (which he does) and people getting aggitated. Everytime I take the papertowls off it just gushes like Old Faithful. So we just sit there for like 20 minutes waiting for it to stop, and his mother finally walked away. And my MIL was there, and I only let her stay after telling her to be quiet and let me take care of him. My friend Denise was there also and she is real big into homeopathic cures and she has some butterlfly strips and superglue in her bag. She wanted to glue it shut, which I am a BIG fan of BUT we had nothing to disinfect it first and the thought of gluing in the germs made me cringe, so I just took her butterfly bandage and held it together and it seemed to hold fine. Thomas got a bag of ice and McKay took a break on the chair. After about 10 minutes he was ready to play again, even though his mother wasn't so sure. She does not handle these situations well, but I assured her that he was fine to play, just keep his head away from places that could hit it again. The one thing that bugged me most was the fact she never completely cleaned his face off as you can see in the picture. I didn't have time to do it because I was helping to watch our group, and she never thought to do it.

Here is a picture of our entire group. All in all it was a good party. Everyone had fun. Colton loved it and got a few gifts, but that didn't matter to him, he didn't want gifts, just a good time with his friend.

Saturday, Aggie Game, Pumpkins.......

2009-10-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

So I am going to explain my Saturday. It is kind of crazy so try to keep up.

On Friday Tamy decided she would come up on Saturday to take family pictures. Scott wanted pictures in his new uniform and I needed new head shots of the kids since I do not buy the expensive and usually ugly school pictures. So we were all excited and I washed the pants and shirts needed. Well on Saturday we woke up and started to do "fall cleaning" outside and putting up bikes and mowing the lawn one last time (I hope) and just putting everything all away. About 10:00 this morning I get a phone call from work and it is my boss (I work at Lynn's Audio Video) and because we are a sponsor for the Aggie game today he wanted to know if I wanted the free tickets to the game. Well in all my life in Logan I have never attended an Aggie football game. I was only a student at USU for a short while before switching schools and I never wanted to pay the $$ to see them and to be honest the first time I went to an Aggie basketball game was last year when my previous employer (Jones Simkins) gave my family tickets. Anyway, I was like YES. The kids were excited, we were excited then we checked out the time of the game and it started at 1:00. Tamy was suppose to be here at 12:00 so that sucks. We decided to go to the game and miss Tamy. I am sorry Tamy, we will come see you soon.

The Aggies lost (no surprise) BUT it was a good enough game to keep your attention for a while. The kids enjoyed the marching band and Big Blue and we discovered the BEST french fries/chips ever.

Ribbon Fries

Okay, so I will admit there are some certain treats that I like at the local fairs like Texas Tornado drinks and Elephant Ears (fry bread) and now I have found another favorite. I have never had these before. They are 1 big continous ribbon of potato that is fried. The lady was cute when she said "If you eat them hot they are fries, if you let them cool they are chips" and she was right. We only had 1 plate to share, which was a good thing because I am sure I could eat a few plates myself. They were so thin and hot and yummy. I now want to buy one myself so I can have them whenever I want. Seriously the ribbon fries made the lousy game worth it.

Then we came home and Scott is on call for both Autocare (wrecker calls) and as EMT for Millville/Nibley. He is getting soooooo excited for Monday when he officially starts his job. The good thing I learned is that our full health, life, dental, vision, HSA insurance goes into effect on the first day of work. So as of Monday we have health insurance. Don't get me wrong the kids have always had insurance but Scott and myself haven't had insuance since we left Washington, which is why his pnemonia was so hard on us we had to pay cash.

Then the kids decided to do pumpkins tonight. And I will admit I am probably a horriable mom because I HATE pumpkins. I hate the smell, it makes me want to vomit, I hate the slime and the seeds. Since we have had kids it has been Scott's job to do pumpkins and to be honest if Josie and Cliff hadn't generously brought us pumpkins I may have bought those fake ones from Joann that you can still carve. Oh well now my house and my cat smells like pumpkin (because they thought she was cute inside a pumpkin).

Have a nice weekend, we did.

Water + Kitten = Drown Rat

2009-10-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here is my uplifting story of the week. And the reason this is uplifiting is the kitten did not, I repeat DID NOT drown. So enjoy a story and use your imagination.

First off you have all met my kitten Pebbles right?

Isn't she cute?

Anyway because she is a Persian Cat, they have long long poofy (is that a word?) hair and because I am determined to keep her pretty hair nice and knot free she gets bath's in the sink once a week. I figured if I started this out early she will handle it better when she is older. So far she doesnt' mind it as long as the water is nice and warm and it does not get in her eyes. Also, right after a bath she is sooooooo fluffy and she smells pretty. So like I said she gets bathed regularily, no big deal.

Well last night (Thursday evening) it was bath night and Rainee had taken a bath, again no big deal. Well around 9:30 PM Scott and I were in bed and I heard this loud kitty screeking. Seriously it sounded like a banshee wailing. So I jumped out of bed and since Scott didn't hear it he was like what are you doing crazy woman? I followed the horriable sound to find, much to my astonishment, my kitten in a bathtub FULL of water. Let me reiderate this A BATHTUB FULL OF WATER. She was there with her head tilted up as far as she could and the water, miracously, stopped right at her bottom jaw. If Rainee had just put 1/2 inch of water in the tub she would have drowned. And yes, I would have done mouth-to-mouth, let's face it she has grown on us.

So I scooped her up and didn't have a towl near by so I ran back into my bedroom with a dripping wet kitten who is hissing and spitting at me. I can just hear her thoughts "where did that water come from? I always play in that tub and there is never anything in it." She was maaaaaaad. So I grab a clean town and wrap her up and it is all she can do to get away from me like I am the one who did it to her, when in acutality I was the savior who saved her life and she is forgetting this point. At one point she did get out of my grasp and ran right to Scott and cuddled right up on his shoulder and that is where she stayed.

No Scott isn't sleeping, he just didn't want me to take his picture.

So he occasionally tried to rub her with the towl to aid in her drying process, but she would have none of it and spent ALL NIGHT perched there on his shoulder.

I am sorry Pebbles. Rainee will NEVER leave water in her bathtub again. Why do I know this? Well being the mean mom I am I sort of, kind of, might have implied to her that she was responsible for killing the cat from her tub full of water, and I then went on to add that it could have been Mason in that tub and he could have drown also. Then after she was crying, I pulled out Pebbles and showed her she was okay. That may have been mean but I needed her to understand why what she did was bad, not because mom said.

So I am now sure Pebbles is scared for life, but we will see, now she doesnt' need a bath for another week and maybe she will forget by then right?

Frustrations

2009-10-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

So this week has been very full and very interesting. So I apologize in advance, but I am sure this will be a long and wordy post because there is a lot of explaining to do.

First off this week was consumed with firefighting stuff and sick kids. And not just a little bit sick, but holy cow how did I miss that kind of sick. To make a long sick story short we ended up with Colton with Pnemonia in his left lower lung and Mason had a bad case of the croop, or croup, however you prefer to spell it. It got so bad that the usual 1 dose of steroids didn't work and he was coughing through one of teh strongest cough syrups promethezine with codeine. Now for those of you who are not familar with cough syrup that is one of the strongest, it is so strong that it is the only one that works when I get my yearly asthma cough. Anyways it didn't work, so teh next morning with little to no sleep I dragged him back to the doc with Colton who also had a cough, but it was dry and didn't seem to bother him much. The doc took one listen to the crackles in his chest and diagnosed him and sent us on our way with steroids and strong anti-biotics. Now this would deffinately freak out some parents, but I am very calm and know that both of these illnesses will go away with no lasting damage.

So on the same day Bowen had a football game. Now this wasn't any football game, in his region his Mt. Crest team and 2 different Sky View teams were all tied for 2nd place. Well there was only room for 1st and 2nd place to advance to the playoffs. So to solve this delema they decided to have a mini-playoff to decide 2nd place. The deal was we started playing at 7:00 and we played 1 of the Sky View teams. In order to get 2nd place we had to beat both Sky View teams that night. We played the 1st half verses Sky View (black) and teh 2nd half against Sky View (blue). I wasn't sure this was teh best solution, how fair is it that we play 2 games back to back adn those teams only have to play 1? Anyways.......

So we are playing the first game and it is going good. It is after 7:00 and it was COLD that night. Scott and I were watching while my wonderful mother watched the other kids because of the COLD. Did I mention it was COLD that night? Ok, so with 7:50 left in the game we just scored a touch down and were ahead 6-0 when BOOM the lights went out and it was dark. Now there wasn't really a boom, but when those large gas lights turn off there is a sound, adn then it was followed by a bunch of 11 year old boys saying things like "cool" "let's play in the dark" "who turned off the lights".......It was really really dark. So we just hung around for a few minutes and then the coaches took the boys into the school which had emergency lights on and kept the boys warm. The parents sat out in teh COLD while waiting for the lights to come back on or for a decision to be made. About 15 minutes later Scott took off to check on Grandma and Grandpa Elder and get the kids from my mom since she had a "brown out" and couldn't watch TV and we all know that is teh best way to babysit right? So I stayed there in teh COLD and finally about 30 minutes later the coaches came to us and said here are our options: Wait for the lights to come back on and finish the games, Play tomorrow night, or go to Sky View and finish tonight. It is already late and COLD but Sky View had power and they offered to open the field for us. The referees were from out of town and wanted to play that night so they didn't have to come back the next day. The boys were all worked up and winning and they wanted to play, so we all loaded up at 8:30 and headed north to Sky View. Well we got there and guess what? It was just as cold in Smithfield as in Hyrum. So the game started at about 9:00 and we ended up winning. So that meant time to play game 2. We played that game, it was anti-climatic but we ended up loosing. Now here is where I just roll my eyes. WE PLAYED PEE WEE FOOTBALL UNTIL 10:30 on a Wednesday night. A school night. Seriously. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this instead of me? Oh well.

We went home and the power was still out and Scott had ALL the kids in our room incase it got cold and they were all afraid to sleep in their rooms with no power. HUH? We sleep in teh dark anyway. Oh Well, so then I am in bed and it isn't cold, but it is too warm because the ceiling fan doesn't work and I guess it isn't so warm as it was stale air. But my next problem was my buttocks were FROZEN from hours in the freezing cold sitting on aluminum bleachers. Does anyone know how cold aluminum bleachers are? So no sleep that night. Also my husband who wants to know when teh power comes on turned on most of the lights in the house, so at 12 midnight when the power came on the entire house lit up.

Now my next frustration. You all know by now that Scott is working for the Ogden City Fire Department. Well there are uniform requirements for working there. No big deal right? Well they gave us a list of "requirements" and $200 cash to purchase it all. I guess I was nieve enough to think that amount would come close to cover what he needed, I was even prepared to pitch in $100 because I knew he was tall and would probably have to pay a little extra for his stuff. Boy was I wrong!!!! We spent a little over $600 just for the required items, and we left out a few that we weren't sure he absolutely needed because of the $$. I feel they could have prepared us better for that. We did not buy 1 piece of clothing, except for his exercise shorts, that did not have to be special ordered in and then altered on top of that. We had to order shirts 2 sizes larger for the shoulder width and have them take them in the arms and torso so he doesn't look like his shirt is swallowing him. They wear these jumpsuits to bed so they can get up and go quickly, can any of you imagine Scott in a jumpsuit? NO!!! We had to get 2 sizes larger to fit him through the torso and not make him sing soprano (if you knwo what I mean) but it literally drowns him. The poor seamstress has a lot of work for just Scott's clothes. He is kind of upset that we can't order his workout shorts in a larger size or in a tall length becaue they are only mid-thigh when he stands up, and can you imagine how short they are when he bends down? Well he will have to wear some kind of biker shorts underneath so he isn't being indecent when they work out, which it is required to workout 1 hour for every 24 hours you are on shift, so I am sure he will stay in shape.

So there are my frustrations. Nothing life altering, and I am not upset. Life is going well. Scott has the job he wanted, the only thing more he could have asked for was it to be in Logan. And on that note, he had his written exam for Logan City Fire Department today. He said he felt really confident that he aced it. Now we just wait for a call for an interview. They gave the guys today the "don't call us, we'll call you" speech, so now we wait. He is happy and Ogden and is not in a hurry to leave a job he hasn't started, but he would jump on a Logan job if he had an opportunity then all would be perfect.

Thanks for listening or reading as it were.

Hunting Widow........Kind Of

2009-10-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

So in Washington Scott took up hunting. It wasn't very hard there, get in your mini-van, yup mini-van he had no truck at the time, and drive up the road a mile or two, then get out, BANG BANG, grab the deer and put it back in your mini-van, yes I said inside, good thing it was my old mini-van, and drive it home and take care of it in the shop.

Fastforward to Utah, not many deer, not many elk. The hunting requires you to drive miles and miles up the canyons, park and hike and hike and hike to find "the perfect spot" only to find that it is the perfect spot for other hopeful hunters also. He spent hours, lierally, combing over maps and making countless phone calls he was able to feel confident he wouldn't be on private ground or hunting for "spike only" with his "any bull" tag. It is all so confusing in Utah. Seriously in Washington we had to drive less than a mile to hit public land. You just hunted for any buck you found, it didn't matter if it was a spike or a bull, and if you came upon private ground you could just ask teh farmer and 9 times out of 10 the answer was sure go ahead. Also because of the logging industry there were ample nicely groomed roads that even a mini-van could driver and never get stuck.

So on Friday night, after Scott smoked his fire fighter physical test, and after the life changing phone call from Ogden City Fire Department, he still wanted to go hunting for the elusive Utah Elk. So since we don't camp he picked a spot to park his truck and was gonig to stay the night in his truck since he had to start hiking about 4:30 AM to get to his "sweet spot" before first light to pick off those elk as they make their way to the safety of Hardware Ranch. Amazingly enough you are allowed to hunt those animals as they make their way to safety. So he had to move a few times, he wasn't seeing any elk, so he hiked and hiked and crossed the stream a few times, which is bigger than a stream but smaller than a river and shockingly cold. At about noon he returend home to me, wet, cold and tired because being 6'6" he doesn't sleep well sitting up in his truck cab.

So after a nap he packed up Colton and Bowen this time, to offer them up as sacrifice to the occasional mountain lions they came across, Just Kidding, to let them in on the Utah hunting experience. After a few hours of hiking up and down mountains and across rivers that were too deep for the boys they came home. They were soaking wet to their wastes, freezing feet and Colton had what he called "Eskimo Disease" all I could get out of him was that it affected his " boy" area, I laughed and laughed about that. They all got home and ate a lot of hot potato soup and went promptly to sleep.

Colton woke up this morning saying his back and legs hurt and Scott wanted to take them back up tonight but he has no takers to accompany him and you can bet I am NOT going. You hear that right I AM NOT GOING. I know you are all thinking I am a horriable non-supportive wife, but to be honest we aren't starving, I don't enjoy cooking venison, and I am perfectly happy spending some of our hard earned money on store bought meats.

SCOTT IS A FIREFIGHTER

2009-10-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

We all know Scottie has always been a firefighter at heart, but today he not only smoked the logan city CPAT test BUT he got a job offer from Ogden Fire Department. I do not know the particulars, just that he is now official and getting paid.

I LOVE YOU SCOTT!!!!

Something New

2009-10-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

I realize my devoted readers, all 5 of you, are getting tired of my daily life saga, and to be honest I am also. So today I am going to try to write about something relevant to the current events of today. Should it be political? I am not sure, explaining the reasons why I am not at all pleased with our current president doesn't sound too fun. Should it be religious? Maybe not, that is also a sore spot right now. I know, I can talk about my kids' teachers at school.

As those of you who live in Utah know this week is UEA, which means we had parent-teacher conferences and now the teachers get to play for 3 days while the parents have to find alternative ways of keeping kids entertained. This has been especially hard this year cause it's cold outside, it snowed on Wednesday and I still have to work. It also means it was mid-term and I had parent teacher conferences. I will break each one down for you to explain my frustrations.

First off I didn't make it to Bowen's, and I know you are all screaming "Bad Mom, Bad Mom" at your computer, but I know what his grades are and it was scheduled at the same time as the 2 other kids. I am giong to meet with his teachers at a later date, and they all sent emails telling me what an awesome kid Bowen is, so I feel okay missing his.

The major frustration comes from Colton. He is my sweetest child. He is my most sensitive. He is quiet and he will cry silent tears if you hurt his feelings or step on his toe. So I have got nothing but great feedback from any of his teachers. I went to meet with his teacher and hoestly she is a little odd. I can't remember who she reminds me of but she is tall, slender has wild red hair, well make that orange hair, and it is frizzy and all over and she wears wears bright hooker red lipstick. We sit down and she tells me Colton is failing 3rd grade. Did you all hear me? My special Colton is FAILING 3rd grade. Now to be honest I didn't think that was possible. Anyway the main problem is he is not turning in his homework. We do it, he just doesn't turn it in. Now that problem can be easily fixed. Here are the rest. His handwriting is not neat enough. What? My mouth just about fell open. Colton has a few things working against the handwriting thing. First he is left handed. I don't know many left handers that have beautiful handwriting, and if you are reading this blog and have great hand writing I am sorry to offend. He has had trouble with his eyesight. We have changed his prescription so many times I can't keep up and neither can the optomotrists. He writes, and you can read it. In my opinion it looks like a 9 year old boy writing.......so anyway she says it isn't neat enough, so an F there. He is slightly below the reading standard according to the DIBLES test. Yes I know this, he has always been slightly below since he started school at 3. Yes 3. He started preschool early because of the eyesight and hearing issues. He has always been slightly below but he is making progress because he is always below in his grade level. Big F in reading. Math is ok, it's a 2 and his teacher was lecturing on how he needs to work at math and I say Yeah Colton 2's rock. So I sat there and explained to her that Colton has been deaf 2 times since birth. He has crazy eyes that never stay the same, he is sensitive and can't you see you are hurting his feelings? Oh well as we left the room the silent tears came while he was trying to be strong.

Rainee, what to say about Rainee. Well right now she is puking because she has the flu and I am sure she can't wait to share it with all of us. In direct contrast to last year where we had nothing but problems it seems she is not an angel. She is getting all 4's except a 3 in reading. Her teacher sees this as a problem and wants her to work harder. Of course all teachers want that and I am sitting by her going "way to go a 3 in reading rocks" while I get sketchy looks from her teacher. He only problems is she cant' sit still. She never has been able to BUT she is still listening and gets great grades.

So then we get a call from Mason's preschool. Oh crap I didn't know they had parent-teacher conferences in preschool. Well they do that this wasn't a good one. My precious 3 year old is not the nicest kid at recess I guess. He is great in class and does well with structure, but when at free time with a group of kids he is mean. He pushes, scratches and has even bit to get things from other kids. Yes I said it, my kid is a bully. We are not sure why, maybe it is because he has no siblings his age to play with? Who knows. So now we are starting a sticker chart at school for being good. I will keep you updated on teh progress.

Update......Things are getting better......

2009-09-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

So I realize that title isn't very interesting, but it is true. As of yesterday (monday) Scott was no longer employed full time. He is only working on-call nights and weekends for Autocare. This decision was reached mutually between Autocare and us. He missed a lot of work when he had pnemonia, and then he needed a lot of days off for testing for various Fire Departments. So he is just now working a little to supplement our income, which is sad if you think that I only work 20 hours a week at Lynn's Audio & Video, sorry I digress. So yesterday was his first day at home. It almost killed him. He hates not working or having a "purpose". I constantly remind him that his purpose is to study and get the best scores on his tests he can. So today rolls around and we get a phone call, he made it to the top of the list on the Ogden Fire Department and they have an opening so he has an interview with the Fire Chief of the Ogden Fire Department. We are so excited BUT trying to not get to excited because we realize he isn't the only guy they are interviewing, we just hope he is the best!!

So here is our future plans, he interviews at Ogden tomorrow, then he has the physical test at Logan on Friday THEN we are heading to Jerome Idaho on Tuesday.

So I just got back from LaShars and I was talking to Jenny and I told her how Scott and I were talking and we wonder if DeLoy had a hand in the Ogden testing because he promised he would help Scott get a job. He was always so worried about us and Scott getting a firefighter job. I had kind of put that out of my head and Jenny says of course it's DeLoy. She knows he is watching out for all of us because she is not ready for him to leave us all yet so she knows he is still here with all of us. I would love to believe DeLoy is watching us from Heaven, but I wonder if he is so busy enjoying the afterlife pain free? I love Uncle DeLoy and I know he wants nothing but the best for all of us and if there is anything he could do to assist any of us from up above he would do it.

Love you all.

More Animal Smiles

2009-09-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

It seems I have been blogging about my animals a lot lately, but here you go. First let me say I realize animals are a lot of work BUT i can't even imagine my life without them. It is very very rewarding and the love they give is great, even when they do something bad (Titan) and he looks at me with those sad puppy eyes that just seem to say "I'm sorry, I won't do it again" and I believe him.

So here is a little background to the photos to follow. We have Duke our 9 year old English Bulldog. Now 9 years old is very old for Bulldogs and he is almost completely blind but he is hanging in there. Titan is our 5 month old Engligh Mastiff. Yes we seem to have an affinity for animals with flat faces (Pebbles and Duke) and any breed that has English in the title. Titan being a puppy loves nothing more than to play and he would play all day long if we were able or Duke could stand it. The best part of Titan's day is when Duke gives in and plays with him, unfortunately Titan is clumsy and plays very very hard with poor old Duke. So after a long hard game of torture Duke this is how Titan makes it up to him. These pictures were hard to get because if they see us Titan stops doing it. So sorry for the spots, it was taken through my dirty sliding glass doors but you can still get the idea of how much they love and understand each other. Duke even seems to be enjoying it.

So I hope you can tell from these slightly blurry photos that Titan has his paw around Duke's shoulders and he is licking behind his ear. Duke loves having his ears scratched and it appears that Titan has figured this out. Most of the time Duke acts like he doesn't like Titan and he is just too old for this dumb puppy but then I catch moments like that and I can see it's all just for show, Duke really does like Titan.

For the record I have seen Titan hold Mason down with his ginormous puppy paw and lick him all over. It is just cute, but I haven't been able to get a pic of that one yet.

At a loss for words

2009-09-24T17:01:00.000-07:00

Answer to what happened to Pebbles (the cat) Yes Mason did dip her in the toilet, but to make it worse he then rolled her in her litter. If you look closely at the last photo you can see the specks of litter. Do you know what litter is? IT's clay so when it gets wet it gets soggy. It took me forever to brush all teh litter out of her long pretty hair. So instead of being tar'd and feathered, she got toilet and littered.

So I am not really at a loss for words, but I am at a loss for the next topic to blog about. I have a lot to say but I am having a hard time narrowing it down. Let's see dinner was good. I love artichokes. Work was good just same bills different day. Life has finally slowed down, kind of. Scott has so many firefighter tests this next 2 weeks I just can't believe a job doesn't come from one of these. Seriously people we will move to where the work is. So which ever job comes in first we are out of here, well if it is outside of Northern Utah. No one is sick. I know it is a modern day miracle, it seems someone is always sick in our house. Scottie's last day of work is on Friday then he is officially unemployed, he is just working on call nights and weekends. In the summer he made bank doing nights and weekends but now all the vacationers have left and it has been deader than dead. Oh well, so goes life.

So since I can't focus my wandering mind we'll play a game. Guess what happened to the kitty. Here are some pictures of my poor kitten from yesterday and the only hint is it did not do this to itself, it had assistance.

Colton did not do it, he was just consoling her while I laughed and took pictures. So leave me a comment and let me know your guess the probably tomorrow I will post the correct guess or I will just tell you what really happened because it is kind of funny.

Cute Things

2009-09-19T19:09:00.000-07:00

So here are some things that cheered me up, maybe they will cheer you up also. First off here is my new kitten.

She is soooo cute. We are still kicking around some random names. Right now we call her Pebbles, but Scott hates it. His name choices are Lint or Stella. I like Pebbles or Duchess. She is so playful and just cute. We really love her. She is our bright light in our very stressful life right now and she is just what we needed. In case any of you care, she is a pure bred Persian cat. The owner didn't want her because she is the runt and is so small. So we got her. We love you Lint, Fungus, Stella, Duchess......whatever your name is.

Now here are some photos of Bowen's football game today. For the record Scott took these photos and there isn't much of a chance to get frontal photos of my boy so pictures of his back will have to do. He is number 80 and today he got to be a team captain. If I do say so he looks pretty cute from behind. He just looks so grown up.

Isn't he cute? I mean isn't he handsome? He doesn't like the word cute anymore.

Here are a few pictures Scott snapped while we were watching. In case you care, we lost 21 to 14. Oh well we have a fun game. The high point for Bowen was when he tackled the runner who had the football. He grabbed his jersey and held on just like his coach said.

This is how Mason gives big hugs. I can be painful, but he is sweet.

See You Later

2009-09-18T08:49:00.000-07:00

No I am not leaving, that is just what Dallas said at the funeral yesterday. On Wednesday night after the viewing Scott and I were hungry and we were talking about going to grab something to eat and then Dallas said he was hungry to. So we all loaded up dressed up as we were and took Dallas to Hamilton's. He said he had never eaten there before so we decided to go since we were all dressed up. The hostess was nice and asked what we were celebrating. Scott just whispered to her it was a funeral and boy did she feel bad. It wasn't her fault how was she suppose to know? Anyway we had a great dinner and Dallas was deffinately hungry, LOL. We had a great talk, boy do I love that boy!! We enjoyed his company sooo much. So as we were getting ready to leave and I think we spent the entire dinner talking about his Dad, but I think he just needed to talk, so we just listened, Scott was quiet most of the time then at the end he told Dallas when his grandma died she told him not to say goodbye to her, just say "see you later" because in reality that is all it is, a see you later. So while Dallas said it was me that told him that it was Scottie.

What a beautiful funeral. My Craw relatives sang like angles, as did the little kids who sang as good as they could. My kids took it so seriously that they were singing for Uncle DeLoy and I told them I was sure there were other spirits there also helping us through and they needed to sing good for them and I think they did great. It was nice to hear Jenny and the girls talk and Dallas. He was so concerned that he say the right things, and I told him there was nothing wrong he could say about his dad. Wow I cant' believe I am still crying.

That brings up another interesting point. While I am sad about DeLoy and yes I did cry, but I was able to hold it together mostly because I believe. I believe DeLoy isn't "dead", I believe he is in Paradise enjoying his relief of pain and suffering, I believe he is waiting for us, I believe he is enjoying reunions with family that has already passed, I believe he is there to prepare a way for us and I believe he is there so when it is my time I won't be afraid because he is there.

I do believe it interesting though that no matter what my Uncle did to me as far as jokes or riding 4-wheelers in the desert I trusted him 100%. Some may call it a child's trust, but I will alwasy be a child to him looking up and trusting like he could do no wrong, that is how I felt about Uncle DeLoy. I would jump on a 4-wheeler or a motorcycle with him in a heartbeat and never doubt I was safe, and believe me I did it a few times and afterward Scottie was like "I can't believe you jsut did that" because I won't ride on a motorcycle with him but I would with DeLoy. I used to love going for rides on his Dakati before he sold it. Heck, I would put my kids on that bike with him, and believe it or not they all got to ride. Because of the trust I had in him I know that when it is my time and he is there all he has to do is reach out his hand and I will take it and follow him wherever with no doubt in my heart I will be safe.

My Uncles were great at teh funeral with the prayers they offered and how they stoically carried the casket from teh church and then at the cemetary. The dedication was beautiful and I was privilaged to some of those rare moments seeing Uncle Bill and Uncle Scott hugging each other. It was tender and made me cry all over again.

No matter how different we are as families (and believe me we are different) we are still family. We love each other, through it all. Some days it may not seem that way but I know that any of my Aunts or Uncles would come to my aid if I just asked, and it is comforting to know that.

I love you all.

Seriously Does it Ever Stop???

2009-09-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

The answer to that question is a resounding NO. Oh well, first let me say even though I put on a tough exterior and I try to keep things in perspective with the big picture in life, I want you to all know that I do have my moments of weakness. I do breakdown and cry over the small things like a baby needing her mommy, but then I get up and get going again. What did I cry over today you ask? Well my clothes dryer blew up. Yes I said blew up. I must admit it was a contained explosion, but non the less it is dead, toast, kaput, swimming with the fishes. Well not swimming with the fishes yet, that would require me to remove said piece of offending appliance which I am not strong enough to do or believe me I would. We have had this dryer for 7 years and it wasn't the best when we bought it. We didn't have any money so we bought a cheap dryer cause who cares about your dryer right? As long as the washer is nice the dryer can be a POS. Well we have replaced the belt and the heating element 2 times in the last year. The repair place told us that was a sign that it was very quickly wearing out. Well we were hoping it would last a little longer. This morning I went down to change the laundry and turned on the dryer and the horriable loud pitches squeeling came out of it followed with the unmistakeable smell of burning. I turned it off and just to verify my findings I turned it on again to have the exact thing happen again this time followed by a muffled yet distinctive boom. That is it, my dryer died. I do not have an outside line and even if I did I am sure my loving mastiff puppy Titan would tear everything down.

So here is my next connundrum, we have no money. I mean no mula, pesos, dollars, bling bling, nothing. We had some savings but since Scott's bout with pnemonia we are flat broke and paying doctor's bills and living expenses since he missed 10+ days of work. Oh dryer I didn't really hate you that much. You always dried my clothes in one cycle most of the times. You handled the wet tennis shoes we occasionally threw in you and you held up remarkable to 4 moves and being bumped and dragged up and down countless stairs. Couldn't you have waited a few more months for when Scott got his real job a a firefighter/EMT and we could afford a new dryer? Couldn't you hang on like our old falling apart mini-van and just last a little longer? Was 1 more winter too much to ask?

I almost can't stand to break this to Scott, he is just gonig to hang his head and ask "what next?" but I will then cheerfully remind him that it is only a clothes dryer and the pioneers never had one and we can do also it's only wet clothes. I wonder what our neighbors will think when they see my batch of wet jeans over the front railing?

**Update - Scott came home and I told him the dryer was broken and sounded like there was a dying cat in the motor. So he stoicaly went downstairs to see what I had done and he turned it on, it squeeled and then went away and has worked just fine. Isn't that how it works, the car is broken UNTIL you take it to the mechanic. The dryer doesn't work UNTIL the husband gets home. Oh well, needless to say I am glad to have my dryer back. Since Scott is no longer working there is NO way we could afford a new dryer.

Uncle DeLoy

2009-09-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

Well I was woken up this morning by a phone call from my Grandpa Elder. Just seeing his name on my caller ID and I knew what he was going to tell me. I had told them to call me when DeLoy passed no matter what time. So without him telling me I knew what had happened. Surprisingly enough I did not cry. I just sat there for a minute then I called my mother. I knew my grandpa had probably called her, but I wanted to know if he had called my sisters or if I needed to. Being she just got out of the hospital on Saturday she told me to do it, she was still kind of out of it. It didn't sound like she had done much crying either. I guess it just hasnt' sunk in yet. I am sure when I go out to the house to see Jenny and the kids that it will hit me then when he is not in his bed any longer.

While I am releived that he has passed and I know he is with the Lord doing his work, what makes me sad is the fact he suffered so long. It also makes me sad that he left behind his wife he loved so much and waited so long to find the right women for him, and he left his wonderful boys behind. During this last 9 months I have been able to spend a lot of time with Dallas. It has been great. He is a wonderful boy, and now a great man. He calls when he has problems and needs to talk or needs help doing his resume for a job. He says I am "cool", but saying that he makes me feel old. Oh well I guess that comes with being the oldest cousin, he even called me his Aunt once adn I about fell over, LOL. That family has been through so much I am glad the suffering has come to an end and now a different kind of pain sets in. The pain of the loss. The going to call DeLoy and then remembering he isn't going to answer. He was always so candid about what he was going through. In fact I remember when he was first diagnosed, we had come from Washington for the Memorial Day breakfast Grandpa did every year. We made the trip for this one because they had sold teh farm for real and were going to move. I remember very clearly asking DeLoy "How are you doing?" and his answer was "I can't poop" and that right there was the first talk of poop and it just went on from there. The next day they did his colonoscopy and found the cancer and our lives took on a new normal and we were always talking about DeLoy's poop, because let's be honest that is how he judged what kind of day he was having. He went through so much and we all were able at one point or another support him in our own ways. Whether it was visiting him in the hospital in SLC or Logan, driving him to Chemo, buying him treats, going on vacations, doing his books, or attending the Relay for Life. All of those things meant so much to him and he remembered him all, I know he did because he would like to recall those things when he was just talking.

I want you all to know that DeLoy had spirits with him for the last week preparing him for his passing. There were always 3 men in his room and there was 1 lady he saw in his bathroom. He saw them all the time. You could feel the spirit when you walked into his room IF you were not paying attention to the fact he was dying, but to the "feel" of his room. The reason he was not in pain was because of those spirits. I will be eternally grateful for whoever came to help DeLoy leave us, because I know then he wasn't alone and I hope he wasn't afraid. The fear of the unknown made him uncomfortable but I think the Lord knew that and sent them to offer comfort to DeLoy.

I know now we all have a Guradian looking over us from Heaven and when our time comes we will have someone there we know who will greet us with open arms so we won't be scared.

I love you all.

Charity

Summer Fun

2009-09-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well here are just a few random pictures from today. First off Bowen's team won their football game 7-6 in a sudden death overtime. To be honest that was the only part of the game that was interesting was the end. The regulation game ended 0-0 and they they give them 4 chances from teh 10 yard line to score, then whoever scores the most wins. Here is a picture of Mason with Bowen's helmet on. He kept it on all night and wouldn't leave us alone until we took his picture.

After the game Scott decided to take the kids hiking up Millville Canyon with Titan. I have not been feeling the best lately so he decided to give me some "down" time. I think I am fine, just getting worn down from all that has been going on lately. So here is a cute pic of all teh kids and Titan, it is hard to believe he is only 5 months old.

Random, completely random.

2009-09-11T05:49:00.000-07:00

I do not promise or will I even try to keep this post to one topic, so please excuse where my fingers take me they are in control.

I am up early this morning 6:00 AM to get Bowen off to school. I HATE getting up this early. I don't like sleeping in either. My ideal "wake" time is 7 AM. Oh well. At least it isn't 5:30 like in Washington. I miss Washington. I miss our friends. I miss the mountains, the river, the Ward. I miss it a lot. It turns out Scott misses it a lot also. I think we decided that if Scott still has not landed a firefighter job by next spring in Utah he is going to start testing in NE Washington for a job up there. I feel guilty for uprooting my kids from Colville and bringing them here. They were so happy there. They had great friends and I loved teh smaller schools. They are still having trouble finding friends here and it has been 1 1/2 years. YEsterday I went and watched Bowen at the end of his football practice and he was running his drills by himself away from the team. When they did the team "cheer" he was not in the huddle, but standing outside and away from it. He claims he loves football but he has made no buddies on the team. He doesn't say bye to anyone and let's be honest they act like they don't even see him. Oh well. He isn't the best player on the team so why pay attention to him right? Well then I get comments from all teh kids "remember when we did this in Washington? Remember when I played with this friend? Remember Uncle Hosehead(David)" I know we came home for a reason and Scott now has a education and a career, now I wonder how bad it woudl be if we went back? Now everyone don't freak out, we aren't leaving now, it would be next year, and only after Scott gets a job up there, but honestly I can't wait. I don't think we can go back to Colville because there isn't much industry there BUT we can go close and work in Spokane. Oh the thought of it just makes me smile. I guess I just worry my kids arent' happy and they don't say anything to me because they don't want to worry me.

Scott seems to be feeling better. We are going to teh doctor today at 9:30 for a check up and to see if he can go back to work. Oh yeah Work!! They apologized and "need" him back. He is going back but only after making some changes. Right now he works for them 24/7 and that needs to change. He works from 8-5 and then he is on call any time after that. So he is going to suggest he work just the on call after hours as dispatch and a driver so he can have his days to study, test, interview and exercise. Unfortunately he has gotten out of shape with working so much and attending school and the bad part is when you are a firefighter you HAVE to stay in shape. So this is our solution. He makes 2 1/2 times as much just doing dispatch and going on calls, so it works out just fine $$.

Mom is doing well. She ended up needing a blood transfusion. She didn't loose to much blood during the surgery BUT because of her cancer it seems to inhibit her ability to reproduce her blood at a rate acceptable to the doctors, so 2 quarts here she comes. I think she will be fine.

DeLoy is still the same, well I guess he is worse. He can no longer lift his hands to feed himself and can't make it to the bathroom anymore. If he talks you can barely hear him and have to put your ear right up to his mouth to hear anything and most of the time it is just jibberish. We believe he is seeing angels in his room. He talks and sees 3 old men a lot and there is a girl in his bathroom that upsets him. It isn't the girl that upsets him as much as that she is in his bathroom and he is still trying to get out of bed to help the men in his room. We think the spirits are there so he isn't afraid and to prepare him for the other side. One reason we believe this is in the last 2 weeks he has had no pain. Those of you who spent time with him a few weeks ago knwo he was in extreme pain. He would cringe and tears would fall just from simple movements or when he went to teh bathroom. That is gone now. It is simply a miracle. They have not had to do a morpheine drip like was planned, the pain is completely managed through his same meds he has been taking for sometime and we consider this a great blessing.

Okay I could go on. I know i know it's scary, but I like to type as much as I talk. I will end though to spare you. Thanks.

Inspired and Relevant

2009-09-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

Well that was my goal today. To write about something that inspired me and maybe would inspire others and to keep it relevant. Relevant to what you say? Well to whatever I was inspired by. Today I am going to write about life in general. The good and the bad. The ups and the downs. Not all of them of course, but just those I experienced today.

First off I am being inspired by Jim Croce, he is now singing Photographs and Memories.....I love that song. yes I have a diverse love of music.

So you all know Scott is sick. Well because his illness his employer has questioned his "dedication" to his job. This made me sooooo fighting mad. I felt more like he was my child at school who had a teacher that needed a talking to instead of a supportive wife. I wanted to march down there and give them a piece of my mind that goes kind of like this: My husband works for you 24/7 (that is literal, he works all day long and then is their afterhours dispatcher/truck driver) so he is never NOT working. I believe that is one of the reasons he got so sick, he was working so much and going to school. I am sure Mandy can relate to this, but it appears Michael handles it better than Scott. See I digress. So I got over that and I have come to the conclusion of this: It is only money. That is it. My love of my husband does not revolve around the $$ he brings in. If that was it I would have left him a long time ago. Other wives would keep him going at that rate because the $$ is very good, but the trade off is not seeing him ever. And unlike Michael (sorry for picking on you Mandy) Scott would have no end. Michael has an end and Mandy can look forward to that. If Scott stayed at his job there would be no end. Because of that fact I just look at them now and say "If you care so little for your employees who are EXTREMELY ILL then we don't need you" Scott can find another job and he is actively looking for one. He did not go to school to become a firefighter so he could work as a tow truck driver. So even though we were delt another blow with this pnemonia it is okay and we are totally at peace with this turn of events. Funny how that happens huh? This is something that for other couples/families could be completely devastating and we look at each other and go "oh well, we can handle anything together" One reason may be because Uncle DeLoy is so close to death and once you watch death come it makes petty things like money seem less important. Now we will never be wealthy, but I don't care, I just want to be happy. Have my hubby work at a job he loves and be home when he is done, in our modest little (yes I am sure little) home and spend time with our family. Is that too much to ask???? Now Scott is so sick he is putting in jeopardy his testing/interview for Midvale Fire Department next week. He has to be in tip top physical condition to pass the physical test with a good enough time to move on and right now he can't go up 14 stairs with a load of laundry without having a coughing fit. And once again "Oh Well"

Now for the good. My 11 year old still thinks I am cool. He prefers to hang with his buddies instead of the girls that are "looking" at him. I get these questions "mom why do those girls keep looking at me and writing me notes" he just doesnt' understand what they want. He doesn't write back, and they probably think he is rude, but he doesnt' "see" girls yet and I am completely fine with that. He still thinks his dad is cool and will come to us with anything. I hope it always stays that way even though I am sure it will change. Colton is super sweet and is a sneakey trouble maker BUT we love him tons. He is very creative at getting out of his chores. Rainee is deffinately a princess. She loves fingernail polish, dance lessons with Aunt Jenn and stickers. She is very loving also. Mason, oh little Mason. I think there is a special place for your youngest child and there is also a reason they are the youngest. Mason could give anyone a run for their money. I show up at preschool today to find him dressed up in a leather fringe vest with a silver sequined vest on top with a beautiful blue bonnet on his head. he is sitting on the floor surrounded by his 6 babies and he is talkign to them. I had to literally "remove" his dress up clothes to take him home where he has now discovered Rainee's old dance costumes. How cute!!

So please remember to put your life struggles in perspective. I kind of put my head down and just plow through teh trials, there has to be an end, I just know it. When I find it I will let you know. For now it is longer working hours for me. Good thing I have a job that accomodates me and IF i were sick with pnemonia they woudln't fire me.

How did I do????

Why God Made Women.

2009-09-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

So I am now convinced that God made women so men don't really have to pay attention or take care of themselves. For instance Scott is very sick with pnemonia. We first went to the doctor on Wednesday, I say we because he just couldn't make the appointment he needed ME to do it, so I went with him to make sure he told the doctor everything that was wrong because I was trying to prevent exactly what is happening now. So I went along and the doctor was nice and because we don't have insurance he was trying to save us some money by NOT taking a chest x-ray, so he gave us some "wimpy" antibiotics and sent us on our way with no cough syrup or anything else. Scott took his antibiotics religiously because I made sure he did. He would always ask "is it time for my medicine?" is it that hard to take 2 pills morning and night? Apparentally so. So he steadily gets worse and on Friday I call the doc again and ask for some cough syrup, nothing over the counter is working and the coughing is enough to make me want to go to my moms to sleep. So the doctor assures me that there is nothing he could give me that would work better than over the counter stuff. I tell the nurse he is wrong becuse I have been giving him Mason's promethezine with codeine (the elixer from Heaven), Mason was given it when he had the croup and it is a miracle medicine. Now i know you are not suppose to share medications but believe me you would do it also if your husband was this sick.

So Saturday rolls around and we head out to Bowen's football game. Scott just sits there and coughs and finally at the end of the game he tells me that he needs to go to the insta-care clinic because he is having a hard time breathing and is now coughing up mucus. So we pile the kids to grandma's and go to the clinic. First off they mask everyone thinking he has Swine Flu, so first thing is nasal swab and it comes back negative, and thankfully that doctor decides we need a chest x-ray. I whole-heartidly agree. Insurance or not we have to get him better and the amoxicillen is not working. The chest xray shows something in his lungs to indicate pnemonia, but the doctor says she is not a radiologist and is going to beef up his antibiotics to "cover all the bases" and get him well. So we now double our amoxicillen and add doxycycl along with a proventil inhaler and some STUPID cough syrum called Cheertussin. Now these new medicines throw Scott for a bigger loop. Now instead of just 2 times a day for pills he has to take the amoxicillen 3 times a day, the inhaler 4 times a day, the cough syrup as needed, and the doxycycl 2 times a day with avoiding dairy for 2 hours when taking it.

Guess what folks? I can remember all those instructions without writing them down. Scott just says "she'll keep me on track" and guess what I do??? I keep him on track. He has no idea when to take his meds even though he can just read teh bottles. The stupid Cherrtussin is an expactorant and a cough suppresent. So this seems even more stupid, first let's loosen up the congestion so your coughs will be more productive BUT let's try to suppress your coughing????? Does anyone else think this is odd? So guess what? It doesn't work, no relief from coughing. So back to Mason's cough syrup we go.

Sunday comes adn goes with Scott in bed feeling crappy BUT we are waiting for the new beefed up anti biotics to take hold and offer some relief we know they have the potential of offering.

Monday, oh Monday. So now Scott has started to cough up blood with his mucus (sorry for the yucky visual) and I ask him, do you want to go back to the doctor? He says no. So I talk to the insta-care doctor who says to take him to the ER because there is nothing elese they can do for him. So about 2 this afternoon Scott announces he is worse and needs to go to the ER. So we went there. They insisted on doing another chest x-ray and I am like "go for it, we are so screwed anyway it won't make a difference" and they do and then they announce to us that he is no better and a little worse according to the radiologist. He has a big area of upper right lobe pnemonia and the meds he is taking are not working. So this doc decides to bring out the "bigger guns" as he calls them. So to end this story NO pharmacies are open today. Scott is to not work all week and stay in bed and recover. This is important for a few reasons. First of all it is really upsetting his work. We really don't care, but it makes us chuckle when they say stupid things like "we question your loyality to the company" and things like that because one of the reasons this turned to pnemonia is because they run his RAGGED. So also, he has another interview with West Jordan Fire Department this week AND next week he has a physical test with Midvale. He has to not only be better but REALLY better to make it through the physical in good enough time to advance.

So that has been my holiday weekend. No work, BUT a very sick and grumpy husband, his work yelling at us, 3 trips to the doc, 2 x-rays and $200 in prescriptions because nothing they give him comes in generic.

Wheeeeeeew I am glad I got that off my chest. If you are still reading I am surprised, but thanks.

More Dinner Ideas

2009-09-06T11:21:00.000-07:00

Potato Soup

Now this is a good fall/winter recipe BUT Scott is sick and it is great comfort food. I would and always do have a loaf or french bread to go with it.

1 package of bacon
1 onion

Cut up the bacon and fry it up then when it is 3/4 done add the onion. FYI when you add an onion the "crisping" of the bacon basically stops, so don't add teh onions too soon.

Potatoes
Cream of Chicken Soup
Milk
Corn
Sour Cream

Sorry for the lack of amounts, but you really can't mess up this recipe.

So chop up the potatoes while the bacon is crisping up. The amount really depends on the amount of people you are feeding. 4 large ones or 6-8 smaller ones will feed a family of 6 good. After the onions are soft and the bacon is crisp, I usually drain most of the bacon fat off the pan and then add the potatoes. Here is where you choose how you like it. IF you like the stronger taste of bacon fried potatoes, then continue to cook the potatoes in the bacon fat until soft. IF you like more of a milder taste, then drain off all the bacon fat you can, add teh potatoes and then continue wihout softening them.

Ok, so now you add 1 can of Cream of Chicken soup. You can use the reduced fat version or low sodium, it tastes just the same, and add enough milk to cover the potatoes. You can add as much or little milk as you would like your soup thick or thin. Also you can now add teh corn. We usually use 2 cans of corn BUT my kids love corn, so feel free to use less if you want.

If you fried your potatoes before, you can just add your milk and soup and warm through and then add the sour cream and you are finished. IF you did not fry your potatoes, reduce to a simmer and let teh potatoes cook.

After the potatoes are finished and you are basically through, add 1/2 to 1 full container of sour cream. This needs to be done at the end and then taken off the heat. DO NOT let the sour cream boil, it will separate. Now you are finished. This soup holds well in a crockpot, just make sure it is low and does not boil.

Please please remember to salt and pepper your potatoes and as you go through, as we all know potatoes have very little taste.

I am making this today because Scott is sick and it is awesome with some home made bread, or some french bread from Wal mart.

Let me know what you think.

Dinner Idea

2009-09-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

So here is what we are having for dinner tonight. Now I honestly don't know a single person out there who does not love chicken turnovers. I guess of course it depends on what you put in it. So here is my recipe, it is kid friendly and I do not ever have any left overs.

1 package of chicken, either chicken brests or I prefer boneless skinless thighs.
1 Onion chopped
1 package of cream cheese
chicken stock
Crescent Rolls

First you chop up the onion and saute it in butter/olive oil in the pan. You don't want them brown, just soft and yummy. The butter is important, there isn't a lot of seasoning in this dish, so the butter does help. You can use less butter if you use a combination of butter and olive oil. Meanwhile chop up the chicken into bite size pieces (this is the hardest part). After the onions are soft and yummy add the chicken and cook. Make sure to salt and pepper the chicken and onions or there won't be much flavor. After the chicken is cooked through add cream cheese. Now you can use anywhere from 1/2 package to the entire thing. It depends on how thick you want it and how you like the flavor of cream cheese. We use the entire package and the low fat version works great. AFter this is all mixed in add a few tablespoons of chicken stock to thin it out. Remember after it cools it will thicken so however thin/thick it is in the pan it will thicken up a lot when cooling. You need to taste at this point and add salt and pepper, especially if you use low sodium chicken stock.

Now is the fun part, and kids rock at helping here. Take the crescent rolls adn roll them out into triangles and fill with a tablespoon of the mixture, fold over like a crescent roll and put on sheet pan. you can really put them close together and fill up teh pan because they don't really spread when cooking. Then cook at 375 for 12 minutes. You now have a great snack or a dinner. We will dip these in a little sour cream BUT I like them just plain.

Now to spice this up feel free to sautee some celery in with the onions or other vegetables. i like to add mushrooms also. You can expand this to make millions if you would like, even though I have not tried that many.

Let me know what you think.

Something cool

2009-08-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

You guys all know I love new and different music. I found this clip on facebook from a friend, but I just had to share it, I thought it was awesome. I think some of you will really like it (Mandy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v3d6SFcDys

Thanks!!!

2009-08-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

It was sooooo nice seeing everyone together yesterday. Thanks to all of you who made it, and we missed those of you that didn't :(

It makes me happy to see some of my cousins that maybe we weren't to close to before, and now that we are grown up we can actually have relationships together (you know who I am talking about). I hope that as we grow we can get to know each other, ALL OF US, and appreciate how diverse and wonderful our family is.

I have a feeling we will all be seeing each other in the near future under not-so-ideal circumstances, but still we will be together.

Love you all.

Charity

Update....

2009-08-20T19:07:00.001-07:00

Took the calling, I am not the new Compassionate/Humanatarian leader in our ward. I have 3 words, Pray For Me. I am still not sure what I am doing. This is a brand new presidency, so they don't know what they are doing either. SO I am learning as I go.

What I am Thankful For.....

2009-08-12T19:26:00.001-07:00

Well I must start out by saying I am very very very thankful for these 2 members of our family.

Duke and Titan

Duke we have had for about 8 years. He is an Old English Bulldog, and he was a present for my husband. It was the breed of dog he just HAD TO HAVE. So I got him Duke for Christmas many moons ago. He is getting old, bulldog's don't have a long life. He has had problems with his eyes and subsequentaly he is about 75% blind in both eyes. We love him. He has his days when he can't see well and freaks out, and he is very very afraid of thunder. We have to lock him away when a storm comes of when fireworks are going off.

Then there is Titan. We got him shortly after moving into this house in Millville. He is an English Mastiff and we love him also. I will admit he is still in stupid puppy stage, but what a loveable puppy he is. He is now bigger than Duke and by 2 years old he will be pushing 200 pounds. He LOVES the kids especially Mason, you can see him eating Mason's apple in the pictures. Yes, he loves apples and bananas. I don't mind because vegetables and fruits are good for dogs also. Go figure.

So there is a reason why I am so thankful for our wonderful dogs and here is the story. Please don't judge me to harshly, most of us with more than 1 child has misplaced at least 1 of them before. I am just willing to share my blunder and that is because I am so thankful nothing happened to him.

Yesterday I was having an emotional day. I spent the afternoon with Uncle DeLoy. I love him so much and the time I spend with him is very special to me and I will never regret how much time I spend with him because we don't have him much longer. We cried together and we laughed together, and he said he would "try to find time to look in on me every once in a while" from heaven. I love him soooooo much. Anyway I was feeling emotionally drained and my Bishop called to ask if he could come visit. I said yeah whatever, not really thinking anything of it. So we started to pick up the house because isn't that what we all do when we get last minute visitors. I asked about 5 minutes into our cleaning "where's Mason" Now that is a common phrase in our house. He seems to escape from everywhere. I have never had a kid who likes to get out of things like he does, and in this instance it was our back yard. We have an 8 foot high vinyl fence surrounding our back yard. Now I considered our backyard safe and kind of Mason's "safe haven" where I couldnt' really worry about him. We check on him, but mainly he can play and not get into trouble. Well he managed to push open the bottom of our very very large gate and he slipped through and took the dogs with him. We found out he was missing after checking all the normal places, then we took the search out front. That scared me. We live right across from a manufacturing plant, Silicone Plastics, and even though it is closed this time at night, it still scares me. He crossed a busy road and went into a field. Now this is significant because there are 3 driveways directly across from us. 2 of them go to houses, 1 is a vacant field filled with nothing but 7-8 foot high Canadian Thistles. He chooses the vancant field. We are searching the business parking lot and other places while he is just merrily walking BARE FOOT through a field of thistles. I then see Titan, our mastiff puppy come out of this field. So I drive down an adjacent driveway and I think I spot a head. So I roll down my window and say "mason" and he says "hi mom" but I can't see him at all. So I go down the next driveway that leads to the field and i can only drive in about 15 feet before i bottom out my van and I am overtaken by the thistles. I am freaking out now. So i get out and I start walking in sandles through the thistles. I can't believe he walked through here. I start to hear him singing and I can follow his voice, then my second dog barks for me. I finally come upon him sitting NEXT TO A VERY FULL CANAL in a patch of thistles with Duke sitting right next to him. So Duke stayed with him while Titan came for help. I said "Mason what are you doing?" and he said "Mom, my feet hurt" So I scooped him up and got the dog and proceeded to walk back through the thistles to the van. By the time I made it home the Bishop was there. He was slightly confused as to what was going on, but he was a trooper and like most men he brushed it off because he had a purpose. He had a calling for me. Not any calling, A BIG calling. So much so I was in shock and I just said "yeah i'll do whatever" and he left. I went inside and then I broke down. I was already emotionally spent from DeLoy, then I lost Mason, and now this calling. I cried, and cried and cried. I talked to my mother who told me to pray and that it was okay if I thought I couldn't do it. My bishop doesn't know who I am, so he has NO idea what I am doing right now. Then Grandma also said I could turn it down and it would be okay. My husband says "go for it." So I am torn, I realize callings come to us for a reason, but then I remember the conference talk about being mindful when considering people for callings and know their circumstances and that stuff. So I am now wrestling with what I should do. I will tell you on Sunday what I decided and what calling it is.

So this is why I am thankful for my dogs. They knew there was something wrong. Duke stayed and comforted Mason, and stupid Titan came for help. I knew I should follow them, I didn't even hesitate. This isn't the first time I have trusted my animals, and it won't be the last time.

Now I am crying again, one of these days I will run out of tears, probably after DeLoy leaves us.

Update

2009-08-02T19:31:00.001-07:00

Sorry I am slacking so much on my blogging. Let me review this week or the last 2 weeks for you. Work, work, Lagoon, work, work, Ogden for iFly, work, work, Park city for school clothes, work, work, I have a cold!!!!!

So I have been working at Lynn's Audio and Video and I have been also helping Scott with dispatching wrecker calls for Autocare. Boy am I beat. WHenever Scott goes out of cell range I get the calls. He was busy all day saturday and Sunday so I have been on the phone for about 10 hours. I am not kidding. I know this because my phone has a battery with talk time of 5 hours and I have drained it 2 times in 2 days, that is a lot of phone time. Now my voice is about gone, my thorat hurts and i have a cough. I have to get better because we are going to 7 Peaks on Thursday.

I will take time later and give you a full and complete update of my life. This will have to do for now.

What we have done this week so far....

2009-07-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

And I can tell you none of it has included any housework, it is going to take 2 days at least to catch up.

Here is a pic of me and the "big kids" at Lagoon on Monday.

It is amazing I had no guys try to pick me up. I swear how could you not check out a 30ish lady with 3 rockin kids looking like she has been drug behind a truck??? in my defense it was almost 100 degrees, adn while there was no lines at lagoon it was still very very hot.

Here is a pic of my and my "big kids" at the Salmon Center in Ogden. Now I realize that is not the proper name, but I am too tired to care.

So I have a lot to say. I am so exhausted, that I have a migraine and I cried at the pharmacy when they told me how much Colton's prescription was because his eardrum burst on Monday, again, for at least the 5th time. So when I am in my right mind I will expound on my weekend and wavering mental state.

Relay for Life

2009-07-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

Now I realize we all have a ton of pictures and a lot of stories. But I am going to do it anyway.

First off a big huge thanks to Josie and Cliff. It turned out great. For not knwoing what we were getting into you guys did a great job. It was a lot of work and I appreciate you for it. My kids were already asking about next year. Thanks for all your hard work and dedication. You guys are a blast!!!!

So, now for my pics, so I am just going to do pics and then explain them. Maybe stories later.

We all know how much Bailey loves her Aunt Misty, but there is only one thing that can make her even happier......

Aunt Misty with a Ball, it was cute.

Here we are chilling right at the beginning

Jer and Cliff putting up Cliff and Josie's tent, that did not fly away.

Leaving on one of our many group walks. I always thought we were very impressive when we walked together because of our Kick Butt shirts Josie had made. We deffinately stood out.

Chillin as a family at opening ceremonies.

Our Cancer Survivors

Just Hanging Out.

The ladies at teh camp next to us were offering to paint faces for $1 adn they did a great job. Seriously anything that the kids wanted. It was great. We kept her in business all night long. Here are examples of her work on our great kids.

Can I just say I laughed so hard at Dallas I almost peed my pants.

Bailey and Mason were best of buds. They went EVERYWHERE together in that wagon. Thanks mom for letting us use it, it was a life saver.

And last but not least, I managed to snap a few photos of some of the more elusive members of our family, at least as far as the camera is concerned. We love you Uncle Bill and Scott for being good sports. Thanks for wearing your green shirts and supporting us.

I want you to all know I love you all. This activity reminded me how much I miss family reunions or get-togethers, like camping in the desert. It was nice that DeLoy was able to spend so much time with us. He was so popular that there were times he couldnt' keep up with us because he was visiting with friends. Grandma and Grandpa Elder also showed up both days, and that was great also. We had fun playing cards and visiting. We got to catch up and reaquaint ourselves with family members we dont' see often. It was escpecially great that Mandy and her family and Jer made it up.

Can't wait to do it again next year.

*sorry for the spelling I am tired and my spell check doesn't want to work.

I am not a GEEK

2009-07-08T16:17:00.001-07:00

So I would first like to point out that I am not a computer geek, or a nerd, I do however like gadgets. So that would mean cell phones, PDA's fun things that are meant to make your life easier, but in reality just add more things to haul around.

Well the cell phone plan that I am on with Verizon has a plan called "New every 2" which means in essense you get a new phone every 2 years. But to be more accurate they start offering at 1 1/2. So when I got my offer for my new phone 6 months early i was ecstatic, time for a new gadget. So I promptly went down to teh store today to get my new LG Envy 3. Oh baby. I love this phone. So many new buttons to play with. A texting keypad and a 3 mega-pixel camera. It rocks. Here is a picture of my phone.

ISn't it cute???? I can't wait to spend hours playing, taking pictures and texting. I guess first I better find someone to text other than my sisters huh??? So if anyone wants to text me let me know.

Relay for Life

2009-07-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone.

This email just came to remind us of what to bring on Friday for the Relay. Please remember we are "camping" so you need to bring what items your family needs. We need dinner Friday night. I believe Josie has teh meat (josie, let me know if you need more) and we all need to bring extras. We need, buns, condiments, chips and drinks, maybe salad. Please please respond and let me know what you can bring so we have everything we need. I suggest you bringing drinks for your family and treats to share. Here is the email that was sent out. If there are any questions, let Josie know. I can't wait to see you all there.

Okay, here goes! There is a lot of information here but it’s important that every participant know this information to be able to participate fully and to enjoy Relay.
Remember we will be there to: Celebrate, Remember, and Fight Back!

There are five things team captains need to do BEFORE RELAY:
Make sure your team knows all the details below. I don’t have emails for everyone so please make sure they are contacted!
If you haven’t picked up your team flag pole please contact me or pick it up at Bank night on Thursday. Remember to decorate them with your team name etc
Come to Bank Night on Thursday (July 9th – Wells Fargo in front of the Cache Valley Mall from 4-6 p.m.) – deposit any funds collected so far and pick up your T-SHIRTS for your team members. If you cannot come to bank night please contact me.
Activity Laps – if you haven’t turned them in to me or if you have questions please let me know so we can make sure all the team members know what will be happening and that they can bring any props needed.
On-site fundraisers – please let me know what on-site fundraisers you will be having. (Remember this is an optional fund-raising opportunity) We’ll post that information so we can advertise your event.
Luminarias! Please gather donations and bring the decorated bags to Relay. Give all names to Terra Huff on-site or by email terra.huff@usu.edu

Here are the final details for Relay for Life this weekend (July 10-11):

Event Schedule
2:00 Setup is open
3:30 Check-In
5:00 Walk begins – please have one member on the Relay circuit with flag in hand!
6:00 Opening ceremony and Survivor and Caregiver walk (no walking by team members)
6:15 (apx) - Survivor Dinner
6:15 (apx) – First team walk – all team members walk one lap
9:30 (Dusk) Luminaria Ceremony (no walking)
5:30 Closing Ceremony (no walking until final ALL team lap)

Team captains – since many of us are new here are some suggestions on what to do before Relay

Campsites - Invite team members to help set up the campsite. Let them know where it is. They are also listed on the website (http://www.relay.org/loganut )
Meals – plan out your meals – Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast and lunch and snacks!! There will be some on-site fundraising that involves food so look for an email with that detail as well as on the website.
Water and stuff to drink - Please bring camping supplies such as water coolers since there will be no easy access to water. Some camps are having drinks to sell as part of their fundraisers!
Activity Lap – Make sure your team knows what activity lap your team is sponsoring and what time. Make sure they know about all the other activity laps so they can participate. Be prepared with supplies. We’ve tried to keep these simple so enjoy and remember to have fun! (Activity Lap definition - teams pick a theme and everyone who walks at that time is invited to wear or do something to match the theme. Check out the Relay for Life website to see the other Activity Laps so you can bring items to wear/use during the different activity laps – if you’d like.)
Supplies – give assignments to your team on what things to bring suggested camp supplies are: tents, canopies, tarps, chairs, loungers, tables, propane cookers, gas grills or charcoal bbqs, (only if you want to cook on-site – or roast marshmallows!) mosquito repellent, food, drinks, water supply, SUNSCREEN, activity lap props. Please remember what is restricted at Relay and on-campus. No alcohol, smoking, candles or open flames (such as fire pits), pets, or drugs. Propane cookers and charcoal bbqs are allowed if they are on a table or at least 24 inches above the grass.
Decorate your camp site! Pick a theme – either your own or the Relay theme this year “Back to the Future!” We are decorating using ideas from any of the three “Back to the Future movies. Ask team members to help with decorating. Prizes will be awarded!
Camping without electricity - Make sure your team members know this is a CAMPING event. There will be no electricity so enjoy being unplugged for a day. Think of all the money and energy you are saving J If it’s critical for your fundraiser or special needs you can bring a generator, but we ask that it is only on when needed and never during special events.

I tried to burn the house down.

2009-07-05T14:31:00.001-07:00

Well I have to admit it. I have a hard time spelling teh, I mean the......

First off because of Jen's comment about Scott grilling he demanded that I post this story exactly how it happened. He was not home, nor did he had a hand in any of this,other than telling me where the fire extinguisher was. Thanks Jen (you made me laugh)

Ok, I am putting off the inevitable, I about burned the house down. Shhhhh, don't tell my landlords. So here is the story. On Friday Amber came over to visit me and have dinner. I got some yummy fresh corn and I wanted to grill it. I love grilled corn on the cob. Here is how you do it, for those of you who want a great summer treat without the fire part. I took my corn, still in the husks, and I soaked them in a bucket of water for 20-30 minutes, this does 2 things, first it allows the husks to get water-logged so they wont' burn, but they will char, and it steams teh corn, so you get some steamed and smoked corn and it is to die for. So I was grilling corn and chicken and having a good day. First I shoudl tell you that Scott was out on a wrecker call in Snowville and was nowhere around. So Amber was here and we had just finished dinner and I went out back and there were still 3 ears of corn that weren't quite finished, so I turned the grill off, yes I am sure I turned it off, and left the corn there to finish cooking. Amber left and i was cleaning up when Mason said "mommy smoke" so i looked out on the deck and sure enough there was smoke. I went outside and saw there was fire coming out of my propane tank, not my grill. It was up against the house and I could see it melting the siding but it had not caught fire yet. I tried to lift up the lid to see if the inside was on fire, but it was too hot. So I very calmly called Scott to tell him that I was gonig to call the fire department, but to not be worried, and he said there was a fire extinguisher down stairs. Now I knew not to put water on a grease fire, and since this was a grill, teh chances that grease was involved was pretty high, so I ran down stairs and got the fire extinguisher to find out it was almost out of stuff, but I decided to give it a try anyway. I was able to extinguish the fire on the propane tank, and then used my grill scraper to roll teh grill away from the house, to find out that the fire was on the tube leading from the propane tank to the grill and i had essentially a blow torch on my back deck. The propane tank was too hot to touch, so I then used the hose to cool down the tank, and spray up under my siding to get any hot spots, and then I was able to turn off the gas that was leaking.

I was then horrified to see that it had indeed melted my siding. NOthing had caught fire, luckily, but my siding is toast, as is my grill. Scott swears he is not buying me a new grill, and that I will not be allowed around fire for the rest of the summer, but I am sure the next time I ask what he wants for dinner and he says throw some chicken on the grill, he will run out and buy me one.

That is my story. Please don't let this stop you from making grilled corn. Oh, I forgot to tie it all together. The best explaination we could come up with was one of the corn husks had some hot embers when I turned it off and the wind kind of kicked up and sparked the fire. It somehow followed teh grease trail and burned the supply tube from teh take to teh grill and just burned right through it, and Scott had literally just filled the tank, so it was just burning the propane left in the tank.

I am glad we are all okay, and I have learned to make sure all my corn is finished when I am, or to take it off the grill to keep this from happning again. I have been grilling for over 15 years, and I really really like it, and this is the first mis-hap i have ever had.

Guess what I did this weekend?????

2009-07-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

I don't think words are necessary. I will let you all speculate and I will tell the entire story later.

7 Peaks

2009-06-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

So I am copying my sisters announcement just because my blog is public.

We have been offered an opportunity to have teh first try at having a private party at 7 Peaks Water Park. Oh My Gosh!!!! So the tickets are only $15 for everyone over 3 years old. On August 6th from 6 PM until whenever we leave. The parking, tube rental and life jackets will all be free. The only catch is we have to have 200 people attend. That is all. A park that normally holds thousands with only 200 people, can you believe it??????

So everyone mark that day, invite your neighbors and best friends. We are opening this to anyone and everyone, except for the public of course. Amber, Tamy and myself will have some tickets. We have to have the money in by August 1st, to contact us by phone or email and we can hook you up.

Hope to see you there, this will be fun. I am serious about friends adn family, make it a date night, bring your church group, let's be creative and offer others the chance they will never get, a park closed to teh public at an affordable price.

Family Pictures

2009-06-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Now I can't remember if I blogged about our pictures or not, but we were privileged enough to have Steve Mackley take family portraits. I won a contest on the radio and I was soooo excited. So we went a few weeks back to some railroad tracks on Wellsville. Go to this link, Mackley Photography, click on portraits, and then click the Clients link. You can enter our code or password of ckidman and then you will be shown a slide show of our pictures.

THEY ARE AWESOME!!!!! And boy are they expensive. We are getting a large wall portrait of the entire family on the railroad tracks standing up, and one of the kids sitting on the tracks, and then a picture of scott and myself, the first one you see.

Let me know what you think.

Weekend Recap.

2009-06-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I saw Transformers 2 times. Yes you heard me right. Someone at work said either I liked it a lot or I got roped into it. Well I took the kids on Friday to a maintenee and they liked it a lot, then Scott wanted to see it, so I went with him on Saturday. I won't lie, I did not mind seeing it 2 times, I like the transformers, especially Ironhide. But that is another post. Then on Saturday I really did too much helping Scott rearrange and unpack and organize the garage, and work on teh back yard. We also bought some flowers to plant out front, just some Clearance flowers from Wal Mart, I am too cheap to buy full price flowers. So after working I got another kidney attack, just to remind me that they are still there just lurking waiting for the opportune time to strike. So I spent a lot of Saturday night in bed drinking my allotment of water so my urine is "clear" and hopefully push them out. Sunday rolls around adn I get out of bed, just to get right back in. My back hurt soooo much and so my abdomin started hurting also, and I had a fever, so I am thinking they bladder/kidney infection they warned me about has hit. I am not sure where the infection is because it still does not hurt to pee, but I have a fever adn feel all around crappy. I did get a few hours while high on my pain meds where I went out front to help place our new "clearance" flowers, when we discovered a lot of wasp nests in the front of our house, and we also discovered they are attracted to the bald spot on the top of Scott's head. he got stung 3 times, good thing he isn't allergic. So back to bed I went and literally just laid there until Scott got a wrecker call to Bear Lake and he wanted me to accompany him. So we dropped the kids off at his mothers and high-tailed it to Bear Lake to get some idiot unstuck. I have pictures that I will post tomorrow, but here is the jist of it. Some guy was trying to bring in his boat on his private beach with a really old 1951 tractor and they hit a sink hole and sunk the tractor, which they quit working. So we had to drive all teh way to the waterfront and then drag chains and straps to make it 50+ feet out to the stupid tractor. The guys did not bother to tell us they were in teh water, they said they were stuck on the beach, so we were both fully clothed. We were kind of peeved, at least he could have told us to bring swim suits. Anyway the tractor was far enough out that Scott was wet from teh waist down. We finally got it out and then he wanted it towes to Laketown. When all was said adn done we gto back at 10:00 and had a good laugh, well I had a good laugh at Scott who had to ride home in wet pants. I then went to bed and he got called right back out to help a stranded family get from Ogden back to Logan. He rolled in aroud 1 AM and hit the sack just to get called out again at 6:30 this morning. SO needless to say he is bushed tonight.

HOope you all had a good weekend. Sorry for the spelling I am tired and my back hurts.

New Music

2009-06-27T09:22:00.000-07:00

So I have added music to my blog again, and the one reason is because of my new favorite song by 311 called Hey You. If you can, please listen to it. It has intriguing lyrics and the music is complex. I really really like it. Unfortunately I do not reall like the rest of teh album, they are kind of hard for me, but they hit it big with this song.

Let me know what you think.

Sorry No Pictures....

2009-06-24T14:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I am horriable at taking pictures, and worse at posting them. But for my next story I am sure you do not want pictures.

So to start off I have had a nagging side ache since thursday of last week. Always on my right side and nothing serious, just felt like a sore muscle. I had gone to the gym 4 times last week so it was possible I did hurt it. So now fast forward to Tuesday. First we wake up, and yes this story does have to include the entire day so you can feel even more sorry for me :) Mason wakes up and says "mommy blood" so I am like huh???? I look at him and he is indeed covered in blood. He had a bloody nose in his sleep and rolled around in it. He had it EVERYWHERE. The funny part was it didn't even bother him. He just wanted to be cleaned off. So I got that fixed. Rainee got stung by a bee on Sunday and she came to me Tuesday morning and said her arm hurt, so I looked at it and where she got stung, on her bicep, was huge, swollen, hot and tight and red. So I called my mom who took her to the doc to find out she has an infection from the dirty stinger of that dumb bee. Colton had a sore throat BUT it was his first Scout Camp, so I doped him up with Tylenol and let him go. It was just a day camp and he had no fever. So with 3 out of my 4 children having "issues" that morning I got off to work a little bit late.

So I worked a boring day. I went and picked everyone up to go to swim lessons at 4:30. The big kids had lessons while Mason and I swam in the pool togehter. It was great, he was sweet and loving and loves the water. No big deal, nice afternoon. The kids got done with lessons and wanted to stay and swim, but something told me no, we should go straight home. The kids were bummed, but I was stern, I didn't have to be "warned" twice. So we packed up and went straight home. So as I was pulling in home I also just "decided" that I needed a shower right away. I also need to interject right here Scott was on a wrecker call in Tremonton, so it was just me and the kids. For another odd reason I was almost frantic to take a shower. That is odd because being the mom i usually wait to shower/bath until the kids are all taken care. So this time I told Bowen to watch Mason while I jumped in the shower. Not only had I just turned the water on in the shower, it was still cold, when I had the worst pain in my lower right back. I felt like i had been stabbed, or was having labor pains. It floored me, literally. I have a bench in my shower (we have a large shower) and i tried to sit on it and could not, the pain was coming in waves with only a very short time to breath inbetween. I knew Bowen was righit outside my door, so I was trying to be quiet, but I was moaning and kind of yelling and the pain came over and over. FInally after about 10 minutes I was able to crawl, not walk, out of the shower and into my room and into bed, soaking wet. Bowen was knocking on my door going "mom, are you ok?" It was cute casue he didn't want to come in cause he knew I was in the shower, but he could tell something was wrong. SO I covered up and asked him to bring me my phone. I called Scott who came home and decided to take me to the hospital. To make this long story shorter, we went to the hospital to find out I had kidney stones and they had moved from my kidney to my bladder and that was the pain I had. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! I have never had any kind of pain like that every before. Not even having a child. So now they prepare me to pass them again out of my bladder. They doctor gave me pain pills and I was like what good will they do, it only lasted for 15 minutes and then I was ok, and he politely told me it may not be that short next time, it could last for hours, so the medicine is for in case. So now everytime I feel a twinge I kind of tighten up and stop and wait for the horriable gut wrenching pain to come, only to be disapointed when it does not. I would prefer it to get over with, so I am drinking a large amount of water to help nature along.

So that was my tuesday. Needless to say it sucked, but oh well. I felt fine today, kind of tired and now I have blood in my urine. Just what you wanted to hear huh?

Let's hear it for spontanity....

2009-06-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

I realize you are all laughing now that I was so sure that I spelled Spontaneity right, when I spelled it wrong. I am sorry. I am wrong.......that is so unusual, JK. Thanks for the heads up Mandy.
While I realize we just had Father's Day, ours was kind of a bummer, so we just gave dad his gifts and that was it. Scott was on call and he got called at 2:30 PM and did not return until 2:30 AM Monday morning. So anticipating that may happen we celebrated Father's Day on Friday and Saturday with some well planned gifts and some spontanity (no I did not use spell check, I knew how to spell that word.)

Friday I came home from work proudly with our projector for our theatre all fixed and ready to go. So we spent most that night hooking it up with the many odd stereo speakers we could round up. You see our new home has a theater in the basement with a 120" projection screen TV and stadium seating. The projector was broken so as soon as I started working at Lynn's Audio and video the first thing I did was take it in to get fixed. Well a new bulb later we got it working and it is way nice. It is a long cry from the old box projector that Grandpa Elder used to have in the 800 East Center home when I was little, this one ROCKS!! We have watched a palethera of movies very loudly. This list would include Transformers, Iron Man and other such action movies that make the speakers boom and shake the house. We also had Tucker with us this weekend while Amber was in Ragnar, so he got to help us and enjoy it also. Now the kids are bugging to hook up the Wii, but I don't know if it will look good on that big of a screne, it might be kind of odd playing tennis with almost full sized characters on the screen????

Saturday was rainey and yucky, so we hung around and I cooked for Emily's homecoming on Sunday. We did run to the Farmers Market where I bought some fresh peas.....yum....I made 7 layer salad with a ton of peas and it was THE BEST. I also bought some rhubarb and made 2 rhubarb cakes for the family and unfortunately we each only got a small slice as we shared the cakes with Grandma and Grandpa Elder, DeLoy and his family, our neighbors who stopped by and the rest of the family at the Homecoming party. It was great!!!! The party and the food. So back to the spontanity part. On Saturday evening I was antsy and wanted to go and do something, so Scott suggested we go for a ride and maybe get milkshakes or something like that, so in a last minute decision we ran to Brigham City to hit Maddox for rolls and strawberry pie, well I had thought they closed at 10 PM, but we got there at 9:35 only to be told they closed at 9:30. Now the kids are upset because they wanted french fries from Maddox and they were getting restless. Well Scott remembered we used to visit a place in Brigham City called Peach City. It has been years since we visited that place and who knew what time it closed. So we ran over there as fast as we could and guess what, It was still open. Yeah...... We proceeded to order french fries and Milkshakes and we instantly remembered why we used to love this place, THEY HAVE FRESH MADE FRENCH FRIES!!!! As far as I am concerned there is not much better in this life than homemade french fries. The kids were also exstatic and gobbled them up along with a few milkshakes. So then we drove home, vowing to visit Peach City again in the future for their great fries. We didn't get home until after 11:00, but I am a firm believer that the kids can stay up past their bedtimes every once in a while, like when mom wants "treats", the 4th and 24th of July for fireworks and other such times.

So I know you all like my suggestions (Sorry for the UP suggestion Jenn....) so give this one a try sometime, maybe when your kids are a bit older so they can understand, let them all get jammies on for bed and then have them get in the car and go out for ice cream, frozen yogurt or homemade fries, I love the looks on their faces and it makes them not take me to seriously. I am in "mommy mode" so much that sometimes things like this make the kids realize I am just a big kid.

Mason Is 3......Yeah.....

2009-06-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

Well it was Mason's birthday on Monday and he is officially 3, boy is he a handful. I love him soooo much, he deffinately keeps us on our toes. Seriously, he is the busiest child I have and the most head strong. We are truely blessed to have him in our lives. Here are some things you may or may not know about Mason. When he was born he was put on a helicopter and flown 100 miles away from me to be in the NICU in Spokane. So I stayed in my hospital room, recovering from a c-section all alone while Scott was with Mason. Mason is very very friendly. He loves everyone, if you will give him candy, JK......He would live outside if I would let him. I have found him asleep outside before. He loves our dogs and cats, and at times he loves them to much. He is great grandpa Elder's best friend and he can pop his thumb just like grandpa does. He loves his brothers and sister and won't leave the house without kissing and saying goodbye. He is named after my Uncle David Pehl in Colville, who affectionately calls him M. David because all teh general authorities in the church do it that way.....I think it's just because he doesn't have any grandkids named after him, so he likes to say David. He likes to talk on the phone, even though he doesnt' know what to say. That's about it. Here is a paltheria of pictures ranging in dates and I picked some to show his sweet personality. Enjoy.

Relay for Life

2009-06-17T06:50:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone. I am just putting out a friendly reminder that the relay for life is coming up soon. On July 10 and 11. I noticed our team is full with the 15 members allowed for our entry price, BUT you can still feel free to join our team for $15 I believe if you want to be "official" I am not sure, but I think only those entered can actually walk, but I may be wrong, Josie correct me if I am wrong. I realize there are a lot of us who want to walk for our family team, so please, please sign up and donate the $15 to join our team. Josie has been working hard on this project and has also helped to raise money by selling luminaries. You all know how cancer has affected us and will affect us in the future, so let's come together on this.

For all of you who will be at Emily's homecoming party on Sunday we can chat there, but for the rest of you, so to this site Relay for Life and join our team. You can find us under Elder Family.

Hope to see you there.

UP......A Deffinate Go See

2009-06-13T20:32:00.000-07:00

So today I went begrudeingly to see Up with Scott, Rainee and one of her friends. This was her "special" day with mom and dad. So I wasn't in the mood for a kid cartoon, but I laughed so hard. First off the Short Film "Partly Cloudy" is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I would go to the show again just to see that. It answers all the major questions kids have like where do babies come from, why is there lighting and thunder and why does it rain. Seriously it is worth it. Who comes up with these ideas anyway????

Sorry, I digress......Up is the cutest thing I have seen. It was clever. The dialog isn't anything great, there aren't much lines in teh show, but it is a very special movie when they can get the point across with little to no words which is what Pixar does with their short films like Partly Cloudy and Boundin....they carried that same theme over into a full length film, and let me say i did not miss the dialog.

anyway if you are looking for a good family show, take your kids to the matinee of this film, you will not be disapointed. Even Mason liked it, especially teh bird Kevin and the dog Doug.

let me know what you think.

Update

2009-06-09T16:40:00.001-07:00

So I have finally got my "office" set up and took some pics, and now I am updating you on stuff in general. First off here is a new updated picture of myself. I have lightened my hair for summer. Nothing to drastic, I just like lighter hair for summer and darker for winter.

And here are some pics of the kids fishing. As you can tell Mason caught his first fish. He was teh only one that day to catch a fish and he was excited and I got a pic of his "happy" dance. He is such a ham. He is either extremely happy or extremely mad. He doesn't do anything half way, it is totally one way or another. He is deffinately the most head strong child I have, I hear that is typical of the last child.......just kidding.....that is more of a middle child trait, but he won't let me baby him anymore.

I also told you all we got a new puppy, Titan, so here is another picture of him. He doesnt' hold still often so sorry for teh blurry pic.

So right now for summer Bowen is in the basketball camp at USU and then all the big kids attend the Boys and Girls Club during the day. They enjoy it and every Friday they get to spend the day at the Logan Aquatic Center. Mason started a new day care at Little Wonders in Nibley and he loves it. He will turn 3 next week adn can't wait to be allowed to go down the "big" slide. He is quite the singer and will sing for as long as you let him. In fact, if they stop before he is ready he gets really upset. His favorite songs are I am a Child of God, Eency Wincy Spider, Bringing home a baby bumble bee, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes and something about Monkeys swinging.

Scott is working at Autocare driving wrecker, and he is extremely busy. He is now offically a Phlebotomist and he is waiting to start an internship at Logan Regional Hospital. He is starting his Paramedic school this summer at Weber State, but he has to start with his pre-requisits, so Math, English, Anat & Phys, and Medical Terminology here we come. I can help with the Math and English, they are courses I already completed, but I am no good with Anatomy and Physiology and Medical Terminology. If he can complete these this summer and fall he can start the paramedic training in the spring of 2010.

As for me, I have switched jobs again and I am now working at Lynn's Audio and Video, just part-time doing bookkeeping. The full time didn't work with both of us doing it. We are a 1 full time family. So when Scott started at Autocare I dropped to part time and it allows me to run the kids around and be there when I am needed. because of that I have been able to spend time with Uncle DeLoy and help him do errands adn just visit and I love it.

Sorry for the long post.

On a lighter note....

2009-06-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well we are officially moved out of our home on Cliffside. Have I mentioned how much I dislike moving? I think I have a time or to. Well I spent this last week cleaning the house, a few hours each day and then on Saturday Scott and the kids took the final load out of the garage and we declared it officially done. So now we are officially In our new home in millville, but deffinately not moved in or unpacked. So now I am dedicating a few hours each day to unpacking boxes. Today the kids and I unpacked and organized the pantry. Wow, that was a big job!!!! But I am happy now I can walk in my pantry and see what I have.

Also, we decided to get teh kids a new puppy because we have a HUGE yard adn we promised the kids we would replace Dante (our puppy we had to sell in Washington) as soon as we could, so we did this weekend, by getting a new Mastiff puppy named Titan. His daddy is huge and weighs 200 pounds. We are sooo excited. he is very well behaved for a puppy. We already love him.

Saying Goodbye

2009-06-01T15:22:00.001-07:00

I am sorry to be the one to announce, but it is time, as a family to say good bye to Uncle DeLoy. I will spare you the details, and you all can call your parents who can fill you in, but please know that in the soon future we will be called to a funeral.

I love Uncle DeLoy so much and while I am sad to see him leave this world I know that what waits him is much much better than we can imagine, and I know he will be waiting for all of us yet to come join him in the after life. If you are close and if you have time, please go and visit him at his home and say your good by's. A hospital bed has been brought in for him so he can be comfortable.

You can call Grandma Elder if you need, but she is having a hard time talking about it right now.

Let me know if you have questions or need anything.

Love you all.

Charity

Dallas Jr.

2009-05-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

Because I don't have enough phone numbers of all of you or enough minutes on my phone to call, I am posting.

Yesterday and today Dallas has been in and out of the emergency room with what was thought to be appendicitis. Well it turned out this evening to be that he has sustained some kind of damage to one of his kidneys in a basketball game and blood flow to that kidney has been interrupted and he is in danger of loosing one of his kidneys. So to remedy this he is scheduled for surgery tomorrow (saturday) afternoon at Logan Regional Hospital to repair teh damage and hopefully save his damaged kidney. It will take them that long to complete any tests they need and get the proper surgeons ready.

You all know the shape Uncle DeLoy is in, so this is just another added stress to him, not to mention La Shar's dance review is scheduled for that same Saturday. It is hard for DeLoy but what we are being asked for now is to participate in a family fast and prayer for Dallas. He is a wonderful boy who is very scared. I got to spend time with him today in the ER and I was very impressed what a great man he has become. He loves his dad and his family very much and he needs the prayers to help keep himself and his dad strong through this.

If you have questions call your parents or Grandma Elder and they can fill you in. We won't know more until Saturday evening after the surgery.

We are Moving!!!

2009-05-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

It is for real this time. We have found a home in Millville, 85 West 300 South, and we are exicted. I am mostly excited because there is a nice working kitchen in this home. The owners are very nice and they are moving out early so we can move in on May 15th, which is this upcoming weekend. I am not sure, but I think I may have mentioned before how much I hate moving. In fact if there actually was the kind of Hell that is protraied in the movies mine would be myself packing up the house just to turn around and have to pack it again. I hate it that much. So we are now busting butt to move this next Saturday because the Elder's Quarm found out about it and decided to all be here on Saturday at 9:00 so we will be ready by then no matter what. So to that end we are only partially packed and have run out of boxes. Luckily for some reason about a month ago Scott got this feeling we were going to move (this was before everything started falling apart) and he packed our storage room and basement. So we are left with the actual living areas and that is all. Because we are only moving a few miles away the kids clothes will be placed ever so gently in plastic bags and then deposited in their new rooms. I see no reason to "pack" clothes just to need them the next day. So unfortunately I see this move as kind of hectic and we will just move and dump stuff at the house and then we will spend the next few weeks unpacking and cleaning the house we left. I actually think this one time we will take the Relief Society up on their offer to help clean. Scott is usually adament about doing it ourselves because he said we made the mess so we clean it, but with both of us working it seems to fit that we get help this time.

When I get pictures of teh home I will post them. It turns out the owner of teh home is Brent Hirschi, who I went to high school with and graduated in the same year, GO 1996!!!!

Sunday Lunch

2009-05-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone who can hear me......or I guess read me......or....you know what I mean. Please, if you can, come to our Elder Family lunch on Sunday at 1:00 at Denise & Reese's house. Please, please come. We will visit and enjoy each other and have a nice lunch and then we will discuss the Relay for Life.

Meat will be provided, just bring a salad or desert.

Hope to see you all then.

Quick Update.

2009-04-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

AMERICAN IDOL:

Adam rocks, need I say more?

HOUSE:

Kitchen demolished Monday, no sick or counter tops while fixing plumbing problem. Our landlord has graciously (jk) let us out of our lease and now we have until the end of May to move. More details as they emerge.

JOB:

Busy, busy, busy. We are now in full swing and the hiring is massive and I am busier than ever. Needless to say since we are not in teh store until May 11 I still have no office and no official place to take care of my sensitive HR files, but I am making due.

FAMILY:

We are all doing well. Scott suffered a 2nd degree sprain of his ankle playing bball with the firefighters, but he miracously recovered overnight. Seriously, he was in the ER and could not walk, next morning all was well. Kids are all well. I am doing fine.

Sorry for the short post. I am still voting for Adam on American Idol though.

Welcome to Wal-Mart

2009-04-18T08:20:00.001-07:00

Well I started my new job on Tuesday. Wow, I had no idea there was so much going on at Wal-Mart. So I officially begin "training" on Monday, with only 3 days of official training myself, I am kind of sorry for my first few classes, they are innocent people who have no idea what they are getting into. Initially they told me to expect to have a trainer for myself for a few weeks, I would do some portions of the training and then work on the massive amount of paperwork Wal-Mart has. Seriously there is a lot of paperwork. Because they work with every single government work related program teh paperwork is almost daunting. So yesterday we had a meeting with our regional HR Director (i think that is her title) and she informed me that my co-trainer from the North Logan Store should "phase out" and that she expected me to start training by myself. WHAT???!!! It was all I could do to keep my composure while she was there. She left and then I had to take a break so that the store manager did not see me freak out. I hadn't been through a single training yet, I keep getting pulled out for this meeting or this conference call, so honestly I hadn't finished orientation, but I am expected to do 3 classes next week.

So today and tomorrow is spent trying to calm myself. It will all work out. Worst case sceniorio is that I read from the training manuel word for word and sound like Ben Stein. If that is the worst I can do I am sure I can manage, but it is just daunting.

The schedule we have to hire and train between now and June 11 (I think that is the date) is very aggressive and I will be very very busy.

Have a nice weekend.

Relay for Life

2009-04-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

So Josie mentioned putting together a team for this year's Relay for Life. I chatted with her and I totally agree. I hope you all know what the Relay for Life is, but just in case, it is a way to raise money for cancer research. It is a great foundation. In Colville my Uncle David and Tanner Pehl were the DJ's for the relay for that area.

As you know our Uncle DeLoy is fighting cancer right now and is in the end stages. We would like to do this in the name of him and all the others in our family who have fought the disease, Grandma Elder, Aunt Denise Poulsen, Tucker Ricker and DeLoy Elder. We would like to make T-shirts for our team and make it a special family event. We want to include everyone!!!

The date is JULY 9-10. We dont' have to walk all night, but that really is the fun of it. The entry fee is $100 per team, but if we get enough people together it won't be much at all, maybe $10-$15 per family.

I realize some of you don't live in Utah anymore, we are hoping and praying if you know of this far enough in advance you could make arrangements to attend. To be honest I am getting emotional just thinking about it.

So I want to hear from you all. We needs ideas for a team name and what our T-shirts should look like. I would also like to make sure Grandma and Grandpa Elder are there for at least some of it, kind of like an Elder Family Reunion????

Send myself or Josie ideas or suggestions. Love you all :)

What did you do today?

2009-04-05T19:05:00.003-07:00

This could be a loaded question. Well last night I got a call from my dad that my Great Great Uncle Richard Pratt had died and my Uncle David, Uncle Bob and Grandma Bunny would be in Utah for 1 day on Monday if we wanted to go to Provo to see them. Well I had actually met my Uncle Richard a few times in my life and I was excited to possible see my Uncle David and Grandma Bunny. WE haven't seen either of them since Tanner's Funeral. So since my dad said they were still in Washington until Monday I called my Uncle Dave's house in Washington to see if we could meet up and low and behold he was already in Utah!!!! Imagine my shock!!1 So i instantly got on the phone and found him at the airport picking up my Grandma Bunny and my Uncle Bob. Unfortunately at that time he was lost and frustrated and could not talk to me. So I found out they were staying at my Great Aunt & Uncle Beverly and Dave Pratt house in Provo, so I looked them up and asked if my family and my sisters could possible come to her house on Sunday to visit our Grandma and Uncle. She was soooo open and welcoming and said "come on down" So we left our house at 9:00 this morning and drove to Provo. It was great!!! We got to see Grandma Bunny and Uncle Dave and some of Aunt Beverly's grandchildren. Our Pratt family is huge and we don't know many of them. If you have a minute look at teh link for my Uncle Richard's Obituariry, he was awesome!!! Not to bore you with family history but my uncle Richard was the son of Benjamin Pratt and Lilly Shink. Benjamin Pratt was the son of Nephi Pratt and Sarah Callister, Nephi Pratt was the son of Parly Pratt and Belinda Marden Pratt. I spent some time looking this up and it was fun. Through Benjamin Pratt my family came to live in Western Washington, Benjamin died in Spokane.

It was a great and wonderful day. My Aunt Beverly said the angels were "taking down" this meeting becuse it was special that such distant relatives got together and we were making Uncle Richard happy by coming together like this.

We got to stay for about 3 hours and then time to take the long ride home. Below are some pictures you may like. I threw in the ones of my Uncle Dave's backside just to show his personality. His son is Tanner, my cousin who was murdered last year. Hope you like them.

What did you do today?

2009-04-05T19:05:00.001-07:00

Sewer Sucks.

2009-04-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

A while back my very witty cousin Mandy blogged about her plumbing problems. Well I had similar problems this weekend also BUT I will say it hasn't turned out as bad as her situation YET, there is still more to come.

This morning (Saturday) the kids came upstairs and asked "Should the carpet squish when I step on it?" and my first reaction was I can't believe you are asking this question, no, of course the carpet should not squish when you walk on it. Well Scott went and checked it out and it appeared we had a sewage backup in our basement. It was coming out of our toilet, bathtub, and the house drain in our utility room, and in teh backyard. So I called my landlord who was literally walking out her door for a trip to SLC and she does not give out her cell number, so I was luck I got ahold of her, and she authorized me to call the plumber. THe man was very nice and came right over and fixed the problem. We had a grease blockage between the house and the street. It was nothing we did, just years of build up and no up-keep. Well now we needed a clean up crew to decontaminate our basement because now it was covered in raw sewage. Luckily my plumber had my landlady's cell number and he called her in SLC and got authorization to call a diaster clean up crew. While all of this was going on we were standing outside talking and there is water dripping all over the house cause the snow was melting, and Scott put his hand up and felt hot water dripping OUTSIDE the house. Now this is really not good. We had the hot water running in my kitchen sink to help to clean out the drains because the plumber had poured some citrus stuff down them, and the hot water from my kitche sink is draining through the wall and under my siding and outside. OH MY GOSH!!! I am dying. So he says this is a HUGE problem and he can't fix it. It will require demolition. So then the cleaning guys came and tore up my carpet and trashed the pad and disinfected teh basement and sprayed everything with an anti-microbial to keep from mold and other stuff from growing from raw sewage, EWWWWWWW. He the said they were unable to access teh floor where the drain is in the laundry/craft room. It is in a small space and it has our furnace and 2 water heaters and a bunch of stuff, and he recommend "opening the wall" from the hallway to get in and clean it properly. He said it like it is no big deal, but really, I think it is a big deal. I do not wish to live with heavy construction going on in my house. I am starting a new job and this is a worry that I don't need. Oh and did I mention that Spring Break is underway, so now my children are home for 9 days? I can just see myself, No leave the nice scary looking construction alone, no he doesn't want to play, stay out of the sheetrock dust, no don't go downstairs......

I hope my house doesn't end up like Mandy's. As of right now we can still do our dishes and use all of our toilets and such, BUT if this turns bad I will loose the use of my kitchen and that would be unimaginable. So much so that I am just going to pretend all is well and go to my happy place.

I got a JOB

2009-04-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did. I am now the training manager at the brand new Wal Mart in Logan, by Macey's.

You are all asking how I got that job whem I am a bookkeeper, and believe me I am still also asking myself that same question. But none the less, that is me. teh pay is good and the benefits rock. I start next week pending my durg screen and background check come back clean.

Wish me luck. I am actually kind of nervous, I have to hire and train 300 new employees very soon and quickly.

LOVE IT!!!!!

2009-03-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

Want to see a good movie? Want a movie that makes you think? Don't want bad language? This movie is for you. First off, you will like it if you like the Ocean's movies. You have to actually pay attention to this movie or you will not get it. It twists adn turns and it awesome. I must admit that I love Clive Owen and Scott enjoys Julia Roberts, so what better match, somthing for both of us to enjoy. So if you need a good date night movie I suggest this one. There are a few "bedroom" scenes, but I didn't really notice them, no nudity, but still great great movie. See it, then let me know, and if you need someone to see it with call me, I will try not to spoil it for you though. Now that I have seen the end watching the movie over would have a totally different meaning.

Scott

2009-03-25T16:38:00.000-07:00

Well it is long past due since i have blogged about Scott. He graduated from his fire academy at BATC on 2/6/09 as the Class Officer (President) and with the best grades. He was chosen as BATC Student of the Month and had an add in the paper about how awesome he is. Since that time he has also turned 31. And before I get to far along, let me tell you all how much I love him. I couldn't be married to a better man. We may not be rich or even "well off" but we don't need anything to be happy but each other. Here are some pics of Scott's graduation.

The top one I took graduation night. Then there are 2 pictures of his entire class. Now you are probably thinking that being class officer with a class of 5 was easy, well not so. They started out as 10 i think and a different student was class officer. See the position of class officer is appointed by that group of men in the last photo. those are the various fire chief's and instructors from SLC, Ogden, Logan, North Logan and Smithfield Fire Departments. So after the first class officer was kicked out of the program Scott was appointed.

Now that class is out it was time for testing. The hiring process for Fire Fighters is long and ardous, and did I mention long? We have been testing at West Valley City and Ogden and it has been going on for almost 4 weeks now. I will briefly explain the process.

Round One: At both West Valley City and Ogden they administer a written exam. It is a difficult exam that covers everything they have learned as Fire Fighters and EMT's. The next hard part is that they only take a few of the applicants on to the next round. In West Valley City there were over 300 people who took the written test and they invited 80 to the next round, the physical test. In Ogden only 100 people took the written and they only took 25 on to the next round.

Round 2: If you have a high enough passing score on teh written test, which is pre-determined and they do not tell you what it is, then you get invited back for the physical portion. At West Valley City they administer the Fire Fighters CPAT test. This is an extremely physically demanding test. HEre is a link to a video of the test, this is almost exactly what he did at West Valley. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3thDKKLq5o I am very happy to say and Scott is very happy also that he scored the 2nd lowest time they have ever had. All of our time at the gym had paid off. Not only did he get the 2nd lowest score he wasn't even out of breath. Most men who take this test either vomit or pass out at the end, no I am not kidding. It is a very different kind of physical test and if you aren't ready for it then you won't pass it. Because of his time he was automatically given a time and date for the oral interview. Woo Hoo, this is the last step at West Vallye City. Then we headed to Ogden for their physical test the next day. Because of their lack of training facility theirs was to run a mile and a half, sit ups, push ups, sit and reach and bench pressing. He passed these tasks with no difficulty. There wasn't a time or anything, just a pass fail. So he passed and was given an interview time at Ogden also the same day as West Valley City. So now the interview at West Valley city was nerve wracking. He wore his best suit and wanted to make an impression, so he went to the Logan City Fire Chief and asked for some pointers. They helped a lot. He has an interview with some firefighters first and then an interview with the chief's next. Then he ran to Ogden for their interview. They were both intense but he felt confident that he did his best.

And the results are........

West Valley City ranked him 12 out of 300. THis is great. So now when there is an open position for the next 1 1/2 years they go to their list and call in the top group on the list and interview them all again for the position. 12 is great for a rookie and he is the highest ranked rookie at West Valley City. Even if he stopped testing, he would get a job at West Valley City with in the next year, but we are not waiting on that. As far as Ogden goes, they said they would send out ranking notices by April 1st. So every day we anxiously look in the mail for his letter. We are confident if he was ranked high in West Valley he will probably be ranked close to teh same at Ogden.

So now we wait. Logan will test when it comes closer to summer, and we are hoping our "connections" there will help him have a chance there. His main instructor was the fire chief at Logan and he really likes Scott. He calls him all the time asking for help and we take that as a good sign, at least he won't forget him.

Right now Scott is suppose to be taking the phlebotomy class at BATC in April, this is a pre-requisit for paramedic. Scott's main goal is to become a paramedic. So he is planning on starting school at Weber State this fall. Fire Departments higher fire fighters enrolled in paramedic school, so it won't stop the testing at all.

So that is our update on Scott. He is in great physical shape, he has lost over 40 pounds and he can out run most any other fire fighter. He is ready to go and I know he will be great.

Boys......Smelly......Annoying.....Gross

2009-03-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

There has to be a greater purpose that would drive most girls to grow up and one day want to spend the rest of their lives with boys. I know it happened to me, but tonight I am up at 11 PM wondering why, just why do they have to be annoying, gross, stinky and all those other things boys are?

I had a good day today, but tonight I was very very tired after going out to the ranch to see the calves, so we put in Twilight (terrific) for me to watch. When it was over I was very tired adn the kids were asleep, so we went to bed. Well I TRIED to go to bed. Scott then proceeded to be loud and noisy in the bathroom. I was laying in bed then he crawled in and coughed and then cleared his nose AND throat while in bed (he is getting over a cold) and then he could tell I was getting irritated so he turned over towards me to be even louder THEN he decided he wanted to cuddle. So I am already irritated, I didn't want to be touched, I WAS tired and now I am annoyed and he wants to touch me, I am sure I can't say it loud enough, GO AWAY!!!! He would not leave me alone and the worst part was he was doing it ONLY to annoy me, no other reason. BOYS!!!! Just like Bowen teasin Rainee until she cries.

So now I am WIDE AWAKE at 11 PM tring to get tired again so I can go back to sleep. I am not going back into my bedroom until I am absolutely sure he is sleeping and can't annoy me wiht other "bodily sounds/smells" or won't touch me. We have a king size bed, so he has plenty of room to not touch me......

Don't get me wrong, I am not mad at him, just annoyed that tonight of all nights he is like a little boy teasing his sister.

BOYS!!!!!

Seriously Funny.....

2009-03-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

A friend sent this to me and I laughed out loud. So instead of a mass email that no one reads, I am posting it here. i hope you like it as much as I did. I can totally see Bowen doing something like this. Read the entire thing!!!

A father passing by his son's bedroom was astonished to see that his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope, propped up prominently on the pillow that was addressed to 'Dad' With his worst premonition he opened the envelope with trembling hands and read this letter:

Dear Dad
It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you. I have been finding real passion with Stacy and she is so nice, but I knew you would not approve of her because of all her piercings, tattoos, tight motorcycle clothes and the fact that she is much older than I am. This is not only passion.....Dad....she's pregnant.

Stacy says that we will be very happy. She owns a trailer in the woods and has a stack of firewood for the entire winter. We share a dream of having many more children. Stacy has opened my eyes to teh fact that marijuana doesn't really hurt anyone. We'll be growing it for ourselves and trading it with the other people that live nearby for other necessities like ecstacy. In the meantime we will pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Stacy can get better, she deserves it!

Don't worry Dad, i'm 15 and I know how to take care of myself. Someday i'm sure that we will be back to visit so that you can get to know your grandchildren.

Love Your Son John.

PS Dad, none of the above is true. I'm over at Tommy's house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than the report card that's in my center desk drawer.

I love you, call me when it's safe to come home.

Kidman Family Update

2009-03-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

Update: Mason is a ton better, he is back to terrorizing everything he can. he is still refusing solid food, but he is drinking a lot and that is good. The down side is now I am coming down with it. Oh well.

So I started to blog yesterday about Scott, because Monday was his 32nd birthday BUT Mason had been getting sick since Sunday and yesterday he was really really bad. So I am putting off Scott's blog for a day or so to update you on Mason and then when he is well I can put the much needed and desereved attention on Scott.

Mason started with a fever on Sunday night and then proceeded to vomit every 20 minutes for 8 hours, and then it backed off to every hour all day Monday and into MOnday night. He was still vomiting on Tuesday, but only when he drank, and it didn't matter if it was a sip or a drink he threw it up. During this whole time his fever stayed at 102, and that was while on Ibuprophen and Tylenol every 3-4 hours. When the meds wore off it went higher. During this time also he refused to walk and had explosive diarreah. So on Tuesday I was starting to get worried because the 24 hour flu shouldn't last that long and I dont' really recall the fever with it. So at Scott's insitence I made a doctor appointment and gues what we had? Wait for it......wait for it......Ta Da......Influenza. Poor little Mason was sooo sick. So we got sent to the ER for IV fluids. We were there for 3 hours. He was so sad and didn't even care when they put the IV in. Seriously, they brought in 3 people to hold him down cause I am a baby, and he didn't even squirm. He laid there perfectly, and then they gave him Fox in Sox and he just hugged him and went to sleep while I read a book and watched teh fluids slowly, oh so slowly drip into his little arm. Then we got to go home.

I couldn't really tell if it was helping last night or not, but his eyes were no longer blodshot, so I took that as a positive. He slept through the night okay, but had a few blow-out diapers in his sleep, then I was all excited that he was feeling well enough to torment his siblings this morning, I was sure he was doing better UNTIL we ran the kids to school and he vomited AGAIN all over his car seat and the car. They left his IV in last night so that if we needed we could just hook him up and give him more, and I was thinking he was doing better, but his body is just rejecting any kind of food or drink in his stomach. So off we go to a follow up with the doctor and possible another round of IV treatment.

The influenza sucks

My Current Favorite Things

2009-03-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't promote a lot of items on here, just every once in a while. So this favorite thing needs a little background info. Since I lost my job I now attend the gym with Scott 5-6 days a week. Because of this Scott just scored the 2nd best time in doing the CPAT test at West Valley City on Friday morning. I will post more about this on Sunday, I digress.....anyway, since I have nothing better to do I to attend teh gym with my hubby. We are now members of the Sports Academy and we love it. Mason gets to play with kids while we exercise. I must admit I have become a gym junkie and I like it, that is as long as I have something to distract me, which is music or the TV. Luckily for me the cardio room is full of 9 TV and you plug your ear phones in and pick which channel to watch. If I am properly distracted I usually do at least 60 minutes of cardio a day, this may be more if I am really into something or it may be less if Aunt Julie talkes me into a class. Last week it was Pilates adn I couldn't move for a few days, but I will go with her again this week.

So now I come to the dilema of my headphones. I can't wear ear buds, they actually hurt my ears. Wierd cause so many people swear by them but they are painful. So then I got these ones that clip on my ears, and they are fine but if I bounce around they don't stay put and then I miss half of what I am listening to and I am no longer distracted. SO yesterday I went and just got my first pair of SkullKandy. THEY ROCK.....I know it is old school to wear headphones BUT not only do they sound awesome but they stay on my head and that is key. They are also very fashion forward, they are marketed to the snowboarding crowd. So I feel very up to date in that end of things. SO while I may be sweating and gross, my ear phones are awesome.

So they can be very expensive but I got the Low Riders, which are the cheaper version for $39.99 BUT they were on sale at Al's for 40% off since snow season is over, so I paid a good price for them, the same price of a full price pair at Wal Mart. So I don't feel guilty. I choose the sea foam green version so that I could find them if they got lost, but they better not.

Cheering up an Uncle.....Let's send cards, make phone calls, and just remind him how much we love him!!!

2009-03-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

UPDATE:Uncle DeLoy was in the hospital today to get an IV for dehydration and some pain control. While he was there it was discovere that his weight is down to 180 pounds. It appears as though all the food he is eating is just going right on through and out and he is not getting nutrution. Tonight he is "clensing" so that tomorrow he will see the GI again to check him out. They did another scan and will have the results tomorrow morning. Please pray for him. While I am sure he still has a lot of time left, he is very down and sad, as I am sure we all can imagine. I love Uncle DeLoy very much and I know he needs all of our support. Thanks for your prayers.

So you all know we have an uncle in common who is very, very sick. The last few months have been very hard on him physically, and so now is down emotionally also. Luckily he felt well enough to attend Dallas state basketball game, but that was teh last Hoorah for him it seems. Now he is unable to leave the house due to some "poop" problems. Now you may think this is to much informatino, but believe me I am being very vague, if you want all the "messy" details give him a call and he will tell you.

So here is my purpose, if you can, please, please send him a get well card, or a thinking of you card. They really cheer him up. Or a phone call works also. He called Amber on her birthday and they chatted for over half an hour. He is feeling left out because he can't attend functions and sometimes he doesn't even have the energy to chat on the phone. I have had the opportunity to assist him lately and do some errands for him and take him a few meals and spend time visiting with him and it has been great. I love him, I always have, even when he was doing his own thing. I am blessed that he calls me for help and I will always be there for him when his family can't help him. I know a lot of you don't live close enough to take dinner or run his errands, but a card or a phone call would be great.

If you don't have his address I can email it to you and his phone number also. Please keep all cards positive, and he really likes hearing about families and the everyday "boring" stuff since he no longer gets to participat in those activities. I am hoping I can get him to the temple again, but it seems to be getting harder physically for him to make it that long to do a session. Keep DeLoy and his family in your prayers.

Let's hear it for Scottie......He's on FIRE!!!

2009-03-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

So for any of you who would admit to watching the Austin Powers movies you will recall a moment when they are making fun of Scott, Dr. Evil's son, and they say "Scottie's on Fire...." with a killer accent. So now this is the new saying in our house. I threatened to make a sign for his graduation that said it, but I was threatened with unmentionable things not to, so I didn't.

Scott graduted from BATC's Fire Academy. He managed to be Class Officer, which is the same as Class President, except instead of be elected to this position, he was appointed by the Joint Fire Chief's of Logan, North Logan, and Smithfield. They also named him Student of the month. For those of you who live in the Cache Valley area you will have an opportunity to see him on the front cover of the BATC catalog. He is also in there further to the back. He is embarrassed because all his buddies saw it and have been calling today to give him grief.

I am sooo proud of him. He is ver well liked by his class mates and they still meet to work out together. Now since I am jobless I get to go to the gym with him. Firefighters have very very strick physical standards, so now it to the gym 5 days a week so he can pass the tests. He loves working out, but he is not a runner. His biggest test is running 1 1/2 miles under 11:30. He is soooo close, and I know what you are all thinking, he has such long legs, yeah he does but he does not like to run. He likes lifting weights and such, so running is the one thing he has to be forced to do. OH well, he is doing great. By the end of this class he lost almost 40 pounds. I think he is on the fast track to being in a firefighter calendar, lol.

I love him so much and I am sooo proud of him. Not only that he graduated, but that he did so as class officer and with high grades. He did not have to re-take any book test or physical test, he passed them all the first time. He is now going out to teh North Logan and Smithfield Fire Departments trying to decide where he wants to volunteer, but it looks like Smithfield will win. He has tested so far for Unified Fire in SLC and for West Valley City. He hasn't made any of those because he doesn't have "preference" preference is given to those who live in teh are and Vets. So next week he tests in Ogden, so maybe there? IT is really hard and competative because 300-600 people test for 5 positiions, so it is hard. He has to get 100% on teh written tests and blow out the physical tests. He is on his way. Logan will test this spring sometime and we are just hoping and praying he has a chance there.

He is taking the phlebotomy course the end of this month and then he will try for a job at a hospital or doctor's office while volunteering at Smithfield, so that will add some preference points when he tests. Keep your fingers crossed and this will all work out the way we need it to. The Lord has a path for us and a plan, we are just waiting to see what it is.

Thanks for you support!!!!!

P.S. isn't he hot in his pic??? I love men in uniform, LOL

The mis-understood Artichoke

2009-03-04T16:52:00.000-08:00

So both Scott and I have enjoyed artichokes for some time. We normally buy the hearts canned and use them in a variety of dishes. Up until this time our kids kind of shied away from them. Who can blame them, they look funny and have an interesting flavor. Well we were shopping at Macey's today and they had fresh artichokes on special. So we grabbed 4 of them. I did not know first off how our kids would react to them, so I did cook a normal meal of home made chicken potpie. That was a hit, it always is a good stand by. So here is how I prepared our artichokes. I cut off about 1/4 of the top. Then I went around to the leaves and snipped off the very tips. I cut the stem off as close to the vegetable as I could so it would stand up in the pot. One very important part of this is that artichokes discolor very very quickly, so I had to rub each one of them with lemon as soon as I cut them. I am not even joking about this part, they turn brown almost immediatley. So now take a larg soup pot and fill it with about 4-5 inches of water. To this water add a good handful of salt and about 4 lemons cut in half and 2 bay leaves. Now put your trimmed artichokes in so they are standing up. If they float you have to much water. Now cover and simmer for 45 - 60 minutes. Take them out and let them drain upside down, so that no water stays in the leaves. Now comes the good part, and here is why I think introducing artichokes this way work better than in a can. THEY ARE FUN TO EAT!!!!!

The kids looked at Scott and I tearing off the leaves and scraping them against our teeth and they all put the potpie aside and wanted to tear apart an artichoke. So what you so is just start removing leaves from the outside in and dip it in either some melted butter OR a mixture of some very good mayonaise mixed with some balsamic vinegar. OH MY GOSH!!!!! It rocked. The artichokes were good, the balsamic dipping sauce rocked and THE KIDS LOVED THEM!!! COlton ate a whole entire artichoke himself. All the kids, including Mason just chowed them down.

Now if you are thinking of eating artichokes let me tell you, when you get to the "heart" and you will see some "hair" you need to take a spoon and scrape this out. This is not edible and will make you sick. It just comes right out and leaves nothing behind. After removing the "choke" you can now eat the heart, and that is the best part. They are a lot of work if you just want the heart, but if you enjoy the entire process of eating down to the heart it is fun. I learned sometime ago that if new food is fun my kids will eat it. Like the chicken hearts they all at at Tucano's the other night, but that is a different story.

Let me know what you all think.

Sunday Again

2009-03-01T16:51:00.000-08:00

So this week was nice I guess. I worked with Scott on finishing up some school stuff. I went to the gym 5 days this week with Scott. I am concentrating on cardio right now, and then will add weights later. Right now I am doing 45-60 minutes of hard cardio each day while Scott does his stuff. I can't quite handle the pounding of the running yet, but I can do the eliptical and bikes. Scott has to run and do push-ups and sit-ups for his physical tests for the fire departments so that is what he is concentrating on right now. He is especially learning how to pace himself while running to get his 1 1/2 miles down to under 11 minutes. He can do it on a treadmill, but a track is a totlly different thing.

We still have not found a house. We found one we LOVE in the mouth of Green Canyon. It is just perfect. 6 bedrooms and 2 offices and the master suite is to die for. The owners wanted to sell it, but it has been on the market for a year with no offers. The husband is ready to lease it, but the wife is still holding out. We met with both of them and are now waiting for the decision.

Scott tested for the fire department at West Valley City on Saturday morning, along with 300 applicants. We had a small stress to begin with becasue we forgot his birth certificate. They gave us 30 minutes to get it faxed down. So my mother ran up to our house and grabbed it and faxed it to us with 5 minutes left to go. THANKS MOM!!!!! Scott was very confident that he aced his test and now we are waiting to hear. They will inform us on Monday if he made it to the next part of the interview, the physical challenge. I know he can deffinately pass this part. The hardest part is just getting to that point. Then we went to Tamy's so that Scott could look at their yard and see what they want done to change it. We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed home. We wanted to stop to see Amber, BUT our babysitters (our mom's) needed us home. We also had to get home so that Rainee could go to her dance show that night. We made it home with just enough time for me to curl every little single piece of her hair and rat it up just to have it fall again, but she was super cute. She is a natural performer and a full audiance of people doesn't seem to phase her. Then while I was sitting wtih Aunt Julie and Misty she told me that Logan High School needs a new Cheerleader coach and that I should apply. I got a big laugh out of that.

I am still applying for jobs and going on interviews. Nothing promising yet.

The kids had parent-teacher conferences this week and they are all doing very well grade wise. Bowen needs to quit talking and work on "well timed humor" I would prefer no humor, but it appears I have a class clown on my hands, so his teacher is helping him to learn when it is appropriate or not. Colton is doing just great, his teacher had nothing bad to say about him except he is missing a library book. Rainee has great grades BUT she has not turned in any of her homework. It gets done every day at either After School Club or at home and it is in her backpack, BUT she does not turn it in. We are trying to push for this the last part of school.

That is us in a very large nutshell. I just wanted to say I am extremely blessed to be able to spend this much time with my husband. In our entire marrige we have not spent as much time together as this past year, and the amazing part is we don't get on each others' nerves. I look forward to either him or I (I am hoping him) gets a job and then this will end. No more going to the gym together and other simple things as going to bed and waking up together. I love him a lot and can't help but wonder if all this peaceful time together is preparing us for something in the future that would test this bond. I sincerely hope not. I love him and all my family, and believe it or not throughout this entire year we have both had an extreme sense of peace in our hearts. When we should be fighting or upset we are calm and let it go. Even when I lost my job, I was upset for about a day, then it didn't bother me anymore. I had other more important things to worry about, and that I see as a blessing, that I have not let these temporal things take over my life. We have a goal in sight and we are not straying from it.

I love you all.

Update

2009-02-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

So here it is in a nutshell, then maybe tomorrow (sunday) I will do a real post with details and such.

This week was Bowen's 11th birthday. I cannot even fathom I am old enough or been married long enough to have an 11 year old son. And worse yet his school just sent home the premission slip for the "maturation" course at school. SERIOUSLY!!!! It totally freaked me out. Oh well, I guess it's time for Scott and I to grow up also.

I went on 2 job inerviews this week, I think they both went well, but there are soooooo many people for so many jobs, they both told me the response was overwhelming BUT I was in the top 3 as far as qualifications go. Now it just basically comes down to whether they like me personally or not. Luckily for me I have some killer references from my previous employer, so that helps.

Scott has a test for West Valley Fire Department next Saturday, and then one for the Ogden Fire Department on March 11, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for those.

Finding an house in North Logan is proving very very difficult. We found a duplex but the owner has not let us go through it yet, he keeps putting us off, which leads us to believe that there are some things wrong with it. I have gotten so desperate that I started calling on homes that have been on the market for some time and asking for lease options. Luckily it paid off and today we are going to see a house in the area of 1500 East and 1200 North, the rent is in our range and it is within the distance to teh fire station so now what is left is to see the condition. It is only technically a 3 bedroom, but there are some "bonus" rooms that don't have closets so they cannot be labeled as "bedrooms", but we can make them work.

So that is all. I am now over my shock and sadness, I gave myself a week, now it is time to move on and grow up. We need to clean and pack to move and that is now my focus, along with applying for jobs.

Life Sucks.......and Then You Die

2009-02-13T18:45:00.000-08:00

So I realize that is a dismal way to view things, but today this is how I feel.

First off it is the anniversay of when Scott lost his job in Washington and life turned upside down. Scott has been hired by the North Logan Fire Department BUT we have to live in North Logan in order to work. SO.....we are desperately looking for a house in North Logan to rent because of such short notice, but there aren't ANY. I am not even exagerrating.

Just when you think life can't get worse, believe me it can. Today I lost my job. I don't know where it went, but I can't seem to find it, and according to my boss I won't find it ever again. So for 2 years in a row the "bread winner" of our family has been dealt a serious blow and lost a very important job. Just to answer some of your questions, no I did not do anything wrong, and yes I would admit to it if I did. I believe the words were "this isn't going to work" It wasn't because of lack of dedication to my job, I worked 300 hours in January, and they admited that had nothing to do with it. Apparentaly I just don't fit anymore. Sucks huh? Nothing I can do now. So I think I will just "hang" this weekend and then hit the job circuit again hard. Please don't feel sorry for me, I can't stand anymore. I have been fielding phone calls from my friends at work all afternoon with their sorrow. Just pray for us and our family, heavens knows that is all we have right now is Love and Faith, and yes someday, hopefully later than sooner, we will die.

Weekly Recap......

2009-01-17T20:13:00.000-08:00

So I know you all are just going "I wonder what Charity did this week?" So I thought I would do my best to put your wondering minds at rest and give a brief (I hope) update.

I worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...... Wednesday I worked a "short" day, 9 1/2 hours, and took the kids to the USU Women's Basketball game to watch Rainee dance with LaShars dance team during half time. I must admit I did this very begrugling because I was tired and the thought of taking 4 kids to the stadium didn't sound very good, but we went. Amazingly it went very well. Rainee danced very good, had big smiles and big arms so we could see her well, and Mason was extremely frigtened of Big Blue (the USU Mascot) that he sat very still in his seat the entire time so he wouldn't "get" him. It was kind of sad because there wasn't a huge attendance at the game Big Blue didn't have many kids to play with so he kept coming over to mess with the boys, but Mason would cry and say "No bear, no" which was also funny because Big Blue is a Bull, but it didn't matter to Mason. While the night went well it was long and we didn't get home until 8:30 which was basically bedtime.

Worked Thursday.....Friday....well thursday night I started to feel ill at 10:00 PM and then spent the entire night throwing up. To spare you the details it sucked. I hate throwing up and did it once an hour from 12 - 6 AM. Well needless to say I couldn't go into work, and this was a big deal because of our season. But I last was sick at 6 AM and I literally laid in bed for 12 hours and finally felt like getting up around 6 PM. And that is a big deal because I don't have a TV in my room. So I just laid there like a bump for 12 hours thinking about how much work I needed to do and seeing how many hymns I could remember and sing. It's amazing how many I actually know. So at about 9:00 PM I was wide awake and feeling normal, so it was then time to go to bed.

Saturday. Woke up and made it to work by 8:30. Work, work, work....both Bowen and colton had basketball games today. Bowen won his game again and he did great, and so did Colton. We are happy Bowen is on a winning team. For the last year he has been on teams that had "fun" but really didn't lean anything. He seems to have found a coach this time who teaches the boys while having fun and it shows. They are right now the "team to beat"

Right after that we went out to Bill and Julie's ranch. Let me just say we really enjoy spending time with them. We also appreciate it very much when we get invited to do activities with them. They are very nice and welcoming and we enjoy it a lot. Today we were invited to come over and go ice skating. Well the duck pond was frozen over. It was the perfect. The sun was shining and it was beautiful. the pond is kind of shaped like a peanut and not to big or not to small. So there was a nice group of people there. Some of Misty's friends, us and the Craws (vickie, lydia, mallorie)and of course Julie and Bill. Let me tell you Uncle Bill is great on his skates and he is the speed deamon to watch out for. Anyways Aunt Vickie put some skates on and I recall hearing her say "it's like riding a bike right, it will come back to you?" and I thought I couldn't wait to see this. So I snapped a picture of Aunt Vickie and Aunt Julie upright on skates just to prove Aunt Vickie really did skate, and I don't think she fell. Scott couldn't find a pair of skates big enough for him "darn his size 13 foot" but he shoveled the frost off almost the entire pond so the kids could skate faster, which they loved. Then I offered a trade of 2 containers of raspberry freezer jam for some fresh fish Bill had just caught, and boy it is nice. We love fish and that is our sunday dinner now. Fresh lake trout from Bear Lake and roasted potatoes. Yum Yum!!!! Well then I had to leave early to go back to work and put in a few more hours (4) and right when I left Josie and Cliff showed up to add to the party.

Thanks so much Bill and Julie for allowing us to enjoy your ranch!!!

Here are some pics of the fun today.

WARNING......WARNING.....

2009-01-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

This is my blog, so it is time to put it what it is meant for, and that is for me to unload and feel better. What I am about to say is political and I am upset about it. If you get upset please know that I warned you.

A year ago in February my cousin in Spokane was murdered (we still lived in the area) since that time it has been a roller coaster ride for the family with the prosecution and the ongoing legal process. In fall of last year the prosecutor started to decide what to charge Justin Crenshaw with and whether to seek the death penalty or not. Now being the Mormon and Republican that I am I am for the death penalty in cases such as this. It goes with the eye for an eye thing, and that taking another life is an unforgivable sin, and forgiveness can only BEGIN once your life has been taken. So this man, who had a prior record of stabbing someone, who did not die, and was in prison for 18 months, has now murdered 2 innocent people who barely knew him and they have decided to NOT seek the death penalty. Why do you ask? I don't know. The prosecutor has not released his reasoning yet. I know that my family wanted them to seek the death penalty and they did petition the prosecutor for it, but I believe the family of the girl did not. It just blows my mind they wouldn't. How could you not?

He went to that house upset and cut up 2 people with a sword, and then pinned Tanner to the floor with the sword (2 counts of murder) then set teh house on fire (arson) and many many other lesser charges, and they aren't going for the death penalty!!!!! I think Tanner deserves the prosecutor going for the highest punishment possible, but he is not.

Now this brings me to my next point. Yes you can ask for the death penalty, and it's a scary word, but in Washington State no one has been killed via the death penalty since 1994 and they only offer hanging and firing squad, but mostly hanging. So even if they did convict him and give him the sentence of death, chances are he wouldn't ever see that part of his sentencing come to pass. At least if he is condemed to death he doesn't mingle with the general prision people and will serve the rest of his life in somewhat of a solitary state. If he is sentenced to say life without parole, he lives a fairly normal prison life with friends and such (if you can call them that) knowing that is the hardest his life will get, a bed, food and a roof over his head with other human contact.

You can probably tell this has really bothered me, and I am rambling, but I am tired and overworked. I hit 40 hours today and it is only Wednesday.

Well that is what I think, and I am still upset about it (as is my family in Washington) but there is nothing we can do, just let the justice system run its' course and just pray for a trial one of these days (it keeps getting postponed).

Guess What Season It Is.......

2009-01-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

And no I don't mean tax season........

That's right folks, basketball season is here. Bowen & Colton are playing Jr. Jazz and they love it. They had their first games yesterday and Bowen won his game 24-6 and he scored 12 points. WAY TO GO BOWEN!!!! and then Colton had his first game and they won 20-16 with Colton making a bunch of points also. He also has the opportunity to show off his NBA moves with some fancy dribbling that shocked and amazed his opponenets. He also has a few steals, he loves stealing the ball. So overall it was a great game.

So since blogger is being dumb and won't do my pictures correctly, here they are in no particular order. Have a nice weekend.

On an interesting point, looking at Colton's picture, it amazes me how much energy these smaller kids put into trying to make the basket. colton puts so much into it, he came home and slept the afternoon away.

Update

2009-01-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

So here ends my first week at working 12 hour days. When they told me what January entailed when i started my job I said ok. I knew it would be a lot of work and long hard hours, but there was really no way to put into words how much work or hours until I actually did it. And now I find it hard to explain how much work it is. I will say that please don't take for granted when you get your W-2 in the mail or your 1099, and don't complain when it does not come until the very end of the month. The amount of work to produce those documents is unsurmountable. SERIOUSLY. I would liken it to what Michael is going through in his residency, BUT I have an end to mine. January 31 is my end, but until that time I will give it all I have and then some and I will make it through. Instead of going 1 day at a time, it is more like 1 hour at a time. If I try to look at the big picture in this case then I will go crazy. You are all probably thinking that I am over-exagerrating, but please believe me that it is much worse than what I can put into words, and I would see why the firm would take their employees on a cruise after tax season, or offer any number or "gifts" because these are very dedicated people who do this type of work.

So enough of that. I noticed something different the other day when I was looking at the Logan Temple. I did some research to make sure I was not loosing my mind and found out I was right. What was that you say? Well the temple spires used to be lit up at night with a beautiful green glow.

Well I noticed that it is now lit by a very bright and beautiful white lighting. Now I noticed this and my husband didn't, and neither did my other family, but I tend to pay attention to small things like this. So here is a beautiful picture of the Logan Temple now lit with beautiful white lighting.

Interesting huh?

Well wish me luck this next week, and I will let you know if I am still alive. Just for kicks, Rainee's bday is this next week and because of my schedule Scott is in charge of her birthday party with her friends. We have also postponed out anniversay on 1/24 to February, and Scott graduates from school on 2/2/09, I can be very thankful that it isn't in January or I do not know if I could make it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!!!!

It snowed

2008-12-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

So I know Christmas was yesterday, but I am soooooooo over Christmas, I have the Christmas Blah's. It couldn't be that starting next week I start a mandatory 6 days a week 12 hour days? So I will blog our Christmas latter this weekend. So what is the next best thing to Christmas?

SNOW, and lots of it. We got pounded on Thursday night. It was great. So this morning much to our surprise we had a palathera of city vehicles show up to plow us out. Of all the machines the front-end loader was the best and he chose our front lawn to be the dumping ground for ALL the snow in the cul-d-sac. So after an hour of plowing and dumping we ended up with a sledding hill that was well over 8 feet high. My husband LOVES this kind of stuff. He created stairs in the mountain and some sledding trails fully equipped with jumps and off they went. Here are a few pics. Blogger is being dumb and won't let me move around my pics. So I love the boys on the top of the mountain it looks like they are actually on top of Mt. Logan. The action shot ROCKS, they really got some air and we finally got a camera that can catch those action shots. That was our Christmas gift to us, a new camera so we can get shots of the kids sports.

Have a nice Christmas.

Update

2008-12-20T08:05:00.000-08:00

So you probably thought I gave up blogging huh? well it is the Christmas season which means programs and parties. Also we are gearing up for our busy season at work and unfortunately I have been working overtime. I do it begrudglingly because I only have to work 2 1/2 days this upcoming week. BUT starting the next week I work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day.

So to summarize, Colton got baptized the morning of our first HUGE snow storm, BUT everyone still came. It was short and nice. Grandma Elder gave her talk about her baptism and it was real nice. She was touched and cried most of the way and didn't even read what she wrote because she was crying. It was beautiful and we enjoyed it. Then that same day we went to the matinee performance of Voicemale. WE LOVE VOICEMALE. Their music is family friendly and very beautiful. we laughed and the kids loved it.

Oh Yeah, i just about forgot. Scott passed both his Firefighter I and Firefighter II exams. So now he is a Firefighter II with and EMT-B also. This means.......(drum roll)he can now start looking for work. WOOOOO HOOOOO. He is taking the test for Mesquite, NV in January and for the SLC FIre Authority. Also he will be testing for Ogden and Logan sometime in the next month. We are very very excited. he still has school through January but that is just for some more certificates.

So we had some parties this week, Dance Recitel and now school is out. We are finishing our shopping this weekend and now we are good to go.

Merry Christmas.

Baptism for Real

2008-12-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

So Colton is going to be baptised on Saturday the 13th at 10:00 AM at the Mt. Logan Stake Center (church on Center Street). It will be short and sweet. There are only 4 kids being baptized so it will be quick. We will also have an early lunch right after at my mom's house.

I invite everyone out in computer land to please come to support Colton. He thinks no one will come. If you can't make it, I totally understand.

Hope to see you there.

Christmas Stuff

2008-12-02T19:02:00.001-08:00

So here is my confession. I love Christmas. I love everything about it BUT the mess. The set up, the clean up, all of it. I love the music, the treats, how people are nice, I love teh meaning of it. I love cold weather, snow storms, all of it. I love my family and being together. I don't like to clean at all, and I admit I do only when and what I have to. My house is not messy, but it does get cluttered. Right now with working full time my house gets completely cleaned on Saturdays and then kind of coasts through the week. I see Christmas as more mess. We did however set up our tree and it is my most favorite tree yet. I will post pictures tomorrow.

One thing I am very excited about is that we have never seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do a live concert. I entered the raffle for tickets for the concert this year and they arrived today YEAH!!!! I think they are in the balcony but I dont' care I am soooo excited to go to it.

So these are my Christmas feelings. Hope you all have a nice Christmas.

What I am thankful for.

2008-11-28T14:12:00.001-08:00

So I waited a day or so to do this post because I was tired and I wanted to have time to sit and write what I wanted.

I am thankful for tests and trials in life. I can honestly say that since Valentines Day this year we entered into the toughest trial we have endured in our life. Loss of job, death, moving, sick kids, financial woe's (that is expected with no jobs) and on and on. Out of this came the opportunity to move back to Utah closer to both of our families. Now I realize that they have been praying for our return since se moved, BUT we were happy where we were at. So now we moved home, with no jobs and very little money. After some time looking for jobs Scott started school and I started working full time. Now things are going well.

I am very thankful for my children. They have an understanding of what we are going through financially and because of this knowledge they have been very, very nice to each other and very rarely ask for items. We no longer eat out, and they have only recieved a few items when they go to the dollar store, which they are satisfied with. We were going over Christmas lists and Colton said "mom, I don't want anything for Christmas, please take the money you would spend on my presents and pay some bills" I am not even kidding. This my 2nd son because he is very preceptive about things and it bothers him that we don't seem to have as much money as before and it also bothers him that we are "renting" again, he wants to be somewhere that we won't have to move again.

I am Thankful for my husband. Through all this stuff we've been through he still loves me. He works so hard for us. Even though he is not doing full time 9-5 he is extremely busy between keeping up on kid stuff, studying to stay at the top of his class and helping grandpa. He has been soooo understanding with my new job and very supportive. I love him a lot. There aren't words to express my thankfulness for him.

Because this is getting long, I am now going to group the last group to how much I love our extended family. This group includes my Mom and Reese, Scott's parents, Larry and Kathy, and of course Grandma and Grandpa Elder. Without the support of them we would not be doing as well are we are. They have helped us in more ways than I can count. Especially Kathy and Larry and Mom and Reese who help us a lot with running the kids around after school.

So that is my short list. I am thankful for all that we have now and for all that we are going through. It will end and we are stronger for it.

If you read this entire thing, well I am surprised, but Thank You for being in my life and my friend.

On To Christmas

2008-11-27T17:38:00.000-08:00

So now that Thanksgiving is over, in my mind it is officially Christmas.

Thanksgiving was very nice, adn now I am lounging on my couch watching Hancock and eating pie.

I started cooking on Wednesday night with Pies and salads. I made 2 pumpkin, Lemon Meringue, Apple and Pecan. All handmade!!!! Not to brag, but I was sooo excited they turned out. It appeard the lemon was the best, there was none left. I tried a new pumpkin recipe this year and I think i like it best. It used sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated and I think it is tons better.

Then Thanksgiving morning came and i was cooking by 7 AM making the homemade rolls and side dishes like stuffing 2 ways, a traditional one with pine nuts and turkey drippings, and then a "kid friendly" version which is basically dried bread, onions and celery and a few cans of creamed corn (as the moisture) the kids loved it.

We had Prime Rib and regular turkey and smoked turkey for the meats, followed by a lot of side dishes. I even forgot my all time favorite of sweet & sour cabbage. Oh well.

It was so nice of everyone to come. DeLoy and Jenn, Cody & Dallas, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, Jordan and Jenn and their kids. After eating we cleared off, kind of, and then sat around holding puppies and visiting It was very nice and we had an enjoyable time. The kids played games and basketball.

Of course we had leftovers and can't wait to make "leftover casserole" tomorrow. and No I am not going shopping. I have pretty much everything I need, so we are enjoying famiily time tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

My Birthday.

2008-11-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

So I realize you all have birthdays but I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I can't say it enough. Ever since I was a little girl, my favorite holiday is my birthday. I has always been a big deal in my family. I start "reminding" my husband in October. He never misses it because I don't give him a chance to, but I am sure that he wouldn't forget it even if I didn't say anything to him.

So I got my gift from Grandma Elder, so let's face it, we all know what grandma and grandpa Elder send us, so I got my gift with strict instructions that went like this "grandpa said I should buy you something instead of giving you the money because he thinks you'll spend it on bills. This money is not to be spent on bills but for something for you" Of course like an obedient grandchild I took my gift and what did I do with it.......? Okay, okay I admit that I paid a bill with it. I had to admit to my grandmother that I lied and I paid Mason's babysitter instead. She said she understood and she would not tell my grandpa and just tell him I had a good time with it.

So yes, I lied, I feel bad, but I admitted it. To be honest I really wanted to buy myself a pair of shoes with it, but I just could not do it. So I had honorable intentions that got vetoe'd by my practical side.

Tomorrow though I am going with Scott to Salt Lake City for a day out together. We are eatting lunch at either Tacano's or Rodizio grill and then watching Twilight and then we are stopping at the Toys R Us sale to grab a few last Christmas presents for the kids.

Have a nice weekend.

Men vs Women.........The Laundry Olympics

2008-11-16T19:55:00.000-08:00

So it has been a long weekend and I am glad it is over. Scott has not been feeling the best and I have noticed it since Friday, but he swore over and over there was nothing wrong with him, I was being over-sensitive. Well today at about 5:00 he said "I think I need to go to the insta-care clinic" I was shocked because he said there was nothing wrong. Well luckily it wasn't to busy and we got in and out quickly to find out he had a bladder infection that spread to his kidneys. MEN......they wait so long feeling bad until it is excruciating and then somthing inside his head says "I think something is wrong" Duh.....what clued you into that, the buring sensation when you urinate?????? So anyway now he had a reason for being so mean the last few days and I was right, I repeat myself, I WAS RIGHT. I was not over-sensitive, you were miserable and rude. Okay that is off my chest and Yes, Scott does know I am ranting on my blog. One of the reasons he went to the doctor was because we have fought so bad the last 3 days and that is not normal for us at all, especialy fighting over the stupid small things.

now that brings us to today. Scott decided he couldn't go to church because he felt so "crappy" but he still did not tell me what was bothering him, just abdominal pain and the worst headache he ever had. So I took the kids to church, the we had dinner, and then we went to my mothers house to see the puppies and how they have grown. Wow they are big and cute!! While we are there Scott says maybe I need to go to the Insta-Care Clinic. So my mom says to leave the kids with her and run down there. After the obligatory test they determine he has a bladder infection that has spread to his kidneys. They need to start anti-biotics right now and need to do both pills and a shot. Well Scott has a big issue with needles so no shots, no matter what. Well the doctor just said we will try the pills and hopefully that will work, they also gave him Lortab for the pain in his abdomen and his headaches that are being caused by the infection, which is also in his tooth. So he comes home and takes his first Lortab and lo and behold he starts to feel better. So much better in fact he decided that we need to put away the clean laundry and sort the dirty laundry. So the entire family went down to help. Now comes the question how do you sort laundry?

Here are my piles:

Whites
Jeans
Colors
Towels
Blankets

That is all my piles. We don't always have all those piles, but those are my basics.

Scott starts to sort laundry and right off we run into a problem. He starts making the following piles:

Pants - Denim
Pants - Non-denim
Light colors
Dark colors
Whites
Towels
Blankets

I think that is way to many piles. So we had a friendly family discussion about sorting laundry. We never had this discussion before because Scott worked and I always did teh laundry. Now that he is home he took it on himself.

I asked him to blog about this, but he said I am more elloquent and would explain it better.

So seriously, we want to know the laundry sorting of others.

Baptism date, for real this time.

2008-11-09T18:00:00.001-08:00

So because Scott's school is be unpredictable we decided to just have Colton's baptism in December because he has all his Saturday's open in December. So our official date is December 13th. The baptism will be at Grandma and Grandpa's Elders old church on Center Street at 10:00 AM.

I swear we will not change the date again, this is set in stone. We will have a brief lunch afterwards (because we have tickets to the Voice Male concert at 1:30) but we are excited anyway. I hope to see you all there.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

Ok, so it is Thanksgiving again and I am officially announcing that I am cooking dinner for everyone of the Elder Family who would like to attend. Right now it is my family, my mother, Rese and her kids, grandma and grandpa, DeLoy, Jenn, Kody and Dallas, Jer and Kristi(maybe) we still have room for more and everyone is invited. we are eating at 1:00. The only thing I ask is you let me know if you are coming so I can make sure there is enough food.

Hope to see you there.