Yo fam!

What's crackalackin'?! Been a while since I've posted... my bad... but in my defense I have been quite busy. See a nice company called Natures Sunshine called and requested me for a long term position for which I was delighted, and any time I am not there I am either playing softball (leagues start this tuesday.. YESSSSSS!) or helping shaun at random jobs to make more money. But I did however, find about five minutes to throw together this video of my mission pictures and even added a somewhat fitting song and cool transitions to boot! Hope you enjoy it. On other notes, Ben I know exactly how you feel... that summer was hands down one of the best thus far in life... Becca... Well all I need say is that your post has just helped solidify my choice to not have kids... See my sunday was quite the opposite of yours... I slept till noon (first time in ages... and I loved every minute of it) I then woke up had a snack watched a not so appropriate "sunday dvd" and then went outside and fell asleep in the B E A UTIFUL weather on the back lawn. Yes my sunday was quite relaxing.. almost as much as sundays in the mtc where you didn't have to sit in class for 16 hours but rather got to take a 2 hour nap in between lunch and devotionals. :D And don't you even try to tell me that non of you ( Adam, Becca and Ben) never took a nap on sundays while you were in the mtc.. or any other day of the week for that matter. Cause I know what its like... sitting in a devotional.. some random guy speaking.... been up for 14 hours.... all of which in a class room getting language or teaching skills drilled into your head... and poof out go the lights..

Oh wow sorry kinda went off on a tangent there.. Any ways I love you all. Life is getting better by the day. Oh and becca we are officially allowed to loathe shaun and his wife who until recently had never heard of a country in central america starting with a *cough B... and after a mention of it by me just booked a trip there this fall...

Oh there I go again.. I must be tired... Enjoy the movie.. I'm going to bed

Country Boys and Girls!

I talked my dear wife and daughter into branding cows and here were some of the highlights. Mariah dressed like a cowgirl for the day and decided she would do it again. After vaccinating, branding and doing the synovex (an implant in the ear) we were extremely sore the next day. Evie loved the horses and the baby calves, but cried as they bawled when we branded them! Mariah fell asleep to the sound of bawling cows, which she said next time she would wear earplugs and that she will eat BEEF only if I buy it. The family we did it with are the greatest and so much fun to be around. We all had a good time helping them out. It makes me miss working on a farm. I wish that I would have had a camera when Mariah went and helped Vance ( the guy we were helping) catch a calf to give it some shots. She took multiple hard kicks from the calf and amazed us all when she only had a slight bruise. It was a fun day working cows and spending time with the fam.

Comments Count too!!!

I think comments count as posting:)

Toothless

This was a busy weekend for us. Lesli took a late-planned trip to Las Vegas and Enterprise Utah for her sister Jodi's birthday. I stayed home with Addison and Ellie. We drove out to Sacramento to go canoeing with Sam Swenson and his family.

The big news is that Ellie lost her first tooth! Here she is and the tooth by a Utah quarter for comparison.

Slingshot.

Confession: Sundays are not my favorite day of the week.
Because I feel like I get shot out of a slingshot first thing in the morning and it just doesn't stop, that's why.

Should I be feeling guilty about this?

Here is how our day went today. It's fairly typical.

At 6:30, Dave got up and ready to go to his meetings. He left by 7:00. I got up then and started seeing to the needs of children who were loudly clamoring for Curious George DVDS. My determination, at this point, is fairly strong. They ended up pouting over bowls of generic Cheerios and milk. While they pouted and started flinging cereal at each other, I got myself dressed and then brought out their Sunday clothes.

Emily had to have the skirt that she couldn't wear last week because I couldn't find a safety pin and my almost 6 year old daughter has a size 2T waist, which led to a major (96 minutes long) meltdown. This week, safety pins in hand, I shrunk the waist and laid it out with a yellow shirt and off white shoes. Skirt and shirt, fine. Shoes--no. Pink flip flops with green plastic star-shaped glasses that have no lenses in them. Perfect.

Caleb hates Sunday clothes and is dedicating his life to the wearing of one, black batman t-shirt. I convinced him to wear a shirt with an actual collar by promising three gumdrops.

Ainsley is dressed in her size 6 month dress. Awesome.

Now I remembered that I was going to throw stew in the crock pot so I tell the kids to grab "one quiet toy" and head to the car. While I'm madly chopping up potatoes and carrots, Emily grabbed a brush, a mirror, two small plush dolls, and a huge stuffed animal. Caleb chose a sword. Ainsley chose my cell phone.

Stew in the crockpot, I loaded all the kids into the car. Back into the house to grab church shoes. Back out to the car. Back into the house to grab my makeup, which I forgot to put on. Back out to the car. Back into the house to grab a gluten free cracker so I can take the sacrament. Back out to the car. Back into the house because I forgot the darn gum drops and Caleb is going to start World War III over them.

20 minute drive to church through Bible Belt Church Traffic, putting makeup on at stop lights, and we pull into the parking lot with 5 minutes to spare.

Into sacrament meeting--slipping my cracker to the young men president, who buries it under bread and renders the gluten free food covered in gluten. Oops. Following that spiritual feast, the talks began on the topic of reverence, and how to teach your kids reverence. It was very inspiring. I should've taken notes. If only I hadn't had Ainsley jumping on my lap, while I tried to mediate ball point pen wars between Emily and Caleb before they had a chance to get highlighter on every surface within reach.

Waved goodbye to Dave and handed out all the Relief Society announcements and binders to the auxiliaries before I went to substitute in nursery. The actual nursery leader served snack first thing and put all the toys away with one hour left to go in class, but she had no other activities or lesson planned.

Improvise.

End of church, scoop up binders, fulfill compassionate service calling by checking on all the pregnant sisters, trip over Caleb in the hall three times, wave goodbye to Dave and come home.

Kids start clamoring for Curious George and gumdrops.
My determination is weakening.
"Sunday dinner" lunch of bananas and applesauce.

Turn on the interactive "Friend" on the laptop and flop on the couch.
Welcome home, Dave.
Kids start fighting over computer. "Sunday appropriate" DVD instead.
Kids start whining about how they don't want a "Sunday appropriate" DVD.
Deal with whining by falling asleep while they're sitting on you.

Wake up and say goodbye to Dave.
Pancakes for dinner.
Attempt at family togetherness outside ends in wrestling match. Attempt at Sabbath activity of writing thank you notes to the missionaries.
Read the story of Ammon.
In bed by 6:30.
Welcome home, Dave.

All in all, it was actually a pretty good Sunday... which is probably pretty sad. But for the sake of reality (and posterity), that's us on Sundays.

Not my favorite day of the week.

A visit from Colorado!

We got to see Mariah and Evalyn for a little while this last week - it was an unexpected and fun surprise! You can see how much Evie has grown - her second birthday is early next month, which feels amazing to me. The weather was lovely so we had a great time our in our back yard, taking Kip, Harley, and the bubbles with us.
It was a fine, fun day. Evie loves the bubbles (just like all the grandkids do) and our pets as well, which happily they do not mind. During our visit to North Carolina a few weeks ago we learned of a family thing they do during dinner - they go round the table and each person gets to tell about the highlight of their day- it was fun to see. Mariah and Evie, I just want you to know that your visit was the highlight of my day that day!

CAL Day

Saturday was Cal day and that means campus is open for kids. I am not sure we learned a whole lot of science, but some young guy let us tryout his lack line, so all in all the day was a success.

Gretchen...

Today I got to interview the Fabulous Gretchen Kate!

Gretchen is in first grade these days, and she says that she likes it because her teacher, Mrs. O'Bryan, is really nice. Her favorite subject is math, and her least favorite subject is reading time because it's hard. They have to read chapter books.

I asked her if they take their lunches from home or if they get hot lunch--she said that school lunch is horrible, and if she takes from home then she makes her own lunch: animal crackers, carrots, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Carrots??? I want her to teach my kids to eat carrots!) Her best friend is named Lexi--she makes up really fun games and she's really nice. They like to play a game where one girl is the pet and one girl is the owner. Whoever is wearing a skirt gets to be the owner, since they can't crawl around in the dirt, and the one wearing jeans gets to be the pet. If they're both wearing jeans, they take turns or play something else.

When I asked Gretchen what her favorite thing was from their trip to Texas, she said that she loved visiting Fort Worth. She got to pet some horses, but they missed the cattle drive because they left right before it happened. (Bummer!)

I think we all know that Gretchen turns 8 this fall, and she says that she's really excited. She gets to wear a beautiful white dress, and then she gets to choose where they go to dinner afterwards. Gretchen says that she already knows where she's going to choose: Applebees.

Last, I asked Gretchen about some of her favorites. She said that her favorite color is red, because her blanket is red. (I love that blanket.) But she also likes pink and purple. When I asked her what her favorite food was, I almost fell off the couch at her answer: broccoli. Carrots AND broccoli???? WOW! I want Gretchen to come teach my kids to like vegetables. When I asked her what other foods she likes, she said pineapple, watermelon, and Reeses Pieces Ice Cream. (Yum, yum, and yum.) She doesn't have a favorite song or singer right now, but her favorite movie is "Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel." I haven't seen it yet, but on her recommendation, I'll have to check it out.

Thanks for talking to me, Gretchen. I love you tons and tons!!!!!!!

Aunt Becca

Hay this is grace I love you

ha this is Grace I love you all so much and wish I could see you all agin!:) hope you like this pic.HA HA HA!!! It was burning hot that day !!!!! :-)

Thank you aunt Becca.you rock!! your the best :) thanks for lisening to me.

Camping

I thought this was a good laugh. LaLa is a great music site that you may have to set up a login for, but it is worth it.

Camping - Jim Gaffigan

This bit about bacon is pretty funny too:

Bacon - Jim Gaffigan

well good day!!!!

i had a wonderful day i had my blessing this morning was very inspiring and full of things i never dreams.


I also found a link that i thought was pretty cool take a look at the video





well you are missing half the video so just click it and watch it on youtube it is flight patterns over 24 hours

West and weewaxation at wast!

We have never seen anything like it ever... North Carolina is so filled with blossoming trees and flowers this time of year that the air is yellow with pollen. Seriously... it lingers like our nasty brown air pollution does here on a smoggy winter day. It settles on everything- most notably cars- in a fine yellow dust that is not just kinda there- it's "let's write "WASH ME" on this" there. When we had our one little cloud burst the water running down the gutter afterward had a ribbon of bright yellow pollen twirling and swirling on top in a rivulet of it's own!
We had a wonderful time which actually began at the airport. As Jared pulled away from the curb to drive home in a heavy snowstorm we turned our faces toward the smiling American Airlines agent, checked in our suitcase (yes, only one - which is rather incredible considering dad had fit the wedgie in there too!) and headed east to warmth and sunshine.
We took a drive down to Charleston in South Carolina (the air was even more yellow there...), drove out to a beach, visited parks, and just hung out at home Becca and the kids. It was kinda weird when Dave was gone... I kept waiting for him to get home from work. He flew back in while we were in Charleston and we were happy to see him Wednesday night when we got back home. His kids were exstatic (spelling!) to see daddy again. Ainsley's little "Da-dee, da-dee, da-dee!" will be a long time memory for me.
I have decided that I like warm, green places. North Carolina, Northern California, - why spend winters in Arizona when you have lovely spots like that? Or I could follow Jared's advice and move to the Philippines... now that's traveling! Dad and I took a walk today and then sat on the porch together. He said "What's next?" - we are looking forward to Addison's baptism this July down in Eastland, followed immediately by a camping trip up in the Rocky Mountains with Ben and Mariah, Adam and Lesli, and their kids. Woo Hoo! More fun times!
Thanks for the posts, and thanks to Becca for the maintenance- I love our family blog!

Happiness Is...

Happiness is a nap on the lawn in the sunshine.

Happiness is new plants for your garden.

Happiness is a Southern downpour that lasts five minutes but leaves you totally wet.

Happiness is a "peace nest" to watch general conference in.

Happiness is Easter candy and an Easter egg hunt.

Happiness is getting your directions confused and going round and round and round in Charleston.

Happiness is watching the otters at the South Carolina Aquarium when it's feeding time and they jump up and down.

Happiness is perfect weather for a whole 10 days.

Happiness is dogwood trees in bloom.

Happiness is trying new food.

Happiness is Caleb and Dad doing an "ooga chaka" chest slap dance.

Happiness is Ainsley.

Happiness is having Grampa Don and Gramma "Sally" come to visit.

We love you. :)

Dave, Becca, Emily, Caleb, Ainsley, and Kitteh.

Grace...

Today Grace and I talked on the phone for awhile. This is what she told me about her life right now...

This week we went to Dallas and Fort Worth. We drove something like 7 hours the first day and 6 hours the next day. We were going to stop over in Wichita, Kansas, but decided to stop in Oklahoma City instead. It was more humid in Texas, so even when it was 70 degrees it felt a lot hotter--like 80 or 90 degrees sometimes.

My favorite things in Dallas were hanging out with our cousins and I also liked going to the Galleria Mall. I got a bottle cap necklace that says "Peace Out" on it, it's green, pink, brown, and blue. My Mom said I should get it because that's my Dad's favorite phrase. A couple times I babysat with my cousins Cutter and Caden--I got all the food and started the movie, and they just had to get the kids in bed.

I'm in 3rd Grade this year, and I don't really like it. I think it's the hardest grade because you go from 2nd grade, which is easy and you get to color a lot, to no coloring at all and doing really hard things, like writing in cursive all the time and learning to multiply and divide all in the same week. I think that easiest numbers to multiply are by 9, because I know this really cool trick to help. We took an aptitude test and I didn't miss any of the questions, so I'm in the H.A.L. (High Achievement Learners) group. We have to go there once a week.

My favorite subjects are social studies and science. In social studies we get to do a business day where we get to do do a group of 1-3 people and think of something to sell. Then we have two days where we sell to the 2nd, 4th, and 5th graders and even parents. I think we're going to be a group of me, Katelyn, and Ben and sell popcorn, pop, and bracelets. Katelyn is my nicest friend--her parents are Irish but she was born near Mongolia. She's just really nice. My other friends are too moody.

In science we learned about the layers of the earth. One day, we got to make layers of sand and rock, and then hide fossils of clay in them and the other group had to look for them. The next day we made layers out of food--puddings and cookies and stuff--and then we got to eat them. But they were really gross, especially mixed all together. I just ate mine one layer at a time. It made me sick to see all the other kids mix their layers together.

Grace--it was so fun to talk to you today. Thanks for telling me about your life and everything you're doing and learning. I love that you're good at so many things, and I'm not at all surprised that you're a good babysitter. I'll send you those rocks for science--call me anytime!! :)

egg drop

This week at school Ellie's class was doing the ol egg drop experiment. Drop your egg from the roof of the building and if it isn't cracked you win. It sounded easy enough--I myself had never done one, but I figured if I can swaddle a baby I can surely keep an egg from breaking. Turns out I was wrong. dropping an egg 4 stories and having it land intact is no easy task. We had lost about 7 eggs when Adam got home. He went right to the Internet and starting compiling supplies. While he was busy building his contraption--which wasn't working because our eggs were too large--Ellie stuck her egg into a roll of paper towels. Adam saw it and knew we had a winner. sure enough four stories later the egg came out unscathed and Ellie was proclaimed a genius.

Everyone was pretty pumped--everyone except her older brother who had to take a big piece of humble pie--his egg wrapped in lafe's diaper had failed miserably. Luckily, the next day, a few engineering majors stopped by and gave him the balloon parachute idea--it did work but the victory wasn't quite as sweet.

sorry I didn't get a picture of the winning design, but hopefully you will get the idea.

In a room, by a river, in the South...

So I'm sitting in a dark hotel room on the west side of the Ashley River in Charleston.

If that description means nothing to you then, don't worry, it didn't mean much to me until today either.

Last night, I stayed up with Mom and Dad going 'round the mulberry bush of trying to decide if we should drive up to Washington DC today. Eventually we gave up and decided to NOT make a decision, and eat fudge instead.

That's usually a safe course of action.

This morning we finally let go of Washington and decided to come down to South Carolina, with it's official slogan of "It's not Washington DC, but it's a heckofalotcloser."

We got to Charleston at about 3:45. We then spent the next hour looping around and around trying to find our hotel. This included many sharp left turns into parking lots, Mom yelling "GOGOGO! NOW!" as I floored my gas pedal and tried to cross four lanes of traffic going 60+ mile per hour, and the lady at the front desk of the hotel trying to explain to me how to get here and talking to me like I was a four year old with crossed eyes. Good times.

And, of course, the SpringHill Suites is every bit as blissful as it should be. $12.99 to watch an in-room movie, $2.99 to watch Curious George on PBS Kids, and a microwave that is at the perfect height for an 18 month old to try and stick her head in it and turn it on. This is why Mom and Dad are now "out on the town" in Charleston, and I stayed here to get my kids in bed. I thought my head was going to explode, between Ainsley's wails of misery and Emily and Caleb's "He touched me!" "She breathed on me!" "His breath STINKS!!" game. But they are all asleep now.

Glory be.

Now if Mom and Dad can manage to find their way back and if Emily will just NOT pee the bed, I think we'll consider the trip a success.

Love you. :)
Becca

Easter in Berkeley

Yesterday we went to an egg hunt at a nearby park. I was amused by their effort to not use the word Easter:

Spring Egg Hunt Extravaganza II
at Willard Park, Berkeley, CA

This family event will feature egg hunts for 1-7 year olds and a treasure hunt for 8-10 year olds. There will also be a petting zoo, a visit with the Spring Bunny, arts & crafts, and a kid's carnival with prizes, Participants will receive a basket to collect all their spring goodies in.

I actually believe in religiously neutral events that don't exclude non-Christians, but this one was pretty thinly veiled.

At any rate, it was a great time.

Happy Easter....

Happy Easter, fam.

Love you.

Becca