This is so cute........

Being a person who enjoys making my point with a video this was awesome. I don't know who made it or where it came from but they did a great job. I just hope I can get it to work on the blog. You have got to watch it!

And what kind am I? I'm going tonight on the 30th!!!

Just click on the link below to watch it.

Visiting Teaching Guide


My ward Visiting Teaching Coordinator sent this out to all of us, just a reminder:-)

My girls.....

This got out of order. But this is Nathan working off his skittles and root beer (see post below). Taking out the trash in the snow, how fun!:-)

So I went and spent the afternoon with my girls. Little Miss Isolde had a doctors appointment today. She is healthy and happy and weighs 18 pounds. Eighteen pounds of pure sweetness!


I was with them for a while then it started to snow. I thought maybe it would slow down so I played with them a while longer. It never slowed down so I just had to leave.

When I left Erins house it was daylight. I had to drive 15 to 30 miles an hour all the way home. It was also rush hour and Nathan called and ask for root beer and skittles. So it took about an hour and 40 minutes to finally get home (including a 20 minute run in the grocery store).



I tried to take a picture of the snow. As the sun went down and it got darker the snow just glittered. I looked like I was driving through white glitter. Beside the fact that my car slid right through a red light by Erins house it was a beautiful drive home. I had learned form the first winter here that you cannot stop a sliding car. As I got to the red light my brakes locked, and I had to make a quick right hand turn. I got control back of my car, but I cut somebody off as I turned in front of them. They were not happy with me, but they would have been more mad if I had smashed into them.

Our Prophet......

You know I hope to find a way to keep this blog. It is the closest thing that I have to a journal. So I just wanted to acknowledge Pres. Hinkleys passing. Nathan got a text message last night from a friend at around 8:00. We weren't sure if the kid was correct so we tried to get on line to find out. Within 10 to 15 minutes I heard from my dad and Gina in Texas. I am amazed at how quickly the word spread, he had only passed a little after 7:00 and most people knew by 8:30. I loved Pres. Hinkley. He made me proud how he stepped out into the media and talked very openly about the church. He was happy, witty, and intelligent. I found it easy to respect and love him. Then his sweet little wife died and he was so sad and lonely. I was truly sad for him, and I just wanted him to pass quickly so he wouldn't be so lonely for his wife. But as the years went on, I realised that he was just going through a learning experience, that he was having a trial in his life. Having to live on and keep going and dealing with the deep loss he felt without his wife. So I am sad that he is gone, but I'm very happy for him to be with her again.

Charley.......

So I mentioned that Stevens best friend Charley moved in with us a few weeks ago from AZ, I thought I would put a picture of him on my blog. He is an easy kid to have around. He did laugh and tell me it was creepy for me to just walk up and start taking pictures of him. I told him he would get used to it around here, and it was for my blog:-)


I also got out of the house and went and saw a romantic comedy "27 Dresses". It was cute, I really enjoy romantic comedies, because you don't have to think.

Help I'm so blog impaired!

Ok so I decide I should add the blogs of family and friends to my sight. Well I am so pathetic that I just end up with names and no links. Or names and links but not the right way. Mike gets home tonight maybe he can help me. I wish I could figure out how to make mine cute like other peoples!

a single mom........

So 95% of the time I'm fine when Mike has to leave town, but last Wed. night I felt the stress of of a single mom. I was in my pajamas snuggled in my bed reading and being content. Then Steven called, he got a few friends to go out to eat at one of our favorite places, because one of the friends was having a really bad day. So he calls me and tells me he has locked his keys in the car, which I understand because, when I drove that car I did it often myself. Only problem is we don't have a spare key, they have all been lost. So he calls and ask me to bring a hanger, and be ready to jump a car. The only girl that went with them had left the lights on and the car was dead. It probably took me 20 to 25 minutes to get my clothes on, go potty, find a wire hanger, find jumper cables and drive to them.


When I get there the kids are out in the 11 degree weather locked out of the restaurant and freezing. Steven was just in a short sleeve shirt. The rest of the kids were only wearing sweatshirts, no actual coats. I started to get onto Steven for not having a coat on and one of the boys stepped forward, he was wearing Stevens jacket. Steven felt bad for him because he wasn't wearing anything and was freezing. As soon as I drove up they got in the car to warm up.

The dead car was a PT Cruiser, well it's me and 4 boys and 1 girl, there was not a positive and a negative on the battery. So myself a some of the boys worked for an hour in the freezing cold to try and jump that car. We were getting overly frustrated and freezing to death. By now it's pushing midnight, we had done everything possible, so I told the kids we had to leave. (Steven was trying to break into his car most of that time.)

I drove the first kid home and he lived to far away, then the girl got out with him.
She had called the people whom she borrowed the car from and they were going to meet her back at the restaurant to fix the car. (Why couldn't she have called them at 10:20 when Steven called me!!!!)I got a little lost coming back from his house so we had a great drive through Pleasant Grove. By the time we got back to Lehi they have already jumped that car with their "big and powerful truck." So they went home. In the mean time I called Mike and we decided we couldn't leave the car in the parking lot with the key in the ignition and all our other keys on the same ring. We came back home and searched everywhere we could think and didn't find a spare key. We call a locksmith, we met him at the car he got it open quickly and it only cost $60. Steven and I thought it would be waaaaaay more! Steven had to pay and didn't have the right change, so he gave the guy a $10 tip. He thought the guy deserved it for getting out of bed at 1:00 AM.

We came home and went to bed, and my heart went out to all single moms!


This is Nathan over the weekend with his sticky fingers from Wingers. Not the Lehi Wingers I was mad at them for leaving the kids out in the cold.
This is Nathan and Mike trying to look serious together. To bad I can't take another picture instantly because then we would catch Nathan smiling! After we ate we went and saw the new scary movie "Cloverfield". It was a very different movie, but in the end we all decided we liked it.

clearing the snow......

So how many teen boys does it take to shovel a driveway? Steven cleared most of it but the other boys had to pitch in. I couldn't help I just had to supervise and take pictures:-)
The jeep behind the boys was dragging people around on the empty road they were having fun, while our boys were working hard!

The boys did a great job, poor Steven had to do the lions share, he's a great kid, and I love him. Actually Nathan really worked hard out there too. Love "Nate" as is thinking of calling himself now a days.

Snow again!

So Nathan and I were alone last night enjoying the quiet and Nathan even remarked how it had been a long time since it had been just the 2 of us alone at home. Then there was a loud noise coming from the garage, it was Steven. Steven and his friends came home last night so they wouldn't have to get up so early in the morning to leave. When I got up this morning we were having some crazy snow (making wispy, swirly designs) Then the news said there were a lot of slide off wrecks. So I was glad he come home last night. The storm I posted about earlier ended up being a white out and caused 200 wrecks. I just thought this looked cool. The snow is so powdery it just swirls like sand.
I'm just glad it's all white across the street, because in the summer it's all brown and ugly. People have been going over to that street and the losts and playing all weekend. Here people tie sleighs up to the 4 wheelers and then drive all around snowy fields dragging kids around. It looks fun, I told Mike he needs a 4 wheeler now!

I thought the stairs looked funny from above it almost looks like a ramp!

Issy Fix!

We were pretty tired this weekend. Steven and Charlie got invited to a condo for the weekend so we were just chillin with Nathan. Mike and I wanted to see Issy this weekend but Mike was to pooped to drive up to the kids house. That first week of travel after such a long break is hard.
But tonight before Mike had to leave the kids came to visit (and eat dinner). So Mike and I got out little Issy fix! They are so cute together. Mike is a good grandpa!

I pulled out some of Nathans old cars because I was going to watch a little boy on Friday. they were still out and Issy found them. She is soooooo cute playing cars!

Crazy snow storm..........

Mike and I took off this morning to go visit my cousin, her brand new baby, and my aunt and uncle. But first Mike needed to get a hair cut. By the time his hair cut was over the sky went from sunshine to crazy snow. We got on I-15 to head up to their house but couldn't see anything ahead of us, so we got off and came home. I took some pictures on the way.




This is out our back porch. We could hardly see the neighbors houses.
This was after the storm when things were starting to calm down.
This is the front of our house, with Mikes van out front.

This is the road in front of our house. I started to worry for my life because we couldn't even see when a car was coming down the road! Is this Alaska?

Just a look down 73 toward our house.

This is Nathans nice big Junior High. There were actually kids out running around in the yard playing ball or something. They have some mean P.E. teachers there! (If you click on the picture and make it big you can see a bunch of little black blobs that were the kids)

lot's on my mind........

Well we have had alot on our minds lately. Mike has been home since the weekend before my surgery. He chomping at the bit to get out there and conquer the world. He is actually book up through April, so I guess we needed to really enjoy him being home this long. Friday night Mikes mom had to go to the emergency room, she is much better, but his dad has been so sad. So Mike was sad all weekend and is just very thoughtful of his parents right now.
We have an extra boy in our home now. Stevens best friend Charly has come up to Utah to live he is 19. So he will probably live with us for quite a few months or for about 6 months until Steven heads out on his mission. He might be having a little culture shock, he's a good kid and we made him sit in on family night, we try to discuss everybody schedules for the week. He doesn't have a job yet so he will be spending a whole lot of time with me. But hey I've known him since he was in Elementary school, he's like one of my own.
Mike and I tried to distract ourselves so we ran to a movie yesterday afternoon. We saw "The Bucket List" I thought it would be sad the entire movie. But it wasn't a bad movie and it wasn't sad until the end. That is when I found out that crying with that lump in your throat was off limits for me. Wow, it really hurt my throat!


But on Friday night we rented Br Beans Holiday. We watched Mr. Bean with our kids after school for quite a while when they were younger. We really liked him. So all these years later he made a new movie. If you like Mr Bean then you will love the movie. It was sooo fun. It just was fun to watch, and we still love him!

Also not living in Az anymore there is not a lot of opportunity to get good Mexican food (my favorite food). I have been craving tamales for about a year and a half. I thought about making them at Christmas, but I couldn't because it just would have been to hard on me after surgery. Well, I was at Walmart Saturday and there was a man there giving samples of tamales. I tasted one and it was good. So I bought some, it's a local company (well somewhere in Utah). They were really good, I got the pork. They are very, very mild. We had friends and neighbors that would give them to us at Christmas in AZ but they were so "HOT" that I just could hardly eat them. I steamed the tamale's that makes them taste the best, but you can microwave them too.
Nathan who does not eat a whole lot ate 3 last night and one for breakfast. Yum!

But our little Issy can always make us happy.

family.....

I have LDS.org as my home page when I get on the computer. So when I pulled down my favorites and tried to go to my Sis-in-law Sarah's blog I kept hopping onto the Brethren Testimony of Jesus Christ. Then I was so impressed with her that she took Elder Ballard so literally when he told people to blog about the church and such. I thought he had an excellent point. With the church being in the media more, and all of the wrong things said on TV about us, it is good to put the truth out there. Mike and I saw Bill Mair on Conan O'Brien and he was spouting really rude obnoxious things about Mormons and then Christians in general. So there is wisdom in Elder Ballard's words. He did speak them to the youth or young adults, my blog is just read by my parents and a few friends and family. But people who are really out there need to spread the word:-)



For Christmas Erin and Jon had a photographer come out and take pictures of us. We were freezing and it was snowing but I think the pictures turned out really good. His camera was defective and I know it added 50 pound to me and Mike!



My babies!

hmmmmmm....

Well they tried to make him look "Hot" but it doesn't work for me. I'm disappointed that he is playing Edward. But maybe his acting will win me over. I'll have to give him a chance. Now Bella she looks hot I think they chose well with her. I think they are starting the movie next month.

what a day!

Well we woke up to lot's of pretty snow. I absolutely over did it today!!! I made a humongous pot of chicken noodle soup because I had to take dinner to a big family. But first I had to shop and I was going in slow motion, so it took forever. Plus Erin had a close friend in so we watched Issy a while today so she could go have a little fun. Nathan went to Salt Lake to feed the homeless with the youth this evening so it was a very busy day. Mike made me get in hot bath tonight to help me feel better. But I had a little to much bubble bath in the tub so when I turned on the jets I started to disappear! Now mike on the other hand was so excited to wake up to all that snow. He got a blade for his lawn mower so now he can move some major snow!

He was so excited he spent a very large chunk of the day outside plowing snow. He actually drove around the block and did all of the neighbors on the right side of the rode. He had so much fun. But by tonight he was wiped out and had to take a hot bath too!

The snow is just so pretty!

Anniversary Dinner.......

So Mike took me to a really fun place for our anniversary. He took me to The Melting Pot, it's a fondue restaurant. You get 4 courses there, first was our choice of cheese fondue with bread, vegetables, and apples. There is a burner on the table which keeps your fondue boiling. Us snuggled in our little booth enjoying our cheese course. After the cheese course we had a yummy salad. Then on to the meat. We had a bunch of different meats chopped small, and sauces to dip them in.

And the final course was chocolate. We had a raspberry milk chocolate sauce and this plate of things to dip into the chocolate. The strawberries were the absolute best, we even sweet talked our waiter into bringing us extra.

We were there for almost 2 hours. We had fun just enjoying each others company and playing with our food!

25 YEARS!!!!

Wow, we have been married for 25 years today! How crazy is that, my head doesn't feel that old but my body tells me otherwise. It's been fun and it just gets better with time. If we make it to 50 years I hope we are that sweet little mellow couple with white hair and big smiles. Living in Arizona for so many years we have seen our share of older couples (all the snowbirds) and we know they can have alot of fun with each other. So here's to the next 25 years!
This was the gift Mike surprised me with for our 25th Anniversary. When we got married we told each other that it was so close to Christmas that we would not give each other gifts for our anniversary's (Mike always goes over board at Christmas). So it has always been stress free, we would just go out on a nice date. But wow, he got me this "Journey" pendant, it was so beautiful and a great surprise.
And on this special occasion is a special picture to us. Little Issy in her blessing dress, Erin was taking pictures and caught her with her little lower lip popping out. We loved it when she cried and her little lip popped out. It was so precious, this picture is a family favorite, so what better time to show it to all than on our anniversary!

back to normal.....

Wow, it's back to school time again and it's 12 degrees this morning, Yikes! Nathans school starts so early. It starts at 7:45 and they bus 100% of the kids in because the roads to get there are to crazy. So needless to say he leaves way early in the morning. If we were still in Mesa, he would be starting at 9:00, oh how nice would that be!!!

Ever night since my surgery I have to sleep in the recliner Mike bought me. He bought me the recliner when I was in so much pain hoping it would be comfortable for me. The problem was it has a pillow at the top that hit me right on the sore spot on my shoulder blade, so I never sat in it. Now that I'm fixed, I don't have any problem with pain when I sit in it. I get up in the middle of the night and sleep in it because, it helps me hold my neck correctly. My dream is to one day sleep the entire night in my bed!

Happy New Year!

We had just a thrilling New Years Eve, we weren't feeling well so we laid on the couch and watched 3 movies. It actually was kinda fun we haven't relaxed and just watched movies in a long time. One of the movies we watched was "Cars" that is just a cute little movie, very creative. Anyway at midnight Mike and Nathan went outside and joined all the other "hootin hoolerin" neighbors, some of our neighbors had some serious fireworks, so it was a colorful midnight. Last April I saw this Donny and Marie DVD at Costco. I remembered watching that show every Friday night growing up. I loved it, it started when I was 12, and I didn't miss many shows. Even if I had a sleep over all of my friends watched it too. I thought I would ask for it for my birthday. By the time June came around Costco was out of them. So for Christmas I ask for it and Mike got it for me. So one night all the guys went to a movie, and Erin let me watch my DVD. It was just 1 show from each season so it was 4 shows. But the funny thing was I really enjoyed it. It kinda took me back to the day:-)
I also got a Magic bullet, now I just need to watch the infomercial for it so I can remember how to make 60 second Alfredo sauce, and 30 second guacamole, that infomercial always cracked me up.

This is a diagram of my surgery. The white thing bulging into the yellow nerve root was the thing that was causing me all those months of pain. And that is what they took out.
Then they put a piece of somebody else's bone in my neck to keep it spaced properly.
And now I have this little plate in my throat. It is taking a little while to get used to the feeling of the lump in my throat. The second day it caused me to "projectile" vomit all day. It looked kinda funny like I was in a Saturday night live skit or something. Well now that it is almost 2 weeks behind me I think I can laugh about it:-)