A-Mazing Kids

My friend, Dan Miller, from work has been to our house a few times. The other day he had been cleaning out his room and found this puzzle toy. He didn't know if the kids were old enough for it or not, but he have me give it to them.

The toy was a plastic rectangular box that had a small BB inside. The inside of the plastic formed a 3-dimensional maze. You had to maneuver the BB through the maze into a particular spot that was actually a button. If you pressed the button then the center of the box would pop out and the winner would get to keep the Two Dollar bill stored inside.

The kids were mesmerized by it on the first day. While Aylee was out of the house, Johnathan got a hold of it. He was thinking it through very well and before I knew it, he was yelling with excitement. I couldn't believe he got the puzzle finished so quickly. I gave him the two dollar bill and replaced it with a $1.00 bill.

With a little help from Johnathan, Aylee soon had it. Before long they were solving the puzzle in just minutes at a time. They decided to put notes inside and pass it to each other to solve, read, and then store a new note for the other person.

The kids used that puzzle box so much that in just a couple of days, the locking mechanism broke and we had to throw it away.

Sometimes these kids amaze me!

Update on Glen

Glen had surgery on Wed. They had to put a plate and some screws in his ankle.
He isn't very happy because they said that this will take longer to heal up than his knee surgery did. Meaning longer in rehab. He was really upset about that.
The bleeding had seemed to be controlled until they got him up and had him hop to the bathroom when he needed to go, and then they had to put a couple of more bags of blood in him.
They don't seem to be too worried though. They think that it is happening because he isn't assimilating vitamin B12. It all sounds weird to me. I think they should be doing tests to see if his cancer is back or to see if he is bleeding internally.... Oh well! Who am I?

On Thursday morning we awoke to 4" of new snow!

Yes, There were 4" of new snow on our front steps Thurs. morning.
This picture is taken out the kitchen door, where the wind had been blowing so these steps don't have 4" on them.
As you can see by the tracks, Patches had been out exploring that morning.
You never know what the weather will be, but we are so happy to receive this moisture.
We received a lot of rain on Wed. also. It has been wonderful.
Love you all. mom

Glen

Sunday Glen fell down and he broke a bone and dislocated another bone in in his ankle. Anyway, he broke it so bad that he needs to have surgery on it. They will need to put a plate and screw in it. His blood pressure was 60/40 thats probably why he fell in the first place.
Connie said that he hadn't felt well for a few days and he has been throwing up "dark stuff"
So you know he is bleeding somewhere. He is on cumandine and they are trying to thicken his blood back up so that they can do the surgery. Carina asked them to check on the colon cancer that he has (Remember when they found that a couple of years ago they did surgery on it and said they thought they got it all) But I haven't heard anything about that or where the blood is coming from.
They gave him 3 units of blood though. Connie said that they did some blood tests at 8:00 this morning and were hoping to get the results back and maybe do surgery today if the test came back good. That was about 11:30 this morning and I haven't heard anything else today.
Sorry, I was going to e you yesterday and tell you all but I just hadn't felt well. I will let you know any updates. mom

May it Rest in Peace

I was heart broken to hear Dad mention that his "Rest Stop" has been removed. It has brought a good laugh to a lot of people.

Shortly after Dad made the "Rest Stop", I placed a geocache there. The original geocache page is: Geocaching.com - Rest Stop

The geocachers that have been through the valley have thoroughly enjoyed the Rest Stop.

I thought I would post their comments on this blog in memory of the Arbon Valley Rest Stop.

Cache Logs
April 14 by porkbeanie (393 found)
How funny is that! No we won't post our pictures but they are probably the best cache we found all day for a good laugh! My sister and I thought our Dad would done the same thing!


April 14 by ndsports (595 found)
Feel "much better" after finding this one!! Had to have our pics taken too :0). This something our Dads would have done too!! TFTCSL Ndsports and Steamengine


April 7 by Weather Guy (357 found)
Found this cache with DieselRam and TheGrdnrs. This isn't quite what I thought this cache might be from the name. Makes me wonder how this ended up here. TFTC TNLNSL


April 7 by thegrdnrs (1615 found)
Wow what a cache I loved it and my son thought it was awesome. SL TFTC.


April 7 by DieselRam (371 found)
Found this cache while out caching with Weather Guy and TheGrdnrs. This is definitely an oddity and something you probably would only want to use in a major emergency. Not to mention the sheer lack of privacy. TNLNSL Thanks for the cache.


March 25 by Me'ndakids (592 found)
Outstanding spot. perfect place for a cache.


March 18 by Jeeper Jimmy (665 found)
Dedicated Cache run of Arbon Valley on a blustery-though warm-day. Great to be out.
Like we used to say in the Navy: "Any Port in a Storm!!"
Gots to love this one.
Thanks
jj & Best Friend

March 5 by oldsage (406 found)
a little humor - - the paint is gone from the sigh but the cache is in good shape. SL thanks for the cache.


November 24, 2006 by honeymoon63 (122 found)
Grandkids got a hoot out of this one. Signed log


November 15, 2006 by outdoorsy16 (79 found)
Thanks for the cache! Your dad will have to repaint the sign it's just a wee bit faded :)


October 29, 2006 by treecharms (268 found)
thanks


October 28, 2006 by bballchick (271 found)
Thanks for the fun cache. Yes I would have to say that your dad seems like the town clown. LOL Thanks again


October 28, 2006 by gardenlady16 (267 found)
Yes I would say your dad is the town clown, but if someone would use his rest stop they would sure have the last laugh. Thanks for a wonder day.


October 15, 2006 by Idaho Cache Hound (1122 found)
We enjoyed this cache. We were planning on having our picnic at the Rest Stop, but decided against it. LOL SL


October 14, 2006 by kk7sw (784 found)
We saw this on our last trip geocaching through Arbon Valley. I took a picture to show my friends. Thanks for the cache.


July 15, 2006 by radlatblue (60 found)
7 of 11 Giggled and laughed at this location many times on our travels. Never expected it would become a geo-cache. Never rest here very long. TFTC


July 4, 2006 by old jeepers (998 found)
This was the most fun we had all day.We stopped but we didn't "rest". It was raining so this was a very quick stop.We dropped and retrieved 99-geojeepwrangler TB. Thanks for the fun.

It's Gone!!!!

Last night, someone stole the only Arbon Rest Stop! What is this world coming to? Where will we go???

A typical Sunday

Yesterday began as any other day except Jo was sick and I had volunteered to teach her sunday school lesson. Before studying I checked on the cows and saw one all by herself at the far end of the field. Not wanting to open the gate, I drove along the outside of the fence to where she was. I could see she was in labor so wanting to check a little closer I decided to climb through the electric fence. This I have done many times with no problem. I simply hold the ground wire and push it on to the hot wire and climb through. However, this time on my way through the two wires separated and I found that the electric fence was indeed working. After the second zap I let go of the wires. However I was only half through and you guessed it, straddling the fence, I got nailed again. So I fell on through landing on my shoulder. Must have pulled a muscle. I hurt all day. I went home and got the pullers and successfully birthed the calf.
Being in a hurry to study the lesson and seeing mother and baby looked fine I left them where they were till after chuurch. Later that afternoon I checked them and found the calf hadn't gotten up, I decided to move them to the corral. I tried coaxing the mom with the calf in the pickup but that didn't work. Then I decided to take the calf to the corral and drive her with the 4-wheeler. I got her up to the corral when she changed her mind. Trying to cut her off I wound up driving into a post tipping over and landing on my other shoulder. However, I was finally successful at getting her into the corral where I milked a little and fed the calf. It's a big calf but a little weak so hopefully today I'll see if all the aches and pains were in vain or not.
Being older and out of shape I sure don't bounce like I used to.
Dad

Before YOU get laid off...

A few months ago, the company where I work gave a notice to shareholders that there would be some restructuring (Layoffs) in the coming months. Trying to seize a recruiting opportunity, a smaller software company put up this billboard to try to attract our company's employees into leaving.

As fate would have it, the other company just had it's first ever layoff of 10%. I guess their marketers should have heeded their own advice!

Patsy & Ron

Hi everyone,
Just a reminder that if you haven't written something for Patsy & Ron's Anniversery on the the 21st we need to do so. I say we because I haven't yet. I haven't been able to think of anything yet.
But I know that all of you can... Remembering the quilts and lamps etc. that Patsy has done for you, it shouldn't be too hare.
It was suppose to be handed in by the 1st of April I believe. Good Luck.
Love ya, mom

Dad having fun with his new toy

I saw this picture today and I thought, this would be a fun joke that Dad could play on Purdy with the new backhoe!

Aylee & JoAnn

The following was a reply to my earlier post about tabletop confessions and Aylee not seeing or confessing some misdeeds in her Primary Class:

Oh, John, this was so sentimental to me. It really reminded me of one time of Jr. Sunday School, they had many years before you were born. But Sister Hale was the coordinator of Junior Sunday School and she called me and asked me if I couldn't do something about getting Jo Ann to stay sitting down during opening exercises. She said no matter how many times they ask her to sit down it seemed like she was always standing up.
So I talked to Jo about it. I asked her why she didn't sit down in Jr. S.S. She said she did. I mentioned to her that Sis Hale had told me that she always stood up. Jo said, "Mama every time they tell me to sit down I do. But they just keep saying it over and over. They just keep saying "JoAnn sit down and Mama every time they say that to me I do."
Like grand daughter, like grandma I guess. -- Grandma Call

Tabletop Confessions

After church yesterday, Amber got a phone call from one of Aylee's primary teachers. She had some concerns with the reverence and respect in the class as a whole. She said that Aylee is usually really good, but there are times that she chimes in with the rest of the crew...today was one of those days.

Amber and I decided to make it a discussion at the dinner table. I don't believe in singling people out in a group for correction (I prefer to do that in a one-on-one setting), but we thought this might be a good way to get an open dialog flowing. We also hoped that it would help the offender realize what they were doing so that she would decide to improve herself on her own.

We started by talking about their classes at church and how well their class is doing t listening. We asked broad questions about reverence and respect. We asked about who the most reverent people are and what makes them that way. We then asked them about irreverent examples in their class.

After this discussion I asked everyone at the table how their own comportment was for the day and how they thought they could improve. Aylee was still completely oblivious to any wrong-doing and chimed in that she was trying very hard to be respectful and would continue to do so. Johnathan, on the other hand, (who has been doing remarkably well in class this year) opened up and confessed to a bunch of things that he figured was irreverent that he has done in his past primary classes. He ended with a heart felt commitment of change.

It was a pretty funny exchange. Here we were trying to get Aylee to realize some faults and instead, Johnathan catches the wave and opens everything up to us. So, next time should we focus on Alayna's behavior and then maybe Aylee will confess?

Scripture Time with Amber

While I was attending a meeting last night, Amber went up to lay with each of the kids to talk to them before they fell asleep. When it came time to visit Johnathan, Amber sat next to him on the bed and started talking to him. She asked him if he had read his scriptures yet for the evening. John replied in the affirmative. Wondering how much reading he really did, she probed further, "How much did you read?" Johnathan replied that he had read half of a page. Now to check his comprehension, Amber continued her inquiry, "Well, what did you read about?" Johnathan replied that he read a part where an Angel was showing Nephi a lot of different things.

Amber recalled from memory that this must have been in the middle of first Nephi. Thinking of 1 Nephi 11:18, "And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh."

She decided to help Johnathan understand what he was reading. So, she asked him, "So, did the Angel show Nephi the Mother of Jesus?" Johnathan responded with a "No." Johnathan then opened his scriptures and reviewed the chapter for Amber. Then he excitedly replied, "No, wait, I guess he did." Amber said, "Well, lets read it together."

Johnathan pointed out the verse to Amber:

13 And it came to pass that I beheld that the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God.
• • •
16 And as there began to be wars and rumors of wars among all the nations which belonged to the mother of abominations, the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold, the wrath of God is upon the mother of harlots; and behold, thou seest all these things—
17 And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel. --1 Nephi 14:13-17

Amber must have been thinking about the wrong chapter! Needless to say, Johnathan had some questions thereafter about what mother the angel was talking about.

Maybe I should stay at home more to monitor Amber's scripture discussions with our children. :-)

Pets

We all know how much Aliece loves animals. If there is an animal or bug of any shape or size, she is all over it.

The other day, Aliece asked Amber, "Mom, when can we have an animal?" Knowing full well that we aren't going to have any pets in the immediate future, Amber stalled by returning the question, "Well, what kind of animal were you thinking of."

Aliece responded, "Oh, I don't know, maybe a cow?"

The Conference Indicator

Last night while we were cleaning up from Dinner, Amber and I told the kids that in just two weeks it would be conference. We all shared our excitement. Aylee was the last one to chime in with her enthusiasm, "That means we get to see if President Hinckley is still alive!" (We had just been talking about the ages of their grandparents and great grandparents - President Hinkley's age came up in that discussion also).

We explained to Aylee that he is still alive. We don't have to wait for Conference to find out those kinds of things - that it would be in the news and church magazines.

Rest Stop Update

We had some geocachers out in the valley this weekend. They took this picture of Dad's rest stop and added the following comment:

Dedicated Cache run of Arbon Valley on a blustery-though warm-day. Great to be out.
Like we used to say in the Navy: "Any Port in a Storm!!"
Gots to love this one.
Thanks
jj & Best Friend

Ready for Scriptures

For some time now, Amber and I changed our family scripture reading to be 7:00AM sharp. We have the kids sit in the living room in a reverent manner to practice our reverence at church. It has really helped us out a lot - though we are still not perfect.

Usually, if Aliece and Alayna are still asleep, we let them sleep while we have our scripture study -- this is mostly for sanity during the rest of the day.

Anyway, these past few weeks, if there are days when Amber and I are still getting ready upstairs, we come downstairs and the kids are sitting in their spots on the living room with their scriptures on their lap. It is pretty dang cool!

This morning, I hopped in the shower before it was time for the kids to get up. By the time I got out, it was time to read scriptures. I woke Amber up and headed outside the room. I was afraid, however, that everyone was still asleep and that we would be late getting started. Aylee and Johnathan's rooms were dark. I flicked on the lights only to find that they weren't in their rooms. I went down stairs and to my wonderful surprise, Aylee and Johnathan were sitting in the dark living room with their scriptures open on their laps to our current page of reading. I turned on the light and we started our scripture reading for the day.

It sure touched my heart to see how seriously they have taken to our family scripture reading time.

Geocaching Milestone

It was a gorgeous day outside - the perfect day for the Arbonboy Team to get their 100th Geocache!!! We spent the entire afternoon (1:00 - 7:00PM) yesterday with our neighbors, the Hirtzels out west of Utah Lake climbing hills with our pickups and grabbing some geocaches. Our 100th cache was called "Nutty Putty". After driving up a very rocky and steep terrain, we hiked a third of a mile up a hill to grab the cache. The cache was named after the Nutty Putty cave which was close by.


The Hirtzels were the ones that introduced us to Geocaching nearly two years ago. Although they had started geocaching only a couple of months before we did, they have found three times as many as we have. On this very trip they found their 300th geocache. We had a lot of fun driving on the dirt backroads of the desert and four-wheeling the rough places.

We got back home around 7:00 and our entire family was exhuasted!

Lucky Rabbit's Foot

Everyone knows Aliece's love for animals of all sorts, shapes, sizes, and states (states, you say...well, I'll explain later).

While we were out geocaching yesterday, we let the kids run around in the desert while we were signing the cache's log book. As we were returning to the truck, my head snapped quickly around from hearing Amber's piercing scream. She was looking at Aliece who was climbing into the truck. Amber had her hands waving frantically in the air. My heart leaped in my chest as I ran back around to their side of the truck to see what was going on. I arrived at the door where Aliece was climbing into the truck and found a beige furry thing sticking out the back of her shirt.

"There is a mouse in her shirt," was my first though, but it didn't really look like a mouse. Seeing her mother's distress Aliece reached back behind her and pulled out the treasure that had brought about her mom's fit. Aliece had found a rabbit's foot and stuck it down her shirt. The foot was still attached to its entire leg bone. The only part that had fur and skin on was the foot itself, the rest was dried leg bone and tendons.

Amber made her discard of her newfound token of good luck immediately and wiped her hands down quickly with the remaining supply of wet wipes we had brought with us.

Aliece was pretty shaken by the whole ordeal. With Amber's screaming fit, she thought she had done something terribly wrong. When we got in the truck and started driving again, she said in a nervous voice, "Mom, please don't tell Grandma!"

Beeping Heart

For the past few weeks Aliece has been into monitoring her heart rate - in a five-year-old fashion. Her terminology for a beating heart is a "beeping" heart.

Anyway, a few weeks ago we were doing something strenuous as a family. Exhausted, Aliece louded exclaimed, "Oh, man, my heart is beeping!!!"

Johnathan quickly responded, "That's a good thing, Aliece!"

What do Children Cost

With insurance nowadays, children can be a relatively cheap thing to acquire. However, I think we have all read those articles regarding the estimated cost of a child in the lifetime of a parent - I think the amount went possibly into the millions.

Well, we almost had an experience where one of our children at least added a few thousand dollars to that tab!

Aliece loves to be the one to get our mail during the day. She often gets it and puts it on the office door. One time I made the mistake of letting her keep a credit card advertisment letter that contained some sample credit cards. She loved them a little too much and now asks about every piece of mail to see if they have a credit card in them.

Well, the other morning I was getting out of the shower when Aliece came running by saying that she received an important letter. She was holding a rather large envelope that is typical of junk mail, and it was morning so I knew the mail hadn't just come, so I told her that was nice and shoed her away.

As she was leaving, I noticed that the envelope was a harder one and had FED-EX written on it. I started to rethink my counsel to her and I had her show me "her special letter". I guess a few days previous, FedEx had brought this important envelope that she had opened and played with. I examined the ruffled contents to find a check for over $3,600 from one of my internet customers!

Since the envelope was already opened by the preschooler and played with a couple days previous, I am a lucky man that it was still in one piece and in that envelope!! I was not expecting a check from the individual as they were going to pay with a credit card, so I would have never known that they sent it and that it was confiscated by my child.

As I finish writing this, I have to admit, I am still looking for some year-end tax statements that should have arrived in January...

Am I too Protective?

Ok, I admit, I am not the most wild-and-crazy person on the earth. In fact, I am much more conservative than most people. Besides my love for skiing and enjoyment of crazy theme park rides, my recreational activities are pretty low-key. While I am a conservative person, I do not like to raise wimps. We let our children run and play - even if it means they are going to fall down and get scraped or bumped. We let them ride bikes in the street as well as brand the cows in Arbon. We have always tried to encourage our children rather than shield them from pain and hurt.

The subject upon which I am basing my self evaluation is that of tree climbing. Now, I had trees while growing up in Arbon. We had nice sized Willows that we would climb every so often. We even had a few tree houses in them. I was never afraid to climb them, nor did I think it was too dangerous.

I remember however, as a young 6 year old, I was climbing Grandma and Grandpa Call's apple trees in their yard. I distinctly remember getting stuck, in the tree at an intimidating height of five feet above the ground. In my plea for help, one of my uncles came to my rescue and lifted me down. I still climbed the tree and got used to it, but still those trees weren't much higher than 10 feet or so - at least the highest that I ever went. My experience with trees has been minimal, but they have always been sturdy, well matured trees.

On Tuesday, Aylee and Johnathan decided to show me what they had been working on. Amber had told me that they had been climbing trees and I thought that was cool. They climbed a couple of trees for me and then we went for a walk and let the kids ride their bikes. Aylee and Johnathan rode ahead and beat us home. As we were walking home I saw Aylee at least 20 feet in the air atop one of our Aspen trees. I just about died. I took a quick picture and then asked her to come down. Amber thought I was being a little over protective (and this coming from a lady who won't set foot in Lagoon's Tidal Wave ride), but all I could see was one of those soft, quaken aspen branches snapping and Aylee tumbling to her brain damaging, neck snapping, back cracking end.

So, I ask of you -- am I too over protective? If I turn a blind eye to the situation are my kids going to be jumping off of our two-story home onto the trampoline, running out in front of passing cars to see how close they can get to them, or even law down on the ground and let their friends and cousins jump their motorcycles over their prostrate bodies. If I refuse to let them climb the trees are they going to be scared of butterflys, consider themselves brave for getting their eyes wet in the bathtub, or even (gasp) play freeze-tag on the school playground.

Parenting is way too hard.

I'm not a Princess!

Well, Alayna has reached another growth milestone. All of our kids have allowed us to call them pet names such as kiddo, buddy, and princess. However, at a certain age, they start to get this feeling of identity that tells them that their name is everything and they can't be called by anything else. Well, today was the day that it happened for Alayna.

This morning I walking into the kitchen where Alayna was eating. She smiled at me and said, "Hi Dad!". I gave her a hug and said, "How is my little princess?" She rebuked me by saying, "I'm not a Princess, I'm Alayna!" I have called her "Princess" every day since she was a tiny little baby.

Just to make sure that it wasn't a fluke, I tested the P word on her a couple of other times this morning. She followed up with the same response each time. I guess she is growing up.

We'll see if she continues with the identity issue over the next few days. If it doesn't change and if she is like our other children, I'll have to wait about four years before she'll probably let me call her that again.

Happy Birthday Aliece

Just wanted to wish our dear Aliece JoAnn a very happy 5th birthday today!!! Aliece has been counting down for about twenty days. She has kept very specific track of when this birthday was coming. She is so dang cute! She has been funny though, we has this thing about the kids singing happy birthday to her during her party. For weeks she has said, "I don't want them to sing Happy Birthday to me!" We'll see how that goes!

Jen's Helper

Alayna has always been a little mommy in the family. From her earliest bipedal days, she has been toting around little baby dolls. She spends hours upon hours feeding, dressing, and pushing them in her little stroller. It is no wonder that now Jen has a baby, little Alayna is always at her side.

Any time we are with Jen and Dave, Alayna is Jen's constant companion. She insists upon helping Jen feed Chloe, hold Chloe, burp Chloe. Alayna is content to sit right up to Jen's side and intently watch everything that Chloe does.

Wendy Maria Cox

Wendy Maria Cox was born March 12 at 7:27am. She was 6lbs 8oz and 19.25 inches long. Wendy and I are both doing great and LeeRoy and I can't wait until we can take her home.

Love,
The Coxs

Over the weekend

This weekend was a crazy one for us. Of course, I had school Friday night and Saturday morning. After school on Saturday, we loaded the van and headed up to Pocatello for Crista's Wedding reception. On the way over, we stopped off at Grandma Call's house for a quick visit and to let Aylee and Amber change into their "reception" clothes. We had a great visit with Grandma. It was fun to be there.

Grandma has a bunch of family pictures on a shelf in her family room. She has made little picture holders out of Legos so that all of the photos are free standing. Aliece and Alayna played with the pictures quite a bit. As we were getting ready to go, Grandma noticed that the girls had moved all of our family pictures up to the front of all the other pictures and lined us up in a row. Grandma got a kick out of that.

The reception was fun. It was great to see family again. Crista and Andrew looked great, of course. I do have to say that the reception line was the slowest and longest that I have ever seen!

After the reception, we met up with Mom and Dad, Jen, Dave, Chloe, Joe and Nae in Arbon and visited a while before going to bed. In the morning, we woke up, ate some cereal and said our goodbyes. We rushed home just in time to get kids showered, dressed, fed, and off to church where I had to speak in Sacrament meeting and Johnathan had to speak in Primary. Let us not forget, Aliece had to be sung to during opening exercises for her birthday too!

Craig & Andrea had their baby

Craig and Andrea had a baby boy this week.

"Just wanted to let everyone know that Andrea had her baby. He was born on Thursday morning. He is a healthy 7 pounds, 20 inches long. We named him Rush Thomas Brown. -- Craig"

Adventures with the Geocachers

Adee and Adam were in town this weekend. Amber had a Relief Society Conference on Saturday, so Adee went with her. Adam and I decided to have some fun, so we loaded the kids in the truck and went geocaching.

The first couple of hours went well as we hit some easy, rural caches. Adam was supposed to meet Adee at 2:00 and we were running out of time, so we decided to do an adventurous cache to end our day's adventures with. I grabbed a cache description that point to the top of West Mountain just south of Utah Lake. We have had some unseasonably warm weather, and the mountain didn't look so big from a few miles away, so we decided to go for it.

The road was fun and a bit muddy. Part way up we decided to lock the hubs and get into four wheel drive. We were glad we did because we ran into some snow. There were tracks where someone had gone earlier that day so we figured we would just follow them. We traversed the side of the mountain and the tops of some of it's lower ranges for quite some time. The road got rougher and the snow started to get a little deeper. As we neared the top, we noticed that there was a bunch of disturbed snow where someone had turned around. We followed the tracks up a bit further to find that the tracks that we were following had ended and the guy had turned around and went back down the mountain.

I didn't have a shovel, as I didn't think we were going anywhere too dangerous, and we were already going to be late for Adam to meet up with Adee, so we decided we had better call it an adventure and head back down the hill.

Well, the road was narrow, and the truck that had turned around was obviously shorter than my truck. We attempted to turn around but started to slide off the road a bit. We then got one tire lodged on the side of the hill and the other tires were just spinning on snowy-ice. We weren't moving very well.

We rocked the truck back and forth between first and reverse a few times and finally got the truck moving. We decided against turning around and backed a ways down the narrow snow covered road to a point where we could turn the truck around.

The once jovial kids were now deathly quiet with a few soft murmurs of dying, falling off of the cliff to the side of the truck, or never making it home. As we started down the slick and steep road, I started to think of the brakes that I was supposed to replace on the truck ten months ago. We put the truck in 4x4 LOW so that we wouldn't have to rely much on the brakes and made our slow descent down the mountain. We descended from the 6,800 ft ridge down to the 4,500 ft valley floor in roughly 30 minutes.

We really enjoyed our adventure...especially the part about getting down safely. I think the kids will remember this little adventure.

I sure was glad that Adam was there with me for moral support. I think I would have been a bit more wired being up on that mountain alone with four young kids without a shovel.

Multiply and Replenish the Earth

Well, baby number five just got it's first picture taken last Wednesday (February 21) at the doctor's office. The little jelly bean size tyke seems to be doing well. The doctors say that they can tell that it is going to be tall, dark, handsome, smart, charismatic, and popular - just like its old man :-).

Take it easy!

The other day Amber was driving the van and Aliece was riding with her. I can't remember exactly what happened, I think someone pulled in front of Amber suddenly and she had to slam on her brakes. Anyway, when Amber stopped suddenly because of the other car, Aliece exclaimed, "Woah! Take it easy, Mom!"

What was lost, shall be found!

When Aylee turned Seven years old - about 18 months ago, she was very excited to get her very own Soccer Ball. Aylee is big on sports and is good at a variety of physical activities. One of her enjoyments is playing soccer. Well, in elementary school, you are pretty cool if you can bring your own soccer ball to recess. Aylee was really excited to take her ball to the school and play soccer with it between their class times.

Aylee took her ball a few times, but after a few days, she came home without the ball. Amber asked what she had done with it. Aylee was pretty upset. She said that they were practicing kicking the ball in a circle and one of the kids accidentally kicked the ball over the fence. She claimed that they searched hard for it but never found it. I calmed her down and told her that I would go and help her find it.

After dinner we got to the school. She showed me where it had gotten lost. Well, it just so happens that on that side of the playground there is a dense forest of thorny weeds, cattails and a culvert full of slimy water buried beneath the greenery. We searched for about an hour to no avail. We counted the ball as lost and tried to console Aylee.

Just last week (18 months later), Aylee came home with the ball in hand. The ball was deteriorated a bit, but you could faintly see the faded black permanent marker notation of Aylee's name. She told her that one of the kids at the school had found the ball while exploring. After a year and a half, that ball has returned home!

Alayna's Man

As most of you know, Amber hired a contractor a few weeks back to start working on our various parts of our home. She is having him install a laminate floor, paint the entry way, replace light fixtures, redo a bathroom, etc (anything to pre-spend our anticipated tax return!).

The guy that she hired is a really nice guy by the name of Josh Harmon. He is very courteous and detailed in his work. He is kind to the kids and works well around them.

Anyway, Alayna hasn't started to call him Josh like the rest of us. Whenever Alayna talks about Josh or TO Josh, she calls him "Man". It is pretty dang funny to hear her call him that and Josh gets a kick out of it too, I think. :-)

How do you like to read your Book of Mormon?

We have a standing appointment with the kids to read scriptures right at 7:00AM each weekday morning for a scripture/devotional time. We don't make Aliece and Alayna get up for the scripture time because we all know what they are like when they don't get enough sleep, but they are usually up with us. Usually we read a page in the Book of Mormon by taking turns at one verse at a time. If all the kids are up, we sing a hymn. After our devotional time we have our morning family prayer.

Anyway, last week we were reading scriptures as a family. Johnathan was really having a hard time reading for some reason that morning. I figured that he was not fully awake, so we let him continue. Each time it was his turn he would be skipping a line or re-reading the line that he had read previously. After we had read half of the page, it got to be so bad that I thought I would go and sit next to him with a bookmark to keep him on the right line and to keep him awake. As I sat with him, I looked at the page...something did not look right. Then it hit me...Johnathan was reading the Book of Mormon upside down!!! He was so good a reading upside down that we didn't realize that was what he was doing.

That kid is pretty amazing (or disturbed).

Warum Aliece?!?

Many of you know of the famous piece of music, "Für Elise" (German meaning: "For Elise") which is the popular name of the "Bagatelle in A minor", a famous piece of music for solo piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, written in about 1810.

As for our "Elise", I would name the song a bit differently: "Warum Aliece?". That is German "Why Aliece?"

We love this little girl, but she delights in shocking her parents whenever she gets a chance.

Today, our contractor, Josh, came into the house while we were eating lunch. He started spraying some textured paint on the walls where he had done some work. While I was cleaning the table, I walked past Aliece who was standing in the entryway hall "sniffing" whole heartedly with her nose almost touching the sprayed wall. She was enjoying the fumes.

Between sniffing paint fumes, stretching t-shirts to be expose shoulders, and needing vast amounts of physical touch, I can just tell we are going to have a very interesting teenage phase!!!

Happy Birthday Amber

Just wanted to wish Amber a VERY happy 31st birthday. She is the Love of my life. With such radiant beauty emanating from her countenance, I can't believe she is so dang old!!!

Disneyland!!!

As most of you may know, we took our family on a week long trip to Disneyland in the End of January. Since our ward meets so late, we hijacked another ward in the stake that meets at 8:30 AM. After that ward's Sacrament meeting was over, we hopped in the car with Amber's cousin, Kirby, and headed off for Sunny California. We gave Kirby a ride down so that he could spend a week with his family before he returned back to Provo with us at the end of the week.

I wanted to make the ride a little more enjoyable for the kids so I created a set of envelopes that we would open at different intervals on the way down to California. Two of the envelopes were geocache stops in Arizona and Nevada so that we could mark those states off of our geocaching map. One of them was a short, but refreshing hike up a small hill. It was good to get out and stretch our legs.

That night we stayed at Kirby's family's house and the next morning we headed off to the magic kingdom.

Amber reserved us an awesome hotel that was recommended to her from one of our neighbors. It was nice because it had two queen beds and a sofa sleeper. It had two different rooms plus a kitchen with fridge, freezer, microwave and stove. There were two different TVs in the two rooms. The hotel also came with a free buffet breakfast each morning as well as a free dinner buffet for four of the five evenings that we were there.

That very first day in California, Johnathan got sick with a fever. I prayed quite a bit that we would not all get sick to the point where we couldn't enjoy ourselves. We all ended up getting sick, but it was nothing that slowed us down at all...we had a great time. I felt my prayers were answered in that matter.

For our first day in disneyland we spent most of our time in the fronteirland and adventureland areas of Disneyland. The lines were short...it was awesome!

On Tuesday we went over to California adventure. I was wondering how Aylee and Johnathan would like the crazy rides that were offered there. They were just barely big enough to go on every ride except one in that park. They ate it up. Amber spent most of the time with Aliece and Alayna on the smaller rides while Aylee, Johnathan and I did the awesome roller coster and other big rides. We met up together and found a smaller roller coaster that reminded me of the Wild Mouse ride that I hated as a kid in Lagoon. However, it ended up being one of the favorite rides and Aliece, Aylee, and Johnathan request that I take them on it over and over again!

On Wednesday we went back to Disneyland to do some of the other rides we didn't get to do on Monday. One of the favorite stops was the Jedi Academy. All the kids would stand outside a rope and a Jedi Master would select about twenty kids to learn how to be Jedi's. We tried to explain to Aylee and Johnathan that they had to jump up and down and be wild and crazy to get the Master's attention. The two of them are too much like Amber and I and just don't draw attention to themselves much with animation. Aliece on the other hand needed no coaching and of course she was one of the first Padowan learners to be selected.

Though all of our kids wanted to be selected, I knew that Johnathan wanted it the most, but he was also the most quiet and drew the least attention. Amber and I tried again to explain what he needed to do. When the Jedi Master looked our way we told him to jump up and down and act crazy. Well, Johnathan misunderstood us and thought we told him that he was selected, so he just hopped into the padowan ring. There was so much noise and pressing crowds that the Jedi Master didn't notice and we just let it go. Aylee was soon selected afterward and so all three kids were lucky enough to be selected (or at least involved) in the academy.

At the end of their trainings, they all received a visit from the Dark Side of the force. They got a chance to fight Darth Vader or Darth Maul. Aliece fought Darth Vader - she was the very first one out of all of htem to do it. She did great. Then Aylee and Johnathan fought Darth Maul. The very next day Aylee and Johnathan wanted to do it again. That time Johnathan hopped into the ring again - apparently misunderstanding us thinking he was selected, and Aylee was selected also. That time they got to fight Darth Vader just as Aliece had done. This was definately a highlight for the kids!

Thursday was a review day, pretty much. We just hit the highlights of the parks and rode on the rides that the kids wanted to repeat. As I mentioned above, Aylee and Johnathan participated in the Jedi Academy again.

Friday was definately a wrap up day. We were all exhausted from a week of pure fun and running around. We took the day a bit slow and still hit a lot of rides before returning to the hotel.

We had a great time in California. I am very grateful to Amber for lining it all up. The kids are at the perfect stage where this kind of trip is the best thing in the world. They love it and they are so excited about every part of it. It was definately very fun to be there with them and share those experiences!

Your Local Library

Amber and I do agree that Aliece watches too much TV. Luckily it is either Disney movies or PBS. She just loves the tube and when we are not keeping her busy, she likes to be entertained by Curious George and company.

Well, it is funny how kids pick things up from the TV so easily.

I came home for lunch the other day and Aliece was busy thinking of "things" out loud. Amber and I listened to all the things she came up with. She had words like, "dog, cat, horse, pig, bird" then she went to things like "floor, ceiling, house, tree, sun" and then kitchen items like "cups, plates, spoons, forks, knives" and then she ended it with "And your Local Library!"

Where's the Keys?

Alayna is on a big "key" kick. She has become the family's self-proclaimed key-master. If there is anything that requires a key, Alayna is the person who is supposed to use it. Not only does she have to use the key, but she knows where every single key is in the house, especially when she has stached them away in "safe" places.

The other day Amber went to get into the van. The van doors were locked. She often locks the doors to the van, so she thought nothing of it. Amber went into the office to find the van keys missing. Not only were van keys missing, but all of our spare van keys in the house were missing.

Amber asked Alayna where the keys were to the van. Alayna said that they were in the garage. Amber looked in the garage but couldn't find them. Then she peered in the van window only to find all of the van keys sitting on the seat inside the locked vehicle - so much for spare keys.

When I came home for lunch, Amber told me about the plight. Luckily I had one final spare key for the van with me. We were able to finally open the van and retrieve the other three copies of the keys!

Looking for a Suburban

Just before Jen had her baby on the 23rd, Amber and Alayna stopped by my work unannounced. I was heading to a meeting when Amber called my cell phone. She told me that she was downstairs with Alayna and they wanted to know if I wanted to see them. I told them that I was just on my way to my meeting, but that I would stop downstairs to say Hi.

I went downstairs and sat down in the lobby with Amber and Alayna. I asked them what they were up to. Amber said that they stopped by to see if I wanted to go with them to look at Suburbans. When she said that, I knew exactly what she was getting at.

Looks like we can't stand not to follow the crowd. Starting in September, our minivan might get a bit more cramped as we succeed in filling every single seat.

Usually Amber would wait longer to tell people, but since she is in charge of Girl's Camp, she had to notify people. Well, that is as good as posting it in the paper, so word is getting out, so we are spilling the beans!

Welcome Chloe!!!

Chloe Lynn Richardson was born January 23, 2007 to Jen & Dave at 12:11 PM. She weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and stretched to 20 ½ inches long. Little Cloe is definately a cutie and we are really excited to have another cousin in the family!
She takes after Jen in that she decided to take her time in coming. She didn't care when anyone else thought she should come, she came when she was good and ready, which just happened to be about five days after Jen's due date!
Chloe has at least four cousins that were impatient with her delayed arrival. Way to go Jen and Dave!

Alright Already!

Ok, Jen and Dave. It is time to kick it in high gear hear. We were all expecting things to happen by now!! :-)

The only thing I could dream about last night was Jen going into labor and us being at the hospital. You better watch out though, last night I dreamt that the nurse told us all that, Surprise!, it is a "BOY"! Ha ha...man, we all were surprised as we were all holding our gifts of pink pajamas, blankets, dresses, etc.

Lets make today the lucky day, huh? Then maybe I can sleep in peace.

Confession

In many wards in the church, the Ward Clerk walks up and down the aisles passing every pew. In his hand is a pencil and a small piece of paper. Most of us understand that the ward clerk is counting the number of people attending the Sacrament meeting.

Last night, Amber made the following confession. She said that a while back when the clerk walked by our pew, Aliece asked what he was doing looking at everyone and writing on the paper. Seizing up on a great opportunity to try to get better reverence out of our four year old, Amber responded, "He is taking a list of all the people that are not being reverent in sacrament meeting. He then gives that list to Santa Claus." Amber still sticks to this story with Aliece at times, mostly for the fun of it, I would guess, because it still has not improved Aliece's meeting behavior.

Sounds like even Amber has things to repent of!

Raising Grandchildren

Well, it has already happened. Our children are not even a decade old and they are talking about the dreaded this dreaded subject...what to do with their own children.

The other day I was playing with Aliece. We were wrestling on the floor and I was throwing her on the furniture - typical dad and four-year-old playtime activities. Well, I was getting tired, so I pinned her against the couch and tickled her. Then we started to talk for a few minutes.

Aliece asked me if I had a lot of work to do today. I said, "oh, yes...I always have a lot of work to do." I then turned the question on her and said, "do you have a lot of work to do today?" She giggled and said, "No, I just play!" I then said, "well, do you have a lot of playing to do?" She agreed that she did. She continued on to say that kids don't do a lot of work. So, to help her see in the future a bit, I suggested, "Well, what about when you are a Mom and have 10 kids, are you going to have a lot of work to do?" She laughed and said, "Oh, on, I won't." Trying to help her see that she would be very busy with ten children, I asked, "Well, what are you going to do with all of your kids?"

Then came her response, "Oh, I'll give them all to Mom!"

So that's it. That little girl is not dating until she is at least thirty, more responsible, or barren!

Christmas is coming!

The bath robe was hung from the door with great care in hopes that our baby soon would be there.

Serves him right

Last night Johnathan had a friend over. I was doing some work in the office and I heard this occasional thumping and laughing. Then I heard and thump, a brief laugh, and then panicked crying. I understood right away what had happened. I ran halfway up the staircase to find Johnathan on the middle landing in distress tears. I asked him what had happened. He had been jumping off the top of the staircase to impress his friend. His grand finale was to jump down over the full eight stairs the led to the middle landing. Despite the successful jump, his momentum had carried him head first into the opposing wall.

Today his face looks pretty mangled - worse that it did yesterday. He has a pretty bad mess on his nose and upper lip. I kind of feel badly today that I didn't give the boy much sympathy or comfort, really, you have to admit that it serves him right! (I still love you Johnathan) :-)

A Precursor to Domestic Violence.

Recipe for a 911 Call:

20 Minutes of idleness
1 house key
A dash of thoughtlessness
1 Four Year Old Girl
2 1/2 Feet of white painted banister railing

Directions:
Combine all ingredients until mixed well. Add a suprised mom in the mix and allow to boil. Quickly add one dad's hot temper. Then R-U-N!!!

Disclaimer: Miraculously, no children were actually physically harmed in this scenario - largely due to the amount of remorse and fear that accompanied the realization of the situation within the four-year-old.

Watch out Victoria! Alayna has a Secret of her own!

The other night while I was out, Amber caught Alayna on camera wearin' nothing but Amber's cowboy boots. I am sure sooner or later there will be a country song written about her.

It is funny how kids mimic their parents so easily. I guess I'll have to have a talk with Amber about changing some of her habits around the house.

Wonder Woman!

Amber is getting pretty good at this Single-Mom bit at Sacrament meeting. Last Sunday I had to go to the Spanish Branch's priesthood meeting which happens to be during most of our Sacrament meeting. I guess during Sacrament meeting, Alayna was drawing on a piece of paper with a pen. Amber looked down and Alayna had ink all over herself and the paper. Apparently the pen had exploded with ink flowing everywhere. Amber didn't miss a beat. She grabbed Alayna and ran out into the bathroom to clean Alayna up. The kids didn't hardly even know she was gone.

Later on in the meeting, Johnathan turned to Amber with Blood all over his face. He had lost a tooth in sacrament meeting. He held his bloody tooth in one hand and was excitedly showing his Mom. Quick as a flick Amber sent Aylee out to get some wet paper towels. Aylee succeeded in her mission in just a matter of seconds. Then Amber cleaned up the toothless boy and anything else that was tinged with blood.

I arrived to the building just as Sacrament meeting was letting out. All of my kids came running toward me with the wonderful bits of news of their exciting Sacrament meeting. The biggest miracle of all, Amber was smiling and laughing about the whole experience. It is so funny how we have become accustomed to the chaos of four children. What used to stress us out with our first child just makes us smile in nostalgia now.

Sure we get frazzled and worn more easily still than we should, but I would like to think we are getting better at the whole parenting thing. I am really grateful for Amber and the positive (or and least enduring-to-the-end) outlook on Sacrament meetings where she has to "fly solo" with the kids. She is a dang amazing woman!

Amputation?

The other night Alayna was really having a hard time. It was about 2:00 AM and she was crying and agitated in bed. I went and laid by her and tried to give her drinks. She would go back to sleep and then wake up again twenty minutes later crying. I finally put her in Bed with Amber and I and she went back to sleep. She tossed, turned, and whined a bit, but overall she slept the rest of the night. Later in the day Amber showed me Alayna's hand. Apparently she had a hair band around her wrist like a braclet, but it was on rather tight all night long. There was a red mark all around her hand and her hand was VERY swollen. I tried to take a picture of her swollen hand. It was her right hand, (the hand on the left in the picture). However, you really can't see how swollen it was. Amber said that earlier when she had discovered it in the morning it was all black and blue. We were relieved that color had come back into the hand.

Her hand stayed swollen for much of the day, but she did have movement in it. It has been 9 days later and she has a scab around her wrist still, but the hand otherwise appears fine. (See the second picture). She hasn't complained about it, so I am assuming it is ok now. I hope she doesn't have scar from it. It is pretty interesting that it has scabbed over - it never really cut the skin, it just made it red. Now, it is scabbing over the irritated areas.

You would think that I would have learned my lesson about whiny children in the night. Aliece was famous for doing rubber bands around her wrists at night. I got to the point where I would always check her arms when she had bad nights. We always caught them on Aliece, but Alayna's slipped through. I guess the wrist routine will need to be reinforced. It is amazing these kids live to become adults!

My kind of tubing

While we were in Arbon after Christmas, the kids made sure that Grandpa would not leave them in the house when he would feed the cows. The kids would ride on the hay wagon and help kick hay off to the cows and horses. Well, after a couple of days, Grandpa got a little creative and hooked up a sled and inner tubes to the back of the feed trailer. As he drove off to the pasture the kids would ride on the tube and sled until we would start to feed.

After the feeding was done, Grandpa hookedup the tubes and sled to the back of the pickup. I hopped on with the kids. Grandpa went out into the field and drove all over creation doing curves and such. My unfortunate job was to fall off the tube any time the kids needed Grandpa to stop. I don't know how I got volunteered for that!

Sweet Sister

While we were in Arbon over the holidays, Alayna had been bushed with all of our fun activities. She and Aliece were watching a movie in the other room. The movie must have been pretty intriguing because when I came in to check on the girls, Alayna had curled up in Alieces lap and fell asleep. Of course Aliece was loving every minute of this extremely rare event. She spent the rest of Alayna's nap rubbing her face and rocking her back and forth. These two sure are great pals.

A Merry Spokane Christmas

As you all know we spent Christmas up in Spokane last year (I am writing this for posterity's sake). It was pretty amazing that all of the Reeds were all able to be in Spokane for the big day. We had a great time with everyone. However, I have to say that three hours to open 146-ish presents is a little long for this guy, but we sure enjoyed ourselves anyway!

Aliece's first time skiing

Just before Christmas, while were were up in Spokane, we all went skiing up at Schweitzer Ski Resort up by Sandpoint, ID. Grandma and Ashlee stayed behind to watch Alayna and Elyvia. We had quite the experience getting up to the slopes that morning. It was storming pretty badly and so the 80 minute trip took us about three hours. By the time we got to the base of the hill there was a lot of new snow and the roads were really slick. We started up the hill but then we had to stop to let a car merge onto the main road. With the loss of our momentum, we found that the van was going no where. The road was so slick and our tires were so treadless that the van would not advance any further.
Since we were not going anywhere in drive, I put on the brakes. That was the wrong thing to do as we started to slowly slide down the hill. There was a small line of cars passing us, and I was praying we wouldn't slide into any of them. Our sliding trajectory then took a different turn and we began sliding down the road sideways. It was pretty incredible. Verne hopped out of the van and pushed the front end so that we were pointed downhill. Once we were in that direction, we were able to then drive down the hill. On our way down we passed a Sanding Truck. We contemplated going up behind it, but I had had enough excitement for one day. We parked at the base of the mountain and rode the shuttle up to the lodge. One our way there, we were stuck behind a delivery truck that had slid off the road and was blocking traffic as snow crews attempted to free the truck of the slick white snow.
Once we got to the lodge, Reed came and took us to Michelle's parents' cabin where we outfitted ourselves with equipment and gear. Verne, Amber, Adee and I escorted the kids down various runs on the bunny hill. I spent most of my time with Aliece. I was glad that she was able to have her first go at the skiing sport. She enjoyed herself in between the times that she was scared that we were going to "fall off the mountain".
Our little ski trip was made possible by the help of MANY people. It was quite the undertaking. We are grateful to everyone that helped us in various ways to get up there with the older grandkids and play in the snow.

She can sleep anywhere

Aliece was really tired on this day. She was upstairs playing in her room for a while. We kind of lost track of the girl because she got really quiet up there after playing. As I was walking to my room to get some things, something caught my eye. I peeked into Aliece's room to find her asleep on her dresser with her feet dangling over the footboard of Alayna's bottom bunk.

Visit to the Post Office

When we were in Arbon on the weekend of the 16th, to speak in church, Dad had to work in the Post Office. I took the opportunity to have the kids go and mail some letters at the post office in Arbon that day so that they could see Grandpa Andersen at his Desk Job :-).

The kids really got a kick out of seeing Dad there. They each bought a stamp and mailed a Christmas card to Joe (He had sent them each a card the week before).

For Christmas, Aylee made a bunch of feathered quills for Grandpa to put at his desk at the Post Office while he works there.

1st Anniversary!

Well, I know it's been a couple months since Dave and I celebrated our Anniversary, but I hadn't written anything about it yet. I still can't believe we've been married over a year now, but it's been a fun one!

We had decided to stay around close to celebrate our Anniversary so it was decided that we would stay in Salt Lake and do some fun things around the area that we've never done before. So Dave got us a place at the Red Lion for a couple nights and also did some research on the internet and decided to purchase a tourist packet that would allow us free access to many fun places. Even though he had to purchase the tourist tickets, we figured it was worth it's deal within the first day.

We both took Friday off work and started our day by going throught the Museum at Thanksgiving Point. We also took a walk throught their gardens and enjoyed the waterfalls, the hedge maze and the beautiful plants around us. Then we met Dad and Mom in Salt Lake for lunch and enjoyed visiting with them for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun. We went to the Clark Planetarium and looked around there for a while, watched a 3-D movie and also watched a star-laser show. We walked around the Gateway area and watched people. The weather was just perfect to be out.

The next day we went to the Children’s Museum at the Gateway. It looked like it would be a ton of fun if you were a kid. Dave had wished we had a little kid with us so he would have an excuse to play with some of the fun toys :) Then we stopped by Temple Square and got our free lunch at the Lion House and went to the distribution center in the Joseph Smith Building. We then drove up the canyon to Brighton Ski Area and took a Tram ride up the mountain. It was a beautiful ride and fun to look out over the valley. On the way down we stopped at the Aquarium in Sandy and looked at the sea life. I was a bit disappointed in it but I guess they have plans to make a larger one in the future. We went back to our hotel and relaxed and ordered pizza.

On Sunday we slept in and enjoyed the morning. We had brought the top layer of our wedding cake to eat on our first anniversary. So we had that for breakfast and it was actually really good. I thought it would be freezer burned and dried out but whoever wrapped it did a great job! It was chocolate and so moist and had a great flavor. Then we stopped for church at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building before we headed home. It was a really good meeting and added to our special day.

It was a fun Anniversary and fun to celebrate it together. I still can’t believe the time has gone by so fast!

First tooth

Johnathan FINALLY lost his first tooth tonight. He is one of the last kids in his class to start losing teeth. He has been anxious for this day to come for a long time. He was so excited tonight to have Amber and I operate on his tooth and submit the extracted enameled object to the tooth fairy. We'll see how much he gets from the generous flying tooth merchant.

Filmmakers of the Year

The Reflections assembly took place yesterday. Reflection is a PTA program where kids do creativity projects such as art, dance, stories, film, sculptures, etc and apply them to a theme.

Aylee and Johnathan both participated in the program this year. Yesterday they both won trophies for their age group in the category of film production. Each of them had done a film about their favorite places. Aylee also won a ribbon for some artwork she did.

Needless to say the kids were very excited about winning trophies together in the same category. Way to go kids!

Singing in the rain, sleet, snow, hail

On Monday night, Aylee's third grade choir was invited to sing at Provo's "Lights On" ceremony. I twa sa pretty crazy night for weather. I think they only way they got peopleto the ceremony was to have the school kids sing at it so that their families would come. That weather consisted of rain, snow, sleet, etc - not to mention it was cold!

Aylee did a great job and was selected to be one of three children that helped Santa to turn on the lights for download Provo. That was kind of neat.

First Snowman of the Year

We had our first snow this week. The kids took advantage of it and built this snowman. The snow was the deepest or the best, but they were clever and built their snowman by packing snow in a five gallon bucket and then turning it over and keeping its form.

Narnia Nest

We have a reward system established for our family on our family scripture reading. A week or so ago, we reached the goal that said we could buy a movie as a family. The kids chose to get the Chronicles of Narnia movie, "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe". The kids loved the movie. Since the kids liked the story so much, we decided to start reading the entire series of the books to the kids.

To kick this off, a week ago Amber and I told the kids that we were going to create a "Narnia Nest" where we get together as a family in a cozy spot and listen to a chapter or two in the book that we are currently in.


The kids hopped on board more enthusiastically than we originally thought. They drew pictures of the story characters and cut them out and then stuck them onto our bedroom wall where our "Narnia Nest" is located.

We have been having a fun time with this. There are great messages in the stories and we have a good time explaining different things to the kids. We have already completed the first book and are ready to start the next one which is the one the movie is based off of.

Of pee, toilets, and washclothes

"How was your day", was one of the first things that left Amber's mouth when I came home last night around 6:00pm. "Fine", I said, "if you like having someone else's urine shot all over your face." I knew that would get her attention...And that is how I start this blog...yesterday was my day of toilet disasters.

Up until the end of the workday, I had enjoyed myself - except for the fact that I had to go and buy Ramen Noodles to make up for the frozen burritos someone stole from my emergency lunch stash in the breakroom freezer. Above that, however, it was great.

To top of the workday, I went to the fitness center at 5:00 to work off the stresses of the day and hopefully shed some fat and calories. Before starting my routine, I went into the bathroom to relieve myself. As I entered, one of the urinals was unflushed. Normally, I just go to the next one, but I thought to myself, "I'll be a good citizen and flush this one". I proceeded to flush the urinal but to my surprise this bathroom appliance was a little over-eager. It flushed water into the urinal with so much pressure that it sprayed the contents of the full urinal all the way up into my face. I was spitting and sputtering in disgust. I was glad that I had a towel draped around my neck for I was able to quickly wipe my face off.

Within an hour of relating this incident to Amber I was helping Aylee clean up from a chore/job that she did to earn some money. She was cleaning the outside refrigerator in garage. A few months ago, Alayna had taken some blue snow cone syrup and mixed it with some egg yolks from eggs she had broken and made some nasty, hard blue/yellow concoction in the bottom of the fridge. We ahve avoided that mess for quite some time, so when Aylee wanted to know what to do to earn money, we pointed her in that direction. Aylee had just finished and asked if I would dump the durty water from the mop bucket into the toilet. As I was dumping the water, I heard a deeper plop sound go into the toilet. It appears Aylee accidently left one large wash cloth in the bucket which went into the toilet and clogged up the toilet. Hoping to extract the cloth rather than send it to the ocean with all of this year's dead pet fish, I had to stick my hand into the toilet and into the trap searching for the cloth. After a little time I realized that it was of no use. I had to withdraw my soaking hand with toilet water dripping off of it and use the plunger to get the water flowing again.

So, I guess you would say that my day was rather down the drain by that point.