Spring Break and London's 8th Birthday

Why on earth Alpine School District thinks it's a good idea to take a week off of school a mere six weeks before school gets out for the year is BEYOND ME?!??! Why not just let them out a few days earlier instead of carrying on into JUNE?!!?! What happened to getting Thursday and Friday off for Spring Break? Not that I don't enjoy the break from the routine, I'd just way rather have a two-or-three-day spring break and call it good, get back to work, and get out earlier. Who is with me? Anyway .... I am not on the school board, and I'm pretty sure no one cares. So, here's me MOVING ON.

After laying around being lazy, watching movies, reading books, and playing the Wii for a few days, we made a concerted effort to not be Spring Break losers. We talked Dave into taking the day off and found something fun to do. We had bought some passes to Incredible Pizza in Draper a while back in a fundraiser. That place was a LOT of fun. Go-carts, mini golf, laser tag, bumper cars, arcade, and all you can eat pizza. Sounds like our kind of thing. We stayed long enough to get all you can eat pizza for lunch and dinner. Yeah ... we're not stupid. And then we played, played, played for hours. We had a great time. Basically I rocked at laser tag. Austin kicked everyone's trash by beating the all-time individual score at laser tag. Obviously he gets his skills from yours truly. Dave tried once again to beat me at go-carts, but it is simply not possible.

Dave won this for London in an arcade game on the FIRST TRY:

And then he spent approximately $27 trying to win another one after I gave him a bad time about NEVER having won me anything. It was all fine and good for the sake of romantic gesture and all, but $27?!! Really Dave? He said something about the thought being the thing that counts or whatever, and I reminded him that you can buy a stuffed animal at Walmart for $10. Haha London LOVES her lion ... so way to go Daddy. :)

We caught a few movies:

My boys and I love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, so we thought we'd give this movie a try. Even at matinee price, I had the distinct feeling I'd been robbed. To put it mildly, the books are WAY better than the movies. I'm just sayin.

Good movie. Interesting plot. We enjoyed this one with friends (without kids) after a bit of a long, long Spring Break week. I'm such a fan of date night. It's my favorite.


Hop is like Alvin and the Chipmunks, only not as funny and with less of a plot, and it's also missing the nostalgic appeal that Alvin and the Chipmunks has. Nonetheless, it was London's choice for a family activity for her birthday, and she LOVED it ... and I survived it. Barely.

One of the home health companies Dave works for rented out a theater for Rio, so we took the kids, and they seemed to enjoy it. While I did like it better than Hop, it wasn't my favorite. It was definitely nice to look at though. Beautiful colors and scenery. It's getting harder and harder for me to personally enjoy kids animated movies, or maybe I'm just spoiled by movies like Tangled, Toy Story 3, and Despicable Me that are actually entertaining for adults too. I'm in the minority on this one. The kids really enjoyed it, and Dave liked it quite a bit too.

London's birthday was at the end of the week of Spring Break (the 17th), and she turned 8 years old. She's been counting down to this one for VERY long time, and she was so excited. She's been asking for us to get her a desk for so long, she finally stopped asking. I sorta felt bad that she'd given up hope, but it made it that much more fun to surprise her. I found this desk with hutch and chair on the KSL classifieds:

It was a great deal, but I'm not a huge fan of natural wood color, especially in a pink/yellow girl's room with white furniture. So, I decided to paint it white and antique it. Thankfully, Michelle agreed to help me, and the Hunts agreed to sacrifice their garage for a week so I could hide it in there and work on it. It took WAY longer than I thought, and it was a lot of work, but I'm so happy with how it turned out, and London LOVES it. She had it all filled up with her books and girlie trinkets and stuff within the day. It was fun to see her so excited about something so practical! So, here's the finished product:

She's been counting down to this birthday since.... well, FOREVER. She was so excited to turn 8 and get baptized. This girl sure keeps us on our toes. She's full of spunk and sass and never let's a day go by without getting all wound up about something. She is lots of fun and her cute smile and giggle are just my favorite thing. She's been working really hard in school this year ... hence the request for a desk. She wanted a place to read and do her homework (awwww ... love that). Way to make me proud little lady. She keeps up with her brothers just fine but likes her alone time with her stuffed animals too. She is OBSESSED with horses and loves to learn all about them and read books about them. She's full of excitement and a lot of fun to be around. She's always been more of an animal girl than a princess girl, and I guess I'm glad about that. She's not too much into fluff and foofy girl stuff, and since she's my daughter .... that's probably a good thing. She'd just as soon be out riding her bike, playing basketball, or jumping on the tramp as playing with Barbies, and that sort of reminds of someone else I knew at her age. She's definitely "my girl," but believe me, she's got Dave wrapped around her little finger. No one melts his heart faster than London. Happy birthday little fire-cracker. We sure love you.

It's Over

I realize it just snowed a few days ago, and it is currently not very warm outside, but I have officially declared winter OVER. That means sandals and not boots and jackets instead of coats. I'm actually excited for yard work. Can't wait to get back on my bike. Even though we've got a crazy busy summer coming up, I'll take ANYTHING to be in the sun again. Not to worry, I'm not one of those people who complains about all weather extremes. As long as it's hot, I'm HAPPY. So since I haven't blogged much, here is how we survived the winter and what we've been up to:





For anyone who doesn't already know (not sure how that is possible), this is a BYU house. We spent lots and lots of time watching BYU basketball together with family and friends. Our kids are dedicated Cougar fans and we had tons of fun this year with Jimmer-mania. I realized at the end of the BYU basketball season that between BYU Football and BYU Basketball we had dedicated at least one day a week to BYU for nearly SEVEN MONTHS! Seems crazy, but we LOVE IT. We have lots of fun having friends and family over, eating good food, cheering for our team, and hearing the nonstop commentary, cheering, insanity, and random BYU trivia from Dave. Thankfully I convinced Dave (with threats of violence) to take down the BLUE/WHITE Christmas lights sometime near the middle of February, or they would have been up until TWO WEEKS AGO. Ugh. Really, it was fun and honestly it's how we survived the winter. Gave us something to look forward to and reasons to throw a party. So thanks Cougars for a great season!

Austin, Jackson, and London also played basketball and had a great season. Not sure how I managed to not get ANY pictures of that. I'm lame. London scored her first baskets this season and was REALLY excited about that. Way to go London! The boys were on the same team again this year. LOVE that we can do that every other year since they divide it up by grade. They have a lot of fun playing together. Dave and I also have been playing a lot of basketball with the ward. Our team of amazing ladies won the stake tournament and went on to region ... thanks to lots of time playing together and some superstar talent (you know who you are). :) I only played a little because of my ankle... but I think they'd all agree I was a fantastic team mascot/scorekeeper for the rest of the season. Ha ha. I rolled my bad ankle again in our region game (after getting pushed in the back), so I haven't played since then. And last week, I made the plunge and bought these bad boys:


Hopefully it will help, so I can play every week. High tops and an ankle brace ... please tell me I will not roll it NOW??? Heaven knows I'll look like a dork. It better be worth it.

Our stake puts on a fancy dinner for all those who have earned their Young Women Personal Progress Medallion. The leaders have the opportunity to earn theirs as well, so I did, and Dave and I attended the dinner in February along with four of my amazing girls who had earned their medallions and their parents as well as Michelle and Bishop Hunt since Michelle earned hers too. It was a beautiful dinner and a lovely evening. Personal Progress is such an inspired program, and I'm grateful to be able to take part in it. I'm so proud of my Young Women (that includes you Michelle) for their hard work.


Speaking of hard work, London was awarded Student of the Month by her teacher, Mrs. Washburn, last month. She has improved a lot this year, and we are so grateful to Mrs. Washburn for all the extra time and attention she has given to London. Austin and London have both had her for a teacher, and we couldn't love her more. She has a way of getting through to my kids and teaching them to love reading. I don't know how she does it, but she's 2 for 2 with my kids, and we LOVE HER!


T.J. had an animal report for school. I'm no rookie at these animal reports, and we finally got smart this time. I happen to know that at the conclusion of the animal report project, they have to make a model of their animal out of something. After struggling (through much frustration and tears ... from the kindergartener) to build gorillas, horses, dinosaurs, etc., out of clay, legos, paper, cardboard boxes, etc., I managed to convince T.J. that a snake was the way to go. You can see his stellar model of a rattlesnake (complete with rattle) made entirely out of salt dough by a 5-year-old. I may be slow, but I catch on eventually. He could not have been more proud. :)


Jackson had a science fair project to do a few months ago, and we came up with testing the effect of drag on improving your swimming speed. So he and Dave had to swim with clothes on (increased drag) to see if it would improve their swim time in a regular swim suit. Our hypothesis was correct, and Jackson completed a great project and went on to compete in the District Science Fair. Way to go Jacks!





So, it's not like I've been just laying around complaining about winter. We've actually done stuff to pass the time and enjoy the journey and all that. But let's be honest, now that's its getting warm, let the real fun begin. Yay for Spring and SUMMER!!! And for those of you who thought I could not make it through the winter with the heater only partially working in my car, TAKE IT BACK! We made it. I'll get it fixed eventually, but I don't want to think about that today ... I'll think about that tomorrow. It's sunny, and I'm going outside.

Picture Project

I have decided to get ALL of our pictures onto the computer so I can save them on an external hard drive (or maybe backed up online). So I'm slowly getting about a bazillion pictures scanned in. It's been fun to see some of these old pictures, and some of them are just downright scary so I'll spare you from those (for the most part). The idea is that if I post a few of the ones I'm doing on here, hopefully I'll stay motivated to keep up with this project. We didn't have a digital camera until 1999 or 2000, so it's going to take me .... well, FOREVER. But at least it's fun.

This picture is for you James Stock. I told you I'd been fishing before.


Love this picture of Dave.

And this one.

Senior pictures.

Original hair color and eyebrows. I think we'd agree all that salon time and money has been well spent. You're welcome.

Some of Dave's mission pictures. You would NOT believe how many pictures I have of him flexing. Some of the flexing is more subtle (i.e., holding on to handlebars of a bike) but it is there nonetheless. I'll have to ease you into those ones slowly ...


Preaching to the corn. Not to worry, each and every one of Dave's mission ties has been properly disposed of ... never to be seen or heard from again.

This is my favorite of his mission pictures. Outside the Chicago temple. Love it.

Dating pictures. We were one of those couples who had to hurry and go out and take a bunch of pictures just to have enough for our wedding video ... hence the cheesiness of the pictures.

I can if I want.

September 14, 1996. Got engaged on Ensign Peak at sunset. It was beautiful.

Dancing at Melanie and Jason's wedding. They got married six weeks before we did. Sometimes Melanie and I like to do things together .... we're just like that.

Hanging out in Teasdale when we were engaged.

Again with the cheesiness. This was right before we left for the one and only concert we've ever been to together. Blackhawk and Wynonna. Seriously??? It was a free concert.


The summer after we got married, we went to California with my family and took a day trip down to Tijuana. Dave just HAD to have this Indiana Jones hat. Really? He wore it about five times before he left it in the back window of his car and it shrunk in the heat and was too small to be worn by a human. How do I let him talk me into these things?


Making out with Indiana Jones on the beach. How romantic.

Our first trip to Disneyland! I had to do some convincing to help Dave understand that Disneyland was going to be a part of our life. He didn't understand for a while ... but he's definitely got the idea now. I LOVE that place. Our kids LOVE it. And Dave loves it when we're happy .... so he's a good sport.

The top of Mount Timpanogos. PROOF that I've been to the top (and that was even the second time). We slid down the glacier on the way back. Not sure I'll ever do that hike again ... don't tell Dave. It was beautiful up there though.

Really?!!

For those of you under the impression that Dave is the patient and tolerant one in this relationship .... I present to you "Exhibit A." A life size (6'2") pieced-together, newsprint, taped-to-my-front-entry-wall, scares-me-every-time-I-walk-around-the corner cutout of Jimmer Fredette. Really?!!

This one is for you Marion

After a little hiatus, and some peer pressure, I'm ready to get back to work on this blog. I guess I just haven't been in the mood to blog. Is there such a thing as being too grouchy to blog? For me, probably.

Anyway, I just went visiting teaching, and we were talking about Family History and Temple Work, but also about the importance of leaving a history for our posterity. And let's be honest .... I'm never going to keep a journal, and I definitely didn't keep "baby books" for my kids. Don't even get me started on scrapbooking. I just don't have it in me. So ... one of these days I'll print this blog up and my kids will have some record of their lives. In order for me to do that .... I need to keep up on it. So Marion and I will hold each other accountable on our blogging ... so far she's kicking my trash. But I'm pretty competitive, so watch out girl!

First things first, my foot is just about better. I had to wear this ugly contraption for a month:


Better than a cast but clearly worse than no large clumsy object attached to my foot at all. But, I'm all about compromise, so I wore it. He said it was a "walking" boot, so I spent a lot of time on my couch simply NOT walking. No walking = no walking boot. This is how my brain works. I got to stop wearing it a month ago (imagine my excitement) and now I'm just supposed to wear flat shoes for a while. WHAT?!! Talk about cramping my style. I HATE flats. Heels are my FAVORITE and I miss them. I got me some stylin flat boots that only teenagers and trendy people look cute in. Ugh. Not a good look for me. I'm just trying to adjust to my life in flats. You'd be surprised how much it's affecting me. I know ... very dramatic. My friends and my young women have been nice enough to compliment my new look. Well thanks guys, but don't get used to it. I'm now allowed to wear slight heels (no more than 2 inches) and ride my bike (stationary only) and run (a little) but still no basketball. Lame. I've been waiting six years for this stake to get a basketball program running, and now that they are, I can't play. I know ... feel sorry for me.

We had a great Christmas. It was a pain in the neck being on crutches and not being able to drive. I was lucky enough to injure my right foot. REAL SMART. I can barely reach the pedals in my car with my right foot thanks to my short legs. Left-footed driving did not go well. Right foot was too painful. Anyway, what can you do? We really tried to simplify as much as possible with our holiday stuff and just let go of things that didn't need to be done, and for the most part, we were successful. I did a lot of online shopping. No problem there.

This is the picture I made them take on Christmas Eve:

This is how they really felt:

We've still got one Santa believer hanging on .... love that.

As you can see, I didn't get too many pictures on Christmas. This is pretty much it. Not sure where we're going to put all of that stuff ...

We celebrated our 14th Anniversary in December. I ran across a few pictures the other day from the summer we met .... 1996.

This was taken on the steps of the Manti temple. I think this is the last time I was there (not the temple, just the Manti temple)... somehow that doesn't seem that long ago, but our thinness and Dave's hair says that is was forever ago.

You're welcome for intervening on behalf of Dave's fashion ... not sure who was in charge before, but WOW.
I'll have to dig through our old pictures and see if I can find some more pictures that are blog worthy. Wish me luck.

We've had a busy couple of months. Same as always. Work, basketball, school, our callings, Jimmer Fredette, scouts, and HAVING FUN keep us going, going, going. We've had a lot of fun with friends and family. We're surrounded by amazing people, and we love it. Honestly when we moved here, we didn't think we'd be here this long. Frankly, we moved here because we could afford it. Melanie and Jason had been out here for years and really liked it and said it was a great place to raise kids. Recently a work opportunity arose for Dave that would have taken us to another state and greatly impacted our situation financially. It was actually several states away, and we did stop and think about it. But for us, for right now, we know we're supposed to be here, and we're happy to be here. We've lived in a lot of different places, but we've never ever in our lives experienced the kind of friendship and love that we have from our friends here. It's a truly amazing feeling to be surrounded by people who care and serve and love each other like they do here. The friends we've made aren't the kind of people you know for a while and then slowly lose touch with. They're the kind of people we don't ever want to be without. We feel so loved and so blessed. And ... it seriously ROCKS having my sister and her family a half-mile away. Do you even understand the CONVENIENCE and AWESOMENESS of this??? Ask me and I'll tell you. It's the best.

Anyway ...thanks to my super talented friend, Michelle, I no longer HATE the north wall in my great room. Some texture and paint was all it needed. The room looks so different, and so much better! Love it. Thanks Michelle! She's slowly helping me overcome my fear of home improvement projects and Martha Stewart-ness in general. She's got her work cut out for her I tell ya. Now I just need to repaint the rest of my house ...

Quit Your Whining

This is the "before" picture with Dr. Scott. Not bad. Still smiling. I should have waited until he was all in his scrubs and goofy doctor hat to take the picture. He looks perfectly reasonable in this picture, and I look well .... yeah. Go ahead and just FORGET making any comments about how I look, and keep in mind I'm still wearing a hard cast and I have violent tendencies.

This is right before I told Scott that I wanted a RED cast, and he and Dave started hyperventilating. Scott reminded me that I'd still be in the cast for the BYU/Utah game and asked if I would please reconsider. We debated all the way into the operating room, and as you can see, when I'm unconscious, I apparently don't get to choose the color of my cast. Just kidding, I "repented" (as Dave called it) and switched the cast color to COUGAR BLUE right before the anesthesiologist came at me with the oxygen mask.

There is an "after" picture, but you will NOT be seeing that. Nope. Sorry. Thanks for asking. Let's just say I don't handle anesthesia very well. I have an ANGRY almost violent reaction when coming out of it and just feel SO rotten. Apparently this time I was being quite loud and my vocabulary got away from me a bit. Dave and the poor nurse did their best to get a handle on the situation. I seriously felt just so YUCK. Ugh. Hate that feeling. HATE IT.

So the good news is the surgery went well. The bad news is, my ankle was a bit more screwed up that we had anticipated going in. According to Scott, my torn peroneus brevis tendon that is supposed to be about the width of his pinky finger was discovered to be the width of his first two fingers during surgery. He called it hypertrophy. It was working too hard to stabilize my ankle and was huge and swollen and all torn up. So, it took quite a bit of "cleaning up." Ooops. I guess I should have got it checked out before. I admit ... I was WRONG. Cherish this moment people.

I've learned a valuable lesson from all of this. It never hurts to get things checked out. If it turns out to be fine and you wasted time and a co-pay .... OH WELL! In my defense, this past year and a half especially, I was SO unbelievably tired of doctors, x-rays, offices, co-pays, lab work, tests, procedures, surgeries, insurance hassles, drugs, needles, outdated magazines in waiting rooms, writing out checks, pharmacies, blah, blah, blah .... I couldn't stand the thought of anything being truly wrong with my ankle or even the possibility of having to get it fixed and being in my bed all drugged out and sick and bored AGAIN!

But thanks to a fantastic Relief Society lesson last Sunday, I need to quit the stinking crying and belly aching and just be GRATEFUL. I'm so glad that the technology and expertise to fix my ankle exists. I'm grateful for my friend/doctor and his willingness to fork out insane amounts of time and $$$ to go to school and learn how to do this stuff. I'm grateful we have insurance and fixing my ankle was even an option.

I'm grateful for our friends and family and ward members who have watched over our family so much this year. I'm grateful for the basket of fun things to entertain me and treats to eat that my friend brought over. I'm grateful for met deductibles and satisfied out-of-pocket maximums, and in that way, I'm grateful for timing. I'm grateful for the yummy meals and treats and running errands done on our behalf. I'm grateful for online shopping and that happy little knock on the door from the FedEx guy. I'm grateful my friend came over and helped me figure out a way to take the medications that would stop the ridiculous vomiting.



I'm grateful we still got to go to St. George for Thanksgiving (where it was SLIGHTLY warmer than here), and I even still got to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving thanks to my mom and sisters pushing me around in a wheelchair (not an easy task apparently .... or maybe they are extra wimpy). I'm grateful for people driving me around and being patient with my being slow. I'm grateful for all the hours and hours of watching T.J. and walking him to and from school. I'm grateful for the patience and resilience of my kids and husband. I'm grateful for my amazing counselors, secretary, and advisors who have once again stepped up and gone the extra mile when I just couldn't do it. I'm grateful for my feet that carry me around and help me take care of my family and give me the freedom I have clearly come to take completely for granted. I'm really excited to have BOTH of them back in working order.



So, the "one to three weeks in a hard cast" I was promised turned into "three to four weeks" and I'm really really hoping to get the cast off this coming Wednesday at my appointment. However, I've smacked my foot pretty good a few times, and I'm sure as heck glad there was a hard cast on there. I slipped in a restroom on a wet floor about an hour after the surgery and slammed it down pretty hard. Wow. Pain. Then on the way home, I passed out in my garage (after I had already passed out in the car) and smacked it again when I fell. At that point, Dave literally threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and delivered me to my bed. Don't think I wasn't conscious enough to hear the horrible straining/grunting sound he made when he lifted me and my dead weight from the garage floor. Nice job hon.

The night before my surgery, Michelle and Paula took me out to a movie ... which was a PERFECT stress reliever and apparently my last night out on the town for a while. Paula made me a sign (see below) to safety pin to my shirt. Maybe I should have been wearing my sign. Ugh.



Then just the other night, I slipped on some black ice and smacked it again, and a parking lot of people (i.e., Dave's co-workers) got to hear my "words" of frustration/pain. Anyway, thank goodness for the cast. It's almost like Scott knew how clumsy and accident-prone I am. Weird.

I've officially stopped using the crutches ... as of today. The reasoning being that my arms/hands now hurt worse than my foot. So bye bye crutches. Also, I've walked around in the cast enough that it's cracked on the bottom, so I can bend my foot better and walk without too much trouble ... as long as I go slow. Shhh ... don't tell Dr. Scott. He said I could put weight on it, so hopefully this is what he meant. It still feels better to stay off it and it definitely aches in the evening and at night but nothing I can't live with. So if all goes well, next Wednesday I'll get the cast off and trade it in for a lovely walking boot. One that can be REMOVED to sleep/shower. Yeah for me.

After three weeks in that contraption, it's off to physical therapy for me. Lucky for me, I have access to several good physical therapists and one very accommodating and handsome physical therapist assistant who has agreed to do my therapy at home on the couch. I'm actually not looking forward to the therapy. Dave has way too much fun inflicting pain ... not sure I'm ready to be his next victim ... I mean patient. We'll see how that goes. I guess I have a month to gear up for it. I'll keep you posted. I've got to get busy if I'm going to be on my bike by April ... and I AM going to be on my bike by April. It's happening people.