Friday, July 27, 2007
I'm off to see the wizard, for real!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Family Reunion in Flagstaff
Here is Diana riding a horse all by herself, for the first time. It was pretty cool, because my cousing arranged for a horse trainer to come and give the kids private lessons. After waiting for what seemed like forever to her, it was finally Diana's turn to mount a horse. She really got the hang of it and by the next day she was guiding the horse around like a pro.
Here is Trent ready to ride. Trent wasn't sure he wanted to come to this reunion, but he ended up having a blast riding this ATV and a dune buggy thing that one of my cousins had. He told me about all the jumps he was able to go off on. We could not get him off this machine, even to eat. He was covered from head to toe in dirt. What a fun thing.
This is me with two of my aunts. They are great friends to me and I have lots of great memories with both of them. I am lucky to have them as part of my life.
This is a picture of me with two of my cousins. They are the closest to me in age on that side of the family. We have great memories of time spent at my grandpa's farm in Idaho. One time when Adele and I were sleeping out in the front yard, Glen and my cousin Eric (not in the picture) put a frog in Adele's sleeping bag. We screamed and screamed. It was pretty funny looking back on it. I don't see these cousins very much and it was fun to remeber all the fun times we had growing up.
Here are my children, with the same faces they always give me for pictures. (see last year's christmas card). This was right before we left to go home. We had a lot of fun, but I have to admit that I did not take as many pictures as I would have liked to take. The whole first day I left my camera in the car. Hopefully others will take pity on me and share their pictures with me. A big THANK YOU to all those who helped make this reunion a big success.
Hairspray!
There's no place like home!
We were home for three days and then we drove back to flagstaff, Thursday July 12th and back home to Vegas Saturday July 14th. This was a fun two days with my uncles and aunts. It was fun to see people I don't get to see very much. We had lots of fun, but the trip home was marred by the fact that one of us in the car got food poisoning and threw up about 10 times. Thank goddness I had some zip lock bags to catch the mess and dispose of it.
Then we were home for three days before Jared, Diana, and I drove to Spanish Fork on Wednesday July 18th. Once again we had lots of fun visiting, but I feel pretty tired by all the activities that we had planned. The best part for me was that I got to see the musical Suzzical, put on by the community. I have the soundtrack of the broadway production and love the musical. It was most difficult not to sing along with the actors as I know the words to all the songs. Jared has gone to Seattle to visit my parents, and Diana and I drove home to Vegas Monday July 23rd. Sheesh!
I can't even believe that I went all those places and I was there so I should know. I am so tired of packing and unpacking, I can' even see straight. I feel completely detached from my normal life and friends. Diana keeps asking my what she can eat and I have no idea what kind of food we have because I haven't been to the grocery store for about 2 months. Hopefully now I can try to get back into my life again.
Perhaps it has been difficult coming home, because I have worked for the past two days, and when I wasn't working I was reading Harry Potter. Yeah I finished it tonight. I am so happy that I don't have to work tomorrow, so I can try to get my house put back together. Maybe I will even get to sleep in a little bit. I am glad that I got to go and visit all the people in all the different places. No one forced me to travel so much, it was just unfortunate that it all worked out to be so close together like it did. I am still not quite sure what is so exhausting about traveling. Even if I wasn't driving, but just sitting in the car I felt pretty worn out when we got wherever we were going. Let me just say that I have gained a new appreciation for my home and even Las Vegas. I just feel like I need a vacation from all the vacations I have taken. Diana gets baptized in two weeks and we have some family coming for that. Once that is over, then my summer vacation of nothingness can begin.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Toddler Follies
Yesterday we had a very low key, relaxed Fourth of July. Here is a picture of all the little girls. We had our cousin over and she made marvelous dutch oven potatoes and dutch oven pineapple cobbler. We also had ribs. Later that evening we were entertained by the $5 worth of fire works that I had bought. It was just perfect for it to last for about 15 mins.
Here are all the girls. With Victor gone much of the time it was quite an estrogen party.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Time in Texas
It has been so fun to hold and play with my sister's baby. The baby is seven weeks old. Diana is quite good at babysitting and has changed her first diaper. She still thinks changing diapers is fun and offers to help if she is anywhere around when the changing happens. Diana is also quite good at holding the baby and putting the pacifier back in. She has been loving the chance to be around such a tiny baby.
Diana has also been a big help with my other neice who is 2. Diana loves chasing her around and spinning her around by her arms. She is also a pro at putting her cousin into her car seat and buckling her up. My sister will miss that extra help when we are gone. But maybe my neice will enjoy it when life is a bit calmer.
We haven't done any thing too exciting. Life with two small children is a bit hectic. Yesterday got a bit crazy. We invited a girl over that Diana met at activity days. My cousin is moving to Texas and she arrived in town yesterday also. Our cousin is moving in just 5 mins away from my sister and so my sister was helping her yesterday afternoon. Just as this little girl came over to play, my sister was trying to call people to help our cousin unload. Fianally my sister left to go over to my cousin's new apartment for just a little while. This left me with 4 little girls. At one point Diana spotted a tiny poodle walking by the front door. Before I knew what had happened, the door was open and all the girls besides the baby that I was holding, were outside petting the dog. The lady walking the dog looked at all these girls and asked if they were all mine. She seemed to be saying "Oh my, don't you have your hands full." I smiled and replied that "No, just one of them was mine and that I was babysitting the rest of them." It seemed like the phone kept ringing at the same time as all the rest of the things were happening. It was very crazy trying to keep the older ones entertained, keep the two year old out of trouble, and keep the baby pacified until her mother/dinner returned. In fact it almost seemed like something out of the movie Mister Mom where everything in the house goes wrong at the same time. My sister's husband returned from a two day trip in the middle of all of this. I think he was a bit surprised at the pandamonium. Oh well we survived and I can say that I am glad that I do not have 4 girls, 9 and under.
We are not sure how long we will be staying. We may stay for a whole nother week and they fly right to Pheonix for my husband's family get together. The whole month of July is going to be completely crazy with a trip to somewhere different planned for each weekend. I hope I am ready for all the running around.