I'mmmmm Back!!

WOW! 2010 is gone. Can't say I'm that upset to see it leave since it's been a pretty crappy year economically. Yet, we've survived and made it, but definitely had to change our lifestyle of living and STAY on a budget. Everyone is healthy and well and I can report no serious issues with my family.
I changed my blog to private because someone hacked into my all of my accounts online and literally was making my life yucky! They stole and erased all of my contacts in my google mail accounts and were sending unwanted emails in my name to people on my email lists. Pretty sucky, but I feel confident that my blog is now safe and no more issues will occur. I'll backtrack to play catch up of what we've done since September when I last wrote a blog. I do have lots of pictures and we have done some fun things.

I wrote this in Sept. Better post it! Pics to follow!!!

Summer is gone and the fall season will be happening in less than two days. We had a great summer of doing nothing! Actually, a lot of swimming. I still can't believe how fast it went by, but it was relaxing and so nice to spend much needed quality time as a family.

Yep, I have a 17 year old child. Crazy to think that 17 years ago this 9 pound baby was born. We truly love this kid and are looking forward to the life choices he will be making soon. Scary, I know. Does he drive? NO!....you can ask him why!!!

The first week of school was HECTIC!! I have 4 kids who all go to 4 different schools. They all love their teachers and so far everything is going smoothly. Here they are on their first day!!

Tanner is a senior at Shadow Ridge HS. WOW!!

Madison is a 7th grader at Saville MS. Loves it!!

Camryn is a 1st grader at Betsy Rhodes. Yep, she's at moms school so I can keep an eye on her. ;)

Jaxon is in pre-k with Mrs. Robyn. He also goes to Heckethorn 3 times a week for speech. He is loving it.

I have a wonderful group of students this year and as much as I love to be home I also love the sweet little spirits that I get to teach for 9 months. I don't think parents realize how important their children are to their teachers. We have your kids for majority of the day, we get to mold them to what we want them to be, and we get to hear so many many funny stories. Maybe a bit more personal than what should be said, but love love my job!!

Cabin for Adults Only!!

Paul and I were able to get a weekend away from the kids. Paul's brother David has a friend who "urges" him to use his awesome cabin in Duck Creek, UT. So Paul's sister Pam and her hubby Ray, David and Ronda, and Paul and I all met up at the cabin and spent the weekend together. We had a great weekend of doing nothing. We drove up there Friday night stopping in Cedar City to eat at Sizzler. Paul's favorite. Then I saw a snow cone shack and thought I was in heaven!! Love those. I did have a scare that night when I heard something rolling around in my closet. Woke Paul up to see what it was and apparently it was an animal that had pushed open the access panel and went through the insulation to get in. We couldn't find the animal so Paul blocked up the hole. I could hear it scratching and trying to get in. Stress!
On Saturday us girls just hung out. Watched movies all day, talked, ate, and didn't even get dressed! The boys went out fishing. That evening we had a great BBQ and ate it sitting on the patio overlooking the valley. The weather was perfect maybe 75 degrees. That night we stayed up late playing Scattegories which is now my new favorite game. Was so fun. Sunday afternoon we had to go home which made me very sad. I wasn't ready to leave, but I knew I had to. We did stop at Cracker Barrel in St. George and I LOVE that place. Food was great and I loved the little store. I can't wait to go back. View from the cabin
Paul, Pam, and David
Me and my hunny.
Ronda, Pam and me
We did a whole of this....nothing!






View of the cabin. We thought it resembled Amytiville Horror!

4th of July

What a great holiday weekend! My two nieces from WA were here and we had a great time. We swam all day, went to the park, and ate a lot of food. I love a good eating holiday!
Cute little rugrats!!!
Always have to make my flag cake!







Waiting on the balcony for the Aliante fireworks to go off. Best seats in the house!!

Aunt Karah was Here!

Actually, my niece Karah, but all of my kids refer to her as Aunt Karah. Karah drove from Seattle, WA with her 3 kids(plus, being prego) to spend a week with us. We always have such a great time and are always on the go. Here are some fun things we all did:

Summer Fun

I signed my kiddos up for swimming lessons at the beginning of summer. Camryn already knows how to swim, yet I wanted her to learn the basic strokes and get some good exercise. Since I signed up Cam and knew I had to sign up Jaxon who doesn't know how to swim and relies on his frog float...which is fine by me. $300 for four week lessons seemed a bit high, but it actually turned out to be the best thing. Jaxon went from this....



to this. Yep, in 4 weeks time he gained enough confidence to take off the frog float and swim on his own. He's still learning how to keep afloat so his frog is only off when Paul and I are in the pool with him. I'm just amazed at how quick he learned.



Parade
Madison's dance group was asked to perform in the Summerlin 4th of July parade. I've never been to this so was a bit excited, plus watching your child perform in it made it an awesome adventure. The only rough thing was not having another adult around to help me with the little ones. I had a hard time finding where Maddie was supposed to go and then trying to get a good spot to sit was a bit difficult.

Maddie is a bit stressed since we had a hard time finding where she was supposed to go. Her teacher ended up picking her up in a golf cart. Stress!!
Performing in the parade.
Jaxon's favorite part of the parade.


Now we are happy the parade is over and all turned out great!

Summertime

I love summer!!! Especially now that I'm on a 9 month school schedule and have 3 months off to play. LOVES!!!

Top reasons as to why I love the summer:

1. Hello, I don't have to work! What's even better is laying by the pool and knowing my paycheck just was desposited into my bank account. Love it!
2. Lots and lots of BBQ's. Yum, my favorite.
3. Swimming time. Love having a pool and we swim everyday. My favorite time is when Paul comes home from work and we all jump back in the pool with daddy. We have a lot of shade in the late afternoon since our house faces west so Paul will always turn on the pool heater since I can't stand the pool to be cold when there is no sun. Got my gas bill yesterday and I don't think I'll be accepting this luxury much longer.
4. All of my kids are home and we really spend a lot of quality family time together. When you have little ones going swimming is the greatest treat ever and they are excited everyday to know that they are going swimming.
5. Paul and I celebrated our 18th year anniversary in June. No trip this year, but we had an awesome dinner at one of our favorite restraunt and then brought dessert home to eat in bed, drinking a glass of milk, and watching a movie. Love it!
6. It seems I have more "me" time than when I'm working. Maybe because my kids are older and I have more freedom, but I love to get up at 5 AM and go running/walking. Home by 6 and quietness until at least 7:30 when my kids get up or Anna comes in to bug me.
7. I love the HEAT! The hotter the better. Add a bit of humidity to the air and then I'm miserable and grouchy.Plus, I hate the wind.
8. A group of my friends come over every Wednesday for our weekly pool party. I love visiting with my peeps.
9. Madison finishes up her season in dance in June. It's a very busy and a crazy time, but well worth it watching your baby dance her heart out. She was supposed to go to girls camp this year, but unfortunately camp time fell during dance production week. If she didn't attend dance week she wouldn't be able to perform in the recital. With all the money I paid all year for this recital....yep, that's the choice I made. I'm hoping it will be a different date for next year. If not, girls camp will come first.
10. Finally, I love summer because lots of family come to visit me! My awesome neice Karah drives her pregnant self and 3 kids all the way from Seattle, WA to stay with us for 10 days. Her sister Jenni will be flying in for a week also. Then my sister always comes for a week along with her kids.

I do have some reasons as to why I hate summer:
1. The amount of food that is eaten during the summer is crazy! Especially when you're trying to work out and shed some pounds I have to try this new dessert that I heard about or yum, Anna is making cinnamon rolls. Sucks!
2. You can get a really bad burn in the summer. Like a dummy I stayed in the sun too long one day and had the worst sunburn I have ever had in my life. I was blistered, scabbed, sores that were bleeding, and peeling galore. It lasted for about 3 weeks and I can tell I do have some major sun damage. The worst was on top of my ta-ta's so I didn't get a picture of that, but I did take one of my leg 2 weeks after I was burned. I think I learned my lesson.
3. Having two air units on your house makes for a hefty power bill. Our first summer in this house we received a $1000 power bill! Yep, that's right. In July or August we can always expect to pay at least $500 for power. I even set both units to 79 degrees and still have those high bills. Yucky!
4. The days are so long! Since I get up early I want to go to bed early, yet my little ones refuse to settle down before 9:30 pm. Drives me insane on a daily basis.
5. I tend to not go places in the afternoon because it takes my black vehicle a long time to cool down. My kids are dying from the heat.
6. Can't stand that there aren't many good shows on the tube to watch. Netflix is my new best friend during the summer. Big Brother starts in July and that makes me excited!
7. I really don't like the knocks on my door everyday for Maddie to play and especially get tired of having to say no to sleepovers.
8. I hate that my house gets so messy maybe 2 hours after I've cleaned it.
9. I try to make doctor and dentist appointments during the summer and those days always seem to be wasted days, but it has to be done.
10. I get really depressed knowing that summer is only 3 months long and then it's back to reality. I do love the fall season, but LOVE my summertime.

A Camping We Will Go!

So every year before Memorial Day we like to go to Cave Lake to fish and camp. The lake is stocked with trout and we always have a great time. Unfortunately, we chose a bad weekend to go. We had checked the weather forecast for the weekend and knew that the high would be in the 60's and the lows would be around the 40's. Thank goodness I packed winter clothes because we FROZE our booties off! Our first day there was okay. The weather was mild, kinda chilly, but we could handle it. I think Paul actually wore shorts all day.
That night we froze! We woke up to wind and clouds high on the mountain top. The high for the entire day was around 30 degrees with 20-25 mph winds. We tried to make the best of it and go fishing. Once it started snowing and hailing on us we realized we weren't going to fish a lot that day. My little ones were having a really hard time with the cold. Hey, they're desert rats! By later afternoon the weather was still cold, but the wind stopped so we all bundled up again and went fishing. All of us caught fish and just enjoyed the rest of the day.
That evening we froze again all night and watched as the tent almost blew away as another storm hit the mountain that evening. We were up by 5:30 that morning packing and getting out of that coldness.




One evening Ranger Steve asked us to join him and watch a cannon go off. I was the lucky one to light the fuse. I'm smiling because hmmmm...Ranger Steve... Nice eye candy!!

We were told that the blast from a cannon would make your clothes shift and you might wet your pants. Which is why I'm running away. The blast was just like a loud firecracker.

Camryn by the cannon and freezing. I think the temp was about 25 degrees!!


Jaxon's first time taking a leak in the trees. I know...important milestone!!

We have a tree that has our name carved into it from last year so we had to go and vandalize the tree again and etch 2010.

Jaxon helping daddy clean the fish that we caught.




Even in cold weather Paul still wears his shorts.

Maddie is a Tween!

Maddie turned 12 in March. Yep, I have a tweenie. Love her...hate the moods, but most of the time Madison is a pretty happy girl. She helps me by entertaining her siblings and always has such a sweet spirit about her. Maddie is very caring and is not afraid to show her emotions. She was extremely excited to go to Young Womens. Love you girl!

 

For her birthday Maddie received her own bedroom with a new bedroom set. I also broke down and let her have a birthday party at Crystal Palace. She had about 20 kids show up, ate pizza, roller skated, had some cake, and pretty much had a great birthday.