December 18, 2018

Christmas season is in full force and we’ve been filling our time celebrating the season!  (While simultaneously surviving on little to no sleep because our days are so jam packed with holiday festivities as well as the never ending holiday to-do list.  I didn’t even attempt Christmas cards this year and nearly canceled neighbor gifts.  But in the end I gave out homemade cookie dough.  Easiest neighbor gift ever.  Made and sealed up with cute tags in less than 4 hours.  Christmas season is in full force and we’ve been filling our time celebrating the season!  (While simultaneously surviving on little to no sleep because our days are so jam packed with holiday festivities as well as the never ending holiday to-do list.  I didn’t even attempt Christmas cards this year and nearly canceled neighbor gifts.  But in the end I gave out homemade cookie dough.  Easiest neighbor gift ever.  Made and sealed up with cute tags in less than 4 hours.

To kick off our December we drive out to Nampa to look at the lights the city puts out along the River there.  We went with my parents and Michael and Rachelle and their kids. The lights were really pretty!  Not quite as picturesque as our light tour at the botanical garden last year in an amazing gentle snowfall. That night might never be beat.  But a night with family in Nampa was nice.

We also got together with the Demars family to make ginger bread houses.  Heather is amazing and actually makes her own gingerbread and cuts out the houses.  I helped a bit…but not really.  We had enough houses for a pair of kids to decorate a house.  The kids were all really creative and had some great looking houses.  Then on Monday for family home evening we went and delivered the houses to families in the ward (Emmie and Elsie gave theirs house to their primary teacher) and went to see the lights and live nativity scene at the scentsy commons near our house.  I’m pretty sure the highlight of the night for most of the kids was petting a live camel.  He was seriously so calm and surprisingly cute!

John and I also attended his work party.  I’m not a huge fan of his office parties because they are usually horribly awkward for me so I won’t say much.  Other than the fact that John participated in the appetizer competition and brought pulled pork sliders with homemade coleslaw….and won!  Well done John!  For all of his time, effort, and money spent he got an ada county jacket.  Well worth it. Right?

December is also the time we get to “celebrate” our anniversary—-it’s a good thing we celebrated in October! This December 16th was typical of other December 16th’s….crazy!  It was actually on a Sunday this year.  And my Sunday’s are always crazy.  And it’s my moms birthday.  But we did go out to dinner the night before.  We were home by 7:00.  In our pajamas by 7:30.  And John was asleep with a migraine by 9:00 and I worked on primary stuff.  We sure do know how to party!

Still to come before the big day arrives is Ainsley’s orchestra concert, Owen’s band concert, the ward party (which the primary is in charge of decorating and Owen and Ainsley are part of the nativity. I’m sure they’ll be the best cow and king of all time!), gift wrapping, and treat making!  We have yet to make any of our favorite treats!  I can’t wait!  As busy as it’s been it’s all come together pretty smoothly so I can’t complain.

Except about my new appliances. I will complain about that briefly.  I’m currently on fridge number two.  Which also was made as poorly as the first one that came and was returned.  It’s kind of a pain to have to schedule delivery times and empty your fridge and put together a new one.  Granted they are being delivered but my front door has to be taken off each time!  I’m being picky…but I feel like if I’m spending over $1000, I have the right to be a little picky on the quality of my purchase.  So now I’m in the process of getting a third fridge.  Which I’ll insist on inspecting before it is brought into my house and before I empty my current fridge.  But the rest of the appliances are great!!!

Hopefully I have a lot of fun things to report on in the coming weeks.  Christmas is almost here!!!

Enjoy the pictures...in no particular order....

December 3, 2018

Well…my plane landed and I hit the ground running.  Literally.  Due to some miscommunication and a series of unfortunate events John and I left one of my bags on the curb at the airport.  At midnight.  And we didn’t realize this until we got home.  So John called the airport and I drove back had had to CO clam my bag.  Thankfully it wasn’t stolen!  It had all of my souvenirs in it!  I got home and to bed well after 1:00 that morning.  My phone work me up the next morning at 11:00.  I can’t remember the last time I slept that late.  It was good to be home and see the kids though.  After giving them their gifts we dove right in to thanksgiving prep.  Plus cleaning the house.  It was a little too dirty for my taste.  We cleaned, shopped, prepped food and baked pies.  Still with no dishwasher. Ugh.

Luckily my parents let us come to their house for the big day.  We were lazy, ate, played games, looked at the ads (my thanksgiving tradition, even though the only Black Friday shopping I did this year was to the Nike outlet at 10:30 in the morning to get Owen some shoes because his had full blown holes in them.  The store was packed.  We found some shoes and cake home and decorated for Christmas instead.  Oh, and I ordered $600 in boots at the Macy’s shoe sale.  I’m going to have a bunch of shoes to return as soon as I make up my mind.  Unfortunately decisiveness is not a gift I possess.

I digress, by that night our home was decorated, our appliances were delivered, and three of the four appliances were installed.  Phew!

The kids had the entire week off of school.  We did a few fun things to keep them entertained but it was a pretty uneventful week.  We played hockey at the church with the Demars and other friends.  We went to dinner and started Christmas shopping. John and the kids put Christmas lights on the house while I gathered the rest of the leaves and tidied up the yard in preparation of the quickly approaching winter. The kids played with friends a bit. Even Ains was social and actually hung out with friends during the week! I love that she has found a couple of friends that she actually wants to be with!  It really is such a blessing.

We didn’t see much of John Thanksgiving  week.  But we don’t see much of him most of the time it seems lately.  His time at work has been a little extreme lately.  Bring the head of his division has had a learning curve and a lot of extra work.  He usually leaves the house between 6 and 7 and gets home about 12 hours or more) later. And then there’s mutual, soccer, and other activities that stretch our evening time thin.  Hopefully with time the work load will decrease as he grows accustomed to his new responsibilities.

Speaking of John, he spoke in church last Sunday.  He did a fabulous job.  He spoke on standing in holy places.  His talk taught that when we are Christlike and serving others we can create holy places.  His talk was great.  I even had people ask me to get them a copy.  Well done John!

The last Sunday of November I gave my last sharif time.  Ever.  It’s kind of bitter sweet.  I’m excited about the new primary curriculum and two hour church, but I feel like I don’t have any real interaction with the kids any more.  I just keep things running and organized while other people get to teach and be with the kids.  Which I like. I’m going to miss that.

And speaking of church, Ains joined the choir.  Which I kind of pushed her to do because they were desperate for people.  And she’s playing the violin in the Christmas program.  She’s one talented girl!

I can’t really think of anything specific to write about Emmie or Owen.  I guess they’re just plugging along going about their lives as usual.  Owen, bless his heart, I feel is slowly entering his teen years.  I can tell this because he’s becoming more and more insistent that he knows everything and enjoys arguing  questioning everything John and I say to him.  It’s great.  We love it.  Owen also just signed up for his second year of ski team.  Boise received its first snowfall yesterday and our eyes have been on the mountain hoping they get some good snowfall for a good ski year! Owen also had another jazz band concert.  I must love him a lot because I really don’t like jazz music.  And I sat through 3 school performing jazz songs for that kid.  It was hard for me. But he did great!  He’s musically inclined and I know he’ll go far with music if he sticks with it.

The Christmas season is in full swing and life is just slightly more crazy than usual because of it. I love that Emmie still brings the magic and excitement of Christmas to our home.  She was so excited for Jingle, our elf, to come this year. She woke up every day the week before he came asking if he was here yet.  Thank heavens he finally came!  I was getting tired of seeing the disappointment on her face when I had to tell her repeatedly that he wasn’t here.  We have plans to watch Christmas movies, go see Christmas lights, and make holiday treats.  I’ll be relieved when the shopping is done so I can have a little note down time to enjoy the holiday.

We watched the First Presidency Christmas devotional last night. I loved the first talk so much.  Sharon L. Eubank  talked about how sometimes in life we just muddle through and things don’t go according to plan.  But she reminded us that that doesn’t matter and we are still loved. I think I will go back and listen to her talk often.  It was such a good reminder for me.

And now I guess I should get back to the crazy that is my life at the moment.  Kids and church and house and work Christmas. Awesome and exhausting all at the same time.

November 20, 2018

Last Monday, November 12, I boarded a plane at 6:00 in the morning after getting only about 2 hours of sleep.  But I didn’t mind.  I made it to Cabo by 2:30 that afternoon and within minutes I was by the pool looking at the ocean.  It was beautiful.  My parents have a time share at the Hacienda Del Mar resort.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Our room had an amazing view of the ocean.  The grounds were immaculate and full of beautiful flowers and bushes.  We spent our days walking the beach, collecting sea shells and sea glass, doing water aerobics, lounging by the pool, reading, napping, and playing the daily 2:00 game of Mexican bingo.  It was heavenly!  I’ve never done so little for a full week in my life!  It was so nice to have no one and nothing to worry about.

We saw a few whales, Kortney saw one breech (I only saw the splash.) We went snorkeling one afternoon and saw hundreds of fish.  I had never been snorkeling before and I was a little worried that being too close to the fish would freak me out.  I was also worried that I would struggle with breathing calmly through the snorkel.  I ended up liking it more than I thought I would.  The fish at the beach we were at were completely tame and overly comfortable with people.  They were surrounding our legs before we were even up you our waists in the water.  The fish would swim right with us.  I ended up loving it!  It was so cool!  It was something I would definitely do again.  The water in Cabo can be a little rough and there are a lot of rocks so Kortney and I only ventured out into the ocean one other time when the water was calm.  But I fell in love with the warmth and beauty of the ocean there.  I’ve only known cold ocean water my entire life, the tropical ocean is a game changer!

We usually came in and got dressed and headed into town for dinner every night.  The Mexicans live their Italian and Mexican food and fish.  We are that all week.  It was delicious.  Kort and I got a bit of an upset stomach one day (although we still don’t know what we got it from since we never ate anything my parents didn’t eat as well. And they never got sick).  After that we were extra cautious with our local water intake and didn’t have any other problems.

We spent time shopping in town for souvenirs.  Mostly at our parents friends (Rigo and his wife Favi’s shops.). They are really great people and I really enjoyed meeting them.  We also went to church on Sunday morning.  I loved seeing the ward there and the diverse group of people.  The church outside of Utah and Idaho is refreshing sometimes.

The one thing that I couldn’t get over while I was there was the wealth and beauty and the drastic contrast of poverty and a completely rundown city.  All right next door to each other.  Playgrounds with barbed wire right next to a neighborhood full of million dollar homes.  A beautiful restaurant next to condemned building.  Streets with roads falling apart right in front of gorgeous new malls.  The discrepancy was incredible and hard to make sense of. I’m so grateful to live in a country with rules and regulations and a government that enforces laws and a city that was built with planning and infrastructure in mind!

I completely enjoyed me week.  I had a blast with my parents and Kortney and laughed more than I have in a long time.  It’s amazing how easy is is to be happy sheik life slows down and you can take time to stop and smell the roses.  Literally.  I should remember that when I  home as well.

John’s adventures at home

Apparently Ainsley turned into a bit of a social butterfly while I was gone.  She has been hanging out with a girl in our ward, Hallie, and her friend Reagan.  Reagan is more social than Hallie and Ainsley and has gotten t out of the house a bit.  It’s a miracle!  2 stake dances and Ains even went over to Hallie’s to hang out with her new crew!  I’m thrilled!  She also had her swim banquet while I was away.  I asked about it and nothing much was reported.  But I know there was a taco bar, a slide show, and some lip syncing.  So it couldn’t have been too bad!

Emmie had a birthday party while I was away.  Owen spent a lot of time on the switch.  He is most likely dreading me coming home because his lazy life is about to end.  And John did a great job holding down the fort while I was away.  He managed work, being on call, and running the kids around, all with no dishwasher all week.  He’s a trooper.

And now it’s time for me to get back to reality.  I’m in a plane headed for home as I type this.  And now it’s time for Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the crazy that this time of year brings.  But I’m ready!

November 4-10 2018

The big event of the week is that we celebrated Emmie’s 9th birthday! It was her golden birthday this year.  She turned 9 on the 9th.  She woke up extra early that day.  Which was a bummer for Ainsley and Owen who got up extra early to decorate for her.  So they made her wait upstairs until they were done.  She patiently waited for them to be done.  And even though the surprise was spoiled I think she loved it just the same.  Her day went about as usual until after school.  It wasn’t her year for a friend party but we let her have Elsie over to spend the evening with the family.  Her primary teacher brought her a cupcake, which was super sweet.  Then she played with Owen and Ains and Elsie until dinner.  For dinner she chose fettuccine Alfredo.  This girl loves her carbs.  Originally she wanted fettuccini Alfredo and rice (her second favorite food) but that sounded gross…so I made her narrow it down.

After dinner she opened her gifts.  She got “Who Was” books from Elsie.  Which she loves.  A Chewbacca stuffed animal John bought from the Disney store when he was in Florida.  A special backpack for soccer that will hold her ball. A pillow…”like Owens”. A watch from Owen (which turned out to be her favorite). A wallet from Ainsley. And boring clothes.

After dinner we headed to Emmie’s beloved POJO’s.  My kids love POJO’s.  It’s a super old and pretty run down arcade type place with old bumper cars and a carousel.  It was the coolest place in the 90’s.  We love it because the games are all only 1-2 tokens, there are always coupons for free bumper car rides, and you always win tons of tickets.  (Unlike the more modern counterparts where all the games are a dollar or more and you never win many tickets.). Elsie got over 500 and Emmie had over 700 tickets by the end of the night.  And with only $10 in tokens!  POJO’s is truly a ghetto hidden gem.

While we were at POJO’s I was so impressed with Emmie.  She is growing up to be an amazing person.  She is so kind and giving.  She knew she had more tickets than Elsie so she kept giving Elsie some of hers.  While they were playing air hockey a little boy made it so that the puck went into Elsie’s goal.  So when Elsie made her next shot Emmie just let it in the goal. “To make it fair.”  These girls are so kind and funny and silly (and crude some times…thank you older brothers). I’m just thrilled with the kind of person Emmie is growing up to be.

After we were done gaming and tickets were cashed in for prizes, we came home to Oreo ice cream cake.  A little bit of playing and then off to bed.  I think she had a good day.

The week before Emmie’s birthday was crazy.  It was super busy to begin with because I needed to get everything organized for my family and primary before I left them for a week for Mexico.  That added to a week already full with work and kids schedules and meetings etc was making me stressed.  But then, to make matters worse, on Tuesday night our dishwasher broke. We were hoping it would be something we could fix.  But after John and I worked on it for over an hour we determined that the problem was serious and that our dishwasher was done.  It was old when we bought our house and it gave us a good 5+ years…but it had unfortunately done it’s last load of dishes.  Replacing a dishwasher would have been simple enough. But all of our appliances are old and we had decided previously that when one broke we were going to replace them all and get an upgraded set.  So the second half of my week was spent doing the daily dishes by hand.  (How did women do anything but dishes before dishwashers?!  My appreciation for modern conveniences has skyrocketed.) and shopping for all new appliances.  This is no small feat for a worrier/over analyzer like myself.  Thursday night was my lowest point when John and I went to Home Depot with appliances chosen and ready to place my order….we left the store 45 minutes later having not ordered anything and questioning my very existence.  I hate salesman! And Home Depot salesman don’t even get commission!  (Supposedly.) I also realized I forgot about an auxiliary meeting I had that night and so I had to walk into that over 30 minutes late.  It was slightly awkward. But I’ll recover.  Long story short, after several days of reading about appliance reviews and features we have appliances on their way.  Even though the salesman thinks my choices are old fashioned and not up to date.  Lame.  Sadly they won’t be here for a week.  So John and the kids are stuck with no dishwasher all week while I’m in Mexico relaxing.  I feel terrible! And they have to inspect and install them without me!  The control freak, anal, and detailed person inside me is going crazy.  It will take all the strength I can muster to hand this task over to John to handle without me.  He’s the relaxed non particular party in our marriage.  While I’m grateful he’s this way most of the time, I’m going to be pressuring him to be a little more like me during delivery and installation.

And with that….my bags are mostly packed and I’m off to Mexico on Monday! Yay!

Another Halloween is in the books. Owen and Emmie went trick or treating this year with the Demars kids and a few other friends.  The dads walked around with the kids and the moms stayed home and passed out candy. I took the opportunity of a night home alone and got my sharing time planned for Sunday.  The co start ringing of the doorbell slowed me down a bit, but it got done!  The kids were out trick or treating for over two hours and ended up with so much candy!  If I know my children, I’d say that Owen will have his gone in a week and I’ll throw away what Emmie hasn’t eaten in December.  Ainsley got together with her friend Hallie and they hung out at her house and then went to watch a scary movie with Heather Demars (their Mia maid leader) and a few other kids from the ward.  I was relieved she had something to do that night and wasn’t home bored on Halloween. Owen decided that this would be his last year trick or treating.   Glad he came to that conclusion on his own, but it’s a little sad that we’re coming to the end of an era.  Emmie and Owen commenced in the traditional candy sort and trade after they got home that night.  Emmie commented that she was ready to trade with Ainsley when Ainsley got home.. I was a little sad to tell her that Ains didn’t trick or treat this year and wouldn’t have anything to trade! Who will Emmie have to sort and trade with next year?! So sad!


Johns family cam into town this weekend for Audrey’s baptism.  (James and Shelly’s daughter). Friday night Steve and Alene came for dinner and brought Dan and Paige’s kid. Saturday morning we went to the baptism.  James and Shelly came from Oregon to have Audrey baptized here because she had a cousin that was able to be baptized on the same day.  Plus I think the location is easier for both families to be able to attend. The program and baptism were really nice.  I really don’t like the mass stake baptisms that our stake does.  This was personal and quaint.  I wish my kids baptisms would have been like that!  Then Saturday but we headed over to the other Boise Dingers’ for dinner and the BYU/BSU game. It was a fun night with John’s family.  We don’t get to see James and Shelly and there kids much and  I think all the kids enjoyed their time playing with cousins and I enjoyed chatting with Shelly.

John and Ainsley joined my gym last week. Ainsley wanted a way to work out now that swim is over and axiom has a lap pool.  And John just wants to try to get in shape.  Hopefully they’ll love it… but if not at least they signed up with no contract or commitment!

Somehow our Sundays are rarely days of rest.  For example, yesterday started with a presidency meeting for me, John was on call so he had to leave and work for a bit, I had to put finishing touches on my sharing time and work on some primary stuff.  Then there was church.  Then we ran home to a fast grilled cheese and tomato soup dinner.  Then back to the church for tithing settlement and YW in excellence. And I’d say that was a fairly typical Sunday.  I’m ready for a lighter load and two hour church!  I’m anxiously awaiting the extra time at home for family study!

As far as YW in excellence goes though, Ainsley has been working on a young women video as one of her projects that she showed last night.  She worked hard and had to get out of her shell and contact people to collect pictures.  The video turned out great!  Sadly when she played it at that night the music kept skipping.  I made John step in and help her.  When all was said and done once the first song was over the rest of the video was great.  And most importantly the girls all loved seeing the pictures from all of their activities last year.  So well done Ainsley!

Random tidbits for the week….Emmie learned how to whistle. Which she was so proud of that she tried to whistle to the hymns during sacrament meeting.  It sounded a little weird. And Owen is teaching himself the guitar.  I’m not sure how it started.  But it’s not uncommon for Owen to get on random kicks.  And it looks as though this might be his newest one.  I’m thrilled about it because I’d rather him spend his time playing guitar than playing video games!

We spent A LOT of time on the soccer field last week.  It was Emmie’s league tournament.  She had games Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.  They won all of their games except one and that one ended in a tie.  She wanted a medal so badly.  She has received medals in the past but they’ve always just been a participation medal.  When a friend of hers rudely told her that she only had participation medals Emmie really wanted one that was earned. Well…her team played hard and they came in first in their division!  They beat out 11 teams!  They had to score 3 goals during their final game to guarantee victory and when they scored that 3rd goal they were so excited!  I was proud of her and all of her team for working so hard.  They are some tough girls!


Ainsley had  an orchestra concert  this week as well.  It was Halloween themed.  The kids were all in costume and even their director (who looks like a 17 year old but claims to have a college degree) got in on the fun.  He skateboarded in at the beginning dressed as Marty Mcfly.  He had a fog machine for a few of the songs and on top of that the music he selected was great.  Although if you asked Emmie and Owen it was way too long and boring.


Our family also survived what I will call “fly-pocolypse” this last week.  I was driving the girls to and from activities and so I relied on Owen to help me with dinner.  I had dinner prepped and called and gave him my best estimate for cook time.  Unfortunately I didn’t make it clear that my times were estimates and he left the kitchen to watch tv with a pan sizzling away on the stove.  When I drove up to the house Owen was opening doors and the house was Smokey and smelled horribly!  Enter the flies.  The smoke, the smell of food on a warm October day, and the welcoming wide open doors brought soooo many files into our house!  It was insane!  Flies were  all over the ceilings, doors, cupboards, everywhere.  We started swatting and killed at least 20 before we had to leave for Ainsleys concert.  Then I killed more that night.  The next morning.  And to this day I’m wondering if the flies I’m still killing are part of that batch or just random flies that are sneaking in when a door opens.  At least now fly sightings are few and far between.

The kids were out of school on Thursday and Friday for Parent teacher conferences. We filled our 4 day weekend and I’d say we made good use of our time!  Ainsley got a hair cut.  We bought pumpkins.  We went to soccer games.  We carved pumpkins.  The boys got haircuts. Ainsley and Owen went to the temple and did baptisms for the dead.  We put lights outside for Halloween.  We watched Red Sox games.  We went to pizza pie café with Emmie’s soccer team.  I went to a million primary meetings (okay, more like 3 but it felt like a lot!). Ainsley went to a stake dance and even invited a friend over to hang out before the dance! What?!?! Emmie baked and decorated cakes for Halloween with some friends.  Her friends moms are way cooler than me.  I swear we did more but I can’t remember right now! I don’t think any of us ended the weekend feeling rested as all.

As far as parent teacher conferences went they were all helpful!  All of the kids had a very positive report from their teachers.  We got some good insight into some of Ainsley and Owen’s classes and we learned that Emmie has retaken the test that she scored low on previously and improved her score tremendously.  Her Lexile score literally doubled and her IRI scores were significantly higher across the board.  Her teacher is convinced it was just a fluke.  Unfortunately it was a stressful fluke for me!

And with that I think I’ll end our update for the week.  Phew!

The primary program is over!  (For this year anyways.) I wrote the program for our primary this year. Normally I’m not one to over think or worry about things like that.  But this year for some reason I felt more stressed about it.  Our primary has gotten quite a bit smaller in the past few years and so I only had about 50 parts. Almost all of the kids fit on the padded choir seats! It was crazy! In my opinion the length of the program was the only flaw.   I never remembered to time the program when we were practicing so I had no idea how long the program would be. We ended about 10-15 minutes early and the bishop has to fill the time.  But it didn’t seem to bother anyone but me.  The kids gave great talks and most of their parts were pulled from an “I am a Child of God” board we made in primary in January where the kids each shared ways that they knew Heavenly Father loved them.  It made it so that during the program kids weren’t grouped by class…they were grouped by topic.  Which made seating a little tricky, but ultimately it was just fine.  The kids sang 2 songs they loved in particular, “One in a Million” and “I Will Be What I Believe.”  They sang loud and proud and did great!  I’m happy they did so well and that it’s all over and now I can move onto the next thing in primary…planning for next year!

Owen is a man of mystery.  He had a band concert last week and about an hour before the concert he informed us that he had a solo.  Then he mentioned that he actually had two solo’s.  Like it was no big deal.  Then he told us that the reason he had the solos was because he was in jazz band.  We had no idea! Jazz band is an advisory elective.  When Owen’s favorite advisory (analyzing Disney movies) wasn’t available he ended up in jazz band by default.  He then casually informed us that he is the first chair trumpet.  Out of 15.  Not too shabby Owen!  He did really well on his solos (basically different kids came up and did a little improv, like scatting but with instruments). And now I’m left wondering what else my son is involved in that I have no clue about.  Because when I ask about his day I just get told that it was good and he learned. I wish he would use more words!


Ains finished swim team last week as well.  Her last meet was on Tuesday.  She swam in two relays.  She did really well in one of her relays and passed two other swimmers during her length of the race.  And her team never finished last! She’s not going to districts but will have a team banquet next month. I’m proud of her for trying something new! She found something she really enjoyed and that she’ll miss until next season.  And I think she’s in better shape than she’s been in her whole life.  She says she  wants to keep working out.  Which I think is awesome.  In my opinion everyone needs a good physical outlet.

Emmie got invited to play on the all stars team for her league. So she’ll play in a fun game where they compile the best 40 or so girls in her league.  I’m sure it’s also a sales pitch to parents to sign their daughters up for a full competitive league.  But we have no interest in that.  So for Emmie it will just be a fun game. Emmie also earned the “Wanted” award in her class this week.  I think she earned it for completing her work well.  She was more proud of that award than being asked to play on an all star team. John was baffled by this.  Emmie also told me that she retook her IRI test and that her score came way up.  I’m anxious to visit with her teacher during parent teacher conferences next week.  I’ve volunteered in her class but I spend my time in the teachers work room and have very little time to actually talk with her teacher!

We also had a Ward Halloween party on Friday.  There was a chili cook-off and people dressed up.  And that was about it.  Honestly my kids were bored and wanted to go home.  And the party was being cleaned up 30 minutes before it was even supposed to end.  It was kind of a bummer.  I wish they would have had some activities.  But I’ll try not to complain too much for fear of being put in charge of the next ward activity.

John has been busy watching a lot of baseball recently.  His beloved Red Sox are headed to the World Series this year.  He has a friend in our ward that is also a huge Red Sox fan who called one day with a plan to drive to LA and get tickets to see game four in the series.  The plan came to a fast halt however when they looked up tickets and saw that they were going for $700. Crazy!  Who spends that much to go to a baseball game? People in LA I guess?

I’ve been really enjoying my job lately.  I was a little nervous about this year because the head librarian and the full time assistant that I worked with last year (that I really liked) moved on to other positions.  I was a littler nervous that I wouldn’t like my new library friends as much as my old ones.  I’m happy to report that I’ve been blessed with great wen to work with again.  The new head librarian that I work for (Cindee) has some great ideas and is more willing to delegate and projects.  Which I love. Because basically that means I get to work on fun projects and be a little creative.  She also brought me along to a district wide library conference which I really liked.  I learned that there are a lot of learning opportunities for me.  I’d like to take advantage of trainings and certifications that will be available to me through the district.  If nothing else it will keep my knowledge a little more up to date and be good for a resume. I’ve also enjoyed the full time assistant I’ve been working with.  She was an elementary librarian before and is now at the same school as both of her boys.  I think we’ll make a great team.

This past week has been Halloween costume central at our house.  We have a ward Halloween party on the 19th so I’ve felt pressure to have everything done early this year! Ainsley’s costume is a cinch.  She’s being the boy on the movie “Mean Girls” that dresses in a hoodie and sunglasses and says, “she doesn’t even go here.” If you don’t know what I’m talking about go watch the movie.  It’s funny.  Owen is going to be an old mans and use the walker my mom has to get for her knee surgery this last summer.  Emmie is going to be a hippie.  Her costume has proven a little more labor intensive.  This week we’ve fashioned a fringe leather vest.  Sewn bell bottoms.  Which happened to be much trickier than I thought they would be!  And then Ainsley painted a cool hippie flower pattern on her pants.  I’ll have to figure out how to add pictures.  They look super cute.  And I’m dressing up as Emmie and my friend Heather is dressing up as her daughter and Emmie’s BFF Elsie.  Heather and I are dressing up as the girls as soccer players. So we bought shirts the same color as their soccer uniforms, long soccer shorts and socks, and then ironed on the girls names onto the backs of our shirts.  I hope Emmie and Elsie love it and think funny!  We’ve been planning it for months!

Lately I have been exhausted.  Between work, and violin repair, and primary, and soccer, and swim, and piano, and activity days,  and young women’s, and scouts, and trying to get up early to exercise, and trying to keep my house cleaned not filthy, and doing laundry, and keeping food in the cupboards, I’m feeling like I’m drowning and just can’t keep up! This feeling FHA’s reminded me of two conversations.  One with Erin Hansen when she had a high schooler and an elementary student.  She told me that she never slept and was so tired because she was burning the candle at both ends.  I remember thinking that having high schoolers could in no way be as exhausting as having little kids.  I humbly admit that I was wrong.  I might be a different kind of tired.  But I’m more worn out.  Mentally and physically.  And yet in the back of my head I know that I will miss the crazy that I feel right now.  When I interviewed my grandpa Welch a few years ago he was reminiscing about when his kids were younger and he was more involved with the youth and with his ward.  He was remembering how busy he was but also how fond the memories were.  I know that one day I’ll feel the same way.  So even though I feel run down and sleepy all the time, I’m trying to enjoy every minute.  Because I’ll be so sad when it’s all over.

My dad loves Chile  rellano.  Although he hasn’t been able to find amazing ones in Boise. And he turned 60 last month. Therefore (because the man has everything and we didn’t know what else to get him) we took him to a Mexican restaurant (a month late) that claimed to have excellent Chile Rellano.  I’m not sure if we found him a new favorite in Boise…but we did have a lot of fun taking my parents out to dinner in celebration of my dad getting old.  Which also means I’m getting old. Ugh.

This past summer we went camping at Warm Lake with our friends the Flakes.  While we were there we hunted for wild huckleberries.  We found some just outside of our campground.  Brooke had never seen wild huckleberries and picking them on her own was a bit of a life long dream.  Until this camping trip huckleberries had been her unicorn.  Needless to say she was more than thrilled with our find.  Once we found the bushes we picked the little berries forever.  With all of us picking we came home with probably 4-5 cups of berries.  Our plan was to make them into milkshakes.  This last weekend our milkshake dream finally became a reality.  And it was worth the wait.  I might sound crazy, but we made the best huckleberry milkshakes I’ve ever had.  Huckleberry ice cream is kind of a thing in Idaho because of the wild growing berry.  I’m now convinced that everyone else skimps on the berry to ice cream ratio.  And now I’m committed to picking huckleberries yearly, because our homemade shakes were just that good.

And since I feel like this update is more about me than the rest of my family, here is a fun family fact:

Ainsley learned how to snap her fingers…this month.

October 7, 2018

This past week the kids had a 5 day weekend.   I’ve been toying with the idea that our kids were old enough to leave alone overnight so I decided this would be a good time to try an experiment.  Additionally John and I never seem to do much to celebrate our anniversary. December anniversaries are the worst.  I  had the idea to celebrate our anniversary a little early this year with a stay-cation downtown. So after discussing it with the kids and getting their ok, I booked a hotel for our little get away. I’m happy to report it was a success!  John and I pretended we were tourists and wandered around parts of downtown and the north end.  We wandered around downtown for “First Thursday”. Basically a bunch of local businesses have special events to attract people.  It was just ok. We tried a new restaurant, Bitter creek Alehouse.  Which I though was delicious…hello yummy poutine! On Saturday we walked the greenbelt and went to a bagel shop for breakfast. We checked out of our hotel (which we ended up getting for free because of an issue with a broken toilet) and then went to Cash and Carry (a local restaurant supply store).  Which I guess is technically an errand.  But I love going to cash and carry and  I rarely go because it’s not near me. We spent the rest of the day doing odds and ends with the kids. It ended up being a great and relaxing couple of days.

Our 5 day weekend also coincided with General Conference and a soccer tournament that Emmie got invited to participate in.  They essentially took the best players from the best two teams in her league and formed a team to compete in a big tournament.  We told them she could only play on Saturday and they still wanted her so we missed bits of conference on Saturday but were able to watch most of it between her games.  John went to her first game and said she played amazing.  Their team won 5-1.  Ains, my mom, and I took her to her second game because we were going to go to the Women’s conference right afterwards. They played hard but unfortunately the other team just outplayed them.  They ended up losing 4-0.  I was proud of how well Emmie’s newly formed team played together. They had only had one practice before their first game.  Emmie made a couple of fast friends on the team and had fun.  So when all was said and done I think it was a good experience for her.  Plus she got a pin…so Emmie is thrilled.

Speaking of general conference, what an exciting conference this was!  After years and years of rumors of 2 hour church it finally happened! The rumors have been crazy this time around and I wanted to believe it but didn’t want to get my hopes up.  And then somehow it actually happened!  I only have 4 more sharing times to prepare! Ever! But if I’m being honest I think I’d rather give up all of my other primary president responsibilities and keep teaching sharing time.  I actually enjoy teaching, but sometimes finding the time to prepare can be stressful.  I’ve been pondering combining our junior and senior primaries for a while now, but the difficulty of teaching an engaging lesson to a 3 year old and an 11 year old at the same time always made me think it just wouldn’t work.  But with this new change I think it might be perfect for our primary.  If I can find enough classrooms for primary in our building I’m going to make some big changes to our primary next year as well. I’m excited!
Owen has been our neglected child lately. He isn’t involved in any extra curricular a right now and so our time in the evenings is often spent running the girls around and Owen is left behind.  I wish Owen was the kind of person that handled being bored well.  He is not.  Down time for Owen often means Owen is in front of a device or the TV or pestering anyone around him.  I desperately need for him to be busy.  It’s killing me. John was feeling bad about Owen’s current state of being the kid always left behind and decided to take him out for dinner and a movie while the girls and I watched women’s conference.  My dad went along with them and it sounds like they had a great time.  Owen recently got a gift card to a fancy Japanese steakhouse for watching a neighbors’ cat.  So they headed there.  By all accounts the highlight of the night was when the waiter asked John if he wanted soup or salad in a thick accent and John asked, “what’s the difference?” I’m sure that will be something we laugh at for years.

Ainsley has been working hard on a video for their upcoming Young Women in Excellence. I’m sure it will turn out great.  Right now she is busy collecting pictures from members of our ward.  This is completely out of Ainsley’s comfort zone.  I think it’s good for her to be forced to interact with others, but based on the way she is acting she thinks it might kill her. Hopefully when the video finished and she see’s how amazing it turns out she will realize contacting people for pictures wasn’t so bad.

September 25, 2018

Last week John left us for a few days and headed off to a conference in Orlando.  While he was there he stayed in a fancy hotel connected to Universal studios.  I’m sure he did some learning but mostly I heard about his shopping at Disney outlets.  He came home with all sorts of pins for the kids.  The last time we were in Disney land John and the kids took up the hobby of pin trading.  John is a collector.  And I have a suspicion that he plots to get our kids into collecting things with him.  And with the Disney pins it worked and they’re all hooked.  The rumor is that the next time we’re in Disneyland my job is to carry around the worthless trading pins.  I haven’t been sold on the pin trading just yet.

I booked my  flight to Cabo!  Kortney and I are vacationing with my parents again. But this time at their time share in Mexico instead of New England.  I have a feeling that trip to New England will remain my all time favorite vacation…but  I’m still totally excited to get out of town!

I’ve been working extra hours at the library recently as well.  At Lowell Scott Middle school there is the head librarian (we got a new one this year), a full time assistant, and a part time assistant.  I’m at the bottom of the totem pole and only work 15 hours a week normally.  But last week our full time assistant left the library to be the head secretary.  All of a sudden I was the most senior member of the library staff!  Hopefully someone is hired soon.  Until then, I’ll be working extra hours to keep up with some of the day to day tasks.

Funny story about Owen this week.  Somehow I usually don’t hear Owen’s alarm when it goes off in the morning.  I guess I’m either asleep, at the gym, or far away from his room.  But the other day I heard his Alexa wake him up by telling him the weather forecast and then saying, “you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh darn it…people like you.”  I started laughing so hard!  I loved the flashback to 90’s Saturday Night Live.  Apparently John had set that up.  I thought it was hilarious.

Owen and I finally finished the refinishing of our barstools as well.  They look awesome.  Unfortunately they don’t match my cabinets.  So now we have to redo our kitchen countertops, backsplash, and add some bead board.  Or I guess we could just go buy bar stools. But I feel like we’ve put so much work into them that we can’t just abandon them at this point.  John is curious as to where we will come up with the money for the remodel.  I think John has little faith.

Ainsley is busy, busy, busy.  Between school, young women’s, piano, swim team, homework, and her weekly job tutoring a neighbor girl she’s always busy doing something. We’ve started watching Gilmore Girls together.  This was the show that I started when John was in law school.  I looked forward to it every week.  It holds a special place in my heart.  And I made her wait to watch it until she was close to the age of Rory.  Kind of because I thought she would relate to her character.  She only gets to watch the high-school years now.  And has to wait until she’s a junior or senior to watch the college years.  It’s been fun to have a show to watch together.  And I kind of like that is will be a slow process because we only have time to watch one or two episodes a week.

I’m a little worried about Emmie right now.  Although  not sure if I actually should be or not.  She brought home results from her state IRI year saying that she was below grade level in reading.  Just barely.  The state has a new test this year that is online.  Emmie claims she was confused during part of the test. And her teacher let me know that it was her spelling portion that was below grade level. Her teacher also reassured me that she is not concerned at all and that Emmie is one of the top performers in class.  Emmie scores well above grade level last spring so this is a complete shock!  And I’m not sure how to increase her spelling score.  But until she gets it up she has to receive extra reading instruction at school. Which I don’t like at all.  The kids are tested every month (which I don’t like either) so I’m hopeful that she’ll perform better next time and we can be done with this.

September 7-15

Owen loves to he with friends.  And while he has made a couple of good friends at school, Owen doesn’t have many (or any) friends his age in the neighborhood.  Well, I guess I should say friends that are boys.  He actually gets along quite well with our family friends daughter Clara.  Owen had a crush on her and professed his love for her regularly when they were little.  Clara is very shy and this made her want nothing to do with him. As they’ve grown older his love has  subsided and she’s decided he’s actually not too bad to be around.  While they rarely hang out they always seem to have a good time when they do.  One night, when Owen was bored to tears and I encouraged him to go to Clara’s to see if she wanted to do anything.  Unfortunately Clara is in a similar situation to Owen where friends are concerned. And Emmie was already at their house and it seemed like a good idea.  Owen wasn’t convinced.  But when I dared him to go ask Clara if she wanted to go “skip with him at the school” and bet him a dollar he wouldn’t do it things changed.  Owen loves money and rarely turns down a dare.  So what started as a forced night ended with Owen and Clara baking cookies, jumping on the tramp, and having a fun night.  Rather than them both sitting home alone. And the next time Owen was bored on a weekend he headed over to see what Clara was up to.  Seeing that makes me happy. I honestly enjoy watching the two of them together.  Clara is athletic and strong and so she can keep up Owen.  I actually think she is stronger than he is.  But she is quiet and calm in many ways which I think is good for Owen at times.  And at their times Owen’s loud and outgoing personality can pull Clara out of her shell.  I hope they remain friends throughout middle school and high school.

Ainsley has been working on getting her drivers license.  She’s completed her online portion.  That was super easy for her.  And now she’s moved into more practical skills…like actually driving a car.  This terrifies me.  She had her first drive last weekend and came home with a good report from her instructor. Her second drive was scheduled for the next day.  Sadly, she came home in tears because she nearly hit a car that was in her blind spot while driving on the freeway.  And apparently this threw her off for the rest of her drive and she just couldn’t get her head back in the game.  Her teacher said the rest of the drive was pretty rough. Ains was nervous about her final drive.  To the point that she wanted me to reschedule it for even later.   She had her final drive a few days ago and by some miracle she passed. Now she has a learners permit and has to drive for 50 hours over the next 6 months with John or I in the car.  I drove with her for the first time on the road tonight.  So scary.  She actually didn’t do too bad…but I was a nervous wreck! We need to find her a little dumpy car to drive because I have a hard time letting her drive my new van!

This week Ainsley told me that she was going to miss swim team when it was over.  What?!  Ainsley usually never is sad about a sport ending!  We may have found something physical she actually enjoys! She did great in her meet this week and ended up getting to race in 4 events because 2 of the high-schools in the meet had so many swimmers they needed more heats.  She was at the meet for 4.5 hours and came home smiling.  A good Day I’d say!

 Last weekend we took the kids to a BSU football game.  John has fond memories of going to the BYU football games as a kid with his dad and had wanted to take our kids to a game.  So when I got an email about a discount night for educators we took advantage of the cheap tickets.  My parents joined us and we had a fun night with the kids. I think the pregame and half time were the most exciting for the kids to watch but they actually got into the game as well.  And as luck would have it there was an Albertsons promotion going on that night at the game so there were $5 gift cards under every seat.  We took all of ours and them Emmie and Owen (along with lots f other kids throughout the stadium) hunted for gift cards left behind.  I think we came home with $95 in Albertsons gift cards!  We left the game after the end of the 3rd quarter because BSU was so far ahead, but I’m confident that we could have made money on the evening if we had stayed longer and let the kids keep hunting as the stadium cleared out!

Owen continues to be a bit of a bum.  He isn’t involved in any fall activities so he has too much down time for my liking. Owen has always been much happier when he’s busy.  He’s continued to work on sanding down my kitchen barstools.  But they have proven to be a beast.  So I’ve stepped in to help.  And I don’t have time for that right now! We may have ruined them.  Time will tell…

Emmie’s time is (as always) filled with friends, soccer, friends, activity days, friends, piano, and more friends. I think she spends more time with Elsie than me.  Those two are like sisters.  Emmie did well in her soccer games.  2 goals last week and 1 this week.

On a side note…Emmie still says “Valentimes” day.  I hope that never changes.

Also I’m booking a flight to Cabo!  A week in November with my parents and Kortney.  Birthday week in November is going to be a blast this year!

Here we go again....I hope.

Recently I decided to look at my good friend Katie's blog.  I saw that she was writing what she called “weeklys”.  I read for a while and enjoyed what she had written.  And them I had the thought, “What a great record of her family! I used to have a great record of my family.  Wait, I can still have a record of my family!”

So thanks to Katie’s inspiration, I’m going to attempt to write some weeklys. There may not be pictures.  And I might miss weeks.  But I’d love for my children to have a record of their childhood.

And now to begin with I’ll give a quick update on each of us...

Emmie:

Emmie is currently loving life.  She started the 3rd grade this year and has several friends in her class. I think she is going to have a great year. She has a great group of friends. She is lucky because we have about 8 girls her age in our ward and neighborhood.  For her, life is a constant play date. And if it were up to Emmie she would spend every waking minute of her life with her best friend Elsie. Those two are thick as thieves.  I hope that they always remain so close.  I love that they have each other.

Emmie has developed a deep love of soccer.  My sweet little girl is somehow fierce on the field.  It’s fun watching her play because she is so determined, tough, and fearless.  She actually amazes me. She's joined a competitive soccer league this year.  They have only played one game so far and she scored 3 goals during the game.  I don't think that this will be the norm, but it gave her a great start to the season.

We took Emmie up Skiing last winter and by the end of her second day she was going down blue runs with ease.  I think it helped that Elsie was there with her and due to her competitive nature she had to keep up with her friend.  But she seemed to like it and we have plans to get up on the mountain as a family again this year.

Emmie was also baptized last fall.  We had a great day as a family.  I love that we have family close by to support my kids.

Owen:

Since I last wrote Owen had a bit of a traumatic experience.  Over Memorial Day weekend at the end of his 4th grade year Owen’s appendix ruptured.  We spent 2 days thinking he had the stomach flu.  But when John googled his symptoms we determined it might be time to have him checked at the doctor.  By that night (Friday) we learned that he would need to have his appendix out.  This led to a 10 day stay in the hospital for Owen.  I was not pleased with the on-call doctor that performed Owens surgery.  Especially when Owen wasn’t getting better 4 days after surgery and they eventually realized that there was still infection inside his intestine.  He had another surgery (right after Emmie’s kindergarten graduation) where two surgeons spent 4 hours cleaning out Owen’s infected intestines inch by inch.  It was a hard and trying 10 days.  Owen was miserable.  He wasn’t able to talk much because of the tubes in his nose and throat that were draining the infection from his stomach.  He was sad about missing all of his end of school year parties and he was in incredible pain.  But he survived it. Despite all of this he never complained.  He was incredibly tough.  I was a complete wreck a lot of the time and I was very proud of him.

Owen turned 12 last month.  He was ordained a deacon, has started passing the sacrament, and is really liking Young Men's.  Right now John is his YM leader.  I think it's great for both of them to be able to have some quality time with each other every week.

Owen is now in the 7th grade. He joined the ski team last year and really enjoyed it.  We spent a lot of Saturday’s up at Bogus Basin last winter and most likely will this year as well.  Owen has no fear and will go down any run. Literally.  But his technique isn’t great so I’m making him work on that this year, which he won’t be thrilled about. Owen plays the trumpet in the band and he made the A team for tennis last spring.  Not too shabby considering the only tennis he had played prior to that was a few kiddie summer camps I signed him up for when he was little.. He qualified for honors math and is doing well in school.  Which he needs to do if really wants to become an anesthesiologist like he says he does.

Owen loves to make money.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  He was a lunchroom helper last year and this year.  He earns something like 40 cents a day for the 15 minutes he serves lunch.  And them he gets a free lunch.  So I pay him what I would have had to spend on his lunches for the month.  Really it saves me money as well so I love the arrangement!   Owen will jump at any opportunity to make money. Recently he weeded for neighbors to make money, he made gourmet cookies and sold them on a street corner during the neighborhood garage sale and made $20 in an hour, and currently he is sanding down my kitchen barstools because I really didn’t want to do it myself! He is definitely a hard worker.

Ainsley:
Ainsley is a Miamaid and just started her freshman year of high school!  I can’t believe I have a kid in high school.  And what makes it even stranger is that they recently redrew the high school boundary lines and Ainsley is going to my old high school.  I never in a million years thought my kids would go to the same high school as me.  It’s so strange.  Ainsley is thriving academically.  She is taking all honors classes this year.  I’m sure she’ll do well.  Her mind is incredible.  She has been playing the violin, the piano, and even picked up the ukulele.  She’s very musically talented.  She also got a taste of student council and loved it.  She was VP her 7th and 8th grade year.  To me this was a testament of how well liked Ainsley is.  She isn’t popular by the worlds standard…but she is kind and her peers like her for that.

Ainsley also joined the high school’s swim team this year. She isn’t the fastest at all.  But she is a good swimmer and is loving the workouts and I’m enjoying that she is meeting more people.

Ainsley has been a little lost ever since her best friend Elisabeth moved away before her 7th grade year.  Ainsley is an introvert by every definition of the word and suffers from social anxiety.  She went into high school this year with no friends.  Only a few acquaintances.  I’ve been so proud of her for putting herself out there and being willing to talk to and meet new people. She still hasn’t found a new “Elisabeth” but I’m praying that Ainsley finds a close friend or two this year.  Maybe someone that will pull her out of her comfort zone just a little and get her to go to a couple of stake dances or football games!

Ainsley has entered the working world recently as well.  She cleans my parents music store for them one day a week and tutors a girl in our ward one day a week.  And this past summer she interviewed with a lady in our stake who teaches swimming lessons for a job teaching for her next summer.  We’ll find out in March if she got that or not.  But our fingers are crossed!

John:

John has been busy working and supporting our family.  He’s been at Ada county for 12 years now. He is currently a team leader and works on a task force for internet crimes against children.  And as of yesterday will also be working on a murder that has been reopened after being a cold case for 25 years.

John also continues his love of church history.  He had published articles, and presented at the Mormon History association meetings for the last few years.  Currently he has been commissioned to write a biography on the life and works of Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  Although he says his heart isn’t in it and he’s just doing it for the money.  He wants to take another trip to Disney Land and sees this as the perfect opportunity to get the money to take the family there.

John had also been helping coach Emmie’s soccer team.  He is super competitive.  It’s funny/embarrassing to watch him at Emmie’s games.  It’s pretty nerve wracking for him.  This year he’ll be less involved though because Emmie moved to a competitive league and there were already 3 coaches so John is off the hook.

Jessica:

I’ve been busy with life.  I had a bit of a mid-life crisis when Emmie went to first grade.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  And somehow that led to me getting a million jobs.  I worked as a Lunch lady at centennial High for a few months.  Then I worked as a Lunch Lady Sub.  I learned to repair violins and do repair work at my parents music store.  I clean my mom's house.  I coached Volleyball at the middle school. And most recently I’ve landed my dream job working at Lowell Scott Middle School. Unfortunately my kids don’t go there.  But it’s close to home and I work the perfect schedule.  9:45-12:45 everyday.  With all of the days my kids are out of school off. I love it! This year I’ve cut back and I'm just working at the library, doing violin repair, and cleaning for my mom.

I also trained for and ran a half marathon.  So that makes a grand total of two for me! My good friend Mandy trained with me.  I came to enjoy the hours we spent running together every week.  Mandy is also my favorite ski partner.  We are at exactly the same level and are learning together.  We’re learning as adults and try to make sure we go up skiing together at least once a year.  She’s the best.

And at church I’m serving as the primary president now.  I love it and hate it all at the same time.  I hate being I’m charge and I hate meetings.  But I really like teaching and being with the kids.  We’re fast approaching the primary program and then hopefully my primary stress will decrease just a bit.

Family Happenings:

Over the past couple of years we’ve had some family happenings as well.  We (I) got rid of the dog.  Yes, I know this makes me the worst mother in the world.  But last spring we got a hamster, so I’ve redeemed myself a bit.

We took a family vacation to Disney Land.  And as awesome and memorable as the trip was it will forever be known as the trip where we hit a deer, it totaled our van, and my parents drove to us and let us take their car to California thereby saving our vacation.  And then we came home and had to buy a car in just a couple of days.  Completely stressful and out of character for us.  We like time to shop for our cars.  We ended up with another grey Honda van.  We’re very adventurous!

We also went to Denver to visit my Kortney’s family who moved there recently.  I took a trip with Ainsley to New England while Sydney was living there.  We had a great time driving around and seeing all the sites of New England.  I love New England.  I wish I could live there. We also visited the Oregon coast this summer.  The beauty there was amazing.  I loved it and hope to be able to go back soon.  We’ve also taken several camping trips with our little tent trailer. One day maybe John will learn to love camping.  But at this point I’m not holding my breath.

And I think that will conclude my very brief and vague recap of the last 2+ years.  Now onto more consistent family updates!