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!