Paige's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my little Paige! I can't believe that she is 8 years old and going to be baptized. She has grown up so much. Here is a little picture-line of her years.







She is such a wonderful daughter. As a baby she was such a little trouble causer, and she still loves to tease her sisters, but she has grown into such a fun, energetic, crazy, clever, sweet, kind, loving, young lady. I just love having her around. She bring so much joy to us with her crazy faces and funny jokes. She is the little comedian of our family and keeps us busting up all the time. At the same time, she really cares about how everyone feels. She is always the first to make someone a get better card if they are sick, and a love notes for no reason. She is always willing to help out when its needed, and really takes care of her little sisters. I will always be grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending me my Paige Amelia.

Christmas time...Here so fast?

I have been thinking about when I was going to put up my Christmas tree. I have a lot of time in my mind.....until I realized today just how close Christmas really is. I kind of freaked, jumping all over Pat to get it down from the big shelf in the garage. It still is not down, but our buddy Jasen had a small tree that he gave to my kids. The girls and I got it out and set it up. I put lights on it and then they spent all morning making decorations to put on it. It now occupies a corner in our hallway.


I love that the kids did it all by themselves, and they are so proud of it.



In the process of putting it up, I got out all my other Christmas decorations and put them up, but still no main tree. Hopefully Pat will get it down tomorrow and we can decorate it for family home evening on Monday.

I have done some minimal shopping for gifts, but I really need to kick it into high gear and get it done. Oh well, I have always been a last minute shopper at Christmas.

My life

-Work
-Marin in Kindergarten
-kid's school
-their homework
-Pat's school
-his homework
-Amanda's soccer
-Paige's soccer
-Achievement days
-Pat's football
-Pat's scouts

-Busy-ness!!!

Marin and Jaida after baths tonight.

Life these Days

Pat is in Montana on his "Man Trip" and I have been cleaning out bedrooms in my house, preparing for school to start next week. Holy cow, this coming Wed we have to get up and get all ready by 8:25? How is that possible? Have I ever done this before? After this summer, it feels like I never have. I have been so lazy about making anybody get dressed until about 11am, unless its Amanda going to early morning soccer. It's funny how I crave school getting out for the summer, but then crave it starting again to kick our butts back into a schedule and routine. I'm nuts, I know.

I have been working on potty training Jaida. She is doing really well going #1 in the potty, but just getting her to go #2 is frustrating. She tells me she needs to, and we go sit on the potty for a while and she won't go, but as soon as her pull-up or panties are back on she goes. It just takes time, but I only have a couple more days and then its back to work for me and I won't be able to focus on it.

Its been nice having time off work, and not being out of town. I have spent lots of time with the kids and they have worked hard to help on their rooms. We have had game night, gone swimming, and rented movies. We have eaten out too much and played at parks. It been nice to be with them, I miss them. It's hard working, but wanting to be home, knowing you can't be, really. I have internal battles about it EVERY day. I already told you I'm nuts, I wasn't joking. :)

I am excited for Pat to get home. I hope its been a good break for him, he really needed it. He has been working so hard this summer and is starting a really hard work and school schedule this fall. I have always told him I wouldn't make a good school wife, and this semester is going to test me hard core. 3 days a week he will leave at 6am and not get home til 7pm and then he has scouts one of those nights, when he gets home. I have achievement days and soccer all week too. Life is just getting crazier, and I was looking for it to settle down. But all is good. I have a great husband, and 4 healthy, happy, loving girls to fill my days with. I am truly blessed.


My girls have a new favorite past time. They play on photo booth on our Mac. I have over 1000 of these type silly pics of them. They make videos for us too. They are sure fun. Notice the mustache on Amanda, she cannot drink anything from a cup without getting one, so the majority of the time she has a stain above her lip.

Our Latest Adventure.........Boulder Mtn and Escalante

Pat overlooking the North part of Escalante National Park.

Last Thursday Pat and I were able to go have a few days together without the kids. Pat has been working so hard and we both really needed a break. Pat found a cute cabin down near Boulder UT that was the same price as a hotel. We arrived late Thursday night and woke up Friday to a beautiful summer day. We ate breakfast at the lodge, and then headed out to find a good lake to hike to, and fish. After inquiring and getting a map, we picked our trek. We drove to the trail, and hiked in about 1 mile. No luck, the lake was dry!! We then hiked back the other way past the truck, and another 3 miles to 2 more lakes. One was almost dry and the other ended up being really marshy. We had our waders, so we put them on and fished for a few. More bad luck--the fish would not take anything. We could see these massive schools of them but they were not eating. The fish were very large too. We think they were spawning. The mud in the lake was so thick and sticky it was hard to walk in, you would sink deep every step. At one point Pat yelled at me that he was sinking and could not get out, I looked over at him to see him sink about a foot in a few seconds. I was about 10 feet away so I hurried over, as much as I could in the lake and mud, and pulled him out. The water had been thigh high but when I got to him it was almost at his chest. That scared me so I got out. I didn't want to experience that. He trudged on a little while longer and then after a few we started the 3mile hike back to the truck. While we were at the lakes we used our water purifier and pulled the water out of the lake into our water bottles to drink. It's made for hiking and backpackers, but I had a hard time trusting it. I did drink the water though, because it got hot and I needed it. I was surprised that it tasted good and then it was easier to drink after that, but it was always in the back of my head that I was drinking lake water. We hurried back to the cabin, showered and then went out to dinner. When we got back we watched a movie on the laptop and then went to bed. We had another day of hiking ahead of us.

On our way to Lower Calf Creek Falls. The canyon in the background is the one we will soon hike up 3 miles to the falls.

The next morning we ate in our cabin, packed up, checked out, and then headed out to Lower Calf Creek Falls in Escalante National Park. We started that hike a little before 10am. We arrived at the Falls around 11:10. It was also a 3 mile hike in. It was so worth it though. I was so excited to go there. It has been on my list of things I really want to do. I was so excited that I was going to get to cross it off!! I never get to cross any of them off, so I was overly excited. Anyways, it was so beautiful. The water fall is 196 feet high and falls into this clear pool at the bottom. We swam in it even though it was FREEZING!! I haven't been in water that cold since I was a teenager and swam through a lake right when the ice was off. It was really refreshing, its in the middle of a desert and very hot there. There were about 25 other people there. We spent an hour playing in it, and after the hike out, we headed home.

The falls were so beautiful.


Me swimming in the COLD water of the falls. There were fish that would swim right up to your toes. A little freaky....

It was such a great trip over all. We really enjoyed each others company and talked and laughed our heads off. He really is my best friend, I love being with him so much!!

Its nice to be home..............I think

We are home! After 2 weeks of being gone, it feels good. But at the same time, I really miss being at my Mom's. I need her to move closer I think. Pat came down with his brother Steve and family on Thursday. Adam and Denise came too, but they drove separately. Friday we got up and drove 3 hours to Capinteria State beach, checked into our hotel, and then went and played on the sand and in the water the rest of the afternoon. It was a little chilly, but still fun. The next morning we decided not to stay because Steve's little boys had come down with colds, and they did not want them getting in the cold ocean. So we made the 3 hour drive back to my Mom's, and went over to my good friend Joni's pool and swam in the 95 degree weather. It was so nice and warm, and the pool was warmer too. Not the beach weekend I was hoping for, but oh well. We drove home Sunday.

We passed a burning SUV as we were coming into State Line. There were 2 cop cars sitting behind it. It seemed so dangerous to me, and I was surprised that they did not block off the lane right next to it either. You could drive right next to it if you wanted too.

This is on the way to Carpinteria. Autumn was able to ride with us almost everywhere we went. The girls love being together.

In the Motel 6 that we stayed at. They have remodeled the rooms since I last stayed there in July last year. It was nice and modern. The girls have a good time together, most the time.


Today, my brother Rob came over for a few and brought his kids to play with mine. I turned on the sprinklers and they played outside together. They were so cute. I screwed a sprinkler head to the top of our playhouse over our slide, so when we hook the hose to it, it makes a water slide. Rob's youngest son, Walker, loved it. He is 3 years old and he kept going on it even though it would shoot him off about 3 feet into the grass and then he would slide another 3 feet. It was so funny watching him.

It was fun to see them and hopefully we can see them again this summer when they come out from Cincinnati.

Crescent Bay Beach Fun

Tuesday we went to the beach with my brother Danny and his family. He wanted to take us to his favorite one. It is in Laguna, but it is called Crescent Bay Beach. It was so beautiful and dreamy. It has cliffs right behind it with big beach homes, and rocks jutting out into the water on either end of it. Its really neat. Here are some pics but they don't do it justice.

You can see the rocks on the ends. They have all sorts of sea critters in them. When the tide is out you can hike them and find lots of fun things to look at.

Here is another pic of it. It was so beautiful. It is kind of hidden too.


Here is a pic of my sis Melody with our kids. Danny and James are out in the water with the boogy boards. I was enjoying the view from my beach chair in the warm sun.

I just love the beach!! I think I will have to live on one someday to make my life complete. I am excited for this weekend. We will be going to Carpinteria State beach for the weekend with Pat and his brothers, and their families. They come here tomorrow, and I'm so excited to see Pat, its been 2 weeks almost.

In other news: My mom continues to get better each day and is doing really well. She has her next surgery on the 20th. I might have to come back again for her ---and the beach :)

This is what the kids have been doing on normal days when we can't go to the beach. One day they spent 5 1/2 hours out there. Thanks to Grandpa (my Dad) for getting it for them.

More updates

My Mom got come home on Wednesday evening. She has been in a lot of pain and not able to mover her arms that much at all. The combination of all the meds leaves her groggy and not able to stay out of bed very long. She has really improved since then but still requires lots of help. She also has some procedures that have to be done to her 2x a day. She is getting better pretty fast overall though.

The kids have been playing with cousins lots. They get bored when its real hot outside, and they don't want to go out in it so today I bought a swimming pool for them to play in and they have been in it all day. In fact they are still in it right now. Well, they have taken breaks and eaten and such, but for the most part they were in it.

Pat had his last day of school for the summer on Wed and we are still waiting to know his grade. He took a block microbiology class. It was really hard!! He studied such looooong hours and had long lab hours he had to put in, so we are both soooo excited it is over!!! We get our Dad back!! He is planning on coming down at the end of next week and going to the beach with us and then we will all drive home together.

My brother Dan graduated for CSUSB. Here are a couple pics from it.

My sister Melody and I at Danny's graduation


Danny's wife Jessie, with my cute niece Wasel

Danny walking in with the 2009 Class of Biology

When he walked in I was so proud, I almost cried. I am so happy for him. I know I will be such a baby when Pat graduates.

Mom's update

The surgery went well. It lasted 7 hours. She was in so much pain and groggy last night, that I didn't get to talk to her. When my Dad went back there this morning, thinking she would be coming home today, he called and told me she had had a really rough night and they are going to keep her til tomorrow. I guess she couldn't sleep because the pain was too severe. I really hope she feels better tonight and can get some sleep. I really hope she can come home tomorrow.

Today's business

Today I have been busy getting everything ready for when my Mom comes home from the hospital. She had a preventative cancer mastectomy today. She has the BRCA2 breast cancer jean and so she is taking preventative measures so hopefully she won't get it. We have a long history of cancer on her side of the family. It was about a 6-7 hour surgery, because she also was prepped to receive implants. As Pat's brother Steve said, she is getting the new 09's. I thought that was funny. Anyways, last night we wrote out a list of everything she would need when she came home tomorrow or Wed, and today I have been running around getting it all. This is the main reason I came to Cali, was to take care of my Mom while she recovered (and Danny's graduation from CSUSB). My Dad is here too, but women are more sensitive to other womens needs, so she asked me to come.

The weather has been really nice here compared to the storms we left in Utah. It is 87 degrees today. My kids are going to have a movie night at my brother Dan's house with his kids.

So far it has been a good trip and hopefully my Mom will recover quickly without any complications.