Secret Santa

How's our secret santa's going?? Does everyone have their presents shopped for?/ Sadly I have not yet but my partner will get one, I promise.

Let's get together!

Once again, we were able to get together while my family was in town. It is so much fun to be able to catch up a little and watch the kids play. I know my kids love to play with yours Aimee. When we got home, Josh kept asking if we could go back to our new friends house. When he found out that we couldn't go back because we were leaving, he kept asking if when we come back to visit Grandma and Grandpa we could go to my new friends house. It was really cute.

When Lilly came in looking like this, we went out to find out why.

This is were they decided to play

They were making a house for the snails.

10 things I shared with Aimee today

1. I enjoy when my husband goes to work.
2. I wish I could eat cereal for every meal
3. I can't sleep with socks on.
4. I text more than anyone I know.
5. I'm embarrassed about my belly button and feet
6. I want a cat.
7. I feel guilty that I have a list of quilts that I need to finish
8. I enjoy doing Math
9. I feel quilty for leaving friends when I move.
10. I like traveling BUT without kids

Your turn!

What's on your Christmas list??

What's on your guys Christmas lists??

I am always interested to see what others want for the holiday.

I want some beautiful Blush fabric. It's a design of fabric and I love it!!

I want/got tennis shoes for running. (I'm gonna run a 5k with Aimee in May.)

I want a sewing thread holder that shaped like a flower!

Oh so much more!!

changes

They kids and I will actually be staying another week now, so I was thinking that we should try to get together sometime between the 9th and the 13th.

Summer Plans

Julie, I don't have anything going on the days that you will be here. Just give me a call or send me a text if you have time to get together while you are here. I imagine you will be busy.

Nicci

Summer plans

So we have finally figured out what we are doing this summer. As in when we are comming to WA to visit my parents.

We will be leaving here on the 29th of July and staying that first weekend in Tri-cities because Jenny is blessing baby #2 that she will be having on Wednesday! Then we will be spending the week at my parents and leaving Friday night or Saturday morning, we aren't really sure about that yet. But we would love to get together with anyone who will be in town at that time. I don't know what we want to do, but we are up for pretty much anything as long as it doesn't interupt nap time.

Let me know how that sounds to you guys and if you have any ideas. I know that Aimee doesn't read this blog, I will try to catch her on Facebook but if you guys talk to her if you could also let me know, thanks.

Julie

California

Better late than never right? :o) Mom and I took and quick trip down to California over the May 1 weekend to see Beth and to take her car down to her. We left Thursday after work and just drove straight through. It took us about 16 hours to get down to Monterey where Beth is currently stationed. We stayed in Monterey Friday night and wandered the town and then made the 10 minute drive down to Carmel Saturday morning, just to say that we'd been there! Then we drove up the coast to San Francisco (about 2 hours north) and spent the afternoon wandering Fisherman's Warf. It was so much fun! Saturday night we stayed at a hotel in San Jose (about 45 minutes from San Fran) because our flight home Sunday left from the San Jose airport. Beth had just gotten the priviledge to leave and stay off base for Friday and Saturday so she was able to stay at the hotel with us both nights and was able to drop Mom and me off at the airport Sunday morning. It was an awesome trip, even if it was a fast one! I wish we had been able to have more time to spend with her but she has school and studying and mom and i couldn't get the time off work but we made the most of the 2 days we had. It was great to to able to see her again! She's so much more relaxed now that she's out of basic training and has even gained back all of the weight she lost in Texas.

This is a sea lion and her baby, there were so many of them in Montery! Of course we had to see the golden gate bridge! Mom and I drove over it Friday on our way down to get Beth but it was cool to walk across (we only went about halfway)!

These were the craziest wind surfers ever! We drove the coastline back up to San Fran on Saturday but kept stopping at scenic outlooks to take pictures. It was so windy at this spot that it took both hands to just get the car door open! These crazy people were out surfing in it! There was a police officer who pulled in behind us and was watching them with binoculars. He got out and told us that usually he would have to go out and get them cause it was too windy for them to be out but he didn't want the fight I guess cause he just left.

I've got a ton more pictures of our trip but it's takinig forever to load them today so this is what you get!

Love ya!

My update

Sorry I haven't done much updating, I love the pictures nicci, I miss seeing the tuplips so much. One of these years we will have to visit my family in the spring to that we can go see them.

Things have been pretty good here. I have been taking a gardening class. It has been so much fun, I am so ready to plant our garden, but that is not wise until may. It is actually snowing here today. We are also excited because we can see some of the grass seed we spred out in the fall starting to grow. It will be so nice to have grass that the kids can play on. We even got them a swing set, it the snow would stop, they could even play on it.

Right now I am really excited because my parents are coming to visit this weekend, and then the kids and I will go down to Utah with them to visit grandparents. Stephanie is graduating from BYU next Friday, so Robert will come down on Wednesday and meet up with us. I am way excited to be able to spend so much time with my family. I love being with them. I so with that we lived closer so that it could happen more than once or twice a year. But I guess I will just have to be happy with the time I can get.

We will be comming to visit in the summer sometime, so I will have to let you know when I know when we will be there. We are thinking the first of August because Jenny will be blessing her baby then. I would love to be able to go after she has her baby so that we can see him. She is due the first part of July, they haven't decided yet if she will be scheduled for a C-section or go natural yet. It will depend on how things are going with her and baby towards the end. She tends to have some medical problems.

Well, it looks like I have used all the time that Lilly will let me. She is bringing me books and saying 'book, book, book'. She talks like crazy, seriously, I dont know if you read my other blog about it, but at 15 months they said she was talking like a 2 year old. and she has just been talking more and more. It is fun.

Well, I think that catches you all up a little, hope you are all doing well. How is Aimee doing, I see her comments of Facebook, but that doesn't always say very much.

Tulips!

Every year we go to the tulip fields in Mount Vernon. This year, because they bloomed so early, we went Easter sunday. We got up that morning and hunted for our baskets, mom likes to hide them still so we humor her and go on the hunt. We mailed Beth her basket so that she could still get hers. She was very excited to get the box! Beth called us so we got to talk to her for a bit and then we went up to the fields. It was a beautiful day out but super windy up north (which is nothing new). I was able to get a bunch of really good shots for Beth since she wasn't here to go with us this year.

How is everyone else doing?

Texas

Ahhh, Texas. I will not miss you at all. That is the craziest place! The roads are totally backwards, they all go in circles so the only good part is that you can't really get lost because if you stay on the highway long enough eventually you will circle back to where you started. It was a good trip though overall and it was really great to finally be able to see Beth again. I missed my sis!

This was the morning of the graduation parade. The sun doesn't rise until like 0730 in Texas, it was weird. But Friday morning was freezing cold and super windy and we had been at the parade grounds since 0700 so that we could find a place to sit. All of us huddled on the bleachers and prayed for the sun to hurry and come out to warm us up. The little people in the picture are all of the female T.I.'s that marched the flights. March is apparently Women's month in the Air Force so the day of Beth's graduation was the day that the AF let the female TI's march the flights instead of the TI's that they had had for the past 9 weeks.

I took a ton of pictures but there's one of her sayin the oath. The other one is a picture of her after she got done in the ID office. She was very excited to have her ID, it was very stressful for her to get it.

We didn't do a whole lot while we were there. Hung out with Beth a lot. We drove by the Alamo but didn't stop, no one wanted to go see half of a brick wall. We did go down to the Riverwalk one night and it was packed, so busy! The AF let the grads have a few extra hours off base one night if they bought discounted tickets to the Spurs game so we saw our first NBA game. All in all, it was just really great to be able to see Beth again. She's in California now for school and was told that they'll maybe be able to come home sometime in October or November maybe, but for sure she'll be able to come home for Christmas! And she has her cell again so we get to talk to her a lot now.

How are your worlds? Love ya!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Those darn faries are so stinkin unreliable! They never showed!!! LOL Saturday night I got the bathroom, laundry room, and my/Sierra's room cleaned. Scrubbed, swept, mopped, vacuumed, dusted. I don't know why I'm being so anal, I just don't want this girl to come to my house and think that we live like slobs. We don't, I promise! I have 2 dogs, 2 cats, 5 people living in the house and don't forget the toddler that we watch once a week. I could clean all day every day but I just don't have time. I've reseigned myself to the fact that the house is as clean as it's going to get and everyone is just going to have to live with it.

On the bright side, I was able to get some stuff done. I had a pedicure yesterday and I got my hair cut today. I packed the bag that Beth asked me to pack for her and I am almost conpletly packed. The only things that I have left to pack are the daily essentials that I can't pack until I get off work tomorrow. Our flight leaves tomorrow night at 1155pm. I'm so excited to go and see my sis!!! I'll try to post pictures and everything while I'm down in San Antonio but if I don't I'll post when I get back. Adios!!!

Where are my faries???

I am T-Minus 5 days and counting until I leave for Texas and I am so NOT ready. The floors are dirty, the bathrooms and bedrooms look like war zones (and I just did the bathroom 4 days ago). I was able to dust one, yes only one, room yesterday but the rest of the house still has to be done, the bedding needs to be washed, and there are a million loads of laundry that need to be washed. I'd like to know where my cleaning faries are? It's so hard to find good help these days, and the cleaning faries seem to be so unreliable. So, faries, if you're reading this, could you please stop by and clean for me!

The good news, the girl that will be staying at the house was finally able to come over last night and meet the animals. They really liked her so that's one less thing that I have to worry about. I forgot to tell her about a million things so I started a list, it's already 2 pages long.

I'm totally excited to go and see Beth, it's felt like forever since I saw her last. It's really only been 8 weeks but it feels like longer when I can't see or talk to my sis everyday.

Hopefully the faries will show and get some stuff done. If not, I have Sunday off so I'll be cleaning then. Yea!!!

Oops

So if this says anything about how often I check my camera lately......

I was uploading the pictures from my camera so that I had 2 clean memory cards for the trip next week and this is what I found. It's from October when I had Connor for the night!!! Jess took my camera that night and was playing with it at the hockey game. I think this was the only time that Connor was calm, he played with the pink glow in the dark bracelet for awhile, he loved it. He was so great the whole night. I think I laughed the entire time I had him because he yelled all through the hockey game and really got into it when the players fought! He's such a great kid. Thanks again Krista and Chris for letting me keep him for a few hours!

Bethany Update

So I thought I would update you guys on how Beth is doing. Still no phone call (apparently that's a privilige that they have yet to obtain) but we have gotten a couple of letters. She sounds like she is doing very well and was even proud to admit that she has not cried yet! Go Beth!!! Her letters are very upbeat so it's been good to know that while she is a little homesick, she's not crying herself to sleep like a few of the girls are. She said that last week everyone got 3 shots per arm and 1 in the bum for a total of 7 shots and then her TI thought they'd have fun running up and down a hill a few times and then doing some push-ups. Ha ha ha!!! Apparently they all also got a trip to the eye doc but she said that he was nice and played music from his IPOD for them and updated everyone on what is happening in the real world. She does miss real food and having the opportunity to eat it at her own leisure but she said that along with the privilige to call home they will also be awarded a trip to the vending machine! Her last letter said that her flight will be the only all girl flight for the year so she said that there's a little more pressure on them to do well because the higher ups are watching them closer. She is staying very positive and even said that most of the girls (including herself) have been attending church on Sundays as a group. Beth did say that there are a few girls in her flight that are mean and one or two that are a little slow and need to be recycled (her words). She said that her TI is pretty laid back (in comparison to the rest of them) but he likes to torture them just a little bit... She said that they went to the BX and the TI made them stand outside of Burger King and smell the goodness, knowing that none of them could eat it. I laughed at that part because Beth does not like fast food so I know she's desperate when Burger King smells good to her! All in all she's doing very well and I'll keep you guys updated on how she's doing.

In other news, Sarah started online high school. She was having a tough time on campus and was being bullied pretty badly so she's going to finish out the year with the district's online schooling. She is very excited and thankfully things have calmed down in the house now that she no longer is being picked on. Jess took this quarter off from the community college to think about what path she wants to take. She's thinking about going into nursing, so we'll see what she decides.

Other than that, not much else to report. Love ya!

Still alive

So in case you guys were wondering, yes I am still alive. Most of the time I feel like I am going crazy, but I am still here. I even check this blog about once a week or so, but I just can't ever seem to write anything. I have even started a few, but always get distracted (amazing that that could ever happen with two under 3) :)

So as for your questions that I need to catch up on.

Favorite Movie

Seriously, this question left me really thinking. I have so many favorites I think I will tell you about a few of them. For me when I think of a time in my life, I usually remember a movie that went with that time.

Through out high school and Collage I would have to say that my favorite movie was Emma. Seriously, I could quote the whole movie. Even now when I watch it, I can say every line with every actor, I usually end up falling asleep in it now.

My favorite movie to watch with Stephanie was Newsies. There was one summer we watched it at least once every day (except Sundays). We would watch the song king of the world so many times that we actually wore the tape out. you couldn't hear the first part of the song anymore. When we would drive around we would put on the sound track and sing along at the top of our lungs. It was so much fun. Sometimes we would pick a character and say all their lines with them through the whole movie. Yeah, we watched it a lot.

When I moved to MI the movie that I watched to most was probably Disney's The Kid. I watched that so much because it was the favorite movie of the guy that I was dating.

Now, I don't think that I really have an all time favorite there are just a lot that I really like. I have to say that I really like Speed Racer. It is probably our whole families favorite. Josh would rather watch this than cars or the other little kid movies. My sister-in-law Heidi introduced me to North and South. It is kind of a pride and prejudice type of movie. It set in England. It is 4 hours long, but I strongly suggest that you all watch it. It is good.

Betrayal

So you guys will probably think that I am, well I don't know what, but I can't think of any time that I betrayed anyone. I mean I am sure I have, or at least come pretty close, but I can't think of anything right now. I know that you guys have never betrayed me and I sure hope that I haven't betrayed any of you. Maybe you guys know of a time that I betrayed someone. I usually went out of my way to not do things like that. But I also have a pretty spotty memory when it comes to somethings like this, so it just could be that I don't remember.

I don't even have a boy friend brake up because the only boy friend I had before my husband was actually kind of a jerk and we both were glad when we broke up. I mean I was a little sad, but then again I was able to hang out with my other friends after we broke up so, it wasn't so bad.

Well that is probably not as exciting as you guys were wanting, but at least I tried to answer rather than just not. Which is was I tend to do when I don't know how to answer the question.

I hope that you all are doing well. I will try to do better at writing on this blog. I have also been updating my blog, so you will have to hop over there sometime.

Betrayl

Good pick Krista! I hope I didn't ever betray you guys, and if I did I am so VERY sorry. And Krista, I forgive you for not telling me you got married. :o)

I dated this guy off and on through our senior year and after we graduated. He joined the Marine Corps and went to Basic when I was 19 (he was a couple years older than me). Anyway, he left and I stuck with him even though he was talking about wanting to get married when he got back from Basic and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had no intention of marrying him. We dated for almost another year before I told him that I had no intention of ever marrying him. Looking back I realize that I should have been honest with him but he was one of those super nice guys that you don't want to hurt because you know it will crush them. I know I hurt him when I told him no but it did work out for the best, he ended up meeting a very nice girl who already had one kid and getting married. I know that it all worked out for the best but it didn't make me feel any better at the time. Thankfully I can now look back and say I was young and dumb and that I would never intentionally do that to anyone.

K... Can we pick a less depressing topic next time please? :o) I hate being reminded of the bad decisions I made! But I guess, confession is good for the soul! :o)

Betraying

Have you ever betrayed someone close to you? If so, what did you do and did they ever figure out it was you?

I figured since I have some time tonight, I will answer one of the hard questions on the list.

I don't think I've ever purposely betrayed someone but there are a few times someone might say I did. I hope I didn't do that with any of you guys.

So the first one I remember is James Sweeney. I dated him right after Prom until he left for basic training in July. We talked about marriage and everything after he was done with Tech school. Then I dumped him while he was in the last week of Basic.

Looking back, he was just a rebound from Kyle. Someone to hang out with before I went to college. I'm sure I heart his little heart. Especially during Basic training! It wasn't nice of me.

But I'm glad I did it. I can't imagine being married to him now... Oh the drama!! :)


Second was when I got married. We didn't tell a lot of people and I hurt lots of people. I'm sorry if I hurt you chicas. That was not my plan at all.

We decided Friday night to get married. We called Bishop Brower and he said we needed to meet with him. So we scheduled for Sunday. Then we left to go to Spokane for a friend's birthday party. We came back Saturday night, met with Bishop Brower (Scott Brower's grandpa) and set a date for Tuesday.
We went to Chris' house first to tell his family. They were pissed and actually hit Chris. We left there and told my parents. They were just as pleased. Or not. My dad almost hit Chris.

So from that, we were really hestiate to who we told. We didn't want anymore fights. Or people telling us it was dumb. So we told our families and my roommates left it at that. I didn't have a lot of faith in people at that point.

I now know that I should have called you guys, and some other close friends. Your guys support would not have stopped because you thought I was stupid! :)

If I could go back, I would have changed how we got married. We would have told everybody and dealt with the consequences. We probably would have waited a bit longer, like a weekend.

I think the most common question we still get asked was if I was pregnant. Ha ha it took us two years to get prego with Connor but it's a reasonable question. I would have asked it too!

Really the main reason we got married so fast was because Chris wanted to join the Air Force but couldn't because of Veronica. (You can't be a single parent and join the AF.) I was graduating school that next month and we both had no 'good' jobs lined up. Domino's barely paid for my cell bill let alone rent and food. SOoO joining the AF was the best thing for us. Little did we know, it was going to take 6 months to even get to Basic.

Well anyway those are my times I think I betrayed people. Please enlighten me if there are more!!

What are yours?

Happy New Year!

Hey ladies! Just wanted to say Happy New Year! And a belated Merry Christmas. I hope everyone's holidays were fabulous.

Things have been super busy around here. I totally meant to to Christmas/Holiday cards this year and had even started making them but then I had a huge allergic reaction and ended up in the ER a few days before Christmas so all of my best laid plans have gotten tossed out the window. Turns out that something like 90% of all tablets (pills) use lactose as a binder so I've had to toss all my pills and go to liquids. Even my prednisone pills had it in them but we didn't realize that until the other day so now I get a few more days of prednisone but in liquid form this time. I can honestly say that it is probably the grossest thing that I have ever had to take and I am going to work today to beg my pharmacist to flavor it for me, it's that bad! I'm still a little grumpy from all the prednisone but good to go otherwise.

Christmas here was good. I was still pretty drugged so we just stayed home and played with the new toys and I slept most of the day. No big plans for New Years Eve. I close in the pharmacy and then have to be back at 10 tomorrow morning so no parties for me! Mostly we've just been busy helping Bethany prepare to leave. She leaves for basic training on the 19 of January and is in a hurry for the day to just get here. I'm not sure Mom is ready for her to leave but we're all so proud of her and excited for her. I think Mom and I are more excited to be able to travel to see her than anything else. Her tentative grad date is in March so the family will head to Texas to see her graduate basic training and then her linguistics training is just outside of Monterey, CA so we're excited to be able to travel down there and site-see (and maybe see Beth!!) LOL Dad has no desire to travel (and getting him on an airplane takes LOTS of drugs) so Mom and I are already making plans.

Krista, any helpful hints to pass on to Beth before she goes? You and Chris both have given us a lot already and she is very greatful so, any last words of wisdom to pass along before she goes?

How was everyone's holidays? I'll be better about updating here, I promise. It's my New Year's resolution.

Love you!

Favorite Movie

Krista, we have the same favorite movie! I love the American President. I can recite all the words. My family doesn't mind though, they think it's funny and they know quite a few parts too. Every time I watch it I remember spending the night at Krista's or Krista spending the night at my house and we would watch it.

A Bed of Roses was on the other day and I recorded it so I could watch it when I got home from work because I hadn't seen it in forever. It was as good as I remembered it!