Trip to Idaho

We got back last night from our quick trip to Idaho. It was a nice trip. A lot of traffic coming back, but not too bad. I wanted to try to leave Saturday morning by 8:00 to head up there so we would have a little more time to spend with Stacey and wouldn't seem like we drove up and then turned right around to come back home. I was somewhat amazed when we left about 8:15. I think it helped knowing that Mom would be riding up with us since Dad isn't feeling well. I had most of the stuff packed up Friday night so we didn't have a lot to do in the morning. Russ seemed to find things to do easily enough though.

We got into Nampa just before 2:00. They had a big water slide up that was similar to the one Sandi has. Only at the end of the slide they added a slip n' slide type of thing so that they could slide even further. Jimmy and Russ went down it a few times. Looked like they were having a lot of fun on it. One of Bryce's brothers went so far as to slide clear to the fence and hit the fence with his head. Jimmy slid down a little rough at one point and pulled a muscle in his neck. Which he complained about all the rest of that day and the next. Hasn't complained about it today, so I think it must be better.

Russ and the kids and I stayed with Stacey. It was kind of fun to have the kids look at both of us for a little bit because they would get us mixed up. Jimmy liked saying that we looked alike. At one point he was saying he couldn't tell us apart so Ben said, "Mom!" to see which of us would look at him so he would know which was his mom. Chris would want me to pick him up and would be happy with me until he would see Stacey and realize that I wasn't his mom.

The food we had before church was good. The watermelon Stacey picked out was especially good. We sat around and picked at it before everyone got there. After we all ate (I ate way too much), we headed over to Stacey's ward. I would like to say the blessing was nice, but I missed most of it. Molly decided she needed to go to the bathroom and kept telling me that, and Lyssa took off because when she wouldn't get out of his way so he could go up, Russ said, "Are you coming with me? Let me go by then." So she decided she wanted to go with him and took off. Feel kind of silly when you have to chase a child in the middle of a blessing. On the bright side, most people had their eyes closed so they didn't notice. Daniel looked very cute in his blessing outfit. Emma and Jimmy kept wanting to hold him.

I just wish my camera hadn't ran out of batteries and that I could find more. So I wasn't able to take any pictures up there. Ah, well.

Ahhhhh...the dentist

Russ and I took the kids to the dentist today. Yes, all four at the same time. Crazy, I know. But that's actually why I asked Russ oh-so-nicely if he could possibly take the day off and come along with me when I took them. The thought of taking all four by myself didn't really sound like a good idea. Mostly because I remembered the last time with just Jimmy and Emma. Emma wouldn't let them take the x-rays at all last time. They ended up having to do that when we took her in later for a sedated appointment and got what she needed done then.

Today's appointment went relatively well. It was really nice to have Russ there with me. I think I would have been a little stressed had he not been. But as it was, it was relatively calm. Emma let them take some x-rays. Decided no more when they tried to get the second side. She didn't like the thing they have you bite on. So with Molly, they didn't even try the sides. I think they should have. She probably would have been fine. Lys, of course, they looked at and said, "Let's just do the exam."

Molly and Jimmy were wonderful. No complainings, no getting upset at all. Jimmy only has one cavity! I was surprised there. I kind of thought he would have more. Molly needs a bit of work and so will sometime go back and have a sedated appointment to get that done.

Emma and Lys weren't quite as good. Lys clung to me and cried when they wanted to do the cleaning. So we skipped that part. Emma got in the chair and then decided that they were going to hurt her doing the cleaning and wouldn't have a thing to do with it. So they skipped her cleaning, too. Then came the exam. With Emma on my lap and me holding her hands d0wn, the assistant held onto her head while the dentist looked in her mouth. Very fast because she was not happy at all. The dentist said looking she couldn't see anything that concerned her, so she's done. No other appointments. Lys has very bad front teeth (which was one of the main reasons I made the kids the appointments). She also sat on my lap but was very calm and let them examine her without complaint. Made me almost suggest they try to clean her teeth then. She will also need a sedated appointment to fix those.

The fun part came while I was making the appointments and Russ was taking the kids out to the car. The receptionist said she would call the insurance to talk about coverage because it showed that they didn't cover fillings for baby teeth, but would cover caps for baby teeth. In her calling, she discovered that they had no record of Molly or Alyssa on the insurance. I decided to wait on making their appointments until we can get that figured out. Going to be expensive enough with insurance. Really don't want to do it without.

Now that the dentist is out of the way, we can concentrate on getting ready to drive up to the Boise area this weekend. We would consider heading up today instead of tomorrow morning, but Russ has a lunch meeting at 1:00 with a guy from Daltile, his work's biggest competetor. Wonder how that is going to go. Guess I'll have that to write about in a future post.

Do we really need a title?

Happy Pioneer Day! And happy birthday to Myrna! (I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to start wishing people a happy birthday at the start of each month...especially next month.)

I can't believe how quickly time is going. Jimmy and Emma will start school in a little over a month. Of course, there are moments and days that I think that the time isn't going fast enough. Jimmy has even said he's looking forward to school starting. Guess it's time to start thinking about back to school shopping. Which doesn't sound like fun. I've never really liked shopping. I would imagine it would help if I go through their clothes and see what they actually need. But that would be too sensible.

I discovered today that the second episode of Psych for the season is online. Last time they only had the premiere episode. I had gone to the website to watch the "psych-outs" to see if it had extra online again this time like it did the last time. (Anyone who may be interested in watching the episode can find it at http://www.pysch.usanetwork.com/)

Yay! You've lasted through my ramblings for today! As a reward (I suppose it could also be some type of punishment), I will post a couple more pictures.


The kids were having a good time on the trampolene this morning. Really makes me nervous to watch Lyssa on it, but she seems to do just fine.

Just thought I would throw in this picture of Russ mowing the lawn. He wasn't thrilled that I took his picture (which is why his head is turned slightly away).

A quick note or two

Just wanted to quickly wish our friend Jo and our niece Victoria a happy birthday today. Hope you have a great one! (By the way, Jo, still waiting to hear back from you about Idaho next weekend.)

Also just wanted to add that at about 11:30 last night, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I enjoyed the book. Yes, I did cry at one point, which made me keep thinking, "Stupid book." Going to kind of miss the texts to and from Mom asking what page each of us were on. Don't worry though...I won't spoil the book and say more. I may answer emails about it though.

If only I could remember....

Yesterday I had thought that I actually had something to write about to keep up with the three times a week thing. Do you think I can remember what it was today? Of course not. All I actually remember is thinking that I could wait until today to write it. Really should learn that if I think of something to say to say it then. I've done the same thing with talking online with my family. The night before I will think, "Oh, tomorrow I can tell them this..." and then don't have a clue come morning what that thing was. I usually end up remembering what it was eventually, so I'm writing this with the hope that it will come to me.

Russ will be getting sustained for a new calling tomorrow. Which he almost forgot to tell me about. We were getting ready to go to sleep Wednesday night and he said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you something." He said at mutual Brother Carlson (the bishopric member over the young men and scouts) asked him if he could talk to him for a minute. He said he was really tempted to say, "No!" and run. He didn't do that though. He will be the new Young Men Secretary. I said, "So you get to go to the presidency meetings, huh?" He said, "I do? If I'd have known that, I'd have said no." I asked him if he will still be the assistant scoutmaster and such but he didn't know. Guess I will find out tomorrow. See if they actually release him from the other callings.

Looks like more people voted that Hagrid would be the one who dies in Harry Potter. Followed closely by Harry. Ron, Hermione, and "Other" tied. In case you are wondering, the person who voted other thinks it will be Neville. I am probably going to run out in the next few minutes and buy the book. Probably by tomorrow I will know if anyone was right. But I don't think I will post which characters (J.K. Rowling has said two die) die. I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I will say that I heard a rumor that we will find out that one of the characters has actually been a ghost all along. Of course, there are a million rumors out there.

It appears that I'm not going to remember what I thought of saying. Unless it's one of the things I mentioned and just don't realize it yet. In any case, here's another picture or two. But first I feel I should wish Linda a happy birthday today! Hope you have a great day!
This is when Jimmy received his Bobcat with cub scouts. They painted his face as part of the award.

Just some ramblings

I told myself that it would be kind of fun to try to write three new posts a week. What I failed to realize when I thought that is that I have no life. So I really don't have much to write about. I could vent about Russ' work, but don't know that he really wants me to, so I will leave it up to him to do. If he ever decides to add to the blog, anyway. Guess if you want to know why I would vent about it (assuming you don't already know), ask him. I would say that Russ did talk to a different tile store about the possibility of employment, but you might become concerned or come away with the wrong idea.

Jimmy had cub scout day camp yesterday. Met at the church at the bright and early. He was nervous because he heard they would get to go canoeing. He said he didn't want to go in a canoe. After he got home, I asked him if he got in the canoe. He said he did. And really enjoyed it. In fact, he will still tell me things about his day camp. Things like how he got to shoot an arrow and a bb gun. He only has two things left to earn his Wolf patch. He's about halfway through one of the those, too.

As I said, I have no life. So unless something somewhat interesting happens, don't really expect to see another post this week.

Weekend fun

We had some fun this past weekend. Friday night, Russ took Jimmy, Emma and Molly and went camping with John Droge and his daughter. They camped somewhere up above the "B" in Bountiful. They had a lot of fun. Jimmy likes to tell the story that John's daughter, Addy, was using the little porta-potty he brought when a deer came into view. Addy stood up and yelled, "Look! A goat!" then chased after it, pants down around her ankles. I stayed home with Alyssa. Russ did give me the option of going, only because he didn't want me to say that he never invites me. But the thought of camping somewhere with no running water or toilets didn't sound like fun. Especially when I have hard contact lenses. Here are a few pictures Russ took while they were camping.


Saturday afternoon, we went to our friend Sandi Robinson's house and played with her big inflatable water slide and small pool. Lyssa is one who hates water. Screams and tries to get out the entire time we are giving her a bath. I was surprised that she loved the pool and loved the slide. I asked her if she wanted to go down the slide and she said, "Uh huh." After going down the slide, I thought she would be unhappy, but she didn't seem to be. So I asked if she wanted to go down again. "Uh huh." She went down a few more times. Jimmy went down the most. Emma and Molly didn't want to have anything to do with the slide, so when Russ made them slide down it, they were done. Didn't want to even play in the pool anymore. Luckily, he waited until we were about done and getting ready to eat to do that. Since her house is directly across the street from Hogan's Park (I think that's what it's called...the one in Woods Cross on the corner of 15th So. and 800 W.), we went over there to eat and then the kids played for a little bit on the playground. All in all, we had fun. (So thanks again for inviting us, Sandi!) Here are a few pictures from the swimming.




Yeah, ignore me in the picture. You can kind of see that Lyssa actually looks happy as we are going down though.
Sandi and most of the kids are taking a break for a quick drink of kool-aid.

Various pictures

Decided to follow up on the requests I've had from a few to put up some pictures. After looking at the pictures that we have, I've decided that I really should take more pictures. I guess I tend to forget that I have a camera. But here are a few.

Don't ask me what she was doing. All I know is that she wanted her picture taken.
They decided they wanted to make the same silly face after Alyssa started to make hers. Which, by the way, we didn't ask her to do. She just suddenly started to do it. I was actually kind of surprised that we were able to get a picture of her doing it.

These two are from when we went hiking one morning. We had a lot of fun. Should probably do it again sometime.

Sometimes I'm insane....

I broke down a little while ago and purchased the first season of the tv show Psych online. It is one of my favorite shows and makes me laugh. One of the main reasons I bought it was so that I could share it with others who have not seen the show. I have to say, however, it seems to have been worth the cost. I just watched the deleted scenes from one of my favorite episodes, which was the season finale. I found myself laughing out loud. So if anyone wants to watch it sometime, let me know.

Oh, on a totally different subject, Jimmy started a bowling class yesterday. He has it on Tuesdays and Thursdays for an hour. Not totally sure how many weeks this class lasts. Guess I should find out. He is taking the class with two of his cousins. Emma could have joined in, but when I signed him up, she was totally against it. Of course she asked yesterday when she gets to go. He seemed to have a good time at it.

Since I had a quiet moment, I decided to join the ranks of the bloggers. And right now, I literally mean quiet. Alyssa is asleep, Emma and Molly are playing at a friends, and Jimmy is outside playing with a friend. The dog is sleeping by my feet, so she's not barking at various things outside. Not often that it gets this quiet at my house.

About a month ago, I was released from my calling as a Sunbeam teacher. They called me up one Saturday and told me they were going to be releasing me the next day. Came as a total surprise to me. I told Molly that I wasn't going to be her teacher for Primary anymore and she said, "That's okay, you still get to be my mom." I thought it was sweet. Anyway, I had been without a calling in our ward until yesterday morning. Saturday one of the bishopric called up and asked if I could have Russ give him a call when he got a chance. Found out later that he wanted to talk to Russ about giving me a calling. Russ thought it was funny that he would talk to him about it, and not me. Anyway, he told Russ to have me pray about the calling and he would stop by in the morning before church. So about 8:30, he stopped by to officially extend to me the calling of an assistant leader for the Webelos. Just so you know, if you pray about a calling, it kind of makes it hard to say no, even if you'd really like to. But I've been a den leader before, and compared to before, this shouldn't be bad. Before I was the only den leader for both the Bears and the Wolves. Wasn't really fun.

There are two other leaders for the Webelos. One is my next door neighbor. The other is a member of our ward who doesn't really speak English. She is from Brazil. She can understand a lot of English though, and does a good job despite the language barrier. Too bad knowing a chorus of a song in Portugese won't help me with conversations. Makes me almost wish I had taken Spanish in high school and college instead of German.

So there you have it. My first post as a blogger. Not much to speak of, actually. And, unfortunately, I can't guarantee that they will get any better.