Our new Floors!!!!

Breakin' in the BBQ

We BBQ'd for the first time tonight with our new grill. We made chicken bruschette with potatoes. It was yummy! We also finished it off with oreo fudge ice cream cake! It was a fun meal after a fun day.

This is Brad Alias.....

This is Brad Alias To /\/\r.Joke. lol. It'll be fun

My g-mail

I finally got to get my g-mail to work! I got to finally get to post on my own account. It is so exciting for me. I just LOVE it. We just got it working right now. I am really going to enjoy this blog now. I just hope I don't get upset!

Shoutbox

I'm glad so many people have been participating on the shoutbox, I just have one word of advice. When you are talking, you will need to hit the refresh button within the shoutbox to get the updated conversation otherwise it will seem as though no one is talking back to you until you comments again. So don't for get to: REFRESH!

Back to Jokes...

Ok. Here it is... There was a Blonde, and she was wearing a head set on her way to a hair cut appointment. The barber said, " you need to take off your headset for me to give you a haircut." But the Blonde said, " no, if i take it of i will die." So she leaves. She comes back the next day and the barber again told her to take off the head phones, but she said, "no." Finally she comes back again and the barber rips off the head phones. When he is cutting her hair he notices that she is dead, and then he listens to what she was listening to. He heard, " breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out." No offense intended to any of the blonde geniuses in our family!

OH MY GOSH!!! WHO IS JEN???????????????????????????

What is going on at EFY?

Shelley, have you heard from Thomas yet? I am dying to know what he thinks of EFY. It is so amazing to me that I have grandchildren now doing that. Remember when you were there?

Layne....where are the answers to the questions that Jen's sister asked?

I too want to know the answers. This has been so fun getting to know you better. Your dropping the ball. Give it up.

Lewis's plane on time!!

Yep, it looks like the statistics were due for an ontime flight and it finally happened. YAY!

SWA update

As of Friday night, they're now 1 for 5. That's getting pretty poor. I will admit, though, that the plane would have left on time but for weather in Vegas, so I can't feel too bad, yet I do. :)

Today's schedule calls for my family to deliver me to Vegas about 5pm PST for a 6pm flight to Ontario. Mark will pick me up after the flight. I'll call him at the last minute and tell him when I'll be in. I believe I can a safely assume the plane will be late. :)

It's been a depressing trip. I've been in bed for most of. I just couldn't wake up or feel well. Accidentally, I drank some chocolate milk yesterday afternoon and all the sudden my headache and body ache went away and I felt great. Blood sugar levels. Ugh. Tracy thinks my pills might be too strong since my diet has changed now since living at Marks. All the literature on diabetes concentrates on long term effects and that it's easy to forget short term influences. I see my dr. on Thursday for a check up, so I'll talk to him about perhaps reducing them amounts just a little bit.

Mondays are my official day off from work. So, to celebrate the occasion, I'm now going to respond to the 12 emails I received in the past 1/2 hour looking for help. A mother's work is never finished. :)

More Art

We had our towels picked out for the guest bathroom ever since we lived in the hotel, so I kind of new what kind of art design I wanted to do for the bathroom. The pattern in the art matches the pattern on the towels. These ones were a lot harder and more time consuming to do than my last pictures.

January 5th Yea or Nah

After posting the potential date of January 5th of next year I believe that I have heard back from Mom and Dad, Lewis and Tracy, Shelley, Rebecca and Stefanie and Jason and that date seems to work for each of you.  If that is not correct please say so now.  I will need to get a hold of Mike and Martissa and Leslee and David and see if they are available on that date.  

Jen will be running that date by her siblings over the next couple of days and unless there are major issues with one of them, we will set that as our Wedding Day!!!

Daniels New Job!!

Yes, Daniel has become gainfully employed! Who is the lucky business who has acquired his diverse skills?

CRACKERBARREL

So the next time you are in town, go see him and leave him a good tip!

Schedules

So as far as scheduling this wedding, Jen and I are thinking about January.  Jen talked to her parents and that seemed to work good for them since December is already so busy and November is pushing it a little.  So I will be talking to our parents and finding out if that works for them and if it does then I want to start getting input from everyone else on whether or not January works for them.  So be thinking about it and when I can narrow it down a to a particular time of month I'll do that.  ;)

EXHAUSTED!!

Alright, I got up at 4am yesterday morning to get ready for my 15 miler. I ran my miles and then tried my darndest to get a nap but it never happened. As you know I picked up Lewis last night from the airport and didn't get to bed until 3am this morning. Sorry but I am NOT a spring chicken anymore and that did not go over well with my body. This morning I got up at 7:30 and ran out the door to my first day at WalMart. I just got off at 3pm. Got home and broke a bowl (corel so millions of splintered glass went everywhere). Decided if I was going to sweep I might as well mop. Swept and mopped the kitchen and dining room areas and now caught up on the blog and am GOING TO BED. I am NOT getting out of it until tomorrow. I haven't felt this tired since I had babies. Shelley, Stef, Martissa, Rebecca, I don't know how I did it much less how you do it. Where is my pillow?

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us to posting tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam

So I have an informal annoucement that Jen and I are getting Married!!! ;) YEAH!!  We aren't officially engaged and that probably won't happen for a month or two but once we do get engaged we only want a 3 month engagement, just long enough to plan it, so we are putting it out here so people can provide any ideas about planning a wedding.  Suggestions of any kind are welcome.  Some of you maybe thinking that we are crazy since we just started dating and we would agree with you, but we know it is right and are so grateful and excited.

Southwest scorecard, flight #5

Well, after all the wonder and hoopla of getting to the airport at the perfect time, the plane was an hour late taking off. We were able to enjoy most of that hour on the tarmac waiting for the weather and traffic backup as a result in Vegas. Additionally, all the planes were landing 'backwards,' so everything took a little longer. We had to fly around the city to the other side and then ended up at the 'wrong' end of the runway and had a long taxi back to the parking place, after waiting for 2 planes to get out of the way.

Tons of people were there all at the same time. I had to wait for the second tram to get to the main terminal. If I had checked luggage, I'd still be there now. I was with more people last night than I have been since the Doobie Brothers concert at the Marriot Center in 1980. It wasn't even this crowded at LAX two weeks ago. It was great to get on the road, get out of town, and off into the quiet and beautiful desert.

We got to bed about 3am, and now Tracy is up and on her way to her first day at Walmart, and I'm blurry-eyed and fuzzy-minded getting ready to delve into the bowels of the long forms. Nobody reads and does anything with my Saturday work, for the most part, until Monday around 4am Pacific time, so I'm not going to be unwilling to take a nap later this morning.

my other swimmeet

This is Taryn! I had another swim meet. It was great. I won a blue ribbon and first place!! Ill show you the results!

Freestyle: 35:84 seconds


Anyway that was a little bit smaller pool than Marie Kerr Park. That was my best race. One thing I didn't like was that the shallow end was really sallow. We couldn't do our flip turns.

Here we go!

Tomorrow Brad, Taryn, and I are taking off for Kansas. I checked out a bunch of books on tape today to help keep me occupied while everyone else watches movies and plays gameboy.

Taryn got first place in the freestyle last Sat. Tomorrow is her last swim meet unless she qualified to go to L.A. when we return. Tomorrow is also Brad's first basketball game of the season with this new team. They will miss him when he doesn't show for the next two games. Oh well.

I'm trying to get a neighborhood watch going in our neighborhood. There has been a bit more crime lately and the Sheriff's say that's the best thing to do. We'll see how it goes.

I guess that's all for now.

The Wild Blue Yonder

My plane is supposed to leave in 4hr 58 minutes....scheduled to leave, but we ALL know how things are with Southwest. Did you know they announced today in the WSJ that they're going to allow laptop users to download movies to watch? They must be planning on sitting on the tarmac for quite awhile.

I feel so fresh and invigorated when I arrive in Vegas.

Our Trip to Florida

Our New (to us) Car

We finally have replaced our car that was totalled in the accident in March of 06. It is a used 2006 Toyota Avalon. It is the lowest end of that line but still very nice. It should do dad and I very well for many years. The ride is smooth and the back seat is like sitting on the living room couch - very comfortable with tons of leg room.

Brad and David came to see it last night and Brad hopped right into the driver's seat. Trouble is, he looks very natural there. Brad, you are only 11 and 11/12ths. You can't drive yet!!

The downside of going to bed early...

...seems to be waking up early. It's just after 3am and I'm quite wide awake. I have some sleeping stuff I can take, but then I won't get up in time, so I think I might be headed for a long day. Oh sigh.

I've decided to write another book, so perhaps I can get started on that. I'm at the very beginning of the process. I have a one sentence thought for a plot. I didn't even think of that...Tracy supplied that. :) Isn't she wonderful? So, perhaps in 12 - 18 months I'll have something nice.

My first book took 6 weeks to write. The words seemed to be in my head and all I did was write them down. The second took 18 months, with two small hiatuses in the middle. I can't seem to write between January and March. Hopefully that will change this year. After a couple years, I worked on both stories to improve them. In fact, I found a place where I might self-publish the second one someday. The story and artwork are already done.

If you're awake right now, I'm crossing my fingers that you're in a different time zone far ahead of the one I'm in. :)

Live Talkin'

Hey family, I want to try something on the blog and if we don't like it I will remove it. I want to draw everyone's attention to the right. You may notice something new on the blog. This is called a shout box. In this box we can chat live with whoever is looking at the blog. I have noticed over the past couple of days that I keep refreshing the page because me and layne are talking back and forth. Instead of talking under the comments section we can talk in the shout box. The shout box asks for your name and your website. In the website box you can just leave it blank or enter the website for our blog. It doesn't matter. Do any comments about the shout box whether pro or con would be appreciated! Thanks! Happy shouting! (in a nice way)

My little artist

Mialee enjoyed an art camp last week. She drew a crab....
and a whale (this is my favorite)....
and a blow fish....
and a sea horse.

She loved the class and is looking forward to taking another one the end of August.

Interesting Computerized Medical Record Facts

Oh just kidding!! That would be more boring than baseball facts! Been up since 5 am writing a research paper about confidentiality with computerized medical records. Two weeks ago I wrote one on the Privacy Act. So, if you ever wonder if your doctor is doing something wrong, I should be an expert ;)

Nathan had an eye exam yesterday. Poor little guy had to be dilated. It was very darling seeing him wear sunglasses as we did errands afterwards. When he was born his eyes were tested and he had an astigmatism (sp?) in each eye, so this was an annual follow-up to see what is going on. He still has the astigmatisms, but they are not getting worse. Prognosis: glasses when he starts kindergarten just to wear in the classroom.

Mialee had her physical this week and passed both her eye test and hearing test. Most people on the Smith side got glasses at an early age, so we will see how long she holds out. For some reason they gave her the shots she needs for kindergarten, so she is good to go until 2014. Oh well, guess better now than in a year. I did tell her she wasn't going to be getting shots, but it turned out okay because she got stickers!

Interesting baseball facts

My goal is to have Jen salivating for baseball by the World Series. :)

1. Players who are able to make a full career out of baseball, meaning 20 or more years in the big leagues: 1%

2. Average major league career. 5 1/2 years.

3. Players who make it out of the minor league/farm systems into the major league: 8%.

These numbers are statistics gathered from 6,000 players between 1902 and 1993.

Moral of the story: Keep your day job. In fact, most minor leaguers do have day jobs.

OBTW, the Mariners did lose their double header, but I think the Angels lost also, so they didn't take advantage and move up any games over the Mariners. Boo!

Low Res Pictures ;)

Answers to 20 (15) questions.

1. I was raised in Downtown Phx.  My family now lives outside of Sierra Vista (South Eastern AZ).

2.  Too bad.  So sad.  

3.  I am a highway Engineer.  I design roads in National Parks and Fish and Wildlife Refuges East of the Mississippi.

4.  Hawaii was amazing!!!  I would recommend it to you all.  

5.  Well, I took ATA which I think is partners with Southwest somehow.

6.  No way.  I believe in outside dogs and I do not have a yard at my house.  

7. Who in the world is Sargent???  I like Thomas Kinkade and Monet (kind of) and that other guy . . .

8.  ???

9.  ??? 

10.  I slept.  I LOVE sleep!!!

11.  I don't like baseball.

12.  Brownsville, Texas. 

13.  Saturn.  

14.  The last movie that I watched was Pride and Prejudice.  I watched it on the way home from Hawaii.  

15.  No, Did you or yours??  

But, now that I have answered all these questions don't be surprised if I have nothing to say when I am on the "meet the family" trip.  

Jen!

Attention Layne

When Jen comes over to play 20 questions with Lewis make the answers a new post, instead of putting them under the comment section of that post! ok? ok!

Anyone else just giddy with all the blogging participation of late?????

I am!!! Even my hubby has started to post. How cool is that? Keep it up babe, its one more way technology connects us when you are there and I am here. Love you!

MY NEW JOB!

Well Daniel and I both applied at Red Mountain Spa where Stephen works but this is their slow season. So rather than wait for them to call, I continued to look for a job. Today I was hired by WalMart, I think they are less than a mile from my house. I will be a cashier. The thing I liked the most about them is that they asked what hours I wanted to work and what days and I wroted down 9-2 mon thru friday and 9-5 on Sat and NO Sundays and they agreed!! I don't know that I will get all those hours but the hours I get will only be during those times on those days! How cool is that? If and when Red Mountain calls, I will deal with that. Oh yes.....I went from earning $18.25 an hour in California to $9.70 an hour here. But the manager assured me that was a fare wage for this area. I am satisfied.

A Very Productive Day

Before Inside

Before Outside

During

After Inside

After Outside

Today was the day we had our french doors put in. Our old sliding glass door, besides being not very attractive, was broken and needed to be replaced. We chose to replace it with french doors instead of another sliding door. We love the new doors. The only problem is that they have left us with some work to do. We need to touch up paint some of the kitchen wall around the doors, paint the new molding and paint the baseboards to match, and find a person who knows how to do siding to wrap the door frame to match the rest of the house. When all is said and done we probably wouldn't have made the choice to replace the door because of how expensive it is turning out to be, but since we did it we will enjoy our doors and the fun blinds inside the windows!

Then later tonight we started painting the guest bathroom. Leslee, Brad and Taryn are showing up at our house next Monday for the family reunion pre-pre-party and so it needs to be painted and decorated and ready for their stay! It is starting to look very pretty. They will be very lucky to be the first ones to use the guest room and bathroom.

Southwest Airlines Report Card

They are 1 out of 3....batting 33% on-time record. I guess they're so low budget the clocks in the terminals don't work. On the other hand, they are very expensive. They seem to have lots of planes that need changing, which is the official reason for being late.

Last Monday, leaving Vegas, the plane was 2 hours late leaving...at 11:55p instead of 9:55p. I found it interesting that the only concession place open for food in the airport was right next to our gate. I think it was a conspiracy. $7 for a sandwich?

Any airplane horror stories?

James latest email

Dear Family! How are you all doing?! So, transfers are here! It has been a fun last transfer. Elder McSweeney moved to Zhongli Long Gang area. I served there when Elder Dameron moved to the MIssion Office. Elder Huang moved to Bade (I have served there on exchanges). His companion Elder Liu, moved to Song Shan. The Zone Leaders are the same, Sister Sung has a new companion also Sister Sung. As for me, that is a little special. There is a less number of missionaries on island this transfer, so there is an odd number of Elders. When that happens, a "duan chuan," is called to serve for a short time. It can be compared to the mini missions in the States. So, when the call came, I was told I get the duan chuan. This means alot of things. One, my companion most likely has not been to the temple, is coming from a ward without much training, my Chinese will improve if I use the time right, and miracles all over will happen by our faith. Right now, I am with the Zone Leaders, we are waiting for Elder Zhang to have a companion with President. Oh, an experience I want to share happened two sundays ago. It was our ward conference. I witnessed the most humble act of service yet but the Stake Presidency. They administered the sacrament to the congregation. I was touched by the soft smile of the Taipei West Stake President as he administered the ordinace of renewing our convenants with God. It is an experience that will stay with me forever. I have taken a different prespective. Since my area and the other missionaries area are combined, I want to be more organized than ever. We are going all out even more than before. This transfer we are studying Ch. 10 Teaching Skills in Preach My Gospel. I am excited to be doing so. I love improving, improving teaching skills will be awesome. I have a scripture I would like to share. In 2 Nephi 9:39 - "... Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal." I hope we all can be spiritual giants. No matter what faith we are from, we can all be spiritual giants. Throught prayer, scripture study, and church we can all become so. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, in the spring of 1820. I know that through Him, they restored the Church of Jesus Christ. I know the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. I love being a missionary and serving here in Taiwan. I love you all so much!!!!!!!! I love you dad! Thank you for all you do for me! Till next time! LATER!

My new friend Jen

This is Jen on her cruise through the Hawaiian Islands.  If you are wondering who Jen is, you will just have to ask ;)

The Train

We had Aunt Devera with us from Las Vegas this past weekend. We took the metrolink down to L.A. and visited Olvera Street and had sandwiches at Filippe's (it has been around for a hundred years-literally). It was interesting and the kids had fun. We found an animal preserve in Canyon Country we didn't know existed, so now we'll have to check it out.

Taryn swam well again yesterday. We don't know how she placed, but her time was good. We'll miss the other qualifying meet, so maybe she'll get to swim in L.A> and maybe she won't. At least it has been fun for her.

Has anyone finished the new Harry Potter book yet? I'm deeply entrenched and probably won't get done until Tues. or so.

Stef and Jason

In case you missed Laynes post.....he/we all want to know if its possible to make a hard copy of the blog on a periodic basis....like a huge family journal? Can you let us know? Some of us are worried about the possibility or inevitability of this place crashing or closing down at some point. Please let us know what you learn. Thanks in advance for any and all effort you use to solving this.

Pictures of Bryce....don't you want to go there?

Our visit to the Avila Barn

Our Trip to San Luis

Florida Trip

Well you are now back from Florida and Jason's brother is now back in the real world, so how is he doing?  Do you have any more experiences (photos) from the Magic Kingdom that should be posted?  What parks did you go to and what type of rides were there, was it more of a Magic Mountain, or more of a Disneyland?

Crazy early posting

Why do all you people post so early in the morning? I'm just curious in an astounded way!

Fell in Love with Bryce!

Holy cow, I can't believe how beautiful that place is!! I am truly speechless when I realize just how much beauty this earth contains and the small percentage of it I have seen. Lewis and I will have to at least try to raise our percentage by seeing all the incredible sights that surround us now.

I finished the race. I died with the altitude. It just gets me. I get short of breath and puff on my inhaler to no avail. Sigh. Yes well, it was a wonderful place to run, wonderful weather and great company. All in all a very good day.

I was totally out of touch with the family as there is absolutely NO cell service up that way and learned when I was able to call on the way home this morning that all had gone well with Daniel picking up Lewis. YAY. Lewis's plane was a half hour late so Danile parked and waited inside for him, other than that...it was uneventful.

We hit some art galleries this afternoon, there is a local artist who takes photographs and has them printed on canvas. He is very talented and we hope at some point to become owners of some of his work. Jan and Carleton, we need to take you by the gallery on one of your visits.

Caitlin was invited by Dexter, an older gentleman in our ward and neighbor to go on an all day horse ride today. He had some "horse" work to do and welcomed the company and she enthusiastically accepted. They left early this morning and she got back "early" around 1:30 this afternoon. One of the horses was acting up so they cut the trip short. She was sad to come home. However, I told her that her and Lauren had been invited to ride with Patrice tonight on Navajo trail (above Snow Canyon) tonight at 6pm and her smile returned. They will be leaving soon to end the day with a sunset ride.

I would say that right now we are all very grateful for this wonderful life we have here in St George.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REBECCA

Hi Rebecca, I hope that you have a wonderful birthday and enjoy the time with Mom and Dad.  I love you. 

Bryce Half Marathon

Tomorrow I run Bryce. Patrice called this morning asking if we could leave at 2pm. She said her hubby thinks its going to be a 3 hr drive. We will carb load at their offered pasta bash and pick up our stuff at packet pick up. Then retire for an early start tomorrow morning at 6am. Temps yesterday in Bryce were 45 at 6am and 68 at 9am (you have to be finished by this time). Great weather to run in. Anything under a 2:27 is a personal best for me. My only anxiety is the elevation. This will be the highest I have ran at starting at 7652 and ending at 5800 feet. I just have to take my inhaler and see how the day plays out.

Daniel is picking up Lewis tonight from the airport since I won't be here. I really wrestled with this but after Lewis told me he would be upset if I didnt' run, I decided I have to trust my son and my husband to do this without me. Faith....I keep telling myself...have some faith. I am glad to have Lewis home with us again. We remarked that its that excitement like when the kids were little and used to want to sing "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home" song. That is how we feel. Yay! Absence makes the heart grow fonder?

SKunks in the Strawberry Patch!

I just read all of the comments to my gardening post and I busted up remembering the skunk family in the strawberry patch. We had the hugest strawberry patch down that rather steep enbankment and one year, maybe more, I remember an entire skunk family. Robert Cavanaugh, one of the little boys in the neighborhood, messed with those skunks and was squirted in the face for his trouble. (Served him right!) What did Dad do with those skunks? I think he and Jay Fidel found a way to get rid of them in the mountains. Or is that another cover story like Rags running away?

Love you all.

Question for the Blogging Gurus

Hey Stef and Jason, at some point this site is going to go down, it is inevitable so before that happens I am wondering if you guys already know how to export all of the past years worth of postings and pictures and print them off in color on letter size paper and we can put them in a family history book of remembrance type thing.  I don't know how well it would just print without some formatting,  but you might have already tried it at some point and already know the answer.  Just food for thought. 

The Family Reunion

I can't wait until the family reunion!! It would be sooo fun. I really enjoy being with family!!Who ever isn't going, I'll miss them!! I hope everyone is doing well. I wish we had one when everyone could come!!

Posted be Taryn

My next swimmeet

This is Taryn again! My next swimmeet is Saturday, July 21. I hope I do well. Each swimmeet is about one or two hours long. I hate it being that long!! Well, I'll post on the blog later.

Our Adventure

I don't know how many of you know the events of yesterday here in Washington County Utah, so I thought I would clue you in.

Sometime during the early afternoon yesterday, lightening started a fire out by Dammeron Valley (the marathon route, also nw of St George). The fire eventually burned its way close to some electrical lines. Now according to the radio, the heat and smoke from the fire was causing the lines to "arc" and so they decided to take the precautionary measure of shutting everything down. So the entire county was withour power. The power went out about 4:30ish for us. We found out from neighbors what was going on as shortly after the power went out, we also lost our cell service. We have decided to get a land line as a result of this as we had NO way to contact anyone unless we went outside or drove somewhere.

Caitlin and Jon and myself left to take Lewis back to the airport at 7pm with still no power. Let me tell you getting in that a/c car was wonderful. We also were aware that by the time we would be getting home that the power would/should be repaired.

After dropping Lewis off, we headed home (north) and from almost north Las Vegas on we could see a massive lightening storm where we were headed. Oh yippee. We watched the light show all the way in. Coming into mesquite we realized that there was also a NEW fire. We could see the orange glow fro miles away. We continued to watch the lightening, kept Lewis updated on our progress and also heard from him that his flight was delayed for a couple of hours YUCK!

As we left Mesquite we hit a huge cloud of smoke and ash. We still couldn't see the fire just the glow in the sky as we got closer. The fire was actually in the gorge on the east side almost exactly half way through. You could see it from the road. We took some consolation in that it was also raining heavily at this point and that had to be helping things out. We got home about 11pm and found lights and air conditioning again. YAY.

We survived our little adventure and hope Lewis fared ok with his late night.

Our Temple Trip

This picture was taken while stopped at a red light.
The view from Grandma's balcony.
Walking around the temple grounds.

We had a very nice time at the temple. I debated about whether or not to take the kids on the LONG drive to and from, but I wanted Mialee to know first hand what we are talking about when we talk about the temple. The drive ended up going very quickly and the kids were incredibly patient. They had a great time with Grandma and loved seeing the temple. When we headed home, Mialee said, "I love the temple." In her talk in primary today she talked about being at the temple.

Taryn's Swimmeet

Yesterday I had a swimmeet at a waterpark. It was fun. I had a compotition there. I'll show you the reports.

Fre-stile: 45 seconds
Butterfly: 1 minute and 12 seconds
Breaststroke:1 minute and 11 seconds

OK, I'm here

Yesterday was Taryn's first swim meet. She came in 3rd overall in her division for freestyle. She was 7th in butterfly and we don't know her placing for breast stroke, although I believe she did fairly well. The local swim meets are qualifiers for the two big ones in L.A. We will only be to two local meets, so we don 't know if Taryn will qualify, but she is having fun doing it.

We went to Ratatouille this past week and really liked it a lot. It has a great ending. Hopefully we'll hit Harry Potter this week. I haven't heard anything about it except the comments I've read here.

Mom and Dad are here for rootbeer floats (you're all invited, too), so I'll go for now. Hopefully I'll remember how to get back on:)

Survived Camp

Yes, this past week was scout camp for quite a few of the young men in the family. Jonathan, Thomas and Stephen all went to camp. (Thanks again to the Lambert men for the supplies we didn't seem to have the night before Jon's departure). I don't know how Thomas enjoyed camp or Stephen's feelings. I can speak for Jonathan and I quote "I hated camp but I made a lot of friends". In my opinion camp was a success then. Anyone else agree? I truly wish I would have taken a picture of him before I demanded he hit the shower. He looked like he had been living south of the equator he was so brown skinned. Big surprise when most of the brown washed off in the shower. He soaped up twice and still was dirty. I made him shower again today before church to hopefully get the remainder off. YUCK. We seriously missed him while he was away.

Speaking of away.......Lewis made his first commuter flight. He arrived on-time at Las Vegas airport on Saturday morning and I picked him up and took him out to our new favorite mexican restaurant "Don Jose's". In fairness though, the ruling is not set in concrete just yet as we have two more restaurants to check out at the behest of others who we admire and whose judgement we respect. We still need to try Sharkey's and Casa Mio (I think that is what its called), its the mexican restaurant by the flood street theaters. Then we will have given everyone their fair try and determine who wins. I think the contest is the best part. hehe.

Seriously, it was very nice having Lewis home. We missed him. He had worked so late through the week there wasn't a whole lot left for him to do once he arrived home. Shucks! LOL, so we kept him busy visiting with us. I took him out for date night to see that movie "The Ultimate Gift". He enjoyed it as much as I did. It was fun seeing it again with him. I like that my husband likes "chick" flicks. How lucky am I???? Today we are taking it easy. Our dear friends the Knudsens (our old next door neighbors) stopped by on their way home from northern Utah today to say hi and see our new digs. They loved our house and we loved seeing them. It was a brief but enjoyable reunion. Tomorrow we go see the Johnson farm (Dinosaur feet prints?). We will leave right after I get home from my run, shower and grab a bite to eat. Lewis wants to go before the heat comes up. Then tomorrow night I take him back to the airport.

Tomorrow I put in an application for SkyWest airlines. One of the women in our ward works for them and assured me either Lewis could fly for free right out of St George or at least for half the price. Can't beat that. So, I am going to do my best to become employed by them

Still waiting to hear from Leslee or Shelley. .........Post a picture? or just a comment?

Florida Fotos

Yesterday shortly after we arrived at the hotel we decided to go swimming. It was a lot of fun.

For our nightly activity we decided to drive to downtown disney and take the monorail around the park so we could see some of the nightly firework. It was a blast. Disney World is HUGE (comparable to the size of Boston) and so we got a little lost using the disney transportation.

Paisley and Jason had a good breakfast together.

These are the firework at Epcot. We took the monorail and timed it so we would be there around the nightly fireworks. It was really pretty.

This is us all ready for church this morning.

We are having a great time so far. Jeff and everyone is scheduled to arrive soon. Right now we are having a very loud thunder and lightning storm with a lot of rain coming down.

Dad and I just got back from our week at the temple. It was very busy and very wonderful! I am always amazed that we are privileged to walk the halls of that holy building and participate in such sacred ordinances. We are also aware of the blessing of living on holy ground during the week in the apartment building.

Today I worked the early morning shift so that I could take care of Mialee and Nathan while Rebecca attended the temple. I had a wonderful time. I am so sad that I didn't have my camera to take pictures of Mialee and Nathan feeding cookies to a squirrel, playing in the "tot lot", smelling the flowers, and just being very cute. It was a great time for me.

We are grateful for each of you - being in the temple reminds us of the fact that we are sealed together and we are grateful.

I love Wifi

Here we are sitting in the Kansas City Missouri airport on the internet!! We have Jason's work laptop with us and so I am able to post on the blog while we wait for our plane! This is so great! We got a little lost on the way to the airport since we didn't know where we were going, once we found our way back on track there was a bunch of road construction which took us on a detour. That was fun. But we made it with about 2 hours to spare and here we are. Hopefully there will be free wifi in the hotel we are staying at in Orlando and then I can post once in a while. Have a great weekend!!

Let the vacations begin!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Florida for a week with Jason's family. We are picking up his brother from his mission and spending 4 days at Walt Disney World. I'm not sure if I'll be able to post from there or not, so if not have a good week and I'll get reacquainted with the blog when I return. Happy posting while I'm away!

I have some garden pictures for you. I love gardening. Remember when we lived in PG and we had a huge garden of peas? We had to pick them all and them shell them all and Mom would blanch them and freeze them in little bags. Well, I have planted a garden every year since we bought our first house. Last year and this year it has finally produced somethings.

But these are pictures of my front flower garden and the new butterfly/drought tolerant garden I'm slowly designing and planting.

Another movie day for me

There is a wonderful family in our ward by the name of Tharps. They also moved here from California they just did so 14 years ago. Her husband also commuted back and forth for 11 years before they felt that they could take the pay cut they would get by getting local employment. He went from about $150,000 to $70,000. He said they had their mortgage paid off so they could afford it then. They said they think it would be easier to do now due to the technology available like texting and email and cell phones and webcams. We agree.

Anyway, Sister Tharp is a "Red Hat Lady". Not sure what that means yet but they have invited me to join them on a movie outing today. We are going to see "The Ultimate Gift". I was talking to Shelley last night and she said that her and Stephen had already seen it and enjoyed it alot. She also said to bring tissues. After speaking with her my curiousity was aroused having never heard of this movie before this and I googled it and found a trailer and the official movie site. I have to tell you I am truly looking forward to this movie and would encourage all of you to go see it if you can still find it in your area or rent it on dvd or buy it. It looks pretty incredible. I'll let you know how many tissues I use and rate it that way......just kidding. LOL.

Here's the picture James owes Layne!! I'm glad you had fun in D.C. on the 4th! I wanted to be with you! Oh! This also proves that James does have clothes!!

Flowers

I just noticed these beautiful blooming flowers in my backyard yesterday.

I received this Hibiscus as a house warming present a couple weeks ago and it bloomed today! It is so beautiful!