Update

I am so tired of having all my widgets deleted when I change my background. I spent the last while putting them all back in. I think I missed a few links to other blogs too! I tried to save my link list, but I missed a few of them. Oh well. Does anybody know of how to change the template without changing widgets? I'd really like to know!

Ashelynn wrote a short story for a writing competition called "Young Authors" in Feb. We found out about a month and a half ago that she won first place for her story in the kindergarten division.

We were so proud of her! Her story was called "The Frog and The Dog" Here it is if you'd like to read it!

The Frog and the Dog

Once upon a time there was a frog and a dog. They were best friends. They liked to play on the park. On the park there were swings and slides and stairs to get on the slides. frog and dog liked to climb up the stairs to go down the slides and swing on the swings. They had so much fun together.

Then the dog said, “I want to go swing on the swings.”

“OK” said frog, “After we swing on the swings, can we play on the slides and climb the stairs to slide down the slides?”

“Yes,” said dog. “We can and we can ride on the merry-go-round at the carnival tonight.”

“OK” said frog, “And at the carnival tonight we can also go to the fire fighter’s play place.”

“And,” said dog, “We can slide down the pole in the fire fighter’s play place.”

“Before we go to the carnival we have to go home to eat dinner and then we can go to the carnival,” said dog.

So they did. The End

I typed it word for word from her. After the school ceremony we found out that her story had taken second place for the whole school district for Kindergarten. We went to another awards ceremony for her and she got a little trophy. She was so cute about it and was so excited!


She had her last TaVaci concert this month too. She loved to preform, but didn't like to go to practice very much. Next fall she is going to do dance instead. Here she is with her teacher.
Mother's day was nice. The kids had cute crafts for me and Bryant was brave enough to fix dinner. A very good dinner I might add. We had macadamia coconut crusted Mahi-Mahi. It was great to not have to cook or clean up!


I also finally joined a card group. I know I was invited countless times to go to the Village Green group, but never went. I figured it was finally time, but my skills are very lacking compared to the group that I am in! Here is the first card I've ever made. Its pretty plain!

I"ve been trying to potty train Bryson for the last 2 months. He is so hit and miss. He still has accidents everyday and only really tells me when he has to go about once every other day. He wants to do it and was asking to go potty since February. The first week we started went great and now its not so great. I've lost my momentum with it and I must not be pushing it enough. He goes most of the time when I put him on the toilet, but oh its frustrating when he is still having so many accidents. I know he'll get it eventually. The other day I found him in my bathroom and he had gotten into my make-up. Great lip stick application don't you think?

We just finished our 2 latest projects, with a great deal of help! Bryant with the help of both of our dads, built a great new swing set for the kids. He had to rip out the old homemade wood one that we had in the yard. To do that he had to jack hammer out 6 very tall, heavy, and very cemented, old wood posts. Then he planted new sod where the old one had been and began putting the new set together. It probably took him, with help, 18 hours! He must love the kids!

While he and both of our dad's were putting it together my mom, brother, my brother's roomate and I re-stained our deck. That is a job I never want to do again! We all got sunburned and it took us all day! Then 2 days later I had to put a second coat on because it hadn't been done in so long that the wood soaked up a lot of the stain. I told Bryant that the next time it needs to be done, its time to sell the house or replace the deck with a vinyl one! We still haven't finished cleaning up or putting the outdoor furniture back on the deck because it got cold and rainy the day after I did the second coat. The best part is that when I was using a sprayer to do the lattice around the hot tub I sprayed the house! Oh yes, I was using drop cloths, but the sprayer went far beyond the covered area of course. Then I had to spend 45 minutes scrubbing the house with paint thinner to get the stain off. You should see how bad my hands look now! On second thought, you wouldn't want too! Now I have to clean up and re-plant the flower boxes on the deck, then it will look great!

I'm so bad!

I'm so bad at keeping up with this! I bet no one even looks at my page anymore because I so seldom update! I can't promise that I will get any better, but here is the lastest post! I hope you like the slide show. Its just a few of the pictures. Bryant's parents have a very awesome camera and when I get pictures from them I'll put another slide show up!

Going to Maui in March for our 10 year anniversary was awesome. My mom kept the kids at our house so we got to go child-less. Bryant's brother Aaron and his wife, Brooke were there as well as Bryant's parents. We all stayed at the same wonderful resort. Here is a little picture of it! We affectionately called it "The Pink Palace." It was a really awesome place to stay. Here is the link to the web site if you want to check it out more. http://www.sunterramaui.com/kaanapali/index.htm

In March the whales are by the island of Maui having babies and we saw so many of them every day. It was so neat to see them. Especially when they would jump out of the water. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of one jumping but got several other shots that are in the slide show.

We started out the week by going on a snorkel boat to the Molokini crater. It was really amazing. Here is some info about it I found on the web.

Molokini

Offshore Island Located 2 ½ miles off Maui's south coast, Molokini is an extinct volcano that is now designated as a State Marine Life and Bird Conservation District. Its crescent shape acts as a fortress that provides protection from waves and powerful currents making this area one of the top ten dive sites in the world.

Molokini's back wall sharply drops off to depths of 300 feet. In the center is a lush reef area with excellent viewing up to 150 feet. The pristine waters are home to about 250 species of fish - some of which are found nowhere else on earth. Boat tours leave for Molokini from Ma'alaea Harbor or Kihei Boat Ramp. The best conditions for visiting the Islet are early in the morning.

When we got there we decided to snuba instead of snorkel the crater. Snuba is a cross between scuba and snorkeling. You are tied to a raft where you get your air and then you have a hose that takes you 20 feet under water to see all the aquatic life up close. The mouth piece is the same as scuba and we also had to wear a weight belt. It was really peaceful that far underwater, except for the bubbles from the snuba mask. We got to see a sea cucumber, eels, and look up at the snorkelers. After Molokini we went to another spot sometimes called Turtle Town. There are a lot of giant sea turtles that like to hang out in this certain area and we saw so many. There were underwater coral arches also. We did the snuba there also and got very close to about 4 turtles. We were warned not to touch them because it was a $25,000 fine!

The rest of the week we spent a lot of time on the beach boggie boarding, relaxing and doing more snorkeling. In the evenings we would go out and do a little shopping. We heard about an area called Honolua Bay while we were there. We walked down through the jungle to a black sand beach. In the jungle we found a vine low to the ground and had to swing on it of course!

When we started to snorkel at Honolua Bay we had to swim about a 1/2 mile out to get to the coral. It was amazing. There were canyons and ridegs of coral everywhere. Aaron and Brook saw a barracuda and Bryant and I saw a spotted sting ray. There were also a couple of eels there too. We snorkeled there until sunset. When we got back to the beach and were drying off we notice the water swirling and black fins in the water about 50 yards from where we had just been snorkeling. Some other guys at the beach were sure they were sharks because they had just seen a reef shark while snorkeling. We watched the fins for about 10 minutes and then they were gone. More people came down to the beach that had been up on the cliff. We asked if they had seen they fins up there and they said that they had. They had binoculars and a better view, and told us that they were spinner dolphins not sharks. We were all relieved!

Another amazing thing we saw was a pair of turtles mating about 10 feet from the beach at a beach called DT Flemming. I got a little video of that too!
Apparently it was quite a rare sighting and it even made the local paper.

It was a great vacation. The kids were pretty good for my mom expect that Bryson didn't sleep very well. It also snowed while we were gone and she almost got hit by a garbage truck that was sliding down the road . . . other than that it went well and Ashelynn was a big help.
It was great to relax, but the tans faded all too soon.

Today its been snowing off and on all day here and its May! Oh well, the memory of Hawaii kind of keeps me warm!

Its been over a month! I'm sorry my blog is boring!
Its just hard to get back to normal life after doing a little bit of this!







I'm waiting to get a few more pictures and then I will make a great post I promise!

Quirks

My sister-in-law, Michelle, posted three quirks about herself of her blog and tagged me and a couple of others to do the same. So any of you who read this, its now passed on to you too!

I have so many quirks, but I haven't taken the time to think about them. I guess I usually avoid self evaluation!

The first strange thing that comes to mind is that I can't stand to have my eye lashes touched! I'm not sure why. It makes my skin crawl. Its not that I'm concerned about the mascara running or anything. Its just the feeling of them being messed with. Strange I know.

The second thing is that I can't stand to keep my hair the same for very long. Case in point here is what my hair looked like a year and a half ago and what it looks like now! (Lots of blond highlights again!) Maybe its just a girl thing, and not so much a quirk.































The third quirk is that I can't stand stinky smells, especially a dish rag that has been left out too long and has that musty mildew smell. I've been known to walk in the house, smell something, and go on a search for the offending odor. I use color safe bleach on every towel load of laundry and other more stinky loads because it helps keep them smelling better longer.

I just thought of a fourth to replace the thing about hair, because I know lots of us who love to visit the salon often! So instead, I will say I have this obsession about locking doors. My doors are bolted all day long and I check them all again before I go to bed. And if Bryant says, "I don't think I locked the door" no matter how tired I am, I can't got to sleep without making sure all the doors are locked. Its not just because of Bryson trying to get outside, I did it even before I had kids. I can't stand to leave a door unlocked. I guess I'm paranoid. :)

Now I can think of more since I started doing this, but I'd better stop!

Help!

Is it the Arctic, or my backyard? That is debatable today. Bryson hates the snow if you can't tell. Our snow just started to melt and then we were hit with a big storm! It started snowing yesterday about 3pm and still hasn't stopped. We got over 1 foot in 1 night and had 60+ mile per hour winds. The snow in my backyard goes half way up my thigh in some places and I still had a couple more inches of snow between me and the ground. Despite all that, school wasn't canceled. Bryant took Ashelynn in the truck because I would not have made it in the van. If it wasn't Valentines day I would have kept her home. She was in charge of bringing the cookies for the party and was very concerned about getting to school. Utah has it just as bad as we do I've heard.


Here are a couple of pictures of the yard before we walked through it.

29

Saturday night I was up all night long with either Ashelynn or Bryson. Bryant was sick last week and the rest of us got it Saturday night. Sunday I could barely talk and was so achy and tired. The kids both had fevers on and off all day long. Sunday was a long day.
Ashelynn stayed home from school today because she still had a little fever when she woke up. Bryson is doing better but coughing a lot and has a very runny nose.
Today also I turned 29. I had to cancel the baby sitter for tonight because we still aren't 100%. Its snowed all day long too. I have had so many birthdays where it has snowed all day and caused plans to be changed. That is just how it goes when you have a Feb. birthday. The only nice weather I've had on my birthday was last year when we were in Florida on my birthday. Bryant sent me a big basket of flowers, which was so nice and brightened my day. We are going to celebrate later in the week. Oh, also my mom was going to come up (which she couldn't have anyway because of the bad roads) but was in a 40 car pile up accident last Monday and her car was totalled and she injured her back. Thankfully that was all that was injured.
I was talking to her earlier that day while she was driving home from Provo and she said that the roads were so bad and that she needed to hang up. Several hours later I got a call from my dad, with sirens in the back ground, and he told me she had been in an accident, but didn't have any major injuries and was being taken to the hospital to be checked out. My aunt Holly also called me because somehow my mom's phone had called her house during the accident and my cousin Amy could hear my mom yelling to some other people who had been hit by a semi with more crashing in the background. I got the whole story later that night. My mom was almost home when a semi sped past her and she saw it jack-knife. She, and all the other cars around her tired to stop, but the blizzard made it almost impossible to stop. Also the visibility was zero. She hit the car in front of her and was hit also from behind. Her car went dead, but she had the strong impression that she needed to get into the median. She tried her car again and it started. She backed off of the bumper of the car infront of her, and pulled down into the median. As she came to a slow stop she saw another jack-knifed semi in her re-view mirror sliding down the freeway hitting the cars where she just had been. Stunned, she looked up at the road and saw a couple in their 60's huddled on the road, without coats, in the wreckage. Her first thought was to get them into her car and pull out to the other side of the freeway and drive out of there. Her car would not start. She grabbed a blanket from her car and her purse and went to help the stunned couple. She yelled asking them where there car was and they pointed to a black car pinned under a semi. She had no idea how they got out. They were dazed and in shock. After checking to make sure it was clear, she hurried them off of the high way as more cars continued to crash into the wreckage. They went down the hill to a Rite-aid phramacy to call 911. My dad met her there. They couldn't get through to 911 and called the dispatch office for the Payson police. They hadn't heard about the accident yet. They asked her how many were involved and she could only tell them, "more and more" as they continued to hear more crashing. More people came off of the freeway to find shelter and help and the store. After my mom and dad got to the hospital they learned that there were so many accidents that day that the hospitals in area had run out of ambulances. She was all right, but had a very twisted spine. She has gone to the chiropractor several times since last Monday. They found their car 2 days later and it had been hit several more times since my mom left it.
I am so thankful that she was blessed and only came away with minor injuries and that I didn't lose my mom right before I turned 29. Despite the weather and being sick, its a great birthday. I have a family that loves me, good friends, and so many blessings from our Heavenly Father.
Here is a link to the web page that has a little news video of the accident. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2562157