May 19, 2013

Bribes didn't work.  I'm going to wait a few months to try potty training Ruby again. 

I was reading a talk on Revelation by Bednar last night.  The one about light.  And as I was reading it I had the thought that I need to start communicating with Dustin.  So I sent him an email.  I can't imagine he'll write me back, actually I don't even know if he'll read the whole thing.  But I think I'll try to send him an email every couple weeks and see how that goes.

Here's today's email:

Did you hear there were fires right by Ryan’s house? I just saw it on facebook, but it was so close to Jeremy’s school they had to go pick him up early.  I made ginger crinkles today. Do you like those? I think I’ve made them before, but it must have been a long time ago because my kids didn’t remember them.  They all liked them pretty well.

We have 2 ½ weeks left of school.  Then everything gets crazy. It’s so hard sometimes to entertain 5 kids all day. I’m trying to psyche myself up for it.  We’re coming to mom’s on June 7^th for a week.  We’ve come right after school gets out for the last 2 or 3 years so it’s kind of becoming a tradition.  That’s been when all those frogs are all over the place down the street from mom’s.  My kids love that.  Hopefully the frogs will cooperate and be there again this year.  Las Vegas is getting a water slide park this year.  It’s crazy a hot place like this hasn’t had one.  We bought season passes to keep us entertained.  But now I’m getting worried that that is all of Las Vegas’s plans for the summer because everyone I talk to has bought season passes.  Hopefully it’s not way to crowded.

Bob and I are going on a helicopter tour of Las Vegas at night for our anniversary in a couple weeks.  Bob’s always wanted to do that.

May 12, 2013

It's Mother's Day.  Bob took me to see Romeo and Juliet at the Ballet last night.  It was great.  Then he made breakfast today and the kids all made the sweetest cards. And Bob gave me Linda's ipad. We went for a walk and had a good time together.

I'm going to try potty training with Ruby again this week.  I bought lots of bribes this time.  Hopefully that'll work.

May 5, 2013

We went on our big trip.  We had a great time.  We stayed in a hotel across the street from disneyland Wednesday night.  We got two rooms.  Thursday the park opened at 10.  It was really nice to walk into disneyland instead of riding the tram from the parking lot with all the crowds.  The weather was warm, but not too bad.  We all had a great time.  Seth was brave about all the rides. He even rode splash mountain and liked it. And he loved Buzz Lightyear; we rode it three times.  Ruby was great too. She took a 2 hour nap in the stroller in the afternoon.  We watched the parade at 7 and then it closed at 8.  We didn't wait longer than 25 minutes for any of the rides.  It was a really fun day.

We stayed at Ryan's that night and went to Magic Mountain on Friday.  It opened at 10:30.  It wasn't crowded at all. The longest we waited for anything was 5 minutes, except for a couple rides that took longer because they broke down while we were in line. Everyone loved all the roller coasters.  Seth rode anything he was tall enough for and loved it.  Danny, Rachel and Aaron all rode the big roller coasters. Their favorite was Goliath. It was fun to watch their different reactions.  Danny was pretty freaked out before the rides, but he couldn't back down if the other kids were riding.  Rachel was totally excited for everything.  Aaron was pretty even.  He said he wasn't freaked out and I think he really wasn't.  They all loved it when they were done. Ryan and Venessa and their kids and Mom and Dad came with us.

Saturday was a kids fishing day at their lake.  Our kids loved it even though they didn't catch anything.  Then we went to the beach.  We had a great time.  It was great weather to sit on the beach and watch.  The water was a little too cold for boogie boarding, but the splashed around a lot, and found lots of shells and sand crabs.  Danny caught 2 surf perch with Ryan's fishing pole.  He was pretty excited about that. Bob took the 3 oldest to the NCAA volleyball championship that night. BYU was playing in it and it was at UCLA.

Now back to regular school life.  One month left of school.  May is always busy.

April 28, 2013

My work trip went well.  I flew out early Thursday and rode Bart to my conference.  Then checked into a nice hotel and slept and watched tv and walked around Downtown Berkeley.  Friday I went to my conference then took Bart back to the airport.  It was a nice break from normal.  But I am glad I don't work full time.  I like being able to do different things all day.  It was hard to sit and think about websites all day.

Now we're getting ready for our Disneyland trip.  We'll leave Wednesday afternoon and stay in a hotel near disneyland.  Then Disneyland Thursday, Magic Mountain on Friday with Ryan and Venessa and mom and dad.  Then the beach on Saturday and come home Sunday.  Should be lots of fun.

We bought season passes for a water slide park that is opening this summer.  I think it'll be fun to have something different to do once a week or so since we don't have as many trips planned. A few families from our ward got them too.  The only down side is that the waterslides are on the other side of town do they'll take about 45 minutes to get there. 

April 21, 2013

Ruby isn't potty training anymore.  She did really well.  She did fine at church last week.  But then this week she realized she could just go in her panties if she didn't want to take a break from playing to go to the bathroom.  She had more and more accidents and then when I asked her if she wanted panties or diapers she wanted diapers.  She'll still say she has to go potty sometimes. So she either needs some time or something really good I can bribe her with.  The other kids had things they really loved by now.  But Ruby doesn't.  We went to the toy store and looked and there wasn't anything she didn't already have that she really wanted.

Danny started basketball this week.  Rachel is really liking volleyball. Bob did a bunch of work transplanting things in the backyard in preparation for our basketball hoop.

I'm going to SF this week for work.  So I haven't really done any websites for the last week.  It's been a nice break.

April 14, 2013

Easter went well. We had a good time with everyone here and we had great weather.

Rachel has started volleyball and she really likes it.  Several of her friends are on her team again.  Aaron has started soccer and Danny starts basketball next week.

Danny turned 11.  He took some friends to laser tag. It's fun to watch him grow up.  He's fun to talk with and he can help and babysit.  He gets moody sometimes but not too bad.

Danny got to go to SeaCamp the week before spring break.  It's in San Diego and it was three days.  He went with his gate class.  It was such a great experience for him.  He got to learn and explore so much.  He had a great time.  We all missed him a lot.

Ruby potty trained this week.  We started on Monday and she's been so excited to be a big girl and not wear diapers anymore.  She's had some accidents, but she gets it.  We're going to try church with panties today.  Hopefully it goes well.

Danny may have broken his 4th finger on his left hand.  The weekend before easter he was jumping on the trampoline at the Deans.  They were playing "Fat Albert" and Rachel was fat albert and she was sitting on people.  The back of danny's fingernail broke open and it got really swollen.  We took him to get it xrayed and they thought there was a bone chip that might float into the knuckle so they sent us to a specialist.  The specialist said he wasn't sure if that was a bone chip or not, but he was worried that the bone might have been exposed to the air when the nail opened up so they put him on antibiotics.  He's been healing just fine now; his fingernail just looks pretty funky.

We walked to the temple yesterday with all the Young Women.  It was 16 miles.  The weather was great and everyone had a good experience.  We were all very tired.

I've started going to the gym again.  I've been swimming and going to spin class.  I realized I was not exercising very hard at home and wasn't in as good of shape anymore. It's going well.  I've just realized I can't go first thing in the morning.  I don't get enough sleep that way and I get headaches.  But Seth and Ruby don't mind going to the child care, so it works out.

March 24, 2013

I've been rearranging all our bedrooms.  It's kept me so busy.  The kids all stayed in the same rooms, but they all switched beds.  I've been working on bedding and decorations and curtains and I even painted the girls bed--turquoise blue, which turned out so well. Bob's been so good to put up with the mess and all my returns because I changed my mind.  But we're pretty much done now.  I just need to figure out a few things to go on the wall, but I'll do that some time later.  My deadline was spring break because all my family is coming to visit.  My mom gets here Tuesday, so I have to be pretty much done.

Everyone is coming for my Dad's 60th birthday party.  They'll mostly be here Wednesday to Sunday.  We made a book for him like we did for my mom's 50th birthday.  It should be fun.  But we're also going to Lake Tahoe to celebrate my dad's birthday.  We go there every year anyway, but this year I was trying to decide dates with Amanda because Wendy can't go. And Amanda suggested we come with our family while they are gone to watch their house and use their things. We'd talked about doing something like that for my Dad's birthday, but big vacation rentals are so expensive. It worked out perfectly.  We'll go in August. 

My face and headaches are doing better.  My skin cleared up great.  And the neurologist gave Bob and me mild muscle relaxers.  We take them at night and they seem to be helping.  I think mine mostly help me sleep better.  But I've been having less headaches and I can wear my contacts most of the day.

We've really been blessed financially lately.  We got $25,000 from Linda's life insurance.  We're going to save most of it and use some to pave a basketball court in the backyard and some to take our three oldest to VA in September.  We also got a big tax refund because this was the first year we've claimed our huge income loss on our rental house.  So we're going to Disneyland with that.  Bob just got a big tv for our living room.  And now Bob's grandparents are going to give us their 3 yr old minivan for only $10000 when we go there.

Bob started working for my dad and Dr. Vita. The girl he reported to left ccbootcamp to go to Dr. Vita.  And she recruited him to come with her.  They have plenty of work.  And my dad has some projects that Dustin was doing, but he quit so Bob asked if he could do it.  So Bob's been working 15-20 hours a week.  We're pretty excited about all the extra income we're getting.  All my budgeting and planning is working out how I wanted, but so much faster!

Danny went to SeaCamp last week.  He was gone Monday through Wednesday.  We missed him so much but he had a great time. I can't believe how old he's getting.  He eats a ton and he lives to play basketball and play with CJ Dean.