September 28, 2014

The kids had a half day on Thursday and no school Friday so we decided it would be the perfect time to go camping.  It was still pretty hot so we couldn't go to our usual Valley of Fire camp spot (plus that place isn't so magical for us since Seth fell off the mountain).  So we went to Mt. Charleston.  That was the first time we camped there overnight.  We had a great time.  We enjoyed the fire quite a bit since it was colder there.  We made tinfoil dinners and s'mores in a cone, as well as the usual roasted marshmallows and starburst.

It was windy but we didn't really notice how windy until we went to bed.  In our family prayer Danny asked that the wind would stop.  I knew that prayer probably wouldn't be answered the way we wanted it.  So I suggested in everyone's personal prayers that we ask that people will sleep soundly. That prayer was definitely answered because it felt like we were sleeping in a walmart bag with a fan on it! The wind was insane.  Bob and I were up most of the night.  But the kids all slept perfectly! Aaron and Seth woke up once but went right back to sleep.  Ruby, who hasn't slept through the night in 2 weeks since her surgery, begged to go to bed and fell asleep first and was the last to wake up.

Ruby is doing so much better.  It was right about 2 weeks.  She's eating so much better and she's so fun and happy.  I hadn't realized how much I missed that.  She's such a fun little girl.  She had her follow up visit and the dr said she was healing well.  He gave us the report on her tonsils.  They were both about 3 x 2 x 1 cm.

September 21. 2014

Middle School basketball didn't work out.  In the end neither school was willing to work with me even though they say they are supposed to. Bummer.  But maybe it'll be better for Danny to be one of the really good players on his Somerset team.

Ruby is slowly getting better.  I felt impressed to put her name on the temple prayer roll when we were there Friday night and I think that's really helped her.  She was just getting tired of not feeling well, I think.  By Friday she was hardly eating or drinking and didn't want to take medicine and she was being a lot more grumpy and tired.  She's still talking funny and cries easily, but she's doing better.

I'm trying to get our family to eat healthier.  It started because I had a few minutes a few weeks ago so I watched the beginning of a documentary on netflix called Hungry for Change.  It talked about how industrialized and processed all our food is. So I started reading some things and researching.  One of the things that confused me was that a lot of the current trends and "clean eating" things say to stay away from wheat.  That must be wrong because the word of wisdom says wheat is for man.  So today I started reading the word of wisdom and praying about that.  Then I found several websites where other people have studied about it and tried living it and learned a lot.  I'm going to start working toward understanding and living it better.  We bought a wheat grinder on craigslist an I've made bread with it a few times.  Maybe I'll make that a regular thing.  I'm going to buy plain greek yogurt and have the kids mix honey or berries in it.  And I'm going to buy less chips and crackers and cereal and be better at making healthy after school snacks and more smoothies and have more fruits and vegetables available.  I've let me kids know my plans so hopefully they'll get on board and not fight it too much.  I like the feeling of being more in control and knowledgeable about what we're eating.

We're still discussing the possibility of buying Bob's grandparents house next fall.  There are just so many variables that would have to work out right for it to be a good fit for us.  But we keep thinking about it.  Maybe it's really a good option for us or maybe we just like the excitement of possibilities.

September 14, 2014

Ruby had her tonsils out on Friday. Bob and I dropped the other kids at school and then drove to the Summerlin hospital.  She was a little nervous but did ok.  Her surgery only took about 25 minutes. Both the Doctor and Anesthesiologist commented on how enormous her tonsils were. She woke up and was happy.  She said her throat hurt one time, but other than that was happy and ate all day and even had chicken nuggets for dinner.  She did so well they let her come home that night.  During the night her pain medication wore off and she woke up crying.  But during the day she was fine and playing.  Then again the next night she was hurting again.  I told her to take some medicine and it would help her feel better.  But she said it would only feel better when the sun was up.  I guess that's what she's experienced so it made sense to her.

Her breathing is already so much better. The Doctor said she'd still snore for a few weeks while she heals.  But her chest doesn't suck in nearly as far as it did.  When she's not breathing her sternum is dented in more than a normal person's.  I'm hoping that will get better over time.

I'm getting going with the kid's days pretty well.  Rachel and I talked about taking care of our bodies and we talked about healthy snacks and some exercises she can do.  I hope it helps empower her to be healthy and not worry about what she looks like.  Danny and Seth built solar ovens out of pizza boxes and cooked smores in them.  It worked so well.

I'm trying to get the school stuff set up so Danny can play basketball at Cram middle school.  Everyone says that will be great for his skills.  Hopefully we can make it work.

September 7, 2014

For Labor Day weekend, we went to visit Ryan and Venessa.  Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma Donna, Kristal and Dustin came too. We went to Magic Mountain on Friday. Everyone had a great time. Then Saturday we went to the beach. The everyone had a great time boogie boarding and playing in the sand.  Danny fished with Ryan. We stayed until Monday morning.

While we were at Ryan's, Bob talked to his grandparents and his grandpa mentioned that if we wanted it we could buy their house and 5 acres in Virginia for $100,000 next summer when they downsize.  I had been feeling like I need a purpose or something to root me especially since the deans moved and Las Vegas isn't a dreamy for us as it was. I was actually praying that weekend for something new or to give me more purpose or something.  At first we were both really excited about the idea. But then we realized that even though we wouldn't have much of a house payment there, Bob would probably make significantly less money so we'd end up about the same as we are now. That's not what I want because if we were that far from family, I'd want to have better finances so we could come out to visit more and it's going to cost a lot to get 7 people across the country for a visit.  So Bob still wants to feel that situation out and see if we could make it work somehow, but it's also been great because it's helped me see what a good situation we're in here, even without the Deans.

Ruby gets her tonsils out on Friday.  About 2 months ago I started noticing that she was talking like there was something in her throat.  And then we knew she snores a lot, but didn't notice much more. All the kids go through phases of snoring.  Then we went to Lake Tahoe and she slept in our room and we noticed how hard she was working to breathe.  Her chest goes concave to try to pull in her breaths.  So I took her to our doctor when we got back and he said her tonsils were big so he sent us to an ENT.  He looked and said they are enormous and are 4 times the normal size. He had me look. They seemed to me like they were the size of a walnut on both sides.  That doesn't leave much room to breathe.

September 2, 2014

We went to Visalia in July this year so we could spend our annual week with Grandma Zonda.  We had a great time.  We did the usual stuff like we went in the hot tub, fed the turtles a lot, swam at the neighbors, went to the park. We also went bowling and went to Hanford to Superior Dairy.

We left Danny in Visalia to have a week by himself with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandma is going to host each kid like that when they turn 12.  Danny had a great time.  He did jobs for Grandma and her friends because he was trying to earn money to buy a phone.  They also went shopping for clothes, played basketball with anyone Grandma could set it up with, and went fishing with Grandpa.

My mom brought Danny back at the end of his trip and watched all the kids for 2 days while Bob and I went to St George for a late Anniversary trip.  We stayed at Inn on the Cliff because our friends' parents own it.  We saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor dreamcoat at Tuachann.  It was so good.  And we went on a hike in the morning and went to the temple and did some shopping.  It was really nice.

 We had another fabulous vacation to Lake Tahoe this year.  The Smiths are always such wonderful hosts. We were a little worried because there was rain forecast all week, but it turned out great and only rained a couple times.  Amanda had a great matrix set up for us.  We went on a hike, to the bmx track, had a fun day of jet skis and kayaks at Sand Harbour, had a carnival, had a picnic and played at Donnor beach, and Amanda borrowed bikes for the adults and Danny and Rachel babysat while the adults went mountain biking. The Clarks went home on Sunday and we stayed 2 more days.  We went to the bmx track again and went to Sand Harbour again with just our family and rented a stand up paddle board and did lots more crawdad fishing and Amanda took our family pictures at a great spot she knows. 

Our family pictures worked out so well.  We were nervous because it was raining as we got ready and drove to the spot.  But it was our last night there, so we just really hoped it would work out.  It stopped raining about 5-10 minutes after we got to the spot and the sun came out and the light was beautiful.  Amanda did a great job getting us into poses and looking at the camera.  Ruby was not super excited about smiling at the camera and liked to make crazy faces. But we got a great pictures to choose from with the 700+ she took! It worked out great because in our final family picture Aaron and Seth weren't looking at the camera so I photoshopped them over from another picture and I took out the towel we were sitting on because the ground was so wet.

We came home from Tahoe and had about a week and a half until school started.  We were lazy a lot and did some school shopping.  We did our second annual "buy dry ice and throw it in the pool" end of summer party.  

The kids all had a great start to school.  They were excited and a little nervous.  Rachel was really excited about middle school.  Seth was pretty excited about kindergarten.  He's not super in love with it yet, but hopefully he'll get used to it.

July 16, 2014

This summer has been busy. Danny is doing so much better, but just recently.  It was a good 2 months of him really not liking us.  I've asked him a little about it and he won't tell me anything.  But during that time he pretty much got a girlfriend.  He was texting her all the time.  He got his phone taken away alot.  But in the end he knew it wasn't right and we had talks about what a big deal it was.  He agreed, but didn't know what to do about it.  So we ended up just blocking her phone number and he was fine with that.  He's been much better since that.

We stayed home for 2 weeks after school got out.  We decided to move our trip to Visalia to July because the Deans were moving away at the end of June.  So we had more time to spend with them.  And because Danny had a basketball tournament in St. George. We played with the Deans as much as we could during those weeks.  Then Bob and Danny went to Scout Camp.  They did a driving tour of Nevada with RVs.  They had a good time.  Then I went to girls camp.  Danny watched the kids in the morning and they went to friends' in the afternoon.  It worked great.  I had a good time.  The Jovaag girls went so I was excited about that.  They had a pretty good time, but they weren't excited to go again.

Then we left for McMinnville Oregon for a family reunion and Grandaddy Gene's 85th birthday. We took 2 days to drive there and stayed in Reno on the way.  We stayed in a farmhouse that had blueberries all around it so it was fun to pick berries and eat them any time we wanted.  We went to the indoor waterslides, and air museum that were close by.  We floated in the river.  Danny enjoyed fishing in the creek several times.  We road a steam train along the coast and went to the Tillamook cheese factory. And did fireworks in the front yard.  The weather was great and never rained. We stayed for 5 days.

Then we drove up to Vancouver, British Columbia.  We went to sacrament meeting there.  We were disappointed we didn't get to hear any strong Canadian accents during testimony meeting.  Then we went to a little hike that crosses a wobble suspension bridge.  It was so pretty, but raining, so the ground was all muddy. Ruby loved it and even stepping in the glacial river and didn't mind the wet feet the rest of the way.  But Danny was worried about his nice white tennis shoes getting ruined. From there we drove over to Kitsilano Beach.  It had a fun playground and a volleyball tournament going on.  By then the sun was out.  The kids loved the playground and throwing rocks in the ocean.  Ruby loved to get dirty again and rolled around in the wet, rocky sand.

The second day in Canada we took the ferry to Vancouver Island and then the bus to Butchart Gardens.  It was sunny again and a little warm. The gardens were gorgeous.  I was so glad we made the trip out there to see it.  The kids got a little whiney after walking around for too long. But we got ice cream cones and that helped and Ruby walked almost the entire time.  It's awesome to not have to travel with a stroller. Then we went to the Butterfly Garden nearby.  The kids liked that more.  We had a really great Butterfly garden near us in Georgia that we loved to go to with Danny and Rachel, but this one was pretty good too.  Then we caught the bus back to the ferry.  We had a good talk with the boys because they were a little embarrassed we were taking the bus.  Hopefully they have a little less judgemental opinion of the bus now.

Next we went to Seattle to stay with Grandma Monte and Grandpa Gene.  They were so nice to let us take over their apartment.  We went to see the Locks and the fish ladder. There were scientists there that day catching the salmon and putting trackers in them.  It was fun to watch. We ate fish and chips nearby and then went to Pike Street Market.  It was a little too crowded for the kids to like it much.  But they got to see some fish thrown and we checked out a few shops. That day was Grandpa Gene's actual birthday and they took us out to their favorite local pizza place. The next day we went to the Seattle aquarium.  And then over to a fun park near Renton.  And then to Ikea where we met some of Bob's mission companions and had dinner.  We loved getting to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. And the kids loved using their pool and gym and basketball court.

We drove home through the night to make it go faster.  It wasn't quite as great as I thought it would be, but Bob did most of the driving and it was nice to get home.  We were gone 11 days. We've found that week long vacations feel too short a lot of the time, but by the time we get into the second week, we've had a great time, but we're ready to get home.  So it was a perfectly timed vacation.

We're home now for one week and then next week the kids and I will go to Visalia.  We're craming a lot of appointments and visiting teaching and helping friends who are moving into this week before we leave again.  We're also going to the new waterslides tomorrow.  That should be fun.

May 18, 2014

Danny is being horrendous. It probably only started at the beginning of May.  But it's so bad I can't really remember what it was like to enjoy spending time with him. He's so hateful and mean to me and all the kids.  Luckily he still mostly likes Bob. I hope it'll clear up soon.  Or at least if it doesn't get better soon I think the end of school will really help.   Bob and I went to see Valerie Dimmick about 2 weeks ago.  She said we need to be unemotional and set out all the rules and then when he breaks the rules or after 5 minutes of non-compliance we take away his favorite thing for 24 hours. He's currently lost his phone until his grades come up and he's lost basketballs for 48 hours.

Bob and I also talked to Valerie about us when we went there.  It was really helpful.  She told us how we process information is pretty much exactly opposite.  I want to talk it out and he wants to think about it.  I've felt for a long time that I carry most of the responsibility for our family and kids.  So we got to talk about that.  Since he doesn't want to talk about anything I assume he's not thinking about it.  And he waits for me to tell him what to do most of the time.  So we talked about how we need to set up times to have conversations and then we each take turns telling our view using only "I" statements and then we use all that information to make a decision.  It's been really helpful so far.