Trip to Idaho

The second half of our winter trip was spent in Idaho. It was a whrilwind with lots of activities and LOTS of family. Baby shower, family pictures (the first in 4 years), homecoming...Just the way we like it.


But before I get into that, it must be noted that I worked out everyday with my sidekick Lynette. It was fun working with her, and she did a great job- but we squabbled a bit of the use of the transfirmer (the box step). Its a little difficult to share those.



The primary reason for this whole trip? To see this kid. Kyle came home to find everyone there waiting for him...eventually. As tradition, when everyone was present we all sat down one night as Kyle pulled out all of his souveniers, told stories of his mission and even gave us a demonstration of his yodeling techniques. Here he is singing "Eidleweiss" in his liederhosen. Classic.

We always love this part. We laugh a lot and cry a bit as he testified of the reality of The Savior and how his mission helped him get closer to Him. We laughed a bit more than usual with Kyle because of the interesting choice of souveniers. A wooden pipe. A collection of his alcoholic-free beer bottlecaps. A coffee pot. A beer mug. No wonder he had such a good time.

Along with everyone else going on that weekend, we had a baby shower for Melissa, who was due in just a month. Shot of all the preggos. As of today, Nicole, pictured above, is 2 days overdue. Poor thing.

Hot Mamas!

After many of my siblings left, the kids and I were left to a much quieter house. To keep them busy we took them to Monkey Buisness. Lots of thing to climb and on jump and not break (unlike Grandma's house!)

Michael got in on the action.

Brennan joined us too. Good times had by all.

Day in Salt Lake

During our visit to Idaho and Utah in January we decided to take a day to introduce our kids to Salt Lake. It was a mushy, snowy day- so it was chilly, but pretty. The kids really liked looking at the temple, the visitor's center, the temple grounds. It was a nice time.

We got to have a tour at the conference center, which the kids tolerated pretty well. They liked looking at the paintings and talking about the scripture stories each painting depicted. The couple missionaries were really sweet and accomodating for the kids. It was amazing being in the conference center again and the kids loved running up and down the isles. I'd say the highlight of the whole thing, though was probably the escalators. Kids can be so easy to please sometimes.

Visiting the spot where Michael proposed.

Happy face.

The real highlight of the day was visiting the children's section of the Art Museum. What a fun new addition! There were a lot of things to play and interact with. Lynette was fascinated with the kid computers should could play memory on.

Trev enjoyed stacking foam blocks to build a structure- with just a bit of help from dad.

There was a storyline of an LDS family in Mexico with a lot of little things to play with along the way- like this car. It had something to do with the father picking up neighbors and taking them to church.

And dress-up! There was a video demonstrating how to dance with large skirts and Lynette and I got a kick out of.

And Pose!

Lynette's room

It is high time I showed you some of the fun we've been having with our new house. I've been dreaming of decorating my own home for years now- there just seemed little point in trying to do to much before now since we kept moving apartments and couldn't ever paint...not to mention we had no income to spend on anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. So this whole process has really been as educational as it has been fun. The number one room I've been wanting to fix was the kids' rooms. As you know, beggars can't be choosers, so their room has always been a collage of anything and everything we had available to make things work. Sure I tried to spruce things up a bit every now and then, but it never looked like more than what it really was- a room full of hand-me-downs. To see just how far we've coming I'm going to show you my greatest embarassment- the room my kids stayed in while we were in Chicago. Keep in mind, our apartment was itty bitty and we were just trying to survive. So without further ado...the kids' room.

Lynette's bed, squashed between toys and book. Trev's crib. And..uh...*shudder* the closet. We had virtually no storage place in this hole of an apartment, so everything we had was shoved into the closets, under beds, behind couches...everywhere you could imagine.

After leaving this place, this room would later be split into 4 different rooms in our new house. The girl's room, the boy's room, a toy room, and a storage room. I only went in this place if I absolutely had to, it was so depressing to me. Even when clean it still felt so....dirty.

Lynette's room on the day we moved in. Cute and spacious with a color combo that Michael loved and I absolutely detested. I'm sorry, but I just can't handle pink and purple- it makes me want to barf. I think I might need psychological counseling about my unwarranted feelings about the color, but what can ya do? I know its Lynette's room and all and she would have been happy with it, but ya know what? Its my house. I clean it, I work in it...and after years of "making do" I wanted to enjoy it. So that pink had to come down.

So after looking EVERYWHERE for a decent bedspread that wasn't pink we finally settled with this one. Its brighter than my dream girl room (I was thinking maybe red, black, and white...like ladybugs, but I seriously couldn't find anything in my price range). My cousin helped out a ton on this. We painted and kinda freaked out when I saw how BRIGHT the yellow was (the picture really doesn't do it justice), but decided it was okay and we could work with it. Like the stripes? I borrowed the idea from Thrifty Decor Chick. Michael did the strips all by himself- not too bad, eh?

More stripes.

The finished product. I made some wall hangings- they're not perfect, and little too "homemade" for my taste, but they work.

Our reading nook. The blocks spell out "storytime" I kinda like them- made them myself. And that rocking chair? That used to be Michael's when he was a kid. We've painted it, and I think I'd like to repaint it red/orange to match the bedspread and make it pop. Thoughts?

The curtains- also homemade. When I was a kid my mom used to make us sew something every summer before we could buy new school clothes. I really don't enjoy sewing too much- especially when I was young- but I'm grateful to her. She kept saying "Girls, one day you're going to have to make your own curtains." She was right.

This still needs some work. Those are diaper boxes that were painted. I think I'm going to cover them with canvas one of these days. The Christ picture really doesn't go with the room- but it'll stick until I find something better. I was pretty happy with how the name turned out, though.

Cute, huh? Some of the letters were painted, others had scrapbook paper modgepodged onto it. I know they looked cramed, they're actually staggered back and forth- it looks better in person.

The closet corner.

Better shot of the flower frames.

So that's what I've got so far. What do you think? I am open to suggestions. Not too bad for my first room, though, huh? And Lynette loves it, by the way.

Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point

In January we visited out west for a much needed trip to see family, particularly my brother who was coming home from a mission. During our stay in Utah we joined up with Michael's brother Arnie and his family. They took us to Thanksgiving Point where the famed Dinosaur museum was. It was AWESOME. There was so much to see and do. The kids loved it, the adults loved it. We highly recommend it.

There were plenty of fossils.

Dinosaur statues.


There was a station filled with soft dinosaur parts with velcro on the back for the kids to create their own dinosaur.

Ours was six legged.

Kathy and Nathan

It really is remarkable seeing just how HUGE those things were. Its hard to wrap your mind around it even when you here descriptions like "the brontosaurus was as long as 3 school buses" but seeing the skeletons...yeah, they're big.

Our favorite place by far was this circular stream filled with sand the kids could dig up and move around and try to dam up the water with. You could make your own environment complete with tiny dino figurines and tree.

It was nice that the kids had those little smocks- even though they got pretty wet anyway.

Trev didn't bother with the sand too much- he just liked the little dinos.

Shark attack!

Local neaderthals hunting mammoths.

They even had a little sand pit to try out your mad paleantology skills.

As well as give you one last chance to get sand in your shoes and hair. Such a fun time!

Consider the lilly...I mean crocus

You know what makes me really really happy. I'm talking skipping down the grocery isle while 5 months pregnant happy? Seeing the crocuses coming up. They are the first flower to bloom, often making it at the end of February and at my latest trip to the Botanical Gardens on an absolutely HEAVENLY day I spotted them. It really is such an unfortunate name for such a tiny delicate, but obviously hardy flower (pretty gutsy to come up in Februrary don't you think?) You know what's even more exciting? The flowers I planted last fall are starting to come up. No buds yet, but the shoots are there. I swear I look out the window and check them at least 10 times a day. Love my crocuses.

And so does Trevor.

So pretty!