A trekking he will go

I think I might need help

So like most of you, I'm ANXIOUSLY waiting for the fourth and almost final book in the twilight series. Mike thinks I'm crazy!! "An LDS writer, writing about vampires and werewolf's" I cant believe how many times I've heard that. But for some stinkin reason I'm hooked. My sister let me borrow the first one when I was prego with Kaki and told me it was so good and I had to read it, but then she tried to explain what it was about and I said Ok I'll read it and I filed it away on my bookshelf for about a month. Till she nagged the heck out of me, wanting to know if I read it, I finally read it and couldn't put it down. The second and third book followed I got hooked. It really was a love at first read kind of thing. But I'm really starting to worry about my sanity. With the fourth book coming out my sister and I have become avid debaters and analyzers. She is Team Jacob and I'm Team Edward. So we are both trying to prove why Bella should end up with the man of our choice. It wasn't until I was in Lowe's the other day with my kids half hanging out of the basket and I was on the phone with Laura debating this very subject that I realized I THINK I MIGHT NEED HELP.

These past couple road trips have been great because I was able to re-read the books again. I'm still Team Edward but I'm starting to look at things differently. So I cant wait for the fourth book, I don't know how I'll read it without taking a long road trip, I just might not get sleep for a couple nights. I hope you all have yours pre-ordered, I have mine for quite a while now.

FYI, if you go to ew.com there's a spoiler, it's a good one too. There's also a page or two of the beginning.

Well it was that time of the year. Definitely mixed emotions on weather we like it or not. Never something we really look forward to, but it has to be done. Mike goes and plays in the desert for 2 weeks with his military unit. Now usually they go to Wendover NV, that's why its never looked forward to. Wendover is just a big trailer park town with casinos and a lot of sand. Since his unit just came home from the middle east in January they changed it up. They sent only the guys that stayed home from that tour, to Albuquerque NM. Usually I pack the kids up and go and visit Mike for a day or two in Wendover, but because NM is a little further than the 2 hours it takes to get to Wendover we decided to go to So Cal with my little sister and her new baby for a week. Our kids are really good travelers. The DVD player is Lorins best friend and Christian sings to us all the primary songs they are learning. Kaki likes to just sit and watch Lorin and sleeps most of the time. It was so much fun to go and really do nothing. We swam and vegged, and that's about it. The kids love to go visit the grandma that has elephants on her door, so any chance we get we go. Kaki and Ms BB(that's what we call my sisters little babe) had fun laying around together while the rest of us went swimming.

At the end of the week Mike flew to Cali and hung out a couple days with us and then drove home with us. But we made it out to San Diego and visited some friends that are from Utah. They took us to Old Town San Diego and it was really nice. The weather was perfect, in the 70s. So we walked around and ate dinner at this Mexican restaurant. Our friend Ty is in a Captain in the Marines(that's ok, we forgive him :) jk) and so him and Mike can talk military forever.

This is Kathy and I. Mike and I use to work with her and her hubby. They weren't married at the time. I'm pretty sure we kinda doubled with them on their first date. Some Dudes Playground!!!

Mariachis at dinner sang Rudolf The Red Nose Reindeer in Spanish to the kids. Christian gave them this, "don't touch me look" and Lorin loved it. Kaki just started them down.

Lorin got trigger happy with our camera and took a ton of pics at dinner. They turned out real cute though, maybe she's found her calling at a young age. This is one she took of me and Christian.

We decided when Lorin was a baby that we were going to let her make the choice if and when she wanted to get her ears pierced(and that option is definitely not open for tattoos). So she decided she wanted to do it with Nana, so after lunch we went to the mall with Nana to put some extra holes in her ears. At first she watched a little boy get his ears done and he didn't cry or anything so she was ok with doing it, she just didn't want to sit in the chair she wanted to stand and take it like a big girl. The tears didn't start till after they were done and they were giving her a sucker for being such a big girl. Then once she started crying they let her take another sucker. Don't ever tell me she doesn't know how to get what she wants :)

She chose pink flower earrings of course, and she loves how they twinkle like mommy's ring. But she hasn't had any problems with them, she is counting down the days she can take them out and put in some of the other earrings Nana bought her.

Christian wanted nothing to do with the ear piercing, that's my little man, earrings are for girls, So him and Mike went to check out the sunglasses. Christian found some that fit him perfectly and brought out his blond hair, but party pooper mom made him put them back.

The last night there we went and visited Mikes best friend from high school. He and his wife just had a baby girl a little over a month ago and she was so sweet. But I swear when Mike and Dave get together it's comical, they crack me up!! I know that Mike wishes we could live closer to him because they are like brothers. So Katie and Dave if you feel like moving to Utah, let us know and I'm sure there's a house available in our neighborhood. Dave served his mission in Argentina and I guess they say Che a lot there. So he got a bearded dragon for a pet, that's all Katie would let him get, and he named him Che. Of course the boys had to take it out and play with it.

Then Dave and Mike tried to get Christian to give Che a kiss. He didn't, thank goodness, but he got pretty close.



So it was a fun trip, but it's always good to be home. We got home in just enough time for Mike to pack his bucket and head out the door to go pioneer trecking with the young men and women in our stake. So far all we've heard from him was a picture he texted us. He was holding up this little sack lunch bag that was his meal for the morning. Poor guy, I'm not gonna tell him we had Cafe Rio for dinner :)

Summer = Craziness

It's not that I've been neglecting my blog, because I really have tried to get on the computer where ever we are. But for our family, we know summer has started because we barely have enough time to breath in between activities. Mostly Mike's, but it seems to take just as much energy if not more when it's just him. He tries to save all the military and work travel for summer time when he's in between semesters, that way he's not missing a ton of school. It just makes for one freakin busy summer!! I keep telling myself this is the last summer because Mike is going into his final year in his MPA program and then he will be done with school!!!! Let me tell you that is such a great thing, I'm sure more for him than anyone else. It feels like we've been doing the school thing since we were married. So to see the end within reaching distance is such an overwhelming relief. We just have to get through one more month of craziness and then a different kind of craziness starts, KINDERGARTEN.

BD

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ID 4 Weekend

We had the best ID 4 weekend. It was so much fun to be able to get away as a family and spend time together. It started a little early, the 3rd of July, we went over to a friends house for pizza, and movie in the backyard. After the movie, all the families spent the night in tents in their backyard. Mike had to work the next morning so he couldn't stay and I wasn't about to try and camp out with 3 kiddies by myself. So we left after the movie.

Then on the 4th after Mike got off we headed up to Park City. It was Mike's idea and it was a really good one. There is a condo chain in Park City that has offered all veterans of the Iraqi or Afganastan wars a free night stay with their family twice a year. So we took them up on the offer and booked a room for the night of the 4th. We thought we would try out Mike's new car, so we took it for the trip and it worked well. The condo was real cute, just a mile or so from downtown Park City. So we checked in went out to dinner and then found a spot on the mountain to watch the fireworks.


This is the front room. The owners of the condo are from Salt Lake and they had a guest book on the coffee table. So we read the stories of the people that had stayed here before us, it was really fun. And of course we left a little note too.

This was the kitchen/dinning room. The condo's were right next to a Smith's store, so we bought food for breakfast and just ate there. We didn't take any picture of the upstairs, but it was equally as nice. Two bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths. We got the master room that had a king bed and the kids shared the guest room that had a queen bed.

I didnt buy a whole lot of fireworks because I knew we were going to Park City. So we just took some sprarlers and some pops and the kids had so much fun with them. It entertained them for the hour we waited for the fire works to start. Once they did we had the perfect view. They were being let off in the parking lot of the resort we were sitting at. And the weather was perfect. Not to hot and not to cold.

The next day after we checked out we went back to down town and took the kids down the Alpine Slide and the coaster. It was so much fun. We have never been on them before and it was so worth the money. The coaster was definately better because you go faster and you dont have the fear of flying off the track, but the slide was a lot of fun too. They had some other little things for the kids to do too. Lorin took a shot at the tramp, she started off slow at first, but once she got warmed up she was shooting into the sky.

This is Lorin and I on the Coaster. Mike took Christian down while I held Kaki and then Lorin and I went down while Mike held Kaki. We screamed like little girls all the way down. It was so much fun. I thought Lorin would be scared but she wasn't, she had so much fun. We didnt have to use the brake at all. Poor Mike, when he went down with Christian, got stuck behind a grandpa and his grandson and they were on their brakes the whole way down. :(

Needless to say it was a long and really fun day. Definately worthy of another trip like that. The kids were so tuckered out at the end. We headed down the mountain around 4pm and we weren't in the car 5 minutes and Christian was snoring in the back, next was Kaki and Lorin followed close behind. Sat night we spent cleaning out our stuff out of Mike's car and then we all crashed. The kids still aren't back up to regular speed after sleeping in today and taking 3 hour naps after church.

Kaki was so good during the whole thing. Poor little girl couldn't go on any of the rides, not even the ski lifts. But it didn't seem to bother her. She was just happy as can be hanging around in her snugle. She got a little sun on her arms, but it doesn't seem to be bothering her today.

Sad to say goodbye

Goodbye's are always sad. Especially when your ties run really deep. So we are so sad to say Mikes car will be leaving us for a better home. We've had it for 9 years, and have experienced a lot with it. It was my first car, I bought it brand new, before Mike and I were married. Mike co-signed for me and we named him(like I do with everything) Pepe Jr. The first car I ever owned was a Toyota Corolla but it was an '89, he was a flesh color and his nam was Pepe. So this was my Pepe Jr. Then we got married and it became our only car for a couple years. We worked together so we just needed one car. Then eventually we had a family and we got a family car and this became Mikes commuter car. So we are really sad that it is leaving us, we originally planned on keeping it till Lorin started driving and then she could have the family clunker. But she is adament on getting a pink car with red seats and shiny wheels. We will have it till Thursday if anyone wants to pay their respects.