More Christmas pictures

Jaydin got tons of new trucks, fire engines, etc. He had one with him at all times. Even when watching one of the new movies. I don't know which game this is, but it was one of the new ones. It was like pulling teeth to get the boys away from the Wii to do something else. Should have expected that.

Kierstin was having a blast with her new jewlery. These earrings and necklace are from Grandma-Great. They went perfectly with the new blue top from Grandma and Grandpa. The Hannah Montana bag from Gram was a constant companion too. My mom came down for the week and gave each of the three older kids a night alone with her in the cool hotel room. Kierstin's day was Christmas day. She packed up her new Hannah Montana purse and filled the box her Hannah Montana boots came in with the stuff she was going to take around noon and asked for the whole rest of the day if it was time to go to the hotel. She was beside herself with excitement by the time it was actually time to go to the hotel.

Landin is all about being cool. This is his "Yeah, whatever" pose.

Kierstin's new earrings. :) She absolutely loved them!

This is Kierstin's new outfit. Note the Hannah Montana boots from Grandma and Grandpa. :) They didn't come off all day either. When she originally put them on, she had them on the wrong feet. I told her that the zippers went on the inside. She looked at me like I was nuts and said in her best "duh" voice "No, the FUR goes on the inside." Apparently the inside is fuzzy. :)

Jaydin had to come and show me his new earrings. He was holding his head very carefully so as to not knock off the pretty earrings his sister had put on him. Good thing Daddy was at work. He wouldn't have been okay with this. Of course, I had to not only document it for posterity but post it on the internet for the world to see. :) The pink earrings go perfectly with his new blue shirt from Grandma and Grandpa. You can't see it in this picture but it's one of those shirts that light up when it senses movement. When I first put it on him he was amazed and had to keep tapping it to make it light up. He was even more excited when I put a second light up shirt from Grandma and Grandpa. :)

Since the big boys were busy with the Wii that left the DS available for little people. The DS systems and games are all old but he didn't care. He loves the DS and the remote.....they make him feel like a big kid.

The Best Day Ever!

That's what my daughter kept saying all day long. It didn't matter what we were doing. It was very cute. She was having a blast all day long.

Here's Jaydin "opening" his presents. He didn't really get it so I had to open it for him. Oh well, he's only 2.

Of course Landin needed no help at all. He thought the new watch was cool. He's all about being grown up. His favorite part of the week was when we went to a buffet with Gram. Now that he's 11 that particular buffet charge the adult price for him. He saw that on the receipt and has been talking about how he's an adult now. Oh boy am I in trouble now!
Of course with Kierstin it didn't matter what gift she got. It was "the best day ever!" She made a haul and was spoiled by everyone! She loved everything! I think the favorite gift was the jewlery box from Gram with the jewlery from Grandma-Great. I'll post the pictures in another post.
Brydin was excited about his stuff too. He couldn't decide if the Wii games or the remote control car from Gram were the best. :)
Of course, the best gift was from Santa. Santa brought the family Rock Band. The kids were stoked! Dad and I kept that one in the bedroom until all the other gifts were opened. We had them convinced that Grandma and Grandpa had accidentally bought the wrong game or didn't realize you had to have the original Rock Band game to play Rock Band 2. It was fun! :)

World's Cutest Niece!

My sister had her baby this week! Anna Christine was 7 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. Here she is.....she's adorable!!!



I can't decide which picture I like better. I'm one of those weirdos that think the faces tiny babies make when they're mad are adorable. :)

I'm totally bummed out because I haven't been able to see her in person yet. I'm too far away and out of vacation for 2008. Oh well....I'm definitely going to the blessing. I just don't know when that will be yet. Mom and Dad haven't decided yet. :)

Kids....they never cease to amaze

Today is election day....for the past while we haven't been able to go anywhere or do anything without hearing about something dealing with the elections. This is normal for a Presidential election year. However, what I didn't expect was for my 11-year-old to not only care about who won, but to actually know where Obama and McCain stood on the various issues. In his Social Studies class they did an exercise where they looked at a list of issues and the stance of each candidate. One catch....there were no candidate names associated with the stances. The teacher taught them to vote by looking at where the candidates stand on the issues rather than by the party or other superficial factors. Landin picked up on the lesson. Not only did he care which way Billy and I voted, but now he's staying up a bit later than normal listening to his radio as the results come in.


I have to say that I'm very impressed. When I was 11 I only knew there was an election going on because my parents were voting officials and were at my school all day. I'm also impressed because at 11 he understands how to vote better than many adults do. So many get caught up in the superficial...party, age, race, religion, appearance, etc and don't pay attention to the fact that the candidate they are discarding for something superficial is the one that actually was in line with their own beliefs. I hope that more people can learn this lesson. It is sorely needed.


I've told many that Landin is so smooth that I believe he may grow up to be a used car salesman. After this election he may go for a different line of work that uses the same skills....politician. Heaven help us if he goes that route rather than the current pick....video game designer. :)

School Fundraisers...Bane of a parent's existence

My son just came home with a new fundraiser. He has to sell 5 $12 poinsettias by next week for band. I have no idea what this is funding in band...I had to pay $10 at the beginning of the year for a t-shirt and other supplies or whatever they need in band. I guess it's to pay for the concert expenses and field trips they take or something. Whatever.



Why do schools torture parents so much with constant fundraisers? I already have to buy the school supplies not only for my child but for the classroom as well. Isn't that enough? Now I have to do school fundraisers, student council fundraisers, band fundraisers....are there 6th grade math class fundraisers too?


When I was a kid and got these things my parents set me loose on the neighborhood and I sold to my little heart's content. It's not save to let kids do that anymore and I don't have time to take them around to hit the neighbors up for money. I'm also not allowed to take the stuff to work. What other options do I have? I'm stuck. :)


Anyone want to buy a $12 (plus shipping and handling) poinsettia? They are red, white or pink. :)

Is it bad I find this funny?

So I was at home with the two little ones while Daddy was doing soccer practice duty and had something interesting happen. Kierstin got in trouble for some minor infraction and was in her room crying. Jaydin (not quite 2 yet) came out of big brothers' room with a Nintendo DS (off limits to all under age 7). I took away the DS and Jaydin of course started throwing a fit. I started crying back at him as this usually makes kids laugh rather than cry. However, this time he got very upset with me and turned around and marched himself back to his brothers' room and shut the door crying all the way. He stayed in there for a few minutes and then realized he was stuck and couldn't get back out. I found the whole thing rather amusing and couldn't help but chuckle to myself. I thought it was funny and had to share. :) Speaking of sharing....I have first soccer game of the season pictures...in my camera. I'll download them and get them posted for everyone to see. :)

It's been a year!

I can't believe it's been a whole year! The realization came to me this morning while I was trying to focus on some homework I've been putting off. It's been a year since Toad lost her battle with cancer. I still tear up when I think about it. Sigh.....

I miss you Toad.

First day success

I was worried that Jaydin would cry for hours when Daddy dropped him off yesterday. He didn't. She said he didn't cry until he saw his Daddy and big brother there to pick him up. Whew! I was worried I have to give the poor woman a raise before she'd even started getting paid! LOL! Even better.....he slept great last night! Yea! There is a little girl there that is his age and he played with her all day. She must have worn him out. It was great!

Another first coming up

Okay, so we made it through the first week of school with no major issues. We have a little girl that doesn't want to wake up but I can dress her (or throw her in the bathtub) while she's still half asleep and then she's awake enough to walk herself down to the bus.


Tomorrow we start another first that should be more interesting than the other. We decided that Billy should get a job so that we can pay some debt off rather than just pay the monthly payments. He walked in with his first application and walked out with the job he wanted. How's that for good? Okay, so he's in the kitchen at a local buffet chain but still....it's the job he wanted to get. :) His hours are perfect, Tuesday through Saturday 8-3:00. He'll basically be at work during school hours. Yea!!


So he's got 2 days of work under his belt now and is liking the job and the people he'll be working with. What is the first I'm talking about? Let's do a family member inventory....I'm working tomorrow...Billy's working tomorrow...Landin, Brydin and Kierstin go to school tomorrow....where will Jaydin go?


Yup, Jaydin will start his first day of non-relation child care. The lady across the street watches a couple of kids and agreed to watch him and doesn't charge much. I'm not especially worried about Jaydin but poor Polly might have her hands full. Jaydin doesn't like it when daddy leaves and it takes him a long time before he will even start playing in the nursery at church because he knows he'll be left. Billy and I think that it's time for him to start overcoming his separation anxiety. I'm just hoping that he doesn't cry too horribly long. :) I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. :)

First day of school!

So today was a big day at our house. We started Kindergarten, 4th grade AND middle school! I have to admit I was a little nervous about how this morning would go. Kierstin won't go to bed at decent times at night and will sleep until noon. Waking up in the morning has never been a possible idea. Add to that her streak of perfectionism and mom had a nervous weekend. We met the teachers on Friday. Her teacher had some small activities for them to do. She was supposed to draw a self-portrait and write her name on the front. Her picture didn't turn out like she wanted and she forgot how to write her name over the summer (we forgot to practice). We left the school that day with her saying she didn't want to go to school because the teacher was going to be boring. Oh boy! Now what? I was worried that she would get stubborn and wouldn't get on the bus. What was my brillant plan? I pulled out the school lunch calendar and made the biggest possible deal out of what she was going to get to eat for breakfast (if she wanted to) and lunch. I was shocked to find that it worked! Here's how she turned out this morning.



As you can see, she still has sleepy eyes, but she's smiling! She even got on the bus this morning of her own free will! No cajoling or force required! Yea! I gave her the choice of 3 different shirts to wear today. She said that this one was her lucky shirt so it won. :)



Here's our new 4th grader, Brydin. He picked out the polo shirt to wear on his own. I didn't even have to make him! Yea! He pretended to be all upset that he was going to have to sit at the front of the bus with Kierstin all year long because those were the bus rules. Landin said that there weren't any rules like that. I told Landin to be quiet. If Brydin wants to say that there are rules that you have to sit with your baby sister then let him! :) It takes away from the uncoolness of sitting with a Kindergartener. :)

Of course, Landin started middle school today which is too big to take a picture for. I felt like he was packing up for college. No, mom wasn't getting sappy, the kid just had a backpack almost bigger than he was, a trumpet case, and a grocery sack with tissues for the teachers' class supplies. He literally looked like he was moving away. :) We'll have to see how this day went.

Whew! I'm going to go and enjoy some mommy only time. :)

So Cute!!!!

Okay, so I should have gotten a picture but it's not something you usually take a picture of so the camera wasn't handy. So, last night was the last family night before school started today. This means it was time for the traditional Father's Blessing to send the kids on their way through the new year. Kierstin went first, then Landin. Then before Brydin could go sit in the chair baby Jaydin ran off my lap and climbed on the chair and sat down with a big ole' grin! He wouldn't move so Billy gave him a little baby blessing too!!! It was so cute! How can you not get gushy smushy about that? LOL!

Wa-hoo!!!

We just got Landin's schedule for middle school in the mail today. He made it into the Pre-AP classes!!! We're all excited. He's in the Pre-AP Writing and Pre-AP Reading. He wanted to qualify for them so badly and kept asking if his schedule had come yet while he was still at Grandma's house over the summer. We'll go meet all of his teachers (7 of them) on Monday. This should be interesting. :)

Billy also pulled out Landin's trumpet yesterday and was goofing around with it. I (the one with no experience with brass instruments) had to tell him how to properly blow into the thing to get noise. :) Then Landin had to try again. He did very well, at least as well as his dad. :) Not bad for no lessons yet. Of course all the noise brought Brydin running and he had to try. I was amazed at the sound Brydin got out of it! He had a clear note and was even able to change the notes. Maybe we'll have musical kids yet. :)

I'm going home today!!!!!

Yea!!! Tentative contract agreement reached!! They are confident enough that they are sending us all home! Yea!!! Boston with my Mom on Sunday was fun. We went to church and thought we had accidentally picked the married student ward. Then discovered that it was simply a normal ward overrun by married students making it an extremely young ward. :) They were all very friendly. We went on the Old Trolley Bus tour and saw all the major sites in Boston while in the middle of a torential downpour. I hope that the weather lets up long enough for my plane to get out and for my mom to go back to some of the sites she wanted to get a closer look at. Now that I'm going home I promise to post more kid pictures. :)

Here's a picture of a gable.....does that make sense now? :)

That part of the wall immediately under the end of a pitched roof, cut into a triangular shape by the sloping sides of the roof
Gable roof: A pitched roof having a gable at each end.

Visit to Salem

Talk about exploiting history for future revenue! We went to Salem, MA today to check it out. Everything there is about the Salem witch trials or something like it. We got to walk through some really cool (real) cemeteries and see some massively old headstones. Some of them had the same last name as one member of the group so he had to take some pictures of course. :) I could not believe all the stuff they had revolving around witches. There were many places to get a palm or tarot reading, the names of the businesses had something to do with witches or magic. It was nuts. My favorite places we went were the House of Seven Gables owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne's cousin that inspired the book and also the local wharf. The wharf was amazing! Again I am missing the use of my camera.

Weekend off!!!

Well, I've spent a week here in MA. In spite of my cranky, whiny last post I really do love this area of the country. I wish my camera hadn't been on its way home from Grandma's house when I left. I would have loved to have posted pictures. Oh well. It should be a quiet weekend. We were told that we had the weekend off and could even go home if we wanted to. It literally takes all day to get home from anywhere when we fly. I strongly considered it but decided to stay in the area. Why would I do that after all my whining? It worked out perfectly that I got a weekend off when my Mom will be in Boston for a class for work. She's never been to Boston so I get to show her around. We're going to take a trolley tour. We're both excited. We'll spend the whole day Sunday together. I'll let you know how it goes. :)

Work Stoppage duty stinks!

My job is an interesting one. I am a supervisor in a Verizon call center that handles directory assistance calls. I manage the team that makes sure we have the right number of operators on the phones at all times. Last month I had nine people that reported to me. As of August 1 I inherited even more people and now have almost 20 reporting to me. Do I get to work on building a rapport with my new team? Nope.....

I haven't seen my family since mid-June...they are home now....Am I there to see them? Nope....

What did I do 2 days before my family came home? I got on a plane to go to Massachussets. Why? Because the contract between Verizon and the Unions in the East expired August 2 at midnight. I had to be on hand in case they decided to strike so that I could step in and do the work. They have decided to work without a contract but could still walk out at any time. I have to sit around until they actually sign the contract. Who knows how long I have to be here.

No one wants a strike. I just hope that they decide what they're going to do before too long. I'm tired of being in limbo. :)

Summer at Grandma's house

So my family ditched me in mid-June to go to Billy's parent's house for most of the summer. They just got home this past Monday. It wasn't until they all got home that I got any pictures. On their way to Grandma's house (Billy's mom) they stopped at Gram's house (my mom) for the weekend to play. They went to all of the church sites in downtown SLC. As you can see, the kids loved having their picture taken at the SLC Temple. Gotta love it.


Of course, it could possibly be that they were beginning to not feel good because they ended up staying an extra 2-3 days at Gram's house because they were all massively sick. All four kids ended up with something. Poor Billy was the only one that got sick. Of course, Gram loved it because Billy had some time to do some minor repairs around the house that she doesn't have time or knowledge to do herself. :)

Once they finally made it to Grandma Daniels' house the kids had so much freedom they didn't quite know what to do with it. Jaydin (not quite 2) quickly took to the dirt pile like a pro. Grandma has 10 acres right next to National Forest land.
In addition to an awesome dirt pile, Grandma's house has plenty of room to ride the dirt bike and 4-wheeler. The boys were set free with them if they promised to go slower than dirt to give baby brother a ride. Jaydin of course was in heaven the whole time. Billy said after a while he knew how to get right on them and knew where to push for the throttle. Luckily for daddy, Jaydin hadn't figure out how to turn it on or the little turkey might have hit the throttle and made daddy chase him! :)Part of the trip was spent travelling to get Billy's Grandma and bring her back to Daniels' house. While they were at Great-Grandma's (or GG) house they met up with various other family members. I don't know who this lady is, I think she's Billy's step-aunt or something....are they step-aunts or just aunts when they are the second wife of the uncle? I don't know. Either way, she let the big boys ride the horse and they thought they were hot stuff.

This is back at Grandma's house. Kierstin loves to pose pretty.

Hammocks are the best too! Kierstin and Jaydin had a blast playing in this thing. Too bad they wouldn't use it to take a nap! :)
They are all back home now and are happy to have the dog to play with again. When Kierstin was talking to me from Grandma's house she told me that she wanted to come home because she missed her puppy....not mom, the puppy. Oh well. Who can blame them when there's so much cool stuff to do at Grandma's house?

Disney pics a month late

Okay, so we've been home since forever and I have yet to post pictures. In my defense, I did not take the digital camera and had to finish out the disposable camera before I could get them developed. :) Anybody buying that excuse? Oh well....better late than never. Believe it or not, this first one is from the first day. Landin was irritated that Brydin insisted on taking his picture.....little brothers!! :)

Brydin was going strong with the pictures. I had to remind him to leave some for when we actually got to DisneyWorld. :)

Here's one of the plane ride......literally...

The boys both thought that our hotel was massively cool looking. They both had to get a picture of it. I'll spare you and only post one. :)

There are the 5-star luxury resorts at DisneyWorld and then there are the decent resorts (a.k.a. hotels) that are of lesser cost and luxury but still very decent. These are all All-Star resorts and have different themes. We were at the All-Star Sports resort. All that means is that our buildings had a sports theme. We were in the Touchdown bungalows.

Every morning we would meet between the buildings so that we could head to the park on the itinerary as a group. We were extremely hard to miss as every day we had a different color of the same shirt. Other vacationers noticed and began to ask what color tomorrow's shirt was so that they could coordinate with us and join the group. :) Here is Brydin waiting patiently. Of course it took a little bit of doing to get the boys to actually put on the PINK shirts and wear them for an ENTIRE day. :) It was all good though. :)

Around the corner from our hotel was the COOLEST McDonald's I have ever seen. Landin absolutely had to have a picture of it and I couldn't blame him. All the tourists were taking pictures of it. Of course, the windows on the bus don't open so it didn't turn out very well. Hopefully you can see it.

Brydin concentrated on taking pictures of people. We went to two different restaurants that had the characters come around to each table and talk to the people and pose for pictures. I'll spare you the pictures of the princesses that were taken for the benefit of little sister. I was shocked when I found Brydin absolutely excited to have his picture taken with the characters from Winnie the Pooh. I would have thought him too old....apparently not. Even Landin wanted his picture taken with Tigger.

We found Stitch at one of the Waterparks and Brydin was ecstatic!

After you get off of most of the rides they exit into a gift shop. Very good marketing technique I thought. However, when you get off of the test track ride (I forget the name, it's the one where you are the crash test dummy) you go into a show room of all the new cars. There are lots of cool ones. The boys sat in a Hummer, and this neat little red sports car.....

Landin was more interested in taking pictures of the stuff. He took several pictures of the landscaping where they had shaped the bushes into characters. I thought Stitch turned out the best.

Well, now you have the long narrative and the million pictures. Hope they were worth the time. :) Sorry for the formatting, I'm still new to this blogging thing.

DisneyWorld Details

Okay, I finally have a few minutes to sit down and tell you about our trip. :)

It was really fun. The itinerary was tiring but other than that it was good. We stayed at one of the Disney resorts. Not a fancy one but better than the Budget Inn too. :) The hotel had a cafeteria that served was open from 6 am until midnight so you could stop there and eat no matter what time it was. I spent $5 million on food! It was crazy.

We got up before the crack of dawn on Sunday (6/1) and met at the school at 4:30 am. We got on a bus and drove to the Metro airport 5 hours away because it was cheaper to fly from there than from . We then flew to Orlando (by way of Atlanta) and took the Magical Express to the hotel. We got there at about 6 pm. The hotel was set up like a college dorm and had a whole bunch of buildings and several pools. The kids had fun at the hotel.

I bought some disposable cameras and gave them to the boys when we got to the airport. I then had to convince them that they really didn't need to both take pictures of the same things. They both wanted to take pictures of the plane we were going to fly on and then both wanted to take pictures of the same things at the parks. Landin finally figured this out and started trying to negotiate with Brydin what pictures to take. The excitement over the cameras finally died down but they still both used up almost all of their pictures by the end of Tuesday. :)

Monday we went to Epcot. I couldn't believe how cool it was. We didn't even make it over to where they have the countries except for when we met for lunch in Norway. The first ride we went on was Soarin'. I couldn't believe it! You sit in a bench that is set up in a single row. They strap you in and then lift you off of the ground a few feet. You then watch a movie and it is like you are in a hang glider. You don't actually move except for when they tilt your seat slightly so that you are facing in the direction the movie is going. They blow wind in your face at different levels to simulate the speed and even put smells in the air. You fly over a forest and smell the pine trees and over the ocean and smell that too.

Epcot has a lot of environmental stuff in it and was pretty cool. Because we were on a trip for Science we did a lot of the educational rides that you might ignore if you were going simply for fun. They have a whole biodome where they grow food that is used in the fancy restaurants in the parks. One of the rides takes you in there and you see the different experiments they are doing with crop yields and things like that. They even put a few pumpkins in special molds while they are growing to make them Mickey Mouse head shaped. :)

We went to lunch as a group at the restaurant in Norway and got ripped off. We were so upset. The leader of the group booked our reservations in January. When he got the bill it was $500 more than he had expected based off of his confirmation! The food was okay. I wouldn't go back there though. The cool thing was that while you were eating all of the Disney princesses come through and stop at each table and talk to you and pose for pictures with anyone that wants them. Brydin was very sweet and took pictures of several for his sister.

After lunch we met up with the people from the ed program and they did some chemistry experiments. They made slime and saw the stuff that they make diapers out of. They even got to go on 2 rides. There is one with Ellen Degeneres about alternate energy sources. It's more movie than ride but was very interesting all of the things that can be done. They also got to ride test track (that's the one where you are the crash test dummy). That was fun too.

When we had exploring time on our own the boys wanted to go and do the ride in the big sphere that is associated with Epcot. That's not a real ride either. I was surprised to find that it was a cross between a roller coaster and a history of communications lesson with more emphasis on the history part. I was also surprised to find that the boys wanted to go again!!!

We stayed to see the fireworks at Epcot and got caught in a torrential downpour! The fireworks were cool though so it was okay.

On Tuesday we went to Magic Kingdom as the park was opening. We met the people from the ed program and sent the kids off with them (I joined the kids on the first day so I didn't get to the second day). While I was kidless I went with the other adults to the Philharmagic movie. It's a 3D movie and was really cool. 3D has really improved. We had the glasses but they weren't red and blue like the old fashioned ones. I really liked that one. We met back up with the kids and then played for a while. There is so much to see it is crazy! We had lunch at the Crystal Palace. It was ridiculously priced ($24.50 for 10 and older for LUNCH!) but the food was good. It was a buffet and in this one the characters of Winnie the Pooh fame came around to all of the tables. Brydin had to have his picture taken with everyone but Winnie the Pooh. Apparently Pooh-bear isn't cool but Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger are (didn't see Rabbit or either kangaroo). My favorite ride at Magic Kingdom (I think the boys' too) was Big Thunder Mountain. It's a roller coaster but is more fast turns than the ups and downs. Brydin absolutely loved Space Mountain (a really really fast roller coaster mostly in the dark) but once was enough for Landin and me. We stayed for the fireworks again and also caught the parade. I took some pictures of the parade.

Wednesday was Animal Kingdom. The only thing I liked about Animal Kingdom was the safari ride and the river raft ride. It was hot and miserable and everyone was tired from being at two parks from open until fireworks. Luckily we were only there until 1 pm and we went back to the hotel for a rest. Then we went to Hollywood studios (formerly known as Disney/MGM studios). It was neat but was hard to navigate. We stayed late for the Fantasmic show. That was AMAZING!! Instead of fireworks it is a combination of actors/dancers and a movie played on a sheet of water. It was so cool! We got there an hour early to secure good seats. Our group got the whole entire stadium doing the wave two separate times. Are we cool or what?

Thursday we set off for Typhoon Lagoon which is a water park. Landin went off with his friends and I hung out with Brydin. We went on a couple of things with his brother but I couldn't get him out of the wave pool. I spent most of my time with him in there. It was really cool. Those waves are big! Unfortunately, Brydin got so sunburned he couldn't put his shirt on Friday. :( He even got some blisters on his shoulders! And that was with me putting sunscreen on him!

Friday Landin went with the group to Universal Studios and I stayed at the hotel with Brydin. I was bummed out because I wanted to see it but poor Brydin could hardly move. It was nice to relax for a day though so it wasn't too bad. Landin had fun and Brydin didn't mind staying in the hotel watching Disney channel and playing his gameboy.

Saturday we went to Blizzard Beach. Brydin didn't want to put his shirt on because it still hurt but I made him anyway. That day all 3 of us wore shirts in the water so no extra burning happened. I liked Blizzard Beach better than Typhoon Lagoon but didn't really explore at Typhoon Lagoon. Maybe I wouldn't feel that way if I had. We could have gone exploring at any of the Disney parks after both of the water parks but the boys didn't want to. They had just as much fun playing in the pools at the hotel.

Sunday we started the long trip home. Luckily, it was basically uneventful other than me and the boys all being cranky from having to get up too early. :) We were fine once we actually made it to our gate. We didn't get home until 10:30 pm and we all went straight to bed.

It was a long week but was really fun too. I'll post pictures as soon as they are developed.

We're going to DisneyWorld!!!!

I'm not sure who's more excited....me or the kids. I get to go on a ScienceQuest trip with the two older boys. ScienceQuest is a program where we get to spend 7 days at the 4 DisneyWorld parks, 2 DisneyWorld water parks, and Universal Studios. They get to go into the parks before they open and spend time on the rides with the Disney instructors doing science experiments. They'll do physics, water experiments, life science, the whole gambit of science stuff. It sounds really cool!

We all have to meet at the school at 4:30am on Sunday!!! I'm not too thrilled at that but we're getting on the bus to drive 4-5 hours to the airport in the metroplex because it was cheaper than to fly out of the local airport. I'm all for cost savings as long as I don't have to drive. :) We've been fundraising all year to help pay for it and got some meal coupons and things as a result. Not bad. Huh?

I bought 4 disposable cameras so I'll post all kinds of pictures when we get back.

New Generation of Music

My oldest, Landin, will be starting middle school this fall. I thought it was odd when I found that they have try-outs for band at this level. Most of the kids do not learn to play the instruments until this grade so how do they audition an instrument we don't have and they don't play? They scheduled us a 7 minute appointment for his try-out tonight. Turns out that it isn't an audition, but matching child to instrument and making sure they don't have 50 kids on the trumpet and no one on anything else. We went and the teacher asked Landin what he wanted to play. He told the man that he wanted to play the trumpet. The teacher had Landin make the appropriate noises with his lips and then tried out a mouthpiece, then the horn itself. Landin's second choice was the French horn so the same procedure was done with the French horn as well. Landin's a small kid for his age so the French horn was just a tiny bit too big and the teacher recommended the trumpet. I was impressed because Landin was able to get a good sound out of both instruments. It's going to get really noisy on us come August. I may regret this! :)

Meet the family

I'm new to the blogging scene so we'll see how this goes. I'm having a moment of quiet time this Mother's Day and thought I'd show off my kids. I think they are cute. :)



They are Kierstin (5), Jaydin (19 mo), Landin (11) and Brydin (9). I got suckered in at Sam's Club and paid a million dollars for these pictures but had to have them. I think they turned out very well. Daddy was less than thrilled but couldn't argue too much when they turned out so well.

I've discovered that blogging is an easy way to keep in contact with with friends and family that I have lost contact with. I'm just not sure how much time I'll have to keep this going. Not only time, but lack of productive things to say. Forgive me if I disappear for weeks at a time. :)

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging.