We made it!

Well, we've moved and are mostly in up here in Logan. That's right. Logan. Who'd have ever thought we'd live up here? Not me! It's beautiful though. We're in a great area with wonderful trees right at the base of the mountain. So far we love it. It's made me have a different look on life. Why? I don't know. But I feel my priorities shifting which is a good thing.
So we've been busy. We packed up our truck last Friday (June 26th) and moved up here on the 27th. Thanks to our family who did so much to help us. We couldn't have done it without them! And not only for helping, but for making the trip all the way up here to do it.
We made it to our first time at church and just brough Elizabeth. It was a very friendly ward and very welcoming. I was nervous about there not being any friends for the kids. It's definately a different dynamic. A lot more older people and not so young like we're used to. Elizabeth's class has 5 girls and 1 boy. Not bad right? Well, that's 2 classes mixed. The 6 and 7 year olds. Caroline has no one her age, so she's bumped up to the 5 year old class and there's only 3 in that one. We went from 120 kids in primary to 30. Yikes! I don't think it's bad though. It might be better because they will get to participate more and be more involved. I hope. :) Liz is really into friend and has been. Caroline not as much, so I was glad there were some friends for Elizabeth to play with. I do like not having so many friends right next door though because then she isn't constantly playing with friends. I had a hard time finding reasons to say no to friends AGAIN!
Brian started his first day in his practice last Monday. He's already done a full week and is loving it. I think it's going to be great for him and he'll be great doing it! It's a good practice and the people he works with are really nice too.
Well, I had my 30th bday on Friday. We took the kids swimming, got Cafe Rio for lunch and then went to the firework show at USU. It was an early 4th of July celebration. It was really good. Cooper fell asleep while we were watching them, but Isabelle stayed away for the whole thing. She didn't even fall asleep for 20 min after we got in the car. The stadium is less than 2 miles from our home but we drove anyway and parked in a great spot. Little did we know how they blocked off the street we were planning on going out and it ended up taking us almost 45 min to get home. Should have walked. Now we know. We probably would have been able to see them from our front porch.
The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. I LOVE it. The fireworks, the family, the food, the music, the weather. I was nervous that it woudln't be any fun though because the fireworks show was done on the 3rd, we weren't hanging out with family and no parade. But we ended up going to Bear Lake which was a lot of fun. There was a spot that was like a mini pool before the real lake and it was warm and shallow. We had planned on being there until the fireworks that night, but the kids, mainly Caroline, started crying and wanting to go home and it was at least 6 hours until the fireworks, so we gave in and headed home. We put them to bed, watched a movie and our neighbors invited us outside to watch there home fireworks. So it was a good day after all.
Brian has my computer with all our pics, but I do have one from the Bear Lake trip and I'm posting an old one from about the same time last year. My cute dirty kids!

The Daddy

Thought this was cute but I couldn't decide on B&W or Color.

Following the trend...

I've decided to follow those before me and go private. Not that we have any creeps checking out our blog I'm sure, but just in case. I didn't want to go private before in case someone wanted to try and find us, but there's facebook and other ways, so no need to keep it open. If you want to be a reader, let me know. I'll keep it open for 2 more weeks and then we'll be making it private. You can leave a comment or email us.

Fathers

We had a nice Father's Day. I'm blessed to have great Father's around me. My Dad is a great man. He was always a patient Dad when we were growing up. How he managed to keep a cool tone when frustrated, I'm not sure. Still haven't figured out how to do that one yet. I don't remember either one of my parents yelling at us growing up. I've managed to make up for that I'm sure! My Dad has great faith and patience. He's very understanding and compassionate and puts others feelings and needs before his own.
My hubby is a great Dad to our munchkins. He changes diapers all the time without me nagging him about it, he gets them ready for bed and reads them stories and definately does more than his fair share to take care of them. They love playing with him and he is a very hard worker which I hope they will learn from him. He has a lot of things I know they will learn from him, many of which he learned from his own Dad, Dave. On our honeymoon we went to Mexico and Brian was bartering with a man for a hammock. He got him down quite a bit and then ended up giving him more than what he had gotten it down to. When I asked him why he said, "my Dad taught me that. He said, "these people are trying to make a living and they've got kids and stuff and they just need to make some money", so not to rip them off too bad." I was impressed by that and through the years, his parents have given us 2 cars and helped us out many other ways. They are very giving people. Brian has told me several stories about his Dad's compassion and willingness to give to those in need. He has a gentle heart and loves his family.
I'm so grateful to have these wonderful men around me and part of mine and my children's lives.
Each year we have a new kiddo I've made a shirt for Bri for Father's Day. Kind of a fun tradition. Here's the picture we printed on his shirt this year. Love these kiddos!

2 Great Finds!

Last week we called a friend to be a scout in finding us a car. A day later he called and said he had bought it. We weren't expecting it to happen so fast, but he found us a great car. Brian loves driving it and it would fit our whole family if it needed to, so that was exciting. Also, as many of you know, I lost my wedding ring. I had been looking at rings to "hold me over" and my Mom let me borrow one of hers until I could get one. I said a prayer a week ago that if it was still in this house, to please let me find it, 'cause if it was here, in a week, that would be the end of it. Well, my friend Alicia gave me 2 pairs of pants that were exactly the same. One was a little snugger than the other, so I set them aside and just wore the other ones. I was packing up some clothes and packed one of them away. Apparently I packed away the ones I wore because I put these other ones on and they were looser. I was tucking the pockets in and my hand struck something that made my heart beat faster. I pulled it out and there it was shinning in my hand.... my wedding ring. I couldn't believe it. I must have accidentally switched which pants I was wearing and hadn't put those on for 7 months. It was funny because I wasn't in love with my ring and had been contemplating getting what I had originally wanted.... a band type ring, but once I found it, I loved it and now don't want the band. Well, not to replace anyway. :) So all in all, a good week of finds!

Isabelle 11 months

Well, Isabelle has hit the 11 month mark. She's a happy girl and is doing good at walking and I love that we can finally do something with her hair! She loves watching Elmo which has been a big help. One more month 'til the big birthday.

Lagoon Day

Tuesday we took the girls to Lagoon. Since we pass it every week on the way to Wee-Mama and Papa John's, they ask us every week if we can go. Well, we had planned the day about a month ago since Bri has Tuesdays off. Unfortunately though, the weather predicted a 50% chance of rain all day. Big surprise right? With all the rain we've been getting, we figured it was probably going to happen. However, we hoped that if we took the risk, maybe a lot of people wouldn't show up because of that forcast. Boy did that chance pay off!!!

We got there right when it opened and the first ride they wanted to go on was the ferris wheel. We were the only ones on it. After that, we hit a few of the other rides on that side. They were so excited to go on all the rides. I was thinking we needed to hit all the big rides before they got too long of a wait, but turns out that we waited longer for the little kid rides. But still, not long at all. I think the longest we waited might have been about 15 min for 3 or 4 rides. For the other 30 rides, we were either right on, or just waited for the ride to finish. It was amazing!!!

After a few of the smaller rides, we split up. Bri went with Elizabeth and I went with Caroline. I love this picture 'cause we were on the flying planes and you can see the motion in the background. It almost made me sick. I'm not the same tough cookie I used to be. Rides that go around and around make me sick pretty quick. When does that change?!

One of the rides has water spraying out at you and you have to push this lever to fly up or down. Well Liz and I did great avoiding the water. Brian and Caroline, however, missed the instructions that the lever in between them is what made them go up and down. He kept trying to push these "buttons" that didn't even push in. He was so confuzed as to why he couldn't go up and down. Apparently they got a little wet.

The girls loved the spinny fast ones. This one would go around fast and then would switch and go backwards. Made me sick! They loved it though.



We took them on the big pirate ship. I love that one. They were having a good time on it until I told Brian to grab their arms and lift them up. Then they both started crying and freaking out. We still got them to go on it again about 4 more times, but they had to put their heads in our laps.

We did the train ride and saw the cool animals. Forgot they even had any.


They of course loved the carousel.


I brought some ponchos in case it did rain and they actually came in handy for the log flume and water rapids ride. Some people were being dumb like "isn't that the reason you go on this ride? To get wet." Bet they were jealous later when they were still wet and it wasn't so warm anymore.



We had so much fun being together and it was nice to do something together that we all liked to do. The girls went on so many of the big ride, well, mostly only Elizabeth was tall enough, but I was surprised that she went on so many of the big ones. She loved this one called Spider, but hated the Fire Dragon. But, she went on it and I was proud of her for doing it. The best ride to me was Wicked. That is such an freakin' awesome ride! Love it!!! If you go, you have to go on it!


After round 2 on the water rides, we took a journey through Pioneer Village. The shops were fun to look through. We were the only ones there. Not that it's ever a hot spot, but the only ones?! I'm telling you, probably the best day of the season to go! And what's a trip to Lagoon without a trip to the dentist?! :)

I loved this one of Elizabeth where her hair was blowing and just looks so fun and carefree. Oh to be a kid again!

Brian and I were worn out before the girls were. They wanted to keep going, so we took them to the kid rides and took a seat for about 30 min while they went on a bunch of them. Before we got to the park we had Elizabeth say a prayer and just ask Heavenly Father to hold off the rain as long as he could. It didn't even sprinkle until 5:30 and that was for about 2 min and then it didn't start again until 8:30. I brought it up to Liz and she said, "well, that was a good one (prayer)." I thought that was so funny. It rained pretty good from 8:30-9:30 when we left. But, lucky for my preparation, we had our ponchos and could hold out as long as we did. Brian and I did Wicked in the rain and it totally pelted you in the face. It was so fun! Since we had our ponchos though, we were able to cover our eyes at least, so we could watch and not have our eyes pelted out. Oh it was a good day. Here's a pic of Elizabeth on the boat ride when we actually did need the ponchos. Too fun. It was a great day!

We hopped in the car and Caroline was out in 2 min. Elizabeth stayed awake and I asked her why she didn't just go to sleep. "I'm waiting for the soup and hot chocolate." Funny girl. I can't believe she held out. We ate and went to sleep. Thanks Mom and Dad for watching Coop and Isa so we could do Lagoon big kid style!

Saturday

Saturday started off really boring. It's hard doing much with little kids. After a few water balloons, Bri pulled out some bubbles and we played around on the driveway. Got a few fun pics. More are on my photoblog if you wanna check 'em out. In this one of Isa, Brian was holding her up by her pants. Kind of a fun angle.



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June 3rd 2009

We just about have a walker.

Elizabeth's chore for the last little bit has been unloading the silverware. Boy she puts up a stink. It will sometimes take her almost 10 min. I finally decided to hand it over to Caroline. She was so excited. She loves doing her "job". She does it so willingly. For now!

Caroline is good at always striking a pose when I tell her I want to take her pic. Here's a typical example.

We had fajitas for dinner the other night and Cooper went to town on the onions. Looks like a noodle right? Nope, onion. It was so funny. He wouldn't eat anything else except for the onions. He was picking them out of the pot. They were pretty good, even Brian was eating them. Now that's saying something!

We had a sign outside our home for rent. The kids grabbed it and started marching and chanting something about being for sale. I thought it was so funny. I won't sell them, but might consider the renting idea. :)

A week or so ago my sister Mellie was telling me how Will had stuck something up his nose. I of course told her how I had not had that experience yet. And of course anytime you say that some little devil angel has to make it happen right? So Caroline came downstairs telling me to look at her nose. I thought it was going to be some gross thing she was going to pull out, but instead I found a cocoa cereal ball. I mean seriously. Why on earth would you think to put cereal in your nose?! I told her to "Wait! Let me grab the camera!". Got a few pics, plugged the other nostril, told her to blow and it flew out. We laughed, she walked over, picked it up took another picture and put it in her mouth. AAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! Oh well.

My new bike

I can't remember the last time I got a new bike. Actually, that's not true. I think I was 10. What a big moment in life. Come to think of it again, that was when I got my 10 speed. I remember a banana boat when I was 5. When I was in college, I bought my 3rd bike (or so I seem to think it was my 3rd) off of my cousin. I took it out to PA with us when we went out for dental school, but for those of you who've been to Audubon, there were no sidewalks where we lived, so I didn't take the bike out hardly ever. When we moved, Brian said I couldn't take it because I didn't ride it enough and he was embarrassed by it. That's right. It was a huffy. So I had to leave it behind. After 3 years without a bike, I told him I wanted one for my birthday, but he got one for me for mother's day. I saw the cutest bikes at this bike shop like this:









This one was my favorite. The daisy. Isn't it cute?!
They're called cruiser bikes, or townies. My kind of bike. None of this craziness to take me in the mountains on it!




Well these cute bikes cost $500-$700. For a cruiser bike. Holy cow!!! That's what Brian wanted to get me and I was like heck no! That's more than his bike cost and he wanted one that was $2000. NO way could I let him buy me one that cost that much. So we started looking other places and came across this one. My kind of bike with the big comfy seat. It's cute and was so fun to hop on a bike again.


However, I didn't get to hop on it for about an hour while Brian tuned it up. Who knew a bike needed tuning. He seriously spent almost an hour on it. Funny. I guess that's what you get with a mountain biker! :) Thanks for the bike babe!