Let me check my schedule

We watched Wall-E the other day when dad was home...together...as a family...with nothing else to do...and we loved it...I could really get used to this free time stuff.

Flash Back Friday

This is my niece Kirsten when she was little. She is Turning 8 and is getting baptized. We are so proud of her. She has grown up to be a beautiful young lady. She is so smart and kind. Brad loves to play school and house with her. Can’t wait for your big day kiddo.

Do these pants make me look fat???

Living with Steven and Kari has not helped me maintain any idea of a girlish figure. Not that I had a girlish figure before but I have certainly swooped in the wrong direction. The problem is I now live with two other people who share my love for sugary, syrupy, sweet, saccharine filled food. Every night after dinner dishes are done and the kids are tucked in their beds I head straight to the kitchen to satisfy my super sweet tooth. Normally I do a pretty good job of curbing my sweet tooth because Randy is not a huge glucose enthusiast. Eating a huge bowl of ice cream by myself usually comes with a heaping scoop of guilt on top. However if “everybody else is doing it” the guilty topping is much easier to swallow. Now every night before settling on the couch for a nightly episode of Heroes season 1 (my new addiction) I must have a desert to accompany it. Last night I decided enough was enough. So I forced a piece of Extra Peppermint gum in my mouth to substitute my craving. I crossed my arms and chewed as quickly as I could. I even had to close my eyes and concentrate on conquering self control. It worked… I didn’t indulge last night but I woke up with a REALLY sore jaw.

I dust my hands

I found out this week that when you make the decision to LEAVE a city… you MUST sever all ties to that city. Randy is still working in THE city and apparently THE city missed us so much it wanted to keep a part of us for itself.

Randy walked out of his work establishment Wednesday night and found to his surprise (but not really surprised) that his car had been stolen. Yes we were robbed once again!!!!

The cops did recover our little prize commuter rice burner, but I still feel incredibly violated. He violated others too. They found the remnants of some poor woman’s purse contents scattered in the trunk of our car. He took Randy’s fresh from the press, still in their cozy plastic wrapping, text books, along with my parking pass for the U, and the car seat. (I sure hope he did not have one of his kids with him when he swiped our car.)

We were feeling pretty fortunate when we got the phone call to come and pick up the car. As we drove home together we shook our heads and laughed at our situation…until our chuckles for our misfortune turned into screams because the brainless criminal broke the latch on our hood. Naturally when we accelerated on the freeway the hood flew up and wreaked havoc on our lives once again. Fortunately we were not hurt just angry. Not only did we have our car stolen but it has now been crippled.

I dust my hands of THE city. It may have broke my windshield, bent the hood until it was unrecognizable and completely demolished the mirrors, but it helped me yet again realize we made the right decision.

Bear Lake

For one last hurrah before school started, Randy and I took the kids to Bear Lake. Kamie’s parents have a cabin on the lake and they so graciously invited us to join them for the weekend. We took up some snowmobiles. The first night we got there it was almost dark. We didn’t have time to take them anywhere so we putted around the Cabin. Randy dragged Brad and Matt on a sled hooked to the snowmobile. Brad thought it was great. However I am not sure how Matt got roped into being Brad’s chauffeur. On the way back Brad ditched the sled and hoped on the snowmobile with dad leaving Matt to be a lone rider. Poor Matt.


This was Claire’s first experience in the snow. Have you ever seen a Christmas Story??? She was not amused with the ultra bundling. She could barely move.




The next day we took the sleds to Logan Canyon. Brad was spoiled rotten. The boys would pick him up at the bottom of the hill and take him right back to the top. Where was that kind of service when I was little?? I walked up the snowy hill in bare feet. Didn’t all the rest of you do that too? … Kids these days…





Thanks Tim and Kamie for the fun weekend!!! We sure needed a vacation.

Home sweet temporary home

Brads favorite part of living in S. Springs...

...the beautiful sunsets and sunrises against the mountains.

Claire's favorite part of living in S. Springs...

...the dogs and their dog food.

Now we can breathe a sigh of relief...

Falling off the posting wagon is rather painful. I still have bruises. It is hard to be out of the loop of my dear friends and family.
We are finally settled in and comfy. If you don’t want to be bored with these details you don’t have to read this post…but I feel I owe an explanation to my children. It was so hard for Brad to pack up his toys and prized possessions and put them in a box just to put them in cold dark storage. It was a whole different story to downsize and give some to the DI.
The day after Christmas Randy and I plopped on the couch like loaves of stale bread and sighed… We were exhausted. This last semester has been really hard on us and the kids. We have been burning the candle at both ends for a really long time. We looked at each other and simultaneously decided that something had to give. As most of you know Randy and I had a second job working at my Uncle’s Carwash. We have been doing it for 5 years. Instead of paying us wage, he let us live in his Duplex while we attended school. It has been such a blessing in our lives. It allowed us to pay for school instead of rent so we didn’t have to get any student loans. Now that Randy is in his last few classes, they have increased in time and intensity. Randy also was called to be in the Bishopric in our ward. Again a huge blessing in our lives, but also very time consuming. Randy still works at the Bank and I still work at the University Hospital. Between work, school, second job, and callings, we decided we needed to eliminate one of them. We determined the best option was to quit our second job. Obviously quitting school was not an option. Since living in the Duplex was our wage we had to move, and since we were between semesters we had to move quickly before the new semester started. We made the decision on Friday quit on Saturday and were packed and moved out by Tuesday. Another reason for the urgency to be out of the duplex was so my uncle could have an empty duplex to offer a new employee.
Leave it to my brother Steven and my fabulous sister Kari to open their arms and home to us. They live in a Condo with 2 extra bedrooms that they so graciously offered to us. (To check it out go HERE). Since we will be buying a home in a few months it seemed like the perfect alternative to finding a small apartment. So we put all our belongings in storage and moved in with my family. It has been so fun. The only drawback is we stay up way to late at night talking and still get no sleep.
This was a very complicated decision for us. We prayed to our Heavenly Father to guide us through this difficult decision. He has poured his blessings so heavily upon our little family. The day we decided Randy called the Bishop in the ward to tell him we would be leaving the ward. The Bishop’s response was simply “I know. The Lord told me that this morning. It was a fleeting thought that crossed my mind. I knew it was coming. ” His response gave my heart peace and reassurance to know that we are doing the right thing. Now we can focus on Randy’s graduation this may, our family, and finding a new job and home in Cache Valley.

Utter exhaustion

This last week has been one of the craziest weeks of our life. We celebrated Christmas, quit our carwash job, decided to move out, had to be out by Tuesday, then Celebrated New Years. I’ll distribute the details in a later post. My computer is not hooked up yet…