long week

Sorry for the weeks we haven't posted. It seems like nothing happens for weeks and then everything happens at once. I guess that is life!!!!! On Thursday of last week, Jason, Robin, our mom and I went to Disneyland for a few hours. We hadn't been to Disneyland since before Christmas because of all the rain we have had. While we were at Disneyland, we literally ran into an old friend of ours (Kim) from church and her 2 year-old daughter Kiara. Robin and I have been friends with Kim since high school but we hadn't seen her in 7 years. Kim married another of our good friends (Gaylyn) shortly after we came home from our missions and moved to Seattle Washington. Kim and Kiara were on a 2 week road trip because Galyyn had A LOT of work he needed to get done. Gaylyn is a software tech at Microsoft.

After running into Kim and Kiara, Kim decided she wanted us to be her and Kiara's personal tour guide around Disneyland. We took her on the best rides that Kiara would like and took her to the best places to eat. While we were on a ride, Kim said it would be so much fun if Robin and I could spend the night with her and Kiara in their hotel room. Robin and I agreed and made arrangements to go to her hotel for the night.

After Disneyland closed, we took mom and Jason home, grabbed the things we would need and went back to the hotel by Disneyland. Robin and I had BLAST playing with Kiara for several hours. Gaylyn and Kim adopted Kiara through LDS Family Services. Kiara also has moderate hearing loss because she was a preemie. Kim could not believe how much Kiara LOVED robin and I. She said that she is usually really shy and standoffish to strangers. Robin and I couldn't see how that is possible considering how well she responded to Robin and I. Robin and I were in heaven as we were the servants to Kiaras every whim.

After Kiara fell asleep, Robin, Kim and I talked for another couple of hours. We talked about EVERYTHING!!!! It was SOOO NICE to get out of the house and spend time with a friend. Before we left to go back home and Kim and Kiara left to drive back to Seattle, we went out to breakfast. We went to Mimi's Cafe by Disneyland and had a wonderful breakfast.

On Saturday, a group of friends from church decided to spend the entire day at California Adventure (the Disney park next door to Disneyland). Both Robin and Jason had to work so they were unable to go. We all met at 9AM and stayed until 9PM. I had so much fun with them. We went on many rides and saw several shows and a parade. There are several rides at California Adventure that I REFUSE to go on because they are WAYYYY too wild for me. My friends talked me into going on 2 of the wild rides (actually they had to drag me on to the rides).

The first ride they dragged me onto is California Scream'n. I had been on this ride once before several years a go with some cousins visiting form Idaho. It starts off by going 0 to 45 MPH in 2 seconds. There are 2 real steep drops (I HATE steep drops) and it goes upside down. As I was anticipating the take-off, I kept saying 'I don't want to do this' over and over again. I continued to scream that phrase throughout the rest of the ride. The upside down part wasn't too bad, I just hated 1 of the drops (one of the drops ended up not being as bad as I had remembered) and the take-off. I was SO GLAD to for that ride to end.

The next ride they had to drag me on was Tower of Terror. I had never been on that ride before (and had NO plans to ever get on that ride). Tower of Terror is based on the Twilight Zone episode where an elevator of a 12 story hotel falls 13 stories and goes back in time. The ride consists of a 12 story drop in complete darkness. At the top of the drop the windows open and you look 12 stories down. You are suspended there for several seconds before the windows close and down you go. One of my friends who also had never been on ToT kept saying 'its not that bad' 'it will be fun' 'look at all the kids standing in line'. I said fine, I will go on the ride as long as I could hide my face behind my friends (the one that said 'its not that bad'...) shoulder. As we got on the ride I made sure I sat by that friend because she was the biggest I could hide behind. I hid behind her shoulder for the ENTIRE ride. I held on to her tight as we kept rising and falling for 3 long minutes. After the ride, the friend I held on to said that she will NEVER go on that ride ever again. She said that was the scariest ride she had EVER been on. I told her 'see wasn't there a great reason why I was so scared to go on it.' She said that she would listen to my reasons from now on. HAHAHAHA

On Sunday I taught Relief Society (with only 2 days notice). The lesson was about the creation (lesson#5 in the Gospel Principals manual). the lessons in the GP manuals are hard to teach because you only have 2 or 3 pages and you are only suppose to use the manual and the scriptures. When I teach out of the manual I have to plan that I am going to ask ALOT of questions and there is going to be A LOT of participation. I was stressing during the lesson because I was over half way through the lesson and had 30 minutes left. Somehow I asked enough questions towards the end and there was enough participation that I ended on time.

After Relief Society, Robin and I left church early because Grandpa, Jason, Robin and I were leaving to go spend 3 days at the Welk Resort in Escondido. We own a time share there and have been going there one week a year for over 20 years. We LOVE it there!!!! It is a nice place to relax. We love to swim in the 5 pools they have. We usually go see the play they have at the theater and we also make sure we spend some time in San Diego while we are there.

This time, we spent 2 full days in the pool, spa and the fun water slide. We also decided to spend a day in Old Town San Diego because I heard that the Mormon Battalion Visitor Center in Old Town, has a new movie. The Visitor Center just opened back up after a year long renovation. The new movie is AMAZING!!!! It goes into the lives of 8 people who were part of the Battalion. It showed the great faith, obedience and miracles that happened to the people of the battalion The movie makes you feel like you are also apart of the Battalion. At each part of the journey, you walk to a different room where it is set up to make it look and feel like what it would have been like to be there. At the end of the movie, there is a room that is filled with interactive activities and authentic artifacts from people from the Battalion. Also there was a place where you can pan for gold. Jason LOVED that part. He could have spent hours panning for gold. I would HIGHLY recommend to anyone visiting San Diego to go and experience the Visitors Center.

It was a long week filled with fun and amazing activities!!!!

We've been Busy!!!!!

Sorry for the long wait for an update. PICS WILL BE COMING SOON (Amber and I are planning on going through them tomorrow)!!!!!!!!! Here is whats been going on in our family since the last update.

On January 11th, Chad and his family were in town from Utah due to a JetBlue meeting. The goup had tickets to a Clippers Basketball game. Since they had extra tickets, Grandpa, Jason, and I were able to go with them (Amber couldnt go because she had to teach the Relief Society lesson that day). It was alot of fun (but I hope, someday, to go to a Lakers game)

The month of February has been busy so far:

Amber and I had a birthday earlier this month, so there has been alot of parties (and cake)!!!!!!!

The fist party was 2 days before our birthday. It was put on by our friend, Leanne.There were quite a few people who showed up. We had a GAME NIGHT. We played a fun game called APPLES TO APPLES and DISNEY SCEEN IT. After everyone left, Amber and I spent about 2 hours just talking to Leanne. It was GREAT!!!!!

The next night Grandpa took us out to eat at TONY ROMA'S!!!!! They have are famous for their ribs. They are EXCELLENT (and messy).

Later that night, we went to a party for a friend who was moving. Since she LOVES pie, instead of it being a good-bye party, it was a good- PIE party. Everyone brought pies. It was alot of fun.

Since Amber and I were going to Disneyland for our birthday the next day, Amber and I opened our presents: Amber gave me a book ONE SINGLE VOICE (it was written by Elder Oaks wife. Its about how to find joy and contentment in being single in a family oriented church), and 2 CD's. One CD is called A CHILD'S PRAYER. It is the CD that Travis and Jenny used as the soundtrack to Jake's memorial dvd (We LOVE and miss you Jake). The other CD is about women and the important role they play.

I got her a Buxton bag (the ones you see on tv), the same CD I got her A CHILD'S PRAYER, and a painting called I WILL NOT FAIL THEE. It shows a girl kneeling against the lap of Jesus (you don't see his face). Amber calls it HER picture. She calls it her picture because the phrase I WILL NOT FAIL THEE is in her Pat. Blessing.

Since Amber and I LOVE to read, grandpa bought us each a Sony e-book reader. Its a electronic device that you can download HUNDREDS of e-books onto. This allows us to read LOTS of books without lugging around all thoes books. We LOVE them!!!!! They get LOTS of use!!!!

The next day was our birthday. Amber, our mom and I spent the day at Disneyland. This year at the Disney Parks, you can get in free on your birthday. But since Amber and I have Annual Passes that let us in free evveryday, we got a gift card worth $69 (the price of a one day ticket) to use toward purchases. I used my gift card to buy a blanket of IT'S A SMALL WORLD and a shirt. Amber used hers to buy 2 figures.

Friday night Grandpa made a cake and we had Dad and Louise and Mom over.

Tomorrow night Amber and I are going over to our friends house. She is going to make us a birthday dinner. That will be last birthday party.

In other news.... We got a new garage door. We couldnt open or close our other garage door due to our new roof. When they put on our new roof, they put the shingles down too far.

Earlier this week I had to get a new laptop because my old one quit working. The guy said that it would cost at least $200 to fix. Grandpa said that we could get a brand new one for a little bit more money. So.....Hello New Laptop!!!!!!!

Last night, Grandpa, Dad, Louise, Jason, Amber and I went to go see the HARLEM GLOBE TROTTERS!!!! It was a WONDERFUL show. It was AMAZING to see all the tricks they could do with a basketball.

It was also REALY funny to see the tricks they pulled on eachother, their opponents THE GENERALS, and on the audience.

In a few weeks Grandpa goes in to have surgery. Because he has REALLY bad knee pain, he is having a pain pump put in. Hopefully this will relieve his pain.

There has also been news of 2 new members joining the family, and the 16th marks 2 years of when we had to say goodbye, for now, to one. First the new additions:

In May Travis, Jenny, Lexi and Jake will be adding Lucy to the family. Welcome Little Lucy!!!!! We can't WAIT to see you!!!!!!

Today we learned that my cousin Derek and his long time girlfriend, Betsy, are engaged. Welcome to the crazy family Betsy. I hope that we will be able to get to know eachother better.

Two years ago,on the 16th, we lost a very special member of the family: Jake. Jake was born with a birth defect called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH). CDH is a devestating birth defect where the diaphragm fails to close all the way. This allows the organs that are suppose to be in the abdomin, to escape into the chest cavity. This prevents the lungs and heart to be underdeveloped due to lack of room. He fought for 5 months and 25 days. He spent his ENTIRE life in the NICU. Even though we didnt get a chace to see you, know that we will ALWAYS LOVE and MISS you. We were planning on seeing you after you got out of the hospital, but, sadly, that didnt happen. We LOVE You OUR LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD!!!!!!!

A lot as happened since our last post. Grandpa and I spent some time up in Utah for a family gathering and baby blessing. Grandpa and I really enjoyed spending time with Bonnie, Mike, Travis, Lexi, Chad, Meagan, Ashlin, Tayley, Derek and Jodi. While we were there we went to 2 picnics, the Utah State Fair and the girls had their pictures taken. At the fair, Lexi and Ashlin went fishing. Grandpa is SO EXCITED to have a new generation to teach fishing to :)!

After we got back from Utah, I went on another date with Ted. This time we spent the day at a time share with his family in Newport Beach. We met at the Newport Beach temple and did a session then Ted and i spent some time at the beach called Crystal Cove. We ate at a beach front cafe and walked around the tide pools. Ted's family and I then spent about an hour swimming in the time-share pool. We then we all got dressed to go to a ward dinner. I had a wonderful time with Ted and his family.

Its A Jungle Out There

Robin and & I had dates lastnight!!! Our Singles Ward had a girl ask guy dance. The theme of the dance was "It's a jungle out there" and we were asked to dress in a jungle theme.

Before the dance, my date, Ted, and I went miniture golfing with another couple, Becky and Brad. Ted is almost as good as a pro golfer, it was no suprise he won the game.

After miniture golfing, the 4 of us went to dinner at a restaraunt called "The Rainforest Cafe". The restaraunt makes you feel as if you were eating in an actual rainforest.

Then we went to the dance. We all had fun dancing and mingleing with the other Young Single Adults.

Since Robin had to work until 6 and then had to pick up her date, Johnny, who lived 20 miles away, they were only able to go to dinner before the dance.

Ted and I had such a great time at the dance, Ted has asked me out for Friday. I will let you all know about that date later.

busy days

I have been busy for the past 5 days doing fun things. On Friday night, I went to the Newport Beach Temple with my ward. I hadn't been to the temple for MANY months so it felt wonderful to go. The spirit is so peaceful and warm in the temple. The temple brought much comfort and peace into my heart. I am grateful and blessed to have a temple so close. Now that things are settled at home more, I will go there often.

On Saturday night my Young Adult ward had an activity where we played a life-sized Clue game. If you know the board game Clue, the activity was JUST like the game but in a life-size form. We all dressed in formal gowns and the men came in their nicest suits. We had a wonderful dinner where the cultural hall was decorated as if we were in a fine restaurant with candlelight and even name plates. The hosts and hostesses were also dressed up in the characters of the board game (Prof. Plumb, Miss Scarlet, Mrs. Peacock, Mrs. White, Col. Mustard, Mr. Green, ect.) During the dinner a "murder" accrued and we had to solve the crime. We had to figure out who the killer was, what room the murder took place in and what weapon was used. We had 35 minutes to search for clues in the several rooms that were decorated to look like the rooms on the board game (ball room, billiards room, kitchen, library, ect.). In the end it was Mrs. White, with the knife in the billiards room (I got 2 out of the 3 correct (I thought the weapon was the revolver). After the game we went to a members home to watch the movie Clue. It was a FANTASTIC night!!!!!

After church on Sunday, Robin and I went over to our friends house for a birthday dinner (I know our birthday was over a month ago but we had been so busy we hadn't gotten around to doing it) better late then never. Our friend made us lasagna that she made from scratch. It was SOOOOO good (lasagna is Robin's FAVORITE food). It was so nice to spend a few hours with our friend and her 2 daughters, Mackenzie 6 years old and Kiley 4 years old. Mackenzie read to Robin and I all evening from her book Cat in the Hat. It is SO wonderful to see Mackenzie read and begin to love books like Robin and I. Our friend doesn't like to read at all and doesn't enjoy reading to her kids. Robin and I vow to continue to encourage Mackenzies love of reading. Kiley kept drawing us pictures all evening and kept asking us how to spell I Love You Aunt Amber (or Robin) which she wrote on all of the pictures she drew for us. I LOVE those girls!!!!!

On Monday night the Older Single Adults invited the family to a waffle cook-out. They had waffles of every kind you could think of. The only waffles they didn't have, that Jason was really bummed about, was Mickey Mouse shaped waffles. Grandpa had a good, although difficult time at the dinner. He cried a few times when people asked how he was doing. He is kind of upset that he is considered single. Although Grandma is gone, he is still very much a married man. It was nice to see a lot of our church friends at the dinner. All in all it was a very nice evening. G-pa is talking about going to some of their upcoming activities (although he isn't single).

Tuesday night Robin and Jason both had the day off so we went to see a movie, Dad came along too. Bonnie really recommended Enchanted so we saw it. The only place where it was still showing around us (since it comes out on DVD in less then a week) was at Downtown Disney (a shopping strip at Disneyland). After the movie, we wanted to ride the Monorail around Disneyland. We thought that you could ride on it round trip but we ended up having to get off inside Disneyland (bummer). Since we had to get off anyways, we decided to go on a ride. After we rode the ride twice we got back on the Monorail and went out to dinner. It was a nice evening.

Well now that I'm a social butterfly, I have to figure out what to do for the next 2 evenings. Any suggestions????? Oh wait, I'm having Visiting Teachers coming over Thursday night so I need suggestions for Wednesday night.

We haven't updated our blog for awhile so I guess I will do it now. On February 2nd was G-mas one month since she passed away. We went to the cemetary to put more flowers on her grave. When we got there we noticed that the flowers we put there 3 weeks before were still fresh and BEAUTIFUL!!!! Although the weather had a lot to do with the flowers condition, we said G-ma must have been taken care of them and that the flowers must know she loved roses. We ended up putting the flowers we brought on a family friends grave.

On Feb. 8th was a one month anniversary since G-mas funeral. It also happened to be Robin and I's @*th birthday. G-pa said he needed to do something to keep his mind off the date so we all went to Disneyland. Robin, our mom and I got to Disneyland when it opened (9AM). Dad and Louise came about an hour later and G-pa and Jason arrived at 1PM. We had SO MUCH fun. We went on MANY rides and saw several shows. It was the 1st time we all went to Disneyland as a family in A LONG time. My favorite part of the day was G-pas reaction at seeing the fireworks show for the 1st time. He was enthrawled with the fireworks. Now he finally got to see the show that we could hear from out house everynight.

The night after our birthday, a group of our friends from our YSA ward threw Robin and I a birthday party. It was an absolute blast!!!! There were about 50 people there with food, music, games and laughter. They made us a birthday cake and gave us many gift certificates to places. Robin and I were shocked about how many people showed up. It is so wonderful to belong to such a great ward.

An eventful week for Mackenzie and Kiley

It has been an eventful week for our nieces (our best friends daughters). On Wednesday Robin and I went to our friends daughter's 4th birthday party. Kiley received several books, crayons, a coloring book, 200 stickers, a ball, a play house and a stick horse. Although the party only had 9 people and just dinner, presents and cake, we had a lot of fun. I still can't believe that Kiley is 4 and Mackenzie will be 6 next month (YIKES).



On Thursday night Alycia called us saying that Mackenzie had fallen and broke her arm (POOR KENZIE). She was playing on the monkey bars at the park and lost her grip and landed on her arm. Alycia ran over to her and said her arm looked like a golf ball was dangling from her wrist. Alycia took her to the hospital and the X-rays showed that she broke her arm just above the wrist. The X-rays showed that her growth plate had also shifted to the left side. Mackenzie's arm was too swollen to put a cast on it for another week. It's going to be terrible to have a broken arm during summer.

Hope everyone had a happy easter

we hope everyone had a "Hoppy" Easter, we sure did. Robin and I spent several months planning a special birthday party for Grandma. Grandma was born on Easter Sunday in 1928 and this was the 1st time since she was born that her birthday fell on Easter. Since we are sure that Grandma never had a 1st birthday party and it was also the 1st time that Easter was on the 8th, we decided to throw her a 1st Bithday party. We decorated her entire room with 1st birthday and fun to be 1 decoratons and banners. Robin and I also gave her an easter egg hunt on her back patio. We also had a pin the egg on the rabbit game and The dice game. The party was a blast!!!!!

Robin and I also went all out on buying her presents. We got her a cute Princess hat that she can wear when she goes outside; a Build-a-Bear that says 6 different things; a ball that she can throw (which she did several times yesterday); several books that we can read to her when we visit her; an MP3 player that we downloaded music that she use to listen to when she was a teenager; a picture frame that says "Then and Now" that has a picture of Grandma when she was 1 year old and a picture of her that was taken of her on the 7th ;and many things that went in her Easter basket. Grandpa bought her several outfits and he and Bonnie and Chad bought her over 6 dozzen roses. They are absolutley beautiful!!!!

There were many people who came to the party. 10 people from the ward dropped by, Our best friend and her 2 daughters, Dad and Lousie came by for and hour, and of course Grandpa, Jason and Robin and I. We all had a lot of fun.