Happy Birthday Amanda

Since Amanda's birthday is so close to Christmas her birthday is usually celebrated with our Family Christmas party. She doesn't seem to mind....yet. She thinks it is great that she gets to open presents three days in a row. Hopefully she still feels that way when she is a teenager.

Zach is 12!

I am not a big party person....but for our kids 12th birthday we try to make it special. So they get to have a birthday party. Zach wanted to go rock climbing. So we took him and a couple of his friends rock climbing at rockreation. They had an instructor and they were able to climb on several different walls. After about 2 hours they were all very tired but had a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Zach!

It all about the Water

This year for our family vacation we went to visit my sister in Spokane. We usually go about every other year. This time is rained most of the time but we were able to have some fun anyway. The plan was to go to Silverwood which is a amusement park in Idaho but it was about 50 degrees and pouring so we went to this indoor water park at a Ski Resort called Silver Mountain in Wallace Idaho. It was a really nice park and just the right temperature. The kids had a ball. There were Three big tube slides and then the lazy river....but the kids had the most fun on the surf machine.

Most of the kids just tried the boogie board but Zach wanted to surf and managed to get up a couple of times.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. This is Anna's most awesome fall. Sometimes you just get lucky and are clicking when something happens.

This is Kayla on the boogie board. Even Amanda was able to do it....I was just content taking pictures of the action.

This is at lake Cour de Laine (spelling?) We manage to make it to the lake before the rain came....and it came. There was a dark wall of rain coming across the lake and we started to run to the car but didn't make it and all of us ended up soaked. Zach is alway good for a pose.

Anna and Kayla just sitting looking out at the lake.

This is the kids having fun on the trampoline. I am not sure what game they are playing.

Once again we had a great time! Thanks Jensens!!!

The Half Marathon

So Craig decided that this year he was going to run a 1/2 marathon. I think he would have run a full if he thought his knee would have made it. It seems to be the thing to do around here. I think it is a form of a mid-life crisis. Nothing you would ever care to do when you were young but knowing that your are hitting "middle age" you want to prove that you still can do it. I at this point was not 40 yet so I didn't feel the need to try...maybe next year. This one was up in Logan. Craig ran with his sister Cathy and her husband Guy and My friend Lisa's husband Scott. Craig's whole goal was to make it under 2 hours....which he did!!

The kids watching for Craig at the finish line.

Craig as he ran past....almost there.


Kayla running with Aunt Cathy to the finish line.

Just Happy to Be Done....Now lets find some food. Good job guys!!

Daddy Daughter Pinewood Derby

Kayla got to participate in here first daddy daughter pine wood derby. She was to excited to decorate her own car . She didn't win but I thin her care looked the best.

Lagoon

I finally gave in and took my kids to Lagoon. They have been wanting to go for quite a while now. I am a Disneyland person myself and Lagoon just doesn't match up.....the last time I was there was in 1989. My friend had some discount tickets so I decided to take the kids. (Except Anna who was at YC with Craig.)
The kids had a good time...especially Zach who loves the thrill rides.

Mandy was too short to go on most the the rides so me and her did alot of waiting for the other kids. Can anyone explain why you have to be 46 inches for the bumper cars? Once again Disneyland is alot more family friendly.

Kayla is not quite at brave as Zach and sat with me and Amanda while the others went on Wicked.

The Rocket was Zach's favorite ride.

This is the last picture of Zach with his glasses on .....because he lost them in the rapid ride. So my nice cheap lagoon day ended up costing me an extra 200$ to replace Zach's glasses. Who would have thought you would need to remove your glasses for the rapid ride. Even though he couldn't see the rest of the day he still had a great time.

TVG reunion 2009

The 1988-1989 School year at BYU was my most favorite year of college. I had the best roommates every. We named ourselves the TVG as a joke. (TVG stands for The Very Greatest.) This comes from Jayne and I. When we were kids we would write letters back and forth and we always signed our name TVG. Over the years is stuck. We even had our adopted roommate Alicia's brother make us sweatshirts that said Club TVG on them. Carrie, Jayne and I had come back to the dorms for our second year because my cousin Amy wanted to live with us but also wanted to spend her first year on campus. So we stayed another year. Jen and Holly were randomly assigned to our apartment.....as you could say it was a match made in heaven. They fit right in with our crazy sense of humor. We had so much fun playing practical jokes on other apartments....I can' remember a time that we had a fight. So after about 20 years through the wonders of facebook we arrange a reunion. It was just like old times except there are now husbands and kids involved. There was a lot of laughing and remembering all the crazy things we used to do. It was so great to see everyone and I really hope that it is not another 20 years before we get together again.

Me,Carrie, Jayne,Jen, Holly and Amy

This was the reenactment or our Christmas card picture from 1988.On the bottom is Holly, Jayne, Rob (Jayne's Husband then was her fiance) and Carrie. Next row is Amy and then myself and Jen on the top.

This is all of the spouses and kids that were able to come. We were missing about 10 people.

I had to have a picture of Carrie and I. We were best friends and were always together until she met Allen and got married that next summer. That is Holly behind Carrie....I guess we won't ever grow up!

The White Platform

Zach has been working his way up to a back flip off the top platform at the pool this summer. He finally got the courage to try last week and ever since he has wanted me to come video him so that I can put it on my blog. So today I went over with him to film it. He LOVES the attention he gets everytime he does it. When I flipped the video because it was sideways it cut of the top a little bit but that is Zach. Zach would appreciate any comments about how amazingly cool his is! If you listen to the talking at the beginning you can hear a girl say "look at the kid on the white...." this is what he lives for.

Kayla's Birthday

I can't believe my cute Kayla is 9. She is always so excited for her birthday....she is always wanting to be older than she is...I keep telling her not to wish away her years and that she will be old soon enough.

Happy Birthday Kayla!

Youth Celebration

Anna was able to participate in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Youth Celebration. She picked to be in the dance number for our stake. I was lucky to be able to schedule my time to help with the choir. This was an awesome experience for both of us. The youth performed at the Conference Center for President Monson. The music and dances were so good...you could tell that all of the kids were having a great time.

This is a picture of Anna and her friends from our stake dressed up in their costume right before we left for the conference center.

The Wish to have Straight Hair

No one understands better than myself the desire to have straight hair. Now that Zach is getting older he is wanting his hair to have the shag look that a lot of his friends have. I have told him that first of all no matter what he does his hair will never look that way (believe me I have tried!)..and second of all girls like the curls. But Zach was not convinced. So I tried to straighten his hair with my straighting iron. The results are shown below. His hair was not long enough to get it to lay down but Zach liked it anyway and had no problem showing up to soccer practice with his hair like this.

Hopefully he will come to the conclusion that curls are cool and everyone can have a shag haircut but not many can have a Fro!!!

Mother's Day

I had a very low key mother's day this year. I just wanted to take some pictures of me with my mom and with my children. My mom has been a great example to me on how to be a mother.


I am so lucky to have 4 wonderful children....(most of the time)

My Favorite Place on Earth

My favorite place to go on vacation is Disneyland. I am sure this is because of all of my good memories of going there with my family when I was a kid. That was before the 3 day hopper pass. You went for one day and you felt pretty good if you got more than 10 to 12 rides in a day. The lines were always really long and I remember waiting over 2 hours for the more popular rides. But we always had a really good time. It wasn't so much about the rides but going there with cousins and having a great time being silly. I remember that we would be at the gate when it opened and then would run with my dad to Space Mountain to get on it before the line got to long. So to keep up with tradition Space Mountain was the first ride we went on everyday we were there. This was our first time without worrying about stollers or a baby....and everyone could go on all the rides except for 2.

The kids at the Hotel waiting for the shuttle bus on the first day. Can't you just see the excitement.

Splash mountain was one of the kids favorite rides and I am not even sure how many times we went on it. The ride made more sense to them once I explained the story behind the ride.....it is sad that they haven't ever seen "Song of the South" and probably won't ever get to see it. As a kid this was one of my favorite Disney movies.

This is an all too frightening picture...and one that I will face daily in about 3 years.
Zach was so excited that they let him drive his own car. He was only tall enough because of his hair.

Cruella was one of the the kids favorite characters. She was very funny....and very tall.

Nobody does a parade like Disney!

This is Amanda on the Canoe ride.

The "Fam" with Donald Duck.

The longest line we stood in was Pixie Hollow.....all to meet Tinkerbell and another Fairy Friend...which I can't remember the name. But the girls were excited to get Tinkerbell's autograph.


This was during the fireworks on the last day at Disneyland. I guess after 3 days of 8am to midnight the kids were kind of tired. We had a great time and I can't wait to go back.

The Beach

We managed to spend an afternoon at the Beach. It was cold so the kids didn't really get in the water but just waded. We did walk down to Huntington Beach Pier and eat at Rubys. We did manage to bring home a ton of shells and sand.

The Surprise

Craig and I decided in January that we wanted to take the kids to Disneyland....kind of a family trip in celebration of Craig's graduation. We thought it would be fun to surprised the kids. They thought we were going to St. George for the week. I have to admit that it was the hardest for me to keep this secret....mainly because I was not getting any leverage out of this. But on the positive side I also wasn't getting asked everyday how many more days until we go to disneyland. We told them when we got to St. George. The video was the reaction. The funniest part is Kayla's reaction....she is my pessimist.

Tied Up Elmo

So a couple of weeks ago...Amanda came out of her room looking very sad. So here went our conversation.
Me: What is wrong?
Amanda: I tripped over tied up Elmo.
Me: Why did you tie up Elmo?
Amanda: I didn't tie up Elmo. Elmo tied himself up.
Me: Elmo can't tie himself up. Why did you tie him up?
Amanda: Why would I tie up precious Elmo? (as she is laughing)

Goodbye Grandpa

This is a hard post for me to write. Last week was a hard week for us. A little over a week ago we got the call that we knew would be coming but were hoping it wouldn't be so soon. Craig's dad had passed away. Darald's health had been going down steadily the last couple of years. He was to the point that he was on oxygen all of the time and couldn't walk from one room to another without sitting and resting in between for a few minutes. The decline was hard to watch. We had moved him to Craig's sister's house about a month ago because he had been passing out. We hoped that once his doctor got his medications stable he would be able to be back home but that didn't ever happen. Craig's sister-in-law went to pick him up to take in to a dr.s appointment and found him. It looks like he went quickly and we knew he was ready to go. He has been saying that for the last few months. I looked through my pictures to find some that I really liked. This Craig with his family at on our wedding day.Most of the pictures I have of Darald after Amanda was born.....Amanda is either on his lap or really close by. She loved her grandpa.

This one is at Zach's Baptism.

This is one of my favorite pictures and only about 1 and 1/2 years ago. It is at Craig's nieces wedding.This is another picture of Amanda on Grandpa's lap.

This one was at Craig's graduation from USU just last December. This is that last picture I have have of him. Craig was so happy that his dad was able to make it. It meant the world to have his dad see him graduate.

We were lucky that Darald came and stayed with us for a week after Christmas. We had been trying to get him to come stay with us because we were worried about him home alone all the time. It is a time that my kids will always remember. We did puzzles and he was able to sit and talk to the kids. We also watched the Sugar Bowl with the U of U playing Alabama. This is the first and only time that Darald and I and Zach were all cheering on the same team. (Zach and I are a BYU fans and he is a U of U fan.) It was really fun. I remember how excited he was that the U won. He was funny because he said he couldn't sleep the night before the game because he was so nervous.

Craig and his brothers at the viewing.

Zach and his cousins were the pallbearers. As you can see Zach is the smallest one but he was honored to be a pallbearer for his Grandpa. Darald was a veteran of the Navy so he was given a military farewell with taps and the folding of the flag.

I love this picture because it is Zach paying his last tribute to his Grandpa. We will miss Darald but we know that he is so happy to be reunited with his wife Sherron who died 11 years ago. He has missed her so much. I look forward to the day when we will see them both again.