Girls Camp Adventures

I have to say, I love camping. My hubby and I need to go more now. Now that I am in YW's, I had the privelage to head up to Mutual Dell girls camp these past couple of days. No, I didn't stay the night, since the camp is about 30 minutes away from home. I wouldn't have gotten ANY sleep at all! And I'm no fun when I lose my beauty sleep.

We had a great time doing crafts, participating in a skit, painting spray bottles for another ward, canoeing, zip-lining, a big 3-ward water fight, relay races, kickball, confidence courses, hiking, eating good food and too many sweets and ending with a great testimony meeting. I actually didn't get to participate in too much hiking as I had to be home with the kiddies on Thursday afternoon.

I had such a blast getting to know the girls and other leaders. I developed a great appreciation for the camp leaders who plan the whole fiasco! The theme was a cute one. It was 'Happily Ever After' and each ward had to represent a different princess character. Our ward was princess Buttercup from 'The Princess Bride'. It was fun quoting from the movie and coming up with cheers that included those quotes.

I especially enjoyed the testimony meeting last night. It was nice to have that spiritual time to share and to hear the girls testimonies. They are great girls and I'm excited to get to know them more!

Tag

Let's see who reads my blog... and who's gutsy enough to comment!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! I guess good or bad, but be nice!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

Try, try again...

So, I got up this morning and decided to try one more time to get a background I like, and as you can see, I got it! I've used pyzam.com on my last background, but, I didn't like the bright orange bar that came up at the top of the page. At least with this site, their ad is not so noticeable. And change is nice, right?

I just wanted a little change, that's all!

No, I don't really like this blog template! It's boring! I'm trying to change the background to one on thecutestblogontheblock.com, but, it's not working so well. So, I went back to basics and it still isn't working. Grrr! Any secrets I should know about here? I followed all the directions exactly, but, knowing my luck and how things work for me, it didn't work for me. So, enjoy the boringness of this one until I get this figured out.

Bear Lake fun

We had such a blast at Bear Lake! We went with some good friends of ours, Steve and Allison Books. His mom and step-dad own the cabin we stayed in. We drove north for about 3 hours (not including the dinner stop at Maddox in Brigham City and our grocery store stop before we hit the mountain). Bear Lake is at the top of Utah/bottom of Idaho and is so beautiful. We stayed up there for about 4 days and enjoyed our 4th of July up there. We had so much fun playing in the lake, shooting soda cans with our new pellet gun we bought (and which I announce proudly that I won one round), playing Monopoly 4 times (Richard won 3 of those games...grrr!) and watching 3 Amigos (one of the funniest and dumbest movies, you have to be in the right mood to watch.)

It was good to get back home to our own beds. We sure had a nice time away and a fun 4th. Hope you all had a good time as well!

I'm back online!

Here's our new home! We're finally getting more settled and feeling like we're home. I'm almost done unpacking as I'm not the type that can wait months and months to get it done. I have to get it done right away or I don't feel settled. The kids are loving it especially the boys as they have lots more kids to play with in the neighborhood. They all seem to come out of the woodwork when the sun is setting! Sara is getting more used to it. She's been really fussy and clingy since we moved in, but she's getting better.

Our bishop (my brother) didn't waste any time getting us into some callings at church. Richard is a ward missionary and I am the Mia Maid advisor. Not what I expected. I love Relief Society and playing piano so I guess I was hoping for something along those lines. But No! :) I think it'll be great although. I've been informed, we have quite a few young women who are inactive or are heading that way. Going to be interesting!

The boys are quite involved now with T-ball and Coach pitch. Preston is really coming out of his little shell by playing t-ball. At first I wasn't sure how he'd do, but, it's going great! He loves it! But, that means I do more driving back to Orem for practices and games during the week. It's worth it, I guess. I love the picture with Richard and another Dad pointing to whatever it is they're pointing too. It just looked too funny! And that's Preston standing next to them. Ethan is the one batting.

One of our new favorite things to do is go to Tooele to watch our brother-in-law, Clint, race his motorbike out there. The pictures I have here are from his race in which he qualified to become a professional racer! We had a great time watching him and other races. Yes, we know it's dangerous, but you have to know Clint. He loves it and he's very good at it!

And here are some other cute pics I have to include:

So Sara has a boyfriend. Actually, it's a prearranged marriage thing cause this boy is cute! :) Then we've got Richard being a dad, Sara with crazy hair on the tramp, and Sara with the panty-thingy that goes with one of her dresses (I have no idea what that's called!)

I think this should catch you all up on what we're up to lately. Hope you're all having a great summer so far!

I'm not going to procrastinate! I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!

We're moving in 12 days! I'm excited, nervous, sad, skeptical, and whatever else comes with moving into a new place. So, I'm starting now to pack boxes. It feels so great! I hate waiting until the last two days to pack everything. I'm sure you all agree. Unfortunately, my house is going to start to look more bare of decor and more full of boxes. But, I don't care! And I'm labeling every single box so that when our devoted and wonderful Elder's Quorum come to help load and unload, I can direct them to whatever room that particular box goes to at our new place. At least, that's what I'm hoping for. I'm crossing my fingers. We've already made a big run to Deseret Industries to drop off all that stuff we've accumulated but haven't used for a while. I even was able to get Richard to go through all his old boxes of junk from school and mission and get rid of a lot of stuff. Hurray for him! The kids were even willing to let go of a few bigger toys to give to their cousins. I was so proud of them.

Many small things become great!

In certain cases, small things becoming great really happened here and it wasn't a great thing to have happen. Richard has learned how to change the oil in our cars now and with the help of a friend, changed the brake pads as well. It saves lots of money and it's great to learn, right? Easy, simple, small thing.
Well, he had changed the brake pads about 6 months ago and for the last couple of weeks we've been hearing grinding and squeaking again. So, Richard and our friend Steve get in there and change the brake pads again, turn the routers which were a bit warped and change the oil. Easy! This was last Saturday. Sunday morning we drive to church and while driving we hear some gurgling sounds and the car is jiggling when we turn. Our hearts sink to the floor and our stress level shoots up to the roof! We parked, got out, and notice a trail of oil. We follow it all the way back to the road where the oil had literally gushed out! Ahhh! We left the car in the parking lot since we probably didn't have any oil left. The next morning we had someone come out and take a look. Well, silly thing! There's a rubber sealant that goes on the filter, and when they had changed the oil, forgot to take off the old sealant. So there were two sealants on top of each other! We felt so stupid. We had to pay the guy for coming out and replacing the filter again and new oil. This isn't all. Steve checked our brakes and wheels again (because of that jiggling going on) and found the parts were so hot after driving that they couldn't touch anything for a while. So we took it in yesterday and they said it was the calipers that weren't pulling back after braking so it was making everything hot and warping the routers and ruining the brake pads! So those were all replaced.
SO! $400 later, our car is happy, we hope. Goodness gracious! At least the next time they'll remember to check for the old rubber sealant before the new filter goes on and save us some stress and more $$.

Birthday fun for the birthday boy

We had a fun, but, very active day yesterday as it was Preston's birthday. He asked every day last week if he was 5 yet, and I always had to remind him, not till Saturday. It's cute to see kids get so excited about their birthdays. (Why can't it stay that way for us adults?!) We invited his cousins to come with us to the Kangaroo Zoo. It's a big room filled with huge animal bouncy thingy's that are a ton of fun to go on! I especially like the very tall blow-up slides and amazingly enough, Sara did too. After, we picked up lunch and went to a park to eat and have hot wheels cupcakes (and a little more playtime for the kids so they get good and worn out for naps, which they did!) And for dinner we went to IHOP for pancakes which are his favorite. Despite a stomach ache in the afternoon, he had a pretty good day.

So, Richard and I have finally come to a decision about our life for the next year or so! Hurray! We are moving to a house in Pleasant Grove. It's still renting, but, we think this will be the last place we rent. The owners are great. They are moving to Louisiana for work and don't want to sell their house with the market being what it is right now. So, if we like the place and we can buy in a year, they may be willing to talk about price. I'm so excited about it! It has 3 bedrooms (unfinished basement), a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, a 2-car garage, 2 full bathrooms, and a big fenced in backyard with a grill and fire pit. The house is 6 years old and in a great location that seems safe and clean. My brother is the bishop of the ward which I have to say will be interesting. I won't have any problem staying on the straight and narrow! I'll have to get all my confessions to our current bishop before we move! :) It will be nice to live close to him and his family since he's my only sibling. We'll be moving to the new place in the middle of June, so I'm bound and determined to start now and sort through storage and get rid of accumulated junk! Good luck to me!

Richard is keeping his job at the church office building for now and he's going to finish his MBA and try to become a Japanese translator. We're hoping these will open more doors for us career-wise.

So, there you have it. Hopefully, none of this will change, but, knowing us and our luck, it probably will!

What to do, what to do?!

Well, I have to say that Richard and I have been on a roller-coaster right now! We have to move out of our apartment because our landlord's mother needs to move in and they need the space for her. And our washer drain is backing up causing flooding everytime we use it, and the only way it can get fixed is to tear up the driveway to get to those pipes that lead to the street and fix them. Nightmare for our landlord! So we can't do our laundry here anymore, so time to move!

We have lived here for 2 years (an emergency move to get us out of the parents house!) and it really has grown on me. The ward is great, we've made some really close friends and we love our callings. But, it's coming to an end. I originally didn't want to live here when it opened up for us, but, it was the smartest thing to do. And it's been good! But, I'm excited to move on now.

Question is...where to??? We aren't able to buy a house just yet. We need one more year to prepare ourselves for that and figure what kind of future we want. We want a house so bad. We see so many of our friends in their own homes and people wonder why we haven't purchased yet. Well, it's called student loans, credit card debt (which is now all paid off, hallelujah!) and not that great of a salary (good job though!). Sometimes, I don't know how people do it. Especially here in Utah, salaries aren't that great and people own huge homes. We just want to make sure that we'll be okay when that time comes to own a home. Seems logical, right?
We are discussing different options such as career changes, military, schooling, or just bagging it all and going to Vegas! I think we're getting closer to our decision. Don't worry, it won't be Vegas :) You know, these past couple of weeks I have learned even more about faith. I know the Lord is aware of us and we need to learn some things. I'm sure things are going to work out great, but boy, when you're in the middle of it, it's stressful!

It's hard because we haven't shared our thoughts with many people, especially family, just so that our decision will be completely ours and not influenced by others (some of you may understand this!) But, it's nice to vent on my blog. I could go on and on...it feels good to vent! But, I won't. We're hoping to make our decision by this weekend so we can pray about it and move on. I'll keep you posted. (We could get rich in Vegas though! Although, knowing our luck, probably not. ho hum.)