Hooray it's summer!

Wow I feel like a slacker. I haven't posted since easter. Pretty bad. I don't have a whole lot to post about but I figured I need to post something. I'm so glad it's summer. I just planted a garden thanks to my sweet sister Rose who got Nathan to cooperate for 2 hours to make a garden spot for me. Rose did most of the work planting. It's my first garden. I don't really know what I'm doing. We planted 8 tomato plants, 2 rows of green beans, 2 rows of cucumbers, and 6 pea plants. I also planted an artichoke bush, 2 strawberry plants, some zucchini, summer squash, beets, and carrots. I mainly want the tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers for bottling this summer. Hopefully everything will grow good and the rabbits won't eat anything. We have apricots, cherries, plums, and apples on our fruit trees too so I'm hoping to bottle some jam as well.

My kids are out of school. It's a bittersweet thing for me. I love when they are gone and I get some peaceful time to myself but I hate the schedule. It's nice to stay up late and sleep in since that's what they prefer. Ava does have summer school on Tuesday's and Wednesday's for an hour each day. That is nice because she tends to regress in the summer. I work with her as much as I can but she seems to respond to other people better. She has a little attitude with me. She is getting closer to walking. I hope she'll walk soon because she is getting tall and it's akward for her to scoot everywhere. The other day I was at my friends house who is taking the discussions. The missionaries were there and one of the Elders asked with a smirk and a laugh why she scooted like that. I told him she had cerebral palsy and he felt so bad for laughing at her scooting. He wasn't really making fun of her and I certainly didn't take offense to it but I could tell he was uncomfortable. That made me feel bad. Anyway, she is doing good and will repeat pre-school for one more year.

We are busy renting cabins and ATV's this summer. Memorial weekend was crazy. We had an extended family from Ogden that had 3 RV spots and 2 cabins. They must have had 20 kids between them all. We rented the other cabin out to a family from North Salt Lake. Everyone was really nice. That wasn't the crazy part though. We rented out every ATV/UTV we had. We had to turn down people. It was nice but crazy trying to get them all checked out and in. We are pretty booked up for the rest of June and most of July so that is good. My extended family (my dad and his siblings and their families) are having a family reunion this Labor Day at Fish Lake. I'm really excited because it's only an hour from here. We are usually busy during that time but at least we can get away during the day and come home and sleep here at night. I'm not much of a camper...especially not with kids. I look forward to seeing all of the Bunker's, Nance's, Nelson's, and hopefully Sperry's this fall.

If I don't post again for several months, all of you have a happy, healthy, and safe summer. If you get bored, come visit me in Marysvale. It's the best place in the world to ride ATV's, and there's fishing, biking, rafting, and even horseback riding if you like that kind of thing. Take care...

Happy Easter!!

 

Happy Easter everyone! This is the only picture I got of any Easter happenings (I'm so pathetic when it comes to pictures). This was taken at Wal-Mart and my friend Kathy took Melissa to get the picture. I had William and Ava and didn't want to stand in line to wait. I need more patience. Nathan & I took them to the Marysvale park for an easter egg hunt Saturday morning. It had been raining and snowing all night but by the time they did the hunt the sun had peeked through. All of the candy and toys were wet and it was pretty cold but it was still so much fun. Today was a nice day. We decided not to give the kids their baskets until after church. They get too hyper when they're all hopped up on sugar. After lunch, I told them if they took a nap, the easter bunny would come while they were sleeping and fill their easter baskets. It worked like a charm and I even got a nap myself. Right now they are running circles and I hope they run so much that I can get them to bed tonight. Anywho, I hope you all had a wonderful easter.

Pictures!

Here are the pics finally. Not many but what I remembered to take. I was asked how I lost the weight. I followed the Weight Watchers core plan. Nathan's mom lost all of her weight that way and it was easy to follow since you don't have to count points or calories. I also jogged and worked out on an elliptical. It was hard work but so worth it. Now that the bet is over it's even harder to be motivated but I know I can do it. I use my loose fitting clothes as a motivator now:)

I am not the biggest loser...just a loser!

For the past 5 weeks my mom, Melissa, Trisha, Audra, Rose, and me have been doing a biggest loser challenge. We each put up $100 and the person that lost the biggest percentage of body weight by the end of the 5 weeks got all the money. I worked really, really hard to win this competition but Rose snuck in at the end and took it all. Between the 6 of us we lost a total of 72 pounds. Pretty impressive I think. It was very motivating and fun to do with my family. I still have a ways to go to get to my goal weight but this challenge gave me a great head start. Nathan said it's the best $100 I ever spent. I lost 19 pounds in the challenge but had lost 10 pounds before that when I had the flu. So since the end of January I have lost a total of 29 pounds. That's pretty amazing for me. I still would like to lose at least that much more so I have to stay committed.

Saturday morning, the 4th was the Eric M. Lee memorial 5k run. I had gone 4 miles on the treadmill the night before trying to win the biggest loser challenge so when it came time to "run" the 5k I was a little tired and decided to walk it. It was a beautiful day, albeit a little chilly. We ate breakfast after the 5k and it was delicious...especially since it wasn't on my diet:) A little later, the Bunker's, Lee's, and Taylor's, a long with friends met at the church for Logan's baptism. It was such a wonderful baptism. The spirit was so strong and you just knew Eric and others beyond the veil were there. The talks, musical number, and confirmation were so good. It was awesome.

Unfortunately we had to leave for Logandale right after the baptism so we missed the birthday party. We dropped our kids off at Jared & Jenn's to be watched while we attended the graveside service for Tricia & Jason Wickersham's little baby.(Thanks Jenn for lining up the sitter). For those who don't know, Tricia was expecting twins in June but had a rare condition that required surgery and lots of bed rest. On March 30th during an appointment, the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat to Baby A so they had to deliver her at 29 weeks. Unfortunately Baby A was stillborn. Baby B was born healthy but small. He weighed 2 pounds 1 ounce and was 13 inches. The graveside was very nice. There were a lot of people there to support them. It was good to see all of the family and extended family that we haven't seen for awhile. The next day we went to the hospital to see Baby B who they named Darin Jason. They named Baby A Berkley Elwin. Darin is the cutest, tiniest, little guy I've ever seen. He had his blinders on because he had the light on him so I didn't get a good look at his face but it's just amazing that he is thriving and healthy and so, so small. He's truly a miracle.

All in all it was a good weekend. We saw everyone in both families which doesn't happen often. I have pictures but my camera is in Nathan's truck and he's not here. So I will add them soon.

Coming soon....

I just had to post so that I don't look like such a slacker. I'll have much more to post after this weekend. There are several events taking place on Saturday so I will try to post about it sometime next week. The weather is crazy here. It snows one day and the next it's warm and in the 60's. It's teasing us big time. I'm so ready for spring, but with spring comes people to stay in cabins, and with that comes me cleaning the cabins. I'm looking forward to the business and meeting new people but not the cleaning part. At least I get half the year off:)

The kids have spring break next week and I was going to take the kids to Alamo and the fair for the week and Easter weekend. However, we have people coming to stay in the cabins so I guess no vacation for us. I can't believe it's already April. Time flies so fast. Next school will be a repeat of this school year. I decided not to send Ava to Kindergarten yet. I think she would benefit from having one more preschool year. She's in a familiar setting and I think would be more comfortable staying another year. Besides that, the bus picks up at 7am for kindergarten. That's a little early. William still has 3 more years in preschool. His birthday is in late September so he misses the deadline. Melissa will turn 2 in August so she has another year before she can go. I don't know what I will do when they all 3 go to school. It will be so nice to have even a couple of hours to myself.

Well I will post pictures next week with all the weekend happenings. Until then....

Pictures!

I had to change the background since I'm posting pictures of our cruise. Needless to say I didn't take very many pictures. I'm terrible at that.





These are some pictures Nathan took when we went ice fishing with my dad, Lance, Vernon, Josh, and Brent Lewis. This is at Otter Creek. We went to Piute Resivior the next day. It was so much fun. The weather was awesome!

Released, Cruise, & Sick, sick, sick!!!

It has been quite awhile since I posted. I tried to change the background on my blog and lost some of widgets and whatnot. Instead of fixing it, I left it and am now just getting to it. Before we left on our cruise, I got released as the Primary President in our ward. It was a little bit shocking because usually people are left in their callings for 5 years or so. I guess there are a lot more active women in our ward to extend callings to. The funny thing is that the Bishop called my 2nd counselor that had been in the presidency with me the entire time as the new president. She will do great. She is in trouble though because she called me as a teacher and I was looking forward to going to Relief Society. Oh well, such is life.

On Friday the 23rd of January we dropped our kids off at my mom's. She, Melissa & Trisha so kindly watched them while we went on our cruise. We set sail out of the San Diego port on the 24th. It was us, Jared & Jenn, and Justin & Kerrie. We had a day at sea Sunday, ported in Cabo San Lucas Monday, a day at sea Tuesday, and ported in Ensenada on Wednesday. It was our 3rd time in Ensenada so we knew exactly where we wanted to go to shop; so we did that and then tried a new restaurant. We didn't do much in Cabo except go to the Cabo Wabo and eat. It was good entertainment and food. We cruised Carnival for our first time. I think I was so used to Royal Caribbean that it was hard to get a feel for the Carnival ship. I didn't like the color scheme as well and it wasn't as open feeling as RC. Also, the food wasn't as good to me. The one thing I did like better was the rooms were much bigger, namely the bathrooms, and the beds were more comfortable. All in all, it was a very fun cruise. Good food, good company, good times. I just have to put a thank you shout out to the Wickersham's for letting us take their brand new Expedition so we could all travel together.

Now the worst part of the past few weeks is that when we got to Alamo to pick up the kids, I wasn't feeling so well. I just had a blah feeling. I slept all the way home in the truck and by the time we got in the house I just had to lay down and sleep. The next day, Saturday, only got worse. My head was pounding and I had the chills. By nighttime my head was throbbing...worse than a migraine and I was freezing. I made Nathan take me to the ER because there is nowhere else to go on the weekend. I had a fever of 105 when I got there. They did a bunch of labs on me and finally told me I had Influenza A. I guess it's the worst strain of the flu you can get. They were just going to give me 2 extra strength Tylenol for my head and send me home with some prescriptions. I told them I wasn't leaving without something strong to take away my headache. So they gave me a shot of pain medicine that knocks you out. It didn't knock me out because I could still feel the pain. So they gave me another one. Finally it knocked me out. I was really sick for about 5 days and Nathan caught it midway into me having it. So we took turns taking care of the kids. It was really pathetic and my house really suffered. But now we're all healthy and life is back to as normal as it was before.

Not much else is going on. My kids have been out of school for two weeks so I look forward to sending them back on Monday. Nathan turns 39 on the 17th. Ava just turned 5 on the last day of January. We still haven't celebrated because of all of the sickness so maybe I'll make a cake for her tomorrow and have a little party. Until next time....