Holy cow...or horse!

I haven't updated my blog in quite sometime as you can see. Well the events of yesterday and last night have inspired me to do an update. The day started off fine. I subbed for 1st & 2nd grade at the elementary on Thursday and yesterday. I had a lot of fun with the 7 boys in my class. They were all good kids and made my job easy. When I got home at noon yesterday, Nathan had bathed the kids and cleaned the house. He even had fed them lunch! It was pretty amazing. However, from there it all went down hill. He had discovered that all the pipes were frozen at his parents vacation home next door, and the water to my washer was frozen because my laundry room is in the garage. So he left and went to Richfield to run a few errands and get some heaters to defrost the pipes. When he came home it was time to do chores. The kids and I go do chores with him every night so I can drive while he throws hay. He went to feed the chickens and the few horses we have corraled next to our house. So I was getting the kids ready to go and here he comes walking a horse. He said the horse was sick and he needed to walk it around. So he walked it and walked it and walked it, for probably 2 hours. By this time it was dark. He still needed to feed the chickens & few horses and he also needed to build a fire in the wood burning stove next door. So I left the kids in the house with a movie on and took the horse while he heated the house & fed. I walked the horse for nearly an hour. Finally, he decided to tie the horse up (because it's not supposed to lie down), and go feed the horses in the pastures. So we loaded up the kids and headed to the other horses. When we got there all 25 horses were out of the pasture and in the haystack! So we spent an hour or so getting what we thought were all of them back in the pasture. We get back home and the sick horse is laying down. So Nathan sat on the back of the truck leading it, and I drove around for another half hour. He decided to just walk it around the yard so I could take the now cranky kids in and feed them. I fed them and got them ready for bed (it was 10:30). Nathan finally came in, ate, relaxed for a bit and decided he had better go check the horses up in the pasture. Good thing he did, there was still one horse out! He got to bed after midnight but by then I was crashed out. I was so exhausted, I didn't wake up once before 6am which is unusual.

Today is going much better. It has warmed up and all the pipes are defrosted. The sick horse survived and is doing better. All the other horses are still in their corrals and I can do laundry now. I just called a babysitter and we're going out to dinner and christmas shopping tonight. I can't wait. We both need a break. Merry Christmas to everyone if I don't get around to posting again by then.

Halloween!

OK. So I am the worst blogger ever (next to my sister Trisha:)) Just kidding Trisha if you're reading this. We had a very happy halloween. It all started Monday with a carnival at the elementary school. They had a costume parade which Ava won the prize for her age group. We ate mummy dogs and sloppy joes and had homemade rootbeer..yummy! Then the kids played carnival games. Nathan felt it necessary to join in on some of it. William won a cake at the cake walk. He felt it necessary to pick the cake I made for it...oh well. It was a lot of fun. The school here is such a good school with so many fun things for the kids to do. I feel really fortunate that my kids can go to school here.

For actual halloween we went to Logandale to Nathan's parents house. Everyone dressed up including the adults and went trick-or-treating in one neighborhood. Then we all went to Jared & Jenn's for a party. We ate yummy food. Jenn made sloppy joes that were delectable. Kerrie made everything under the sun for dessert. She made cookie cut outs, cookie pizza, cheesecake, cupcakes, and something else I'm missing. She was busy all day. We had a cupcake walk for the kids, a donut game for the adults, and just good old fun. I hope we start a tradition to do it every year. I forgot my camera for halloween so the pictures I'm posting are from the carnival. I hope everyone had a happy halloween.

Pictures!

So I have been so busy this summer that I haven't been able to post much. I'm still busy but I am taking enough time to post some pictures. Someday I will catch up on what's going on with us...until then, here are some pics!





Ava kept calling me and this is how I found her. She was seriously holding the Reader's Digest just like that. It was hilarious!

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.