Girls night out

My good friend Carey is due with her third baby at the end of February. So instead of having a baby shower, since she is having her second girl, she has quite a bit of stuff, she wanted some close friends to go and have dinner and a girls night. Most of the girls that went are my good friends from our previous ward. There were 6 of us all together. We met up at 5:30 at Amber's house and of course we all brang a gift so she quickly opened them and then we all crammed into Katie's car and headed to P.F.Changs for dinner. Our reservations weren't until 8:45 p.m. so we thought we would show up a little earlier and see if there was a possibility that we could get in any sooner. When we arrived  we found out that we only had to wait an hour so we decided to do it and we went out shopping in all the little convinent shops along the town. I hadn't been to downtown Boise in years and it was a lot of fun. Out of us 6 there were three pregnant. Two of them, Carey and Katie, both due on the same day and then Anne who is only 17 wks. along. We had fun talking about husbands, kids, and whatever it was we felt like talking about.
We had such a fun time just hanging out and being care-free. I hadn't had that much fun in quite some time. It was so much fun.
Then we finally got in to P.F.Changs and ate. We ate like crazy. We all ordered a huge dish and then decided to pass them all around the table so we could all try them out. We had TONS of food and it was sooooo good. Then after we were done we sat around the table and just talked about whatever we talked about. We talked about babies in general. Two of the girls there are nurses and so we had some fun talk about babies in the NICU and what we have all experienced with our own babies. Somone asked me about our first baby Madalynn and so I started to talk about my whole experience and before I knew it I was in tears and all the other girls around me were too. I don't usually cry when I talk about it but for some reason I did.
So from 5:30 pm. -to almost 11 p.m. I felt like a kid again. It was so much fun. We laughed almost non-stop and I have a sore throat and a hoarse voice because of it. From now on we are going to have a girls night once a month.
I had some pictures taken but none of them worked out. So I have no pictures to show for it but maybe next time.
Thanks Katie, Amber, Carey, Brittany and Anne for a fun night! Let's do it again really soon!

9 Months

I really can't believe it! My baby is 9 months. He has grown up quite abit this last month. He is trying to crawl, rolls around, and throws this fit if he doesn't get picked up or whatever it is he wants. He is quite hilarious. He has two little teeth on the bottom and is cutting two more. His hair has gotten pretty long. I love the curls. He will wake up from his naps alittle sweaty and the hair on the sides of his head will be so curly. I love to run my fingers through it.

 We have enjoyed this little guy. He has been the peacemaker in our home. He loves his brothers, loves to eat anything but squash, beans and peas. He is sleeping a lot better at night and during the days we are mastering his nap schedule. It is hard to get out and do anything because I have really dedicated my time to help peserve his schedule. Sometimes it is really hard to go out in the evenings because he is in bed between 6:30-7 pm. But we have managed pretty well so far. Owen, we love you!

Flashback Friday

This picture was taken in July of 2002. I had been home from my mission for about 3 months and I had flown to Utah for the day to attend the wedding of Hna. Ashworth. She was my mission trainer. I flew in that day and two elders from my mission picked me up so we could all go together to the wedding. Elder Kincher and Elder Stevenson picked me up from the airport. I don't remember how I ended up here at Makai's sisters house but I remember hanging out with her for quite some time until the elders came back for me.
So here we are - Hna. Monica Makai and I sitting on her sister's couch listening to Chilean music and talking about whatever was going on at the time.We were both young, not married and anxious about the future. Monica was and still is one of my best friends. We continue to keep in touch and she just celebrated the birth of her sweet little baby girl. It has been so much fun to keep in touch with my good friends. These people have no idea the impact they had on my life.

So Monica, if you are reading this, you are such a great friend. Thanks for such a great time on the mission. I think we spent quite abit of time together while we were serving in La Granja. We werern't companions but we lived in the same little pension over our mamita's house. Remember hearing her doing her chantings every day? We had them timed. Remember Hna. Howcroft getting so mad at us and made us all listen to that hymn on cassatte? Remember just laughing our heads off? Do you remember visiting the witch with us?Do you remember having BBQ'S with the elders at the Stake Center on our p-days? Do you remember hanging out with the other sisters in their pension? Eating cheetos, and playing games? Do you remember Elder Jeppson calling Hna.Nez an Indian giver? Or were you gone by then? I can't remember. I could go on and on about our time there. It was a fun place. Thanks for the good times. Aaahhh the good old days! They were great weren't they?

Things I need to work on

Seems like no matter how mad I can sometimes get at these two, I can never stay that way for more than a couple of minutes. After cleaning the entire house from top to bottom, feeling good that I got it all done, I come down stairs to find the fridge open, milk all over my newly moped floor, raisins all over the carpet I just vacumed, and toys everywhere. Does it get more frustrating than that? The answer I have come to find out for myself is YES! I wasn't looking for that answer but I realized that this is all just a small part of the journey. What is a childhood without scars, temper tantrums, and messes to show for itself? It is a must, and last night I was reading Pres. Monson's talk a few conferences back when he explained that one day this will all be gone and you will look at those clean windows, clean floors and much smaller piles of laundry and wish it all back. Funny to believe that one day someone could miss it all. I have learned to sit back and enjoy the journey. I have made a few resolutions for the new year:

- work out 3 days a week

- scripture reading in privacy for 10 minutes every day

- become more personal in prayer

- spend more time with my children in meaningful activities and spend more one on one time with them

- advertise my photography buisness

- learn more about photography

-  more support for Lance in his proffession.

- learn to become more independent.

- stop complaining and look on the bright side

- learn to budget our money better

So that is just a few of the things I tend to work on. I do not like setting new goals, because I soon realize that I didn't accomplish much the year before on all the things I said I would. So here is to a new start, a new year and a new life.

This is how my week has felt.

Preschool burn out

I just finished my last day of having preschool at my home this week. There are 8 darling little kids and every 2 weeks we rotate between mother's of these children. My first 2 weeks were in December and since the last of those 2 weeks was busy, another mom took over for me in exchange that I take one of her weeks in January. Am I making sense? Well this was the week. What a busy week too!
I felt so overwhelmed with them in my home. I sometimes wonder if all the preperation, planning, and actual teaching ever gets through to them. I will cross my fingers and believe I did some good. Now I am done and next week it will be at Carey's home. Good luck Carey! You'll do great!
Now I an relax, take a break and wait to do it all over again in May. At least that is not for another 3 months. I am ok with that. I feel bad for admitting all of this but I couldn't really handle having that many small kids in my home at one time, running all over the place. I wanted to pull my hair out many times. Now I know how the old woman who lived in a shoe felt :)!

We went with a bunch of people on our cruise. This is just a very small few of the many that went with us. This was taken on the top of Catalina Island. This picture doesn't do it justice, but the view was amazing.

This was our boat ride over to the island. It was a small boat and you could definetly feel the boat move. But it only lasted for about 5 minutes. I was just amazed with the view.

Another view from the top of Catalina Island.

While we were in Mexico on our whale watching boat, I had to look at this for quite some time. I couldn't believe it. They did this for about 4 hours. I took this picture for my sister. She enjoys a good laugh. Everyone was just laughing. Seriously they did not seperate for the longest time, so I took a picture to see if my flash would cause them to stop and look, nope!

I loved almost everything about Mexico. One lady on the boat asked me to ask Martin (our fisherman firiend) if it ever snowed in Mexico. I wasn't going to ask that question, because, seriously it was obvious, look for yourself ~ pelican and seagull poop.

I am sure this home belongs to some poor, old fisherman. Imagine going home to that every night. I had to take a picture.

And last but not least our amazing towel friends that showed up in our room everynight.

Stay tuned for more. They are on their way!

Carnival Paradise

I will start with telling you, I have become a big fan of cruises. I was a little nervous going into it, fearing all the things that happen, all the stories of how everyone gets deathly ill, and that they are no fun. Well, I had a BLAST! I am sure it was boring for those who went just as a couple. No offense to Lance but you can't do a cruise alone. It is so much fun with a crowd. We had about 35 of us all together with Pre-Paid Legal. We met so many incredible people who will be our good friends till the day we die. There were so many fun things to do. I could go on and on about the whole week and it I could take up pages and pages of all the fun things we did but I will shorten it and describe it best with pictures that I got. I don't have all the pictures yet, because we are waiting for them to get sent to us, but I still have quite a few to show you. Are you ready?
Here is what our week looked like:

Monday:  We flew in and arrived in California around 12 noon. I have never been to California and I didn't get to see much except for what I saw from the freeway. I think I will continue to stay in Boise. It was far too big for me. We arrived at the boat about 2 p.m.. Just to the left of our ship as the Queen Mary Ship. It is the Queen Mary that first took sail in the 1940's. Met up with the other couples and ate like crazy because we were starving. We got to our cabin room, threw everything in and left to play. The amazing thing about the cabins, well at least my favorite part was, the towels they folded up for us every day. There was a new animal nicely decorated with towels left in our room. I loved them! In fact Lance and I went to a towel folding class they had on the boat so I could do that for my boys.

I am so excited to show them. They are going to love them.. Of course, the cruise had to be scheduled during the Fiesta Bowl, BSU vs. TCU. Of course we found a T.V. in one of the other couples cabin and watched it. GO BSU! We WON! Victory was sweet, we were the only ones rooting for BSU. The others wanted to see them get crushed. Too bad, so sad for them.

Then we had a funny comedian we went to see, ate dinner like crazy, danced with the waiters. Ours were from India and Thailand. It is amazing how far they come to earn a living. Our waiter, Nessy, who was from India was a cute little guy. He was probably in his mid twenties. He had been working for the Carnival Cruise ships for 3 years. He is married and she is behind in India wathching his parents, who he claimed were really old. I asked him what "old" was considered in India and he replied "63 yrs.old." That is their mortalilty rate. He explained to us that in India the average person earns 1,500 rupels a month. They barely get by. Kessy (the waiter) earns 90,000 rupels a month just from working on the cruise ship, which comes to about $2000 a month in American dollars. His goal is to work for the cruise line for 10 years and then they get retirement. After 10 years he can retire to India and be a very weatlhy man. I was so intrigued by that. They were so amazing. There were 64 different coutnries representing themselves on that ship. It was truly amazing.  The waiters always laughed at me because I always asked them why we had to have 3 different glasses, and about 10 different pieces of silverware to eat from. Yes, I admit, I do not know ettiqutte. So I learned. I still will continue to use paper plates and plastic utensils. It was fun to live like that for awhile. I didn't have to cook, clean, or do anything but have fun. I should do that more often.

Tueseday:  I tried to sleep in. I tried every morning to sleep in, but when 6:30 a.m. rolled around I was wide awake. I couldn't understand how most of the couples would finally show up around 10 for breakfast and still be so tired. I can't sleep in. After my mission, and since having a baby in the house I am used to getting up early. Tuesday we spent the day in Catalina Island, which is about 26 miles off the California coast. Ever been there? I highly recommend it! It was so beautiful. We took a little tug boat from the cruise ship that was anchored off shore a ways. I felt like I was on some tropical island. The only word to describe Catalina is "small". Small houses, small cars, small stores, small streets. You name it. Everything is small.

We all decided to rent golf carts and tour the island on our own. Now mind you, there were about 20 of us and we looked like trouble. We had fun following each other, racing and just seeing the amazing views from up top the mountain. We had the carts for about 2 hours and the last hour we decided to play tag on the island. So everyone got in their golf carts, 4 people per cart. We had Mork and Mindy with us. They are a dear sweet elderly couple and they are like our grandparents. They were alittle nervous for Lance's driving but we all survivied. We played tag for about an hour. All of us hiding and bumper caring all over the island.  I don't think the natives liked us much but we had a blast.

Tuesday night we piged out again at dinner on whatever you wanted and how ever much you wanted. That is the beauty of those cruise ships ~ all you can eat! It was great food too!

Wednseday:  We woke up in Ensenada, Mexico. There was a lot to see and do there. We were going to go deep sea fishing but I am glad we didn't. It was an 9 hour trip for those that went. Too long for me. So our group (about 15 people) decided to go Whale Watching. So we paid in advance to Sergio's Whale Watching guide and we had about a half hour to look around until our boat was gonna take off. So we all started walking down the little streets. It was so much fun. It reminded me alittle bit of my mission. The smell for one thing, was disgusting, but smelt like home (home as in the mission) and all the little junky, torn up little shops.

We walked down the fish market and that was so gross. I plugged my nose the whole entire time and I ran. I HATE seafood! The smell, the look, the taste, pretty much anything associated with it.

We decided to stop and get some snacks at a little alamcen on a corner. We stepped inside and the first thing I saw were Penguinos. I ate those like crazy in Chile so we bought some of those, chips, water and gum all for $2. I LOVE cheap! But the one thing that melted my heart was a little boy, who was probably no more than 2-3 years old that came up along side us with a plastic cup in hand begging for money. He was the cutest litlte thing I had ever seen. I just wanted to go and slap his mom for making him do that, and I was looking for a way to fit him in my back pack and take him home with me. I would have seriously taken him if I could. Instead him mom, pimp, or who ever he was working for, was using him to get our money. I would have given him every single dime i had but if you give them money, then it encourages them to beg even more. The sad thing is, is that is probably all the boy will ever learn to do~ beg for money. Sad life.
Well it was time to get back to the docks for our whale watching excursion. It was this good sized rusted tug boat, that was really dirty, and really load. It was kind of cool that day. The wind was blowing pretty hard an I was in shorts but thank goodness I had a long sleeved shirt on. I would have froze. I thought Mexico would be really warm. I was wrong.

We had a fun time. A little too long. It took us 5 hours. This is what we saw: 2-3 whales. Not much activity. A few tails and blow holes and that was about it. They told us that it was "calving" season and that everyone is having babies and that there would be tons of them. Well we saw some but not many. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't see as much as we could have. But nonetheless, we saw some and they were huge. They were humpback whales and a few Gray Whales there too. We road about 20 miles off the coast of Ensenada. We road out to an Island called La Isla de los Santos muertos (Island of the dead saints). I was curious about some of the things on the boat and a few of the things we saw so I started talking to this guy Martin about it all. He was a litlte shocked that I could speak spanish fluently. We had a nice conversaion. He could tell I had a different accent when I spoke spanish and asked me where I leanred to speak like that. I told him I learned while serving a misison for the church in Chile. All he said was, they are dirty people. I was thinking "And you aren't?" I know it was bad of me. I consider him a friend now. Martin has been working on that boat for almost 4 years. Never went to high school and goes out to see so he won't do drugs. Interesting!

We listened to Dancing Queen from Abba and Air Supply non stop. Felt like going back in time on an old tug boat off the coast of Mexico going nowhere. I LOVED it!

We got back close to dark, We were freezing, hungry and ready to get back on the boat. We had until 9:30 that night to be in Mexico, but from the looks of it, you didn't want to be out after dark. So we hurry and bought some trinkets for our boys and ran back on the ship for dinner and a show.

While we were watching for whales, Lance did a little bit of deep sea fishing and caught one. He was so about his catch.

Thursday:  We sailed all day long. We had to get back to California so we could get off first thing Friday morning. We didn't do much of anything. We had a company meeting. Which by the way was awesome. I have not been very supportive with Lance and his starting his own buisness but after that I am going to support him 100%. We got a lot of new ways to start it up and get going. We are so excited about it now.
We ate lots, played lots and went to some shows. We loved the kareoke bars, the danching halls and we played Murder in the library with about 30 people. Everyone was always stopping in to see what was going on because everyone was yelling and laughing so hard. It was the one night we stayed up really late. We were out until 1:30 a.m. I was amazing at how many people never go to sleep on those things. Insane. I need my sleep.

Friday:  We had breakfast at 7 a.m. packed our bags and got off the ship to catch our flight back home at 11 a.m. We got back home at 6 pm. picked our children and went home for a work party that was going to start in a half hour at our home. It was a great week! Thanks for all the fun laughs, and the endless talks.

We can't wait for Cancun in June!

I will post some more pictures when I get them back.

My first Cruise

To start this New Year off right, Lance and I are going on a cruise. We leave on Monday for Catalina Island and then down to Ensenada, Mexico. I have never been on a cruise and everyone that has been on one always tells me how much fun they are. But I only have one hangup with all of this ~ I get motion sickness pretty bad. This will be interesting. So yesterday I got a perscription from my doctor for the Patch. Has anyone had any experience with Transderm? I guess it will take the Motion sickness away but the side effects are just as bad, drowsiness, and blurred vision? The doctor said that a lot of people will take it off because they can't take it but it is much better dealing with that then pucking your guts out because you are so sick you can't stand straight.

I am ready for a getaway but I am not sure if a cruise is my idea of a getaway. Stay tuned to see how it all goes.

My mom is taking the kids. I have been trying to get Owen to take a bottle. He is doing pretty well and I am not too worried about it. He is doing much better at night and I am completely confident that my mom can do it. I just don't think she will want to see us for the rest of the year afterwards.

Wish us luck! Hope you are having a great New Year!