Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Office Work Party

Last Friday, September 14th, we reserved my Grandpa's cabin and took the office staff up for a fall party. We had chicken, hot dogs and some yummy sides and desserts for dinner. Cody saddled up one of the horses, I think Dutchess, and we got the gator out and enjoyed a nice evening in the mountains.
Becky, Rachel, Kristi, Dr. and me. Unfortunately, RanDee and Christa weren't able to make it.
Kristi's and my kids playing on the gator.

Becky and I.

Rachel and her husband Brandon.

I rarely if ever ride the horses (I'm allergic to almost everything that sheds) and Blake freaked out earlier this summer when we tried to put him on and when Cody tried to ride with him, so when Blake got on with me and was happy we went for a little ride around the field.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Almost caught up!

We have flower beds under our windows in front of our house and I noticed these babies growing a couple weeks ago. I didn't plant them, but they sure were yummy.
 The other day Aubrey was screaming bloody murder in our backyard. I figured she had probably been stung by a wasp. There are a lot that fly around, but we haven't had problems all summer. She came inside, hysterical, and Blake followed her in crying a bit. After realizing it was a bit useless to calm Aubrey down I looked at Blake and realized he had a couple wasps still stuck to his shirt. He was bit about 5 times on the chest and arm and Aubrey a couple times on the back of her leg. The neighbor kids were stung too. I grabbed the nearest towel to me and started whacking Blake with it. The darn wasps wouldn't budge. Finally I ripped his shirt off and stepped on the bees. I made up a baking powder paste and had my kids take some benedryl. They were fine, thank goodness no allergies to wasp stings.
 Cody and I went on a date night to the Peter Breinholt concert at Sundance a couple weekends ago. I of course got cold, but we had a great time. We live so close to Sundance, but haven't been there since we were dating 10 years ago. I used to go to the concerts in high school, but we never went together until now.
 Last Wednesday I pulled the kids out of school for the day and we went to the Brigham City temple open house. I was able to get tickets for my parents and Heather and her kids too. We left our house at 8:00am to make it for our 10am tour time. Because the temple is in Brigham City and it's known for peaches, the theme in the temple is around peach blossoms. The flower windows were amazing! I wish I had a picture, but no photography in the temple.
I stole this picture off of someones blog. I'm positive you weren't supposed to take pictures in the temple, but I did want to show this window off too.
 
After the tour there is a room where you can have cookies and water. We had our fair share, and then some. This picture was right before Cole dumped his water bottle all over my Dad's suit and the couch. All the cushions had to be flipped over. One of the ushers in the temple was Cody's cousin Lana. I rounded a corner and saw her and was like "Hey!".  Good times.
This video is from back in August. I'm finally figuring out how to work my smartphone and transfer things to the computer. Haven't figure out how to rotate videos though.
I'm not sure if this video will play, and I know it's sideways (not sure how to fix that, it was originally taken on my phone). We don't eat out a ton, but Blake sure knows what his favorite is. "Donalds".

Called to Serve

My younger brother was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on August 28th and he entered the MTC in Provo on the 29th. We drove down to be a part of his setting apart. We will miss Spencer, but know that he will be a great missionary in California. Tucker will be almost 9 when he returns.
 Family picture in my parents backyard.
 
Spencer's farewell was held the Sunday before he left and he did a great job talking about the restoration and other gospel principles. One thing that his stake president said to him before setting him apart was that he didn't need to worry about his family he was leaving behind for two years. The Lord would bless them. It's Spencer's job to spread the gospel to the people of Carlsbad, California. My Foster family has had quite the year with my cancer, my sister's baby (he had holes in his lungs when he was born), my sister-in-law broke her foot and has 5 kids and I'm sure other things. I know that we are being blessed because of his service and he'll do a fantastic job. He actually leaves the MTC in the morning to fly out. He is so excited! We love you Elder Foster!
 The above picture was taken the day before he left and the one below is from May when he received his call. Look how awesome my hair has grown! It might actually be long before he comes home. And I'm so grateful that my treatments are working so that I didn't feel like I needed to say "goodbye" when he left. I'll be here when he gets back. ; )

Back to School

Because of our trip to Arizona, Tucker missed the first 2 days of 1st grade and back to school night. That made me a wreck as a parent because I've never done the school system before. I went over to the school with Tucker Monday morning early and we met his teacher and found out where his classroom was. While waiting for the bell to ring he found his best friends. Lucky for us they are all in the neighborhood. Every day they ride their bikes or scooters the couple blocks to school. I love it!
 Cole is in the 3 year old preschool this year at Sunshine Circle. This is about all I got for a picture. He's in the not cooperating stage of life. Last week I was told he had a biting problem at school. Someone had the toy he wanted, and he went after it. Oh boy, it sure is nice having a mini break for a couple mornings a week. : )
 My little sweetheart. Isn't she beautiful! She looks so perfect in this picture. Hair combed, curled and done, cute new shirt/shoes and matching outfit. It's so girly and her. Aubrey is in kindergarten this year at Midway. Originally she was in afternoon kindergarten with Mrs. Kohler (Tucker's teacher from last year). There were so many kids in the classes though, that after the first week the school district allowed the school to open up another class. I volunteered Aubrey to be in it and now she is in morning kindergarten. The class size went from the 30s down to 22. There were 7 kids from our ward in the afternoon class, and 4 of them were switched to morning. Funny thing is, one of the kids is named Cody Calderwood. There is another Calderwood family in our ward and their son is Cody and they also have a daughter named Aubrey that is a couple years older. Small world. Cody and Aubrey will be in school together throughout the years and they aren't twins, cousins, barely even related (generations back).
I'm still trying to figure out a routine now that the kids are gone almost every day. They are happy, I absolutely love that they get to ride bikes to school until the weather gets too cold/bad, (I just have to pick Aubrey up) and the fighting/messes are sort of cut in half. I can't believe that Tucker will be in the class of 2025 and Aubrey 2026 someday. Blake gets some Mommy time now without all the interruptions.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Scottsdale Family Trip

Cody has had dental workshops in Arizona this summer. He had one a few weeks ago and decided to make it a family trip. I said yes, even though I knew I'd be on chemo, it'd be hot and a long drive and Tucker would miss the first couple days of school. The drive down went a lot smoother than I anticipated. It only took us 11 hours and we never had to bust out the DVD player or the road trip treats. Cody drove the entire way. We stopped for lunch and a potty break, oh and to snap a picture of Lake Powell at the Glen Canyon Dam.
 We arrived Tuesday evening to our awesome villa in Scottsdale. It had a full kitchen, bedroom and living room area with a pullout sofa. Cody started his class on Wednesday morning so I got up early to go for a run and then dropped Cody off at his convention center. I found a train park nearby,  and took the kids there. For $1 you could ride the train and the carousel and kids 3 and under are free. It was perfect. The weather surprised me and wasn't nearly as hot as I imagined it would be. The Phoenix area had received a lot of rain lately and so the temps were only in the low 100's. Still hot, but not the 115 temps they had earlier. It was also very humid to me.



 Because of the hot temperatures Arizona receives, they have tons of splash parks/pads. I took the kids to one at the Scottsdale Quarters on Thursday morning. We also went to our hotel pool and played on the splash pad there and the playground.

 The first two nights we ate out for dinner. Red Robin one night and we found a Mongolian grill for another evening. The kids loved that. We ate at one in Colorado before we moved 4 years ago and have been anxious to go to one ever since. I bought breakfast items and some instant mac n cheese for some other meals. I had my first Trader Joe's experience. Not sure what the hype is about. I obviously didn't buy what people think is cool.
Friday morning I got together with a childhood friend, Susan, that grew up with me in my home ward. She has supported me throughout this year by even coming up to my 5K in April along with her whole family. Her husband just finished medical school and is working at a local hospital. We went to a splash pad of course and then let our kids play at her house so we could visit.

 Cody is much funner to play with in the pool. I have dumb earplugs that I'm constantly worrying about because of my tubes and Blake doesn't like to hold still. It's a good thing Tucker and Aubrey can swim and Cole can float in a life jacket. That makes life much easier and enjoyable.

 Blake is a daredevil. It had just rained and I took him to the playground. This apparatus was very wet and he's throwing his head back and laughing.
 Friday night we were able to hangout with our good friends, the Skinners. Jeremy and Cody went to dental school together. Hannah has a sister that lives 2 streets away from us, so we see them more frequently.

 It was pouring rain and thundering/lightening when they arrived at our hotel so we sent the men off to the grocery store for dinner and waited until after we ate to go swimming. Because I was on chemo this whole week I never felt great, but it could have been worse.
The Thursday night we were there we met and had dinner with the Bennett family. Ian did his endodontic residency at the University of Maryland. They moved there after we left, but we'd heard a lot about them. It was fun getting to know each other and let the kids run wild.
Overall it was a wonderful trip. Much better than I originally thought. We stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam visitor center on our drive back and drove through Sedona/Oak Canyon. I actually drove for 6 hours too. It was beautiful! Cody gets to go back next week for another part of his course and I'll go with him in February. It was a fun way to end the summer.

Pulling the giant tooth

Tucker has had a giant tooth ever since he was little. Two of his bottom teeth fused together into one large tooth. This is when he was 2. The tooth is on the bottom left, next to the gap. Cody and I have always wondered what it would look like when extracted. Would it have one root or two. We found out last month.
 Tuck really wanted it pulled, but only part of it was loose, so Cody brought some tools home and got to work. He numbed him up first (no tears) and then yanked it out with pliers.


The tooth only had one root. Cody thinks the other root was absorbed or something like that. This is only the 2nd tooth Tucker has lost. He tries to wiggle them to come out, but when they aren't ready, they don't come. : )

Friday, September 7, 2012

Swim night with the Lintons

As I've mentioned before, we've been extremely blessed this year to see many friends and family. Our good friends from dental school came into town mid August (I have a lot of good friends) and we had a swim party at my Grandpa's house. 8 years ago we met the Linton's in dental school. We were both childless and eager to begin our new adventure. Our families have camped together, gone to sporting events, had babies, and moved across the country.
 Now there are almost 8 kids between us and we still have fun talking and sharing memories.
Their oldest and Tucker are just 5 weeks apart. With the exception of Blake (Erin is pregnant with her 4th now), our kids are spaced pretty equally.
Erin & I ran the National 1/2 marathon before graduation back in 2008.
Erin ran the triathaMOM the next morning, and she's 4-5 months pregnant.

Few days of summer fun

I've felt like a bump on a log for most of this year. I had a couple, what should I call them, energetic moments with my kids before school started again. We busted out the kiddie pool and slip n slide for an afternoon of fun.


 The next day I decided to take the kids to Wasatch State Park pond and feed the ducks. We had a bag of hot dog or hamburger buns that were beginning to go moldy. What better way to get rid of it, than feed it to the ducks.

 Our family and our friends, the Ashursts, drove up Daniels Canyon one night for a campfire and smores. Sadly, this spot we went to, Whiskey Springs, caught fire a few days later.

I've been trying to get caught up with all our latest happenings. I'm still a few blog posts behind, but it's coming.