SLACKER!

Oh wow! I have been such a slacker on this blog.  It's sad really.  I used this as sort of a family journal for such a long time, and I just missed a huge chunk of time! I'm not going to go back and try to re-create the last year, but just move forward.  We have had a great last year though! A lot of change! Due to our Dave Ramsey kick...not really kick...more like our Dave Ramsey life style change...we are now living in Lehi in the house I grew up in.  My parents left last month for a mission in Ankara, Turkey (they're doing great by-the way!!) and we moved into their house, not only to take care of it, but to pay off our student loans.  If all goes well and as planned, what would have taken us 18-20 years to pay off will now take us 2 1/2 years (1 of those years already being gone-wahoo!)  By the time my parents get back (in Nov. 2013) we will be debt free besides our house (which we are currently renting out).  We have felt incredibly blessed over the last year to make the progress we have.  We have currently paid off 3 student loans with 2 more to go (the last one is a big one...blech).  That is not to say we haven't had to make some big changes and sacrifice to get here, but we truly feel the help of our Heavenly Father and feel He wants us to succeed as much as we want to, and He has provided many opportunities to do so! Moving to Lehi being the biggest.  So many little miracles have happened over the last year (I've been recording them all for posterity) to get us to this point. It's been a great lesson for our entire family.  Our kids understand why we moved, because they sure didn't want to, and I feel like they have gained confidence because of their sacrifice.  I want them to take away from this that they can do hard things and sacrifice something good for something better. They have all made some good friends, adjusted to the ward and neighborhood, but above all have had a blast living close to cousins.  We will be sad to see my two brothers and their families move out of state at the end of the month!
Okay...I will get off my soap box now.  Alli has just turned 12 and went into young womens!!! She got to go to camp with our WX ward before we moved and  now gets to go with our current ward.  The best part is, is that I just got called into the yw's and I get to go with her! I love our YW presidency.  4 of the women I work with, I've know almost my entire life.  3 of them have girls my age (one of them being my best childhood friend's mom...Cathy Bassett).  It's so fun! The boys are growing fast and all have birthday's coming up in Aug, Sept, and Oct.  My baby will be 4! :(  They are all growing up so fast! Taylor caught his first fish on our camping trip last week.  We didn't even take a fishing pole.  He found a stick and some fishing line in a bush and Caden found a hook on the bank of a river.  Taylor dug up worms on the bank under some rocks...and Voila! He caught a huge fish! Okay...not huge, but it was a good size.  And he ate it! We all had a great time on that trip.  We've also been spending a lot of time at Seven Peaks this summer.  Good times.
Life is good...really good!

Summer 2011

Our summer so far has been very busy! Here are some pics of the fun! Our ward campout was last weekend up by Pine View Resevoir. I didn't get any pics of the campout, but this is our picnic at the lake on our way home.

Jazz Draft Party

Swimming with the Reimer girls in Grandma W.'s backyard.

Car show and sleepover with the Reimer girls.

Bowling with Chris and Kim. I love these two boys together!

Picnic at Wheeler Farm with the Edwards cousins

Picnic at Wheeler Farm with the Umbrells.

Memorial Day 5K. Didn't look much like summer that day!

Baseball!!! It was so fun to watch Caden and Taylor play this year. I'm a bad mom because I don't have a pic of Caden to post and I don't know how to use our new scanner yet to scan in their official b-ball pictures.

Soccer. Alli LOVES soccer! It's fun to watch her.

We are now looking forward to the 4th of July and more fun with family and friends!

11

Yes, once again I'm really behind on my blogging. On May 24th Alli turned 11. She invited her friend Mikki over for a "spa day" and bowling. We turned our kitchen into a spa where they got facials, pedicures, and manicures. After that we went bowling, had dinner, and watched a movie. I can't believe my oldest is 11! Next year she will be in young women's! It is really fun to have her growing up and maturing. She makes for a great friend and shopping buddy! I'm so thankful for my little girl! Alli got her and Mikki some flip flops so they could show off their new cute toes.

Don't worry...those were disposable bowls. If you come to my house for dinner, I will not serve you salad out of them!

Last but not least...breakfast in bed. Yummm!

Dave

He got to us. Dave Ramsey. We read the Total Money Makeover and now we are officially gazelles. I was really nervous to start it, thinking it would be super restrictive, but I have found it to be completely opposite. Of course we are in our first month still, but it is going marvelously! We'll see how the summer is when all the kids are home and we need to get out of the house and find fun things to do! Here's to becoming debt free!

I had written this post a couple of weeks ago and saved it but never posted it. Then I looked on my cousin Jamie's blog today and saw that they just completed the baby step we are on (which is to become debt free besides your house) and it was so inspiring I decided I would post this finally. Way to go Clint and Jamie!!!! Everytime I need some motivation I am going to read that blog post!

Washington DC

Matt had a conference for work in National Harbor Maryland which is just a few minutes outside of Washington DC and I got to go with him. We stayed in a really fancy hotel called the Gaylord National. It was right on the Potomac river and it was beautiful! There is really nothing else around except a few more hotels and a little stip of shops and restraunts. It was quiet and perfect! These pictures are completely out of order, but at least they made it on here. There was a bus stop right by our hotel, and since we didn't have a car, we jumped on the bus that took us to the metro and then rode the metro into Washington DC. It was very convenient!
This is the view right outside our hotel. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was beautiful and there was a walkway right by the river that had a few boat harbors along the way.

This little beach was so cute! I was wishing my kids were there to play on it!

We went to a Nationals baseball game one night. It was so fun! We had great seats and the weather couldn't have been more perfect!!!

They had four of these mascots (former presidents). They were so funny. They had a race around the field. I don't know how they could run with those huge heads.

At the game. Four rows from the front behind right field.

The delicious meal we had at Mai Thai in Alexandria VA (the cutest town anywhere!!!)

I mentioned the boat harbor right outside our hotel. We took a boat across the Potomac a couple times to Old Alexandria. It was by far my favorite place we went on our trip! It was so cute and quaint and had the funnest little boutique shops and restraunts!

The harbor in Alexandria

We spent a whole day walking around DC. We walked so much that day my feet hurt so bad! I thought we walked a lot in Disneyland, but at least you get to sit when you walk to whatever it was you were going to next. In DC you would walk to a museum or landmark, then walk around to see it. It was such a blast though! Here we are at the US Capitol.

We took this the day Osama Bin Laden was killed. We were standing outside the White House as the mayhem ensued on the inside.

Lincoln Memorial. This was pretty cool too. It's so funny to see these things on movies and have a vision in your mind what it will be like, then you see it in person and it is nothing like you thought it would be. Like the White House...I thought it would be all alone, but there are quite a few buildings right close by.

Washington Monument. They were doing construction on the reflection pool which was very disappointing. But we did get to walk through the national Cinco De Mayo celebration going on in the park.

I think we only missed one or two museums in DC. This is the Air and Space Museum. (obviously). We saw lots of kids on field trips and thought how cool it would be for our kids to get to go on field trips to DC. We even met some 7th graders who were on a field trip from Florida! I felt lucky to go to Hogle Zoo and Lagoon!

This is the American History museum. We really liked this one!

This is at the Natural History museum. Isn't Matt funny? Actually I made him do that. He was talking to his boss on the phone and couldn't argue that he didn't want too.

Not pictured is the National Archives where we saw the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the Constitution...among other historical documents, the Holocaust museum, FBI building, and the National Art Museum. We had such a fun time! Thanks to both sets of grandparents for watching our kids...AGAIN.

Goings On

We've had a lot going on since Christmas...so much in fact that I haven't had time to blog! Actually that's not true, I've had plenty of time, just a lost interest. But since this is as close to scrapbooking as I get, I want to document what we've been doing!

First off...Valentines Day

Matt and I attended our ward adult Valentines Dance. We had fun gettin our groove on!

On Valentines Day we had our traditional candle light dinner with our kids.

Dessert (pb bars...yummmm!)

Heart bread

Before the lights went out!

Chad and Kim invited us to come decorate Valentines Cake with them at Dick's Market. I had no idea the cakes were going to be so big! We have cake coming out our ears!!! (p.s. all the above pictures were taken with my new iphone that Matt got me for V day! I'm in love with this phone!!!)

We had our own restraunt one night. Our kids love doing this!

Owen's dinner

"Mama's Cafe"

We also took a trip to 'Discovery Gateway'

Our kids loved it here!

We also stopped by Cabella's one day. This was as good as the zoo for Owen.

We attended a U of U basketball game and gymnastics meet.

Go UTES!

Taylor lost his first tooth in January.

My favorite event was in January when Matt and I stayed at the Hyatt next to the Gateway and went to the temple, lunch, movie, dinner and a Jazz game. That is what he gave me for Christmas and it was soooooo FUN!

Christmas 2010

We had such a good holiday season filled with lots of family. Both my sister (Cadie) and Matt's sister (Mindy) and their families came to visit from Washington. We had so much fun having cousin sleepovers, playing games, and celebrating the season. It's always sad when everyone goes home, but we made lots of memories. FHE...Temple Square

Santa Claus comes to visit our Elementry. We waited way too long in line, but the kids got a huge bag of candy!

Christmas Eve. The kids all got new pillows and Owen got a sleeping bag that he lasted a whole two minutes in. They love sleeping together on Christmas Eve.

The loot

Owen got a train, shoes, a sweat outfit, a mini Book of Mormon, and a miniature Buzz and Woody.

Taylor got tools, a kit to make a catapult, a remote control car, club penguin for the wii, scriptures, and a sweatshirt and track pants.

Alli got a sweater, shirt, boots, a hair dryer, 3 barrel curling iron, a caboodle with hair accessories and headbands, and scriptures.

Caden also got tools and catapult kit, a remote control car, lego creationary game, a sweatshirt and track pants, and scriptures.

Matt gave me a weekend getaway to a hotel in SLC and tickets to a Jazz game. He also took me shopping for some much needed updating in my wardrobe. I gave him clothes and a watch (just what he wanted :).

We spent Christmas Eve at Matt's parents house and Christmas day at my parents house.

We also spent New Years Eve at the movie theater then Thayne and Amber's house playing games and stuffing ourselves with junk! Family and food...not a better way to spend the holidays! I just wish I would've taken more pictures...as uaual!