Packing and Cleaning and Packing and Cleaning

That has been my life this week. Cleaning. Then packing. Then cleaning. Then packing. Sound like fun? It actually is kind of fun going through all your stuff and throwing things away. I've been proud of us and how much stuff we've gotten rid of. It's funny to think that last year I thought it was important enough to move it 800 miles and now I don't think it's important enough to move down the street. We found a new home for our piano. That is the piano that mom got for Than back when we were first married. The school was getting rid of it and so she thought, Hey, why not get it for Than?!?! And so she did and had Erin and Ken drive it up for her when they came out to visit. She was so great.

But now it has a new home and they were so excited about it. I love giving people things. I hope they love it. I also put out our toddler bed on the side of the road with a free sign and it was gone in like 30 minutes. In my head I have this idea of someone just really needing a bed and then seeing it and being so excited because it was just what they needed. But probably it was someone who was like, Hey I could sell that for money on craigslist! Either way, I hope I made someones day. They made mine for taking it away for me! It's a win win. I'm taking the night off (or at least a few hours of the evening!) to go on a little date with Than. On Tuesday he leaves me for two weeks! First stop New York, then Taiwan, then China. Ouch, that one's going to hurt. We are going to be living in a not finished house, with only one working bathroom with only a shower (And Claira HATES showers!) and absolutely no kitchen. What were we thinking again? It's going to be a fun filled two weeks with lots of craziness and park visits and taco bell. Some people in my ward have offered to feed us which is totally awesome. And this weekend is General Conference which is totally needed to get me all ramped up for the next month or so of craziness. I LOVE conference and can't wait to veg in front of the tv and soak it all in. You know, as much soaking you can do with your four kids all around. Bring it on!

It pays being the fourth child.

Look at how much help you get when you want to ride a bike!! They're so adorable.

Than comes home tonight! I'll see him in the wee hours of the morning but I'm so excited! This has been a long week with him being gone. And we have a busy week ahead of us getting ready to move. We had two soccer games today. Everybody did awesome. Even Claira and Gentry. I took a short nap today while the kids watched a show. I'm eating a grilled cheese sandwich right now. I'd say life is pretty darn good!

****Oh man it just got better! Gentry just took like four steps to me!!! I was feeding her a grilled cheese sandwich on the floor while we are all watching Spy Kids and I stood her up and she totally walked! She has the stiffest feet and kind of hobbled---so cute!!!!

What a day.

This day started off somewhat normal...I got the kids off to school, did family reading with Camry, took Claira to her little preschool, got my car washed, packed some boxes, picked up Claira and played and read with her for a while, then I'm getting ready to pick up Camry when I get a call from Walt who is down here working on our yard. He says, "Well, do you have any butterfly bandaids?" I'm like, "No, I have princess bandaids but that is about it. Why?" He says, "Well, I sort of hit my head with an axe." What!?!?!? So I hurry over there and take him what I have and he has a big fat slice right in the middle of his forehead. He has a big bloody rag and there's blood everywhere and I'm telling him that he needs to go to the doctor and the guy working on the house was telling him to go to the doctor but of course he didn't want to go and just slapped on a band-aid and went back to work. Anyway, to make a long story short he did end up going to the hospital and he got ELEVEN stitches and had a cat scan because he chipped his skull! Seriously who does that?!?! There are many things to be thankful for in that. He had his hat on which softened the blow. He hit the hardest part of his head...had he hit it lower it would have been his face and would have been terrible or he could have hit it up above where it is softer. Bottom line is that it could have been much worse than it was.

But then you think he'd had enough bad luck in one day, right? Well, no, because he got a ticket while parked at the ER because he parked on the street instead of the parking lot because there were a bunch of protesters in the way, and then from the hospital, he as driving to the transmission shop because he could tell that his car was not good and then it just broke down! Right in the middle of downtown walnut creek about a mile away from his car shop. Seriously reminds me of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day! I went to pick him up and decided we needed some happiness in our lives and got some take out chinese for dinner. We ended up calling my home teacher and he helped Walt get his car to the shop. He had to drive his car backwards (because it would only go in reverse!) on main roads to get to the shop but he made it. They even ran into some cops but they didn't cite him because of his sob story of his horrible day. What a day! We decided it was best for him to go to sleep and just start over tomorrow. Let's hope there's no groundhog day situation and his bad luck has run out!

On another note, today is a great day because it marks the 15 year anniversary of the day I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I love this day. Hands down best decision of my life that has influenced many of my later decisions that has resulted in one happy girl! I mean, seriously, I just feel so blessed. I have these four wonderful kids that I get to take care of everyday. I have a phenomenal husband who is always coming up with new ways to make me happy. My sisters are always there for me and give me such great support. Than's family accepts me as their own. I have so many dear friends that at times I can't seem to keep in as good of contact as I would like but they love me anyway. I have this wonderful knowledge of divine nature that I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father that loves me. I know of His plan of HAPPINESS. I have the peace that comes from my faith and knowledge that families really are FOREVER and that death is not the end. I can pray and read the scriptures and be guided by the Holy Ghost to help me make decisions and help keep me on the right path and get some inspiration on how to keep these four kids of mine happy and balanced and reach their full potential and not screw them up that bad. I'm just lucky and as cliche as it sounds I wonder why I get to be this blessed when there are people that have so many more problems than me.

My sister and I got just our two babies together while she was here and I was thinking about my busy life and how I feel like I'm just running most of the time to just be almost caught up on things we have to do and was feeling sad that I didn't have all the time I used to have to just sit and watch Gentry play with toys and people will tell me, Oh, she's so independent and I make some joke about how she has to be because she's the fourth child....anyway, I was just thinking about how I just don't want to take the little things for granted. I love my blog for this reason that it makes me focus on little things that I don't want to forget but then I get so busy that I don't document those little things so today, I took some pictures of what we were doing right in the moment. Gentry was sleeping so this is what she was doing the other night. Than would call this my 'exploratory' parenting style where I just let her make a mess and not care. He just can't do that.

Gentry has been an eating fool these days. She just screeches at me until I give her more and I think, "Didn't I just feed you?" Maybe it's a growth spurt. And she's already learned how fun it is to feed penny which Penny totally appreciates. So I can watch her play with toys more I pulled out our little bin of baby toys that I have kept in the toy room all year and I just left it in the front room and I remember why I don't do that....Toys get everywhere! She just wants to pull them out, play with them for thirty seconds, then move on to the next. But, it makes me feel happy when I can sit and watch her, you know, while we are doing homework and getting sippy cups of milk and finding cleats and reading stories and making dinner and cleaning up messes. :)

When I took those pictures of Gentry, Claira says, "Hey mom, take a picture of me eating big cheese!" Okay, whatever you say.

Claira has been a lot of fun lately. She wants to do whatever Camry is doing and since Camry is obsessed with learning to read, Claira is too. She is sooooo proud of all of her artwork that she brings home from preschool and wants to make sure to show Pacen and Camry when they get home. I have a look that I give to them to make sure that they make a big deal about it, too and they're usually pretty good about it. And see, those are the toys of which I speak! All over, I tell ya.

And Camry might just be the most happy kindergartener ever. It is seriously like night and day with her and Pacen. When Pacen was a kindergartener, I really just think he wasn't ready. But it was a fight to read and then he'd cry and he wouldn't want to practice his writing and it would take me an hour to do homework with him. But with Camry, she just comes home and is like, Mom, we need to do my reading. And she's drawing cute little drawings for her beloved teacher, Mrs. Cerutti who can do no wrong and is the coolest person ever! Today was her first stay day and you would have thought she was going to disneyland she was so excited. I think she is what I was like in school. She wants to do everything right and her handwriting is so neat! Her teacher told me they were working on spaces in between words and with every word that she wrote, she put her two fingers right in place so that she had a big enough space and was just so happy. Man, Mom would be so proud!

And then there is this boy who is going so great in school this year. I love it. He's doing his homework better, on his own. He has this reading chart where he just has to write how long he read and what and one day he didn't read. He asks me, "Well, what do I put for Thursday?" And I was like, "You put nothing because you didn't read." And then he starts freaking out because his teacher will get mad that he didn't read, etc, but it was a good teaching moment for him that he has to be on the ball a little more and do his homework or there will be a consequence. And since that day, he has read faithfully and sometimes without me even saying which is a really big deal for him. And I'm hoping and kind of feel like he's even liking reading a little more lately. He's just getting so old! Seven is big. I've been feeling pressure to make sure that he is ready to make the decision to be baptized by the time he turns eight and I don't even think he ever thought he could not choose to be baptized but we were talking about it at FHE the other night all about testimonies and how each of them have to gain their own and really know for themselves that the church was true and I could see his wheels turning a little bit and I love that. I want him to be a thinker and especially with that, I want him to try to figure things out for himself. When we were talking about it, Camry was like, "But Mom, we already have testimonies." Like what I was talking about was just ridiculous and redundant. Kids are so funny. This is a busy time, but it's also the best time. It's what I've been looking forward to my whole life and I'm doing it. We are raising our family and I'm a total soccer mom with the van and the cute little girls with bows in their hair and baby on my hip. It's how we roll and I'm really loving it.

so dang hot!

It's 8:57 pm. I've had my house in shut down mode since I knew it was going to be a 98 degree day in the Walnut Creek. I hardly cooked a thing and I'm still sweating at nine o'clock at night! When I walk outside it's cooler outside than it is inside. AAAHHHHH!!!! I'm so hot. All the windows are now opened but there is no breeze coming in yet. Camry when she went to bed said, "Hey mom, it looks like you're sweating." Yeah, that's because I am sweating! So, word to the wise....If you want to make a SF trip sometime, make it in September because it's really the warmest weather all year. Thank goodness next year in September we will be in our air conditioned house!!!!!

Utah Trip....actually two Utah trips.

Last Thursday we loaded up the car and headed off to Utah for the BYU vs. U of U football game. Twelve hours of driving. It actually is kind of fun for me at least. I like having our whole family in one little space. The kids travel really well and we have all of our usual stops and the kids know the drill and we get there. We didn't get into Utah until like 3:30 in the AM and then Gentry wouldn't fall asleep because she's used to her crib and then Than had to go to work and we were up at like 7 so that results in a very tired weekend but I can usually handle it when I'm there but then last night I just crashed on the couch and even had to take a nap this afternoon to really catch up. I couldn't even finish my project runway last night...I was that tired! Anyway, the whole point of the trip was for the BYU game. To put it lightly, it was the absolute worst football game we have EVER watched.

This was us before the game....

And this was us after the game.

The whole thing was so pathetic and depressing. We kept thinking and saying, "Is this really happening? How could they be this bad?!?!?!" Pacen was a little concerned after the game. "Do you think that now that Utah won that some BYU fans are going to be Utah fans?" He's so cute about what he worries about.

The game was awesome though. The whole day was really fun. Than went to the bookstore and got me some sweet BYU gear. We started the day off with Kneaders french toast with Kathy. Had a BBQ at Jana'a with some amazing food. All thanks to Dan for his outstanding BBQ skills. Lanell came which is always fun especially when she brings her homemade ice cream.

The boys and their BYU hats.

The cutest little BYU cheerleader ever.

Rose and Gentry.....future BYU roommates. :)

The atmosphere at the stadium was awesome. Everyone was so pumped. Pacen got to give some players...including Jake Heaps some high fives.

The team ran on the field.....

...and then three plays into the game Jake fumbles the snap and doesn't fall on it and then a utah player takes it in for a touchdown. THREE plays into the game. It actually seemed like we had pulled it together but then it just went downhill quickly and we lost 54-10. Oh sad day for the cougars. But we did get to sit with Dan Jagoda and that was super fun. And it's just a game....right?!?!?!

So, yeah, we were there for basically 48 hours. We got to see a few friends, let the kids play, spend time with Kathy and then hit the road early Sunday morning because Than had to catch a flight super early Monday morning. In fact he'll come home late Saturday night, be home for 10 days, we'll move into our house and then two days after that he'll head to China for 12 days. It's gonna be a crazy month!

But while we are on the subject of Utah, I should blog about my other trip to Utah that we took right before school started. I was talking to Pacen about how we only had three weeks until school started and out of nowhere he broke down into tears and said, "But we haven't been to Utah yet! You said we would go to Utah!" Between buying the house, swimming, Than's tri's, summer craziness etc., we just hadn't had time. So I worked some things out and Than let us go to Utah without him and we missed his big tri. I felt bad but I was also glad that we got to go see friends and family out there. And I really did see sooo many people. My ward was having their pool party so I got to see and chat with my old ward peeps. It really was so great to see so many people that really love me and my kids. Four years is a long time to live somewhere. I loved it. The kids loved it. Pacen was in heaven playing with Ty and other buddies. I let Pacen go hang at Ty's house one day and they just ran around the neighborhood from Ty's house, to Jake's house, then to Nathan's house. I thought Pacen would never want to come home!

One day we went to the park and I actually got out my camera.

Isn't Rose so cute?!?!

Ryan was the ultimate pusher! He even pushed me on the swing and almost made me puke. I'm getting worse and worse at being dizzy.

We also went to the little pond that is now in PG which was really awesome for a little man made pond! The Parra's came to play with us and it was so great to see them.

Funny story...if you can call it that....is that Claira just thinks she can swim and is used to the baby pool that doesn't get deep and so she just walks right on out there until it's about up to her chin and I see her and start yelling at Ryan to grab her and he finally does as I'm running out there. She was fine but I need to get her 100% water safe soon. She is so close but is just too comfortable in the water and not actually swimming. It'll just take a little big and she'll be just fine and swimming like a fish like the other two.

Another actual funny story.....

Kathy planned this crazy over the top-planned to the brim day with my kids.

See how much she loves them??? That's why she does it! We started it off with the zoo, then went to her friend's house to go swimming and then wanted to top it off with the county fair. A bit too much?!?!? :) In between all of that my muffler falls off my car and so we get Jeremy to jimmy-rig it up so I could drive it back to PG relatively safely. So that was awesome that he did that. That could have been our sign that we had our fill for the day, but no...we headed off the fair anyway.

We eat corndogs (well, Camry eats a corn dog) and navajo tacos and pizza and some crazy potato spinny thing....no a tater-twister I think it was called....anyway, way too many greasy foods. We start heading down the lane looking at stuff and we say that the kids can go on one ride each. Of course no one can decide what to do, Camry is crying and exhausted and finally decides to go on the ferris wheel. Pacen wanted to do the fun house thing. So we buy tickets and Kathy takes Pacen and I take Camry and I think that Claira wanted to do a pony ride. All of a sudden Camry just starts FREAKING out screaming, "I'm not going on that ride! My stomach hurts! My stomach hurts! Let's go home!" She's totally hysterical and so I'm trying to figure out what to do. In my head I'm thinking, "I just paid twelve bucks for my kids to ride one stinkin' ride....we're doing it!" But then on the other hand Camry is screaming her head off and is obviously not just being a brat. So, I try to sell my tickets to someone and then Jessie rips them out of my hand saying, "I'll just take care of it!" and then just hand my tickets to someone and says, "You want these tickets, here you go!" It's all a blur now that it's been a while since it happened. Anyway, we start walking back to the car and Camry is crying the whole way. My favorite quote from her was, "Why did we have to come to this place anyway!!!!" I told her in my best mom voice that she was in fact going to throw up, and no matter what she did it was going to happen and the best thing to do would be to stand up, bend over and throw up. And that is exactly what she did and she felt much better. There is nothing like throwing up at a fair!

The lesson to be learned is that there is such a thing as too much fun. :)

Saturday I got my muffler fixed....I went shopping at Macey's case lot sale. I was in cheap food heaven. Sunday was church and then I left on Monday. Look at all these kids that Jana and I got ready! All before nine o'clock church mind you. NOtice Pacen's church clothes....that is the one thing I always forget!

And here is a cute picture of Brynlee. Jana said that Annette needed one of her for her wall. So there you go!

Zinch.

If any of you follow Than on twitter or facebook, you would know that Zinch was bought by a company called Chegg last week. Five years ago Sid and Brad, whom Than had worked with for the past three years before that, had another business idea. We all knew that the world of down payment assistance wouldn't last forever and they were working on the next thing. At the time I wasn't quite too sure if this was just another one of sid and brad's crazy ideas or if it was something that we should actually do. Obviously, Than decided to work with them. At the time, there were five of them, and now with it being sold I can't really believe that it actually worked! Five years later from a nasty ghetto office in provo. How many people do you know that has a start up that actually makes it? It's funny because now I can't really say that Than works for a start up anymore...it's a legitimate company! Who would've thought?? Not me. Actually, I've been watching Than seriously work his butt off for five years and you at least hope that something great will happen after all of this hard work. It hasn't been glamourous. It's late hours, early hours, innumerable phone calls and emails, business trips, training, presentations, exciting times and celebrations but also many disappointments and disagreements and just down right frustrating days. I remember back in the day when they were having a hard time getting students to actually upload their info onto the site. They offered a scholarship of some sort and you had to create a profile to be eligible and there was just student after student after student that got on and they saw their numbers going up and up and it was just the most exciting day and I think it was that day that I thought, "Hmmmm, maybe it's gonna make it after all." This company was not Than's idea, he was not a 'founder', but he worked and worked and worked to get this company to what it is today. The sales department was his baby and he figured out a way to make it work. And he's just good at what he does because he listens to people and remembers them and makes them feel like they matter. He's really good with people. And I feel like even if people at times weren't happy with Zinch, they had faith in Than that he would make it work. I'm very proud of him. Very proud of how dedicated he was to this company. Just very proud of how hard he worked and what kind of man he is. And also very grateful to sid and brad for trusting Than and giving him the chance to work with them again. And just grateful for all the friendships made because of zinch. I feel like it was truly a once in a lifetime experience that Than was able to have. Not many people get to see a company from start to finish. And I guess it's not finished now either. He will still have his same job that he really loves but now he's an employee of chegg. He feels a little more pressure now even just to make sure that he does a good job but I know he will because that is what he does.

And if you're interested, you can read some other stuff about it. It really was a pretty awesome day.

The official press release.

http://www.zinch.com/Chegg-to-acquire-Zinch

From his buddy's blog...

http://hackingedu.com/a-cast-of-believers-zinch-acquired-by-chegg

This is just a short video clip that was on CNBC. Pretty cool, right???

Tech Titans: Chegg.com & Zinch.com - CNBC.com

More summer catch up.....CAMPING!!!!!

The last part of august, between my Utah trip, my San Diego trip and school starting we fit in one overnight camping trip with the Jackson's. We actually planned it 6 months in advance because that is just how crazy it is to get a spot sometimes out here and I'm sure glad we did because it was so much fun! It was a spot in Santa Cruz and the campsite was great, but the beach left something to be desired. Santa Cruz has great beaches, but this one was just okay. But we got there and played and the kids rode bikes and we went to the beach and I have to brag because I got the tent set up all by myself! I said, "If Than can put this together by himself in the dark, I can do it!" And it really wasn't that hard. And I had my little man helper, Pacen. He's so great to have around. Than had to work later so he just met us that night. We had a yummy dinner, delicious cobbler, Michael brought his guitar and we sang around the fire...everything from Down by the bay to Mr. Big and it was fantastic. Camping is seriously the best family activity ever! Here it is in a few pics.

Hanging at the beach.

The men building the fire. That's a boys job in my book.

Michael was less than thrilled when we started walking down the stairs to the beach with the bikes and then he had to carry them back up. Sometimes you just go with it without any real plan, you know?? Sometimes it works, other times it's a fail. This was somewhere in the middle only because I didn't have to carry a bike up a large flight of stairs. :)

Campfire time! Of course we had to do a skit.

Our little beach hike in the morning. Don't we look so pretty all camped out?!?!?

The whole gang & the Jacksons.

Who's ready to go again?!?!?