Christmas

Really, is it already December 17th? I'm trying to slow down and enjoy the season. My shopping is done, I think. So here is all the cheerfulness going on in our house. We applied and were accepted to host a Mr. Peeps this year. He moves around your house every night to a different position and to "discuss with Santa". He watches to see how we are all acting and just the general feel of the place. Everyone finds Mr. Peeps every morning before our morning checklist can begin. He's hidden in some pretty crazy places! We did receive a warning letter from him one morning that we were tipping onto the naughty side. Luckily because of the heads up we sort of pulled ourselves together. You also cannot touch Mr. Peeps or he may not return the next day. Unfortunately I forgot to tell our babysitter who took him out of his hiding place and played with him. My kids were FREAKING out. They each individually told me what she had done and how they had made her PUT HIM DOWN! Even Max told her no no we don't touch Mr. Peeps put him down! For our super Saturday we had crafts and classes to attend. One was on family traditions. The person I got to teach this class is phenomenal. She is so crafty and fun. The ideas she comes up with blow me away. But one thing she said was don't wait until next year. Just do something, anything and then you can build or change it next year. So I have thought about that and still didn't do anything for several occasions. Christmas was going to be different I said. Well the only thing I managed to eek out is we are doing a family count down until Christmas. From our thanksgiving crafts I have these cute holiday paper cutouts. I hung them all up. Every night we pick one and do an activity. So far (and I'm kind of making them up as I go) we sing a Christmas song and end up with all the lights out around the Christmas tree. The first night I made muddy buddies and we ate them around the tree while I read a a Christmas Story. Mon. we drank hot cocoa using a candy cane as our stir stick. Tues. we sang jingle bells in rounds around the tree. Wednesday we made snowflakes to hang up because (luckily) all the snow melted here. Tonight we lit a candle and after singing gathered around the tree with all the other lights out and passed the lit candle around. When it was your turn you told of a favorite holiday memory. It was fun to hear their memories and I have so many. I really am lucky to have so many. I told them about how one year my sister got a large (like 25 inches) teddy bear. I saw it and went back to bed crying that I wanted a big teddy bear. I would like to say I was 4 but I had to have been 8 or 9 (maybe older). So the next year my mom sewed me this HUGE bear that was like a big beanbag. I don't know what happened to that thing but to imagine my mom sewing this stupid(or so she probably thought) giant bear while I'm not around and then finding a place to hide it reminds me how unfunny Christmas can be for parents. Mental note never buy a child any stuff animal that I may have to replicate in a larger size the next year. I am an anti stuff animal person anyway-they slowly take over your space! For being anti we sure have a lot of the things lying around though. But still thanks mom it made it on to one of my most memorable Christmas memories list. The other one I told was when I wanted a CD player so badly. I kept asking for one. My older brother Aaron came to me one day and said I know what Dad got you for Christmas. I of course asked "is it a CD player?" Now as a side note... silly question. This is my Dad we're talking about. He personally bought 1 gift a year for 1 or 2 kids. I'm not sure how he got away with that but he did and it didn't ever seem to be a no fair issue. Maybe when you find out what I got you understand why no fair ever came into play. So I was all excited. That morning I was looking all over for the right sized package. I kept asking Aaron where is it? He totally played me like a Foosball game. When I finally get to the obviously wrong sized package I'm still excited. I ripe it open and he had given me a bird feeder with food already loaded in it! I can't say he never did anything for me can I? I love my dad, this is not a demeaning story but another favorite memory of mine. The pressure of trying to make the right memories stick in my kids head for future reference is what I'm feeling this year. I will take and display the correct pictures and review the right stories well into next year. I think we'll be okay. Hope your holidays are merry and bright.

San Fran

Daren had to go for some training and invited me to come to San Francisco. His Parents, who just watched my kids for 5 days in September came back up and stayed with them so we could both go. It was so much fun. Daren was in training until 5:00 everyday and I came prepared to just lounge and read until he got out for the day. But instead I got a ticket on a hop on hop off tour bus. It made 20 stops and came around every 30 minutes. It was so great. I feel like I saw all the highlights of San Francisco. It was chilly enough that I wore a hat but once I was bundled I was fine to walk around and not be cold.

Best of all we went to Wicked. It was fantastic. We had been casually listening to the music for a few years now but to really understand the story you have to see the musical. There were some songs I had interpreted wrong or some I never quite got until I saw the musical. It was a highlight. We also got to go to this Burmese place for dinner with some old friends. It was Delicious and fun to catch up too.

instead of messing up the pictures and words I will explain each picture up here first then view below.

1. I went to Ghirardelli square (the chocolate place) and had a cup of hot cocoa. Delicious. I haven't had very many cups of hot cocoa that I didn't like, however.

2. Daren and I one evening at Macy's square with the ice skating rink on one side and the decorated Macy's store on the other. Magical isn't it? :)

3. Alcatraz. It was fascinating. Lizza was so excited I got to go there and when I got home that was one of the first things Meg asked me about. Who knew.

4. Lombard street- the crookedest street. I got off my bus and asked which way to walk and the drive said... you don't want to walk to that, in fact you can't walk to that. Get on the trolley it's only $10 and it will take you to the top of the hill. Right I'm going to pay $10 to walk up hill. I just paid you $30 to drive me around for 2 days! I'm not going to lie to you there were parts when I could not get enough oxygen to breath comfortably but it was fun to hike up one of the classic streets.

5. Lastly you have to cross the Golden Gate Bridge right!? I tried to be on the top deck of the double decker bus to fully experience it... it was to cold up there. I stayed long enough to get a picture and then went down below where the heat and roof was.

It was such a fun trip and I'm so happy I got to go.

still going

I have got to get this stuff off my list of things to do. This isn't of much interest to anyone but I told a few people I would post it. I am the relief society activities chair (I made up the name because I'm not sure what I'm called anymore). Anyway we had out Christmas night and it turned out so much better than I expected. We asked the high priest to come serve the sisters their meal and I'm telling you that is the secret to success. These guys were here early and helped with the final details, they broke up camp when we finished, washed dishes, moped the kitchen floor! I almost wished we had held it at my house so my floor would have finally gotten some love. During the evening we progressed through Christ life. So we started with someone portraying Mary and she read a script and a couple sang a Mary and Joseph song. Then we ate our Salad. Then we had a musical number with the piano, flute, and vocalist about his ministry followed by the main course. Next for death and ressurection I showed the reflections of Christ video (with permission of course)http://www.reflectionsofchrist.org/ I'm sure you've all seen it, but if not it is incredible. Then we had dessert and finished up with someone sharing her experience about this "program" I had put together a walk with Christ sort of thing with scripture and quote/story for 7 days. It was so great and it's done! Then I was off to San Francisco!

Thanksgiving

Back at it again. My sister in law Natalie and my youngest brother Josh let us crash their house for thanksgiving. We had such a fun time. (You'll have to check their blog from my links to read their opinion, I haven't dared check.) Natalie is a graphic designer for Making Memories so she gave us all sorts of paper and sticker and paraphernalia to "craft" with. Abby was in heaven and still talks about the paper cutter she had. As a family we went to a BYU basketball game. Max talked about it for a month leading up to thanksgiving. He was so excited which made everybody else excited too. We walked around campus a little and went to the bookstore. Max loved all the fan gear and Abby wanted to go back to the bookstore the next day because "she hardly had time to look around." The cougs won and we had a fun time. The next day Daren and Mark (Mandy's boyfriend) went to the BYU Utah football game. Thank goodness they won. There were a few minutes where I was afraid our trip home was not going to be pleasant. We would be hashing out why BYU fails, but they pulled it out. My brother lives in Bountiful so we went and walked around that temple. Of course we had to hit temple square. I will admit it was a little more crowded than I like but still beautiful. Abby wanted to go to the building with the nativity and the statue I told her we would after we walked around a bit so then we could warm up in there. So we finally make it over there just in time for it to close. We didn't get to see anything inside, I'm lame. So we hurry out to see the live nativity just as we get up to the front so the kids can see they turn out the lights! I was just waiting for the melt downs. It was late Saturday, cold, coming to he end of our vacation, and no one had eaten yet. Much to my dismay everyone kept it together. We went to a restaurant to eat and as we sit down I realize it is 10:00 at night! I was so embarrassed to be out at this "nicer" restaurant with 4 kids 9 and younger at 10:00 at night. I am a lame Mom. Luckily we made it through dinner with no melt downs and straight to bed. I love my family. It was so fun to hang out with my siblings and their spouses and to just play with my kids. My brother has a skate ramp in his garage (probably a mini one) and so Lizza and I went out there a couple of times and rode his skateboard on it. We of course were sitting on our bums. I tried once to stand and I didn't make it far. When I landed it was silent for like 3 seconds then Lizza whispered..."are you okay mom?" So I would like to give a shout out to Josh and Natalie for hosting. It was so much fun and I promise I will never volunteer you guys again.

t

I don't know where to begin

I gave up on the blogging idea-like all my other ideas it fizzled out. I am pretty impressed I lasted that long. I had crossed it off my list but I'm back out of guilt to play a quick catch up. I have to at least touch a few things to feel current.

#1. back to school. We have awesome teachers this year whom we love love love. This was the first year I took the girls (Max came out of necessity) truly cloths shopping for back to school. They had so much fun! They tried on every single item we picked and helped decided which would make the cut and which wouldn't. They even stayed with in our budget. It was fun. Max didn't think so and Meg thought the first 30 minutes were fun. Oh well we'll try again next year.

#2. Have no fear we made it to Redfish. We camped at Stanley Lake and my kids absolutely loved it!

Someone Daren works with let us borrow her canoe. He wanted to buy it from her and I kept thinking and saying I don't know why exactly but I don't like canoe's. Then I talked to my Dad after we went and as soon as he started talking I remembered! "That's why I hate canoe's my dad spent years teaching us to strongly dislike them." He was going on and on about how they tip and they're flimsy. We didn't buy the canoe. But my kids loved going out with Daren. This was after we had gotten there and set up the necessities for the night. They had been so excited to go out it didn't matter to them that it was dark.

#3. Daren and Abby's birthday's! Abby had a friend party this year and we did letterboxing in our backyard. It turned out okay. These parties get easier and easier as they get older. She directed the show I didn't have to do any entertaining-fabulous. Daren seems to fade out of the picture on his birthday. I am contemplating moving his birthday to a different week. I only had 2 pictures of him. Sorry Dare.

#4. I finally went to Houston to see Mandy after 4 years of saying "yeah, I need to come and see you." Thanks to Herb and Vicki who came and stayed with my family and Daren who pushed me out the door. It was so much fun. Mandy and Mom don't get upset that this is the only picture. We had a ton of fun and a good fill of shopping but I am trying to do a "quick catch up" so I can't deal with a lot of photos right now. I will throw in that we went to NASA which was so much fun I want to take me kids there. It was fascinating.

We made it through another season of soccer. It is such a love hate relationship for me, I'm not sure how many more seasons we'll do. We have a break in most of our actives right now and it is so nice for everyone, I think.

We made it through Halloween and topped that off with a visit from the Good Witch. Lizza almost revolted on the poor Good Witch this year but she pulled through. They get a book and this year Lizza told me "that is such a ripe off. I don't even like to read that much. So I give her most of my candy and all she give me is a lamo book?" WOW! I didn't even know what to say. Can you say no to the Good Witch in our family? I hadn't considered and opt out. But in the end she put her candy out with the rest of them and was happy with her Tabby the Cat book. It was like Christmas to Abby. She woke up early like 5:30 and asked if she could go out and see what the Good Witch had left for her.

Aren't personalities fun. I am not saying that sarcastically either.

Now to Hue

So we get there and 20 minutes later we start a tour with someone we hired to take us around. We first go on the perfume river, which connects a lot of the historical sites so you can cover them all. I had a hard time understanding our guide and I was so worried about Daren passing out on the boat that I can't tell you much of what he explained to us. We saw bridges, and building new and old, and little water villages like the one below. I was recovering but Daren felt awful. I felt so bad for him. After the river tour we went to the Citadel. It is the imperial city. It's surrounded by canals and covers 2 square miles. It was impressive. Monks still live there today and we saw them walking around. So only royal family could live here at the time it was functioning. It is divided up into different parts and it was specified who could be in the different parts of the citadel. I wanted to know more of how every day life was what they did, who went where, etc. however our tour guide wanted to focus more on dates and empires. The whole time Daren was hanging on for dear life. I thought for sure he would pass out on this 2 1/2 hour tour but he didn't. He was so glad to get back to the hotel. He slept for the next 18 hours. So I hung out, read, walked the streets, got a massage, had dinner, watched some TV. It was relaxing. But Hue for us glad we went but wasn't our favorite. Though it did give Daren time to recover. do we look hammered? We are. This is right off the boat at Perfume River. In the Citadel the Entry way into the Citadel in the Citadel Some kind of fruit that grows all over here. Our guide told us what it was, I just can't remember. at the entry of the citadel

Perfume river.

Hue

So we actually flew into Danang and drove to Hue. We had read and saw this show on the travel channel which both raved about driving the Hai Van pass and not missing the scenery. We thought that sounded fun so we rented a driver to take us. I don't know what I was thinking because I get car sick and I did. Daren already wasn't feeling well when we first started for the day. He was dehydrated and pretty sick for the next 24 hours. So anyway we get in the car and I am trying positive reinforcement. I feel fine. Distraction. Wow look at the scenery it's incredible. Then I accept that it's not working and I put on these acupuncture bracelets. Still not helping. So I pull out this peppermint oil my mom had given me(she swears it cures nausea). I'm wearing the bracelets, sniffing the oil, deep breathing and talking out loud to myself saying your not going to throw up. You okay. You'll be fine. Meanwhile Daren looks half dead with his eyes closed head back sweating. I'm sure the drive thought we were the craziest couple he has ever had to transport. We both fell like junk. So we get to the top and he is all excited and encouraging us to go look around. I'm all shaky and Daren is weak and can hardly walk. We were happy to make it to Hue with out throwing up or passing out. Next time we'll take the tunnel.

still more Vietnam Hoi An

I have to get this done. Just remember it was 10 days of travel! We flew to Hoi An next. It was the tailor shop place. If you wanted something made this was the place to go. I don't know if Daren and I were just tired here but we were not interested at all. We had some ties made and a matching tie for Daren and Max and that was it. The ladies here were so pushy. they would actually grab your arm and try to pull you into their shop. As you walked down the street you hear hello you buy here come look. We just weren't interested. We walked around a lot. I would say aside from the ship this was my favorite food place. We saw a Japanese covered bridge, I'm not sure why it was such a big deal but it was so we went and saw it. Our hotel,the Ha An was fantastic. They had free bikes you could ride. Well we couldn't pass that up right? So we rode to the beach which was 6 Km away I think. it was a fun ride on the streets of Vietnam. So the first night at China Beach we arrive just as a storm is arriving. We decided to beat the storm home. We didn't, and it was crazy! It was raining so hard I don't know if I've ever seen anything like it. Just sheets. So we are just peddling hard and we pass these boys sharing a bike. As we pass I see them look up at us and then at each other and in a minute or two they race past us. So we pass them and next they speed by both peddling and yell lets go! Well Daren doesn't back down from good old competition so he starts racing them. I think I pass once more and then I just try to stay close. They finally gave up on us. But it was fun. We were soaked when we got back. I rang my shirt out and there was a huge puddle on the floor. But memorable. So we went to My Son, Which is Vietnam's most elaborate archaeological site. It was neat to see. It was the headquarters for the viet cong during the war so it was a free fire zone for the US during the war. So you could see huge bomb craters scattered around. 70 monuments were destroyed but it was still incredible. The underbrush is so thick and invasive I cannot imagine having to walk Thur it looking for the viet cong. You couldn't just walk you would be cutting down vines and greenery every step you took. It was beautiful though. The streets of Hoi An

After the bike ride in the rain. Still raining.

My Son

In the streets you could buy anything

so this section sold fish and up a little

ways under blue tarps produce

was being sold. It smelled this

something I cannot describe. But

it was interesting to walk past and

see all the different fish and sea creatures

that were being sold, which means someone

was eating them.

vietnam continued

So from Hanoi we went on a 2 day cruise along Halong Bay. We were on the Pinta Cruiser which was very nice. The food was incredible. We had 12 course meals with squid, prawns, chicken, pork, beef, fish, noodles, rice, and cooked vegetables, clams we tried it all. We didn't love it all be we tried. The scenery was incredible. There are 3000 islands covered with forest and you can hear the monkeys and such coming from the islands. There are caves all over as well. The dark picture is from inside the cave we walked through. It was pretty but also commercialized. But still you've gotta love mother nature. We also got to kayak around some of the islands and through a fishing village. It was neat to see and watch them just go about their daily tasks. We stopped at a school and it just had all these boats tied up to it and kids swarming around. We also swam in the sea, it was warm and the captain picked a clean spot for us. Anywhere near the fishing villages the water is so gross. The whole time we were kayaking Daren and I both were saying just don't fall in, the water was filthy. We also fished for squid at night. It was fun. You bob the hook in and out of the water while shining a light on it. When the squid tug you have to yank it up quick and the squid comes out squiring its junk at you. But that didn't stop us from trying it again and again.

This is arriving at our boat. We were ferried

to it. The guy with the backpack

was our guide. This pictures doesn't give justice to

the view of what you see as you look

out.

these ladies came up to our boat all the

time trying to sell us food. She is standing

in this little crawlspace in the boat. Since

no one was buying she pulls this little

boy out of there around 3 years old.

She just leaves him out for a few minutes

and no one buys so she tried to stuff him

back in. He was crying and screaming

it was sad. Daren commented maybe

I should offer to buy something if

the boy can stay out for the day. fishing village

the cave This is who was with us. You can have up to

17 people on the boat but our was a nice

small group. The first couple were from

Australia, then us, Another Aussie couple

and the last were from France. We had

a fun group. Funny thing Daren left his

"sunnies" in Hanoi after we returned

from the cruise and Ben and Christie (the

first couple on the left)

picked them up from our hotel

and brought them to us in Hoi An

when they arrived. It's a small traveling

world I tell you.

We only met three other Americans (aside from church) and all were there on business. For some reason Americans do not frequent Vietnam. It was mainly Australians I think.

vietnam

So this post has been so daunting that I haven't even dared try to post it. So I am no taking baby steps. I will not cover our whole trip tonight but I will try to cover at least one city. So we started our adventure May 15th. My mom agreed to come to Boise and stay with our kids while we were gone. It took a lot of planning (mostly by Daren) a few stressful moments, and a lot of good friends who helped drive my kids and babysit for my Mom. So we made our will official May 14th at 11:00 pm and we were ready to finally go. I'll just say long long flight, crazy time changes (they are 12 hours ahead of us), and a lot of granola bars and trail mix but we made it. The humidity is very high but honestly I didn't feel it was oppressive I enjoyed it. We had air conditioning in all our hotels so we had recovery time from the heat. We would go inside and I would have to put on my sweat shirt or step out side to warm up. So first city... Hanoi This place was bustling I thought. The streets were organized by what goods they sold. So you had hat street, kitchen tools, kids toys, etc. It was fun to walk around but sooo loud and a little smelly if I must admit. We took a cyclo tour (man pushing you on his bike) around and I felt we covered what we wanted to see that way. We walked down to a famous red bridge ( the sunbeam bridge). This lake had a walking path all the way around (which we walked) and it was fun to watch all the people. Our hotel was incredible and so helpful. They arranged the cyclo for us and the manager told us to wait here (inside) and went out where the cyclo drivers are just waiting for you to walk out so they can try to get you on their bike. He was out there giving this man the business. He told him exactly what route to take, how long it will take him, and how much we will pay him. It was awesome. We went to Hoa Lo prison a.k.a. Hanoi Hilton which is the prison where us POW's were incarcerated and some tortured. I never felt any animosity from the people but in this prison museum (and all the other war areas) the war is called the American War. The pictures posted on the walls are of smiling US inmates decorating a Christmas tree, playing chess, hanging out having a great time. Interesting how the story gets told on the other side. We also got our first 2 massages here and they were both fantastic. We went to a nice place of course and I think we paid 12 dollars for an hour. The last picture is the view from our hotel room. I loved watching what happened on those balconies.

Meg

Our sweet Meg turned 5 this past week. I've said it before and I'll say it again I cannont belive she is 5! She is such a sweet girl.

Meg has always been the best sharer I know. If somebody has what she wants or is upset about something she will almost always give up what she has to make the other person happy.

She loves to tell us jokes and make us laugh

She has fire in her. She likes to compete in racing you everywhere and if no one will race her she will "beat the clock".

She also has a tender heart and if you look at her wrong she crumbles right before you eyes and cries and cries.

She tells me she wants to live with me forever in our house-I love it.

As always I put a little slide show of Meg together. Don't watch unless you have time, I tried to par down but I love old pictures.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

some catching up

Oh so much to say so little time. I will work backwards a little because Daren may want input as to how I display and explain Vietnam. I will say it was fantastic and we made it back alive (which was really my #1 goal). I was more afraid of dying in a plane crash than of Vietnam. So First bit of good news..... Lizza can ride a bike! After years of missed goals, dead lines, and threats she did it. Daren just took them off and she took off. She is so proud of herself and before school was over she would hurry and get ready and go ride her bike in the morning. 2nd news.... School is out yahooo! I am so happy to be done with school. We can now dictate our own schedule and I think it will be great.

3rd.....

No more gymnastics!

It has been fun and both

Abby and Lizza have enjoyed

it. Lizza will just sit down

and start stretching out

of the blue, trying new

moves and trying to push

Abby. It was good for both

of them but it will be nice to

take a break.