Montana

Well I may have lost the pictures we took in Montana, but I can still write about our little trip.
We took off Friday morning with Wendy and Seth Snow, as the rest of their crew were getting home from girls camp later and were taking another car, and thankfully Aunt Wendy had a DVD player for the kids. They watched 4 movies all the way up there and didn't fight. Pretty amazing. We arrived around 3:00 and the kids just got so excited to swim and play with their cousins. I read a novel cover to cover that day, I soaked up the time to leisure read. Those pictures from the last post are from our first afternoon in Montana. (Weston is meditating because he has been watching too much of "Avatar: The last Air Bender" and wishes he was Aang.) That night Keith Snow and his 2 girls and Todd Schauers drove into a bull elk on the way there, the car was totaled but miraculously no one was injured. All the airbags deployed completely cushioning them from everything except a shower of windsheild glass. It restored some of my faith in cars, maybe they aren't really death machines after all, except well, the elk died.
We slept in Chad and Robin's camper. There was sufficient room and it was nice to have a space for our family to go with so many other guests in the house. (The kids didn't really enjoy the cold shower the first night, we learned our lesson and went in the house to wash the next night.) All of Jared's family minus one sibling was able to gather in Montana for Miles Baptism. Saturday morning we traveled to Townsend for the baptism and lunch. Savanna and Fiora sang the musical number, Weston was supposed to sing too but refused to do so. He said it was because he didn't want people telling him "Good job Weston" and that it was a "girly song." I was tempted to bribe him to sing but didn't, I just let him decide and decided not to sing. Jared made him stand up there with the girls silent. I think the music was nice anyway.
We let the kids swim in the big pool that afternoon again, a waterballoon fight played out also. Jared took me to McKenzie River Pizza for a salad and pizza while the kids ate hotdogs with all the rest of the family. I felt kind of guilty escaping from the family festivities, but it was really nice to have some one on one time with Jared, and that food was really good. We got back in time to see Lexie, Aaron and Amy's daughter, celebrating her 1st birthday with present opening. They gave her a huge cupcake to dig into, but she wasn't that interested, she only daintily licked the frosting off the top. Her parents and cousins helped her dig in.
We got to have cupcakes and a pinata after that, sugar sugar everywhere!
Sunday we went to church and had lasagna with the family and then we were off back to Utah. There was a little more squabbling and complaining this round, but not as bad as I had expected. We made it home without incident and discovered the bishopric had changed in our absence. You miss one day...
Monday we went back to work, all exhausted. Our friends the Westovers invited us over for ribs and s'mores. It was fun to have something fun after a long trip. More food, fun, and friends.
Tuesday I left the kids to go to the internship, and missed them. That evening another scary incident, Uncle Gabe Carpenter fell off his bike and separated his shoulder. Jared left late that night to give him a blessing while I was sleeping unawares. Gabe was in a lot of pain. We have been told it won't affect his military career, but it may delay his boot camp. Thankfully he wasn't more injured.
Wednesday was the same, except when I came home I was surprised to have Heidi and Gabe's kids, my mom and brother joining us for dinner! And Jared already had the hamburger patties ready for the grill. More food, friends and fun!
Thursday I didn't like leaving my kids. I also went to the temple after work with Jared and didn't get home until they had gone to bed.
Friday I decided to stay home. I had no appointments and my supervisor was out of town. So I spent the day with my children and recuperated from a long busy week. The kids jumped in my bed and we talked and laughed in the morning. We organized the basement, the toys, the clothes, cleaned the kitchen and went to the DI. We had piano lessons and went to the store. By the time Jared came home to take me to a Realtor social I was recuperated and the kids were ready to stay with a sitter again so I am so glad I stayed home. And for the first time in years I really enjoyed myself at the Realtor social! Jared even won a prize.
I have two more weeks of this internship, then a break for 2 weeks. We got see Shrek 4 today finally! WE loved IT!

Lost again

Weston joined the "Lost Teeth Club." We took Grandma Rappleye to dinner last Friday evening, and when I finally got home and finally got the kids and Grandma to the restaurant, and they finally brought some food out, Weston tore into the bread and the bread tore his tooth out. He was a little traumatized pulling out a bloody tooth in the restaurant. We discretely wrapped the tooth in paper and took Weston to the bathroom to rinse. He was very brave and only barely cried. He was really excited to show the girls, he nearly grabbed a stranger girl he thought was Fiora to show her. He was even more excited to leave his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. He asked for a dollar, and the alleged fairy managed to scrounge up a dollar's worth of change for him.

Then the week went by speedy quick and I never found a minute to blog about the tooth.

Now we are in Montana, and I'm writing this on Robin and Chad Schauers' computer. The kids are already having a blast. It's Miles' baptism tomorrow and the whole Schauers family is here for the event. They have a largish pool in their backyard, and although it was too cold for wimpy me to swim, the kids got right in until they turned blue.

9 stitches

Well, we have had an interesting time over here. Fiora is all better, but last Sunday Jared and Savanna got sick with sore throats. They are both the type of people that if there is something bothering them you know about it. Jared hasn't been that sick in a long time. He took us to Toy Story Three on Monday, and was putting his arms in his shirt because he was cold, and then sat in the hot car when we got home for 30 minutes and slept. (That was just so weird, Jared HATES the heat!) It got progressively worse, Tuesday when Savanna was bothering to text me at work because her throat hurt so bad I finally took some time off the internship to take her to the doctor. Strep throat. I picked up antibiotics for them, and had to leave the 2 of them home that night while the rest of us went to Rachel's (my now 12 year old sister) birthday party. I felt so bad leaving sick kids at home (I mean, sick kid sick husband). Jared called someone over to give them a blessing, they were both really hurting.
My dad's birthday was on Friday so we all went to that party since Sav and Jared had been on antibiotics for 48 hours. We went to dinner and had cake and presents at my Grandma Rappleye's house after. When we got home Weston asked if he could ride his bike around the cul-de-sac. I went back to water the garden and after a short time I heard a little boy wailing and saw Weston riding his bike, crying, and bleeding. I dropped the sprinkler face down and ran inside. He had fallen off his bike onto the street and broke his fall with his face. His nose was bleeding, his lip was fat and bleeding, and his chin was split. We took him to the instacare and he got 9 stitches under his chin. When we asked him how it happened he said, "I was racing Mara and we ran into each other and I fell off." I hope Mara, age 4, is ok. This morning was the first morning Savanna woke up ans said "My throat feels better!" So that is happy news. Except now she is fretting because she is bored.

So now are we all wondering what ailment is coming my way? Maybe I'll escape all the sickness and accidents. But if not, know I'm going through enough torture riding through construction going to Sandy and back every day.

This week

If you look at that picture of Fiora in the last post you may notice that her upper gums looks a little redder than they should. Well from Sunday to Tuesday those gums just got redder and more swollen until I became very alarmed. Tuesday morning not just the upper gums, but LL her gums top and bottom were puffy and bright red. I thought she had a gum disease. I know she has good dental hygiene so I was confused, I made an appointment with the dentist, but Jared was in charge to take her and decided she needed to go to the doctor not the dentist. The doctor said she had tonsillitis and a cold sore. That was rather alarming to me, what about her gums??? And the rotted spot where her top tooth used to be? I was frustrated that I wasn't the one to take her in. The nurse practitioner Fiora saw "guesses" the bacteria from tonsillitis got in her gums when her tooth came out. She got on two medicines that evening. It was pure torture making her brush her teeth after every meal, not to mention a bloody mess. I told her many times how brave she was. She didn't want to eat anything Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday. Thursday I gave Fiora (and Karli) strict instructions that she eat all her food every meal, she was losing weight and the infection didn't seem any better. Thursday evening Jared gave her a blessing. Friday evening things finally started looking better. We went down to Gunnison for the 4th celebrating with the Schauers, Fiora still seemed a bit on the lethargic side that night, but on Saturday she had a lot of energy and her gums looked a lot better. We saw the Gunnison parade and went to the park mini carnival and Fiora held up really well, although she was cold in the breeze. Sunday was the first time we saw the real girl come back to us, she was dancing and acting like her usual spazzy self. The Lord gave me so much strength to keep putting in internship hours, all I wanted to do was stay home and hug my sick girl. Its so hard to have a sore mouth and not be able to eat or swallow! She is a strong gal.

This is a picture of what Fiora put on her bed post after the tooth fairy forgot to leave money for her under her pillow the first night. We all thought it was so funny. Might become a family inside joke when someone is acting a bit clueless, "Give that kid a dollar and some sense!"

This is a picture of the mailbox Savanna put next to my door. She likes to put letters in it when she misses me. Savanna practiced her violin diligently every day this week. We'll see how it goes when she knows more than two notes.

Busting teeth

The tooth fairy is going to lose a fortune on us this summer. My kids are all at losing teeth ages. Savanna lost another molar Friday. Fiora lost a top front tooth today. Weston's very first baby tooth is loose. He is SO excited about that. I am a little sad my baby boy is old enough to lose teeth. Now he is going to turn into a scraggle tooth kid like the girls.

We had a really fun day yesterday. Jared packed up all our bikes and we went to the Provo river trail in Provo and rode all the way to geneva road. This trip made us aware that we need to buy Savanna a helmet, Jared a bike, Fiora a bigger bike, and my another helmet because Savanna left mine on the trail when we packed up to leave. Jared went all the way back to provo to see if it was still there (it was a nice helmet) but it was long gone. It was nice to have a truck to pack the bikes in and go. Beautiful day too!

Jared bought us some Wise Guys sandwiches and we had lunch together in his office. Then we got to go see "How to Train Your Dragon" in the dollar theater. I Loved that movie! Weston said it was a little boring, Jared fell asleep, but the girls liked it. Jared has been taking allergy medicine that throws off his sleep schedule, he's tired during the day and awake at night. Then Jared was hot and bought us all a Jamba Juice. Then we went home and Savanna went to play at a friends, I cut Weston's hair, and Jared got a work call to Provo. Good thing we took advantage of the time with him that morning, never know when he will be busy again. I took the kids to the store and we had dinner and watered the garden, and Jared and I watched another movie in our basement because he was still hot. But I am loving this great weather!
Yesterday was a good day to catch up on spending fun time together.

Fathers day poems

This is Jared holding our niece Sophie, Holly's little girl.

The kids wrote nice cards to their dad and Grandpa Barrett for fathers day.
Savanna wrote:
Roses are red, violets are blue
I am funny I got that from you
Weston wrote
Roses are red, violets are blue
I want want to be wonderful just like you
Fiora wrote:
Dear grandpa, you tease me but I don't tease you, anyway tease me today, love Fiora

We celebrated Father's day on Saturday with the Schauers and Sunday with the Barretts. My dad was really sick and couldn't eat any of the food we had so painstakingly prepared, but he was a good sport and socialized with us all anyway. Father's day also happened to my now 10 year old brother Joseph's birthday, so we had a cake and icecream party for him too.

Otherwise things are going as normal around here. Normal for us anyway. The kids spent some time at the Carpenters last Friday wehn I was at my internship, Karli had gone to Arizona so I drove them clean out the Eagle Mountain before my commute. Karli got sick there too, but luckily recovered enough to report for duty on Monday morning. I continue to spend 9 hours of my day traveling to the Sandy LDS FS agency and working on adoption stuff while my family parties without me. They sell snow cones, go to the library, picnic in the park, play with friends, watch movies, and today they went swimming at uncle Justin's pool after their Snow cousins took them to four different schools for free pizza. I got them their own library cards and signed them up for a reading program there because I'm a little worried they are partying too much of the time and have slacked off on their reading. I arragned to have Savanna start violin lessons monday, a friend of mine offered to let her borrow a violin for a few months to see if its somthing she will like, so we don't have to invest in a very expensive instrument just to have her quit. So we will have a trial period and see how she does. Since she refuses to play the piano I am trying other options.

Weston's Day and Skipped Memorial Day

Weston turned 6 on Monday. We took him bowling and to get a Jamba Juice on Saturday as a family, because we knew monday would be busy. I managed to make him breakfast Monday morning, but had to leave before anybody but him was awake. He still enjoyed his bacon and eggs, and I let him open one present (clothes). Karli, the birthday saver, took the kids to the Lehi pool for hours so he had something fun to do on his day, then she took Weston to the bookstore and he got his most favorite gift ever--Iron Man Lego guy. He held that all day, in the plastic, and didn't even put it down to open the rest of his gifts. So, good job Karli. As soon as I got home at 5:00 I went to work hosting a barbecue for the extended family. All the Barretts came! It was awesome, we ran out of burgers, and the place was a huge mess. But it was a fun time! Weston got lots of wonderful gifts and felt very special. It was a nice day outside so we ate in the back. We love you Mr. Weston! How blessed we are to have you in our family.
A soccer jacket and pants from Aunt Wendy! Thanks!!!



I sort of skipped memorial day in my blog posts, it was a fun time and a beautiful day so here are some pictures from our trip to the canyon Memorial Day:
Jared and I took a hike/run up to the meadow. Beautiful!

Grandma turned 89 on June 1st. What an amazing woman she is!