Registration

School starts on Monday so I had to go pay the university with my first born child and my left arm, all for one class.

I have been driving myself, my husband, I'm sure my babysitters, and the financial aid office crazy the past few weeks. First off I was shocked I received financial aid at all. I found out that the amount I was awarded was contingent on six credits, I'm only taking four. So I received a reduction in the amount which left me with almost $500 to come up with to take my News Reporting and Writing class.

I looked into what the difference would be if I took one more class so I could get the full amount. Most classes are three credits so that would've put me at seven credits. At $236 a credit I was looking at having to come up with $700 instead of $500 if I did that.

The money wasn't that big of deal we had a way to pay for the extra class, babysitters lined up to watch the few kids not in school those extra days, and car pooling set up for transportation. The one thing that kept changing my mind was; how much time is this going to take away from my family? Besides the actual class time away I would have had to spend more study time away from them as well. With my Reporting class having a lab it was like two classes already; on Wednesdays I will be in school all day with class and lab.

I am so excited to go back to school and have something all to myself that helps me to grow. No matter how big of a mid-life crisis I am having trying to recapture my youth through going back to college, I am still a mother and wife and I don't wish that away.

At registration today I had to go in the financial aid office and let them know they needed to lower my award back down to accommodate the four credits. The guy helping me laughed and said, "That's funny because I just raised it, again, this morning." I felt a little flaky but I told him I just couldn't commit to that many credits at this time and I didn't want to jeopardize my standing with the financial aid office with making bad grades. He just smiled and made the changes.

I may be flaky going back and forth four times with four credits then seven, I think I even jumped it up to nine credits at one point. I am just glad in the end I feel good about holding back and making my family my priority and not my education.

In about three years when Bear is in the first grade I will have more time to myself. That is when I can choose to take more classes, but until then I am enjoying the journey.

The Taste of Success

I wish I knew how to tell people that, in my opinion, there is really no such thing as failure. Imagine how much easier life would be if everyone thought that way. People wouldn't be afraid to try new things, to go out on a limb and do what they've always dreamed of doing.

If we look at failure as merely a steeping stone to success our outlook on life would be so much more positive and optimistic.

It is hard to watch someone I love punishing themselves because they believe they have failed at some thing whether it be a job, school, or marriage. If only they could see the big picture of their life. Take what you can from the "failure" and learn from it.

My Step-Mother, Ria, brought the line from "National Treasure" to my attention. It is about Benjamin Franklin and his inventing the light bulb (I think) and he tried over four hundred times before he got it right. He looked at it, not as he failed over four hundred times, but that he learned over four hundred ways not to do it. I hope I got that right.

In essence it means if your walking along and you run in to a brick wall you don't back up and keep running into the same spot, you take a step to the right or left and try again until you make it past the brick wall. So how can that be failure unless you keep running into the same spot. And if that's the case maybe you should ask for help, it's okay to ask for help and then listening to that help. Believe it or not their are people out there who have made it past the brick wall and it is amazing on the other side.

I know it's hard to take advice I feel like I should know how to do things myself or at least be able to learn how to myself. "A smart man learns from his own mistakes but a wise man learns from other's mistakes" (unknown).

Big D's Mission President gave him some great advice; He told him that Big D needed to find someone whose life he admired whether it be career, marriage, or family. He should ask that person for their advice on how to attain that success, and here's the kicker, take that advice and apply it to his life. You wouldn't ask marriage advice from someone whose been married seven times. You wouldn't ask someone career advice if they'd been fired from every job they've ever held.

I am happy to say that we have heeded his Mission President's advice and today we have a fabulous marriage, a nice career, and a lovely family. We have received many compliments on how well behaved our kids are or how happy Big D and I look and are. We owe it all to great advice that has lead us to where we are today.

I'm not saying every thing has come easy to us. We work very hard to make our marriage as fulfilling for the other as possible. We have struggles with our kids that we have to over come, but that is the kicker, we over come our struggles. We do not wallow in our "failures".

We measure our success by the smiles on our children's faces. We measure success by the flutters in our hearts as we wrestle as a family on the front room floor. We measure success by being able to share our excess with those who may need it more than we do.

I have a wonderful life and if you want advice on how I got here and how I work hard to stay here, let me know because I am willing to share. I want everyone to experience the other side of the brick wall because it is beautiful over here.

It's Amazing

It is amazing how trashed the house can get in two days. Granted I didn't leave the house spotless when I left, but I didn't leave a bomb ticking and ready to explode as soon as I stepped out the door.

I am not even kidding when I say every room in the house was trashed, not only that but the garage, front yard, and back yard as well.

My poor enslaved children have been asking how much work I am going to make them do today. It breaks my heart that they have a party all weekend and then I make them clean it up.

I feel bad for Big D too, having to take care of four children 24/7 for two days. He took them on a camp out one night, which turned out to be a disaster because Bear kept freaking out and wouldn't sleep. Then the neighbors gave him a little scooter to see if he could fix it. Well, not only could it not be fixed but now it is scattered all over my yard and house.

I guess when I take time off from my "job", it isn't any different from when other's take time off of their jobs; when you come back to work you have twice as much work to catch up on.

Well, I need to get back to work, yeah for me.

Run Away Weekend

I is nice having both my sister's living together. They are good for each other, although I think they are also bad for each other too. Not really but they are bad for me when I come down: they keep my up too late, I spend too much money when we're together, and they make it hard for me to want to go home sometimes.

I decided to run away my last free weekend before school starts. I made arrangements to help my best friend, C, paint her living room on Saturday then come down a little farther and stay with my sister for the night and head home Sunday. You know what they say, "Life is what happens to you when you make other plans." Well life happened to me and I came down Friday night.

I made it here at about 6p.m. and we grabbed a temple session at 8p.m. I haven't been to the temple in so long that I had a per ma grin on my face the hole time just because it was so nice to be there. We tried to make it to a 7 o'clock session but we were about ten minutes late for that so we decided to grab a bite to eat in the cafeteria. They had meatloaf, oh how I love meat loaf, but it gave me gas, which I knew was going to happen. I prayed it would at least wait to manifest itself until after the session, and thank heavens it did.

We got home from the temple and instantly I started in with my flatulence, but it didn't stink, no really it didn't. However, then Ann introduced me to dipping spicy nacho Doritos in chocolate ice cream, yum. Well, I don't do spicy real well and now my sister's understand why. It made my farts stink, and I don't just mean, "Oh that's gross." Everyone who dose not have a gas mask clear the room please, and that is no exaggeration. After I let off that bomb immediately everyone left and went to bed. The next morning I couldn't stand to be in the restroom with myself. I don't think I will be eating Doritos and ice cream again anytime soon.


On Saturday I woke early and headed off to C's house to help her paint her front room. She'd recently bought a creamy white couch and it blended in with her walls. She got some paint that looked exactly like melted chocolate, it made me crave a Hersey's bar all day. After some discussing of what she wanted to accomplish we painted one wall solid brown and another with stripes. I am a huge fan of stripes, I wonder why? I think that is a question to diagnose at a later posting.


I was so nice to have the hole day to talk while we were actually doing something productive. Usually we don't get much time to chat, either we are on the phone and that costs money or she has to get on the road for the long drive home. We didn't have to worry about doing that. Maybe that is why I brought up striping one wall, I knew it would take us awhile to do thus buying me more time with her.

After we were done painting we wanted to go to Tai Pan Trading, my favorite store. C's husband had to go help a neighbor real quick so we sat down and started talking. The longer we sat there the quicker the whole not going to be until 2 was catching up to me. I realized I still had to drive the forty-five minutes back to my sister's house, in heavy traffic, so I thought it best to get on the road before I put her new couch to good use with my head. I had a great time and I hope she comes up with another project soon so we can do it again. Of course it will have to be over Christmas break or next summer.

When I got back to my sisters house Ann had been napping for the past two hours, the little cheat. So she was all rested and I was determined to take advantage of every minute I got to spend with her so I kicked her out of bed and we went and saw Marie at work. We got there right when she was closing her store, around 9ish, so we couldn't stay there long. Ann was in need of hugs so she planted one on Marie, which made Marie's guy coworkers happy, a little girl on girl action so to speak. I don't think any of them realized we are all sisters.

With nothing else to do that we could think of we went to a movie, "Journey To The Center Of The Earth", it was in 3D. They gave us our funky glasses and it took us awhile to quit going cross eyed as we tried to focus on the movie. As long as they didn't move too fast we were fine. We must have been a little giddy because we ended up leaving Ann's cell phone in the theater and had to run back and get it before the cinema locked up for the night. I honestly didn't think it would still be there, that goes to show you my faith in man. I was humbled when we got there and the manager said someone turned it in. I had to chastise myself when we got back in to the car.

I've had a very nice get away I wish I could stay a little longer. There are so many places I want to go and see, and shop. It's a good thing I'm going home on Sunday; I can't stop and shop on my way home, Big D will appreciate that.

I think it's good for Big D and the kids to spend the weekend together, alone. Let him have the kids 24/7 and not be able to just jump and run. Although I don't think he can comprehend the full gravity of how confining it is in just two days. Big D always makes me feel so loved and missed when I come home, and he gets to go back to work. Not that I am complaining, I love being a stay-at-home mom. I need to let Big D know how loved he is for allowing me the opportunity to have such a career. I'll do that as soon as I get home.

Bringing the Marina Home

We flood irrigate our back yard. The kids love to play in the water and I love how nice it makes my lawn and garden, and how much money it save me each year.

We haven't been able to enjoy our irrigation this summer due to construction on one of the main roads that cut us off from the water. They must be wrapping it up because the past two or three weeks we have had great water pressure. It's too bad that I didn't realize we had water yesterday until the evening and the kids were already in bed.

After we irrigated Big D and I went outside to sit on our swing and play in the water with our feet. I don't think we are ever going to grow up. Sitting out there I realized how much our back yard smelt like the marina. It's a good thing Big D has put the boat away for the year or it probably would have put him in the mood to go boating again. I swear that many just can't get enough fun.

We stayed outside until all the water was soaked into the ground then we went off to bed. Well, this morning I jumped up early to mow the lawn and found a puddle in the middle of my yard. I could have sworn all our water was soaked in before we went to bed, but I must have been mistaken.

Come to find out our neighbor left her irrigation on all night and flooded our yard again. It's a good thing that after we flooded our basement four times in one year we put in a fail safe. We built up the ground around our windows and put in a sort of ditch that travels down the side of our house and out the front yard into the street. If we hadn't put that in we would have had an all to familiar waterfall cascading down our wall about four in the morning.

So now instead of having to clean up a puddle in my basement all I have to do is wait for a puddle to dry up in my back yard, then I can mow my lawn. What a saving grace on my mood for the day. We averted a catastrophe, and the funny thing is when Big D and I were swinging we were talking about preparing for the next catastrophe in our life. Who knew!?!

All Grown Up

I have spent all day canning Bread and Butter Pickles. I know that doesn't sound like much but this is my first time canning in my kitchen all by myself. I am exhausted!

I was reading my canning book yesterday and I thought I could hurry and get some pickles made relatively quickly but Big D wanted to go boating for Brook's birthday. So I decided to hold off and wait until today, boy am I glad I waited.

I ran out to my mom's to grab the canning pots and a few more jars. After searching her garden I found a few more cucumbers and zucchinis. Then I had to stop at the store to buy some canning salt and some onions, yeah like that's all I'm going to walk out of the store with.

I don't think I even got started until about two thirty and I am just barely getting done at eight. After five and a half hours of work I only got seventeen pint jars done. If I had to sell them in a store I'd have to charge like twenty bucks a jar to make it worth it. Now I understand why canning is a dying art.

However, the one thing buying store canned pickles could never give me is the satisfaction in knowing that I did these pickles all by myself. I planted, watered, and grew the zucchini and cucumbers. I picked, washed and sliced them. I followed the recipe and canned them all by myself, okay with about ten phone calls to my mom.

I have the wonderful knowledge and boast in my self-esteem that I know how to do this. Yes, it is a lot of work but I can do it! Growing up my mom always tried to teach me how to cook or can. She is a wonderful mother in every way, but I never wanted to learn either of those things no matter how many times my mom said, "This will help you when you grow up." I think that is half the reason I never wanted to learn, because if I learned I'd have to grow up.

I guess the jokes on me because I still grew up and I never learned how to cook or can, or sew for that matter.

I gotta say these pickles better taste better than anything I've ever had. If nothing else my kids had better like them because they are the ones who are going to eat most of them.

Summer Grand Finale

We had our last and final vacation this summer. We saved the best for last, so to speak. We really enjoy all our vacations but Bear Lake is something we start looking forward to the next year as soon as we get home from this year.

Bear Lake has turned into a family reunion with my Dad. We try to do every thing we can to get all six of my brothers and sisters there. I don't think my Dad knew it was going to turn into such a coveted vacation for all of us when he started the tradition about seven years ago. It's not every year that all of us get to go, but this year we were all there and we all had a great time. We played so hard that by the time we broke camp for home we all looked like zombies.



Every night around the same time storms would blow in. However, the first night we were there none of us were expecting it. Camp was all set up and ready for us to just kick back and enjoy the rest of our stay. The huricane type winds came out of no where and blind sided us. Every one scrambled to break down the tents so the poles wouldn't snap, we've had that happen one year, and put away anything that would blow away. It was a good thing I brought an RV and Lowell brought a tent trailer because then the rain mixed with the high winds and every ones stuff in their tents got soaked.

Lowell slept nine people in his and I crambed eleven in mine. It was a rough nights sleep with everyone packed in like sardines but we survived. Even Itch survived and he opted for his tent, we thought he was crazy but I think he slept better than anyone there.

The rough night didn't keep us from having a great time the next day. The guys turned into posers as soon as the camera came out. I think they are more dramatic than girls.



Brook looks like a girl prancing through the water.



You don't get much more posed than this, look at those faces.



You can tell this is posed, Brook's looking at Lowell like he's a dink.



Itch is exstatic he caught the ball.



I just want you to know that this shot was Lowell's idea. He got a little nervous when Brook told, "Here I come." Lowell started yelling, "What is he doing? What is he doing?"



What are the odds of this really happening?



Brook was getting a little grab nasty with Big D. I had to make them repose for this shot because I didn't get it the first time before they dropped Big D.

I honestly can't tell you who the biggest poser is. I don't think we have to worry about anyone here being camera shy.



After a little water catch the boys got a little rough with each other on the beach.
Look in the background, they are even posers.



They are setting such a bad example for the little ones. It's going to come back to them if they aren't careful.



Itch thought he'd sneak into this one and get them both.

After we came back from the beach and had dinner we decided to play some football.






Dad even took his shoes off for the game, this is rare footage!

We ended the day with a little Lovens and a nice family picture.




What a goofy looking family!

Twin Falls Temple

What a treat to visit Temple Open Houses and take the brood. I love to listen to how the tour guide describes the different rooms and what takes place in those rooms. It is such a holy place for LDS people that I get intimidated to share with others what goes on there. I don't want to reveal something sacred that I shouldn't.

I think the most sacred thing that goes on there, that I can reveal, and that no one can put into words, is the feeling, or the spirit that I experience when I'm dressed all in white and I leave my worldly cares at the door. Nothing in this world can compare to that feeling of love and importance. I realize I am not a nobody to the Lord. He loves me and knows me as an individual and my cares and worries are not insignificant to him.

Of course I don't get all that from the open house, I get that from regular temple visits. The open house is an opportunity to take my family to see how beautiful the House of the Lord is and it gives them and idea of where Mommy and Daddy are going when we say we are going to the temple.

All the kids had their favorite parts of the tour. Bug marveled at all the magnificent chandeliers and the mirrors that represent eternity in the sealing room. Beaner was excited to be the first to see the next room. Bud enjoyed matching the rooms to their pictures on the brochure, it was like a treasure map to him. Bear loved the baptismal font, He thought it was an indoor swimming pool just his size, Beaner even had to grab his arm before he jumped in. All of them were excited to partake of the cookies at the end.

Big D was happy none of our kids took off running and screaming down the hall, which he knew deep down inside is what they really wanted to do, especially Bear. And I loved watching their faces as they saw each of the rooms in all their magnificence and glory.

All in all the entire family made wonderful memories that will last us an eternity.

Diving Contest

We like to take our boat in the middle of the reservoir and jump off. We decided to have a diving contest and see who could had the best form.



Brook was teaching Bug and Lynn how to dive off the boat. This is Lynn's best jump of the day. Unfortunately she was done after this jump because she smacked her foot on the boat.



This was Big D's dive. I don't know if he was trying to do a real dive or he was taking some creative licence.



Here's Bug with her twist dive. Out of everyone she was the one who came up with the most creative dives. All the others got stumped as what to do next.



This dive by Brook was a bit painful. His back was a little red when he came up for air.



Here is Beaner doing her best dive, or belly flop I can't really tell.



Lowell is the comedian in the family, as you can plainly see. I don't know who won the contest that day, I think they all got perfect tens.



I think Kinnzi is getting used to boating, as long as she gets to stay on the boat. I put her in the water a couple time to cool her off, she didn't approve. After about the third time I took her for a swim she started running to the opposite side of the boat every time I got on or called her name. One of these days when I call her name she is going to jump off the boat and come for a swim on her own. At least that is my goal.

Their Punishment or Mine

I am probably like most parents, I hate punishing my kids. I never know if I am being too strict or too lenient. And punishing a three year old is just not my cup of tea.

Bear and Bud got into Beaner's candy the other day and ate it all but one piece. When confronted with it they both denied any wrong doing. Neither one knew how the box of sour patch kids got down from the shelf and devoured. It was nice of them to leave one for Beaner.

After repeated questions of what happened and how we informed the boys that they had one more chance to confess or their punishment was going to be more severe for lying. Bud finally confessed but Bear stuck to his guns. What do you do with a three year old who in most respects doesn't understand what is going on?

The boys were grounded to the house the next day and Bear had to go to bed right after dinner that night, which was about seven in the evening. And they both had to buy Beaner a new box of sour patch kids (Not that I want her to have more sugar).

I think it was more of a punishment on me than it was him. With Lynn and Brook Jr. over, and all the kids playing video games right out side Bear's bedroom door, Bear would not stay in his room. He would come out and flash is cutest smile thinking that would melt my heart enough to forget about putting him back to bed for the tenth time.

He did a lot better with the being grounded to the house part until I turned on the irrigation and everyone was out playing in the water. It was hard for me to get my daily work done and have to remember, "Oh yeah you're not suppose to be doing that."

Bud had a class all day yesterday so he had to move his grounding to today. I don't think he's going to have a problem with it because he and Brook Jr. just play video games and cars all day. So I don't think it's even a punishment for him.

Ooh I know what I should do, I should fill up his swimming pool. All the kids will go out and play in it and Bud won't be able to. He will have to watch all the fun from the window. Maybe then it will be a punishment for him. Wow I can be a mean mom some times. I just want him to learn the importance of being honest. There are way too many dishonest people in this world and I don't want my little boys growing up to be one of them.

But why do I have to be punished as well for their misdeeds? I guess that's called parenting.