Utah Trip

I have been working on this post for at least a week now, but there have been constant interruptions. I don't know why I expect to just have all this time to blog...I guess I just have high hopes.

The last weekend in April David, Nephi and I went to Utah for David's youngest brother, Kenny's wedding. (Um...not sure if I got the comma in the right place there!) We shipped the other 5 kids out to my parents' house for one night and then the girls went to the Browns' house and the boys went to the Ducker's house for one night and they all ended up at our house with my parents and then Susie, the babysitter, until David and I got home around 1am on Monday. So a HUGE shout of THANKS goes out to all the people that helped watch our wonderful kids. I was so terrified to leave them, not that I would miss them, but that they would be way to crazy at everyones' houses and then I might lose my friends ;)! Just kidding....but really I was a little concerned that the kids would be a handful and to my pleasant surprise, they were really good.

We left on Friday around 4 and drove to Oakland Airport. Our plane was about 30 minutes late, so Nephi had a great time exploring the airport. He loved looking out the window and seeing the planes and all the people...he kept trying to sit on the window ledge...it was so funny. When he would stand up he couldn't see because there was a bar right at his eye level; he got a little frustrated.

We finally got to David's parents' house in Alpine, Utah around midnight. The next morning was Kenny's wedding. Kenny and Jane were married for time and all eternity in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. The sealer had a wonderful sense of humor and was a joy. It was beautiful. The best part for me was that I got to sit next to my husband! We walked into the sealing room and sitting there were Bob and Wendy Bagozzi. He was the Bishop when we moved into the Eastern Avenue Ward 10 years ago. The moved to Canada some years ago. Apparently Jane is Wendy's niece and they had made the trip down to attend the sealing. What a delight to walk in and see friends. So, now we are related to the Bagozzis!!!! That must be what it will be like walking into the Celestial Kingdom...friends everywhere! I can't wait!

After the sealing we took Nephi back from the sitters waiting outside the temple and went back to Mom and Dad's house. He played for a while under the table. The table was behind the couch in the family room. He thought that it was the greatest jungle-gym. It was a beautiful table and we were thrilled that he chose that as a great toy and not the stairs!!

Once we got him down for a nap, David and I left Nephi again with Melanie (our brother-in-law, Brent's sister) and her friend, and we were off to the luncheon. It was held at Magelby's in Provo. It was so nice, the food was fantastic - the world's most awesome rolls are there - and we got to sit with David's brother, Bill and his wife, Kristy. It was so fun to visit, especially without any of my children interrupting our conversation. David's sister Tami and her husband, Brent, put together a wonderful DVD of pictures for Ken and Jane of their journey through life so far and how they got together. It was really nice to see the two of them grow up before our eyes. Side note here....Nephi sure looks a lot like Uncle Kenny!!!

We rushed home from the Luncheon - did I mention the awesome rolls - and quickly changed into picture clothes, grabbed Nephi and drove down the street to attempt to take family pictures.

I say attempt because it was so windy that I don't think the photographer was able to take any pictures without someone's hair flying up. It definitely made the photo shoot memorable. David loved it!!! After the photo shoot, we got to rest for a little bit and then we headed over to the reception. Nephi loved the chocolate fountain...see the evidence to the left! - At least as I am typing it in, the picture is on the left. Once I publish the posts, they occasionally seem to have the pictures in different places!

When the reception was over, we went back to the house, put Nephi to

bed for the night and then went downstairs to the malt shoppe/theater. We took a bunck of pictures of my in-laws downstairs to show our kids!! Mom and Dad have a 12 foot screen that we got to watch movies on. It was fantastic! There is also a beautiful old fashioned malt shoppe. It is really cool. But, I must admit, the thing that I went looking for was the Elvis scarves. I had been telling my kids that Grandma Cox had some of Elvis' scarves that she had gotten when she had gone to see him in concert. The first thing they asked when I said I had some pictures of some of the Elvis things that Grandmad had was..."Where are the scarves?" I don't think that they believed me. But when I was able to show them the evidence, they were in awe. Grandma - I think that you are their hero!!

Sunday we spent the morning cleaning house for some more houseguests, a non-member business partner of David's dad and his family. Then we all went to church and that was the end of the schedule. We spent the remainder of our time in Utah eating Yumburgers in the cool malt shoppe, visiting and enjoying playing outside in the beautiful yard with our littlest boy.

We had a great time. I really enjoyed spending time with David's family; they are awesome!! It was a nice break from the everyday and the scenery was beautiful. Thanks to all who helped us pull this off!!

Poor Hyrum

Okay, so almost daily something has happened that I thought, "I should put that up on the blog." Then last Friday, something so horrific, so terrible, so tramatic (for me) that everything else is going to be left out!!

Last week was the all school play at the kids elementary school. "Rockmania" was a play that was written for school kids that included 9 rock-n-roll songs that the kids and teachers sung and danced to. Vilate was a singer all three nights in the "Lollipop" song that Kindergarten did. Faith had two songs. She sang one night in "Locamotion" and danced the other two nights and she sang a two line solo in "Dance to the Music." It was an awesome school play. There were over 200 kids in it. The play lasted a total of an hour and 15 minutes. All kids were able to be seen and participate and there were different singers every night. If the kids weren't singing in the mics they were dancing on stage and singing. They also had the kids in charge of the sets, with parent supervision. Hyrum helped with "Surfing in the USA" - the second graders song. It was amazing.

So, we got tickets for Wednesday night and went to see the show. Thursday night I dropped the girls off and at about 7:15 pm, I had all the other kids in bed, except for Nephi. I had just sat down to nurse the baby and veg with the TV on, when the phone rang. It was Marty Monroe, another mom at Mission. She told me that Vilate had fallen off the stage and had hurt her knee. She offered to have Carmen Kirkpatrick, yet another Mission mom, bring her home, or I could go and pick her up. I figured that if she was offering the ride, it couldn't be that bad. Vilate got home and it turns out that a boy stepped on the ties of her ballet slippers as they were walking out onto the stage and she tripped. She ended up bumping her knee, the one that she scraped when she fell off her bike the previous Friday. She reopened the scrape and the blood was the reason for the freak out on her part.

Okay, so then Friday came. It was the last night of the show and as such after the show was scheduled the cast party. Because Hyrum had worked on the sets, he was invited to attend. Since Vilate had fallen off the stage the night before, I decided that I should probably be there in case of any other accidents. I left Helaman and Gloria home with Susie, the most awesome babysitter!! We got to the show and because I didn't purchase tickets, I just stood in the back for the two opening numbers, Vilate and Faith's songs. After that I went out to the back playground with Nephi and Hyrum and most of the third graders. Hyrum's friend Gavin, from second grade joined us. Nephi was playing on the ground just crawling around and all of a sudden, after being outside for less than 10 minutes, I heard Hyrum screaming my name and looked over. He came running at me with a terrified look on his face. I looked down and his right arm was disfigured. I looked as though he had a second wrist about an inch or two above his wrist. I turned to the mom with me and said, in what I think was a calm voice, that I was going to need some help.

It seemed that I stood there on the blacktop with Hyrum for an hour, but I am sure that it was only 2 minutes, maybe even less. I picked him up and screamed for Faith to get the baby, I was now in panic mode. I ran to the third grade classroom while screaming that I needed someone to help us. I put Hyrum in the nearest chair and was told by the parents that someone had gone to get Dr. Laurie Givant, another Mission mom who just happened to be there that night. Laurie came and while she was assessing Hyrum I called David at work to tell him what the plan was. He was to go home and stay with the little kids, I was taking Hyrum and Nephi to the ER and the girls would get a ride home from a friend.

After the doctor splinted Hyrum's arm we went to the ER. After x-rays and a few hours of waiting in pain, the doctor finally came in and said that they would have to "reduce" or set his arm. They offered to "knock him out" to which Hyrum responded, "What? You're gonna hit me?!?!?" or to give him a shot in his arm to numb it. Hyrum went for the shot and after they administered it and gave him some Tylenol w/Codine, they started the settting process. It turned out that they had to set it two separate times that night. We finally got home around 12:30am and had an appointment to return on Monday to Orthopedics to get the cast.

I felt so bad for Hyrum and we got donuts for breakfast Saturday morning, then he got a balloon, and I bought him pizza for dinner. On Sunday he stayed home from church. David went for Sacrament meeting and then I went to teach Relief Society. So, Monday morning we were back at the doctors. The story just gets better here!

The Orthopedic doctor looked at Hyrum's ER x-rays and said that his arm was not set right and that he would have to re-set it. Oh, NO!!!! So after the first 3 tries with x-rays in between, he determined that traction would help. So, we sat in traction for 30 mintues and then he was given a shot of Lidocane. (I'm sure that is misspelled, but it is like the stuff that they use in your mouth when you get a filling.) Then we tried 3 more time before it was finally "good enough." It was pure torture for Hyrum and it was not a picnic for me either. Now we have a green cast and a much more comfortable sling. He went to school yesterday and was very disappointed that he couldn't participate in PE at all. He claimed that he could do it all with just one hand! Poor kid!!!

We get to back to the doctor on Monday for more x-rays and hopefully no more settings!!

Well that's the highlight of the last couple of weeks. I so am hoping that we can have a few boring weeks!! I'm sure it will NEVER happen, but I can hope, right?

I am an adult now

Do you remember how long Conference used to take? I remember the dreaded words, "Kids, Conference is next Sunday." I used to hate it! But, at some point I became an adult and now I treasure those two weekends every year! I get up and shower before it starts so that I can sit and enjoy hearing those wonderful brethern and sisters teach me how to be better. So, today when Vilate came out and said, "Conference is boring" and "Conference is taking a hundred years," I realized that I have changed. I am a real adult!! My kids think of me as an old lady!! I really can empathize with Vilate, I remember those days. But now, I really love conference. I think those old guys are so super cute and they have great things to say!! I can't wait until the day that Vilate is old like me and loves conference!!

Fun and Games

I thought that it would be fun to have all the moms and their kids over to our house while our faithful hubbies attended the Priesthood Session of General Conference. My sister-in-law, Jennifer, does it at her house every time with her friends and always invites me, so instead of going to her house, I decided to copy her!! It was so much fun!! We had a total of 7 moms and 25 kids. We ate corndogs, sushi (well, I didn't), chips, watermelon, strawberries, juice, cookies, candy and even more!! The kids rode bikes, played baseball, ran around, and played on the playground!! A great time was had by all!! We are already planning on doing it again next time, so ladies, be ready October 4th - send your husbands off to Priesthood and come to my house for a lot of fun!!

Home Depot

On Friday Helaman's preschool class had a fieldtrip to Home Depot. That is one of my favorite fieldtrips. We got to the store around 9:45am and then took a quick tour. The kids thought that the forklifts were really cool. After the tour, we got to go to the back of the store and the kids got to build a napkin holder. The only bummer about it was that there were no hammers needed for this project!! I thought that there was no way that Helaman and Gloria could do this on their own and was a little disappointed, but then Helaman surprised me!! He grabbed the screwdriver and after I lined all the screws up, he told me he could do it all by himself. I thought that I would humor him and let him try. I held the napkin holder and he proceeded to screw in all four screws! He did a great job. Then it was onto Gloria's napkin holder. She wanted to do it all by herself also, but she did not quite get it, so Helaman helped her out. Together they did a fantastic job!!