Come on down.....

On Monday I got the opportunity to go to the Price is Right with my awesome friends Kati and Jenni.  Kati's family got together 24 people and we all had shirts to wear.

 None of the three of us made it up, I guess we are just not exciting enough for them.  However, someone from our group was one of the first ones called, she got on stage right away and then won a car!  I think we will be on TV a lot just cause they kept looking back at her group for help.  It airs Nov. 2nd if anyone wants to see us screaming a lot.  We were the enormous group in the yellow shirts on the far right of the stage.

This is the second time I have gone to see the show taped and I have to say Drew Carey is tons better than Bob Barker.  We had a great time, I had so much fun with these two wonderful friends.  Thanks for inviting me Kati!

Lake Mead 2010

This year has been so crazy that I have not gone to the lake all summer.  I was starting to have major withdrawals, but I can always rely on our big family end of the summer trip to get us all out to Mead.  Lately I have felt that life is a little more fun with a sound track and so this year I put the Mead pictures to music.  It must just be some kind of movie making phase I am going through.
Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Don!

Happy Birthday to my other half!  I love you babe!

Conversation with Heavenly Father

Long before we came to this Earth, God asked us what we wanted. (This is my interpretation of how it happened). 
We looked at His perfect happiness and said that we wanted to be like Him.
"To be like me will require you experiencing and learning a lot.  The only way to understand it all is to go through it.", He replied.
"Yes", we reaffirmed, "please, we will do anything." 
"What if you have to lose your spouse or watch your children suffer?  What if you lose your house in a flood or lose a limb in an accident, would you still do it?"
"Yes, we would do all that and more to be like you and live with your happiness forever."

So many times we hear people say "How can God allow this to happen or why doesn't God help me?" I am sure I have said things similar to that.  But, we asked God for this.  It is probably hard for Him to watch, but He lets it happen because He knows that is the only way that we can have our ultimate wish, to become like Him.
We can not be like Him if we do not learn to be the things that make Him who He is.

It is kind of like school.  Many ask why do I have to go to school?  Why is it so hard?  It is hard because that is how you learn something new.  If it was easy, you would never have to push yourself and learn about what you have inside and how much you can handle.  We have not been asked to do it alone.  We can prepare by studying, talking and listening to our teachers and practicing.

We have also not been left alone in our lives here on Earth.  We can study, pray to our Father in Heaven and listen to the Spirit.  And we also have to practice.  That is the hard part, but at the end we will return to Him and look back on what we did and look forward to where we will be and know that we would have done it all 10 times again to be there.

The key is while we are in the middle of these trials to be able to look at them as things that are making us closer to Him.  The pain is still there, but it is not for nothing.

Swim-A-Thon 2010

Last Saturday was the boys swim team's big yearly fund raiser Swim-A-Thon.  For two hours straight the kids swim as many laps as they can and then those who sponsored them donate money for each lap they get.  The laps time was only part of it though, really it lasted half the day.

Aren't they cute in their little jammers?!

I had to tuck Eli's shirt in the back because the smallest shirt they had was still so long that it would cover his jammers up completely.

The team got pictures taken.  The kids got individual ones done too, but we will have to wait for those to come back, this one I sort of just popped up behind the photographer.

Donald getting ready for the swim (insert Chariots of Fire music)

On your marks....Get set....

Go!

 Donald swam and swam and swam and swam.  I helped out with snacks and drinks and since Eli wasn't doing laps (maybe next year) he was helping count Donald's.

What a sweet, cute brother to help count and cheer for Donald!

I think Donald was a little worried about swimming for so long.  His usual practices go about and hour and a half.  Two hours isn't much more, but at the beginning he was still a little nervous and took it easy so that he wouldn't get worn out too soon.  About half way through he got motivation from somewhere deep inside because as others in his group were giving up and getting out of the pool he pushed even harder.  Eli and I were cheering "Keep going, don't give up!"  Really I don't think he ever intended to not be in there the whole time.  It didn't even seem like he was tired.  He pushed himself till the very end and touched the wall on his 172nd lap just as the timer rang.  I was so proud of him.   If only I could find the on switch to that extra motivation (boy could we use that for homework and cleaning his room).  As he got out of the pool he looked exhausted but at the same time I could tell that he felt good about pushing himself so hard.

After the swim it was time for lunch and then some team fun.  Like the waterslide....

Eli got some good air on this one!

Then they broke up into smaller teams and did some relay races.  The coaches put one little kid on each team.  This was Eli's pep talk by some of his team.

So they put the little ones on the crocodiles

And had to shuttle them back and forth using each other member of the team as a pusher.

Their team won, but it was a little unfair, after all they were in the shallow end of the pool, so they did a rematch and Coach Jon told them they couldn't walk, but had to swim behind the crocodile.  At one point a kid on Eli's team lost his grip and Eli flipped upside down, but he held on tight and just kept kicking until he got to the other end.  All the coaches were rolling.  It was fun to watch, but I think it cost them the rematch.  Oh well, at least they all had fun. 

Overall Swim-A-Thon was amazing and hopefully Donald felt a push in himself that he will want to feel over and over again in his swim career.  I can't wait until next year to see him beat his record and watch Eli make one of his own. 

Welcome to the Virtual Tour

Well about a month ago we moved into our new house and there are many special people in my life who don't live close enough to have seen it yet, so I thought I would take them through on a virtual tour. (Jana, you will have to help mom find this on her computer :)

First we walk in through the front door, here is the entry hall.

Off the the right is the dinning room

At the end of the hall to the right is the kitchen

And to the left is the family room

If you go through the family room there is another hall and it takes you to our room

Then the hall goes down

To Donald's room on the Left

The office is just past that on the left

The hall bends around a little and then there is a bathroom on the right

The laundry room on the left

And Eli's room straight ahead

And then here is the backyard

I hope you enjoyed the tour today, I can't wait until you can come visit it in person.

Love,

Eli's first week of swim practice

I just couldn't resist putting up these pictures of Eli in his cute little jammers.  He was so excited to start swim practice and can't wait for his first swim meet. 

He looks so skinny, but both our boys were built to swim.  I just love my monkey fish!

How life has changed

It is amazing how life can change in just a few months, but it happens.  This summer was a little crazy and I have to admit that I am still recovering from it, but a few things in our life have stabilized enough that I can finally embrace them, or try to anyways.

We bought a new house.  It is one story, which rocks, and it has a pool.  Plus it is on a really spread out, quiet street with a cul-de-sac so the kids can ride their bikes all over without me worrying about cars or crazy people.
With a new house comes new schools and a new ward.  So far my kids love their schools.  Eli has found a good friend and every day at recess they play in their "secret hideout" (I think it is a tunnel on the playground).  The other day he came home and asked me if he still had an uncle in the army (Uncle Brian), because there were some girls trying to take their hideout and he wanted to bomb them.  I didn't know whether to laugh or be slightly worried about this.
Donald just started 7th grade and I was really worried about that new endeavor, but so far it has been a good experience.  Originally we had him in all core honors except for math because we didn't want to overwhelm him.  But then last week he came home and said that he was the only one in his math class that turned in his homework and the teacher was getting mad at the behavior in that class, so we changed him to honors in that as well.  The only thing is that regular math for 7th grade is pre-algebra and honors is algebra.  There are adults that I know still trying to figure out algebra and my 11 year old is taking it!  He is doing great so far though and seems to like it, plus he loves that there are only 25 honors kids in the class instead of the 37 crazy kids in the other class, so this could work out well.
Something else fun that he gets to experience is the Catalina Island Marine Institute.

It is a 3 day trip to Catalina to do fun science stuff and snorkel and canoe.  All the kids in school were invited to apply, but they had to write a short essay on why they should be able to go and then their past grades and behavior were taken into account and 60 kids were chosen (30 boys and 30 girls), and Donald was accepted.  He is so excited to go in October.

Another new thing for him is swim team.  He has been in it since July, but recently he got bumped up to a higher group.  He now has practice 5 days a week for an hour and a half.  So this is where I am most afternoons....

He is actually getting really good at the breast stroke and his coaches are always telling us that he has a good body for it and he can get really good if he sticks with it.  This is one of the first sports that he has found that he can do this much and still want to do it more with no complaining.  Eli is excited because he gets to start on Tuesday.
Our new ward is great, even though I haven't really found any friends yet.  I guess it will take a couple activities to get to know people.  Don has already found some wakeboarding buds though (They must socialize more in priesthood than we do in relief society).
I guess change can be a good thing, even if it takes you a while to recover, we will get there...eventually!