Sixth Grade Promotion

Emery's school had a little sixth grade promotion at the end of the school year.  We are so proud of this girl, she is an excellent student.  During her six weeks at this new school she had two big projects to complete and never did she even ask for help.  Infact, she finished both of them early.  I wish I could work like her!  Thankfully she has made some new friends and seems to really enjoy being here in Utah.  I love this kid!  Watch out Pleasant Grove Middle School....here we come.

Memorial Weekend

Ang and her family made a spontaneous trip to visit us over Memorial Weekend.  We didn't have a lot of time, so we tried to get some fun stuff in.  We took the kids to Planet Play one day and played a lot of laser tag, which is new to my kids.  All of them loved it.  Landry and Brody were pretty funny, they were easy targets for others of course, but they thought they were so cool.  It was a lot of fun.

We rode the mini track cars as-well.  Kya started off pretty well, but these cars were tough to steer and he ended up having to park his car and wait for the race to end, poor guy.  He gave it a good try. We took everyone over to the City Creek mall in Salt Lake to check that place out. It is an indoor/outdoor mall with a cute little creek running through the middle of it.  Of course some of the stores are a little pricy, but they have fun water fountains.

Lastly we stopped over at the Salt Lake Temple.  We took a tour of the conference center, actually we just went to the roof and almost blew away because it was so windy up there.  They have beautiful gardens up there, trees, water, etc....it's amazing.

Ang and Jeremy bought a fun game while at the mall, it was called Headbands.  The kids loved it and played it for hours.  The adults got into as-well.  It's definitely a new family favorite.  My favorite was when Cambree had french fries on her headband and we told her the clue, you go well with hamburgers and she said mustard.  I thought it was funny because she never uses mustard on a hamburger or anything haha.

I know it was a super fast trip and it was very long drive for Ang and Jeremy, but we loved having them here.  Poor Lucy took home strep throat....I felt so bad for her.  Little did we know that we would have more fun with strep in the near future.

Mothers Day

So Mother's Day was kind of the first holiday away from family.  It was quiet and enjoyable though.  Bryan and the kids took great care of me.  They made me breakfast in bed, and even took care of all the clean-up....which is awesome.  I didn't take very many pictures, only these two of Cambree and Landry making one of my favorite desserts, banana pudding.  (I used the recipe from sweetie pies, the TV show of course). Bryan invited my friend Jenelle over to hang out with us and have dinner.  It was nice to spend the evening with her and her kiddos.  I'm so thankful for my mommy and my mother-in-law.  I miss them both immensely and hope they both know how wonderful they are.

Hope of America

Kelci is going to be my quest blogger for this post.  

When I started at my new school, I learned that my fifth grade class would be participating in the Hope of America concert.  It was at the BYU Marriott center.  It was a lot of fun, and some other kids made a giant american flag.  There was a lot of people watching us. Some old ladies were doing a dance/karate routine, and one of the old ladies did the splits.  It was a popular part of the show with the crowd.

   

Our school was chosen to be on the floor during the show.  This made it easy for mommy and daddy to watch me during the show.  We had to learn a lot of hand gestures and some dance moves to go along with our songs.  It was a lot of fun.

At the end of the show they turned the lights out in the Marriott Center and we lit our flashlights and sang a song called Let your Light Shine.  It was so beautiful and something I will never forget.  I'm glad that I was a part of something so great.  

Sunday Best

These kids just looked so cute one Sunday all dressed and ready for church.  They are such good examples to me.  They have embraced their new surroundings much better than I have.  They have even become closer through this whole process.  Infact, right after we moved in our family was invited to speak in church.  Emery and Cambree both agreed to speak along with me and Bryan.  As we were sitting on the stand waiting for sacrament to start, Cambree started to get nervous and very anxious.  So Emery willingly offered to read Cambree's talk for her to help out.  That was such a relief to Cambree and I know Emery felt good inside for doing it.

During my talk I had to share a story that recently happened right after we moved in.  During the first couple of weeks we would have different people from church stop by and introduce themselves.  One day I was on the phone with Bryan and was upset about something....just emotional stuff.  I heard Cambree say someone was coming to the door.  A few minutes later there was a knock at the door and Cambree said, "Mommy, they are selling cookies."  I hollered back to her to let them no that sorry we didn't have any money right now.  So Cambree passed along the message, but it was actually someone from the ward introducing themselves and bringing cookies over to be nice.  I was so embarrassed.  I'm sure they were thinking typical Californians....haha.  No I'm sure they weren't, but we all had a good laugh.

During this time we have enjoyed the quiet life, no activities pulling us in different directions, no friends calling all the time to play, it has been a nice time for us to be together and rely on eachother a little more.  For that I am thankful.

Spring Break back to Cali

So as I mentioned in my last post, we planned a very sudden trip back to California.  The kids were excited which surprised me because we had just made the long drive about two weeks before.  It was fun to spend Easter with family, although we did feel bad for leaving Bry in Utah alone.  We slept at Chrystina and Craig's house one night, than at Jeannette's house one night and than headed to Monterey to stay with Ang and Jeremy.  While we were in Monterey we did run into our go friends, the Minards.  The kids were so excited to hang out with them for a day at the aquarium.  The weather was a little crazy, it started snowing in the Sierras, so I was forced to go home a different way.  The drive was long, but not terrible.  I couldn't believe how well the kids did, we drove for about 10 hours the first day and than spent the night in St. George.  We still had four hours to go before we were home.  It was a quick trip, but we had a fun time.

 It was sort of surreal driving through California again.  I miss it a lot more than I thought I would even though it was only a couple of weeks.  Just the scenery alone is very different than Utah.  Don't get me wrong the mountains in Utah are gorgeous, but I think I miss the changing scenery.  On the way home I had a lot of time to think and I had to promise myself that I would see the good in this move and be more positive.  I know it will take baby steps and over time it will get easier.

Introduction to Utah

Probably a week after we moved into the rental home in Utah, Bryan's parents came out to check everything out.  I felt a little bad for not being able to be a better host.  I was still getting lost most of the time ;).  We did make time while they were here to go the cool Dinosaur museum in Lehi.  It was a very nice place and the kids enjoyed it.  

The dinosaur structures were so big, we were all impressed with them.  I'm glad dinosaurs are gone after visiting this place.

They had a little area where the kids could design their own dinosaur.  They also had an area where kids could dig for bones and even a little water area where you could cause erosion.  

Mark and Paula Forbes have lived in Utah for awhile, they use to live in Fairfield when Bryan and I were teenagers.  They were so helpful to our family during this whole move.  When we learned our moving truck was going to take an extra two days to arrive, Mark stocked our home with sleeping bags, chairs, even a table.  That was more than we could ask for and we appreciated it so much.  So while Bryan's parents were here we thought it would be fun to treat them to dinner at a Brazilian restaurant.  We had a lot of fun and the food was delicious, can't wait to go back.

So part way through Ron and Karen's trip, Ron had to return to California for an important meeting.  So I offered to drive Karen home so we could enjoy a little more time with her here.  The girls started school right after we moved in, they were anxious to make new friends.  So while they were at school the rest of us would go out exploring.  Paula took Karen and I up to the canyon that is close to the house.  There was a little bit of snow on the ground and you can see Landry found some ice to play with.  Brody was in heaven and running to every pile of ice he could find.  I'm kind of sad we missed all the snow storms.  People from around here said it was a very mild winter.  Glad I stocked up on snow gear for nothing haha.

  

This picture below is quite blurry because it was taken with a cell phone.  We were able to go to General Conference with Bryan's parents.  Mark and Paula graciously offered to keep the younger three kids so we could attend.  It was such a cool experience.  We were able to see the spoken word right before conference started as-well.  We were so thankful for them taking the time to come and see us and help us get settled into our new home.