Family fun

Last Friday, Gevin and I happened to stumble upon Parents and Pastries - a school event that happens once a month for school kids and their parents. We can gather in the cafeteria as soon as 7:30 am to read books with our children and have a piece of yummy pastry, (like a doughnut, muffin, cream cheese or jam filled pastries that are very hard to pass up) for breakfast. We were looking for Gevin's forgotten lunchboxes. He was missing a couple so I decided to go to school with him to see if we could find them together since he was not successful in doing that himself. We did find the lunch boxes and then had a little bit of bonus time together sitting down and talking while Gevin was enjoying a great tasting muffin.  Katlynn was already with her friend Rayne somewhere...  Gevin and I also found a table in the hallway with free Ogden Raptors tickets. We so loved going to the baseball game last time all of us went and we would love to go again... so we took 6 tickets. Just enough for everyone.

Scouts in Jail

Tuesday was the most fun Scout meeting I have experienced so far. We got to go to the Box Elder County Jail!!! One of the detectives gave us a private tour. The boys were able to do and see a lot of cool stuff they would not normally be able to. They got to wear a bulletproof vest and a helmet. Probably the funniest thing of all was they got handcuffed and put into a cage of a Police truck. So they pretty much got arrested.

Quick jot down... to catch up:)

I need to jot down events that transpired in the last couple of months. I sure don't want to forget any of them. This year ... 2015.... has been a very interesting one as pretty much all of us experienced huge milestones in our family. It is only the beginning of April and I feel like so many things have happened.

First of all, Greg has been working for home office since June of 2014. He was one of the best candidates recommended to be part of this special project dealing with produce imports and upstreaming. whatever that means. He has been very successful doing his responsibilities, traveling all over the states... Texas mainly, California, Arkansas and even a two week trip to Chile. Well, this project took off and he was offered a position of a senior divisional operations manager. He was very interested as this was his main goal in his courier. He had to wait for the position to officially become available. It took a couple of months before everything was finalized. But as the best candidate of 3 interested applicants he was granted the position beginning of March??? I have to double check on that. But him accepting the position also means a big shift in our lives.... Move to Bentonville, ARKANSAS! It didn't take very long after his promotion for the relocation agent to start working on our relocation process. We have been contacted by a couple of real estate agents from here and also in AR. We have a banker already working on a load preapproval for our new home. Our house went on the market last Thursday, April 2nd.  We are working with Bill Frandsen from Berkshire Hathaway. Our house' listing price is $154,500 as recommended by the relocation agent. Bill wanted to list it at 160K. We sure hope it will sell at the listing price. That would give us plenty of equity money for a downpayment.

We have been working hard on finishing our house projects. Yesterday 4/4 we tiled around the downstairs tub. That was a painful process, but we are done... except for 3 accent tile pieces.
Some other projects that I was able to get done when Greg was away... painted doors in the hallway, trimmed out bathroom upstairs and stained and attached the wooden floor strip at the end of the hardwood floor. All these made a big difference. More work to come this week.

Gevin was ordained a decan by Greg. Passed the sacrament twice so far. We skipped a few Sundays at our church because of our unplanned trip to St. George to be with Rick Moody who was diagnosed with lymphoma.

We were away last Sunday, as we spent it in Lehi, celebrating Greg's 42nd birthday. Greg was gone for 3 weeks straight and the best thing we did was spend a night at a hotel without the kiddos who were with Alyse and Erik. It was awesome!!!!

Greg did surprise me with a dozen of red roses delivered to the door a week ago:)

AAAAAND we paid off all of our credit card debt!!!!! That is a HUGE accomplishment! We have had credit card debt for 19 years of our marriage. Big thank you goes to Greg! He does so well taking care of his little family:)

We also purchased plane tickets to Czech!!! We are leaving May 30th, will travel to Calgary Canada where we are flying from. We have saved huge money by booking tickets from Canada instead of Utah. $4K are some serious savings! We will spend 19 days there! Tanya and Alysha are also flying to Prague on June 8th. They are doing a month-long Euro trip together.... as a senior trip for Alisha

Making a come back

I definitely need to start writing in my blog again. First I would love to express my sincere thanks to all of my Relief Society sisters that have expressed love and concern for my well being as I came to the meeting late with red eyes from crying today. I felt a great sense of belonging and the outpouring of love was overwhelming .. in a good way:) I was overcome with emotions during my conversation with my dad... he celebrated his 72nd birthday today. I had to go out of Sacrament meeting to give him a call.... yes, Skype is awesome. I sat in my warm and toasty car (Mazda 3) in a sunny 69 degree weather, connected to a charger so my phone would not die. ... and for some privacy as well. I have not talked to my dad for a loooong time. A year? It was a great talk. By the time we hung up I have not realized that we have been talking for over 2 hours, and thus I was late for Relief Society meeting which as a secretary I am in charge of giving out copies of the newsletter and making sure everyone marks their attendance. Somehow, I felt calm that I did the right thing by not cutting the call short, that everything was gonna be alright. And it was.
My daddy has bladder cancer. He will be going in for a surgery on the 16th of February. I am not sure what they will do, but there is a possibility that they might take the bladder out which he is completely against. I hope he changes his mind.

Short and Sweet

I'm just so exited about some news I received today. My mom has bought a plane ticket and will be arriving in San Francisco on the 1st of March.... she leaves Prague on the 29th of February, but I'm not quite sure if she will get to San Fran the very same day or the next day.

And my sister Nadia got a part time job with benefits....it means more hours for her as well. Yay! She has been waiting for this quite some time. I'm happy for her.

My sweet little daughter worked so hard on her first book report. It was on The First Settlements. She did great in my opinion. We'll see what Mr. Jeppsen will think of it.

Gevin had tumbling today. He can do a perfect back bend now. I'm so proud of him:)
Greg is trying for a promotion really hard. I sure hope it will be a great experience if nothing else. I appreciate all of his hard work.

Well and me... I am pretty pleased with all the work I did on the yard today and getting it ready for a storm with strong winds. We'll see how everything will hold up.

Cathy called today to let us know how everyone's doing up in Seattle. Dad is in the hospital but should be released soon. He will get to go to his Seattle home instead of a rehab. He will have to go to the hospital to receive his IV antibiotics on daily basis for a while.
Grandpa Jeffs' condition has worsened a little. He can only go one week between blood transfusions:(
Mom (Cathy) is holding up fine. She is a great care giver and enjoys helping out:)

Better be going. I've got turbo kick class early in the morning.

Moments I don't want to forget

Just the other day, Katlynn got ready for school early enough she wanted to walk. Gevin had to get a ride. When I dropped him off and started heading home, I saw Katlynn crossing the street. She noticed me too and we blew kisses to each other. Somehow that little moment caused me to be teary eyed. I saw this beautiful tall blond girl and was so happy that she's mine:)

I absolutely love to cuddle with Gevin. He is still small enough I can lift him up and carry him in my arms or hold him on my lap.  I know I don't have much of that left since he is growing so fast. It was just last Friday, exactly a week ago, when I was physically totally drained, tired and felt like I was getting sick. I spent most of the afternoon resting in bed. I later apologized to Gevin for not being a good mommy that day. He said that it was okay that he has to get used to it anyway for when he's going to move out in 10 years :)

Every time I drive home from work I take the Main street through Brigham City and go by the temple. The tall chain-link fence and green fuzzy strips weaved through it prevent the curious people passing by to see the busy construction going on around the temple. I saw two older ladies peeking through the little openings in the fence trying to see as much as possible of what was going on on the other side. I had to chuckle a little when I saw the desire of one of the ladies to see the sight as she was on her tip toes with her face leaning into the fence. It's great to see people's excitement and anticipation of the temple being built, and its completion getting closer to the end day by day ... right here in this little town. We love seeing the beautiful temple and are so thankful for it.

Gotta love a day like this one (8/15)

Just wanted to capture the events of today as quickly as I can so I can go to bed in decent time and still feel good about getting this done.

• My mother-in-law Cathy celebrated her Sixtieth..... yes, I wrote SIXTIETH birthday. I know it's hard to believe. She looks so young for her age. We know she's away from home and missing being with her  girls, Debbie, Tanya and Cassandra and all of her grandchildren in Oregon. We tried to help her feel special today and I sure hope we succeeded. Katlynn and I got up early to decorate the main living area with streamers and balloons. Greg and I fixed her favorite meals and of course the kind of cake she prefers (spice cake and a peach up-side-down cake) 
• Greg and I have signed up for yearly gym membership. Great shout out goes to Greg for making that step. He would like to join a group of guys that go every day after work. And for just $10 more a month I can have lots of fun going and working out over there as well. So, starting tomorrow we will take a first baby step toward leading better, healthier lives. 
• Katlynn had a last softball game of the season. She sure enjoyed it this year a lot more vs. last year. Her coach was very good in spending one on one time with her. I hope she'll want to continue to play. 
• Today was the DAY we found out who Katlynn's and Gevin's teachers are going to be this school year... and also who is going to be in the same class with them. Katlynn's very happy with both the teacher and class mates. She will be back with her very best friend Rayne. Gevin's very happy about his best friend being in his class also:) What we found very interesting is that Lake View Elementary has only two .... as the kids call them... "boy" teachers. Katlynn has Mr. J., and Gevin has Mr. Little:) We are looking forward to working with them. 

So that is it for now. I will try to post some pictures next time I get a chance:)

Katlynn's talent

When I came home from work today, it was explained to me at the dinner table by Mom and Dad that they discovered Katlynn's talent of singing. I'm not sure how it came about, but Katlynn sang lots of primary songs to Grandma playing piano and Grandpa enjoying it all. I had a chance to hear for myself when Mom set down behind the piano and played a few of Katlynn's favorites. It was truly wonderful to listen to Katlynn sing:) I knew that she could hold a note and was able to sing with the correct pitch as well. But somehow her sweet voice sounded even sweeter. Gevin joined her for a bit too. I loved the happy feeling that moment brought. I could sit and listen for hours.....

Thoughts of today

• Katlynn seems taller then me when she wares her roller skates.
• Gevin is so good in batting! He contributed to his teem with a single, triple and a home run. Go Milwaukee Brewers!!!
• Just can't do it all in one day. Take your pick of what's most important.
• Need to get more sleep. REALLY!
• Life is so much better when Greg and I love and forgive:)
• Glad I ate healthy all day:)
• So need to do better as a Scout den leader. The boys deserve it! 
• Art lessons with Katlynn, gotta think of what to teach her tomorrow. She is hungry for learning. Katlynn told me she is actually ready to go back to school!!!
• I love my kids!!!
• And I actually adore our cat .... even when she's so mischievous at times. (Gus, you too:))
• The juice from celery, pears, snap peas, carrot, mango and kiwi was very tasty after all and a very welcomed snack at work.
• Clean sheets! Going to bed is so much nicer when it's freshly made.

Summer update

This summer is going great for our little family. At the very end of June, beginning of July, we were able to travel to southern Utah, and spend some good quality time with Tanya, Paul and their children.  We try to do this every summer. Since our move to Brigham City 5 years ago we have only missed one year, 2010 due to our trip to Honduras. Paul's family has a big ranch near Mount Carmel Junction and Zion National Park with a cabin that was built by his dad and his grandpa. It's a nice place to hang out. It is very quiet and remote and when at the cabin we can enjoy gorgeous view of red cliff mountains and a green valley bellow. We stayed for just a few days, but they were so much fun. Last time we saw everyone was last Christmas in Oregon. So we had some catching up to do. Tanya and Paul's kids are growing as fast as they can. It was so nice to get reacquainted with them especially the little ones like Rachel who was born after we've moved so she doesn't know us that well. Greg spend some time with Paul golfing (and also with his two boys Kylar{12} and Andruw{11}) while us girls (Rachel{3}, Marissa{5}, Emily{7}, Katlynn{10}, Alisha{14}, Tanya and me) and Gevin{8} hung out the the cabin.

Some of the funnest things that our kids got to do is playing with their cousins of course, riding a four wheeler around the property with daddy or uncle Paul, visiting the horses every day, target shooting with their cricket 22 rifle and swimming at Kanab's public pool one day. 

Katlynn

 Marissa

 Gevin

 Emily

 Alisha

 Rachel

After returning to Brigham City, Tanya, Paul and the "guys" stayed at our house for a couple of days. It has become a tradition to go to MotorVU, an outdoor movie theater in Riverdale, together. We went to see the movie Cars 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean. This theater had 4 different screens so since Paul and Greg didn't want to watch Cars 2, they ended up watching Transformers 3 instead. 

Tanya showed me how to save a lot of money on grocery shopping. I wish I could be as good as her finding the greatest bargains!!! We went to Smith's where I was able to buy 4 cases of Minute Made fridge packs for only $8.24 which gave me $3.00 coupon off the next shopping trip. Next time I went to Smith's, I was able to get the four pack for only $5.24. I would have payed $19.00 at Walmart. Thanks, Tanya!!! I sure enjoyed hanging out with my sister-in-law .... and everybody. We are looking forward to next year's visit with them.