Sea Life

Luke and I spent the morning at the ocean, taking photos for his last homework assignment before school gets out for summer. We had a wonderful time exploring, talking and enjoying each others company. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the excursion:

The Daily Catch, Vol. 2, May 26, 2007

JUST FOR THE HALIBUT. They are a good fight and good tastin' too. If you want the secret you have to come to southern California. I am trying to catch a thirteen pounder for the $100 halibut derby, but my largest halibut up to this point is about 5 #. I did hook up with a pretty sturdy one the other night, but I got a little too excited and lost it. Of course the derby is during my busiest rotation (ICU) making my trips to the surf short. Oh well, some day I will go to Alaska and catch a barn door (aka Alaskan halibut).

Cholera Carley

The other day I was playing with Emry and I noticed that Carley wasn't around us anymore. This isn't that big of a deal since we live in a ranch style house, she has a lot of freedom to roam, and it's already baby proofed....fast forward about 1 minute and I can hear water splashing. As this sound is registering in my mind, my ears perk up to listen more intently, I'm thinking to myself that couldn't possibly be splashing inside my house...and BOOM the realization hits--she's playing in the toilet! As we round the corner to the hall I see her cute little self standing up against the toilet with her arm reaching inside to see the water splash around. My first reaction was to freeze and scream, "Carley!" which of course startled her. The look on my face must have let her know she wasn't going to be allowed to continue her splashing because she stuck her arm back into the water with lightening fast speed and a fierce determination on her face to feel it one more time before I could reach her. Talk about gross!

The Current Dilemma

I'm trying to organize my home room by room and jettison items we no longer need.  My latest dilemma is children's clothing.  Up until my medical issues with Carley, I had kept everything. I'm talking bins and bins of clothing all in their appropriate sizes, boys and girls.  

I'm still pretty sentimental about some of the kids' clothing, especially all my adorable baby girl dresses, but is sentimental enough?  Trent thinks I should just narrow it down to 1 box, but I'm looking at the clothes today and am wondering if I'm being crazy?  Am I holding on to these items for myself, or my kids?  Is it really worth hauling a box of baby clothes around with our household goods for the next 25+ years.  And will my kids even care about them when they're older?  They are just clothes after all.

My mind is in a quandary.......help!

A Mother's Day Epic

This year, Mother's Day started out BAD. And I am not exaggerating. Trent was on call, but taking the kids to church alone is nothing new, so I wasn't worried about it. Besides, Emry had actually memorized her scripture for primary and the kids were going to be singing in sacrament meeting, so I was thinking it would be a good day. Boy oh boy was I wrong.

My first warning should have been the kids' behavior when they woke up...cranky! Strike 1 I thought after a little breakfast they'd be fine. Strike 2, silly Mom. Emry threw the biggest fit ever about getting dressed. It wasn't about the dress, I later found out, she wanted to wear tights, not socks. Once we got that sorted out we were on our way, or so I thought. We were a little late, but primary is first so that was OK. We got there just in time for Emry to say the prayer and her scripture which went off without a hitch, she did great (not that it's a huge surprise, she loved holding that microphone and was a little reluctant to give it up). So I headed out into the foyer to get Carley to go to sleep before sacrament started. Strike 3, she wasn't having any of it. Strike 4, I got a blister on my heel (from shoes that aren't even new! What's up with that?). Strike 5, Emry bolted after primary and I had to chase her down the hallway while carrying Carley (probably a funny sight). Strike 6, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson, but I still wanted to hear my kids sing. When we finally sat down, Luke hauls off and decks Emry in the stomach for sitting in his seat....I didn't realize we had assigned seating in a pew. Strike 7, Carley has now gotten her second wind and is smiling and squealing at the top of her lungs while using me as a johnny jump up. I only call this a strike because it's the catalyst for Strike 8. Luke gets over excited and rough trying to play with Carley, who is now crying and when I reprimand Luke, he seizes the opportunity to kick Emry, thinking I wasn't looking. So now I'm sitting in between Luke and Emry, Carley has calmed down and the asking, begging and pleading begins. "Mom, I'm hungry." "Mom, I need food." "Mom! Mom! Mom!" Then I take a real blow as they announce a baby is to be blessed. Usually my kids are really into this, but the Dad's blessing lasted 4 1/2 minutes (no lie). Strike 9. My sweet little kids, by nature aren't exactly the best whisperers and as luck would have it guess who is sitting right in front of us....yup, the baby's Mom. So at this point I'm just trying to hold things together and keep them quiet so she can enjoy the wonderful blessing that her husband is giving her daughter. After this my kids settled down a little and I thought for a second we were gonna make it. Which leads me to Strike 10...you're out! The primary kids were heading up to the podium to sing and I saw Luke, but no Emry, I started looking over the kids more slowly, b/c she's short and I might have missed her (so, so naive). Then I spotted her up in the chairs the choir sits in behind the podium. So a teacher grabbed her and helped her make her way to the front to be with the other kids her age. The song starts, Emry sings the first two or three words and then just turns and wiggles her way thru the kids until she's once again playing on the chairs at the back of the podium for all to see. Someday I hope I laugh at this, but it was the last straw for this mother, on mother's day....we left as soon as the song was over.

When I got home, Trent was there and I have to say, he truly saved the day! He turned my entire day around! What a good guy. I assumed that he'd already be sleeping since he'd worked all night in the ICU and hadn't gotten any sleep, but he wasn't. Instead of sleeping he listened to me recount the nightmare and then tucked me in for a nap. Better yet, he kept the kids busy so I didn't even have one knock at my door, no interruptions! Then he gave me this card and the best part is that he'd made it before I'd gotten home and told him about my day. It may seem really silly to whoever is reading this epic, but it helped me to put my day into perspective and laugh about it!

We haven't posted anything in a while, so I thought I'd let you know what we've been up to. We are currently down to one car and of course to add to that, Trent has to commute down to balboa hospital in San Diego this month for ICU. We might see him in about a month. So we've been trying to juggle one car between the two of us and still get the kids to school, appointments, grocery store, you know the usual stuff. Luke had his last baseball game for the season last Saturday, he got to keep the game ball and was really excited about it. Emry's last day of preschool is tomorrow, I have bittersweet feelings about it. All three kids have been fighting coughs and we are hoping to welcome another tooth to Carley's mouth any day now. I've been busy trying to get things set up for summer break and I also made my first iMovie and iDVD. It isn't without it's errors, but it was fun and they can only get better.

Family Funnies

My friend and I were the only ones at the pool last Saturday, so the lifeguard offered to give our kids some free swimming lessons, schweet! His name is Frank and as I introduced him to Emry this was our conversation:
Me-"Emry this is Frank, he's going to help you learn to swim."
Emry- "Frank, like Franklin the turtle?" (The cartoon on PBS)
Me- "No, honey, just Frank."
Emry- "Oh! Like Frankenstein!"
Me- "No, No his name is just Frank, nothing else."
The lifeguard just blushed.