5 favorite things...june 29, 2008

This last week was a little long and I find myself grateful to have it over and after a lazy weekend ready to begin another. So this week I'm grateful for:

1. the artistic creativity of my children
2. a sparkling clean, freshly scrubbed kitchen floor
3. movies that make me laugh
4. books that spark my inspiration
   
5. the Olympic trails
   

Congratulations Trent!

Trent graduated from his internship on Friday morning! Ya! WAY TO GO BABY!!! Another year under your belt! It's such a relief to have this year over. It's been long, hard and tiresome. Only two more years and residency will be over.....then we're going to celebrate like it's no body's business!!!

Congratulations Taylor & Jen!

My little brother, Taylor, graduated from the Los Angeles Police Academy on Friday morning. Congratulations Bugs!!! It was a nice ceremony. They held it outside, all the chairs were taken when we arrived but sitting on the grass ended up being great. Now he's off to start his career and his first assignment is in a jail! Scary if you ask me, but he's excited about it. I was able to leave the girls at home with a babysitter and take Luke with me. He really liked seeing Taylor's police badge, but his favorite part was sitting on the real police motorcycle in the museum to.

Summer Time Magic

We recently purchased a slip 'n slide for the kids and they absolutely love it. We've had so much fun this last week playing on it. I thought Luke and Emry might need a little coaching on the how-to's of slipping and sliding, but they didn't so it must be and inborn trait. Even Carley has been able to enjoy it. In fact, she likes it so much that she is constantly in the kids' way and they have to slide around her. Every time we take her off she just beelines it straight back and crawls up and down the yellow plastic...what a crazy girl.

5 favorite things...june 22, 2008

We've been living through record breaking heat this past week and no air conditioning, so I'm thankful for:

1. drives in the car with the a/c blasting
   
2. playing at the beach
3. pools
   
4. slip 'n slides
5. ice cold glasses of water
   

Trip to the Zoo

My sister, Maggie, and I took the kids (Luke, Emry, Carley and Ismael [the little boy I watch]) down to the San Diego Zoo and had a great time. We saw the baby panda, so cute, just munching on a little bamboo. We also saw koala bears, which I've never seen before. They had like 12 of them too and a baby, so cuddly and adorable! The best part was seeing the polar bears (my personal fav). They were in a very playful mood and wrestled around in and out of the water for quite some time. Overall we were there at the wrong time b/c we didn't end up seeing much more.


I don't want to leave you this post without letting you know how we fared with 4 kids in tow. For those of you who know my little wondering wonder (does she really need to be named?) this will be a special treat. The kids were really well behaved all day long, we can't complain, but Emry did supply our trip with a couple of antics that kept the mood light, I'll share one.

After eating a nice picnic lunch we stopped in front of the restrooms for a potty break. The scene: picnic tables to the west, restrooms to the north, zoo gift shop down a gentle slope to the south, an information station to the east and us smack in the middle (on top of the hill). Maggie and I are ferrying children in between the bathrooms and strollers...OK.

We get everyone pottied and are looking at the map to plan our afternoon attack when I see Emry in the corner of my eye jetting towards a vacated stroller that is near by. In my mind I'm thinking "she's fine, it's just one of those zoo rental strollers, so she's not bothering anyone". Simultaneously, my eyes are watching the stroller move as she wiggles and plays inside and it slowly starts to turn and roll down the hill towards the open doors of the zoo gift shop! My sister and I must have made the connection at the same time...which was too late to do anything about. So after surveying the scene, registering in my mind that she's not going to really get hurt too bad and realizing that I can't make it to her in time, we just start laughing and are doubled over as I yell, "Emry, Hang On!" Down the slope she goes, missing the shop entrance by inches, bashing into the door. I get to her almost at the same moment and everyone was just staring at me with those "what kind of a mother are you eyes". I didn't even care. I was just laughing and thinking, "Oh, if you only knew what kind of kid she was, you'd be laughing too!"

Happy Father's Day

Father's day went much better for us than Mother's day did. I once again had the kids by myself at church and they did a good job minding their p's and q's. Well, almost. Once again the primary children were to sing in sacrament, you can imagine my nervousness, but they'd been really good up to this point so how bad could it get? Luke leaves the pew and starts up the aisle so quick that he doesn't hear me tell him to wait for Emry. So she heads up the aisle and I'm watching her like a hawk. Just as she's about to go up the three stairs that will take her up by the kids, I loose her. I panic slightly. My eyes begin to dart around looking for her and I see Luke who is looking at me in anticipation of a wave. So I smile and wave to him quickly, still scanning the crowd of primary children. Then I, well everyone heard it....BANG, BANG, BAAAAANG on the ORGAN! Some crazy kid was pounding on the organ, but no one could see who. I immediately bite my lip and in my head repeat, "please no, please no, please don't be Emry"............too bad, the second counselor bends down and scoops up none other than my precious little daughter. I just sat back in my seat and tried to enjoy the rest of the song.


The remainder of Father's day was just fine. We arrived home after church to find Trent asleep in bed and the kids were too excited to give him their gifts so he got up. We had a BBQ feast of Brats and hot dogs, strawberry spinach salad, baked beans, pickles and lemon bars for dessert. Yummy!

5 favorite things...june 15, 2008

I've been thinking a lot about the power of positive thinking lately. The mind is a very strong and influential part of our person. I really believe that you are what you think. For example, if you're constantly having negative thoughts, sooner or later they will show in your actions. And the same goes for positive thoughts. So I'm officially attempting to banish the bulk of negative thoughts that enter into my mind each week and replace them with positive ones. I'm also hoping that by being mindful of such things, I'll be better able to notice the good things life is offering me and thus be more grateful for the little blessings in my life. So each Sunday, I'm going to post my 5 favorite things from the previous week....here goes:

1. the end of the school year
2. laughter
3. dryer's french silk ice cream
4. dancing to your favorite song, when no one's around
   
5. carley's smiley greeting every morning when i open her door
   

The Daily Catch, Vol. 3, June 7 2008

Oooo Barracuda!
Oh yeah, it might be small, but it's still a barracuda!

Gas Prices

Today, we paid $4.33 for regular gas! Can you believe that?!! I have decided to just stay home this summer. I was going to make a few road trips, but they've been canceled due to the ever increasing gas prices! I just can't stand paying that much for gas, it's outrageous. We've got to get this under control. I wouldn't mind it so much if it would just stay put at one amount for awhile, but it's been jumping up 5-10 cents every other day. We paid $4.17 last week, that's 16 cents difference in about a week and a half. Anyone else totally annoyed?

Family Funnies

The kids and I were at the pool and Trent got off work early so he stopped by to help us home. He took Carley from me and was walking up the sidewalk towards home when Emry said to me, "Mom, does that man have Carley?"