Baptism - Yes!....Vacation - Not so Much.

So we're back from our "vacation". My real idea of a vacation is care-free, relaxing, fun, fun, fun, and when you get back you feel refreshed and rejuvenated. A one week trip to Utah from Texas has difficulty meeting these requirements. There just isn't enough time. We didn't get to go up American Fork canyon. We didn't get to go to Temple Square. We didn't get to even see any of our friends. We didn't have enough time with any of our families. But we did have some fun, and we did get to go to the temple TWICE, and I don't want this to be a negative post, because the reason we went to Utah in the first place was to get Cora baptized, and we did, and that was the very best part. We were blessed to have most of our families there (and we missed the one's who couldn't make it). My mom and Joe's mom both gave wonderful talks, and everyone felt the spirit so strongly. We had a delicious lunch with everyone afterwards (thanks to Joe's mom). Cora was beautiful in her white dress, and it matched how beautiful she has always been on the inside. We are so proud of Cora and the amazing person she is. Cora is the most loving, caring, generous person. She always is thinking about others, and helping others, even when it means sacrificing what she wants. The older she gets, the more I enjoy and appreciate everything about her. We are so grateful to have Cora in our lives. We love you Cora!

Are We There Yet?

So, we're here in Utah for a quick vacation, which I will post about later. For now, let me tell you about the looooooong road here. The plan was to leave on Friday. I started to get sick on Tuesday - sore throat. By Wednesday I was in bed - really bad sore throat and just feeling crappy. I figured I could afford one day in bed, and it wouldn't put me too far behind in packing and cleaning. On Thursday I could barely talk, my throat hurt worse than it ever has before, and my entire body was aching. I went to the doctor. Not strep, just a virus. He gave me a bunch of medicine. To stop the pain in my throat he gave me this gel stuff. Not a liquid, but a thick gel like the kind you put in your hair to style it. I have never experienced ingesting anything so horrific. I'm sure it was partly due to the fact that I was so sick, but I actually started crying after I took that gel stuff. Nasty, horrible, bad, bad, bad. But it worked instantly. The pain in my throat was gone. And after taking 800mg of ibuprofen, I started feeling okay. This was Thursday night. By that time my house was a complete disaster, and I hadn't even gotten the suitcases out of the closet yet. I thought, well I'll just have to go full steam tomorrow so we can get out of here when Joe gets home from work. Well, that night Joe started complaining of a sore throat, and to make matters worse, I got a whole new kind of sick. I literally did not get any sleep that night because I was in the bathroom the whole night throwing up. Early Friday morning Madelyn started throwing up too. I was so sick to my stomach, and I was soooooooooo weak. I got out the suitcases and tried to start throwing clothes in them, but after only a couple of minutes I had to lie down. Joe, took a long lunch, and even though his sore throat had gotten worse, he took care of me and the kids, and started cleaning up the house. Then he left, but said he'd get off work early so that he could pick up the older kids from school and start packing and cleaning more. I didn't know how we were ever going to make it. But wouldn't you know it, about a half an hour before Joe got home, I started feeling better. By the time he got back with the kids, I was mostly done packing. Everyone pitched in cleaning up, and we actually left the house by 5:30pm on Friday, just like we had planned! What a miracle - but the story doesn't end there. The first 7 hours of the trip should have only taken us 5. Three out of our four kids got sick and threw up. Not car sick, but the sick that I had apparently infected them all with. I lost track of how many times we had to stop. After one of the times that we stopped to clean up and changed someone's clothes, Joe and I burst out laughing (because it was either that, or start crying) and we wondered what would be next. I said, "I wonder if Heavenly Father is having a little giggle at our expense right now.....'cause it's kind of rude" Anyway, we decided to drive straight through instead of getting a hotel, which maybe wasn't the smartest idea since we were both so tired. But we made it to Manti on Saturday afternoon, and no one died - but the story doesn't end there. By the time we got to Manti, Joe was really in a lot of pain. We ended up making an ER visit, and he got his own dose of that gel stuff. Also on Saturday, Alex fell on his face and got a bloody nose, fell down the stairs, and got his finger smashed in the door (and I do mean SMASHED! - I thought we were going to have to make a second ER visit). And so we come to today (Sunday), the first real day of our vacation. It has been relaxing, peaceful, and sick/accident free. It's been everything a vacation should be. So here's to the rest of our vacation, and to hoping that it's just like today. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

School Days

JT had a field trip last week, and I tagged along. I like going on field trips with my kids; it's good one-on-one time.....in a big group:) But I also sometimes feel like I HAVE to go on field trips because I get just a little paranoid about my children coming back safely. But chaperoning field trips just makes me more paranoid because I see how unorganized they can be sometimes. Shouldn't field trips have the Most organization? I don't mean to critisize teachers here. They deserve so much more credit than they get, and I'm so grateful for all they do. But if I was a teacher, and taking a large group of children off of school property, I would make sure that my time was detailed down to the minute. None of this wandering around and deciding what you're going to do once you're already on location. Disorganization is the path to the dark side. Disorganization leads to confusion. Confusion leads to losing children. Losing children leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate leads to suffering.

I'm sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the field trip. JT had a field trip to the fair last week. It's all here in pictures. Cute pictures - Cute kid. He fed the animals for about two seconds, then got scared when a mini-goat jumped up on him, and he gave me the cup of carrots to feed the rest of the greedy little things. They're so cute! Sure, they smell a little, but who doesn't, right? I actually love the smell of fair grounds and farms. Mmmmmmaneur! I also love the smell of wood. That has nothing to do with this post though. So we saw all the cute animals, and the robot that's always at the fair, and we had lunch, and that was about it. Were you expecting something more? No, that was it.

This week Cora had a report due on a famous person from history. She chose Christopher Columbus. Then a couple of days later they had a Live History Museum, and all the kids had to dress up as the person they had chose. Does anybody know what Christopher Columbus looks like? No you don't. I didn't think about this at the time that Cora chose him, but I'm assuming that's why nobody else chose him. There were lots of Pocahontas, and Abe Lincoln, and Betsy Ross - that's because those are Easy Costumes. But we figured something out anyway, and it turned out not so bad. It was fun to see all the kids dressed up, like Halloween. There were some really unique costumes, and I just had to take some pictures. Should I be posting pictures of other people's children on my blog? Well, they're all disguised. I'm sure that makes it okay. It does, right?

Could this post be any longer? Yes. Is it going to be? No.