Summer Vacation

We decided to take the kids on a vacation this summer, our destination: San Francisco

We stayed in an amazing hotel that had a great pool right in the middle of the hotel, with real trees and waterfalls with koi ponds.

Did you catch the nightmare part, the pool was right in the middle of the hotel and half of the hotel windows face the pool. I'm not sure about your kids, but we love hotel pools so they can get some energy out. Trying to keep them quiet is almost impossible. I'm pretty sure most families are this way because you could hear the kids yelling in the pool from 6 am to 10 pm. The hotel was very pretty, just not very practical.

Our first destination: Alcatraz. As we were waiting for our boat ride, 200 plus bicylists rode past us, they were all naked. They had some live free ride happening. It's pretty hard to shield your kids from the sight when there are so many of them. Holy cow, not what we wanted to see. We rode a boat to Alcatraz.

The kids thought the boat was great!

The view was amazing

They thought they were cool

Until they were locked up

Tanner voted thumbs down

Solitary confinement

Can you believe that random people kept making comments about Chris's BSU sweater, but they didn't say anything to Sami. I think her orange Broncos stands out way more than Chris's blue sweatshirt.

Back to the boat we go.

What Do You Do?

What do you do when you are in the woods and you don't have any toilet paper?

It's sad that I have to learn these things.

Newport, Oregon

When I quit working back in April, Chris was working on the Oregon coast. He had a couple of days off, but it wasn't really enough time to come home. Since I finally had some time off, I decided to join him in Oregon for a last minute vacation.

It was really cold, this was the closest that we wanted to get to the ocean that day (we are standing in the parking lot next to our car. I know it's pathetic).

We went to the aquarium, which is amazing. This is one of the smaller crabs. Holy cow they were huge.

I loved these Puffin birds. They waddled across our pathway and I thought they were adorable.

This octopus freaked me out. She lives in a dark cave and when you peak in you see this crazy eye staring at you. I know it's not a great picture, but you can see the eye in the middle of the photo. Imagine her head upside down taking up the rest of the picture.

We also went fishing in the ocean. It was so much fun but it was so cold. We were both shivering when we finished so we didn't take a picture of our loot. Fear of hypothermia overtook the need for a photo. We limited out on sea bass and I also caught two Lincod, which are crazy ugly looking fish.

It was an amazing last minute vacation.

Devyn Doodlebug

Some of our kids are unfortunate to have nicknames that stick. Devyn Doodlebug happens to be one of them. Sometimes we just call him Doodle or Do. I know, it's not the name your child wants to be called in middle school. At least he isn't the only Doodlebug in the world.

We found this store in Newport, Oregon.

Devyn loves to fish. He was pretty happy when he caught the first fish with the scouts at Cabela's.


Earlier this summer, Devyn had his appendix taken out. He really liked the cool bed in the hospital. He thought it was awesome that he could page the nurse and that the hospital delivered food to his room like room service. Modern medicine is so amazing that he doesn't even have a scar from the surgery, only a picture. He thinks that he is very cool since he is the only one in our family missing an appendix.

We love Devyn Doodlebug and I am glad that he still lets me call him that.

Spring Break

Where did we spend our spring break, oh yeah, we went skiing. It was so hot that none of them wore their coats and they all complained that it was too hot. I can't wait until I make them ski and it really is cold.

Brains v. Speed

Justin is super smart, but not super athletic. He decided to join track this year, because it is a big social event and he is a big social kid. He really wanted to qualify in an event so that he could go to the next level at Timberline. He knows that he isn't much of a runner, but he calculated that they take the top 8 and there were only 5 people entered in the 800 race. He knew that if he ran the race that even if he came in last he would still get to move on.

So he ran the 800 and just as he was coming in dead last, he slows down at the finish line and takes a puff of his inhaler and tosses it to his buddy on the sidelines and finishes the race. He was super happy because he knew he made it.

Unfortunately, he didn't do enough research. He thought if he made it to Timberline, he could participate in any event that he wanted to, he didn't know that he would have to run the 800 again. He was a good sport and ran the 800 again. He wasn't too disappointed that he didn't move on that time.

Mommy, I Sure Love My Toes

We haven't been to the ER in a couple of years so I guess it was time. Jared caught his foot in a bicycle tire and ended up with three stitches and a big patch of skin and muscle to regrow. The stitches are finally out, now we just have a chunk of foot to regrow. I am not so good at wound care, especially on my baby. Gayle had this amazing Coban with bumble bees on it and Jared loved (put up with) getting his foot rebandaged because he loved the bees. I started to panic when we ran out because the kid is all about the bandage and less tears is always better. Most stores carry ugly brown Coban that can get very expensive. My new favorite thing is Coflex (Coban for horses found at D&B) it comes in a huge variety of colors and is only $1.99 a roll. Love it. Jared has a variety of colors that he picked out and then he gets to pick out his new bandage color. When we are done, he always tells me "Mommy, I sure love my toes." I respond, "Jared, I sure love your toes too."

I really hope his foot heals soon because our pool is about to open :)

Books I love

I love, love, love to read. It is my happy place and helps me relax and find my sanity again. Now that I don't have to rush to work, I can tell you about some of my favorite books.

I recently read "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" by Beth Hoffman. The more I think about this book, the more I love it.

This book is about a young girl who has a mother that is completely crazy and a father who can't deal with the situation so he travels for work and leaves her to take care of her mother. I love the relationships between the characters and the zany things that happen. It is really touching to see all of her hopes and dreams and figuring out life.

One character talks about how we all have life books that are written in our hearts. Some people are written in our books and they are meant to come in our lives and they will play an important part. At times our books take us in different directions, but we will never forget our old friends and we shouldn't be afraid and shut out the new opportunities.

I know there are certain people who have thousands and thousands of friends written in their life books. Mine isn't that extensive, but the ones that are written there have meant so much to me over the year. They each played an important part in my life and will never be forgotten.

This book has given me a lot to think about. I highly recommend it. If you read it, let me know and we can laugh over my favorite parts. I loved the slugs and the traveling bra, it was super funny.

I finally made it!!!

Today was my last day at work!! I am so excited for my life to slow down and have a chance to hang out with my kids and do my laundry.

It will be big changes for my family and we are so excited. Justin said "I won't have to wait for you in the rain anymore, you can actually be on time."

I started at the prosecutor's office almost thirteen years ago. I was nineteen years old and Sami was three months old. I spent four years there and had three more babies. I left for a year after Tanner was born. I went back to school. Crazy as I am, I went back to work full time, went to school full time and had four kids under five years old. A year after being back at the office, I was offered a supervisor position and took all of that on. That was almost seven years ago and I don't think that I have stopped to take a breath since then.

Last year I decided that it was time I spent more time at home, so we have been working to make that happen. I was originally planning for my job to change this summer, but things worked out earlier than expected and today was my last day. It feels so strange to realize that I won't be typing Complaints on Monday morning, instead I will be baking cookies with Jared and Lauren. I will probably be back at the office working on part-time projects. But for the next couple of weeks, I am taking it easy. Well taking it easy from 9:00 - 3:00 until the kids get home from school. Then I will run around like crazy driving kids to scouts, track, volleyball, tutoring . . . yeah the list never stops when you multiply it all times five kids.

Maybe I can finally sleep in tomorrow . . . I was going to celebrate tomorrow, but sleep sounds awesome.

Chris said, "we are closing a chapter in our lives. I think it was called 'chaos.'" I told him our new chapter is called "organization." Karen-I may need to borrow some labels :)

Whatever it is called, we are all ready and excited for it.

Cereal

In preparing to quit my job, I decided to see if I could become a fabulessly frugal couponer. I did good tonight. I spent $33 and we have 24 boxes of cereal, 8 gallons of milk, 3 big bags of M&M's, a bag of my favorite easter candy and enough UPC's to send in for a $10.00 gas card. It may not be the $600 worth of groceries for $10 that Devyn is trying for but it was over $200 worth of groceries for $30. At least we have breakfast, dinner and late night snack covered for the next week.

Too bad I will probably blow all of my savings at Costco this weekend. Some days are good saving days, some days not so much.

Adventures of a Bathroom Door

If you read my previous post, you will remember that back in December my bathroom door was smashed with a sledge hammer. It was blocking me out of my closet and toothbrush and I was late for work. What can I say.

Well the door has been sitting in my garage and has been attacked by a sledge hammer a few more times. It sat patiently waiting for the day when my boys could take it out and use it for target practice.

The happy day arrived last Saturday. My door was tied to the top of our Suburban and the boys headed to the hills with the neighbors to finish off the door. Well it was cold and windy and rainy and the boys had a few other things to shoot at and the door was forgotten.

The Suburban was very muddy after the shoot out, so Chris took it to the car wash before he came home. He completely forgot about the door until his friend pointed it out half way through the car wash. The poor door met its end by a car wash rather than a shot gun. It has finally been put to rest.

Luckily Justin's Keeping me on the Straight and Narrow

So I was at Costco last week and bought a lime flavored mix. It is really yummy to mix with ice cream and I thought it would be fun to make for the kids.

Justin saw that the label said "Margarita Mix" and he thought that I took up drinking. He gave me a really nice lecture and showed a lot of concern for my new habit.

Finally when he was done, I showed him the label that said "non-alcoholic" and explained that I haven't started drinking and I really don't have a plan to start drinking ever. In order to make a margarita alcoholic, you have to add alcohol.

I told him that I was really proud of him for being willing to stand up to me when he thought I was doing something wrong. He told me that he was really worried about what those people at work were trying to get me to do. I told him that luckily nobody has ever made me doing something that I didn't want to do. He is safe from me becoming an alcoholic. He thought that if I was going to start drinking that he would hide all of the alcohol from me.

Luckily my ten year old is there to watch out for me and keep me making good choices, ha ha.

Potty Training

Me: Come on Jared, please go potty in the toilet so you can be a big boy.

Jared: Or else I will be a girl.

I guess we still have a lot to learn.

Life with Boys

Being the mother of four boys has taught me so many things. Some days I have to sit back in a stupor because the whole experience is so messed up in my girl brain. For example:

*Farting is always funny.

*Obsession with guns and shooting things. Jared even carries his Wii gun to bed.

I just don't get it. Tonight we were putting together their pine wood derby cars. I have been finding the nails to hold the tires on for the last two months all around my house and it has been making me a little nutty. But tonight could we find them, not so much. So how do boys solve this problem? They go to the garage and find the metal detector to search the carpet for the nails. It is amazing what you can find under your couch with a metal detector.

I made the boys proud last month. I was blocked out of my bathroom and my closet. Something had fallen behind the drawer in my bathroom and had pushed the drawer open, successfully blocking the bathroom door. After an hour of trying to get in, I finally took a sledge hammer to the bathroom door. In my brain it was the cheapest option and it was blocking my way to my shower, toothbrush and clothes. There was no way I was going to work in my pj's with morning breath and crazy hair. In their head, smashing a door with a sledge hammer is the coolest thing ever. I may end up figuring out how to live with boys one day after all.