Our Trip to Boise!

Ok, sorry, this is another long post.

Last Friday morning we headed up to Boise, Idaho with Pat's sister Lana & family, and his brother Morri & his family. We took this little vacation because our nephew Spencer was getting baptized!! We got there around dinner time. Pat and Xander ran off with Ben & kids, Morri, Liza & kids, and JR & Noah, they met up with some of Ben's friends and went rafting down the Boise River. They were gone for a good 3-4 hours, but had a great time.

Meanwhile back at home, Amber & Brody, Lana & Maddox, and me & Mara hung out in the backyard :)

Mara & Aunt Amber
Cousin Brody
Cousin Maddox
Me & my girl enjoying a Popsicle!
Maddox sharing with his mom!
The next morning the girls shared in a bath:
Mara, Addi, and Aubrey

And of course after we gave the girls a bath, the decision was made to go swimming. I opted out of getting in the pool, since I had just washed and dried my hair, so I stayed out and watched the fun!

Some of the boys:

Carter, Caden, Alex, Spencer, & Noah

(it's funny that they are sitting in order of age!!)

Ben has a cool case that you put your camera in so you can take it in the water, so some of these pictures are from him!

Trying out some fun tricks.
What a sweet tower.

top-bottom: Bryton, Alex, & Ben

All wet and all done!
Mara & Uncle Morri
When Xander was done swimming, he got wrapped in a towel and went to lay down on the cement next to his cousins. He slipped and hit his head. This is the result:
A good shot of Pat sleeping while I read my book :) A little family picture before the baptism.
Spencer & Ben before the baptism. We are so proud of Spencer for making this decision! You are awesome buddy!!

Afterwards, we got a fun group picture in Ben & Amber's backyard.

What a good lookin' family.

Then again........
My niece Bryton took this picture of me & Lana
The boys messing around:

JR, Ben, Pat, & Morri

They look better like this.

Xander had to bring one of his Pokemon movies and he shared it with his cousins. Thanks Ben & Amber for a fun weekend. You guys are great! I just wished you lived closer so we could see you more often. On our way home we stopped off at Pat's grandparents house in Murtaugh. Grandma June loves the Utah Jazz and through one of her grandsons was able to get one of Andrei Kirilenko's shoes, and he even signed it too!!!
Pat & the kids in the Tolman Corn Crops!!
Fun family picture in the corn! They were so tall! I didn't dare go farther then that, made me think too much about the movie 'Signs'.
A quick picture of the kids with Grandpa Roger & Grandma June.
I love being able to get together with family. It truly is the best thing ever! I love you guys!!

One of those days...

I am having one of those days... I am having a hard time with my emotions today, I find that I am comparing myself to others, and feeling bad about myself. I can't control my reactions to my children. I already have a hard time being patient, like most parents, but today I am just overreacting to everything. I yelled at Xander for the dumbest little thing and it sent me to tears. I feel so bad for the way that I have been treating him lately. He is such a great kid and just wants to share everything with me (which has been frustrating this week, because he was always wanting to talk to me while I was reading 'Breaking Dawn'!) I love him so much, but he just sent me off the deep end today. I retreated to have my little cry and Mara found me. She was so sweet and sat in my lap and let me hold her while I cried. She even made little pouting sounds with me. All of this just brings up my frustrations with life, and I just need to vent them out! I am so tired of my weight. I have never been one that likes to exercise, and that just adds to my weight problem. It's so hard to get into that frame of mind to do it. Right now I am in a good frame of mind and am walking a mile each morning, along with a little extra on our Wii Fit. But my main problem is eating, so the weight is not going away. I am such a weakling. I love food too much and that's my downfall. I had been doing ok this week, but last night I splurged and now I feel so fat. I am just having a hard time keeping a positive attitude, because the results that I want aren't coming fast enough. Then there are other things in my life that I want and I just can't have right now. I am so beyond ready to have my own house, but I know that won't happen for another year or more. I really want to be pregnant, but it is so the wrong time in our lives, hence not having a house of our own. Some days I think I'm doing well in dealing with the fact that we have to wait, but then I find out that more and more of my friends are pregnant, and so it brings up all those emotions again. I just feel like my life is in this indefinite holding pattern and I can't go anywhere. I just really need something to start going my way. I guess it all boils down to patients. I feel that I have been really patient in my life, but it's starting to wear thin lately and I just need a boost to get me through the next year. So hopefully things will look up soon.
Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get it out somewhere and this is where it ended up :)

I'll Be Back

We just got back from a great trip to Boise and I'm trying to get some pictures from Lana, so when I do I will post pics of the trip.

I am also in the middle of reading 'Breaking Dawn', so that contributes to the lack of blogging.

So I'll be back when I'm done with the book!

I'm glad I bought it, I'm loving it!!!!!

A Little Catch Up

I was just going through pictures from before our trip and found these: The day before we left there were a ton of Dragonflies flying around so the boys had to get the nets out. Pat was able to catch a few in the front yard, but noticed that they were flying close to the roof. So of course, he got on the house with the nets and caught a few very easily.

Xander with his net.
The boys with their bugs.
The one in Xander's net was eating something, so it just sat there and we were able to get a close up picture of it!!

When we were at Comic Con, Karri was able to pick up this cute pair of Fairy Wings from the Disney booth. (They are promoting the new Tinker Bell movie that comes out soon) They were giving away a different color everyday and we got these cute green ones for Mara. When we had her try them on, she had to strip down to wear them, she does this with all dress-ups!!

We also picked up some free temporary tattoos for the kids. Xander with his Pikachu tattoo.

Mara with her Wonder Woman tattoo. Xander's lasted until we went swimming on Saturday, and Mara's was perfect, but I washed it off during bath time on Monday. She has a cute little tan line from where it was!

Last week I decided to paint Mara's toe nails. It had been an hour or so since they were done and I was helping Xander take apart some Lego's. Then I see Mara taking a stool over to the sink and she is saying that she needed to wash her hands. I saw a drop on the stool and then I looked her over. This is what I found:

I totally thought it was blood for a minute!!! She tried to paint her own toes :) I just love that she has given herself an extra nail on her baby toe! Later on I found polish on her thighs, clothing and on the bottom of her other foot. Also it was all over the floor, good thing we were in the kitchen.

New Porch

So I can't find pictures of the porch without the railing, but here are a few of the new and improved porch!! It looks so nice and brightens up the front of the house. And I just realized this morning that it will be so fun to put christmas lights on it too!! LOL

Brand New Deck!!

On the 10th of July we started the process of getting a new deck in my mom's backyard. Nate McArthur (that used to be in our ward) and his brother Dan, came and starting taking the deck apart. The next day they put Trex on the upper deck and poured cement for the lower patio. It stayed like this for 2 weeks, while the railing was ordered. This past Tuesday they came, built the stairs, and finished up the deck. Then yesterday they put the railing on!! It looks amazing!! The old deck was at least 15-20 years old. The slats were too far apart, and the railing was horrible (sorry dad), and there was no railing on the stairs! Xander was all too often coming in with slivers in his hands from the deck, so that is what sparked the decision to replace the deck! It is so nice, much bigger, and there is room for a table and chairs on the main deck! It will be nice to want to use it now! Enjoy the slideshow of before, during, and afters!!!

They are also putting railing on the front porch, but ran out of bolts, so it's not done. I will post when it's finished. (I will have to search and see if I can find a before picture of the porch too!)

SDCC Day 4

I promise this is the last post of our trip. As you can tell we had alot of fun, got to see a ton of cool actors, and we even got a ton of really cool free stuff. I loved going and wish that I could do this every year. Karri already bought her pass for next year, so we'll see if we can go back with her!

Day 4: waiting for the Trolley

When we got there, Karri immediately got in line for Hall H, (the big one where we saw Twilight) because they were starting the day with a panel for "Heroes"!! She waited for an hour or more, and we jumped in line with her after we got on the floor to buy some things.

The panel was awesome, the whole cast was there!! And they even showed us the upcoming season premier! Not just bits and pieces, THE WHOLE THING!! It is so mind blowing, I loved it! I realized that I didn't get a close up of Milo Ventimiglia "Peter Petrelli" but I did of the rest of them.

Cast shot / "HRG" Jack Coleman

"Claire" Hayden Panettiere / "Hiro" Masi Oka

"Parkman" Greg Grunberg / "Nathan Petrelli" Adrian Pasdar

"Maya" Dania Ramirez / Zachary Quinto "Sylar"

"Niki" Ali Larter / Sendhil Ramamurthy "Mohinder"

James Kyson Lee "Ando" / Cristine Rose "Angela Petrelli"

Afterwards there was a panel for "LOST" that had the writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. It was really fun because they were giving prizes out to the people that asked questions, ie: a mini panda bear, Dharma Beer, Dharma Ranch Dressing, and a "Jack" action figure, to name a few. When they were talking about the action figure, Matthew Fox came on stage and surprised everyone. He signed the figure and took a picture with the guy that was getting it. This was probably the funniest panel the whole time! (The 2nd pic is of Matthew Fox, it's the best one we got)

Afterwards we ran upstairs to get in line for the "Battlestar Galactica" panel and on the way up the escalators we saw 3 guys dressed up like people from the original BSG.
And Comic Con wouldn't be complete without a few Stormtroopers!!

While waiting in line for BSG there were people dressed up like characters from the show. The first picture is 2 couples, the first are "Helo" and "Athena" and the second are "Cally" and "Chief Tyrol" They looked awesome!! The second picture is "Six" and "Baltar" (these are the outfits from the miniseries) There was a guy dressed like "Admiral Adama" but I didn't get a pic :(

And here are pics from the panel:

James Callis "Dr. Gaius Baltar" / Tricia Helfer "Number Six"

Katee Sackhoff "Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace / Michael Trucco "Samuel Anders"

And surprise guests:

Jamie Bamber "Lee 'Apollo' Adama / Tahmoh Penikett "Karl 'Helo' Agathon"

It was so cool to be there! We were pretty far back, but still able to see the screens and hear what they were saying. I'm sad because they have finished filming the rest of the season, and that's it, the series is over :( And we don't even get to see the last 11 episodes until next year :(

Karri, Me and Pat after the BSG panel, while waiting for the "Chuck" panel to start.

A pic of the "Chuck" panel: the whole cast was there. But Pat and I don't watch, but I think we will now. They are very funny people and the show looks fun. I know my mom has a crush on Chuck, lol.

Then a cool picture of the banners in the hall as we were coming down the escalator for the last time.

A guy in an awesome "Bumblebee" costume from "Transformers".

And Pat with a cool "Iron Man" statue.

Our last picture: Karri was in the "Fringe" panel when Pat and I left, so I didn't get the best picture of us with the banner. We got a better one last year. (Told you Karri that we should have done the pictures on the first day!! lol)

Bye bye Comic Con! Thanks for the fun. Hopefully we will see you again soon!