Watiki Water Park

We spent half of spring break visiting family in Sheridan and Moorecroft, WY and the other half staying in Rapid City, SD.  This is our 2nd trip to Watiki Water Park there in Rapid City.  Braden was old enough to go down the big water slide with Warren and gave it one thumb up and one thumb down.  I don't blame him - it is some scary fun 👍👎😜.

Libby Creek

Disney Wonder

From Sunny Florida. ..

Samoan Sunset

There was a full rainbow on the other side of this beautiful sunset on a Samoan beach!  

Everyone from Warren's group had to get pictures in front of both.

If you had the chance to go to Samoa, would you?  

Even if that meant you had to leave your children behind, 

missing one of their birthdays and missing Christmas with them...

That is the decision I need to make.  

Warren wants to take me this December.  I don't know if I can - the timing is horrible.  

Can't tell you how much I want to be in that picture with him, though....

An Early Christmas

We threw a Bon Voyage Christmas Party tonight for Warren.  We had our usual dinner, sang favorite Christmas songs (Braden's is The Little Drummer Boy and Hailey's is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer), played games and everyone got to open one present.

He leaves in just two days for Samoa, leaving temperatures as low as -25 to arrive at temperatures easily 100 degrees hotter.  When he first told me about this opportunity (over a year ago) I'll admit I was very sad to think he would miss so much: Hailey's birthday, Christmas, our 20th wedding anniversary and New Years.  But.  Well.  How can he not take this chance to travel and see a brand new place, bringing amazing youth who will be changed forever from this experience? He is going to absolutely fall in love with the Samoan people and their culture and I am proud to be married to such an remarkable man. 

Really, the time is simply going to fly by with everything going on.  And we only have a couple months until we leave on our cruise.  Yes.  He's making this up to us in a big way! 

I will be back soon to fill you in on his adventures and how we are passing the time.

Our Spring Break

We had an awesome spring break down in St. George, Utah 

(or "Satan George" ((or Sate and George?)) as Braden would say!).  

This is where my parents retired and it was the first time we got to see their new house.  

They took us to their water park...

a nearby water reservoir...

we had an Easter egg hunt...

and they did a pretty good job with the weather, too!  

While it snowed where we live it was in the 70s there.

Just wish we didn't live 

so 

far 

apart.

Road Trip

Hailey telling stories to Braden in the car on the way.  No DVD player :-).

 Mt. Rushmore...

 Watiki Water Park in Rapid City...

Hailey was in Heaven.

Day 26/30

Finally got to Skype with Warren yesterday.  He's back "on the grid" as he puts it.  Last year he came home with a beard and this year it looks like he will come home without.  Hailey just wanted to show him her bunnies and Braden wanted to watch himself stick out his tongue.

I'm hoping to have a video of the kids up tomorrow.

Day 23/30

Warren tried to call last night but we kept losing the connection. 

I checked stats today on this blog to see if he has even been able to look at it. 

Nothing from Mongolia. 

I was done with this about 2 weeks ago. 

Is it bad that I am so glad their 3rd year was cancelled?

UPDATE: He called - his time 5:30 a.m.  He said they all got up at 2:30 a.m. to climb a sacred mountain and watch the sunrise.  Sunday he'll be back in Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia's capital) and will have better access to the Internet so we'll be able to stay in touch better.  Said he's enjoyed himself.

Day 1/30

I'm completely out of the habit of doing this blog even though it's a fun hobby of mine.  But now with Warren gone for 30 days I'm going to try and post daily {maybe}.

The day before Warren left (Tues.) he heard on his new international youth exchange grant.  The next place he will be going is Samoa!  Everyone is always more interested in hearing about that than Mongolia but he has loved traveling there and learning all he has.  Samoa won't be for quite some time though: 2.5 years.

So here we go - Day 1 of 30:

We said goodbye to cousins who stayed with us for a night on their way back to Idaho.

It was so good to see them!!!

So Here's the Deal...

I'm having a hard time keeping up with this blog at the moment for several reasons:

-Braden won't nap unless I lay down with him, that was my blogging time.

-Braden lost my SD card to my camera.

-Kids are home from school now.

-I'm finding I want to spend as much time with Warren as possible before he leaves for Mongolia on June 20th.

-And summer's just busy - yard work, 4-H, yard sales, barbeque's, parks, traveling... and just enjoying the warmth while it lasts. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Warren in Mongolia, Summer 2011



So I'm going to take a break until Warren leaves,

then I'll be posting much more. 

I'll be back the 3rd week of June. 

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!



Headed South Soon

What gives me more

anxiety

than being

alone

in a car

with a 

toddler

for a 

10 and a half

hour drive?

Leaving

him

behind.

My dad and Braden playing "Eat those toes!"

This weekend I'll be headed south to help my mom and dad for a week or so. 

My dad just had surgery after recently being diagnosed with cancer. 

His prognosis is good but it's going to be a long recovery process. 

(So, if anyone has been wondering about

my faultering weight loss attempts

and how come I can't seem to

 finsish that darn cookbook,

you might be able to see

the connection here.) 

I'm scouring the Internet for ideas on keeping

Braden entertained while I drive alone with him. 

I'll post the best activities I come across tomorrow.

(Hailey has school so she gets to stay home with dad for the week. 

She also has a rabbit expecting bunnies by the time I get back!)

UPDATE: Not headed south afterall.

New Words

On our vacation Braden said a few words I didn't even know he knew. 

When we got to the dock and saw the water, he pointed and said, "Ocean!"

When we got on the ship, he said, "Boat!"

When I gave him the pail and shovel at the beach, he said, "Shovel!"

I may have Dora the Explorer or Nick Jr. to thank but I'd like to think it's my brilliant parenting ;-). 

He said all of those things without us saying them right before. 

Kids really are listening when you think they aren't!  So smart!

When we got home there have been two things he says that he got from the ship:

"Awesome!"  from Crush at The Animators Palette so we like to follow it up with "DUDE!"

and "Ice cream cone!" from the many ice cream cones we had on deck. 

 Now he turns just about everything into an ice cream cone and licks it!

Tomorrow I have a great visual idea planned that I'm sure Warren thinks is positively ridiculous. 

Come back and see what YOU think!

On the Beach...

Castaway Cay (pronounced "Key"), is Disney's own island.  Everyone enjoyed this place!

 Hailey wanted to bury herself with sand and Uncle Eric showed her how it's done!

Just a picture of the front of our house before we left to give you an idea of the weather we left.  Apparently we chose the right week to be gone.  When we came back it was twice as bad.  I was told the roads where closed more than they were open!

On the Boat...

OK, technically it is a ship. 

A

VERY

 BIG

 ship. 

We sailed on the Disney Dream.  I love their attention to detail and no one beats Disney's service! 

We went with Warren's brother Eric and his family.

Right away there were character sightings. 
Very exciting.

Braden really enjoyed the splash pad in the shade. 

Hailey got to meet many Disney Princesses at once! 
Her favorite is Ariel.  She didn't have her legs on our last cruise so this was a special treat! 
The princesses were never out of character.

It was fun going with cousins this time! 
Jake nicknamed Braden "Captain Hook" because he was his hook to talk to the girls.
(Not that he needed him, that kid's got game, I tell you!)

And FYI: I actually maintained my weight during our vacation! Getting sick may have helped a little.  I regained my appetite the second day on the ship. 

How could I not with all the delicious gourmet food? (My favorite was a

buttermilk lemon custard - Oh, my stars!)

This past week has been rough on me while I feel lousy.  Not much calorie counting.  But I'm learning to listen to my body and learning to balance the calories.  Today was weigh-in day:

I lost almost a pound and have hit a new low for the past year. 

About another pound and a half and I will be down to where I was when Braden was born.  And while it may not show much on the scale I got to tighten my belt to the next notch - now that's some incentive! 

I'm going to try to get back on a daily blogging schedule to keep my focus.  I plan on sharing my "go-to" breakfast and some surprising things that seem to be working. 

When this month is all said and done, me and the kids will have racked up over 3,300 road miles.  Warren on the other hand, between road and air miles, will be well over 10,500 miles.  This month.

We Miss Our Daddy!

I wanted to do somthing like this for father's day or his birthday but it's not that much fun without my Mac.  I had to create it using Windows Live Movie Maker which I'm just not too fond of so it's not all that great but feel like I have to send our love somehow around the world to Warren! 

We love you, "D-A-D-D-Y"

Warren leaves for Mongolia soon!  Here is the blog that they are going to keep us all updated on:

Mongolia Memoirs

Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier was our next stop.  There were lots of icebergs in the water and we weren't able to get real close because of the early season.  And maybe a dent in the hull of the ship made the caption be a little more cautious.  Basically it was a lot of people standing around staring at a sheet of ice that didn't happen to move.  Apparently it's very cool if you do catch site of any movement.  I wouldn't know.