Journal Treasures

Background: Donna and I grew up in the same LDS Stake. As many of you know, Donna found me attractive (snicker, snicker) back then and would write about me in her journal when she would see me at Stake Youth functions. Admittedly, I have thoroughly enjoyed her entries.

With the advent of Facebook, I have rediscovered several of my friends from my Mission in Chile. To refresh my memory about some of these people, I pulled out my old mission journals and began reading. In late 1993, I received a letter from Sharon Martin from Magnolia. I believe that my Dad saw her while visiting the Magnolia Branch and asked her to write me. She also sent me a picture of her with her cousin. I wrote back mistakenly thinking that Sharon was the blonde in the picture. She made abundantly clear in her follow up letter that she was indeed the brunette. Oops! (Needless to say, I didn't receive any more letters from her.) I wrote in my journal about this exchange. My journal reads, "Sharon Martin isn't the gorgeous blonde I thought she was. She is a gorgeous dark-haired cousin. I received a picture of the two of them at the beach. I'm definitely going to have to get to know the Martin family better."

So... Donna is vindicated. I'm so glad I've gotten to know her better. I can't imagine life without her.

Editor's note: As for Sharon, she eventually married my best friend, Danny Carpenter. Danny is also the person that recommended I ask out Donna once my divorce was final. Thanks Danny.

new haircuts and more

John insists on staying up with us instead of being put in his bed. Sometimes he just doesn't make it till we go to bed.

Ashley is giving John a horsy ride. We are having a fun visit with Ashley being here this week. The kids love getting to play with her. She is a joy to have in our family and we miss her when she is gone.

WE all got hair cuts. Adalyn's was the most extreme. Every time I brush her hair she cries saying it hurts. This time I decided to do something a little different than the A-line we normally do. She wasn't really that crazy about it. She especially wasn't happy when we got home and Alyssa told her she looked like a boy. She cried for 30 min. Finally I think she is growing into it and it is so cute and can be dressed up with cute barrettes and clippies. Calls about how cute (and girly)her hair is would be greatly appreciated.

Alyssa only got her hair trimmed but wanted her picture taken. She is cursed with my hair texture. It is straight on the sides and wavy in the back and always looks like it needs brushing.

John's hair was so cute long, but so needed to be cut. I can't get over how much older he looks with his hair cut. My little baby is getting so big.

my crazy kids

There is nothing in this world that brings me more joy than the laughter of my children. I love my kids!

We are back from our first camping trip with our new toys. Since Jacob has little to no experience pulling a trailor I was really nervous about our first trip out, but he did great. Even having to stop at the gas station went smoother that I thought it would. (I stressed out about that one all day)

We camped out at Cedar Fort. Basically it is about 30 min from our house going West. There is no electricity out there so we took a generator. There were 4 other families who camped with us in their trailors. There were lots of kids running around so they had a great time exploring and chasing each other around. Rory and Jenny had a golden retriever puppy that John became good friends with from the start. Shortly after arriving John was rolling around in the dirt with Dexter.The wind was really bad Saturday and Sunday when we were there and made it really hard to sit outside at times. We got to hang out in the trailor playing games, watching tv, and reading.

Our first night was interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We turned off our generator because our batteries were supposed to have enough power to run the heater through the night. At around 1:00 I woke up freezing to the beeping noise of our carbon monoxide detector. It was beeping for low voltage and it was an ice box in our trailor. Jacob had to go out and crank up the generator for the rest of the night. After that we were nice and toasty.

It was a great trip other than the wind.

I neglected to mention when we got our trailor and truck we also got a couple of four-wheelers to go with it. They have great riding trails all up in the area we stayed in.

WE survived our first camping trip and can't wait to explore other camping areas.

This is at what is called the "Bowl". It really looks like a big bowl. People come and jump these hills with motorcycles and four-wheelers. Don't worry-- we did not do any jumping. The kids absolutely loved riding the four-wheelers. Alyssa kept giggling. She also named all the places we rode by. She had lion lane, bear stew, deer graveyard, rocky road, and rocky mountain.

This was a view we came to one time. I must say, the picture does it no justice. It was beautiful.

WE had so much fun.

P.S.--the four wheelers really aren't ours. We just borrowed them from one of our friends we were camping with.

new update

I thought we were going to have our first experience with stitches this week. We were up at the park and John fell off the playground equipement. He slit open his eyelid.

We went to the doctor and luckily we didn't have to have stitches. Here is his war wound from his fight with the playground.

Jacob and I decided to get a camper so we could take the kids camping. We both loved this growing up and have fond memories of camping. It took us a while to agree on the type of camper we needed. We finally agreed on a camper trailor since we will be visiting bear country on occasion. There are some really great deals out there with the low economy. That was good for us because otherwise we would have never have been able to afford the prices on campers.

Because we don't have anything to pull a camper with we also had to buy a truck. Again it took some conviencing (on Jacob's part) before we were able to agree on what kind of truck we needed to get. Luckily Jacob has some good friends at the PD who have lots of experience with trucks and trailers and he was able to get lots of advice as to what to look for when buying.

This is the end result.

The truck is a '07 Ford F350 King Cab diesel with so much extra stuff I don't even know everything it does yet. It has heated leather seats, pedals that move toward you for the shorter driver, plus all the extra things that help pull trailors. We did not originally plan to get a truck this big, but when we realized the price we couldn't pass up this screaming deal.

The trailer is an '06 Nomad 29 footer. It has Quad bunks in the back and a queen bed in the front. It has a slide on the side which really opens up the kitchen area. The pictures I took don't have the slide open.

Now when anyone comes to visit we can go camping. The table and couch in the living room also let out to beds, so we would have plenty of room.

We have our first camping trip this weekend. I am sure it has been comical if you are are friends. WE are really quiet clueless when it comes to campers and trucks. We have having to learn everything. WE are so worried that we might tear something up we have to call Jacob's friends and ask tons of questions. Luckily they are all really excited for us and have went out of their way to help us figure everything out.

I am looking forward to this first camping trip.

Will have to let everyone know how it goes.

Ashley's visit

Ashley came for a visit at the beginning of February and we were able to do lots of fun things during her visit. We had a family dance at Alyssa's school that was so much fun. We jammed out to YMCA and did the electric slide. The kids had a blast and they had no problems going to sleep after we got home.




































We were able to attend the Draper Temple Open House. It is a beautiful Temple. It was really cold so we were not able to get pictures of the outside. This is taken in the chapel that is next to the Temple. It was fun to take the girls through and tell show them the baptismal font, a sealing room, and the celestial room.
















Jacob turned 36 while Ashley was here and we had homemade banana pudding for his "cake" this year.





















We went with some of our friends to the Clarke Planetarium and had a ball. It was fun to get out of the house for a while. The kids had fun walking on the moon and Mars and enjoyed having their friends there with them.





Alyss and Adalyn walking on Mars











Adalyn and her best friend Ansley

















Adalyn giving us a pose

John loved to climb on the rocks

Ashley showing us one of the space suits

Alyssa posing with an astronaut on the moon.

John and Holden test out there energy making capabilities

Mr. Shoe Model

John loves wearing shoes especially if they are not his. I decided to see just how many pictures I could get of him in different shoes. Here were my results.

Along with John's love of shoes he also has his own sense of style. The stuff on his mouth is brown marker. At least once a week his mouth will be a different color where he has found a marker and decided to eat it. He also eats all the erasers off my pencils. I am waiting for his art to show up on my walls.