HP

No, not Hewlett-Packard! HARRY POTTER!!



I took Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with me to Cancun to read while sitting on the beach and I finished it yesterday! I am so ready for the movie!!
And if you're a trivia fanatic as well, Scholastic has a great Wizard's Challenge
if you want to try it out. They have the original Wizard's Challenge and also some new trivia games as well!!

LadyBug Bags!

Check out these super cute bags!

Here's the Link!

Happy Birthday!

Taylor and Riley had their birthdays in May.

Riley is 5! It is hard to beleive that she isn't 3 AND she will be starting Kindergarten.

Taylor is 2! WOW. She is such a cutie and is starting to talk lots.

We love them both very much!

and a quick shameless plug: Wow, The Treehouse Kids Club is such an awesome place to have a birthday party!!!! You should try it!

Happy Easter

We try to take pictures every Easter. Here's what we got:

with Nana and Tata

everyone notice the cans...I am using them!

There is something nice about seeing your family dressed up hunting for eggs.

we went out to grandpa's for one more hunt

10 years!

Paul and I celebrated 10 years on April 23. It has been a great 10 years filled with highs, lows, happiness, sadness, children, compromises, and love....uhkaaayy. But seriously, I love my whose-band. He's a great husband and father and a great friend to me.

Here's some pictures I scanned in. Man we were young! and skinny. Well Paul still is...man I hate him. Just kidding. I really do love him, just not his pant size. Really, ericka, really?

Our Wedding Invitation

Our Announcement Picture

yay, we're married!

This is my family!

Paul's Family (Mark was on his mission)

The whole group!

One of my favorite pictures!

I like this picture a lot too!

Oh my dress!!!

Griscel, Stephanie, Lindsey, Ericka, Paul, Brent, Chad, Casey, Toby

I loved my cake too!

Ok that was fun!

I of course had a meeting that night, and then Paul had something, and then I had something, but we finally celebrated in May. We went to Phoenix and saw STOMP thanks to Dean and Linsey who gave us tickets for Christmas. It was awesome! So cool! And then went shopping for a bit and ate at The Cheesecake Factory! It was a good weekend, but of course didn't take any pictures!

My grandma's funeral

As I mentioned in my only post for April, my grandma passed away on April 3rd. Edna, Griscel and I were able to go down to San Luis and be with my mom during the funeral. It was definitely interesting to see how a funeral is done in Mexico with Catholic Traditions. It was nicely done, and very fast. The cemetary portion was also very different than here in the States. I took pictures of the site (which my mom's family thought was weird and partly disrepectful, but I didn't think so.) She was buried next to her husband who had passed away in 1970. My mom had never been to his grave, so it was nice to be there with her. A lot of things went through my mind as I watched my Grandma's mourners. I am grateful for her. She was a friend to many people. You forget that Grandma's can be friends, not just my grandma or a grandma. I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that we will see her again.

I will be respectful and not post the pictures of her in her coffin.....my cousins didn't know I took those pictures.....but she looked beautiful.

March

March was a busy month for us.

Paul was still in produce season.

I was in Youth Conference Season... Three months of preparation for 3 days! But it was awesome and glad that is over! I do have to say that I loved the t-shirts for this year!

Hunter had his track meet again this year and did great! He was even ok when he didn't win everything. I was worried about that because one afternoon in the backyard, he was practicing his crab walk and he, of course, was trying to go to fast and kept falling. So Paul told him "slow and steady wins the race." Hunter's response was "no slow and steady LOSES!" that's nice!

Here is his enthusiasm during the relay race...which they got 1st in!

Hunter then did a little Golf Camp during spring break. He had a great time and enjoyed the chance to swing his clubs!

That was pretty much it! Sort of....

Hello..Anybody there?

The last two months have been a little crazy. Acutally the last 3 months have been a little crazy. But I told myself that I was going to update my blog today! So here I am. We're all alive and well and looking forward to the summer....here goes!

My Nana

My Nana passed away today.

(sorry Karla is missing and Griscel is hiding, but was the only good picture of us with her.)

This is her with my Mom and all of Great-Grandchildren. Kyle is the only one missing.

We will miss her!

I'm not crazy....right?

I haven't posted in a bit. Mainly out of laziness and lack of topic.

This last week and half has been crazy! And I need to write this down for memories sake.

It all started at the end of February. Paul was going to be out of town to go visit his brother in Houston that was blessing his baby. Paul left at 5am. Riley woke up with pink eye. Great! Hunter woke up with the nastiest cough known to man. Great! Later that night I noticed I had a pain in my side that bothered me when I sat. Great! So Saturday Night I tackled all 3 kids and put eye drops in their eyes to avoid the spread of pink eye at the Nelson home!

Sunday morning we got up. I didn't plan on going to church because of the whole pink eye situation, which I'm sure all of the Primary appreciated. Taylor got up around 10:30am and was crying and pulling at her ear! GREAT! So after listening to her cry for 45 minutes I decided to head to the Urgent Care. So off we go, to the Urgent Care to wait. The wait wasn't too bad, and Hunter and Riley behaved themselves so well, all things considered. Taylor of course would be fine for a few minutes and then cry for another bit....and again.

So after getting diagnosed with an ear infection, we headed to Wal-Mart to get her prescription filled. It was 1:32 pm when I pulled up to the pharmacy. They close for a 30 minute lunch at 1:30! COME ON! So we walk around Wal-Mart. I figure I'm already there and I got the kids some popcorn chicken so they would be content to walk around for 30 minutes while we wait for the pharmacy to open. Well the pharmacist left 10 minutes late for lunch, so he opened at 2:10. I dropped off my prescription and was told 45 minutes. Ok great! So now we keep walking wal-mart. We walked the toy section, which was dumb on my part, and had to keep telling the kids, 'sorry we're not getting anything today.'

We paid for the few groceries I had gotten and went and put them in the car to kill time. I moved my car to the other side where the pharmacy is. I walked back in and was there right as my 45 minutes were up. "Sorry, it will be 10 more minutes!" WHAT!!! I sat on the bench with my 3 kids and nearly cried! Of course this would happen the weekend that Paul is out of town, Paul is never out of town! I am so grateful that I am not a single parent!!! Even though Paul has a busy season at work, I know that at the end of the day he will come home! And I am grateful for that!

**As a side note...Edna is out of town, Griscel is at church, and my mom is with her mom at the hospital, and Paul's parents are in Houston with him!**

So they finally called my name, we got Taylor's antibiotic, and went home. Ate a quick lunch and took a nap!!!! It is now 3:30pm

What a Sunday! Taylor was immediately better after one dosage! Gotta love medicine!

So Monday and Tuesday were back to normal. I tackled the kids just a few more days to keep putting eye drops so that the pink eye wouldn't spread and luckily it didn't!

All the while I notice that I still have that pain in my side, that has now reached my back.

On Wednesday I went and visited my grandma at the hospital. Edna went too. While there I mentioned to them that I had been having a pain in my side since Saturday. They immediately "overreacted" (something my family NEVER does) and told me to head to the Urgent Care to make sure it wasn't anything serious. (My dad had his appendix burst several years ago, and was told if he had waited one more day, he could have died.)

So Edna came to my house and watched my kids and I headed to the Urgent Care. Second time in 4 days! Come to find out I had a kidney infection! Which we thought was weird. So I started my antibiotics. The doctor told me that if I still had pain after two days on the antibiotic to head to the ER because it could be something worst that he couldn't see.

So on for the next two days it was 20 questions from my family about whether or not I was hurting. The pain had now spread to the other side of my back. So on Saturday morning Paul and I decided that I should go to the ER. GREAT!

As I was leaving for the ER, I decided to grab a book so that I would have something to read while I waited. I grabbed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, book 7. BIG MISTAKE!!!!

I couldn't put it down and stayed up until 3am this morning finishing the book! I LOVE HARRY POTTER! and now, of course, I feel the need to read the ENTIRE series...again!

Ok but I'm sure you're wondering about my trip to the ER. The wait wasn't too bad, no matter what you read in the Letter's to the Editor. They did some bloodwork, CT scan of my abdomen, urine test....and

NOTHING! There was absolutely NOTHING wrong with me! My kidney's are working properly. No kidney infection showed. My appendix, gall bladder, and kidney's all looked normal in the CT Scan. So the doctor diagnosed me with back pain. WHATEVER!

I AM NOT CRAZY! I know I was having pain on my kidneys! But the good news is that the antibiotic did it's job because I no longer had an infection. So the weird thing is that I had that pain for a few more days. For all I know I still have the pain, but I did some exercises the other day and am completely sore, so I can't distinguish the differences in pain.

Ok....maybe I am crazy....

ok pues!