What the....

I've been a slacker on my blog since August. Not because I haven't had time, not because I haven't had anything to say. I just haven't. I'm too busy reading other people's blogs, or on Facebook, or other ways that I ignore my kids. I mean cleaning the house!

Here is our year-end review.

September:

Grandpa Paul Nelson passed away in September. He was 94 years old. It was a sad but happy occasion. It was nice to have the whole family together and reminisce about Grandpa.

Many of those memories happened here at the Bard Store.

The Gray Family moved to California in September. Hunter and Dylan are just a few months apart and have always been the best of friends! They had a great time playing one last time together before they moved!

On September 19, Hunter turned 8 years old and was baptized! I can't believe that my baby Hunter is 8! It was nice to have family and friends there with us.

Later that night, Hunter and I participated in a Missoula Children's Theatre production of "Pinocchio" Hunter was a Toy Soldier and I accompanied on the piano.

And what month wouldn't be complete without a quick trip to Disneyland?!?!?! My sisters and I got together for our annual NTA sister weekend. We had a great time! Then I stuck around one more day and did the Disneyland Challenge with these guys!

October:

October was pretty uneventful, except of course for Halloween. Have I ever mentioned I hate Halloween. But I know it's about them...not me.

November:

The Pioneer Woman was in Phoenix promoting her cookbook. The stars aligned correctly and Edna and I were able to make the very quick, but fun, trip up to get her to sign my cookbook. I even asked her a question!! Edna had never heard of the Pioneer Woman, but as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I LOVE her! A few days later, as she posted her Recap of her PHX trip, I saw this:

Edna and I made it onto her website! She posted the picture again when she did her "Thankful" post for Thanksgiving!!! She's really nice and it was awesome to meet her!




I also got the chance to play in a "band." I played "keyboards." I always think of Ross from Friends and how he played Keyboards in college. Haha. We did all 80's music, which is why I dressed up that way. Paul now thinks that I should wear big hoop earrings with every outfit! We played at a party one weekend and then got to play a little bit at the Youth Dance the following weekend! I gotta tell you...it was fun having a bunch of kids singing "Don't Stop Believing" with me! Thanks GLEE for making that possible!






I'm ashamed to show the following pictures, but it has been a work in progress for me...5 years in progress. I always "clean" my office, but it never manages to stay clean. It's the room that I can just close the door on, or gets left for last, so mainly gets ignored. Well we were going to be hosting Thanksgiving at our house, so I set my deadline.

Before:

After:And I'm proud to say...IT'S STILL CLEAN!!!!

**my incentive to keep this room clean is that my dad changed the door out...it's now a french glass door! No more hiding!

What's sad is I have no pictures from Thanksgiving!

December:Riley and Hunter both lost teeth around the same time! Riley lost her first tooth and received her first visit from the Tooth Fairy.

Hunter started Scouts in September, and that has been a learning experience for me!! He earned his first badges and loves it! In December Hunter and I experienced our first Pine Wood Derby. And I must tell you...we're in trouble. Paul was all over the Internet trying to figure out how to make the best, fastest pinewood derby car. Let me just tell you now that Paul will be starting in June preparing for next year's Pinewood Derby!!!

Chris took our pictures for our Christmas Card. Considering the getting ready portion of these pictures was horrible...children crying, people yelling...everyone behaved themselves wonderfully and smiles beautifully. Taylor was especially hilarious!


I attended my friends Homemade Gift Exchange party and decided to take a Topiary like I had made at the beginning of the year, except I made it with Christmas Paper. I have to say I really liked how it turned out, except I think I would have painted the pot and stick green, or a different color. But as I thought of this, I thought it would be cool to have different Tops for different occasions and just swap them out as wanted...so then black would be a good base. Just a thought....

And in case you're wondering what Paul has been up to......

Back to School....

Back to School...to prove to Daddy, I'm not a fool. (movie anyone?)

Last Monday was Hunter AND Riley's first day of School! The summer went by so fast, but they were both excited to go!

Hunter is in 2nd grade this year. He has a brand-new teacher to HLS, she comes from Texas and seems very nice. He has enjoyed her so far.

Riley started Kindergarten...and of course Kinder was switched to HALF DAY this year! I was all geared up to enjoy my whole day with just Taylor, but now I have 3 hour increments! Oh well!

Here's to a great one!

Girls Camp

I went to Girls Camp at the end of June. It was awesome. We laughed. We cried. We looked like dorks. But it was awesome.

We were the Happy Heifers of Hill-Valley Farm. So we did a lot of cow stuff. We thought we were funny...most of the time!!!

I'm glad that I get that week each year to get to know the Young Women of our Stake better, but also the leaders that I work with.

Its been so long that I can't even remember a whole lot about camp!! I'll need to finish this post another day then!

Summer of George

If you know Seinfeld then you know what the Summer of George is.

George, able to live off his severance package from the Yankees for a few months, declares it the “Summer of George!” and decides to spend three months watching TV and eating out of his chair-refridgerator.

Paul and I decided this would be our Summer of George, well the opposite of George Costanza's, but you get the idea. We would get healthy. Exercise. Tone. Lose.

So far I have done none of the above. I did manage to lose a little weight the week of Into the Woods, mainly because I didn't have time to eat. So I don't think that really helps!

Summer is winding down. Paul is already getting busy at work.

It may have to be the Fall of George.

uh oh....

Taylor the bee boos

Taylor is growing up!!! I thought I'd share how she says her name. Oh and Phoebe Gum Gum is Edna's dog. And she will always answer "did you have fun?" with the same response! And if you ask her to smile she squints her face like that.

I love the Taylors!

Into the Woods

Back in February I auditioned for "Into the Woods." I was offered a role, but decided to turn it down due to being so busy with Young Women's stuff and just life in general. Paul was still in season, I was giving piano lessons and getting ready for Youth Conference and Girls Camp. Not to mention that the production would be the weekend before I would leave for Girls Camp!!! Talk about crazy!! I was really really sad that I wouldn't be performing in "Into the Woods" because I had done it at Yuma High School "back in 1996" (ahhhhh) and have loved the music ever since!

So the day before Paul and I left for Cancun, I got a call from their director offering me a part!! They had had something come up and were in need of Cinderella's Stepmother. I said yes!!!! I was able to get the best of both worlds!!! (Sorry rest of the cast!) I didn't have to do rehearsals since FEBRUARY! I just had to put in TWO WEEKS of my time! The problem was still Girls Camp...so I tried to get myself in gear and not procrastinate so that I could get all of my stuff done.

It was a crazy two weeks! The week of the production I left my house at 4pm and didn't get home until Midnight!! But it was great fun! It was fun to put on a costume, wear a wig, and sing!! It was fun to make new friendships and strengthen old ones!

Thanks again Desert Pointe Proudctions for letting me be a part of your show!!!

I was exhausted on Saturday Night...but had to keep going cause I would be leaving for camp on MONDAY!!!!

CANCUN!!!!

Paul and I were lucky enough to go down to Cancun for our BIG 10 Year Wedding Anniversary/Mother's Day/30th Birthday for me/33 Birthday for Paul/Father's Day this year! We had never been on a trip by ourselves and we had a blast!

We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called Secrets Maroma Beach and I tell you it was BEAUTIFUL!!! Paul and I are already wanting to go back there. The pictures on the website are true and exactly like it is! It was also nice and empty there because of the whole swine flu scare. So we were able to enjoy a nice quiet time at the beach and pool and restaurants. Nothing was crowded!!

The food was magnificent! The 24 hour room service was awesome. The view was great! The ocean was warm!!!! I actually walked right into the water! None of this tip-toeing in trying to catch your breath like in San Diego. The beaches were white!

BEAUTIFUL I SAY!

So I'll just post some pictures now!

View from our room!

View from the lobby!

Our Hotel was surrounded by jungle! Apparently there is a panther living in there!


Our Room!

The Beach!!!




Yes it was that empty!!!

We visited the ruins at Tulum


The Beach at Tulum

Home Sweet Home!

Plumerias!


We saw a ton of these!!! We went to Xel-Ha and did some snorkeling there. We saw some "dory" fish, tuna and a sting-ray! We haven't developed the film from our underwater camera yet...hey where is that underwwater camera?!?!?!?!


Shopping at Playa del Carmen. Basically a glorified Algodones. We weren't impressed only because we've already seen it all.



See those buildings surrounded by the clouds right in the middle of the picture..that's our resort!! See you next year Secrets Maroma Beach!

okay maybe not next year..but hopefully soon!!!

Three-Oh!

I turned 30 on June 2. So did Edna. But this isn't her blog, so I'm not gonna talk about her. Just kidding!!!!

Edna and I decided that we were going to go to Disneyland for our 30th Birthday (you get in for free in 2009 on your birthday - fyi.) Our friend Stephenie is also a June 2nd baby so we invited her and her sister Ami to go along with us...you know just to break up the tadedness if necessary.

Well we had a blast!!! We left on Sunday after church and headed to Anaheim. We laughed a lot in the car and I coined the phrase "every dog and their cholo brother" on this trip. I guess you had to be there. But we used it alot and laughed every time. We also used "that's not my name" and "shush girl" thanks to edna. It's like every song we heard turned into those two meshed together!!!

We ate Krispy Kreme doughnuts!!! TWICE! As in bought 2 dozen doughnuts and ate them ALL!!! We watched the aquarium channel because we got up at 5am because of Edna's snoring. And then watched Cash Cab on the discovery channel! And then went back to sleep at 8am.

On Monday morning we were awoken by a knock at the door. The lady at the check-in desk knew we were celebrating our 30th birthday and sent us this! Wasn't that so nice!!!

We went shopping on monday and went to Ann Taylor FOUR times! It was awesome. We experienced a new store called H&M and that was fun! And then we had dinner at PF Changs.

On Tuesday we went to Disneyland! It was way fun and it wasn't too busy. I can't wait to go back!

Oh and being 30 was not fun for me. I am still adjusting to being 30. I used to say things like "my sophomore year of high school" and now since I'm 30 I've been saying "in 1995!" HOLY COW!! That's a long time ago!!!! But it still feels like yesterday. I guess you're only as old as you feel. I know..cheesy. What's funny is that just overnight I started to feel those weird aches and pains that I'd never felt before. Oh well!!!

Swimming

The kiddos took swimming lessons...which I apparently did not take any pictures of! But we have been enjoying going swimming at Grandma's House! The only problem is that Taylor just wants to jump in and get out and jump back in.....kind of annoying!

don't be blinded by Paul's tan! Hey at least he's a real farmer with a real farmer tan!

Baseball and Hunter

Hunter got to play Baseball this year instead of t-ball! He had a great time and is improving in his skillz. (that's right) I keep asking Paul what sport Hunter will end up wanting to play because he shows so much enthusiasm to a lot of them. He just needs to grow!

He also did basketball camp with the city and he enjoyed that tremendously! And that's him with the blue shirt and the green paper covering his face! That's the only picture I got! Way to go mom! He did Golf Camp as well for a week, but I don't have any pictures of that because Paul, who was there as his parent, chose to go play golf instead of watch his son play golf! Oh well! And Hunter's Swimming also has come a long way! It's a lot more fun to go swimming now that he is more confident in the water. And as I posted in a previous post, Hunter liked going out on the boat with the boys. Paul says he was timid at first but then jumped right in!!

And in case you didn't know....Hunter is obsessed with the gameshow "Wipeout." OBSESSED!

He will be starting 2nd Grade in a few weeks! I can't beleive that this summer is almost done!