Easter 2011

Easter was lots of fun as always.  This year we celebrated with a family easter egg hunt/FHE at J&M's house.  

Davis, Crew, Nelah

Nelah and Caysja

Harrison put his hat on Priesie-ha ha!

Caleb and his girls

The Easter Bunny came...

Pics after church

I love this girl's big smile!

Spring has Sprung and Caleb's Home for GOOD!!!

You know it's Spring in Idaho when you can finally stand to be outside!  A few weeks ago my sister-in-law and I took all the cousins to see the cows, sheep, and ponies at Reed's Dairy.  They kids loved it!  

(Crew, Davis, Isaac, Mariah, Nelah, Caysja)

They wanted to name this  unusual white cow, "Ghost"

Of course you can't visit Reed's Dairy without getting ice cream cones too!

(Davis, Caysja, Nelah, Mariah, Crew, Isaac)

Caleb came home from Tucson the last week of April only this time he was
  HOME FOR GOOD!!!  He was able to switch his last rotation (during the month of May) to work with a Dr. here in Idaho Falls and thus our very long, stressful, hard year of separation is FINALLY OVER!!!  We are a whole, complete family once again.  Even though it was a hard year, in many ways it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and now both of us truly have a deeper appreciation for each other.  I am so glad it's over though and I wouldn't want to go back!  The kids are loving having him around and keep asking when he's going to leave "for the far away place" again!

One of the first things we did with Caleb was go bike riding around the Snake River Greenbelt

Caysja is doing SO WELL riding her bike!!

Crew and Capri love to ride in the trailer together

Feeding the ducks

The next thing we did to celebrate Caleb coming home was...go camping!!  If you knew Caleb's family at all you'd know that next to motorcycle riding, camping is their very MOST favorite thing to do!  It was pretty cold and windy but still fun.

WE'RE SO GLAD TO HAVE DADDY COME HOME!!!

AZ Adventure

Last week I did one of the craziest things I think I have ever done.  My girlfriend Alissa and I decided to drive nearly 30 hours and 2,000 miles (round trip) with our combined five kids to visit our old friends in AZ.  It was rather a last minute trip but we'd been wanting to see our good friends there one more time before everyone graduates and goes their separate ways, and then Caleb ended up getting a four day weekend (he's in Tucson for his rotation this month) and that was just the extra push we needed to hop in the van and go.  It was a fun trip, but unfortunately things didn't go quite as planned since our kids ended up getting sick (stomach flu and colds) and we're still working on getting rid of the runny noses and coughs.  

We left at 7:30am on Thurs. morning and drove all day (15 hours), getting to Glendale at 10pm.  Our kids watched a LOT of movies to say the least, but really, they were so very good.

Stretching our legs at a gas station

The next day, Fri., we went to Music Makers at the park with our friends in our old ward

We had a pic-nic for lunch.  It was gray and overcast, but better weather than in Idaho--(it snowed the day we left!)

I love this picture of Priesie and Alissa

Crew and Cam were in awe over this motorcycle

You can't tell but these shirts say "big sister"/"little sister"

I just love my girls!  (As you can see Priesie was not too happy about being held right then...)

Alissa and I watched Brini's kids Fri. night while they went on a date for their Anniversary

Caleb got to Britni's house late Fri. night.  It was so wonderful to see him.  My kids were in heaven!  He watched the kids for me while Alissa and I went with Britni to her ward's Super Saturday.  It was kind of a bummer because it rained all day and they were cooped up inside.  Caleb found this awesome bike for Crew at a garage sale!

My friend Leah watched our kids so we could go on a double date with Britni and Travis on Sat night.  That was a real treat since we hardly ever get to go out anymore--thanks so much, Leah!

On Sunday we went to our old ward that's now been split

LeiLani, Myli and Caysja before church

Sunday was such nice weather and the kids all played outside taking turns kicking a football around with Caleb

Sun. night we had dinner with our good friends, the Hamars.

LOVE these ladies!

me, Britni, Kristy, Alissa

The babies--Capri and Austyn

It started with LeiLani who was sick the day we got to AZ.  Then on Sunday night Caysja and Camden threw up as well as Myli the next morning.  But we didn't let that stop us...we still took Caysja and LeiLani on a short hike up Thunderbird on Monday since they said they felt good enough to go.  

That afternoon we went swimming at San Lagos since most everyone (except poor Cam) was feeling a little bit better.  We LOVE that pool and hot tub and miss it so so much!

Miah, Caleb, Caysja

Crewser and Caleb

Kristy, Alissa, me

Mon. night we had pizza and watched a movie after the kids went to bed.

Tues. was a sad day.  We felt like we needed to leave since our kids were still not feeling 100%, but of course we didn't want to say goodbye to everyone.  We took our kids to the park and then had lunch at Kristy's house.

We left AZ about 2pm and drove about half way to my Grandma's home in St. George.  She was so nice to let us stay the night with her.  We drove the rest of the way home on Wed. and luckily (by some miracle) no one thew up in the van!...(although we did have some incidences with diarrhea...)

Even with the sickness it was still a fun trip and I'm glad we were able to see everyone.  Thanks so much, Britni, for being such a wonderful hostess!  Thanks for being my awesome navigator, Alissa!  

Surprise Weekend

 A couple weeks ago I turned 28--yep, that's right, I'm getting old! =)  Just kidding--I know it's not that old. Anyway, it was one of the very best birthdays I have ever had, thanks to my wonderful sisters-in-law, Kynda and Marisa, and my sweet husband and family.  On my actually b-day (the 26th) Caleb was going to be out of town and so was Kynda so I guess everyone conspired to plan a weekend full of surprises for me the week BEFORE my b-day, taking me totally off-guard.  On Fri. night Kynda "kidnapped me" and took me to a concert at BYU-I (where she is a professor and therefore gets great deals on tickets).  We heard Alfie Boe (an opera/broadway singer) perform.  The concert was sold out and he was incredible!  I was seriously impressed.  My favorite was his last song--"Bring him Home" from Les Miserables.   After the concert, my other sister-in-law, Marisa, picked up my baby so I could nurse her and met us at "Sundaes" where we got (no surprise here) the most delicious ice cream sundaes.  My next surprise was a "girl's only" sleepover at Kynda's house that night where the three of us stayed up late talking (our awesome husbands kept our kids at my house).  We slept in the next morning, Kynda made us yummy scones, and then my sister Chalise met us and the four of us went shopping.  It was great to be able to really shop without any interruption from kids.  They took me out lunch and then we met up with our little girls to see the movie "Tangled".  Caleb surprised me that night with flowers and a date where he had arranged for our own private "drive-in" movie (with our new DVD player in our van) and dinner at Outback.  (Thanks Kynda, for watching our kids!)  The whole weekend was so perfect.  I LOOOVE being surprised and that's what it was--one surprise after another and I didn't see any of it coming!  

On my actual b-day, my parents took me to dinner at Cafe Rio followed by ice cream at Cold Stone (They know what I like!)  My friend Alissa took me out to lunch on Mon. two days after my B-day and made some delicious chocolate covered strawberries for dessert--mmmm!  We had everyone over for cake (that my mom made--thanks, mom!) and ice cream on Sunday and my kiddos helped me blow out my candles.  Thanks to everyone for your calls, texts, emails, cards, etc.   I was totally spoiled this year!  

Marisa, Kynda, me

At Cold Stone with my parents and kiddos

Crewser loves ice cream almost as much as his mom!

Love my Priesie girl

Halle, Alissa, Kiki

Blowing out my candles

Welcome to our family, Sienna!!!

...Toyota Sienna, that is!

We purchased a used (but new to us!) '04 Toyota Sienna minivan at the beginning of March and we LOVE it!!!!  We had looked for a long time and Caleb finally found what we were looking for in Lindon, UT.  We've officially joined the world of "van families"-yippee!

family shot after church the weekend Caleb drove it home

Caleb spent 8 hours (no exaggeration) installing a DVD player in it.  Way to go, Honey!  (I must admit, I was a little worried to have my new van all torn apart like that, but he put it all back together for me.  He's amazing like that!)

We have SOOOO much more room now, and it is wonderful (even though Crew's face doesn't show it here- ha!)

And one more thing...today we got the wonderful news in the mail that Caleb passed his Part II Boards exam!!!!  Way to go,  Hon!!  I knew you could do it!  I'm so proud of you!