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It seems that all the blogosphere talk has shifted towards babies. Everywhere I turn people are talking about having a baby, being pregnant, or considering becoming pregnant. I think it’s great. I love hearing about everyone’s families.

I have a few friends who have recently announced they are expecting and I couldn’t be happier for them. I must admit I’m feeling a little left out. It is a strange feeling being 31 and having your youngest and last baby turn 5. Part of me says I’m to old to have anymore, and part of me can’t believe that I’m done. At this point the idea of starting all over is to overwhelming to think about, but the idea of the next baby in the family being my grandchild is even scarier. My daughter turned 13 this year and it seems like life is flying by way to fast. If she follows our families pattern I could be a grandmother in about 6 more years. How scary is that?

The idea that my youngest will be in kindergarten next year, and I could choose to do something for myself like go back to school is a wonderful thought. I am feeling free to pursue things I’ve always wanted to do, but is this a selfish thing? The idea of him being in kindergarten also scares me. I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I remember. My job has always been to take care of my little ones and now I feel like that is coming to an end. If I’m not just my kids mom anymore then who am I? Dad’s have it easier because they also have there career as part of there identity. I’ve been a wife and mother only, and wonder what else am I?

This may seem like a pity party, but it’s not. I really am enjoying the idea of having options for my future. I just don’t know what I want more, freedom in my day, or more babies to cuddle.

So tell me how did you know if you were done or if there were more babies meant for you?

The stupidest Mormon pick up line EVER.

Guy: “Is your name virtue.”

Girl: “No, why?”

Guy: “because you garnish my thoughts unceasingly.” (D&C 121:45)

Seriously. Are you kidding me? I couldn’t believe this actually came out of the mouth of a boy my daughters age. Some kid said this to one of her friends. In all fairness he is only in the 7th grade, but give me a break!

So tell me, what is the stupidest pickup line you’ve heard?

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Growing up in Seattle we didn’t see a whole lot of snow. Rain yes, but snow no. When it did snow, it was a big mushy mess, and everything shut down. We could get less than 1/2 an inch of snow and the whole city would come to a grinding halt. No stores open, no work, but most of all no school.

The city was just not equipped with snow removal gear or at least not enough. Since it only snowed once or maybe twice a year, I guess they didn’t think it was worth it to buy a bunch of plows.

Of course we didn’t mind, we loved snow days. We would brake into the golf course and slide down the hills.

When we moved to Idaho we had lots and LOTS of snow. The first week we were there it snowed about a foot and a half. I waited for the announcement that school would be closed and planned on a fun day with snow forts, sledding and hot coco. The announcement never came, Idaho schools don’t close because of snow. I couldn’t believe it how did they function with all this snow.

In all the years we lived in Idaho they only closed school once, and that was not because of snow. It was because the heater went out in the building and it was about 5 degrees outside. That brings me to another fun fact about Idaho, if it is above 0 then the kids have to go out for recess. They are only aloud to stay in if the temperature dips into the negative range. How crazy is that?

This morning we woke up to a winter wonderland outside, and I couldn’t’ get off our hill to get the kids to school. A very nice neighbor put chains on his car and drove them to school late.

Being new to Utah, I’m just wondering what is Utah’s policy on snow days, and what are your favorite snow day memories?

On a side note, I got a phone call from my mom last night. She called to tell me that the girl in Lehi who was killed by her husband at church was my childhood friend Christy from Seattle. I hadn’t put it together since I haven’t seen her since we were little and her last name is different. I’m still processing this, I’m sure I’ll write more about it later. Until then please pray for her family.

(Disclaimer: Ash uses the word sexy A LOT. He says things like “look at that car, that’s sexy” and “our new TV is sexy”, things like that.)

Cole:Â “Mom what does sexy mean?”

Me: ” Um, sexy is when something looks really good.”

Cole: “Oh, ok I’m going to go put on my sexy socks.”

Happy 5th Birthday Sugar Bear!

So I asked for suggestions on what I could write about, and I got a couple of great ideas. Lucky says that I should write about my childhood, but I don’t have interesting stories like getting run over by a taxi while laying in the middle of the road on a speed bump like she does. Really you should ask her about it sometime.

Compulsive writer suggested that I write a year in review, and since it is New Years Eve I thought that wasn’t a bad idea. The problem with that idea is that we had a really REALLY horrible year that I have so generously spared you the details of.

I think a year in review is the perfect way to say goodbye to a horrible year. If you choose to click away now I would totally understand. If your still with me here we go.

January started out as a total whirlwind. January is our busy season (we do wedding trade shows) and we worked even more than usual. My hubby travels about half the month, but this year he was gone the whole month except for a few days when he was home in passing. So I spent the month playing single mother, while putting out fires at work. Ash spent the month in airports, and hotels.

January spilled into February, and although life was suppose to slow down we found ourselves working 7 days a week through all of February. Ash was asked to speak at conferences so he ended up out of town about half of February.

March came, and we were ready for life to get back to normal for a while, but it didn’t happen. While going to the doctor for a physical so she could put in her mission papers, my mother in law found out she had breast cancer. When they went in to do the surgery they found that it had spread through her lymph nodes and was worse than they thought.

By April we decided that we were in desperate need of a family vacation. There was a huge divide between us and the kids because we had been in survival mode for so long. We set off for southern California to hang out in the sun, swim in the pool, and be with Ash’s mom while she recovered from surgery and began chemotherapy. The day after we got there I received a phone call that my dad had passed away.

My dad left before I was 2 years old, and only made brief appearances in my life for the next 18 years (that is probably a post for another day). I never realized how much pain and grief I could feel for the loss of a man a barely new. I grieve the loss of opportunity to spend what little time I had with him. I find myself angry at those who kept my dad from being part of my life (his second wife). I once read another bloggers post about her dad, and she said she felt like she had “a dad shaped hole in her heart”, and that’s how I felt.

The next few months are a blur, as I put my head down and avoided life. I trudged through every day until the dark skies finally parted.

In June Ash got me a new puppy, that I love.

In July my mother and father-in-law moved to Utah, and I threw myself into taking care of her to distract myself from my own pain and problems. I cooked, cleaned, and ran errands for her while taking her to many appointments for her cancer treatment. We also had 3 teenage nephews come and stay with us. Two of them came for 10 days and the third stayed for 6 more weeks until mid August. We had a great time, and it was a wonderful distraction, but was also very tiring.

August was spent entertaining the nephews, and showing them all over Utah. I went to Cub Scout day camp with my Wolf den. During lunch I got a phone call that my mother-in-law had a seizure and was on her way to the hospital by ambulance. She ended up ok she had a few stitches and a huge black eye but over all she was fine. They did take her license away for six month so we started having to drive her everywhere.

At the end of August we decided to try another family vacation since our last attempt was a total disaster so we left for Hawaii. Ash and I have promised the kids a trip to Hawaii for years (Ash is from Hawaii). We can’t mange a family vacation without a major disaster, and this one was no different. We had a earthquake, and a hurricane during our trip.

Is anyone still with me?

Well next comes September, and September is our second really busy season so Ash was gone the whole month, and half of October to. By September I realize that we need to make some major changes and I started doing some serious soul searching.

October brought still more craziness, but attending the temple while Ash was out of town, and a lot of scripture reading brought a little peace to my life.

I got a phone call in mid October from Ash’s brother in Iraq asking me if I knew what had happened to his friend Ben. I will spare you the details, because I wrote about it here and here, but after a little detective work I found out that Ben had been in an accident, and was now a quadriplegic, and I spent the next few weeks at the ICU helping out as much as I could.

November was spent at the hospital doing what I could.

Mid November the bishop called me in to let me know that he was going to release me from my calling because he thought I needed a break.

In December family relationships came to a full boil (because of the family business) and we decided that it is time to leave the family business and do something else. I know this is the right thing to do, but it makes our future a little unsure. I have faith that the Lord will take care of us, but I don’t know what the next few months will hold for us.

If this whole post isn’t pathetic enough I’m spending New Years Eve taking care of my hubby, who is horribly sick.

I’m sure by now I have lost you all with my whining, but on the off chance that anyone is still reading this I need to throw in a few good things that happened this year.

1. Sadie went to the temple to do baptisms for the first time.
2. I discovered weight watchers, and have lost 22lbs
3. Ash met one of his idols Seth Godin (who shaved his head)
4. We went to Hawaii
5. My mother in-law finished chemo and radiation and appears to be doing well
6. My mother and father in-law got a mission call to London and will be leaving in February.
7. My children are healthy
8. We had a very generous friend donate a $200 gift certificate for Christmas to Ben and his family.
9. We raised about $2,000 at a benefit dinner for Ben.

Here is hoping for a better new year.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas is in full swing at our house, and the kids are beside themselves with excitement. My middle child is by far the most excited. He only wants one thing for Christmas, but if he didn’t get it he might be totally bummed.

Ash and I FINISHED Christmas shopping last night for our kids. Yeah! We had a good time while grandma stayed home and watched the kids. It is such a relief to be done.

I tease Ash that he is “Bah Humbug” about Christmas, which really isn’t true he just hates all the fuss about presents and Santa and that stuff. So yesterday while shopping I found the cutest sign for him that says it perfectly.

Cute huh! Anyway because we don’t like to get wrapped up in the what are we getting for Christmas nonsense we have always tried really hard to make the giving part the fun part. We spend a lot of time doing fun Christmas activities like making Gingerbread houses with grandma, and visiting the lights at Temple Square. This year we decided to try the Polar Express up in Heber. It was a lot of fun. The kids really liked it, even our 12 year old. The price was a little steep, but I think it was worth it. Oh and did I mention that Dallin H. Oakes just happened to be on the train to.

Kids and their cousins with Santa on the train.

 Dallin H Oakes talking with the kids.

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. Merry Christmas!

I went yesterday to see Ben and Megan’s new baby. He is to cute. Let me introduce Curt Corey Benjamin Brust.

We have been clocking a LOT of work hours for a pretty long time now, and need to find a better balance to life. We have decided the last few weeks to take at least half of our Saturdays off, and do something fun with the kids. This past Saturday we took the kids and headed up to Salt Lake to see the children’s museum at the Gateway mall, and check out the Robots exhibit. (My oldest was thrilled ;0)

I haven’t ever been to the children’s museum in Salt Lake, but we really enjoy the one in Palm Springs, and the one in Seattle as well, so it sounded fun. It wasn’t bad, but the Robots exhibit was a little disappointing. There wasn’t much to do except line up dominoes, which my kids could do at home. The rest was just a lot of looking at displays, and watching short videos about how robotics works or how they made the movie Robots.

The rest of the museum was fun. We enjoyed the TV studio, and sending messages back and forth through a tube and a laundry line. Cole loved playing in the water down stairs, and shooting balls through a tube in the garden area.

Dallin took the news cast very serious, but Cole not so much. He was to into seeing himself on TV.

After the museum I talked Ash into going to the Festival or Trees in Sandy. We had a great time looking at all the beautiful trees, but I forgot to take pictures. Maybe next time.

Wow I just had the scariest experience EVER. I don’t even know If I can write about it in complete sentences, because I’m still shaken up. Yesterday I went to pick Ash up from the airport (very common occurrence lately) and when I got there 20 minutes late he wasn’t out front waiting. I called his cell phone and it went strait to voice mail which either means it’s off or he is on it (I thought probably on it).

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I left the kids in the car on the curb (with Sadie to babysit, and the doors locked, with the cell phone) and decided he was probably waiting inside where it is warm. When I got inside and looked around his flights baggage carousel he wasn’t there so I went and talked to the airlines baggage counter. The incompetent nice airline employee asked if she could help me.

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ME: Yes, my husbands flight just got in and he wasn’t on it could you look into it for me.

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Employee: Yes mam that flight has already arrived.

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ME: Um yes, but he wasn’t on it could you please check if he ever checked in for the flight.

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Employee: Oh, ok. Sure.

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Employee: (after rapid typing) No we don’t show he ever checked in, sorry.

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ME: (thinking: what do you mean sorry, find out more) OK what about his flight from Honolulu to Phoenix did he ever get on that plane.

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Employee: We don’t show that that plane ever took off.

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ME: (a little louder now) What do you mean it never took off? If it didn’t take off he would have called me.

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Employee: I’m sorry that’s all the information I have.

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Seriously people do you think that is an acceptable answer? I mean my husband is missing, and all I get is a “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

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So from there she tells me that even though we bought the flight through them, they contract another airline to fly to and from Honolulu, and that I will have to call and talk to them (she doesn’t even offer to call for me, or give me the number.). I go back out to the car where my kids are asking where is daddy and all I can say is I don’t know. I call 411 and get the other airlines number but can’t get a human on the phone so I’m stuck talking to a computer and after 20min all I find out that my husbands direct flight from Honolulu to Phoenix left Honolulu at 2:30 am (3 hours late) and arrived in Kana Pali. Kana Pali what the hell is that?

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By now It’s been about 45min and still no answers. I decided to drive around and park and go into the airport to the other airlines counter dragging all 3 kids who by now are panicking to, and not leave until I get an answer. When I get into the airport not only do they not have a counter for that airline, but nobody has even heard of that airline (not reassuring).

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By now I’m not only hyperventilating, but I’m pissed. I march up to the original airlines counter and explained (to a lady who wasn’t doing anything at the time) the situation and the witch nice lady tells me that if I want to get in the back of the line she would be happy to help me as soon as it was my turn. Seriously people! By now I’m starting to worry that they are going to have to arrest me for making a scene in the airport. I (in a very loud tone) told her that no I would not get to the back of the line, that I had been in the airport now for over an hour and a half, and she damn well better start giving me some answers. (Oh and by the way I had talked to Ash’s dad on the phone and he explained that Kana Pali was in Maui, and that the only reason for stopping there would be an emergency landing, not helpful.)

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Right about then I got a text message from Ash that he had just landed in Phoenix, and that he would call me in a minute to explain. I burst into tears, and was shaking. I can’t even tell you how scary this was. It turned out that yes they landed in Maui, because they lost a communications antenna, and a 10 min fix turned into 3 hours (after the 3 hours that they spent waiting to take off from Honolulu.). When I asked why he didn’t call, he said he didn’t want to wake me. I explained that waking me would have been better than what I went through, and that from now on he isn’t aloud to fly.

Halloween is in full swing at our house, and I’m feeling baa-humbug about the whole thing. It’s not that I don’t love Halloween, or any other holiday for that matter, but I hate the busyness of it. Of course since procrastination is my middle name I waited until last night to buy candy, and find a costume.

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Every year my kids ask me what I’m going to be, and I tell them “a grumpy old mommy”. They don’t think that’s very funny, so this year I did go out and get a costume, well sort of. I’ll post pictures later. Since I’m joining in the Halloween crap fun I thought Ash should to, so I made him go out last night and get himself a costume to.

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Halloween just isn’t fair to us Weight Watchers girls. I am totally over my candy addiction except when Halloween rolls around. Wish me luck tonight.

OK so we just got back from St. George, and we had a great time all except the first night their. Now comes the disclaimer. If you have a weak stomach click away now.

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Really

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I mean it!

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OK anybody still with me?

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So my youngest son woke me up at 4 o’clock in the morning our first night in St George telling me that I needed to change his shirt. In my dazed stupor I asked him why what happened and then I smelt it, and didn’t need to wait for the answer. I staggered out of bed, and ushered him into the bathroom where I flipped on the light to discover that my fear was correct. My son was covered from his chin to his toes (no exaggerating) in POO! Not puke like you might have guessed POO. Really. and he’s almost 5! All I can guess is that he was REALLY REALLY asleep. Don’t worry, this is one thing I didn’t take pictures of.

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It took me an hour and a half to get him, the bathroom, and his bed cleaned up, and then two more days to completely get rid of the smell. By the way, sorry to the owner of the condo who probably would never rent to us again if he finds out what happened. I’m sure I cleaned and bleached away all the evidence.

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So what is the sickest thing your kids have ever done?

We are off on a much needed vaca to St George. Hope everyone has a great weekend. I’ll post pics when we get back.

Well Ash is still out of town, and I’m really bored. Not that I don’t have plenty I could be doing, I just don’t feel like it with him gone. So I decided to have a party at my house last night. We had a scrapbook/stamping party from 7:00 until whenever (the last guest left at 2:00 this morning).

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So I’m sure you are probably wondering what I’m doing up at 8:00 in the morning after getting to bed at about 2:30. Well my youngest son has an internal clock that goes off at 6:00 every morning and makes him think it’s time to get up. I wish I could find his snooze button.

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So check out some of our stuff.

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I didn’t really do these, but I’m totally going to steal the idea.

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This is going to be my Christmas cards, but there is some blue mittens

that are going to hang from the white strip with twine.

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Anyway we had a blast, and I’m definitely doing that again soon.

I have total writers block right now. It’s not for a lack of stuff to talk about, it’s a total lack of what to say about it. I’ve got lists of stuff I could tell you all, like my kids first day back at school, my husband traveling for work again and won’t be back for yet another week, my parents plan to move out of “T-town” and into the country of Idaho, the stuff going on in Iraq with my brother in law, taking care of my mother in law while she is now doing radiation and her hubby is out of town to. I just can’t seem to get the motivation to write any of it. (plus I have a new camera, and the photos are stuck on it until the technical one in the family gets home).

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I can usually write some crappy article for work that will do, but this time I can’t even do that. I’m just staring at the cursor willing it to write itself. All of this is leading me to eat ridiculous amounts of candy that won’t look good on Friday when I go to weigh in for Weight Watchers.

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I guess I do have something to write after all, to bad its all whining.

Here is Dallin Boogie boarding. This is right before a rip tide got a hold of him and swept him out. Ash had to swim after him and help him back in. Quit a scare.

This is a picture from the top of the Pali looking down on Kailua.

Another photo from the Pali Highway looking towards Kaneohe bay.

This is Blow hole just east of Hanamua Bay.

This is the house that Ash grew up in while living in Hawaii.

Hawaii Temple

Hanamua Bay

Hanamua Bay

Hanamua Bay

They view from our condo.