Well Now

Hello to everyone who follows. I'm sorry I have not posted on here for a long time. We have been quite busy and now I have the time and the freedom to post.

As most of you know, we've returned to Minnesota. It was a bit of a rough change as we went from living in our own house to sharing with Mary. We are grateful for her hospitality and are happy we have gotten a little more established.

At the beginning of the move, Jason stayed behind to work until I could find a job. That lasted for about 2 months and returned to us in September. I am, however; still unemployed. Jason was lucky to find a job working for a guy in our ward whose family owns a heating, plumbing, A/C, and other such things company. He's keeping busy and the company he works for also works with a lady here in the Twin Cities that has a show on HGTV or DIY Network. I don't remember which. The show is called Rehab Addict. He's come home a few nights saying that he'll probably be on the show and has told a few stories of talking to the camera guys from the network.

I am apparently destine to spend my time in school. I have been extremely unsuccessful at finding a job in the last 3 months of being here as well as looking and applying for several months prior to the actual move. This is a bit frustrating as I have a Bachelor degree, but it didn't seem to appeal to anyone here. I've decided to return to school. I will make my attempt at the nursing program at Century College. I'm pretty much a semester away from the program, but I also have to get really good grades in certain things and I have to take the Nursing Assistant program.

The kids are thriving in school and having so much fun here. Stacey has said to me that she really likes it here both in school and church. Kail is actually enjoying and voluntarily going to primary every week. He's actually cried when we took him out early one Sunday. Jayden is the same old kid he was before seemingly not too interested in much other than video games and TV. He is doing amazing in school and only struggles with knowing what information is needed for writing a story. Kail does seem to be having some small issues with adjusting to not being able to do what he wants when he wants, but hopefully the talks we've had with him have helped.

I have been called as the Enrichment Leader in my new ward and I love this ward. They are all so friendly and it's wonderful having such a fun calling. We are preparing for our Super Saturday to take place in just 2 days. I'm excited and know that it wouldn't be happening if I hadn't said anything to the previous Enrichment leader. She had no idea what it was, but once I explained it to her, she was on board and ready. I helped her prepare and get ideas until they called me into that position and now she's gracefully helping me complete the project. She is also still the Enrichment Counselor, so she still has her part in it. I will try to post some pictures of our projects.

That is the extent of our lives here in a nut shell. If I'd kept up on the Blog, I'm sure more information would have made it on here, but these are the highlights. The rest is for you to enjoy in pictures with captions.



 

Stacey's birthday. This hat was a gift and she loves it.

Stacey and her friend Ellie Jo pushing Jayden and Ellie Jo's brother Sam up the hill in the back yard. They'd ride down the hill in the wagon and take turns doing so.

Jason is helping Kail ride a friend's kid dirt bike. Since he can't ride a bike without training wheels, Jason had to hold on the entire time.

The kids walking to school the first day. It's really Stacey and Jayden's second day because kindergarten started one day later.

Cutie Kail on his first day of school.

Kail figured out that it's fun to ride on the four wheeler and no one has to hold him up. He loves riding it quite a bit.

Jayden figured out that it really wasn't that bad to ride the dirt bike and actually now wants one of his own. Little dare devil.

This is my attempt at amateur photography of the changing leaves. They're so pretty.

The kids are riding in the trailer attached to the ride-on lawnmower. They helped Jason do yard work.

Our cute little Sam really enjoying the sun.

The kids at the Minnesota State Zoo. They had a blast.

 

Jayden is getting such a goofy personality. He does love to joke around and here he's showing how the unofficial Minnesota State Bird can attack at any moment.

Kail in a mock bird's nest at the zoo. Apparently this thing spins.

I have no idea what she was doing, but it's hilarious.

 

 

Stacey's Halloween costume. If you can't guess, she's an angel. I wanted to get little devil horns and then attach a halo to them, but that didn't happen. 

Jayden as a Ninja Lord.

Kail as a cop. He ended up being a gansta cop at some point in the night as he put his hat back on and it was basically sideways.

This is the kids' haul of candy. We brought the blue bag so they could dump their candy in it when their bags got heavy. Most of this is Kail's and they all still have more candy not pictured on the table here. They really made out well last night.

Christmas Week Pictures Continued

Here are the kids all dressed up in their Christmas play outfits. Kail and Amie are super adorable in their full costumes. Stacey and Jayden are as adorable as always.

Here, I got a Kindle. I wanted one so very much and I got one. It's been put to good use since yesterday.

Stacey was extremely excited to get her Kindle. She loves to read and she's been practically begging Santa and us for one.

Jayden was all smiles and excitement when he opened his Star Wars X-Wing and Tie Bomber with Luke Skywalker, R2D2, and Darth Vader figures. Those ships are huge!

Kail didn't show any particular excitement over one gift or another, but his first game he played when we got home where his MobiGo was left was this Spongebob game.

Here we find a very emotional Mary enjoying one of the pictures and its frame.

Now these are just random pictures from our trip.

Stacey is being a model and what a model she makes.

Christmas Week Pictures

This was an awesome tree made completely out of poinsettia.

Mary found herself on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was pretty cool and she, of course, had to get a picture of it. I would have if there was a Melissa Martin on there.

I forgot about the character breakfast we went to on Thursday morning. It was so fun, except Alisa was having a scream fest everytime a character came around as you can see on the left side of Pluto. Amie and my kids loved it.

Jayden found himself a dragon head to climb on at Santa Monica Pier. He had a little bit of fun there.

Here's Mallory and Stacey below us on the beach. I didn't intend for that heart to be right where it is in the picture, Stacey just happened to stand there. I didn't even notice it until Jason said something about it.

Kail and Jeff entertaining each other while building a sand volcano.

Our day in Disneyland started by seeing Pluto and Goofy. The kids got to share an autograph book and had a blast meeting the characters.

Later in the day we saw Tigger, Eeore and Pooh. As you can see, Tigger was playing around and being silly. Kail got a major kick out of that.

Christmas Week

We spent the 19th through the 26th in California. My family and Jason's were all there. Mary (Jason's mom) came on the 10th to Utah for a visit before California and also celebrated Jayden's 8th birthday, that's another blog.
On the 18th Jason and Mary packed up her minivan while I was at work. We got all lugage including presents into the van with lots of room for us to sit and have a nice 9-10 hour drive to our hotel. After I got off of work and made it home around 9pm, we took off. We ended up getting into California about 5 or 6am with plenty of time to wander aroud, practically delirious from exhaustion. We had to wait until 11:30 for Chris (Jason's brother) and his wife and baby to get in from Minnesota to meet them at the airport and had to wait until 3 for our hotel room. Needless to say, that first night was an early to bed night.
The next day we got up and moved to the hotel my family was staying at. While we waited for that room to be ready, which was a 2 bedroom condo (Nikki and Jeff have a timeshare with Wyndham), we did the timeshare deal to each get a $75 AMEX gift card. We came very close to buying, but they wanted close to $9000 down and we didn't have that between Mary, Chris, Becky, Jason and I. So, we took our cards and went to eat which took most of the time between the timeshare thing and our 4pm check in time. Jason and I also went to eat dinner with Nikki, Jeff, Jaimie, and Ricky at a place called the White House. It was supposed to be really good, but I've had better. The company is what made that night worth being there for.
The condo was wonderful. I didn't take pictures, so I can't show you, but it was great. There were two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a pullout couch and a kitchenette. We were able to eat in more saving a little bit of money.
Wednesday we went to Hollywood. Traffic is horrible in California and I don't ever want to live there. We did the Hollywood walk of fame and a 2 hour tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills. We didn't get a chance to meet up with my family that day, which was interesting considering they were in Hollywood in the same part of Hollywood as us also. I was so unimpressed with Hollywood and how dirty it was. The tour was a little pathetic considering you could only see the top or the gate of the stars' homes. But it was still a good day. We ate at a restaurant call BJ's. It had pizza and all sorts of other foods, they didn't nail down one type they specialized in and that was fine because it was so good. My family had pizzas and Mary had a pasta dish. Chris and Becky took their very tired selves and baby back to the hotel and didn't join us for dinner. BJ's also has these wonderful desserts call Pizookies. They're cookies made similar to a pizza in that it comes in small a plateabout 6 inches in diameter and it came with ice cream. It was a-maz-ing.
Thursday we joined up with my family and headed to Santa Monica Pier. It was beautiful. It was a bit chilly mostly when the wind blew, but it was so much fun. The water was so ridiculously cold I felt as if I'd stepped into ankle deep snow without shoes on. We got to see dolphins playing in the water, but they didn't come out much more than just their backs. The kids collected sea shells, did some splashing in the freezing water, and made sand castles with their aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Friday we went to Disneyland. I loved taking my kids there. Disney was a good tradition in my family when I was growing because we lived so close and my parents worked there (so did Nikki and I when we were old enough) that I wanted to share such a wonderful and fun place with my children. Our first ride was the 3D Star Tours which is a ride done with the Star Wars theme. All my kids loved it. We then went on the Matterhorn. Jayden hated that and wouldn't go on another roller coaster type ride again.
Kail, on the other hand, loved it. He was able to get onto Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Tower of Terror also. He wasn't too sure about Space Mountain or Tower of Terror, but he loved Splash Mountain and wanted to go again. Jayden did go on Tower of Terror too because he promised Jason he would try it and he hated that as well. Stacey loved everything we went on. She wanted so badly to go on rides more than once, but we wanted to see the two parks and the lines were ridiculously long.
Saturday was a relax day. We'd been so busy the other days that Jason and I said no to doing anything. We did go to WalMart for a few last minute items including food for that night's festivities. All the kids put on a Christmas play created by Stacey and written by Jaimie with Stacey's ideas. It was a very good play and it was so cool to see how creative Stacey can be.
Stacey played Santa, Jayden and Kail played Santa's deer, Amelie played an elf and Alisa was supposed to play a character that became an elf, but she was sick and not cooperating very well.
Christmas day was another lazy day. We enjoyed opening presents with the kids. We got Mary some family gifts like ceramic coffee mugs that the kids painted and picture frames we neatly placed pictures in. Then we went to my family's room for more present opening and breakfast. We had to move rooms again that day and, thankfully, our room was ready by 9am so we didn't have to hang in limbo between check out time at noon and check in time at 4. We got all moved and enjoyed some breakfast. The kids went swimming again and we went to lunch/dinner with my family at 3. It was quite an adventure to find somewhere to eat, but we did it and it was nice.
We left California at 5am Pacific time and headed home. We are all tired and ready to sleep, but we all had a great time. I should clarify that we all just means us adults. The kids are ready to play.
So, because of the many details of our trip and the amount of pictures we got, I'm doing a written blog (this one) and a picture blog (to come after this is written). I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Halloween

I know this is incredibly late, but I've been so busy working and finishing school that I forgot to put it up. Our Halloween started with some crafts. We stopped by Joann's Fabric to find the fabric type for Jayden's cloak and found some fun crafts to do too.

Stacey made these little clay candy corns she named Mario and Luigi.

Jayden put some bats together. He's learning how to use the glue gun.

Kail made spiders. He thought these were so cool.

Here is our collection. I made the orange owls, Stacey's candy corns are there, Jayden's purple bats, and Kail's black and green legged spiders.


I made this haunted house.


Stacey did the cemetary.



As I had to work on Halloween, Jason had the joy of btaking the kids trick-or-treating. We always take them to Eagle Mountain because there are so many houses to get candy from and their friends are there. Stacey went with her friends and Jayden with his. Stacey was Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, Jayden was Anakin Skywalker, and Kail was Boba Fett.


They had a blast and made a killing. Jason told me when I talked to him on my way home from work that he'd taken Kail around the neighborhood 3 times. Jason did cheat a little. He brought out our 125cc four wheeler and attached the wagon to the back of it and drove Kail around the neighborhood. When Nikki's kids Amie and Lisie were there, they got to ride in the wagon too and I hear they quite enjoyed it.

Mini Vacation with an update

I'm sorry I've not updated my blog until now. I've been busy working and pretty much dead on the days that I'm not. So, last weekend starting on Sunday, July 31st, Jason and I loaded up the kids and our boat and went down to Delta where Nikki's in laws have a house on Gunnison Reservoir meeting the Radcliffe clan. We had a blast! Of course, Jason and I forgot our camera, as we always seem to do when we do things that are picture worthy.

Here's a pretty sunset picture I got on my phone. This was the first night we were there and a few storms had rolled through earlier in the day, but we got a pretty sky after.

Stacey is sporting her life jacket as we take some family members out for a trip on the boat for the first time.

Nikki and Jeff with Lissie about the jump out of the boat. It was a fun little time to take a trip on the water and explore the area.

Jayden and Kail wanted to sleep next to Amie, so they got to. They were all over the floor the next morning, but my phone was dead and I couldn't get the picture of that.

What I didn't get to take pictures of was everyone tubing. We had to limit the amount of people on the boat, of course, so we could pull someone on the tube behind the boat. Nikki, Jason, and Jeff rocked the tube staying on the longest times. Ricky was our winning roller when he got knocked off the tube. He'd roll at least 3 times before sinking into the water. We all had our turns on the tube, except me. I didn't feel like tubing and it was much more fun to watch everyone else do it.

We intended on staying until Wednesday with everyone, but Jason had a work party that we were all required to go to since we'd said we would before we found out about this little vacation. The party was pretty fun too. They had games for the kids that they could win some prizes at and a couple bouncy houses. They fed us some pretty yummy food and gave away prizes for the employees. Sadly, luck was not with us this party and we didn't win anything. They also had a face painter and it was held at a park, so we barely saw the kids. It was nice. We had fun and went home.

After that few days filled with stuff, I am resting as much as I can this week during my days off. My work schedule changes this Sunday from me working Wednesday through Saturday 5pm to 5am to Sunday through Wednesday 8am to 8pm. I am looking forward to having Fridays and Saturdays off so I can actually go on a date with my husband every now and then. I'll also be home for the kids on Thursdays and Fridays.

We are getting close to school starting for me and the kids. Stacey will be in 3rd grade this year and Jayden will be in 2nd. Kail is still too young for school, but we are looking into some preschools as well as a daycare center that does preschool while the child is there.

I have also changed by major's emphasis. I have change from emergency care, which is the paramedic program, to emergency management. This change means that as long as I can pass all of my classes, I graduate in December! I will walk in the graduation ceremony in April. I'm really going to be working as hard as I can because I want to wear a medal during graduation and I have to have a cumulative GPA of 3.60. I currently have a 3.06. I probably won't make it, but it'll still look good on my transcripts if I decide to do grad school.

I almost forgot

Again, for all of those who do not have facebook, or are not on it often, I got a new hair color and style. This was part of my Mother's Day gifts from Jason and our kids. I got a bunch of spa treatments. I got the cut, color, and style; a full set of acrylic nails; a hot stone pedicure; a 30 minute massage; and a 30 minute facial. I feel quite pampered and love every second of the gifts. I also got really cute "stained glass" (more like painted plastic) cherries and a flower from Stacey and Jayden that they made at school. I really love those too! I have them hanging from my mirror so I can see them everyday.

So, here's my new do!