Monday, July 12, 2010

20 Year HS Reunion


I've been needing to post about a million things that we've been up to this summer so I thought I'd try to catch up before the summer ends and my last semester starts. I kept debating whether or not I wanted to go to my 20 year reunion. Pretty much everyone that I cared to keep in contact with was on Facebook so I kinda didn't feel the need to go. But my sister was telling me that your reunion is kind of like your HS prom, if you don't go, you will always regret it... so with that, we went!! Brent was super supportive and really wanted to go so that was good.
At my 10 year, we sat with Sherry and her husband Chris. We laughed b/c they live about 45 minutes from us here in Dallas and we flew half way across the country to have dinner with them. Brent said we could've done that from home. hehe!
My sweet from Yasi. Seriously, lucky her, she hasn't aged a bit since HS!
Brent and Yasi's husband... having a good time!
When it came to hanging out, this was some of my posse! Yasi, Sherry, Kim, Tammy and me. Gaelyn, Cristin and Gaby were missing... we haven't been together since the day of graduation.
My dear friend Denyelle! She made my HS years fun!
Gina, me, Yasi, Sherry, Marissa and Toni. Good times!
And the winners are... Sherry for having the most kids, Scott for traveling the furthest and me for being married the longest...haha... only in LA would 17 years be the longest!
Over all we had a great time. It was fun seeing people I hadn't seen in 20 years. It's crazy how life takes you down different roads when we initially started off at the same place!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Happy Easter

I just wanted to post a few of the pictures of the kids. They actually wore their Easter outfits the last Sunday in March since we were going to have General Conference for Easter.
I can't believe how handsome my little Kolton has become. He will be 12 next month. He was sweet enough to wear the tie I got him just b/c it matches the girls dresses. I hope he will always be so easy when it comes to this stuff.

I just love, love this picture. My three sweethearts. I'm so biased but aren't they just the cutest???

Friday, March 5, 2010

Sweet gentle Brees, and Shocking Shockey!

(I've been needing to blog about this but it still makes me sad but this is our family journal; good and bad, they are our experiences in life.)

As I stated in my last post, we got a puppy. We had headed out of Louisiana and we were just exhausted. (If you read my last post, you know we spent 12 solid hours trying to clean our rent house then got up very early the next morning to drive to Louisiana.) Anyways, Brent is always the driver on our trips but he said he was drowsy so I being the sweet wife that I am, offered to drive us home. So, he happily agreed. Anyways, we got in to Shreveport and needed gas so I pulled over to fill up. Of course anyone who travels knows that as soon as you stop, everyone wakes up. Well, we got gas and as I was driving off when the whole family noticed a sign that said "Puppies for Sale- Shit-zu's". I told Brent we needed to go on but he and the kids insisted we stop. So knowing we didn't want to spend $350.00 on Christmas Eve, I humored them all and turned around and stopped. UGH! Oh, how I wish I hadn't stopped. Well, before we knew it we were driving down the road with a sweet, toy shih-tzu we named "Brees". He was so dang cute and sweet.
He just loved to sit on your lap and sleep. He let the kids just tote him around and seemed to enjoy every minute of it. He would untie my shoes. He was just the perfect dog. We just all absolutely fell in love with him.
I tried playing the devil's advocate and tried not to get close to him, but somehow I did. I don't even really like animals. One afternoon, six days later on December 30th, our new renter called and wasn't feeling well and wanted me to come pick up the rent for January. (Since she had the rent, I was happy to go get it.) So I left the kids cleaning the house and ran to get the money. Brent was gone helping a friend move some furniture. So I got in the car went and got the money, took it to the bank and passed the car wash on the way home. I thought, ugh, this car is so filthy, I'm going to get it cleaned. By the time I made it home, I'd been gone about an hour. I came in and Kourtney and Kaelyn said they were hungry so I immediately started making them some lunch. Then we ate. I always go upstairs to check on the kids and see how they had progressed but I didn't this time since I got distracted making lunch. After lunch, I got on the computer for a few minutes when Kolton came downstairs screaming that Brees was dead. I said what?!! He was carrying a lifeless little 1.8 lb puppy in his arms. I freaked out. I don't deal well with blood let alone death. Apparently while I was gone, Kylee had decided to bathe him and then just laid him down on the bathroom rug. Kolton found him sometime later. I immediately called Brent. Anyone who knows Brent, knows he is a "Jack of all trades". I knew he could fix Brees, too. I can't ever recall a time that Brent hasn't fixed what I needed fixing, literally! ANyways, I was screaming on the phone and Brent thought I told him that I couldn't get Kolton to wake up. So Brent fell to his knees. He asked me what happened and I said "Kylee drowned" but he never understood the rest of my sentence which ended with "the dog." So now he was obviously in a massive panic. Poor guy. I handed the phone to Kolton who calmly explained to his dad that his baby sister had drowned their new puppy. He was relieved to say the least... the rest of us where still in panic mode. I will never forget my sweet Kourtney trying to give him CPR. It still makes me cry to this day. Brent told Kolton to take a towel and wait outside for him in the back yard. All five of us just cried and cried. This poor sweet puppy died because of my neglect. It just didn't seem fair. Can't he have 9 lives? I promise I'll take Kylee with me, I promise just bring him back to life... we will all be more careful. Well, it wasn't meant to be. Brent got home shortly and took the dog and buried him in the back yard. Most of us stayed inside. Kolton and Kourtney wrote Brees these letters. (We found them next to his grave about a week later, so I took them before the weather did.)
Brent took us and hugged us all and cried with us. We knelt and had prayer thanking the Lord for the short time we had been blessed withBrees. Brent got the scriptures and read to us from Alma about resurrection. That brought us peace but we still grieved. The next few days, the kids would break down and just cry and cry and I would join them. Soon I began to think I was crazy. How could I mourn the loss of a puppy we only had for 6 days! I seriously was going to need some puppy grief counseling. I believe in God's Plan whole heartedly but why would he need our puppy? I can often justify death by saying the Lord needed him, but did he really need our puppy??? I came to understand, he didn't need our puppy, but we needed to learn the value of life. It was a painful lesson, but I understood and in the end, obviously we were glad it was our puppy and not a family member.

So, the crying continued and the only thing that seemed to help was to think about getting another puppy but maybe one not so fragile and tiny. (Brees was a toy shih-tzu so he would only get to be about 6 lbs. full grown). Anyways, we looked on Craig's List and found a small rat-terrier/chihuaha mix. Great a mutt, a cheap one, too. That's what we need. So two weeks after Brees died, we got another puppy.
But this one I'm pretty sure is a crack baby! He is so hyper and wild. So different from Brees. But at the same time better for our family because we all know Kylee can barely hold him for two seconds before he is gone. So now it's been almost 2 months and Shockey has made it. We really wanted to show Brees that we could be good, responsible owners so we are happy and are trying to remember how quickly life can change so value every minute!

Monday, January 11, 2010

December Happenings

Before we could even blink, December came and went. I think part of it was because I was out of energy and not in the festive mood. But here's a run down of all the craziness we did this month.
Kourtney had her piano recital and did awesome. She has a new teacher and has improved so much. It's fun to hear her start to play church hymns. I think she is loving it too, especially since she recognizes the songs she is playing.

Kolton is in Honor Choir and had a few performances. They really sound good and I'm proud that he's willing to be in choir. Now if I could just get him to sing at church!

I finished my second to last semester, yah! I ended up taking 12 hours and ended up with 2 B's and 2 A's. It feels so good to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The only thing is I feel like I'm running out of gas. I hope I can finish these last classes.... My goal is to have my bachelors by the time I go to my HS reunion this summer.

Well Texas brought us snow...TWICE! We got some Christmas Eve which was nice to have a white Christmas. Luckily for me, it was gone in two days!
Every year we have a Christmas Family Home Evening with Brent's family. It's definitely one of our favorite times of the year. We were all together this year. Next year Lance will be on his mission but there will be a few new little ones.

The kids enjoyed their Christmas. The three older ones got electronic devices. Kolton and Kourtney got I-touches which they love and Kaelyn got a Nintendo DSi, however I think she would've rather of had a I-touch like the older two. Kylee got some dolls and a stroller and all that girly stuff. They also got this adorable puppy. (Tragic story of puppy coming soon.)

We finally got rid of our crappy renter that was only paying a little here and there each month. Finally, she admitted they couldn't afford to live there and I told her we couldn't afford to keep paying 2 houses either. She ageed to move out since she didn't have any money to give me in December. Wow! Lady, you are so thoughtful since it's December and we have to make 2 house payments again. Anyways, she wanted to move out on the 26th... really, so you have a nice house to live in for Christmas, while we are paying for it. I told her she had to be out by the weekend which was the 22nd. Anyways, they left. Meanwhile, I put the house on Craigslist and a lady wanted it and wanted it on the 22nd. Well, our previous renter left the house a disaster and just bailed on us so we spent the entire day (we were supposed to of left and been in Louisiana with Brent's family) cleaning the house and making repairs. By the end of the day we had a new renter and our old one was out. What a blessing on both sides!!! So far everything has been good with our new renter and we hope it stays that way.