Halloween and a flood.....

What a crappy (is that a childish word or what?) week I've had. On Saturday the
25th I tried to take Taylor and her friend Serena to a benefit concert for a family in Mesa who had been seriously burned in a plane crash. Mindy Gledhill, a singer from Utah was putting on the concert, and her music was BEAUTIFUL. So, two songs into the concert Branden texts me saying that the "house is flooding". Now, there were 3 16 y/o boys and one 13 y/o in the house, so my first thoughts were that someone just clogged the toilet and there was a little water in the upstairs bathroom. Well WAS I WRONG! Branden and his two friends were playing something, on the Wii, with the volume up loud loud and the fan on. Well, I guess one of them flushed the toilet and then shut the bathroom door.... while the flapper decided to get stuck open and water poured out full blast for about "fifteen minutes" or so, according to the teenage dorks. THANKS KEISHA/KEVIN for bring the girls home for me.
Alec was downstairs making a creation out of pom poms and styrofoam balls (that is another story for another day) and decided that he needed something to hollow out the styrofoam. Thank goodness he went into the garage, only to discover that water was pouring from the ceiling. Who knows how three very intelligent 16 year olds didn't realize that the upstairs was flooding, while they were sitting about 4 feet from the closed bathroom door. (I question how many braincells they lose between agers 14-16). Anyway, our neighbor Chris Koceja came to the rescue, bring his tools and gigantic shop vac.
The boys were so helpful and spent the next couple of hours soaking up towels and sucking up the water. My other helpful neighbor Jody White happens to own a flood restoration company, and he was over by 10:30 with fans and dehumidifiers. The carpet has been taken up in a big part of the loft, Branden's room, and Taylor's room. There are about 4 pieces of sheetrock that had to be removed in the garage ceiling. Now we're just waiting for the insurance adjuster to give us his claim estimate so we can finish all the work. We had the fans going for about 5 days and they were loud!! I love how quiet it is here again.
It's about killing me to have my house torn apart. Branden and Taylor are not able to be in their rooms at all, so we have their clothes and stuff everywhere in my room and in the loft. The OCD in me is driving me CRAZY. But that is ANOTHER story in itself.
Branden had to work on Halloween, and I guess we live on the wrong street in our neighborhood to get invited to the "big part-ay" but we went over to some friends in the ward and had dinner. Taylor went trick-or-treating with her two best friends from the ward/school and Alec hung out with some kids from the ward. It was a fun evening. Thanks Penni for inviting us. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pics of the last weeks events. I did download Mindy Gledhill's CD from Deseret Book. I missed the concert, but get to enjoy her music anyway.

Please vote "yes"

If you are undecided about this proposition, please consider voting "yes". This proposition has deep personal reaction for me and my family. The commitment that goes into marriage should never be taken lightly or for granted. Unfortunately, my marriage did not withstand some of the difficulties that came its way, or ideals that society thinks are okay. But my marriage was entered into with one thing in mind....... that it was a commitment that was to last a lifetime, an eternity. The opponents to this proposition see marriage as just the opposite. They state that "it's no big deal". "Why should it matter what the definition of marriage is?" Well...... I am doing my best to show my children that this mindset is NOT correct, NOT what my marriage to their father was supposed to be, nor what I want their own marriages to be. This proposition can help protect our children from being exposed to a socialists definition of marriage, and instead, allow parents to teach the definition of marriage that they choose to. This propsition has nothing to do with hatred or singlemindedness. Believe me, I had to learn that one three years ago. Please, if you haven't voted, vote yes on this one. I'm speaking from experience.... this one is important.

I've Got the Music in Me!!

Okay, it seems that music has been the thing that has occupied us the most lately. First, Taylor and Alec had their piano recital. I'm going to try and load pictures and videos.... so let's see. Keisha is still their teacher and we love her. Thanks Keisha for all you do. Alec is in both the jazz and regular band as school. I didn't know that he had 3 solos the night of the concert, hence the 15 second video clips from my cell phone. Darn. He is really good. Taylor's orchestra concert was tonight. She was sitting in the back, so I couldn't see her on the video clips. I'm not as impressed this year. Their teacher is kind of... well.... different. At least Taylor enjoys playing the violin. We'll try and hold out this year so that she can really enjoy it in junior high. Taylor turned 12 last Thursday. Oh my gosh... tomorrow night she can go to mutual. I feel old. She is a little bit nervous since she didn't go on Sunday because of conference. We haven't got a "welcome" call or anything from her teacher, so I don't know what they are doing. Alec is an electronics junkie. He has had his eye on the "second generation" ipod Touch for some time. I guess it came out last week, and he had saved all of his yardwork/garbage can/babysitting money and wanted to buy one. I didn't really know what they were, but since he had saved that plus an extra $100 for savings, I drove him to the apple store with just minutes to spare. Evidently they are a popular item, because many of the places he had called during the afternoon were already sold out. Well... Branden decided that he wanted one since his mp3 player was literally worn out from using it so much. He has also been so good about saving his money from his job, so he wanted to go on Saturday to get one. Well..... I thought they were so cool that I decided I wanted one to. That was so out of my "norm". I never just get an electronic gadget just for the heck of it. Well, I did anyway. I've had to change all of our music from windows media to itunes. That took a lot of time since I kind of have a lot of music of all variety on my mp3 player. I also got scriptures and some spanish audio stuff to help me with the "speed spanish" class that I am taking online. I decided that I really need to become bilingual for my job. I'm hoping that by taking these 3 classes, that by the end of the year I may be able to help with some bilingual evaluations with an interpreter. That would be so helpful since our bilingual eval team is already scheduling into January!!!! Whew! Hopefully I can download all of the pics and videos. If not, just use your imagination!

End of summer part 2

I couldn't figure out how to add any more pictures... so here are the rest of them. The boys "back to school" pictures are sideways, so just turn your head... I couldn't figure out how to change the direction, and it's 10:30 p.m. so I'm too tired to mess with it.

End of summer in a nutshell

Okay, so I was uploading pictures from my camera and realized that it's been a long time since I've done a update post. Let's see. We went to Utah for my nephew Matt's wedding. It was so great to see lots of my extended family. While we were there, I found a Yorkie puppy. We adopted him from a family in Eagle Mountain. His name is Cheeto Bandito (no, really just Cheeto, but the song Aye Aye yie yie, I am the Frito Bandito) has stuck and mostly we call him Aye Aye). He is 4 lbs. of pure spunk. He sleeps on my bed every night, drives with me on errands while riding on my lap, and even had the privledge of "eating" the power cord on my Dyson. Eighty dollars later it works again. Stupid dog!! Branden got his car, the kids started school and are enjoying it. I played around with making cards. I ended up making them for the girls that I worked with. I started my new job and I have really enjoyed it. It's been a great change. That's all for now, unless I see some pictures that remind me of something else.

A Tribute to My Mom

Wow, it's been 10 years ago tomorrow (9/3) since my mom passed away. Every year since then, I've made my favorite applesauce raisin cookies that she used to make and taken them to people who mean a lot to me. Growing up we always he homemade cookies. I remember coming home many afternoons to the smell of hot cookies she had just made for us. I also buy myself a dozen roses and put them on the kitchen table for the week. We had roses all over our yard. They were some of the most gorgeous roses I've ever seen. If you get to see my yard in real life, just remember that I DID NOT inherit Vern and Erma's green thumb. Getting roses helps me remember some neat memories of my mom. She was a very humble women who quietly served her family and those around her. I miss her- especially this time of year. I love you mom.

I can't believe my summer is over!!

Okay, I know it's been a very long time since I have posted. I have to go back to work on Friday. Really, we have been busy doing things, I just haven't taken the time to upload the pictures so I could post. Let's see.... Branden got his car, job, license, and came down with a terrible ailment that I call the "texting bug". He went to San Diego with the priests to go to the temple and kayaking, and also made a stop at Magic Mountain to ride all of those roller coasters that I wouldn't get on if you paid me a million dollars!! He went to EFY in Flagstaff with his best friend Braden. Alec and I drove up to bring them home. They did NOT stop talking the entire ride home. He had blast. I decided to finally paint the boys rooms, and so Branden helped me with his. He chose the colors and it turned out great.
Alec participated in a musical theater production in May and then went to scout camp. He is officially 2 merit badges away from his eagle. He just needs to get his project approved and get it complete. Yeah!! He painted most of his room and he is a master at blue taping. If anyone needs some taping done before you paint... just call him. Seriously, he loves it. He has built a few model cars this summer, and is also really good at getting the paint all over the table and his clothes. Darn him.
Taylor has kept busy this summer doing some babysitting and mostly just playing with friends. She has bought several Webkins with her babysitting money. Her new favorite thing to do on Sunday afternoons is make banana bread. She is getting really good at it. It seems that I always buy too many bananas and they get too ripe on Sunday. Perfect timing.
I have had quite an interesting summer. I had a routine mammogram the first week of vacation, and had to go back in for a follow-up ultrasound because there was an abnormal mass. My doctor referred me to a surgeon, and after the consultation, I decided to have what he called an "excision biopsy" instead of just having a needle biopsy. I had surgery on July 11th and had to wait a week for the pathology report. It turned out to be a benign fibrous tumor. It was very small and now that it's over, I'm glad I decided to do the surgery. It was very trying for me to wait in between each appointment, and thanks to good friends and a few blessings, I learned that worrying about it doesn't make the time go by any quicker. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot done this summer. But thank goodness it's all over before school starts. I have such great friends and family that have helped me out this summer. Thanks Aubrey, Amy, Penni, Laura, Nikki, Shari, Suzanne, Sharon--
We just got home today from a 12 day trip to Utah. My nephew Matt got married last Tuesday and it was so great seeing all of my extended family. My cool brother made the most incredible dutch oven dinner on Monday night for the wedding party and then he drove up to Salt Lake with my amazingly sweet niece Christy to take our family pictures (see top of the blog). She is so talented. When we picked up the CD, she had even made treats for us to take in the car. Thanks again Christy!! Lori and I did our traditional massive school shopping trip in Park City. Suzanne, Josh, and my kids met our friends Thatcher's at the Conference Center and we saw the Music and the Spoken Word. It was incredible. I'm glad the kids enjoyed it. I got to stop and see my friend Stacy Seeley who moved from our ward last summer (wah)! My friend, her sister-in-law Lorena was there too. It was fun visiting them.
To add to our trip, I drove out to Eagle Mountain and "adopted" a 4 pound Yorkie we named Cheeto. He is seven months old and is so dang cute. We have been looking for a Yorkie that was already house broken and wasn't $2000!!! Well, I found him. The kids have enjoyed him so much, and Shelby, our cocker spaniel, is now "tolerating" him. I swear he is 1/2 mountain goat.... because he can jump on my bed without any difficuty.... and it's pretty high.
We are almost finished school shopping, and the boys have to pick up their schedules tomorrow. I will try and post some of our summer pictures soon.