Nanny Shoes

Yesterday was the first day of school for my kids and since we were dealing with that pesky bug on Saturday, we had to do some of our school shopping after school. I was looking for some slip on canvas tennis shoes, but Hali just couldn't resist the "nanny shoes".
Nanny would be my grandmother on my mom's side. She passed away in 1993, while I was on my mission. We called her nanny, because she thought "grandma" made her sound old. My friends referred to her as my "leather grandma", because she had a pair of leather pants. And from this picture (sorry, the only one I have) you can see my Italian ancestry. I sure didn't get any, being the pale person I am, but my nanny (second from the left) sure looks Italian.
We were on our way to the Homecoming football game. My sister was up for Homecoming queen. You can thank me later, Ape, for letting this picture out on the world wide web!

Nanny was a very different kind of grandma. Whose grandmother wears leather pants? She worked for Disney as a buyer for quite a long time. I can remember as a kid, she would have her three granddaughter's spend the night at her house and we would do exercises with my nanny in a short little baby doll nightgown (complete with fur trimming), big fluffy slippers, and her hair in curlers with the plastic thing over it. Again, not your typical grandma. But we loved her! And she loved shoes! Big, metallic shoes.

And so far two of her great granddaughters seem to be following in her footsteps, wearing the same shoes! Elyse was the first and now Hali! My nanny would have LOVED Hali's shoes.

Am I Really That Bad Of A Parent?

Yes, she's asleep. And for the record, I don't believe she actually fell down the stairs. I guess my excuse is that I was up late with a puking Porter and up since 4:30 am with a puking Hali. And, no, I didn't leave her there. That would make me a bad parent!

Pests

We have a nasty little bug running around our house. He's a fast little sucker, too. He hits you long enough to empty out your stomach and then races off to his next victim. I'd just like to take a broom and swat him right out of our house before he gets us all!

Hogle Zoo

On Friday, Scott's work, paid for all the employee's and their families to go to Hogle Zoo. We haven't been since Porter's 2nd birthday, so we were really excited to go. Zoey was fascinated by the animals and Porter came home with a tube full of plastic animals. Only because, there was a kid sitting at a table by us with some and we couldn't keep Porter away from them!

I just had to add this picture, because we see this face a lot. She was mad that we would actually take a picture of her with chocolate around her mouth. (She's looking over my shoulder now, with pretty much the same face!)

They brought a turtle out on some grass and let the kids touch him, while they talked a little about what it eats and how it's name is Trucker, because he had been run over by a truck.

Here a worker is showing Porter and some boy how to hit the drum.

They had this really cool carousel. It's all endangered animals. So Regan was on a dolphin, Hali on a tortoise,

Zoey was on a penguin and Porter (not shown) was on an elephant. Zoey was having so much fun that she screamed her head off when it was time to get off.

By the way, Mom, Regan is preparing for her trip next year!

Out With The Old......

And in with the new!

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the dishwasher hick up. Well, what was wrong was the control panel had a loose wire and the motor was leaking. So the repairman that came actually got it working, but it was only a temporary solution. We decided that we would continue to use the dishwasher until it died.

Last Thursday, I must have shut the front too hard, because the wire became loose again. I thought, easy fix, just unscrew the back and shove that puppy back in there. Obviously we don't know as much as the repairman (go figure) and we couldn't make it stay. So, we had to purchase a new one.

The installer came today, complete with bleach blond hair and a plumber's crack. He was really nice though, and seemed to enjoy Porter's endless questions. They guy had Porter convinced that he was a personal friend of Harry Potter and had a car that could fly! Then was so kind as to leave us the big (dirty) cardboard box that the dishwasher came it. Lovely.

I saved my dinner dishes from last night, just so I'd have something to try out the dishwasher with. So far, it's a lot quieter than my old one!

AARRGGHH!!

I know it's hard to tell by this picture, but the Oquirrh Mountain Temple got a new addition today. And I had no idea it was happening until I saw it on the news. Argh.


The Angle Moroni Statue that tops all LDS temples was placed on the spire today. I totally would have taken my kids to see it, but didn't know it was happening!

I probably wouldn't have been able to go anyway. I was watching the neighbor kids, while the parents went up into the mountains to retrieve their broken down car that was used to haul girls to girls camp. So I had two extra kids and probably wouldn't have attempted to go anyway. Darn.

Gee, Your Hair Sure Smells Terrific!

I think that Zoey has learned a few lessons from her cousin, Olivia. Although, she didn't smear any in her hair. Course, it could have been from her class in Porter 101, too. She got the kid's conditioner out and poured the entire bottle on my carpet and all over her legs.

She looked quite proud of herself.

I think, had I given her more time, the hair would have been next. Of course, with conditioner it would have only made her hair really soft!

VT Question #6

Describe your conversion to the gospel or how you gained your testimony.


I chose this question just because I got my Ensign Magazine yesterday and there was a whole article about sharing the gospel on the Internet. So, I thought I'd share my testimony on my blog.

I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. I've been a member all my life. There isn't any one moment when I went from not believing to believing. There were lots of moments through the years. I think that the Lord has blessed people with different talents, some really evident and others not so much. I think I've been blessed with a gift of testimony. I can only think of one time that I questioned and it came more out of frustration, than anything else.

I was serving an LDS mission in Vienna, Austria. I had been in the country for about 1 to 2 months. I was struggling with the language and dealing with a companion, who had problems of her own. I think I had this vision of how a mission would be and it was a LOT harder than I had ever imagined. On morning, we were studying and my companion was drilling me on the German language and how to properly pronounce certain words and I just couldn't get it! She was getting mad and I was frustrated and I just thought, "Why am I doing this?" Winter was coming and I'm a So Cal girl, so snow and I didn't agree. Which is funny, cause I love it now. I was away from my friends and family, trying to talk to strangers in a language I didn't know, about religion. Not easy. So that morning it all came to a head and I just started to cry. I was ready to give up and go home. My companion finally just stopped and asked me a few questions that I really thought about. She said, "Do you believe in God?" Yes. I really believe in God. "Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?" Yes. I do. "Do you believe that a boy named Joseph Smith was visited by God, the Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ to restore the gospel on the earth?" Yes. I do believe that Joseph Smith was chosen by God to restore His church on the earth. I was really grounded in that moment. I was reminded that I was there because God wanted me to be there to share my beliefs with the people in Austria. And if God thought that I could do it, then I needed to put my faith in Him. Later that day, I got a letter from my dad. It's took two weeks at the time for letters to get from the U.S. to Austria. (This was before email became so normal.) I don't remember exactly what it said, but I remember that it was so full of encouragement and seemed to be precisely what I needed to hear from home. Thanks dad!

I had so many great experiences in Austria. I learned so much about myself and my relationship with God. It was such a unique time, when everything I did had a spiritual meaning. I haven't been able to duplicate it since.

I believe in God. I know that He loves me. I know that He thinks that I'm an important person, and He cares what I do in my life. He wants me to be happy and He's disappointed when I make a poor decisions.

I really could make this go on forever. I think that lately I haven't been devoting as much as I should to my personal testimony. Just like anything, you have to continually work on it. Life just gets busy. But the belief will always be there. I've had too many experiences in my life to ever doubt again.

If any of you have questions about the Mormons, click here to find out more information.

4th of July Weekend

This last weekend we took the trailer out for a long weekend. We met Scott's brother, Jeff, his family, and a bunch of their friends in Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is in the Vail area, way up in the mountains. It was spectacular! Our campsite was within a short walk to Turquoise Lake. This is the view we had from the beach.

Pretty incredible, huh? We had a great time! Jeff and Lori's friends were so nice, and there were a ton of kids! My girls were a little nervous when they found out that their cousins friends were coming. They thought that they would be left out and bored. But the Hansen girls were so great and now Hali and Regan are sad that we won't get to see them very often! Porter even had several boys to play with. Which was a blessing and a curse. There was on little family with two boys, Nick and Noah. Noah is Porter's age and just as hyper. So Nick and his mom go down to the lake and Porter and Noah get into his stuff. He had this boat that had these little plastic things that just snap on and off. So of course, they take them off. Well, Nick comes back, finds his boat taken apart and has the melt down to end all melt downs. I mean, a melt down unlike I have ever seen before. At first, I thought that Porter had broken the toy. This kid is seven years old and was freaking out! He kept telling us and his parents that we were going to have to pay him money so that he could buy a new one! His dad was getting mad at him and threatening to smash the toy and his mom kept getting mad at the dad saying, "Can't you see this is important to him?" We looked all around that campsite looking for the lost pieces. All the while Nick was picking apart everything that Porter did. At one point, Porter was touching the metal thing on the hood of the dad's Mercedes and Nick said,"Good. I hope he breaks it. Then dad will know what I feel like!" Because, a Mercedes is the same thing as a plastic boat from Wal-Mart. We finally found the missing pieces, which were then snapped back onto the boat. Wow. I was totally exhausted afterwards and he wasn't even my kid.

Scott borrowed a canoe from a guy he works with and it was a hit with everyone. We all took turns taking it out onto the lake.
Zoey loved the water! She just wanted to walk around in the shallow part. She got a little nervous going deeper, not to mention the water was FREEZING!
The girls didn't seem to mind, though. They kept daring each other to go deeper.
Porter just loved the sand! He just played the whole time with the sand toys.
Friday we went into town to see the 4th of July parade. This was a very small town, so their parade was pretty small. It seemed like everyone was running for County Commissioner. Every horse, every car, every bike and wagon, had a sign for someone running.

Friday night, we went to the fireworks show. This was the first fireworks show that I've been to where they've actually started a fire! We were on this hillside watching the show and the fireworks were so close to the ground that we saw two fires break out. We could also see the fire trucks and it took them like three minutes before they even moved! I mean, if we could see the fires, so could they!

On Saturday, we took the kids to a fish hatchery. It was so cool! The kids loved to watch the fish and one of the workers brought out a big bucket of food so the kids could feed the fish. I think that was the highlight of the trip!
Here is Porter and Zoey looking at the baby fish.
After the fish hatchery, we went to an old mine. We didn't get to actually go into the mine (thank goodness), but we learned about the mining process and about the people who owned the mine. It was pretty interesting.
I just had to add this picture! Zoey loved this trip, because she felt like such a big kid. There were so many girls on this trip, that they hovered around her! We had so many babysitters it was great!
We had a great time on this trip. It was relaxing and beautiful. I've decided that I'm a mountain girl. I can drive through a desert and not see the beauty, but put me in the mountains and I'm in awe! It was so incredible.

Elyse's Song

For anyone curious about Elyse's song that she sang, go to Elyse's link to the left. She did a slide show with her song. That way you can hear what a fabulous voice she has!!!