Little Moments

One of Ike's favorite things is to be outside when it is snowing. He loves to reach for the snow as it falls on his face. Vance had never seen his reaction to it, so when it was snowing when Vance got home from work, he took Ike outside and saw something that I feel like I take for granted. Sometimes I forget that Vance doesn't get to see everything that I do as a lucky stay-at-home mom. His reaction to what some people would call "the little things" is a good reminder to me of just how special these little moments are.

His First Shower...

...was exactly what I thought it would be like. Quite hilarious!  My kids have always taken baths. But this particular time, Vance was about to hop in the shower and Mason had just rubbed a ton of soap in his hair, so we had him get in the shower with Vance. Not as a punishment, but it was just convenient. And quite frankly, I was excited to see his reaction. The whole time, he just kept laughing and saying "Turn off the rain!" I think we will give him showers every once in a while just for kicks!

(Incase you are noticing his right eye, he was running outside and tripped and landed right on his eye. Ouch!)

Eagles

As you probably know, Vance and I love to take pictures of the Eagles every winter. This year, we did not get out to the bird refuge as many times and we missed out on opportunities for great photos, so we settled for the trees on Pages Lane instead! It's closer to home and you are able to get much closer to the Eagles. Vance was never able to go with me, due to work and school, but the kids and I went on "Eagle Outings" a few times and got some pretty cool pics. We parked the car right below them and I mostly just took pics out the window. In all my years of living in this city and seeing the Eagles there each year, I had never seen what I saw this year. Every time I went, there were tons of people lined up on the road with their cameras and their amazing lenses getting far better pictures than I could ever get with the lense we have. I actually had to fight my way in sometimes to get a descent shot at the amazing birds. Finally one time I went, I was in no rush and it was 3 in the afternoon, instead of 5 or 6 pm when everyone was off work. I got the perfect spot and got some cool shots of them.

This guy was probably a new hatchling this year or last since his head is not white. He was still big though!

Here he is flying. I love this pic! Their wing span is so huge!

These two kept flying off and then landing back in the trees.

This is the eagle that was flying with the dark headed Eagle in the picture above. They were squealing and squawking back and forth like crazy. It was way cool!

How would you like to scratch your itch with those claws?!?! 

By the look on his face, it must feel pretty good!

We Are Still Alive....Barely!

   It makes me sick to even pull up my blog anymore because it has been SOOOOOO long since I have posted anything and I am greatly ashamed of it. I wish so badly I had been keeping up with everything that has been going on in our lives because it has been a lot. My kids have changed dramatically and I hate that the only thing I have to show that is j-pegs somewhere on my external hard drive. I could literally list excuse after excuse as to why I have not been blogging, and truthfully it would sure make me feel better. But just to save time and boredom, the only excuse I will mention is that up until now, we have had only our lap top to depend on for Vance to get through school, and now start studying with for his new job, which I will tell in more detail later on. This lap top now has lines running through the screen, the mouse only works if you're really lucky that day, and when you click on ANYTHING, it takes it 3 minutes or more, just to decide what to do. With Vance's new job opportunity it has been a MUST to have a computer that is reliable, so we took a plunge and got a new desk top. It was just in the nick of time too. The lap top is worse than ever. It has no room for anymore pictures so we have had all these SD cards piled up with pictures on them and no where to put them, therefore, how would I blog?? Anyways, things are definitely looking up in that area so we'll see what happens from here on out.


   As for Vance's job, to make a long story short, he GRADUATED from the University of Phoenix with a Bachelor in Science of Business Finance on February 17th. That was an amazing thing for us! I stayed up with him night after night until well after 2 am working on homework. I would edit his papers when he was done so he could turn them in that night. I am proud to say that he graduated with 16 A's, 5 B's, and 1 crazy C+!! His final GPA was 3.59! (which doesn't make sense to me with all those A's, but none the less, I am as proud as a wife could possibly be!!!)!!! So the night after he graduated, he started applying and looking for jobs on Monster.com. While he took a break, I uploaded his Resume with the option of making it very easy for possible employers to see. We randomly applied for a job in New York, (just for kicks!) and went to bed. The next day, he called me on his lunch break and said that someone called about a job opportunity and he thought it was the company from New York since that was the only one we applied for. His phone kept cutting out so he couldn't hear the whole message, so I called his voicemail. It turns out it was Farm Bureau. They had seen his resume on Monster.com and were very interested in him. He had an interview the next day and it was something he was very interested in. A couple weeks later he took personality tests to see if he was a match for the company or not. The next day, he got a phone call for a second interview. He was told that his tests showed that he was a perfect fit and that they had interviewed over 300 people, and he was the one they wanted! After much contemplation, many prayers, and getting advice from everyone possible, he decided that he would be crazy not to accept this opportunity. His boss wanted to meet me and take us out to dinner, so the following week, we met at his office where he went over a few things with us. He also showed me Vance's test scores and it was amazing to see how perfect he is for this position! He then took us out to dinner at an AMAZING restaurant called Corbin’s. It was soooooo delicious. And I have to say, I was treated like a queen and I loved it! Vance was absolutely amazing to me, and so was Mackae (his boss). They were such gentlemen! The waitress kept calling me "My Dear" which normally I would have been like, "I'm not your dear!" but this was so formal and awesome, that I LOVED it! I did not want the night to end. Oh and by the way, just in case you are wondering, the food is literally to die for! Yes it was expensive ($25 + per plate) but it was sooooo worth it. Ok, we really ate for free (thanks to Mackae!), but I would of happily paid for it. Word of advice, if you go there, dress real nice and sit by the waterfall. And if anyone tries their dessert, let me know how it tastes because I was dying to try it. Apparently it takes 20 minutes to make!

   Anyways, I know this is a long post so if you are bored...stop reading because I'm not done yet! So for Vance's new job, he will be an Insurance Agent. He starts training in May, and has to have 4 tests done in order to sell insurance so he can get his licenses (2 of which have to be done before he starts training). He passed his first test this last Saturday and is scheduled to take the second one on April 10th. The tests are 3 hours long and he has to get a 70% or better. (originally we thought he had to get 90%, so we were EXTREMELY excited to find out that its only 70%)

   As for the kids, Isaac is now 14 months old. He is still learning to walk and I love it!! It is my favorite stage ever! He has been trying to walk for 5-6 weeks now, and he is still choosing crawling over walking, but as far as I'm concerned, he can drag it on as long as he'd like because it is way too cute to watch him try and walk! I love watching him almost fall and then get control of his balance, and just keep on going. It's adorable! Mason will be 3 in May and he is one big boy! He calls me sweetie all the time and I absolutely LOVE it! "Come play cars with me sweetie!" "Sweetie, I need to go to the bathroom!" "Get me a drink please sweetie!" Anyways, its way cute and it makes me smile every time. My heart aches when I think of the day he stops calling me sweetie.

   Well, that is all I will bore you with for right now, but hopefully there will be more to come soon. I am WAY behind and it bugs me to my core, so don't be surprised if you start seeing postings clear from last summer. I want so badly to record every fun event in our lives, and right now blogging is my only option. Scrapbooking is put on the backburner yet again. I keep saying that as soon certain things happen, I will get more time to do things I want to do, but the truth is, I don't know when that will happen. Right now, Vance is busy on the computer studying every night and I am with the kids all day, who are quite demanding! I will attempt to make blogging a bigger priority as best as I can. Until next time, Carpe Diem!

More Blogs to Come!

I have decided to start a new blog for each of my boys! I want them both to be private blogs, so if you want to be able to look at them leave your email address. They will each start from the pregnancy so it will be a while before they are completely caught up and current (especially Mason's) and some of them will be posts that you have already seen. Once I get them up and running, I will email their blog address to everyone who is interested. Until then, enjoy all my late posts about our fun-filled summer!

P.S.  It will be like a journal of their lives, so sometimes it might be kind of personal with too much information or there might be things you might not care to read about, but I guess this is more for my benefit!

My Two Year Old (catch-up post)

This year for Mason's Birthday, we kept things a little more simple and just had family over for dinner, cake, swimming, and a movie. It was kind of a wierd cituation to have a BBQ in our front yard...oh wait, we don't really have a front yard! But I guess it worked out okay. Mason seemed to enjoy it all, so I guess that's all that matters!

His birthday started off with Vance's idea to buy him a 'heavy-duty' trike he found at Harbor Freight. This 'heavy-duty' trike will hold up to 600 lbs! He bought it and gave it to him before his birthday so we could take it to Flaming Gorge (as you saw in the previous post). We were sad when after getting it put together we realized that it is just a little too big for Mason to ride this year! Can't you tell! Hopefully next year it will be just right for him.

Anyways, on the morning of the party, we took him to the zoo. We ended up buying a year long family pass, so we can go whenever we want the year, and we are able to get one other person in for free each time!

The penguins were soooo entertaining. Usually when we see them they are all just sitting there doing nothing.  But this time, they were swimming, waddling, hopping up and down the rocks, jumping into the water, etc... They were really fun to watch and were definitly our favorite part of the Zoo.

My sister Julie, and Mason

Weird picture, but I liked it!

Beautiful baby boy!

Mason was quite afraid of this gorilla at first. He made quite a scene!

Taylor

This was probably Mason and Taylor's favorite animal there. A chicken.

After the zoo, we went back to the house where everyone in both families came over and had dinner. Mason then opened his gifts (which he LOVED!!). Afterwards, we went swimming and watched a movie.

(May 2009)

Memorial Day Weekend (catch-up post)

In the easy, good ol' days, my family would go to Flaming Gorge at least twice a year. Usually on Memorial Day, and the 4th of July. But for the last couple years, we have only gone once each year due to certain other family events, and other things getting in the way. This year, we finally went back to tradition! Unfortunatley both times it was cooler weather than usual, but it was actually kind of nice for a change since it is usually scorching hot. I didn't have to worry about my kids getting fried! But on the other hand, we didn't even get to play in the water at all. Anyways, here are the pics from the trip on Memorial Day. I apologize for the overload of pictures. It was hard to leave any out!

 

The first evening we were there, some of us went out fishing on the boat. I stayed back with the kids, and Vance took his turn out on the boat. When they arrived back to camp, they had no fish to show, but they all had this wierd look on their faces. Everytime I would ask them if they caught anything, they would all just say "I don't know!" and turn and look away. The next thing I know, Vance comes up and shows me a picture on Julie's camera. This is what I saw...

Vance had caught the one and only fish of the night. But it wasn't just any small fish. It was a 16 lb 35 inch Lake Trout!!  I was way bummed I wasn't there to whitness this awesome event, but I was so excited for him!   The next day, Jules and my parents volunteered to watch the kids for us so both Vance and I could go out on the boat together.  Well, Vance's luck had not quite ran out. We went fishing for Lake Trout again, and sure enough, Vance hooked into another one!!! And this time, I was there to watch the whole thing!  This was just a little bit smaller than the first one, but only by a few inches and a couple pounds (12 lbs 32 in). Unfortunately, both of them were in the bracket that requires you to let them go, but I don't like to keep fish anyways, so it was fine with me!

While we were there, it was Mason's birthday so we threw him a simple party and saved the majority of it for a better party at home.

Our little fisherman!!!

YUMMY!

We didn't dare go for 4 days without the swing. Isaac is addicted to this thing, so we were grateful that it worked out to bring it. It made things so much easier!!

 (May 2009)