A crazy March for Petersons!

Here are some random pics from March. Tommy drew a picture of  the Holy Ghost. Pretty good for his first drawing. And, no, I didn't tell him to do the "cute face", he just uses it all the time now. It is a pretty good weapon. I had just started wondering if Disney, Millie's chicken that she caught at the barnyard races at Pony Express Days, was maybe a rooster since we hadn't ever gotten an egg from her, in fact I was still looking at her trying to decide when I turned to the nesting boxes and there was this white egg! Millie has ALWAYS asked us to get a chicken that lays white eggs so she was OVERJOYED that we got a white egg and that it was from HER chicken! This picture of Millie with the big eyes is what she did to me when we were talking about how big the characters eyes were on Frozen and Tangled. She said "like this" and pulled out her glasses that made her eyes huge. I thought it was hilarious. And for this years play The Jungle Book, Maizy's character was Hathi who is the leader elephant. Luckily we had an elephant costume from Halloween so that made it easy! Unfortunately I was in Washington DC during the play but I did get to see the dress rehearsal and it was adorable! Millie and Thomas play so cute together! I let them take late naps most days because I love to hear them playing together.

 DC! So much fun! Some Lewisville 1st ward girls suggested a trip out to see Suzanne and surprise her and there were nine of us able to make it! Tara Nield, Becky Blackburn, Megan Bramwell, Kesta Drake Lisa Young, Janeil Nield, Celia Erickson and last but not least my very own Mother! To be honest I almost bailed a couple of days before because I got all sad about leaving my little family but  these girls are so much like family I am So so glad I went and saw sweet Suz! There was a miracle while we were in DC for Suzanne. We had to get off the Metro and onto a bus because the tracks were getting repaired. Well on that half a mile bus ride we were stopped at the light and some girls start waving. Suzanne sees them and realizes they are her cousins! They texted back and forth until they caught up to us at the Natural History Museum. The little one just hugged and hugged her and cried and cried. It was SO sweet! Julianne loved me and asked why I lived in Idaho because she wanted me to live by them. Oh her kids are cute!

We had so much fun surprising her! She looked so good and it was just full of laughter and happiness the whole time! Kurt took these. We were surprised when she said she wanted to come eat with us that night and the next day when we went to visit she said she wanted to come into DC with us! It made it just perfect! Cousin Heather made all these shirts for us. I texted her about a week before we left and asked if she did tek shirts because Tara and I wanted to be nerdy and have matching Idaho shirts for our run. Then I thought it would be really fun to get Suzanne one too. So I asked around and everyone wanted one and I think it made it really fun to surprise her in our matching Lewisville shirts! Heather was awesome and gave us a good price and had to hurry to get them done for us.

 

Tara and I had great plans for a fun run around the capitol. We started at the Natural History Museum and ran around the whole mall stopping at all major monumets for selfies and a jaunt out to the white house and then ended at the Lincoln Memorial. Probably the best 6 mile run of my life! It was so awesome to see the sun setting over all the historical monuments. We changed and Mom was nice enough to carry my bag and jacket so we could do it. Meanwhile the rest of them continued site seeing until we met back up.

 Yes that is my cute mother and me in front of the white house! It was so much fun to have her there with us too. I think the "adults"or "leaders" as we kept referring to them were crazier than we were in their hotel room!

 We just lost Mom for less than a week before getting her again for Moab. It was a quick trip but it was fun to show her some of our favorite sites. We owe her a whole lot for leaving her in the hotel room with Miles and forgetting to give him his medicine! Eek! We didn't realize it until we were up at the start line! Especially since her diverticulitis acted up and she was miserable the night before.

 Joel and I were kicking ourselves for the biggest rooky mistake EVER! You always, always take the last bus up to the start. Instead we went on one of the first buses and had to wait for over two hours in the freezing freezing cold up the canyon. I got hot chocolate just so I could hold it and warm my hands. This bottom picture Joel took literally seconds after we crossed the finish line. You can see it in the background. I forgot about our bib numbers until Joel was pulling them out the night before. He saw mine and thought it was my log-in or something until he pulled out his. It asked what name you want on the bib when you register. I registered first and put "menmyho" so when I registered him I put "iamtheho". He thought it was pretty clever. Probably my favorite bib numbers so far.

Hi family!!  It's been some months since posting, so I will just sum up with some pictures:)  

Isaac had his last pinewood derby. Hmmmm…did I already post that?  who cares, anyway, here's his car and his brother and mom:) 

 Wind socks we made at story time.  Time needs to slow down, my littles are getting too grown up too fast.  What will I ever do without my little friends?

 This crazy loco climbs anywhere.  She doesn't answer when you holler for her either.  I couldn't find her the other day, so when I finally did..she was startled.  Then she decided to scare me back with this growl.

 Isaac had his last Blue and Gold Banquet and earned his Webelos and Arrow of Light.

 Neither of these pictures are candid, she is posing quite purposely in them.  She's a nut.

 Took Clara on a date to see the Dallas Temple.  The spire is out front, unattached from the building:)

 Ready for a family run one Saturday.  The 8 person selfie turned out pretty good

                         tricks on the scooter

 Clara at a skating birthday party at the Galleria Mall.  Josh, this post is for you.  You know the mall, right?

spent her hard earned chore money on this flamingo shirt.  So so proud of it!

 Mom shared a lot of what we did while she was here.  We loved having her here SO much.  The zoo was super fun, most of these pictures are from there.

 Admiring the two baby elephants.

 So happy together

 And these 2 also:)

 A sweet moment with Grandma.

 Meg, our beans turned out FABULOUS!

 This was at the mall on our little hotel trip.  These little rides fit the bill pretty well when legoland was out.  Grandma wins first prize for making the ride go with quarters!!!!
We went out to eat pizza before going to the hotel and as we sat there I just was so overwhelmed with gratitude that she was with us.  Two other families around us had grandparents with them and I seem to notice it all the time and feel so sad that we don't get to.  This is the longest we've ever gone without seeing Grandma and we don't plan to let it be that long ever again!  Love you Faylene!Thanks for coming, and Megan and Joel, thank you for altering your plans to make it happen.  We're so grateful!

 The last day of spring break we planned to go on a hike, but it started to downpour, so we pulled out the umbrellas and went anyway.  The trailhead was closed, so we found a paved path around a lake and walked in the rain.  It was super fun.  Love these crazies!

A wonderful journey

The past week and a half has been so much fun!  The trip to Maryland and Washington DC to see Suz was just perfect.  Suzanne, her family and Wade and Dorothy went to dinner with us on Friday, and Suzanne and Dorothy went to the National Mall with us on Saturday.  Everyone took lots of pictures of everything, but sadly, I don't have access to many of them yet.   I think our visit really lifted Suz's spirits.  It really was just so much fun!

Suz wanted a picture of just the four of us  :)

Taken on the Metro on the way to the national Mall.  

One of the first pictures of all of us together.  Cute shirts huh!  Heather Aullman did them for us.  Megan came up with the cute design.

This was taken in front of the museum that was in the movie A Night At The Museum.  It was taken just before Suz left to go home. 

It was so hard to say goodbye to Suzanne.  She went to everyone and gave them a hug.  She kept skipping past me,  Finally she turned to me as she went to hug someone else and said " I  don't want to tell you goodbye"  Isn't that just so sad and sweet!  And then there were tears!

Early Sunday morning, everyone flew out of Washington DC.  I flew to Dallas via Atlanta.  Everyone else flew to SLC via Denver.  Corey and Kristie's kids were out of school all week for spring break.  (along with the entire state)  Corey was able to take a couple of days off.  Monday we went to the Fort Worth Zoo.   (along with the entire state  :)  )  It was a beautiful day, and we had so much fun.  I loved hanging out with the the family.  On Tue. I had an appointment with the famous Dr. Christensen.  It was good to be able to see him in action.  Kristie and the kids shopped at the Piggly Wiggly (?) next door while they waited for me. When we got back to Rockwall, we took Eleanor and Hazel with us to run to Costco for milk.   After shopping, as we got in the car to head back home, Nori sang the sweetest little original song......"we got sooo much stuff and we came for milk".  Haha we laughed really hard!  On Thursday we went to a mall up by the airport  that had a Legoland in it.  ( you guessed it.....along with the rest of the state! )  They were completely booked through Monday!  Even though we didn't get to go to Legoland, we had a fun time walking around the mall and doing a little shopping, mostly in the book store and Disney store.  :)  We spent the night at a hotel near the airport because I would be flying out so early the next morning.  I was scheduled to fly out at six.....that makes for a very early morning!  Thank you so much Corey, Kristie and family!  I had a wonderful time!

I  arrived in SLC at 7:50 am just in time to be picked up by Megan, Joel and family who were on their way to Moab to run a half marathon.  We did a fun hike to Delicate Arch.  It is so beautiful there!  Saturday morning, I dropped Megan and Joel off for the bus ride to the start of the race.  The kids and I stayed at the hotel, then left to pick them up at the finish!  Crazy, fun times! Thank you so much Peterson family for including me in your fun trip! 

Melanie, Dan and girls drove down to pick me up.  We stayed the night, then headed home first thing this morning.  Whew, what a whirlwind!   I loved every minute of it!!!!!  Now, back to the old grind. :)

 

rad rad rad

Well it is clearly bed time, but I am just going to quickly update about this last week. 

BUT FIRST----- I have loved everyones posts the last few weeks! I haven't commented on them, but I think I have the funniest, most amazing family ever! With the cutest nieces and nephews ever! With the best, cutest mom ever! :)

Ok, now for the update:

Dan got accepted to the Law School in Wyoming, with an $8,000/year scholarship (too bad he doesn't have in-state! )

We ate at Cafe Sabor to celebrate Mom's anniversary.

My vball team starts tournament this week.

Stori had her cousins come stay the night on Friday, AND WAS IN HEAVEN!!! She was so excited all week waiting for them the finally come stay. We had so much fun. We played 'Heads Up' for about 3 hours :) The kids played dress-up, built towers, watched movies, and didn't have one fight! The Christensen kids fell asleep at about 10:30, but not Stori. She stayed awake for all of Tangled and when the credits were all done she said, "That was a good show, huh mom!" (ya know, like it was her first time every seeing it! We all had a great time!

Sylvie discovered that she doesn't like Josh ;)

and well, that is about all I can think of. I will definitely post pictures at a later date TBD.

Swim Districts & Music Concerts

On February 14th, Grace and Cole had their swim Districts. Our Grandma and Grandpa Durst came and visited to watch them swim. Grace got 1st in Preliminary rounds, so she got 9th place overall. She also got 15th in backstroke overall. Cole's relay team got 4th place, and he got 15th in backstroke and 15th in 100 freestyle. There was 10 schools that competed. Grace and Cole were both also alternates for State, but didn't get to swim. Grace and her friends were all very sad that it was there last year for high school swim. 

Cole's relay team

Seniors

Senior swim

Grace 200 free

Cole 

Grace and her friends

Also, last Thursday I had a choir concert. I'm sort of in the middle in the video, and if you wanted to know, the reason I didn't look up the whole time was because my mom and her friends were mocking our hand motions. Thanks mom.

Our 8th grade choir is pretty small but we're suppose to get 7 more guys and 3 more girls next trimester so we're hoping to win the award next concert. The first concert we lost to the 6th grade choir and this time we lost to the 8th grade band. Oh well :P

One of the songs we sang

Love, The Dursts

News from Havasu

We had a pretty exciting week and a very interesting/awkward weekend that made us really appreciate the life, friends, and family that we have.  We are so thankful for the gospel and the good it brings into our lives.

We’ve been wanting to replace our couch.  After seven years and 5 rambunctious boys, it’s getting pretty hammered.  I found a sectional listed on Craigslist that looked like it would work so we made arrangements to go look at it.  When we pulled up to the house of the address that was given to us there was a cop car and a bunch of people outside yelling profanities back and forth and then another cop car pulled up just as one of the officers came out of the house carrying a big ‘ol gun! Scary!  At first we were ready to just get the heck out of there, but the guy selling the couch came over and talked to us and told us everything was fine and asked if we could please stay and look at the sectional- that they were moving it outside for us. Come to find out, this guy left his wife and family to move in with a lady who ended up being a little crazy, so he decided to go back to his wife and kids to work things out.  He had moved his stuff in to the crazy lady’s house and he and his wife were trying to get it all back and there was some kind of altercation in the process.  What a mess!! Why we got stuck right in the middle of the whole fiasco is beyond me!  Why would they list a couch that wasn’t even in their possession?!?  Anyway- long story short, we ended up getting a really good deal on a really nice sectional that will be perfect for us (too bad it couldn’t have been minus all the drama that took place leading up to it!) Oh- and did I mention that when Tyler went to go pick up the couch it was pouring down rain?  Seriously! It hasn’t rained in like the last 3 months and on the weekend we decide to buy a couch (and a piano! J) it ends up down-pouring!!  So- the couch is in our garage and we have an appointment early next week to get it cleaned and have scotch-guard applied.  It will be so nice to have enough spaces for everyone to sit comfortably J

We also found a piano this week! Everyone’s been having fun trying it out.  It will be good to start practicing again after like a ten yr. break!

On Thursday I turned the garbage disposal on and the sink started backing up.  I took the drain apart and there was a bunch of stuff stuck in the pipe so I cleared it out and put it back together and tried the disposal again.  This time the disposal started leaking out the bottom.  Turns out it needed to be replaced so Tyler tackled that on Saturday and did a great job!

Today, the Gilbert Temple Dedication was broadcast to our building.  Tyler and Jon went to the first session, and then Taylor and I went to the second.  I had never been to a dedication before and it was pretty neat.  The Gilbert temple is beautiful!  Hopefully we’ll get to visit it someday.

I think that’s it for now.  Hope everyone has a great week!