Single motherhood and Jayisms

For the past week Ryan had to go to North Carolina and Virginia on a business trip. Ryan has never had a job that required travel and I was not happy. I have been spoiled for my married life with a husband who works a 9-5 job and is home at night and on the weekends. I like this. So for a week I was a single mom. I did not like it. On top of being alone I also took two sub jobs. Yes, I know most people work full time but again I am spoiled and I don't. It was so hard to get things done, put the kids to bed, shower them, feed them, get homework done, and all of the other things that I had to do by myself. My good friend said it best. I was living some one's reality and it was a nightmare for me. This week really made me appreciate Ryan and all that he does. In "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" it states that "husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and their children." I know that is true. For me and Ryan it truly takes both a husband and a wife to raise our family and teach our children. I am grateful to Ryan and all he does for my family and me.

Now for some Jayisms. One is probably not appropriate but it is too funny not to post so I am going to.
First off one day last week I was taking the kids to get ice cream and they were crying about only get one scoop. So I said if you continue to cry and whine you will get no ice cream so be happy with one scoop. Jay replies with "so, I will just have an empty cone." Sometimes his arguments are just too logical.
Now for the inappropriate one. Stop reading if you are easily offended. I warned you.
One morning Jay would not wake up. He does this on occasion pretends to sleep so I have to carry him and dress him while he "sleeps." So I was doing this and took off his pajama shirt put on his school shirt and then went to take off his pajama pants only to realize he had no underwear on. Which is sad to say is not unusual for Jay, I guess he prefers to go commando. Anyway back to the story. I proceed to take his pants off only to be surprised with something sticking straight up. Now if you have boys and it's morning, a body part often sticks up in the morning. But I was surprised and so was Kate because she pointed at it and said "huhh." Needless to say I quickly got him dressed and tried my best to not make a big deal out of it and not laugh too hard. See not too inappropriate it was just too funny seeing Kate's reaction and Jay's non reaction. I love my kids!!!

First day of School

Whenever I hear first day of school I always think of Nemo shouting "FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL" to his dad and his dad not wanting Nemo to go to school. I have mixed feelings about the first day of school also. I have expectations about what I will do when school starts. How I will clean out the den, be organized, get to the gym everyday, and so much more. When this doesn't happen I get a little down. But like all lows in life I muscle through them and realize that life goes on and that I am going to be okay.
Jack started second grade and Jay started kindergarten or young learners as we call it here since the plan is for Jay to do kindergarten twice. So Jay goes to school only half day and Jack is gone all day. I don't like it. I do miss my kids and I think Kate does too. But I know they are learning and enjoying it so much. Ryan challenged them to meet someone new everyday and it is so fun to ask the boys about this. They always say yes we met someone new but they never remember the names.
Here are their favorites that I ask them every year.

Jack's Favorites

Color: blue

Animal: dog

Food: pizza

Best Friend: Jake Platt

Book: Ramona Forever

Activity: riding my scooter

Toy: paper airplanes

Movie: Ramona and Beezus

What do you want to be when you grow up? Baseball player

Jay's Favorites

Color: red

Animal: great white and tiger sharks

Food: cotta (cottage cheese) and hot dogs

Best Friend: Wilson Kerr

Book: animals

Activity: playing with you (mom, Dyan)

Toy: power rangers and transformers

Movie: Jaws

What do you want to be when you grow up? baseball player for the power ranger team.

Some of the answers were the same from last year but is it so fun to see how they change and grow up. By the way they have yet to wear these clothes again. I have to get a token first day of school outfit that will be worn twice, once on the first day of school and once on picture day.

California, again

We had another great trip to Cali. The kids all love the water, the sand and being outside. Thank you to Jason and Shelley for letting us all stay at your house. We had a great time.

Jay, Kaden, and Jack all buried in the sand. I love this picture.

Lake Powell

Lake Powell

I love Lake Powell. We are fortunate to have great friends, Steve and Angie, who have a houseboat and actually enjoy our company, so we get invited along to Lake Powell. For me, once the grocery shopping is done, it is the most relaxing vacation ever. There is no decision on where to go to dinner, or what activities you want to do. It is all right there on the lake. If you get hot you jump in the lake, if you are bored you jump in the lake. Thank you Steve and Angie you guys are troopers taking a six week old baby to the lake. It was a great time!!!!
Again I asked everyone their favorite parts of the trip and here are the responses.

Ryan: portable fans made sleeping much better. We bought battery powered fans and had them on all night long.

Dyan: Mine is always the same. I love being with my family and making memories. I love that Kate still wants to go swimming at Lake Powell.

Rachelle: jumping off the top of the cliff. She is a little afraid of heights so she was very happy that she jumped, something I didn't do, at least not the highest cliff.

Alexis: don't know the whole thing was fun, thought for a minute more and then said "racing Steve and Jack on the jet ski and the girls won."

Jack: going on the jet ski and jumping off rocks

Jay: climbing sand dunes, jet skis, and jumping off rocks.

Kate: Ummmm, Powell

More highlights, as you can tell I like making lists, it is easier for me to remember things.

-already blogged about it but Lexi climbing the sand hill 10 times

-jet skis for the first time, but not the last

-rainbow in the morning, seen only by Rachelle but she got a great picture (see the bottom collage)

-trying to get Rachelle off the jet ski and finally succeeding when I wasn't even trying.

-having a bat fly around inside of the houseboat one night. Rachelle was on the floor and just laughed at us all sitting up afraid.

-Jay playing ball and hitting the ball off the canyon wall

-going off the slide. Kate loved it and wanted to go again and again.

-I lost my sunglasses and issued a dollar reward for their return. I have yet to see them, I think Lexi is holding out for two dollars.

-Our island in the middle of the lake. We would ride our jet skis over and swim around and we could watch Lexi and Ryan wake board.

-Angie throwing Jack into the the water. It is a tradition that I don't think Jack likes.

-Dyan taking an elbow to the head. Ryan heard Isaac coughing in the middle of the night and thought Kate had fallen into the lake so he jumped up to rescue her and in the mean time elbowed me in the head.

-Jack picking up an ant and being mad that he got bit. When Rachelle asked him what he was going to do with the ant Jack said kill it so we didn't feel too bad for him.

Above pictures just us being silly and hanging out on the houseboat, beach, and lake.

Everyone on the jet skis. I don't know why we haven't rented them before. We all had a ball riding them and I even got over my grandma tendencies in driving them, well a little bit.

Here is the beautiful rainbow Rachelle saw one morning and Ryan and Jack jumping off the cliff. Ryan is doing a back flip and Jack has no fear when it comes to cliff jumping.

Lexi is my idol

Alexis Ricedorff is my idol. At Lake Powell there is a sand hill that is probably 200 yards straight up in sand. We climb it every year once and only once. It is hard. Lexi told Ryan she would climb it 10 times before even doing it once. We all laughed at her. Well, true to her word she climbed it 10 times. All of us on the houseboat were impressed. When Lexi was asked the next day if she was sore she responded with "not really." Oh to be 16 again.

This is a picture of the sand hill from the houseboat. The black speck is Lexi climbing up.

Christopher Creek

For the past five years my family has gone camping at Christopher Creek. We pack up way too much stuff, especially food and head out. This year was different though, we went in July instead of September. It was great. We weren't hot or cold. I think we need to go every year at this time. As we were driving home I asked each family member their favorite part of the trip here are their responses.
Jack: Catching crawdads, mud fight, jumping off the rocks, baseball, and climbing the mountain
Jay: Playing with Wyatt, jumping off high dive, being a raccoon, baseball
Kate: Jumping
Ryan: Swimming with the boys and Katie, playing ball
Dyan: Hanging with my family and watching my kids play and laugh, and making memories
Here are some more highlights from the trip.
-Rope swing: we found a smaller, closer water hole with a rope swing that the kids loved
-Box Canyon: instead of going to the big, closer water hole, we drove to a new one where the kids all jumped off cliffs too high for me.
-Wanting to stay longer: as we were leaving my kids said "let's stay another day."
-Catching crawdads
-Using mud as a sunblock and to become a raccoon.
-Jay hitting Wyatt with a rock, and then commenting that it was a soft rock and they were playing dodge ball.
-Ryan telling MacGregor his name was Ralphie, then Gregor saying "huhnn" with the most confused look on his face.
-Kate staying in her swimsuit the whole time and not being cold, but just right.
-Rain and hail storm: it was the biggest rain and hail storm and the loudest thunder crack I have ever heard.
-Mud slide: Watching the kids get dirty and even Loren, yes a grown man, go down it.
-Showering in the creek: if you look at the pictures the water is dirtier than the kids.
-Playing horseshoes
-Playing marine

4th of July

I love the 4th of July or Independence Day as my brother Matt made sure it was called. Every year I am reminded about how great I have it. I have freedoms only enjoyed by people in America. I am able to worship how I like without fear. I am able to wear what I like without fear. I am able to bear as many children I like without any repercussions. I am able to go to Show Low and celebrate this great nation because I want to and no one can tell me not to. And that is what we did. We headed up the mountain enjoyed a parade, fireworks and a Adams family reunion.

I am so incredibly grateful to our founding fathers for building this great nation and to our military for keeping it great and fighting for it. Thank you to all of you who keep me free.

Back up and running, and postive blogs

Yea!!! My computer is back up and running!!!!!

I have been thinking lots lately about positive perspectives. I admit it I like to read people's blogs. There are a few that always seem to be upbeat, happy, and just what I needed to read at that time. I love how some people are given lemons and always seem to make lemonade or how they always seem to "come what may and love it."
So here is my positive post. We went to Lake Powell a few weeks ago. I will post about that once I get my pictures uploaded. One day we wanted to hike the sand hill. It was about 100 yards away from the houseboat, too far to swim so we took the jet skis. Well, since it really was so close we didn't feel like we needed life jackets, including Kate. Sure enough you guessed it we turned around and the jet ski kept on turning and we all fell off. I came up fast and thankfully Ryan had Kate. I grabbed her so Ryan could get the jet ski, no he didn't have the key around his wrist. We were fine and all was well but it made me realized how blessed I am. We pray everyday for safety and here is one example about how my prayers are answered. Even when I do knuckle headed things, like not put a life jacket on my baby, my savior cares for me and still blesses me.
I am truly blessed and I am grateful to the many people out there who help me have a positive perspective on things.

ugg!!!

UGGG!!!

My computer has been broken since the 4th of July and it is driving me crazy. I can't post pictures and we have been going crazy on the vacations. We went to Show Low for the 4th, then to St. George to play softball, then camping, Lake Powell, and back to Cali. Great times had by all. Eventually I will get a computer and post about all of the fun because I need to keep a journal and scrapbook so when I am old I can remember all of the good times.