What Does Church Basketball Get You?

A disabled husband. And a good laugh. I have never been to a church b-ball game before and I was surprised by how serious some of the men took this game. It was like they thought they were in the NBA finals or something. Pretty hilarious.

Seven

I love birthdays. It is the one day of the year that is just for that person and I think it should be spent trying to make that one person feel special. I try really hard to make sure that at the end of their birthday day, my kids (and Erik) know how extremely happy I am that they are a part of my family. That I am truly grateful for their birthday.

So here we are at Preston's seventh birthday. One of the things that Preston loves is playing the Wii. He was given unlimited access to the Wii for his day and believe me he used it to his advantage. He also requested hot dogs for dinner and a Superman cake. Done and done.

Birthday dinner.

Just to show Preston was there :)

This cake was by far the most challenging for Erik and myself. But I guess that's kind of weird to say since it's only the second one we've done....but still! We had so many issues with the fondant this time I was ready to throw in the towel. But we got through it and even with Makyala's lovely fingernail artwork on the side, we're pretty proud of it and it was delicious! Chocolate cake, marshmallow fondant, and the BEST homemade butter cream frosting. I don't even like cake and I liked this cake!
See!? Yum!

Everyone agreed.

Happy birthday to my Preston! I hope you know just how grateful I am that you are a part of this family and that we get to celebrate your day!

Breathing Is Good

Our first summer here in Arizona was an eye opener. For the most part, if you stayed inside 98% of the time you were fine. Going outside should last no more than 5-7 minutes if even that can be handled. There were times when it felt like you couldn't breathe. A breeze is a nightmare since all it is is blowing hot air into your face. Like when you open up a pre-heated oven? Just like that.

So we went to Oregon in July. There really is no comparison when between the two states when talking about summer weather. It seriously felt like I could breathe again. Everyone came to get together and I was really excited about it. You may have heard about the bug that Makayla caught while there here, but there were still good times to be had. Here are the pictures of our trip.

Even though Makayla got sick and we didn't get as many pictures as we wanted, I loved our time spent in Oregon! I love my family so much and I miss them like crazy! But next time, it's someone else's turn to be sick. We did our time.

Visitors

Erik's parents came for a visit from Georgia and it was really great. We did a lot of driving around and showing them a bit of the Arizona scenery. We loved having them around and the kids, especially Preston, were so upset when they had to leave but they're already making plans for the next visit from Grandma and Grandpa Witbeck.

Here are a few pictures of their visit.

Getting ready to swim at the hotel in Tuscon.


And Preston was the only one who would get in.


Poolside conversation.


San Xavier Mission in Tuscon.


Seeing the sights in Tombstone.


Time spent at the park. This toy doesn't look like much but it was spinning really fast. I got sick just looking at the kids spinning around on it.


Climbing up the spider web.


Just because she's cute.

I'm just realizing that we didn't take very many pictures while they were here. But we really did have a great time with them here. Some projects that Erik wanted to do got done with some help from Terry and the kids got a lot of special attention from Valeni. And I got to take some naps during the day. :) It was so sad to see Preston just heartbroken when they had to go. But he calmed down after we made a list of activities to do on their next visit. Who knows when that will be (Christmas? :) but we have the activities planned.

Camping

Our ward had a campout in August and at first I was kind of skeptical about it. I mean we live in Arizona. Hotness is everywhere in my mind and can't be escaped. But Erik talked me into it and I was assured that it wouldn't be too hot and that I would love it. So we got our gear ready but we couldn't leave until Erik got done with work at 4:30. We left at about 5 pm.

We had directions. They were very precise directions. Turn left on such-and-such road and go 9.2 miles then turn right on such-and-such road and go 5.8 miles. You get the picture. It was spot on...until we reached the lake. Now imagine it's 7:30 at night, dark, you're driving around a lake with a ton o' campsites, kids hungry and Jurassic Park just got done and they've been sitting nicely for 2.5 hours so they're starting to not sit nicely, and the directions turn into this:

At the fork go about 2 miles. Look for a radio tower and turn right. We camp at the end near the lake.

That sounds okay but when it's dark outside you can't see the one thing you're looking for: THE RADIO TOWER! We're in a highly forested area where the dumb radio tower looks like a dang tree. We got lost for an hour. We went down all these different roads hoping to see someone that we know. But like I said, it's dark so all we see are tents and campfires. We finally decide to retrace our steps and drive very slowly until we see the elusive radio tower. We find it. Finally. It also happened to be right by the first road we went down when we got there. Like directions said, about 2 miles down the road. The directions failed to mention that we had to go another 3 miles down the road to get to the campsites so we had turned around the first time. Wonderful.

At this point I don't care where the ward is. We found a spot and we said we're done. We pull up and start setting up camp by the light of our headlights. What was funny was 2 other families from the ward saw us from our headlights and camped right next to us because they couldn't find where to go either. So we had our own little campout.

But I have to say that the icing on the cake to this little journey was our neighbors. They were so awesome. You know how great it is to have neighbors getting drunk, playing the weirdest music you have ever heard as loud as possible until 5 am, and swearing up a storm. I kept thinking that they have to pass out eventually but no such luck. I guess I didn't mind the Five For Fighting song they played over and over but I could've done without the weird chanting and hillbilly stuff. But lucky me I got about an hour of sleep before the kids woke up at 6. Don't you love when you can sleep in one day? So do I. I wish I could. :)

We found others from our ward who happened to be just across the road from us. We feel that the spirit guided us there the night before so we could eat the delicious pancake, egg, and bacon breakfast. We spent some time talking then we walked down to the lake to catch some crawdads and get dirty. All were accomplished.

We really did have fun and it was an experience that I think I'll always remember. Here are some pictures of our journey.

The boys really like the picture so I had to throw it in.

Making friends in the morning.


The lake.


Man on a mission.


One of the crawdads they were after. They are so gross.


Dirty, tired, and hungry. I'd call this a successful camping trip.

I Love....

...when Makayla "helps"me fold laundry.

Hard Knocks

Bryce has had a rough first month of school. He got sick after the second day and missed the rest of the week. He got some skin infection on his head that required antibiotics which didn't go well with the throwing up he was already doing. And we won't go into the behavior plan implemented by his teacher because he "likes to make funny noises" (his words, not the teachers').

Then this.....

I have found that when the caller ID tells me the school is calling in the middle of the day, it's never for a good reason. Apparently Bryce slipped and fell on his way to the bathroom. And at some point he forgot to use his arms to break his fall. He decided his head was a better option.

Fortunately he forgot about it not long after we got home and was back to his old self in no time.