Friendships

This post has been something that has been on my mind a while and I want to preface it by saying that I don't mean to sound judgmental in any way, I am simply curious.

I have several friends from my past that have decided to not live gospel standards any longer. Many of them were really good friends in elementary, junior high and high school and some even past that time. Now, while I don't agree with the choices they are making right now, I still love them and want to continue being their friends. However, many of them seem to feel that I will judge them and have distanced themselves from me. There actually haven't been very many instances where they have ignored me, but there have been a few pointed times. I just wish they would understand that I would like to be given a chance to still be a good friend, even if we have different values now.

Anyway, that's all for now. Have any of you ever experienced similar experiences with past friends? I hope not but if you have, I completely understand what you're feeling!

Trips, trips and more trips!

Justin was fortunate enough to go to the Middle East for school and was gone for 17 days. Because he was gone for so long, I decided to break up the time and go on my own vacations. The first vacation was to Zion National Park with my Mom that I blogged about already. Then I was home with my kids alone for a whole week and then I went to San Diego with my sister-in-law Liesl for 4 days. It was a great trip. Here's a run down of our trip:

On Monday, May 10th I dropped my kids off to my sister-in-law Andrea and went shopping. I bought some cute skirts at Maurices and my sister Liz took me to the airport. Liesl and I flew to San Diego, got our rental car (I highly recommend Midway Car Rental in Cali) and drove out to La Jolla. We walked along the beach and ate at the Poseidon Restaurant. Good food but a little fancy for my taste. Then we checked in our hotel and watched "When in Rome" and laughed a lot, what a good movie!

Me on the beach

Beautiful park on the beach

Playground on the beach. Lucky kids!

On Tuesday we woke up at 6 AM which felt like 7 AM in Utah, our normal wake up time. We hit the gym, had breakfast and headed finally to Sea World at 10 AM. The dolphin show wasn't up and running since they are doing a new arena and show with the cirque du soleil performers. The others shows were great although they did not swim with Shamu which makes the show truly spectacular! Overall, I thought Sea World was good but not as excellent as the last time I went 6 years ago. We were done by 4 PM so we went to dinner and then headed to the Carlsbad Outlet Mall. Not really our style, too ritzy and expensive stores. Then we headed back to our hotel and watched The Blind Side, also a great movie!

Liesl through the aquarium

All 4 whales

Sea Lion

The waving walrus

On Wednesday we went shopping all day, it was great! We first hit the Seaport Village which reminded me of Gardner Village but seaside. Then we went to Old Town and enjoyed the ambiance and shopping there. Then we drove around the Gaslamp Quarter but realized it was just a place to go out to eat and party at clubs at night. Then we drove up to meet with some friends of mine for dinner and had a few hours to kill. We got pedicures (this was my first ever and I'm not really a big fan) and went to a shopping center that had tons of booths, it was awesome! Then we had dinner with Ryan and Christin and it was nice to catch up with them. Then we went down to the ocean to see the Red Tide where several plankton were growing and when it's really dark and they crash in the waves, they streak like lightning. We didn't stay late enough to see it but got some water in a bottle to try at our hotel in the pitch black and it worked, it was cool!

Me at Seaport Village

Me in the middle of the Seaport Village

Liesl at Seaport Village

Wednesday night was rough as I wrote about in my last post since I was missing my family and ready to go home.

By Thursday morning I felt better so we headed down to the outlet mall on the Mexican border and it was a much better outlet mall with the stores we like. We did a ton of shopping, ate at IHOP and headed to the car rental place. We forgot to get gas so we took the car to fill it up and drove to a Shell, waited in line and then it didn't even pump gas! We drove around for another 15 minutes before finding another gas station, filled up and were finally on our way home. I was happy to see my kids but sad to see Allison so lethargic and sick. She was sick until Saturday night when she finally started acting like herself again. Justin got home on Saturday night and it was really nice to have life go back to normal.

Thoughts.....

So, I am vacation with my sister-in-law Liesl in San Diego and this trip has been great but right now I am feeling down. My poor kids have had a very rough week and have not been easy for my sister-in-law to take care of. Timmy has refused to eat most of the food she has made, had issues going to the bathroom and Allison is throwing up today. Then I read an article about this couple that abused and ultimately murdered a 4 year old boy and my heart just feels so sad! Especially since I have a 4 year old boy that I can't imagine doing anything bad to and love so, so much!

I miss my kids, I miss my husband who has been gone for 14 days and won't be back for a few more. This trip has been nice, but I am ready to go home and have my family all back together again.

Zion National Park

This weekend I was fortunate enough to go with my Mom to Zion National Park. We left on Thursday afternoon and stayed in Springdale just outside of the park. We actually had a trip planned to Bryce Canyon but realized it was going to be highs in the 30's and snowing so the day before, we switched trips! I called and transferred out nights in Bryce to August and got a hotel on Priceline.com spur of the moment!

We did all of the easy hikes along the main bus shuttle line and it was fun. When the kids napped, my mom was able to go shopping. The kids were really fun troopers and really did good hiking until the last hike of our trip and the kids had to take turns while I gave them piggy back rides. We really could have taken a stroller on the last hike but we forgot! We even saw some ward members there and it was really funny seeing them when it wasn't even a holiday weekend.

On Sunday I was going to take my kids to my mom's ward but Allison had a pretty good sized cough throughout the night so we just came home. When we got home, our house was freezing because I turned the air off. It was 54 degrees and now after a few hours, it has warmed back up. I love vacations and I have another vacation coming up soon to San Diego with my sister-in-law and without my kids, yay!

(My mom took most of the pictures since I forgot my camera on day 1 but here are the few I took on day 2.)

Me with my kids

Grandma with the kids

The kids at the end of the River Walk and the start of the Narrows. The water was really high and you had to stay up on the platform.

The kids on the River Walk. Allie, what a cheeser!

Racecars are Adorable?

The other day Timmy was playing his racecar game and he just kept saying over and over that something was adorable. I decided to stop him for a moment and ask him what was adorable and he told me that when he doesn't hit anything and just drives smoothly that it's adorable! He also told me that when he does a really tight curve it makes a skirt. This kid cracks me up! I now hear the word adorable several times a day, it makes me laugh and I'm not going to correct him! You can ask him about it and he'll act all shy and tell you the same thing, it's really funny.

Another Timmy situation happened today. For the first time I noticed Tim was wearing different pants and when I peeked, he had on new underwear too. Please note that Tim has NEVER ever gotten dressed alone and has always asked for help. Apparently he wet himself and didn't want to tell me, so he finally took the initiative to change his clothes himself and did a great job! Now hopefully in the future he can stop playing and actually go potty without having an accident :)

Why oh Why???

Why do all of the big black furry black spiders come in my house! It seems I always have the same type in my house and I am terrified of them!! Give me the little black grass spiders and I'm fine, but furry is where I draw the line!!

Happy Easter

Our ward did our Easter program yesterday, so I dressed my kids up in their Easter outfits and took some pictures before church. I should've had Justin take a picture of the back of Allie's dress, it is sooo cute!

Updates with Pictures!

I realized it has been a while since I have updated my blog with pictures. Here we go!

In February it snowed and I built a snowman with my kids. About 10 seconds after I took this picture, Tim destroyed the snowman. He said he didn't like it, especially the red food coloring mouth. I guess it looked like a scary snowman instead of a friendly one!

Both of my kids fell asleep on the couch, what cute kids!

Happy Birthday Timmy! Timmy turned 4 yesterday and here are some pictures of his birthday.

Tim with his new Lightning McQueen bike

Tim with his Toby train

Tim with his new Mater

Tim with his new Lightning McQueen clothes

Tim with his new remote control car

The cake

Tim with his new marble run from his grandparents

Here I am putting it together for him

Allison got a dress from her Grandma Lorna for her birthday and it has a matching doll dress. Here is Allie with her doll Nini in the same dress. Love it!

Candy anyone?

Timmy: Mom, I'm hungry
Mom: Go eat some candy (yeah, I'm a good mom like that!)
Timmy: No, I don't really like candy

Whose child is this???

Allison on the other hand can't get enough of her candy! I too am sick from eating too much candy! Timmy on the other hand has not eaten any of his candy, except the frosting off of his chocolate egg.

Timmy Antics

Timmy totally made me laugh today. He was running around and jumping off the couches with Allison while I made dinner. Then he crashed and so began the crying fit. I went over and sat down with him on the couch and tried to make him feel better to no avail. I asked him what happened and he immediately stands up and stops crying while he reenacted his fall for me. As soon as he landed (not in a painful way) he starts bawling at the top of his lungs again. It totally cracked me up!

Oh, and for the next half hour after he calmed down, he reenacted his fall over and over and over. I love that little guy!