Young Woman Retreat - Ophir, Utah

Madie McCleary, Brianna Barlow making dinner!
This past weekend, the YW leaders took the YW on a retreat! We are a fairly new group of leaders (only Jennie and I have been in previously), and we didn't want to wait until girls camp to get to know the girls better. Wendie Norton - Laurels advisor had a family cabin that was perfect! This place was amazing! It's in Ophir, which is outside Tooele...only about an hour and 10 minutes from home. It's huge and beautiful! Plenty of room to play. We had a great dinner, played games-mostly games that involved acting situations out....so funny, played pool, ping pong and air hockey and enjoyed spending time with these cute girls! When we got there, Jennie had ridden with Mirissa and had to pee. There was about 3 feet of snow on the driveway. Jennie told Mirissa to just pull her car in so she could get in the house to pee and because she has a 4 wheel drive they thought they could do it....well, she got stuck! It was so funny. We told Russ Norton (who was up there as our priesthood and it's his family cabin) that we are a pack of trouble and preceeded to tell him about how many flat tires the priesthood fixed last summer at girls camp! Luckily, that was our only incident!



l to r: Julianne Croft, Jessie Woodland, Lauren Kennington, Suzie Smith, Taylor Davis, Scerena Montgomery - cute Beehives!

Olivia Richards

Liza, Aubreyann, Morgan

Amanda and Susie Eames

Liza Norton, Hailee Hendricks, Morgan Graham, Aubreyann Montgomery and Olivia's back

Suzie Smith

Danna Stuart, Jackie Wise, Baylee Reynolds

Rebekah Croft and our awesome Cafe Rio style salads!

Kirsten Davis

My girls! The women I work with in YW...left to right: Bonnie Kennington, Mirissa Dibble, Brooke Rice, Wendie Norton and Jennie Graham. We were missing Mylissa Weger.
Bonnie & Wendie's husbands came up as our priesthood leaders. The rest of us shared a room. Brooke & Mirissa went to bed earlier than the rest of us. By the time Jennie & I went to bed, they were in a deep sleep...until Jennie turned on her 'white noise' app on her phone. Brooke woke up asking what that horrible noise was. Well, we all got the giggles from then on and it took another hour to finally go to sleep! Too fun!

Danna, me, Jenny Smith

Hailee Hendricks and Morgan

Amanda giggling...she hates this picture, but I think she's beautiful!

Our around the world ping pong game. Each girl would get one hit and then everyone rotates. Lots of laughing involved here....

Rebekah, Jenny & Brianna playing knuckle pool...a game they made up and it gave them swollen fingers.

We also played air hockey and I used to think I could hold my own in that game, but I can't....I was terrible! Still, lots of laughing. My stomach hurt so bad from laughing so hard!

Amanda, Suzie Smith, Scerena and Rebekah pulled an all-nighter. By the time we had finished breakfast, those girls minus Rebekah were alseep on the couches! There was a flurry of cleaning activity, Mirissa clearing off everyone's cars of snow and then we were on our way! Amanda slept the whole way home, into the house and didn't wake up until about 3:30 when I told her she needed to get up for the youth session of Stake Conference! It was a great retreat! The Norton's are so generous letting us play at this great cabin! Good times and good memories!

Mike, Sydney and Brandon had a great time without us, too. They got to go to Denny's for breakfast! Party on!

In Like a Lamb

I can't believe how FAST February flew by. We seemed to be so busy all month long. Every minute in every day packed full. Will March be much better? Who knows....it is a beautiful first day of March today....in like a lamb, for sure....

So, here is the rest of what we did in February. HOA meeting, where Mike is on the board. They spent a lot of time this month knocking doors trying to get homeowners to turn in their ballots for a neighborhood improvement vote. I had New Beginnings for YW, which was really cute.

We had a meeting about our new jr. high and can't believe Amanda is going to jr. high next year. Recipe group with our husbands. Seeing the Justin Bieber movie with our whole family and the Wilson family. We had a great time and yes, we like JB.

Many church meetings....worldwide leadership training, stake conference which included 3 meetings each for both Mike & me. Sushi with friends. Dennys with Dad. Amanda doing service in the nursery for the Scouts blue & gold banquet. Helping with Sydney's Valentines Day party. Helping a piano student and young woman with her singing audition with a couple of trips up to the jr. high. FHE and service stars. Lunches with friends. Visiting teaching with friends. A fun party with the outgoing Bishop and everyone who worked with him in the Bishopric in the past 5 years. Mike has been a clerk for the past year or so. We will miss this Bishop and counselors, as well as their families. They are awesome! Visits with Grandparents, watching trip pictures with the Arvys. Friend birthday parties, playgroup at our house, hosting Bunko here, and a retreat with the young women (which I'll do in another post). Oh, and last night, Mike and I got to go to the Jazz game and sit in a suite! Fun!

This in addition to the regular, school, lessons, teaching, work routines.

We also went to the boat show. We met my parents there and had a great time! We love the Utah boat! Amanda was tending, so we had to take a picture for her. We were a little disappointed that there weren't some big old fabulous boats there, but we still had a great time!

Bring on March!

Brandon says:

Ok, the last post was very serious, so this one is the complete opposite!

Being our first boy, there has been dicussion about not hitting him in the private parts. His buddies call privates 'the weak spot' and 'the tenders' and those words have made it into the vocabulary at our house now, too.

So, on our way home from a trip, we stopped at a Carl's Jr. and Sydney ordered chicken 'tenders'

As soon as he heard that, Brandon broke into uncontrollable laughter and said, 'She's getting the chicken's tenders!'

We all broke into uncontrollable laughter and will never be able to order chicken tenders again without thinking of this Brandon moment......

A moment of reflection....then back to the busy day!

I was reading a blog this morning from a gal I love to follow...http://brookebenton.blogspot.com/ and she was talking about how she misses her old house and the simple way life seemed to flow.

There have been many times that both Mike and I have missed our old house and our old neighborhood. I even have a recurring dream where we are back there, living our life, but the people who bought our house live there and we have to leave before they get back....strange, huh. I think I was trying to read too much into that dream sometimes....

When I read Brooke's post this morning, I decided that it was the way of life that we miss sometimes. Don't get me wrong, there were hard times there for sure, but with smaller children the world was on our schedule most of the time.

Yet, we LOVE the ages our kids are right now. We love discovering that our pre-teen has such a great sense of humor and love of life and has boys who are crushing on her, but she only has eyes for Justin Bieber. We love Sydney's stories and the fact that we have to calm her fears about 'Bloody Mary' since she heard the story on the school bus. We love that Brandon is all boy and yet loves to play 'Just Dance 2' on the Wii (he's really good, too!).

And those are just the things from this week!

But, our days are filled with Mike's busy work life, me trying to be a Mom and a piano teacher and make dinner every day, Amanda's multiple 'practices' and then add in Young Women activity nights and a bunch of homework every night, Sydney's busy Monday, Wednesday, Friday activities (luckily, not much homework) and Brandon's dislike of homework. Although, when we sit down to do it, he is very contemplative about every picture he has to draw or page in the book he has to read. I can almost see his brain working and absorbing this new knowledge.

The girls used to zip through their Kindergarten homework pages and zoom through their books. I always felt guilty when they'd do it all by themselves or feel bad that I didn't ask them the questions I'm supposed to at the end of their 'See Sam' books. But, I am definitely making up for it with Brandon and I feel like he is really learning.

When we thought we were moving last month, I started looking at this home in a different way. I was going to miss it. Not because of the structure of this space, but because of the memories. Watching it being built. Picking the colors and furniture to fill our home. Mike building the girl's bunkbeds and then suprising them when they came home with us the first time. Then, how I had to sleep on their floor, 6 months pregnant, because they heard strange noises. Bringing our boy, Brandon home and having our cute friends decorate our new place with balloons and a poster announcing our baby. Having our family in our home as we blessed Brandon in our family room. Lovingly, putting in the yard and being amazed the Friday night that our friends and family laid sod so quickly. Birthday parties, dogs, first and last days of school, dinner parties with dear old friends and new ones. Soccer in the backyard, dinners on the patio, Mike perfecting his dutch oven cooking, talking to friends and neighbors over our short fence, our makeshift ski 'hill', sledding in the front yard, Halloween parties, Christmas parties, activities committee meetings, sitting on our front porch, tears, laughter and love....all in this home.

And I'm so glad we are here. This is our home and I love it. I am so grateful and so blessed. I am trying to live my life in the now and trying not to worry about the future-when our kids are grown-up and on their own. I'm sure I'll look back at this time in my life and wish for it even though I know Mikey and I will enjoy that time together.

So for now, I'm done reflecting and am going to run to Costco before the school bus brings our kiddos back home.

I love the mountains!

I forget how much I enjoy being in our mountains until I'm there and within minutes I become giddy. Maybe it's the fresh air or taking in the amazing scenery, but it takes me to a happy place! This past Wednesday, I went with Amanda's class field trip snowshoeing! It was in Big Cottonwood Canyon at the Spruces campground. First off, I love coming back to Salt Lake and my old stomping grounds. A lot of the people we live by are all from Davis Co. and points north. Not many grew up or even ever lived in Salt Lake. We drove our friends, Jeni & Lizzie, and had a good time showing them a few of the places that make up our story in SLC. They were good sports and humored me. (I know it's sounds like we live much further than the 30 minutes outside of Salt Lake, but it's crazy how little we head south).

Mike 'made' me drive his new truck. He really did have to encourage me to take it. Not because I don't like to drive it, but I was nervous about hurting/scratching/crashing/spilling in his new car. He knew that Amanda really wanted to take it, so he made sure I was on board. I was just grateful we didn't have to ride the bus. Not my thing....not Jeni's thing either, so we picked up she and Liz and they were great company! One reason it was so fun to be with them is because Jeni likes to dance and sing like I do and it embarrasses the girls. Jeni's family is going to the Justin Bieber movie with us on Friday and so we were practicing our moves....

Back to the snowshoeing...after meeting up with the bus people, we grabbed some snowshoes and got all strapped up! We haven't snowshoed before and so we were excited! (Here is Amanda giving me another non-smile for a picture-never gets old)...After getting divided into groups and getting a little orientation on walking with snowshoes (backward is a hard direction to go) and what to do if we encounter a moose, we followed our guide, Richard, into the trees.

Now, Richard is part of a volunteer group that takes school classes, etc. snowshoeing. But, I think we did a lot more listening to Richard tell us how to identify squirrel tracks, identify species of trees and giving a 'you are the future of this canyon...save the trees' lecture than actual snowshoeing. I'm all for saving the trees and such, but a little more walking around in the snowshoes would have been highly welcomed. A couple of dads came along who were obviously big-time into snowshoeing as evidenced by their equipment...their own shoes, poles, etc. I could see disappointment written all over their faces about 10 minutes into our walk as they realized we would be standing and listening to Richard more than exploring.

There was a little excitement when Richard was trying to explain how the animals use their energy wisely during winter months. He had the kids line up and then race while wearing their ss. Amanda did great and I love this picture of her below!

Richard was really starting to lose the kid's attention when he started talking about aspens. Amanda and Liz just took a seat....Luckily, lunch was next and we headed back to the 'car park' as Richard (from England) said.

After lunch, the kids went to this big hill (it reminded Amanda and me of the sand hill at Lake Powell) and spent the rest of the time sliding down! Even the teachers did it....we have awesome 6th grade teachers! Jeni and I spent a lot of time helping kids get their snowshoes back on (Jeni more than me-but I still did enough that I couldn't feel my fingers), and getting their hands warm again and were amazed at some of the boys who were actually crying. Below, you will see a picture of Amanda crashing after sliding down the hill and there weren't any tears from ANY of the girls involved....It was Ryan Summers' birthday and his mom, Sherry brought up a cake to share...and we got to sing again!

Amanda hiking up following Jake Bisk...

Amanda on her last time sliding down!Crash at the bottom!
She loved it! So much fun!

What? Another picture?

After we got down the canyon, we stopped at the 7-11 and grabbed some hot chocolate. We left the girls in the truck because their boots were off. They grabbed my camera and did some self-portraits and pictures of the inside of the truck....

And, a picture of Jeni and me coming out of the 7-11 on our way back to the truck! We took the old school road back to the freeway....not the fancy freeway junction. The road took us right past Mike's parent's house, so I showed Jeni where Mike grew up and then pointed out the direction I grew up. Mike had taken the afternoon off to be home with Brandon and they had a great time, too....they of course went to sushi for lunch because Brandon's says that's what they do on their boy's days/nights...

Find the sun!

I love these guys!
Cute kid...too bad his eyes are closed.

Oh, it's been a mighty gloomy winter. That's what made moving to San Diego sound so sweet! No, we aren't regretting our decision to stay here, but sometimes you have to wonder what it would be like to live in a warm place during January! Especially today when it was 0 degrees overnight! Very chilly....

But, luckily we have a place in St. Gorgeous when we need a sun break! We had planned to visit over the MLK jr. holiday, but with all the craziness going on with the job/moving, etc... we never made it.

Mike decided that his truck needed to 'stretch its legs' and so we took a quick trip south. It was so great to feel the warm sun and actually be able to breathe! The truck was really fun to drive. We left on Friday afternoon, made a stop at the dealership, then made a stop at Grandma & Grandpa Arvy's to welcome them home from their 3 week adventure, so by the time we reached St. George, it was 10pm. Saturday, we shopped, played at the park, hiked on the rocks (Brandon's favorite), and enjoyed being together. We left early Sunday morning to make it back for church and Zach's birthday at the Gibsons.

We are probably crazy, but I like that we will spontaneously take-off for a quick weekend trip.

My babe!

And, this little sun break may have helped us all to cope with the freezing...and I mean 0 degree temperatures we are dealing with now! Mike had to be in Denver on Monday and Tuesday. It was just as cold there. The only good thing about this deep freeze is that it has cleared out the air and we have sun and clear skies! I'm hoping the Groundhog was right this morning and that Spring really is on its way!!!

And the fun begins....

If Mike had taken the San Diego job, he would have gotten a company car. Part of the 'deal ' to have him stay here was a nice car allowance. Thanks, Baileys! Today, Mikey picked up his new toy. And yes, it's blue......closet cougar. The kids are teasing him about the color, I just told him it matches his eyes ;) Now, the Caddy is for sale...I told him he's living his second childhood by selling his old man car and getting a fun truck! He does deserve it in my opinion!!!

Just when you think...

What a whirlwind we have been in for the past month! I have to document it because this is my journal....about mid-December, a recruiter called Mike telling him of a CFO job in San Diego/Escondido area for a moving and storage company and asked Mike if he was interested. He thought, 'Sure, couldn't hurt to check it out'. So, first he phone interviewed, they liked him and so they flew him down there on the 7th of January. It was one of those awful inversion days in Salt Lake and in San Diego, beautiful, sunny and 68 degrees at 10am. Seriously...wouldn't be hard to leave Utah in January for that! They liked him enough to offer him a job! Mike liked them enough to accept the job! The kids and I were excited about a new adventure, but sad to leave family and friends. We were also sad that Mike would be living in Escondido for about 4 months without us as we stayed to sell the house and finish the school year.

Once the negotiations were over and he completed the background check, Mike felt like he could tell his bosses at Baileys that he was done. He did that last Friday. The bosses did not like that....at all....they basically told him they didn't want him to leave and they would do whatever they needed to so that he'd stay. Even Kevin flew in from Denver. It took 3 days of negotiations with them and some restructuring to make work life better for Mike.

Yesterday, Mike stayed home for the morning. This 'exercise' of negotiation with both companies was exhausting. So, he rested, we talked, we took the dog for a walk, we went to lunch and then he went back into work to discuss the job one more time. Finally after about 3 hours, he texted me and said that he felt good about staying at Baileys and he called the other company to tell them.

I can't put into words how emotionally exhausting this whole deal was. In our minds, we were already in San Diego/Escondido. We had researched the area, looked at houses on-line, talked with friends/family who live in the area, talked with friends who had lived in the area, talked with the kids about moving, talked with parents, etc. I don't think Mike thought the Baileys guys would put up such a fight to keep him.

We are feeling very blessed to have had two good companies to choose from, especially in this job market. There really wasn't a wrong choice. We are a bit sad at missing a new adventure (even the kids to our surprise), but we are really happy about staying here with family and friends. This time between Mike and I has been awesome. You know those times that just make your marriage stronger as you go through them together. Well worth the craziness of the past month.

Our sweet friends who support us and checked with us often about whether we were staying or going. Some even having their darling 2 year olds tell us "I don't want you to move." (That was a tearjerker, Nat!). Our parents....well, my parents....Mike's have been on a cruise since the beginning of January and don't have a clue what we just went through. They knew he was going to interview and Renae's last comments were, 'Hope you don't get the job!'....there will be a story to tell them when they get back. Anyway, my parents for their concern and support and our family.....to all of you-we appreciate you all so much! We are feeling the love!

Now, bring on spring!!!!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas to me!

For about the last 3 or 4 years, I have been planning to get some curtains up in our family room. That back wall was long and had nothing to break it up. I have been looking at every home magazine and website I could find, trying to decide exactly what I wanted. I even purchased some maroon-colored drapes that I found on clearance last year, but in the end decided that's not what I wanted for the family room.

I did have Mike help me hang those in the piano room since they match a few things in there.

So, anyway, when my Mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I told her I just really wanted some drapes! Being the excellent seamstress that my Mom is (a talent that skipped me), she was up for the challenge! We met one Tuesday in December and hit the fabric stores. We finally decided on this beautiful green which just happened to be on a really good sale.

We ended up needing to get a little more and that's why we have the cool cream colored stripe/hem at the bottom. But I like it!

Mom finished them up just last week...just in time for my recipe group to meet at my house.

I smile everytime I walk in the room!

It just looks so good to me and makes the room feel cozy and finished!

Thank you Mom! Loves!

It's New Years Eve so let's burn down the house!

So, here are our ugly sweaters! I found these blue gems at Ross/TJMaxx and then we doctored them up! They were perfect! Off to the Francis' for a fun party with some of our friends and neighbors. This year, our kids came and hung out in the basement with the Francis' and Harwood's kids. Our ugly sweaters did get a good laugh! So, I guess it was worth the 3.5 hour trip to pick up the BYU patches!

Here are all the kids waiting for the fire! We were excited this year to have some of the neighbor kids join us! It was sooo cold!

After the party was over, it was back to our house to burn up the gingerbread house and a graham cracker Christmas train Amanda made at school!

A little lighter fluid to help things get going.....

It was soooo cold! Seriously! We huddled around the burning house and train once Mike got it going just to keep warm! Here is Taylor, Spencery, Brandon, Josh & Amanda!

Look at it go! This was so much better than last year's fire burning! We almost had a bonfire going! Our kids LOVE this new tradition! It's all they could talk about that day!

Grandma and Papa Arvy had given us a firework, so we added that to our pyro display! Then, Mason from across the street, brought out his one last firework and partied with us!

Who is that group that sings...."Fi-re" Anyway, it was a great way to ring in the New Year!