Summer time

So now that I've written about all the major things that have gone on these last six months, I can write about some of the little things.  Kylie is such a fun toddler to have around.  Natalie and she play so well together. 

Natalie is learning all kinds of things and really showing how much she is growing up. She has learned how to cook eggs so she can make a variety of dishes for herself in the morning.  She cleans the bathroom every week by herself.  She has also started to let me do her hair everyday in pony tails.  Just in case you didn't know - from the time Natalie was born, she NEVER let me put even a barrette in her hair with out a screaming or pouting fit. She is super silly and she tease her constantly about the crazy ways she laughs with her mouth open wide like a hippo.  This makes her laugh even harder.  She loves to wrestle with Dad and always has a book in her hand in case she gets a chance to read.  In fact, she has already read over 4,000 pages this summer.  That isn't to say that she still doesn't love to watch TV but has a hard time competing with Kylie about the selection.

Kylie has about 6 favorite movies that I'm hard pressed to tear her away from.  She developed an obsession with having the TV on when I was so busy with Relay and school last semester.  She can almost say every word to Mary Poppins and loves to sing the songs from the movie or have me sing them. She also likes Dumbo, Spirit, 101 Dalmatians, The Aristocats, and any thing with Dora.  She has learned so much this summer.  She sings her ABC's, colors and paints mostly inside the lines, names the colors of the rainbow and then some, counts on her own to twelve, names 8 different shapes, and has finally started regularly feeding herself.  She doesn't have an interest in using a potty though but I'm not worried, she just isn't ready. 

She also loves to wrestle with Dad.  She says the cutest things.  She pretends her hand is a spider and says, "The spider is going to get you!" She does this while making it creep by my arm and then tickles me. She loves to go swimming and seeing her uncles and grandpas.  Many mornings she says to me, "We are going swimming together today, I need my bathing suit and swim diaper. We are going to have so much fun." Or she says, "We are going to Grandpa's house to go swimming." When she is angry because I ask her to do or have something she doesn't want, she says, "No (whatever I asked), not ever!" She loves to dress in princess dresses but only two and one is a nightgown.  It has puffy sleeves which she calls her wings.  She actually flaps her arms or requests she pick her up and fly her around the house.  Too cute!

She is posing for me while saying, "Cheese", so I could send a photo to Karl.

Another photo to Daddy. That's a little wave she is doing too.

This isn't typical for her but so cute.

4th of July Celebration

We had a busy 4th of July.  Our ward had a breakfast and a parade for the kids to decorate and kids their scooters and bikes in.  We had a blast decorating the girl's scooters the night before and watching them participate.  Kylie has so cute but didn't understand about following along the parade line and kept going everywhere and then stopping when she felt like it.  It was fun though. 

In the afternoon, the bishop hosted a BBQ and swim party where we played for hours in the pool.  After that, we needed some down time.  Then Karl got some fireworks at our house going and he and Natalie put on a show for our family.  Kylie was too scared to really appreciate it but Karl and Natalie had a blast (pun intended!). 

Nat and Kylie warming up in the back parking lot with the other kids.

All the kids getting in line for the parade.

Kylie trying to figure out where she is suppose to be.

Kylie finally hit her stride - so cute!

Reached the end of the parade and took a breather with a friend.

Getting refreshment after hard work in the sun.

Yes, Karl caught me on camera after chasing Kylie all over the parking lot.

Kylie's Birthday Celebration

For Kylie's 2nd birthday, I decided to try having her party on her half birthday since her real one is so close to Christmas. The timing wasn't perfect but it sure was a blast. She had been going to gymnastic for exactly a year and it is absolutely her favorite thing to do. We invited family and her friends from nursery at church to come and play for 2 hours. 

We had the gym all to ourselves and everyone had a great time.  Her favorite candy is M&M's so I had cupcakes with M&M's on them.  Our refrigerator broke a few days before the party so I had the cupcakes the morning of the party. The frosting was too soft though and kept falling off the cupcakes because of the weight of the M&M's!  But they firmed up in the frig at the gym so we could eat them.  All the kids had so much fun in the foam pit and jumping on the trampolines.

 Afterwards, the family gathered at our home to open presents and play some more.  The Brigg's stayed for the evening and played games and had pizza with us until LATE.  Kylie fell asleep on the couch, she was toast. It was a huge success!

Trip to Monterey

As our family summer vacation we choose to do a three visit to Monterey and Carmel.  We were hoping to take the whole family but it turned out to just be Karl and I with the girls.  We had a great time exploring the quaint cities down there and just being tourists.  It had been years since either Karl or I had been there so it was fun to rediscover it together. We stretched our legs at this large park with a huge train engine for the kids to play on.  Then, we went to Karl's favorite restaurant, Bumba Gumps, and after, the girls wanted to go through John Steinbeck's historical wax museum next store (creepy!). I picked out the Ghirardelli chocolate ice cream shop to go to for dessert, delicious!  We weren't excepting it to be so cold so we had to buy sweat shirts to sport for the weekend. 

The next day, we checked out the aquarium and had lunch on Cannery Row. The girls had fun watching the otters and penguins.  Kylie really like the toddler area they had by the seahorses and Natalie got to touch the sea creatures at the tide counters but ended up being a little hesitant, no shocker there! After lunch, we went on the 17-mile drive along Carmel's coast.  After sight seeing, we relaxed at the hotel and tried to go swimming but it was so cold! That didn't last long. We went out later for a quiet dinner and hang out at the hotel.  The next morning, we went to the wharf and had  crepes for breakfast. Then, we headed over to Carmel and check out Carmel Mission.  Since it was Sunday, people were actually attending mass.  The music was incredible! Then we went to the beach  to for a while. Apparently if you live in Carmel, you have to have a dog and take it for a walk on Sunday morning.  Dogs were EVERYWHERE! We wanted to do tide pools but had to go find some lunch and didn't end up going back. We went and found a wonderful place to eat downtown.  The area was so nice, with so many shops to see, we can't wait to go back.  Maybe just Karl and I though...  The girls had a great time and hope to get more time to play at the beach this summer.

So Karl dug into the sand and found it full of worms which his shovel had cut in two! 
It was so sad becuase there were so many and you could see the blood. 
Flies started to swarm the area so he buried them and we moved to drier sand.  He felt so bad!

Stephen's Graduation

Stephen's graduation went off without a hitch.  It was great that his mom, step-dad, step-brother, and even Chris came.  He graduated from the Space and Engineering Academy from West High wearing his colors proudly. He is off to Woodland Jr. College out in Davis in the fall where he is going to be sorely missed by his family. We are hoping to see him for the holidays though and know that he will do well!

Catching up Part 2....

April was the hardest the month for me. The count down for Relay was ticking - one month to go. Getting everything ordered and organized for the event and the food was more than I could do. I had mid-terms and projects all due and many family activities going on at the same time. This is when Karl helped me the most. He watched the girls almost every night while I either worked on Relay, school, or church stuff. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of fun stuff going on too.

In fact, it was really awesome when Deana left her three little ones with me for four days. The cousins had soo much fun! They were so good and sweet (I miss them so much), it was a true pleasure having them here for an extended stay. The next weekend was my favorite. Ever since my sister in law, Paige, came to visit me in Roseville and told me about my brother's college graduation, I had been planning to fly out at attend the ceremony.  The weekend had finally arrived! Leah and Deana were able to fly out too though Sarah was already going to be on a trip so she couldn't make it.  My parents were all going and my grandma and aunt too.  John had no idea!!  It was such a blast.  My sisters spent the night at my house and we drove to the airport the next morning. When we parked our car at a nearby parking lot, we ran into my mom and Dan in the shuttle to the airport! We had the same flight and sat right in front of them even, crazy.

When we got to Utah, my sisters and I met up with my dad and Kathy.  We drove the first ceremony and found seats where we could see John.  He even sent us text messages about how we could watch him on TV.  So funny when my dad called him and told him where to find us in the crowd and we saw us all sitting there with his two little boys!  It was priceless.  We spent a wonderful weekend visiting with Paige's family and celebrating John's graduation from BYU with his Masters.  That same weekend he packed up and drove to Dallas, Texas to start his new job.  On the way back to the airport, my sister and I stopped with my grandma at the Salt Lake Temple.  It was so pretty.  We went through a live session at the temple and I hope to go back some day.  At the visitor's center we found a photo of one of our ancestors who was building the temple at the time.  Seeing the visitor's center was so amazing.  Hard to image, even with all the evidence, what it was have been like for those saints.

John is the one standing up, raising his hand, while talking to us on the phone!

It was FREEZING cold and took forever to find everyone.

So I wrote this, with my sister's help, which read: Brother's of Yoda University, This certifies that John Boy has completed the course of loving sisterly torment, awkward adolescence, sacrificial service and perseverance for Real Life and is entitled to officially enter into this degree of Master of the World and has earned all rights and privileges pertaining therein. We signed it cute but I don't remember the words we used now.  Something about siblings and parents...  It was awesome!  The picture is the frame is of him when he was little with a super cheesy grin on his face - totally my little brother.

Celebrating at dinner with the family - love my grandma!

My sister in law, Paige, and my aunt Jill!

Again, John is the one raising his hand.  This is at the second ceremony where he actually got his name read and he walked for his diploma with his class.

Seeing so many people there to support him was amazing.

My meant-to-be sister!

Having lunch with the family to celebrate again

We sang "He's a jolly good fellow", it was great!

John gave tours of the brand new broadcasting building at BYU that he helped design the IT set up for.  It was the most amazing building EVER.  It was like a corporate Disney Land - very high tech and posh.

Posing on the lawn next to the Salt Lake Temple.

My grandma and her best friend in temple square.

Walking up temple square to get a bit to eat, right passed beautiful Church Headquarters.

Such a wonderful, peaceful place.

My grand pointing out my great, great, (maybe another great?) grandfather on the top to the temple in progress.

The coolest model of the Salt Lake temple.  You could see the chairs in each room and everything.

Couldn't resist trying to capture the beauty of the flowers.

 The next day was Easter and I have to admit, I don't remember much.  I think we were suppose to go see Karl's family but then canceled at the last minute... But I had it to church with the girls so that's good.

Karl left that same night for a week long trip for work out of state. Relay count down continued with two huge events that week. I think I got like four hours of sleep each night on average - usually I need at least 7 to function normally.  Mother's Day and teacher's appreciation week came and went but I didn't have a minute to say thank you like I wanted to.  I think I slept for Mother's Day or maybe the Briggs dropped in.  The pressure of the upcoming week was too much to focus on anything else. My girls were really fending for themselves at this point.  Here are some things I found them doing:



This was Natalie science project for school.  She and Karl did a great job putting it together.

For Relay I made cookies for my team to sell - I know I will not be doing that again - but it was so fun! Probably the thing I enjoyed the most to prepare for the event. You know, I think these are actually the ones I made for church on Mother's Day for Relief Society.  For Relay I made about 300 hundred cookies and slid six into a package with a tie on top.  They all turned out really well.

Relay was on Saturday May 14th. The 13th was Stephen's 18th birthday.  He spent it with his girlfriend. I realized I was going to spend the whole day getting Relay set up at the high school so I took Kylie a babysitters.  I spent all morning and afternoon getting things ready.  Nat came after school to help.  Karl picked both girls up and I went back to setting up the event.  The next morning started bright and early as the last of the teams set up their booths.  It was incredible. So many people came and things went very smoothly as the day got started.  People had so much fun buying treats and watching all the entertainment at the stage area and all around.  The track was full of people from the community and teams walking around all day to show their support in the fight against cancer. There were so many purple shirted people walking around meaning they had survived cancer.

Things grew more hectic as the day continued.  Some things didn't work out like we had planned and other things come up that we hadn't expected.  I had to take a break in the evening but jumped right back in.  So many of my family and friends came out to participate.  Fred, my dad, my mom and dan, my sister Deana and her kids and of course, Karl and our kids.  They stayed most of the day! I ran into people from my ward and got to know people from the community that I had never meet before.  The ceremony in the evening was very moving as everyone stopped to remember the loved ones they had lost to cancer.  It was so great to stop and take a few minutes to remember why I had gotten involved with Relay and remember what a wonderful woman Mary Jo was.  I still can't think of her without tearing up...

Things quited down after that and many people went home. I had a wonderful surprise that evening when Danicia and Ryan stopped by with her sister, Deidra and her husband, Mike.  It was around midnight and things had already wound down but it was great to walk around and talk about all the great moments of the day and the hard work that went into it all. I went home and tried to sleep for a few hours but I couldn't.  I got up around 4am and just rolled out of bed and went but to the event.

Everyone was sleeping but a few walkers around the track.  It had rained pretty good while I had left and the money had all been counted for the morning's total.  Slowly people started coming back to life and breakfast was kicked off rousing everyone.  We were all excited to hear how much the event had pulled in.  The ceremony that morning was full or energy and excitement though a little groggy (at least for me). We needed up raising just under $300,000 and are still a few hundred away from it.  But we reach the our for our event and everyone felt we did a good job.  I just hope that I'm forgiven for any ungracious words or actions that I most likely made or did during that 24 hours because I was not quite myself. 
The tents went down and people disappeared pretty fast after that. So many people were great at helping get the grounds cleaned up.  I left early to go teach in Relief Society but that was a mistake.  I was so tired, I kept falling asleep in my chair.  I had to stand up until it time to teach my lesson and then I found that my tongue and brain weren't quite connecting!  It was pretty embarrassing but thankfully I asked other people to share stories to fill the time and get the message across.  Then I went home and CRASHED.  Karl surprised me with a massage at my favorite place in town which I quickly booked for the next day.

The next two weeks found the kids and I wrapping up school and getting ready for summer.  Natalie got accepted into the G.A.T.E. program which means she would be changing schools. Stephen finished up his classes and requirements for graduation and firmed up plans to move into an apartment with his friends to attend school at a Jr. College in Davis. I completed my classes with flying colors and had just a few last wrap meetings to complete the Relay session.