THE RICKSHAW

We had Emily, Drew, Jinjer and John over, along with their kids a few weekends ago. It was tons of fun! Emily had her little girl neighbor with her, and our little girl neighbor ended up coming over too. That meant we had five little girls running around like crazy at the house. Kevin got a chance to show off his newest addition to our bike. Brooke and Kevin call it the " Rickshaw." These five little girls had a blast riding around the neighborhood. Kevin even built this new addition! Drew was saying he is going to build one too, so he can take the kids around at Halloween.

Little Saints Preschool Graduation

One of the only times I have ever seen Brooke sad to go to school was last week. She knew it would be the day she would graduate from Little Saints Preschool and it would be the last time she would ever go to school there. Brooke has had the same teacher Mrs.Cori for the past two-years at Little Saints. Mrs.Cori has made it very clear to me on many occassions that Brooke has been one of the most delightful children that she has every taught, and I do not take that comment lightly since Mrs. Cori has been teaching at Little Saints for over eightteen years! One of Mrs.Cori's favorite things about Brooke, that she mentioned is how Brooke can play with both boys and girls. How she can be a princess, but can still wrestle around with the boys. She says that Brooke wont let anyone push her around, but she is very sweet at the same time. A comment I will not forget that she mentioned about Brooke is, that Brooke understands concepts that she has never seen one of her preschool students understand. It was such a sad day for all three of myself, Mrs.Cori and Brooke, when Brooke walked to the graduation stand. In fact, all three of us were in tears. Brooke actually was uncontrolably crying when it was almost her turn to give Mrs.Cori a hug good-bye. All the kids were asking what was wrong with Brooke, since they had never seen her cry unless she fell and got hurt. We were the last ones to leave the school and we did get Mrs.Cori's phone number and we plan to go visit her. We are hoping she will still be around when Will gets to preschool.

Mrs.Cori wrote somethings about everyone in Brooke's class. This is what she said about Brooke. " Brooke- It is beauty and brains that our Brooke can boast, but it is her laughter I have come to love most. " I couldn't hardly get Brooke to smile for pictures, so that is the reason the pictures are not very good.

Field Day

I find it such a privilege to stay at home with my children. I know there are many women, because of financial choices, or financial circumstances, they just can not stay at home with their children. Every moment with a child, is a teaching moment. The things they hear you say. The way they see you treat people. The attitude you have. What they see you make a priority. Even the way you dress. These are the formative years of my children. What a blessing that I can be their most influential teacher.

I have really enjoyed being at all of Brook'es special days at school this year. It is so neat that since Kevin works so close to Brooke's preschool, he too came for almost all of her daytime programs. In example; Pet Day, Holiday Parties, Texas Hoe down etc. The last event before preschool graduation that we had, was Field Day. There were so many kids that wanted their face painted. Short on time, I got to use my artistic skills and help the teachers paint faces. Will doesn't mind being passed around a little. Brooke got soaking wet before I painted her face. Good thing, or she would have cried about her butterfly on her face getting messed up.

Home sweet Home

Brooke was so excited the day her Daddy would come home from Puerto Rico. She kept asking me all day if we could have a party for him. I agreed. Brooke loves playing that we are having our own family party. What is a party without something sweet, right? So Brooke and I made mint chocolate chip cookies. Mint is one of Kevin's favorite flavors. About an hour before Kevin would come home, Brooke totally changed her mind about the party. She said, " Mommy, Daddy didn't get to go to church on Sunday, so lets have our family lesson tonight." I am so proud of Brooke that her testimony is so strong. Brooke loves the gospel of Jesus Christ. Brooke's sweet spirit motivates me to be a better person everyday. I quickly agreed to her new request. We had a short lesson on prayer, and we talked about how we need to make sure we are having personal prayer, besides our family prayer. It is in our personal prayer that we can especially think about how we are living our lives, and repent and say we are sorry. Because just thinking you are sorry, is not enough. We hunted in the backyard for some prayer rocks for each of us to keep in a special place to help us remember to say our personal prayers. Brooke's little whisperings, in her own prayer are so precious. I don't listen all the time, but on occasion I hear her say," Thank you that I have a Mommy and Daddy, and thank you that I am a big sister. Please help that I can dream about unicorns and flowers. " It was a sweet homecoming, that ended with playing records and dancing, like always. Brooke is such a Daddy's girl.

A sneaky crab without a Visa

When Kevin called ecstatic about finding something to bring home for us, I was excited. When I heard he was going to have to sneak it through security at the airport, I was very worried. I tried to convince him not to bring a live animal on the plane, but kevin wasn't worried they would catch him. The little crab he found on the beach fits in a tic tac box. This was Kevin's plan to sneak this crab into the country. He did get through security with it in his pocket, like he had planned. He also brought home some coconuts. The security guard said they wouldn't let those on the plane, but he tried putting them in his bag, and they did get through without a problem. He had to climb the palm tree and swing very hard holding onto them to get them to break off.

If you ask Kevin, the crab's name is Tic-Tac. If you ask me the crab's name is Rico. If you ask Brooke, her little baby, girl, crab is named Brietta. Brooke was so excited about her new pet crab that she begged me to take it to her class to show it to them. Brooke loved showing it to her class. She accidentally kept telling the class before Kevin and I got there, that the crab came from Vegas.

Puerto Rico with Mark

Mark Mahnsing has been a friend of Kevin's for about nineteen years. The exciting things that Kevin has done with Mark are endless. Just a few off the top of my head are, when they went to Sanfransico together for a completely unplanned, random trip. Mark called Kevin and said, " I have got a group together of people and we are all going to Sanfransico in about an hour. " They only went with carry on bags, and they only stayed for one night. They also once worked at extras on a movie set, where they had to stand in freezing cold rain with strange armor like clothing on, because they were filming a war scene. Once they tried out to be Stunt Men for Disney World and Kevin even made it to the final cut! They went on a trip to the Dominican Republic three years ago, fully paid by Marks job at the time. When Mark found out that Kevin was getting married, even though it was a family only wedding and he had two days notice, he insisted on coming to the wedding. It was great to have Mark there. Since Mark had been a Pastor, he even spoke a few words about marriage.
This year when Mark had a fully paid trip to Puerto Rico, he asked Kevin to go with him. They stayed at a five star Golf Resort. Kevin has been known to jump in pools with his phone, and loose almost every expensive item he has because of some impulsive action, so he did not bring any camera, except a disposable one. I wasn't as surprised, as you would think I would be when Kevin showed me the pictures he had taken on his phone. There were two of a stray cat, one of an old building in downtown Puerto Rico, and one of a discusting looking fish meal that Mark was eating for dinner. I heard the resort was beautiful, but we don't have pictures to prove it, which is just fine with me. ;) I liked seeing the pictures of the stray cats.
Mark and Kevin did an excursion everyday. They went kayaking in the ocean to see glowing organisms in the water. Kevin said it was like in Avatar, for real. They went four-wheeling in the jungle, and both Mark and Kevin got warnings that they were going to be kicked off the four-wheelers if they kept being so dangerous. Kevin calmed down after two warnings, and Mark eventually got kicked off. When Kevin told me he was going diving in a cave with a waterfall, I felt envious of Mark that he would have such a romantic experience with Kevin. When Kevin described the experience, I wasn't so envious anymore. Kevin said that they had to repel into a pitch black cave and when they got to the bottom there were spiders, crabs and bats everywhere. They even had to eat their lunch in there. They had to get in gross water and go threw tiny spaces to get to the exit of the cave. The guide explained many rules that came from experience with someone falling off a waterfall in this excursion and dying. The only pictures Kevin took with his disposable camera were of the cave experience. So those are the pictures. Last time in the Dominican Republic Kevin and Mark held a nurse shark in the ocean. They actually lifted it up together out of the water. This time Mark got malled by a wild iguana they saw crawling around.

More to come about what Kevin brought home for us on his trip......

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

My childhood, and very best friend came to visit last week. There are defining moments in your childhood that make you, who you are. Erin was by my side through many of these moments. When I got to Taylorsville High, many people made the comment, that they thought that I had transferred into the school, and they didn't even know I was in their class because I was always hanging around the Juniors and Seniors at school. There is a reason for this, and her name is ERIN LEE. Well not so much the Lee, now that she is married. Erin and I were a duo, Siamese twins, or like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb. I met Erin in gymnastics fifteen years ago, and it happened to be very lucky that we would go to the same High school. Erin and I had the most fun of anyone I know, in high school. We even had a class where we were Student Aids of the swim team. The Coach didn't really need us. Our job ended up being " door watchers" of the Girls Locker Room, that was already locked. Not to mention, the weight room was right beside the locker room. We met everyone and anyone who would lift weights during that period.

A true story that I will be telling until I die, comes from one day when Erin and I decided we would go running one afternoon. We had never ran before, so this was pretty unusual. It started pouring rain about ten min. into the run and we decided to just head to some friends houses and wait for it to stop. We jumped a fence in order to do this. Suddenly, we heard a strange noise. Unlike any noise you would expect to hear, when sneaking into someones yard. "Baaa, Baaa, Baaa," it said. Suddenly we were being chased by a big, nappy, grey colored sheep! YES, a sheep was chasing us! Not only was it chasing us, it was trying to head butt us into the canal that was right next to us. This is not an exaggeration. This sheep was ramming its head into Erin, because I had been using self-defense selfishness, by pushing her out of the way, so that I could get further from the sheep. We finally did make our way to another fence of the neighbor's. We jumped it before any further damage could be done. Our damage ended up being, that the friends we were going to visit, just so happened to be outside, watching this whole thing with the screaming, and chasing by a sheep go down. We never heard the end of that story of Erin Lee and Emily in their running shorts, and tennis shoes ( thank goodness I wasn't in my heels. Yes, I did wear them starting at age thirteen) being chased by Willy Dinkle's pet sheep. Yes, I did just say, Willy Dinkle. That was the name of the kid's yard we had jumped into. If you don't believe his name, you can look in my yearbook. From that time forward Erin and I declared sheep to be evil. Kevin has made a few calls in the past six years, and he still can not find someone who will let me come to their farm, and shave their sheep, just because I think it would be funny.

Brooke, Will and I had a great time with Erin, and seven month old baby Bennett in Texas this week. It was so neat to meet baby Bennett and to see how incredible of a Mother, that my childhood friend had become. We enjoyed getting glitter toes done at home while the babies napped. We went to lunch with my Mom one day. Our shopping trips weren't very successful with the kids, but we stayed up shopping online and watching chick-flicks after the kiddos were asleep. It is as if, I never left Utah, when we are together. Best friends never feel the difference of miles they live apart, when they are together.