It’s that time of the year
MY HOUSE IS COVERED IN HAIR! BETWEEN ME AND THE DOG WE ARE LOSING HAIR BY THE HANDFULS – UuuGH!
MY HOUSE IS COVERED IN HAIR! BETWEEN ME AND THE DOG WE ARE LOSING HAIR BY THE HANDFULS – UuuGH!
Tuesday April 14th – Pleasant Grove UT
Can we get some summer weather around here? It was snowing before this.
Wednesday April 15th – Pittsburgh PA
Ben had a one day event honoring their one millionth customer to sign up for Mozy Home. (this is the same day that I backed into my own car :()
Friday April 17th – St. George UT
We spent the day with the Utah Nettesheim cousins and went to Snow Canyon, the pool, and ordered Thai Food that night.
While most of the gang went and did this…Â
My Brother in law John Climbed up this rock and did all of the “lead work” so that Tracie and I could rock climb a little. I hadn’t been climbing in about 10 years so it was fun to be up there.
 Still Friday the 17th – Back at the Condo Swimming Pool
 I laid on the coach letting the antibiotics work their magic while everyone else went to IN and Out and to the park.
 Sunday April 19th – St. George to Hollister CA
We drove 10 hours on Sunday to get to my sisters house.
 Monday April 20th – Hollister CA
Ben locked himself in the office and worked all day. I refused to drive any more and had a great time visiting with Christy all day and getting a glimpse of life with older children and busy schedules. The boys played in the glory of the toy room, jumped on the trampoline and swam in the cold Hot Tub. And Cali finally got over her neck rash and we discovered new armpit ones so she was happy to let mom hold her all day. I didn’t get the camera out much so this is all we have to prove that we were there.
Monday April 20th – PM -Â San Francisco CA
We drove to the Hyatt in down town San Fran and checked in for the night. We were the only mini van within miles – very strange coming from Happy Valley. And the hotel “helpers” thought we needed lots of help. Lets just say that they double flipped out when I came down the next morning with my 3 kids, a car seat, cooler, suitcase and Back Pack and no Ben since he was already at his work conference. I was handling it very well but they could not handle it. I tried to hand them my slip to go get the Van but they wouldn’t even listen until they had taken everything but the kids off my hands. So that was fun and me getting lost on the way out because our GPS doubles as Ben’s Cell phone and I didn’t want him to be without a phone, and so I’m not finding my way to the 560 and Benji is begging for a PB and J at 10am – I almost couldn’t handle that one!
But I did handle it and after a slight detour close to the old Candle Stick Park I did get on the right road and we made it to my brother Josh’s house.
Tuesday April 21st – Lathrop CA
We hung out with Josh and Mal for a few hours. Long enough to see the new and improved GI Joe Collection, the new lawn, eat my first Turkey Burger and long enough for Payton and Packer to fight over most of the toys 🙂
Still Tuesday the 21st – Oroville CA
We got in the car and drove up to Oroville to my parents place. It would have been an uneventful drive except that I had to use the restroom and I had 3 kids with me and no help – so Myself and 3 kids in a gas station restroom, crammed in to 1 stall, Packer laying on the floor and saying ” I Flush” the whole time. Not an ideal situation! I think I’ll just use the side of the road next time so that I don’t have to unbuckle and wake up the rest of the car!Â
 Thursday April 23rd – Oroville to SF and back
I got to drive down to San Fran and get Ben from his conference on Thursday. It actually wasn’t too bad because my sister in law Liz took Benji and Packer for me and Shannon took Cali! So I cruised on down (of course I didn’t need any bathrooms on this trip) and hurried back to Oroville.
And that night Jaydn and Maddy had a sleep over with Benj and Pack and Grandma told them stories for bedtime!
Friday April 24th – Oroville CA
We decided that Cali and her cousin Gabriella ( one month younger) would be twins for the day. We also decided that we would celebrate Packer’s birthday since we would be in the car all day on his real b-day.
 Most adults at a park wouldn’t migrate to the play ground – not my family. They were all over on the twirlies trying to spin each other off.
Earlier in the day we all saw the mail man drive down the road so we sent Sean to check the mail for his mission call and we were all waiting when he came Running back with the Big White Envelope in hand!! It was super exciting. So he opened it that afternoon and he is going to the Texas Houston South Mission, Spanish speaking and leaving on July 22nd! It was neat to watch him open it and i think he’ll be a really great missionary. He just has that hard working and loveable personality. Congrats Sean!
Saturday April 25th – Somewhere in Nevada most of the day 🙁
This was Packers real birthday and he started it off by throwing up in the car about a half of an hour into the trip! He threw up a few more times and slept the entire 11 hours. Cali was a much better traveler than we anticipated and by the time we came home she was pretty good at crying herself to sleep in the car. She tricked everyone in California by being a very happy and content baby – I’m hoping that is her new style since she is almost 5 months old now – but the last 2 nights have been rough so we will see. And Benji was a good traveler – he always has been and still does a good job just sitting there all day. I slept and cleaned up throw up and slept and fed the baby and I think you get the picture. And Ben listened to talk radio the entire trip so I am well informed about the miss USA pageant. And the NFL draft was on the radio so that was fun. This is now the LOOOOOOOOngest post EEEEEEEver but I have a few more pictures. When we got home Saturday we had a Soccer game at 10:40pm so that was fun to go to.
Sunday April 26th – Pleasant Grove UT
Another Birthday party – Packer and Amanda. We had fun catching up with the family and playing the name game.
 If anyone remembers a year ago on Packers first birthday he managed to grab the candle and burn his hand. Well this year his older brother was not about to let that happen again. Benji was very concerned and kept telling Pac to be very careful.
I was very proud of the cake I made. The black was a little gray but it really looked like Mickey!!Â
 I think that wraps up the day by day update. Except that was through Sunday and Now we are going on Wednesday. The last 2 days have consisted of unpacking, a nice day at the park. A much needed WalMart run. Mikila spending the night. 2 sweet goals in my soccer game last night – 1 on the kick off and the other just me and the goalie and I actually put a move on and sent it in with my left foot. Calling to get MOtorcycle Insurance quotes, and how much to fix our car mirror quotes. Catching up on our shows that we missed last week and trying to get the Laundry/House back under control. Never let me blog about 2 weeks of my life at once again – this was insane!
Thanks for all of the car sympathy. Glad to know that I am not completely alone. Todays drama is packing for our St George trip and at the same time trying to get Cali’s neck from getting worse. It is now much worse than the picture I posted earlier in the week. I’ve tried a prescription ointment, covering it with baby powder, blowing on it for hours at a time while she sleeps, called my dr., a local pharmasist and even Ericas Dr friend. It just seems like no matter what I do the neck gunk is spreading. I’ll be away from our Dr for a week+ so I’m trying to get this figured out. … but here are our Easter pics…..
The boys colored Easter Eggs on Saturday morning. They both loved it. Packer dipped every egg in Orange and Benji still chooses Blue for everything. Packer ate one of the eggs during the coloring process so we got some good shots of that and Cali was all smiles so that made it fun for all.
Saturday afternoon Ben and I had a soccer game at 12:55 so we played in that (and won) and then we went over to Ben’s brothers house and had an Easter afternoon/evening. It rained so we had our egg hunt in the house. And that was the beginning of the candy fest. Packer has not had a clean or empty mouth since.
 I could not get a good EASTER picture of my kids. It is sad to look at these pics because they just aren’t the best. Between Packer’s snotty nose and Benji’s uncombed hair… not to mention that Cali pooped through her dress in the first hour on Sunday so I didn’t even try to get a dressed up picture of them. Check some of these out, we’ll put them in a not so cute folder or something.
–noun Informal. a collision between motor vehicles in which there is only minor damage.
I got in a fender bender today. There is no nice way to say that it sucked. I got in the worst kind of fender bender – the one where you run into your own parked car. Yes I’ll repeat that because you probably did hear me right. I pulled out of my garage and hit our other car that I had just parked in the driveway not more than 5 minutes earlier! LAME. My husband was out of town all day so I can’t blame him for parking it there, there was noone else involved, just me and two scraped up cars 🙁 If anyone has ever done this you know how frustrating it is! Has anyone ever done this? please tell me that I’m not the only Mo-ron… anyone??????
 “Packer is a Murderer!” this is what the cousins came in yelling. I guess Packer stepped on one of the big worms and killed it.
 Does He look guilty to you?
Benji has turned into a great big brother he spends more and more time with Cali and loves when she responds to him.
 After hiding all of the Easter eggs Packer thought he better hide himself. He keeps us laughing.
 And Cali has got the shortest neck with the most fat rolls which equals one very red and sore neck on the part that never breathes or never feels the light of day. She hasn’t slept well the last 2 nights and so I finally got her a prescription for it yesterday – I hope that cream works fast cause my little baby needs to be better.
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Kelsey is a Junior in High School. She came out to visit the Utah relations for Spring break. We had fun playing games, Shopping for gladiator sandals, visiting with our grandparents, realizing that she was only 5 years old and starting kindergarten when I left for college! She entertained Benji and Packer, held Cali a lot and the 2 days went really fast.
Cali weighed in at 13.8 at her 4 month check up. She grew another inch so 24 and 3/4 inches. The Dr. did use the word chubby in describing her (Benji weighed 19 pounds at 4 months so we don’t think she’s too chubby :)) Cali is very much a night owl right now. She easily stays up until midnight and then sleeps in until 10 or 11am.
So Shannon went to a roommates house for conference weekend and had the following conversation with the roommates mother… this was after Shannon told her that she was 9th of 12 kids and a twin and from California and…
” What kind of person has 9 kids? and then has twins? And then has another one?! And does that while living in California? WOW!”
yeah – I’m not sure what my parents were thinking but I’m glad that #’s 10,11, and 12 are part of the family.
 And today Cali is 4 months old – we go to the Dr tomorrow so we will find out how CHUBBY she really is…
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