Mini Vacation....kinda

So.....do you think I am a brave enough mom to drop Oakley off in Provo and just leave her there?  NOPE!! So what do you do with 3 days and 3 kids in Provo? MINI VACATION of course!

It turned out to only be "kind of" a mini vacation though.  On the way down my engine light in my suburban came on so I prayed it to Provo and as soon as I dropped the girls off headed over to the mechanic I found off my phone. (Seriously what would we do without iphones??) We ended up setting in their waiting room for 5 hours while they tried to decide what the problem was.  Ask me how fun that was with 3 kids!! We did leave and walk across the street for lunch and then to Shopko for a card game and a few toys to entertain them with.  After the mechanic couldn't find anything wrong he cleaned the injectors (I think just so they could charge me for something), charged me $285 and sent me on my way telling me that the light would probably come back on.  Thanks dude!!

 We left the mechanic and headed up the hill to see the Provo temple. The kids loved it.  Rhett called it the cookie temple.  It was a beautiful day to go see it.  We then headed to find our hotel.  And if setting at the mechanics for 5 hours wasn't bad enough we got to the hotel ready to swim and there was a pool.....but NO WATER! So I cancelled that reservation FOR SURE! and we found a new hotel WITH WATER IN THEIR POOL! It also cost me an arm and a leg though because every hotel in town was full for the night.

 After swimming I wanted to take the kids to do something fun for the day since it ended up being kind of a bummer day.  So we found this awesome place that had trampolines and foam pits and swings from the ceiling and a rock climbing wall and for $6 a kid it was PERFECT!! This is Dallin in red shorts, Rhett in green shirt and Laiklie in the black shirt.  They had TONS of fun and it was a great ending to the day.

 We started the next morning at Hogle Zoo.  We walked in....looked at the monkeys....turned to go see the elephants and my cousin Josh was standing there.  Crazy!! He and his wife April and their two kids were visiting the zoo that day too and we just happened to run into them.  So we spent the morning with them and it was so fun!  This little one on the left of Laiklie is their daughter Allison.

 The kids LOVED the zoo! Dallin has been bird watching lately and comparing his list to his cousin Colton's and he tripled the size of his bird list while we were at the zoo so he was super excited!

 We then headed over to the church history museum.  This is seriously one of my kids favorite places in Utah.  They have a children's exhibit for FREE that has everything from Nephi's boat to the golden plates you can try to lift to blocks you can build a temple out of to chickens you can gather eggs from.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon and better yet we met our cousins there and spent it with them.

 We were then off to the cousins for the night.  They filled the little pool and swam of course.  Rhett was the bravest of them all! :)

The next morning as we left my sisters house Rhett said he didn't feel well and threw up.  I took a couple big Ziploc bags from her just incase we needed them.  We used them and stopped for a big box of ziplocs.  The poor boy threw-up 15 times between 9 am and 8 pm.  He was SOOOO SICK! I have never seen such a sick little guy.  He was a trooper though and hiked across campus to watch Oakley clog that day with his sick bag and all.  Poor guy!

That night we headed toward Manti for the Manti pageant.  We didn't know what to expect.  We still had a sick little boy and didn't know if it would even be worth the long drive.  It TOTALLY WAS THOUGH!

This is Erica and Brooklyn (clogging mom and friend) on the end, Oakley, Rhett (who threw-up as we pulled into Manti but that was the last time ANSWER TO A PRAYER!) Laiklie (with a Manti temple sticker on her forehead) and Dallin.  The pageant was incredible and had me in tears several times.  My kids loved it and we are so grateful we had the opportunity to go.  As we pulled into Manti that night the engine light came back on in my suburban.....but it got us all the way home yesterday.  We are definitely blessed!

(Dallin is throwing-up on my couch today instead of spending it at 4-H camp like he was supposed to! Bummer! Hopefully those nasty throw-ups don't go through all of us!!)

BYU Clog Camp 2013

Oakley and her clogging teammate Brooklyn decided they wanted to try out the BYU Clog Camp this year.  We were brave mommies and decided we would send them.  I drove them down and dropped them off at their DORM (AHHH!!!) Thursday morning. They aren't big enough for that!!

 They clogged straight for 3 days.  I got several texts telling me about sore legs, hurting knees and blistered feet.  They had a blast though!

 They were the Jolly Rodger team (pirate theme).  They got to do normal camp things like skits and games plus spent an afternoon swimming at seven peaks along with all the clogging. 

They also met new friends which was HUGE for these two girls.  Oakley and Brook are both such shy little things that we as their moms were hoping for some social activity as much as clogging.  It was a success! Yay!

Diabetes Sucks!

Oakley got asked by the diabetic center to do another trial study.  She likes doing them because she gets paid to do them and we like her to do them because the machine they have her wear tells us what her blood is every 5 minutes and she has to wear it for a whole week and so we get to see patterns. (We own one of these but do you think we can get her to wear it when she isn't getting paid?! Of course not!!) This trial study was different than the others we have done because it has an inclinic day where they did a 6 hour blood draw.  They had to take blood out of an IV every 15 minutes for the entire 6 hours.  They told Oakley the IV had to go in her hand and she FREAKED OUT! She did not want it in her hand and she was so nervous the whole morning.  When we got there they sprayed a freeze type numbing on her hand (which she said hurt too) and then poked her for the IV.....it blew through her vein and so they pulled it out and repeated on a different vein just to have the same results.  So they started in on the other hand and after the third poke and third fail her and her mom were both in tears.  Did I ever mention that I HATE DIABETES!!  So the sweet nurses pretty much told the trial study people to shove it and that they were putting it in her elbow.  She settled down because she has blood drawn out of there every 3 months and that doesn't scare her.  They got it in on the first try.  Thank goodness!

 She then sat in this uncomfy recliner with a hot pad on her arm for 6 hours.  She had a nurse there just for her and every 15 minutes her timer would go off and the nurse would come take two blood draws....one that went into the garbage because they did a saline rinse each time between that they had to make sure wasn't in the blood....and the other blood went to the study.  They also did a finger stick every 1/2 hour.  The nurse Oakley got was HORRIBLE at finger sticks.  She would poke her an average of 3 times each time she had to do one because she just didn't know how to do it.  It drove Oakley and I crazy!! By hour 3 we were holding strong, but by hour 5 she was miserable and ready to get out of there! There were 5 other kids in there doing the same thing as her so atleast we weren't alone in this.

Oakley's sweet friend Katie sent a gift bag full of presents and a note to open one each hour.  She is SO STINKING SWEET and we appreciated it SO MUCH!  Here is her left handed coloring job. :)

It was a long day for Oakley, but a great week with the study and a big pay check for her at the end. Yay!

Some of this...and some of that

 We have been doing A LOT of this! Sprinkler under the tramp with friends (or this day cousins Kaylyn, Haylee and Lexie).

 And a little of this! A day at the ranch with the girls and their kids.  This is how 4 girls haul a boat from the shop to the lake. Ha, ha!

 These are my two brave sisters-in-law holding the boat on. It was hilarious!! but we made it!

 And A LOT of this!! Cooking outside in our fire ring.  The kids LOVE it! We do hotdogs/smores atleast once a week.  This night tinfoil dinners were on the menu. Yummy!!

We have also spent A LOT of days with cousins.  We got to keep my sister Arnica's kids for a week while she was in CA and we were able to go to the movie Croods, the Dubois parade and rodeo and have some Jacobson cousins over to play in the flooded lawn.  Cousins are GREAT!

We have seriously been enjoying every minute of summer!! Keep the fun coming!

Summertime

 Oh, what do we do in the summertime, when all the world is green?!

I seriously cannot get enough of the sunshine and this little girl! (Laiklie) It is so fun to watch her live an adventurous life of a 6 year old.  She just soaks up the world! Love it!

A Night at the Lake

COUSINS + LAKE = TONS OF FUN!

 This was our FHE last night.  Laiklie and Sage.  Laiklie was told she could get wet up to her shorts....she fell in and was wet from head to toe.  Sage was told she could get wet mid-calf....you can tell from her jeans she got a little deeper than that. :) It was a chilly night, but so much fun!

 Dallin and Violet.  These two are my favorite to watch.  She likes him so much, and he just can't get enough of her either.  They were gathering snail shells.

 Look at those dirty bums! Ha, ha!

Rhett and Oakley had a great time too.  Rhett did put the sail boat out to sea and it never returned.  So we need to buy a new one of those before we go again. :) But otherwise the night was a success!

New Baby Kittens

A couple months ago one of our cats disappeared....then a month later the other one disappeared.  We aren't sure if they got hit in the road or if the coyotes or skunks got them.  We just know they never came home.  I HATE, HATE, HATE mice!! So we needed some new kitties.  I found these sweet little babies on craigslist.  Yay! Soooo cute!

 This is Laiklie's kitty named Lily. She is kind of the runt of the three.  Just so tiny.

 This is Rhett's that he named peanut....but he informed us today that he has renamed it, but it is a secret.  So.....we just call her peanut. :)  You can tell from the dandelion just how tiny she really is.

And this is Dallin's fat kitty named Dozer.  She is my favorite.  Her orange and white fluffiness is wonderful!! We are all in love with these three little babies.  I am hoping they learn to be mousers!!

Memorial Day 2013

We LOVE Memorial Day! We were able to go to the cemeteries again this year.  This year though my grandpa was there waiting for us.  As we parked the car and I jumped out and started walking to where we just buried him a month ago the tears came again.  This past month has been different not running back and forth to the hospital to see grandpa.  We miss him!  My grandpa loved birds so the kids wanted to take him a bird.  It seemed fitting. I have noticed that not only my Dallin and his cousin Colton have become bird watchers just recently....but I have too.  I like to think in a way grandpa sends some of these birds to check on us. We sure love and miss him.

Also on Memorial Day we did the annual Jacobson picnic at my aunt's house.  We LOVE this! It is the one time every year that we get together with my grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins and their kids.  It was so much fun!! Such a great time of year!