Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.
You Are Aurora! (A.K.A. Sleeping Beauty.)
Thoughtful and loving. Authority figures probably have been sheltering you all of your life. Thankfully you're a very tranquil person who is content with what life has given you, but secretly you want to know how the outside world works.
After our quick trip to Utah, we decided Morgan needed a change of scenery and we took her back to Idaho with us for a week and a half. I think she was hesitant at first to leave her mom, dad, grandma, assorted cousins, aunts, and uncles. But, hey, what's a summer vacation when you stay home? Huh?
She made her decision to come, packed up her bag, grabbed her pillow and blanket (must haves), and hit the long road to Boise, Idaho!
Of course we didn't want to bore her with our routines, so we tried to do something different each day. Most days began with swim team and Morgan got to feel the 7:30 AM breeze through her hair as we rode our bikes to swim team practice! I'm sure she was thinking "What kind of mother makes her children ride to a place where they have to swim about a mile, and then get on their bikes and ride back home???" Yep, that's me, the mean mom!
Here are some pictures to show what we did during her stay with us. Enjoy!
S'mores and poses , anyone???
Braids, braids, and more braids!
I'll pay you $10 to run through in your clothes...
Shaved ice, yummmm! Kourtni didn't want any...boohoo.
We love our dads! Happy Father's Day 2008!
Prettiest rose in the rose garden!
Playing with stuff at Sephora. We loved the bronzer, lip gloss, and eye shadow.
The title to this entry sums up the way I feel today. Yep. I'm old. No matter how I try to fight it, I'm still old. My body feels creaky when I take the first steps out of bed. My neck aches when I turn it too quickly to see if there are cars coming in my direction as I turn the corner. My butt-pardon the French-is sore - way too sore to be my butt cheek! My body doesn't move the way I want it to move. It doesn't turn, run, flex, or stretch the way it did when I took it for granted 5 to 10 years ago. Hmmm. I'm old.
I signed up to do a "triathlon" that our ward is doing. No, it's not that type of triathlon - I know you were raising your eyebrows when you read that I signed up for it...It's a triathlon to be completed during the course of 2 weeks. Whew! Well, of course, due to my competitive nature with myself, I decided to do the full Ironman category. Make that Ironwoman! I figured I could run 26.2 miles during the course of a week no problem. I just run through the pain in my derrierre and stretch, take a little ibuprofen, and go for it! This will be the easy part for me. Now, there are 2 more parts to this "tri" thing. That's right, I have to swim for 2.4 miles and bike for a mere 112 miles. Yep. I have a bike that has zero gears and is meant for taking me to the snow cone shack with the fam. I don't think that it is meant for 112 miles of riding. It will have to do though. It's cute and it gets me where I need to go - all 112 miles of it. The last part - you got it - swim. Bill and I have a joke between the two of us. We like to tell people that "we don't swim far but we sure swim deep!" That was too true today when I took my ambitious self to the local pool to put down some laps at lunch. I grabbed Lindsay's goggles, put on my adorable one-piece suit, and headed out. First of all, I felt panic when I arrived at the pool. Panic because the swimmers who were doing their lunch hour workouts were swimming the ENTIRE length of the pool! And they were good swimmers, too! Freak. I, being the naive person that I am, somehow thought that the lap swimming would consist of swimming across the pool in the OTHER direction. Like my kids have to swim to pass the swim test. Nope. Farther. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. There are lifeguards watching to make sure that 40 year old wanna be triathletes can make it down to the other end of the pool before going under. Ok, I thought, I'm gonna do this. I easily got into the pool and faked my confidence; after all, I did have nice goggles and a one-piece suit on! The second stroke I took left me with a pain in my neck. Yes, you heard right, not the second lap, but the second STROKE of my arm. I continued to fake the confidence I wanted to exude by continuing down to the deep end. It's deep. Like 10 feet deep. I choked on some water that rudely made its way into my mouth as I was gasping for air near the diving board and gratefully grabbed on to the wall. I kept wondering if the lifeguard at the other end of the pool was laughing inside due to: a) my lack of style in the "freestyle" b) my near drowning by the diving board, or c)the fact that I actually made it to the other end...I'll never know. I decided to do the breast stroke to the other end. Pain in my neck again. Ow, it hurt when I ducked my head under, and I didn't like how deep the pool was in the 10 feet deep area. I tried to think positive thoughts and not keep my head under the water for too many seconds. By lap 14 - yes, you heard right, I "swam" 14 laps - I was quite exhausted, my neck hurt, and I had a belly full of water. I exited the pool shakily climbing the ladder and missing the second step. More comedy for the lifeguards, I'm sure. As I took some time on the lounge chair to compose my tired body, I realized I swam 700 yards. Wow, only 900 more for one mile, then 1600 more for 2 miles. Hmmm. I know this much. I am going to be very careful in my critiquing and criticizing of my children's performances when they participate in their swim meets.
Swimming is hard stuff and I have to choke, breathe, swallow, and try not to panic all over again tomorrow.
I think I'll go for a run!
Happy "belated" Father's Day to all you fathers out there!
I always like celebrating father's day with my family because it's such a casual, relaxed day! No talks from the pulpit to make you feel inferior... no huge advertising to make you feel inadequate with the gifts you bought... a nice dinner on Sunday afternoon which is cooked, in part, by the father himself...
complete gratefulness for the cards, peanut m&m's, and the traditional gift of a polo or button up shirt given as gifts... Bill has always been the type of person to be totally happy and grateful for whatever I make for dinner or buy for a gift on his "special" day!
Thanks for being a great dad for Alyssa, Kourtni, Lindsay, and Payton. You rock!!!
Yes, it's true, I loaded up the kids - minus Alyssa, she was busy being the county commissioner at Girls' State - and headed to Utah. This was a very special trip, mind you, a trip that was very important for me and my kids to make, a trip that we wanted to take to show my youngest sister how much we love and support the difficult, yet, totally unselfish decision she decided to make about 9 months ago. We wanted to go on this trip to meet the incredible couple who would adopt the precious baby that they had waited so long to have! And, boy, were we blessed with an extremely smooth ride, despite the violent wind howling around us, fun conversation with each other, and a lot of pondering about things to come. I like rides like that. I enjoy the pondering, the thinking, and the working out of problems I do while I drive for those hours to our destination. Anyway, we arrived at the hospital with a lot of nervous energy to see the cute little bundle awaiting his eager visitors. We were so excited to see this little boy and to make sure Ashlee was feeling ok after a c-section. Wow, she was a real trooper! She was sitting up talking and eating her clear liquid diet with much more energy than I ever mustered after 4 c-sections! Good job, Ash! And as for the highly anticipated meeting with Jared and Amanda - AWESOME! Those two people are so cool! 
I feel like I've known them for years, when really all I've done is stalk their blog for the past 5 months or so! (And a great blog it is!!!) I was so impressed with them and feel so honored that I finally got to meet them. Congratulations, Jared and Amanda, we truly love you and are so grateful Ashlee was inspired to choose you to adopt her baby. He is such a lucky baby to have great examples as parents and fortunate to have such excellent aunts, uncles, grandma, and grandpa. I was sorry to have had to leave so soon; there was so much more I would have liked to observe with this new family! Enjoy your precious bundle and know that we are so happy and grateful for you!
Here are a few pics of our whirlwind trip!
Today we got a new bishopric in our ward. It was a bittersweet day because it's always hard to say goodbye to the old leadership; yet our bishopric served diligently for 5 1/2 years. Our bishop was an excellent leader and a good friend of our family.
Billy and I vacationed with Bishop Millington and Gayla in Mexico several years ago and had good times there getting pulled over by the Mexican police because we were going "too fast around the curves" (really it was those two blondes in the back seat...), playing Mexican train, baking on the beach, boogie boarding in the ocean, finding a "secret beach" to lounge on, attending church and giving out candy to the cute Mexican children, and enjoying the excellent Mexican food and atmosphere.
We'll miss you, Bishop Millington. You were an excellent servant and a wonderful leader who kept our ward going. Good luck in the nursery!! (Well, maybe they'll give you a week or two off before that calling is extended...)
June 3, 1988 - yep, that was 20 years ago. It's weird how 20 years have passed so quickly since Bill and I were married. Here's what's happened in those years: lived in the honeymoon cabin for 3 months in Menteview, Idaho, commuted to work in Idaho Falls (1 hour both ways - gas was probably about $1.19 a gallon...), moved to a one bedroom house in Rexburg and paid $150.00 a month in rent, Bill worked for CAL Ranch stores making about $3.00 an hour (we were rich!), Kris worked for Madison Memorial Hospital in the PT department, Bill graduated from Ricks and we moved to Boise, lived in the tiny apartments called the Manor, both of us went to BSU, I worked for a chiropractor, Bill worked at night for UPS, had a baby named Alyssa! Wow, we were so happy to have a baby so cute! Graduated from BSU (Kris) got a job with the Boise School District, Bill still working at UPS taking care of Alyssa - or should I say Alyssa taking care of herself during her breakfast time??? slipping out of her high chair to get over to the tv! Bill graduated from BSU, went to work full time for UPS (It was between that and working full time at the Boise temple cleaning it at night. um. well. UPS! for sure), we had another beautiful daughter we named Kourtni, and by this time we had moved into our new house in southeast Boise, a short 19 months later Lindsay joined the clan and Kris grew tired of spending her income on daycare so she resigned from public education and started Kris' Krew Preschool. Payton joined the fam in 1998 woohoo a boy!!! Bill continued to work and UPS and Kris at preschool and, no, it was not a daycare!!! :) Time has flown and so have the children's growing up years. We now have a 17 year old who works a job, volunteers at the hospital, prepares for college, has fun with friends, and acts grown up most of the time! A 13 year old who is following in her sister's footprints with good grades, she is sweet, still calls me "mommy", and is a great daughter. An 11 year old who is creative, smart, ambitious, and still likes to hang out with her mom. (her mom likes to hang out with her, too!) And a 10 year old who lets me kiss him in front of his friends (at least this week he is still willing to let me do that!), loves football, PSP, Sports Illustrated for Kids, and TV.
We've seen a lot of things happen in the last 20 years! It's hard to believe I've been in this relationship for over half of my life. wow. It's been the best 20 years I could have hoped for. Not only did I marry the love of my life, but I married my best friend who has continued to love me no matter my flaws, my terrible dinners, my lack of housecleaning, my disorganization, my obsession with weight and fitness, or the amount of time it takes me to "get ready for bed"! I love you, Alfred William, and I know that love gets stronger each year! Here's to another great 20 years, Mr. Ball!
