June Wrap Up!

Kick Ball (Alex and Ry are on the same team!)

Sunday Night Family Card Games

Seniors Roasting Marshmallows in the Driveway

Sixth Grade Year End Party At Planet Play!

Devree getting kidnapped for drill breakfast

Alex's scout physical and the news that he's getting two more immunizations. 

I thought I'd catch him making a great face but this is him needing his mama to hold his hand.

 He did great. We've come along way in three years time.

Princess Leah Hair

My new All A Dollar Sunglasses

Actual Fathers Day w/My Dad

 Murray Amphitheater

Blow Fish Faces

Day After Graduation?

Broken Nose

"I got punched in the nose with a knee!" 

(A GIRLS knee!)

Alex's Wisdom Teeth Extraction...

Oh. My. Heck.

We were laughing so much.

Alex was a CHATTER BOX after getting his wisdom teeth out.

I'll post a short video at the end of this post. It sounds very sad because he's crying for his mom but honestly? It got so funny. He told us he felt like a princess and we said but you are a prince and he cried, "But I want to be a princess." He told me I had big muscles and that his were tiny. He told Rylee she was his best friend. He kept saying "I love you guys." He cried because he couldn't remember what  a tissue was and when I handed him one he cried harder because he was sure it was a napkin, not a tissue. (Although he was crying, he wasn't in pain.)

By the time we got him in the car, he was pretty much done crying. As I buckled him into the back seat he gazed at me and told me I had beautiful eyes. He waived to the street workers, told them there were doing a good job, talked about the "dinosaur guy" (Sinclair Gas Station sign) and then he saw a homeless man and told us how that could have been him because he use to be an orphan.

He was just talking and talking.

We stopped to grab Ry and I some lunch and Alex some apple juice and he told the girl that took our money that she was beautiful, he drank a sip of apple juice said it was "delicio-so!" and then threw up before we got home. (He made it into a plastic bag, thank goodness.)

Here's a few clips. We would have videoed the whole thing but we got shut down by the nurse.

Just ignore Rylee following my down the hall.

Ry & X

Wednesday Rylee and her friend Rachael interviewed me about the attributes you need to be a mother.
I mentioned patience, unconditional love and a sense of humor.

Little did I know that they were working on a Personal Progress goal and had to work on developing one of those attributes for the week.

Rylee wanted to go with develop a sense of humor because that would be easy but decided to work on unconditional love - especially towards Alex. A good goal.
This evening X and Ry were trying to have one of their hit and miss conversations which usually ends in some sort of argument (and usually a stupid one at that) and Rylee exasperated told Alex "I am working on having undying love for you but it is very hard!" 

Undying? 

Ry, the word is unconditional.

Alex is getting his wisdom teeth out tomorrow.

Growing up with socialized medicine doesn't breed confidence in the medical field. 

He's nervous to say the very least.

I waited until yesterday to spring it on him so he wouldn't have too much time to worry and dread but enough time to digest it?

He has pelted me with questions ever since. How do they do it? Will he feel it? How will he go to sleep? How long will it take? Etc.

I finally just looked him in his eyes and held his face in my hands and assured him he would be alright and that I would be with him the whole time.

I also took him grocery shopping with me and let him pick out his favorite jellos, drinkable yogurts and ice cream. I also bought everything to make his favorite soup, clam chowder. 

We went to Chuck A Rama (Or Chuck a Grandma - what Alex use to call it in his first learning English days.) for his "last meal".

On the way to grocery shopping this morning,  I suggested he have a blessing? James is gone but my Dad, his grandfather, lives down the street. He sort of shrugged it off. Then told me that if  I thought he should have a blessing, he would. I explained that the blessing would be for him to help him feel better and maybe not be so nervous? Not for me. That it was dependent on his faith. That he certainly didn't need to have one if he didn't want to but that maybe it would help him feel better about everything?

He then told me "But you are my blessing mom." I looked puzzled. And he then told me "You are my hero." 

Ahhhh...be still my mothers heart. 

Every once in awhile he drops a little sentiment of gratitude and love that just knocks my socks off. Not an everyday or monthly or even a bi-annual thing but when he drops them? I just melt a little inside. 

He also decided he wanted a blessing.

He is hoping he'll do something crazy and funny when he wakes up from the anesthesia. Rylee is coming to video record him in hopes of catching the next Youtube sensation. Certainly that is a sign of unconditional (or undying) love?

Right?

Wish us all luck......

First Camping Trip Of The Year!

Fathers Day (A week Early!)

Alaska Trip!

We tried to leave on Saturday but ended rolling over to the earlier morning Sunday flight. 

Here's James at the SLC airport:

Because of our roll over we had 12 hours to kill in Long Beach.

The first thing was saw were these amazing purple tree's everywhere:

We tried to find a church but no one ever came so we walked across the street to find.....

We got a long and complicated explanation of how the game was played. Sort of like pool/curling/shuffle board.

This is the church we tried to attend:

We then went the the Heritage Diner where we split a meal.

Yes all this food was for ONE person:

Then we donned our sun hats and went to the Japanese Garden at the California State University:

We made it to Anchorage around 11:30 pm their time - 1:30 am our time and stayed in a horrible hotel/motel -Merrill Field Inn - with the craziest shuttle driver - a cross between Dwight from the office and Jack Nickolson. It was yuck. So was the breakfast. 

The next day we took off on this little 16 seater for the Kenai River:

This is the only bear we saw there. At the airport:

We spent the day driving around trying to find the river and figure out how to go salmon fishing.

We did find this "fixer" that we thought about sending home to my dad:

We found a guide and set up a fishing trip for the next day.

Here's James with his Alaskan fishing license with a King Salmon sticker:

We stopped at the cutest Cafe. Reel Cafe in Sodotna. We ordered a gourmet box lunch for our fishing trip in the morning and tried a reindeer hot dog:

We drove to our pick up spot just so we know where we were going the next morning and guess what we saw on the side of the road?

The lady at the Cafe hooked us up with a darling cabin for the night:

And then we tried to go to sleep at ten pm. The same time the above pictures were taken. The sun was still bright in the sky!

We went to bed early because we were up at 3:30 for our fishing trip.

This picture was taken around 4:30 in the morning - the sun is up again:

Our gourmet box lunch:

Another visit by a moose:

And the only King Salmon we witnessed being reeled in?

This one caught by this ten year old girl in another boat next to us:

We went back to the cabin showered and took a nice long nap then jumped on the airplane back to Anchorage. 

James' sister Kathy picked us up with her hubby and took us to dinner. We had a great time catching up and visiting. Then they dropped us back at the airport so we could catch our 1:01 am flight back to Long Beach. We tried to sleep and I'm sure we did - it just didn't feel like. From Long Beach we took the 8:20 am flight to SLC and arrived home around 11:30 am on Wednesday.

Sunday 6:30 am to Wednesday 11:30 am. 77 hour trip to Alaska!

It was a quick but we enjoyed every minute of it!

And for all you nature moose lovers:

And fishing lovers: