Blogging

Okay, so I don't update my blog very often. But that's because no one EVER leaves comments, so I assume it's not being read at all. So why bother? Then again, I started this to be able to keep a better history of our family events. So, I guess I will continue on....

No pics today-- gotta load all the latest and I'll do it after Halloween so that I can include those pictures, too.

We're doing well, aside from battling being sick. Luckily it was the regular flu and not H1N1, but it's still not so fun. Lindsey was sick first, just in time for Fall break (poor kid!). Taylor got it that Saturday, so it's a good thing we had cancelled our trip up north for him to participate in basketball for the Special Olympics. Breanna has been sick for the last few days, but seems to be doing much better today. They've pretty much just had fevers for a day or two, then a lingering cough. It's already been a pretty yucky flu season, and it's just begun. I don't know how I've felt about the flu shots for the kids, but maybe it's not such a bad idea.

Breanna's First Day of Kindergarten

This was Breanna's first day of Kindergarten, September 1st. She was so excited to start school after having to wait for a few weeks after the other kids started. Her teacher is Mrs. Ekker and Breanna loves her! She goes in the morning, and her cousin Logan is in her class. I just asked her what favorite thing about school is and she said, "recess"! :)

Breanna and Logan are famous! (kinda...)

This picture was in the local newspaper about a month ago. Breanna and her cousin Logan are crossing the street to Logan's house after getting off of the bus. This was Sept. 2, I think, the first day they rode the bus home from school. Below it was a paragraph about how volunteers from the Safety Solutions Coalition helped Kindergarteners learn how to safely cross the street after getting off the school bus. They were so excited to be in the paper! Breanna and Logan are in the same Kindergarten class and are great friends. Breanna spends about an hour at Logan's house everyday after school while I'm at work. Half of the time when I go to pick her up she wants Logan to come and play at our house! They are cute cousin-friends, and have practically grown up together since we moved here when Breanna was 2.

First Day of School

The kids are back in school! Or at least the oldest three are. Breanna will start Kindergarten a week from Monday. Taylor is now in 8th grade. He was SO excited for school to start and asked about going to school everyday the week before it started. He loves riding the bus and seeing his friends in Miss Billie's class. I'm enjoying him being in middle school this year. Next year we have to do the big scary transition to high school (yikes). Ashlee is in 6th grade and started middle school this year. She was really excited and a bit nervous about the big school change. So far she really loves it. She has a great core teacher, and she'll start going to her other teachers on Monday. Lindsey is in second grade and was also excited and nervous about the new school year. She loves her teacher, Mrs. Whetman (who also happens to be our bishop's wife), and had great first two days of school. Breanna will have Mrs. Ekker, and she's so excited about that. Lindsey also had her for kindergarten and Breanna would go with me to help in the classroom, so she's familiar with her new teacher. Her cousin Logan will also be in her class, so she's excited about that, too. The kindergarten teachers here spend the first 7 days of school doing one-on-one assessments of their students, which is why they start classes 7 days later. A first day of school picture of Breanna will be coming next week!

Tim also started school, of course. He's teaching fourth grade again this year. He has 31 kids in his class (yikes!), and a new principal, but so far it's going well for him, too.

So after a really great summer, we're ready to get back to a schedule again.

I need to finish updating our summer activities. Tim's brother Ken and his wife Nancy and their 7 children came to visit in July. We went to the Green Show at SUU, the 24th of July parade, and hiking in Zion's National Park. The cousins had a blast playing together, and it was so fun to have them here! I'll have to post pics of our fun time together when I get the camera back from Tim (it's in his classroom). We also went back to Zion's as a family and took a little hike to Weeping Rock. Then a few weeks ago my brother Greg and his family came through Cedar City. We went to the lake with them and my sister Kristine's family. The following week they came back through on their way home and we had a back-to-school luau in Kristine's back yard, complete with yummy Malibu chicken, hawaiian music, tiki torches, and hawaiian potato sack races. The back-to-school luau has become a yearly tradition with our family and Kristine's and is always a great way to end the summer!

Happy day

Having a child with a disability definitely makes you appreciate little things. For example, Taylor went to the dentist on Monday, fully cooperated, and even let the dental assistant take x-rays of his teeth and the clean them. Really CLEAN them, like with the noisy, somewhat scary tools they use to scrub the teeth and the suck out the spit. We didn't have to drag him in, hold him down, or even bribe him with ice cream. It was a total miracle. I thought I was going to cry. Tim and I left the girls at home and took him that morning, prepared for a battle at worst or to give lots of encouragement and comfort at best. We thought the dentist would just do what he did 6 months ago, which was look in Taylor's mouth to check things out the best he could, giving Taylor lots of high-fives and encouragement (not to mention Spider-man stickers). I guess what we'd forgotten was that Taylor has a memory like a recording device, and all that positive praise from our awesome dentist stuck with him.
We had prepared Taylor Sunday night for the following morning's outing (it is always best to prepare him, even for unpleasant things). He was a bit reluctant until we reminded him of the cool video games and other toys in the waiting room and TV screens showing movies on the ceiling above the dental chairs. Monday morning he shocked us by getting ready and reminding us of our impending trip to the dentist. The dental assistant didn't know of his past reluctance, so she just took him back for his x-rays, and since he cooperated, we let her. He did great with that, so we also said nothing as she began cleaning his teeth. We just watched in utter amazement. This was the first time EVER in the child's 13 1/2 years of life he has had x-rays or a cleaning without first being completely sedated in a hospital setting. Wow. Oh, and he had no cavities, by the way (miracle #2).
To top it all off, we got appointments for the girls to have cleanings the following morning. When Breanna woke up reluctant to go and was crying about it, Taylor joined in comforting her, telling her about the chocolate-flavored toothpaste and the toy. You know, I take back what I said at the beginning. Having a child with a disability doesn't make you appreciate the little things. It makes the little things become big things, and then you appreciate them that much more. Because Taylor going willingly to and then actually enjoying the dentist is no little thing!!

Nebraska trip

So, after leaving the house at 4 a.m. and driving for what seemed like forever, we finally reached our destination- Grandma and Grandpa Roberts' house!! We went through Colorado, so we saw a lot of gorgeous scenery on the way. The kids did really great on the drive. I made a map showing our route and the stops we would make, and printed a copy for each of them. Then at each stop they got something new to do (coloring books and crayons, stencils and paper, activity books, etc.). That seemed to help a lot. The only rough part was after we had turned off the interstate and still had several hours to drive through Nebraska farmland. We'd been in the car all day, it was getting dark, and it felt like we should just be there already! That part is always the toughest of the trip for me, too. But, we made it there! And we were in for lots of fun! The kids spent their days playing in the huge yard, sliding on the slip n' slide, petting the horses, watching the birds and squirrels at the bird feeders, making jewelry with Grandma, swimming at the Stanton pool, and of course, watching the Disney channel (cause Grandma and Grandpa have cable and we don't!). We also played at Skyview Lake in Norfolk, hit a really great 75% off sale at a second-hand store, watched the 4th of July parade in Norfolk (where the kids collected TONS of candy), and went to the Big Bang Boom celebration at Skyview Lake, where the kids enjoyed a blow-up obstacle course and we saw the best fireworks show any of us had ever seen. It was set to music and just incredible! Unfortunately, Taylor wasn't so impressed. He's never liked fireworks in the past, but we thought he might be okay because he was fine watching the Summer Games fireworks from our house a few months ago (he used to hide under his covers during them ). But, these fireworks were really loud and we were close, so he spent the entire show on my lap, hiding under a blanket and telling me to make the fireworks stop, he wanted to go home. Poor kid. It was so crowded there that I really couldn't have taken him away from the noise. But he survived. The girls totally loved it. The patriotic songs made it very inspiring and we all felt gratitude for our freedom and those who have fought so hard for our country.
The Tuesday before we left for home, we took a trip with Grandma and Grandpa to the Omaha zoo. Our favorite parts were the skyride going over the zoo, the butterfly dome, and the jungle, where we saw a blue monkey who was only a month and 1/2 old. We also got to meet up with the Heath family, who had lived next door to us in Blythe and were spending the summer in Omaha. It was a very fun yet exhausting day!
The following Friday at 4 a.m. we sadly headed back home. We went through Wyoming this time, and spent the night at Tami and Darren's house in Lehi, so the trip seemed much shorter. The next morning we headed back to Cedar City, sad for our trip to end, but so glad to be back home and to see Ginger (our dog) again. (Taylor had been saying over and over for several days, "Go home and see Ginger, go home and see Ginger....")
We enjoyed our time with Tim's parents so much!! As I looked through the pictures we had taken, I realized we only had a few of Grandpa Roberts and none of Grandma Roberts. I'm so sorry!! We are usually overkill on taking pictures, but this time I definitely wish we'd taken more! Grandma had knee replacement surgery just a few weeks before we came, and boy was she a trooper! She is recovering at an amazing rate. Wish I had pics of you to post, Mom, cause you look great!! So, here are the pictures that we do have. We are so grateful for family. We love all of you so much!











These horses live on the property surrounding Grandma and Grandpa's house. The girls named them Brownie and Butterscotch. We would husk corn for dinner and then feed the husks to the horses. Taylor loved the horses, too, of course! He just wasn't out there petting them when Tim had the camera.

The kids love playing in Grandma and Grandpa's huge, beautiful yard. We all played "red light, green light", including Grandpa! Their favorite game, though, was playing "tag hide-and-seek" with their dad. They also had lots of fun on the slip n' slide Grandma and Grandpa had bought for them.

We had lots of fun going to the 4th of July parade in Norfolk. They threw out tons of candy and the kids had a great time collecting it.

The "Big Bang Boom" celebration for the 4th of July was a blast! It was at beautiful Skyview Park in Norfolk. There were TONS of people there, and a local radio station was broadcasting from the park. They had blow-up slides and bounce houses, etc. This one was an obstacle course. They would race each other up one side, down a slide, through a maze, up the other side and back down another slide. As I mentioned, the fireworks were amazing. They were over the lake and set to music. They also had a huge flag on a crane with a spotlight on it while the National Anthem was sung. Got that on video, but no pictures. (Wish I had a cord to connect my video camera so I could post it. It was amazing!)

We loved the Omaha zoo! It was so fun to meet up with the Heaths, who now live in Arizona but were staying in Omaha for the summer while Chad works there. Darcy had seen on our blog that we'd be coming to Nebraska, so we made plans to meet at the zoo since our family was going to be there. The pics above are me with Darcy, and the girls with Dakota and Coltin. We hadn't seem them for years and it was fun to catch up! The pictures on the bottom are in the petting zoo. I feel for this pigmy goat who looks so very pregnant. Poor thing!!

The skyride over the zoo was really fun. Taylor didn't think it look so fun, though, so he stayed with Grandpa while the rest of us rode it. (Grandpa tried to take Taylor on the train while we were gone. Taylor had been fascinated with it. But I guess the noise was too loud when they were actually on it and they had to get off before it left the station.) Here is an Ashlee, a giraffe, and a leopard as seen from the skyride. :)

The butterfly exibit was really cool. You walked through a jungle-like atmosphere while butterflies flew around you. They were beautiful, and some of them were huge. The first one is an owl butterfly. Hmmm, wonder where it got that name? :)

My favorite part of the zoo was the Lied Jungle. It is a huge, indoor jungle that is amazing! We especially loved watching the blue monkey interact with her new baby. The baby blue monkey was born at the zoo just over a month ago! The lemers were also fun to watch, and we got there just as this sloth was being fed.

The desert dome is new since we were last at the zoo many years ago. It's a huge glass structure shaped kind of like a golf ball. Inside are desert animals, including meerkats, jackrabbits, foxes, snakes, etc. We went here right before the zoo closed, so there were hardly any people in it. It was pretty cool.

We also saw the aquarium, which has a glass tunnel you walk through with sharks and other fish in it. That was really cool, too, but we didn't get any pictures of it, just video.

What a fun day at the zoo with Grandma and Grandpa! By the time we drove the 2 hours back to Stanton we were all exhausted, but it was worth it!

The day before we headed back home we went to the Stanton pool. We also had a little surprise early birthday party for Grandpa while we were there. What a fun trip with lots of great memories!! Thanks for everything, Grandma and Grandpa Roberts!!

Summer Activities

So far since school got out, we've been pretty busy! We spent almost a week in the Provo/Orem/Lehi area, for the Special Olympics and to spend time with family. In addition to the Special Olympics games and activities, we took the kids swimming, had lunch with a lady I had taught on my mission and her husband and kids, spent a fun-filled evening at the park with family, and celebrated my birthday on Sunday with a yummy meal together (thanks, Tami!). We came home on a Monday, and I flew to San Diego on Wednesday to help my mom for a week after her extensive neck surgery. Getting a week with my mommy all to myself was great! So was the peace and quiet of her home and the beautiful community she lives in. And it was fun to take care of HER for a change instead of vice-versa. :) But, it was also great to come home. I'd never been away from Tim and the kids that long, and I was missing them something fierce! Since then we've gone miniature golfing and toured Brigham Young's summer home in St. George, hung out at the lake with my sister's family, and spent a rainy, crowded, but very fun and educational afternoon at Zion's National Park. Today Tim and Taylor headed up to scout camp in Payson for a few days, and next week we are making the long trek to visit Tim's parents in Nebraska.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about being busy! In fact, I'm loving it. I think maybe we're trying to make up for last year's horrible summer that I spent in bed, not able to go anywhere or function at all. I'm sure I'll be ready for the crazy, unstructured, traveling, staying-up-late days of summer to end in month or so when school starts. But for now, I'm just enjoying it, grateful for a body that can heal from back surgery and function once again. And most of all, I'm thankful that it is this summer and not last summer!