From our family to yours,

Warmest wishes in this holiday season. And if we can't be there with you in person, we are with you in spirit and you are all in our hearts. Especially now but throughout the year too. Loves to all.

SUPER BLOG TO FOLLOW!!

I promise that I will be updating soon. I just need to get my thoughts organized and then put them into writing. I guess that I am afraid of rambling in my postings but I think that that is the idea!! So forgive my weaknesses and I will post soon!! I am just so jealous of all of you , whom I follow, that post like reading from a book, you are all so good!

Last, lazy days of summer.....

The kids all LOVE the beach. This was Hanna's turn to try riding the long board. She did pretty well, for the 1st time on it. Bailey is the boogie boarder. She and Hanna will stay in the water until their lips are blue. Then it is out of the water to fling sand all over and then, as soon as they can feel their feet again, back in to the water. Now, mind you , that this is not a sunny So. Cal beach. On this day it was about 65 outside and the water hovers around 58, I believe. Hanna has a full suit and Beej just had a spring suit( short sleeves and legs). Conner is determined to stand up and the surf boars and he is getting pretty good at it. Randy is the brave one that ventures into the water with the kids. Me, you ask, I have been to Hawaii and I know what the water is SUPPOSED to feel like and the thought of getting into a wet suit is just plain scary!!

Okay, the numskull that I am, I STILL can't figure it out!!!

Please help the computer illiterate

How, for the love of PETE, do I change the background without losing all of my extras??

Clayton and Shayla's Wedding

July 24, 2008
Rexburg Temple

The kids were very patient with all of the hustle and bustle at the temple. Conner's idea of entertainment at the luncheon. All of us at the reception.

Tram and chair lift At Northstar Ski Resort

We rode the tram and then the ski lift up to the top of the mountain. Fun stuff!! It had been a long time since we had been an a chair lift. It was a lot of fun. There is a big down hill mountain bike track up there so on our way up we were able to see lots of adventurous people charging down hill on their bikes. Up at the top we could see over to Lake Tahoe and it was beautiful. Had we been better prepared (better shoes) we could have walked/hiked over to the other chairlift and rode down on that one. Maybe next time. I am really glad that we got to spend a few days up in the mountains, I really miss the mountains, the ocean is great but nothing reminds me of 'home' like the mountains.

Here is what we have been up to....

Lake Tahoe....Our kids are so excited to be road trippin (can you tell). We needed to be in Idaho Falls, ID on the 24th of July, so we decided to take a little road trip up to the Lake Tahoe area. It is about 4 hours north of us. We left Sunday after church and headed up there. When we got there the kids wanted to go swimming...here they are and yes I do feed them, LOTS!! On monday we went for a river rafting trip down the Truckee river. Mostly class 1 and 2 but a few class 3's at the end. We all stayed in the boat and had a blast. After we got to the bottom of the river, Bailey says, Let's go again. (pictured to post later). From Tahoe we went over into Idaho, Nothin but flat and more flat.

15 things that make me HAPPY!!

I stole this from one of my cousins' blog.
And in no particular order:

1) Warm days, cool nights
2) Spending lazy days with my family
3) Stolen moments with Randy
4) Watching my kids grow
5) A good book
6) Reading blogs
7) My calling at church
8) The smell of jasmine
9) Getting together with friends
10) House projects (but not til they are finished)
11) Scrapbook and card stuff
12) Reconnecting with old friends
13) Knowing that I have all of eternity to improve myself
14) Camping in the desert (NOT crashing on a motorcycle :-})
15) Celebrating my freedom, because it is not free

I really needed to do this, it always lifts my spirits when I think of all of the things that have blessed my life.
Happy 4th to all of you who take a peek at out blog, keep in touch!!

HARLEY RIDE

This is a little pleasure that Randy and I get to do together every so often. It is so much fun. We have a great group of friends that have street bikes too. We all take little trip here locally on the Central Coast. It is amazing how many thing that you miss when you are driving. It is also a humbling experience knowing that my life is literally in Randy's very capable hands. We usually ride over to the coast and enjoy the back roads that are often forgotten by most people. It is really great in the summer, when it is 110 in Paso and you go over to the coast and there is a 30 degree difference. By the time we get back to Paso it is finally a comfortable temp. The girls also like to take little jaunts with their Daddy-o. Conner is not so sure about it, he says that he likes to be in control of the bike, not quite old enough for the road yet. He says he'll stick with the dirt bike. Here are a few picts of our beautiful central coast. (And a big ol bug that stuck to my lip.)

Once in a BLUE moon....

Once in a blue moon, every now and then, once in a while, I will actually put my brain to work and it turns out pretty great. Let me start by telling you the back story, I don't know how it is at your house but at dinner time, we lack finesse. We have the staples that everyone loves {spaghetti and meatballs, chicken and pasta, ect.} But my poor little taste buds grow a little weary and would like to be wowed every once in a while. I do try to make things that are a little different, we are not talking escargots here, just something different. But usually it just backfires. So when I make out my grocery list I ask all of the kids what they would like to have over the next two weeks, Of course I get all the favs. Well, here comes the brain working part, I started thinking about how I could start teaching the kids to cook and actually get them to try something new. I came up with a pretty nifty idea. Chalkboard. When I could not find one at ANY store that was under a hundo, I decided to martha myself one.{she would be so proud} Anyway, Each of us, Randy included, is in charge of two nights over the next two weeks. They come up with the recipe, I do the shopping and then if it is their night, they help me prepare dinner. We have had a few snags, usually when it is Randy's night, but overall it has worked great and the kids are eating things that before they would not have touched. I guess that it comes from their vested interest in the meal. Like I said every once in a while I can dust off the ol hat and pull something out :-}

Now March is gone......

I am in amazement at how fast time is flying by...We just have not been doing anything that is blog worthy. Randy and Conner are getting ready for their Mexico trip. Conner's first trip. It is a lot of fun for the riders. 500 miles, give or take a few, in 3 days and then home, 8 hours, Sunday night. Riding up into the mountains and then down to the coast. Some of the same trail as the Baja 1000. The girls and I are just going to take it easy and do whatever we want to. I am sure that there will be at least 1 movie if Bailey has her way. The girl loves the movies. Can't blame her, I love them too. I have had so much fun with this blog thing, not so much my own but all of my extended family seems to be on board too. It is a great thing that we can all peek into each others lives every once in a while and see what is new. I do have a bit of news, the excitement factor depends on who you ask about it. We are thinking about moving to San Antonio, Texas. A lot of factors have gone into the process of thinking this through and we feel (most days) that it would really benefit our family.
A big part of our decision is that our landlord at the wrecking yard will not renew our lease and Randy gets the feeling that he has other plans for the property. We would be able to accumulate the real estate properties that Randy wants too and we would never be able to do that in California. Keep your fingers and toes crossed and a few prayers wouldn't hurt either. I wish that we could be closer to ALL of our family but it just is not in our cards. Randy's brothers are both there so that will make things a lot easier for all of us. Family really is the glue that sticks us all together. For any of the Webb cousins who happen by, have you heard anything about a family reunion?? We tend to be out of the loop....That's all for now. J

February is gone...

Wow, I can't believe that the month is already gone. We had a pretty quiet month. We went camping once, over Pres. day. Shelby, my favorite sister, had a little bit of fa scare this past month. Little Isis decided to get gravely ill with RSV. Spent a few days in the hospital, gave Shelby and Jymn a few more gray hairs but she was a trooper and fought it all off. Then Jymn's turn on the death bed. Then Dom's turn. Luckily Shelby has stayed healthy, if not exhausted, through it all. We have all been fairly lucky this winter and just a few sniffles to fight (knocking on wood). Spring break is coming up fast. I have not figured out why the school district seem to think that it is a good idea to do a week of minimum days BEFORE two weeks off. Their idea of revenge I think. Just recently I have for out that some of my cousins have blogs too. I was really excited to see them and their families. Some of them I haven't seen in a few years and all of our kids are growing so fast that it is good to keep up with them and all of their fun. We are planning on having a few visitors over the break and one last camping trip before it gets too hot out in the desert. And then another month will be over too. Hopefully time will slow a little and I will get the time to enjoy my kids before they get too big to want to hang with the Mom. I will try to get my pictures on to this particular computer so I can upload a few pictures of our wonderful kiddos. I am amazed at what amazing kids we have been blessed with ( yes, I am a bit biased). Keep in touch to those of you who are far away come for a visit if you can, we love company. Don't let the little things slip by without noticing them, sometimes it is the little things that make it worth all of the turmoil and trials. Until next time......

This and That

We made it through the Holiday's with just a few minor scratches. We had a great Season. We headed up to Utah to the Stapley clan for the festivities. We had a wonderful WHITE Christmas. It was a blast, CJ, Camron and his kids, Jeff and Jen and their crew, Nana and Papa and our crew all went sledding after a great big storm. We went to a great place in Murray Park, just enough hill to be fun but requiring no emergency room trips. CJ, Randy and Cam built a HUGE snowman that the kids started and it ended up being about 10 feet tall. I will post picts as soon as I get some from Cam(my batteries died after a few picts) Randy took Conner up for his first snowboarding adventure. When he got home Conner could barely move and he said his neck and back were sore. He fell a few times and hit his "butt knuckles". I was not aware the we have butt knuckles but when you are a skinny as he is you probably feel everything. He said that he could never do that again. As Randy put it ,"he got his butt handed to him." For a kid that usually picks up on everything pretty fast, he was pretty bummed that it was not easier for him(no pun intended):-} We then headed down to Cedar City to spend a few days with Gma and Gpa Jorgensen. We took the kids to Randy's uncle DeVon's ranch. Hanna was in horse heaven. She learned how to ride a little better and how to sort cattle. We didn't think that we would ever get her off of old Fred. She would love to be a cowgirl. Randy rode trusty ol Skip. Conner and Bailey were content to keep both feet on the ground. Conner said that it was the wrong kind of horse power. After our adventure in Cedar City it was home to our house for a whole 2 days. I had to be home for the New year's eve dance for the youth and Randy need to go into work and get some things done then we were off to the desert for some motorcycles and camping. The weather was good to us and we all had a great time. We missed Rick and Jake though. Rick was in mexico and Jake didn't want to go with us ( I wonder why, only kid at home vs. our 3 yahoos) Conner ended up with the only minor injury this time. He took a header on a jump after a pretty good night of rain. Hurt his shoulder and his noggin. But he is ready to saddle up again. I was glad to come home and get back into our usual routine. I love going out to the desert but I think that I love getting really clean more!! :-} We hope that this year is filled with all of the love and adventure that you all desire. We are so blessed and grateful for all of the time that we get to spend together as a family and all of the loved ones that we have to love. I am going to try and be better at this for a number of reasons but mostly to try to keep close to those who are miles away. Love to you all.......Til next time.