Love the new camera

You can't tell from the picture above, but our new camera has incredible resolution and features.  The train picture is actually four pictures stitched together and has an actual size of 6908 pixels by 1853 pixels.  As that doesn't fit any screen of web blog, I sized it WAY down.

The train is great!  It is very big and fits perfectly.  I can stare at it from my computer.  Thanks Tonya for getting it for me!

Wow...time flies!

It's been a week and a lot of stuff has happened. 

 It won't surprise anyone to know that Taylor won three ribbons at her first swim meet.  She is having a blast and the ribbons are just icing on the cake.  She won the 50 m back stroke, she got second in the 25 m breast stroke, and fourth in the 50 m freestyle.  I think she would have done better in the freestyle but she lost her goggles and it threw her off.  She had a coach help her at practice to keep her head up and goggles on....so hopefully it won't happen again. 

After her Mesquite meet, we drove down to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway to meet a guy about a train.  He was selling a big 8 foot wooden train online and I bought it, but instead of shipping it (expensive), I told him I could meet him...so we drove down and picked it up.  It was Scott's Father's Day present...it is now above our front door on the plant shelf and it looks just perfect.  (Scott will post a picture soon.)

Tuesday Bella came to stay for a couple days and today we have another friend's daughter...her parents are in China for two weeks and they've farmed out the kids every couple of days or so.  It's been fun to have more girls in the house.

No swim meets this week, but next Wednesday she has one here in St. George.  Shaylie is finishing up her lessons this week, and she is much improved, but I am thinking of signing her up for another session.  She'll love it and it can't but help. It depends on if there are any openings or not.  We have to wait and see.

As for me, I am having a good summer.  The kids haven't been too bored and we've had lots to keep us occupied.  I could probably use some alone time, but that will happen soon enough.   Scott is having a good time with his trains...he had train meeting again last night and he and his friend James are coming along with plans for their business. 

More news soon...

Back from Vacation!

We're back from Lagoon! We had a great time.  We stayed at the Lagoon Campground. The girls were happy because we were at Lagoon and they got to go watch them test the rides before the park opened. Scott was happy because the train tracks were just across the street and whenever the train whistle blew he could run down and watch the trains.  I was happy because I got to see my family and I was sleeping on an air mattress at night. 

They had some new kid rides at Lagoon.  Shaylie was loving it, and of course, Taylor had a blast on everything else. She went on the Fire Dragon about 10 times and she tried out the Samurai, which she missed last year.  Shay also rode the Fire Dragon and the Screamer with me. We spent some time at Lagoon-A-Beach too.  The next day Scott had a meeting so we met up with my Dad and Pam at the Gateway and they took us to see CARS. It was pretty cute.  More for grown ups than for kids, but it was okay for them too.  We are very excited that they have decided to move to Orem.  We'll get to see them much more often I hope. 

We also got to stop in and see Grandma Rose for a minute.  She had a meeting and she didn't know we were coming so it wasn't a long visit, but that was all right because right after we left her house, Scott found out that his meeting started an hour earlier than he was told.  But that meant that he got out earlier too...so it worked out okay.

Taylor's first swim meet is tomorrow afternoon.  She was supposed to go back to the doctor for a follow-up with her arm, but she is fine, so I am cancelling.  I don't need to pay a doctor to tell me she is fine, when I know she is fine.  She is fine.

Shaylie started swim today and I was a little worried, since she missed the first two days and she was in a level higher than I thought she was.  She seemed to keep up with the other kids and by the end of class she was doing standing dives into the pool so I think she is going to be fine too.  

Tonight I am going to Peter Pan at Tuacahn with a friend of mine.  Her husband doesn't like plays so he is going to tend while she goes with some friends and family.  I was glad she thought to ask me...Taylor is going to see it in July with her Girl Scout troop and I wasn't sure I'd get the chance...If it is good, which I'm sure it will be, we'll have to take some of you when you come down to visit, which I'm sure you will.  Eventually.

Love to everyone...hope all is well and you are enjoying your summer! Thanks to everyone who helped to make our little vacation so much fun!  See you again soon!

Malling

Yesterday was a momentous day in our young Taylor's life....She went Malling with her friends.  Taylor, her best friend Shaylie and Shaylie's friend from SLC Kyla went to the Red Cliffs Mall yesterday for about 2 hours...on their own, dressed to the nines, and armed with cash.  Of course, I had to teach her how to use a pay phone, and I made sure she had quarters to call me if needed, but the only reason she finally did call was to ask me if she could get her ears pierced at Claire's....I had already given her permission to make the decision once she turned 10 and I thought she had pretty much forgotten about it...until yesterday.  So, I met her at the Mall at pick up time and she did it! Cute little CZ studs.  She said she feels so grown up.  (How well I remember those days!) She even found a cute outfit at Sears and spent some of her birthday money on it....You can't ask for a more successful Malling trip than that if you ask me...My little girl.....I think I might cry. :-)

Swim Schedule

I thought everyone might like to know the dates of Taylor's Swim Meets in case you are in the area and would like to come cheer her on...

June 15 St. George @ 6 pm

June 17 Mesquite am

June 22-23 Utah Summer Games (We may not attend this one.)

June 28 St. George pm

July 8 St. George am

July 14 Mesquite am

July 15 SUU Cedar City am

July 19-20 Championship St. George

She only has to attend 4 to qualify for the championship, but knowing Taylor she will want to go to all of them.  There is an extra fee for Utah Summer Games and she hasn't been training as long as some of the kids so I don't know if we'll go to that meet but the rest are very likely. 

Shaylie starts swimming lessons as soon as we get back from Lagoon.  She is very excited.  It seems to her as if everyone has been swimming forever and she is the only one left on dry land.  She will be thrilled to start and she is very ready to get out of her floatie. 

As for Scott and me, we have suddenly become very social.  We have been going over to friends houses, inviting friends over, scheduling dinner dates with other couples, and generally being very outgoing and friendly.  I really don't know what's come over us, but we're having fun.  We've found many nice couples and families in this new neighborhood and they've really made us feel like we are a part of the place.

We are planning to leave for SLC on Sunday morning (we can't leave Saturday because Taylor has her Girl Scout Pinewood Derby with your Dude from 1-4).  We are looking forward to seeing Dad & Bobbie's new house while we are up there and maybe Grandma J too.  It's going to be a busy trip.  I am so excited for cooler weather.  (Although, it is raining and only about 80 here right now.) 

Love to everyone.  Hope to hear from you all!

Everyone has died!

I was looking at all of the other family member blogs and have come to a conclusion.  Everyone must have been killed.  Why else would five people not write anything on the blogs when their sites and computers are working.  Especially when somewhen went to all the trouble of making sure that their home computer worked. ;-)

Busy Past weekend

We had a whirlwind weekend.  Saturday morning at 6:00am, our ward had its 2nd annual (not bad considering the ward is barely a year old!) 5K run at Coral Cliffs Park.  Taylor and I decided to run it.  Only 10 people ran it (btw there was a lot of walking, it was a VERY hilly course), if you can say anyone won it, I came in first and Taylor came in second.  Then at 8:00, our ward had a huge pancakes and eggs breakfast at the park.  It was great.  After that, the bishopric got out the water balloons and we had a water balloon fight.  They brought out huge slings and were able to launch the balloons a few hundred feet.  Then everyone had a water fight.  It was a great morning.

 I then went over to James' house and helped him unload a pile of rock from his truck for his outdoor train set. He then lent me his N scale train set to run my train on, pictures coming later.

One of my neighbors that I home teach is really into trains (he is Taylor's age), so after I got the N scale set up, I invited him over.  We ran trains for a couple of hours, he really liked my setup (in fact, he dragged his dad over to see it the next night ;-))

Our old stake was reorganizing and so that meant that an apostle would be down for the conference, so at 7:00 on Saturday, I went over for the adult session.  The General Authorites were Elder Jones of the 5th Quorum of the Seventy (a good friend of thecurrent Stake President) and Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Twelve Apostles.  It was very great to see and hear him speak.

 On Sunday, Tonya and I went to the 10:00am session of their stake conference to see who the new Stake President would be.  We got there at 9:00am and still had to sit 3/4 of the way back in the cultural hall! (Apostles and change are a great way to get people to show up for conference!)

Then at 2:30, we went to our normal ward,  Tonya and I teach Primary and we have 5 5 year old kids.   It is a really fun calling.  When we got home, we ate dinner and watched "Finding Nemo" as a family.  A pretty great weekend, all-in-all.