7/23 A Day in SLC

We went downtown to have lunch with Brian, and some fun in the sun. I took the girls to play in the fountains at the Gateway, although Ana decided she'd rather not get wet-- and after 15 minutes of running all over the place Mya was done.
I think the real reason why Ana didn't want to go into the fountains is because she was hoarding the orange soda, and she was trying to drink it all before Mya came back. If you look closely (or blow up the photos) you can see that she had an orange mustache for the rest of the day.
The girls and I spent some time hanging out on the lawn at the Quinney Law School at the U of U while Brian was talking to the Dean after lunch. Ana's pants were soaked because her water bottle was slowly leaking in her car seat and she never mentioned it :) so she played for 20 minutes in her diaper.We were using the timer on my camera to take some photos of all of us, and Mya thought it was hilarious to keep making faces so I would set the camera and then run like a crazy lady over and over again. We all had lots of laughs!I took a shot of the girls in the air while playing "Airplane" and "Mama's in the Kitchen" while we passed the time.

Happy Father's Day!

Brian, Thank you for being such a loving, affectionate, fun, adventurous, hard-working, and awesome dad to the girls. We appreciate all you do, and are so proud of you.


















Also, thank you to the many other dads that give us so much love and support. Happy Father's Day & we love you!

Thank you Grandma Terri for taking us bowling and out to lunch. It was a lot of fun.

This was Ana's first time bowling. She only got the ball stuck once with her 1 mph roll.



Yes-- I whooped everyone!

Still a family of 4 1/2

So-- on Memorial Day we went to the park and I left my camera. Didn't realize it until a few days later and I am so sad!! I posted ads in the Lost & Found Classifieds, so now it is just a test of people's honesty. Anyway, lots has happened the past week or so, but the ending is that we are still just Brian, Janna, Mya, Ana, and Wally. We do have one new edition-- which is our new van. It is a light olive 2003 Kia Sedona and I LOVE to drive it. We have never had a car newer than a '98 so it is special to us! The girls love that they get their own bucket seat, which provides too much room for fighting--YEAH HOO, and we plan to take it on our trip cross country when we move. Whenever that is. We are finally putting the house up for sale. Just doing the last yard work needed in the backyard, and hanging one more new light fixture. Put the word out that there is a really nice 4 bed/1.5 bath horse property for sale now! I am beginning to change my mindset to living back in WI just in case Brian doesn't here from any waitlist schools before school starts. Final seat deposit has been made, so we are are all ready to go. Brian just heard of a cool program Marquette is starting where he can study International Law for one month in Germany over the summer, so that will be pretty cool. Neither The U, nor SMU offer that! I'm sure the Lord will provide many opportunites, and thank goodness we have the Spirit to guide us to the ones we should explore and accept. Have a happy week!

We are not crazy-- We are obedient!!

Potato, Poe-tah-toe,
Tomato, Toe-mah-toe.
More to come.........!!!!!

I guess it wasn't meant to be...

Last night Brian loaded the girls into the car to pick up a few items at the store at about 7:15pm. At the last minute I decided that I would go too, and we left for about 40 minutes. When we returned home, I listened to a voicemail from our Foster Care Family Resource Consultant. She said that there were 3 children that should would like to place with us, and she knows that it's a lot, but to please call her back ASAP if we could take them. My heart raced as I screamed up the stairs to Brian, "They have 3 kids that they want to place with us! Hurry and throw me down a pen to write down the FRC's phone number!". Then we paused, and knew that we couldn't really take any more kids right now-- especially since we had no idea where we would be living in 3 months. Then there was a beep, and the second message came on. It was the same lady saying never mind and that she didn't hear from us fast enough, and she was moving on to the second family on the list. I guess it wasn't meant to be....

My gross hair

Did you know that I have 3 white hairs? My roots aren't turning white or gray, I just grew a couple completely white hairs (granted they are shorter than the rest of my hair). So anyway that wasn't the gross part-- As my hair grows longer, the tips grow even oranger-- and I decided that if I wasn't going to chop it all off, I had better go for the dye. The weird thing is-- that one of the 4" white hairs did NOT dye! Is that weird, or normal?? Oh well, I was actually just trying to get rid of the gross orangeness which worked, but unfortunately now all of my hair has a reddish tint in the sun. GREAT! I even used the Ash color. Grrrrrr!!

I also decided about 2 years ago that I no longer have brown eyes. You can see in this picture that my eyes are green around the rims, and reddish in the center. Especially since the girls' eyes are SOOO brown, mine look alot more hazel these days. I still don't think you'll spot me with flashy green eyeshadow though. It just doesn't go well with all of my freckles. By the way, Brian-- stop giving me your freckles!! heehee

Topaz Mountain

Past Lehi, almost to Delta you will find Topaz Mountain. It is about a 3 hour drive into the desert from Clearfield, but we all had a very nice day. Double click on the next photo, to see a very cool picture of Brian at the top of the mountain.
This is the view, looking down, where we were digging for most of the day. Can you spot our car?And this is what we were looking for! Brian's greatest find.. a rather large pink topaz!
We found clear (mostly), pink, and brown topaz. Brian said if you heat the clear crystals, they can turn blue. I hope my next blog isn't talking about a certain someone burning his hand off.
Mya is holding the "tool" that Dad gave her to dig with. I'm sure Mya would have liked to stay all week if we would have let her. Since we wouldn't let her climb too far on the mountain, she found her topaz in the washes of the canyon.
If you can't tell by her face, Ana is saying "Wooooooooooh!!" at the pretty desert flowers. She dug around the washes too, looking for "sparkly rocks".
It got kinda' long and hot by the end of the day, as you can tell by their faces :)

Brian mostly chiseled away at the mountain. I liked to dig through the rubble from other's dynamite, to find the gems they didn't spot!
There were hundreds of these lizards all over the place, lots of huge red ants, and we spoted one antelope. Luckily we didn't encounter a rattlesnake.

Most of the grand collection. It's hard to see in a photo what they really look like, but you get the idea.

Trampoline Fun with Daddy

Mom and the girls go on the trampoline almost every day, so it is VERY exciting when Daddy jumps with them!


Time for cheerleading practice...Basket toss first!
Look at Mya's face in this next photo...
Ring around the Rosey
Pop the egg
Run, run, run from the monster in the middle!

Random Stuff

So, Adrienne called today and I decided to go chat in my room so I could actually hear what she was saying. As I was running upstairs I said to Ana, who was already wearing her firefighter hat, something like, "You'd better get some water so you can put out the fires." I guess she didn't catch the sarcasm in my voice because 10 minutes later Mya knocked on my door to tell me that I had better come and look at what Ana was doing.

It was pretty funny to me, although I startled Ana when I said "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!" in a deep gruff voice, and then smiled really big. I guess I have to take the blame, and clean up the mess on that one.

Has anyone seen that little kid beauty pageant show? Well I haven't, because we don't have cable, but I decided to find out what the girls may look like in 10 years once they start wearing make-up. (besides, Mya has been wondering why Mom won't put make-up on her, when Tia Jessica does--so this FHE activity was a total treat for her. And I guess I should add that Brian wasn't very happy once he saw them all "dolled up".)

In case you have a family member who loves Macaroni & Cheese as much as Ana does, I just wanted to let you know that the Great Value Thick & Creamy Mac n' Cheese at Walmart is WAAAAYY better than the Kraft regular stuff. You will be surprised!

For Your Viewing (and Laughing) Pleasure

(PLEASE START THE VIDEO AT ABOUT :55 SECONDS. There was a glitch in sound system's volume, so I am just standing there for almost a minute)

On 4/25/09 Brian and I performed in the Stake Talent Show. I just want to tell Brian how AWESOME he was, and let him know that I really appreciate that he agreed to do this for me. Afterall, dancing mostly in your living room begins to get pretty boring, and it is fun to actually choreograph and practice a dance that someone besides Mya and Ana will see. Thank you My Beloved!
(Oh- and you don't need to comment about my peach skirt. After viewing the video, I already know that it looks horrible! It was still fun to dance in, though.)