Vacation!

Our vacation was DELIGHTFUL!! We went to Yellowstone to camp and play with siblings and cousins. In spite of the dirt, mosquitoes (elephant sized, no less), and rain, we had a wonderful time!

It is BEAUTIFUL there....stinky, but beautiful :-)

Old Faithful did its thing...I have seen it many times in my life, and it is still thrilling!

Buffalo...they are huge, plentiful, and not too bright. But people still think that they have to slow down and take a picture of EVERY SINGLE ONE THEY PASS!! We waited in a 40 minute traffic jam to pass this one - I hate to tell you - they are cool, but they all look THE SAME!! Another small word to the wise - they are WILD!! Just because they move slowly most the time doesn't mean that they won't charge you when you get out of your car to get a closer view and picture. Haven't you paid attention to the yellow paper they gave you when you came into the park - a man is FLYING through the air after being gored by a buffalo. It could happen! :-) We named this guy Sheldon. We had a long time to come up with the name - sitting in traffic...

This was one of three bears we saw - this one was right on the side of the road, and only one other car passed it before it crossed the road and wandered down the mountain. We saw this guy about an hour after a man was killed by a momma bear in the same area. I like animals from my

car - or when they are behind bars. Zoo, anyone?? More to come later!

Kings

Jimmer will play for the Kings. Is it a good fit? Will the other players realize how amazing he is, and give him a chance? Who knows! All I can say is, at our house, we love Jimmer!! Best of luck to him :-)

Baptism Day

My youngest child was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this past Saturday. Her older brother was able to baptize her, and it was a special day! We had many family and friends come to support her and celebrate with us. Truly joyful! I am so thrilled that she made this choice!

In our ward there were 7 - count them - SEVEN girls that turned 8 this past month and were baptized on Saturday. They are SO sweet, and look like angels! We feel so fortunate to live in this area, surrounded by such great families :-)

8 is Great!

My youngest is 8! She is so excited about this birthday. She got her ears pierced, she had a birthday party, and she will be baptized in two weeks by her older brother Cam. We sure love our Andi!

GRADUATION!!

RN Program at Weber State University - DONE!

Graduation day - Joyous!

Graduating with Honors - a First for me :-)

Color - purple

Mascot - ??? oh, Wildcats

The surprise - the awesome banner my family made and held up when I walked and got my diploma (Ok, we all know that they don't actually give you your diploma - you get an empty diploma holder book, with a paper insert that says they will mail the real diploma in 2-3 months)

How did it turn out?

This is not a new fridge...this is the new dishwasher that we bought, along with the new fridge, to replace the old dishwasher that was having water seal problems.

This is the freezer of the new fridge, that replaced the old fridge due to a compressor that had seized up. EXPENSIVE repair, or EXPENSIVE new fridge? We went for the (hopefully) longer term fix.

Very pretty...

Neato...and blurry!

When clean is a bad sign -

This is a picture of my fridge. It is not new, and I hadn't planned to give it a good cleaning today. My daughter opened the freezer to get something out, and asked if the ice in the ice maker was supposed to be dripping. I investigated and found that things in the top half of the freezer were beginning to feel squishy. This is not a desirable quality in frozen food. My hubby was already asleep, so my eldest son helped me load all the freezer and fridge stuff in laundry baskets, and he hauled it out to the garage for me. I am very grateful for my extra fridge and freezer space. This is how the garage refrigerator / freezer looks now. Just so you know, I had been to Costco the day before - of course.

I currently had 9 gallons of milk in the fridge - which equals about one weeks worth for us. Hey, don't judge. Have you seen my giant boys? Keeping them fed is a challenge! :-)

We had been talking about getting a larger chest freezer - I wish we had actually gotten around to it before today!

What I learned from this experience -

-It was time to clean out all my freezers

-I discovered new / old food treasures that I am happy to have.

-I had stuff to throw away - I love throwing things away!

-Midnight is not a fun time to freeze your hands off playing with food from the freezer.

-My daughter was inspired to say something when she noticed the dripping ice, because if she had decided to say nothing, I would have gone to bed, everything in both the fridge and freezer would have been nasty when I discovered this morning, and I didn't have time to clean it all out this morning!

-My back hurts - my son saved me by carrying, lifting, and moving everything.

I'm sure what I will learn (re-learn) tomorrow is that refrigerator repair people, though they are nice and necessary, cost a lot, but less than a new fridge, which would be delightful except for the part where you have to pay for a new fridge, which then makes the repair people reasonable in comparison.