Cure

Cure #1

Our neighbor and friend who lives across the street has diabetes. My Grandma had diabetes. Being a nurse, I am very aware of diabetes and the effect it has on many, many people.
So, when my neighbor asked me to join their team to ride in the "Tour de Cure" I really felt inclined. The purpose of this bike ride is to raise money towards research for a cure of this disease. The ride took place last Saturday, the 13th. It started in Brigham City and circled north and around thru many small towns I have never even heard of. It started out rainy and cold...the first 20 miles all I could think of was my family down in warm Lake Powell and I was so jealous. Sam and the kids had left for Powell the day prior, and I stayed back so we could get Millie to her dance recital which was Saturday evening. She excused her dad from the recital because her cousin Caitlyn (who is in town from Minnesota) would be staying back with us as well.

Anyway, when it was all said and done, we rode 69 miles and the day turned out to be quite awesome. The weather cheered up and we were feeling good at the finish line. Thanks John and Judy for a great day!Cure #2:

My Millie.
She has a way of making me feel better. She can sense when I'm having a hard time even when I am trying to cover it up, and does her best to comfort me (as long as I don't say "hell" :) When I am feeling bad, there is nothing that comes close to a good hug from her. She has been my cure since the day she was born. She makes me so happy. I love her.


She danced her little heart out at the recital. I watched her in awe as she performed 5 dances that night. Being so cute and tiny, she mostly occupied the front and center position on stage. I enjoyed every second that I was rushing back and forth between the auditorium and the dressing room to help her change her hair and make-up and costume for the next number. I remember my own mom doing the same thing for me, and I always hoped that I would have my own daughter to share these exciting moments with. We are so proud of you Millie!
Thanks to Grandma, Aunt Heidi, Alixann, and Caitlyn for coming! This was one of Grandma's first long outings since back surgery...what a tough chick!

Her team does a dance to "The Addams Family" It is a favorite!

Her duet number with her Jezze. "All That Jazz"
Version sung by Catherine Zeta Jones from "Chicago"

Cure #3:

Lake Powell. I believe that Lake Powell is one of the best places on Earth. We just returned home from another awesome vacation there. I think it is impossible to come home from that place without feeling relaxed and rejuvenated. Our kids would choose to go there over most other places! The next post will have the details from our trip.

REAL fun

Aunt Candice and soon-to-be Uncle Doug showed the kids a great time at the Salt Lake Real soccer game Saturday night! They had so much fun and the David Archuletta concert afterwards was a bonus!
Mom got the tickets and then we realized it was the same night as our friend's big birthday party so Candice and Doug stepped in. Thanks Adam and Kacy for an awesome party, and thanks Candice and Doug for taking the kids, we love you! We're glad you had as much fun as the kids :)

9 Days

We have officially been out of school now for a whole week...I LOVE IT!
Let me just share what we have been up to in the last 9 days...

Thursday May 28th: D-day

D-Day strikes fear into the hearts of the boys, while most girls look forward to it all year long. What is D-Day? It is the the annual dance festival at Ridgeline Elementary (it really is a great tradition). Each grade performs a dance in front of what seems like a thousand spectators. This year Sambo and the 1st graders were doing a dance from Singing in the Rain. The catch here is that this number would be performed boy-girl and some hand-holding was involved. As you can see from the photos he was happily uncomfortable.




















Millie on the other hand was completely in her element! Dressed in a western skirt, cowgirl hat, and bandanna she did awesome. The only problem with her performance was that she is so small and placed in the 2nd row. She was literally blocked from view by the larger 3rd graders. Here are some pictures of Millie nailing the hand and foot action in a performance inspired by Footloose.










Mom and Quin enjoying the show-










Friday, May 29th:
Sam & Amilia celebrating their last day-



Then off to a "last day of school" party-


















Then off to a super fun family bike ride...we drove up Provo Canyon and parked the car, then rode all the way to Grandma Judy's house for Aunt Jenny's graduation. It was so great having the 3 kids riding their own bikes and Quinny in the bike trailer. Will did such a good job keeping up with the rest of us...his little legs were spinning like crazy! Beautiful trail along the river and then along University Ave. in Provo.Then off to Aunt Jenny's Graduation at Utah Valley University - Congratulations, we love you!



Dad had to leave early to catch a plane to San Francisco -

And FINALLY: Grandma's Hot Tub! -

Saturday, May 30th:

You can read about this day in the previous post "Triple Blow-Out"

Monday, June 1:
At home all day cleaning and playing. Quincy was in heaven having her sister and brothers home. Piano and tumbling.

Tuesday, June 2:
We packed our bags. Mom spontaneously decided we should join dad on his work trip to St. George. First I worked at the hospital from 3:00-7:00, then picked up Millie from dance, then home to finish loading the car. Then we were on our way. We got to our condo at midnight, the kids were all asleep so we carried each one in and put them in bed. The kids are awesome travelers. The are pros at it. Quincy just follows their examples and goes with the flow, although the boys were forced to watch "The Little Mermaid" in the car because she was insisting (screaming really).
We reached a huge milestone this trip...no cribs! When we walked into the condo we realized the front desk had not brought a crib so I laid Quinny in a bed. I knew this was risky because she always sleeps in a crib. I was nervous she would full-on wake up, get a second wind going, and keep everyone awake for the next few hours. We quickly laid Millie next to her and tucked them in. We didn't hear a peep until 9:30 the next morning. Yay! She did great the next night too (but she did fall off the bed at one point).
The condo has 3 bedrooms so there was a girls room, a boys room, and our room. There is even a hot tub on the deck. It was the best (thanks to my mom and dad)!















The next couple days were pretty much swim, eat, swim, ride bikes, swim, eat. We also played sardines and hide-and-seek at the local playground. Good Times. Here are some pics:




Friday, June 6:

Back to work and dance try-outs for Millie and her darling friends. It's kind-of a big deal to them. Besides being fun for her and fun for us to watch her, it's great because all those little dancers have moms who are friends so we all hang-out. It's a win-win.


Whew! What a week. I'm tired.

Triple Blow-out

Blow-Out #1:

After attending a workshop for the first half of the day yesterday, I rushed home to grab the kids who were home with a babysitter (thanks Maddy). Dad was on an airplane coming home from San Francisco. I was in a huge hurry to get up to Mountain Green so I could prepare and decorate for my big brother's BIG surprise 40th birthday party. My mom had back surgery so she couldn't do it, my sister was out-of-town so she couldn't do it, so it was left up to me. I was happy to do it, but because my brother knows the whole world we invited lots of people and I knew they would be arriving at 5:00. We had everything else planned and taken care of weeks before so I wasn't too worried about what I had to do. Anyway at 1:45 I picked-up the kids and started driving quickly down the hill. We were on our way and I was feeling good about things. Just seconds after getting onto the freeway I heard a loud thump followed by a quiet hiss. My heart sank...I knew that sound. I pulled over and examined, hoping to find nothing. But there it was:
At this point I'm a bit stressed but not too worried because I knew Sam had recently opened an account with AAA (Triple A). I called and soon discovered I was not going to get any help from them because only Sam's name was on the account, not mine. So next I started calling repair shops. 30 minutes later a yellow repair truck pulled-up behind me and a nice man named "Whitey" started lowering the spare (I admit I had no idea how to do that) and getting to work. The kids were intrigued and thought it was fun being stranded on the side of a busy freeway.Soon he informed me that my wheels had security lugnuts on them and that he needs a special key to get them off. Apparently, people with nice rims put these on so they won't get stollen. Thanks but no thanks. He told me to look in the jockey box...I did, and there was a key, but it was the wrong one. The guy we bought the car from had accidentally put the wrong key in. SO, he called another guy and 30 more minutes later he showed up with his variety of lugnut keys. Luckily, one of them fit. Pretty soon the spare tire was on. At this point I am super stressed because it is now 3:45. I'm making phone calls to my dad and my friend (thanks Connie) asking them to get the stuff because I know I'm not going to have time.

Blow-Out #2:

So it's fixed and just as I'm settling up with Whitey, I hear the kids start yelling, "it stinks!" and "gross!" and "there's poo on my seat!" I look at Quincy and she has shi* all over her legs, hands, and everywhere in the car she had been crawling and sitting on in the last few minutes! Gotta love blow-out up the back.
Tears start welling up in my eyes and I let out a VERY quiet but desperate "Oh my hell." Then Millie starts crying and gives me a look that could kill and says "I can't believe you just swore!
I was not in the mood for her scolding so I ignored her and quickly started wiping up the poop with the 5 wipes that I had left. I am very flustered at this point. Very stressed. It's 4:00, the surprise is in an hour and I'm an hour away. The kids are hungry, tired, and trashed. Joy.

Blow-Out #3:

Needless to say, we made it just in time and things worked out just fine (like they always seem to do). We had an awesome turn-out and the surprise party was a success. My brother, Uncle Shad, is a pilot and he thought he was helping his pilot friend with a candy drop. Little did he know that when he flew over his newly built airplane hangar that he was dropping candy down to all of us, his family and friends, hanging out ready to celebrate his birthday. We held a big sign that said "Happy Birthday Shad" so he could see it from the air. They landed and came over and we were all there waiting for him. Even Grandma Cindy who is recovering was able to come over for a bit. Sam arrived just in time as well. The only thing missing was a birthday cake because we had Cold Stone serve us ice cream treats. So pretend that he "blew-out" 40 birthday candles!











What a day.

The Great Man Graduates

We have called Will the "great man" for quite sometime because when he was 3 years old, one day he looked at us and said, "I'm a great man." We agreed, so we affectionately refer to him as that often.

Last Friday was another milestone in our family...he graduated from Pre-K! And don't you dare call it pre-school or he will quickly correct you.

These pics were taken the day before his graduation; they had a water party at school and he was so pumped!




















He did so well on his speaking part and he definitely sang the loudest for most the songs. You know how when people get in front of an audience some get shy, some get embarrassed, some show-off...well, Will gets silly. He deals with his nerves by acting silly and pulling funny faces (or pulling his Santa hat over his whole face like he did last year for almost the entire program). What a goof-ball. But he really was well behaved and that is another sign that indeed he is growing up. I really can't stand it.

Mom played the piano while the kids sang at the graduation and afterward he kept giving me big loves and telling me "thank-you for playing my songs."

Thanks Grandpa Tom and Alixann for coming to cheer him on! Grandpa took a break from taking care of Grandma Cindy...she had back surgery last week but is doing really well.




















Quincy was Will's biggest supporter, she kept clapping and cheering for him. She really loves her big brother and looks forward to playing with him every day. They take good care of each other.

















Here he is with some of his best buddies: Taylon, Xander, and Kai. They all live super close to us and the best part is that his school is just up the street and we can go on walks to drop-off and pick-up.













Congratulations, Mr. "Wilbur T. Thomas Clark!" (That's what he tells people his whole name is). I sometimes worry that people think his name really is Wilbur. Can you think of a worse name? Oh well. :)

Business in front, party in back

The boys finally gave-in to letting us buzz their hair for the summer. With Will it was a no brainer...it only took 4 swipes of the clippers to give him a Mississippi mud flap:

Sambo, however had to go a different route - his is more of a weak classic mullet:
At the end of the haircuts, Dad offered to pay both of them $5 bucks to wear their hair like that to church but I guess they got scared off because we couldn't stop laughing!
It's amazing how much the boys look alike with their buzz cuts, especially when they smile, and how they look completely different with longer hair. Sambo's is a brown thick straight rug and



Will's is blond wavy fine.
Mom looks forward to hair gel-free days this summer!