Finding Krissi

Ok all of you moms out there who are starting to complain about the long summer days.  There is moaning about children fighting, boredom lack of routine and the serious need for school to start again.  I have only one thing to say to this. STOP!!! Summer must not end.  We must embrace and enjoy the summer because at the end of the summer there is only one thing.  One horrible, unavoidable thing. WINTER!!!! I have not fully recovered from the past winter.  My bones are still chilly even the mention of winter starts me shivering.  So I have created list of the top ten reasons to LOVE SUMMER! #10.  You get to Swim! Swimming is awesome it cools you off, it gets you out in the sun, the sun has important vitamins that we all need, and swimming is exercise at its most fun.  #9.  Baseball, who doesn't love a summer evening at the baseball field.  Way better then a fall evening of football. Trust me! #8. Long afternoons sitting in a beach chair reading a great book with no where to go. #7. ...

Today's blog is a story of a little seed.  While planting in the garden we noticed a tiny little plant was coming up.  We had not planted any seeds where the plant was coming up but we decided to let the plant go and see what it was.  We thought it might be zucchini because it was very close to where we had planted zucchini last year.  Well time passed and this plant is what started to grow and grow and grow and grow............... do you understand well keep scrolling ..... and grow and grow and grow...... Today this is our little seed.  It was a sunflower.  I had planted them in the garden last year and somehow this guy decided to come up all on his own this year.  Notice the first picture is of Andrew and the Sunflower late June.  This is the sunflower today. Are you starting to realize how huge this thing is? Brent says that currently it measures 13 feet. And it just keeps growing and growing well you get the picture.  This is the first of our giant pumpkins.  Which I really ha...

Do you know what happens when you have four children.  You start to forget what you have taught and what you haven't taught the youngest.  H. is so independent that there are times, many, many, times that we forget he is only 5 and there is probably a thing or two that we have not taught him.  Take for example tying his shoes.  We taught him that, didn't we?  Well yesterday he walks into our room, looks at both Brent and I while holding his Sunday shoe and says,  "Do you think you could teach me to tie my shoes?"  Um...well... yah sure we can do that.  While we both look at each other wondering where did that come from.  So Brent being the awesome dad he is showed him how to tie his shoe.  H. spent the rest of the night doing this. Notice the concentration.  This is some serious stuff man.  Tying your shoes does not happen every day.  Well ok for most of us it does but it is summertime this kid is living in sandals so you know serious stuff. However, this has given ...

I survived I will put up pictures and share our very fun ice cream party with you all soon.  Maybe I might even explain the pictures I posted that don't have any information.  Did I mention the jet lag thingy and oh yeah the PMS thingy.:) Talk to you soon.

Today is the 24 th of July and for those you in Blog world not from Utah, that means absolutely nothing, well, except that it is the 24 th of July.  However, for those of us in Utah it is a day of celebration.  A day where we remember the pioneers who settled Utah and do a little fireworks, BBQing , you know party.  Except for when you know haven't planned to do anything because your still dealing with jet lag and the reality that you are no longer enjoying the sunny beaches of Hawaii. "sigh" So you say to your neighbor, "Hey what are you doing tomorrow for the 24 th ? and she says,"Nothing what are you doing?" Then suddenly you are saying, "Why don't you bring the kids over we will have ice cream and do fireworks."  Then she says, "Great, but don't you think you better invite so and so." Then you say, "Oh, ok ." Then before all the "That's great but shouldn't you invite so and so," are over you hav...

On Sunday we went to Pearl Harbor.  It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.  I don't think I have ever been somewhere that you could feel the history of the place all around you.  As we stood on the U.S.S. Arizona memorial my heart was full for the men you lied beneath us.  I don't think I have felt so strongly about being American since 9 11.  I felt sad about how passive I have been about being an American and the rights we have.  I came home with whole new perspective on the election and my beliefs on who I feel should run this country. How could I look at the names of all these men almost 2000 of them without my heart feeling grateful for all that they did and the service they gave to America.   After we returned to our hotel room Brent and Sam had cooked up this little surprise for my birthday.  Our friends and Sam sang Happy Birthday to me.  It was cute for Brent to put this together and I appreciated the thought. Later that night we hit the beach of Waikiki...

A little hard to see in the small pic but if you click on it you will see that as the girls played there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky above them. There were times that while we were there that you would suddenly look up and be amazed at how beautiful Hawaii was. This picture was taken above Hanauma bay. After the girls finished playing soccer Saturday morning we headed over to this bay to try snorkeling. We were all a little skeptical and not sure if we would really enjoy it but EVERYBODY said we had to do it. I have to say it was one of the coolest things I have ever done. While you are swimming the sea life completely ignores you and just goes about doing their own thing. We saw some of the coolest fish we have ever seen. It was amazing.

While sitting in the other room playing on my blog I hear Alex say to Henry, "Henry quit talking to yourself it is freaky."  LOL!!!

Pictured above is Sam with her friend Racail.  We were outside the Bishop museum in Waikiki.  I'm not sure exactly what this guy is but they are every where you go.  I probably should find out who he is and what he stands for.  The next picture was the girls picking his nose.  Not posted because... um... gross!! One other funny fact about this picture is you will notice that the girls are wearing their soccer shorts, socks, shoes but not there shirts.  This is because the night before her coach bravely offered to wash all of the uniforms at his beach house.  Later he told the girls he didn't sign up for that kind of stink and dirty.  He told the girls he better not catch them in their shirts outside the soccer field.  Girls can be gross!!

Can you believe how blue the water is.  This is a picture of Sam with some of her team mates and a few family members.  Thursday after the soccer games were over we had the chance to go to her coaches beach house.  On the way we stopped at a famous bay where local kids jump from rocks ranging from 3-18 feet.  We considered for about 5 seconds trying it before common sense won out.  We then spent the rest of the evening enjoying, team mates, family, beach, water, and dinner.  This is the first time we saw a sea turtle who came with in 5 feet of the beach before he decided squeally girls were not his scene.  One of the moms was also brave enough to let the girls bury her in sand.  She said it was the best spa treatment she had ever had.  It was a great day with lots of laughter and great company.  Yes, we lost both soccer games but do these girls look sad.

So a fact you may not guess about me is that I get up 5 days a week to exercise.  I'm not kidding I really get out of bed 5 days a week before the sun is even out so that I can exercise.  I have been doing it for almost a year now.  And you want to know a little secret? I HATE IT!!! Everyday I have to talk my self into it.  Not one day goes by that I don't have to drag my sorry but out the door. All the while that little voice in my head is saying, "Hey, hey dummy what are you doing it is dark, go back to bed, hey I'm not done sleeping get back to bed NOW.") But at last I don't for reasons I won't go into right now.  However, it has dawned on my that my attitude about getting up early is not helping me accomplish getting up and going.  And as I have been reflecting this bad attitude I have I happened to be watching TV with my kids and Sponge Bob came on.  Truthfully I don't really get Sponge Bob but this particular show started with Sponge Bob running ...

Pictured above is the Thunder soccer team.  You wouldn't guess it from the uniforms but this is Sam's soccer team.  On Wednesday all of the U12 girls teams were divided into teams with other girls from all over the US.  Each girl was put on a separate team.  The girls had a chance to play two games with these girls.   Sam struggled with the whole pink uniform and a coach who yelled.  Her coach is not a yeller.  But in the end they all had fun especially when the team they played against had a player from their team on it and they got to play against them.

Tuesday we left home and headed to the airport.  Much stress and anxiety went in to preparing for the airport.  New regulations on luggage left us scrabbling to find the right size of suitcase to check.  Additionally much stress was spent making sure that our suitcases were well under the 50lb limit.  Then there was the whole ordeal of going through security removing your shoes and making sure you had no more then 3oz of liquid.  Oh my gosh! Who made all these rules?  When we checked our bags I was furious that they didn't even bother weighing our bags.  I spent hours making sure it was right I wanted them to tell me it was.  I'm a little strange. After a six hour flight we arrived in Honolulu 2 hours after we left home.  Strange how the time changes work isn't?  However, this left us only 1 hour to get our rental car and make it to the stadium the girls were going to be playing at.  This was an adventure that I will spare you the details of.  Just let me tell you that a ph...

Hello Blog World.  We are back from Hawaii and we had a wonderful time.  It is one of the prettiest places I have ever been.  I did not want to come home I could have spent the entire summer being a beach bum on the beautiful island of Oahu.   Soccer news first, the games did not go as well as I would like to report a number of things contributed to the girls not doing as well as they we would have liked.  Including the heat and humidity.  Holy Cow it was humid I told Brent the driest I was for a week was when I was taking a shower.  I think it pretty much kicked the girls buts. There were other things that took place but over all the girls played hard, they played good, they supported each other, but it just didn't happen.  However, what it ultimately meant is we all had more beach time.  It was very sad and I can feel your sorrow for us. (*Note, I did not bribe Sam to loose, just in case you were thinking it.*) We had all kinds of adventures including, circling the island no less...

As I know you all have heard, and heard, and heard S. and I are leaving for Hawaii on July 8th.  I can hardly believe it has been a year since she made the All Star Team and we started planning this trip.  It is finally here and I know I have driven everyone around me crazy with me constantly saying, "I'm going to Hawaii."  You would think I didn't get out much.  Oh wait a minute I don't.  So I get to drive everyone crazy just for a little while longer.  That is until I get back and start sharing all my fun pictures. I can feel all of your excitement.  Well here is my last post until you quit hearing about how I am going to Hawaii and start hearing that I went to Hawaii.  Again I can feel your excitement.  Please settle down I know it is exciting but contain yourself.  We had a fun weekend I ran a 5k (yet another thing I am sure you have heard quite enough about) and the next day we went to our cute nieces baptism.  It was very cool when I looked at the program an...

Hello, Blog World! Well it is 8:53 this good 4th of July Day.  Why you ask am I posting so early and not sleeping in, like normal people do on Holidays?  Because at 5:30 this morning I woke up and prepared to run my very first 5k.  WOO HOO!! Good news I finished, YAY ME, Good news I finished 9 minutes faster than I normally do, again I say YAY ME! I'm not going to post my time because to the world in general it was pretty slow.  Let me just say that I had my very own police escort through out the race.  However, I could see the people in front of me most of the race and not once did I stop running.  Okay, yah yah, jogging slow (see previous post snail on the trail). In a month I will run my second 5k to support a friends brother with ALS cancer. Below are  two pictures the first being my number.  HA HA HA  I actually participated in an event where they pin a number to you.  That is so funny.  The second picture would be of the group of friends who supported me in this run.  Well mo...

Today I decided to clean one window. One yucky, winter crusted, storm stained window. There are several in the house but I decided I would start with one and then see how things went. So down came the storm windows out came the screen and the cleaning began. As I scrubbed, scoured and Windex-ed I began to think, because as you all know cleaning windows does not require as much mental strength as it does physical. Well as I thought I realized our lives are a lot like these dirty windows. We see the spots we know that there are things we need to clean up but the job just seems to big. It would be hard, it would require time, and it would mean change. Not to mention that as soon as one window was clean there are several more waiting. Well as the window began to shine I realized just how dirty the window was. Really, I thought I had does this chore before, has it really gotten that dirty again? That must mean that just because we do go through the work, the changing, and the time...