Just a Thought...

"The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if your willing to work."

-Oprah Winfrey

A Child's Prayer

I was working in my office last night when Lincoln walked in, sat with his legs crossed on my floor, folded his arms, bowed his head closed his eyes and began to pray.  Logan was quickly behind him copying his every move.  Luckily I had a pen and paper in my hand and I frantically wrote to capture his words in this moment.

This was Lincoln's prayer (Logan repeated the words):

"Dear Heavenly Father.  Thank you for this day. I love you. I love your heart. I wish you could be down here to play. I love my family. I hope we have a good night. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Once the prayer was finished they jumped up and began to play.  It was such a sweet precious moment for me to watch.  Not sure what prompted the prayer but to witness the innocence, faith and love of a child, especially my own, was priceless.

Everyday Life

Here are a few miscellaneous things I wanted to post about. 

We just got a new frozen custard shop in town called Rita's.  We went for family night before we left for Idaho and it was yummy.  The boys loved it. They got vanilla custard mixed with root beer Italian ice. I think we'll go back sometime soon! 

 Daddy took his motorcycle for a spin one day.  Logan noticed that a parking spot for his tricycle had opened up and he took it.  Pretty cute. 

 I messed up my foot and I'm out of tennis for what looks to be 4-6 weeks.  Total bummer. I have to wear this big ol' brace and if it's not showing signs of improvement in two weeks I have to get an MRI. 

 Official diagnosis right now after x-rays and ultrasound is peroneal tendonitis, sural neuritis and fluid in the tendon.

 Since we took pictures of Lincoln's first day at kindergarten I wanted to take some of Logan too. He was being quite the silly ham at the time but it made for great smiles!

He has a very funny, playful and sweet personality. He can be a stubborn two year old too but I think we're slowing moving out of that phase. 

School Work

The boys have been busy learning at school and are bring home their work daily.  Here are a few samples of what they've been doing.

Lincoln:

 Passed his 1st Kindergarten spelling test

Practice spelling words

Lincoln painting

He's getting really good with his letters. 

Logan:

Logan painting with strong and cookie cutters. 

 Logan loves school and mostly loves Ms. Sandy.  

Logan painting with pasta

Logan glued feathers onto his bird.

It's That Time

Lincoln started kindergarten this week.  He was so excited to go into the big kids class with Ms. Jenny. Because Arizona requires children to be 5 years old by the end of August, he misses the cut-off for our school district.  Lincoln is quite an intelligent little guy and he really enjoys school. We're worried that if we waited another year he would be too bored and he could really benefit from the challenge of kindergarten now.

We enrolled him into a private accredited school with the goal of transferring him  back into the school district in first grade next year. Three days down and so far so good.  His teacher seems to like him and is quite impressed.  Lincoln is excited to do his homework each day.  We are practicing his spelling words: A, the, and.  His first spelling test is on Friday!

It's crazy for me to think that my little guy, who less than 5 years ago as a baby was being fed with a syringe, is now in kindergarten.  Time flies. He has grown to be such a smart, funny, bright, adorable little kid.  He has tough moments too but we get past them.  Every day he says something that makes Ricky and I stop and wonder how it is that we got to this point. Too smart and too funny for his own good sometimes.  Today he told us that WWE is guys that wrestle. He also has begun talking about name brand shoes. Gotta thank schoolmates for that part of his education. We're excited for him and proud of him.  Our little baby is growing up!

I couldn't resist this smile... 

or a shot of these blue eyes...

or this confidence.

 Homework from first couple of days of kindergarten. Nothing says you're awesome like an orange smiley face!

Work Trips

The last two weeks since getting home from Idaho it's been quite hectic and busy for me. I had two back to back work trips. The first week back I spent most of the week in Orange County for a job fair I was running in Diamond Bar. I was lucky enough to slip in a lunch with my friends Laura and Kim at our favorite Mexican lunch place. We've tried to make it a habit that every time I come back to town we meet up there for lunch. As usual, it was d-e-l-i-s-h! Yummy! Yummy! It was really nice to sit and visit and catch up on everything in each others lives. I've yet to find a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix as good as the ones in Cali. 

After lunch I picked up my friend/co-worker, Heather, who flew in from Florida and we headed straight for Disneyland. Mom was kind enough to take us and sign us in.  Heather had never been to our Disneyland before so it was an extra special visit.  

We started with DCA....

Toy Story Mania

Ferris Wheel

Ariel's Journey

Soarin' Over CA

Ate dinner at the pier

Walked through Cars Land

 Heather and me in Radiator Springs

 Heather and Stanley

We loved the Cozy Cone Motel.

Disneyland...

Indiana Jones

Pirates of the Caribbean

Big Thunder Mountain

Fantasmic

Captain EO

Finding Nemo

The Castle

Shopping on Main St.

Goofy was the only character we got our picture with.

Considering we got to the park at about 5:30 and crammed as much as we could in until we left at about 1:00 am, I think we did a lot and had a blast.  So fun.  Heather and I always try to find something fun to do every time we travel together.  We were going to try and fit a few other things in over the following two days but work kept us tired and busy.  We've had a lot of great trips together and I love hanging out with her. 

Tradition: Finding winners of Cupcake Wars around the country on our trips and testing them.  This was Dots cupcakes.  They were really good (especially the Heath Bar) and I brought some home for the boys.  

I spent last week in Las Vegas. Sounds fun but it was really just work.  I got to meet my boss in person for the first time which was nice for me.  She treated me to a show so we picked La Reve.  I loved it! It's probably my favorite Cirque (although it's technically not Cirque but done by the same creator) that I've ever seen.  Most of the show incorporates a giant pool of water that sits in the middle of the circle shaped theater. A lot of the show consisted of Cirque like acts above water that would fall into or utilize the pool.  It was really neat and I would highly recommend for anyone who's in going to Vegas.  

Since you can't take pictures during the show I snapped this one quickly after it was over.

The rest of my Vegas week consisted of attending a conference, a black tie gala, two career fairs, taxi lines, and more work.  I will mention that we stayed at the Wynn which, without a doubt, has the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in.  It was big and beautiful.  The hotel is beautiful, new and clean but I didn't think there was much to do in the hotel like the other big hotels have. Everyone should stay there once though.  Having said that, it's always nice to travel on someone else's dime.  Over all it was a successful trip but I'm glad to be home.

View from my room. I wish I has one of it during the day because it was so bright, lively and relaxing.

Colorado Trip

Ricky has decided to join in on the family blogging fun and write the post about our trip.

While the boys were safe with Tutus in Idaho, mom and dad decided to take a little vacation to Colorado.

Our first order of business was to deliver 36 boxes of grandpa tutu's book Joseph Janse - The Apostle of Chiropractic Education to a warehouse in Greeley.  Our 2006 Ford F-150 had never seen that much weight in her bed - she sagged a bit on the drive but was happy when we unloaded the books the next morning.  Having delivered the books, we were free to enjoy the week.

What's the first thing every non-drinker does when visiting near Fort Collins?  That's right, we went straight to the Budweiser Brewery.  Wow, that place was huge!  We'd never seen anything like that in our lives.  The size of the operation was unbelievable.  It was amazing to see how the beer is made.  The various steps in the process of making beer were explained as we watched millions of miles of pipes, robots working the equipment, conveyor belts with bottles and cans shooting all around, holding tank after holding tank - hundreds (each like the size of our house), trains coming in and going out, a long line of diesel trucks waiting to be loaded one after the other.  We decided people drink too much beer!  It was great fun.  We actually went to see the Clydesdales but they were out on duty in California that week - bummer.  But we did see the stables where they live.

Next we went shopping.  We each got some clothes, but the joy of it was that we could take our sweet time and try things on without a two-year-old and a four-year-old screaming at us to go somewhere else.  It was great.

Then we went to dinner at On the Boarder.  While there, Ricky stepped on a glob of guacamole on the floor and went flying.  He smashed down on his hands and knees on the cement floor and his Oakleys flew from his head and landed somewhere else.  We learned when we went back outside after dinner that the lenses got scratched pretty good on impact.  On the Boarder is working on getting us replacements.  (I haven't slipped in years.  Guacamole - really?)

We enjoyed shopping so much that we did a little more the next day and supplemented it with a massage.  Ricky got the hour-long massage slot and Eden got the half hour slot.  (I learned when I emerged that giving me the longer slot was a tactical plan by Eden so that she could go buy more clothes without me or the boys disrupting the process!)

Next we headed south into downtown Denver.  We went to the Wings Over the Rockies Museum.  They had a number of older fighter planes and bombers on display inside a huge hangar.  They also had a 3/4 size X-Wing starfighter on display!  Very cool.  But the best part of the Museum by far was the short movie in their little theater.  It was done by Harrison Ford with music composed by James Newton Howard.  The quality of the picture was sharper than anything I had ever seen and the music was some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard.  I wanted to buy the movie for the music, but they don't sell it.  I looked for the music online and I have not been able to find it anywhere.  We actually went back in and saw the movie a second time and I attempted to record it, but my phone got turned off without me knowing - I'm still soooooo sad about that.  I want that music.  Anybody help!  The museum was cool.

On a side note, we were only a few miles from where the tragic shooting took place in Aurora just a couple of days before.  Having worked in a movie theater for over ten years this shooting hit close to home mentally for me.  So sad, so terrible, so unnecessary.  Hans Zimmer wrote a special piece this very week (while we were visiting Colorado) immediately following the shooting.  He was connected to the event in that he had composed the music for the Batman film which was playing for that showing.  As the greatest film composer of all time and in an effort to ease the pain he wrote one of his masterpieces "Aurora."  He is donating all of the money to a victims charity fund.  My take on the piece, I've only been emotionally capable of listening to it five times.  Not ashamed to say that I balled all five times.  A divinely transcendent piece a midst an awful tragedy.  

Next we went right downtown and had dinner on the street mall before we went and saw the musical "Jersey Boys."  It was fun to sit together and enjoy a musical - again no kids, and we enjoyed the show.  I don't think either of us would watch it again because it has some pretty foul language which is disruptive to an otherwise already so-so show.  But it was still fun for us.

Next morning we drove into the Rocky mountains to the town of Breckenridge.  We stayed at a nice lodge overlooking the valley.  While in Breckenridge we had all kinds of fun.  Apart from eating good food (which is my favorite part of any trip) we went half-a-mile into an old gold mine, panned for gold, rode a gondola, drove down an alpine slide in the same cart (I controlled the high rate of speed causing Eden to scream and scream and almost cuss), rode a paddle boat on a lake (Eden did most of the paddling), and did I mention good food.

After a few days in the Breckenridge area we went on to Rifle where we went to one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world.  There we hiked around and Eden even went in a few little caves.

Before leaving Rifle we found some tennis courts and played a little tennis.  Eden thinks she's pretty good, so I thought I should humble her a bit. . . Well, she asked me if she could try one of her "hard" serves.  I said, "Bring it on."  Ahh, I barely had time to jump out of the way and scream as the ball flew by me.  I'm just glad it didn't hit me.  How do people return that stuff?  Anyway, I played the best I could considering it had been about 10 years since I had been on a tennis court and we got hot and sweaty and had a blast.  Then it started to rain, so we got back on the road.

The next day we drove back into Utah on our way back to Idaho.  First stop was Enstrom Candy Co. so that we could see their factory but it was closed because it was the weekend.  We peeked in the observation windows but that was it.  Later that day we stopped at the BYU bookstore and I picked up a few elusive books that I had been wanting for some time.  Then we went on to Spencer's house and had dinner with his family.  They have a beautiful new home in a great area.  I hope they stay there for years to come.  We picked up Sierra at their house who was also on her way to Idaho for a youth camp.  That evening we drove back to Tutu's house in Idaho.

We missed the boys a lot, but it was great to just be together with each other and enjoy some uninterrupted time.  Our trip to Colorado was a lot of fun.