oops....

A few days before we were leaving for St. Louis, I was doing laundry and smelled something burnt in our laundry room. I thought it was the dryer. The next day I was doing more laundry to get ready for our trip and the dryer wouldn't start. So I figured that the smell I experienced the day before was the dryer dying. I called Darin and we decided it was time for both new washer and dryer. The washer has been acting up for a while now-doesn't completely spin clothes and the cold water setting just barely trickles cold water so it takes years to do a load. Oh, it would also get stuck and not advance in the wash cycle.

So Darin researched and found a washer and dryer that ranked the best in our price range and ordered them for me. They were delivered today, and like a flame doused with water my excitement was quickly squashed. Turns out the prior problem was not the dryer, but the outlet it is plugged into!!

What? The dryer is brand spanking new...that can't be the problem....

When the guy turned it on, it wouldn't work. He tried the breaker and that didn't do anything. He found a plug tester in his truck and plugged it in with the indicator showing the outlet is dead.

Just my luck. Seriously.

I Was all set to do laundry tonight and tomorrow. I can always wash a couple loads and go to my friend's house tomorrow but I don't want wet clothes to sit around all night and I'm doing a photoshoot while the kids are in Vacation Bible School tomorrow. Ugh.

So Hugo to the rescue. He is the great handyman we stole from our neighbor. Ok, we didn't steal him since he gave us his number. He is really great and Jordan is enamored with him. She follows him around the whole time he's here. He's coming tomorrow to fix it as well as put in a new thermostat since the person who fixed our air conditioner told us we have mercury thermostat and if anything happened to it we would all get sick. Nice.

My laundry fun gets put off until Friday. Ah well. Hope I have enough clean undies to last that long:)

The good news is that I got tickets to go see Mary Poppins at the Kennedy Center for Mother's day so my good friend Carla and I are going tomorrow night. I love the theatre:)

Carthage Jail

Here are the pictures that go with the previous post. I really loved going to Carthage. It was so interesting to hear more details about the last days of the prophet. To walk up the steps he did to the room where he met his death. Wow.

Oh I could just go on forever, but I'll just get on with the picture. The kids all loved this statue and Jordan would hold her dress up like this all day in every picture we took of her-or at least most of them.


The Smith Brothers. Such an amazing brotherly love between the two of them.
The kids loved this statue of Joseph and Hyrum Smith that was outside Carthage Jail.

Landon wants the scriptures:)

Having posted these pics, I wonder if letting my kids walk on, in, and around this statue was irreverent? Hmmm.....


There were many plaques around the grounds with quotes from Josepth Smith. This is a good one!!

The kitchen of the jail. The jailer and his wife raised their 7 kids while being in charge of the jail. Nice place to grow up, huh?

Steps leading up to the top floor of the jail.

Here is the window the prophet fell out of after he was shot. Look at how wide the window sill is-this is the thickness of the walls!

When the prophet was killed, he and the other me were not in the "cell". The were taken to a room belonging to the jailer to stay "safe" until they were released. It was more like a bedroom than a cell. Here is the door to the room showing a gunshot through the door.

Here's the view outside the jail. The top window is where the prophet Joseph Smith fell to the ground.
Here's another one of the plaques with another quote I really liked! I just love the imagery.

This is such a beautiful sculpture. I loved the hand holding the scriptures.

I walked where He walked

Joseph Smith, that is.

This morning out family visited the Carthage Jail. Despite the inattention of my kiddos, I was so touched while we were in the jail. We watched a video about the life of the prophet, then toured the jail. I learned so much about the jail itself and the circumstances surrounding the death of the Prophet Joseph. I could say so much about it, and I did take lots of pictures I'll post later, but I was just in awe to be standing in a room where the course of history changed. A room in which a prophet of God was killed, in which a group of men gunned down a man who communicated with our Father in Heaven-a man who restored the true gospel to the earth.

I walked where the first Prophet of our church walked. I walked where the Prophet bore his testimony and sang out in prayer to our Father in Heaven. Where he drew and his brother Hyrum took their last breath on this earth. Wow.

Later in the day today we drove around Nauvoo. We found the Smith Family Historical Site. I was saddened by the fact that the Community of Christ-Reorganized Church- is in possession of such a valuable piece of our history, but at least we could see it. We stopped at the Smith family cemetary and saw the graves of the prophet, his beloved wife Emma and his brother Hyrum. There were also the graves of his parents and some other family members.

I wandered around taking pictures while Darin had the kids in the van. I came across the Homestead-the first house Joseph built for he and Emma. The door was open and I saw some other people walk in, so I went in.

Again, I walked where the prophet walked.

It was amazing to realized that this was the prophet's home. His home. The home he built for his family.Wow. I know I'm probably sounding crazy, but I am just so thankful to the prophet Joseph. I have the life I do today because he lived the life he did. It was a privilege for me to see his home, to be in a place where he once lived.

One of the boys in the house also looking around said "wow, the prophet actually once walked where we are." I felt in awe. At that moment I wished I would have known him-I imagined the prayers that were uttered, the laughs and joy had by the Smith home, the people who visited the prophet, the sadness when the prophet was taken to jail. I wanted to be transported to the time when the saints were happily building up the Lord's kingdom in Nauvoo.

We also stopped at the Nauvoo temple. It is amazing-so very beautiful. And is really does sit up on a hill overlooking the river. At the visitors center there was one of the original sun stones. That was pretty cool.

Tomorrow we are going back to see some more of the homes and sights. I am so excited to see more. It makes me want to study church history! It also makes me so excited for our trip to Palmyra this summer!!

I'm sad today.

When I was 2o I moved to Boston to be a nanny. My first job was for a single mom but unfortunately it did not work out very well. A friend of mine in the ward told me about a lady who owned a nanny agency from her home need a nanny for herself. I met her and was hired on the spot and quickly moved in to their home. It was for Rena and Larry Wohl. They had 2 boys at home and 2 a college. The oldest one is my age.

So I started to work for Rena. I took care of Dana who was 8 at the time, and Brett who was I think 13. Both gave me many challenges!!! Dana was ADHC, so that was very challenging. We had to make sure he took his meds every day. But he had an awesome personality and we had a blast. I had a great time working for Rena and Larry. I took the boys to school cleaned up a bit each morning, then I worked in the nanny agency. Answering the phones, talking to potential nannies and families looking for nannies, doing lots of secretarial work-faxes, copies, and also getting references. I also planned quarterly activities for the nannies in the agency since many of them were from out of state. I also got both of my subsequent nanny jobs from families in Rena's agency, which was called Nannies' Nook.

I had a car to use, a nice room in the basement and Rena was open to me having parties with my single friends and having people over. They also had a condo on Cape Cod I used with friends. It was a challenging job-very demanding at times, but also soooo fun and I learned tons. I grew close to especially Rena and Dana. I remember taking Dana to all his Hebrew classes, then I was able to go to his Bar Mitzvah after my mission.

So to today. I have recently been back in contact with Rena on Facebook. Well, now I don't even know if it was her, or her son. There were lots of posts on her wall where people were sending their love and hoping she would feel better. So today I looked on FB and her son had put a post up saying she was resting comfortably and knew that everyone was thinking of her. He further commented that he and his brothers expected to have her longer but that they couldn't have had a better mother and were grateful for the time they had. It gave the impression that she would not live much longer. I just started crying. I have thought of her so many times through the years. I sent Christmas cards for a while-I know, she's Jewish, but she loved them anyhow. Then I lost track of her. I was so excited to be hooked back up through Facebook.

I am so very sad to hear of her being so ill, possibly facing death. I wished I had been able to visit her on one of my visits to Boston. She is one of those people who you meet and makes a great impression on you, and even though you haven't had much contact in recent times, it is sad to think they aren't living on the earth any longer.

To Rena: I love you and say thanks for the memories!

Some days......

Being a mom is AWESOME and totally worth all the struggles!!

Today was one of those days for me. Crazy busy, but so great!!

It was Jordan's First Grade Picnic. I helped organize it along with one other mom. We planned the theme and all the events for the day. I planned the schedule, organized the parent volunteers and put together the goody bags. It was a crazy week getting it all finalized-lots of shopping, emailing, calling and lots of stuffing bags!

But this morning it all came together beautifully!! The weather was great, the volunteers came and were eager to help, we got it all set up and started right on time. It was really fun. The classes all rotated around to 5 stations-craft, obstacle course, parachute, games like frisbee and beachball toss with beach towels, and a video and icepops. The kids were so cute-they all got to carry a stuffed animal, mostly to use on the parachtue, but just to have with them. For lunch they spread out their beach towels on the floor and ate together. We were going to eat outside, but it was really hot by that point and we had been outside a lot during the morning.

The kids were so cute-when they would want to ask me something, the would say "Jordan's mom, Jordan's mom." I'm getting to know a lot of them since they have been together 2 years now. They are just so fun.

So Jordan's party was done and I was tired!!! I went home for a little bit to rest, then back to the school for Spencer's Preschool Graduation. It was so cute. It was a luau theme-complete with leis and huge straw hats. The teacher called up each child by name and gave them a diploma. She even called Landon up to give him a hat and lei as well. Then she gave the kids a cute laminated book with lot of pictures from the year-like a little yearbook. We had a snack then we played outside on the playground. Jordan gets out 15 minutes before Spencer, so we got her and she was able to play, too. She is always so cute with the little boys in Spencer's class.

We came home from school and played in the pool-we got a blow up pool for our back yard. Pics will come soon. The kids just love it so much. They would swim every day if I let them. I just have to watch it because the water gets so dirty and gross and they smell like the outside when we come in. Also, I end up getting soaked every time but it is fun to see the kids make up games and use their imaginations. We have had a little system-we swim for an hour and a half or so, take baths, then eat and maybe watch a movie then go to bed. Works quite well:)

So I'm sitting here tired,with a belly full of yummy Chinese food, watching a movie called The Young Victoria, about to fall asleep. I'm driving Darin nuts because I keep asking him stuff about the movie. It is pretty good, but the whole British Monarchy thing is confusing at times. I did learn a lot, though. Makes me want to read more about Queen Victoria-she was after all the longest reigning British Sovereign.

But in the end....some days it is so great to be a mom!!!

Green Spring Gardens

On the Saturday before Memorial Day, we had a great family outing. We went to GreenSpring Gardens in Annandale. It is such a great place. There is a manor house you can tour, but we didn't the kids would like that. We spent time in the horticulture center, walked around, and went to the children's garden. It had a "wizarding" theme" The kids loved it.

Here they are at the little table set up for kiddies.

Spencer found a friend. He loved this gargoyle and wanted to take him home.

We also thought the dragon in the flowers was cool. Spencer would have taken him home, too, if we could have!

They have a cool vegetable garden at Greenspring. It has tons of funky veggies, and here is one of our favorites. The kids called it an alien veggie. I forget what exactly it is!!
We walked through the woods to the area with 2 little ponds. On the way we stopped and walked by a stream and threw rocks in. We made it to the little pond area and found that it was a great area to hang out and explore. We had been given the heads up about a snake, and I spotted him but when the kids made lots of noise, he went under a rock so Darin missed him. He was bummed about that.

We walked all around the ponds, looked at rocks, flowers, turtles, and geese.

The next few pictures are of cool reflections that I really liked.


There were tons of wild flowers all over the place. Lots and lots of bumble bees, as well. I found this little guy getting a little lunch.
Spencer decided to take a little break and look up some bugs. The visitor center has backpacks you can take on your walk that are filled with guide books, magnifying glass, journal and crayons, etc. The kids loved them, although they fought over the purple one-Jordan wanted it because it was purple, Spencer wanted it because it had the stuff on bugs, instead of the blue one which had stuff on the wild flowers. Typical boy:)
I sort of put the pics out of order. Here is a collage of our walk and some at the gazebo between the two little ponds.
There were a few families of baby geese. They were pretty cute and we got pretty close before the mommies would hiss at us. Landon LOVED them and would try to get as close as he possibly could. I was funny, but you never know with geese-the ones at Kingstown are totally mean-so we wouldn't let him get too close.
If you live in the area and have not been there, it is FREE so you should go!! Kids love it, grown ups love it, and I have been told they have Free concerts there in the summer on the huge grassy area. I'm going to try that next:)

Maymont Park in Richmond

I am so bugged by blogger these days. It takes me so long just to put on one picture. Then it won't let me type on top of the picture so I have to put an extra so I can type below it so I can start with explanations. So annoying. So this post starts with pictures because I ran out of patience waiting for one picture to load.

On Memorial Day we went to a place in Richmond called Maymont Park. Sounds like is started as the ground of a mansion, now there's lots to see and do. We started with the Nature Center that had a waterfall and a small representation of the life in the James river. The kiddos loved seeing all the fish and turtles. They also had a discovery room with lots of hands on educational things. We could have played in there all day. We especially loved the puppet theatre. There were tons of puppets so we had a blast with them.

After the Nature Center, we walked to the Farm area. We didn't realized, or rather remember, that we had been told the whole place was pretty hilly. Combine the heat with the hills, with 2 little boys who both want to ride in the stroller, well, you can imagine, not so happy kids. We stopped for lunch under a great tree by the farm where the kids could see the horses and watch the birds eat the crumbs we would throw. Was entertaining for a while. We walked around the farm a bit, then found a fun bridge to play on and take pictures.


I wish I could show the expanse of the land. It was really a huge place!! We were getting pretty hot by this point and wearing jean shorts and 90 degree weather don't really work well together. Big mistake on my part.

We made it back to the parking lot and decided to quickly drive over to the other part to see the Italian Garden and Koi pond.
Upon arrival, we soon realized the Koi pond was down a huge hill. By this point we were battling all 3 kids to even move, so we made the choice to head to the Children's Museum. Here are a couple shots I managed to take before some melt downs occured.


This is really a beautiful place and I hope to go back some day-preferably in the spring or fall!!

Richmond Children's Museum

Darin planned a nice day trip for Memorial Day. We went down to Richmond for the day. First we went to Maymont Park, then to the Children's Museum of Richmond. I'll post about Maymont later, but here's some pictures of our fun at the Children's Museum. It was filledwith a ton of great things to dod and areas to play in. We had a blast.

Farmer Spencer milking a cow.
We had a blast at the news station. There was a camera that pointed to the desk and a TV in the hall outside you could sit on a bench and watch. We all had fun playing and pretending we were on the news.
We went to lots of different stations-a car repair shop, market, farm area, doctors area, etc. Here's some shots of the different stations we played in. It was so fun!
Ma and Pa Farmer
At one point we found the stage area. It was quite entertaining. We have 3 little actors in the family!! The had a blast putting on the costumes and running around the stage.
Here is one of my little dinosaurs hatching. Isn't he cute?
Another little dinosaur hatching:)
The Children's Museum had an awesome spray area in the back called the "backyard." It was great. The kids had such a blast. Luckily we had spare clothes-mentioned below. There was lots of stuff to play with, a music area, and a sand area. It did not take my kids long to get wet at all!! But it was like 90 degrees, so I am sure it gelt really nice to them. I would have gotten wet if we hadn't had a long ride home.

Here are the kids having fun in the water play area.
Oh, we also learned that Jordan is really good on the hoola hoop!! They had a bunch and we say and watched her go around and around. We were so surprised, then I asked her if she did it in PE at school and she said she yes.

Landon and Spencer loved playing with these boats they had. Here is a series of Landon trying to get the boat where he wanted. He was so cute-very determined. I just sat and watched and took pictures as he figured it out!!
The kids all loved driving around this tractor. It made me think of my childhood-we had a couple of these play tractors....our dad was a farmer, of course:)
This next picture was actually taken when they first started playing the water play area, the "backyard" as it is called. The boys had their shirts off right away!! Jordan just got wet in all her clothes. We did plan a head for this sort of thing and had spare clothes in the car:) I thought they would actually have been wet from the fountains at Maymont, so that is why I had the clothes. The locals came prepared with bathing suits, so had I known there was such a water play area, I would have had the suits. Next time for sure!!

Such an awesome afternoon!! We all had a great time and loved the museum. We got into dry clothes We really enjoyed the Children's Museum of Richmond. It makes for a great day trip!!

Boston trip Friday and Saturday

Picture me getting up at 4:30 am on Friday May 17th....why, you ask? I'm leaving on a jet plane...well, not really a jet plane, but I don't care what kind of plane-just one that will get me to Boston.

I was able to get away for a few days by myself thanks to Darin suggesting that I could go alone instead of taking the boys. It all started when my friend Maggie told me her sister was getting married and that she and her husband and baby were going to fly out there so Nate could take bridal pictures. I was going to drive up with the boys, but since Darin had spent some alone time in Germany, I was able to go up. I stayed with Karin and Marion and spent a lot of time with Mags and her family. It was a great get away.

On Friday I landed by 8:00, I wanted to get there as early as possible, so I went into downtown Boston. I got off the T (train) as it is called at Hyde Park. When I walked out of the T, it was like going home. I just love Boston sooo much. I walked around for a while and actually went and got some shoes since it was so freakin' cold and I only wore flip flops. I hung out waiting for Mags and her family to show up. We planned to meet at the Boston Public Library, which is amazing!!!

I had to wait a while and had time to kill before I actually met them so I walked around the Trinity Church for a bit. It really is a beautiful church. I couldn't go in, but it was still fun to see.
Finally the group made it to the library, so the photo shoot commenced!

There were tons of places that Christina wanted her picture taken in her wedding dress. We walked all over the place-I was sooo tired and only lasted until 4:30 or so. Well, what do I mean "only lasted" It was alll friggin day!!! I was totally worn out so I took the T home to meet Karin and Marion. We went to dinner and had a fun night talking and catching up.

Here are some fun pics from the day in Boston:

Christina wanted her pictures taken at Trinity Church. I got there first, so took a few shots.
Here's the bride-the whole reason for my trip up-if she hadn't been getting married, Mags and Nate would have gone out to do pictures so I probably wouldn't have had the idea to go up on my own. So thanks for getting married Christina. This is the spot where her guy proposed-under a really awesome tree by the light of the moon.
When we were on the way to the Old North Church, we passed this display. It is for the fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This seems like a true labor of love. I wouldn't want to be the one adding the dog tags-would be a sad job.
One of my favorite place in the whole wide world is a place called Hull Point. Hull is a town out on a peninsula on the south shore of Boston. When you drive all the way out, you can see Boston across the bay. The beach has cool rocks-not a sandy beach. And there is a high school right there. I would not have been able to go to school so close to the ocean!Here's one of my "bestest" friends ever-Maggie Pie Pie...aka. Margaret. We were roomies back in Ogden and she is one of my closest friends. This is her little sweetie Maya. She like Snow White...see explanation below.

Before Darin left for Germany about a month ago, Jordan came in the room when he was packing and insisted he take "something to remember me by" He had to choose a Barbie doll to take. So when I was packing my backpack-I packed very light-she made me choose one as well. So here is my choice having a break on the rocks.
We were standing on the beach and Nate looked up and here was a huge ship!! You don't see that everyday!!
Some of my favorite shots.
I had a great time taking pictures. I am trying to see things with a different "eye" like my teacher said in my class, so here are a couple shots I really liked.
anyone want to take a walk on this dock? The water seems so serene. Ahhh, to live so close to the ocean again.....someday!

It was such an amazing couple of days. I just love the Boston area so much. I do really love DC as well, but if there were any military intelligence jobs in Boston, I would be pushing to relocate. But, alas, our yearly trips up must suffice.