Happy Birthday Jennilyn!

Today Jennilyn turned 3 years old.  We celebrated her birthday this weekend with a little party and cake and ice cream and some small gifts.  She was really excited to get a purse, necklace, and a bracelet from Aunt Wendy a alphabet book from cousins Sammy and Christopher and a fairy costume from Grandma and Grandpa Burke.  And she got some games from Janet and some games from Mom and Dad.  Papa Jack and Nana gave her some money which we are going out to get a new dress and a sleeping bag for our camping trip next month.

Jennilyn I know you are going to have lots of fun with your new stuff!  We love you!  Thank You for being apart of our Family!

Slice of life # 13~ The Watering Hole!

Aunt Patty holding Wendy, Mom, Annette, Emily and Jaclyn

This weeks Slice of life is the watering hole.   MMM... As I thought about it I thought of this picture I had.  I was 4 years old in this picture.  My mom is taking my wet cloths off me.  We had gone to Southern California to visit my Great-Grandpa and Grandma Cronce who would spend the winter there.  We had gone to the beach, and apparently my sister and I got swept away by a wave.  And we got wet.  I vaguely remember this happing as I was only 4 years old.

But I think the thing I remember most was when I was 14 we went to California to go to Disneyland.  We spent a day at the beach and I fell asleep without sunscreen on.  I was in pain with 1st and 2nd degree sunburns.  We then went to Disneyland, and swimming in the pool helped take the sting out of the burn a little.  I also had to wear my swimming suit all under my cloths at Disneyland as I was so burnt on my back I couldn't wear my bra.  I have never done that again.  But when it got better I sure had the best tan of my life.  But I don't want to do that again just for a tan. : ~)

Until next week!

Now you can share with us your favorite Water Hole experience here.

Huh?

She can sleep anywhere!

Slice of Life # 12 ~ Fire

This weeks Slice of Life is Fire.  I do enjoy a good campfire.  I also enjoy a good campfire program.  You see, I grew up the daughter of a professional Boy Scout.  So every summer until I was 12 my Dad was the Camp Director at different camps, but I remember him at Maple Dell in Payson, UT the most.  On Monday and Friday nights there was a campfire program that we would go to with him.  What great memories sitting on the hard benches sing songs and watching skits.

I am looking forward to going camping next month with my kids for the first time since I got married 6 years ago and letting them see the campfire and enjoy making smores with them.

Until next week.

Slice of Life #11~ Dancing!

Dancing is this weeks Slice of Life Prompt.  I would have loved to posted a picture from one of the 4 High School Dances I went to, but the scrapbook that they are in is not accessible to get to at this time.  Once I move into my own home and can really unpack everything then I will be able to scan all of those pictures, boy I hate apartment living!

Now Onto Dancing.  I remember Dancing with my Dad and Grandpa Alcorn at the Hulse Reunion each summer in Ririe, ID.  I also remember going to Stake Dances from 14 until I was 18.  I would usually go with a few of my friends.  I remember being really excited to be old enough to go.  I also remember going to Sadie Hawkins with my foster sister Arvella the fall of my 10th grade year, I was still only 15 and she was 16 and since my parents wanted her to go with a group they allowed me to go with her even though I was not allowed to date.  I went with David White, a long time friend who sadly I have lost contact with over the lat 7 years.  Then I went to Morp that next spring with my friend Tawnay so she would have a group.  Again I still hadn't turned 16, but since it was a group my parents let me go. and I went with Devin Dewitt who was a friend in a couple of classes even though he was a senior and I was a sophomore.  I haven't seen him since he graduated 16 years ago.  I went to Preference my Junior and Senior year. Preference was girls choice Prom.  I took Mike Simpson to my Junior and David White my Senior.  My Group my Junior year included my friend Jennie and my Senior year include both Jennie and Elizabeth.  I never did go to Prom during High School, in fact I was the only one out of my 4 sisters and I that didn't go.  I always wanted to go.  I also went to institute dances in college.  I would load up my car with a few of the single guys in my ward and we would drive the hours drive from Phoenix to Mesa for the Dances.  I do have a picture some where of a group of us girls at the New Years Eve Dance just before I moved back to Utah to get ready to go on a mission.

But I think the Dance that I have to remember the most is 6 years ago I was the Activity Chairman in my ward and as a stake they decided to do a dance the Friday before Valentines.  Dan and I were dating at the time.  I was asked to do the decorations for the dance.  Our Theme was "A family that Danced together Stayed together".  Dan came and help me and the other Annette who was on my committee decorate.  They offered some Dance lessons an hour before the dance started, so Dan and I did some of those.  Some of you may not know this, but Dan took Ballroom while at BYU.  But since it had been so long he was a little rusty.  I think maybe we will take some dancing classes together in the future.  They even took pictures, and we had our picture taken (and of course that picture is packed away too).  At this point Dan and I had been dating for 2 months, but it wasn't serious, no kisses, just holding hands.  I had a cousin who wanted to set me up on a date with a friend, but I was hesitate to do it as I didn't know were Dan was thinking of taking our relationship.  So after we got home from the dance I had a talk with him and asked him were he thought our relationship was headed and I told him why I needed to know.  That night before he left we had our first kiss.  We were engaged 6 months later, and got married 2 months after we got engaged.  That dance will always be in my memory as  it is the one the changed my life forever!  I love you Dan!  Thanks for being there fore me!

Slice of Life # 10: Friends

Friends!

I have 4  close friends who I have known since 1st and 2nd grade of elementary school.  We have all stayed in touch over the years even though we are all spread out.  Tawyna and I meet in 1st grade at Westmore Elementary.  She lived one block away from my grandparents so it was easy to go over to her house.  Andrea, Elizabeth and Jennie I meet in 2nd grade at Vineyard Elementary.  Between the years of elementary, Jr. High and High School we did things together from time to time, but mostly just ate lunch together and go to some of the school dances, or HS sports together.  But these friends have been there for me.  They never judged me for being hearing impaired and they always seemed to truly care about me.  I have always tried to stop and visit with them when I have lived out of state and have come home.  Now that I am back, I have seen a few of them a couple of times.  And now that some of them live in places that I want to visit, I am going to go see them (when money allows it to happen).  It is so nice to know that you have a few friends that you can lean on.  I keep in touch with most of these friends on Facebook now as we are spreed out from Texas to California, but it sure has been nice to see each one of these friends again this summer.  I know we each of had challenges over the last 15 years since we graduated High School: Dating, marriage, divorce, death of loved ones and children, moves, school, and jobs and many more.  But it is nice to know that there are friends who you can call and visit when you need to.

Thanks Guys for being my Best Friends Forever!  I love you guys and I pray that we can all continue to keep in touch as time goes on!  I think we have done a pretty good job so far!

P.S. The picture is Jennie, Me, Elizabeth and Andrea ~Tawyna was away at school.

If you want to read more Slice of Life moments or join us in sharing your own Slice of Life go Here.

Stitches!

On Sunday as we were getting ready to leave out the door to go to church, we noticed that Ruth had some blood on her, but we didn't find it right away as she walked out the door and down the stairs and to the car.  She never even cried.  Then once in the car she climbed into the front seat as I came up to the van and I saw her upper leg was covered in blood and her tights were soaked.  Dan took her in to clean her up and put a bandage on it while I buckled in the other kids.  He came back out a few minuets later and said that we needed to take her in to Urgent Care as it was worse then he had thought.  So we took the other kids into the house and looked up where our insurance was taken at urgent care and then I took her in.  She cried when they looked at it, and put some numbing gel on it and then she was happy again.  They sent us out to the waiting room to let her leg numb.  She just played with her books and stuff from the diaper bag.  While we were out there Dan and I figured out how she had cut herself.  I had put a garbage bag by the front door to take out and I was unaware of broken glass from a picture frame in the bag.  We figured that she leaned up against the bag while she was waiting for us to open the door and the glass cut her.  She got a total of 7 stitches.  The Dr was baffled at the way she was walking and not crying.  You wouldn't have known that she had stitches from the way she acts.  She has been one happy child!

Slice of Life #9: Bugs

This weeks Slice of life is bugs.  I don't like bugs for the most part.  When I got home from my trip to Minnesota I have found 4 really large spiders in my house.  In Minnesota I would get eaten by the misquotes, but the kids didn't seem affected by them as I didn't find any bites on them during this trip, but I sure had a lot of bites and we didn't have bug spray with us.  But Jennilyn was really cute about not wanting the bugs or flies to touch her.

But from my childhood I remember having to do a bug collection for my 9th grade high school Biology class.  Now school started the end of August and we had to have this done the end of Sept.  By the time school started it was getting harder to find some of the bugs that my teacher wanted us to get.  At the time we had a BYU graduate student living with us whose degree was in Mammalogy and she was studying bears.  She brought home the stuff we would need from school and took me out to find as many bugs as we could.  I kept the project around for a while, but finally decided that it took up too much room and I really didn't care to keep it for my kids or try and keep it from getting smashed so I put it in the dump.

Also when I was about 13 we were at the Hulse Family Reunion in Ririe, ID we went to a water slide park about an hour or so away.  I had come down the water slide and was walking back to go back up for another  time down and I stepped on a bee.  The lifeguard  put mud on my foot to draw out the stinger and take the pain away and it worked.

Bugs, bugs, bugs, not my favorite thing in the world, but they can be useful and fun at times.

Feel free to read other's or share with us your own Slice of Life entries Here.

Until Next week!

Family Vacation July 2010

This last week we went on vacation to Minnesota and Wisconsin.  We got to see many family and friends while we were there.  Sorry to those who we didn't get to see, maybe next time.

We started off by getting up at 4:30am and getting the kids up at 5am to get dressed and head to the airport.  We parked in an off sight parking lot and took a shuttle bus over to the airport.   Our flight was at 7:55am.  We got breakfest at the airport and boarded our plane to Denver, CO.  Once there we had a little time waiting for our next flight but not much, just enough to get the wiggles out.  We then boarded our plane to Minnesota.  Ruth was out for a nap before we even left the gate.  Dillon and Jennilyn fell asleep before the plane took off, and Irene wasn't far behind them.  Dillon and Jennilyn slept the whole way.  Ruth and Irene slept about an hour.  When we landed we went and got lunch and then rode a tram to the car rentals.   It took us an hour to get  our two small cars and get everyone loaded up.  Then we had a 15 min drive to Dan's Grandma Burke's house.  Once we were there Grandma got to meet the twins for the first time.  Irene is named after Grandma Burke and Grandma Bolstad so I am glad that she got to see them.  After Seeing Grandma Burke we went to Maplewood, MN to see our friend Marie Hunt who was in the hospital after just having surgery.  She had asked us to stop by and see her, and it was good to visit with her for a few minutes.  Then we went to Denny's for dinner before we made the 3 hour drive up to Duluth, MN.  At Denny's the kids got these cool soccer ball cups.  They had fun drinking out of them and making a mess.

The next day we went to the beautiful Lake Superior were we had family pictures taken.  When I get copies I will post them.  It was a beautiful site that Jennifer picked out.  I hope we got some good one.  Later I went to see the movie Eclipse with my sisters-in- laws (Sarah, Marsha, Annette, and family friend Katie)  It was good and I enjoyed it better then the first two movies.

After the movie we hurried to Floodwood, MN which is an hour away for the wedding rehearsal that Jennilyn was a part of.  We spent the next few days in Floodwood, which was busy was it was the Floodwood Catfish days celebration which ended with a parade on Sunday, which made it feel like it wasn't Sunday with a parade right out your window.  On Saturday was the Wedding and it was beautiful!  Jennilyn did a great job being a flower girl, but didn't want to do pictures later.  At least she walked down the isles throwing fistfuls of flowers on the ground.  She was so funny that at the end she threw her basket up in the air.

Sunday was the Tvit Family Reuioun and it was good to get to mingle and visit with everyone.  Dan missed this as he had to go back to the cities to catch his flight back to Salt Lake City.  The kids and I as well as my mother in law Nova drove back to the cities that night and we stayed with Brian and Sarah.

On Monday we took the kids to Como Zoo and Como Town which has rides.  They had fun and at the end of the last ride that involved race cars Jennilyn told me she couldn't get off until she finished the race, but we were out of tickets so it was time to go.

On Tuesday we meet up with Jackie and Ryan Mayer and played and visited.  It was good to see them again. And then we went to Uncle Tom's house were we enjoyed swimming and good food and company.  It was good to see Aunt Val, Uncle Larry, Aunt Kaje, Uncle Tom and Aunt Linda there.  Then we went to Grandma Burke's house for dinner and Aunt Kathy and Uncle Steve as well as Aunt Linda.  It was good to see everyone again.  I left the twins at Grandma Burke's so that Grandma Nova could take them with her to the airport the next morning and I took Dillon and Jennilyn back to Brian and Sarah's house.  Dillon and Jennilyn went to bed right away and when Brian got back he had brought Uncle David back with him so the 4 of us played Cash Flow 202.  Thanks for playing with us David, it was fun.

Wed we got up and got repacked and played outside until it started to rain.  Then we loaded up and followed my in-laws back to the airport were Grandma Nova and I loaded with all 4 kids to go back to Salt Lake City.  I had bought a couple of items in a gift shop and we lost them on the trip home.  I was so bumped.  We got to SLC and one of our car seats didn't make it on the plane.  Luckily the airline had extra's and gave me a loaner.  The delivered my car seat back and took their loaner yesterday.  Now we are in recovery mode.  It was a great trip and we had fun.   Thanks to our our family and friends for having us stay we enjoyed it!

Slice of Life # 8~ "The Good-bye"

The Good-bye, hmm, there are lots of good byes.  I had many this weekend while visiting my husbands family including both of his grandmothers, not knowing when or if we would ever see them again.  But I think my most memorable good bye would have to be the day I went into the mission field.  I was the only granddaughter amongst all the grandson's of my Grandma and Grandpa Dillon's 26 grandchildren to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  I know they were proud of me and that they supported me going.  This was before 9-11 so your family could walk you up to the gate and such.  Grandma and Grandpa got up early with my parents and meet me at the airport to send me off.  Grandpa tried to give me money to take with me.  I remember hugging them and walking onto the plane and knowing that was the last time I was going to see them alive.  A year later, my sweet Grandfather passed away and 7 weeks after that Grandma passed away.  It was so hard to be the only grandchild who didn't get a chance to say good bye, but I was were they wanted me to be.  But at times, I feel them close to me.  I still miss them and it has been almost 10 years since they have gone.  Thanks for teaching me Grandma and Grandpa Dillon!  I love you and miss you!


Feel free to read other's or share with us your own Slice of Life entries Here!

Slice of Life # 6~ Storms

Storms, this was slice of life's prompt from last week, and I just got around to posting about it.

I do remember some storms being really bad, some really good lighting storms, even storms that tore out trees in our yard, but none of them were memorable.

When we lived in Wisconsin we had a lot of tornado warnings, and when my parents came to visit during the Summer of 2007 we were woke up by the sirens and all went to the basement.  My parents bought us a weather radio/tv so that when the power was out we could still get updates and such.  This thing had a warning on it so if a weather alert was issued it would go off to warn us sometimes before the county warnings went off.  But we were never in a tornado, just close to some.

Since storms can be natural disasters, I think the natural disaster I can remember the most was almost 11 years ago while I was on a mission for my church in Southern California.  I was sleeping on the top bunk and all of a sudden my bed was shacking.  I woke up looked at my companion below me think she was shacking the bed, and then I realized it was an earthquake told my companion it was an earthquake and rolled over and went back to sleep.  Not very bright, but it the center point was in the middle of the desert about 50 miles away and there was no damage.  I heard from other missionaries later, how they were really scared and stuff.  But now I can say I have been in an earthquake.

Well until next week.  I hope you all have a great week!

Slice of life #7: Fireworks

                    

This weeks slice of life entry is about fireworks.

Growing up I remember doing fireworks in front of our house or grandma and grandpa's house, and having fun.  I can remember going some place to watch fireworks only a few times.  I did go to Stadium of Fire once about 17 years ago and I remember it being fun.  I also remember sitting on the roof of our home in Pleasant Grove watching some of the Stadium of Fire fire works, but also watching the American Fork and Lehi fireworks.

Yesterday Dan and I got a babysitter and we went to the 2010 Stadium of Fire which was the 30th anniversary of doing the fireworks at Brigham Young University football stadium.  We got to here the Brown 5, Jenny Oaks Baker, Osmond 2nd Generations and Carrie Underwood.  I was talking with my sister last night as we walked back to our car to head home and we both remembered seeing the Osmond 2nd Generation perform the last time we went to the Stadium of fire.  Last night  was also the largest Eagle Scout Court of Honor held were 260 young men received their Eagle Scout award.  They even had a Life Scout shoot a flaming arrow to light the Freedom torch.  My father helped design the the flaming arrow and how it was to be shot.  The fireworks were great, but they did have one of the shooters malfunction and it shot into some of the crowd and there were some people burned, but since this was a big event of course there was medical personal  on hand to help.  I told Dan that I would like to take our kids to see this in the near future, give them a few years so they will enjoy all the loud noise, because were we sat we were right by a lot of the fireworks being shot off.  But it was great!

I Hope all of you had a great holiday weekend!   

Until Next time!

He is growing up!

Well I think I know what we will try and get for his birthday or Christmas this year.  A bike!  Dillon and the girls loved riding the bikes at their Aunt Marsha's house this last weekend.  My little boy is growing up!

My New Hair Do

My New Hair Do!  I colored it a little bit red too, but it still looks like Brown!

Wings still missing!

Yesterday I posted about a conversation between Jennilyn and I.  Today she comes to me and tells me that her wings are till missing and she can't fly without them.  I guess I am going to need to get her a fairy costume for her birthday in Aug!

"I Can't fly!"

Jennilyn: "I can't fly Mommy!"

Me: "What do you mean?"

Jennilyn: "My wings are missing, I can't fly!"

Me: laughing and Jennilyn joining me in laughing

Jennilyn: "I can't fly, I need to find my wings!"

Me: "You go find them then and tell me when you do!"

You can tell my daughter loves Tinkerbell!

Ice cream

I scream, you scream we all scream for ice cream!  The twins were ready for baths after eating their ice cream the other night.  They were covered from head to toe!

Slice of Life #5: Documents, Papers, Family History

Well I haven't done a lot of family history over the years, but a few years ago I took all the notes, pictures and family documents from our Hulse Family History books from when we would meet at the family lodge in Ririe, ID.  I scanned in all of these documents and it took hours, but now I and everyone else has a copy of the documents for their own records.  It was really neat to see what the activities were, and look at the pictures.  Of course as I was looking for it on my computer to post a picture I couldn't find one, I guess I took that huge file off the computer so it wasn't taken up so much space.  But I do know were my cd is, but I am not going to go get it right now as it is time to get ready for church.  But this makes me think that I need to get going on my other projects that I wanted to do and that is to scan in all mine and Dan's mission papers that we have so that we have another copy of them somewhere in-case the originals get lost or damaged.  That will be a good project to start working on this next week.


It is fun to find new documents and such, I know that the 3 months that it took me to scan in my families info was like opening up a door to relatives lives that I had only heard about.  This way I got to feel like I knew them too.


Until next week!
Netty

Hard Swing Lessons

At the park today, Jennilyn was hit about four times by the swing. #1, she ran behind me as I was giving Ruth a swing in my lap. Jennilyn was layed out on the ground. #2, I was telling Jennilyn that it was safe to "push" from where Dillon was standing. I guess she thought closer was better and she got laid flat again. #3 was a repeat of #2 but she wasn't laid out on the ground. #4 was actually a hit running behind Irene in a toddler swing and it knocked Jennilyn down once more.

Ruth only got knocked down once.

Slice of Life #4: Reunions

I have gone to so many family Reunions  over the years, that they seem to be a blur, but I am really looking forward to the Leo & Emily Dillon Family Reunion in Sept, as I haven't gone in many years, and this is the first time I get to show off my husband since he seems to have missed out on all the family reunions since I married him.  I wonder if they will do the welcome to the family skit with him as I remember seeing done to all my cousins spouses growing up.

But one reunion that I had happen a few months ago was we just moved back to Salt Lake City and I went to church for the first time, and it was a baby blessing that day so there was visitors there.  I go into the mother's lounge with one of the twins who I was still nursing at the time and there is one of my mission companions.  Sister Corrie Sorensen.  She was my 2nd companion on my mission, and I served Spanish with her for 6 weeks (I was called English).  I hadn't seen her in 5 years, but we had just become friends on Facebook a few months before. We now live in the same ward, and it has been great!