4th of July

Well, I was asked to speak and also sing at a morning Independence Day program.
I'm way more comfortable with the singing part...
I don't know why, but I never feel like I do a very good job speaking.

Anyway, it was at 6 am (pretty early to sing) but I was excited to be a part of it.
I spoke a little bit about my experiences with Mike being deployed and then
I sang God Bless America a capella.

Mom, Dad, Marcy and Kenz came.

Noah and Kenz have really grown close since we've lived here!

Later that day we visited Jan in the hospital...she's having a tough time!

Then we went to a free lunch put on Kneaders for military families...that was cool.

They even had a big tv screen and let us Skype with Mike for a few minutes.

Grace and I took a little mother daughter date to Rita's...yum!!

For dinner I took the kids (including Noah's girlfriend Janna) to J Dawg's.

It was really good and we had a great time together.

Later on we went to Joe and Melanie's for fireworks.
Joe put on a great show!

I'm so thankful for this country. I think that I've been thinking more about that since I know we will be leaving behind certain freedoms soon. I'm not sure what that will be like...I guess I'll have to wait and see :)

School Valentines 2015

 Our cute, fun and easy valentines for this year. 

Thank you Pinterest for helping me again :)

Isaac and Anna (and Grace) enjoyed filling the partially stapled hearts with Skittles and m&ms.

Then I stapled them closed so their friends and teachers would have to tear them open.

Oh I had them write, from Isaac and from Anna on the back of each heart.

 Their Valentine boxes this year.

Anna wanted a piano one

and Isaac just wanted a picture of Infinity Blade on his...pretty easy!

I also helped with the Valentine party in 6th grade.

The kids all seemed to have a good time :)

Kind of strange to think that next year I'll only have one kid in elementary school,
one kid who will need valentines and a box...
yep, kind of strange, but also kind of nice too :)

New Year's Eve Bowling

During the day yesterday, we went bowling with Greg and Blythe and Marcy and her kids.

Fun times!

Later on we went to the Serranos and played some games to ring in the new year.

Mom, Dad and Jan came for a while too.

Christmas 2014

We had a wonderful Christmas together as a family.

Everyone was happy with their presents.

Sasha was interested in what was in her stocking :)

Sasha even gave Anna a replacement Minecraft pig toy, because she chewed her other one up.

 We like to get a game for a family gift,

this is a really fun one!

 Grandpa Jim made rattlers from antlers of deer he shot. 

The kids thought these were pretty great!

4th of July in Colorado

My sister Michelle invited us to come to her house for the 4th of July. We thought that was a good idea, so we went for it and even brought my Mom and Dad along for the fun :)

Shell and Zach and Katie had a surprise for us when we got there. They had been working on this all day and unveiled it for us when we got there. Pretty cool!

The kids went to town when Shell told them they could paint on the sidewalk.

I did a little something too :)

We had yummy food and did sparklers and then enjoyed quite the fireworks show put on in front of Shell's house, several of her neighbors contributed to that too.

We were able to facetime with Mike also. Hard to believe that he will be home soon and we will be able to be together again...very excited for that!

On Saturday Scott took us all to a cool place and we played laser tag. We decided to do kid vs. adults. I couldn't believe it when the guy read the results and I was the top point earner of both teams...believe me I was as shocked as everyone else there :)
After laser tag Scott gave each of the kids a token card for the arcade and they had so much fun with that.

Later we went swimming at their community pool, which was really nice because it was a hot day!

Had to get a picture with my mom and my sister

 Nice photobomb Zach :)

Saturday night we played Cards Against Humanity and had some good laughs.

On Sunday we got up and said our goodbyes and headed back home. Oh, and we left Dallin there, Shell had hired him to stay and help out with Zach and Katie for a couple of weeks.
The drive home started out ok...we even had our own church discussions and stuff.

About an hour into the drive I noticed that the air from the vents was not cool anymore. We drove with the windows down for a while, which didn't help much. No one was very comfortable and it looked like it was going to be a very very long drive home. I remember telling the kids to pray for the air to start working again or to pray for rain. Not too much later Dad and I saw some grey clouds up ahead. Dad said that with our luck we were probably going to miss them, but I thought we might catch them. As we got nearer to them it looked like we were going to get some rain, I jokingly said to the kids, "ok, who prayed for the rain?" Noah answered that he had just prayed for rain to cool us down. What a blessing. Our inside thermometer had been at 104 degrees and then the rain brought it down to 68 degrees in a matter of minutes. The relief we felt was amazing, and there was so much happiness in the car. The rain came down really hard for a little bit, so hard that visibility wasn't very good, but I didn't care. Soon the rain ended and we stopped at a rest stop for someone to use the bathroom. It was so nice to get out of the car and feel the cool breeze. We made it home, no more rain, but the temperature didn't get up that high again (I think it was in the 90s though). We said a prayer of gratitude for the rain, it was such a blessing!

The interesting thing is that this was the 3rd time in a year that our air compressor had gone out. If you read my post about our move out to Utah, you will remember that it died in Georgia. If you read my post about the Bush Family Reunion shortly after we arrived here in August, you will remember that it died on our way to that event. I actually think it was a blessing that it went out on our way home from Colorado instead of on our way TO Colorado! I also think it was a blessing that it went out at this time, because it was still covered under the 1 year warranty.

On Monday I took it in to get looked at. I took it to the same guys who replaced it last time. They were very nice and told me that it would be covered under the warranty, then Napa actually tried to tell us that they would only cover 60-70% of the repair because it was almost a year...the mechanic said that was ridiculous and that he would talk to them, but he told me that even if they only paid that much, he wasn't going to charge me anything...another blessing! It should be ready to pick up in a couple days.

Anyway, we had a nice 4th and hope yours was a happy one too :)

Meet the Spisoms

We had a fun 4th of July with our good friends the Sparks.
We have really enjoyed their friendship for the past few years,
in fact our kids recently started calling our two families the Spisoms.

Some of my favorite sparkler pictures

We are both moving this summer and I know that

the Isoms will certainly miss the Sparks!

Easter 2013

Since I was in Utah for Easter, Mike carried the responsibility of the holiday :)

I left him with some supplies and a few instructions, but he took care of everything and did a great job!

The weather in Utah was gorgeous, but unfortunately, it was rainy and gloomy here. Everything still worked out fine though, Mike just had the kids look for Easter eggs in the basement.

I love that our table has extra legs in that picture :)

Of course the most important thing about Easter is remembering the sacrifice and resurrection of the Savior. I'm so thankful for the Atonement and the pathway that it creates for me and my family to be able to be together forever!

There's something fishy about Valentine's Day

I was looking around for fun Valentine ideas

I found a lot of them!

The kids decided on the idea I saw here

I tried to print hers off and use it, but for some reason it didn't work right

...so I decided to create my own, based on her design,

which ended up being kind of fun :)

We had a good time making them and putting them together.
They signed the backs of the little fish bowls.

then we had to put the fish bowls and the fish in little treat bags

and put the twist ties on them

 the finished product

  I also came up with one that they could give to their teachers.

Having family close by

is AWESOME!

My brother got a fellowship in Baltimore for a year.

We are so excited to have them here, even if it's only for a year, we'll take it!

We have already spent some time together and can't wait for more!

We had fun at a park

We spent the 4th of July together
Evelyn sang "My Country Tis of Thee" for us

while Anna waved a flag

They left before we got to the sparklers

We went swimming at their neighborhood pool

wish we had a neighborhood pool :)

and we celebrated National Chocolate Day!

... that will be a post all on it's own

so stay tuned!