Weekend In Moab

Last year, we went to Moab for the Art's Festival and Memorial Day.  We decided to do a repeat this year, and I think next year we'll make it a full blown tradition.

We started off the trip with the Art's Festival.  It was a rather blustery day so our visit was cut a bit short.  Bart said he liked last year's better, he was still really impressed with the ceramic artists.

Not that he's biased or anything.

I was impressed with this little guy.

You would think Bart would be really excited about the Art's Festival because it's...well...an ART'S festival.  But from the moment we we decided to go, all he talked about was the "Carnie Food."  He was really excited.  And this year we discovered this little gem:



On it's Facebook Page, Quesadilla Mobilla says, it's mission is, "To create and serve the most unique and delicious quesadillas in the universe! But we'll just start with the planet earth for now."  Well Quesadilla Mobilla, mission accomplished! (At least here on earth).  Not certain it qualifies as "Carnie Food,"  But it was pretty freaking good.  Bart and I got the Southern Belle and the Enchanted Chicken.  Then for desert we had a little Cran-Apple Delite.  Absolutely the most delicious and unique Quesadillas I've ever tasted.  I hope to see them at the festival again next year.

The kiddos opted out of the Cran-Apple Delite (much to our delite, since we got one to share with everyone) and chose to have Ice Cream instead.  Hannah actually claimed her tummy was hurting, but the ice cream apparently fixed that.

I have to admit, we kept the twins in their stroller most of the time because the wind was so strong it was really kicking up a lot of dust, and the covers protected them a little. 

But I SWEAR, we usually take them out of the stroller when we're out and about....okay, most of the time...sometimes...alright alright alright every once in a while!  Don't judge!  You try and chase down two toddlers running in opposite directions and then come back and talk to me about how frequently you should let your kids out of their strollers.  Sometimes it's hard enough just keeping them in the stroller!

Moving on...

Sunday was Hannah's Birthday!  My little lady is now officially 3, although in my mind she's been three ever since she started talking in complex sentences.

While I was getting her breakfast ready, I had a feeling that I would forget to get a birthday picture of her if I didn't do it right then, so I asked her to give me her best Hannah birthday face.  This is what I got:

 

I'm going to have to agree, those are some of the best Hannah Birthday faces I've ever seen. ;) Love you little lady!

I was pretty much right.  The only other picture I got of her on her birthday was her blowing out the candles on her cake.

It took her a few tries, but when you're three you're allowed more than one, especially if it will help avoid getting spit on the cake...which it did.

And finally, the real reason we came down to Moab:  Memorial Day.



There's a reverent dignity to cemeteries on Memorial Day.  In all honesty, it's there every other day of the year, but it is very pronounced on Memorial Day.  You can just feel the respect and love the living have for these people who have passed on.  Especially for those who have served our country.  I absolutely love it.

When we got there, the girls realized they didn't have flowers, so Addison and Hannah decided they wanted to gather pine cones to place on Grandpa's grave.  When Maya and Lilly saw what they were doing, even they joined in.



Not sure why, but it was really a touching moment for me. These girls, only one of whom ever got to meet Grandpa, reverently gathering and arranging pine cones as their gift to him.







It really was a wonderful Memorial Day.  I can't wait to go again next year.

Yardwork

Since Bart finally finished his thesis...okay, so he still has his defense, but the hard part is done...he's been able to get some work done around the yard.

He knew that there is a broken pipe in our back yard sprinklers, but he wanted to test the sprinklers in the front yard to make sure they were still working properly

Seeing as this was the twins first experience with sprinklers, they were quite excited.  Water spraying from out of the ground?  Yes please!

Unfortunately there was some work to be done.

But I don't think the kids minded much.

There was also some work to be done in the back yard.

Confession: I love watching this guy work in our yard.

Dang! He is good looking.

"Babe, are you just going to take pictures, or are you actually going to help?"

What a silly question, of course I'm going to help...let me just go over here and...OH look at what our adorable kids are doing!

Just kidding.  I really did help...and in the spirit of full disclosure, that's not what he was thinking when I took that picture of him.  I asked him right after I took it and he said he didn't even realize he was making a face...that's what he told me at least... ;)

I got the kids to help too.

We train them young here.

Not gonna lie, it's good to have my husband back!

Oops She Did it Again...

Technically she lost it last Saturday.  If you look closely, you can see a new one growing in.

The Twins - 18 Months Old

The other day I had ALL of the girls up and dressed with their hair done before I took Addison and Hannah to preschool.  This is actually a pretty big deal for me.  Most of the time I am proud of myself if I can get Addison and Hannah dressed before we go.

Then, on the way home, I saw this beautiful light coming through the trees and I decided, on a whim, I would try and get some 18 month old pictures of the twins.  (I can't believe they'll be 18 months old this month!)  Let me tell you, I am SOOOOOOO glad I did!  These are probably my favorite pictures I've taken of them...EVER!



They were a little hesitant at first.  I plopped them down in the middle of this clearing and they looked at me like, "Uhhhh...is this some sort of trick?  Are you going to force us back into the stroller as soon as we start playing?"

When they finally decided I wasn't going to snatch them up the second they moved, they started exploring. 





Do you see the spout of hair on top of that little girl's head.  She has more hair than any of my other kids at this age hands down!


Alright, so technically Lilly's hair wasn't done...but I did comb it.

The poor thing actually saw me putting a rubber band in Maya's hair and found a rubber band, handed it to me and pointed to her head.  I tried.  I swear I tried.  But there's just not enough hair there Lilly!  I'm sorry...hopefully for your two year old pictures.


And this picture on the right of Lilly.  Hands down my favorite picture of her to date!  And I love that one of Maya's little tongue too! I LOVE these babies!




I may have to get everyone ready early more often!

The Way I View - Friendship

It's that time of month again!  And this month's theme is friendship.  I actually was thinking about using several pictures, but I just kept coming back to this one:

Yes, that is me on the right, and yes, technically I did not take this picture...although I did get all the settings right in the camera before I handed it off to my husband, and I edited the picture....but no, I did not click the shutter.

Nevertheless, this picture, more than any other I have from this month, depicts the way I view friendship.  These are two of my three best friends in the world.  One I've known since second grade, and the other since junior high.  How many people are lucky enough to have had friends for so long?  We've been through teenage drama together, gone through first kisses and boyfriends together, graduated from college together, had girls nights (and weekends) out together, raised kids and started jobs together, cried together, laughed together, stayed up talking into the wee morning hours together, and done crazy color 5ks together.  I seriously can't imagine my life with out these two.

In all honesty, we never get together as much as we should, but whenever we do, it's awesome.  And no matter how long it's been since the last time we've seen each other, when we do get together, it's like no time has passed.  Friends like that don't just come around every day.  They only develop over a lifetime, and I feel so lucky to have them. 

As for my third best friend, well, I know she's loving being out of Utah, but I'm not gonna lie, I'm rooting for her to come back after her husband graduates.  ;)

And, because it still kind of feels like cheating since I didn't take the picture above, here's one I did take of my kids at the same 5k.  I'm glad they're such good friends.

Now go and check out Angela's take on the theme.

My Sister Has MS

Well, April was a pretty crazy month for my family.

This little sweetie (my niece) who was born less than a week after the twins, had to have open heart surgery to close a hole in her heart the size of a quarter. A QUARTER!  Do you see her little fist?  That's about the size of her heart, and there was a hole the size of a quarter in it!

It's a very routine procedure with an incredibly high success rate.  But still! A one year old going in for open heart surgery!  Scary!  Fortunately she's doing great.


On top of that, as you may have guessed from the picture, her mama was due to give birth to her baby brother in the beginning of May.  Fortunately I'm saying "was" because he was born healthy and strong yesterday (our anniversary!).   The doctors were originally going to have her heart surgery later in the month.  I'm sure glad my sister made them move it up.

Then, while we were in California, my baby sister called home to say that her left hand and leg were numb and very weak.  She went into her college's health center and was told it would probably go away and that if it didn't after two weeks to come in again.  She had something similar happen the year before during finals and the symptoms went away after visiting a chiropractor for a while, so she thought she'd go see one again.

When she did, at one point the chiropractor asked her to stand with her arms outstretched and then touch her nose.  She had no problem doing it with her right hand, but when she tried to do it with her left, as her finger got close to her nose it kind of wobbled up and down for a few seconds before she could finally get it to touch her nose.  (Yeah, it was pretty funny to watch.  I made her do it several times for me).  He told her that was not caused by something wrong with the spine and that  she needed to go see a neurologist. 

My sister is on my parents insurance (i.e. California insurance) which would only pay for her to visit the ER.  So off to the ER she and my mom went.  To make a very long story short, after an MRI of both her brain and her spine and a spinal tap she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  

Not going to lie, when I heard that, I kind of panicked.  But after a few internet searches I felt a little better....if you go and do some internet searches you'll probably be like, "WHY THE HECK DID YOU FEEL BETTER!?!"  Mostly because at first I thought MS was Parkinson's disease.  Yeah, it's not.

Basically MS is an autoimmune disorder where a persons immune system attacks the covering that surrounds and protects the body's nerve fibers.  Sounds pretty scary huh?  And yeah, really, it can be scary.  But there are several types of MS.  The most common of which is relapsing-remitting MS.  

People with relapsing-remitting MS will go through "episodes" where symptoms come on, but between episodes, you're just fine.  Only time will tell what type of MS she has, but I knew my sister had similar "episodes" during finals last year, but that was it.  So it looks like it's relapsing-remitting and she has an episode about once a year.  

It's actually really good that she got diagnosed so young because now she is aware of it and can take steps to prevent episodes.  It appears that her episodes come on with stress, so she can do everything she can to alleviate that stress.  In addition, there is a medicine she can take that will increase the time between episodes.  I read stories of people with more severe symptoms than her who took the medicine and hadn't had another episode for over ten years.  So we're hopeful.  :)

That being said, it was still a pretty...shall we say not fun...couple of days.  She needed steroids to help her get through the episode, but because she was out of state, her insurance wouldn't pay for it unless she was in the hospital.  She couldn't just come in, get the steroids and leave, she had to be checked into the hospital.  Her doctor said there was no reason medically that she had to stay, but in order to get the insurance to cover her treatment, she had to stay in the hospital for five days.  Yeah, that'll cost them a lot less than just letting her go and get the steroids and then leave.  SOOOOO ridiculous.  (Anyone who doesn't think our country needs some serious health care reform, come talk to me, I'll give you an ear full). 

So, we spent a lot of graduation weekend visiting in the hospital.  

They even gave my mom one of those awesome hospital cups...which she then passed on to me.  I am pretty excited.  I was thinking about having another baby just so I could get another cup, but I'm good now.  ;)

Not gonna lie, being back in that hospital brought back a lot of memories.  Not all of which were bad.  That little cafe on the bottom floor has some great food.  :)  But all in all, I'm glad it's over.

We love you Stac! You really are as tough as a shark!