Our Crazy Life!

Craftiness

2012-01-02T05:03:00.001-08:00

Santa was so sweet and brought me a sewing machine for Christmas. Just what I wanted! How did he know?! I'm so excited to learn to make really cute things now and be able to mend my own clothes. I've been hard at work figuring out how to work it. It's a Kenmore, and seems to be pretty user friendly. I haven't broken it yet so that's a good sign.

I was so proud of myself because I had to tell the fabric cutter lady how much fabric I wanted in Spanish and she actually understood what I said. Luckily the word YARD in Spanish is YARDA. That's the kind of Spanish I like speaking.

I had seen these cute Christmas napkins a while ago and really liked them. I'm so excited that I made something really cute and I didn't break my sewing machine or get super frustrated, like what usually happens when I sew. Now I'm on the lookout for another fun sewing project.

I just bought a pattern book from Ammeesbabies with tons of crochet flower patterns. I've been having fun trying some of the patterns out. They turn out so cute! I have a pretty cute model as well, so I think that might help their cuteness. This one is the gardenia and is so easy but turns out so great!

Snow in Puerto Rico

2012-01-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

So every year at Plaza Las Americas they make it"snow". Which is really cool for kids who have never seen snow before. It's not actually snow, it's foam bubbles the shoot from the ceiling. Brinlee, who has seen snow before, was really disappointed when she learned she couldn't build a snowman with the snow. Rhys thought it was really cool though but he has no basis for comparison. I think it's really weird that my kids have never seen snow before.

It does really look like snow when it falls. Sigh, I miss snow.

This is Brinlee. I want her to marry Rhys so they can have beautiful blonde haired blue eyed children. She wasn't fooled by the fake snow.

This is Fisher. He is so cute! He played with Rhys the whole time. We got his face painted. I think he looks awesome.

Christmas Time in Puerto Rico

2012-01-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas we spent the day in Old San Juan. Ever since I finally found out where the ferry terminal is, and I don't have to drive and park there (it's a nightmare!) I've been wanting to go out to Old San Juan more. It's fun just to go and bumb around sometimes. Rhys really likes riding on the ferry too. We brought Rhys' kite and went to the big lawn near Fort Morrow. It's a very popular place for kite flying. People just go out there, fly their kites, and hang out. It's so much fun.

Rhys got tired of kite flying after a couple of minutes and rolled down the hill a bunch of times instead.

I love spending the day in Old San Juan with my cute family.

I feel brave over something not so scary...

2011-11-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

Scott did this thing about 12 times without breaking a sweat. I did it once and nearly freaked out. I almost backed out, but then I remembered all the 9 year olds I saw going down it and my pride wouldn't let me. I did it once, and I will never do it again.

El Conquistador!!!

2011-11-12T13:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since our family had a fun Puerto Rican experience. We decided we would take advantage of the long weekend and honor the Veterans by going to the Conquistador. It's this ginormous hotel in Fajardo. We had a blast! It was exactly what our family needed. The kids are pooped and kinda grumpy from playing but it was SO worth it. In the lobby area they have several types of birds. Rhys thought they were awesome. There was a cockatoo that says hola. That was pretty exciting for all the kids that stopped to check him out.

After we went down the big slide. We were surprised they let him come down the slides with us. They said he just had to be 36 inches tall. I really don't think he met the height requirement but nobody stopped us.

We were right across from the ocean. It was nice and cool. There are two sections to the hotel, one at the top and one at the bottom of a huge hill. We were at the bottom so we got to take a little cart, trainy thing up the hill. That was really fun for Rhys. He got really excited whenever we told him we were going to ride the train.

He got to sleep on his own huge bed. It took him over an hour to fall asleep. He just wouldn't stop playing. Scott and I went out on the deck to read our books and we would see some of the lamps come on. He was obsessed with this desk lamp that he liked to turn on and off. He got totally busted.
Scott was pumping the A/C like crazy (because he can). I was cold and I thought the kids were too. But they don't have blankets so we used towels for the kids. So Rhys slept under bath towel and Elsa got a hand towel.

Watching the sun rise while having a delicious waffle on the deck. We scored a pretty nice breakfast from the cafe there.

We took the catamaran out to El Conquistador's private island, Palomino Island. Elsa fell asleep on the way there so I spent a bunch of the time vegging out, snuggling her, which I love to do anyway. Rhys was super tired too so I got to snuggle him for a while as well. We didn't stay very long because we had to go check out, and I think had we waited too long Rhys might have had a melt down. He was wore out!!

So much fun!

Halloween-Finally!

2011-11-12T12:49:00.000-08:00

I completely forgot that we had Halloween here until I was downloading my pictures from my camera and saw some adorable children (mine) in their costumes. Rhys is still wearing his Spiderman costume. He's been wearing it so much that the it was starting to fall apart. We had to take it to Beckki's house and she sewed it back together for us. It was really nice of her. I keep reminding Scott that I want a sewing machine for Christmas.
At the ward Halloween party they had games and Rhys won these super scary vampire teeth. Pretty awesome!

Look at the beautiful color coordinated babies!! Heather's Baby Mia (L) was born 10 days after Elsa. Kandace's baby Riley(R) is about 2 1/2 months older. It was so fun to be pregnant at the same time.

I Spy...

2011-10-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

I spy with my little eye.. one little two year old who has to sleep with as many toys as possible. This is how I found him when I checked on him the other night. I'm afraid that he might be a hoarder one day.

Elsa is 4 months old!! Rhys still likes her and wants to hold her. He's such a good brother. I thought this picture was so cute!! I'm going to be really sad if he gets to where he doesn't like her anymore. It will be really depressing.

It's really hot. We decided, after a long, sweaty day of working in the house and lawn that we needed to cool down. They ganged up on me once I put down the camera. It felt really good.

Another cute crochet head band!! I'm so excited about this crochet flower pattern book I got while I was in Idaho. I finally had a chance to try making some stuff out of it. I'm so excited about the stuff I can make now! If you can't tell it's a rose with a little rosebud and some leaves (I can make crochet leaves!!! How awesome is that?!) P.S., don't I have the cutest little headband modeler? Now I just need to figure out how to make crochet ties or something so Rhys doesn't feel left out!

We had Miranda's Baby shower recently. It was so much fun!! I'm sad I didn't take more pictures. She got the awesomest gift ever! Granny panties and this sweet house coat. I'm actually kinda jealous of the sweet house coat. I'd totally wear it if it was cool!

Our Fun Trip to Idaho

2011-09-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a much needed trip to Idaho. We were desperately needing to get off the island for a while. Plus, I wanted to show off Elsa to the family. My sister Sarah and her family came from Nevada to see us for a couple days. We were glad the came to see us.

We went to Island Park were my grandparents live.

Alyssa, Brenner and Naysa at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Brenner, Mikayla, Rhys, Me, and Max. Sharing cheetos. It was such a good feeling hanging out with some of my beautiful nieces and nephews. I love my family so much.

Throwing rocks into the creek

Naysa doing what she does best. She's such a chunk. This girl is 6 months old and wears 18 months. She weighs just a couple pounds less than Rhys. She's so cute though. She looks just like a Cabbage Patch Doll.

Elsa with her Great Grandma

Brenner threw a fit for some reason. It cracked me up. Now that I'm a mother of a fit-throwing child, I get a little satisfaction when other people's kids throw fits. It makes me feel good to know my child isn't the only one freaking out.

We went to Warm River (which is actually very cold). Sarah's dog Molly was in the back of the truck and tried to follow us to the river. Unfortunatley she didn't know she was tied in. TJ quickly rushed over and saved her from choking.

Jordan (4 years old) and Mesa Falls

Elsa decided to spit up a ton (most of it was inside the wrap) at Mesa Falls

Mesa Falls

Sarah, TJ, Alyssa, and Brenner

We love Dairy Queen. We went as many times as we could. I made the mistake of letting Rhys have a bite of my blizzard. This is his reaction when I tried to get a bite of my own dessert.

We got him his own ice cream cone and he was much happier (and I got my blizzard back!)

We were able to make a trip to Sweet to see Grandma and Grandpa Dahlstrom. It was a really good time. The boys love the 4- wheelers and the animals.

Rhys had such a good time with his cousin Bryson. They are so friggin cute together. They found super hero costumes and were running around together. I so much wish we lived closer to them and they could play more often. Rhys looks up to Bryson so much.

Taking the kids to feed the horses and the rabbits.

Grandma and Grandpa Dahlstrom

Greg, Kelli, Bryson, and Coulson. We love them so much!!

Kynwynn and her kids came to the zoo with us one day. The kids had such a fun time. It was a pretty cool day so the animals were more active than we've ever seen them. The lion was out and roared. I've never heard that in real life. The kids didn't really care but us adults thought it was awesome.

Feeding and petting the goats and sheep.

Fun with stickers

2011-09-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when Rhys gets a hold of a sheet of stickers. Good times!!

Getting ready to go to the beach

Look at the cute headband I made!! (It took me about 2 days because I kept messing up)

Photo Shoot

2011-08-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

My Friend Kelsey, from Kelsey Riley Photography did an awesome photo shoot with my kids earlier this month. I think they turned out really cute! Look how beautiful my children are! Megs, I didn't post a picture frame picture cause I noticed something I want to get tweaked on it first. I'll post it if I get it fixed. Enjoy!!

Irene, you ruined my life!!

2011-08-27T12:11:00.000-07:00

Not really, actually. She wasn't that bad. I was excited that something actually happened. Whenever I hear that these storms are headed our way I kinda freak out and get super prepared and worry and then it's usually just a rain shower. It's always anti-climactic for the amount that I worry. So with Irene I was trying not to worry as much as I usually do. We filled up our bathtubs with water, got out the lanterns and put everything from our backyard into the garage that was about it.
We only had Sacrament Meeting on Sunday because the storm was supposed to hit Sunday night. They wanted everyone to have enough time to complete their preparations before it hit. It was a pretty quiet day. It was a little cloudy and a tiny bit windy but that was about it.

Around 11 pm the power went off and our house started to get really hot. It's amazing how quickly you start to sweat when their is no fans going (and how quiet my house is!) We opened the windows to try to get some air flow, then went back to sleep. I woke up around 2:30 to the rain and the wind whipping the trees outside. It was pretty crazy, but we still kept the windows open. Even in a hurricane we barely get a breeze!!! It's seriously crazy. Anyway, Elsa was awake so I fed her and we all went back to sleep and slept through the rest of the storm. All the really cool storms that have hit since we've lived here have all hit at night. It's a bummer cause we miss out on watching them. We just wake up and check out the aftermath. Lame.

Monday was super rainy all day.Both the power and water were out Monday morning. We finally had a chance to use our generator we bought the first year we were here. If finally came in handy!! Woo hoo! It's ridiculously loud though and after about 6 hours of it I started to get really grumpy wanting it to be turned off. About 20 minutes after Scott got tired of my crabbiness and turned it off the power came back on. We got lucky cause I know of people who STILL don't have power.

The water came back on sometime Tuesday. I'm not sure exactly what time it was cause I was gone. I had to take the kids to the pediatrician for check ups that day. It was still raining Tuesday. On the way home I got stuck at a light for 30 minutes because the power was out and roads were flooding. It took Scott 2 1/2 hours to get home from work Tuesday night. Roads that I had driven on on the way home were completely closed by the evening. I got lucky only being stuck for 30 minutes.

So we're now getting back to normal here. The roads are pretty much cleaned off as far as I have seen. A palm tree across the street that broke in half during the storm has been taken care of. Broken tree branches are being hauled away (more likely just moved off the road and left there). Now we're just hoping that people who got hit after us, when the storm was stronger, will be OK, as well as the people in the states who are waiting for it to hit them. Hopefully everyone will be safe!

Here's our beautiful generator. It's so noisy! I was hoping the whole time if would run out of gas so we could have a couple minutes of quiet. You like our generator covers? Two tables! It totally worked though. The generator stayed dry, none of us died from carbon monoxide and we were able to save all our refrigerated food!

Watching the rain. It rained A LOT!!

On another note, look at this cute head band I made Elsa!! My first try at crochet cotton! I am quite proud!!

I found this picture of Mom and Elsa on my camera. I'd forgotten about it. She's giving mom a kiss!!

You Have To Sit There...

2011-08-12T05:43:00.000-07:00

I've just had an epiphany about my kid. He is not eating his food lately so I've been doing the "you have to sit there until you eat" deal. He will just sit, and sit, and sit, which is surprising to me considering he's a busy two year old boy. It's long enough that I get bored of him sitting there before he does. Eventually I just shove some food in his mouth and let him get down.

I've just realized that making him sit in the car for extended periods of time have probably taught him to entertain himself while just sitting. Anywhere we go here takes at least 20-30 minutes. It takes 30 minutes to get to church and to the store. It's about an hour to get to San Juan. He's really good in the car too. He just sits there and looks out the window.
So sitting at the table for 20 minutes isn't phasing him. I'm going to have to think of other ways to get him to eat. Any suggestions?

I gotta go get him. It's been over a half an hour and I'm getting bored of waiting for him to eat.

My Moms Come to Visit!

2011-07-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

My Mom an Aunt Cheryl are so awesome. Aunt Cheryl is pretty much my second mother. I lived with her when I lived in Alaska. She's amazing. She and Mom came here to sunny PR for a 10 day long visit. It was so much fun. Luckily Elsa was born 2 weeks before my due date so by the time they got here (we bought the tickets a long time ago) Elsa was old enough and I was feeling good enough to go do a bunch of stuff. It was such a blast and I was really sad I had to let them go home. I wish they could live with me.

Here are some of our activities

Playing at Mar Chiquita
It was so windy!!!

We visited Guavate and had lunch at the lechoneras.
We visited all the little tourist booths and bought souvenirs. They bought so many souvenirs for everybody back home. It was cracking me up.

This was a really cool hammock chair thingy. Rhys dug it.

Lunch at the Lechonera. They are so cute!!!

We made several trips to Old San Juan. The first time it was raining so hard we didn't even get out of the car. The second time we saw the forts and shops, and the third time we went just to shop. You'd think by now I could get there without the GPS, but I can't. Maybe if I make another 50 trips out there I could figure it out.

Aunt Cheryl striking a pose!

By the end of the day they had had enough sun. They were hiding in the shade as much as possible while still trying to tour the fort.

Luquillo Beach. Until looking at these pictures, Aunt Cheryl couldn't figure out why she had sunburns on her knees. Mom made this hat. It was so funny. The wind kept blowing if off so she poked holes in it and secured it with bamboo squers that I use for making shish kabobs. It kept reminding me of Mrs. Meers from Thourally Modern Millie. Shoo show, Shoo show!!

Lounging on the beach

They got a little sun, don't you think?

Blessing Day!

2011-07-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

We had Miss Elsa blessed a couple Sunday's ago while Mom and Aunt Cheryl were here. Mom made a beautiful blessing dress and Esther made a matching bow for the special day. Elsa was so cute and the dress was so beautiful!! After church we went across the street to take some pictures. We had about 1 minute to take the pictures before we all started dripping in sweat so none of the picts turned out great. We couldn't seem to manage all looking in the same direction. It just gave the photos character though.

I love these pictures. This is the first time Rhys has held her. He hasn't really seemed interested. He did think it was pretty cool once we put her on him. He's such a good big brother!!

I love their little smiles!

16 Days Old!

2011-07-06T12:25:00.001-07:00

More of Miss Elsa

2011-06-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

We just got our pictures back from off the disposable camera we had to take to the hospital. The hospital here doesn't allow digital cameras in the delivery room. Weird, huh?

I think Scott kinda looks like a crazy person in this picture. The doctor kept teasing him that he was going to pass out when I delivered.

Here she is!!!

Baby Elsa Rae

2011-06-22T17:13:00.001-07:00

Elsa joined our family this Monday here in Puerto Rico. We are glad to be home but very tired. She was 7 pounds 2 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long. She has dark hair like her dad. We'll see if it stays dark or goes light like her brother. So far she's doing really well. Although it took a bit for him to warm up, Rhys likes her. He's already been helpful with her.

Rhys is showing me her nose.

This is me Sunday night. Looks like a basketball under my dress. I'm so glad not to be pregnant anymore!!

Small Acts of Craftiness

2011-06-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

I don't think I'm a very crafty or creative person and I'm pretty jealous of other peoples crafty skills. When I do make something that takes some craftiness, I feel super proud of myself.

When I was pregnant with Rhys I lived with Scott's mom, Jane. She's got some skills. Under her watchful tutelage I crocheted him a cute little baby afghan. I needed a lot of help. Well, now we have another little one on the way and I didn't want the new baby to feel shafted. I bravely ventured back into the crocheting world on my own. Luckily the internet has a ton a cute patterns and tutorials so I didn't feel quite so lost. I did have help from my mom picking out the yarn as well. I bought them off the internet and I couldn't tell from the tiny picture what the yarns actually looked like. Luckily she works at a craft store and could tell me which colors looked good together. She's so helpful.

Here are my finished projects. I have to say, I am so proud of me!! The pictures are totally out of order, but oh well. The pink one is a combination of a couple patterns that I found. I did all the squares and sewed them together. I haven't washed it yet because I'm afraid my knots will come undone and it will fall apart. The purple one is a pattern I came up with as I went along. I found a tutorial on how to make the 3-d flowers and I made them into squares that I put together and then came up with a border. I think it turned out pretty cute. So hopefully baby Elsa will like her blankets that I lovingly made for her when she gets here (in 2-3 weeks. Yippee!!)

It's going to be one of those nights....

2011-06-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

What is the deal with Puerto Ricans? Someone please explain to me the need to play your music so gosh darn loud? Maybe the reason they're blasting their music so loudly in their backyard (which connects directly to ours) is so they can hear it in the house, where they are all hanging out. It makes me crazy!! Keep in mind these are the same neighbors that were having a party for their 6 year old and were blasting Lady Gaga until midnight. The ones that made me mad enough that I marched Sasha over there (so they wouldn't hurt me) and gave them a piece of my mind. Obviously they have forgotten.... or else I'm just not that scary. It's probably the latter.

Oh my goodness, I can hear their drunken singing, and it's terrible!!!

On a lighter note, we've had some fun. We took Rhys to a animal museum. It's pretty much like a place with stuffed animals in it. For Puerto Rico, it's pretty cool. Rhys liked this hollow log and the really big ants. He likes to watch the ants on the sidewalk now and say "ant, ant, ant" over and over again. It's cute.
Here's a lovely picture of me with my 36 week belly. For all of you who have worn maternity pants, you know exactly what I'm doing. I'm hiking up my pants, for the millionth time. It's very attractive. I'm 37 weeks now so only a few more weeks to go!! So excited!!

Isn't he so cute??!

Sunday Morning Photos

2011-05-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

I know I'm quite biased but I'm pretty sure I have one of the cutest kids ever. He looked so handsome in his church clothes and his little bow tie this morning. Plus, I was so rockin' the baby bump that we had to take a couple quick picts for posterity.

33 weeks baby!! Just look at my belly cause I know I have a weird look on my face. I'm getting so ready for her to come! She will be here before we know it. It's amazing how much faster the time goes by when you have a toddler to take care of.

Thirty Weeks/ Easter Egg Hunt

2011-04-23T12:56:00.000-07:00

Here I am in all my preggo glory!!! The top picture is how my belly usually looks. Smashed under a little boy who thinks he needs to be held all the time. Not that it's really that much of the time, it's just more than before. Several months ago, this kid would bearly sit on my lap, now he needs to be snuggled and carried. It's weird. The bigger my belly gets, the more he needs to be held. I don't hate it though. I used to get so mad when he would sit and snuggle Scott and not me!!! Now it's my turn to get loved by him. Mommies need to be snuggled by their little boys.

So thirty weeks down and so far everything is going well. She moves a lot!! Especially when I'm trying to go to sleep. I'm also starting to get that restless leg crap at night which feels really weird. We're probably going to name the baby Elsa Rae. Hopefully you all didn't know any Elsa's in high school or wherever and hated them. That's what always ruins names for me. Scott likes that name because it's from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (She's the Nazi chick. Scott just really liked the name)

I'm starting to get really big and it's beginning to get really hot here. I'm preparing to be a sweaty mess the next 10 weeks. Should be fun. I'm so thankful for air conditioning, and can't even say. It's blowing on my right now and I'm loving it!!

P.S. my shirt is awesome. It's sequencey and sparkly and one of the last few non-maternity shirts that I can still wear. I dig it.

Today was the Easter Egg hunt at the church. Rhys was in a really bad mood at first because I made him leave his Buzz Lightyear action figure in the car. He cried about it until the hunt started. Drama. Anyway, he didn't get that many eggs because he'd get so distracted by the egg he just found and forget to go look for anymore. He had such a fun time though. We're really happy that the primary put on an Easter Egg hunt again this year. It was really fun!!!

He kept holding up the eggs saying "EGG, EGG!!" He's so proud.

Another P.S. Julia gave us this fishing game after the Easter Egg hunt and Rhys has been playing with it nonstop since he woke up from his nap. He gets out the little fish and lines them up in a row on the table or couch in a straight little line and then one by one, puts them back into the game. He doesn't always use the fishing pole but when he does, and he has the fish on the end of the pole, he comes running up to me with it saying "I got it, I got it" in his little Rhys voice. It's so cute!!! He's having a blast, so thanks for the game Julia!

Sleepy Baby

2011-03-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

My Beautiful Baby Turns 2!!

2011-03-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? I'm the mother of a two year old, with another little one on the way. I'm getting so old!!!!! It's been a wonderful two years, and man, has it flown by! Rhys is a happy healthy two year old and we are so blessed to have him.
We decided to do something small for him this year, since he doesn't really get what birthdays are yet. We just did some fun activities for him, most of them involving lots and lots of sugar. The day before his birthday we had fun making sugar cookies, and he helped by licking off the mixer beater and getting covered in sugary dough. It was the best. Then after dinner on his birthday (pancakes with maple syrup) we decorated the cookies. He managed to decorate about 3 cookies total and the rest of the time was spent eating the decorations.

After loading him with sugary pancakes and cookies we sang happy birthday and gave him a cupcake with candles to blow out (more sugar!!). He only ate a tiny bit of his cupcake. I think by that point he was in total sugar overload. But the most awesome thing about this kid, is you can pack him full of sugar and he still goes to bed like a champ. He won't nap, but he never fights bed time. I love this kid.

Whenever dad gets Rhys for bed, he likes to have him throw his old diaper away before he puts on the clean one. Well, after he threw the diaper away, Rhys got distracted by his bike instead of going back to get his diaper on. I thought it was so cute. Plus the fact that he has awesome tan lines. Look at that white booty!!

Our friends the Bergs brought this for Rhys when they came to see us a couple months ago. One day Rhys just decided that he wanted to wear it. They are from Alaska so of course it's a moose hat. He was really cute wearing this hat. When he took it off he had the craziest hair cause his head had gotten all sweaty. It's a pretty toasty hat for Puerto Rico.

Day at Luquillo

2011-02-18T05:35:00.000-08:00

Throwing sand is fun (and so messy!!)

My son is getting increasingly mischievous as he gets older. He likes to find things to stand on so he can get stuff off the counter. I take my eyes off him for 5 seconds and he totally swipes my soda! He's so very pleased with himself though. How can you be mad at that face (plus the soda was almost empty so we didn't have any caffeine overload)

Esther's Elephant Feet

2011-02-14T06:12:00.000-08:00

I love my sister, Esther. She's the sister just older than me and lives in Idaho, so I don't get to see her very often. She is so funny, I love her. She's pregnant with her 4th child and was recently put on bed rest. She sent me this picture, and I gotta say, it's hilarious. And I thought I got puffy!! Thank you, Esther for sending me this pict so I can refer to it when I get closer to my due date and feel bad about my swollen self. I know it will make me feel better. I love you and hope that baby comes out soon so you can get out of bed!

Rhys's Revenge

2011-02-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

I think Rhys is finally starting to understand that Sasha is a dog. He knows dogs and likes them, I just don't really know if the knew that Sasha was one of them. We got her before he was born so she's always been around bugging him, knocking him over and trying to steal his food. I think it just clicked for him the other day that she's a dog and he likes dogs, so he must like her. He normally NEVER plays with her, so imagine her surprise when he decided to chase her around! The tables were turned! I think she was actually a little scared. I love the fact that he's saying her name, chasing her around, and she really just wants me to let her outside so she can escape!

Christmas and New Years in Puerto Rico

2011-01-05T16:06:00.000-08:00

We've been a fun couple of weeks here. Christmas was awesome. It's actually been pretty cool here lately, (about 75- 85 degrees) and we've been appreciating that. It made it feel a little bit more Christmas-ey. Our Christmas was pretty quiet. We had some friends over on Christmas Eve but Christmas Day we stayed home in our jammies. Santa brought Rhys some awesome toys, including this basketball hoop. I have to point out Rhys' super cute PJ's. They were his Christmas present from Momma Jo last year. They finally fit him!! Thanks Mom!

Just before Christmas we went and bummed around Old San Juan just for fun. Rhys had fun chasing the pigeons and feeding them crackers. This is somewhere in Old San Juan.

For New Years we went with a bunch of friends and their families to a Coast Guard base on the west side of the island. They had rented a couple of houses and we had a big sleep over. New Years Eve we hiked down the side of a mountain to the beach and roasted hot dogs and made smores. It was awesome. The beach was so beautiful and all the kids had fun playing together. Scott brought some fireworks and set them off on the beach after it got dark. Everybody's kids but mine thought they were cool. Mine kinda freaked out.

Here's some of us getting the fire going and getting ready for dinner. Gotta love a hot dog and smores on the beach at sunset.

This is Rhys' little friend Ike. They are seriously so freakin' cute together. Ike has a chip on his front tooth so we were calling him Lloyd. I'm going to grow Rhys' hair out so he can look like Harry, so they can be Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber (even though I really hate that movie). They are little buds though and they had a blast playing together.

This is how we spent our New Years. It's been cloudy and rainy lately so it was really nice to have a warm sunny day and go to the beach. The Robert's kids were having fun burying Scott in the sand. He kept making me scratch his nose cause he couldn't move. It was really awkward and I'm pretty sure I've been fired from nose scratching duty.

It was a pretty fun day, except for the fact that on the way home Rhys got sick from drinking too much milk and juice and threw up all over himself and his car seat. It was so awful! I've never seen milk shoot out of someone's nose like that before. Poor little guy. He was happy as a clam afterwords, but Scott and I were in total misery cause the car smelled like puke. It was a long drive home.

We had such a good holiday season here in Puerto Rico, although we were really missing being with family. We're blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people that help us from feeling like we're so far away. We're so thankful for all our friends here that make our Puerto Rican adventure so much fun.

Apparently I'm a really bad singer

2010-12-14T16:14:00.000-08:00

;

Fun Updates!!

2010-12-02T11:25:00.000-08:00

We've had some fun times here lately. Our friends Jesse and Kirsten (Kirsten, I hope I spelled it right!) Berg visited us from Alaska. We had awesome times together while we lived there. So they decided to take a break from the cold and visit us here. I had fun and I hope they had fun too. We took a trip out to a small island named Culebra, and I have to just add that Scott is awesome and entertained Rhys the whole ferry ride over so I could concentrate on not throwing up (I get super sick). It wouldn't have turned out well if I would have had to wrestle Rhys the whole time. We made it the whole way there and back without any barfing and that made me happy. I love the Bergs and I'm so glad they came out here. Come back ANYTIME!!

Here's the Bergs on the ferry out to Culebra

This is Flaminco Beach in Culebra. Rhys quickly fell in love with the Bergs. He was obsessed with this disposable camera Kirsten had gotten and carried it around quite a bit.

Gotta have the camera!!

Sharing some ice cream on the beach. Does life get better?

It was a long day and we were wiped out afterwords.

This is how the boys spent a lot of their time at home. Jesse brought his own controller from Alaska just in case we didn't have one. Both of the boys are kinda obsessed with video games.
We finally made it to the caves!! It was awesome cause we showed up and didn't have to wait (Which for Puerto Rico is AMAZING!!) You have to wait for everything here. We went there when Sarah and TJ came but didn't stay cause we would have had to wait forever. It's a pretty cool little tour. You take this trolley ride down to the entrance and they let you walk around. There's creepy bugs and bats and ... I don't know...cave-ness. I thought the cave tour in Ely was better but it was still cool. I hope that makes you feel better Sarah, for us not doing the caves here.

This was seriously the biggest spider I've ever seen!! I was just waiting for it to jump off the wall at me.

Thanks again for coming Jesse and Kirsten. We had fun. Thanks for being patient when I wasn't feeling good.

Speaking of not feeling good, some of you might not know, but ....drumroll... I'm pregnant. We are very excited to add another little person to our family. It's been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster with this baby so far. A couple weeks ago we did a sonogram and we saw two heartbeats. The doctor wasn't positive that it was twins cause they were so little but he said it was a 70% chance that we were having twins.
Scott and I were freaking out, to say the least. The doctor wanted us to come back a week later and we would look again at the babies. It was a long week just wondering and not knowing for sure, but thinking that it probably was twins. Not so fun. Anyway, I went back yesterday and we looked again. Turns out that there's just one baby and the second heartbeat we saw was the umbilical cord. Apparently that can pulse like a heartbeat as well. So, that was kind of annoying. But now we know for sure, we are just having one baby and so far all is well. We're due at the beginning of July, and we're planning on staying here to have it. Having a baby in Puerto Rico!! That should be an adventure....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

2010-10-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Last week was my husband, Scott's, 30th birthday. Can you believe that? 30? I'm married to such an old man!!! It's craziness to me. Pretty soon his arthritis will start kicking in and his hair will turn gray and there will be nothing else to live for!! He might as well just throw in the towel right now!!

But if he did that, I would be sad. I have the best husband in the world and I am so proud of him. I love the man that he is and the way he makes me feel about myself. I never have to wonder if he loves me because he tells me like 20 times a day and spoils the heck out of me. What else could you ask for? He's an amazing man and an incredible Dad and I think it's so awesome that I get to spend the next 30 (hopefully more) years of his life with him.

I love you Scott!!! Happy Birthday!!

Scott was very specific about the cake that he wanted for his birthday. It had to be lemon cake, with lemon filling, with whip cream frosting, and sprinkles. (It's what his mom used to make, before they discovered Dairy Queen ice cream cakes. We would have had that, but there isn't a Dairy Queen here. Don't you feel sorry for us?) We had dinner with some of our friends and celebrated with this beautiful creation. It was delicious.

OUCH...Again...

2010-10-11T17:51:00.001-07:00

I swear I'm not a bad mom! He's just a busy kid. Scott and I were talking the other day and he mentioned how Rhys' bump from Sasha was clearing up pretty quickly, and that was good cause we were supposed to get our family pictures taken today. Well, yesterday at church we were at choir practice and I had to go make some copies. A minute later, one of the kids comes in to the office and is like

"uh, you should come cause Rhys hit his face and he's covered in blood".

He'd fallen into a low window and hit his face on the weird Puerto Rican window knobs. Both Rhys and Scott had blood all over them. You know how much face and head cuts bleed. It's crazy how much a little cut can bleed!!

So, Scott messed it all up with his little comment and jinxed family pictures. Rhys is fine though. We have a neighbor that's a retired pediatrician so we took him over to her to see if he needed stitches. She said he was fine. Scott and I get a little jumpy around blood I guess.

Just a random shot that I think is cute.

OUCH!!

2010-09-29T11:43:00.001-07:00

Y'all know that we have a huge dog, right? Well, if you didn't know, there's a picture of her in this post. She's a small great dane (small meaning she only weighs 120 pounds and not 200). We were outside with her the other day playing and sometimes she gets really excited and starts running around in circles like a crazy animal. So she started doing her psycho running and Rhys was standing in the yard laughing at her. I remember I commented to Scott, "I really hope she doesn't run into him" . He was like, "No, she won't run into him, she's really good at turning around things and not hitting them". Right after that comment left his mouth, POW!! She plows top speed, face first right into him.
There was the most sickening smacking sound and he went flying. It was terrible!! Both Scott and I took off running towards them. Rhys landed with his back to me and I was sure he would be covered in blood or something. Scott said his first thought was " Oh crap! I don't want to go to the hospital here in Puerto Rico!!"
We were lucky nothing was bloody or broken. Rhys has a head of steel or something. He is seriously an amazing kid. This picture was taken literally 3 minutes after it happened. He cried for about 2 minutes as we were running him into the house. The he wanted down from my arms, went straight to the pantry and pointed to the fruit snacks. Then he sat on my lap laughing at Scott while he ate his fruit snacks. I can't believe it.
So now I know when Sasha starts doing her insane running thing to pick Rhys us ASAP cause I don't want to see that again.

These pictures were taken before Rhys got the huge forehead bruise. We went to a couple of beaches this weekend. Rhys let us cover him with sand. His face was cracking me up.

This was the day before the stupid dog incident when we were still liking her (we still like her, we just think she's really dumb) so we took her to the beach for a run. She likes to chase birds down the beach. It's really funny when we park at the beach and there's other people there. You should see their faces when we get Sasha out of our car (most the people around here have little sissy wimpy dogs). Sometimes they take pictures of her and I think it's funny.
Anyway, we're still enjoying life here in Puerto Rico!!

Home Sweet Idaho

2010-09-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to adding pictures of our Sweet trip. Scott's parents live in this little town, Sweet, in the middle of nowhere. It's so much fun to go there because there's so much to do. Every time we go there we vow to have lots and lots of toys one day. It was a blast. Well, for most of us anyway. Scott was sick for most of the time which is lame, but Rhys and I had fun the whole time. So here we are having fun!!

We love seeing the animals. Rhys especially liked feeding the horses and poking the rabbits and scaring them. He'd do his mischevious laugh when they'd hop to the opposite side of the cage. He's such a little boy.

This is how we found the kids a lot of the time. They love the 4-wheelers. Especially Rhys. He was obsessed with them. He would find a way to escape the house and we'd find him up on one of them pretending to drive. It's funny cause he can barely reach both handles.

I like riding horses in my flip flops.

I found these cowboy boots before Rhys was born and he grew into them at the perfect time. He loves them. I think they're so cute. Here is Rhys with Sadie. She's like a million years old, blind in one eye, and mostly toothless. She's the best dog ever and I seriously love her. Jane and Blaine are going to put her to sleep before they leave on their mission cause she's fading fast. I almost cried when I said goodbye to her.

One of the days we were there we took the horses up to the mountains and rode around. So much fun!! I really want to be a cowgirl. My horse was named Blackjack and he loves to run. My butt was so sore the next day, but it was worth it.

We took the kids to the Zoo one day. The kids had a really good time but I think Rhys was afraid of the tiger.

Another day we loaded up the 4-wheelers and went for a fun ride. I feel so hard core. Except the fact that I didn't want to go too fast with a toddler strapped to me. It was awesome.

Me and my sister-in-law Lisa. It was good dirty fun. I miss Idaho already!!

Pictures, Pictures, and More Pictures

2010-07-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy for the last couple weeks! I need to get back to Puerto Rico so I can take a break. We're busy but we're having a lot of fun. Last weekend we made a little trip to Saint George, Utah to hang out with Sarah and TJ. They look for any excuse they can find to get out of Ely. So we met in St. George and hung out. We went to this park there that Sarah and TJ love, and now I know why. It was such a blast! Rhys really wasn't into the Splash Park in Rexburg but he was all over the park here. It's much hotter here so he wasn't as cold. There's this little creek and a fountain for the kids to play in and it's so much fun.

Alyssa was trying to make a dam with her body. Rhys was diggin' it.

Alyssa is such a good Rhys helper.

We were playing in the fountain.

We went to this park place where you climb around on all the rocks. It is so hot in St. George!! we tried to get there in the morning before it go too hot, but we were late. I was a sweaty beast after wards (I'm sure you all wanted to know that!)

Aren't they so cute!! Brenner was loving the rocks.

After we got back from Utah we made a trip up to Island Park and Yellowstone for a couple days. The kids really liked camping. Rhys and I got to sleep in the cabin though because Mom thought Rhys would get too cold. That's what happens when you live in Puerto Rico most of your life I guess! Dad slept in this weird hammocky thing that he made. It's hard to tell but Alyssa and Kenya are inside. The kids thought it was pretty fun swinging on the hammock.

We took a trip to Yellowstone. Mostly we drove around all day because my Mom isn't very aggressive when it comes to finding parking spots. It was pretty busy there when we went and if she couldn't find a parking spot right off, she would just keep driving. We did find a parking spot at Mammoth so we got out for a bit to let the kids look at the geysers.

Remember how I said we drove around most of the day? Well, all that driving, plus windey roads, plus little kids equals throw up. I'm so tired of throw up!!! Anyway, Rhys threw up ALL OVER!! It was disgusting. We went to this waterfall and the only extra clothes I had brought for him was this jacket. He was the little ragmuffin child wandering around Yellowstone. I was actually really embarrassed that he didn't have pants on so I ended up carrying him on my shoulders down this hike hoping it would be less obvious.

Hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's cabin

This is Max. He is SO busy. We were trying to light a fire and get ready for hot dogs and smores and he was just getting into everything! So we put this backpack on him and Esther got a long rope and she tied it to a tree. Anyway, if you notice he's gotten himself tangled around the chairs and tables. Yes, she tied her child to a tree. It was awesome.

More pictures for Daddy

2010-07-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

Rhys had a blast at the River here in Idaho Falls. He loves birds and ducks so he had an awesome time watching the birds here. I thought the pictures of him with the temple are so cute and I think it's fitting seeings how Scott and I were married there just over 3 years ago.

He's clapping.

This is us at the splash park in Rexburg. Max is in the yellow Sponge Bob swimsuit. They spent a lot of time just staring at people.

Finally! Contact with the water! It took a while for him not to freak out when the water got on him. Who would have thought this kid would have been like that, huh! I was baffled.

Pictures for daddy

2010-07-05T13:04:00.000-07:00

Rhys and I are in Idaho spending time with family and unfortunately we had to leave Scott behind to work. Boo. So these pictures are mostly for Scott so he can see his cute kid. This first picture is what happens when you leave Rhys alone for a couple of minutes with the milk carton. It's hard to see but the chair he's sitting in is full of milk as well as the bowl. It was really hard to be mad cause he was so proud of himself for pouring the milk himself.

We had a little get together at Esther's to celebrate Kynwynn's birthday. We roasted smores and played badminton and Rhys had fun playing with his cousins and getting REALLY dirty.

He loves this swing. Especially when TJ pushes him high.

Playing in the pool. I thing this shot of Max is really funny.

We miss you!!

Fun Family Visits!!

2010-06-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

My awesome guys at the beach.

Brenner passed out on the beach. I am so jealous.

My cute family at the beautiful beach.

About 75% of the time I really like living her in Puerto Rico. It's crazy hot and I can't get Red Robin here, but on the other hand, it's so awesome that people want to visit. I'd like to think that they come to see my happy smiling face, but I know that's not true. They come for the beach. Maybe Sarah and TJ came to see us and the beach was just a bonus. Maybe. Either way, we had a blast with them here. They were here for about 10 busy days. We were all over the island having fun.
My favorite part was the day we went to San Sebastian and went to the waterfall. I've blogged about it in the past and Sarah wanted to go. It's so beautiful there. You hike down this sketchy trail to this waterfall. We were there for a while having fun and it started to rain. Within seconds, it goes from a light sprinkle to heavy pouring (and if you look at my last post you'll understand what heavy rain looks like here). The problem is that we're in a valley and it's pouring so the waterfall is going to fill up quickly. We got out of there, and fast. The problem is that we have Alyssa and two small kids in backpacks. Rhys did fine (we let him play in the rain all of the time) but Brenner had a melt down. He screamed the whole way up. The trail turned into a stream so we were wading uphill. Sarah's backpack was corduroy (not waterproof) so her stuff got soaked. Lightning started to strike around us and the kids were getting scared. It was serious craziness. After about 20 minutes we got to the car and threw everybody in and took off down the down the road before the road washed out. Just Another adventure in PR.

Memorial Day in Puerto Rico

2010-06-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

We've had some excitement here in PR. It's been raining a lot lately and yesterday it poured! On top of that it thundered and lightninged (is that a word?) like crazy. It was like a strobe light outside. It started about 5:00 pm and didn't stop until sometime in the middle of the night. So about 8:00 Scott comes to me and says "uh, we might have a problem..." We open the front door and our street is like a river. It was crazy. Things were floating down the street, and cars couldn't get through. I stood there watching the water slowly rise closer and closer to our front door, and keep in mind that you have to go up a couple steps to get to our door. It's not flat. We were almost to the point of getting all our stuff off the floor and sealing up the door so the water wouldn't get in. I have a video here of the craziness. I know it's dark but bear with me here. The most amazing part was that our power didn't go out. That might not seem like a big deal, but if you've lived in PR you realize that that's an incredible thing. Anyway, not the sunny bright day you imagine on Memorial Day, but it was a crazy adventure!

Another fun adventure in Puerto Rico!!

2010-05-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

We had such a fun adventure here today! We decided to go to check out the cave system here on the north side of the island. So we drove all the way there but their tours were full for a couple of hours so we couldn't get in. We decided to kill some time at the Arecibo lighthouse that we had heard about. We were expecting a tiny light house that you can walk to, climb up, etc. We've seen a couple like that already here, no biggie. Well, this was not what we expected. It was so much fun. The lighthouse is just a small attraction. It's a really cool park that has tons of stuff for kids to see and explore. There are a bunch of playground toys as shown by picture number one. This is Rhys' first swing experience. Mostly he enjoyed it, but occasionally his face would go from smiling to worried, to smiling again. We were pushing him pretty high though, so I guess it's understandable.

Picture #2 is me at the lighthouse. It was really windy, but that was awesome cause it was also really hot, so it was bearable. It was a lovely view.

They have a fun pirate cave you can walk through. They make it look like a pirates secret hideout where they stash their treasure and do...piraty things...Inside the pirate cave was this really cool aquarium with little sharks and eels and all sorts of fish. He really liked the fish.

Here's the pirate cave. Pretty scary huh?!

Cover your eyes kids! They had this part about the ancient indigenous people who lived here. You could look at their huts, among other things, if you know what I'm saying...

They also had pirate ships that people could climb up and play on. Scott was having a good time.

We had such a fun time playing around at the park today. It was definitely one of those times where we remember how awesome it is to live here and we are thankful that we can go out and have these little adventures. We spent all our time here and totally blew off the caves that we went out to see. I love days like that!!

My house is so quiet!!

2010-05-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

My house feels so empty and quiet right now!! Scott's sister Kristi and her kids came to stay with us this past week. We went from having one kid in our house to 5 in one shot. It's going to take me a couple weeks to recover (just enough time to get ready for Sarah and TJ to get here, I'm so excited!) It was a lot of fun though. The kids really wanted to go to the beach and play outside a lot and it was a ton of fun. Here are a couple picts from their visit.
The kids were at the pool in our neighborhood but they had to leave cause the pool guys had come to clean it. Ashley was so sad!! She came home from the pool in tears. So I told her we could turn on the sprinkler and she cheered up. Rhys decided he wanted to play too (notice he's still in normal clothes). They had fun with the sprinkler but I think they mainly had fun playing in the muddy puddle that formed in the middle of the lawn.

We went to this town that have Lechoneras on every corner (the places where they roast pigs on a spit in the window and they cleave off a piece for you to eat). The kids really liked the creek running next to where we ate. We were hardly able to keep them in their seat long enough to eat.

Rhys loves the beach. I was surprised that he didn't freak when I buried him. He just had a funny smirk on his face the whole time.

Here are the kids having fun at Mar Chiquita! They had a lot of fun floating around this little pool. We brought our grill and roasted hot dogs for the kids. Too bad we forgot a lighter. Woops! Kristi found somebody to borrow one from so it all worked out in the end.

We took the kids to San Sebastian waterfall. I love going there cause not a lot of people know about it, you literally park on the side of the road and hike through someone's field with cows in it and suddenly you come upon this beautiful waterfall. Kristi and I jumped from here. It's not that high, I know, but I am a huge sissy and this is high enough for me. Kristi's son Blaine got really upset that she jumped, it scared him. He was in tears when we got to shore and he wouldn't let her jump again.

On the way home from the waterfall we stopped at this ice cream shop that sells really weird flavors of ice cream. They do a corn flavor, carrot (which Kristi got, it was not good) as well as beans and rice, rum and raisins, among others. I went the safe route with strawberry cheesecake. Scott did try the corn and he said it was good.

We had so much fun with Kristi and the kids here, even though it will take some time to get my house put back together! I hope these picts will inspire you all to come out and see us here in PR!! Thanks again for coming Kristi! We love you guys!!

So the baby discovered the hose...

2010-04-08T17:09:00.000-07:00

I might be a bad Mom. I'm not sure. So today Rhys had spaghetti-o's for lunch and he made a BIG mess. Huge. So instead of putting him in the bathtub to wash off, I stripped him down and put a sprinkler in the backyard. He loves playing in the sprinkler anyway, he just got to do it naked. I wonder what my neighbors were thinking as they saw this butt naked baby playing in the yard. They probably all think I'm insane already anyway, so I probably shouldn't worry.
Anyway, I took the sprinkler off so I could really hose him down and I showed him how to drink out of the hose. He thought it was pretty cool. So this evening we were out playing in the yard again (yes, I let my son run around in a diaper a lot. It's hot here!!) and I turned the hose on again for him. I love the fact that he had the hose between his legs. It just makes it look really funny. Enjoy!

Check Me Out!

2010-04-03T19:55:00.000-07:00

Easter Egg Hunting!!

2010-03-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

This morning we had a ward Easter party. They did a Easter Egg hunt for all of the kids which was really fun. Rhys had so much fun looking for eggs. It was so hot though. Scott and I helped hide the eggs and by the end of hiding them we were both gross sweaty. It was really funny, Scott went into tell all the kids that we were starting the Easter egg hunt. He goes in and says, "The easter bunny finished hiding all the eggs and he got really hot so he left" and one kid yells really loud " Yeah, we can see your sweat!!"
Anywho, Rhys was so cute searching for eggs. This one is my favorite. Does it look like he's peeing to anyone else?

Happy Birthday to You.....

2010-03-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

We made it!! Scott and I were able to keep Rhys alive for a whole year. Well, more than that if you count the time I was pregnant. But anyway, Rhys had a birthday!! One year old!! I can't believe it!
We had some friends over to celebrate with us. Amber made a beautiful cake for him to make a mess with. At first he didn't really know what to do but he got the hang of it pretty quick.

Scott and I got Rhys these marker things that are made for little hands. They are really cool but he doesn't really get what to do with them. He just banged them on the coffee table and tried to suck on them. Not a great idea!! Anywho, we're going to hold on to them for a while and try again with them when he's a little older.

Here he is opening his gift from Grandma Jo. She sent him a photo album with everyone's picture in it. He's getting the hang of opening presents a lot better. Thanks everybody for the gifts you sent him. Megan, I love the ties!! They are so cute and I love how everything is tropical fabric!! Can't wait for Sunday when he can wear them!

Ok, so this little video is so cute. The Roberts were over for Rhys' birthday shindig and Rhys decided to give Arden a ride on his cart. He's such a cute kid! Anyway, enjoy!

Funny Picture

2010-02-19T11:03:00.001-08:00

Rhys got some lollypops from his Aunt Lisa for Valentines day. He enjoyed them a lot!!

Happy Birthday Sarah!!

2010-02-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

Today is my sister Sarah's 30th birthday! She's getting so old!! Sarah likes to post silly pictures of people on their birthday so I decided to look through all my old photos to find pictures of her. Sarah, I love you to death and hope you have a happy, happy birthday!!

A few years ago we took a trip to Costa Rica and we went on one of those zip line tours. You get to ride horses up to the trees and back. Sarah had the LAZIEST horse ever!! She was always last and got stuck riding next to the tour guides making uncomfortable small talk. Plus, it had a really bad name. It was like a swear word in Spanish, but she didn't know that until the end, after she had been calling it that the whole time.

Sarah and TJ love to cosmic bowl. Which is, you dress up in silly outfits and go bowling. Bowling is much more fun when you look like a total dork.

Ever watch Saturday Night Live? Sloppy Joe..Slop, Sloppy Joe....

Ok, so this is NOT Sarah, just so you know. While I was looking for pictures of Sarah, I found this really funny one of mom that I had to post. That dinosaur thing in her hand is a water gun. If I remember right, she got into a water fight with some of the kids in the house. I think she was doing the dishes or something and it got out of hand and this is what happened. It was really funny. This is one of the many reasons I love my mom.

Our Continuing Adventures!!

2010-02-06T14:50:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a while now and I've been totally lame-o. These first pictures are some of Rhys cause, you know, it's really not a blog entry until I've posted pictures of him. So, here he is! This week we went to play at the little park in our neighborhood. He's getting a lot better at walking so I figured he might actually have fun on the toys now. He had a blast walking all over, crawling through all the tubes, and finding leaves to put in his mouth. He's so cute!!

A few weekends ago we went on a little jaunt to Ponce (pronounced Pon-say for all you gringos), which is on the south side of the island. It is such a cool little town. We went to this boardwalk by the beach where you can watch all the boats come in. There are pelicans all over this boardwalk. Scott was trying to get me to touch one of them, but I'm pretty sure if they wanted to they could bite my fingers off. That would not be awesome.
Oh, yes, and Megs, it's January in these pictures and we are all wearing shorts!! It is still so hot!!

We took a tour of this really old cool house. The owner of the house was an architect and very wealthy for that day and age. He had the coolest shower ever!! Back then you were lucky if you had running water period, and he had a shower. It was sweet. Here you can climb up this rickety spiral staircase to get to a patio on the roof. It was nice and breeze up there, and a pretty good view to spy on your neighbors!

Lonely Planet says that this is the most photographed building in Puerto Rico, so I had to take a picture! It's an old fire house. I have no idea why they made it look like this, but it's pretty unique. I dug it. Maybe Scott will let us paint our house like this one day!

Look at Me!!

2010-01-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

Remember the video of Rhys and Scott that I posted a few weeks ago? It's been 22 days since that video was taken. Look how good Rhys got at walking since then!! How amazing is my son!! I can't believe how good he's gotten in just 22 days. Love that kid!

Video take 2

2010-01-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

Our Cute Little Family

2010-01-20T11:54:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago our friend Miranda took some pictures of our little family. Our goal was to get pictures and send them out for Christmas. Obviously that didn't happen!! Here are the pictures and you all can pretend you saw them in a Christmas card. It was so hot and windy and I thought Miranda did a really good job and they turned out well considering we were all hot and sweaty. Thanks Miranda!!

Rhys is getting so big! This video was taken a few weeks ago so he's doing even better now. He gets so excited when he takes steps by himself. Enjoy!!

El Yunque!!!

2010-01-02T14:54:00.000-08:00

Today we had the chance to check out El Yunque! It's a rainforest up in the mountains here. It is so beautiful. We found a little hiking trail that goes to a sweet waterfall. It was really slick and muddy and we were pretty lucky that neither of us took a spill down the hill. Once we got to the waterfall it was majorly beautiful and we were the only ones there to enjoy it.
p.s. it totally looks like I'm letting Rhys play on rocks covered with bird poop, but it's not. It's not bird poop I promise!! It's just the way the rocks look!

My Boys!!

Scott was playing Tarzan

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-30T09:14:00.000-08:00

We had such a fun Christmas with Rhys this year. He doesn't really get the concept of Christmas yet, being only 9 months old and all. We think he had a good time even if he didn't understand what was going on.
Momma Jo sent Rhys some cute jammies she had made. Too bad they are like 3 sizes to big. We'll hold on to them for a year or so and see if they fit then.

Rhys was not really into opening presents. He tried it and he wasn't interested. I got to open them instead.

Rhys is so funny lately. Check out this cute video!!!

The Dreaded In-Laws!!

2009-12-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

Just kidding. I love my in-laws. I think I won the in-law lottery. They're great people. They came and hung out with us for nearly two weeks and it was a blast. I need a couple days to recover from all the fun . Blaine loves to snorkel so we had to go to as many beaches we could to snorkel. We found some really cool stuff and had a blast. These pictures are a little bit out of order so bear with me here.

This is a picture of Rhys at Mar Chiquita. Someone told us there was good snorkeling here but when we got there to look at it we realized very quickly that we wouldn't be doing any snorkeling there. The waves were huge and it's surrounded by these razor sharp rocks. Even though we didn't swim there Rhys had a blast. The actual beach is behind him, this water is run-off from the huge waves crashing over the rocks. It was still and clear and shallow so he had a really fun time crawling around in it. He's so happy, and of course you've got the sickly starving dog in the background. That's Puerto Rico for you!

This is why we didn't snorkel. It's a small beach with huge waves and sharp rocks. Not a good combo for snorkeling. So beautiful though. I think I took about 50 pictures.

I had to show Rhys cowboy boots to Dad. I got these before Rhys was even born and he's almost grown into them. I even have spurs!! We had to check them out. Sasha's good for something, right? Dad's excited for us to come to Idaho in the summer so we can try the boots out on some real horses.

We had the chance to go take a ferry out to the island of Culebra. One of the beaches there, Flamenco, was voted one of the best beaches in the world so we had to check it out. It was a super fun, super exhausting adventure. Here are Rhys and Dad hanging out. They had a blast together.

This is Flamenco beach. It really was beautiful. We didn't stay very long cause there isn't snorkeling here. We left the beautiful beach to hike over the hill to go to an ugly beach with snorkeling where I got about 75 mosquito bites. The snorkeling was pretty wicked awesome though.

Us on the Ferry. I'm trying not to get seasick.

We took a break from the beach to go to Old San Juan. These are the boys checking out the Forts.

So Scott got asked to be Santa at our Wards Christmas party. It was so funny I almost wet myself. Keep in mind we live in Puerto Rico and the church doesn't have air conditioning. He was so hot!! He was sweating before he even left the bathroom. The suit itself is hot but he's so skinny we stuffed it to fill him out more. The kids thought it was pretty funny. The best part was we tried to get Rhys to sit on Santa's lap and he totally freaked. He screamed for 10 minutes straight and took another 10 to get him completely calmed down. I didn't get a picture but some people from our Ward did and I'm waiting for them to send me a copy.

If I really was married to Santa I would so let myself go. I would love to be Mrs. Clause.

The Fruits of my Labors!!!

2009-11-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

This is pretty much all that my blood sweat and tears amounts to. Two peas. Yippee. I tried my hand at growing a garden. I figured that things should grow really well here since it's so warm and sunny. So I decided to pull up some of the grass in my back yard, fill it with dirt and plant some seeds. Easy, right? Not so much.

First of all, I didn't realize how hot it was outside. I think I literally sweat out a gallon of water just pulling the grass out. It wasn't really hard work but about 5 minutes in, I would be dripping in sweat. Gross, huh?

Second of all, I didn't realize how much dirt it would take to fill in my small garden. I kept on having to go back to the store and buy more dirt. I started filling it in with potting soil, cause that's all I could find, until my last trip when I found topsoil. I could have saved a ton if I had found that first.

Third of all, I didn't realize how persistent Sasha would be about getting into it. I was planning on her trying to get into it so I bought a little fence to go around it to discourage her from trying. Yeah, well I must have forgotten that I have the worst Great Dane ever! Pretty much the day after I had planted she got into it and rolled around. I would have had the most beautiful straight rows of peas and corn you've ever seen, but NO, she had to mess them up. I replanted the places she ruined and reinforced the fence to discourage her, bit it didn't work. She got in again. Anyway, long story short, I had to make a new fence. But by that time, I'd had to replant a couple of times. So frustrating!!

Then Fourth of all, Puerto Rico's weather is crazy!!! It's either scorching or it's raining. It rained for like a week off and on and flooded my garden about 5 times. Here's a lovely picture of one of the times. By this point half my corn is already laying down and my peas are totally drowned. Now I realize why I haven't seen any other gardens in Puerto Rico.

Oh well. On the bright side I have gotten some peas!! 5 to be exact. All that work and 5 peas!! I have to say though, that they are the best peas I've ever had in my life!!! I'm saying lots of prayers that I'll get more than just 5 peas or I will feel completely defeated. Bested by a garden, that will be me.

This is how we spent Black Friday. No shopping for us! We took Rhys (another fruit of my labours) to the beach. He loves the beach. Anywho, he was crawling around and totally face planted into the sand. The funny thing it that he wasn't upset about it at all. Scott said he looked like the sandy Phantom of the Opera. I think I'll pulling sand out of his hair for the next week.

Ok, so total side note, what is the deal with European men and teeny tiny swimsuits? Seriously, who wants to see all of that? I mean if I go to the beach and my husbands swimsuit is smaller that mine, don't you think that's a huge read flag? We saw this couple and it completely looked like this dude had stolen his girlfriends bikini bottoms. He wasn't hiding anything! Gross! Another guy was sporting a speed-o with sparkly bling. Dudes should never wear a bedazzled sped-o. Even if you are gay (which I'm sure he was).

Here's another side note, I love seeing chubby girls on the beach. They make me feel so much better about myself. I feel so much better knowing that even if I don't look like Giselle in my board shorts at least I don't look like the chubbs who shouldn't be wearing a bikini. Insensitive, maybe, but so true.

Rhys was helping me do the laundry. SO CUTE!!

Fun Times in Puerto Rico

2009-11-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

We've had some awesome adventures here in Puerto Rico lately. We got to check out a new beach, Luquillo Beach, which was amazing. It looked like a postcard! I stink at arranging the pictures on here so they're kinda backwards. This picture is of Rhys as we were getting ready to leave. I set him on the chair while I was packing up and this is how I found him. He was actually pretty content all squished like that.

Rhys Loves the beach. He had an awesome time crawling around and trying to eat sand and pine needles.

We had the chance to go to another one of the big Forts here named Cristobol (like crystal ball). It was really neat to wander around. This fort was designed to catch rain water and that's what the Forts residents drank. The water was all collected in these reservoirs that you can still look down. The boys were checking it out. I have the most handsome guys in my family!!

Rhys' First Halloween

2009-11-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Not only was it Rhys' first Halloween, it was our first Halloween in Puerto Rico! I'm not used to celebrating Halloween in 85 degree weather. It was fun though. This is Rhys' first cotton candy. It was really sticky because of the humidity and wherever it touched it immediately stuck there.

This is Amy, she's in my ward. She just had this beautiful baby and he and Rhys were twinners. There was another little boy wearing a skeleton costume and we tried to get them all together for a picture but he decided to have a melt down before Scott could find the camera. They're still super cute just the two of them.

La cucaracha, la cucaracha.....

2009-10-29T08:44:00.000-07:00

As per my complaints with the pictures on my last post I decided to post the pictures anyway. These pictures really gross me out, which is why I HAVE to share them. Now I'm really paranoid that I have huge cockroaches crawling all over my house. But so far, luckily, no more sightings (at least in my house anyway)

Isn't that the most disgusting thing you've ever seen? The other day I was standing in the check-out line at Walmart. I was right next to the candy and what-not that they always put in the line to tempt you while you're standing there waiting (and if you're in Puerto Rico, waiting, and waiting, and waiting...) and I saw this little creature crawling all over the shelf. I tapped the guy in front of me on the shoulder and asked him if it was a cockroach. It was! I thought cockroaches were nocturnal and wouldn't calmly come out with people right next to them, but I guess I was wrong. I will definitely think twice next time I am tempted to buy a candy bar while waiting in the check out-line. I hate cockroaches.

Uber Cute Pictures

2009-10-29T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes this blogging thing makes me crazy! I've been trying to rearrange pictures and put writing over the top one and it won't let me. If anyone has any tips on how to do this let me know. I'm sure it's super easy but I am not smart enough right now to figure it out. I was trying to put a picture of this HUGE cockroach that we found in our house. Actually Sasha found it and was chasing it all over the living room. She got it cornered and Scott caught it. Luckily Scott was there because I can honestly say I don't know what I would have done. No way I want to touch that thing and no way I want to leave it in my house. Thank goodness for a husband who will do the stuff that I won't do.

Anyway, can I just say that I have the cutest kid ever? I love him so much. He learned to crawl a little while ago and now he's zooming everywhere getting into things. Here are some cute new pictures of him that I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats waiting to see. (p.s. I don't know why this is blue and underlined. This blog has a mind of it's own)
I thought this picture was cute because the bear is the same size as he is and it was like they were pals hanging out together.

I found this cute pool (for only $10!!) for Rhys to play in. He was really excited! Look at that cute face!

Ok, if you don't think this is the cutest picture ever, there is something wrong with you. He loves those little Gerber puffy star things and he's gotten so good and picking them up and putting them in his mouth. He was just off a little bit from his mouth with this one.

San Sebastian is Awesome!!

2009-10-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

Scott had Columbus Day off so we used the day to continue exploring the Island. We went with some families from the ward to a waterfall in San Sebastian. It was a whole heap of fun and we will definitely be going back. Thank you Columbus for giving us a national holiday so we can have the day off and go play!!

Rhys was totally pooped after all the fun he had playing in the water.

Technical difficulties and cute pictures

2009-10-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

Man! I've had a heck of a time getting these pictures to upload and it's not working letting me rearrange the way I want so I'm just going to leave them the way they are. If I mess with it anymore I'll probably have a nervous breakdown. Anywho... guess what Rhys got really good at doing this week. This week he just decided he likes to sit up all the time. I can't get the kid to sleep cause he spends all his time sitting in his crib. It's been fun watching him learn and grow. Look at that happy face!!

I love torturing my dog! I decided that she needed some glamor in her life so I gave her a pedicure. Isn't it so pretty!

Don't you love babies faces when babies eat sour things? Here we have lemons. His facial expressions were priceless!!!

This weekend we made it to the Observatory in Arecibo. It's big. It only took us 2 tries to get there too. We tried a couple weeks ago and ended up aimlessly driving all over the winedy potholed roads until I got too carsick to go on. We tried again today and made it. It's pretty cool. As you can see the weather was a little sketchy, could have rained any second. It was great because there's a little hike up, not too long, but not one you want to do when it's 90 degrees. It cooled it down nicely. It was really pretty with the green trees and the grey sky and awesome radio thingy. Here's our cute family in Puerto Rico!

I have a pony in my house!!!

2009-10-09T17:29:00.000-07:00

I found a fun video of Rhys and Sasha. I need to find a saddle!

It's October?

2009-10-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's 95 degrees outside. I had to look at the date on my phone several times before I realized it said October. I still don't believe it. It's so weird not to see the leaves change. I think I might be homesick or something because the blogs with fall pictures and activities make me want to cry. I don't miss being cold but I am missing the fall. I really want to stroll through a pumpkin patch and eat corn on the cob and wear a soft comfortable sweater. I know a lot of you are hating me right now cause you're freezing cold and cause our family is going to go to the beach today after conference, but I can whine a little bit right?
Another reason I don't believe it's October is because next week I'm going to plant a garden. I bought one of those Topsy-Turvey things where you plant a tomato plant upside down and I'm excited about that because the tomatoes at the stores are really crappy. We're also planting some corn (cause I want corn on the cob and I can't find it here anywhere) and some peas. The soil is really sandy and sucky here so I have to dig a spot and fill it in with store bought dirt. next week we're planning on picking up some orange and lime trees as well. So I'm excited to try my hand at growing things. It might end in a huge dirty failure but I should at least try.

We had an exciting experience this last week. I have a friend here who lives in my neighborhood named Mariely and she LOVES my Great Dane Sasha. She comes over to see me and brings treats for her and lets her drool and climb all over her and they both love it. The other day she invited our family (and of course Sasha) over to her house for a swim in her pool and a BBQ. Mariely has a blue and green Macaw named Coco that she's had for 3 years, since before it even had feathers. She has taught Coco all these tricks and it might talk, I can't remember, but anyway, Mariely was having Coco show me all her tricks when in a flash of black, blue and green, Sasha POUNCED and knocked Coco out of Mariely's hands to the ground. It was chaos! Coco was squawking and throwing feathers, I was trying to pull Sasha off Coco, but that wasn't really working cause she's 120 pounds and I was holding Rhys at the same time. Scott heard the screaming and came sprinting across the lawn to help and between the 3 of us we pulled Sasha off the poor bird. It had lost some feathers and it was panting. My heart was like beating out of my chest I was so freaked out and I was super pissed at Sasha. I would have felt so bad if Sasha had eaten her bird. It would have sucked. It all turned out alright though and Mariely still loves Sasha and spoils her whenever she sees her.

6 Months Old!!

2009-09-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

On the 10th Rhys turned 6 months old. One half year!! I haven't accidentally killed or maimed him yet! I'm so proud of me. I just wanted to add a couple videos of him. Look how much he has grown!! Seems like just last week I brought him home. He is just the most awesome little kid ever and I thank Heavenly Father every day for sending him to our home.

Labor Day!

2009-09-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

Things have been going well for us in Puerto Rico. Scott ordered us some snorkel gear online. They came in the mail and we were really excited to try them out. Sasha was really afraid of me in my get-up so I was chasing her all over the living room (which is pretty tricky in flippers). I look pretty awesome, huh!

Here are some cute new pictures of Rhys. He is getting so big! His first bubble bath!! He thought the bubbles were pretty cool.

Scott is already ruining our son. This is their quality time together. Rhys kept trying to grab the controller and help dad play call of duty. I'm not so sure that's the best game in the world to be playing with a small child. Scott and I will have to have some words about that.

I have to make sure that I put awesome pictures of the beach and fun things here so that our family and friends are inspired to come visit us here. This is how we spent our Labor Day! They call this beach Horseshoe Beach. There is a neighborhood next to it that's a little sketchy but the beach is pretty nice. A bunch of people from our ward were there and that was awesome because nobody pointed out how white Scott and I are (which happened last time we went to the beach). We brought Sasha and she had a good time playing in the waves and eating all the little kids food that they gave her or dropped in the sand. She's full up on hot dogs now. She actually swam too, which is amazing for anyone who knows her. She is not a swimmer!

Rhys did really well. He watched the waves for a while with me and then took a nap on some towels on the beach under the shade of a palm tree. It was nice because we had a pretty good size group there so we had a lot of baby sitters to make sure he didn't get kidnapped. Scott and I got to swim for a while together, which you can't do with a little baby. We had a really good time at the beach. Scott and I our nursing some sunburns but it was totally worth it!!

PICTURES!!

2009-08-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

I finally got pictures of my house! Actually I finally felt it was clean enough to take pictures of it. But I went on a cleaning spree and took the picts. It will be dirty again in 10 minutes when I get Rhys up and start cooking dinner. Here's Rhys in his crib. We have a fan clipped on the side of the crib so it blows on him all the time. If it's 85 degrees in his room it actually feels pretty good. He's getting used to being hot.

This room was painted this blue color when we moved in, which was perfect. His room is all fish and coral reefy, which I think is super cute, and perfect because we live on an island in the Caribbean.

This is my entryway (where the lizard lives) and I love it because I love the plants and the way the stairs go up and the vaulted ceiling. It's a bad picture to show that but I think it's cool.

I love my kitchen (except we don't have a dishwasher yet, hence the empty spot by the fridge. We have to wash our dishes by hand, eek!!) We have a dining room with a table and chairs but we eat at the bar cause it's convenient.

This weekend our family decided to take a drive towards the center of the island, which is the mountains. We were going to stop in Caguas but it didn't look too exciting so we just kept on driving. I'm not sure the name of the place we ended up but it was a cool little place with booths set up where you could buy souvineers and these resteraunts where your lunch was cooking in the window. Nice, Huh? Scott had the ribs and I had, well, a hunk of pork really. The cook takes a big cleaver and chops off a hunk for you to eat. It was really good actually. They kept the skin on so you just have to watch out for hair. Weird I know, but it was really fun and a cool experience and I'm glad we went. I would go again.

He's cute, I promise!!

2009-08-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

So Sarah told me the other day that Rhys looks like a goober in the pictures I post. I just want to say that he is cute and not always goobery. I just post those pictures because I think they're funny. So I wanted to post some non-goober pictures of my son just so everyone can know that he actually is adorable!

See, he's not gooby, or goofy or whatever. Actually, he is goofy and that's why I love him so much!!

Our new Mascota

2009-08-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

We got a new pet the other day. It came in with a plant I had potted and left outside for a while. He lives in my entry way between the two plants I've got in there. Someone suggested that I should just leave him because he can eat all the bugs in my house. So I don't mind him being there. It's just weird when I walk through the entry way and I can see him scurrying across the wall or floor. Anyway, I can't think of a good name for him, so if anyone has any suggestions pass them on.

P.S. Sarah is supposed to be having Brenner tomorrow so everyone keep them in they're prayers that everything will go smoothly. We love you Sari and we're excited to see little Brenner!!!

Seeing the Sights!

2009-08-17T17:26:00.001-07:00

So this weekend we made our way down to check out Old San Juan. It's pretty cool. It was like a billion degrees (no exaggeration!) so we only stayed for a couple hours. It's not like we won't have time to go there again. We visited one of the forts there named Morro. It was such a beautiful day. There were a bunch of people on the lawns flying kites and there were booths set up were you could buy a kite to fly if you wanted. Here is Scott on his way to the fort.

Right to the side of Fort Morro is a really cool cemetery with these awesome sculptures. It was a really cool view.

Scott and Rhys at the fort. He's always got at least one hand in his mouth (Rhys, not Scott). He's a really good baby to have to cart around. If he wasn't so good we would never be able to go and see stuff.

Our little family at the fort. Aren't we hot? We literally are!

We are experiencing our first Hurricanes and tropical storms here in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Ana was on her way towards us yesterday and was supposed to hit this morning. They turn the water and power off here right before the storm hits and you never know when they will turn them back on. So Scott and I got ready with our new generator, water storage and propane grill. He made me get up at 5:30 this morning to fill up the bath tubs with water just in case. Luckily it didn't hit us hardly at all. All we ended up getting was called a tropical depression which gave us a ton of rain and a really cool thunderstorm. This morning Rhys and I laid in my bed, I had opened the blinds in my room, and we just watched the thunderstorm. Some of the lightning was so close the thunder shook the house, and that's pretty good for a house made out of cement.
We are watching Hurricane Bill now. The first news said it was going to hit us pretty hard, but last I heard was that it's path changed and we might get only a little bit of it. You never know what will happen though so we're still going to prepare. Better safe than sorry.
We were talking to some of the people in our ward that have been here for a while and they were telling us that the locals don't always hate the hurricanes because it's an excuse not to have to go to work. So they just stay inside and drink until it gets over. The other day we were at Costco and there were people with shopping carts full of beer and Scott saw someone loading up the back of their pick-up truck with just alcohol. I guess we all prepare in our own ways.

Donde la Vida es Bella

2009-08-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Yo habla espanol... wait, no I don't!! We finally have the internet! It's wierd how dependent I've become on the internet. I'm connected with the outside world again! We're almost done unpacking and our house is feeling more and more like a home. I still have boxes all over because I just got my bookcases and so now those boxes and the boxes that had the books in them are laying in the middle of my floor.
Things have been crazy here. Living in Puerto Rico is an adventure for sure. They do things so wierd here! The way they do some things just does not make sense to me. For example, when you are registering your car, the place you get your registration is not the same place you pay for it. So you have to go to this place and do some paperwork or whatever, they send you to some place across town to pay for it, then you have to go back to the first place and show them that you paid and then they give you the registration. Why don't they just take your money at the first place? It doesn't make sense right?!! Some of the things they do just boggle the mind! It's not all been bad though. I still feel good about being here and there are some really beautiful and good things to experience.

P.S. while I've been writing this the power has gone out. Lovely!

Anyway, I've got some pictures at last. I don't have any of my house because it's still kinda messy. It's a work in progress. But this is a picture of part of the drive to our house. Pretty much this drive was what sold me on wanting to live in this town. Some of the other places looked pretty ghetto but this was more like Tropical Paradise. I love the palm trees.

This is one of the beaches we drive past to get to church. It's really pretty. I took Rhys and Sasha on a walk there this morning and we saw some little crabs running around. One of the bummers about this place is that people leave garbage all over! So right behind me in the picture is a highway that is littered with trash. Its really upsetting because it's a beautiful beach that people have messed up.

I love these trees. I don't know the name of them but someone told me that they are Puerto Rico's state tree. They have these beautiful red flowers all over them. I want one.

Did I mention that we got Sasha? Well we did. This is what she does about 85% of the time. You can't see but there is a fan right by her head. The rest of the time she is following me around the house getting under foot. Our friends here have a little tiny white dog. She's about the size of a cat. She and Sasha have become friends and they like to play together. It's so cute cause the little dog thinks she's a big dog and Sasha doesn't know she's a big dog and the little dog bosses her around. They like to chase eachother and it's so funny.

Here's Rhys!! He's getting so big!! He's getting two bottom teeth now and starting to drool like a madman. He loves this little bouncy car.

He wasn't sure what to think about this hat. I thought it was funny.

Could I get some cold water please?

2009-07-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

You know how the longer you run the hot water the hotter it gets? Well the same thing happens here with the cold water. It starts off luke warm and just gets hotter and hotter. It is never cold! I never thought it would be impossible to get cold water out of the tap, but it is!! I give Rhys baths in straight "cold" water and its the perfect temperature for him. It's the weirdest thing ever!! Just one of the crazy things we've experienced so far living in PR.
We finally found a house here. It is really awesome. The economy is bad here, just like the rest of the country. The people here are having a hard time getting renters into their places, so they have dramatically dropped the prices on their houses. We benefit a lot from their desperation. The house we're renting used to sell for almost half a million dollars, and we can afford to rent it. We also convinced them to build us a fence and hook us up with all the appliances. That just shows how desperate they are just to get someone in there. So kudos for us. Anyway, I am really excited to move in and have people come and visit us!!

We Made It!!

2009-07-18T14:20:00.000-07:00

We made it here safely yesterday. It is so hot here!! We are totally roasting so far. Apparently it is the hot, rainy, tornado season here. We got in to the airport at about 3:30 and didn't find our hotel until almost 6. We got so lost! The GPS can't find anything and they don't label the streets at all. We were super frusterated last night and were pretty much hating Puerto Rico. Today we went with a relator and looked at a bunch of houses to rent. Some were really nice onces (we looked at a house with an elevator!!) and some really crappy ones. We're going out again on Monday to look at some more houses so hopefully we can find something perfect. Wish us luck!!!

4th of July

2009-07-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

We had an awesome time in DC for the 4th. Kelli, Greg, and Brycen came out to spend the weekend here. Kelli bought the kids these 4th of July top hats. They were covered with glitter and the glitter got all over everything! It was still cute though.

Rhys's hat was a little big.

His head was covered in glitter. It took me a couple of days to get it all out!

This is us at the fireworks. We thought that Rhys might get scared but he actually loved it. He was mesmerized by them.

Our little family leaves for Puerto Rico tomorrow morning. Good bye continental United States!! We'll Miss You!!

Family Day!!!

2009-06-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today our family had the chance to go to a family day at Scott's work. They had a ton of stuff for kids there. We had a good time, although it was like a million degrees. We got Rhys' face painted and it was awesome!!

Presidential Mayhem

2009-06-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Last night we decided to take a walk to see the White House. At the same time the President was returning home so we got to see him drive by. It was madness. It was like the whole city was on red alert or something. Helicopters were circling, fire trucks sirens were blaring, they stopped traffic, the whole nine yards. The President has quite an entourage too (no less than 7 other cars was traveling with him). It was actually pretty cool. On the down side we didn't get to see the White House because they had blocked the road and we weren't allowed to go any further. Bummer.

Gettysberg and Mt. Vernon

2009-06-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend our family had the chance to go to Gettysberg. I think it's one of those places you need to visit at least once in your life. It was really cool. It's wierd to think how many people died there. It's such a beautiful place. It really makes you appreciate the people who fought and died for our country and the freedoms we all enjoy. We also went to Mount Vernon (George Washington's home) It is really cool. We didn't go inside the mansion because we would have had to wait for an hour. There were a ton of people there. Here are some pictures from our adventures.

New Pictures of Rhys

2009-06-04T12:50:00.003-07:00

Thought I would put on some new picts of the banbino! He's so cute!!

Not sure what I think about big city life!

2009-06-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

I am so spoiled!! I've realized that many times in my life. Our little family is in Washington, DC for about 6 weeks while Scott is on a temporary duty assignment here. They've put us up in an apartment on 8th street, which is right between the National Archives and an art museum. It's also about a block away from Scott's office so he walks to work. It's awesome!!! We are right in the middle of everything. We are in walking distance of just about anything you want to see here. I've been to the Holocaust Museum, Natural History Museum, twice, and yesterday Rhys and I went to the American History Museum. I didn't finish it (it's huge) so I have to go again sometime. Another awesome thing is that there's a pool and a gym and a courtyard that we can hang out in. Also, and here's the awesome part, we get maid service every week. They even do your dishes!! I am spoiled.
There are some downers which totally throw me off though. I'm not brave enough yet to go on the metro by myself with Rhys and I don't have a car here. I haven't figured out grocery shopping without a car. Plus it's noisy here!!! The other morning someone's car alarm was going off for about a half an hour and that was really annoying. Also, we're on the 11th floor, and anyone who knows me really well knows how much I hate elevators. They make me really ill.
So yesterday evening there was a really awesome storm here. The lightning was flashing, thunder rolling, rain pounding on the windows, etc. I was holding Rhys looking out the window and I commented to him how lucky we were not to be out in it. About 30 seconds later, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building!!! (P.S. This is funny, it took Scott about 5 minutes to get ready to go. I was standing at the door with Rhys waiting for him while he was getting all his gear together. If it was a real fire we would have burned up.) Anyway, once we finially left, we couldn't take the elevators so we had to take the stairs down 11 flights of stairs. Once we got down all our neighbors were waiting in the hallway next the the exit cause no way in heck we were going out in that storm until we actually see flames. They eventually let us go back home once the fire department said it was ok. It was just a leaky fire sprinkler.
We're having fun so far but I am still not sure how much I love big city life. I think I'm probably a small town girl.

Missing everyone already!

2009-05-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

This month is a very big month for our family. Three of the siblings and their kids are moving this month. My poor mom... Anyway, Brooks and Meg are moving to Virginia (or is it West, I can't ever remember), Sarah and TJ moved to Ely, Nevada, and we're moving to our new home soon. The movers are coming to get our stuff this week and I'm kinda freaking out. Not that I don't want to move, I do. It's just a HUGE move for our family. I said goodbye to my sibs already and I just want them to know how much I will miss them. I love you guys all so much!! I will miss being able to see you all as much and watching your kids grow (other than pictures that is). I think you are all wonderful people and I am glad that we are a forever family. Love you!!!

A monumentus first!!

2009-05-02T16:15:00.000-07:00

It's Awesome!!! Rhys gave me his first smile yesterday!!! I've seen him smile before, but he's not conscious when he does it. But yesterday, we were sitting there, I was smiling at him, and he gave me the cutest toothless smile you've ever seen in your life!! Probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It's amazing how exciting a smile can be once you become a mom. Life is good.

So very mysterious...

2009-05-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

So Scott was nagging me to change this blog. I can say that because I know he reads this blog (I love you Scott!!) Anyway, Scott's job has some potential to put his family in danger if he comes across the wrong people. So I'm supposed to keep what he does for work on the DL so that no one can find out info about us on the internet. Apparently you can just Google someone's name and find out loads about them. So we just have to be careful about what we write on here so that people can't find out too much. So I've taken out any info about where we are going and any time where I typed his first and last name together. If you find anywhere I missed let me know so I can change it. It sounds very dramatic, I know, but you never know what will happen in the future and it may keep us safe one day.

Cute New Picture

2009-04-22T21:34:00.000-07:00

Here's a cute picture of us. He's six weeks old now, can you believe it?!

How cute is he?!

An Update... Finially!!!

2009-04-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's crazy to me how one can be so busy and still get nothing done!! Sometimes the only thing I have to show for my day is the fact that Rhys is still alive and kicking. It's been a good couple of weeks though. It's been awesome being able to hang out with and get to know my son. Here are some cute pictures of him. He's way cuter now that he's starting to grow out of that wacky newborn baby wierdness.

Scott and his son

2009-03-17T10:57:00.000-07:00

Scott was able to come home this weekend to meet Rhys. He got here at like 12:30 Saturday morning and left at about 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon. Not a long visit but better than nothing. It is so funny to see Scott change a diaper. He looks as insecure about it as I feel. They are so cute together but Scott can't wait until he gets a little older and can play with him. Babies this age are pretty boring for dads.

We decided to have Rhys blessed last Sunday before Scott left. We found out that we have to be in Washington DC for 2 months before we go to where we are going and that starts the day after Scott graduates the academy. So he wouldn't be able to come home in between. So, although we wanted everybody to be there and have a huge circle, it was more important that Scott be able to bless his son and not have everyone there than have someone else do it.

Ok, it ended!!!!

2009-03-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Well I was supposed to be induced on Saturday but Rhys decided to join our family a little early. I had a doctors appointment Tuesday morning and I was 2 cm dialated. On the way home from the appointment I started having contractions. Once we got home (which takes about an hour, by the way) I started keeping track of contractions. About 4 o'clock we decided we probably better head back into town to the hospital. It was the longest ride of my life!! I swear Jane was driving under the speed limit the whole time and we were hitting every red light. When we got there and they checked me I was at a 4 (which meant I was far enough along for an epidural). Oh glorious drugs!!!! We love epidurals, unfortunately it wasn't really working the whole time. For the 3 HOURS I was pushing I felt every contraction. The reason it took so long was because he was turned the wrong way. He was facing the side instead of down so he was stuck behind my pubic bone. My doctor tried to turn him manually but then we had to go for the suction. They had to stick the suction cup to his head and tried to pull him out. Even with the suction he still wasn't coming. We decided to try one more time and if that didn't work we were going to have to do C-section. At that point, I really didn't care, I just wanted him out!!! Luckily the last time worked, he was born at 11:50 pm on Tuesday. He is so beautiful even though the suction did wierd things to his head. He was 8 pounds 11 ounces, 20 3/4 inches long, with a 14 1/2 inch head. He's got a huge noggin. He's so good too. He really only cries when you change his diaper. He also really likes to sleep in my bed with me, which I think is cute now and I like, but I realize I have to change that habit, like now. Anyway, he's here now. We named him Rhys D'Albini Dahlstrom (D'Albini is a family name and it was better than Rufus). We're home now and Scott gets here tonight and will finally be able to meet his son!

38 1/2 weeks. Will it ever end?!

2009-03-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

I'm 38 and 1/2 weeks pregnant now and I'm starting to think I might be pregnant forever. No matter what, I'm having the baby by the 14th because I'm scheduled to be induced that day. I would be totally fine with it if he came before that though. My poor little body is very sore right now. All you women out there know what I'm talking about. My doctor also told me that I'm having a big baby. He thinks it's at least 8 pounds so far. Another reason for me really wanting to go into labor soon. Every day he's not born is another day for him to get bigger. I would prefer not to push out a 10 pound kid. Anyway, this picture was taken on Sunday. Check out the cankles on me. It's insane. I can't wait to have my body to myself again!!

We're Moving to ...

2009-02-23T13:10:00.000-08:00

Scott finally got his orders! It's just like we got a mission call or something. Life is an adventure, and I say BRING IT ON!!

Sarah has already looked into how much plane tickets are, and they really aren't that expensive so everyone better plan on coming to visit us!! We're going to miss everyone so much!! I don't want to think about that too much because I just start getting depressed and panicy.

I'm also including an awesome picture of Sasha. We went on a walk today and she found a LEG in the field. It had a hoof on it still!! She carried it around forever and I was really scared she was going to lick me with her gross dead animal slobber. It was really gross!! Sometimes my dog is really disgusting!

33 Weeks Pregnant!!

2009-01-29T17:46:00.000-08:00

I finially have a picture of myself that I'm not mortified to post!! Only a few weeks left! Although it feels like I've been pregnant forever, it seems like the big day is coming so quickly!! Well, ready or not, the baby is coming and I'm getting really excited to see him. Right now he's doing step aerobics in my uterus and it's feeling pretty wacky. The doctor did an ultrasound on Monday and did a bunch of measurements and according to his calculations, he weighs 5 pounds 4 ounces. Almost as much as what Jordan weighed when she was born. It looks like I'm having an Esther sized baby.

Also~ update on Scott... He's doing really well at Quantico. This week was the driving course and he got the best time out of his whole class. Aparently all those years of driving in Alaska has paid off for him. He had a good week this week, but he's already sick of the food. He also said he got the letters that the family wrote for him at family home evening and he really appreciated all the notes everybody wrote for him.

We get his orders on February 13th (friday the 13th!!!) So everybody pray that we get sent somewhere awesome!!

2009-01-24T13:10:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I am totally lame about keeping my blog up to date. I know all of you check this blog obsessively to see if I've added anything and are constantly dissapointed. Sorry to all of you. For all of you that don't know, Scott is in Quantico, VA right now at the FBI training academy. I am so proud of him!! He's been there for 3 weeks now, and only 17 more to go!! He's doing well there. They are kicking his butt into shape, and luckily he's gained weight there instead of lost it. He has to work out a ton!! I am so glad I am not in his shoes right now. I don't think he's necessarily having fun right now because it's very military which isn't exactly his style. He is pumped for next week though because they get to learn cool driving skills and they get to drive cars all over a track and learn how to chase and catch suspects. They also get their guns soon and get to go out on the shooting range and shoot a lot. That's more his cup of tea. The guys get their orders on week 7, which means that's when we find out where we are moving and what he'll be doing. So, everyone keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we will get assigned to somewhere cool and not super expensive or dangerous. Also pray that we will get to go somewhere where we can have Sasha, because I think my mom and mother-in-law will freak if we have to leave her with one of them. Just in case... hey Sarah, what do you think about taking care of a great dane for a while?

Hola!

2008-12-20T14:16:00.000-08:00

I've been informed by my lovely sister Sarah that I need to update my blog. Thanks for looking out for me Sari!! Well, it's officially a BOY!! We got another ultrasound and he wasn't quite so shy about his manhood this time. We got a really good junk shot which I will hold on to to show to all of his girlfriends one day.
Scott got into the FBI!! Finially!! It only took about 2 years of interviews and tests. But he got the call last week and he's going to Quantico, Virginia for training. Scott was extatic to tell the firm he's been working for that he quits. Yesterday was his last day and I don't think he was sad at all. He leaves January 3rd and he'll be gone for 20 weeks. The lame thing is he won't be around when the baby is born. We're really excited for him to go, but sad at the same time that he will miss me in all my birthing glory!
Scott's dad is coming home today from Iraq for Christmas. He got stuck in New York this morning, they ended up waiting on the runway for about 5 hours so he's going to be a little late getting in. All of Scott's family is going to be here for Christmas to see their dad so it's going to be really crazy out here in Sweet for a while!!

It's a Boy...probably

2008-11-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

Scott and I just had our 20 week ultrasound done on the baby. It was being stubborn and wouldn't give us a good view of its junk. Just being modest I guess. The doctor is 80% sure that it is a boy. So we'll say it's a boy until they tell us otherwise. We're really excited about having a boy first. The doctor says that the baby is bigger than average as well. He's in the top 30% of weight at this point in pregnancy. Hopefully that means I don't have to squeeze out a 12 pound baby!!
We got a picture of his face and he's seriously creepy looking. He looks like skelator right now!! It's like half of his skull with a huge eyeball. I'm sure he looks better than that for real, but the picture is a little freaky! We'll just let him keep cooking for a while, get a bit cuter and all.