Much More Than a Destination

Moving to Reno was such a leap of faith for us 3 years ago. But after this weekend, I was reminded of why Reno has been such a good place for me and my family. This weekend, we got a babysitter to watch my youngest and took the 2 older kids hiking. Reno is full of awesome hiking/biking trails that are literally less than 5 minutes from our house. We decided to take them on the Tom Cook trail and it could not have been a more perfect day. We chose this trail b/c it's beautiful but easy enough for kids to hike. We hiked up the mountain for about an hour and when we got to the top of this one section, there were some pretty amazing views (you know -- the kind that makes you want to run down the hill singing "the hills are alive, with the sound of ... well, you catch my drift!).

I LOVE that there are areas of Reno that are still completely undeveloped, that are national forest land. And they're right around the corner from us. My kids had a blast chasing butterflies, smelling all of the flowers and "picnic"ing at the top of the mountain. When we got to the top, I commented to Dallin how this is exactly the type of place I envisioned raising my family.

With the exception of the recent swarm of earthquakes and the high cost of living, Reno has been PERFECT for us.

Me and my honey at the start of our hike


Jake and Aubrey ready for our "big kid" hike


We made it to the top and had a great picnic lunch. Check out the scenery!!


Chasing them butterflies


Mommy & Aubrey resting after a long hike

Jada and Bobby

How else would a one-year-old Evan pronounce Jacob and Aubrey?

Ahoy there, Mateys!

It has been WAY too long since I've updated my blog. Much has happened since our last posting. First of all, we moved into our new house, which we love. We're next to some families in our ward in a GREAT location. The kids have had a ball in the new house. They pretty much have free reign on the bottom level of the house since it is still largely unfurnished.

Okay, so here's the quick recap on the kids. First off, Jacob had his pirate party today. He was thrilled that so many of his friends came, 18 in total. It was a little chaotic and we were surprised that so many kids came but we had a great time. Every child got an eye patch and bandana upon arrival, then we decorated foam swords with beads and jewels, then we had a fun treasure hunt throughout the house and yard, we also pinned the "X" on the pirate map and of course chowed down on pizza, cake and ice cream. I think Jacob was on cloud 9 the whole time.

Ready to dive into Pirate Cake


Decorating our pirate swords


Aubrey has really grown up a lot lately and has become more of a little girl than a toddler, which makes me a little sad, I have to admit. She loves, LOVES, her little princess toys, polly pockets and Dora. She still loves to drink her milk and will take that over any food or other drink. She can throw terrible tantrums, if she's not happy, and has started picking on her little brother (like any good 2 year old big sis!) She hates the wind... and will bawl if her hair gets messed up in the wind. And finally, she still roams the house in the middle of the night and we still find her laying on the floor in the mornings half the time. Why she prefers the floor to her bed is beyond me, but it's pretty funny!

Aubrey and a friend at Jacob's party


And lastly, Evan has also hit so many milestones lately. He is full on walking all over the house. His favorite thing to do is empty out my cupboards and rearrange my plates in different cupboards. He loves looking at books, although he doesn't like me to read them to him. He just likes to look at them at his own pace. He is learning to fight back when big brother or sis take away his toys. He loves to dance to music and does so by crawling in circles when he hears music.

After church in the new house

Back to an Only Child

Like I mentioned in my previous blog, my 2 oldest kids are with Grandmacita and Papa (my parents) in DC until next week. So Dallin and I have been home alone with our baby, Evan. I swear, that boy has been SOOOO happy b/c he hasn't had to compete for attention for the last 2 weeks. It's been nice devoting more time to him instead of just stringing him along to all of his siblings' activities every day.

His language is starting to take off and we love trying to decipher what he is saying. Some of his favorite words right now are "mommy, daddy, melmo (which means Elmo), Nana (aka banana), and bye bye. He is learning to walk and took his first steps last weekend at a friend's house. It was actually pretty funny because he hadn't really been taking any steps at all on his own. He was standing up holding onto one end of a sectional couch, when all of a sudden, he turned around and walked completely to the other end of the couch! He didn't just take a step... he took like 10 steps. It was crazy. I was like, um, did anyone else just see that?!! Ever since then, he practices walking morning, noon and night.

Evan absolutely melts my heart. All of my kids do, don't get me wrong, but I have a soft spot for Evan because he reminds me so much of Dallin. Evan is Dallin's "mini-me." I think they look identical. And Evan smiles just like Dallin; he squints his eyes just like Dallin; and his temperment is just like Dallin's. I LOVE it!!

The Little Earthquake that Shook BIG

So, many of you may have heard in the news that Reno has been experiencing hundreds of earthquakes the last few weeks. Well, about a week and a half ago, we got hit by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake. You may think that doesn't sound very strong, but let me tell you, that is the most scared I've been in my whole life. It doesn't help that the epicenters of these earthquakes happens to be less than a mile away from our house.

It happened on a Friday night right before midnight. We had already gone to bed when Evan woke up crying sometime after 11 p.m. I ignored his cries and he went back to sleep for a little bit. But then he woke up again, and I ignored him a second time. Finally, the third time he started crying I got up and fixed him a bottle. When I went into his room, I noticed he had gotten his leg stuck in between the bars of his crib (which he hasn't done in ages). Anyway, I figured I was up already so I might as well give him a bottle. I picked him up and sat in the rocking chair when all of a sudden I felt a strong tremor. I immediately stood up and started walking into the hallway (that's our designated earthquake spot) when it stopped. We've been having LOTS of tremors lately so I figured it was a usual tremor. As I was sitting back down into the chair, that's when the next one hit. This one felt like a mack truck had just rammed into the bottom level of our house. Everything immediately started shaking really bad. I started to run out of Evan's room when all of a sudden his dresser toppled over, just barely missing us. By the time I made it to the hallway, I saw Dallin sprinting down the hall to grab our two other kids. He ran into Jacob's room and I started yelling at him to grab Aubrey too. I crouched down in the hallway, Dallin passed off Jacob to me and then grabbed Aubrey and sat in the hallway until the shaking stopped.

I was terrifed and my kids couldn't stop shaking. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than seeing your child absolutely terrified. I told Dallin that we needed to get downstairs because I thought it would be safer. We tried going down the stairs, but there was an immediate aftershock. Once that one stopped, we all ran down the stairs as fast as we could. We had about 50 aftershocks that evening. We all slept on a foam mattress in the middle of our hallway that night. I didn't sleep a wink that night because every time I felt a tremor I kept thinking another big one was coming.

Anyway, we've continued having smaller tremors. My nerves have been somewhat shot during all of this. It's hard because I worry so much about getting to all of my three kids during a major earthquake. They're all so little and I just don't know if I could get to all of them if a big one hit.

My parents offered to watch my kids in DC for a while so I took them up on it last week. I flew all of my kids out to DC and left the 2 oldest ones there for two weeks while I flew back to Reno with Evan. We're in the middle of buying a house and renting out our current house so I need to be here in Reno for all of that.

Anyway, I miss my kids terribly but I feel so comfortable knowing they are in a safe place, not worried about upcoming earthquakes. I hope and pray that a big one does not hit Reno. I really worry about what would happen if it happened. So everyone keep Reno in your prayers!

On another much happier note, my Jacob turned 5 last week. We didn't have a big party yet (b/c of everything going on) but we are going to throw him a pirate party when he gets back.


Evan's dresser that almost fell on top of me during the quake


Celebrating Jacob's birthday in DC with the cousins

Secret Confessions

Every night after I put my kids to bed, I raid the pantry looking for a dessert. At about 9 p.m., I am craving sweets... ANYTHING sweet. For this reason, I refuse to buy chocolate chips or anything that can be used in a dessert (unless I bought it to make a specific dessert for a specific event). But to my credit, you'd be amazed at the concoctions I can create during my cravings. I have to admit, I'm impressed with my own resourcefulness! Let me tell you, you can make some good tasting stuff with some teddy grahams, stale marshmellows, and peanut butter.

Even foods that I don't normally eat or want to eat will sound good to me at the end of the day, if they have sugar in them. For example, I buy toaster streudels for my daughter (I let her eat like 1 a week, on days when I don't feel like making breakfast). The other night I was going through my usual routine of opening the refrigerator over and over again, hoping that something new would pop out to me since opening it the last time. Then I usually wander over to my pantry in hopes of finding an extra chocolate chip or something laying around that I didn't know about or had forgotten. When all of a sudden, I remembered that toaster streudels have icing on them. ICING! Icing equals sugar. So of course, I scarfed one down at like 11 p.m. and to me, it tasted just as good as some creme brulee or chocolate eclair coming out of the best pastry shops in France. Okay, I've never actually been to France, but I imagine their pastries are DIVINE! Am I the only one that goes through this at night? If not, do tell!!

Musical Beds

For the last 3-4 weeks, Aubrey has been waking up in the middle of the night. She'll walk over to our room and kneel down on the floor and start whimpering. Of course, Dallin and I are exhausted because like I said this tends to happen in the wee hours of the morning. So one of us (whoever heard her first) will pick her up and put her back in bed and lay down with her for a bit. And I have to admit, that once I'm in her bed, there isn't ANYTHING that can get me back out of her bed. I'm not sure if it's the "comfy" mattress or snuggling up with our daughter. But 9 out of 10 nights, one of us ends up sleeping in her bed at some point in the evening.

Jumping to my usual topics here: okay, yesterday, we felt 5 tremors. I think there were actually more than that, but we actually felt 5 in our home. Sure, they're small ones, but the epicenter continues to be very close to our home. I went to walmart last night to stock up on non-perishables yesterday and was kind of laughing at myself on the drive there because I thought I am probably just being paranoid. But when I got to Walmart, I realized I'm not the only one thinking there may be a "big one" heading our way. When I got to the bottled water isle, they were only a handful of water jugs left. Seems like I'm not the only one stocking up!

Third Time's A Charm

Our little Evan recently turned 1! He has been the perfect baby. He's a "smiley" guy, he entertains himself most of the time, and is generally well tempered. When we had my first son, I remember that I could not WAIT for his first birthday. I was chomping at the bit to take the pictures of him diving into his cake, frosting smeared across his cheeks. But unfortunately, he had some serious feeding issues at the time, and all he did on his 1st birthday was touch the cake and gag every time he got the tiniest bit of frosting on his finger.

When my second child, Aubrey, hit her 1st birthday, I was excited again to capture that magical "cake" moment. But we celebrated her birthday late in the evening and by the time we got around to eating cake and ice cream, she had lost interest and was cranky and pretty much ready for bed.

So you can imagine my joy when with my THIRD child, I FINALLY was able to get a picture of one of my kids eating his cake on his 1st birthday. He loved every bite of it, and pretty much picked all of the sprinkles off of the cake too.




We also recently had my mother visit for a couple of weeks. She has trekked out to Reno for every one of my kids' first birthdays (way to go Grandma!). Anyway, every time she comes out, I make a huge list of everything I need to do (or want to do without kids). This includes going out to lunch with friends, going to the post office (I absolutely HATE going here with my kids), and so on. I got most of my list checked off and even squeezed in a nap or two. Thank goodness for my mother!

And last but not least, we also managed to squeeze in the first day of spring, our anniversary, and Easter. And since life has been VERY hectic the last few weeks, I am being lazy and will just include some recent pictures rather than getting into all of that.

Grandmacita and Aubrey


Jake & Aubrey after church


Trying to smile after naptime


Celebrating our anniversary in Tahoe

Why, oh Why?!!

OK, so I have NO idea what is going on with my kids lately. It seems like every time I turn around, someone is in the toilet. Not using it for what it was created for, mind you. But using it in, how shall I say this, "non-traditional" ways. They're like flies gravitating towards a bright light. They can't seem to leave the toilets alone!! So, I've already talked about Evan's recent infatuation with splashing around in toilet water.

Then there's Aubrey. It seems like every 2 minutes, I am telling her to get out of the bathroom and play somewhere else. Last week, I saw her playing with the baby wipes in my diaper bag. She does it all the time so I didn't pay much attention until about 10 minutes later -- when I realized she was wiping the wipe all over her face and rubbing it on her lips, and the wipe was dripping wet. I walked over to her and said, "What are you doing Aubrey?" She got a big smile on her face and said, "I'm washing my face all clean." Then I walked into the bathroom and saw that the toilet seat was up and there was water all over the floor next to the toilet and damp toilet paper everywhere. Anyone up for a toilet water facial? Aubrey obviously thinks they're quite "cleansing."

Even Jacob has recently been pulling off all of the toilet seat covers and throwing them in the trash. I have NO idea what that's all about.

Switching gears completely now: So we had another little earthquake today. The epicenter of this one was EVEN CLOSER to our house than the one before. We've had more than 6 little earthquakes over the last 2 weeks. I'm starting to get a little paranoid.

Was I Dreaming?

I've decided that the last couple of months has been full of "firsts." Get diagnosed with a rare skin disease. Check. Almost get killed by a driver on the highway going the wrong way. Check. And most recently, we can add mini-earthquake to the list. Last Saturday night, I got up to feed my baby because he's been sick and waking up a lot. I had just finished putting him down and crawled into bed. When all of a sudden, I feel everything start shaking around me. I sat up in bed terrified and grabbed Dallin. At this point, he had felt it too and woke up and we were both trying to figure out what was going on. Fortunately, it only lasted a few seconds and it wasn't too strong. It kind of felt like someone had picked up our bed and started shaking it.

Of course, I couldn't sleep for like an hour after our little quake. I just kept wondering if there was a "big one" that was going to come later that day. At first, we weren't sure if we had just imagined it or not. Anyway, later that afternoon, I asked a few of my friends if they had felt it and most had not, except for 1. Then yesterday in the paper, there was an article that said there was a small earthquake recorded early Saturday morning and also one on Monday morning. (Apparantly we slept right through the second one). Anyway, the epicenter of these "mini earthquakes" is RIGHT BY OUR HOUSE. Scary!! I told Dallin that for our next FHE, we will be reviewing Earthquake safety. And of course, this experience has got me thinking a lot more about food storage.

For those of you in sunny California, these "mini earthquakes" are probably no big deal for you. But for those of us who've never really lived through them, it's kind of scary.

On a completely different topic, our computer broke about 2 weeks ago and we have been waiting for our new one to arrive. Thank you, Dell! Anyway, here's a quick recap on our kids' crazy antics. Recently, Evan has discovered the toilet. I know most of your parents have been through this, but I find it really disguisting after he's been splashing himself and the entire bathroom with toilet water. GROSS! Aubrey is our "wandering sleeper." Just about every night, I will wake up in the middle of the night to find her laying down on the rug in her room, the hallway, and once on the bathroom floor. Apparently, she prefers hard, cold surfaces to her nice, comfortable, and kind of expensive (I might add) mattress. And last, but not least, Jacob has started swimming lessons again. He is not the most adventuresome kid in the class. But he is getting more comfortable with the idea that if you want to swim, you actually have to get your head wet. Maybe one of these days, he'll actually put his entire head in the water.

Driving Head On

So, today I had a scary experience. I was driving this morning to my doctor's appointment on the highway. I was in the fast lane going about 70 mph. I was in the middle of a big turn in the highway when all of a sudden I see some of the cars in front of me start to swerve and lose control. I had no idea what was going on, until the car in front of me started to do the same thing. As the car in front of me swerved to the right, I see another car driving in my lane head on the WRONG WAY!! He had his hazards on and was not driving too fast, but was still going about 30 or so. I immediately slammed on my brakes, and layed on my horn. Instead of moving out of the way, the car swerved towards me. So at that point, I turned as hard as I could to the right (remember this is going at like 70 mph). I briefly lost control of my car and it took a second or two until I got a handle of it again. It's funny how all of this happened so fast, yet you still have time to think about things. And all I could think about was my two little ones (Aubrey and Evan) in the car and how injured they would be if we got hit.

Fortunately, we didn't get hit and I don't think anybody else did either. I pulled over to the slow lane and called the cops, who told me there were troopers on their way. As soon as I hung up, I saw 3 or 4 police cars speeding towards this guy. Even though nothing happened, I was shaking for like an hour after the incident.

When I got home, I jumped online to see if there was anything about this and below is the news report:

Wrong-way driver down I-80 this morning

A driver got on the Interstate 80 the wrong way Sparks on Wednesday morning and drove much of the way through Reno before getting stuck, the Nevada Highway Patrol reported.

Alcohol, drugs and medical issues were not to blame, the NHP said.

Richard Emory, 73, of Sparks went west up the Nugget Avenue off ramp and continued west in the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 until pulling into the median west of Keystone Avenue near Stoker Avenue, the NHP said.

Emory realized his mistake soon after getting onto the freeway but did not know how to get out of traffic, the NHP reported. Emory turned on his emergency flashers and traveled slow, the NHP said.

The NHP said it cited Emory for driving the wrong way on Interstate 80 and also showed him where the “wrong way” signs were at on the Nugget Avenue off ramp.

“Any time you have a wrong-way driver on any roadway, the potential for a head-on collision is very likely,” NHP Trooper Chuck Allen said in a statement. “We were very fortunate this morning that we didn’t have something more serious to respond to.”

Fortunate is an understatement, I say!!! Thank goodness nothing happened!

Magic Carpet Ride

Last weekend, a friend of ours loaned us their condo at Squaw in Lake Tahoe, so we took advantage of the tons of snow there and got Jacob up on skis for the first time.

As soon as they got his boots on, he started marching up the mountain first. Then they put on his skis and scooted him over to the automated platform that moves him up the mountain, called the "magic carpet." At the top, his teacher told him to put his hands on his knees and keep his skis straight. And voila! Instant skier. He fell down a few times, but by the last "run" he pretty much went down without falling. When we got back to the condo, we watched the footage of his skiing on our video camera, and he just wanted to watch it over and over again. It was really cute!

We also were able to go sledding with the kids while we were there. I have to say -- I have NEVER seen that much snow in my entire life and it was coming down pretty hard while we were there. We decided to go sledding close to the condo, but had to walk up a ways in order to sled down. So we loaded up Evan in his car seat on top of the sled and I carried Aubrey in my arms, and we made Jacob walk. We passed some people on the way up and they shot us dirty looks as we trudged up the mountain with our 2 kids and baby in tow. I think they couldn't believe we were taking our kids up this deep section of snow while it was windy and snowing. But fortunately, they were layered up pretty good and we all had a great time going down on our sled.

We were only there through Sunday morning and made it home just in time for church. We had a blast and can't wait to go up again. Even though it was freezing up there, I am so grateful to be able to be outside with my kids playing. Because of my PRP diagnosis, I really thought 2008 was going to be a miserable year. But I am very blessed and no longer take my good health for granted.

Dallin is up at Heavenly this weekend with his buddies from the single's ward for his annual "boys ski trip." I'm sure they're having a great time!


Getting his last pointers before going down



Watch out Olympic skiers! Here he comes!



Hitching a ride on the magic carpet



The cutest snow bunny



Snuggling with Daddy for bedtime stories



Sledding fun