Toronto

Gus and I had the opportunity to go to Toronto for a NP conference. I went just for the ride. At first I was very apprehensive to leave my kids for 5 days, but I am glad that I went. Because Gus spent most of the day in classes, I was left to explore the city all by myself.

The first night we were there, we saw the Toronto Blue Jays play the Minnesota Twins. This is how close our seats were to the field. It was AstroTurf, so I felt kinda jibbed! At the beginning of the game, they played the Star Spangled Banner and the Canadian national anthem. The Blue Jays won. Go Blue Jays (although you will never be my Mariners!)

The next day I set out on my own to explore. I rode the subway for the first time and went and saw Casa Loma. It is a house that was built in the 1910's for the wealthiest family in Toronto. They later had financial trouble and the house was abandoned only to be renovated and turned into a museum. It was beautiful! By far my favorite place.

We also went to the Toronto temple. It took us 2 1/2 hours to travel to Brampton, approx. 20 miles away, using public transportation. NOT my favorite thing. We couldn't do a session, but we were able to get a mini tour of the temple.

In Toronto, they have the CN tower which was built as a lightening pole, but turned into a tourist attraction. We ate dinner at the top in a spinning restaurant that overlooked the city.

The thing that I loved about Toronto is that there is so much cultural diversion. We ate a different ethnic food each night. I love Jamacian! There isn't any cultural segregation because there are so many cultures. Toronto is a city where the old meets the new. There will be old buildings towered by skyscrapers.

This was by far the scariest thing I saw:

A black squirrel!!



Summer 2012

Summer flew by, as always. I think a theme I keep writing about is how fast time goes. It makes me sad. My kids are growing up.

 

We had a great summer. Here is one of the rare pictures of the 4 of them together. We watched the fireworks from a friend's house.

We stayed in Pocatello this year because Gus was involved in making a float for work. After much blood, sweat and tears (yes, all three were actually shed) here is the final result:

 

After the 4th, we took it easy until our 2012 London Olympic party! For 2 weeks, we partied with our neighbors and watched the olympics. We had shirts made and everything. Sadly, this is the only picture I took.

Of coarse, we also had time with cousins. Here are all the Jones cousins together. That's trouble!

Another summer gone!



Cooper is 1

 June is our super Birthday month!! This little guy joined our family one year ago. Time flies. He is such a great, easy-going baby. He loves his brothers and sister and is constantly on the move!

This year we had a barn birthday cake for him, complete with chickens, pigs, and sheep. We got to celebrate with family and friends. He loved his cupcakes, well the icing.

 We love you Cooper and are so glad that you are part of our family!

 

Alivia turns 4!

Four years ago we welcomed this little one. Oh how time flies! Look how little they all look! Alivia was so excited for her birthday this year. She got to have a party with her friends this year. Alivia is in love with Hello Kitty. For her party, we baked pizza and decorated cupcakes. All things girly and fun. 



 She got her ears pierced for her birthday present. Her earrings are Hello Kitty.

We had family over for cake and ice cream. Her cake was, surprise, Hello Kitty! Thanks Jade for the cake pan! 

Alivia is such a joy in our lives. She loves all things girly and fun, but can hold her own with her brothers! Her favorite food is bread (not toasted) and butter. She loves to watch My Little Pony on TV and her favorite colors are pink and purple. She wants to be a princess with her own castle when she grows up. Happy Birthday Alivia! We love you!

Zach is 10!

I cannot believe that it has been 10 years since this little guy joined our family!! Zach has a special place in our hearts. He was born with so much hair!!

This is my favorite picture of him. I love his hair!!!

We didn't do too much for his birthday. He had a baseball game and then we came back for cake and ice cream. I told him he could invite his friends over for cake, but it wasn't a party. He ended up inviting the whole neighborhoodl. He's social like that. His birthday cake was a giant baseball sitting on grass. It's a good thing that I made a ton! Here are some pics of the evening.

The next day we got to celebrate June birthdays with the Jones family. Papa's birthday is June 2, Alivia is June 6, my grandma's (Nana) is June 9, and Cooper is June 23. Crazy busy month!

Happy birthday Zach!! We love you!!

11 Going Strong

Gus and I celebrated our 11th Anniversary on May 3. 11 years! I can hardly believe that much time has gone by!! Of coarse, we always do our corny gifts that correspond with the year's traditional gifts. This year is Steel/Jewelry. We had to stretch it. We went to lunch at Winger's because they have 'steel' on the walls. We watched the 'Avengers' because, well I don't know, because it was good! The gift that we gave each other was a 'steel' fire pit for our backyard.

At our reception, we had a dance. Tony was our DJ. One dance that we did was the money dance. Anyone who wanted to dance with us had to pin money onto my veil or Gus' jacket. My dad pinned a $50 bill to my veil! It was a fun way to earn some money for our honeymoon!

Here we are today:

Well, last fall at least. Four kids and 11 years later, I love him more now than I did then. I am so grateful for all that he does for our family. I love you Gus!! Happy Anniversary!

Our new house!!

Finally, life has settled down enough to post about our new house! What a roller coaster of a ride! Our story is a long one, but such a learning experience. I'm going to tell the story to have it down, but feel free to skip over it to get to the pictures!!

Back in August we saw an ad in the paper for an open house. The house had 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and was going for $189,000. It sounded almost too good to be true!! We couldn't go to the open house so we called the realtor and set up an appointment. After walking through the house, we were in love with it. With no intention of moving, we prayed and prayed. We got the answer that we needed to buy the house and that is where we needed to be.

We were not going to buy until we sold the other house. I was comfortable where we were at. The boys were both doing very well in school and I loved our ward and our neighbors. It was a really hard decision, but I knew we had an answer to our prayers.

Then comes December. The owners of the house were going to accept another offer. After more praying and fasting, we decided to go ahead and close on the house without selling our other one. This put me into a lot of stress! I hated the idea of making 2 house payments, 2 utility payments, and having to worry about 2 houses! I hate jumping into things without having a plan. One night, I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned. I knew what the answer was to our prayers, but I didn't know why it was going to be so hard. I went out into the living room and prayed. I was sobbing and just wanted to stop worrying. All at once, I felt such a calm peaceful feeling. I stopped crying. This scripture kept entering my mind:

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths."

In knew this was the answer to my prayers and I just had to trust. I took a big leap of faith and we went ahead and closed and moved in before we sold the other house. I had to remind myself of that scripture MANY times during the whole process! The Lord does have a plan for us. We ended up selling our other house and just closed on it this week. I cute young couple bought it. I hope they will enjoy it as much as we have these past 10 years!

So....without much adieu, here are some pics. This house has a story! The lady had almost everything faux painted and painted in murals. We had a lot of painting to do, but we are getting around to it! We love this house and it fits us so well. We still haven't done all of the rooms, but those will come. Zach is in heaven with all the boys his age in our neighborhood. We are enjoying our ward and enjoying getting to know new people. There will always be a place in our hearts for our old home and our old neighbors, but we aren't too far away!