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!

2011 Wrap up

Yes, we still are alive. I have not been good at blogging at all. That's one of my new year's resolutions. That and start a scripture journal. And lose weight. And do more family history. Anyway, here' a recap of what has been going on these last months:
We celebrated Halloween:
Yes, we did even though I hate the holiday. Zach and Parker were the Knights who saved Princess Alivia from the Evil Dragon Cooper:

Yeah, REAL Scary!!

We spent Thanksgiving at Mamoo's and Papa's in Rigby. I didn't take pictures of that one, but I usually don't take pictures of us after we have gorged ourselves with good food. We did start one thing that I would like to use as tradition: we did our Black Friday shopping in our jammies, online, while drinking hot chocolate and eating popcorn. So much better!

Parker celebrated his 6th birthday! Wow he went from this to this in like two seconds!!



He got to have his first friend party at Outer Limits. He had a blast with his cousins and friends. His birthday cake was a lego construction sight. Complete with a dump truck and bulldozer. It was really fun to make.

Zach got to play basketball this winter. His team was the Orange Crush. Truley the other teams always crushed them, but they were so fun to watch!! I love when it's not such a big deal to be the best. They just play to have fun. (He totally posed for this picture. He 'acted' surprised that I got him!)

Just before Christmas, GUS PASSED HIS FNP BOARDS!!!! After 2 years of hard work and 4 times taking the test, he finally passed. He is a legite Family Nurse Practitioner. I am so proud of him! I know that there was a lot of help from Heavenly Father!! There is a saying "Trust in the Lord means trust in His timing" that keeps going through my head. This really was one of those times! It all happened when it was supposed to and we did learn a great deal of patience and faith from this. Many prayers were answered. Thank you to all of you who remembered him!

Christmas came and went in a blink!! The kids opened their presents, we went to Sacrament meeting (I love Christmas on Sundays) and then we went to help serve lunch at the Salvation Army. That was a good experience! It was slow and it seemed like the people didn't really want to talk a whole bunch, but it was good to get out of our little comfort zone and help others.

So as I look back on this year, I see that the Lord's hand is in all things. I am so truly blessed with my wonderful family and friends. I am so grateful for my Savior and all that He has done for me. I love the Lord and know that through Him all things are possible!

 Happy 2012!!

You are my chocolate!

A lot of things have been on my mind lately. We are in a transition in life and it seems like it is taking forever for the changes to happen. We've put our house up for sale because we've found a house with more room, but things aren't moving very fast. Gus finished school, but has yet to jump that last hurdle and pass his boards test. A lot of things are on the verge of changing, but nothing has happened.
On Saturday, I watched the General Relief Society meeting. The last speaker was President Uchtdorf. I love listening to him speak. It always seem like something is meant just for me. He talked about forgetting not. He compared them to the 5 petals of a forget-me-not flower. The one that stuck out to me the most was #3-Forget not to be happy now.

President Uchtdorf related the story of one of my most favorite children's book and movie of all time Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the movie with Gene Wilder, not Johnny Depp, although that one stayed truer to the book). Anyway, he recalled how everyone wanted a Golden Ticket. Everyone wanted it so bad, that they forgot the chocolate bar that they still had. President Uchtdorf then talked about being happy now and not waiting for your Golden Ticket in life. Be happy with what you have now.

So, I have been thinking a lot about my chocolate. I've been waiting for a Golden Ticket and I need to focus on my chocolate (not literally, but I wish it were!). So here is my chocolate:

Summer 2011

So I promise that we did have a summer this year! Here is a top 10 list of things we did this summer:

1- Had a baby (and a very cute one, may I say!)

2- Celebrated the 4th of July. (Pocatello is not my favorite place to go, nor will we stay here again. The parade was awful, but the fireworks were all right.)

3- Spent some time in Island Park with the Jones' and some really big ANTS!

4-Parker and Alivia took swim lessons.

5- Played in the water- a lot!

6- Had the Blad reunion at Steadman's in Raft River.

7- Played with cousins.

8- Blessed the cute baby.

9- Visited the Dinosaur Park in Ogden.

10- Visited Temple Square.

I know that sounds like a pretty lame summer, but we didn't have the funds to go somewhere extravagant. I have to admit that this summer has been very stressful. Gus is waiting to take his boards again after he didn't pass. He is studying like mad!! Money has also been tight because we had that cute baby. My hospital bill was $6000! Thank goodness for insurance and thank goodness my husband works at the hospital. I am very grateful for his job. All in all, the kids didn't let anything deter them from entertaining themselves. Oh, to be a kid again!

Cooper's Blessing

Oh, how time flies when you are super busy! I'm finally getting around to posting about our summer. Cooper was blessed on August 14, 2011, by his father. He was blessed in the Alameda 9th Ward in Pocatello, ID.

We are so very fortunate that we have family and friends that live so close and can come share our special days with us. Cooper is such a great little guy and we are so blessed to have him in our family!

Welcome Cooper!

Cooper Allan Blad made his entrance to this world on June 23, 2011 at 2:10 p.m. He weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 21" long. Everyone keeps asking me who he looks like, and I really can't tell! I thought he looked like Alivia at first, but then I can see Parker and Zach in him too!

I had to be induced with Cooper because my blood pressure was too high. After they broke my water, I really started feeling contractions and got my epidural. Not 5 minutes later, I knew it was time to go! His heart rate dropped and I don't remember much after that. Things got a little scary. They threw oxygen on me and started telling me to push. He came down so fast and was turned the wrong way so the doctor had to use forceps. It happened all so fast and I don't remember much, but I am so grateful that I had a very attentive staff and a wonderful doctor! I'm grateful for Gus, and his willingness to be there by my side for everything. And I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending us another beautiful baby boy and that he arrived here safely.

The kids got to see him before they left with Grandma and Grandpa to a reunion. Alivia said "Oh, he's so cute! Can we keep him?" Zach and Parker were fun to see with him.

We are so happy to finally have Cooper here. We decided to name him Cooper Allan after his grandpa, Merlin Allan. So far, everything looks good and he is a great little baby. Welcome to the world Cooper!!