New Callings

Sorry it has been awhile since I have done a new post. We have been pretty busy around here. Both Mike and I got new callings. I am the new First Counselor in Young Womens and Mike is the Elders Quorum President. So yeah, to say the least we are a bit busy. I gave my first lesson today. But it was a little strange for me, first because I am used to teaching primary and second because I only had three girls to teach. We usually have combined class because most of the Young Women are the Beehives, but today they decided to split and give me the Laurels and MiaMaids. So it was interesting but it went pretty good. It should be a fun calling. And hopefully Mikes won't keep him away from home too much. I guess there was a reason for us to come to Ohio after all. I will try and post more often...

Mom and sisters came to visit!

At the end of September (yes, I know I am slow) my mom and three of my sisters came out to visit.  There was Mom, Becky, Sharon, and Sarah, my oldest sister Cindy stayed at home because she had just came out this way to visit her new grand baby not too long before this.  Anyway, they all came out for about five days and I loved it.  It was so fun seeing so much of my family.  Of course the time flew by way too fast and we stayed up way too late every night, but I had a blast.  My kids loved being with Grandma and some of their aunts.  They loved them and all the attention.  We went up to Kirtland one day.  We also went to the Johnson farm that day. It was neat to see, Mike and I didn't go see that yet.  I will have to take him back.  The only problem was that I had something at Zachs school that I was trying to hurry back for and after we left the farm and had driven about an hour, we got a message from the missionaries there.  We had left our new stroller!  I was so frustrated.  So we turned around, of course having to just forget about the thing at Zach's school, and went back to get the stroller.  But it sure was a beautiful drive.  It reminded me a lot of Virginia and made me homesick.  

     

This was in front of some steps that the Prophet Joseph Smith used to preach on at the Johnson farm.  Pretty cool. The one with the kids and the rock is at the farm also.

Another day they watched the kids and cleaned my house while I went to see Mike, at the office, to have him fix one of my teeth that has been needing it since graduation.  That was so sweet of them!  Then we went shopping the rest of the day at this cool mall.  My mom was also so sweet, one night she; last second decision on the second to last night; took us to go and see Broadways "The Lion King".  

I wasn't sure if I ever really wanted to see that play, but oh man am I glad that we did.  It was amazing!  We all loved it.  And we got so lucky, there were only 8 seats left and we got 6 of them. So that was a really fun night too.  And my sweetie Mike watched the kids so I didn't have a care in the world that night.  All I had to worry about was having fun with my mom and sisters, which is not hard at all. 

Pretty much all of the nights we stayed up late taking, laughing and playing the Wii.  Now THAT was entertaining to watch each other play.  We were laughing so hard we couldn't breath.  All the sisters also decided to have the same bangs, so Sharon cut them for us.  How are your bangs by the way now Sarah?  (She was the first experiment one, but they really didn't turn out bad)

I sure am blessed to have such a wonderful mother and so many wonderful sisters.  They truly are all a great example to me and I know that they have helped make me who I am today.  We did miss Cindy and my sister-in-laws though, maybe some day.  

Thanks again guys for coming and seeing me and making being in Ohio a little easier.

COSI

There is a science museum (Columbus Ohio Science Institute, they call it COSI) here that is really cool. Of course it has been almost a month now since we took these pictures, but I just haven't gotten around to posting them. It was a really fun day, the kids love it there. There are a ton of pictures, sorry, but I loved them all.....

Tyler and Zach playing in the submarine

Future Doctors????

This was so funny, Tyler got this circle thing and carried it half way across the room, got the cart and struggled to finally get it on, the pushed it the rest of the way across the room to the helicopter. Don't ask my why, I guess it wanted to go for a ride or something. It was just cute and funny because it was almost as big as him. He sure is one determined little boy.


This is a pulley thing that you pull really hard on and you lift up that car in the background. Of course it was also lifting the kids off the ground, but it was neat.


This water part was a lot of fun. I loved how they had the little chair for Henry to sit it. He thought it was the neatest thing. That was until Tyler dumped a cup of water on his head. It was pretty funny and so dang cute!
Here are the kids (yeah, I know, you can only see Zach and Mike, but they were all there) waiting to get on a ride there. It would spin really fast and they stuck to the walls and then the floor dropped down while they just spun stuck to the wall. I can't believe that Alyssa and Tyler went on it too. Of course Mike was so sick afterwards, we just aren't as young as we used to be. Zach loved it and I was just really glad that I didn't go on it.


This was under the sea in a sunken ship, I loved it.
We had so much fun and there was so much stuff to do there. The kids keep asking when we are going to go back. Who knows, maybe this weekend.....

Funny sign

We saw this building on the way home from Kirtland and thought that it was way too funny not to share it. As you can tell, they had a fire, not being the funny part. But then we looked a little closer and saw what the restaurant motto was and we couldn't stop laughing....
This is no joke either, there is no editing or anything involved. Isn't that just way too funny!

Trip to Kirtland

A few Sundays ago we decided to take a drive up to Kirtland. There wasn't a whole lot there. But it was really neat seeing what was there. We also went and saw the Kirtland Temple, that was a little strange. It was just weird going inside and having no real spiritual feeling in there. It was almost a contentious feeling to me. I didn't really like it, but it was fun to see it. Who knows, maybe some day the LDS church will get it back.

This is a couple of replicas of the stands from the
Kirtland temple inside the mill.

Here is a picture outside the door of the school of the prophets where Joseph
Smith got the revelation about the Word of Wisdom.  It was really cool to go in this
room.  We could really feel the Spirit on the whole tour they took us on.

Here are a few of my cuties outside the mill.

Me and Henry outside some house that I can't remember what it was called.
It was used kind of like a hotel.

And here is the whole family in front of the Newel K. Whitney store where the Prophet Joseph Smith walked in and called Newel by name and said, "You have prayed me here, now what would you have me do?" It was really cool going in there, the door and stuff are all original. It was cool walking through the same door that the prophet had walked through. It was a nice little day trip. But I think next time we will make sure that the kids have had a nap before we go. They were a little crazy on the tour, but it was still really neat!

Zachs first lost tooth

Zachary lost his first tooth today. He has been way excited every day that it got a little more loose. So finally I asked Mike to check it out. He was just going to pull it, but no, you know my husband, he has to be a little crazy. So he tied a piece of floss to Zach's tooth and held the other end.  Then he asked Zach if he was ready and counted down and yanked.  BAM! Out flew his tooth across the room. It was kind of fun and luckily Mike had put a little numbing stuff on Zach before he did it. The root was really long so it did a nice number on Zach's gums and lip on the way out. Zach took it pretty good, but I don't think that he realized that it was going to bleed like it did, it scared him at first. But then he was fine about it and he loves it. I love the first picture, that was just right after it was pulled, the look on his face is priceless! He really loved when the tooth fairy came that night. Man, he is growing up so fast, I can't believe that he has already lost his first tooth!!!

Chilling on the deck

Here the kids are having fun and enjoying a popsicle on the deck.

Say cheese! 

I love this picture of Tyler, it shows his true sweet side.

I thought this one of Henry was so funny.  Mike just
stuck him in the seat and he just sat there!  It was so funny,
he stayed there for like 5 minutes just watching everyone.

Popsicle envy...

Goof balls, but we love them!

Henry 3 months old

Yes, I know, I am a little slow with this. Especially since he turns 4 months old in three days. Oh well, better late than never, right. Henry is such a blessing. He is just so happy and fun. He just smiles all the time, especially when you talk to him or just when he looks at you. He also talks, okay babbles, all day long when he isn't sleeping. I love it! I truly am blessed to have four such wonderful children.

Oh boy Ike!

Well, I didn't think much about Ike except to worry about those that we know that were in the path and praying for them. I had noticed on the news that it was heading this way, but I didn't think much of it. The projected path had moved over supposedly missing us, and I figured that by the time that Ike got clear up here in Ohio it wouldn't be much more then a little tiny storm. Boy was I wrong. On Sunday afternoon the wind started blowing. Next thing we knew, peoples trees were blowing over, siding off of houses, our rain gutter blew off, etc.. Then, no power. It went out at about 3:00 and we didn't think much of it. It came back on about an hour later and we were excited. But then at about 5:30 it went out again. Still not thinking much of it and just thinking that it would come back on soon, we made dinner on the grill. Then the missionaries came to see if we were all okay. And we were, minus the power problem. They told us that a lot of people were with out power and that they had seen a lot of trees down on cars and also a bunch of power lines broken in half, on the way to our house. Great! It had been a pretty hot day so we decided to bunker down in the basement for the night so that it would be cooler. So we dragged all the kids stuff and ours down stairs. Luckily we had a few candles, a wind-up flashlight, and a wind-up lantern that my mom had given us. (thank goodness) So it was a long dark night, Henry didn't like it at all. The next morning was Alyssa's birthday, which was kind of fun because Mike was suppose to work from 10 - 9 and we thought it would be nice to be able to have him home. Well, they did cancel Zach's school, but as for Mike's work, nope. Half of the city that he was working in had power so they made him come in. To say the least, I wasn't too happy having to spend the day with out power taking care of the kids and doing Alyssa's birthday all alone.
Anyway, that morning we found out that about 1 million people in Columbus were without power. So Mike went out and found some of the last ice in town and bought Alyssa a cake (since I couldn't bake her one like I had planned). And he tried to find a generator, no luck around here so he ran home and got us and we headed to Costco, but nope, they were only letting the Executive members in to buy them. So then he had to go to work and realized that Sears would have one and he could get in before everyone else. I was so glad, but then of course he gets there and goes in. All they had were five generators and the mean people said that the customers take precedent over employees (although Mike isn't really their employee). Oh well, another miss. So I just headed home. The day wasn't too bad, but for some reason the kids were bouncing off the walls. For dinner we decided to take Alyssa to McDonald's. So after driving around for about an hour to find one that had power, it was so hit or miss around here, we finally found one. Then luckily Mike got off a little early so he was home by 7:00. I had been praying pretty hard all day, as had most of our families for us. At about 6:35, right after we got home from McDonald's, BAM! the power came back on. I was so excited I was jumping up and down. I know a little dramatic, but if you have been without power for two days you will know how it felt. Today I realized how much I love electricity. We rely on it way too much. I also realize though how blessed we truly are. It could have been a lot worse than it was. We didn't loose any trees, nothing came off the house beside the one rain gutter and it didn't even break so can be easily put back on, we still had water, only the ice cream in the freezer got ruined we saved everything else, and no one we know got hurt. I truly am thankful that we were being watched over. Some people in the city still don't have power and I feel so bad for them. Well, I just thought I would let everyone know our fun adventure. Be grateful for that load of laundry, load of dishes in the dishwasher and the light the next time you turn them on...

Our first house

I am finally posting some pictures of our house. Well, the outside anyway.

Our backyard

This is a picture from our road.  Yeah, I know, the tree hides most of it.
We also want to paint the door and shutters black one of these days.

The view from our back deck