{Poop and more poop}

The past month or so when i go in to get Jaydon out of bed in the morning, he has stripped himself of his clothes, with only his diaper half way on. AND poop is smeared on his body. Well, that happened again this morning. There was poop smeared all over him, his bed, and some poop fell on the floor. I got him washed and cleaned. He just got into one of his blow pops and he is sticky all over his entire face and hands. He already needs anothe bath. I should be bathing this boy 2-3 times a day. He is such a mess! No, i didn't get a picture of the poop. Picture taking is the last thing i think about when i see something like that. :)

{Another weekend of FUN}

I had a photoshoot on Saturday night. When i went to scope out the place i was taking the pictures at we found this weird looking thing. Shane was in shock b/c he had never seen anything like it. He said it looked like a cross b/w a turkey and a duck. He VERY large to be just a duck. He had the biggest waddle walk i have ever seen on a "duck". He was twice the size of a duck ....he was so funny looking. Friday night we had a campout in our tent IN our house. I never look forward to helping shane set up this tent. It's very large. It really isn't that hard, but i like those cheap little tents that pop up in one minute. :) We do love this tent though. We have TONS of room in it. It was my dad's tent that he bought from cabela's. It is a very sturdy, heavy duty tent. We can fit a pak n play in it, along with our queen blow up mattress and the boys have their own space for themselves. Anyway, we all fit comfortably. He sold it to us for a cheap price. We love it. So, i didn't think it would even fit in our tv area. It almost didn't....

We set it up so that the opening of the tent was facing the tv. I popped some popcorn and we watched Transformers. We have allowed the boys to watch this a few times. As long as we are watching it with them and can fast forward a few parts that need fast forwarding. They love this. They are excited about the transformers the whole movie. It's so fun to watch them.

Shane attempted to sleep in the tent with the boys. I slept in my own bed, but had shane come sleep with me when the boys fell asleep. I can't sleep by myself.

Saturday we went to a big fun get together at the Perez's house. We are good friends with them. She is the YW president and her daughter is in YW's. She is great. They had all the missionaries over, a few friends from church, and some family who drove in from Mexico(where she grew up). It was lots of fun! They just bought a house out in the country and so they had lots of property! It was a really nice spot! Then we headed over to the Woodward's house. We found out that it was Brenda Woodward's parents who fed shane every sunday for SIX months on his mission! They were soooooo excited to know that shane was here b/c it just so happened that her parents were going to be here Easter Weekend. So, she arranged us all to get together and chat for a couple hours so they could catch up with shane. It was fun.

Then i had a photoshoot. Then we headed home to dye easter eggs. The boys didn't get in bed until about 9:30. Yikes.

We had a really good Easter Sunday. The boys loved it, as usual. I didn't get pictures b/c i like to record the event on our video camera. Gavin was so proud of himself b/c in sharing time the Primary President asked the class what Easter is really about. Gavin raised his hand and answered "It's when Jesus was resurrected." Anyway, he felt good.

Then we headed over to some friends house last night for chatting and dessert. We have been meaning to get with them for awhile! It's sooooo funny the MANY MANY connections people here have with other people we know in other states. The couples house we went to last night know the Jones and the Jenkins family...our good friends from Cleveland. They all grew up with each other. Anyway, they are such a FUN couple! Too bad they are moving so soon!

{Our Exciting Weekend}

Friday

On Friday we found out we are being stationed at Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan!! I cannot tell you how excited i am! I am extremely excited! If you look at the map you can see that Okinawa is it's own island to the south of mainland Japan. It's the Hawaii of Japan(that's the way people describe it). Okinawa rarely gets below 60 degrees and the summer's are very hot and humid...BUT if you know me, i prefer being HOT over COLD. I could do without snow the rest of my life. SO, this place is perfect...for me anyway. We were hoping for Germany. We were excited to see so many places over their in Europe. The only downside to going to Germany is how cloudy it can get there, which did make me nervous b/c i get depressed in cloudy conditions. I am pretty sure i have that seasonal disorder. So, although i won't get to see Europe(yet) i really don't mind b/c i will have sun and great weather and BEAUTIFUL beaches. :) I read that they have some of the best white sand beaches in the world and also some of the world's best scuba diving spots. We are going to become little fish over there. You can guarantee that my boys are going to be in swim lessons all summer. One other thing i am excited about is learning the language. I told myself i would learn the language of the country we get sent to. AND that i am going to do. AND i can't wait to eat real Japanese food and learn how to make it. YUM!!! I want to dive into the culture of this place. :) Eeeeee, i can't wait! :) We head over in August. The flight over there will not be fun. I have heard that the flight is anywhere from 16 hours to 24 hours. So, it's somewhere in there. But it's worth it. I haven't heard one bad thing about Okinawa. Everyone who has been has loved it. I am excited for this new adventure for our family. And i am excited that our boys get to see other places in this world. I am also excited b/c my brother lives in South Korea. He LOVES it there and loves the people. Hopefully we get a change to go to South Korea. Anyway, we will get to see more of him and he will be spending Christmas with us! He is so excited about that and so are we!! :)

So, these are some pictures i found online. Some of these are copyright(oops)...but you can see where i got them from ...dreamstime.com...so you can go to the actual source of these pictures. Take a look at what we are going to....

Saturday

On saturday we woke up and headed to Sea World. We decided there probably isn't a better time b/c shane was free for the weekend. These pictures are all in the wrong order. This is how our day went....We enjoyed time at Sea World. The boys were amazed at all the shows and they loved seeing the Sharks. They spent some time watching all the sharks swim around. They also enjoyed the water ride there. Tanner was nervous about it, but when it was all done he really enjoyed it and would have gone again. Gavin wasn't too sure about how he felt about it after it was done. He didn't want to ride it again though. :)

After Sea World we headed to CHEESECAKE FACTORY. We haven't eaten there since Cleveland and we love it there. AND it sure tasted soooooooo good! Man i love that place. After that we headed back to the hotel and let the boys swim. Then we went and got some COLDSTONE ice cream. We don't have coldstone here. We have a maggie moo's which is VERY similar, but not the same. :) Then we headed back to our hotel and went to sleep!

Jaydon with his Mac N Cheese....he is showing me how dirty he is. Dirty is all he knows how to be. :)

Tanner IS in this picture, you just can't see him b/c he is on the other side of Shane...

We saw a few LARGE caterpillars crawling around on the ground. Tanner thought they were pretty cool.

Here they are at the aquarium watching the sharks...

Sleepy baby...

Shamu just had a baby recently. It was so cute....

Jaydon wouldn't sit on the horse....even with me hugging him while on the horse. He sat down, but then wrapped both his arms around my neck and squeezed. He wouldn't let go, so we decided to go sit on a bench....

This was a FUN play area for the kids. They had tunnels to climb through and things to climb. They also had a FUN splash area, and i would have had them wear their swimsuits if i knew it was there.

We also headed over to the River Walk that night. BUT there was the BIG FIESTA going on and it was sooo crowded, so we decided not to get out. We did drive around and see a bit of it and we saw the river canal. It is a pretty area. I really enjoyed our ride to San Antonio. It's a beautiful ride. TONS of trees and LOTS of hills. I never would have guessed that. BUT there were lots and lots of hills. It's a beautiful area...especially around Austin. We could definitely live there.

And one really nice thing about Texas, that we have never seen anywhere else is the drivers. Our drive down to San Antonio consisted a lot of just two lane roads. Our lane and the on-coming lane. So, naturally, we were going faster than most of the drivers. ;) So, instead of us having to find a good time to pass those cars without getting HIT, they would continue driving, BUT pull over into the emergency lane and slow down slightly so that we could pass without getting into the on-coming lane. Everyone did it! It was sooooooo nice!

Sunday

Sunday we woke up and got ready for church and headed to Kerrville, which was an hour west of san antonio. Kerrville is where Shane's cousin, Greg, lives with his beautiful wife and wonderful FIVE boys. We spent about 7 hours with them. They BBQ'd the BEST hamburger i have ever eaten! I am going to be making those more often now. Man, they were GOOD! Our boys LOVED hanging out with their boys. They were in Heaven. And when it was time to get they threw a fit, of course. :) What is any fun-time without a good fit to go with it? You can see in this picture that Gavin is trying to stay mad about the fact that we are leaving, but can't help but have a half smile in there with it. haha!

Alek Dax and Gavin were buddies. They liked going outside and throwing balls everywhere. I call Alek Dax that instead of just Alek b/c his family is split between the two names. A few of them like Alek better so they call him Alek and a few like Dax better so they call him Dax. It's so funny! :) Honestly, i like both names so i would just call him Alek Dax all the time if it were me. :)

The weekend went way too fast. BUT we really had lots of fun, made good memories and are glad we did it.

{I want a haircut}

Tanner is a lot like me, in that he doesnt' feel the need to ask for help. If he thinks he can do it himself, he does it. He just takes matters into his own hands. Example.... I walk into the kitchen and i hear Jaydon Giggling. Then i notice what Jaydon is giggling about. Tanner is cutting his hair right down the center of his head. I couldn't get mad. I started laughing myself. I have heard so many stories of other little kids doing this themselves and i always wondered if one of my kids would do it. Well, Tanner did it. I said, "Why did you do that?" He said, "Because i want a haircut." I had to remind him that if he wants a haircut he needs to TELL us so that we can cut if for him. :) So, right after that incident we gave him a haircut. We gave him a Shorter haircut than usual b/c of the big line down the center of his head. We thought if we went shorter that it wouldn't show. Even with a slightly buzzed head you can still notice the line. Oh well. He still looks cute. This picture we took right after the first pass of the trimmer down the middle. It was a good picture of the damage done!!! :) haha!

{What's going on...}

1. We turned in our WISH list. We should know in one week and one day where we are going. BUT the way the military is working, it might be two weeks before we know. We are definitely excited to find out where we will be stationed the next three years.(crossing fingers it's somehwere we want to be) 2.We all got sick again. It now has become a regular monthly occurence. It has to be b/c Gavin is in kindergarten and is bringing home all the germs! 3. It's summer here. We have been in the 90's and 80's the past couple weeks. Not everyday, but almost everyday. It's been toasty. I am definitely going to miss the weather here. That's for sure. 4. I finally BUILT up my motivation to get back into a strict daily workout routine. I started and then got sick. Of course. Seriously, everytime i get my motivation built back up, make out my routine and start it...it takes a couple days for something to happen to make me lose that motivation i built up. What the heck man? It's either me getting sick, spraining my ankle, etc. BUT this time i refuse to wait a couple weeks before i get the motivation back. 5. Did i mention that Gavin lost a tooth? And that Jaydon is getting his two year molars? 6. Did i also mention that these boys are growing like weeds? I feel like i am going through their closets and dressers every couple months and getting rid of stuff that doesn't fit them anymore. It's crazy. 7. Ummmm, we have FOUR months left in this torturous place. Okay, i shouldn't say it's torture. It really isn't. It's more like boot camp. BUT that can be like torture. haha! Anyway, I can't tell you how much i am learning and growing through this experience, which is a great blessing, but i am ready to have more of shane around to do things with(and to have him help me! :)). I miss taking little weekend vacations, traveling, and exploring. I miss that. I feel like we were able to do that a lot when we lived in Ohio. I want to travel and travel and travel and learn and learn. :) Not much else is happening. We are just anxiously waiting for our next station. I will be posting it as soon as we know b/c i can't contain myself! :)

{General Conference}

Here is my regular post the day after general conference. :) Like i have said before, i love General Conference. I learn sooooo much from it, i feel rejuvenated afterwards, and i feel motivated to be better. I love the spirit that is felt the entire weekend. I love that my Heavenly Father loves each of his children enough to speak through his Apostles and Prophet about what he believes we need to know at this time. I can feel of my Heavenly Father's love for each of us during General Conference weekend. While i enjoy ALL the messages, there are always a few that touch me especially hard.

Those messages are.....

1.Quentin L. Cook- Women.

2.Richard J. Maynes- Family.

3. Dallin H. Oaks- Our desires determine our becoming.

4. M. Russell Ballard- Charity. Focusing on things that matter most.

5.Dieter F. Uchtdorf- Prayer and spiritual promptings.

6. Lynn Robbins- To Be and To Do. This one was very enlightening and inspiring. He shared a great wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

All of the talks were great. I will anxiously wait for my Ensign so that i can read and study all the talks. I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who poors out his love and blessings on all his children who will acknowledge him in all things.