Hawaii

So we went to Hawaii for 2 weeks...without the kdis. It just about killed me. I was fine the first 10 days but the last 3 I really just wanted to go home. We went to the Polynesian Culture Centre which I loved! We went there twice so we could see all the pavillions. The neatest place ever. We went to the North Shore and watched Surfing and that was cool but the waves were too big for us to even attempt to go into the water...we were scared. The best thing for shrimp lovers are the shrimp trucks. They are ugly rustly old busses that serve the best shrimp. I hate shrimp and I even found it slightly tollerable so it had to be good. Preston made us go back for round two. With our lazy days we spent it on our balcony watching season 1 of heros. ti was nice just to lounge sometimes. We stayed on the west side of the island which is not very touristy and there were many people loving on the beach. I found that interesting becuas eyou could tell that these people had been there so long becuase their 'residences' were so built up. I'm sure that is a huge tension with the tax payers, but it's a small, very expensive island....
We also got to watch a brush fire on the mountain beside our resort one night. It was neat to watch but days of wrok for the firemen trying to keep it away from us and the nearby condos. All in all, I would recommend Hawaii and I basically told you the best parts about it.

Picture perfect Hawaii.




We spent a lot of time at the resort pool. It was really nice and never to busy. Except the last day when a big group of Narcotic recovery people came for a conference at our resort...that was an interesting crowd.



Beating the waves on the north shore. We didn't even go in the water, that's how afraid of the waves we were.

Hair

So, I cut my hair short for the first time ever. I love it! Preston hates it. Sure you can't see all my beautiful ( I call them tangles and frizz) curls but I like maintenance free mom hair. That means no scraggly hair in my face while I'm bending over a poopy bum...my kids poopy bum. We'll see how long I keep it around. I find it hard not to want to have a hair cut my hubby likes...isn't that sad?
My new hair

August

Here are our exchange students, Hiromi and Satomi and Kayla all ready for a party.

Lets see, it's been 3 months since August actually happened so this'll be tough. We did have a couple more exchange students. They were so much harder than the other ones becuase they were 11 yr. old girls and spoke zero english. So, I would tell them something, they would nod their heads and then do the exact opposite. They loved my kids and were very friendly, but I was happy to see them go. Preston and I took a very short trip to Ontario for 2 days to check out some houses. At that point we were thinking of moving to Ontario becuase housing was much cheaper out there and we thought we could live mortgage free and have less financial strain. However, Calgarys market wouldn't allow us to sell our house and we took it off the market the next month. It seems we are going to stick around a while and just learn to budget. We also started trying for baby number 3 this month...we are still not pregnant. I think we took for granted that the first 2 were conceived so quickly and we haven't been trying hard enough this time around:)
We took a trip to Edmonton at the end of the month and had a blast. We stayed at the Fantasy Land Hotel in The West Ed. mall. Fun, but we spent WAY too much money becuase we were in the mall. We went on rides, bought late night icecream...all things we wouldn't have done if we were in a normal hotel NOT attached to a mall.
That was August.

SUmmer Activities

So we ahve our exchange students now. Their names are Peter and Chris and they are from Taiwan. (I don't know their real names, they gave themselves Canadian names) They are great boys. They are easy to get along with. Although, one of them has never made any food for himself in his life. I asked him to cut the tomato for his sandwich and he said he didn't know how. Anyways, I got the cheque from the Board of Education today and there will deifantley be some surplus from houseing these boys. We took Clayton and Kayla go karting this past weekend and they loved it to death. They are go karts with a kids seat besdis the adult seat and Preston and I took turns having a different child beside us. Kayla was so cute becuase she squealed and smiled the whole time and CLayton would go "woooohoooo" with me as we went over the killy parts. It was a great family activity. I am heading out to the Stampede tonight with an old friend from YSA. I didn't even know she was in Calgary, but I am going to hand out with some singles tonight....wierd.
Our house hasn't had any bites yet, I'm still trying to pack more stuff up and get ugly furniture out of the house too. As clean as I've kept it, ugly furnitre doesn't really help.
Thats us!

SLacker...thats me

It's been two weeks since my last post. I thought I was better than this! Anyways, as some of you already know, we are moving. Our house is up for sale right now. If everything goes as planned wea re moving to....Brantford, ON. We can live there mortgage free and have room to make some other real estate investments, which Preston has been itching to do. His idea to move, not mine. This is not 100% though so don't go telling everyone I am moving ot Ontario. We need to sell our house and the market is full of houses like ours. Like I said, as long as everything goes right, we will be movin gto Ontario.
As far as the rest of our lives, it's just playing and cleaning. We get our sxchange students on Monday so we are planning for that right now. It's going to be a busy month!
I think thats it.

Preschool Graduation

Yes, there is such a thing. Clayton graduated from pre-school today with a certificate and a lot of new songs under his belt. He was pretty happy about it. It was short and sweet. He will go again next year to the same place, even though there are some closer to us now. He really likes his teacher and so do I.
We are developing our bsement right now too for our students in July. It's going pretty smoothly and pretty cheaply...which I appreicate. We aren't going to fully develop it right now. Just the bedrooms. My neighbour is chinese and she just brought me over some chinese pie (although I'm sure that's not what they call it) It was super yummy...and it had tofu and shrimp in it...two things I realy avoid but all chopped up it was wonderful. I'm going to get her to eacdh me how to make the dough so I can make my own version and make you all try it. It was delish.
My biggest trial this week will be Claytons attitude. He gets mad when I ask him to come inside or away from something he is enjoying and yells "You're not nice to me" or "I don't like you" A few times now I've even gotten the 'H' word (I hate you) The first time my response was to tell him how nice I really am and that not all mommies take their kids to the zoo, park, swimming, Let's Play and McDonalds, but I felt like I was trying to convince him and myself that I am a good mom, and it didn't feel too good, so now he just gets crap for it. I need to learn not to let my 3 year old talk back to me! I don't have to take it! I'm the mommy! I need to toughen up. Tell me your mean mommy stories....

Hair Cut

So I cut Kaylas hair today. I thought it would be pretty easy to cut straight across, but when you are cutting that short, it's not so easy to make it straight with the under layers and all. I actually like her with longer hair but It was really hard to keep it nice when it was long. Especially with these hot summer days. It just ends up all scraggly and dirty so I chopped it on a whim. Preston liked her little pony tails but we'll get over it.

The Beach

This week the weather has been beautiful so we have done so many outdoor activities. We went to the zoo one day with Kamille and Kyndal and Elliette and had a great time with the animals. LIke it said, it was beautiful so we had a picnic near the butterfly sanctuary while the kids followed the peacocks. The following two days we went to two different beaches. CHaparral and Auburn bay. The kids love the water. I am lucky though that they aren't afraid of it, nore are they too brave. They are pretty easy to watch. SAturday was so darn hot I didn't want to be outside. Now, when I say it was hot, it was 29 degrees. I know half of you are laughing but I hate the heat and the direct sunlight. Preston would love to move to Arizona some day but if I can't bear 29 degrees of hot sun, I would die on Arizona. So, SAturday afternoon we attempted to stay inside. With our new street there are kids riding bikes all the time and everytime Clayton sees one he wants to go outside too...whic is all the time. We sould have gotten a house with smaller windows:) I also scored garage saling at the Chaparral community sale. I got a free queen size bed (which we need for our Taiwanese exchange students in July) and chairs for the kids, and bikes and a kids size vacuum that works, and so much more. We even got a futon that exactly matches the one we have right now! I've been bugging Preston for a livingroom set becuase all we have is the futon in the livingroom..but he kees saying no. So when I found a matching futon for $30.00 he agreed. I'm surprisingly happy with 2 futons in my livingroom. CHaparral is great for garage sales. Not so much garbage like some places.

The past week...

This week has been ehuasting. For some reason I have been incredibly tired all week. And not just the tired like 'oh, I'm tired becuase I have young kids' It's the kind of tired like I'm waiting to get sick or something. It's wierd..and my neck and back have been sore every day to, so I'm not sure if I should exercise myself back to health, or rest. I'm just waiting for it to pass. It's been a super busy week. I went to the cannery for the first time on Tuesday and it was lots of fun. I got to can potatos, onions, apples, and lots of other stuff. Then I went and fianlly bought a Coleman stove and some butane. I am trying to prepare a food storage. I am working on water right now cause I guess that is pretty important. Wednesday I had an Ultimate frisbee game...in the rain. Luckly, I wasn't feeling well so I left after 15 minutes. It was a good game to be sick for:) Thursday was my card swap and the party turned out nicely. Lots of ladies showed up and there were some awesome cards. I thought I went too extreme last month so I went simple this month and I had the simplest card...I need to find a happy meduim.
Tonight is finally a relax night....after a long day of Swimming lessons, Gymtastics(which was great by the way Jacquie - very empty and we had the run pf the place) I just ordered some chicken and Preston and I are going to watch some Greys Anatomy. Saturday is some great garage saling in McKenzie Towne. I'm hunting for Action figures becuase CLayton seems to be interested in those and we have zero. I never know when to get them the next stage of toys. Kayla is into little dolls and furniture and houses.
Thats us. Here's some random pics.

Settled In

I feel like I haven't come to my blog in a while becuase I've been wrapped up in Facebook. I'm such a crowd follower. Anyways, we have settled into our house very nicely. I have convinced Preston to stay in this house and not move us again so now I have to make sure I budget. That means bye bye cleaning lady....so sad. I love our street. We have some great neighbours and we live in the middle of a quiet street (well it will be quiet when the construction vehicles go away) so everyone gets together and chats in the street in the evening. It's fun. I liked the parks better in McKenzie Towne and New Brighton. They were bigger, more toddler friendly. They have lame little parks here. I gues they figure since they gave us a lake we didn't need any good parks....or maybe I haven't found them yet.
So we have planned our life out right now. I plan to get pregnant in August. My mom told me to remind her not to visit that month:) Then go back to work in December for 4 months to get my hours top collect EI for another whole year. We are milking the system. Why not? I'm just trying to decide where to work. I want a good pay cheque so I can get good EI but I also want to work somewhere fun, like Michaels or The Childrens Place. ANy ideas? I have no degress or anything. Just a lot of office work under my belt. Well, that is our update. If you visit our house it wont look like everyone elses new place. I don't have the perfect living room set, or lovely pictures and matching curtains and certainly no blinds. I'm not that organized. You will see a futon in my livingroom and a lot of missing furniture where there should be some. I have zero desire to shop right now....it's soooo hard to shop for furntiture and I suck at it.

Here's our house

So I got pics. of the house up on here. I didn't bother to clean or get stuff out of the way. I ove my kitchen. A lot of cupboard space, everything is hidden which is great. I also love the master bath. The tob and shower are seperate which is great when I want to take a shower and the kids want to take a bath. Besides that, the house is a house. Most of my pics are on facebook so take a look there. We met a whole ton of neighbours today. Our street is littered with kids, mostly a year or 3 older than Clayton but he still had a blast playing with them all. I don't realize how much I seclude myself from non-mormom people sometimes. Not that I do it on purpose but it's easy to do. Anyways, I just realized how different it can be socializing with non-members when you haven't done it in a while. Different topics come up. The sad part is that it was so obviously different from my other day to day conversations that it makes me realize I need to build some better relationships with my non-mormon neightbours. Keep me out in the real world. I don't know if this is making any sense to you...it was just wierd when your done talking about your kids where conversations go.
Anyways, our neighbours all seem great. Very excited. Trying to convice Preston to stay in this house...maybe even I'll start watchng 1 child to make a few bucks. We'll see..it's not my favourite option. But neither is moving out of this house and neighbourhood. Lots of kids, a school and a perfect house. Love it.
ANyways, we are going to take a Sunday stroll before I make tacos for supper. I don't know why I make them so much. The kids never eat them.

I survived Ultimate Frisbee

I went to my first Ultimate Frisbee practice last night and I was thrilled with my performance. Not that I was the star of the team or anything. But I ran it out and even caught the frisbee! I felt nausea for the first 5 mintues but I got past it. My only problem was when I got home I was exhausted but couldn't sleep. Now I know why Preston can't go right to bed after basketball. Preston bought a72 inch tv a couple days ago...ridiculous. It was supposed to be delivered today but last night I finally talked him down to a smaller one (62 inches but half the price!) He said as long as I delt with it...so I ran out to Best Buy as fast as I could.
Still unpacking. I realized I don't really want to take pictures until the boxes are out of the house. So you will have to wait.

I'm still here

Forpeople that actually read my blog...I'm still here. We've been out of our house and in my in-laws for a couple days and we just took possession of our new house today so it's been a wild week. I kept wondering if I would cry when we left our house as it was our first and where we have had both our children.. Not as emotional as I thought. Though I had a wierd feeling when we had to stop by to drop off keys and they had new furniture on the porch. They even threw out the curtain panels from the living room within hours of moving in. So we snagged them fromthe alley....they are very versitile panels. ANyways, everything has gone as smoothly as it can so far and the new house is beautiful. Next week I'll have pics.

I love my family!

I had a whole day to myself today! Preston took the kids to his parents and I got to do some packing. I also took a minute to rent Stranger Than Fiction while I folded laundry and I had 2 whole meals without interruption. However, having the whole day to myself made me realize that life is nothing without them. (I hope no single, childless people are reading this) Even though I had lots to do, I found myself bored. I'm always torn. When they are around, I am frusterated I'm not getting anything done. But an hour after they leave I want them back! I have no idea what I did with my time when I was single and I keep thinking that when I get alone time I will just love it. But I realize I love my family more and I guess that is a good thing:)

New JOb

I told you I would have some new news. Preston got a new job! Hooray! Why am I excited? Well, if you talk to me at all, you will know that we run a business together and I am way to involved. This means no more payroll, paperwork or any other misery to take me away from my other job (raising 2 crazy kids). The downside is I no longer have an excuse to have cleaning ladies come because I should have the time now to clean myself. We just decided that we started the business at a bad time in our lives. We still want more kids and I can't do both and it's just WAY simpler. SO yay!

Imaginary Friend

So Clayton has some imaginary friends. I may have mentioned this to some of you and I was worried but I did the good mom thing and researched it to find that it is quite normal. Infact it shows great creativity and smarts, so I guess I should be thrilled he has imaginary friends. His best friends name is Blun. He Also has an Ugo, Slack and Thacker. Today I left his 'friends' outside by accident so I had to let them in out of the rain. He tried to tell me I left them at Walmart but there was no way I was going back to pick them up:)
Anyways, it's fun to watch him play with Blun. I just get a little tired of hearing about him. But I am trying to listen as they say if their 'friend' has concerns like he is afraid of the dark, it is usually a sign that the child is more afraid of it himself. Anyways, swimming lessons starts tomorrow and I'm excited to see if Clayton does o.k. on his own while I'm with Kayla.
ALso, I've been exercising. I have to say that on here so you all ask me periodically how I'm doing. Which will make me feel guilty that I am slacking off and I will get at it.
Tomorrow is our walk through. I'm very excited to get this all over with. So stressful!!

So not creative

Just so you know. I'm not good with titles. So you will often see titles that says 'this week' or 'weekend' I just don't have that creativity gene that you all seem to be blessed with.

Anyways. It was easter this past weekend and my mom came to visit. All we did all weekend was shop and sew. We made some window treatments for the new house. Actually we made a lot of them...all for under $100.00! My mom is the best bargain shopper ever. We made me a super cheap, yet super stylish bed cover too. I have to say I walked into the Bay and I was ready to give up after 5 minutes but my mom kept digging....and we scored. Same with Fabric Land. I always prep myself for a visit to that store because I usually walk out frusterated. Anyways a weekend well used. I had a small family dinner at Kamilles(SIL) house on Sunday and my mom left early Monday. I had to take her to the airport at 5 am but I went back to Prestons parents house and went to sleep till 8:30!!! Preston brought the kids up at 11am so I had the whole morning to myself....and they were even clothed properly when they got there:)

These are just some silly pics. Clayton gave me a whopper of a bruise (yes, my legs are that white) when he kicked my leg instead of jumping over it. Just goes to show what kind of damage a 3 yr. old can do. I just joined an Ultimate Frisbee team. I'm terrified!! I am soo out of shape but I have been asked a couple years in a row and I finally said yes. I'm very excited for the extra motvation it will give me to get back into shape. But like I said...I'm terrified! I'm no good at sports and I'm afraid they will all yell at me when I don't catch the frisbee.

Thats us in a nutshell. We are making a lot of interesting decisions right now about where we are going to live and work in the near future so stay tuned becuase I'm sure I'll have some fun posts to come!

Birthday Clown

I finally got my camera back so I can tell you about the party that CLayton went to last week. It was a 4 yr old birthday party and they got a clown becuase the weather stunk. Best idea ever. Look at the pictures...the kids are mesmorized! They just laughed and laughed and loved it. Again, best idea ever. Wouldn't recommend it for a younger crowd (Kayla was there and was watching but just didn't get the jokes the way the 3 and 4 yr olds did) I totally want to do it for CLaytons birthday...I'm such a copy cat. Anyways her name is Button. She walked in and made a horrible first impression on me cause she didnt act the way I thought clowns acted...but she was totally great. Get a clown!

darn that soother

So I think I wrote previously that we took Kaylas soother away. I lied. We gave it back because she moved into a big girl bed and was having a tough transition. However, a couple days ago, Preston threw Kaylas last soother in a construction bin and I have been cursing him ever since. Kayla has never been much if a cryer but she woke up yesterday at 5:45 and then didn't nap, and THEN screamed herself to sleep for an hour and a half! It was horrible. I have one of those kid proof door handles on the door so she just stood there trying to open the door. I finally relaxed after she fell asleep and then she woke up 3 times in the night and woke up at 6:20 this morning. I know she is still tired so I closed the door and let her scream for 15 minutes. SHe is taking a nap today whether she wants it or not. I will never to this cold turkey again!

Back Track

So I am excited to get some cute pics. on here so I'm going to back track a little bit. Gymnastics just ended for Kayla a couple weeks ago and I am kicking myself for not signing her up again....she loved it! SHe asks about it all the time and I feel bad. But swimming starts in a few weeks for both kids...should be almost as fun.

Clayton is a bit afraid of getting water in his face and he certainly wont put his head under the water so we will see how the lessons go. After all, we are moving into a lake community...the kids have to know how to swim!

The cold snap that we have had has made us resort to some silly indoor activities. Yes the kids are sitting naked in buckets of soapy water...in the house. I make a car wash for Clayton every once and a while and he cleans his cars with a toothbrush and rinses them and drys them. They decided to wash themselves this time. It made a big wattery mess, but they had fun. I realize though I have to draw a line. Today they went into the bathroom together and took the potty bucket from the potty and scooped water out of the big toilet and dumped it on the floor. Unfortunately, I didn't catch on until the big toilet was empty.

This past weekend all we did was pack ...oh and we went to a surprise party. When we came home the babysitter was asleep on the couch and Kayla was screaming on the stairs. Heavy sleeper. I guess you have to be a mom to care:)

Happy Easter everyone!

Here We Are

So we created a blog. Now I have to find something to say. Lets start with complaining....I'm good at it. We just recently found out that our house will not be ready in time for us to move directly into it when we move out of this house so we will be homeless for a week or two. We will be crashing at Prestons parents house during that time...we haven't told them yet.
Right now we are having a fun time betting (not really) on the NCAA tournament. Prestons mom prints off the schdule every year and we all guess from the first to the last round who is going to win every game. It's only the first round, but Preston and I are both loosing equally. Go Oregon! Um, we took Kaylas soother away from her this weekend....yes, she still used one to sleep. SO far she is doing great with minimal whining. Next it's potty training. I've told lots of you, but Clayton is super lippy right now. I say to him "your being rude" and he says "no, your being rude" and he always shoots back at me what I just said to him. He even said to me the other day when he was mad "I'm going to shoot you" So, that is our challenge of the week (hopefully it only lasts that long) Besides that he is a really fun kid who loves to play cars and playdoh. His favourite thing to do right now is run around the house and pretend to be a car and crash into us. He's a true boy.
Well, thats the end of my first blog entry. I promise it will get better. For now, I'm excited to get some pics on here.