Company

Avery with Aunt Jean
Avery, Aunt Jean and Lauren

We have had company for the past few days. It has made our life eventful and fun. My Dad's sisters Jean and Jan have been here in Saint George. My Aunt Jan has moved down here for a few months and my Aunt Jean came to help her get settled. We had a great time eating together and spent a few nights playing the guitar and singing. Jerry got a new guitar with the help of my Dad. He is doing so well and it is fun to hear him play. My Dad has been giving him some lessons and they are singing together. I love having music in our home. Aunt Jean and Uncle Darwin stayed with us for four nights. We also had Nate come down for a quick visit. We had a really good time and are so glad we live in a place people like to visit!

Trees

We spent the afternoon at the park with the kids and their scooters. They had a ball. They both don't know how to use their brakes. They just jump off and fly into the grass. It is fun to watch. The kids have found they can climb trees. Grandma said just to let them go so I just watched them climb and prayed they wouldn't fall. Grandma assured me it was a perfect climbing tree. We love the beautiful weather here and LOVE having Grandma and Grandpa here.

Thirteen Months Old

Our little Avery is thirteen months old. She has grown up so much this month. She is crawling EVERYWHERE and getting into EVERYTHING! She is still a happy, smiling baby but does squawk a bit when she doesn't get her way or something gets taken away from her. She has found the bathroom which she loves, the dishwasher which she also loves and the pantry. She is keeping us on our toes. We are learning also that it doesn't matter how many toys she has she still wants to crawl around and find any small piece of anything on the floor, any expensive electronics and basically anything she can find that is new and exciting. She is in a fun phase. She has started saying "uh,oh" which is super cute. She throws things off her eating tray as she says it which is also fun. She has been a bit more attached to Mom lately probably because of all the travel we have done and also her age. She is a wonderful baby and we LOVE her.

Hospital

So I got to spend some time in the hospital. It wasn't the best time I've had lately but I survived. I got a stomach ache on Monday night. I thought I just had a sore stomach from doing too many sit ups. I had just started working out again after a long break. I drank a Coke and went to bed. The next morning I went to the gym and came home and got ready. I started feeling sick just lethargic and not so well. I had a fever and pain in my stomach. Jerry ended up coming home from work and my Dad took me to the doctor. He did some testing and could only come up with me having a high fever and my white blood cell count being up. He called me around 8pm and told me to go to the ER and do a CT scan. He was concerned about me having early appendicitis and hesitant to just prescribe antibiotics. Jerry took me to the ER and during the intake I blacked out which I am certain caused the hospital stay. I had a fever over 103 degrees. After a CT scan which takes hours because you have to drink this awesome drink before they can run the test. All they could find is swelling in my stomach which led them to think it may be early appendicitis but they kept me to monitor my progress. All the pain meds gave me a massive headache and I couldn't eat anything in case I had to go to surgery. It was not that fun. Jerry stayed home with the kids because my Mom was sick with a bad sinus infection. I made it home from the hospital by the end of the next day but when the pain meds wore off I still had the stomach pain. I went in for another CT scan after taking Lortab....don't ever do that.....it makes you very naseous but they finally prescribed antibiotics and I am feeling better. It was a learning experience and I am grateful for the help and prayers offered in my behalf. I have been blessed with wonderful friends and family and am truly grateful. You do not realize what a blessing good health is until you don't have it for a while. I am glad to be feeling better.

Primary

Today was Lauren's first day of Primary. She is a Sunbeam. Landon is now in the CTR 5 class. Lauren looked beautiful and Landon looked handsome. Avery was sick so I went to an early sacrament meeting and Jerry took the kids to our sacrament meeting. We moved to 1pm which I think was a change for the kids. Jerry came home after his class and reported Lauren had been kicked out of Primary. He was not happy. He kept her home during the last hour while I went to Young Women's. I talked to Sister Olsen and Sister Bundy after. Apparently, Lauren was not conforming to the rules. She wanted to leave and go to the bathroom on her own, she told them Primary was stupid and she hated it. Well, those are both words and phrases not allowed in our home. I am learning she has a harder time adjusting to change. I apologized for her behavior and let them know I would be willing to work with them to keep her in class. She is a spirited child and has to test boundaries. Unfortunately, she is going to have a more difficult time but I keep praying I can know and understand how to help her. She is wonderful and I am grateful to be her Mom.

Alofipo Family

Lauren and Kalani
Brigham and Landon
Joseph, Kalani, Jerry and Gena Alofipo

We had the best two days with our friends the Alofipo's. Their visit was a highlight of my holiday season. They are from Brisbane, Australia. They came to the states for Gena's brother's wedding. Gena and I became friends in California. She is a kindred spirit and came as an answer to my prayers to find good friends. She is wonderful. They came from SLC and spent a night and a day with us. They have two beautiful children, Brigham, 5 years and Kalani, 5 months. Gena is also expecting another baby in July. I had never met her husband or children and we had such a good time with them. Jerry took them to see the temple at night which they loved. We found out Gena loves Grandma Sycamore's bread and pretzels.......these are two things they had not had before. Lauren kept saying, "What did you said?" when they spoke to her and asked if they were speaking spanish. Their accent is so fun to hear and the different uses they have for words. Brigham got really scared by Landon with his Halloween costume. They don't celebrate Halloween so Brigham did not like Landon in his skeleton costume. They brought some beautiful gifts for us and the children. We were able to get them tickets to the Lakers game in LA as they went to CA to see the sights there. We wished they could have stayed longer. We hope to visit them in Australia someday.

New Year Party

We had a great New Year's Eve. Can't you tell by the look on Landon's face? We invited our neighbors the Wright's over with their three boys. They are the best family. We always have a desire to be and do better after we spend time with them. The are HUGE University of Utah football fans. My parents made it down just in time to enjoy the festivities. I made taco soup and Amy brought some food as well. We really enjoyed visiting with them. The kids played well, mostly except for Lauren hitting Luke in the head with a rolling pin. My lecture to her was ineffective as well. I asked her if she wanted to have people over, she said,"No!" I asked her if she wanted to have friends, she said,"No!" I asked her if she wanted to make Mommy happy, she said,"No!" Well, that was the end of the lecture. We celebrated at around 10pm and by midnight we were too tired to go to the fridge and get the Martinelli's to make a toast. Happy New Year!

Frankenmuth

If you have never visited the beautiful little village of Frankenmuth, Michigan you need to. What a fun place to be for Christmas. We took most of the day on the 23rd to travel there because of the ridiculous and christmasy weather but we made it. We stayed at the Drury Inn and Suites. On the 24th, we did some shopping and visited Santa at the Bronner's Christmas store. We loved it there....such a magical feeling there. The kids each picked out a Christmas ornament, Mom got some Haribo candy which I love and Dad bought some new trees for his Christmas village. We spent that evening at Aunt Jeannie's home in Saginaw. It was fun to be with his family. We had a white elephant gift exchange and watched a video Paige had made for her parents. It was touching. Jerry's Grandma is not in good health but I think enjoyed being with all her children. On Christmas day we went to Grandma North's for breakfast and enjoyed all the family there. Jerry's Dad has 7 siblings so with all their kids it was quite the party. We enjoyed an awesome German style meal at the Bavarian Inn with another visit from Santa. Uncle Rich and Aunt Diane came with their kids and met as there as well. The food was really, really good. Did I mention the food was good? We enjoyed ourselves. Merry Christmas! The next day we packed and Jerry spent a little time picking up some of his favorites....superman ice cream, kogel's hot dogs, coney sauce and frankenmuth fudge. We headed back to Michigan and packed up all our stuff. We decided to drive to Detroit that night because we were flying out the next day early. Our hotel in Detroit was really nice. Unfortunately we left Lauren's raggedy old baby there. She was sad but hopefully will forget and latch on to her new one. The kids traveled well and we made it safely back to Las Vegas. Andy was kind enough to pick us up. We ate at Baja Fresh and headed home. We were so, so glad to be home.