Last day

Alright, so I had a farewell at my house on Monday and it turned out really well. I had about 30-35 people here from School, work and church. I was a little overwhelmed because I'm not used to having so many people to entertain from different groups. We hung out, talked, eat and played ping pong and then my dad gave a message (which was so good!!) I think over all it was excellent.

Today is Wed and I leave for London tomorrow morning!!! i can hardly believe it.. I'm just packing today and cleaning up and making sure everything is set and ready to go. I'm also being set a part tonight at 630.. president smith is coming over. I guess that's about it. I hope that who ever reads this knows that I'm thrilled to be leaving and serving a mission for the Lord. I will miss you but I promise to be out doing something I love and hold dear! Please write me and I will be seeing you November 2010.

May 10th

Yay I got to sleep in!!! It was only until about 8:20 but it was nice. After breakfast Steve, Elena, Rory and I went out to washed the cars which turned into a pretty awesome water fight. La came and recorded us a bit and then joined in spraying us.
Shorty after.. la and I watched Lost and then Steve and I took off to play soccor with some church friends. It had to have been the hottest day since i was there and we played at 2pm the warmest part of the day. yuck! but i still had fun running around and getting some exercises. But wow we were all just dripping due to the heat and humidity. We came home and cleaned up. Steve was in charge of getting something for the Mother's at church so we headed for the store and we got about 4 dozen roses of white, yellow, cream, orange and pink. We also grabbed some pizza for dinner. La and I ended up going to a Relief Society Conference fireside because Sister Julie Beck came to speak to us.

I said bye to the kids and took a group picture. When La and i got back from the fireside around 9:20 or so the three of us tied ribbons on all 60 roses. Actually didnt take very long. I was debating on sleeping for just a few hours or staying up the whole night.. i fell asleep shorty after.

Steve drove me to the airport and i left florida around 6:10 am and landed in Houston Texas around 7:30 am their time. They are 2 hours ahead of SD. The airport was huge!! There are whole different blds for each letter terminal and we took a standing bus/trolly thing over to Gate ABC (pretty cool) I enjoyed it.

FRIDAY, one more to go

Yesterday*

In the morning La and i went shopping! girl Time! haha.. we went and got her some "mommy" pants (she is due in Sept with a boy). I got two shirts as well. After returning home we all went kayaking, down the St John river!!!! yes! i was so excited!! :) Now this isn't any normal river.. its huge!!! haha The kayaking place is on base.. which was pretty cool cause I've never been on a naval base before. Steve and Rory road together, Elena and I and La and future baby. The day was perfect! Nice weather, calm water, warm water.. and no one else near by. As we headed out I wanted to take off! but Elena insisted we go slow because she was afraid of falling in. Apparently there are manatees in the river but we didn't see any. On our way across we saw some jumping fish and two egrets. And then all of a sudden ( i must have hit the shore line with my boat or my ore) My boat tipped over slightly knocking Elena off and into the water!! ah! she started screaming but her life jacket held her up and i quickly reached down for her rescue! She was fine, just a bit wet. But sadly we lost one of her shoes?!!!? haha one was floating and the other must have been eaten up in shallow sand. As we continued the cool breeze felt awesome. That was about it for the excitement that day. We are dinner and watched "the day the earth stood still" ( i believe that is what it was called).
Friday (today)
I thought yesterday was great.. but today was pretty awesome!! :)
I woke up late for once :) around 815 or so. ( i know that doesn't sound late but when you have two little kids running around at 6am you dint sleep in) Then Steve, Rory and i decided to go for a hike! yay! i love being outdoors :) La and Elena stayed at home to have girl time and ended up going to a garage sale or something. woop woop. So we took off for our hike. It was in Georgia which is about an hour and 20 minutes north of Jacksonville Florida. The swamp/national recreational area was called "Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge". Not only does it have an awesome name "okefenokee" it was awesome! I'll post some pictures when i get home. The drive wasn't bad at all cause Steve and i talked about missionary experiences and he pumped me up for leaving in about 15 days or so :) Once there... We had a choice between about 7 trails. So we decided to drive around and get an idea of what they looked like. (the only sad part about the east coast is ITS FLAT! so hikes are more like long walks) any who.. we passed a lot of trails because they were flat... boring.. and looked like little or no animal sightings. While driving we came upon a beautiful deer in the road which ran away before we got near it. We decided to start our adventure on a hike called "boardwalk". It was a fairly short hike but since we stopped every few minutes to check out the wild life and we had Rory with us.. it took about 2 1/2 hours or so.. haha. It was an awesome experience and we had fun. (i have pictures of all these animals and will post them soon) We saw a funny looking turtle sitting in the middle of the walk way.. his nose was long and looked like a witch. The hike was all on a wooden path on top of a lush-muddy-swamp like ground. OH! and the word Okefenokee means "Land of the Trembling Earth" pretty cool right.. probably due to it's unstable landscaping. Then we saw 4 snakes in the waters below. 3 of them were black snakes unknown to its real name but they were pretty cool... and the last one was a brown one that Steve spotted and said it looked like a wolf snake i believe (which is apparently aggressive and venomous) yikes! There were dragonflies everywhere! and i mean EVERYWHERE! of every color.. green.. orange.. blue mixed etc.. and they were big. We saw spiders everywhere too.. big and small... a few really large water spiders and one with this crazy white patch in the middle of his web.. check out the pic later. We watched a few cute frogs and we even found an owl. The owl was the coolest because it was right up in our face! He was pretty but his eyes were creepy!! the way it blinked and every once in a while winked and gave us this evil eye stare!! night mares!!!! haha.. but i got a few good shots and some camera recordings of it. Oh and its wing span while flying away.. so beautiful :) We didn't get to see any alligators :( but we did get to see a pair of eyes peering from the water.. so we considered that as seeing one in nature :) It was really really hot so a shower was definitely needed but at the end of our hike we found a town about 4 stories high so we went up and the breeze was so wonderful and the air was thinner and better.. so we sat there for a while cooling off... Rory was basically falling asleep so we ended out hike once we got back to the car.. which was fine.. i was getting a bit tired myself from the sun. *later* we just finished playing a board game called hmm i forget but it was really fun.. Steve won!! grr.. i was fairly close again to winning but failed. so that's about it. bed time and tomorrow is my last day with Steve and then back to California. O and at Okefenokee you can rent canoes, kayaks, and motorboats to go through the actual swamps!! we really wanted to go but got a little scared due to the many snakes and gators found in there.. but i think one day it would be tons of fun. Being right there next to the animals!! woo hoo :) ok night,
<3

Last day watching the two monsters!! <3 love them :)

Yesterday
Ollie Koala was pretty lame if you ask me. I bought these two cards with 5 dollars on each of them and at the games you slide the card. Elena and Rory didn't really 'get' the games so it was a little frustrating.. finally they decided to run around on the play ground which was nice. Nothing too exciting for the rest of the day.. or at least that i can remember.
Today:
I slept in a little late today..opps. I got the kids dressed and then we ate chocolate chip pancakes! yum. While Elena was at school Rory and i cleaned a little and then developed some pictures of things we have been doing the past three -four days. After school the three of us worked on a craft/ gift for Steve and Laura. It is a giant card on poster board. On the front it says 'we love you' and there are stickers and drawings and everything all over it. On the back are a whole bunch of pictures. I like it a lot I'm sure they will too. The kids worked really hard on them. We went to the pond after with some food for the fish and turtles.. There were three turtles and they actually came right up to us!! kinda cool. dinner was insane!! agh! i blew up at the kids :( but i cooled off and said sorry. I made it up to them with a movie after dinner, they picked care bares. O and at dinner Elena and i were laughing so hard i started crying and her tummy started hurting!! all because Rory was making THE funniest faces at us ever!! good times. OK time to watch Lost.
<3

Florida~~ Tuesday**

For the rest of Sunday we went outside and drew with some chalk.. it was pretty fun and then we took some pictures, Elena loves taking pictures of us. Then off for a walk. We went over to the pond and threw some break in for the fish and turtles.. it was fun until a very large yellow jacket came and scared us. (i don't know if I've ever seen Rory run so fast) then we had some mac-n-cheese and other stuff (i cant remember) and then off to bed.
*Yesterday.
Elena goes to school in the mornings from 9-12 which helps a little cause when her and Rory are together all day it gets a little crazy sometimes. I had to get up around 730 which isn't bad but I'm still not 100% use to the time change so it was a bit early. Breakfast and then off to school. I met the teacher so she knew who i was. Rory and i went back and watched Dumbo. Then we put together this cute alphabet puzzle with animals.. that was fun. Soon after we picked up Elena and went over to McDonald's for lunch. ha ha that was interesting. Everyone was looking at me like i was their mom! We chowed down and then went outside to play. Afterwards Rory was super tired so we started to leave when Elena reminded me about the free ice cream cones! ah! so we all got one and headed out for the car. O my!!! never again. :P it was the biggest mess ever!!! some guy even walked by and said "good luck Mom" ha ha i was like "what? " it was funny. Finally we finished eating and when we got home i had them throw their clothes in the laundry and then into the bath. Finally i get them into bed.. but Elena was giving me a hard time. She just wouldn't go to sleep!!! Eventually we ended up sleeping, i even fell asleep on the bed. We built a fort shortly after (which took over almost the entire family room) we played some games and read some books under until they started fighting so the tent came down. I sent them to their rooms for a little while i made dinner. I made some rolled tacos with garlic bread and rice. And for desert i cut up some fresh fruit and covered it with vanilla yogurt and threw in some raisins and cranberries.. it turned out so good and the kids liked it!!! yay! We went for a walk to go see some turtles.. sadly we didn't find any, it was pretty late. So off to bed. Elena gave me issues again!!! but i think finally around 830 or so she stopped coming out of her room. I watched "The Count of Monte Cristo" which was so good!! I'll we watching that again soon. Then i saw Rory's light on around 930 or 10 maybe. He was up playing games so i had him come lay with me to get sleepy. Failed again! he ened up watching almost the whole movie with me.
*Today
Wow they were driving me crazy!!! haha. They came in my room cause i left the door open (oops) and so they came and laid we with me and i ended up just getting up. Getting Elena ready for school was a hassle! and breakfast kinda worked out. Cheesy eggs and oatmeal.. it was actually good. Then Elena is off a school.. I'll be picking her up here in about a half an hour and Rory and i watched The Lion King and have been playing around the house for the past 2-3 hours. Fun stuff!
We plan on going to Olie Koalie or something like that but I'm not sure. Then who knows :)
tomorrow is craft day though. we are making a poster for Steve and La when they come home on Thursday Morning.

Florida Day 2

I fell asleep watching Narnia, Prince Caspian, which was quite good and which i will continue watching after i note my days activities. I must be getting use to the time change cause i woke up at 730 this morning.. i wanted to sneak into the bathroom cause i could hear Elena and Rory awake and i knew the moment they saw me they would want to play. I attempted and failed!! Rory was playing in the bathroom and i was caught :( ha ha so somehow i convinced them to let me back into my room and i laid there for a bit longer. I was excited to enjoy Sunday with my brother but it is Stake Conference today and they would be leaving for their boat before it began. So i ended up rumbling with the kids... they are so full of energy my goodness! luckily I'm a ball of energy too so i think we both tired each other out :P

Steve and La left... We played with bubble out in the front yard and everyone driving by watched and smiled as if no one does that anymore..hm. anywho. Then we played tag and red light green light (they had never played this before and they enjoyed it ) Rory found this bright green flying bug and we watched it for a few minutes so i suggested we go for a walk and find some more fun bugs. On our way we came to a large pond covered in water lillies. We found this really cool lizard/gecko which was almost translucent but with a hint of green.. way cool. Then we watched the fish in the pond, dragonflies of many colors and just before taking off a turtle popped his head out of the water which intrigued them to stay and watch. Back at the house i tried to figure out how to put a movie on for them but for some reason i was retarded or something. Elena got mad at me for not knowing how to do it "Mom showed you how last night!" ha ha i figured it eventually.. OK like 5 minutes ago :) i fed them and then off for a nap. Surprisingly it only took about an hour to do both..yay! so they are napping right now and i thought I'd jot down a few reminders before the day was over.

<3

~Florida~

My brother steven flew me out for a visit on friday. I took off from Ontario at 645am and landed in Atlanta Georgia around 2 their time (they are three hours ahead of us). Then i had a nice long wait in the airport until my 505pm flight to jacksonville Florida, which was only about 42 minutes long [nice and short :) ] Luckily i was able to chat with some friends to keep my sane while waiting. (thanks carla krystal and zeb) When i got to Florida i was amazed at how beautiful it was!! Flat but beautiful. There are green trees everywhere of every type and tons of lakes and rivers!!! how cool!! turn the corner and there is a lake.. turn again and a huge rushing river dividing towns! love it. It was hot though!!! agh. which im a bit more use to now. I grabbed some lunch with steve and then headed for home. Its a pretty cute brick house, and Elena and Rory were waiting for me at the door. We right away went for a little walk around the neighborhood. (so pleasant and peaceful) Soon after the kids departed to the beds and steve, la and i played 'Posiden' or however you spell it. Fun game, i almost won but steve snuck in there and sunk me and stole the win. Then i was left to attempt to sleep while still being three hours behind in my sleeping patterns.. grr so i fell asleep around uh 12 or so knowing the kids would wake me around 7-8 which would be 4-5am to me :( sad. But i survived.
So today.. breakfast and then off to the beach!! what a hot day! the beach is way different though.. first time to the atlantic ocean. The sand isnt really sand, it was more like broken shells (tough on the feet). Then after some fun time there we went for a hike. It was quite wonderful. I got some really nice pictures of nature and family... and we saw some cool animals. Infact we almost got eaten by a deer leaping from the bushes in front of us!!hahahah run away! After returning home from our adventure we showered and took naps... o and checked each other for ticks!!! hahaha reminded me of that country song. Then before dinner we went for a nice bikeride.. loved it, havent been riding in a long time. Over all great day, La and Steve leave for their cruis tomorrow and then its just me and the kids for 4 days... hope things go well.

until then....
<3