Kitty Paparazzi

I was doing some dejunking and found Marshall's old camera from his mission. It's a 35mm and I figured we would just send it to the DI. The boys discovered it worked and had a flash so they started taking pictures with it. I pulled out another digital camera we haven't used for a while and let Rowan play with that one. The boys have been having fun taking pictures. I thought it was funny because Chandler took a bunch and then was frustrated when he couldn't figure out how to view them. Oh to grow up in the digital age. His expression was funny when I told him there was film that would have to be developed at the store. For quite a while, they followed Bessie around, taking her picture. Bessie has settled in nicely here. She hid under the beds a lot the first week and seemed really apprehensive. She also pawed at our door all night one night and has finally learned that she doesn't do that at night which is nice. She is really loving and patient with the boys. The boys are soft with her and she likes to be wherever we are. So here is our kitty paparazzi, cute yes?

Chandler's Kindergarten Graduation

 I can't believe he's going to be moving on to 1st grade next year!  This year has gone quickly and Chandler has done fabulous.  We got to see him sing in the program today, and he had a short line to say (which of course I missed.)  Then we went to his classroom to see his favorite memory and see him get an award.  His teacher, Mrs. LeBaron has been fantastic.  He loved her so much and had a great year.

 The videos are split into 2 because you can view them in HD and I didn't want to mess with the video quality.  So I chose my favorite 2.  (Make sure to change the youtube viewing to HD in the bottom right corner.)

Congratulations Chandler, we love you!!

The Job

Remember the ultrasound job that I talked about in this post?  I was offered it at the first of the week.   I am the second student in the region to get hired and the first one to be hired for an independent position.  I know they were also looking at registered technicians outside the region so I'm really flattered to have been offered it.   I had some time to think and pray before the recruiter called me on Thursday to ask if I'd accept the position.  After some talking and contemplating, Marsh & I decided that I should accept it.  I'm really excited about a few things

1) To be doing something I love.  I really love ultrasound and while I'm a bit freaked out to be working independently on the weekends, I know I have it in me.  (Granted I will have the Radiologist to fall back on, but not another tech or my amazing clinical instructor.)

2)  To be able to spend time with my boys this semester.  I was planning on class Monday morning and then clinical on Tuesday & Wednesday, so 3 days a week.  With this job, I will be working every Saturday & Sunday with every other Sunday night call which means that I will be home with my boys Monday through Friday.  This was a big factor in the decision.  Plus my working hours will be counted as my clinical hours, so I'll be getting paid.  Being home with my boys during the week is priceless to me.

3)  Finally getting paid what I'm worth - This job is 2x what I was making in the ER at LDS. (I did put in my 2 weeks notice.)  There's also a $6 an hour pay increase when I become registered, which I will be doing in August or September.

The downfall in all of this is the fact that I won't get to attend church like I want to.  This was basically the power struggle I had with my job when I came to a realization:  It's not forever.   Things could change and other jobs could be made available.  I also realized that I have a strong testimony that will not waver.  I was expecting a yes or no answer when I prayed about it.   I didn't feel very strongly one way or another, but I just kept thinking about my testimony.  I realized that it was Heavenly Father asking me how my testimony was.  That was my answer.  I'll admit that there have been times in my life where I've been somewhat lazy in the gospel but I could never deny it.  I know it's true and everything it teaches protects and helps me and my family.  It was a bit amazing to me to realize just how much of a testimony I have and it brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.  I'm SO grateful for it and that no one can take it away from me.  Marsh and I have talked about maybe him getting permission to give me the sacrament at home.  I'm also thinking they might do a sacrament service for workers & patients at the hospital that I will be working at.  I also had another tech offer to come in for a few hours occasionally so I can attend church occasionally.

I'm going to start training either the week of the 4th, or the week of the 10th, I'm not sure yet.  I'm grateful for this opportunity and blessing for our family.  I'm also grateful for a supportive husband who is also a great dad to our kids.  Here we go!

Handsome

Got my new camera today.  Have had some fun taking and editing pictures.  Can't help but think how handsome Chandler is. 

Rowan Rides a Bike

Our Rowan man is riding a bike!  He did so great on his balance bike last summer and my cousin had an extra bike they weren't using.  We took him to the tennis courts and he was off in less than 5 minutes.  It's pretty cute to see him riding since he's only 4.  Way to go Rowan we are so proud of you!

Family In Idaho

This last weekend, we headed up to Idaho. Specificially we were going for Marshall's sister Ashley's Senior recital. She will be graduating in July with a Bachelor's in Music Performance. (Piano) The recital was Saturday and it was nothing short of spectacular. She did an amazing job and it's the kind of piano playing that gives you chills. :)   That picture below is of me with Ashley.  She's also 19 weeks pregnant, but you totally wouldn't guess it, she's still super tiny.

While we were down there, we barbecued with Marshall's family and with my family.  I wasn't great about taking pictures.  I just sold my DSLR and am waiting for my upgrade to come *SQUEAL!* so all I had was my iphone.


The pic below is Chan with 2 of his second cousins.  They are all close to the same age and play so well together.

This picture is of Rowan and two more of the second cousins, plus my niece Savanna.  She's great with kids and all of them love playing with her.

Before we took off to go back home, we got to sing Happy Birthday to my mother in law and watch her burn out the candles.  She's such a great woman, I'm glad to call her family.

Chandler sacked out on the ride home. Love his hair in this pictures. The boys played hard and slept a lot of the car ride home.

Bessie

This is Bessie, (yes I realize it's a COW name but that was the name she came with.) Our first pet EVER. She's 4 years old and has the prettiest green eyes. She likes to hang out under the bed all day but I'm forcing her to be social today. I'm doing that because she likes to stay up all night. The other night she came in our room and tried to sleep with us but just ended up laying all over us. NOT cool. Last night we shut the door and she pawed and head butted the door until we let her in. We need to figure that out. Today we got her new bowls, a bed and some toys. I kinda like her...I think we'll keep her.

Mother's Day Puepa

It's so fun to have a day to celebrate those who gave birth to us.  My mom is awesome and I'm so grateful for her!  I also have a great mother-in-law who I am also really grateful for. 

Marshall and the boys made me feel really special this Mother's Day.  Chan gave a "puepa" with a poem from school.  I got some video of him giving it to me and it was so cute how he said it.  I finally told him it was called a Petunia, but I prefer Peupa. I also got a really neat canvas from Marshall and the boys.  Marsh photoshopped this picture of us and made me in color.  He said that he liked how they were all looking at me and that it portrayed that I am the center of their lives.  I got a bit teary eyed. :)

We tried to get a picture of the boys and me after church.  Classic faces right?

Reading

Chan will finish out Kindergarten in just a couple of weeks here. The school year has gone way too fast. I can't believe how well he's reading and is doing more and more by himself. I'm always surprised when he picks up a good sized book and can read it by himself. We have quite a few e-books on the ipad and here he is reading to Rowan. Rowan is taking a lot of interest in books too which I love. I have a cute Mother's Day video of Chan reading which I will post soon.

Brandcation

Just wanted to give everyone who actually reads a heads up.  This blog has a google page rank of 2 (which probably means nothing to you but it means something to me and advertisers. ;) )  I've passed up sponsored posts in the past as I wanted to keep this blog completely focused on family, but I'm starting to realize that $100+ for a post that takes me a half hour to write is worth it.  So if you see random posts about garage doors, saving money, etc and you scratch your head and think, huh - scroll to the bottom and you will see it is a sponsored post.  It might not happen very often, but chances are that it probably will happen.

Ok, now onto Brandcation! (PS - This post will be LONG.  VERY long.  Kudos to you in advance if you read the whole thing.  If you don't, at least check out the pictures, they are pretty!)

I've been looking forward to this event for a few months.  It was a blogger conference that I paid to go to.  I bought everything up front and started looking for sponsors.  Luckily, Pampers provided me with a stipend that paid for the event which I was incredibly grateful for.  I took a red eye flight that left at 1 am and hoped that I would get some sleep.  No such luck.  I sat next to a nice, chatty girl holding an 8 month old baby and we ended up talking for most of the flight.  I finally couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and slept the last 45 minutes of the flight.  I had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta where I tried to doze but it's kind of impossible in an airport.  I slept from Atlanta to Pensacola, all 45 minutes of the flight.  Needless to say, I was a bit out of it when I arrived in Pensacola.  One of the other bloggers who is local picked a few of us up at the airport.  It's amazing and interesting at the same time to finally meet other women face to face who you've known online for years.  Some of these women I've been connected to online for over 3 years and this was our first time meeting.  It's amazing how easy it is to click with a lot of them too!  There were 32 of us total.  We drove down to where we were staying and between being so incredibly tired and it raining, I didn't get much of the effect driving into Pensacola Beach.  Once we did get there, we checked into the condos and the rain had stopped.  The view was absolutely beautiful.

Once all of the other bloggers arrived, we started our blogger Olympics.  We were split into teams by the condos that we were staying in.  There were 8 per condo.  My team was in white and we were the SEO's.  (Search Engine Optimization, a blogger familiar term. ;) )  We first went on a picture scavenger hunt.  Next we went down to the beach to do other relays and activities.  We had a sandcastle building contest, swimming relays and a hula hooping contest.  I actually held my own in the hula hooping contest and came in 3rd.  Our team overall came in 1st place!

Friday night we ate at a local Burger Place called Surf Burger, took pictures down by a dock and had our swag party.  In the blogger world, swag is essentially comped stuff.  Product that is donated by sponsors and such.  It was really fun to see all of the companies that support Brandcation and I was excited to hand out some Pampers swag myself!

Saturday we headed to Adventures Unlimited that was about an hour from Pensacola in Milton.  There we would be ziplining and tubing 4 miles down the river.  Ziplining was so much fun.  We did 7 different lines, and although I'll admit that I had a little bit of anxiety over the heights, it was an amazing experience!

 After ziplining, we had lunch and waited for all of the groups to finish.  We were all ready to dip our toes in the river as it was hot and HUMID.  I am so not used to humidity and it was weird having my skin sticky all of the time and my hair frizzy.  We took a bus up to where we were supposed to start and got in.  Not 2 minutes later, one of the girls ripped off her entire big toenail.  OUCH.  The river was pretty shallow at parts with tons of tree stumps and rocks.  The first hour we were just trying to get around stuff.  After a couple of hours, I think we were all ready to get out.  Some of the girls got really sick too.  We were on the river for 4 hours.  I'll admit that I was ready to get out when it was all said and done - 4 hours is a bit much.  Another girl actually broke one of her toes down the river too.

Saturday night we ate down by the pool and met the local astronomy group to do some star gazing.  They had a bunch of telescopes set up and that was the night of the Super Moon.  Pretty cool, right?

Sunday we went on a dolphin cruise.  This was so much fun.  It was a beautiful day and we saw lots of dolphins, even a teeny tiny baby dolphin!

After the cruise, we all had lunch and some of the bloggers headed out.  There were some of us staying until Monday, me being one of them.  Airfare was a lot cheaper on Monday so that's why I stayed.  A few of us decided to go parasailing.  I'm SO glad that I did.  It was so incredibly beautiful and peaceful.  It's times like that that you marvel in God's creations and think about how incredible it all is.  I went parasailing with 2 other girls and while up in the air we saw a LOT of Sting Rays. Towards the end, they dipped our feet in the water and I was just praying we wouldn't be over the Sting Rays.  We weren't, lol.

Monday I was the last one to fly out.  I hung out by the pool at the hotel for about 3 hours and did some blogging and just enjoyed the gulf.  I would love to take the family back to the gulf, it was so pretty there!  If you are thinking of vacationing in Florida, I would definitely recommend Pensacola Beach.

As a blogger, I've learned that in order to become successful I have to network...and network...and network some more.  It's awesome to be able to cultivate these relationships I have with other bloggers online and to get to know them on a better level.  There were also some things I learned that I should and shouldn't be doing with my blog and I learned more about myself.  I'll be attending one other blogger conference this year, and that is Blogher in NYC in August.  My sister Avry will be joining me for that conference and I am so excited to go with her!

Catching Up

I got home in the wee hours of the morning yesterday from Brandcation, a blogger event.  It was in Pensacola Beach, Florida and I had the most amazing time.  I know a blog post is going to take a while to draft since I have a lot of pictures to sort through.  For now here is one to share.  I was waiting on a boat, ready to parasail here.  More to come....