Beat the Winter Blues

I'm sick of winter. I'm sick of the cold, sick of the wind, and sick of the overcast skies. In an effort to brighten my day, I have turned to a tube of red lipstick to inject some color in to my cold, dreary life. These are the results. Enjoy.

My Apologies and other Random musings.....

My apologies. Yes, it's true, it has been over a year since I have officially posted. I feel sorry for the pain I have caused you of not waking up to a post of mine every day. I know, i know. The burdens you have had to bear, my many, many followers. I'm so sorry for the pain I have caused you. (Insert sarcasm here, if you couldn't tell...)

I have been stressed this past year, to say the least, and I've let many things give way because of it. I guess I've been in a survival mode of sorts, just doing the things I need to do and not much of anything else. Anyway, I happened to look at my blog a few weeks ago, and I had fun reading over some of the things that I had posted and just remembering things that I haven't thought about in a while. Mind you, I have never been one to post very often, and I know my posts aren't particularly funny or witty or important, but it was so nice to look back on some of good times I have had with my little fam. I was sad when I finished reading because I realized I haven't taken the time that I should to record some of the cute and fun daily memories I have. So, I have a new goal: To post a little something, hopefully every day, so I have a journal of sorts for my family. Something I can look back on in a few years and feel that same feeling of joy I had as I remembered crazy birthday parties, dance recitals, little family vacations and just silly and random daily happenings.

Plus, who wouldn't want to know more about this super attractive bunch?

Lake of Ozarks Vol. 4

Here are the girls at dinner hamming it up for the camera!!

Lake of Ozarks Vol. 4

More girls at pool.

Lake of the Ozarks Vol 3

Here are the girls at the pool.

Lake of Ozarks Video Log Vol. 2

Here are the girls at the arcade.

Video Log Lake of Ozarks Vol. 1

Becky is back in Utah to see her sister graduate from BYU, so it's been me and the girls hanging out. We decided to spend two days at the Lake of the Ozarks for some daddy-daughter fun. Since Becky isn't here we are posting some video so that she can see what we are up too. So here is goes.....

The OTHER Dr. Mehl

So, I got a call from Camie's school this morning. It went something like this:

Mrs. Mehl: Hello!

Secretary: Hi Mrs. Mehl. We have a problem with Camie. She has been rubbing her eye a lot today. The skin around her eye is red, but her eye is not. What can you tell me about it?

Mrs. Mehl: I didn't notice anything.

Secretary: OK......

(silence)

Mrs. Mehl: Does she have pinkeye?

(more silence)

Secretary: Well, we don't know. Can you come look at her?

Mrs. Mehl: (Me wondering, "Why are you calling me if you don't know?...) Sure, I can come if you need me too. Do you think she has pinkeye?

(strained silence)

Secretary: We would like you to come check her eye out and tell us what you think.

Mrs. Mehl: (Me wondering, "Why do you think that I am more capable of a diagnosis than a school nurse?) OK, that's fine. What do YOU think it looks like?(Some information please...)

Secretary: I was just told to have you come to the office.

(silence)

Mrs. Mehl: (Realizing that logic is not part of this discussion...) Um, OK, I'll be there soon. Bye.

I then used the skills that ALL of my medical training gave me and made my diagnosis even before I went to go pick up my patient. I deduced that my patient didn't need to have people looking at her like she was diseased all day, which would happen if I left her at school. I picked up my ecstatic patient and we are headed off to McDonald's for lunch and an afternoon of shoe shopping and Easy-Bake oven-ing. Later.

P.S. I was right, she didn't have pinkeye. Maybe I am a medical professional after all

Amazing Gift

We were surprised on Sunday when Sister Wilson from our branch stopped by our house. She said that she had stopped by to give us something from Sister Marciniak, a former branch member who had moved a few months ago. She then she presented us with this beautiful painting of Kaitlin on her baptism day.

We couldn't believe it! Sister Marciniak had asked me for a picture of Kaitlin on her baptism day months ago, but I didn't think anything of it. I only thought that she wanted to see a picture of Kaitlin in her dress since she wasn't able to make it to the baptism. I had no idea that she was planning a gift for us. We were amazed and really touched by her thoughtfulness. Thank you Sis. Marciniak!!

Our Midwest Summer

The highlight of our summer was of course going to Utah and spending time with family and friends, but we also had some fun here in the good old midwest. Here's a sampling of some of the things that we have done in the past few weeks.

Here are some pictures of the girls out at Pittsfield lake that is about 3 miles from our house.

We went to Nauvoo to see the pageant just before it closed for the year. They had a lot of pioneer crafts and games to do before the pageant which the kids loved. Since we are in such a small branch, it was great to be with a large number of Saints. We had the chance to talk to members that were volunteering at the pageant from all over the country. The pageant was great as well. If anyone wants to see it next year, you can come stay at our house, we have plenty of room! Here's a picture of the girls in front of a statue of Joseph.

At the pageant, like at General Conference, there are people there trying to take save us from our "mistakes". Have you ever pondered this question? (Joke, don't go to this ridiculous website).

Next, it was off to Mark Twain Lake in Missouri. It is only about 40 minutes from our house. I grew up going to the lake or at the beach, so all of my family vacations involved water. Becky does not share my love for water but she came anyway. (What a wonderful wife I have). She does admit now that she had fun though. We stayed at a campground that had a waterpark, miniature golf, go carts, etc. After doing all of that, we went down to the lake and rented a Sea-Doo. It was a blast. The lake is right next to Hannibal so we went to the Mark Twain Cave. Mark Twain based some of his books on the cave.

Yesterday we went to the Illinois state fair. It was our first experience at a state fair. It was huge. It's basically like one large amusement park with animals. The kids enjoyed feeding the camels, sheep and goats.

This is the famous butter cow. The whole display was made out of butter. The longest line at the fair was to see the butter cow. Only in the midwest baby!

Kaitlin is getting big enough to enjoy some of the rides that you have to pay an arm and a leg for.

And finally, what would a midwest state fair be without milking a cow. The girls actually thought it was cool and were not grossed out by it.

It has been a good summer, too bad it has to end.

Birthdays, Baptisms and More

Yes we are slackers and have not blogged for a long time. Things have been pretty busy with work, school, birthdays, church and a baptism. Kaitlin turned 8 years old at the end of January. We can't believe how fast she is growing up. For her birthday we went down to St. Louis and spent the day. The first stop was at Build-A-Bear Workshop to get her birthday stuffed animal. Kaitlin loves monkeys so this is the one that she picked.

Later in the day we went to a restaurant called Fitz's. They bottle their own root beer and soda there and you can watch them do it. Pretty cool place. They brought out the kids' food in old Chevy classic car boxes. The girls thought they were pretty cool.

Of course turning 8 years old meant that Kaitlin could be baptized. Kaitlin was very ready and exicted to be baptized. She gave a talk in Church about baptism a few months ago and everyone was very impressed by what she said and how grown up she is. The day after her baptism she was asked to talk about her baptism. We wanted her to think about her feelings and talk about them, so we did not help her with the talk. She bore her testimony and did a wonderful job. Here she is in her beautiful baptism dress.

3 days later was Camie's 5th birthday. Since there is not much to do in the little town of Pittsfield, we again spent the day in St. Louis. The first stop again was Build-A-Bear Workshop for Camie to get her birthday bear.

That evening we ate at the Elephant Bar Restaurant. They brought out a big sundae for Camie and her eyes were huge. It was a fun day. When we got home, Camie was happy to open her presents! Camie is also growing up fast. Like Mom and Kaitlin she is in love with reading books. She is only in pre-K but is reading at a 1st grade level. She reads all day long. At school they have her go in with the 1st grade class to read. We are blessed with two girls who are very smart and sweet.

Well, it has been a busy few months. We are off to Chicago for our first experience in the "big city." We have a lot of fun stuff planned so we should have plenty to blog about towards the end of the week.

Crazy? You tell me...

Growing up in Utah, I never once dealt with cancelled school. I always wished for it, of course, because who wouldn't want a day off from school? Every little kid's dream, for sure. I remember that we could get two feet of snow and still have to get up and go to school the next day.

Kaitlin and Camie's school district is just a little bit different than what I am used to. They have had me pick up the kids early because the school was too hot inside.... several times. They have had me pick them up early because there was too much rain and thunder. On Tuesday they had me pick them up early because it snowed two inches. And today (which at the moment is 25 degrees and slightly overcast) I just got a phone call to pick up Kaitlin because of impending bad weather. So, let me get this straight. I need to go pick up my child from school for bad weather that hasn't even happened yet? Um, yeah.....

I Heart Nauvoo

Recently, we had two members of our branch go through the temple for the first time. They wanted all of the members of the branch to be there, so our fam made a trek up to Nauvoo to go support them. It's really exciting when stuff like this happens because our branch is so small and poorly attended. I remember how shocked I was our first Sunday in Illinois because about 15 people showed up to church. I spent 3 hrs trying to hold back my tears because our branch was so small and there were no other young couples to be friends with. Kaitlin and Camie were also the only kids in primary. Quite a change from Utah, for sure.

Anyway, we couldn't both attend the session since we haven't found any babysitter we trust, especially for 7+ hours, so Rob attended while the kids and I wandered downtown Nauvoo. We went to all of the little shops, looked for souveniers and tried to soak in all things LDS since we don't get to experience it all around us anymore.

Here's a pic of Kait and Cam in the darling little pioneer bonnets I bought them. They thought I was a loser for buying them, but I didn't really care and I made them wear them for my own personal enjoyment.




Here's a gorgeous pic of the Nauvoo Temple. There's really nothing like a clear autumn day to help you take an awesome picture.




Here's a close up of a sunstone, which I LOVE!!! I think that they are so beautiful. I bought a heavy marble carving of one to put somewhere in my house. It's still in it's box right now because I have not bought any furniture yet to put it on. Curse-ed backwoods Illinois....

Finally, here are my sweet little munchkins in front of a fabulous backdrop.

I honestly can't get enough of Nauvoo!!

I love yardwork?

I am so-o-o-o-o not used to doing yardwork. We have spent 10 years living in apartments, condos and townhomes and as a result, we have been spoiled. In times past, we have waved to the passing workmen as they've mowed our lawn and pruned our bushes. We've asked them to spray for bugs and to remove the bird's nests and beehives in our eaves. In all, we have hardly had to lift a finger to care for our green surroundings. Awesomeness, I know....

Anyway, our time for laziness has come to an end now that we have our own property to care for.

I spent an hour on Tuesday sweeping up leaves on my deck and on the back portion of my driveway. It was a lot of work, and I didn't get very far.


It's sad that this is what I still have waiting for me in my front yard.

This is what I have waiting for me in my backyard.

Oh yeah, and here are the kids destroying all of my hard work.

To top it off, these are some of the leaves I am going to have to take care of in the future.

I've got five more trees full of leaves in the front yard and seven in the back. All just waiting to fall and torture me with endless work. Now I'm wondering why I even bothered in the first place...

Halloween, here we come!!

I just can't get enough of these girls!! They are so cute!



Presenting Kaitlin as Princess Aurora, long blond locks and all. Making this costume robbed me of a week of my life (that doesn't sound bitter, does it?) but the effort was well worth it.

Here's Cam as her current fave, Tinkerbell. Thank goodness I didn't have to make this costume!! She received it for her Tinkerbell inspired 4th b-day party and I was so proud of finding it because I got an $80 costume for $20!!!

We are definitely ready for Halloween tomorrow, are you?

Tagged again!

Kristy tagged me forever ago, but I didn't know it because we haven't blogged for so long. Sorry Kristy, I promise that I wasn't ignoring you!! Anyway, here goes...

How to play this game of tag:
Post these rules on your blog.
Name 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections and 3 random surprising facts about yourself.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.
Let them know that you have tagged them by leaving a comment on their blog.


3 Joys: My family, My church and apple jolly ranchers
3 Fears: Spiders, untimely death by choking or drowning, uncovered windows at night
3 Goals: Be completely organized, finish renovating my house, get rid of my fat butt, etc.
3 Current Obsessions/Collections: Finding current and pretty furnishings for my home in the the middle of podunk Illinois (almost impossible, by the way, as evidenced by the fact that I have not found one single item to buy in 3 months.), perusing anthroplogie.com, and finishing the girls halloween costumes in time, which is not looking very promising at this point.
3 Random Surprising Facts About Myself: I can play the bagpipes, I was on Orrin Hatch's senate youth advisory committee in high school, and I can make my upper lip touch my nose without using my hands.

I tag Kimmie, Stephanie, Tammy, Teresa and Farrah!!

Yes, We Are Still Alive

We have not posted for so long that some people may be wondering if we are still alive. Yes, we are surviving here in Illinois. Things have been a little crazy over the last few months as we have been trying to get situated here. It rained a lot last month here in Illinois which we are not used to. It rained for about 3 days straight. When I say rain, I don't mean the sprinkles that we have out west, I mean pouring rain. Anyways, the ground was so saturated that everybody's basement began to flood, including ours. Luckily we don't have anything too important in the basement. Our food storage is down there but it managed to stayed dry. Our basement is concrete and has a drain in it so we didn't have to use a pump to get all of the water out. I took about 2 days to drain. Here is a picture of the "wonderful rain."

Owning a house is good, but a lot of work. The old house that we have is sure pretty on the outside, but it being old we have found a lot of problems. About 1 week after the basement flooding, Becky was working on the computer and all of the sudden she drips of water coming form the ceiling. After a few minutes, it began pouring water from the ceiling and part of the ceiling fell down.

This happend the night before General Conference and when I was watching the BYU football game. I was so ticked. I did not want to call a plumber because it would be very expensive on the weekend. I found the leak in the upstairs bathroom. In order to get to the leak, I had to take out part of the wall as you can see. Luckily, this is in the bathroom closet so we can hide it well.. After working on it for most of Saturday, I was able to fix the leak. Besides all of the house repairs, I have been busy with work and with my church calling. Becky has been busy taking the girls to dance, gymnastics, school and working around the house. She is also busy practicing the piano as she is the only person in the branch that can play the piano. She has been putting a Primary Program together basically all by herself. None of the other ladies in the branch were ever in Primary so they do not know what to do. Becky is putting the program together and she has to play the piano for all of the songs. She is amazing. Even doing all of this she still has time to do fun things for us. She likes having a bigger kitchen where she can make stuff easier. One night I came home from work and she had a wonderful dinner prepared for us. For all of you who know Becky, presentation is very important. Here is a picture of the dinner table all ready. As you can tell, Kaitlin is very excited.Becky had prepared a full four course meal, all of it from scratch. Here is the broccolli salad.The garnishes for the salad and the sandwiches.The sandwich on homemade froccia (sp?) bread. You can see the dessert on the first picture. Becky is amazing and she always has so many creative and fun ideas. I don't know how she does it all, but I'm very glad that I have her.

Kaitlin is staying busy with school, gymnastics and dance. She is doing very well in gymnastics and likes it the best. She has gotten 100% on every spelling test this year. She is a smarty pants. Besides that, she is focusing a lot of her energies on trying to grow some teeth!
Camie is busy just being cute and funny. She is the clown of the family and can always make us laugh. She is loving pre-K. Sorry that this is so long, but we will update you guys on some other things that we have done. Living close to St. Louis is fun because there is lots to do. There are a lot of free things to do there. Last month we went to Grant's Farm. It is actually owned by Anheiser Busch. It is free to get in. First you ride on a tram through a wild animal park, then you go around and see different animals. Of course, there are the famous Clydesdale horses there. This is one of the young Clydesdale horses, if you can see, this horse is trained well as it looks like it is smiling for the picture. You can buy bottles of milk to feed the baby goats. This was the highlight of the girls' day.

Since it is fall, it is the perfect time to break out the kites. Camie was quite the pro at kite flying and she kept hers up in the air the longest. Kaitlin just wanted hers to fall so that she could catch it. I was trying to take pictures of the trees while I was trying to fly my kite. Here is one of the pictures that I took. While I was taking the picture, I wasn't paying attention to the kite and it got tangled with Becky's kite. She was ticked off. She said that I don't know anything about Kite "etiquette". I didn't know there was an etiquette to kite flying. In Brazil, the goal was to knock down other people's kites. Oh well.Well, I know that was long and definitely not as witty as Becky's posts, but at least you can see what we have been up to. I will get Becky to post soon.