Haley Turned 7!!

Haley turned 7 over the UEA break. On Sunday we took the kids to breakfast for her birthday to Sweet Tomatoes (their favorite place). Then we took them to see Toy Story 1 & 2 in 3-D for our family party. It was great. Most of the kids do not remember seeing them because they were too little. We are all excited for the third installment to come out! For her gift she chose to get her ears pierced. FINALLY!! (Jess do you remember when we tried to take her?) She has gotten up in the piercing chair 3 times and chickened out 3 times! I was so proud of her when she did not even cry!

Then on Monday I took Haley and Abigail out to lunch with M.R. and Sage. We went to Red Robin (Haley's choice) for fries with ranch and birthday cake.
Happy Birthday sweet girl! I love you more then you will ever know!!

UEA @ The Homestead

Over the UEA break Lewis surprised the whole family with a weekend at The Homestead in Midway. We went up on Friday afternoon. They had a scavenger hunt set up for the kids. Our kids were all set and excited to do it. There was a candy surprise at the end but when they got to the end they had run out of candy. Needless to say our kids were less then thrilled. So we decided to get our tennis shoes on and go get dinner. Well I had quickly packed for the whole family and I accidentally packed Abi's left shoe and Haley's left shoe (they have the exact same set of shoes) for Abigail to wear. Well she could not wear those so we drove to Park City and bought her some new tennis shoes. While we were there we stopped for some dinner before going back and hitting the pool. The next morning we went to a local diner for breakfast because I did not want to pay $18 a person for breakfast at The Homestead. After breakfast Lewis rushed us back so that we could participate in a secret activity that he had planned for all of us. He had a reservation for us all to go swimming in the Crater.It was one of the coolest things that we have done. Jason was scared to death because he did not know how the life jacket was going to hold him up in the 30+ foot deep water. Luckily for him we made him go in and we all had a great time.After the swim we went back to the cabin, got our stuff, checked out and then headed to Heber. We went to the park, went shopping, and had lunch before our second surprise activity of the day. Lewis took us to ride the Heber Valley Railroad. We have lived here for about 8 years and we have never done it. The kids had a great time! It was just short enough not to get bored and long enough not to want more.

When we all done we headed to Susan's to get Mojito and head home. The kids had a great time, and I was very happy to do something fun with them before we left for Italy.

Because of my last post I now know that people from Virginia, Tennessee and Mississippi read my blog! I love that! At least I know that the southern girls appreciate my type of humor! Now what can we do about you Utah ladies??? I guess I never have fit in well here. Maybe if I start blogging about my crafts... hmmmm.....

Maybe Everyone Everywhere Reads My Blog!

So this is what I found on my blog today as a comment. How is that for customer service? Problem is there is not much that they can do. I will be calling him tomorrow to see if there is anything at all that he can find. I need a faster connection!!!!!!

Hey there Miss Kendra, this is Brian with Qwest. I don't want to bug ya, but I read a part of your blog post here, and saw you mentioned your DSL is running slow with uploading/downloading pictures. I just wanted to offer to take a look at your line, and see if there is anything wrong that we can fix...maybe get it running a little faster. It sounds like you've already checked into faster speeds, which I'd be happy to see if there are any plans to deploy fiber or DSL upgrades in your area anytime soon as well.If you want me to do some digging for you on this, send me an e-mail to TalkToUs@Qwest.com and I'll be happy to help.

Thanks, B Consumer Affairs Manager
Qwest Communications
www.socialmedia.qwest.com
November 2, 2009 11:24 AM

FYI... Too far out in the middle of nowhere is only 1.5 miles from the highway...

Merry Christmas! OOPS!! I mean Happy Halloween!!!

The girls are Elves and Lewis is Santa. It is so cute!! Even Mojito got in on the fun and dressed up as a mini Santa.

Explanation

Yes, I am behind on blogging. Yes, there is a TON to tell all of you. Yes, it seems like I am being a slacker.

BUT!

Seriously. I know that is a giant but. There is a really good reason why I have not been blogging. I am pregnant!! NOT!!!! HaHa!!!! As if!!!

Okay the real reason is that we have moved into this big, wonderful new house. I could not have asked for more with this house. The inside is wonderful. The rooms are big. We have a huge yard with swings, room to run, a new zip line that we just put in, and much much more BUT this house does have a big problem. Something that almost makes me want to move. Almost, but not quite. We can't get Comcast here. Which means that we use Qwest for our Internet access. It is inexpensive and fine BUT (another huge but) it is so dang slow! It takes me 10 minutes to download one picture onto the blog and then half of the time it won't finish. It is horrible! They have a faster service but they will not bring it to use because we live to far in the middle of nowhere. Great. So then we tried to go with Digis which is a wireless network that uses radio waves or something like that. Guess what? Our trees in the backyard block the signal from getting to the house so that is out too. Freaking' Internet. So I am trying my best to do my blog but until I figure out a better way the posting are going to be few and far between. Sorry :(

So here is my first catch up for this month. At the beginning of the month my kids got a long weekend for UEA. It is a Utah thing. It is supposed to be Utah Education something but it is really so all the dads can go hunting. Anyway, we took the kids out for the weekend for a little staycation. We drove the 45 minutes up to Midway and Heber for Friday and Saturday. We stayed at the Homestead Resort. We got a cabin with 3 bedrooms and a kitchen. It was mucho chilly up there compared to here in the valley so the kids all brought their coats.

Here they are in the sled that sits in front of the lobby.

Stay tuned for more about UEA, Haley's birthday, Italy, our new house, Halloween and more!

Much to tell.

Way too tired.

Must go to bed.

I leave you with a sneek peek of Pompei:

We had a great time!! I will tell you more later!

ps. Haley kicked a girl at school today not once, but twice. Welcome home Kendra, welcome home.

Italy!!

I am going on a trip tomorrow
Don't feel sad and blue,

I know that you will miss me,
I will miss you too,

I be back in 6 more days
with stories for all of you.

Who wants to see my cute kids?

If you want to see a sneak peek of my cute kids go here:

http://shannonhaddenphotography.blogspot.com

Shannon took the cutest shots of my little kiddos. This was our second session with her and as always she was fabulous. She has much more patience with my kids during pictures then I do! If you know my kids then you know that at least one of the 4 of them do not cooperate when it is time to get things done. I literally had to walk away because they were making me frustrated, but she was a calm cucumber. I highly recommend her for all of your picture needs!

P.S. Just ignore the pictures with me in them. She is a great photographer, but she can't perform miracles.