February 2011

Falling behind on this thing again.  Yet another whirlwind of a month this last month.

Recap.

The kids have been playing basketball.  Much to their father's (and mother's for that matter) delight it seems that all the kids are progressing nicely in the sport.  Poor little Rachel though--she can't get the ball up to the net.  In fact, all her shots look like little passes.

Although, Jeff has only really seen them actually play once.  Their first game he was on call.  The next Saturday was cancelled due to snow.  Then a medical conference and call again.  The perks of fatherhood.

Although, it's not like little Rachel has had many chances to play.  February has plagued Rachel with illness.  First she had strep throat and had to miss one game.  Then the next week she came down with chicken pox (and, yes, her dad vaccinated her).  That was a fun five days home for Mom.

Apparently, the germs spread to our vehicles as well.  After going back and forth with a repair shop for a couple weeks with brake issues, the Suburban's ball joint decided to go out--luckily after we had exited the freeway!  The day we get that car back, Jeff's car goes out.  The kids are taking these as signs that we need new cars--they want a "swagger wagon" like Uncle Brad and Aunt Karrie.  For now, they will just have to be content with the video...

January

It only took a year for the dogs to be BFFs

Well, our New Year's blog resolution has stood up about as well as our other resolutions.

Let's catch-up--shall we?

Well, Jeff's last living grandparent passed on 1/11/11.  And one day later our youngest living child turned 6--time goes by so quickly.

Having missed his grandfather's funeral last summer due to Jake's finger surgery, he felt like he should pay tribute this time around.  So, Jeff flew back to Utah for a quick visit for the 2nd time in 3 weeks.  He enjoyed the quick trip seeing all the extended family--despite the circumstances.  Jeff related at the funeral that his fondest memory was spending his Thanksgiving's away at college with Grandpa and Grandma Johnson.  But perhaps an even better memory were those childhood memories of picking raspberries in her backyard or building a dam in their creek with his siblings in near zero snowmelt.  Grandma Johnson will be missed.

The Kent Johnson girls

The Dee Johnson crew

Graveside Dedication

Unfortunately, the funeral and Rachel's birthday party were the same days.  Which meant that Jeff missed a flurry of 12+ six year olds tearing up the house (we know he was heartbroken).  You know the neat thing about Rachel--she doesn't mind having a birthday so close to Christmas.  Despite racking up plenty of presents two weeks earlier, she took it in stride, and forced herself to tear open a dozen more.  Jeff's most favorite recent memory of Rachel was having her curled up on his lap while watching the movie "Ratatoiulle" (does it bother anyone else that the entire movie is about cooking rodents?).

A portion of the monster burger that led to Jeff's illness during his stay in Utah

Rachel blowing out 6 candles

What else?  Snowstorms a plenty.  Sulphur Springs got hit with record hitting snow a couple weeks back--more than 6" in a single day.  Not to be outdone,. we got another batch this last week.  We think Kari may have had something to do with the last snow dump.  Kari was asked to speak in our local Stake Conference to take place in Gilmer, TX (over an hour away). She spent several late nights preparing her talk.  Two days prior to the event the snow came.  Our little branch was told we could watch a broadcast of the conference at  our building, but Kari would still have to come down to deliver her portion.  Literally hours before the event, our Branch President made the trek down and declared the roads too unsafe.  Kari was called and let off the hook--the only speaker at Stake Conference not to speak.  Her topic was the "Scriptures", but apparently it should've been "The Power of Prayer"!

What do all kids do in snow?  Eat it--check.

Make snow angels--check.

A new tradition?  Kari's snow ice cream recipe for FHE.

Here's a clip of Jeff teaching the kids a few bad habits in the snow:

Is it really necessary?

You know what bothers me? The way Jeff feels the need to put my picture first in the scroll across the top here. Just because I'm 6 mos older. He wants to do it with our Christmas stockings too. He's taller. He weighs more. So I ask "Is it really necessary?"

Christmas Reloaded

Alright...3 posts in one day...that's what happens when it snows in Texas and they cancel church early.  Things get done around the house.

Christmas was actually pretty low key this year.  Usually we at the Smith house have a two day extravaganza that includes Christmas Eve with Jeff's extended family and then Christmas Day at the McClanahan homestead.

It all started with us scrambling to make it to Utah and as a result we didn't have a chance to get the usual Christmas decorations/traditions accomplished in time.  As a result, we didn't even do our traditional gingerbread decorating until well after New Year's and Kari and Jonathan were still stringing pine boughs around the house the week of New Year's!

 

Jeff's siblings were all outside of Texas this year.  As a result, it was just us and Grandpa and Grandma.  In some ways, it made for a more intimate Christmas--playing games as a family and reflecting on our Savior.

Kari's mom had just been hospitalized the week before and was getting over a sinus infection.  The majority of the cousins were away as well, so Christmas Day happened Christmas afternoon.  Again, it was a day of playing games and eating.

 Not much to say about New Year's.  Jeff was on call and we barely saw him the entire weekend.  He commented that it was fitting that at midnight on New Year's Eve he was in his car driving back from the hospital.

We had a chance to get down to the Dallas Temple yesterday.  We were walking the grounds afterwards and ran into two freshmen from Lake Highlands high school that were working on a religion project for their social studies class.  They were asking us about the temple and wanted a picture to symbolize it's meaning to us as Mormons.  We explained that one of the ordinances that happens in the temple is marriage where husband and wife are sealed to each other for eternity. They had just missed a happy newlywed couple that had been posing for wedding pics outside, so they asked us to be in a pic with them.  We snapped a pic of our own--the place where we were married for time and all eternity 11 years ago...

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's 2011--a New Year!  I guess one of our New Year's resolutions has to be to keep in touch with our friends and family better.  We opted out of the traditional "update" with our Christmas card this year in hopes that our blog would keep those that want to know in the know.  So, here's a new face to the blog and our verbal commitment that we will do better this year...

Sincerely,

Christmas Pics

Utah Trip

Well, I guess we should update the blog seeing as how we sent out Christmas cards without any letter recap.

It's hard to believe it's already been a week ago today that our saga began...

But to fully appreciate the insanity we need to go back three or four days before that.  Jeff had schedule a week off from work to spend with the family.  All year we had waffled back and forth as to what we were actually going to do with the time.  It wasn't until 4 days before the trip, that Jeff announced "Why don't we go to Utah?"--and by "go" he meant drive 22+ hours.  "We'll be making memories with the kids!",  he says--words that would come to haunt the remainder of our trek!

It wouldn't have been as bad if 1)he had given more than a couple days notice and 2) if Kari hadn't just gotten off a 5 week fill-in stint as Jeff's receptionist at work!.  So, on top of trying to clean a house that hadn't been touched in 5 weeks, we also were trying to pack and finish for Christmas (why Jeff hasn't been shot by now is still anybody's guess).

And despite looking at weather forecasts and predictions for the New Mexico route, Jeff decided as we were hopping in the car on the way out the door to let the GPS decide our fate.  Later, we came to find out that the "faster" route through Kansas and Colorado would have only shaved TEN MINUTES off our drive.  Jeff put our lives in the hands of a cheap electronic device and TEN saved minutes (in his defense he thought it would've been more like an hour or so)!  Did he know the weather forecast through Colorado?  Nope.  "Minor details" was his reply.

Well, at least we were gonna break up the trip--see some sights and rest the weary kids and already exhausted drivers, right?  Wrong again!  Jeff was feeling "spry" and decided that they could make the whole thing in one trek (even though Jeff and Kari's longest proven road trip together had only amounted to 12 hours or so to El Paso before the two conked out).

Have we set this up enought yet?  Long story short--After 14 or so hours of driving we hit the section of I 70 just west of Denver heading toward Pike's Peak.  After an early breakfast, Jeff said he would at least get through the mountain section before turning the wheels back over to Kari (hey, she had put in a solid 3 hours at this point).  Little did he know that he would not leave the captain's seat for the remainder of their journey--what he later dubbed "the scariest drive of my entire life".  A few fleeting snowflakes soon turned into a downpouring of snow.  Between the flashing lights of "chains only" and "Such-and-such ski canyon closed", Jeff literally uttered the words "If I can find a turn around we are at least heading back to Denver--if not Dallas".  At first we had the somewhat comfort of being 4 cars behind the line of plows (although the fact that the 7% grade roads were still freezing and filling fast behind said plows did little to steady the nerve).  Soon, however, the grade turned hell-bound and even the plows found a turn around to bail out (why didn't Jeff follow through with his idle threat?).

Two more gauntlents followed--an hour section west of Grand Junction and finally Price Canyon.  Despite minor slips and spins through these three areas, only once did Jeff hit some ice that seriously caused him to think he was about to make a purchase on Suburban #3.  Thankfully, he was able to keep the wheels on the road and avoid any major catastrophes.


Was it worth it?  Well, we definitely "made some memories" on the drive!  But, here are some other memories we made:

 Surprising Aunt Christy

 Surprising extended Johnson family members

 Seeing the ramshackle house we brought our oldest daughter into the world in

 Letting Bomber catch-up with Great Grandma Johnson

 The boys playing in the snow

 Eating at BYU's Creamery

 Showing off our merchandise from the BYU bookstore

Visiting Matt and Nancy and their family

 Visiting the new LDS conference center

 Brothers posing with brothers

 Visiting Temple Square

Visiting Jeff's mission companion Ryan

 Saying our "goodbyes" to Uncle Chase and Aunt Christy

Yeah, definitely worth it...but, next time Kari says, "Let's do the 'memory making' in the summer"...THE END

Fall Slide Show - part 2

Fall 2010 Slide Show

This is more of Jeff's recent attempts to catalog the photos that pour across our computer each week.  In fact, Hannah (at times) is becoming a budding photographer.  The first 5 or so pictures are some of her shots.  Here's a composite of our pictures that include fall sports; the first day of school; Kari's trip to Hawaii; Kari's birthday; the girl's attempt at following in their mother's footsteps as a drill team member; high school football; Jeff at Rachel's class' "Doctor Day"; a quick trip to Galveston; our visit to the Texas State Fair; and some random shots mixed in.

Enjoy!

Catch Up

I got blog guilt again. Jeff gives it to me. So now I'm going to play some catch up. Jeff posted a video of the Smith Family Reunion in August so I'm going to pick it up from there. Or maybe a little before. The last post before that was about Jake's broken finger (complicated by a lack of good parenting) so I want to let everyone know that he's fine now. It can bend all the way now even if he has to use his other hand to do it. If you get grossed out easily scroll past the next pics quick.

Just before they cut it off.

These are the pins that freaked Jake out, understandably

After they removed the cast, he saw that there were actually large pins sticking out of his finger and he freaked out. He wouldn't look at his own hand and forbid anyone from saying the "P" word (pin) till he was 12 years old. Twelve must be the magic age because he also wanted them to put the cast back on until he was 12 and then he would be ready to get it off. Didn't happen. The pins came out without much screaming and he spent the next hour peeling off all the dead skin on his hand. EWWWW!

The next month or so was spent swimming and playing.

At the end of July Hannah, Jake, and Jonny went to a week long, all day summer camp at the YMCA in Rockwall. They loved it! They learned archery, canoeing, shot BB guns, went swimming, went on field trips, and learned tons of games and silly songs. I highly recommend it. Rachel was too young so she went to a gymnastics camp. With the kids gone, I was free to shop. Whoo Hoo!

Then came the Smith reunion. A week filled with fun, sun, boating, swimming, and more cousins than the parents knew what to do with.  Once the kids were down the adults stayed up way too late playing Rook, Monopoly and many other games.

Some fun in the sand.

We didn't want to wash a plate for each of them. 

Our only unfortunate event during the summer involved Hannah. Right after our vacation, she was bit by a dog. It got her in two places right under her eye and right in the middle of her cheek. We were in Dallas and luckily Uncle Kurt travels with his ER bag. He and Jeff injected her with Lidocaine inside her mouth and then stitched her up in a bedroom. She actually did pretty well. The stitches came out before school but she still had steri-strips on the first day. If you look close at her face you can the scar under her left eye and the bandages on her cheek.

After all that, we headed back to Sulphur Springs for our last two weeks of summer before school started. They are all in school this year. That's right, you heard me, all of my kids are in public school all day. I know there are plenty of parents out there who dread the thought of school and and their little Tommy being away from them all day. Well, that's not me. My kids like to be doing things out of the house and they were all ready to be back in school and I'm happy to take them there. Even Rachel who told me not to walk her in on the first day "I can handle it myself mom". We are back into a routine now with the boys even riding their bikes to school. I love my quiet days especially when my afternoons and evening are so packed. Each week we have 4 baseball games, 2-4 baseball practices, 2 gymnastics practices, 3 piano lessons, 1 soccer practice, 1 soccer game, boy scouts and achievement days. Everything except the soccer game happens Mon-Thurs. So if you need me at all after school is out, too bad.

We were able to make one last trip down to the beach for some surf and swim before it got too cold a couple of weekends ago. It rained the whole time. So the surf was good but the swim was absent. Oh well. Let's all hope for a very short winter.

Oh yeah, I got to spend a week in Hawaii with a friend for an early birthday present. I have a great husband.

Isn't it soooooo pretty!

Smith Family Reunion Pics

It's funny now...

Some of you may know that Jake had surgery on his hand on Tuesday. If you don't know I'm not telling what happened because it may or may not make Jeff and I seem like bad parents and I'm not putting that in print. Anyway he ended up with 3 pins in his right index finger, an incredibly long cast for 4 weeks, and the ability to do nothing other than watch TV for the next 4 weeks.

The one bright spot I can see in all of this, is all the things he said while coming out of the anesthesia.  At the time I just wanted him to calm down but the nurses thought it was pretty funny. So I'm just going to put a running list of his comments (which was kinda the way they were coming out anyway) starting with the very first thing he said before his eyes were really open...

"I am SOOOOOO hungry...why am I in this horrible place...I just want to go home...I don't want water, I don't want a Popsicle, I don't want juice, I want real food...get me out of here...mom why are you making me stay here...I just want to give up and die...why is this thing still squeezing my leg...when am I getting to eat...what is wrong with these pillows--why aren't they real...I just want my life back"

Jake: When do we get to go home
Mom: When you can stop crying and calm down
Jake: I am NOT crying, can't you see that
*All the while tears are running down his face

He's home now, eating solid foods, and enjoying being King of the Remote. He's got his life back.

Grandpa Johnson's Funeral

My Grandpa Johnson died last week at the ripe ol' age of 90.  I was unable to attend his funeral (due to reasons soon to be blogged), but my sister did a good job posting it.  So, I stole her link...

http://chaseandchristy.blogspot.com/2010/05/funeral.html

It's hard to imagine Utah without him.  He will be missed...

Ha Ha

Sometimes my kids crack me up. Usually it's Jonathan with the comments but apparently Rach and Jacob have been in a mood lately.

Jonathan:  Mom, I don't like the name you gave my chicken.
Mom:   That's fine, you can change it. What would you like it to be?
Jonathan:   I don't know yet. I have to "learn" him first.

Rachel:   "God's plan was for a mess." (As I look over and her oatmeal is all over the place.)

Mom:  How was your day Jacob?
Jacob:  Why don't you get me a phone and I'll text you the answer.

Hannah:  "How much are you going to pay me to babysit? "

Jeff:  "Look, It's like the Goonies."