The Collins Family

Elle

2012-02-08T18:19:00.000-08:00

This last week has been an extremely heartbreaking week in our neighborhood. Let me start back a little before I explain.

Cody and Luke are good friends with two boys in our neighborhood named Getty and Sy. It's always been such a great thing because they are both the same age as my boys, they are brothers and they have a lot of the same interests, which means they spend a lot of time with each other! When they first started hanging out, Getty's little sister Elle would follow the boys around every where they went. See, Elle had a huge crush on Cody, even though there was a 10 year age gap between them! I loved to hear from Elle's mom and dad how much she loved being around Cody. And Cody being a kid with the sweetest heart, especially for little kids loved the attention he got from Elle. She even made up a song just for Cody titled "The Cody song". In fact when we moved back from Australia I asked Cody how Elle was and if she was still crushing on him. He of course turned red and said "yes, she still sings me my song"! This crush started a few years ago and sadly ended today.

On Saturday afternoon Elle was walking home from a friends house, who lived only two houses up from hers. She was walking on the sidewalk, but when she got into the neighbors driveway, the owner of the home happened to be backing up at the same time. He never even saw Elle until he was completely back up and in the street. She had been run over twice. They lifeflighted her to Primary Children Hospital where she was put on life support. By Sunday morning we received word at church that she wasn't doing well and had taken a turn for the worse. It was of course an emotional day at church, but it was comforting to be with our friends who knew Elle and loved her family. Only a few hours later we received word that she was starting to get function back in a kidney and the test were coming back in a positive turn. They were so many of us fasting and praying for little Elle that we had hope that we would see a miracle.

Yesterday at school, Cody and Getty spent the entire lunch time talking about Elle. I arrived at the school after lunch and Getty begged me to let Cody come over after school to play. I was hesitate but then conceited because I knew getting things back to normal would be good for the boys. I dropped Cody off at their house and even talked to the teenage girls and received good news about Elle. It wasn't ten minutes later that Cody called and asked me to come back and get him. The kids had heard from their parents that Elle had had a stroke and they wanted them to come to the hospital as soon as possible.

Today we heard from Loreene, Elle's mom that they had decided to take Elle off life support.

Cody and Luke have really taken Elle's death hard. But we have had some really good discussions about death, the Lord's will and forgiveness. See, the person who hit Elle was their next door neighbor. Luke at first was angry with him and it's been good to explain forgiveness to him and have him actually know what it's like to forgive someone.

The next few days will still be heartbreaking as we attend the funeral for this sweet girl. Luke asked if we would receive an invitation so that we would be able to go to it. I explained that we didn't need an invitation and that we would of course be going! My heart breaks when I see how sad this has made them and how they have to deal with something like this when they are so young. But I'm also so impressed with how they handled this situation. They were so eager to pray for her and all the time. Luke has asked me if we can go get them a present to make them happy! It's also been a great time to talk more about our Savior and the gospel with my kids and they understand how important and our grateful they have it in their lives especially during these hard times.

So, hug your kids a little tighter tonight, because you can! Tell them often how much you love them! We will miss you Elle!

This is a picture Elle's dad sent us in the fall of 2010. He wanted us to see how much Elle loved Cody and how she always wanted him to hold her! The other boys in the picture are Getty (on the left) and Sy (on the right). When he sent the picture he put in the subject line "Elle's crush".

A recent picture of Elle

Getting back into the swing of things!

2012-02-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

When Clay first approached me with the idea of the family staying in Utah after Christmas without him it lead to a lot of sleepless nights for me, wondering if I was capable of parenting by myself. We have all heard that it takes a village to raise a child and I totally believe it! I really feel like we were lead to the neighborhood in Highland four years ago because it is the only place I feel like I could be a single parent and succeed at it! I really have the BEST neighbors and friends ever! There hasn't been a week that has gone by that one of my neighbors hasn't called me or text me to see how I'm doing. They plan lunch dates, invite us over for Sunday dinner, include my kids in activities that they know they would like. On top of great neighbors, we have the best school I could ask for. Luke was diagnosed with some developmental delays when he was young and his school has the BEST teachers, that know him just as well as I know him. They understand how he works and use that to help him in all the areas that he needs! I really could not do any of this without all these incredible people helping me! My sister in law Lacy will laugh at this, because we joke about it, but the Lord has really blessed me with so many tender mercies since we have been back! I'm more than humbled everyday when I see the Lords hand in some many areas of my families lives.

It hasn't taken us long to get right back into the swing of things. The girls are doing great in High school and even have made new friends too. Savannah started Lacrosse, which she has never played before, but jumped right in and is loving it! Brittany is looking for employment everyday and on the weekends is taking a ACT prep class. To our surprise there are about 6 kids from our ward in that class too, so Brittany carpools down to BYU with them every Saturday.

Cody jumped right back into his life in our ward and school. He was behind in Math because of our move to Australia, but not by much, and since he picks it up so quickly, his teacher has requested that he take the exam to get into the accelerated class next year in 7th grade. He told us how none of his friends played football at recess any more since he left, but it only took one day to get that one back up and running! He even got a spot on the ski bus that our neighborhood puts together ever winter. My kids always did the ski bus every year before our move, which starts in January and runs through March and takes the kids up every Saturday morning to Park City to snowboard, then brings them back. It really is an awesome thing, mostly cause we don't have to take them up and they love it and it's great exercise and something they will do for the rest of their lives! Plus, it's just our neighborhood that does it, so they get to go up with all their friends!

Cody's ski bus

On top of getting the kids back and busy with their friends and school, we are quickly filling up our entire summer with activities already! The girls have both been signed up for EFY, Cody and Luke will do football camp at BYU. Luke is also doing some cooking classes at Thanksgiving point. For those of you that haven't heard, Luke wants to be a chef when he grows up. He is always the one next to me in the kitchen when I'm cooking and is eager to help me. He really just enjoys eating what ever is cooked! I think that is the main reason why he wants to learn to cook, so he wont starve to death!

I'm just so thankful and feel so blessed to be back in Utah. Also, to be in the area that we are in! To be given all the opportunities we have been given! I really took these things for granted before our move, but now can't be more than thankfully for every single one of them! Even though I'm not living with my husband right now, and somedays I completely fall apart, I really am so happy and thankful for the life I have been given!

Getting Asked to Sweethearts!

2012-02-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon, we had come home from 8:00 am church (yes, we really go that early) and we were looking forward to getting some food than taking a nap! We heard a knock on the door and everyone just looked at each other not knowing what to do. We don't EVER get anyone at our door, so it's something we were not prepared for! The boys ran to the door and opened it, but found no one there! But, there was a vase of roses and a frozen ice heart on the ground. Now we were even more confused about what to do! Brittany saw the items on the ground and instantly knew what they were for! Yes, only weeks after Preference, Lone Peak will be having another dance, the Sweethearts dance! Brittany grabbed the items but didn't know what to do with the big ice heart. We stuck it in the sink and turned on the hot water.

Inside the ice was a piece of paper that read, "Brittany will you go to Sweethearts with me?" We had to keep melting the heart to find the other paper, a red heart with the name of the boy asking, "Jessie" was all it said! Brittany is currently "seeing" Jessie so it wasn't a surprise that he asked her to the dance. Stay tuned for some really cute dance pictures to follow in a few weeks!

Preference 2012

2012-01-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

Wow! Is all I can say about Brittany on the night of Preference. I was a proud momma that night when I saw her all dressed up and looking so beautiful, from the inside out! Brittany is an amazing girl! She is smart, beautiul and happy! And that is saying a lot for a teenage girl! I'm so happy for her that she is back at Lone Peak and especially that she is back with her best friend Addy!

This was the group of kids that went with Brittany and her date Blake to Preference. Addy is the girl right below Brittany.

Something that I forgot to post about was Brittany's new car. We came back to Utah and decided that Brittany was in need of some wheeles to get her and Savannah around town. So, for Christmas we gave Brittany this....

Brittany doing her "Oh what a feeling, Toyota" jump for joy!

Elvis Baby!

2012-01-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

In Parkes, one of the most higly anticipated events in that small town is the Elvis festival! It happens every year in January and the locals plan and prepare for it all year long! In fact, it's all you hear about if you are new in town! Sadly, only Clay was in town for it this year, but that didn't stop him from getting all into it and having a great time! Now he didn't have as much fun as the rest of his coworker and that is cause they were all loaded up with alcohol and Clay was the only sober one there! Get ready to laugh cause here is the proof in pictures of that day!

In case you can't tell which one is Clay, he is on the left!

Catching Up!

2012-01-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

Wow! Where has the time gone? So much has changed since I last posted, I just don't even know where to begin!

I think I'll start with the week before Christmas. We planned a trip back to Utah to celebrate Christmas with friends and family. Clay and I had already made plans to have the girls stay here in Utah where they would go back to their high school after the winter break. There were many reasons for this but the main one was because the school they were attending in Australia just wasn't a very good one. It was a few years behind what the girls had already learned in Math and science. Plus, most of their friends were not coming back for the new school year because in year 10 the kids can graduate and most kids at their school would not be going on to year 11. Crazy I know, but very true! We first planned on having the girls stay with Clay's mother, but after arriving we realized that her health was not very good, due to a recent surgery and it would also just be too far for the girls to drive everyday. So it was decided that I would have to stay with the kids in Utah while Clay would return to Australia. We still had six month left on our lease with our renter of our house in Highland, so we found an apartment in Pleasant Grove, which is only about a 15 mins drive away. We will be here until June and then the plan is to move back into our home! I can't wait until June!

So that pretty much explains our situation and why we are back in Utah.

Just after our return back to Utah, we were able to sneak in a visit with Mason.

Boy has this kid packed on the weight! He is a little mini Luke in the making!

Cody couldn't get enough time holding his little nephew.

. He has always had a soft spot for babies!

Jessica and Mason

He was in such a good mood while we were visiting. What am I saying, this kid is always in a good mood! He has got the best and most laid back personality! It's only when he is tired or hungry that he gets a little cranky!

My heart just melts every time I see this picture!

The funny thing was I got to visit with him again a few weeks later and I swear he had gained another 5 pounds. Like I said earlier he is a little mini Luke!

JDD Dance

2011-11-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the big JDD dance at the girls school. It's for the 10th and 9th grades only. The 11th and 12th have their own dance. The girls have been working so hard to loose some weight for the big night! I think they look amazing! The girls would come home from school all this week and tell us how all the other girls at school spent so much money on their dresses, were going to the salon to get their hair and make up done and have been getting spray on tans. Well, Jessica and I did the girls hair, Jess did their make up for them and I think we found some pretty cute dresses, and we didn't break the bank!!

And I can report that the girls had an amazing night!

This was a picture from later that evening. I love when there is a full moon. There is something spooky and cool about it!

Happy Birthday Jessica!

2011-11-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's really hard for me to believe that I have a daughter that is 19! Where in the world did the time go? I remember when I was 19 and it doesn't seem like it was too long ago! I'm always nervous when a birthday approaches since we have been in Parkes cause lets face it, this town is BORING!! But, with a positive attitude and some imagination, we made it a pretty fun day!

I know you have to ask yourself, "how is that girl so creative to think of placing the cupcakes in the shape of a 19?" What can I say, I'm pretty dang creative! I hope you can all hear the sarcasm in my writing, cause I'm the least creative person on the planet, and I could only laugh at this!

But, I can brag about one thing I'm good at and that is baking! I love baking, it's my one weakness cause I love to bake very bad stuff! Case in point, the picture about, Snickers cupcakes! And man oh man were they Delicious!!

We have all been on a great routine of exercising every day and watching what we eat, except this day! We all gave in to the cupcakes except Savannah! She has got some will power cause she actually did eat that carrot instead of the cupcake!!

Earlier that day while the boys were at school (the girls stayed home to play with Jess and I), I took the girls to the Elvis museum. This small town doesn't have a movie theater but they do have an Elvis museum. Now like a said before, with a good attitude you can actually have fun and fun is what we had!

The king of rock himself! He has turned a little yellow over the years though!

The girls striking their favorite Elvis dancing pose!

Now included in your $10 a person ticket you also get to see three other museums. The old car museum, a scary old doll museum and this old school. It's actually they first one built in Parkes!

Brittany was being very naughty so teacher Savannah had to get the ruler out to punish her!

We wondered if this was the way they gave out their birthday spankings back then??

Jessica enjoying her afternoon reading of the Australian Bush Verses!

Happy Birthday Jessica! I love you and am so proud of you! I can't believe next year you want be a teenager anymore!

Summer, snakes and India

2011-10-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted for a while cause things have been pretty boring! I'm not complaining mind you, cause I'll take boring any day over drama! Our days consist of the kids going to school, Jess and I do our P90X work out, laundry, cleaning and running errands. The kids come home from school and do homework after which the boys quickly head out to the pool and will spend the rest of the afternoon swimming! The girls usually go on a afternoon walk, then we have dinner, always homemade and sitting at the table cause we don't eat fast food only because we don't have fast food! That part Clay and I have really enjoyed! Then Clay and I go on our evening walk, kids will shower and get ready for bed, we do scriptures and prayers and then it's lights out for everyone, including the grown ups! It really is like ground hogs day over and over again! But, like I said, it's normal and I'll take it!

With the warm weather we have been nervous about snakes! According to most of the people we know (from Clay's work), it's not normal to run into snakes. In fact, most of the people we have talked to have only run into a snake once or twice in their entire life! So we figured we would be pretty safe. Well, last week Brittany was out on her daily afternoon walk and saw a snake basking in the warm sun on the side of the road. She quickly turned around and ran home! This weekend our neighbors called informing and warning us that they had just seen a snake in their front yard! And then Clay sends me this email from work because there was a snake caught in front of his office. In fact, it was spotted in the morning as everyone was arriving to work. As you walk into the office at the mine you have to pass through a guard shack, you check in and once you are approved you walk through a turnstile which locks as you walk through it so you can't go backwards. The guy who saw it had just walked into the turnstile and the snake was on the ground right in front of him! He couldn't go backwards so he had to jump up out of the turnstile in order to get away from the snake that was now sitting up in attack mode ready to bite him! Wouldn't that your worst nightmare! These have all been brown snakes too, which in case you don't know are one of the most deadly in Australia! So now every time I set foot outside I'm watching where I'm walking, checking to make sure I don't run into our new slimy friends!
On a happier note, Clay left a few days ago for a work trip to India! In order to go he was required to get many vaccines, and his worked supplied him with a medicine kit filled with prescriptions and over the counter medicines in case he gets sick while he is there. You should of seen how many bottles of medicine he took with him, crazy!!
Clay sent this picture of his arrival at the airport in India. He was given a Indian blessing followed by the dot on his head and a lei! Pretty sweet if you ask me! But Clay's isn't feeling the love so much by the look on his face in this picture!

This is a picture from his window in his hotel room.

I have to admit, the pool is looking pretty sweet.

This is a CFO seminar that he is attending for Rio Tinto. It's his first one cause he has only been CFO for five months now. Clay was really excited about going because he will be able to see many of his friends there from Rio that he hasn't seen since our move and because they asked him to do a presentation on one of the days. This is a big deal cause like I said he has only been CFO for a short while, so this is really putting him in the spot light! Which always makes me nervous cause when Clay does well at work it always means another move is in store for us! Then again, maybe it's a good thing cause then maybe it will be a move back to Utah!

The Dish

2011-10-16T21:00:00.000-07:00

Our town of Parkes is known for two things, the Elvis Festival held every January. It is the 2nd largest Elvis Festival in the world, Vegas being number one, and The Dish! This dish was used to telecast the first walk on the moon to the world! There is even a pretty good movie made about this historic event, called The Dish, go figure!

These pictures don't do it justice as to just how big this dish is, so I had Jessica go stand next to it so you can see it in comparison!

At the dish you can take a tour of the gift shop, which will take you about 15 minutes, not too big! But, it is interesting and they even have a deli you can have lunch in! We skipped eating since they only served meat pies!

Outside the gift shop Jess and I found this sign..

After a good laugh we realized what it meant! There are two smaller dishes about 150 meters away from each other, Jess stood by one, I stood by the other and you can literally whisper into them and hear each other. We had fun telling each other our deep dark secrets! Yes, we were a little bored today!

You can see one of the whispering dishes behind me in this picture!

Lately I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with some things that have been going on in my life, so I had Jess take this picture of me with the weight of the world on my shoulders! Yes, once again we were a little bored!

I am enjoying my time with Jess! It's been a lot of fun having her home with me all day! So, if your ever bored, rent the Dish and enjoy watching how our little town of Parkes got their 15 minutes of fame!

Summer has officially begun!

2011-10-15T01:14:00.000-07:00

Our big move to Australia started in June of this year. The weather in Utah when we left wasn't cold enough for snow, but it definitely wasn't warm! We get to Australia and it's the dead of winter, which means we haven't seen or felt the hot sun in over a year! You wouldn't think this would be a big deal, but let me tell you, when your body expects summer and then it doesn't get it, it goes into a depression! Our family struggled all winter in Parkes with endless rain and cold days! And Face book didn't help it at all! Watching all our friends enjoying summer was torture! Thankfully it was a mild winter, but it was winter non the less!

For the last week the weather has become increasing warmer and warmer and today the boys couldn't take it any more! They had to go swimming!

It's been raining so much this winter our pool is too full of water! But, the water was warm and the sun was out! The boys were in heaven!

On a different note, Luke a few weeks ago asked if he could turn our hall closet into his bedroom. I thought it was a funny request, but knew it was something he just needed to get out of his system, so I let him. Three weeks later, Luke is still sleeping in the closet!

He just piled a bunch of blankets on the floor and uses that as his bed. He also brought in his stuff animals, lamp, fan (Luke has to sleep with a fan blowing on his face all night), pictures, deodorant and clock. I thought it was cute he brought in his picture of Jesus and his missionary savings bank too! I don't know how long he will keep this up, but I'll keep you updated!

Summer Term

2011-10-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Summer term officially began on Monday for the boys, Tuesday for the girls. The girls love that they go to a boarding school, even though they are not boarders themselves, because the first day back of a new term at their school is set aside for the boarders to move back into their dorms. This means no school for them! Because it's summer term it also means out with the old winter uniforms and in with the new summer ones!

If you look back of the first day of school in their winter uniforms the girls were not smiling this big! In fact, they were not smiling at all, I had to force them to for the picture!

The boys uniforms didn't change very much, instead of long pants they wear shorts and their long shirts and replaced by short shirts. The biggest change is that they no longer have to wear their ties. This was something they were both SO happy to give up!

Luke told me that this was going to be his new smile! I think if he keeps this up through high school I'll be in big trouble! How can the girls resist that face?

Surfers Paridise

2011-10-08T00:11:00.000-07:00

Downtown Surfer Paradise is filled with only hotels, restaurants and shops! This is the downtown area you saw in my earlier post. If you stood on our beach back by our condo and looked to the North you could see all the high rises from surfers paradise. All the high rises are hotels, below its bustling with shops, food and tons and tons of people!

One of the many ways to entertain yourself while downtown is to take a tour on the aquaduck! This amazing bus takes you on a tour of the downtown area, but then gets into the water and floats around the marina! At $40 a person, we decided we would just walk!

Walking around all the shops we found it a struggle to hide our children's eyes from the many adult shops that offered many interesting things! This was the only one I could take a picture of to show you what I'm talking about, the other ones where just to disgusting! And if your wondering, yes, they had people in the shops!

The greatest part about this place was the fact that the beach was so close, it's right behind us in the upper picture!

The beach at surfers paradise was a lot more crowded than our beach by the condo. My girls also decided they liked the beach in Sydney better, it's Bondi beach, because the life guards there are hot and famous, thanks to the show Bondi Rescue (find it on the Internet it your in the US)! The life guards here in surfers are old and well, look at the picture and it will explain itself!

Which one to buy?

Savannah wasn't feeling much love in this store!

The Gold Coast

2011-10-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

It took us only ten minutes from the time we got out of the car to get on the beach!

And it couldn't of been a more perfect day! There was a warm breeze, the waves were amazing and the sand was squeaky and white! It was the cleanest beach we had ever been on as well! NO sea weed at all, and the water was warm and clear! Perfect!

If your wondering about Luke's shirt, yes he made it himself, and it's sonic if you can't tell!

This was our view from the south. Clay and I would walk all the way to the hill every morning at sunrise. It's about a couple of miles and such a great work out walking in the sand! And you can't beat the views!

This is the view from the north of our Condo. The city you see, that looks like it's in the ocean is Surfers Paradise. I have pictures of when we went into the city in later posts!

Luke loved this beach because there were these pockets of water in the sand before you hit the surf. You can see it better in the picture below. Anyways, in certain spots it could be about a foot deep, so Luke would swim around in these when he was tired of playing in the waves.

As soon as we got on the beach Luke started collecting and finding these amazing shells. We had to walk a ways down the beach to the flag area (that is the only area you can swim in) and Luke was taking forever to walk because he wanted to keep finding shells. Well, look at the picture below and you'll see how many shells were on the ground! It was like this along the entire stretch of the beach! Clay actually got into collecting shells as well, so every morning as we walked the beach he would stop as well to find unique shells! We now have the largest shell collection thanks to my two boys!

It didn't take the boys long before they were in the water and playing in the waves! Thankfully our condo had boogie boards for us to use so we enjoyed our time riding the waves!

Poor Cody got smashed in a wave and it threw him into the bottom of the ocean! He got a pretty bad case of sand rash from being dragged across the sandy ocean floor! This guy looked so beat up by the end of the day. His face got swollen and then to boot he got croup later that night and woke up with a scratched up face and a barking cough!

The biggest treat of all was the show we got to watch everyday from the whale mums and their calves just right from off our balcony! You need to click on the pictures so that you can see them larger than they appear on my page. It was amazing to watch these animals jump around and splash and play in the water like you would expect little children to do! What an amazing treat to go out on the balcony of our condo and watch this anytime we wanted too!

Driving to the Gold Coast

2011-10-07T21:04:00.000-07:00

The kids had a two week holiday for the term break so Clay decided we needed to see more of Australia! My sister in law Becky, is from Brisbane and we have heard for the past ten years how amazing the city and the gold coast, which is about an hour from Brisbane is. Clay went there on a business trip three years ago and fell in love with the city! So it wasn't a surprise when he told me he wanted to show the rest of the family how amazing Queensland is!

Even though it is a 12 hour drive, it was such a beautiful drive it didn't seem so bad!

The roads we took to Queensland were very narrow and never straight! I had to take a picture so you could get an idea. This road seems wider than they really are because of the overtaking lanes. Overtaking means passing out here and occasionally they will offer an overtaking lane so you can pass the slow car in front of you!

The landscape reminds Clay and I of Hawaii. It's so lush and green, you really can't find an ugly place anywhere!

This was our first view of the ocean! After 11 hours in the car you can't believe how happy we were to see this!

I had to take a picture of this rest stop. All along the way they have signs telling you to stop, revive and survive! So they offer rest stops about every 100 k. I can't imagine stopping at the sleepy hollow rest stop, especially at night!

After 11 hours in the car we finally reach Queensland! It was a long drive but totally worth it!

This was our condo, the Casablanca! And when we walked into the lobby there was a huge cardboard cut out of Humphrey Bogart!

Temple day

2011-09-22T23:56:00.000-07:00

We had a district temple day this last weekend at the Sydney temple, which included a session for the kids to do baptisms for the dead. This was Cody's first time being old enough to do baptisms and it would be an understatement to say he was just a little excited about going!

We left Parkes at 4:00 am to arrive at the temple by 9:00. Once we arrived at the temple the kids had to change their clothes in the car!

Cody is bored to death waiting for us girls to finish getting ready. Savannah is using the back window to put her mascara on! I'd say she is pretty creative!

The finish product! Not to bad for driving 4 hours in the early morning!

I liked this shot cause it shows you the back of the temple. It's not very big at all, in fact our stake center in Utah I would say is bigger!

Taken right before we walked in!

Poor Jess and Luke had to wait a few hours for us to finish in the car. Thankfully, there was a small mall right across the street that they were able to walk about and entertain themself in!

Arriving in Parkes

2011-09-22T23:31:00.000-07:00

Clay had these pictures of Jessica and I arriving in Parkes. Please remember we had just flown from Salt Lake City, Utah to Australia. It's about a 18 hour trip all together and we had three plane changes along the way. This plane is the last one we take from Sydney to Parkes.

I wish my eyes weren't closed in this pictures, but it was the only close one he got of the two of us! I can tell you we were so happy to finally be home!

So, the first weekend home we had Cody's grand final rugby game. I woke up early to make a big breakfast for Cody and the rest of the family. Clay told me that while I was gone they basically were slowly starving to death cause the girls didn't cooked very much! Before I could even get breakfast in the oven the power went out. Clay called the power company and they informed us that this was a scheduled power out and that we should of been notified by mail about it. Well, we were not notified about it and the power wasn't scheduled to come back on for another 6 hours! So Clay took off for McDonald's to get us all breakfast and I had to find a unique way to dry and style my hair for the day!

Yep, that is me sitting in front of the fire. It took me a 1/2 hour of sitting there for my hair to dry, but it actually worked and my hair turned out great!

The city fair

2011-09-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

One big event that took place while I was gone was our cities fair. This is so big in our little town that everything shuts down for this fair, including schools and work establishments! The kids only had to go to school for half a day and Clay was sent home after only working a half a day as well. By lunch time it was time to hit the fair grounds!

Savannah was still in her school uniform because he music class preformed at one of the events during the fair.

What would a fair be without some great farm animals!

Luke standing in front of the number one animal around these parts! Sheep!

I had to include this picture of Cody. He had come home from one of his rugby practices and his allergies were so bad his face got swollen, it was like he had been beaten! When he left for practice he was just fine, this happened in just an hours time. Poor kid, his allergies have been so bad this spring!

August

2011-09-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we took the kids to the Sydney Temple. While we were there, Clay took some pictures on his blackberry. I asked him to down load them onto the computer and to my surprise I found a bounty of picture taken in August while I was in Utah with Jess. So I'm going to go back in time and catch up on some things Clay and the kids did while I was gone. I'll post about our Sydney trip later.

Clay found this great condo the first time we went to Sydney to visit. It's in Manly, a town about 15 minutes from Sydney harbor. It's right on the beach and it's close by the harbor, which means you can just jump on one of the ferries that runs about every 1/2 hour and you get to Sydney harbor with out having to deal with the traffic or the pain of trying to find parking. Clay took the kids back to the condo for a quick weekend getaway.

This is daring harbor. It's one of the stops the ferry makes on it's way to Sydney Harbor.

One of the other things Clay and the kids did was some spring cleaning around the house.

The pool was in need of some special attention. After all winter with no cover on it there were some interesting treasures we had to clean up in and around the pool area. Thankfully, the kids are dying to start using it so they are more than happy to help us get it ready for the summer months!

Luke is missing our 4 wheeler a lot! But the riding lawn mower has helped fill the void pretty well. This has been the only time the boys actually fight over who gets to mow the lawn every week!

The price of living in Australia!

2011-09-19T22:46:00.000-07:00

Clay and I are very frustrated because it seems like we don't seem to have any more money here in Australia, even though he got a raise when he got his promotion to CFO. Here is just a few examples of why we have so little money now!

Just to break it all down for you, a Kilo is just about 2 1/2 pounds. So it cost me $11.00 to buy 2 1/2 pounds of bananas here in Australia!

Grapes are almost $13.00 for 2 1/2 pounds!

For a 24 pack of diet Coke it cost almost $24.00!

These are just a few reasons why we don't seem to have any extra money. A few other examples for you.... Mabeline foundation is $31.00, in America $6.00.

It cost me $2500.00 to buy my kids their winter uniforms for school, that doesn't include the cost of going to that school! Oh, I have to buy their summer uniforms next week!

Dinner out for Clay and I cost us $60.00 for two dinners, no drinks or dessert!

It's amazing to me that the Australian people can afford anything! They are taxed 46% of their income, interest rates run almost 20% for a car loan, I don't even know what home loans run!

It will be so nice when we get back to America and can actually enjoy Clay's income again!

Just a funny side note, it's fun going around places to find some things that just make no sense to us at all! Today at McDonald's Jessica and I saw this. We still don't understand who would eat something like this at all!

Bubblegum Squash McFlurry??? Who would ever order this??

Nicholas Mason

2011-09-13T00:59:00.000-07:00

Most of you know by now the reason why I went out to Utah for the month of August. It's because Jessica was due to have a baby on August 20th. Nicolas Mason thankfully decided to come a day earlier, mostly thanks to the things we made Jessica do to induce labor. In the end the Castro oil did the trick! This was a long and difficult pregnancy for Jess. When she found out she was pregnant (around Christmas last year) of course adoption came into her thoughts. From the start, Clay and I told Jess that this was her decision. The last thing we wanted to happen was for Jess to come to us years later and say that she felt like she had to have the baby or opposite, she had to keep the baby. We made it clear to her that if she was to keep this baby, we would be there to support her 100%! But, if she wanted to place the baby we would give her our equal support. Early on, she choose adoption and we started seeing a social worker at LDS Family Services. Stephanie Sparks was her assigned social worker for her case and little did we know what a big part she would play in this whole process! After a few months Jess started questioning her decision to place the baby, so she stopped seeing Stephanie and took the time she needed to decide what was the best option for her was. It took Jess most of the summer to finally decide what was going to be the best thing for both her and the baby was. She explained it too me this way. When she started thinking about keeping the baby she actually got more stressed out and that is when she started not being able to sleep. When she considered placing the baby is when she felt most at peace. I'm so thankful during this entire process Jessica was able to listen and feel the spirit and in the end that is what helped her in making this most hard decision! After making the decision final in her mind came another hard decision for her, who to place her child with. She was given so many choices through LDS Services and through friends and family. I came to understand just how heartbreaking it is on both sides of adoption. There are so many amazing and worthy families that are desperate to adopt a child right now. It really was sad for me to see the profiles and know that only one family would be picked, the rest would have to wait for another birth mother to hopefully pick them. Jessica narrowed it down to two families in the end, but felt really strongly about one in particular. She finally met with Nick and Erin for the first time only 5 weeks before Mason was born. Instantly, Jessica knew that the baby she was carrying was met for them! After another week she sent them a email telling them that she had chosen them to be her baby's parents. That is when I arrived in Utah. After only being in Utah a few days I was able to meet this incredible couple for myself. Just like Jess did, I knew after only a few minutes with them that they were the perfect couple for Jess's baby! We were able to see them again a few nights later at dinner and had a great night sharing stories of our lives and getting to know each other better. Jess told Nick and Erin that she would like them to choose the name of the baby and they choose Nicholas Mason (he is called Mason). He is named after Nick's best friend who passed away a few years ago.

Mason came into this world on August 19th 2011 at 4:55 pm. Weighing 6 pounds 14 oz and was 19 inches long.

After his birth I was able to bring him down to the nursery where I met Nick and Erin and they were able to see him get his first bath. What a bittersweet experience that was for me. I have to admit my heart was breaking for what I knew Jessica must be feeling at that moment and what she would feel in the days to come, but also I was so happy for Nick and Erin. You could see how happy they were to be watching their first son get his first bath. Very bittersweet!

Jessica never seemed to amaze me during her hospital stay. This was her time with Mason and she took every minute she had with him. I was struggling with the whole thing and Jess was the one to reassuring me that what she was doing was the right choice. I knew it was the right choice, my heart was just breaking thinking about it. The day of the placement came and I can only say that it was the most beautiful and spiritual experience I have been a part of. I'm so thankful for my testimony in my savior. It's because of Him I know that we will be a part of Mason's life for eternity. We couldn't of gotten through this whole thing with out His sweet spirit to comfort us when our hearts were broken and hurting. I can't tell you how grateful I am for our Church and that they set up the LDS family services! It's truely amazing! I'm so grateful to all the amazing mothers out there that made this painful decision to place their babies and grateful to the families that open up their hearts and are willing to take them!

The day after the placement Jess and I were able to go and visit Mason with his parents. Because Nick is a professional photographer Jess was able to get these sweet pictures of her with Mason taken before we headed back to Australia.

This was sent to Jessica just yesterday. Mason is almost a month old now and you can see from these pictures he is getting chunky and if possible even more cutter than he was before!

We love you Mason!

Cody's Grand Final Game

2011-09-12T19:54:00.000-07:00

Cody's rugby team made it to the grand final game! Cody was so excited, it was all he could do to not act like he was a kid with ADD! He couldn't sleep the night before, in fact I had to give him some Melatonin to see if that would help him relax enough to fall asleep! The next morning Cody left for his game with the biggest smile on his face. He has really developed a love for this game, which completely surprised me cause he is addicted to football! But I guess his heart was big enough to allow rugby a spot in it too!

Cody's team has played this team 4 times during their season and never lost to them so we thought this was a for sure win. So it was a total surprise to us that by the end of the first half we were loosing 18-4

Cody taking down the boy running the ball!

The boys came back the second half and were determined to win this game and that is exactly what they did! They pulled together and led the game 30-24. It was the other teams ball in the final minutes so we were all biting our nails hoping they would be able to hold them off. Cody came through for the team with 5 tackles in a row holding the team off himself for the last 20 seconds insuring their win! Cody is number 17 in these pictures.

Yes, it was freezing the day of the game, which explains my winter attire!

The teams mascot is a spaceman. Are town is know for a telescope we have that helped out during the USA's walk on the moon. Pretty low budget, but what do you expect in the bush?

Cody was so proud of his trophy! After the game they held an award ceremony where each boy got to go up and receive his trophy.

Cody with some of his team mates! Cody's face pretty much tells it all!

This was Cody's proudest moment from the game. He came off the field and had blood on his shirt, and not his blood but some else's blood! He insisted I take a picture so I could show everyone that he made someone bleed and he couldn't be more proud of it! In fact he came home and found blood on his knee, again not his own and he refused to wash it off! I insisted he did!

Volleyball girls

2011-09-12T18:38:00.000-07:00

While in Utah, Brittany and Savannah tried out for their schools volleyball team. I'm happy to say that they both made the team! I'm so proud of my girls for getting out in a new school and trying to find ways to fit in and make new friends. I was so relieved when I found out that they both made the team. I could only imagine if only one of them had made the team, how the other one would of felt left out. Plus, since the move Brittany and Savannah have become very close. Being torn away from all of their friends, this move force them to be best friends with each other, and that is exactly what has happened.

For their first game all the kids and I drove down to Forbes, the town their school is in (about 1/2 hour away from our home) to watch them play. We arrive at their school, find the auditorium and walk in only to have Savannah run up to us and say with a horror look on her face "families don't come to watch the games!" I looked around to see that that was the truth. The other kids were looking at us like we must of been lost. So we turned around and headed back to the car, to sit and wait for their game to finish up. Brittany and Savannah came outside once to practice with their team so I snapped these pictures as quickly as I could, without them seeing me do it too! I had already embarrassed them once today, I knew if I went over to take some pictures that would be the most horrific thing I could do to them!

We entertained ourselves in the car by watching the kookaburra birds. It's the only place we have been able to see them here. It became a game with the boys to see how close they could get to them. Cody snapped this picture after getting right under the goal post to take it. Luke wasn't as patient with them and would just run over to see if he could be quick enough to catch them!

Some funny school stories that happened this week were, at Brittany and Savannah's school one of the fathers died. This made the girls really uncomfortable because he had been at the school for a long time and everyone knew and loved him, except Brittany and Savannah. So lunch time would be the kids talking about him and crying while the girls sat and said nothing and didn't cry! At his funeral, that was held at the school during school hours, they served the sacrament. Brittany being at the front of her line was pushed up first and didn't want to offend anyone, so what does she do...she takes the sacrament! She came home from school and told us about it, after laughing about her predicament, we explained what she could do if she finds herself in that situation again.

Now only a few days after Brittany's sacrament experience, Cody was taken to mass during school and was lined up to be given the sacrament with his class. Cody said all the kids would go up to the priest and hold out their hands, so when it was his turn he just crossed him arms up to his chest. I asked him what the priest did when he saw him do this and he replied "he just blessed me." I asked him what gave him the idea to cross his arms and he said, he wanted to the opposite of what the other kids were doing! So that week Brittany took the catholic sacrament and Cody was blessed by a catholic priest. It's just all a part of the catholic school experience I guess!

Cody's high jump finals

2011-09-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

Once again this was before I left for Utah!

After only being in Australia for week, Cody competed in his schools sports day and made it into the final three for high jump! Now it was time to see what he was made of! He was sent to compete with three other schools, the top three being sent the next time to Sydney to compete with all the other kids who made the top times and scores. One of the exciting things for the kids to do here is to eat from the canteen, not school packed lunches! Cody wanted a hot dog and here is what they gave him.....

Upon closer evaluation, I would not call this red sausage a hot dog. Non the less, Cody ate it and said that it wasn't that bad!

Cody unfortunately didn't make the top jump, and that was the end of his high jumping for this year!

But, in other exciting news, Cody's rugby team make it to the finals. This pictures shows Cody's strongest contribution to his team....his hitting!

Cody is number 5

Happy birthday to Luke

2011-09-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

I feel terrible because I'm so far behind on my posts! I went to Utah for a month and let everything get so far behind! So I'm going to be playing catch up for a while, I'm sorry, just hang in there and enjoy my older posts!

We celebrated Luke's 9th birthday as best as we could in this small bush town of ours by going to dinner at Pizza Hut! Yep, that is what he wanted and we were just so excited he didn't ask for McDonald's of Mackers as they call it here in Oz. After a dinner that wasn't to all that bad we headed home for some presents and cake. Now, just so you don't feel bad for Luke not getting a big party, you have to know that we threw him one earlier in Utah, before we moved, with a trillion friends and bouncy house!

Luke scored this birthday with some new Lego's, k'nex and a bike! Don't ask me why I'm already in my pj's in those pictures. I guess after dinner I felt inclined to change out of my regular clothing, not realizing that there would be pictures later on!
Happy Birthday to my youngest little guy! I love you and hope you will remember your first birthday in Australia and love it!

Naughty little Catholic school boys!

2011-07-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

I love to watch for my boys after school and watch them walk up our long driveway! Well today, they came walking up like this....

They told me that they were SO hot after getting off their bus today that they just had to take off their shirts! The funny part was, as they were walking up the drive way they were waving their shirts around like they were flags! Thank heavens we don't have neighbors close by that could of seen them!

funny little Aussie's!

2011-07-20T01:19:00.000-07:00

I love when my girls come home from school nopw and tell me the kind of questions that they are asked by their Aussie friends. I thought I would just start listing them, cause they are worth a good laugh!

1. Do you have cheerleaders at your school in Utah? Do they wear their uniforms to school? Are they all snotty like the girls on Glee?
2. Do you have a Glee group at your school? Do people throw slurpee's in their faces while their walking down the hallway at school?
3. Did you go to parties? Do kids really drink beer from those red plastic cups?
4. Where do you grocery shop? Brittany said "Wal-mart", girl says. "oh yea I know about that place from the Simpsons".

I'm sure I'll get a lot more of these, so I'll keep posting as I get them!

A family of uniforms!

2011-07-18T19:39:00.000-07:00

It was the morning of the girls first day of school and the boys came in already for school and then Clay came in ready for work and I just had to take a picture of my group and all their uniforms!

It's amazing how much things can change in just a few short months!

My girls first day at their new school

2011-07-18T19:30:00.000-07:00

With a lot of hesitation and very unsettled feelings, the girls started their first day of school at Red Bend Catholic College. I'm so happy for them because we have been here almost two months and the girls haven't had any kind of social life at all. With them starting school, hopefully this will jump start some friendships and some activities for them. I know it's been really hard for them to read all the post on face book from their friends who are enjoying summer in America, while they sit here a world away in the cold winter! I pray they will make friends quickly, and feel at home at their new school quickly too.

Clay took the girls to school on their first day. This is Brittany and Savannah sitting in the office waiting for their new lives to begin!

Brittany in her uniform waiting for Clay to take her to school. Tomorrow they will be riding the bus. It's a twenty minute ride to Forbes, the town where their school is at. So, they'll have plenty of time to make friends on the bus!

Hair must always be worn up, and no make up is allowed! I know what your saying! My girls are troopers to be so willing to give this a try! Can you imagine high school and no make up!

Beautiful girls, even without any make up! Good luck girls, I hope and pray you will love this and make great new friends!

Darling Harbor

2011-07-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

After spending most of our morning in Sydney harbor we took another ferry to Darling harbor. Darling has got a lot of fun family stuff to fill your day with! The first thing we did was hit the wildlife exhibit.

The unexpected surprise to the exhibits was the Lego people. All over the exhibit they had Lego statues of all different kind of things. Here at the front of the exhibit they had this horse and cowboy rider.

This is the enormous crocodile that is 45 years old! He was incredible to watch! They told us they caught him and took him to a wildlife park in hopes that he would mate with a girl crocodile, but this big guy kept killing all his girlfriends instead of mating with them. He killed two girls before they moved him here to be by himself!

We could of spend the entire time watching this big guy, but there was much more to see so we moved on!

This is the biggest lizard roaming around Australia! I just pray I never run into one of these guys!

This was my favorite part of the exhibit, the Koala! They let you get so up close and personal with these cute animals! We couldn't hold them or pet them, but we were close enough!

Savannah and Cody got attacked by this giant crocodile

Then it got Brittany!

This is the worlds most dangerous bird. They have a real one, but this fake one was better to take the pictures with!

Luke had a harder time getting on this giant bird so his sweet brother let him use him as a stepping stole to get on it!

Another Lego's site that was too amazing, we had to take a picture by it!

More Koala's! Too cute

Another exhibit is the aquarium, and here too they had cool Lego's statues

The coolest part of the aquarium was the tubes under water that you could go walk through. Here Savannah is under a giant Manatee.

They also had turtles, giant sting rays, bigger than Clay, and of course Sharks!

Cody found his girlfriend at the aquarium!

Sydney Harbor

2011-07-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Sydney is amazing and beautiful! It's made up of all these harbors and full of trees. In fact, while your driving around, the roads are covered in these tunnels of trees. It makes it hard to see any of the landscape around you and to know where in the world you are, thank goodness for our navigation system in our car or we would of been lost! Because of all the harbors there is no need to drive to most places, you can take a ferry! So to get to Sydney, we took the ferry from Manly harbor to Sydney harbor. It's only a short 30 min boat ride and along the way you get breathtaking scenery!

Here is a picture of one of the ferries that we passed on our way to Sydney harbor.

The cliffs in between Sydney and Manly, they gone on forever!

Sydney skyline from our vantage point

Sydney opera house, the only way you can see it from the front is on a ferry!

Sydney harbor bridge, if you look closely there are people on top of it. We promised Cody the next time we go we will find out how we can get to on the top!

Out in front of the opera house! I love this picture, my girls look so happy!

On the steps in front of the opera house

You know a lot of place look really pretty in pictures and then when you see them in real life it's disappointing, well the opera house is just as beautiful in real life as it is in pictures. It's surrounded by water and beautiful landscape! It's a must see for everyone!

Manly Beach

2011-07-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

After being in Australia for a month, Clay and I felt like we needed to take the kids out of our small town and show them what this country is really like! Over the next few years we want to see a lot of different places around here but the first place we had to go was Sydney. We heard Manly harbor, which is close to Sydney harbor was a nice vacation spot to take the family. Clay did some searching on the Internet and he found a condo right across the street from the beach. We arrived late Saturday night so we didn't get to see much, but the next morning we were amazed at how beautiful it was! It's unlike any beach we have stayed out before. There are huge pine trees that line the beach, trees that you would expect to see in the mountains, not the beach.

Even though it's winter here the weather is in the 70's most of the time. The water was extremely cold but that didn't stop the kids from getting in it. The boys went swimming in the ocean every day we were there! Crazy, I know!

Savannah really enjoyed her alone time on the deck outside the condo. We were on the 6th floor of the building and we had a incredible view of the ocean. She would spend most of her time reading out there. The other kids enjoyed spending most of their time out on the beach.

I wanted to give you an idea of what the beach looked like during the day. This was Sunday, so it was more busy than the other days we were there. As you can see Dave, mostly families here, not a gay beach!

Just some more views from our balcony!

I didn't realize Clay had even taken this picture of Luke. Luke is our country boy, he gets up with the sun. He has learned to keep himself entertained until the rest of us our awake. He usually makes himself a bowl of cereal and watches TV, but being here, even Luke couldn't resist the views from our room. He would sit outside and play on the Ipad, until we were up!

On one of their walks, Clay and the boys found these glasses on the ground, so they thought it would be funny to take a picture of them in Manly, not being so manly!

Cody first Rugby game

2011-07-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

It didn't take us long to find Cody a sports team to join! Cody just isn't himself unless he is out on a field and playing some kind of sport. His first true love is Football, but since they don't play it here we found the closest thing to it....Rugby! I admit, I love watching Cody out on the field, doing his thing. I will miss not watching him play tackle football the next few years, and Rugby in no way matches up to football, but it will keep him in shape and ready for when we move back to the states and he can play football again!

If any of you have seen me at Cody's football games, I'm on the sidelines pacing back and forth, oh yea and I'm screaming, well cheering screaming! Here they don't let you on the field with the boys, you're forced to sit in the bleachers and there isn't much to cheer about! Do you like how I'm sitting exactly like the older lady below me!

They line the boys up at first before the game begins and the boys shake hands with the other team. Cody is number 11

Cody next to his mate Harry, number 4, it's really fun when Harry runs the ball for a try (touch down in America) cause all the parents are chanting, Harry, over and over again. I feel like I'm in the Harry Potter movie at a Quiditch match!

Since Cody just started playing and doesn't really understand all the rules, his coach came out during half time to teach Cody a little more about what the heck is going on! Nothing like playing a game you really don't understand!

His team mates were really great and made an extra effort to give Cody the ball! But his favorite still, of course is tackling! That's Cody taking down the kid with the ball!

Cody pushing the ball back with his foot after being tackled.

The Parkes team (our team) ended up winning this game 38-6

Sports Carnival!

2011-06-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to move and start the boys in school right before the sports carnival. This is a big deal in the shire of Parkes! The top two boys and girls qualify to compete in Sydney against the other top kids from all the other shires in New South Wales. Cody was number three in all his races and events, he was so disappointed! If you noticed from other post there are a lot of things that makes us feel like we are living in the movie Harry Potter around here. Everything is called the ministry of something, and even at school they are split into houses. Now, I didn't ask how they got assigned the houses they were put in. Is it like the movie where they put a hat on the boys head? Anyways, the boys were put in the Bushman house when they moved in. And during the sports carnival they compete within their houses. The boys were able to wear their sports uniform this day and they even went so far as to let them wear shorts instead of the normal pants that they usually wear, because it's easier to race in shorts than pants!

The boys painted their faces, but as you'll see farther down, the kids went all out to decorate themselves in their house colors!

Cody got third place in the high jump. He blamed me for not going father because I gave him his bubble round butt that wouldn't let him get over the bar unlike the other boys who had flat butts! I told him not to worry, cause who really cares if you can jump the highest! It's better to have a cute round butt than a flat one any day!

This was Luke running the 800 meter race. He came right about in the middle of the bunch of boys!

Cody running the 800 meter, as you can see he barely beat the boy next to him! He came in fourth in this race.

When your not racing or competing, you sit with your house and say chants and cheers for the kids competing. Cody really got into doing this and soon became the leader of the chants! I was surprised at how much the kids really got into cheering for their houses! They competed from 9:00 in the morning till 2:00 in the afternoon, and even after 6 hours of cheering for their friends they were just as loud or even louder in the afternoon! My kids learned great sportsmanship from these kids!

Cody is wearing the gray hat in this picture. He was racing the 100 meter and he came in second!

This is Luke in the 100 meter, he is in the back of the race here but.......

He came in fourth at the end! Great job cute guy!

Cody throwing the shot put. He just learned how to do this about five minutes before competing. He took third or fourth in this event!

Cody was great at the high jump! His record was 340 and again came in third! The first place boy jumped 420. He didn't even have a chance though, the kids legs were longer than his whole body!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of Cody with his new friends. The boy sitting next to Cody's name is Dobby. I told you we feel like we are living in the Harry Potter movie here!

The last race of the day was the relay. They took the top four runners of the day and they completed against each house. Cody's ran the last leg of the race and their house took second! I was so proud of my boys that day! They have only been at this school for a week and still they were excited about competing and doing their best. They were definitely noticed by all the kids and teachers!

The Boys start school!

2011-06-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

This is supposed to be our summer break, if we were still in Utah, but in Australia, it's only half way through their school year.
Here in Parkes there are a lot of different schools for you to choose where you want your kids to go. The public school is the first and one of the schools we walked through and took a look at. There is also the Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic schools to choose from. We didn't have any interest in the Baptist or Presbyterians schools so the Catholic and public were the two we invested our time in. We ended up choosing the private Catholic school only cause it's class sizes were so much smaller then the public school. Coming from Utah where the class sizes were 44 for Cody's class and 32 for Luke's class, we really wanted to get the boys in the smallest classes we could. At Holy Family Catholic school there are only 200 kids in the entire school, leaving class sizes under 20! We really hope this makes a big difference in the kind of education our boys get over the next three years!

Every school including the public school wears a uniform. Every schools uniform is different, mostly by the colors they choose. At Holy Family they wear green, blue and yellow! As I stated in my earlier post, everything is a lot more expensive here then in Utah! To get the boys uniforms I spent $600! They have a different uniform they wear on Thursday cause that is their sports day (you will see those in another post). I only bought two trousers (pants) and two shirts for each boys, a jumper (sweater), ties, socks and their sports pants, shirt and jacket and it came to $600! I still haven't even bought the girls their uniforms yet!

After filling out a long application (this is common out here for everything) to the ministry of transportation the boys were able to take the bus to school! This is their morning routine, walking to the bus stop at the end of our street.

This is the end of our driveway, where they turn to walk to the end of the street to meet the bus.

There is this cute bus shed where the boys can sit and wait for the bus to pick them us in the morning and where it drops them off in the afternoon. Now there is no excuse, even when it rains why they can't take the bus to school!
Do you like the fields of sheep all around us? It keeps the boys entertained while they wait for the bus!

Here is the bus that picks them up for school everyday! Cody complains cause there is a boy on the bus that plays his trumpet while they drive to school and home everyday!

Ok, so I know I took a lot of pictures! I actually only posted a few of them too! But, it's just so dang cute how could I resist!

Staying Busy!

2011-06-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Staying busy in a new country is a little on the tricky side! Thankfully we only had to stay in the hotel in Parkes for three day. But, those first three days were ruff to say the least! We were all messed up with jet lag to start off with. The first night in Australia, all four kids were up at 2:00 am, wide awake and trying to find something to entertain themselves with! Then, by early morning they were all so tired they ended up sleeping most of the day away! This went on for the next few nights with every night getting up a little later then the last! It took a good week to get us to where we could actually stay awake at night passed 7:00 pm and sleep all through the night!

Only a few days after moving into the house it was Savannah's 15th birthday. It was on Sunday so we got up early to go to church. Church in our branch starts at 9:30, but it's also an hour away! Driving to church that early is nice because the kids usually sleep the whole way there. We get to church with some interesting bed hair to say the least. We also learned after the first week to pack pillows and blankets for the drive and also snacks! You know how starving you are after church, well imagine having to drive an hour home!! Feeling sorry for us yet? After dinner I made Savannah some chocolate cupcakes and we had a wild party! Well, the last part was a lie, but it sounds better then how boring it really was! Poor Savannah!

The next few days before the boys started school we decided to explore our 20 acres to stay busy! in the moring and evening is when we spot all the kangaroos and we just happened to find them this evening by the horses!

Because everything in this country is so expensive, no one uses their dryers very often! I know what your all saying right now! I've had a pretty hard time getting used to this new way of drying our clothes! Oh I miss the soft wonderful smelling clothes of Utah! I hope your LOVING my washer and dryer mother!

After a few days in our home with no Internet and little TV, I decided the kids needed something to get excited about. We saw an advertisement at the grocery store for free kittens and since there is a mice outbreak right now in Australia, I thought it would be a good idea to get some cats around the ranch!

No, that's not the same kitty in each picture, we got two of them! It's winter right now and the mice are terrible! I know by the time is warms up the mice will only get worse. Thankfully, they don't get in the house too often (we have had one). They build the houses out here of brick from top to bottom to keep them out and it works pretty well! But we do catch about 7-10 a day in the traps outside, everday! Melinda, don't be so quick to move out here, I don't think you could take it!
Speaking of the TV, my kids have had to find different shows to watch since the ones they like are not on out here. It's funny actually down right hilarious to see what they are enjoying! First McGiver, Touched by an Angel, The Brady Bunch and the Love Boat to name a few! When we do get the occasional Simpson's or Friends, if they are a good one, not too unappropriated, we savor them like you can't believe!

We couldn't have rented a house from a better family! The owner whose name is Rob takes really good care of us! He even left his two horses here on the ranch for us to ride when ever we want! Billabong is the big one in the green. He is a old racing horse who actually won Rob $50,000 in his racing days! Lily is the pony. She is a little cranky and nips at you sometimes, but is starting to get to know the kids better everyday and will be a great horse for Luke to ride!

I had to get a picture of Clay in his work uniform for everyone to see. Everyone at the mine wears the same uniform! Yes, it reflects in the light for protection when the miners are underground! Clay had only gone underground twice since working here so it's not his usual routine, but still has to wear the uniform!

Luke has been the one kid to really enjoy ranch living the most! He explores the ranch every afternoon, finding different animals to watch, he cleans the pool, plays with the kitty's, feeds the horses and even burns the trash with Clay! Does this barrel look familiar to the Collins girls reading this?? Yes, it's a trash burning barrel! We have no trash services out her on the ranch so it's either burn your trash or take it to the dump yourselves! Now if it was up to me, I would take it to the dump, but since this is something Clay grew up doing on his families farm he actually enjoys doing it here! I can honestly say he was so excited when he saw this trash burning barrel out back! Luke who loves playing with fire anyways spends hours with Clay on the weekend burning the trash and having the time of his life!

The start of our new life!

2011-06-26T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family, let me just start off by saying I miss you all more than words can say! But, I'm thankful for this unique chance to live in Australia for a few years and give my kids some memories they will hopefully treasure and remember fondly for the rest of their lives!

I wanted to start by showing you all some pictures of where we live. It's a ranch home, only a few minutes from town, but far enough away to feel like we are all by ourselves! We are not far from the golf club (golf course to you all), and on the other side of the rail road tracks (there is no wrong side of the tracks out here).

Parkes is the name of the town or shire we live in, it's a very small shire, only 12,000 people!

Almost every morning we wake up to the entire town covered in fog.

This is what we see when we look out our front door! Our home is on top of a small hill and we have a good view of the rolling hills and the town below.

Here is a picture of the house from the bottom of our driveway. Yes, it's a gravel driveway! When we first saw pictures of this home on the Internet, Clay was over the moon excited about the gravel driveway, 20 acres, and the horses! It's the way he grew up in No. California during his childhood! He wants the kids to have the same experiences as he did!
Now, the only difference between this place and the way he grew up is the wildlife that is all around us!

The birds and kangaroos are amazing to watch! We have seen birds outside that we only saw in America in pet stores and zoos and watched kangaroo hopping around the fields and even boxing each other!
Cody Luke and I even got pretty close to them, but when they took off Cody started chasing them!
I wanted to start off with the scenery and animal pictures, I'll fill you in next on what we have been up too!

Happy Birthday Cody

2011-05-17T07:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my cute Cody!

Cody had his favorite breakfast (orange rolls) served to him in bed this morning!

Then his brother Luke sent him on a treasure hunt to find his first present

After a few hot and cold clues Cody was able to find it!

Luke gave him a Eagle's cup! Cody is a HUGE Eagles fan!

Happy 12th birthday Cody!

I'm back!

2011-05-13T13:21:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I was blogging, but with all the changes going on right now, I figured now was as good as time as ever to start up again. The biggest change to happen in our family is that was are in the process of moving from Utah to Australia! Clay received a promotion at work in January, which will require us to move internationally. Currently he is the controller at Kennecot Copper which is located in Salt Lake City, Utah. His new position is CFO for NorthParkes Mine in Parkes, New South Wales Australia. Exciting right? Well, now that we are only a few weeks away from moving all I'm feeling is stress and anxiety! There is excitement in there too, but under a lot of layers of the others! As of Thursday, we received our visa's from Australia so now things are really moving fast! The movers will be here on the 23rd and 24th of May to pack us up. But, we wont be moving into the hotel until the 27th. We debated about this for a few days, and ended up deciding we would be more comfortable in a empty home, close to our kids friends instead of in a hotel with five kids! We already will be in the hotel for a week as it is, we didn't want to make it two weeks!

So for now, we are very busy with packing up the stuff we don't plan on taking with us and storing it in our storage unit. I've been taking the kids to the doctors, dentist, eye doctors trying to get everything up to date with immunization shots, teeth cleaning, vision test (for contacts). Savannah has to be stocked up on all her diabetic supplies cause I don't know how long it will take us to find a new doctor for her in Australia. On top of cancelling all our TV, telephone, utilities, mail, schools and a hundred other things that run our family and house. Every day we are getting closer to being ready for the movers to come, but there is always something we forget and I'm stressing I will remember a hundred other things once we are on the plane flying out of America! Currently my home looks like this.....

Some of my kitchen

More of the kitchen

My living room!

As you can see from the pictures, it's a total disaster. We have no place to keep this stuff until the movers come, except for in these rooms. All the boxes in the picture above is furniture from Ikea. We decided instead of taking our nice furniture we would just buy some from Ikea. It's easier to transport there and if it gets beat up over the next three years we'll just leave it there. I just feel for Clay, he will be spending a lot of time in our new home putting all this stuff together!
We are renting our home to a family in a ward while we are gone. We really couldn't of found more perfect people to live and take care of our house for us! But getting it ready for renters is taking a lot of work. Clay has been busy patching up holes our children put in their bedrooms walls, touching up the paint, making sure everything is in perfect condition. Our home might be messy but it's in better condition now that we are moving out of it then it has the 4 years we have lived in it!

I hate January!

2010-01-27T12:51:00.000-08:00

I have no pictures to post this time, so I apologize in advance for that. I have been so busy that I haven't even thought to bring my camera with me when we have gone out to do stuff this month. I know, what a terrible mother I am. Now my kids won't have anything to remember this month by.
We have been extremely busy since Christmas and New Years and that is the reason why I haven't blogged in such a long time. I was called into the Young Women's Presidency right before Christmas, actually the day our ward was split. I was thrown in with out any kind of training and didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to due. Up until now, my life has been Primary. I have done just about every calling there is in the Primary organization and have never served with the Young Women. And they didn't give me very long to figure it out. The very next Sunday I was teaching the Mia Maid class and organizing the Tuesday Activity. I had submitted 3-4 names for a couple of advisor to help me out, but with our ward just getting organized, everyone was submitting the same names, so it took over a month for me to get my first advisor in. So prior to that I was teaching every week and planning/running the weekly activities as well. I can't tell you how much I appreciate my advisor now!!
Now that I have one advisor helping me out, things have started to slow down, until last night when the president called me and asked me to plan New Beginnings for next month which includes planning the entire program. I have learned well in the past that the best way to run something is to delegate out most of the responsibility, so that is what I will be doing the rest of this week.
I am planning on teaching the girls a Jenny Philips songs and will have them sing it during the program. They are going to either hate it or love it! Hopefully love it!
Speaking of Jenny Philips, she just announced a trip to New York in July that the choir will be able to go on with her. We will be going to Joseph Smith's birth place Memorial/visitors center, Joseph's family farm in Fayette, the Hill Cumorah, and even be able to do a temple session in the Palmya, New York temple. The only sad part is she can't take the entire choir so she will get all the names of the people who want to go and then hold a lottery drawing to see who will be the ones that get to go. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hope my name is one of the names that get drawn!
The kids have been keeping busy this month with Basketball and snowboarding. We signed Brittany, Cody and Savannah up to go snowboarding 4 times in January and February. And the best part is we don't have to drive them up to the resort. They load up on a bus at the rec. center every other Saturday at 7:30 am and we pick them back up at the rec. center at 5:30 in the evening. They get a half day lesson in the morning and then spend the rest of the day with their friends on the slops. Next time they go up I'll have Brittany take her camera so that I can document that they actually did this!
Besides that it has been business as usual around here. We have had the kids sick off and on for over a week now. We went up on Sunday to Kym and Martin's house for Lily's first birthday party. I can't believe she is already a year old. She is so cute and oh, those eye lashes!
Some new news is that we think Coco (the dog) got a little Yorkie pregnant that lives up the street from us. So if anyone is looking for a Morkie puppy give me a call, I can probably get you one!
Oh, I completely forgot the biggest news of all.....I got Lasik a few weeks ago and now never have to deal with contacts or glasses again! I'm so completely thrilled with the results and regret not doing it sooner!
Clay went in for Shoulder surgery the day after I got Lasik. He got repaired an injury he sustained while coaching 4th grade football! It took 4 anchors to repair his shoulder but he is doing remarkably well for just having major surgery only 2 weeks ago.
Well that is about all I can remember for now. I promise to have picture for my next post and will try to not let another month go by until I post again!

Merry Christmas Part 2

2009-12-29T14:51:00.001-08:00

Ok, so I tried to add this picture into my Christmas post, but stupid blogger put the picture right at the first, then wouldn't let me move it down to where I needed it, so I'm just going to have to make a whole new post. I didn't want to forget this picture because it was Cody's "tied for 1st place" with his favorite gifts from Christmas. So he is wearing his other favorite present and that is his Eagles Jersey with his name and number on it (he hasn't taken it off since Christmas) and the present that tied with this gift was given to him by his Nana Collins, and that is Madden 10. He has wanted this game for so long and we told him that he was going to have to earn the money if he wanted it, so imagine his face when he opened it Christmas morning!

Well you don't have to imagine it, here it is! Thanks Nana!

Happy 18th Wedding annivery to me!

2009-12-29T12:08:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, Clay and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. Am I really getting that old?? Anyways, with it being on Sunday it was pretty much boring and not very exciting, but Clay made up for it with his gift!

A new front loader washer and dryer! Cody saw them and was so excited! They were the same colors of his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles. He asked if we could put their logo on it. I of course said "NO". But Clay found this on the Internet today and emailed it to me. He thought it might work....

Don't worry! It will never happen!

Christmas Eve and Christmas morning 09

2009-12-29T11:12:00.001-08:00

Christmas eve started out with a delicious dinner of ham, potatoes, a wonderful salad (thank you Kym) and of course cream corn and tons of sparkling cidar!! I think if you could get drunk on that stuff we would have on Christmas eve!

After dinner we played our While elephant game that we do every year, but this year Martin had us play it a little differently.

We all had a gift in front of us and while Martin read aloud the story about the "Right family" every time he mentioned the word "right" or "left" we would move our presents that way.

At the end of the story you would open the present that was in front of you at that time. Yes, that is Lily sleeping in the middle of our game. She didn't move the entire time!

Now, I don't know what kind of dark magic that was working on me that night but this was the gift that I received that night. If you can't see or read it, it's a picture of me that Kym photo shopped. On my shirt it reads "BYU's #1 fan". and it's framed in a BYU frame.

After our fun white elephant game we read stories about things that have happened thanks to the magic of the Christmas season. We also read about our Savior's birth. It was a great way to bring in the true spirit of Christmas. Afterwards we let the kids open their Christmas eve gifts, which are always a new pair of pajamas.

Even Lily got her new pair!

Kym brought gifts for the kids too. The girls received new hairbands.

And we had more BYU things given to help our love for that team grow!

This was my favorite gift of the night. Aunt Chelsea gave Jessica a locket necklace with a picture of Chelsea on one side and on the other side President Monson!

Afterwards we bundled up and went driving around the neighborhood checking out all the incredible Christmas lights.

Christmas morning came way too soon, 6:00 a.m. to be exact and this picture of Jess sums up exactly how we all felt!

It all was good and fun even though we were all very tired!

Brittany and Savannah received water bottles with their favorite Twilight guy's. Brittany's is Edward. You will be able to see further down who Savannah's is!!!!

Thank you to Nana and Papa for the new Wii game! The kids are loving it!

Last year Cody got his Eagles jersey from Santa, but it was #5, McNabb's jersey. This year Santa made him his own official Jersey!

Thanks to Dave and Becky for the fun Scene it game. We have already played it a few times and it's a blast!!

More BYU love from Savannah this time!

Savannah in her "Snuggy", she could of been in the commercial!

Jessica's big gift from Santa! She loves Johnny Depp!

Brittany's big gift from Santa was her own digital camera.

And Savannah's was this life size poster of Jacob from Twilight, which I have to say terrifies me every time I walk into her room now!

That pretty much sums up our Christmas! After all the presents were opened Clay and I returned to be for a much needed 3 hour nap! Then later that afternnon we headed up to Kym and Martin's home to make our gingerbread houses and play games. It was one of the nicest Christmas' we have had! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it that!

Santa Clause is coming to Highland!

2009-12-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

Our wonderful neighbors have Santa come to their house every year and invite everyone to come over to visit with him. It's so nice to not have to go to the mall and fight the crowds every year. Luke loves to get his yearly visit in with Santa, so that he makes sure Santa knows what he wants for Christmas. At first Cody wasn't interested in sitting on Santa's lap but after a few coaching words from me, he finally got on board. Cody told Santa he wanted another Eagles Jersey (he got one last year), which made Santa very upset. You see Santa is a San Diago Chargers fan, but he told Cody he could try to work the Eagles into the finals, which made Cody very happy!

My cute teenage girls didn't want to sit on Santa's lap so they headed to the treat table to sample all the goodies!

And I want this, and this, and this.......

Luke is usually very shy around people he doesn't know, but not Santa. He talked his ear off. I had to go pull him off his lap, he was listing about 20 things he wanted Santa to bring him!

Finally at the end of the visit, both boys stopped talking long enough to pose for a cute picture!

Even though under his breath, Cody is saying Eagles rule!!

School Christmas program

2009-12-21T15:28:00.000-08:00

I love this time when I can take a few minutes away from shopping, cooking, cleaning, wrapping and everything else that takes over my busy life during this Christmas season and go and watch a cute Christmas program, where they still sing "Merry Christmas" and songs about our Savior. Luke with his "I'm to cool for this" attitude, of course didn't sing much or do any of the hand motions, was still fun to watch. But he was all smiles while he was walking in!Of course that had everything to do with the girl standing next to him. Yes, him and Emma are still going strong. They have survived kindergarten and now half of first grade! She's a keeper!

Cody on the other hand sang one of his songs and they rapped the next one. He wasn't too into the singing but boy was he all over the rap song! Can I get one kids that enjoys singing like me???
Yesterday was our ward's Christmas program at church. We had the primary sing a melody of cute primary Christmas music, then the Young Women sang, since I'm in there now I went up to sing with them. Then our ward choir sang a song, of course I sang in that too, than finally me and this guy in our ward sang a Kurt Bestor duet. It was a great program and I loved being able to sing so many times, especially Christmas music, my favorite! I don't know if my ward loved it, but hey no one else volunteered!
Later that evening was our Stake Christmas program that I love to sing in every year. It is directed by Donald Riplinger, who used to direct the Tabernacle Choir. We is a musical genius and write a lot of the music we sing. He chooses extremely hard music to sing every year but the pieces are the most beautiful and amazing to sing. He has violins, trumpets, horns, cello's, and other instruments that accompany us to some of the songs and it's hard for me sometimes to even sing the songs without crying through them. This year he had a violinist play a duet with the piano to "Devine Redemer", my favorite Christmas song ever and it was so amazing, words can't even do it justice. I could of listened all night to her play!
I have to say though, by the end of the preformance my voice was completely gone but it was well worth it! I love being in this program every year, and I feel so blessed to have moved into this stake that provides me with this opportunity.

Piano recital

2009-12-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

Last night my two girls Brittany and Savannah had their piano recital. I was so impressed by how well both girls played. Savannah usually gets so nervous playing in front of people that she makes mistakes during her performance. But last night she played beautifully! Brittany also played so well and had only started working on her performance piece two weeks before the recital. Her teacher changed her song because she did not think the first song was challenging enough for her. Brittany's song was called Morning Light by Jon Schmidt and Savannah played White Horse by Taylor Swift.
This last week has been a complete fiasco for me. Our ward was split last Sunday and two hours after the split I was called into the Bishop's office and was made the 1st counselor in the Young Woman's. I'm so excited to be able to work with my three girls! I met with the Young Woman's president a few days later and after an hour meeting I left with my head spinning. I would teach that very Sunday and have to come up with an activity for the next Tuesday. I don't have any advisers yet so right now I'm doing everything myself.
Well, the first lesson was a hit, I think. I even sang for them! I have to say it was pretty funny to see their faces when I told them I wanted to sing them a song at the end of my lesson. They said "You mean your going to play a song on your ipod?" I said "no, I'm going to sing you a song myself". They were so kind afterward and all told me how much they loved that I would sing for them and I even had a mother call me and tell me that her daughter came home and couldn't stop telling her all about the lesson and the song I sang. So I think it went pretty good for my first week. Our activity was a service project, we babysat some of the kids in our ward who's parents have very young kids. It was an opportunity for them to get out for a few hours to Christmas shop, or just to go to dinner together without having to pay for a babysitter. The girls were so sweet and kept all the kids entertained and happy and the parents were so grateful to us for giving them a night out for free!
Now, I just have to plan for all next year and I'll be on top of things, I think!

After seeing Libby's I couldn't resist doing my own!

2009-12-14T16:34:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Live Nativity

2009-12-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

Tonight for Family Home Evening I thought it would be fun to take the kids to see a live Nativity that a family in Alpine puts on every year. We dressed in our warmest winter clothing since it was only 20 degrees outside and headed to a church in Alpine where you board a horse trailer or bus, depending on what ever one you get and head up the hill to a families ranch where you get to enter the town of Bethlehem.

My kids were so happy we were able to get to take the horse trailer instead of the heated bus! Granddad Collins would of been so proud!

As we entered the city gates we were greeted by this Roman soldier who were nicer than I thought, but he did ask us if we had seen any baby boys around.

There were many different kinds of wild life walking around the city of Bethlehem. Camels, horses, sheep, goats, swans and ducks just to name a few.

The people who live in the city of Bethlehem were especially friendly. They showed us how they make tools, weave baskets, bake breads and make pottery. This one special boy also played on Cody's football team!

After passing through the city we finally were led to a little stable. When we went inside we found baby Jesus with his mother Mary and Father Joseph.

After leaving the stable we were given a nice cup of hot chocolate, I'm sure a favorite drink in Bethlehem.
It was a wonderful experience! The kids really enjoyed themselves and after we left we hit Wendy's and had a $10 dinner thanks to Jessica's 50% discount! Can't beat that family home evening!

I'm a flake!

2009-12-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

I have been such a flake lately and have to admit, I just haven't wanted to take the time to blog for the past week weeks. I keep forgetting to bring my camera with me when we do stuff, so I use that as my excuse why I don't blog, because lets be honest, who wants to just read a post?
Our family has been staying busy with the usual stuff like basketball (once again, no pictures to show you). Cody has been playing on a team down at the Flash Factory and has only three games left. Brittany starts tonight with her first practice. Clay and I took the two boys to the Jazz game last week. Clay gets to use the companies suite and loves to take the kids with him, and the kids love going. It's fully stocked with food, drinks and desserts and sometimes stuff from the gift shops.
We stayed home for Thanksgiving this year because Jessica got a job at Wendy's and was working all week. If you ever happen to be in Highland and what to see Jessica at her finest, stop on in at Wendy's and you can check her out. She has decided that school just isn't her cup of tea and has, well, she doesn't like to say she has dropped out, but she is " opted out" and is taking her GED. She is working full time and saving her money for college.

At least she looks cute doing it! Right?

Cody has been spending a lot of time with he best friend Getty who just happens to have a little sister named Ellie. Ellie, who is only 2, maybe 3 has developed a huge crush on Cody. She runs to Cody as soon as he comes over. She has even made up a song all about, well, yes, Cody! At church is when she sees him in the hallway she will jump out of her fathers arms towards Cody. Now if you remember from previous posts, Cody loves little kids. So, he loves all the attention he is getting from her. I joke with his mom about it being too bad she isn't just a little older and Cody and her could possibly hook up some time in the future, What a story that would be.

This is a picture Getty's mom sent me not to long ago of a typical day when Cody is over. You can see Ellie running up trying to get Cody to hold her.

This Sunday our ward is getting split. I'm really nervous about this because I'm afraid one of my girls will loose their friends because of it. But it's something that really needs to happen. This is a picture of Savannah last night at her Beehive activity.

Yes, we have over 30 Beehives in our ward right now!

One more thing before I end this post. I have to give a shout out for everyone to go and see The Blind Side. We took our kids over the Thanksgiving weekend and I have to say, it is by far, the best movie of the year. And I was thankful my kids saw it as well. It's a great movie about how one boy, who had nothing, got taken in by this wealthy family, and they changed his life so much. He now plays in the NFL. A wonderfully uplifting movie that I cried all the way through. Clay told me after the movie that he has now found my long lost twin. The leading lady in the movie, played by Sandra Bullock, he says is exactly like me. He didn't think we looked alike, but that we act just the same. She is a very feisty women and yes, I have to admit I did see some similarities, but really just like me, I don't think so. Ok, well maybe :)

Family Armor

2009-11-13T07:24:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited to tell everyone about this new reality show on TLC. The best part about this show is that it stars Clay's family. His two sisters that live in Texas and their families make up "Family Armor". It all started a while back when some producers from TLC saw my brother in law Trent's business featured on CNN. Trent owns a armor car company that armor's cars for pretty scary people, you know people who need their cars armored for protection. Then they found out he had six kids and was LDS and well, the rest is history. Our daughter Jessica will be featured on this hour long show because she was living with them at the time.(whenyou watch you will understand why) Clay and I also did some "phone calls" that were taped for the show, but I don't know if they made the final cut. You'll have to tune in to see. Anyways I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone to tune into TLC on Thursday, November 19 at 9:00 (it might be 8 our time).
If you want to see a clip of the show here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0UimhuDbJw

Cody and Unga

2009-10-31T11:02:00.000-07:00

We went to our last years Lone Peak team play off game this morning and Cody bumped into this guy. Now, I thought, who cares, but Cody was in HEAVEN!!!! It's Harvey Unga with Cody in the picture. He has already had me get it printed out and blown up into an 8X10 picture. I thought this would make the Collins family elated!

Happy Halloween

2009-10-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

Halloween is going to be posted in parts because not all my kids were around for me to be able to photograph them all at the same time. Here is Brittany this morning dressing up so cute for school. I'm so proud of my girls for going to school dressed up and showing that they actually have a fun personality. They told me most kids wont dress up because they don't want to look dumb in front of the other sex. I told them it will show the boys that you're actually fun and not all stiff and worried about impressing others.
Savannah spent the night at a friends last night so that they could get ready all together. I'll post her pictures later.
Cody went as "Death". This was taken during the parade at the school this morning. Cody wanted me to paint his face black, but I had to explain to him that the school would of sent him home if he showed up with his face painted black. He didn't understand that it was offensive to a certain race if he painted his face black. He then said "what if you paint my face black and my eyes white"? I then explained that that was worse. He compromised on having his face painted white with his eyes black.
Luke is really bat man this year for Halloween but didn't feel like wearing that costume all day at school. So after explaining to him that I wasn't going to buy another costume just for him to wear to school, he came up with being a person who had been attacked by a monster. I went into his closet to find an old shirt and found one of his Ute shirts. That's when I had a great idea. We put claw marks across the shirt and some across his face with blood (red food color) all over the shirt. I told him to tell everyone he was attached by a "cougar". Pretty funny huh? I wanted to write on the back, "this is what happens to a Ute who lives in Utah Co.", but Clay thought that might offend people, so I didn't. But at the parade it got a few laughs from the parents, so I knew they got it.
After the parade I went to Luke's class for his Halloween party. They played Halloween bingo first.

Then they had a doughnut eating contest.

Last, they made Frankenstein out of green balloons. I thought this was such a great idea, and the kids loved it!

UEA break

2009-10-22T14:12:00.001-07:00

Clay and I decided for UEA we needed to go somewhere it was warm! So of course the first place that popped into our minds was sunny Southern California, and Disneyland!

We left Wed. evening and decided we wanted to break our driving part up so we stopped in Cedar to spend the night at my parents home. The next morning we took off for California, only to get 45 mins. outside of Las Vegas when the car broke down. We called AAA and got a tow truck out (an hour later) and they towed us back to Vegas to a Chevy dealership to hopefully fix what ever was broken. Not to our surprise, they couldn't fix the problem that day, it would take at least a week. So we found a car we could rent and after our 5 hour detour we were headed back towards California. A quick story about the car we rented, it turned out to be a mini van. I was stressed when Clay first pulled up in the van because we had our entire suburban filled with two pieces of luggage strapped to the top too, so I didn't think there was any way we would all fit in the mini van. Well to my surprise we fit everything in the mini van and didn't even need to strapped any luggage on top. There were so many secret compartments in this van it was incredible! I have to admit by the end our trip I was sad to give this car back. I know my sisters are in shock right now, but I was really loving the mini van!
Anyways, the next morning we rose early and went to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland!
My parents happen to be in So. California for a funeral and decided to stay a few days longer and go to Disneyland with us.

Here is my mother modeling her favorite Halloween Mickey ears!

The boys decided they wanted to get in on the fun as well!

So you will notice that the kids are being pretty silly in most of the pictures. It was their plan to see who could be the most crazy in all the pictures. This is the kids on their favorite ride of all time....Tower of Terror!!

Yes, they even posed with the employees.

Now the best part about going to Disneyland with older kids is 1. we don't have to spend all our time in Fantasy land and 2. we don't have to spend hours in line waiting to take pictures with all the characters. After lunch Clay, my mom and dad and I were sitting relaxing with Luke while all the other kids went back on Tower of Terror for the 5th time, when a show started up right by where we were eating. We decided we would watch it, what the heck, we were all ready there when Mickey and Woody came out and we just happened to have the camera ready and took these fun shots. No waiting at all!

After many big rides, Luke decided he wanted to go on the Pooh ride. It was his favorite ride back when we lived in Valencia and went to Disneyland all the time. So we made all the kids go on it with us. As you can see, some kids were more excited then others.

Here was our second favorite ride, California Sreamin! Seriously, it is the best roller coaster ever! And even when we are about to blast off Savannah is texting! It just never stops with these kids.

This used to be Luke's other favorite ride back in the days, but now he likes the new Toy Story ride in 3D!

Finally sitting and enjoying the parade!

This was what Cody and Luke were doing the entire time walking back to our hotel.

This was after day two of Disneyland on our drive back home.

We decided to stop and check out the new Newport Beach temple. It was really dark and most of the pictures didn't turn out really well. But once again my kids were being crazy in the picture, even at the Temple.

Even with the car breaking down, it was still a fun trip. We even got to spend a day at the beach with some friends from our ward. We ended up having about 8 families from our ward go to Disneyland the same time we did. We ran into just about all of them while at Disneyland and decided to meet two of the families at the beach the next day. These two families have kids all the same age as my kids and it turned out to be really fun having them their with us.

Another week gone!

2009-10-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

I swear if I could have one wish it would be for more time during the day. I don't know what has really cause it, but I just never have enough time in the day to get everything done. I go to bed completely exhausted, wake up the next morning still tired, then run, run, run all day long. Well, I should say drive because I spend most of the day in my car. Thank goodness for I-pods because I would go completely crazy having to listen to the radio that entire time.
Well my cute Brittany got herself her first job. Yes, she is a sign holder! She is trying to save up enough money so that she can go to Costa Rica with her Spanish class at the end of the year. It cost $2000 for the trip, plus spending money once your their. We told her she would have to pay for half of the trip if she wanted to go.

These pictures are so much cuter when they are big. Wouldn't you buy a mattress from such a cute sales girl??

Cody had his last football game for the season today and it couldn't have been better. He was on fire the entire game, even took out 3-4 players all by himself. They were not hurt too bad, but they needed help walking off the field. Clay and I were so proud!!

I wish this picture was bigger too because then you could see this guys eyes, he has a look of terror on his face! He knows who's coming after him!!

I love this picture because it shows Cody's "angry eyes" (yes, that is from Toy Story) He is ready to take some off the field with those eyes!

I'm so sad football is over! I love watching Cody play (if you couldn't tell). I'm already looking forward to next season.

Well two funny stories that happened this week, first, Luke came home from school last week and declared he was going to serve a mission in Chinese. I asked "Do you mean China"? "No", he said "Chinese". I then explained that the people were called Chinese and the place they lived was called China. He didn't really care and he continued to tell me that he already leaned some of the language. He proceeded to talk in Chinese and said "Bonjour, Madre"! My cute boy spoke french and Spanish and thought it was Chinese. Who knows maybe when he is old enough to serve a mission there will be a French and Spanish speaking mission in China!

Last story, today we were sitting out front waiting for all the parents to show up to pick up their sons from our end of the year pizza party at our house when all of a sudden two horses came running down the street. We didn't think anything of it until we noticed no one was riding the horses. A few seconds later a girl came running down the street yelling "wow, horse, wow". Clay didn't hesitate, he jumped into the car and started chasing the horses down. Luckily, they turned down another street and stopped to eat a neighbors lawn. Clay jumped out of the car, grabbed the reigns and held the horses until some parents showed up. What happened was a couple girls that were friends with Brittany were riding thier horses, one got bucked off and while the other girls was checking on her friend the horses got spooked and took off running down the street. I swear this happens at every house we live in, a horse gets spooked and Clay, always in his flip flops, has to chase them down and catch them. When we lived in Cedar Hills a horse ran away and Clay caught him and used some old computer wires for a harness to hold him until his owner could come get him. Clay did this a lot growing up on a ranch in No. California. He was always chasing cattle and horses that got out, mostly during the middle of the night! When he got back he said "I'm always in flip flops when this sort of thing happens"! I think maybe he should find a different pair of shows to start wearing!

Where has the time gone?

2009-09-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since my last post, at yet, it seems like just yesterday. I was hoping my days would become relaxing and I would have all the time in the world to get the things done that I need too now that my kids are in school full time, but it's just completely the opposite. I'm so much more busy than I ever was and the days and weeks go by so quickly I can hardly keep up.
The number one thing taking up so much of our time is football. We have practice 3 days a week and then a game on top of that. I know it doesn't sound like much, but because Clay is the coach practices are longer for us, planning, making calls, sending emails and even game day is longer.
But I'll admit, I will be sad when it's all over. I love to go to practice and the games and watch Cody play. I can't wait until he is in High School and we get to go to all his games and watch him play.
Anyways, enough about that, for the past few weeks we have done some pretty fun things. First, we got to babysit our cutest niece Lily. Cody and Luke act like it's Christmas morning when Lily comes over, especially Cody. He has a special little place in his heart for babies. He would love for me to have another baby, but I keep trying to explain, it's just not going to happen.

He is so cute with Lily! He just wants to hold her and take care of her the entire time she is with us.

We also had everyone over a few weeks ago for my mother in law's birthday.

I love to have people over for Sunday dinner so we decided it would be fun to celebrate her birthday and have all the Collins' that live in Utah over to help us celebrate.
I don't know why Jessica didn't get in on this picture, but here is Nana Collins with 4 of her grandchildren. Happy Birthday Susan!

After the team's win on Saturday Clay announced he was throwing a pizza party at our house!
So I hurried after the game to the store to buy 4 cases of the 24 pack of soda, 8 pizza's, 6 bags of crazy bread, five bags of cookies and a few bags of chips. We didn't have any leftovers!

20 boys ended up coming for 2 hours of more football, 4 wheeling, food and of course a water fight to end the party!
This is Cody's behind! His friend picked him up so that the other boy could dump a cup of water on his head. Now that is what I call team work!

This past Sunday we decided, along with most of Utah, to take a ride up American Fork canyon to see the pretty fall colors.

So there they all are, our trip to Cascade Falls in American Fork canyon.

Yesterday the kids came running into the house and announced they had caught a snake in the backyard. Now for those of you who have never seen our backyard, we have a huge empty field behind our house, which hopefully soon will be a park, but right now is full of all kinds of furry friends. We have snakes, mice, moles, deer, fox and even a cougar sighting back in the field. But I have to say this is the first snake that has been caught. Susan, if your reading this, you probably want to stop right now.
Now your probably thinking after seeing this picture that we let the kids keep the snake, but in fact he is free, back in the field as we speak. The kids thought they would keep this snake happy and fed on insects, but I informed them that he is used to eating the mice in the field and there is no way I'm going to provide this snake with that sort of meal. So back wild and free he went today, and I'm guessing pretty starving as well!

Homecoming 09

2009-09-12T17:44:00.001-07:00

This is Jessica's last year to go to Homecoming. I can't believe how times flies! This year she went with a big group of her friends and the guy she went with is just a friend as well.

Jessica with her best friend, Kaylie, or just "best friend" as she is know to us.

This is just the start of the big group she went with. They were meeting up with the rest of the kids at another home.

It's so nice to see boys being gentleman. Sometimes I think it's a dying breed!

Keith Urban concert

2009-09-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday evening, my good friend Stephanie and I went to the Keith Urban concert. Not only was it an amazing concert, Keith is just yummy to look at! I could spend every night of my life just sitting and listening to that man sing and play the guitar.

It was so completely hot in the building, if you couldn't tell from my very shinny face, but it was all worth it to be up close and next to this guy!

Yes, he was pointing right at us. OK, maybe not right at us but it's fun to think so!

It's the Stephanie's at another concert together!

Unfortunately, we didn't win back stage passes to this concert, even though we tried our hardest. This was as close as we could get to him.

Brittany's hike

2009-09-09T12:45:00.000-07:00

Brittany's Mia maids class got up last Saturday morning at 2:00 am and hiked Mt. Timpanogas so they could see the sun rise. Her leader thought this would be a good bonding time for the girls and I think it might of worked. Brittany had a fun time and even ran into a moose along the way.

The money shot, Mt. Timp at sunrise!

I was sad that Brittany took off her forehead flashlight in all the pictures!

Our Mia maids and leader group shot. (The guy is one of the dads) Brittany is in the back next to the girl in the red jacket.

Last shot of the girls on the top of the mountain, before their long hike down.

Brittany got home around 10 the next morning and went straight to bed. I'm so thankful there are moms out there that are willing to give up a nights sleep to do such fun things with these girls. I think I'm just too old to be hiking a mountain while I could be sleeping!

Bishops warning

2009-09-08T13:01:00.001-07:00

We had a combined meeting yesterday in church taught by our bishop that was titled "Person Purity Plan". This is the second time this year he has combined the Relief Society and Priesthood meetings and spoke to us on this topic. I thought it might be good to write a little about what he is teaching us, since we are all parents and this will affect your lives if not now, but sometime in the near future.
He started by explaining that we are all in charge of and responsible for the content that enters you life, your home and your children's home. The content habits you form for your children will stay with them for life. It is OK to be bold and straight forward with your kids, their friends and with your spouse about what is acceptable and what is not for your home. He gave some statistics that he has obtained from the FBI, they are;
-it is a 100% fact if you are in a chat room you will run into a sexual predictor.
-There is no safety in cyberspace for children and teens
-1/3 of teens browse the web on their cell phones/ipods
-1 in 5 youth have used sexting (sending nude pictures, or sexual talking)'
-Heaviest texting traffic is between 11pm-3am

Things he told us were a necessity to have in our homes were some kind of computer filter that has an administrator with password-blockers. Never let you kids have free access to the computer/Internet! We have Net Nanny, and love it!
Kids can get on the Internet through X-box, wii and other game boxes. Lock it with a password!
He also encouraged us to never buy our children a phone or I-pods (the I-touch) with Internet access, especially the I- phone. They are almost impossible to have parental locks on and run some of the highest risks for your children. He told us a story of a 9 year old that he is treating for pornography addiction. He saw some pictures on his I-touch and just that one time he became addicted. Our bishop is a doctor and he told us why boys especially, become addicted so quickly to pornography. When anyone sees explicit pictures or anything that stimulates us in a rewarding way it instantly recorded into our brain in the lower part of the brain. This part of our brain is the "reward" part. It is a part that remembers the best, and these images we put into this part of our brain are almost impossible to erase. That is why it is so hard to treat this kind of addiction. It takes years to treat someone with a sexual addiction that has only been addicted for months or weeks.
Also something that should NEVER be allowed is a computer or television in your child's bedroom!
Something that we have for a girls cell phones is parental control. We have Verizon and they offer it for $5.oo a month, per phone. This allows us to control and watch who they call and text. It also allows us to turn off their phones when we choose. We have it set so our girls phones turn off at 9:00 pm every night except for Saturday's they turn off at 11:00. They can not text or call anyone when their phones are off. This is something that we don't have to do, it is automatically done every night for us. They best part is you can have an emergency number they can call when their phones are off, so that if they are still out, they can call our home or cell number, but that is all! It is worth $5 a month!
Our bishop asked us to hold Family content night, monthly. That is, you discuss with your kids what is and what is not acceptable to watch or listen too.
Have family "fire drills". We teach our kids what to do if a stranger talks to them, but do they know what to do if they happen to receive a filthy text message, or stumble onto something on the Internet or TV, or hear something at school?
Treat cyber safety as you would any other predator prevention plan.
Have one on one dates with each child, regularly!
Have one person be the administrator that controls the content that comes into your home.
Have total transparency in the home.
And when all else fails, blame it on the Prophet or Holy Ghost. You can tell your kids, "Do you believe the prophet, well he has asked us not to listen to this, or watch that". Or you can say "The spirit is telling me something isn't right".
He really emphasized that this is a war! We are the parents and we need to love our children enough to be tough on them when required!
The last thing he warned us about was theater rooms. He said, that he knows a lot us have them and spent a lot of money to put them into our homes. He then said "if you want to save your children, get rid of them and never let your children into a home that has one"!
Like I said before, this is the second time our bishop has talked to us parents about this subject. It is something that all of will deal with and have to face, if we have children. Lets do everything we can to protect our children from Satan enticing's! It is such a different world from just 10 years ago and our kids are facing a hard battle!
I hope this helps you out, I know it's always good for me to hear again!

Temple date

2009-09-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

I love this picture of my three girls standing in front of the Mt. Tempanogas Temple. Clay decided in August that he wanted to start this new tradition in the family and it would be taking all the kids, who were old enough, to the Temple to do Baptisms for the dead every week. The first week was the hardest, I swear Satan was out to make sure they didn't make it! Every night some thing would come up and they wouldn't be able to go. But finally, by Thursday evening they were able to make it! Thankfully, they have been able to keep this up, only missing one week when the girls were at Lake Powell, with their Aunt Kym.
It has been a wonderful experience for the girls and Clay to be able to do this Temple work with each other. We have noticed that the fighting amongst the kids has decreased and the girls have been more patient. Yes, my teenage girls have been less moody! But more importantly, it's helping them realize the importance of the Temple in their lives and hopefully this will start a wonderful habit of going to the Temple frequently now and when they are older.

Choir Weekend

2009-09-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I was able to travel with the Jenny Philip's choir to preform two firesides in Southern Utah. We all met up at a park in ride in Orem to carpool down to So. Utah. I volunteered to drive and was assigned four other choir members to drive with me in my car. I was given a newly married couple (8 months to be exact) who are attending BYU, and two single sister, one from South Africa and the other from somewhere in South America, I can't remember exactly where. It was a new experience for me to be the older, more mature person in the group. I have to admit I didn't like the feeling of being so much older than everyone else. But, it was a fun car ride, we talked and sang and played cards, of course I didn't play, I was driving! After 5 hours of driving we finally arrived at our first destination, Panaca Nevada! If you have never heard of Panaca, join the club, nobody had in our group. It's a very small town, 1 hour and 15 mins. West of Cedar City, Utah. It has a population of only 800! We passed the one building elementary school and knew we were in a very small town.
We arrived at the one and only church in town, were able to clean up a bit and then headed into the chapel for our sound check. After that was all complete they took us into the cultural hall where they had a yummy dinner ready for us to eat. It was soup in bread bowls and I can't complain because it was really good. After dinner it was time for the fireside to start. During the fireside, Jenny told us she felt prompted to tell a story about the time she went to Rio De Janeiro with her choir to preform. After the fireside was over one girl in the audience came up to her to tell her how touch she was with the fireside and that she was from Rio De Janeiro. She is here in Panaca right now as a foreign exchange student and is not a member of the church. Jenny asked her if she would be interested in receiving some music from her in her country's language, and the girl began to cry. She was so excited! Jenny was able to get her address and is planing on mailing her all of her CD's when she returns home.
After the fireside was over we were given a host family to spend the night with. I was nervous about this part because I have never spent the night with someone I didn't know. But I was given a great family and I also had 3 other choir members staying at the same house with me. We were all pretty tired so after staying up talking for an hour we all went to our rooms and went to bed.
The next morning our host family had a wonder breakfast waiting for us after we got ready for the day. We met back up with the rest of the choir and caravan to St. George for our next fireside. We met for lunch at one of the choir members house that lives in St. George and then attended church near her home. We made quite the scene when we walked into Sacrament Meeting 5 mins. late. There were about 30 of us all together and we were all dressed in our choir clothes. Which are long black skirts and either a white, blue or black shirt.
After church was over we headed to another church, the one that we were preforming for, and set up and had our sound check, and all the fun stuff we have to do before each preformance. Again, we had another fabulous dinner previded by the host stake. After dinner my family showed up for the fireside. The main reason I signed up to preform at this fireside was because I wanted my family to be able to come out and see it. My parents and Libby, Tom and Rachelle and even Nana Ora all came to see me that night. It's always more fun to have someone you know in the audiance!
After the fireside was over, we changed our clothes, said goodbye to the family and than headed back to Salt Lake. I have to admit, even though it was a very fun weekend, I was really ready to be home again. I guess I'm just getting too old to spend my weekend driving and staying up late.
How sad!

Terrifying!

2009-08-24T17:27:00.000-07:00

My world has just turned terrifying! Today, my oldest child is legally allowed to drive a car!! I'm in a complete state of panic! On one hand, it's going to be so nice to have another person to drive the other kids around to all of their various activities, but on the other I keep having nightmares she is going to kill herself, or someone else. Last night I had a dream she hit Luke while he was outside playing and he flew into the curb, head first. I literally jumped out of my bed. I know I'm just being a little paranoid, but I can't help it. I am very glad she can now drive herself to school, especially early morning seminary. I'll just keep thinking of the positives and I'm sure I'll be just fine.

This is Jess taking off for the first time by herself. She just went to a friends house, but I made her text me as soon as she arrived (I know more paranoid behavior).
She wont usually drive the Suburban, she has her own car thanks to her Nana Collins. She gave her, her old BMW that Jess has named "Billy". But today Clay drove it so that he could get it registered. I'll take another picture with Billy tomorrow to show everyone.
Keep her in your prayers, she will need them! So will I!

are you ready for some football?

2009-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, this is my favorite time of the year....football season! I can't tell you how happy I am that I have boys and that they love to play football. It is so exciting to go and watch Cody play in his games. When I'm at the game I can't just sit there and watch. I pace up and down the side lines, yelling and cheering the whole time. Yesterday was Cody's first game against one of the three Lehi teams. It started about 1/2 hour late, thanks to the game before ours going longer than they were supposed too. It was over 100 degrees by the time the game started, but that didn't matter, we were so pumped and ready to start!
Cody plays a multitude of positions. First and most important he is the quarterback, his also plays full back, running back and half back, that is just on offense. On Defense he is the defensive end. So here is how the game started, Clay is their head coach, they huddle and decide what play they will run... You can tell where Cody is because he has a different color helmet.

Cody and the team line up and get ready to run a reverse...

Cody snaps the ball and he's off

He runs it down to the 20 yard line. It takes one more play and he is in for the first touchdown of the game!

After half time, Cody has to be pulled out for a few minutes to cool down. He starts complaining of feeling nauseous. I'm afraid he might have heat stroke. We put him under the canopy, put a bag of ice on the back of his neck and spay him down with water bottles. After a few minutes he was ready to be back in the game!

With only a few minutes left in the game we are ahead by one touchdown. The other team is at the 20 yard line and it's up to Cody and his team mates to try and hold them back.
Thankfully, they try to throw the ball, it's intercepted by one of our team mates and the game is over! We won!
It was cute to see how happy these boys were after their first win of the season. It's going to be an exciting season, I'm looking forward to going to all the games and watching Cody and the rest of the team play hard and hopefully win most of the games. Go Knights!!

Lake Powell

2009-08-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Not last week but the week before that, my girls were invited to go to Lake Powell with their Aunt Kym and Uncle Martin. We all wanted to go so badly, but because of football, had to stay home. The girls had the greatest time and we informed Kym and Martin to save a spot on their house boat for all of us for next years trip!
I gave Jess the camera and told her to take tons of pictures. Well they got back and had about 10 pictures taken over the entire week. This was all I could get out of them :( This picture was taken in the car on the drive down to Powell.
Once on the house boat it was all about relaxing! Savannah enjoyed doing lots of reading, when she wasn't in the water.
Here were some of the teenage group of kids that were on the boat all week. Brittany is on the end of the left side with Savannah next to her. Jess must of been taking the picture.

If they were not inside eating, they were outside tubing. Jessis the tallest one on the left, Brittany is next to her on the right.
Here is the houseboat that they stayed on. Every night all the kids would sleep outside on the top of this monster.
When the girls got home, it was story after story of how much fun they had during their week on the lake. I'm so grateful Kym invited the kids to come with her and look forward to going with them next year with the entire family.

First day of School

2009-08-20T15:09:00.001-07:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year, that would be the first day back to school! Because I have five children in three different schools we have three different schedules in the morning now. Jessica is my first one to leave. School starts at 7:45 on A days and at 6:00 on B days (that is because of early morning seminary). Jessica decided this year she wanted to transfer over to American Fork High School. She has never liked going to Lone Peak and she was tired of all the drama over there, so we switched her over to A.F.
This was bright and early this morning before she took off for her first day of her senor year.
This is Jessica with "Best Friend". Her name is actually Kaylie, but Jess just calls her best friends and so do we!
After Jess left the rest of the kids spent their morning packing their lunches and getting everything ready for their first day back to school. I love this picture because Luke was so excited to be able to pack his lunch for the first time.

Savannah looking very cute for her first day back, now a big 8th grader!

Britt was up all night trying to find the perfect outfit to wear for her first day as a 9th grader.

Best friends and sister, could they be any cuter?

Cody and Luke were the last ones to leave this morning. Cody didn't even want me to walk them into the school this morning, but because it was Luke's first day of all day school, I felt the need to make sure he got to the right place and new where to line up. ( I know, I'm crazy. I'm so excited to get rid of them, but I'm so over protective of them).
After walking into the front doors of the school, Cody took off and I couldn't find him again. But Luke let me walk him out to the play ground and I was able to get this last picture, right before he had to line up to walk into his class.

I'm officially free now for an entire 6 hours everyday. I have to admit I was nervous for Luke, wondering if he would be able to find his lunch, wondering if he was going to fall asleep in class after lunch, would he be able to find his friends (the ones that were not in his class). But when I picked him up after school got out he just talked my ear off about how much he loved it and he was so excited to go back tomorrow.
I spent my day with my girlfriend Stephanie and we went and got ourselves pedicures and had lunch together. It was so fun and so nice not having to worry about getting back at a certain time. I have a feeling I'm going to love this new life of mine!
All the rest of the kids had great days as well, except Brittany. She didn't get any classes with any of her friends and she explained how she tried to make new friends, but the girls were really snotty and the boys asked her if she was a cheerleader or on the soccer team. When she explained she wasn't involved with any of those two things, she said they ignored her the rest of the time. I asked her is she wanted to changed the classes but she already looked into it and all the classes she needs to take are all full. She then informed me she is thinking about going to A.F. next year and not Lone Peak. I tell you I'm starting to really wonder about this school. What is up with all these snotty arrogant kids around here???? Oh well, I've already spent too much time complaining about this problem.
Besides that it was a great day and I'm excited for my kids and the great year they will all have.

Crazy times!

2009-08-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

I can't believe so much time has passed since my last post. Time is flying by so quickly right now for me, I can hardly believe summer is over and school starts back up next week. I have no pictures to attach with this post so I apologize right now for that. Mostly because I have been so busy getting my kids ready to go back to school and taking pictures of that would be down right boring.
My days lately have been spent driving, talking on the phone or filling out paper work. I told you boring! I have been getting Jessica ready for her senior year at a new High School, trying to get her a drivers license, filling out a mountain of paper work so that Savannah can carry her insulin pump at school ( yes, it's worse than trying to buy a house), getting the other girls registered at the Jr. High school, taking Luke in for his teacher meeting for 1st grade, football for Cody and so much more, I'm afraid I'm boring all of you too much.
It's all been good though but I can't lie, I'm really looking forward to next week and a quiet house! I'm still in a little bit of shock and can't believe all 5 kids will finally be in school full time. I'm a little bit afraid I'm going to find myself bored. Of course the first month will be complete heaven, but after that I hope I can find enough to keep myself busy all day long.
On to a different subject, we recently added to our pet population when Savannah decided to earn enough money so that she could buy herself a hamster. She and a couple of her friends decided they wanted to get something that connected them, like in the book Sisterhood of the traveling Pants, where they shared a pair of Jeans. Well they came up with a great idea to share a hamster. All three moms agreed that if they could come up with the money themselves we would let them. So, they decided to sell some baked goods on the street corner to earn their money. Savannah asked me if I would bake some chocolate chip cookies, which I did with her help, as her contribution to the bake sale. In one day they sold $40 worth of cookies, water bottles and crystal light drinks. So when they went down to the pet store to purchase the hamster they figured out they had enough to buy each girl their own hamster. That wasn't the plan I had in mind, but that is what they did. Of course when Savannah came home with her own hamster Luke went crazy and begged us to get him his own hamster too. We of course said no! It just so happened that Nana Collins came home from her cruise the very next day and gave Luke a belated birthday card with a hefty birthday check in with it. Luke decided to spend his money on his very own hamster. So off to the pet store we went to buy our second hamster. Now I have to admit, these hamsters are pretty cute and very small. They are called Robo Dwarf Hamsters and they only get to be 2 inches in length. I really don't mind them at all, but I knew we might have a problem since Luke loves to hold his, all day long. Now since they are small, it makes them very fast and they also can jump right out of your hands. The very next morning after we bought Luke his hamster he came into our bedroom at 7:00 a.m. to tell us he had lost his hamster. Clay asked him what he was doing up so early and he told us "he just wanted to play with his hamster". He didn't want to make any noise so he took her out into the garage and that is where he lost her. Clay and I just rolled our eyes, knowing we would never find the tiny hamster, but Luke was so upset we had to at least try. So, off to the garage we went to search for this 2 inch hamster. We looked for over a 1/2 hour and couldn't find it anywhere. Clay had to leave for work, so Luke went upstairs to wake up Cody and ask him to help out in the search and rescue mission. Cody being the soft hearted brother he is, got up and spent the next hour trying to find the hamster. I went in earlier to make breakfast for the boys when Cody came running in saying he saw it running behind the air compressor. I ran into the garage and lifted up the compressor and saw the hamster. I immediately grabbed a dust pan and placed it infront of the rodent. I then stuck my hand behind him so he would think I was trying to grabbed him. He ran right into the dust pan, I put my hand over him to block him from running or jumping out and got him safely back into his cage. Cody then told me how they had said a prayer earlier to help them find the hamster and he just knew it would be answered. I was so proud of my boys and was amazed at their simple faith. What a great lesson for them on prayer and I can't even say I had anything to do with it. They did it all on their own. When we came back inside to eat breakfast (yes, Melinda we all washed our hands, a few times) Luke said the prayer to bless the food and it was so cute how he thanked Heavenly Father for helping them find his hamster. It's been three days since that happened and in every prayer Luke still thanks him for helping them find the hamster. It's very cute!

So, that has been our exciting lives the past few weeks. My three girls have been at Lake Powell with my sister in law Kym and her husband, so the house has been very quiet with just the two boys. But I have enjoyed doing things with the boys this week and can't wait until Saturday when the girls get back. We just feel like such a small family right now, I don't like it, I need my girls back with us!

Weekend in Cedar

2009-07-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

So for the 24th of July we decided to get out of town and head down to Cedar City. When my dad heard we were coming down he asked if we would be interested in being in the parade again. About three or four years ago all my brothers and sister and all our children decided it would be fun to be in the parade that Cedar City holds on the 24th. We had a blast that time and I thought the kids would enjoy it again this year. Well, it wasn't until I arrived in Cedar that I found out we weren't going to be in the Cedar City parade but we were going to be in the Enoch parade. Enoch is the very small town just North of Cedar. Oh well, it still would be fun for the kids and that was why we were doing it in the first place.
Anyways, we will get to the parade in a moment, first we had to celebrate Luke's birthday.
Luke was so excited to be able to spend his birthday with his cousins and Nana and Papa. We had everyone over for dinner including my Aunt JoAnne and Uncle Kenny (my mother's brother) and my Nana Ora, who is 98 years old. We had a great time catching up and spending time with each other. But, Luke was getting impatient with us and just wanted his cake and presents.

We lit the candles, sang Happy Birthday to him and let him dig into his cake!

Next, Luke tore into all his presents. My Aunt was so impressed because after opening each present Luke would pick up all the wrapping paper and throw it into the trash bag. What can I say, I have trained him right!

After the night of wild partying, Clay decided he wanted to take the kids to Enterprise Reservoir for some fishing and 4 wheeling. I had just had surgery on Monday and wasn't feeling up for the trip so Clay took the 4 younger kids and they were gone for most of the day. Jessica and I stayed home and went and saw the Harry Potter movie.
This is so Brittany. She really isn't the outdoors kind of girl, but she finds something to keep her busy. This time it was a good book.

Cody enjoyed chasing all the cattle around while on the 4 wheeler.

Savannah and Luke really wanted to catch a fish. But it wasn't meant to be this time. Sorry kids!

The next morning was the 24th and the day of the big parade. My dad and I spent the morning getting everything ready for the parade. Here are all the grand kids that were going to be in the parade.

Jessica opted out of riding in the trailer and decided it would be more fun to drive the 4 wheeler herself.

Brittany and Savannah were on water gun duty.

The rest of the grand kids either threw candy or had water guns of their own.

After the parade we ended at the park in downtown Enoch where there were exciting activities for all the kids. We even got to watch Tom's band play and entertain us while we ate dinner at the park.

Jack and Luke fought their way to the front of the line so that they could get on the "Polaris express". Yes, they totally cut through the long line and even pushed a teenage girl out of the way in order to get on the train!

My girls enjoyed dancing to Tom's fabulous music!

I don't know if I should be proud or disgusted that Cody won the pie eating contest!

Luke was a little obsessed with the face painting station. He ended up getting paintings on both sides of his face and on both arms. Should I be worried about tattoos in his future?

Cody and his cousin Issac spent most of their time at the dunking station. I can't blame them, it was hot and even I thought it looked like a good way to stay cool!

So on our last day in Cedar my dad suggest we take the 4 wheelers to Kolob reservoir, which is about a 60 mile ride. I knew my kids would love it so we packed them all up and took off for the day.

This was our first pit stop. We stopped for snacks and to check out our new dusty bodies.

I thought I was dusty then, but just wait until the ride home!

When we finally arrived at the lake we ate our lunches and then headed down to fish.

Luke told me he really wanted to catch a fish. I asked him why, he said "so I can keep it as my pet. All you have to do is buy a fish bowl and I could keep it".

Cody trying to teach Luke how to throw out the line.

Savannah could of spent the entire day fishing. She was actually mad when we told her it was time to head home and she still hadn't caught a fish.

Brittany, Jessica and Clay were content with sitting on the edge of the lake and talking.

So here is all of us after the drive back. My dad took us home a different way and it was so much more dusty on the ride home, we were completely covered in dirt and dust from head to toe and every where in between!

This was our final stop of the trip. It's the look out from the "C" mountain, over looking the entire city of Cedar City.
We had such a fun weekend with my parents. My dad is already talking about anything 4 wheeling trip he wants to take us on. If it is half as fun as the last one we would do it again in a heart beat.

Happy Birthday Luke!

2009-07-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

First, I have to say thank you to my sister Melinda for my birthday post last week. That was very sweet of her to do and I want her to know how much I love and appreciate her!

But this week it's my youngest birthday and he is turning 7! When Luke woke up this morning the first thing he asked me was if he looked any different. He said "do I still look 6 or do I look 7"? I told him he looked older and totally like a 7 year old.
Luke was one of our 2 surprise pregnancies in our family. Savannah definitely takes the prize for being our biggest surprise, but we weren't really expecting Luke either. The day I found out I was pregnant with Luke was actually the morning after Thanksgiving. Every that knows me knows I love to start my Christmas shopping that morning. That morning I went out with my sister Melinda and my mother. We were almost done with our shopping when out of the blue the thought came into my mind that I was late and could possibly be pregnant. Up until that morning I hadn't even thought of it. I didn't want to say anything to my family, in case I wasn't pregnant so I quietly put in a pregnancy test into the big pile of toys I was buying. When I got home I went upstairs and took the test. When it came back positive I about feel over. I put the test on the back of the toilet and went downstairs and told Clay that I had a surprise for him upstairs in the bathroom. Now my sister and mother had come back home with me so I didn't really want to tell them yet before Clay knew so he went upstairs while I stayed downstairs with my family. Clay came walking back downstairs and we both looked at each other and just smiled, this kind of shocking smile at each other and didn't say anything else about it until every one left. Well about 7 1/2 months later we had ourselves this cute little boy! Luke came out screaming when he was born and he really never stopped. Ask my mother, he really didn't stop!
But he still was such a blessing to our family! I never found out what I was having when I was pregnant with Luke, but I always knew we would have a boy!
When we lived in So. California a few years back we took the kids to Disneyland every chance we had. Luke was obsessed with Whinny the Pooh back then and we literally went on that Pooh ride about 100 times that year.
Luke is my crazy kid and will do anything and everything he likes. I do Yoga and Luke loves to copy me and this is what I get....Luke doing a Yoga move on our hike.
Just so you know, I don't hold my fingers that way, don't ask me where he copied that from!
We love you Luke and are so happy you came to complete our family! Have a great birthday!

Happy Birthday Stephanie

2009-07-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Hello all, this is not Steph in this post, this is her sister Melinda who hijacked her blog. Today is Steph's birthday and I just wanted to wish her a great day. Steph is a great sister and is always willing to help out when she can. Just last Friday, I called to meet up with her for lunch since we were coming out her way for Ashley's bday and she patiently waited 45 mins for us to show up. I think most of us would have just left. She was nice enough to wait and we were able to have a great time together.

Steph and her family are staunch U of U fans and Blake thought it would be funny to put our BYU hitch cover on her car. He was just thinking of Cody, but Steph wasn't to thrilled with it.

Stephanie is a really good mom to her kids. She is always doing things for them, taking them to their activities, games or what ever they have going on. When Savannah was diagnosed with Diabetes, she researched and learned everything thing on it so that she could really take good care of her. Clay and the kids are so lucky to have Steph for their wife and mom.

Steph, I hope you have a fabulous bday. You really are so great and I am glad we live close enough to be able to get together and do things. I always have a fun time with you and your family. I love you!

Savannah

2009-07-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

I had to find an example of Savannah's practical jokes just so you understand how planned and precise they are. Her Beehive leader sent these to me after girls camp this year.

Here is a pretty innocent picture of Savannah, Brittany and their friend Annie.

Look more closely and you will see the joke!

Yes, Savannah once again pulled a fast one on her friends!

Poor Brittany, she is usually the receiver of her sister's jokes!

Especially for Youth

2009-07-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

My cute Brittany just returned from her first year of going to Especially For Youth. She and her friend from down the street decided they would go up together and be room mates and also requested that they go to BYU Idaho. Jessica went to Rexburg last year for EFY and loved it, so I'm sure that had some part in why they decided to go there instead of staying around these parts. Of course they came home telling us they wanted to go next year to either Alaska or Hawaii. We told them to start saving their money!

This is Brittany with Katie her room mate.

These are some of the people in their company. A few days before they left Brittany and Katie asked if they could go shopping for some clothes for EFY. We asked them where they wanted to go and they told us, "the DI". We were so surpised and happy about this. They found really cute dresses that they are wearing in this picture. Brittany is the one in the blue polka dotted dress and Katie is in the purple polka dotted dress, both dresses were purchased at the DI and were under $10 for both dresses and belts!

Savannah is my funny kid. She loves to play pratical jokes on people and pretend to be something she isn't. Last night for fun, her and her friends decided to make a movie. Savannah played the "goth" girl in the movie! The parents of her friend thought she was so funny they sent me this picture. That's my Savannah!

4th of July Weekend

2009-07-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

The 4th of July is always a great weekend for us to get together with family or friends and celebrate a great holiday. This year we were lucky enough to have lots of family around us. My brother Dave and his family, Becky, Hannah and Cate came up from Cedar City to stay with us. On the first night they arrived we met up with my sisters Melinda and Libby (who also came up but was staying with Melinda) at PF Changs for dinner. After dinner Dave and his family spent the evening hanging out with us in our backyard, making smores around the fire pit, jumping on the tramp and playing a terrible game of basketball.
On the 4th we kicked back most of the day, letting the kids play some more in the backyard, eating lunch at JCW's, Dave even took Brittany, Savannah and Cody to the mall to do some birthday shopping for Becky. Of course all I saw was the things the kids ended up buying for themselves, I hope Dave bought something for his wife for her birthday!!
Later on that evening we headed down to Payson to spend the rest of the day with Melinda and Libby and their families.
Before dinner the kids swam in Melinda's hot tube, while the older kids played some rock band.

After all that, the kids worked up a big appetite and were in need of some yummy nourishment !

We still had some daylight to kill before starting the fireworks show, so the Taylor's broke out the bikes and 4 wheelers and let the kids go crazy! Of course the adults wanted to have some fun as well.

Finally it was dark enough, thanks to the black rain clouds, so we quickly fired up the big show and got things going before we all got soaked!
Thanks again to Melinda and Jason for letting us all come down and use their home as our play ground for the evening. We really had a great 4th of July and hope to be able to spend every 4th of July with our families!

Cowabunga Bay

2009-06-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

For day two of our stay-cation, we took the kids to the newest water park in Utah, Cowabunga Bay. We got there around 11:00 in the morning and thought it would be warm enough, especially since it read 85 degrees in our car. But to our surprise we froze the entire day. The water was freezing and thanks to the cloud cover that would come and go all day long we were cold. We were determined to have fun no matter what, so we sucked it up and spent the day in the water!

The kids were waiting for the giant bucket of water to fall on them

Cody always has a smile on his face, even when he is freezing!

I told Clay that I needed at least one picture with myself in it. In my last few blogs I'm always the one taking the pictures. I need proof that I was there too.

Luke was the one complaining the most about the cold!

The lazy river was the only place that you would not freeze your behind off in. They actually heated the water in that pool. We spent most of the day doing this.

On Saturday, we went back to our old neighborhood in Cedar Hills and had a BBQ dinner with my friend Stephanie and her family. Every year Cedar Hills has an amazing fire works show for the 24th of July celebration. Well, this year they decided to do it in June instead, don't ask me why, but they did. So after dinner and games we watched the fire works from their front yard. This is something that we would do every year when we used to live in Cedar Hills and we actually started it back up last year with our old neighbors and look forward to it every year. Fun times!

Day 1 of the "Stay-cation"

2009-06-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's finally summer and we are loving it! Clay decided to take Thursday and Friday off from work and we told the kids we were having a "stay-cation". What is that you ask? It's a vacation that you take at home. For our first night we thought it would be fun to camp in the back yard. We set up the tent, got some food to BBQ, turned on some Rascal Flatts, lit the fire and had fun!

The kids were more than willing to help out!

After setting up the tent it was time to sit back, relax and laugh!

BBQ hots dogs were on the menu along with some corn that we cooked on the BBQ as well!

After dinner we entertained ourselves by jumping on the tramp, playing with the dog and singing to the music!

Then of course it was time for the smores!

Doing all this in the backyard, we started to attracted many neighbor kids! Oh well, the more the merrier, right?

Luke started a game called "how many girls can I get to sit in my lap?"

To finish the evening we decided to light some fireworks. I know it's not the 4th yet, but who cares, they were so much fun! Our neighbors saw us doing the fireworks and decided to join us, but they had the cool fireworks that shoot up into the sky. Yes, they are illegal, but the kids thought it was the greatest night ever!

After all the festivities, we tucked ourselves into our tent and went to sleep. No, I slept in my bed! What can I say!

Tomorrow day 2 of the stay-cation.....Cowabunga Bay water park!!

First Stake Dance

2009-06-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

My cute, not so little any more, Brittany went to her first stake dance on Saturday night. She was so excited and spend hours prepping to look just right. What we all didn't know was it was a casual dance, I guess they don't expect you to look your Sunday best any more. She didn't care though, the girls she went with were all dressed in dresses too. When she came home she couldn't wait to tell us all about it and how she was asked to dance to one of the three slow songs. It was sweet to see her innocence and excitement over this new adventure in her life. She can't wait until the next one!