Tanner's band concert

Tanner had his first band concert tonight. He was very nervous! It was cute. He did a great job! He plays the electric bass guitar and he is really enjoying it. He has the best band teacher in the state of Nevada... or the whole country... he is amazing. We are sad that he is retiring... this is his last year! Bummer. Mitchell has such a great experience in middle school with him, I was hoping that Tanner would have the same. I guess we are lucky he got him one year!

Good job Tanner!

Volleyball season...

Mitchell made the JV volleyball team this year! He is having a good time! I love going to the games to cheer him on. (i tried to go to his game on Thursday, but i went to the wrong high school. I thought it was at Cimarron, but it was Centennial! oops. I missed it! I was so mad at myself!... i'm getting so old!) Saturday he had a tournament up at Shadow Ridge HS. It was along day, but enjoyable! They didn't play their best, but I saw a lot of improvement by the end of the day. They have some new players this year and a new coach, so it's taking a little time for them to get into their rhythm. Mitchell played great and had a good time... that's what matters!

Ashley was in town this weekend! It was so nice to have her home! I can't believe the semester is almost over and she will be home for summer! I'm not sure how i didn't get any pictures of her! She came to most of the tournament with me. It was fun to have her with me! Johna dn tanner were at a camp out Friday and Saturday, so Ashley and I had a girls night out on Friday. We had the sisters over for dinner and then the two of us went to the movies. It was so fun! I love her and miss her!

I took my new camera and tried to get some good shots... as you can see, i have a lot to learn about photography!

Up for a hit... (those Western players could jump! Look at the guy in red...)

having fun!

Getting ready to serve.

he's #4

Serving...

We finally won a game!! Go Bonanza!!!

He remembers....

My cute husband remembered that 22 years ago today he proposed to me! Look what he brought home from work today!

Here is a close up of the note... not sure why the color changed...

I am so lucky!! I love you so much John!!

Crazy week...

Last week was so crazy. I barely made it. There was something every day and night! I got a call from my brother Todd on Tuesday and he told me that his family was in St. George and they wanted us to meet them in Mesquite for dinner. I was making dinner for someone in the ward, had a New Beginnings to go to and Mitchell was at a volleyball game and John was out of town... So, it wasn't the best night to drop everything and go, but I thought about how much I love his cute little family and how much I miss them. So Tanner and I met Scott, Jenn and Afton and headed up there... that is, after I dropped my dinner off and I made sure one of my counselors was going to the new beginnings. (Thanks Heather!) Dinner was great and the kids were so cute! And it was fun to visit with Todd and Sharolyn!

Cute baby Justin!

We ate at a yummy Japanese place... Emily, Todd, Sharolyn, Charity and Scott

The boys, Brendon, Dallin Tanner and Justin

The entry of the restaurant had a cute little koi pond with a bridge over it... the girls loved it!

Emily, Charity, Dallin and Brendon
We ate and then headed back to Vegas. We were home by 9:30. It was fast, but fun.
I am glad we decided to go.


The rest of the week was crazy with church stuff. I LOVE my calling! It's just a busy time of year... Meetings, an overnighter, a dress swap and more meetings... Friday night was our annual YCL (youth camp leader) overnighter. It was great! We have an amazing group of ycl's and camp leaders this year. I am so excited. It was fun to get to know them all a little better. We played games, ate food, planned for camp and tried to sleep. The girls actually went to bed around midnight... but I couldn't fall asleep until about 3am and the sun woke me up at 6am....They need some Sunburst Shutters in the cabin! haha.

Cute girls!! Love them all!!!!

Camp leaders trying to get organized!
and below is my presidency relaxing while the camp leaders were in charge!
We missed you Lisa!

I got home from the overnighter at 10am and had to be at the church for our dress swap at 11:30... we had a dress swap for a formal dance that our stake is invited to in April. It went really well. The girls we so cute getting all dressed up in beautiful dresses! They were like little princesses. It was worth every ounce of work that we put into it to see them happy.

Sunday was a hard one for me... I had a meeting before church, a youth conference meeting after church and a PPI with the stake president after that and New Beginnings after that... I had a bit of a breakdown at the Youth Conference meeting... things weren't going quite as i had imagined and i ended up in tears in the hallway... a bit embarrassing... I wish I could go back in time and re-do the meeting. The kids probably think I am wacko. I got myself back together and went into my ppi. I didn't make it 1 minute before i broke down again... All he asked was how things were going... Sorry President Schlauder! I am sure he is used to dealing with girl emotions with 5 daughters! I am doing much better now... I'm not sure why I am writing about this, except that this is the only journal I keep theses days and I want my kids and grandkids to know that it's ok to cry sometimes and I want them to know that we all have to learn how to balance things and slow down a bit. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the New Beginnings. And on top of all that last week, I started a new diet... maybe I was just having sugar withdrawls! But the good news is that I lost 6 lbs in my first week! yahoo!

This week has gone much better... taking it a day at a time. I am watching Afton all week and it has made me stay home and get things done around the house. I needed some home time!

weekend fun

I got to spend the weekend here with my honey!

John had a convention in San Diego, so we spent a few days at Dix's beach house. John had classes all day Friday and most of Saturday... so i had plenty of time to read this book... It was a sad and happy one. I cried like a baby... I think John thought I was insane when the tears wouldn't stop. I had to grab a whole box of kleenex!

As you can see in the pictures, the weather wasn't great. I tried sitting outside to read my book on Friday, but it was just too cold. So, I sat inside and laid on the floor where the sun was coming in the window... I could still see and hear the ocean, so it was almost perfect.

I talked John into skipping his Thursday night dinner in the city so we could go to the little street fair that is every Thursday night in Oceanside. We ate lots of greasy fair foods and had fun looking at all the little booths. We picked up some fresh strawberries for breakfast. They were delicious! Would you believe that my little camera battery was dead and I forgot my charger... so I didn't get any pictures of us that night... bummer. Then it was rainy the rest of the weekend and i didn't want to cary around the big camera. So, no pictures of us...

We were eating lunch at Ruby's on the end of the pier on Saturday when my brother David called to tell me the good news that he was engaged to Rebekah! I am SO HAPPY for him. She's a great girl and she makes him very happy! We are anxious to hear details on when and where the wedding will be. She will be a great addition to our family!

I love little getaways with my favorite person in the whole world! Love being with him!

The Sisters...

One of the best thing about John's calling is that we are able to get to know the sister missionaries really well. They come over a lot to talk with John and sometimes we get to go teach lessons with them. We have been so lucky to have such great sisters. They have been great examples to our family!

Last week Sister Rumler asked if I could drive 6 of them up to Red Rock for their P-day. Keri came with me and we had so much fun with them. They were so excited to get "out" of the city and just goof around. But let me tell you, they were still missionaries! I stopped to get gas and one of them got out and totally talked to the guy next to us and gave him a pass along card and then when we were walking down a trail, the same sister talked to some people on the trail and gave out another one! great missionaries.

We were a little worried that someone might get hurt! We went pretty high!

We didn't want to have to call President McCrackin and tell him one of his sisters was out of commission for a while...

Sister Johnson and I made it up first! She's my Washington girl!

Sister Vomocil and Sister Todd. Sister Vomocil was in our ward last summer, we loved her! She goes home in 3 weeks!

Sister Johnson is serving in our ward now... she is great! If you look in the background of this picture, you can see the other 3 sisters! They didn't want to jump down this one part, so they tried to get to us another way... they ended up way over there! We eventually got back together!