WARNING!!!!! This blog entry is JTMP! (Just too many pictures). Sorry. We had just so much fun on our spring break and this is the first time the district gave us a week for it. So here is our spring vacation! What a great time we had, Woohoo!


We made our first stop to stay at Mom and Johns in ST. George so we wouldn't have to drive so far. So this pic is of course having our breakfast that mom and John are so good about fixing us when we come down. THANKS guys!!!!
When we got to California we were so excited that our room came with a microwave and fridge. We were a little bit worried about what I was going to eat, but we were able to hit Albertsons and load me up with food I could eat not to mention tons of snacks for the girls.
After we unloaded at our room, we took a ride down to a Beach. We ended up at Huntington beach. It was about 67• but the girls were loving it.
Then on Easter Sunday we spent the day on two different beaches. We started out at Newport beach at the Balboa Pier.

This was so sad!! There was a sea lion up on shore that was dieing.

Kurtis got excited when he seen the Newport Fire Department drive by the beach.
After a while Sam wanted to try out Laguna Beach so we ventured on that way.
A little excitement while we were there, we felt the earthquake from the Baja, Mexico 7.2 earthquake. At first I thought I had vertigo, but then the movement became very strong. Mike is calling Grandma Kathy here to tell her our experience.
On Monday we went to Disneyland. A little cool and a little rainy but we still had fun. Later we went back to the room and dried our pants off with blow dryers and irons.
Tuesday we spent most of the time at California Adventure. We did do a little back and forth between the two parks.
Wednesday we did alot of back and forth between the two parks, just trying to fast pass what rides we wanted to do. By Wednesday the parks were so busy.
Thursday we spent the day at Newport beach at the Newport pier.
Steph was taken over by a wave. Just a little wet.
That night we went to an Angels Game and the Angel Stadium.
Whats a ballgame without ballpark peanuts
And Ballpark hot dogs


Friday we headed back to St. George. I had the girls call ahead and have grandma pick up some balloons and cake for Stephs b-day. Her b-day was actually the day we went to the each and Angels game so we didn't get to really celebrate with cake and goodies.
Saturday we got home. Bummer! but from the Angels game each one of us got a statue of the Angles Manager. Hmmmm where to put them?? LOL
But what an awesome time we had. So hard to come home and get back to the normal everyday routine. I hope the school will do a week again next year! cross your fingers.

UPDATES IN MY HOME

Ok, so for the last few weeks I have been working on some home projects. Finally I got them done and I am really excited about them. First off in the kitchen I have been wanting granite counter tops, but...didn't want to pay for them! So what do I do....I a make my own granite counter tops. Also the kitchen knobs are so outdated! White porcelain knobs are just not cutting it any more! So I changed out my knobs too. I love how the end result turned out. Check out my before and after shots of the kitchen.

BEFORE







AFTER






Now as for the bathroom, same thing with the counters. I wanted granite...so I made it. Then I stained the cupboards a maghogony....twice..not by my choice. Well, got them all sanded down....or so I thought, tried to stain them. That was actually fine, until I put the polyurethane on and wherever I didn't sand well enough, the stain came right off, so I hurry and cleaned off the polyurethane, sanded it all down again (which i might add is not very fun!) and re-stained it again. Agh...got it right this time. I also added some knobs to the cupboard, and this summer we are going to gladly rip out the linoleum and tile the floor. Check out the before and after photos of the bathroom.


BEFORE

AFTER




Ahh! I love new changes in the home!

MIKES DRILL TRYOUTS

Looks like another year of Drill Team! Good job Mike!

SAMS INJURY

As always I'm a little slow with this post, but I finally have minute to do it so here I am. About 5 weeks ago, it was at the end of Sam's city basket ball games and the the start of her 8th grade girls basketball season when all the fun started. Not really I'm being sarcastic because none of this experience has been fun for Sam. In fact it has been driving her nuts that she is not able to play the game right now. So anywhoo back to the start, she was playing in a tournament with the city league when we took a great fall. All the kings horses and all the kings men....OOOPs wrong story, ok so after the fall she continued to keep playing ball, but we could hear the thud when she hit clear over where we were sitting, but, that girl just continued to play. When the game was over, she came over to us crying her eyes out. She held it in that long. Her leg was truly bothering her! We took her to the emergency room on Saturday (the day after the game), They ex rayed it but couldn't see anything. They felt like it was a deep bone bruise and wrapped it up for her and sent her on her way. All is well.......OR NOT, 3 weeks later it is getting worse and she's been unable to play at her 8th grade games. Major frustration for her. So I made another doctors appoint to have it checked out again. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! We went to the world's dumbest doctor! No kidding. What kind of doctor throws his hands up in the air and says "I don't know what to tell you to do with it"! Ok, so this is how it went. We came in told him the story, and explained that it was getting worse. He looks at her leg and says.....(this is a killer)......"SHE HAS SHIN SPLINT" Hello ding dong, shin splints don't even happen on the part of the leg we are showing you, and shin splints don't get worse when you stop walking on your leg for a week, and duh, it happened after a huge fall playing basket ball! Oh ya and to go along with the shin splints his reply was "get better shoes" I requested for another ex ray, but he told me that would be a waste because it wouldn't do any good. I had it done anyway just to be sure. And no nothing did show but when this dork didn't like my response to shin splints he finally said, "well I guess we could try physical therapy if that is the route you would like to take" Well you doc, tell me if that is the right route to go.......HELLO you are the doctor!!! NOT ME!!!!!!!!!! That visit was the worst money I ever spent! I will never go to this doctor again! Because, we ran into our emergency room doctor the next day in a parking lot, and boy did we have a much better doctors visit in the parking lot of the hardware store than we had at the doctors office. We just wanted to ask him if he felt physical therapy in his opinion was the right way to go. He ran over to the car, opened door and asked Sam, "it hasn't healed yet?" he started checking it out asking her questions and said if it hasn't healed by now that leads him to believe that she has a stress fracture on her fibula. And sometimes they won't show up on an ex ray for quite sometime. He said physical therapy would be the right route to go. THANKS TO THAT DOCTOR FOR SOME GUIDANCE! Can I have the doctors office transfer the money from the dorky doctor to the doctor who gave us clue with what was going on? So we took her to physical therapy and they checked her out there and also felt she had a stress fracture with a deep bone bruise and they also found some hematomas on there that needed to be worked out. SO HELLO MR. DOCTOR SHIN SPLINT, go back to school and learn how to be a doctor! So, now Sam's leg is slowly healing, but it is healing and not getting worse. I think tomorrow she will start going to school without the crutches and start walking on it normally. Hopefully we can get her healed up soon so she can maybe play a couple more basketball games before her 8th grade basketball season ends for this year. I think we have one more week of physical therapy. So Sam, keep your leg safe Sam! So here is some pics of Sam at Physical therapy. This one where she has to rotate her ankle around. This one was funny to watch, she was having a hard time with it. This one was to help stretch her muscle.

Ok, I think we can all figure this therapy out. LOL
After seeing all the equipment they have in physical therapy, I would like a gym like that in my home.

Steph Singing at the Talent Show

Today Steph got the opportunity to sing at the school talent show. OOOOOh I was so proud of her. She did such a great job. And I don't even think she was nervous. Now that wasn't the case a few weeks ago when she about had a nervous breakdown over singing. We actually went and took her off the auditions because she was so upset, then my good friend Shanna stepped in and worked with her and convinced her that she could do it. Thanks Shanna! It paid off! She made my day!

Here she is waiting for it to start.


Then time to sing.....Notice no nerves! Maybe mine were enough for both of us!
After she was done we both took a couple of relief breaths. But I was sooooo PROUD!
Here is Steph with Miss Shanna who helped her so much. Again Thanks Shanna!
We took a few pictures outside the school when she was done because she looked so cute!
Then she made me take her to lunch! Since I was so proud of her I thought I better. We went up to Wendys so I could eat a frosty. She was happy with that. Got herself a kids meal that came with a smaller frosty. I traded her and gave her the bigger one and I took the little one. That's I'll I needed....ohe ya I had a small fry to dip into the frosty. YUM YUM.
It was so nice to have a day with Steph. I needed a great day and she gave it to me! Thanks Steph for doing such a great job. I am so proud of you!