Leaving Las Vegas - or Henderson, I guess

A quick blog for tonight. We had a great day with Brookie's birthday. She didn't get a real breakfast in bed, but breakfast in front of a TV with a TV tray and a bowl of cereal is just as good. Maybe next year, if I'm around, I'll be a better grammy. So after I finished the book yesterday I needed something to read during 'downtimes', which there aren't too many of here, but when you add 5 minutes here, rocking the baby, another 10 minutes, in the restroom (and yes, I know you all take a book in there or at least a crossword puzzle), the time adds up and you can get some reading done. So, I scoured Brian and Celynda's bookshelves last night and aside from all of Brian's um..Medical books, I found this book by Glenn Beck. I started reading it last night and I finished it this afternoon. I love the story and how it sorta/kinda relates to him as a kid and the really profound way it impacted his life. (I promise it can be read in 2 hours). My favorite part is found on page 249 where the young boy is asking a 'man',
"Does everyone have to go through the storm?"
"Yes, sooner or later. But no one has ever been lost to the storm, just lost in it."
A small explanation - trials of life.
So, sadly we head home tomorrow. School starts Wednesday and Allan has already missed his Freshman orientation, which by all accounts that we've heard, was not that important. Mesa High has a Bar-B-Que something or other tomorrow night so we will of course be home for that. (Hey, free food) We hate leaving little Roxy, but she has 4 people here who adore her and will take good care of her. Thanks for sharing my bed with me Luke and Brook! (They didn't ever start there, but some time during the night they would both end up with me......I'm sure they thought I needed the companionship because Grandpa wasn't with me. We finally got some good pictures of Roxy, but I can't download them without the proper connection,whick of course I also left at home. Celynda is the official owner of the photo's but I will post some of them for you all to see tomorrow or Wednesday!

I did find my little silver camera which I usually carry with me, so I got some pictures of Roxy to share.

As you can tell, she looks a lot like Brook. Here we were having fun in the pool - or I should say, Allan and the kids are having fun in the pool. I just sat on the side with my feet in the 82 degree water, brrrr, and took a few photos. Brian had some fun water pump guns that Allan, while at first were attacking the kids, but then, at my instance, had to let the kids get him. Of course he later took revenge and was shooting Lukas and you can see that Luke found a great shield for protection.

While here I also purchased this book and got it read in about 8 hours. It was an easy read and I might have been able to finish it in one day straight, but with all the other 'activities' going on, I would just get a short chapter in here and there. I enjoyed it very much. So any ideas on what I can read now? I'm still in the middle of President Monson's book but I like to have a few books going at one time. Another one I'm reading is 'I will not live an unfulfilled life' (or something like this (I can't find it on the internet). This is one I keep in the car for the times I am waiting for a child at practice or at a scout interview, so I know that this one might take me a really long time. Any suggestions for a new book?.....send them my way.

I wish I had pictures to share with you this morning (of the new baby)- but I have forgotten my cameras battery back home in Mesa. Bummer. I am in Henderson, Nevada with Brian and Celynda and their kids. They just had their 3 baby and she is darling and they have named her Roxy Belle. She has a little bit of Lukas in her forehead/eyebrow area, but definitely more of Brook below that. Of course we can't tell what the eye color will be, but if they turn brown, that will be more like Lukas also. Here are some older pictures.....
Allan came over here with me and the kids are loving it! And we've been lucky to have Brian around a little bit more than usual too, which has been fun for us all. Brian is now doing rotations - in surgery. On his first day he got to jump in and help resuscitate a woman who was on the operating table - succeeded! Yeah!!! And he has been able to 'scrub up' and hand the clamps and 'tools' to the doctors! I think he is enjoying it. I'm not sure this is where he will 'specialize' but at least he is finding it interesting. He likes to come home and tell us what he got to do that day. Allan and I took Brook and Luke to the $1 movie theater yesterday where we watched 'Rio'. It was a pretty cute movie and kept them both mesmerized the whole way through. Celynda had warned me that the theater was not in the best of neighborhoods and guess what? She was right. As we pulled into the parking lot a police officer was questioning a guy. By the time we walked up to the ticket counter, he was shoving his face onto the hood of the car and frisking him; yelling at him pretty loud telling him he was getting arrested for jaywalking. I'm sure there was more to it than that, but it was pretty intense for a while. We had to be outside by them (probably about only 10 feet away) for about 3 minutes while waiting to get our tickets. It was entertaining, but I could have done without it. Luckily the kids said nothing about it and probably don't even remember it.
Congratulations to my darling daughter Katie who got engaged last night! I can't wait to give her a hug and then one to her betrothed, Brandon Overstreet. I hear the date is November 18th, so save that date! We love you both!! See you on Tuesday.

I have let several days slip by being completely absorbed while reading this book. I found it last Thursday for $1 at Goodwill. It was so intense that I probably could have finished it in 1 or 2 days but we were in Snowflake for the weekend, Pioneer Days, and with all of the events that surround that, I had to sneak a few moments here and there just to get a few pages read.

I will say that I packed two of these....

What are they?... Yep, a headband flashlight. Mind you, I didn't make them especially for my Snowflake trip, knowing that it would be hard to find a few minutes to read and the only way I'd be able to finish my book was to stay up all hours of the night or early in the morning before the sun rose and would need these to help me with that, no...I had made these for my girls camp skit. (Each girl started with the light turned on, and if they chose to do something that might be wrong their light would go out and of course at the end of the play they had repented or chosen to do what they should and their lights came back on. Typical YW girls camp play). My intent was to remove the lights from the headband and just hold it to read, but I have to say, I found these to be an outstanding source of my 'night-reading' and hands-free I might add, you know, where you don't have to do the pinkie-thumb extension hold and you don't have to set down your flashlight to turn the pages....and decided to keep them the way they were.

This is how I looked while reading.

Here are only a few pictures at this years Pioneer Days Parade: Funny Boys view:

Front view and back view:

Cute view: Sharing candy view: Kai was very generous with all of the candy that was thrown his way. Although, he did struggle a little bit with giving up a tootsie roll. But I just did a Kai (or any kids) pout look and he gave it right over. Um....tootsie rolls are my favorite, okay?!

Wet from the firetruck view: But my favorite view of the whole trip was this: sleeping arrangement view. (what is Katie doing here?) We actually had two bedrooms assigned to our family for the married couples, Jason/Stacey - Jeff/Carolyn and boys - The rest of us were to sleep out in the living room area which was huge, but we all decided to squish into one room, (you can see how excited Jeff was to have us all in there). The walk-in closet is where the 3 little boys were put and then we got 5 mattresses to fit pretty easily. Doug was NOT going to come up, but later got talked into it and came up with carpool #2. Allan and I had ridden up earlier in the day with Carolyn and her boy-carpool #1. Doug, Jeff, Jason/Stacey, Kevin, Katie/Brandon and Shannon all rode up in the Suburban later that night. Jason and Stacey gave up the second bedroom for Doug and I the first night and then he left Saturday night so I traded it back to them the second night.

shannon avenue

Here you go Shannon - another blog just for you. Thanks for 'running/walking' yesterday while I rode my bike. I think we will do it again today. These are some signs we found in San Francisco. I thought you might be able to use them on your facebook page. Allan, kudos to you also....you have ran with me for 2 days now - clarification - when I say run, that means biking for me and running for them.

I do not run. Period.

San Francisco

Doug and I have spent the whole weekend in San Francisco. It has been nice and with the overcast (foggy) days, of course, I have really enjoyed it! We got here about noon on Friday. We enjoyed riding the trolley a couple of times; went to Fisherman's Wharf; saw the famous winding road; went on a boat cruise to the Golden Gate Bridge; at lunch at Boudin's; got to go to the Aquarium on the Bay; rode a city bus line (2 actually) to a science museum at the Golden Gate Park; and of course went to a Goodwill store. Hey, that's how I enjoy my vacation time, okay? Geeze.....

I will try to share a few pictures without going overboard....I just want you to remember that I had a huge blog about a week ago with only 2 pictures, so I might just be doing the opposite thing here.
Riding the 'BART', it's about a 30 minute ride from the airport. $8per person. Better than a taxi - right? First look at a trolleyFirst ride on a trolley - the view behind us: And in front of us... There are rules to follow on the Cable Car. Also, there was this public toilet facility that you would walk into and the door would slide closed and then it gave you 20 minutes to do your thing. After that time it would automatically open the door (it would give you a 2 minute warning bell). The instructions were on the outside. What was interesting is that once you came out - nobody could go right in after you - you had to let the door close on it's own and it would 'de-sanitize' itself before the door opened and the next person could go in. People really had to want to use it I guess because it was right next to the Cable Car line that seemed to never end. I couldn't get over the steepness of the roads and the tiny garages (can you even call them that?).A rare find , an alleyway with a beautiful garden, next to the houses that are built right next to each other - literally - their outside walls are NOT shared, but built right next to each other. An amazing feat I would love to watch! Lombard Street.We didn't eat here, but was interesting to me was that you would be walking along and all of a sudden find a familiar eatery just in one of these older buildings. No tall signs letting you know it's there. They were all like this; Subway, McD's, Taco Bell, etc. We tried not to eat at anything we could get back home. And, of course, we had to scout out a Supermarket( - no kids, not for sandwich stuff this time! Shocker, I know.) Not the corner ones in the downtown area but the big regular ones. They are hard to come by! We had to walk up 6 blocks to get to a decent one! And when I mean up - I mean uphill! But coming back to the hotel was a lot nicer. I will say, if I lived in San Fran, I think I would have amazing calf muscles and my thighs would be toned. Hmm....should we all move here? The bridge cruise: Fisherman's Wharf:Hey kids....should we buy one of these? We found Zoltar and Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. A giant CLAW game;. These last pictures are of us at 2 different aquariums, both really nice. Dad is touching a stingray and a tiger shark.... You can't really tell here, but this fish was huge!What is this thing?You could climb under this tank. My favorite was definatly the jellyfish - and no - this picture is NOT upside down - that is how this particular jellyfish swim. I have a video but I can't get it to down load so I might try and put it one youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUd6I4TbCNU try this. And this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuI_2LoueG0 and this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q7Gr47qt7Q