Spencer's Birthday and other things so far this month

We celebrated Spencer's 24th birthday the Sunday after his b-day.  Anne and Meli also joined us.  Meli left to go home to Germany on Mother's day.  We are certainly going to miss her and her sweet personality.  Hopefully, someday we will be lucky enough to see her again.  Here are some of the pictures from Spencer 's birthday.  For Spencer's birthday he requested I make Pulled Pork sandwiches, so we had that and salad, french bread, and veggies. 

 Homemade German Chocolate cake I made for his birthday. My mom use to make this cake when I was a kid.  I loved it then and I love it even more now. 

Me and Meli. It was so fun to have Meli over and talk and giggle together.  She is a fun girl to talk to and she has a very positive optimistic personality.  She is loved by our family! 

 Kara with one of her awards.  She has been very busy this month with play practice, her last improv show, and studying and taking AP tests.  She is so grateful she is done with them. 

 Kara was in a one act play Friday, (May16th) She played Gloom and it was all about not accepting changes well and how we sometimes cling to beliefs or thoughts that aren't healthy for us.  She had described the play to me and it didn't sound like a play I would like, but I was pleasantly surprised.  She did a great job.   The week before that was her last improv performance.  It is such a hard work to be on an improv team.  I never realized all it entailed before, but basically you need to be prepared at any moment to have knowledge and be funny regarding any topic that is thrown at you.

 Yesterday Kara and I went to Westminster college for a whole day student Orientation.  Kara was offered scholarship money for her Science fair project  to Westminster so we spent the day at an orientation.  Westminster is a beautiful college. It is fun to explore the possibilities of different colleges with Kara.

 On Mother's day we had a nice time with the kids, we just missed Coby. The above and below pictures are with my kidlets!   I am grateful that they have become amazing people.  I love them all so much.   I got some very thoughtful gifts from my children and my hubby.  On Saturday while I was at activity days Matt spent the day planting flowers and doing some deep cleaning of our home. It was the nicest surprise!  He is always so thoughtful.  Then he took me shopping for a beautiful gift.  So thoughtful and kind. My children have a great example of what a husband and father should be  

April Happenings....

 Kara got second place at the state competition for Drama/Music.  She competed with the 60 students who made it to state.  She sang her song three times for three different judges.  Then they had the top 9 performers present again. She was one of them and sang in front of a very full auditorium. I would have put that picture on this, but I was so far back you couldn't really hear.    After the performance they had the winners go up to the stage.  Kara got 2nd place. It was funny because she got 2nd place at the Regional event too.  The boy who got first place there didn't place at all.  Kind of funny how that works.

 Just some random pictures of the month of April   Above Matt and I on one of our date nights taking a selfie or is it really a groupie?  

We celebrated out 27 anniversary.  We stayed in the Marriott

Mountainside.  We have the unit for one week from the time share I inherited from my parents, but we only stayed three nights. It is so much cheaper to do it this way rather than paying for a small hotel.  It is nice to have a kitchen and all of the amenities.

In Park city, another one of our selfies.

 Kara went to a dance with her great friend Taegen.  She dressed up as a Pokemon trainer of him.  Not sure what it is called.   Taegan is going to be a foreign exchange student next year.

She went with her improv team.  they had a lot of fun and you can see that they take dressing up and picture taking very seriously.  They are a fun group.  Speaking of improv her improv team performed twice during the month of April.  So two of Matt and I's dates for the month of April were improv events.  

It was Mark's birthday this month and so I decorated his office. I know my brother doesn't really like celebrating his birthday, but I was still surprised when he had all of the decorations down after only an hour.  Luckily, his kids loved the cupcakes my only consolation.

Colton has been doing much better and is on new medication. He seems much happier and this makes me very happy. It was quite scary for a while.   He was able to go to Comic Com and he loved it.  He dressed up as Hans from Frozen. I still have yet to see him in his costume.  He has been working 40+ hours so he seems to never been home.

Spencer moved out on April 27th of this month.  He is now living in Provo and I went and saw his new place and forgot to take a picture.  It is very nice and there are a ton of young people who live right by him.  We hope he likes it.  I certainly miss him, but I realize it is the best thing for him.  He is coming over today so we can celebrate this birthday.

I still haven't finished putting up pictures of our trip to Turkey.  Coby has been in Bulgaria for a young adult conference. He has had a wonderful time.   He lives quite the adventurous life.  We sure miss him and are excited he will be moving closer our way in September.

Happenings in March!

I was supposed to have surgery after I came home from Turkey, but at the last minute I decided not to have it. A few days after I was scheduled to have surgery Spencer came home from work extremely sick and in pain.   Long story short he ended up having his appendix out.   I was able to stay home and be with him for a few days as was Matt and it made me very grateful that I didn't have my intended surgery after all.    I am very grateful for modern medicine and the how blessed we are to live close to hospitals.

I have had a few kids with really bad health problems and I am grateful there is medicine to help them.

March was a whirlwind month and so busy.  Colton struggled a lot and he was having a very hard time with his medication dosage.  I had two complete strangers notify me that his facebook posts were very alarming and wanted to make sure I was aware of what he was saying. Colton and I are friends on facebook, but he has blocked all family members from seeing his posts after I got upset by some of his post.   It was very scary and we are still not out of the thick of things, but I am grateful for complete strangers bringing this to my attention. I definitely feel the love of the Savior through the kindness of others.

Kara was so busy in March.  She had her state science fair at BYU.  She received a partial scholarship to Westminster for her entry.  There were some amazing displays done by some of the high school students throughout Utah.

Kara also competed in the Regional Drama/Music contest.  She scored 2nd place out of the Region and qualified to go to the state competition.   She did a great job!  Kara dated a ton last month.  She got her 3rd quarter report care and got another 4.0.  I was proud of her after missing 6 days of school because we were in Turkey that she could make up all the work and still finish with such awesome grades.   I am so amazed that she does so well with mostly A.P. classes.  Just looking at her homework makes me confused.

The end of March is always hard for me.  I keep thinking that each year it will get better, but I still struggle.  On March 25th it is my dad's birthday and March 26th  is the day my mom died.  This year it was 29 years since my mom died.  Such a long time and I miss her terribly.    I feel sadness that my children don't know her and I also feel sadness when I think about what might have been.

In March I celebrated working 1 year at IDS. I got an excellent raise and I can honestly say about 90% of the time I know what I am doing.  There are just so many compliance laws that I don't know and a lot of coding I struggle with. I never thought that after working somewhere after a year that I would still struggle, but I have learned this is normal.    I do love my job and the people I work with, but I will say there is way too much DRAMA there.  Sometimes it exhausts me and I try to stay out of it.  The team I am on actually had to move our location because there was so much contention among certain people.   Kind of crazy, but at least now I have a bigger desk!

Kara and I went to the first combined Women's meeting together.  It was a great meeting.  I love that I belong to the gospel and it brings light and meaning into my life.   I am so grateful for my membership. 

Kara did two improv shows within one week of each other. Her improv show is generally the last Friday of the month.  It just so happens that it is always on the week of our emergency preparedness evening in our ward.  So Matt goes to that and I go and see Kara perform.  She always does such a nice job.  One of her young women leaders came to her show and I thought it was so nice of her and her daughter to be so supportive.

On the last Sunday in March we went to a Turkish fireside in Orem.  Kara was asked to sing the song she sand in church when we were in Turkey.  Coby's branch president comes to Utah every 6 months for conference so he can translate conference into Turkish.   Anyways, at the fireside there was a HUGE attendance.  It was fun because so many people knew Coby and were telling us how awesome he was and what a difference he has made in the lives of the people in Turkey!  It was a pay day for being a mom!

Day 4 in Turkey

 We got up early in the morning and headed out for another exciting day in Istanbul.  I wore a little more color on this day and a more fitted shirt.  Most of the women are completely covered in Turkey so wearing something more fitted is not a good idea.  I felt stared at all day until I put on a scarf.   It was warm when we first left the apartment but it got much colder as the day continued.  

We went on the boat and then walked and walked with the intention of walking to a certain area where we could see a spectacular view of Turkey.  We rode a tram up in the air (it was really fun).  Once we got there we walked up a ton of stairs to get an even better view.

 What the trams looked like

 The view from the top--it was breath taking.

 Some of our groupie pictures

 More pictures of the view

 After enjoying the view we stopped and got some ice cream.  This ice cream tasted totally different than anything I had ever tasted.  

 Once finished with the ice cream we decided to walk to see the wall. It was a long walk.   I think we got a little lost, but I could be wrong.  While looking at the wall we saw a horse that was dying slowly. It really upset Kara and I.  We tried to tell some of the workers about it, but since there are so many animals that roam the streets without an owner Coby thought it was fruitless.   I hate seeing sad things and seeing anything suffer.

 After leaving this area we headed for a museum, the only problem was that we weren't sure where to find it.  This is the only day that I ever felt a little scared.  I felt like we were walking aimlessly around  and I just wanted to ask someone for directions to get to the museum.  We walked awhile and as we walked we went through neighbors where the owners were on their decks staring at us.  I still didn't realize how much we stood out.  I kept thinking we were blending in, but Americans look very different and Turkish people are fascinated with Americans.  They think American women are very beautiful since they don't have dark hair, dark eyes, and their features are shaped very differently. If you don't think you are very attractive, then go to Turkey and you will feel much more beautiful (I am not kidding). :)

 Anyways we kept walking and most of the apartments looked deserted or like the slums.  Finally we saw some other tourists walking around and I felt much better.  Then we came to a building that looked like it was completely run down.  Coby and Kara wanted to walk up the stairs (they really couldn't be called stairs). I didn't mention that we had been walking up the hill for over an hour and the thought of walking up another 60 broken stairs didn't sound appealing.  But I didn't want to be the party pooper so we walked up the stairs and the above and the ones below are of the view.  Honestly, I just sat down as I felt like my life had been spared.  I just wasn't sure how we would get down the stairs.

 We left the area a little prematurely as I wanted to get down the scary stairs and there were people watching us the whole time we were up there.  Then we were able to continue going up the hill to look for the museum  (I seriously thought when I got home I would have lost 10 pounds with all the walking we did, but I found I had gained a pound.  I can't lose weight to save my life).

 Once we found the museum we had to get some water. We were so thirsty.   We went thought the museum, but I didn't' take any pictures; I think I was too tired.

Later that day we took a scary taxi ride. I think Coby thought I was too tired to walk for another hour to our next destination.   I honestly can say that this was the scariest taxi ride I have EVER taken.  There were two times I thought for sure I was going to die.  They put so many people on the taxi that you can't even wear a seat belt.