Youth in Asia

Above is Abe and David bowling together. I love this picture! When we were bowling I couldn't find the right size ball. I bowled like 5 gutter balls before finally picking up Kimi's 8 pound ball. It fit perfect and the rest of the game went pretty well for me.

For the last year I have declared youth in Asia on our dog Scout. Many times I have tried to convince my family that we need to get rid of the naughty little Boxer. I have gotten no where with my argument. David, Abe and Dallin are going to make me pay for my dog mistake for the next 15 years. I work really hard at hating her. The problem is this.... she loves me back! No matter what I do, her love is unconditional. On Friday Dave and I just about came to blows over the dog. (again) I really wanted her gone. But on Sunday something happened that made me realize... this dog will love me through anything.

Bare with me, getting to my dog point has a scenic route.

My mom doesn't believe she hurts my feelings. She believes I can choose to have my feelings hurt. But she doesn't believe that she has ever hurt my feelings. Because... she didn't set out to hurt my feelings. Having said that, I think that's crap. She and other people have hurt my feelings on several different occasions. However this line of thought has been drilled into my head. My mom informing me that I can only choose to have my feelings hurt and my dad telling me to just get over things. This is the way I was raised. It is embedded in my soul

Having said that.... On Sunday one of my friends hurt my tender little feelings. ( I actually don't get my feelings hurt very often. ) Upon realizing the situation that had led to my hurt feelings, I began to cry. I stood up, walked to my bathroom, put down the toilet lid, took a seat and wept. That dumb dog realized what was going on as soon as I began to cry. She followed me to the bathroom and laid on the floor right outside the door until I came back out. She then followed me around right by my leg and kept looking up at me.

This stupid dog.... That I have been trying to euthanize or give away for over a year... totally cared that I was sad. No wonder people like their dogs so much. Dogs are the most faithful, comforting things on the face of the earth. Scout didn't care if I brought my hurt feelings on my self. And she didn't care that I "choose" to have my feelings hurt. All she cared about was trying to make me feel better. Dumb dog. Why does she have to be so good to our family?
Abe and Dallin loving each other at the Bowling ally. They love to bowl, and I love to watch them.

Last Christmas David bought me some PJ's. With these PJ's he gave me this pair of yellow poke a dot underwear. Upon receiving these underwear, I thought... oh that's nice... underwear. I was so wrong. These underwear came from Gap Body. They are heaven sent! Oh how comfortable these underwear are! They are perfect for working out in. The cotton blend is so soft and it wraps around my booty perfect! They make me so happy. As my booty expands with each month that my baby grows I find my self longing for more then one pair of these perfect underwear. ( Kimi and I work out every day, and they are perfect for just that.) So the other day I went back to Gap and bought some more underwear. I bought 3 pairs for 20 dollars. However, if you don't buy 3 pairs they are 15 dollars a piece! 15 dollars each! I just about died when I saw that. The problem is this... once you've had these amazing underwear... nothing else will do! Normally I'm not the kind of person who buys 15 dollar underwear, but there just so wonderful I would be a liar if I said I wouldn't be willing to pay twice that just to feel them lovingly wrap around my huge butt. That's the problem with the finer things in life. Once you have it... you can't go back.
Dallin would sit on the floor and watch his ball roll all the way down, every time he threw it. It was really cute.

We finally have orders for the next few years. We will be moving to Ft. Hood Texas. This is not Hawaii. At first I was very sad. But now I'm pretty excited to become a Texan. There is flaws in this new plan. The biggest flaw being... David will deploy again before the end of the summer. School gets out on May 22nd. May 22nd we will drive to Florida for 5 days and go to Disney World. (Right now military gets into Disney World for SUPER cheap.) We think it's important to do something fun with the boys before their dad is gone for yet another year of their life. After Disney World we will drive to Texas, drop off Kimi and the dog with my sister LeAnne... and then continue on down to Ft. Hood.

Dave will be deploying with in 8 weeks of our arrival in Texas. I can take a lot. But I don't feel like I can handle 2 little boys, 1 new born, 1 down syndrome sister and a naughty dog all by my self with no support. So we are headed back to Washington to crash at my parents with my sister Shelly. Our family goal is for Abraham to attend 3rd and 4th grade in the same place. Since it's not going to happen before then.
For those of you that don't know... My mom is/ was a very serious bowler. I like to think she has nothing on me!

Some times I think I'm a pretty good little Army wife. Please don't get me wrong I HATE being with out David. But as far as being cut out for the life style I do ok. Example: When I think of Dave being gone for a year I hardly ever think of the parts that suck. Most of the time I find my self very excited that I'll get to take the kids to Dave's parents for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break. This is a rare treat and something they will love. I think about how awesome it will be to be by my Washington friends and how sweet it will be to work out and shock Dave with a hot bod when he comes home on R&R. I really hardly ever think of the hard times. Mostly just the good. I feel like if you don't focus on the awesome parts, you'll drive your self nuts. And for everyone information.... Don't look at me with your sad little eyes and tell me how you don't know how I do it. I HATE it when people do that. Please understand that my husband is a soldier. This is a choice we made. Until the day that we unmake that choice he will remain a soldier. Soldiers have to go and do what is needed. This involves some families left behind. It's a fact of life. There is no way around it. America needs it's soldiers, Dave is one, this will involve deployments. Yes he might die. But so might everyone else. It's not a point I choose to spend any time on.
This is my cute little family. We love having Kimi with us. Speaking of such... I think I mentioned that Kimi gets me to the gym on a very regular basis. Well since she has moved in with us she has lost 14 pounds. I hope it's the gym and not stress.:)

I'm going to sound off the the whole Micheal Phelps situation. Here is what I've got to say.... Who is surprised? I'm not. College kids smoke pot. I personally don't think it should be against the law. I think it should be a 21 thing. I've been around drunk people and high people.... I'll take the high ones. The kid is not LDS, and full of fame. What else do people expect? Everyone has different reasons for not smoking pot. In high school I didn't because it didn't appeal to me. After high school, I had decided to be a good Mormon. Mormon boys don't smoke pot because if they do they wont get to serve their missions. But if your not LDS finding a reason not to is probably difficult. The law doesn't take Pot very seriously. So why should anyone else? Getting all fuzzy and eating snacks sounds pretty good some days. ( I'm not now or will I ever smoke pot.) I just think every one should dig their pantie out of there butt... teach their kids to watch them and other truly good roll models and get over it.
Kimi maintains this pose until her ball hits the pins. It's awesome!

Everyone is from some where. These places are very different from each other. Dave was raised in Orem Utah. Where the girls are blond, they have very tight body's, everyone is happy and everyone runs. I was raised in Benton City Washington. Where a tight body is something 15 year olds have, most people color their hair with a box off the grocery store shelf, and the cross country team runs every fall. We are from very different places. I often get teased about where I'm from, by Dave's brother. Back in 2002 I happen to wear a pair of cut of shorts and a tee shirt I had cut the selves off of one very, very hot Utah day. I did so because Dave had been playing outside volleyball for hours! I was baking and didn't have anything else to wear. With no hope of the game ending, I put on some thing I could catch some rays in... with out wearing a swimming suit. I have never lived this down. Ever since then my poor town has been under attack by one Tommy Peterson.

This story came to my mind the other day when I realized we we're out of oil. But we wanted to make some brownies. My solution? Well I just pulled the oil out of our deep fat fryer and used it. Now in my defense the oil had only been used once for donuts. However it did lead me to that ever faithful saying... you can take the girl out of the town, but you can't take the town out of the girl. I hated Benton City growing up. All I wanted to do was leave. I now realize that everything about that tiny Eastern Washington town is burned onto my soul. And I'm really ok with that. Who I am today, has much to do with my beginnings in Benton City Washington. And I wouldn't change a thing.
Abe and Dallin waiting for their cars to race.

Dave and I have a theory. One he agrees to! We think people from Utah are shiny. They just have this little glow about them. In addition to being shiny... When a person from Utah is about to tell you where they are from they get a certain look in their eye. I have come to identify this look. It's a look that makes you think they might be about to tell you their actually from Disney Land. But it always turns out to be Utah. Being from Washington, I didn't realize that most Mormons come from Utah. Did anyone see American Idol Salt Lake? Everyone was so happy! It was wonderful to watch. I would like to thank Utah Mormons for representing and making us all look good.
Abe and Dallins cars are in the middle. Dallins was blue with money stuck on it. Dave painted Abes pine block into a bus. It was awesome! Abe's bus was the slowest of the night. But he loved it! He still plays with it every day.

I know this blog is random. And I know it's not just about what my kids are doing. I'm sorry about that. My poor head is full of random things all day long. I have to have a sounding board to let it out. If you don't like it, don't read it.