Wild Waves

I meant to do this post awhile back, but obviously just forgot. We had season passes to Wild Waves this summer. The girls absolutely loved it. They love the rides and they love the wave pool. Kimber loves the water slides, but until we can convince Sam that she loves them too, we weren't able to take advantage of that part of the park.

This day we convinced Samantha to try the Pirate Ship. She was very hesitant and refused at first. She did get brave though and LOVED it. (which is how she is with most things - scared at first and then you can't get her away from it).

Luckily our friends had passes too - much more fun with friends!
I love their faces in this picture....

Riding the waves....

Can't wait until next year!

Girls Trip

Some friends from church and I took a little one night trip to Leavenworth this past weekend. It was so much fun.

The Girls:

Katie, Angela, me, Darcy, Dana, Korrin, Diana, Jessi, and Tami

We stayed a great place - the Sleeping Lady. We were in a bunk house that slept 8. It was fun because we could all be in the same room. It also brought back some great BYU memories - there were two showers in the bunkhouse - right next to each other. It hasn't been since freshman year that I could chat it up with someone while showering :) - oh, I guess it's that way at YW camp as well, huh!?!

Anyways - the pool was gorgeous. Such a fun setting, right against the mountain, surrounded by rocks.

Tami and Darcy even convinced me to jump off the "cliff" - that is as close as I'll ever get to cliff jumping! It wasn't even hot either - typically I only swim if it is hot enough out of the water that I can't stand it and have to jump in to cool off. :)
Tami traveled in style in the way back of Korrin's suburban - that way we all fit in one car.

One of the reasons we headed to Leavenworth was to watch the Sound of Music in an outdoor theater. It was quite the experience - real thunder and lightening and rain when the "storm" was happening in the play. It got tricky to tell what was real thunder and what was part of the play. It was a pretty good production - we all seemed to enjoy it.

Waiting for the show to begin:

Ready for bed:
We found this incredible crepe place. We first walked in and were told it would be a wait so we decided we go find somewhere else. As we were walking out we all ended up like this (staring at the yummy crepes being made) and turned right around and put our names in. I had the yummiest dessert crepe for lunch - bananas, hazelnut nougat (nutella), whipped cream, and ice cream. I decided people eat banana and nutella sandwiches for lunch - why shouldn't I? :)

We didn't make it to the real hat store - but found a few in another store to try on...

It was fun. We needed a few more hours (if not another day) - so we could see the whole town. But we enjoyed talking, eating, talking, eating, and a bit of shopping. I realized I didn't spend money on anything that wasn't edible (I am still enjoying the fudge I splurged on - come on over if you want to try some of the best fudge ever!!!)...but the best thing about it...I came home and had lost 2 lbs!!!! :) How does that happen??? :)

When is the next trip ladies??? Thanks again Tami for planning this for all of us!

This Week

On Monday Samantha had a minor surgery done. She had been getting bladder infections too often, and this surgery will hopefully fix that problem.

Here she is in the playroom at the hospital, waiting for her name to be called.
This is her after surgery.

They had to put her out for the surgery. A few times, when we first got to the hospital, she started freaking out. She didn't want to get weighed. She didn't want to put on the hospital clothes. She didn't want to let go of my hand. I explained to her that it was okay to be nervous, but that she couldn't freak out (any of you who have witnessed Sam freaking out, know why I had to say this). She needed to do what the nurses asked her to and I reminded her that she would be sleeping during the surgery so she had nothing to worry about.

Only one of us could walk her back to the room where they would give her the laughing/sleeping gas. Originally I was going to go, but decided to send Konrad instead. I wasn't feeling too great and wasn't sure how long it would take. Plus, I was a tad nervous she was going to freak out. Which she did.

I really should have Konrad write this part - b/c I know he'd do a better job explaining. But from what I hear, she freaked out. Started crying, yelling, and kicking. As he was lifting her onto the stretcher she kicked it - quite a few times. Eventually he had to lay on her as they put the mask over her face and she quickly fell asleep. The anesthesiologist came out after it was over and apologized for how it went down. She said "she seemed so calm when I first talked to her, I didn't think we'd have a problem" - she obviously doesn't know Sam :)

One thing that I thought was cool was that they used Lip Smackers to make the gas smell good. Sam got to choose her flavor and then smear it inside of her mask - she also got to decorate the mask with stickers. We even got to bring the mask home as a souvenir :)

After surgery (which gone done 2 hours early, b/c of a cancelation) we took Sam to Rainforest Cafe - her after-hospital-restraunt-of-choice - then to the candy store at Southcenter. Nothing cures the surgery blues like mini hotdogs and laffy taffy :)

Her recovery has been good. She started getting a really nasty headache and fever Monday night - so we were a tad nervous. Then she threw up in the middle of the night a few times. We were even more nervous then. Then we remembered that Allison had had a fever and headache the Friday and Saturday before. Poor Sam got sick on top of having surgery.

Luckily for us her fever is gone now and hopefully we'll be back to hanging out with friends tomorrow (it was hard missing these past 2 really nice days)!

Other than that this week I finally got around to doing laundry, cleaning the office, canned some pears (more to do tonight), ordered more pears and apples (I'm making applesauce for the first time - anyone have a good recipe?), starting getting the preschool room put back together and working on my lesson plans, found a new doctor, slept a lot, and laid around a lot.

Oh, we also decided we have to cancel our cruise - I will be too pregnant to go. :(

And for those wondering - baby #4 was not planned - I really thought we were done. I sold all my baby stuff about 2 or 3 years ago. I have a porta-crib and now a pack of diapers (Thanks Tami!) for this baby. He/She won't need more than that, right? :)

Sisters

Camping at Deception Pass

Konrad and the girls went camping this past weekend. They had a great time and took lots of fun pictures so I could see all they did...

They played at the beach....

Sang songs....

Went hiking....

Played with friends....

Counted rock money with their new friend Lily....

Acted like monkey's....

Threw rocks at sticks (not that you can tell they are doing this from the picture - luckily Kimber is sitting here helping me narrate this post)

Climbed on many fallen trees....

Carved love notes in tree trunks....(don't tell the tree huggers :))

Discovered cool play places....

Looks like they had a great time, even without the moms! I think this will have to be a yearly thing....right Jana????

Samantha turned 7

Back on July 30th, Miss Samantha turned 7. We had a fun-filled day - including friends, family, and bowling.

Sam has wanted to go bowling forever. We finally made it happen for her birthday. We reserved a couple lanes, added some bumpers, and away 10 girls went.

We had to teach them how to place their fingers....
They enjoyed visiting while they waited for their turns....

Playing with the joysticks....
Cute girls....
Sam in her tutu bowling. Only Sam, right? Aunt Tiff made this tutu last year for Sam's birthday. Sam insisted on wearing it again this year. Wonder how long that will last?
All the girls....
She got to open many wonderful presents.
One of which was a stuffed Scooby. She was pretty excited. When asked what she wanted for her birthday she listed "Scooby Doo things, Tinkerbell things, and clothes"
Our neighbor always gives fun crafty gifts to the girls...
Her bowling alley brownie cake. Super easy and super yummy! We were out of white cake mix and with a very packed full morning, I asked if she would be interested in a brownie cake. She loves brownies much more than cake, so she said YES!


The girls liked the brownies too....
An hour later the "family" party started.

Excited to open more presents...
Anything else in there???
Another Scooby item - this one got a big smile b/c we had already bought this exact lunch box a month or so before AND she received a different kind of lunch box from a friend as well. We returned one Scooby one, kept one Scooby one as a van for her Scooby dolls (picture below), and she will use the lunch box from a friend as her real lunch box when school starts.
Yeah for clothes...
A tinkerbell doll,
Her Scooby dolls...that now have their own Mystery Van to travel in...
We had brownie cake again with the fam, but this time it didn't get turned into a bowling alley. Just a little writing and it was ready to go....
Happy Birthday!
I feel bad that it took so long to get this post posted. Crazy life, I guess.

Anyways, we are really grateful Sam is in our family. She constantly makes us smile and is such a great helper. Love you Sam!!!!