5/27/2009

My hubs

In my post about the beach, I forgot to mention something.

Brandon wasn't able to go with me because of work. He told me how hard it would be for me to drive alone, and I didn't believe him.

Well, on the way home, I hadn't quite made it to Cedar City (4 hours away still), and I had a breakdown of sorts. Laney was crying, I couldn't fix it, I had to stop and console her, and it was like the last straw. Anyway, I called Brandon and told him how hard of a time I was having, and that I would be home in 4 hours or so. 2 hours later, I look over and he is next to me in our other car! He had driven to meet me to take one of the kids off my hands. And he didn't say, "I told you so." He just scooped Lexi up and put her in his car, gave me a hug, and said he missed me. AND he brought me food.

He's fabulous.


5/26/2009

The Beach!

If you know me, you know that the beach is my absolute favorite place in the world, particularly southern Cali. Last week, I packed the two kids up and drove, by myself, to CA to stay in my sister's beach house. It was a BLAST! But here are some things I learned.



1. I'm NEVER again driving by myself with the kids for a 12-hour trip.

2. Cockroaches are attracted to the smell of poopy diapers.

3. Don't leave poopy diapers on the bathroom floor of the McDonald's to attract said cockroaches.

4. Lexi is terrified of cockroaches. She gets that from her mom. Lexi's reaction was priceless. (convulsing and screaming)

5. Puke does NOT smell good in the car.

6. If I say anything is nice and funny, Lexi will love it. For instance, Lexi was scared at first of the ocean. As soon as I said it was a nice ocean, she was all over it. Just look at the pictures below. She loved the water.




Here's some pics. Lexi LOVED the beach.



This was in the backyard. How could you not like that??

My girls...


My sweet Laney sleeping on the beach. My babies love the sound of the waves.


Lexi woke up and wanted to see the beach every morning. Good thing it was right in the back yard!



This is my fabulous niece Kylee playing with Lexi, and her dad Greg playing with Addie. Kylee is 15, and she's already 5'10". She's also a great playmate to all her cousins.


Chillin' in the beach chair...

This is all Lexi wanted to do- jump over the waves. It was freezing, but she still loved it.


Lexi wouldn't cooperate for this because she was tired. Oh well...



Seriously, thanks so much Rebecca and Joy for opening your beach houses to us. It was awesome!


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5/20/2009

Jacques

Ha! Upon posting this, Brandon had a friend look at the car, and not only is the alternator fine, but there's really nothing wrong with the car at all. Very long story short, it was Jiffy Lube's fault. They tried taking a broken tail light out with pliers, and when it didn't work, they just left it in there. Well, they twisted something in the light so that when we put the car in reverse, it would cause a short with our electricity, and our a/c, windows, and spedometer would go out. Once the light bulb was taken out, our car was fine.

Stupid Jiffy Lube. Word to the wise: Don't take your car there.

And yeah for Jacques! We get to keep him a while longer.

5/15/2009

Car memories...

Sorry, this is a long post. Feel free not to read it....

Our poor little camry has reached his last legs. It makes me sad. I’ve had this car for, what 7 years?

Let’s reflect a little.

I remember seeing that beautiful big pink bow on the hood when I graduated from high school. He was my very generous present from my parents for getting a 4.0 GPA through high school. The first thing I did: put a blue furry steering wheel cover on it. I named him Jack. The license plate was 909 DRJ, so his full name was Dr. Jack.

Then to BYU I went. I was the only freshman with a car, so trusty Dr. Jack and I went to the airport many a times to drop off and pick up friends, friends of friends, or random strangers that knew I had a car. We also did plenty Del Taco runs at 2am with my girlfriends.

I got lost the first time I tried to drive home for a friend’s (Ryan) mission farewell. I accidentally drove to Colorado. Made a 10-hour drive a 16-hour drive. I wish I could have recorded that phone call to Dave, my bro-in-law:
Collect call
Dave: Cassie, what’s wrong? Are you okay?
Me: Dave? I’m… I’m in Colorado. (Crying, of course) Can you get me directions back to AZ?
Dave: (Probably trying to suppress his laughter) Give me the number of the pay phone and I’ll call you back.
Me: Thanks.

I remember an almost fatal car situation: coming home for Christmas, going through snowy Flagstaff when I had never driven in snow. I was passing a semi who started veering into my lane. I slammed on the breaks, which made me skid, which made Jack do a 180 and skid onto the shoulder, now facing oncoming traffic. We were on the shoulder, so we were safe. It’s almost as if Jack was saying, “It’s okay. I got ya.” J
My mom was NOT happy about hearing this story.

Then I had to get a Utah license plate. I was sooo bugged about that. It reads 883 WMJ. He then turned into “Women’s man Jack.”

I came home for the summer, and stayed with my sister Rebecca. LOVED it. You’re awesome, Rebecca. I remember planning to go back to BYU a certain day, I packed my car, and then decided to stay another day. When I went to my car the next day, my piano keyboard had melted in the AZ summer heat. No, it wasn’t fixable. All the keys had melted together.

Sophomore year. Still drove a lot. TONS of 10 hour trips home. My car was broken into that year. When I went to get into my car, I felt like I stumbled onto a murder scene. It truly was traumatizing to see my back window broken and my stereo wires all over the place. It would be $400 bucks to get everything fixed. I didn’t have said money, so I put a piece of cardboard over my window and sang to myself.
My sister Rebecca flew to UT that summer to visit for some reason I can’t think of. She needed to use Jack for her visit, and I went to California for our family vacation. (She would be a couple days late.) She got to Cali, said she needed to get my keys back to me, and when she gave me my keys back, she gave me the faceplate of the stereo she just had installed in my car. All she said was, “Happy late birthday.” She said the window was fixed too. I cried. Like I said, you’re awesome, Rebecca.

Junior year: Started dating Brandon this year. He always drove his car on dates, which is funny now that I think of it because someone had hit him in an accident and you could barely open the doors to get in.
Just a few weeks before we got married, we drove to Lake Powell to have fun in the lake. We stupidly drove right onto the beach. How does a 2-wheel-drive car get out of the sandy beach and back up to the road, you ask? It doesn’t, unless you’re Jack. We prayed really hard, and followed newly made packed tire tracks out. That’s when my car went from Jack to Jacques, the freaking awesome car.

Senior year: Had to drive for pre-student teaching and student teaching. At very early hours. My trusty stereo (again, you’re awesome, Rebecca) made this so much easier.

Found out my Dad died in a motorcycle wreck. Had to drive to my student teaching schools the next morning to tell my teachers that I would be gone the next week for the funeral. Cried my eyes out to “I Can Only Imagine” when it came on the radio. (Look up the song. It’s good.)

Brought Lexi home safely from the hospital.

In an estimated 20 times I’ve made the car trip to AZ and back to UT, Jacques has not once failed me. Never even run out of gas on me.

Now, he might need a new alternator. And he definitely needs new tires. But he fits an incredible double stroller in the trunk like a champ.

We love you, Jacques. Are you attached to your cars? Any good stories?

5/12/2009

Advice

I debated on doing this post, simply because I don't like talking about this stuff. But, I need advice. I need a good birth control while I'm nursing. I only nursed Lexi for two months and didn't have to go through this with her. I'm on the mini-pill right now because my insurance only covers pills and shots. Well, it's working contraceptive-wise, but I'm bleeding all month long. Granted, it's light and only heavy during my regular cycle time, but who wants to bleed all the time?? Not me.

So, all my girlfriends, what has worked for you? My body doesn't go crazy on hormones, and I'm usually just fine with the birth control pill while I'm not nursing. So, my body's not too sensitive.

Any suggestions?

5/10/2009

Fire!

This was our view off our porch yesterday. Don't be too alarmed. It was a scheduled fire to get rid of the old barn. They told us when so we all got ready to watch it burn down. We could feel the heat from our porch. It was pretty cool.


Unfortunately, the camera died shortly after this, so I'll have to post a pic of it all burned down. I was sad to see it go, but now we have a better view out our window.
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