Our March Madness

The lack of blogging has been, unfortunately, due to my dead laptop. Luckily we have a desktop as well, but it has no volume or webcam, rendering my hulu and skype routines useless. I guess you never know what you have til its gone! If only it could have held on a few more months!!

The month of fun has continued as we had Jared's family visit, we made our last Disney day with Jared, and I got to go see a taping of Ellen and have a day off.

Ryker with Grandpa, post-motion sickness. We had a bumpy start to the long day at the parks but it was well worth the stay. The kids were angels! We loved showing Dax all the fun shows.

Last day at Disneyland with Daddy as a passholder. It was crowded, but beautiful and so much fun to do all our favorites. We will miss it terribly if we move out of Socal.

After a whole Disney day, Keke (his spelling) was wiped out. Changing him in the trunk looked so comfy I debated letting him spend the night there.

Monday I took a "personal day" off from my mom life to be Paige again. It was an absolute blast, even simply strolling the aisles of Target at my own pace. The above group, Erica, Britt, Annie, Me, Ang, Jayna, and Heather, spent the better part of the day waiting in lines for the Ellen show taping, then used our free time by shopping at eating lunch at Cheesecake Factory.

...Oh, and straightening/curling our hair at a mall booth after enduring non-stop rain for hours.

It was so much fun.

Back to real life...

Mimi's Visit

Our month of fun continued with a visit from my mom, known to the boys as Mimi.

She was nice enough to share her half-century birthday with us, and carried on the "birthday donut" tradition.


I had planned a surprise lunch with my nearby great-aunt, her granddaughter and baby, plus a drop-in visit from my aunt (Mom's sister) from Vegas. My aunt ended up rolling her car as she was leaving and, understandably, couldn't make it. We were sad to miss her, but mostly just grateful she was ok!

The two little ones were very engaged in their iPhones, begging the question, what did parents do at restaurants before now?!


We were also happy to oblige a trip to Disneyland. I think she was concerned the kids would be sick of it by now, but that is definitely not the case! We had another good time and were happy to share all our favorites.
Her trip was not complete without a trip to the Griddle Cafe for breakfast. We ate until we could eat no longer, then sent her off back home.

(Don't mind the ugly facade- its amazing)

We had so much fun with Mimi and were sad to see her go. Even still Ryker wants to call her multiple times a day on the phone just to chat.

Nicholas' First Talk

Nicholas gave his very first talk at church today and I got to be his special helper. It was funny to see how he had absolutely no fear walking up to the podium to give his talk. They announced his name and he strode up there like it was nothing.
So before the talk I tried to explain the whole concept to him and we practiced a bit, but of course that didn't really help once it was "go time." We missed the first part of the talk, which was the funniest, because of memory issues. But basically we spent the first minute with me whispering in Nicholas' ear and then him making noises into the microphone like he was a pint sized Darth Vader. Once he finally got the hang of it is when the video starts. Our favorite parts are when he repeats himself and says his words in a very deep voice.

Judge for yourself how he did but when a member of the ward asked Nicholas "Hey buddy, how did your talk go?" He replied happily "It was Great!"

The Big Question

Lately I have had lots of people asking me the same question- "What are Jared's plans after graduation?"

Good question

As much as I love answering the same thing over and over I thought I would put it here in writing to clear the air.

We have no idea where we are going, all we know is we will be going somewhere! We are definitely here until July but after that is unclear. Most jobs in Jared's field (Hospital Admin.) have openings and fill them fairly soon after, so that means he really can't start doing too many interviews until he is closer to graduating.

As to the "where?" question, we are pretty open. Well, maybe I am pretty open. We have mental lists of approved states and cities we wouldn't mind living in, and I am a bit more willing to try something different. My thinking is, our boys are young enough and perhaps our years of picking up and moving (without much effort or opposition from kids) are winding down. We would love to live in AZ, FL, OH, TX among others, and we might make exceptions for certain fun cities like Portland, Seattle, Boise, Atlanta, or places near the beach.

In some ways I am very excited- I love change. As a result of moving so much I think I learned to enjoy trying new things and meeting new people. Its also fun to think we could be that much closer to settling somewhere and maybe someday getting a house. But also get stressed out thinking we will be moving and I have no idea where. Buying clothes for the boys I think, will I need more warm weather clothes or cold weather ones? The spontaenous side of me is loving it, the planning side is going nuts.

All I know for now is we are here for the next few months to really get to know this city. It wouldn't surprise me if we stuck around til August but then again, who knows!! We will keep you posted.