Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I missed all the holidays! Life has certainly been busy! But now that I am sitting down at the computer actually ready to write, I am drawing a blank!

My niece, Kristie Norton, got to come up from California and stay here for a couple of weeks. It was so fun to see her! She was here just before Thanksgiving. She’s so cute! She is a huge Twilight fan, so of course we went and saw Twilight together…Oh, the memories! And she stayed at our house for a couple of days. I’m so glad I got that time with her. We don’t get down to California very often.

We just got back from a cruise to the Western Caribbean. That was a blast! All 5 of us went for my birthday. Not really, that was just an excuse. But it worked for me! I’ll go to Jamaica and Grand Cayman anytime! In Jamaica Mark and I walked to the Farmer’s Market to find some mango's. While we were walking around, he saw two Jamaican’s playing domino's in the back. We stopped to watch them play and Mark started talking smack, telling them that he could school them and that he would send them home crying to their baby mamas. It was hilarious to hear him talk because he sounded just like them! So they pulled up a chair, found a friend and the game was on! It was fun to watch. Mark attracted a crowd, who of course, were all smoking huge joints. They were all impressed with how well he played. They asked how he learned and he explained that he used to live in Jamaica. That he was one of the guys that wore a white shirt with the name tag. They all knew the missionaries. It was fun to see him interact with them. I didn’t know he could speak Patois so well!

The next day we got to spend on Grand Cayman. We got to see our wonderful friends there, Cyndy, Casey, Ginny, Murray and Hannah! What fun to spend the day with them. They took care of Mark while he was on his mission. We spent a day in Cozumel, a few days at sea, ate way too much food and had a great time. It was a fun trip.

Jace lost his first tooth this week! Yeah! He got his first visit from the Tooth Fairy. He was so cute! He’s been trying to loose that tooth for about 2 months now. He even tried to get Grandma to pull it out with the pliers! No such luck! He ate apples and tootsie rolls and anything chewy. All to no avail. But, on Sunday last week, we were at Grandma Neilene’s house and she finally got it out for him. He is so happy!

Mark’s nephew Blake just moved in with us! He’s been here for just over a week. He’s so fun! We are glad to have him with us! He seems glad to be here and he is really adjusting well. He played several basketball games last week, hung out at the Jeffrey’s home nearly every day and he went out to see two movies. He went to church with us on Sunday and said he really liked the ward. He especially loved the Priest's Quorum because they talked about sports the whole time. He's been having alot of fun, but he is out of money. Time for him to find some income! He applied at several places last week and today we went to LDS Employment Services. He's got plans and that is a good thing. I really think this move is good for him. He’s so well-mannered and such a great kid! We are going to take pictures soon and I will post them. I'll post a picture of Jace's missing tooth, too!

I'll be back!

My lack of internet these days has kept me from posting, but not to worry, I'll be back online soon!

Crazy Costco Creep!

Can I just say that single parents are my heroes?!! Seriously! Mark has been gone for eight days and I am exhausted! I am not walking, not sprinting, but RUNNING (we're talking mad dash, here) towards the finish line! One week down, six more to go! Ugh! Luckily, my daycare kids will slowly stop coming. That should ease a lot of the stress for me. Plus, we don't have to worry about putting the house up for sale and showing it, because Susie is going to buy it. That in itself is a HUGE blessing! I am so happy that everything is falling together. Mark and I are both thinking, "This is way to easy...when is the bomb going to drop?" Hopefully it won't drop at all and we will be able to move as planned. We are down to 42 days, yeah!

So, being a single parent and needing to go shopping, I decided to take the kids to Costco last night (Friday night) rather than today, a busy Saturday afternoon. I figured that most people would be on a date, or out with friends on a Friday night so it wouldn't be too crowded and I'd be able to grab what I needed and get home quickly. I didn't think about all the crazy loon's that DIDN'T have friends or couldn't GET a date that would be hanging out at the local Costco!

The kids were hungry so I decided to feed them while we were there. Aren't I a nice mom? It was a gourmet meal, I know! Hey, you can't beat a hot dog and soda for $1.50! As we sat there eating a man sat at the table right in front of us, facing me, even though most of the other tables were empty. Borderline creepy. I thought it seemed odd, but I just kept talking to the kids and didn't pay any attention to him. Then he started talking! Way beyond creepy! I smiled and was polite, but kept my answers short and avoided eye contact. Caden's dinner was suddenly very interesting to me! During what I can only describe as an "interrogation", I told him that we weren't from Texas, and only when he asked, I told him that we were originally from Utah. Harmless enough, or so I thought! "Those Mormon's!" he said. Caden's head perked up and my heart sank. I could tell by his tone that this was going to get interesting, and I was a little worried because he had Caden's full attention. I guessed that now was as good a time as any for him to start preparing for a mission! I know he will have plenty of experiences like this in the field.

This man claimed to know Brigham Young the 3rd, and made some inappropriate comments about multiple wives and Viagra and how this particular descendant of our beloved prophet was "livin' the dream" so to speak. I was floored! My poor kids' dinner was cut very short, to say the least! I started cleaning up napkins that were on the table and began urging my children to eat quicker. He kept going on and on! I couldn't believe it! Could he NOT see my children right in front of him? His comments were insulting and crude. I was getting flustered because his misconceptions of the church were horrible! He started talking about Joseph Smith and kept going on and on...I then came to the stunning realization that my kids eat SO FREAKING SLOW!! As I was picking things up off the table, I looked at Caden who was watching me and I realized I had three options here. Option 1: I could just get my kids and walk away without saying a word; Option 2: Completely slam the guy and make sure knew how I felt about him and his "opinions" but in all honesty, what good would that really do, anyway?; or Option 3: "Quiet Dignity" - something that my wonderful mission president, President Pratt, used to talk about often. I opted for #3. As I stood up, I calmly said, "I don't know anything about your friend, Brigham Young the 3rd, but being LDS myself, I do know that he is not a member nor is he associated in ANY way with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints if he is practicing polygamy. That is something that our church stopped practicing over 100 years ago." The man wouldn't quit! I remained calm, put Jack in the cart, took Jace's hand and with Caden following, we all walked away. I knew arguing with him would just cause more contention and it would do absolutely no good. Plus, I had all three boys with me so I needed to remove them from the situation as quickly as possible.

When we walked away I asked Caden if he had any questions about what just happened. He thought for a second and said, "I could tell he was saying bad things about our church, but I didn't understand some of the words he said." Even my ten year old could feel the negative spirit that was there. I explained to him that there are some people who don't know alot about our church, but they think that they do. I compared it to playing one of his XBOX 360 games: If I came into the media room and tried to tell you what to do next to get to the next level, would you listen to me? He laughed and said no because I never play his video games and I wouldn't know what I was talking about. I laughed at his response and told him that was exactly what it was like with people like this man. So when he starts telling us what he THINKS we believe, then we just need to let it go and not listen to him because he doesn't really understand what he is talking about.

Caden nodded his head and a big smiled crossed his face as he asked if I wanted to go play a 360 game with him when we got home....Gotta love kids! Not much ruffles their feathers for too long!