spastic nerve

As some of you might have heard I'm suffering from some spastic nerve pain in my face. I'm not really sure what's causing it, but I sure hope it goes away soon because it is not fun! I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd post some pictures.


Owen has always loved his animals. Ever since bunny was givin to him at 9 months old by a nice old lady at a garage sale (completely new thank heavens). Here you can see he somehow rescued my old sunshine carebear from a box. Nowdays he loves subjecting his animals to naps, timeouts, and eating meals with him. He also loves to throw them down the stairs or make huge piles of them. I've never loved stuffed animals but they're sure a lot better than real animals right now.

Homemade Icecream

Two Sundays ago we made homemade icecream. Owen loved it and pretty much watched it the whole time. It was really good too so I'm challenging everyone reading this to make homemade icecream and post a picture on your blog. You won't regret it!
Here is what I did while Owen made the ice cream. I look pretty happy!

Back from camp

I survived girls camp! Well not only survived but I actually loved it and learned a lot. It was an awesome experience. The girls in our ward have all been through so much and I really respect them. It was also so fun to hang out with the other leaders. I think we had a little too much fun because we hardly slept. Our CF card is still lost so I didn't take any pictures, but I'll have to get some from friends to post.

After sleeping a lot Friday and Saturday we had a fun date night with our friends and then picked up Owen to go play shuffle board at the Hershey Hotel. It was fun like always and we even picked up a new friend. Well I should say Owen did. When we got home Jeff found that a lovely tick had attached itself on the back of Owen's neck. Surprisingly this is our first tick ever living here. Owen was pretty brave during the removal but kept saying "That bug hurt me." I woke up multiple times last night with the feeling of ticks all over me. I guess after a week of sleeping outside with a lot of bugs and then Owen getting the tick, I couldn't get it out of my head.

Jeff has one week left of his third year! We're really looking forward to his fourth year.

The blunder at the track

I am kind of new at posting blogs, so I messed up a little in the order I posted. You should look at and read the next blog post before this one. This is a picture of Owen at the racetrack. Normally when I run my truck around our house with Owen, he gets a little nervous and runs in the house wanting to watch through the window. I think that he is a little scared of it because it is loud. However, at the track, where he can watch at somewhat of a distance, he really enjoyed watching it race around and go off the jumps. Caroline said Owen kept saying "I'm not scared" and "daddy's truck goes fast" as the truck would go whizzing.







These next two pictures illustrate what happened when I gave Caroline a turn to drive it around. The ironic thing is while I was flying off jumps and crashing into the siderailings all the time nothing ever happened; but almost as soon as Caroline takes the controls she snaps the bottom left rear suspension arm on a bolt sticking out of a siderail. It made a really loud cracking noise and we both knew that something broke. I wasn't mad at all. We actually had a pretty good laugh at the time.





Luckily, the part was only a few dollars and it only took me about 20 minutes to fix. This is a picture of the finished product.

The R/C Racetrack

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go down to Mount Joy to an R/C racetrack to run my Traxxas Revo. It was a great day to go. The weather was perfect and there wasn't anyone else at the track, so we had it all to ourselves. Here are some pictures of me driving the little truck around. It was a blast. My little truck goes over 40 mph! This allows it to really fly off the jumps. Caroline was able to catch it in the air in one of the pictures. Nice photography! Caroline and I often joke about my purchase of this r/c truck. I think we both agree that it is my way of trying to relive a little of my childhood that I am so fond of. Now that I am 30 year old, I need to do whatever I can to retain my youthfulness. This track is a lot of fun because it is outdoors and made for offroad vehicles. When Brad and Laurissa came to stay with us over Christmas break, Brad and I went to an indoor r/c racetrack not far from here to run my truck. That was a blast to, but it catered more to r/c cars and not trucks. Also, because it was indoors all the exhaust built up which made it hard to breath. My truck runs on nitro fuel which is a mixture of methanol and 10% nitromethane. The owners make you add scent to your fuel tank to help with the smell. Cherry is the most common, so it just ends up smelling like cherry exhaust. Needless to say, the outdoor track is a more pleasant experience.

Camp chaos

Well I'm not sick of looking at that picture of Jeff and me, but I'm sure everyone else is. Life is pretty crazy right now. Jeff is currently doing night float, which means he stays up all night and then comes home and sleeps all day. I personally don't like it at all. It's annoying because I can't go in our bedroom much and Owen likes to say "Time to wake Daddy up!" I think just to annoy me. I'm just glad Jeff isn't going into anything too tuff. I couldn't stand 24 hr shifts all the time. What else is going on in our lives? Well besides being pregnant and not feeling the best I've had so much to do for girls camp. I'm getting there but still have lots to do. I'll be glad when it's over. I just got done teaching our skit to the girls and it was really fun. It made me wish I could be in it with them. We've been having awesome weather so I knew we were if for it next week. The forcast is high 80's low 90's. That's fine when you're in Utah, but try Pennsylvania with about 100% humidity atttached to it. And it doesn't cool down at night like in Utah. I think I'm going to die next week. I can hardly sleep with it's 75 with a fan blowing on me. Well the house is a mess, Owen is in the tub, and it's not getting any earlier so I better go! Hope you liked the exciting update!

5 Years...almost

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how Jeff and I are coming up on our 5 year anniversary. I can't believe it's been that long. I am girls camp director for our ward this year and when I work with the Young Women I feel like I was just there, but I know they see me as really old. It's just funny how time has changed me but I don't feel anything like I thought I would at 24! Anyway so glad I married Jeff! He is such a great husband and works so hard for our little family. I am so proud of him with only one year left in Medical School. I wish I could share more of him with all my family. He's always making Owen and me laugh, and we love just hanging out with him. Love you Jeff!

Two Extremes

We had so much fun on Saturday together as a family. We got up early and went to Hershey Park before the crowds hit. Owen loves the rides and we all got to ride the new ride together. We saw the sea lion show then made it home in time for nap. In the evening we went swimming at our pool. It was a little cold, but Jeff finally got Owen to get in and we all had fun. Owen loves splashing us in the face which is kind of annoying! But unfortunately our day couldn't end perfect and Owen threw up right before bed and continued every hour until morning. So we went from having so much fun to being pretty miserable. I'm a little too tired to write anything else exciting. Can't wait to he healthy again!

Just One More Page!!!!!

I admit today I was ignoring Owen. After lunch I told him he could play for 10 more minutes before nap while I went upstairs and read. Well I just couldn't put my book down, even when it got really quiet downstairs and I knew Owen was up to something. I heard little noises so I knew he was still alive, but instead of checking on him, or even calling down to him, I just read on. Ten... twenty... thirty... forty minutes passed! Finally my two year old ascended the stairs and revealed his crime. No, this time it wasn't chocolate or even flushing all the toilet paper down the toilet. Owen had found the camera and spent forty blissful minutes of his life playing with it unsupervised. These are his shots. I let him finish by taking one of me, and then I took one of him. Does he look happy or what?

Lunch

As some of you know Owen stopped eating bread at about 15 months old. He just decided he didn't like it. He still won't eat it which has been very frustrating! A few weeks ago I decided I was sick of having to fix him something like noodles or rice for lunch everyday. So we decided to make peanut butter and honey sandwhiches with crackers. He loves them and now we eat them all the time for lunch! I love lunch time, Owen is always really talkative and tells me lots of funny stuff.

May Recap

Here are Owen and Zanna at HersheyPark on the train. Owen LOVES trains. I guess we can contribute that to Jeff's genes since his Dad and Grandpa both drove trains their whole life.

Owen was playing outside the other day and he made himself a "fire" in his sandbox. He got out his camping chair and even some propane bottles from our shed. He played with it for almost 2 hours!

Then he got to go camping for real with Jeff this weekend. They went to our ward's priesthood commemoration campout. He had so much fun and keeps telling me all about it. All afternoon yesterday he kept saying "I rost a marsh-a-mallow and it's sticky all over my face. An I sleep in a tent with Daddy." He really wants to go again and I think I might just be brave enough to go with him as long as I have a mega sleeping mattress. (I didn't like camping last pregnancy so I vowed not to do it again.)

Here are some pictures of our birthday party! It was a lot of fun! I love my little family! They were so nice. Jeff has been so busy but still managed to make a cake and get me presents. I'm so lucky to have the best two boys in the world! And thanks everyone for sending gifts and calling and talking to me. I love the shirts Miriam and Lizzy and I can't wait to buy some maternity clothes everyone else. Thanks Mom and Dad for the help with our new bed and I love the pajama pants and special Utah treats! Everyone is the best.

Waiting

Well I know you're all dying to see pictures of my awesome birthday bash but Jeff took Owen camping this weekend and took the camera so you'll just have to wait. Thanks everyone for remembering me on my birthday! I had a super day.

So for everyone who is a big fan of Broadway musicals they're bringing Les Mis back to New York for 6 months. I really want to go see it but Opening day is Nov. 7th. I don't think I'll be hopping up to NYC with a 3 day old baby but we'll probably go see it next spring! Anyone up for coming with me? Seeing a musical on Broadway is amazing! I get the chills just thinking about it!

Love you too.

Last night while tucking Owen into bed:

Caroline, "Owen I love you."

Owen, "Ya, I love Daddy."