Do you remember? The 21st night of September?

I didn't want to forget to post my favorite song on my favorite day of the year!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iknEJf9cPeY

Possessed?

We just experienced the most horrible, horrible night. We were rudely awakened at 3:00am by a whining, yelling and I should mention almost 4 year old girl. I won't go into the details but I will just say what followed was 1 and a half hours of non-stop devilish screaming and thrashing. I am not exaggerating--non-stop, 1.5 hours. She was relentless. Just as I was concluding she truly must be possessed by an evil spirit. As she was taking a breath, I was able to sneak in, "How about we go see if the pigs are sleeping?" (yesterday we had stopped off on the side of the road to look at some pigs) She finally stopped. Just like that. If she was able to control her screaming I guess she wasn't posssessed after all. Or maybe the evil spirit she possessed calmed down in looking forward to joining the swine. In retrospect even she doesn't know why she acted like that. As I am writing this Tai is a sweet, polite angel. I don't get it? This happens at night about once every 6 months.

One Sunday Afternoon

A few weeks ago here in Utah the dedication of the Oquir Mountain Temple was broadcast to the stake centers. I went to the morning session and Mark to the afternoon session. It was here that I once again realized I am getting old. For the first time in my life I wished I had arrived early to sit on a soft bench. Although I enjoyed the dedication mentally/emotionally. I did not however in the slightest degree enjoy it physically. I couldn't sit still. I had to shift positions every 5 seconds. The chairs were so hard I couldn't believe it. Were these different chairs? No, the same chairs they have always been, yet they had never been so hard. I looked around to see if anyone else had a problem. Nope, not one wiggle from anyone else. I even considered leaving early it was so bad, but I stuck it out and now I understand when someone says "Let's go early to get the soft chairs" I get it. I am old. Plus, I now like olives and I never have before.
Here we are picking up Mark from the Temple dedication. It was a windy and lovely afternoon.

On the way home we stopped to see some horses...

...and a train

Then Tai built a tower...in all honesty I don't know if this is the same Sunday or not.

Then Mark built me a special message. I thought it was really sweet :)

Did you notice this does not look like our house? That is because we moved. We moved south about 20 min to Springville. I now can get to work in one minute flat by jogging then hopping the fence in front of our townhome. It is glorious! It saves at least 40 min. of driving a day, plus a whole bunch on gas. We don't need to drive anywhere. We have Walmart, Wendy's, Del Taco, a bank, our church, and a church family storage/cannery center just to mention a few all within walking distance. This makes it awesome for Mark. Plus, we don't have to do yard work, we have a huge grassy area connected to our back porch, a playgound, trails, a workout room and an indoor pool. I love our new place! The day after we got back from Mexico we decided to go look at this place, we signed the lease the same day and the next day we moved.
It was so fast! That made it sound so easy. It wasn't.

What a summer! Part 1

Mexico was a dream...I'm pretty sure I will move there someday...

What a difference!

Before:


After:

...much better :)

Remember Independence Day

If you don't have plans for tomorrow why not celebrate our independence by putting our efforts towards trying to preserve our independence. Attend a tea party. There are over 1300 of them around the country. We will be attending the one in Orem. Click here to find the one near you: http://www.teapartyday.com/

All of us need to be involved to make a big enough difference to actually change things.

What's new

Meagan and Mark update:

Here is what is new in our family. I went back to work coaching gymnastics at All-American. Then, only a few weeks into it another opportunity presented itself at another gym as the director of the girls team program. After much debate and in spite of not wanting to be a traitor, I decided to take the new job. I hope there are no hard feelings. It has been awesome so far. I love developing my own team. It is a growing gym w/out high levels (the highest being 7), so it is a wonderful opportunity for me to grow and develop the program and myself. It is a blessing that I am able to get 30 hours a week coaching, especially since Mark is starting grad school soon. He is going back to school to become a..........Librarian:). He actually wants to be on the computer systems side of librarianship, digitizing and organizing information. His program is at the University of Illinois- Urbana/Champaign. It is mostly an online program but will go to campus once a semester for a few days. He starts in a couple of weeks with a 10 day class at the University. The rest of us are not going so please pray for Mark to not get lost and especially pray for me to make it through with out him. (He helps a lot around here) It will be tough for both of us but we will be rewarded immedietly after with a trip to Mexico with my side of the family to forget all our cares. I can't wait.

Tai update:

I think she might be over her outragous moodiness. She has calmed down a lot in the last month or so. She is now a "good girl" more than not. She is still very independent. She loves to play outside in the sprinklers, garden (oh yah, we attempted our first garden), and with her friend Valeria from downstairs. She finally learned how to ride a bike with training wheels. She is an angel (behavior) at church and with the babysitter no doubt because she is shy. She can read and more impressively write. (small words, phonics style)

Tag update:

I am not liking his hair lately so tomorrow I will cut it like a normal boy cut. He just got over Roseola (something like that) and his rash is almost gone. He sure looked miserable a few days ago poor guy. He is an expert roller, a less experienced eater and a no experience bottle drinker. It has been a struggle with me working and having to rush home to nurse him. He has crawled a few times and frequently gets up on all fours. He still gets along well with Tai and prefers her over anyone. He gets the most excited when he sees the catepiller at the begining of Baby Einstein. It is so cute to see him kick his thunderous legs so hard. Mark said he rewound that part 20 times and Tag got excited every time.

In other news: I lost 25 pounds in 2 months AND found my first gray hair!

So now you know too much information.