The Mortensen Family

Wyatt - "The best part about backpacking is that you have a pillow built in!"

Upper Cottonwood Creek

The obligatory night time card games. Thanks for bombing the tent boys!

For our 13th anniversary we went to Oak Gen and stayed at Serendipity Ranch Bed and Breakfast. We had a fun time watching a bunch of episodes of Burn Notice and practicing our own spy moves getting to the bathroom (that was outside our room) without being seen! It was an adventure trying to find someplace to eat dinner as all three restaurants in town were closed by 7:00. And since we didn't want to go berry picking there was not much to do once we checked out...so we went furniture shopping and got ourselves new leather couches!!! What a great anniversary!

For Christmas my Mom gave me tickets to see four Broadway shows at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. Each trip was an adventure as we braved the metro rails and met up at different locations to travel in together. It was a lot of fun and I loved all the shows we saw. Thanks, Mom!!

So Owen does this thing where he doesn't go to the bathroom for like 6 hours and then goes 5 times in a row every 5 minutes. A little annoying. So he didn't go all day at the La Brea Tar Pits but then decides he needs to go as I'm on the freeway in the middle of traffic. Ahhh! So I had an empty bottle and I told him he'd have to pee in the bottle. I asked Carson to hold the bottle for him and help him. So I hear him start going, then Carson screams and says, "He moved!" and I look back and see pee shooting straight up into the air and Carson holding the bottle on the other side of the van. "Carson, put it in the bottle!" "I can't. It's going everywhere and he peed all over me." (pee still flying all around the van). Finally it stopped and we got everything under control (covered with pee, but under control). 5 minutes passes, then I hear from Owen, "Mommy, I gotta go pee!" Carson immediately says, "I'm not doing that again!" But I'm not about to pull off the freeway out of all this traffic and try to navigate the streets of L.A. so back to the bottle it is. This time I told Carson to put it all the way in the bottle so it won't move. (Apparently vital instructions that I left out previously.) And all went well. Then everyone laughed when I asked if they wanted some lemonade and Owen said yes!

While the boys were away backpacking I decided to teach Emma how to sew. Here are the steps to making her first quilt:

Step 1: Choose coordinating fabrics (she needed a little help realizing what "coordinating" meant)

Step 2: Prewash and iron the fabric pieces. She was excited to learn how to iron. I have a feeling her excitement at ironing will diminish throughout the years.

Step 4: Sew squares together into rows, then sew rows together to make top of quilt. (Only take short...very short...breaks to take pictures because the seam might [will] be crooked by the time you get back to helping)

Today the kids were looking for their Skylanders. They could only find one of them and despite their best efforts couldn't seem to locate the rest of them. So Carson came up with the idea to have Tucker find them. He had Tucker smell (and even lick) Jet-Vac and then told him to go find the rest. They even bribed him with small pieces of toast if he found them. Too bad Tucker's not a hound.

On 7/11 we got free Slurpees from 7-Eleven and the next day was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-Fil-A. We got free meals for dressing like a cow. (Carson was embarrassed and said he'd just rather pay than dress up as a cow!)

I love me some free food!!

This year my mom wanted to run a 5k on the Fourth of July. So she trained for a couple of months and entered us all. Mom and I ran the 5k and the kids all ran a 1 mile race. I started off running with my mom and then left her when she started walking, though she was pretty fast and not too far behind me. I finished the race and then looped back and finished with my mom. I was real proud of her! She finished under 40 minutes. I ran a 10:22 pace and finished at 32:14.


Then it was time for the kids' race. They were really excited and we tried to tell them to start out slow so they could keep up their pace. After we crossed the starting line Wyatt took off and I didn't see him the rest of the race and I was pretty sure he would be able to run the entire time. So, I stayed with Carson, giving him encouragement. About halfway through the race he looked at me and said, "Mom, do you think you could go any faster?" I started laughing and said for him to set the pace and I'd follow his lead. So he went really fast...for about 10 yards...then stopped. I told him to keep walking for a bit, then we'd start running again. He said, "I should have just stayed with you." He finished the race, only walking three times for a short break.  Todd had the hard job. He had Owen and Emma. Owen actually ran 3/4 of the race then asked Todd to put him on his shoulders, but Emma kept with it and finished strong, giving us all high fives as she passed us on her way to the finish line. I was really proud of all of us!

We did two weeks of swim lessons at Chaffey College. Carson was in level 4 and looked like he was drowning half of the time, but he loved it and learned the breast stroke, butterfly and side stroke. He was in a class where they just swim laps the whole time and the instructor teaches them from the side of the pool. He didn't pass his level and I don't think he will for awhile.



Wyatt loved swimming and learned a lot, but didn't quite pass his level. He has to work on his backstroke and sidebreathing. I decided to sign them up for another session this summer so next summer he can start out in level 4. They even said that if he works really hard the first couple of days they might be able to move him up a level.

Owen did NOT have fun in swim lessons. He cried every day that I dropped him off. The only thing he liked was singing Tiny Tim. But when I signed up the other three for the next session he wanted to do it again and when I asked if he was going to cry he said, "I willn't".

This story starts a year ago...last summer I had a cold and lost my voice. Even after I recovered, my voice never fully came back. I would go hoarse all the time and had a really hard time singing. I went to the doctor and they found I had nodules on my vocal chords. After going to voice therapy they didn't shrink any and so they said I need surgery to remove the nodules. So last Friday I went to Loma Linda for surgery (that makes 5 out of the 6 of our family...watch out Todd!). It was the first time I had general anesthesia and I must say I'm not a fan. The worst part of my surgery was that afterwards I couldn't talk for 5 days. What?! Do you know me at all? And I can't sing or yell for 2-3 months. Boy are my kids in heaven. So I had lots of help from my mom and Todd and spent 5 days not talking. Every time Owen saw me he would come over and say, "Mom, your can talk now?" and I'd sadly shake my head no. Emma was worried that I wouldn't be able to say my prayers. I used a lot of paper and Todd's iPad to write notes to everyone. It was pretty funny the responses I got. People talked really loud to me, thinking I couldn't hear either. One lady even asked Emma to sign to me what she was saying. Well the sixth day I woke up ready to make up for lost time and found that I had no voice. It's been 9 days now and I have a very raspy hoarse voice still. I go to the doctor tomorrow and I hope everything's going to be back to normal someday. I've got to say I was very sad not to sing The Star Spangled Banner today in church. But my kids all belted it out for me and made me one proud momma!