The Worst Nerd Family Ever

In November we went to Ann Arbor, MI for the weekend to see our friend Chase in his school production of “Oklahoma” and to bribe his dad to take some family pictures of us. Enjoy!

What's a Partiotic Holiday without a picnic?!



Well, it's mid-November, and we possibly could have had our picnic outside, I wanted to surprise Paige and Taylor and have one set up for them when I yelled it was time for lunch. (No school today for Paige) They were very surprise. Before I get into my patriotic Thank Yous, I would like to thank Stanley's produce market for always having great sales, like the $.98 watermelon today that led to our picnic. Now on to the mushy stuff.

I am so thankful to all of those who give up so much to protect the freedoms that we all too often take for granted. I would also like to thank their families that give them up for us. On more specific terms, I would like to thank the following people that are close to me for their services:
My brother Jimmy (Marine Corps)
Grandpa JW Jetton (Army)
Grandpa Frank Ginnett (Air Force)
Grandpa Robert Osburn (Navy)
Uncle Clyde Ginnett (Army)
Uncle Don Ginnett (Army)
Adopted Dad Larry McGarrah (National Guard)
Friend Jeff Davis (Army)
Friend Jay Morris (Marine Corps)
Grandma Faye Osburn (Army wives)
Grandma Marjorie Jetton (Rosie the Rivetor)

I'm sure I have left someone off the list, but I want them all to know how much we appreciate them.

Artist: Lee Greenwood
Song: Proud To Be An American

If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I’d worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.

I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘ Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.

And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

From the lakes of Minnesota,
to the hills of Tennessee.
Across the plains of Texas,
From sea to shining sea.

From Detroit down to Houston,
and New York to L.A.
Well there's pride in every American heart,
and its time we stand and say.

That I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

And I’m proud to be and American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.

And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘ Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.

My nice and toasty tootsies would like to thank my wonderful Father-In-Law Ray for keeping them warm on these cool fall nights. For my birthday, twice now since I lost the first set in the move, has given me some oh so warm hunting socks. Being a cold blooded person, my feet do get cold from time to time, and I love getting to slide around the house in my rockin' socks. Thanks Ray! You're the best Father In Law and sock picker outer EVER!!!

Generally my life is pretty laid back and I just go with the flow. However it appears that maybe my life is getting back at me this week. Here's how my week as a single parent is going:
Sunday
6am Daylan leaves for the airport for Vegas for the week
1:30pm we went over to our friends the Nicoll's for lunch
8:30pm recieved a call from Brother Lupo asking me to give a 10-12 minute talk Sunday at church (no my thoughts were not those of undying gratitude, but I graciously said yes, and my mom told me you never turn down the bishopric)
Try to get the school website up to date while Daylan is gone, still having problems with it.

Monday:
Get Paige off to school and talked to the principal who informed me that I had to give a speech at the Local School Counsil meeting Tuesday morning when I was to run for the open spot as requested by everyone at the school. Oh, and I dropped off our weekly treat for the front office (this week was carrot cake, I'm just tryin to butter them up so they can help me with my multiple assignments at the school)
Run a million errands with Taylor and find out that home depot only has one of the trees left I need to buy to replace the 4 that died in our yard while we were in CA, and they're not getting any more in. So I buy the one they have there, hurry to the next on to buy their last one.
Went home and put Taylor down for a nap and planted the two trees before picking paige up.
1:45 schools out, we go and buy two more trees that are smaller, but still needed. Run to home goods to find something for our table decoration and then went to Potbelly's for dinner.

Tuesday:
6:00am get up to take a shower and straighten my hair before the girls get up.
7:00am find an email that I'm in charge of planning playgroup for this week.
8:00am drop Paige off at school and walk Taylor over to our friend Molly's place so I can go to the LSC meeting.
8:30am give my speech and get elected to the open spot
8:35am here's the DEEP BREATH I was elected to be the Local School Council President...which means I now get to approve EVERYTHING that happens in the school
10:30 picked Taylor up
11:30 planned playgroup and then changed it 5 minutes later to move it to Friday instead of tomorrow.
12:30 planted the two smaller trees
1:00 informed by the parent of Paige's friend that there's no school on friday and Paige is invited to a birthday party all day
1:30 meeting with the principal and my first official duty...approving a check to be written to pay for the uniform order
5:30pm got a call from Karyn that our Visiting Teaching appointment got cancelled so I don't have to go anywhere tonight. WOOHOO!!
7:30pm call with Daylan
Oh ya, and our neighbor finally had her baby today, it's a girl (they waited to find out the gender)
Wednesday
Gather all the info to submit the next school uniform order (I'm still the person incharge of uniforms)
Get all the weekly school news and upload it to the website
Paint the rest of the playroom after the girls go to bed

Thursday
maybe relax a bit?!
Take the girls to Chuck E Cheese as promised
buy the neighbors a baby present( they come home today) and go find a present for Livia.

Friday
Daylan comes home
Livia's birthday party

Saturday
I'm thinking maybe the zoo before it gets too cold

Sunday
TALK!!!!!

Next week....Monday I have an appointment with Mr. Benes to go over my new role...and then Daylan will leave again in a week.

I really appreciate how simple my regular life was, and would really like to have it back.

(confession: when Daylan's not home I sleep with the bathroom light on)

Okay, so I have to wish my big brother a Happy Birthday!!! He turned 34 today! (and I turned 26 and a half)

So we didn't get them mailed in time...so you can just look at them for now!

So I know there's no way my Dad would be checking my blog, but I just wanted to proclaim my love for him on his special day. He turns a wopping 61 today! Yes, my parents are older than that of most of my friends, but I attribute that to me being so special they just couldn't deny having me so much later than my siblings. All that being said... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!! I LOVE YOU!!! (yes, I know I'm 26, but I still call him Daddy and always will, not sure why but anything else just sounds wrong, even though I've always called my mom by her first name, mainly because she's partially def and would never answer to Mom.) Also, you have to agree that he's one cute old man.

Today Best Buy FINALLY located our camera that was being shipped from the store in CHI to the store out here, so now you can enjoy some pictures! Our orignal plans for today were to try and find a park to go play at after breakfast...after driving to atleast 5 different "parks" we ended up just coming back to the hotel to so swimming. The pictures are in reverse order, so starting with the ones at the bottom, you can tell that Paige isn't too happy that we told her she HAD to learn to swim today. As you can see, the faces got a little happier throughout the 2 hour swim lesson and Paige is now swimming about 85% by herself. Taylor got stung by a be on the hand while in the pool, but in true Taylor fashion, she got mad at the bee and then just moved on. By the end Taylor put herself down for a nap with some grapes and Paige was all smiles and is looking forward to getting to go to the Dippin Dots store/restaurant tonight for dessert. Oh ya, and the picture of Taylor waving her finger at me she was saying "No more pictures MOM!"

So, about 10 days ago or so Paige pulled out her first tooth on her own...today the second one fell out while she was rinsing her mouth getting ready to pull it. She's growing up way too quickly.

So at 8pm on June 28th Daylan got a call from the project manager informing him that they had just purchased our family tickets to go to disneyland...Monday morning. Let me just say that was totally awesome and unexpected...but trying to map out a route through disneyland 12 hours before going is not an easy thing. Daylan didn't understand the true magic that Disneyland is for kids, but we all had a blast. The girls were so excited, and even Taylor still hasn't stopped talking about how she got to meat Mickey and Minnie and Handy Manny. We didn't tell the girls that we were going, so they had no clue until we got there.