family pix

I'm having WAY too much fun on this ride!

Caroline and Aubree posing in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

Cutie pie Gracie playing on Donald Duck's boat wtih Aubree and Jason.

End of a long day for Brian and Gracie.

Caroline playing at the park on a field trip before going to the science museum.

Caroline climbing the rock wall at the science museum.

Richard holding his own against Darth Maul.

This is what I found under the couch AFTER my kids "cleaned the front room".

Richard is learning to cook and made a most delicious cake!

Jason made honor roll!

We let Jason have a mohawk for about 2 minutes. Then Dad finished the buzz cut.

Jason is now an official Boy Scout!

Richard was voted Outstanding First Tenor by his classmates.

Richard posing with soldiers from Toy Story. I feel safer just looking at them.

Aubree and Caroline with Snow White. It looks like Snow White has a Vulcan grip on Caroline's neck.

Waiting for the parade to start.

Pix of the family

Aubree with a teacher from school. She brought her daughter to the Princess Fantasy Faire.

Some Pix of the family.

The Young Women in our ward had a Princess Fantasy Faire as a fundraiser. Here is Caroline with Cinderella and the Prince.












Then with Snow White.

Helpful Hint

Jason got gum on his dress pants yesterday. I put them in the freezer and tried to pick out the gum, but it wasn't working too well. I checked around on the internet and and read about pouring warm vinegar on it. I tried it and it worked! I poured some white vinegar in a small bowl and heated it in the microwave for 30 seconds. I then poured the warm vinegar over the gum and rubbed it with a cloth and it rolled right off! Yippeee!!

The Dark Side of Light Bulbs

Richard had a meltdown last Thursday night. OK, so that's nothing new. But this time he smacked a lamp on his dresser and the light bulb hit the wall and shattered. Granted, if the lamp shade was actually on the lamp, it probably wouldn't have broken. Yes, a shattered light bulb is a major pain to clean. Throw in the fact that the shattered light bulb was one of those swirly, fluorescent bulbs and it goes from being a major pain to being a MAAAAYJORRRR PAAAAAIIIINNN!!!!
After one of those light bulbs is broken, step #1 is to immediately open a window and leave the room shutting the door behind you so that the room can air out for at least 15 minutes. Remember not to inhale while doing this. Next, dress yourself in long pants and a long sleeved shirt or even better, a pair of coveralls if you have them. Put on disposable gloves that will fit snug over your sleeves and wear a face mask if you have one to keep from inhaling the poisons that were once inside the swirly bulb. Then get yourself a glass jar with a metal lid and pick up as many pieces of the light bulb as you can and put them inside the jar. Go get the duct tape and use it to pick up any pieces that were too small for you to grab with your glvoed hands. Wipe everything around the broken light bulb down with a disposable wet cloth. It is strongly recommended that you DO NOT use a vacuum cleaner. However, if you have carpet then you HAVE to vacuum. If so, vacuum over and over and over again making sure not to inhale anymore that you absolutely have to. Then remove the vacuum bag and place it in a sealed plastic container/bag. If you have a canister vacuum like me, you are to empty the contents into a plastic bag and seal. Be sure to wipe out the vacuum canister inside and out with disposable wet cloths over and over again. Put the sealed glass jar and sealed bags together in another trash bag and call the city to find out if there is someplace in particular you should take this stuff for proper disposal. OK folks, I'm ALL for saving energy and not polluting our planet. On the other hand, I'm also for NOT having to go through this every time a light bulb is broken. By the way, did you know that even if one of those bulbs doesn't break but just burns out that you have to contact your city to find out where to dispose of them? You can't just unscrew it and throw it in the trash. To the environmentalists out there I apologize, but I'm going back to regular old light bulbs and to doing my part in burning up my own little spot in the ozone layer.

Long time no blog

With school finally out for the Summer, I'm hoping to have more time working on my blog. My friend Staci's blog is really cute and I'm going to try and get her to help me pretty mine up too. As for life, we are all doing fine. Well except that Scott's brakes went out on us the other night. Fortunately, we have a friend from church who actually enjoys working on brakes! He was glad to help, but the job took a lot longer than he had anticipated. We'll have to think of some way to thank him. Especially since I also need the brakes done on my van as well. Last Friday night, Scott and I went with Richard to a banquet for all of the Upland High School choir members. Richard was given an award for outstanding first tenor. Of course I didn't have my camera. My friend Staci and her daughter Brooke who we sat with had one and snapped a couple of pix for us. Yesterday was the last day of school, so I took the kids to Disneyland and Scott met us there after work. In my effort to try and save money, I packed dinner for us and we ate in the picnic area instead of buying dinner at the park. I figure we saved about $40 going that route. Nobody complained either. That's probably because I brought my homemade salsa.:o) At 9:00 we were run out of the park to make way for grad night. I had forgotten about that. I guess that's the thing to do here for high school graduates. They run everyone out at 9:00 and bring in the graduates at 10:00. They then have the run of Disneyland until something like 3 a.m. I didn't mind though. After getting soaked on Splash Mountain in the night air, I was more than ready to get into my nice warm van and head home.

(Funny from Aubree)
Aubree is babysitting right now for a friend of mine who is going horseback riding. I heard Aubree say to her, "I LOVE horseback riding. Except that I've never done it."

update on Caroline

The doctor decided that Caroline does not have appendicitis. Unfortunately, they don't know WHAT is wrong. She still has a fever. She still has a rash on her back and chest and she's still complaining that her tummy hurts really bad. They think that she might have a viral infection of some kind. She's sleeping with me tonight and Scott is sleeping on the couch. He insisted on this. When my kids are this sick, I like to have them close to me so that I can check on them. She did say a funny though. When the technician was doing the ultrasound, she asked Caroline if she had any brothers or sisters. Caroline said, "Yes, I have 2 brothers and 1 sis...ummm, ACTUALLY... I'm an ONLY child!" After we had been in the ER for several hours and Caroline was getting every test under the sun, she said to me "This is the WORST day of my life!" Ohhh let's hope so!