Lanie, Paula, and James

Very late Birth Story

2012-01-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

So I actually wrote this back on November 30th, 2011, but am just barely getting it up. It is a very very long post and I am really only posting it for myself. I don't expect anyone to actually read this monstrously long entry...but if you have the time and feel so inclined, I hope you enjoy the birth story.

"The last few weeks have been eventful and I wish that I had written about them sooner because now I have a lot of catching up to do but I will try my best.

I have been preparing myself for the birth of our 2nd daughter for a while now. This is very uncharacteristic of me. Normally I deal with big or stressful events in my life by ignoring them as long as I can and then when I can't put it off any longer I take care of whatever needs doing in a whirlwind of activity. While the 'head in the sand' approach to life seems to work well for me in many situations I decided it was not the best approach to having a second child. Therefore, several weeks ago I began preparing for this little girl by focusing on getting my house in order. This mainly meant cleaning and organizing the house and trying to cook and freeze meals. I made a checklist of activities that had to be accomplished each week and stuck to it. I was on schedule and my house was cleaner than it had been since we moved in. I was feeling very ready for the baby to come and was really wanting her to come miraculously early and healthy. I even prayed for this very hard. I am not a person that is ever very prepared for change and I thought that, for once in my life, I was. Well, I prayed and prayed that the baby would come early and just couldn't bring myself to say "thy will be done" to Heavenly Father. That is when disaster struck.

On Tuesday morning, the week before Thanksgiving (when I was hoping the baby would come and when James' family was coming out for the holiday) I was doing laundry. Unfortunately the laundry machine had become undone where the water is pumped out of the machine. I did a large load of whites and went upstairs. When I returned about an hour later, it was to find the basement covered in water. The carpet was soaked and the laundry room was filled in some spots to about 2 inches deep in water. The comfort that I take in this was that it was soapy bleach water and not the sewer. :)

I called James and he hurried home to help me vacuum out all the water and tear up the carpet which was soaked through the hallway to the stairs and into the bedroom (basically our entire basement). We decided that the carpet really wasn't worth trying to save and we didn't want to run the risk of mildew or mold. After the carpet was up we ran to Home Depot to order new carpet because we had family that was planning on staying at our house the next week and we wanted that to be possible. However, as we got home we looked around our basement and realized that now was a good time to change the layout to what we wanted it to be before we put down new carpet.

Therefore the giant project began. We knocked down walls and a flimsy closet with the help of my handy sister April. Then James decided that since the carpet was up and before the new carpet went down we should fix the electrical in the basement and also put in recessed lights which would be a mess because it required tearing out the lath and plaster ceiling. And, while we were improving the ceiling it didn't make sense not to fix some of the vents so that they ran up in the joists rather than encroaching down on our already short room. In short, our house exploded. All of the furniture from the basement was moved upstairs and had to stay up there a while. Then James began the very dirty and dusty job of tearing out the ceiling and grinding out parts of the concrete walls to embed electrical outlets into the walls. This was very very dusty work which turned my clean and well dusted house into a grimy mess. Even though Lanie and I stayed upstairs and the vents were covered, the dust still came up so that by the end of the day there was a thick coat of it on everything and one's teeth felt gritty. What an event to have occur two weeks before having a baby!

James took several days off of work to work on the basement and has accomplished so much and the guys in the family helped a lot in the basement during Thanksgiving break to help out. We are so grateful for that. But there is still plenty to go. We plan on skim coating the walls to make a uniform texture and then we can sand and paint and get the carpet and baseboards in. Hopefully we can finish the basement sooner than later.

I think the flooding of the basement and turning of the house upside down was perhaps a way for Heavenly Father to teach me that really it would be 'His will be done' because by the end of the mess I found myself being ok with the fact that baby Gwen wasn't coming early on her own. In fact, it was maybe a kind way for Heavenly Father to teach this because I didn't feel horribly disappointed when Gwen didn't come on the 19th or 20th like I had hoped. Whereas, I would have been sorely disheartened if my house had been completely in order and she still didn't arrive. With the basement in a mess I had something to keep me pre-occupied while the days of waiting came and went.

Sunday the 20th we celebrated Lanie's 2nd birthday early with my family. It was so fun and my family spoiled her with tons of presents. We made a simple dinner and Brooke and Joy made Lanie a cake and just kept everything casual because I didn't want to worry about having too big a party with the mess in the house and a baby coming soon. I think Lanie still enjoyed it.

On Tuesday, James' family came into town and we enjoyed their company for Thanksgiving break. Everyone was here and we had a great dinner. Wednesday we all cooked and baked and prepped as much food as we could before hand, and then spent part of Thursday finishing up. Dinner was wonderful and beautiful. Jenn had beautiful place settings and we made a pretty center piece using leaf garlands and candles. That morning I went on a 3.5 mile walk up and down the steep hills by the temple in hopes that the activity would help the baby to come but nothing happened during the day. Then that evening James and I went for the same walk again for about 4 miles. (this worked last time with Lanie on Thanksgiving, but no such luck with Gwen).

The rest of the weekend went well and we enjoyed spending time with the Speirs family. Sunday the 27th, was Lanie's real birthday and again she was spoiled. Grandma Speirs had bought her a princess cake which she of course Loved! Then everyone spoiled her with presents. Each time she opened a present she would say it was "tute," translation: cute. This little girl, between the two families is going to be a very well dressed, well entertained, child.

Sunday night I had trouble sleeping because I knew that I was going to be induced the next day. I was worried that the induction would be harder than labor or that for some reason the hospital would become very busy and they would have to put off my induction. I finally fell asleep at about 1:30am and tossed and turned all night. I had become so big that it was getting hard to sleep through the night comfortably anyway. I woke up at 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. Thinking that I wouldn't be called to come into the hospital until the late morning (the nurse told me the day before to wait to call them at 10 am if I didn't hear from them sooner) I tried to fall back to sleep. Suddenly at 6:20 I got a call from the hospital telling me to be there by 7am. James and I leapt out of bed and scrambled to get ready and showered because it is a 20 minute drive.

We woke up Lanie to say goodbye and took a quick family picture. James' parents came over from the motel they were staying at and Jacob and Rachel all said their goodbyes and helped us get out the door. James and I made it to the hospital by 7:20 and the induction was all started by 8 o'clock with the doctor breaking my water soon thereafter.

What a fantastic thing the induction was. It was so calm and relaxed and when things started to get uncomfortable I asked for my epidural and all went so well. I did take a little while to dilate from the 2 that I started at to a 4 but then the RN checked me and kind of moved Gwen a little and lots of fluid which had been keeping Gwen from fully engaging in my pelvis came and suddenly she was engaged and I was dilated to a 5.5. (Lots of amniotic fluid had also kept Lanie from engaging and contributed to a somewhat longer labor too). Once Gwen was engaged I dilated in about an hour and a half and was ready to push. I had such an effective epidural that I had been able to rest this whole time, watch Elf with James and catch little snippets of sleep. Really, the experience was like a wonderfully exciting and somewhat relaxed date. What a great way to spend time with one's spouse right before having a baby.The only time Gwen or I had some trouble was after I was dilated to a 5, there were some late decelerations for Gwen and they did put in an internal monitor to watch the strength of my contractions and I was placed on my left side to see if changing positions would help the baby's head or cord not be too compressed. This did mean that I felt the contractions more on my right side and was a bit uncomfortable, but it didn't last too long.

Soon it was time to push and the nurse quickly got the doctor. As soon as he arrived they prepped me for pushing and I mentally prepared myself for a long episode of pushing (with Lanie I pushed for what seemed like a total of 2 hours). I thought it would be the same way again for some reason. However, I gave one push and they could see the top of Gwen's head, then I gave another and they could see past her eyes. Then I gave one more and she was out! It was amazing! The umbilical cord was very short and they couldn't put Gwen up on my abdomen, but everything looked ok. As soon as they got the cord cut, she was up on my chest and so cute. I was amazed by the size of her cheeks and the rolls on her arms. Everyone thought she must have been a big baby because her cheeks were so filled out but it turns out she was only 8 lbs 3 oz and 18.5 inches long. She was born at 1:39 in the afternoon. Gwen hardly cried, and I mean, hardly cried but her apgar scores were still good at 8 and 9.

The whole experience was very lovely. I thought that I would be sad that I was being induced and wouldn't be laboring at home for the first part, like I did with Lanie, but actually, I had a wonderful experience in the hospital. James and I enjoyed each other's company and enjoyed the anticipation of the arrival of our baby. I almost preferred this experience because it was so calm and relaxing and I got to enjoy it with James. With Lanie I was up most of the night just walking around trying to get comfortable until the time came that I should wake James up and go to the hospital. It wouldn't have done much good to make James stay up with me and be tired for the delivery too.

Well, my stay at the hospital has been very good. Gwen has cried about 2 times total these last two days and has done great. We will get to go home where Grandma Birdie is taking care of Lanie and will be with us for the rest of the week. We are very grateful she is able to be with us and help us so much.

P.S. (written Sunday, January 15, 2012). This time with Gwen at home has been wonderful. I can't help but keep thinking that having a baby in the home is a little bit of Heaven on Earth. I'm so grateful for my two girls and for all that James does for our little family.

Gwen 1 month old

2012-01-03T13:57:00.001-08:00

My Sis-in-law Jenn came over last week and took these great pictures of Gwen who is now amazingly 1 month old. I love how chubby Gwen is getting and I love in the first picture how Jenn caught Gwen stretching with her bum high in the air. It caught her essence completely. The other pictures include Lanie who is such a toddler now, and Connley, Jenn’s son. Enjoy!

Pictures of my Kids (sort of)

2011-12-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

So I have managed to continue to neglect my blog. Fortunately my sisters are much better at keeping up theirs. Catherine was so wonderful and came down about 3 weeks ago to my house one afternoon to take pictures of Gwen and Lanie. They turned out really well. I'm so grateful to have talented family members, I benefit so much!

Catherine put up several of the pictures on Homehinges.com for anyone who is interested in seeing them. Here are direct links...

http://homehinges.com/2011/12/14/photoshoot-baby-sprite/
http://homehinges.com/2011/12/15/photoshoot-set-up-and-sparrow/ As a disclaimer for this second set of pictures, don't judge me too harshly for the fact that Lanie's face and hair were messy and she didn't get dressed until 2:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes you have to pick your battles and with a child so strong-willed as Lanie you learn to embrace the "savageness."
http://homehinges.com/2011/12/16/photoshoot-group-shots/

I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Gwenli Speirs is Here!

2011-12-04T20:39:00.001-08:00

I of course am very late in posting pictures and getting the new out, but last Monday, Nov 28, 2011 Gwen was born at 1:39 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 18.5 inches long. Everything went so smoothly, we had a great experience. I’ll have to write the whole story later, but here are some pics of the last week.

Me, just before having Gwen. I was getting pretty big!

Lanie’s 2nd birthday was the day before Gwen was born. She had a pink princess cake and Loved it! She was so spoiled by her grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family.

Gwen right after she was born, or at least right after the bath. I decided to spare you the messy pics before.

Lanie’s first time meeting Gwen. Lanie has adjusted so well. Thus far she is generally just concerned for Gwen and always wants to help out.

Close up!

Tummy Time!

Big News

2011-07-25T21:43:00.001-07:00

I know I have completely neglected the blog for way too long. I have put it off because it takes so long to post pictures and then everything piles up and i feel like I will never be caught up with blogging again. So I just don't do it.

I was going to wait to post on the blog in December to let the world know that we are having our second baby! But I decided some people might want to know before then. So here's the news; we are having baby #2 and we just found out that it's another girl!

This little one is due December 1, 2011 which puts her exactly 2 years apart from Lanie. I feel so relaxed about this baby because I don't have to worry about getting any clothes or supplies. We already have everything we need from Lanie. The only thing that we do need to worry about is getting Lanie a bed. We're thinking bunk-beds that can come apart and just be a twin bed until #2 is old enough to be in a big bed. So keep your eyes peeled for any good deals everyone! So far ksl.com has had decent but still somewhat pricey beds, or maybe i am just being cheap.

Well, as for what else we have been up to, life has been great. This summer has really been fun and relaxing. We got a season pass to the water park and Lanie is finally becoming a little more brave in the water. We have taken her on a few of the slides and while i feel horrible doing it - she can get a little scared once we are up at the top (on one occasion she said 'no mama, no mama, no mama' the whole way down) she is a GREAT sport and will even say "yay" (with minimal enthusiasm) at the bottom. In fact, I think she is just saying it because she is glad she didn't die on the way down. :)

We went to Lake Powell with James' family two weeks ago and had a great time. I was worried what it would be like having a 19 month old on a house boat and near the water for a week, but it actually turned out fairly well. By the end I was glad to be home though and let her wander away from me in the house without me having to freak out.

Here are a few pictures while we were there.

Over the last month Lanie has suddenly become such a talker. She is less hesitant to try out new words and I am starting to loose track of how many she can say. Several of them we didn't even intentionally teach her but she just picked them up herself such as 'yellow" and "I'm hungry (hunry)" She can say cup, wa-wa (water), hot, cold brrr, I want, purple, owie, oh no (one of her favorites), bebe (baby), dolly, weee (when she wants to swing) mama, dadda, bye-bye yu you (bye bye love you) and many more that i just can't think of right now. Some of her favorite animal noises are pig (she really snorts), elephant (she puts her hand to her nose and everything), horse, snake, monkey, etc.

One funnything is that Lanie loves loves loves her dollies and blankies. She is usually carrying around one or the other. (see pictures above and below)She also loves accessories (as you can tell she wore her sunglasses a lot during Lake Powell). We had to run to the mall to make a return and she insisted on wearing her sunglasses, carrying her purse (an old one of mine) and having a little stuffed dog in the purse with the head poking out. She looked like such a diva I wish i had gotten a picture! Everyone at the mall commented on how cute she was.

A few things we have been up to…

2011-04-08T09:55:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine brought it to my attention that I haven’t posted in a very long time so I thought I would just share a few pictures to catch you all up to date seeing as I haven’t posted any pictures since our trip to D.C. in September.

James had his 30th b-day with an awesome cake I decorated to look like an old school nintendo controller.

Lanie was as cute as ever.

Lanie went trick or treating with her cousins and she was a sheep.

Lanie turned 1 and ate her cupcake very daintily.

We drove down to AZ on Christmas morning (I had to work on Christmas Eve). While we were there my Sis-in-Law took some great pics.

This kid has cute curly hair, but when she wakes up from a nap it tends to go a little crazy!

Lanie’s first pony tail

This little girl loves to “help with dishes”

Though sometimes she can get herself into tight spots.Here she was supposed to be drying this bowl.I am also surprised at how much she LOVES to accessorize. She loves purses, phones, and wallets!

Helping dad fix the computer.

My Dad has been helping us open up our porch. If you knew what it looked like before you would say even these pictures are an improvement. :)

Home Hinges Giveaway!

2010-12-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let you know that at our blog homehinges.com there is a giveaway going on for a professionally painted picture of SANTA! No, really, this is beautiful and you have to come enter to win this gorgeous piece. I want it so bad, but I can't enter, so all of you had better. Just click here and follow the directions at the bottom of the post.

There are 4 ways to win and the giveaway ends Wednesday, December 15 at midnight! So hurry, hurry, hurry.

Washington DC

2010-11-20T21:13:00.000-08:00

In September we took a trip out to Washington DC. It was such a blast and I feel bad that I am just now blogging about it. James had a work conference out there. Work paid for his ticket and hotel for the first few days and with that I had to go. So it ended up being the cost of my ticket, the second hotel (because we decided to stay about 4 extra days) and food. All in all it was still somewhat expensive but totally worth it.

The first two days Lanie and I were on our own while James was at his work conference. We spent the days getting lost, finding the Woodrow Wilson house (beautiful), visiting the textile museum (not very exciting - they were under construction) then we got lost again (turns out we were walking in a huge circle for about an hour and a half), and then we went to down town DC where we visited the Botanical Gardens (Beautiful).

As you can see, Lanie was thrilled. Actually it was very interesting and the history is even more interesting. I would suggest to everyone reading or listening to the book Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick.
One room was dedicated completely to orchids. They were gorgeous and these pictures don't do them any justice. Some of them were huge!

Cute baby! She was so good.

Then we visited the American Indian Smithsonian (I loved how pretty much ALL of the attractions and museums were free - pretty awesome).

The next day Lanie and I went to old town Georgetown. It was quaint and had lots of shopping. We enjoyed a little of that and also visited "The Old Stone House" built in 1765 which is the oldest standing house in Washington DC (according to Wikipedia). It had a great garden and was a cute little building but the upstairs were somewhat dark. The downstairs used to be a shop and the upstairs were the living quarters.

After this Lanie and I went to Arlington National Cemetery. This is such a humbling place. We had to hurry and only got to see a small portion of it, but I am amazed at all the people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

Lanie was such a good trooper. She spent so much time in the stroller and hardly complained, until the last two days. Every once in a while we could find a nice spot that she could crawl around at. She loved getting out of the stroller.

She was had a hard time staying awake at the cemetery. But at least she was there. And to think this is a teeny tiny portion of the cemetery. It is pretty awe inspiring to see the rows and rows of white headstones.

Here Lanie is at JFK and Jackie Kennedy's graves. She was thrilled.

Next we hurried up to Robert E. Lee's house which is at the top of a gorgeous hill at Arlington. Interesting fact is that Arlington Cemetery used to be land owned by General Lee of the South. It was so surprising to me that from his house you got a perfect view of Washington D.C. His house looks so impressive from the outside, but I was surprised at how small it was on the inside comparatively. The porch seems very disproportionate. The house was being completely renovated so there was no furniture and was very dirty and Lanie and I couldn't go upstairs because I wasn't allowed to leave the stroller. Oh well. I guess I probably didn't miss too much up there.

There were some very pretty roses in the garden and one plus for having been the South's General was that everyday that he could, Lee would go out to the garden and pick roses and then at dinner would give the smallest to his youngest, the next smallest to his second-to-youngest and so on until his wife who got the largest rose.

After that visit Lanie and I hurried back to the hotel to get James, grab dinner and then pick up some cupcakes from "Georgetown Cupcake" the home of the TLC show "DC Cupcakes." I had read that it is best to order the cupcakes early and then pick them up rather than waiting outside in line. What I had heard was right. The cupcakes were good but not worth waiting in line for. But it was fun to get to see the shop that the show takes place in. Too bad I really don't watch the show. Oh well, it was an excuse for cupcakes. (I don't know why I didn't get a picture - except that it might have been because I accidentally dropped the box and squished the cupcakes - I wish I wasn't a ditz. They were still tasty).

Niel joined us coming all the way down from Philadelphia. He and I toured our hotel (where Ronald Regan was shot in 1981).

Don't worry- he lived. ;)

Then Niel, Lanie, and I got to walk around and explore the area of Dupont Circle. It was a fun and popular place for a Friday evening. Sadly, James had some work to do. I'll have to update you on the rest of the trip soon.

Home Hinges Giveaway!

2010-11-16T14:21:00.000-08:00

Hey you all should head over to Home Hinges for our giveaway in honor of being featured. Just follow this link and do what the instructions tell you to do to win a gift card to Home Depot! You can enter up to 4 times and until Midnight on Thursday the 18th!

Home Hinges

2010-10-05T08:55:00.000-07:00

My sisters and I have been having fun playing around with a blog. Ok it is all my sister's work and I get to post on it once a week. We are having fun doing new projects and blogging about them as well as getting the blog name out there. We have gotten a decent number of views, thanks to my sisters, and it has been a rewarding family project.

So check us out at homehinges.com or just click on the button at the top left of my blog. Leave comments too, we love comments, it's so rewarding!

Moblie!

2010-08-12T15:04:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, she is crawling and she realizes she is mobile! Fortunately Lanie is just too darn cute so this is a happy moment, not a sad one.

Pictures to follow.

Home Hinges

2010-08-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

Hello world. I thought I would share a new blog with you. My sisters thought it would be fun to start a blog together chronicling the adventures of life, the universe, and everything...but more specifically our adventures with our homes and families. It's called Home Hinges and you can check it out here. Or you can remember it as homehinges.com .

I'm on a roll...just call me butter.

2010-07-07T08:10:00.001-07:00

I'm on a roll with blogging. I haven't posted this many posts in this short of a time for a very, very long time. I guess that is what happens though when you have a cute little baby.

Here are some great pictures of Lanie in front of our growing garden. She is such a blast.

Disneyland

2010-07-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Last month we took a trip to Disneyland and to San Diego to visit James' family. It was so much fun. Here are a few pictures we took while we were there.

Lanie was so good in the car. She was a real trooper for the 10 hour drive.

The first night there she and Jessie got to bond.

Jenn of course spoiled her with Mickey Mouse hair clips

Jessie Sporting her Graduation Mickey Mouse cap.

Lanie felt so special when she got to be with the big boys Dalton and Connley.

Joy petting the Moose at the "It's a small world" ride. (I quite enjoyed the scenery before the ride).

Should Joy really be driving?

Lanie met Mickey Mouse and LOVED him. He had her smiling so big. I'm sad there isn't a better picture than this but we had to hurry to take the picture.

Joy was not so sure about meeting Mickey. "Don't worry Joy, he doesn't bite."

Sometimes we had to entertain Lanie. Here she is trying to get the camera.
(I just love that gummy smile)

All tuckered out. For the first two days she was so amazed by all the scenery and people that she didn't sleep. Finally by day 3 she was so wiped out that she took several long naps.

Finally, just some pictures to show off her not-so-new trick of sitting up.

Teething

2010-06-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Oh yummy cork coasters.

Pictures and Updates

2010-06-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

It has been too long since my last post. Here are some very overdue pictures beginning all the way back in March.

Everyone, even strangers, tell me how much Lanie looks like James.

Speaking of people who look like James...

Darling. (I apologize for any red eye, I don't have photoshop at the moment).

More pictures from my graduation. My family was even there...well, maybe half-there.

Whenever I put Lanie in our bed, she is always surprised and quite pleased with herself.

This is when I was headed to one of my first night shifts. It was our anniversary so James and I got to see each other for a whole 10 minutes from when he got home and when I had to hurry and leave. It was still a good anniversary anyways.

I got James Maccaroni Grill which is what we had when he proposed to me. He also got to have a candle lit dinner with Lanie and a picture of me. It sounds cheesy but it was kind of meant to be funny.

James got me beautiful flowers.

Here is Lanie enjoying her high chair. It has become very convenient now that she is sitting and eating solids. It also helps keep her distracted while I make dinners.

Random picture of Lanie lounging in her robe after a warm bath.

Lanie lounging in her bed after a tiring day of playing, eating and having messy diapers.

Lanie being quite the diva even in her PJ's.

Sitting!

I want it....

2010-05-18T14:25:00.001-07:00

You all think I am crazy, but I WANT it.

A Picture I love

2010-05-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I got to walk for graduation (even thought I graduated in December they don't have a ceremony until April). I am so glad I did it. It went well and it was great having James' mom here. There were several pictures taken, but this one is my favorite. I copied it from Catherine's blog so the resolution is probably not the best.

Pictures & Videos!

2010-04-08T21:31:00.001-07:00

It’s been forever since I have posted anything let alone pictures so this post is mostly going to have pictures to fill your little souls with Lanie goodness. These are some videos that we have taken. The first was taken in February and the second video was taken in January. I love these both because it shows both sides of her personality. One side is just so chill and the other likes to play and discover ie: her voice.

Couch Potato Lanie

Trying-out Talking

Is this baby cute or what? I love her smiles. She is so quick to smile.

I love this baby’s outfits. They are all so cute. I loved these leggings. I converted them from girl’s knee-high socks. They look long and skinny on her in this picture, but her legs have chunked out. It is so funny to see her in this sweater now too. She loves to try to suck on the buttons, but can’t always get her mouth down to them. It’s so funny to watch.

Well, before Easter James and I decorated Bunny cupcakes. It was a fun date night. Here James is giving a tutorial of how to decorate them.

1-Frost a cupcake with delicious frosting. Then dip the top in coconut.

2- Snip a large marshmallow in half around the middle. Be sure to concentrate as you do this.

3- Lick the marshmallow so it is nice and sticky.

4-Dip the licked mallow in pink sprinkles. ….. Ok, just kidding about the licking part. When you snip the malllows in half they are already sticky for the sprinkles.

5- Form them so they look like bunny ears.

6-Apply bunny ears, eyes (blue m&m’s), pink nose (jelly bean) and little white whisker cheeks (I don’t know what you would call them, but little marshmallows) with frosting.

7- Now frost on pupils and whiskers with special cake decorating frosting (black and pink respectively). James had fun pointing the eyes in different directions and in different sizes. In some cases it made for interesting bunnies rather than cute.

8- And finally, enjoy!

The finished product

Just a few more pictures but isn’t this girl so cute!? Though my brother Niel teases me she looks like a boy. Hmph. :)

A family picture for Jon’s b-day.

My very feminine baby in her Easter dress from Aunt Brooke. I love the ruffles!

Life Happens

2010-03-11T21:45:00.000-08:00

I don't feel like I have anything spectacular to post, but I felt pretty neglectful towards the blog so I thought I would just further update everyone.

Life has continued on at its regular pace. I have started work which so far has gone well. I am doing day shifts at the moment for training, but will eventually move to night shifts part time. It is sad to leave Lanie, but I have wonderful family and friends who have helped us care for her. I feel like this is the best time if I am to ever get some real nursing experience and so I have gotten a wonderful job at the hospital where I did my capstone for school. I am very excited to work with the people I am working with. They are fantastic and I know I have been very lucky and blessed to get this job. I hope I can learn quickly and do my best.

James continues to work hard both at school and on the job. He is a very supportive husband with my working and takes good care of Lanie and I both temporally and mentally. Fortunately for his own mental health Final Fantasy XIII has come out and he has loved playing it this week.

Lanie is a real trooper as she is being passed from nanny to nanny and it is so great to come home and see her beautiful smile. She is such a sweet girl. She's getting big and is almost 4 months old.

Well, I have been putting off going to bed and I really shouldn't have. It just spells trouble for the next day, but I'm glad to have finally gotten something posted, even if it is just a little snippet of our lives.

What's been happening...

2010-02-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

Hello All,

So much has happened over the last few weeks. James' family came to UT including his sister Jeni and her two boys for Lanie's baby blessing last Sunday. It was wonderful to see everyone. James gave Lanie a beautiful blessing too. The week was a blast. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures with our camera because I made Jeni take a bunch with her nice one.

As you know, I passed the NCLEX during that time too. It was tough and I am glad it is over. I have been saving up for a sewing machine and told myself that I could get one after I passed the NCLEX. It was an extra incentive to study and it kept me from getting distracted. So the day I passed the NCLEX James and I went out to buy my machine.

Valentine's Day also came and went and as usual, it was one of the busiest days of the year for us. I don't know why but we always have a hard time celebrating it because we are just so busy with other things. It's ok, we did make heart shaped hamburgers and a heart shaped cake.

Also, Lately Lanie has been sooo cute smiling at everyone. She is so responsive now. She has even giggled a couple of times, but hasn't gotten the hang of it yet. It's very rewarding being a parent now that she is becoming more interactive.

Ok, so here are some pics for you all to enjoy.

Lanie in her blessing dress. She was so good for the blessing. James said she smiled the whole time.

Her smiles are so cute and big.

Our Valentine's dinner. You can see the pretty daisies in the background. James gave them to me as a Happy Valentine's Day/Congrats on passing your test present.

Getting cute and chubby.

She has discovered her hands and loves sucking on them.

I finially did it...

2010-02-10T09:55:00.000-08:00

After 2.5 years of nursing school plus 2 years before that of pre-requisites I finally took the NCLEX. This is the test that determines if you get licensed as a nurse. I have spent years preparing for it and finally took it on Thursday last week and got my results back yesterday. I passed!

I am now a Registered Nurse. This is both exciting and worrisome. I have a possible job lined up as a part time nurse at Timpanogos Hospital on their Med/Surg floor. After orientation I will hopefully be working night shifts so that I don't have to be away from Lanie too much. This will be a big change, but I feel like it will be a good experience as well.

Wish me luck, even though I am finished with school my education in the real world is just beginning.

The Stats

2010-01-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

So today was Lanie's 2 month doctor appointment and the stats are as follows:

Head: 15.5 inches (about 40th percentile)
Though her eyes and cheeks are probably around the 90th percentile. (see below)

Weight: 12.04 lbs (80th percentile)
Length: 23.25 inches (82nd percentile)

Shots: 3
Tears: 10
Doses of Tylenol: 2 today

All in all, she is a healthy, happy baby. She now has four rolls on each thigh and her arms are almost as plump as her mom's. She is really beginning to look at people and even likes to talk to us! It's been very fun so far, and she's such a good baby.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

This Christmas we had a lot of fun. We stayed here in Provo and celebrated with my family in Salt Lake. We got a bit of a late start on Christmas due to new babies and trying to finish finals/graduate, but we finally got a tree this year. It was beautiful (thanks to decorations I borrowed from my mom). I will definately be shopping all of the after Christmas sales for decorations for next year.

I just wanted to share some pictures with you that we've taken over the last week or two.

James teaching Baby mad gaming skills. :)

Lanora in one of her many darling outfits. I wish she wasn't growing so fast, she's outgrowing them before our eyes!

Happy girl in her Daddy's arms.

Sleeping, shhhh.

She loves making this face. Her lips pucker up into such a small "O."

Here we are Christmas Eve at Brooke's. We had a wonderful dinner as a family and enjoyed each others' company. Unfortunately this picture was taken after most everyone had left. However, I must point out the fantastic white tree behind us. I love Brooke's decorations!

This is about as excited as Lanora got on her first Christmas morning. Hopefully next year she will be a little more animated. It was fun all the same to have Santa drop off gifts for her.

We did the Nativity play Christmas evening with all of the little nieces and nephews. Ashton and Allison were Joseph and Mary and Hunter was a shepherd. Unsurprisingly Lanora played the part of Baby Jesus while her new bouncy seat was the manger. (Maybe next year we will be better with props).

Christmas night we realized that all of Lanie's pictures taken that day were of her wrapped up in a blanket. We finally got some pics of her in her Christmas clothes, but this was the best. What a chub already!

The day after Christmas I took her on a walk out in the cold. This cute snow outfit doesn't quite fit yet. "I can't put my arms down!"

Who can resist a cute face with a huge flowery bow?

The Many Faces of Lanora

2009-12-22T09:47:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been such a while since my last post. School, babies, and life have kept us so busy, but now that is over, somewhat and I can share with you these pictures chronicling this child's first 3 weeks of life. Here are the many faces of Lanora. (ok, most of them are of her sleeping, it's just so hard to catch her cute expressions when she is awake.)

Day 2 at the hospital

This is pretty much what she looks like after being fed. Happy Baby.

Here she is a week old with her Grandma Speirs who came to help us for a week after Lanora was born. Get a look at those cheeks!

My little burrito.

I just love this hat. My friend knit it for her.

And here she blends in with the environment. I just love
how much pink there is in the house now.

And a close up.

My (almost) 2 week old Gangsta

2009-12-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today was cold, very cold, so this is what we dressed Lanora up in. Unfortunately this cute outfit is still a little large for her and she reminded me of a gangster. I have to say, she is the cutest gangsta ever!

Baby Lanora 3 Days old

2009-12-02T22:12:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics that my sister-in-law Rachel took for us when Lanora was just 3 days old. Thanks Rach!

James is trying to wake her up in this pic, she sleeps so soundly (during the day) so all of these pics with her eyes open are quite a treasure.

The Arrival of Baby Lanora Lindsay

2009-11-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, James gave you a quick sneak peak at our little baby Lanora (Lanie) Lindsay and I thought that I would now give you a little more meat to the story for those who may be interested (otherwise you can scroll down and get to the good part -which are the pictures of course).

Baby Lanie was due Thursday (Thanksgiving Day). Though I had been feeling good I had started to have some contractions on Wednesday which got my hopes up. Unfortunately they seemed to completely stop by Thursday and I was worried I was going to have a very late baby as is common in my family. I had been to the midwife earlier this week and it was just not looking like Baby wanted to come. So needless to say I was rather disappointed as the days came and went with no sign of a baby.

I had been going on many walks trying to get something going but they didn't seem to do the trick either until Thursday night when we were watching football on TV and I decided James and I needed to walk up by the Provo Temple where there are some really good and steep hills. After a 45 min hike up those hills we finally decided to go home to bed.

I went to bed around midnight with very few contractions but then woke up about 2:20 am to moderate contractions which quickly progressed to stronger, more frequent, and longer lasting contractions. After a few hours of pacing, trying to distract myself, etc. I woke James and we got ready to head to the hospital and arrived at 7:00 am. There they put me in a triage room and a nurse came to check on me and found I was dilated to a 5 and they were going to keep me! (three days ago I was only a 1.5 and had been that way for about 2 weeks).

The hospital was wonderful and got anesthesia to me right away and I was so grateful for an epidural. It made everything so wonderful. Then my midwives Jana and Sarah came in and checked me to find that I was to 6+and so they also broke my water. All I had to do now was wait to get to a 10. James and I tried to rest at this point.

By 11:00 I was a 9.5 and we decided to start pushing at 12:00pm. The midwives were awesome and coached me through pushing. Unfortunately Baby Lanora had been swimming in tons of amniotic fluid and so she never quite properly engaged herself. When the water broke she kind of engaged her head a little to the side which made for a harder time of pushing her out. We had tried to rotate her but after an hour and a half we decided to stop and have me lay on my side for a while hoping that she would then rotate herself. I was feeling less comfortable at this point and was therefore so grateful for the epidural.

Baby did not rotate like we had hoped and so the midwives decided to call the doctor in for fear that a vaccuum was going to have to be used. Fortunately by the time he got here he decided to have me push a little more and it was finally at that point that Lanie decided to start cooperating and turned herself. The doctor and midwives were both wonderful in getting Lanie here.

Lanie was born at 2:58 pm and weighed 8 lbs 8 oz and was 21.5 inches long (which was surprising to me). In the pics she is a little bruised, especially on the side that she was trying to come out on.

This is a dark picture, but I'm glad I took it. This is what I looked like right before I went to bed on Thursday night. I never really posted any baby bump pictures so I thought I would include this one and the next one.

This is another baby bump picture of me about two days before Lanie was born. I like it because the lighting makes it almost hard to see how big I actually was. (Which of course was huge!)

Now for the good stuff. Here is our sweet little girl. This was soon after her first bath. She cleaned up very well. I just can't get over how little her mouth is and how chubby her cheeks are.

Here's another of her after her bath. Poor baby with a black eye. She really wedged herself.

Here she is getting her bath. As I was going through all the pics I realized that we hardly gave her any privacy so I won't show you her bath pics, but I figured this one at least wouldn't offend anyone. ;)

Baby is Here

2009-11-28T08:28:00.000-08:00

Out little Lanora was born just one day late. The birth process started at about 2:30 a.m. and Lanora was born at about twelve hours later. I guess twelve hours is pretty common for a first time baby. Paula suffered through the contractions until about 7:00 a.m. before we even went to the hospital. Once we were there she had to suffer a bit more until about 8:00 a.m. when she got the epidural. The epidural was great and Paula didn't have to suffer any more for the rest of labor.

Anyway, enought talk, here are some pics.

Lanora, moments after birth.

Lanora after a bath.

We'll post more pictures soon I'm sure. Just wanted to get this out to all those who were waiting.

15 Days!

2009-11-11T13:40:00.000-08:00

We are just 15 days away from my due date, though I think my ideal day for having this kid would be on the 23rd which is just 13 days from now, but definitely not any sooner than that. I think my classes would certainly suffer if she came earlier than that. I can't believe how busy life has been.

We finally smoothed out the texture on the walls and painted our living room. It looks so much better and I would post a picture if I wasn't up on campus. Thanks so much Catherine and April for dedicating your Friday night, supplies, and expertise. It was very needed.

I will try to post some pics, but if I don't get around to it soon I am sorry, it will probably be a while after this baby comes.

Countdown Continued

2009-10-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

Just an update, only 27 days left for baby to come. It's going by fast and I am realizing that there is still so much to do and so little time!

Birthdays!

2009-10-12T20:10:00.001-07:00

This last Saturday was James' 29th B-day. It was a great day which started out with sleeping in, some house cleaning (James was so nice and helped me out even though it was his B-day) and then we ran errands. We bought a rug for the living room (but have decided it's too small), then we went window shopping and had a great lunch at Tucanos. That night we had friends and family over for cake and ice cream and gifts.

Some of these pics are from the birthday.

The Birthday Boy
(Please ignore the ugly walls, they are still a work in progress right now).

It was Catherine's B-day this week too so we had all the family over on Sunday.

Us after all the celebrations.
(My tummy kind of gets in the way of proper hugs now as you can see)

Countdown

2009-10-07T08:12:00.000-07:00

Alot of my friends have put up baby widgets on their blogs counting down the days until they are due. I can't do this because it would make the time go by too slowly for me. Unfortunately I can't keep myself from counting down anyways until November 26th. As of today I only have 50 days to go. This sounds forever away but then I think about everything I need to do for school, house, and baby and I realize this is a very short time indeed. Amazing how days can speed by but be long all at the same time.

Updates

2009-08-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

This may possibly be my last post at least until January or February when I have finished school, had a baby, and taken the NCLEX. So I thought I would just post a few updates on some things we did this summer on our house.

We have started a series of projects that are now needing to be finished such as our bathroom. Our bathroom looked like this when we bought the house. It did not have a bathroom fan much to our dismay.
Since these pictures we have installed a bathroom fan (Thank you handymen James and Niel) and have also pulled off two cabinets and painted the vanity a simple black. Unfortunately we now need to pull off another medicine cabinet, repair walls, texturize some spots to match the rest of the room, paint, and put up a new mirror and cabinet. I think the project has just gotten bigger since we bought the house, not smaller.

Another project was the flooring in the living room. Before the living room looked like this.

James and I very much wanted to get rid of the tile meant for a wood burning stove and I was thrilled when I found some laminate wood flooring on Craigslist for much cheaper than we could have gotten it in the store. As soon as I had it my sister and I had fun beginning demolition of the living room floor so that there was no going back. After tearing up much carpet (some lovely green shag included) the room looked like this.Then the family arrived to help us out of the mess I had gotten us into. Thank goodness. Niel, James, Jens, Catherine, and Joy all worked hard on the floor while Mom and I ran errands getting supplies and food for the crew. Half way through the job the room looked like this.

(What good brothers I have)

We were glad when April and her kids showed up to help us measure our flooring. It kept us from having to buy a box from the store.

Such good little workers.

The finished product.

By the end of the day we looked like this.

We were so grateful for everyone's help. The floors look so much better now. Unfortunately the room is in shambles again as we have decided to replace all the baseboards and to tear off all the paint/wallpaper. With school starting it may be a while before we see a finished product. :)

We've done many other projects that I don't have pics for, but they included repainting around windows and the carport, ripping up dead bushes/cutting up dead tree branches, tearing off painted wallpaper, etc, etc. Our goal however is to complete a few projects before November. We'll see if we can do it.

Best $3 I Ever Spent!

2009-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I came across something I have always wanted, or at least wanted for the past 4 years of school, but never actually went out and bought. Yup a George Foreman "LEAN MEAN FAT reducing GRILLING MACHINE."

I found it at a garage sale and bought it on impulse because hey, it was $3. Best impulse buy ever! James and I have enjoyed many a delicious meal from this little baby including yummy hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, etc. Now every time we use this beauty James and I end up looking like this...
That's why I had to share the news.

Lake Powell

2009-08-23T10:58:00.001-07:00

It is that time of year again, not the time of year where we go to Lake Powell, but the time when I actually get around to blogging about Lake Powell.

This year at Lake Powell was pretty atypical because there were no major storms or disasters, oh yeah, except once when the boat overheated.

Overheated Engine Story

So, the overheat story is that we headed out on the ski boat to find a place to camp on our trip. You want to find a place with a sand beach, plenty of shade, that is tucked away from the elements, and its hard to find all of those things in one spot so we just go out and find the best we can. The houseboat comes after us, but it takes an hour or two longer to get to where we make camp.

As we (in the ski boat) were rounding the last corner into where we make camp (or search for a camp area to make our own) the boat set off a warning alarm. We immediately stopped the boat and turned off the engine. As soon as the engine was off we could hear a popping sound coming from the engine. It was the sound of the water in the engine boiling. We tried to radio back to the house boat for help, but they were far beyond our radio signal. My little sister had a cell phone with signal so she sent out a mass text to everyone on the boat saying that we were stranded. Of course, who other than a teenager is going to have their cell phone on them while at Lake Powell. It was probably about an hour before we got a text message back and were able to tell my dad what had happened. He said he would come out immediately on the other ski boat (which is my uncles) so we told them where we were.

While we waited for them to come, we drifted quite a bit off course. We tried to radio them some more, but my dad didn’t have his cell phone so we couldn’t call him. Eventually an hour later they found us. Just as they found us we saw our houseboat come around the corner. So we’d been baking in the sun for tour hours and still didn’t have a camp. My uncles ski boat headed in to find a camp, taking most of the passengers. My dad, my brother Jon, and I stayed to work on our boat.

Amazingly my dad had the foresight to pack a spare impeller on the ski boat. (The impeller pulls water out of the lake and feeds it through the boat’s engine. That’s how the engine stays cool.) The impeller in the engine had actually shredded and clogged so that no fresh water was getting to the engine. Good thing we shut it off. It probably took us another hour, but we finally got it fixed and went in to find where we had made camp. Amazingly they had found a spot with everything you could want. It was the best camp spot we’d ever had at Lake Powell.

Pictures and Video

Here we have Paula on a wakeboard. She did much better this year. Not only could she get up consistently, she could direct the wakeboard and stay up for longer periods of time. Go Paula!

Here is a picture of me about 8 feet up in the air. I’ve just finished my first back flip rotation and am contemplating whether I should make a second one before I land or whether I should instead do a 360 spin. Oh wait, this isn’t me in the picture. This is my brother. Woops.

This is actually a picture of me. So I still caught some air. Good enough I guess.

Ok, here some video links are to some tube wars. If you are unfamiliar with tube wars, check out the post from last years Lake Powell trip in July 2008. You’ll get the run down of the rules there:

Typical – this is a typical tube wars video. It shows what happens on a regular basis.

Flipped Twice – in this video I was flipped twice but held on and rolled it back over. Kind of cool. It’s my sister and me against my brother and a friend of ours.

Intentional Roll – in this video my brother jumps onto my sister’s tube and is trying to pull her off. She intentionally flips the tube, knocking him off, but she holds on under the water until the boat stops.

Blogging without Pictures

2009-08-15T15:05:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had the experience where you would like to blog about something, but you suddenly realize that you don’t have any pictures to post with the blog entry? That’s depressing, let me tell you, its like having a black and white TV when everyone else has 1080p HD TV’s.

Well, with that said, I have to tell you the funniest baseball experience ever. JSYK (just so you know [I just made that up, isn’t that grand. It’ll be the next FYI or TTYL]) this was among a group of friends (coworkers), men and women who were all highly competitive but at the same time we were all just having fun. For example, in this form of baseball we had a hard foam ball and a hard foam bat with a plastic core. There were no strike outs, but other than that it was mostly regular baseball. Oh, and stretching to rules was ok in a lot of cases, so it was flexible baseball.

My team was down by a few points and the game was almost over. I looked out and saw that we had people on 1st and 2nd base, and we had two outs. I thought I would be funny, so I walked over to third base (right next to our dugout) and as soon as the ball was hit I ran in to home. All the sudden both teams counted it as another run. I didn’t expect it, but no one from the other team had seen me walk over to third from the dugout. So know I was a bit confused because I didn’t know if I should tell them, but before I could reach a firm decision the game was already underway again, so I just kept it to myself and told two teammates in the dugout what I’d just done. They thought it was hilarious. We ended up in the end, winning the game by 1 run.

So, the next day we all are in another meeting and we make the announcement that last nights game was actually a tie. Everyone is a bit confused, so I tell them what I just told you. Fortunately everyone was laughing and everyone was actually happier that the game was a tie (even the winning team was glad it was a tie). I guess we all just like to have fun and we don’t care about who wins. How cool is that?

Timpanogos Pics!

2009-07-25T08:34:00.001-07:00

Well, we have pictures uploaded to our computer and boy is there so much to blog about this month. Hopefully I will share it all with you, but for this post I just wanted to share pics from our ordeal…I mean hike up Timpanogos. (Actually the hike up wasn’t so bad because we were all looking forward to getting to the top. It was the hike back down that got hard. We kept expecting to see the parking lot after leaving each valley only to find another set of switchbacks and obstacles ahead.)

Starting out with the sun just barely starting to come up.

Dave leaping obstacles.

A beautiful valley.

Mama Moose, Daddy Moose, and Baby Moose! It was fun to see these from a distance. However on our way back down the trail James heard the clomp of a big hoof right behind him as he was the last in our train of people. He turned around to see a giant Mama moose right behind him. She was big and we scrambled up the side of the trail to let her pass. It was quite an adventure.

More obstacles.

Even MORE obstacles. These parts were ok, it was when we got to parts of the trail that were completely covered over in rocks or snow that it was hard. We had to climb the snow and rocks using hands and feet to keep from sliding down.

Here is a portion of what we climbed. Beautiful. I wish we had gotten pictures of all the wild flowers. There were fields of them and there were so many different kinds too!

Niel enjoying a little PB & J in another beautiful valley just before the hike gets kind of hard and ugly. It was in this valley that I learned the importance of always bringing baby wipes or toilet paper with you wherever you go. Luckily April was prepared and she and I learned in a patch of trees how to really “rough it.” FYI for anyone who may want to go on this hike, there is one toilet halfway up the trail but it is full to the top and falling over so make sure you have someone to act as a lookout for you as you have to get up close and personal with nature.

Success! Actually this is not the very top. This is the “Saddle” but we decided it was close enough. Getting to the top would have meant climbing over a treacherous trail for another hour and then having to come back down for an hour. We decided to call this good.

Here’s the view looking over one side of the mountain.

Here’s the view looking over the other side of the mountain.

Pioneer Day

2009-07-24T19:27:00.001-07:00

So today is Pioneer Day for all of us Utahns which is great because it means a vacation day for so many of us. We decided to celebrate the pioneers by going on an 8 hour hike as a tribute to their hard work. Ok, we actually did it because my brother-in-law Dave called us up yesterday to see if we would be up for hiking Mt. Timpanogos. We were all for it. Little did we realize what we were getting ourselves into. We got up at 3:30 so we could be at April and Dave's by 4:30 am. After piling in the car and a winding drive we began our hike at 5:40 am. (This is the only way to do this hike by the way. Do not try and do it in the middle of the day, it is just not worth the pain you will have to endure.) We hiked about 13 miles total and my body is now so tired. Now that I think about it, this was a great way to celebrate Pioneer Day. I am so grateful for them and what they endured. I don't know how they crossed the plains and came to the Salt Lake Valley except that they couldn't have done it without exceptional faith.

The hike was so beautiful and probably my favorite I've ever done because of the many many wild flowers, rocks, snow, and waterfalls. I wish the computer would recognize my camera so I could download the pics we took, but for now these will have to give you an idea of the hike.

And the Verdict is.....

2009-07-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, I may have to catch a bunch of you up to date before I reveal what in the world "the verdict" actually means. You see I'm super bad at sharing this kind of news but James and I are expecting Baby Speirs #1. I'm 20 weeks along which means I should only have about 20 more weeks to go. So I am sorry for this late notice to so many people that we have not told. I'm more of one of those people who would rather everyone just figures it out on their own. (For some reason I feel awkward telling people this kind of stuff).

James however insists that we tell ya'll now even though I think it would be fun for people to just discover that at some point we had three kids and a fourth on the way.

So once again, I am sorry, but now it makes the wait only half as long for you. :)

And now for the really exciting stuff. (drum roll) We are having a happy, healthy little GIRL. Yup, "Baby Speirs" can now be "Baby Suzzy" or "Baby Gretchen" or whatever you want to call her as long as it is feminine in nature. (As you can tell, we're needing some name help so please feel free to suggest).

Cable and Internet

2009-07-04T08:59:00.001-07:00

Anyone who knows me (James) knows that I love computers and I love fiddling (not with the musical instrument, with electronics). For example, I would love to have a smart home some day. That’s the type of house that your can program to turn on your lights and stuff and the house can call you when you’re kids get home from school if your out of town. Stuff like that. Anyways with that small rant, here is what I did just recently.

I cut a hole in the wall of our living room.

You may be thinking, what an odd shape to cut into the wall of your living room. Why not a triangle, or an octagon. Rectangles are so boring their almost, as our parent used to say, “square”.

The reason for the rectangle is because I am wiring up a cable output. Previously the cable (for TV/internet) cam out of the floor itself. See this before picture below, it’s coming out of the floor on the right side of the room. The white rectangle you see next to it on the wall next the floor is not the cable output. The cable is literally coming out of the carpet.

Before I go too far, notice how thick the wall was when I cut through it (2 pictures up). It must have taken me an hour or two to cut through it and here is why:

I couldn’t find any studs so I didn’t know where to cut. The reason I couldn’t mark studs is because the wall is too thick for our “deep” stud finder. Seriously, it’s a “deep” stud finder.
The wall was so thick and took a while to cut through. (About 1 and 3/4 inches thick.)
There were 4 layers to cut through: drywall, paper, plaster, and wood planks.

Anyways, enough stalling, here is the finished product:

What’s that you say, not a cable output only? Of course not. I had to add internet too and while I was at it I though I would add video and audio lines that connected to the DVD player, TiVo, etc in the basement. This the video/audio lines we can watch on the upstairs computer monitor whatever is on the downstairs TV. Nice hookup eh?

Home Tour: The Complete 2 Episode Season (Part 1 and Two)

2009-06-21T08:27:00.001-07:00

So here is some news that some of you know and some don’t. We have been looking for homes over the last few months and we finally found one. We moved into it about three weeks ago.

So, check out the pics and enjoy a little home tour of what the place looked like before we bought it. Later will include pictures about changes we’ve made to the home.

Outside of Home

This is the front of the house with a picture of the driveway and carport. There is ample room for one car under the carport, but not enough for two.

This is also the front yard, but from another angle. Isn’t that snazzy that we were able to take pictures from two angles of the front of the house?

Here is the inside of the carport. We were really looking forward to this for the Mustang to protect it from the elements.

From the previous picture if you were to turn to your left then you would see this, part of our back yard. They left this nice shed for us, and a lawnmower, weed wacker, ladder, etc. Very nice of them.

Here is the rest of the back yard. Its a very nice back yard with a decent amount of privacy thanks to all those big trees at the end of it.

Inside of Home

This is the front porch. You can see what this looks like from the outside from the pictures up above. We want to put some nice chairs and a table in here I think. This would be an awesome visiting area because it can be opened to let air flow or closed to keep temperature. It also has a ceiling fan and light.

Yesterday there was a big lightning and thunder storm and Paula and I hung out in here to watch it for a bit. It was very cool. Unfortunately we don’t have seats yet so we stood instead.

This is the front door to the house, looking in from the front porch.

This is the front living room. (The picture before this was looking in on this room too.) That brick thing against the wall is where an old wood burning stove used to sit to heat the home. We’ll take that out before too long I’m sure.

Here is the living room from another angle. We’re actually looking at it from the kitchen right now. I don’t know what was in those big black bags in the living room. It was a don’t ask don’t tell sort of thing. Also, see that cable on the floor in the left of the picture? That was the TV cable coming right out of the floor. We’ve since fixed that and will some day blog the changes we made to fix that.

If you turn around from the last picture then you’ll see this kitchen. Of all the houses we looked at, this one had the largest kitchen by a lot. We were pretty exited about having room to place the kitchen table in the kitchen.

Here is the kitchen from another angle. We have huge windows over the sink. It’s very nice.

There is a hallway off the kitchen that leads to two bedrooms and a bath. This is the first bedroom, sorry about the poor angle. Its pictures like these that keep me from being one of the top photographers in the world.

This is the same room but from another angle.

This is the bathroom. It has the largest variety of out dated items that we had seen in any home. For example, that vanity thing on the left of the picture is from the 70’s or something.

The tub walls are made from cultured marble, the paint is a minty green… yeah we’ll have to change that too.

Here we have a medicine cabinets from the 20’s and that other thing on the wall from the 90’s. Now that’s variety. Lets give the bathroom a hand for it’s diversity. Bravo.

To be continued…

Unfortunately I need to go now, but I don’t know when I’ll get to continue this post so we’ll leave room for a part 2 of this small series. Until then…

….

And now, for the exciting conclusion to: “Home Tour”

Last time, on “Home Tour” we left you at the bathroom. Now we admit that although the bathroom is not the most kosher of places to leave someone, you must admit that it is probably one of the few places in a house where you can meet most of your needs. Enough said.

Here we have picture one of what we made into our bedroom. Its the larger of the two bedrooms upstairs and we like the windows. Below is another picture of the room from a different angle.

Ok, now for a little jump, we are going back out the bedroom door, through the kitchen, and out the back kitchen door. And what do we have there? I’m sure you are just so curious to know.Well, we’ll save that for another blog entry… Ok, I’ll stop being dramatic. We find at the back of the kitchen some stairs to the basement.

You can also see the back door (out to the carport) from here. Nice, a carport!

Behold, the basement (as seen from the carport door).

And here we are in the basement. To the right is the furnace, hot water heater, and laundry hookups. I would try to make that sound exciting, but let’s just admit that right now it isn’t all that exciting. To the right you’ve got the third bedroom, pictured below.

This is the room we are planning to turn into our TV room. That means no TV upstairs. I guess I can live with that.

If you are already suffering from boredom you may want to skip these next two pictures of the furnace room. If not then brace yourself, or if you are trying to fall asleep after a long day then by all means proceed to the furnace/laundry room.

And that concludes our home tour. Look forward to future blogs of how we fix this place up.

Ok, I did make it back

2009-06-17T19:42:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone I just thought I would let you know that I did make it back from D.C. It was an amazing trip and a real eye opener for me. We got to go to the VA Hospital and meet veterans and nurses and doctors who worked with the "War Related Injuries and Illnesses Study Center" or WRIISC. That was interesting and we learned alot about Traumatic Brain Injuries and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

We also got to go to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and listened to panels of nurses who have been in the field, as well as visit ward 57 which is a well known ward for recently and not so recently injured vets. It was humbling to see so many young men who had sacrificed so much. If you don't know what I mean, please see the post below.

One thing that amazed me about this hospital was that it had such top-of-the-line technology. Also all the nurses tried to recruit us into the Army. If I wasn't married and didn't plan on having a family I would have considered it. The Army does seem to have some perks. I'm glad that I don't have to make that decision though, and that others have chosen that path.

We also got to tour D.C. and got private tours of the Pentagon and of the Capital building. Someday I would like to take my family back to D.C. for a vacation. The transportation is easy and all 19 of the Smithsonians are free, not to mention the amazing monuments. D.C. has some pretty neat history behind it as well.

The Lincoln Memorial was amazing. It is so much bigger in real life. Next to me are my good nursing buddies Melanie and Angelynn.

The tomb of the Unknown Soldier was a very solemn and humbling site. There is a guard 24/7 365 days a year. The men guarding it show so much respect. It is one of the highest honors to guard this tomb. One interesting fact is that one way of showing respect is for the guard to prepare their uniform the day before which takes a whooping 8 hours!

Another interesting fact I learned on this trip is that the Arlington National Cemetery was orriginally land owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. This is his house.

Did I mention that I got to meet Obama? Ok, he's just a cut out at the Obama store, but I couldn't resist.
I especially liked this monument which is part of the Vietnam memorial. This is a tribute to all the nurses of Vietnam. It is very symbolic and though you can only see 2, there are three nurses each representing Faith, Hope, and Charity. (Please forgive my tired appearance. This was the end of a long and busy day).

At the Smithsonian. How can I resist getting a picture of the evil Red Coat pilaging a home?

The WWII memorial with the Lincoln Memorial behind.
Don't I look set to work for the Department of Defense at the Pentagon? No? This was amusing because you are not allowed to take any pictures at the Pentagon except in this little corner by the gift shop where they set up this fake podium.

I'm off!

2009-05-04T09:08:00.000-07:00

Well, today I am headed to Washington, D.C. for my first time ever! I get to go with a group of nursing students to study the Veteran population. I am very excited, we'll be very busy listening to panels of veterans, and meeting the chief nurse of the VA. We'll also get to do a little sight seeing and tours of things like this...
This is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. It's a big deal.
And I will get to meet wonderful people like this...I am very grateful for our veterans. They deserve so much of our gratitude. They give the ultimate sacrifice and too often that is forgotten.

And... we're Back!

2009-04-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

So after a long break from posting anything on our blog we have much to catch up on. This post is just going to be focused on my trip to Moab with a few of my cousins in March. They decided it would be great fun to run a half-marathon and invited me along and in a moment of insanity I decided that was a good idea. (I soon after regretted it, but it was too late, I had already paid the fee). And so I was committed to running this race but in the end I have been quite glad that I did. I've never been a runner so it was a good experience and was great to bond with my awesome cousins.

Here we are trying to catch a picture of the scenery on our drive down. It's actually not a great picture of us or the scenery because as we pulled onto the side of the road to change drivers and get a picture a police officer pulled up right behind us. Everyone got supper nervous wondering if we had done something wrong but he was nice and was just making sure we were ok. He even took this picture for us.
Well after our exciting run in with Officer Funk we jumped back into the car and headed down the highway for a few miles when I realized that my phone was missing. Then Kevin in a panic realized his was missing also, and to top it off, Karen didn't know where her phone was either. Kevin and Karen eventually found their phones but we decided to turn around and look for mine.
Nope, not under the car. Not at the site we took the picture. OY!

Finally we gave up the search and kept on driving till we got to our hotel. The good thing about the hotel was that it was super cheap. (during the half-marathon all of the hotels in the area raise their prices ridiculously so we were glad for a deal). The bad part of the hotel... well, it was cheap. It made for some great memories. I even braved the shower that night. I prayed that I wouldn't get a weird fungus and so far I have remained fungus free!
(we were also comforted by the idea that we had new mattresses- we found this pile of old ones on the side of the building).

We then went to the local gas station to get breakfast and gatorade for the next morning. Here Kevin shows off his gummy hamburger that he and Scott decided to get as a light night snack.

Early the next morning we checked in with the race officials. Karen, Wendy, and Kevin were running the 5 mile race and Scott and I were signed up for the half marathon. Here they are as we waited for the time to come to load up on the buses.

Wendy and Kevin Waiting up in the canyon for the race to start. Look at that beautiful scenery. This is what I got to run in for about 10 miles. Unfortunately the last 3 miles were in town and felt like death without the pretty scenery and shade from the canyon walls.

Kevin and Wendy after the race looking quite relaxed. They did the race with good times too. It looks like they hardly broke a sweat.
Scotty coming in from the half-marathon averaging a very impressive 8.5 minute miles (for 13 miles)!
I didn't show you what I looked like when I was coming in. Those pics were not very pretty. However once I got my breath back I was feeling pretty proud of my 10.5 minute miles.

Here we are after the ordeal. We look surprisingly chipper.
To finish off the day we decided to go out to eat (after all, we had just worked off a ton of calories) and celebrate for my birthday which was the next day. We chose a fish house where our waiter ended up figuring out that it was my birthday. This is what happened as a result.

Just to say 'hi'

2009-02-24T17:40:00.000-08:00

Well this post isn't about anything really, I was just getting sick of seeing that we hadn't posted anything since Christmas. Since I'm on campus I can't post any pictures (which I think are the best part of blogs) but I can just say hi.

As for updates in our lives, well, Valentines Day was great. I made dinner and James and I went bowling. We're not very good but had a good time (despite me getting a whopping 57 on our second game). Oy! I think I will stick with Wii bowling, I'm almost a pro on that!

Well, I guess I had better run to class and hopefully I will try to update you all soon.

Long Overdue Halloween Pictures

2008-12-28T15:59:00.000-08:00

This is just a video from Halloween that is long overdue. Jon was able to borrow a very cool lightsaber so that he could dress as a Jedi. I was so impressed with the lightsaber that we decided to shoot some video of it and then post it online. So here is the link to the video: Lightsaber Halloween Video.

Ok, of course we also have to include some other Halloween pictures.

I am dressed up as a computer nerd for Halloween. Paula is dressed up as an old lady. Harr harr harr, I hear you laughing about my costume. You're saying, what's the difference? Isn't that how I always look. Hey well guess what, no, I'm not that nerdy.

Our Christmas Vacation

2008-12-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

Hello all, I thought I would post a few pictures I have been wanting to share with all of you. James and I have been down here in warm and mostly sunny Chandler, AZ. It's been great getting to be with the Speirs and we're so glad all of the siblings could make it down here too.

First, here is my cute and adorable, and extrememly nice dog Gypsy. Joy found this device of torture to put on Gypsy and she was so good and just took it in stride.

This is the new haircut I got. I love it and even though it doesn't look nearly as good when I do it, I still think it is one of my favorites in the last few years.

Here is our cute house at 6 am. James was so great and put up tons of lights this year so when it snowed our house could look like this! What a great guy he is! (Plus it was awesome to have more lights up than the rest of all of Provo. I think we were the most festive house for many blocks).

For our Christmas Eve we held the first "Speirs Ugly Sweater Party Event." Here is what James and I put together. You can't tell but James is wearing a Uof U sweatshirt and I found a very ugly sparkly turtleneck and glued ugly candy canes and bows to it. We had some great laughs and I will have to share more pictures with you soon.

Here are the backs of our ugly sweaters. Merry Christmas!

Can't Wait....

2008-12-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, so it is almost Christmas and I just can't wait! In fact, I'm having a hard time focusing on my studies. I just finished one final and only have one left, but it's snowing right now how can I be expected to focus? Ah, it's "beautiful, gorgeous, wish you were here!" (Guess that movie). Well, I'm going to try really hard to study so that I can get this over with, but want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Post Thanksgiving

2008-12-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

Well, Thanksgiving was a blast for us. It was fun getting to spend time up in Salt Lake. James and I got to sleep at the red brick house that my dad has completely remodeled and it was beautiful. I felt like we were at a luxury hotel (minus the luxurious bed, Thanks for letting us borrow the air mattress April, James and I still appreciated it.)

Now it is back to the grind of school, but it's not so bad knowing that there is only a week and a half of classes left and then a week of finals. I'm kind of looking forward to all of it, and being able to check each test off of my calendar.

Meanwhile James is living up this last bit of freedom before he jumps back into school in January with lots of computer games and building a new TiVo. (I love having a techy husband!)

Well, to everyone out there, happy holidays!

Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T07:42:00.000-08:00

Hello All,
I was just going through some pics on our computer from last year around Thanksgiving time and found these! Don't be too frightened. James grew a beard upon my brother's request and this was him joking around as he was shaving it off. Enjoy!

Christmas

2008-11-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

Again, it's been a long time since we posted anything, but it is time that we did. Today I have a lot of homework, but to get through it all, I need to give myself rewards. So right now blogging is my reward for having finished an assignment.

I love being in the house we are in, but regret not having time to make it especially cute. I'm proud when I vacuum if that means anything to you. Because I probably won't have lots of time to spend decorating this year, I thought I would share with you some of the kinds of decorations I like and wish to buy/make someday.

My thanks goes to Martha Stewart and Pottery Barn for the images!

It's been a long time...

2008-10-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long time since we last posted anything and there is a lot to get caught up on.

School has been going for almost two months now and it has been hard work, but rewarding too. It is fun to be on the postpartum unit helping recovering mothers after birth. The babies are so cute too.

James got into the BYU IT masters program and will be starting in January! Yay for that, but now I wonder if we will ever get to see each other?

Also, James had his 28th B-day! It was fun, we had friends over for home made carrot cake and yummy ice cream as well as games and a movie. Thanks to everyone who came, we had a great time!

Replaced Coil Springs - 69 Mustang 351

2008-09-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, this will just be a very short entry and I apologize for that, but I don't have much time so that's the only option right now.

My brother Jon is up at college now so we are living close together. Before he came up he and my dad rebuilt an 351 Cleavland engine for his 69 Mustang and put it in with headers and all. They drove it up here on a trailer and upon arrival noticed that the front end of the car was very low. The weight of the new engine was too much for the front springs to support.

So, last Saturday and yesterday my brother and I worked to replace the springs on his front wheels. The first one took us six hours to accomplish and we did that last week. The second one we did in about 2 hours and 15 minutes and we did that yesterday. We were both very glad that it went much quicker this time.

In addition, yesterday I got my horn working again. It appears that the previous fuse just blew (maybe from age) so I replaced it and now my car is ready to go pass Safety and Emissions. There is another whole story about how it didn't pass safety before, but I'll have to leave that for another blog entry.

Also, sorry about how dirty the cars are. It rained a few times this week.

And here is a picture that Paula took of me working on figuring out my car horn.

Intro to Nursing

2008-08-16T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,
I was just looking through some pictures of nursing school and wanted you all to share in some of my adventures in nursing school. These pictures were taken over two semesters of school last year. As you will see, Nursing is about the most fun major anyone can choose. Basically you have one crazy day of class all day long each week, and then you get to go on one to two clinicals (Kind of like field trips) each week to hospitals where you put your skills that you learn into practice on real guinea pigs, I mean people. :) Ok, so as you will also see, we have manaquins and each other as guinea pigs in nursing school.

Clinicals

Here we are bright eyed and bushy tailed on the first day of clinical, and then the whole group on the last day of clinical. Ahh, good times.

Here is the first day of clinical second semester, and the last day of second semester. This semester clinicals were at the University of Utah hospital and also the Huntsman Cancer Institute hospital. Both, great places. Our group had to be there by 5:30 am which meant that we had to leave Provo at 4:30 am. But it was worth it. Once you got there and started working, it wasn't so bad. Our clinical days were 8 hours long until the end when they became 12 hour shifts.

Skills Lab
Now we move onto the skills lab. This is where we learn all of our skills for the first time and practice them over and over. It is a very fun place to be.

These are general pics taken in skills lab. (From Left to Right...) Doing a Central Line Dressing Change. -This was a tricky one because you have to follow a bunch of rules for maintaining sterility. 2) Doing finger pokes on each other. 3) Showing off our wounds after receiving gluteal
(bum) shots.

This is when we got to learn how to draw blood...on each other! Despite the looks on our faces as we all hold souvenir vials of our blood it really wasn't so bad. More fun and kind of nerve-wracking than anything.
The last picture is when we practiced IV's on each other. My poor friend Angela was a great sport. After I failed getting the IV in her hand, we went for bigger veins (Antecubital) and had success, almost too much success. The picture doesn't show it, but there was blood spurting everywhere, you have to be fast to clamp off those little stinkers.

Angela's Revenge! Warning to all: If you are ever in a hospital and they want to give you an NG Tube, don't let them! (I really shouldn't be saying this) This is probably one of the most painful things that someone can do to you without having it be detrimental to your health. (Imagine the feeling of your nose breaking while you are heaving, trying not to throw up, and tears, lots of tears). The whole concept is to stick a tube through your nose into the stomach or further so that contents can be put in or emptied from said stomach. Well, in nursing we believe in experiencing everything that we may have to force our patients to experience which meant we got to try the NG Tube. This time I was Angela's guinea pig and she had her turn. The first picture is me clearly before the insertion of the NG Tube (Oh how naive I was). The second pic is me during the insertion of the NG Tube. (Actually Angela did a wonderful job, there is just no escaping the pain.)

And for the finale... This is where we learned how to prep for our experience in the operating room. We learned how to set up the sterile field, which has strict rules one must follow to do it properly. In the second pic, I am putting on my gown after "scrubbing in" (A term meaning you have washed and considered sterile enough to stand at the operating table). Again, strict rules. The last product shows the final outcome...two sterile, indistinguishable nursing students!

So there you have it. That is a brief look into the fun side of nursing school. Don't be misled though, school is tough and involves a lot of books and tests, but is worth it all.

The 4th of July

2008-07-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

We didn't have a blog before the 4th of July so I thought I would back track and share some pictures with everyone. James and I went up to Salt Lake and enjoyed a BBQ at my Uncle Ardie's and then went to Sugarhouse Park to see the big fireworks there.

Baby Loryn was fascinated to watch the kids play badmitton... that is, until she spotted us with the camera.

Here are the kids chasing parachute fireworks. I especially like Ashton's dive.

Allison, quite enjoying her hot dog.

.
And Here James and I are just before the fireworks show.

Welcome to our Blog

2008-07-24T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I just wanted to say welcome to our blog. We figured we would jump on the bandwagon and finally start a blog of our own. Hopefully we will have lots of great pictures for you all, and some interesting posts to keep you updated in our lives. Feel free to comment on our posts, and enjoy!

Lake Powell 2008

2008-07-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

Lake Powell is a yearly ritual where we go and beat ourselves up while we have a lot of fun. It's crazy, that's for sure. This year was no exception, and here is why.

Day 1: The Wind
For anyone who has been to Lake Powell and rented a house boat, you know that when you anchor the house boat, it better be anchored well. (Read below on how to accomplish this.)

Unfortunately we did not anchor as well as we might have the first night. After a day of enjoying the sun and the air we decided to finish the night be watching "Bullit". ("Bullit" is the first movie that had a real car chase scene.)

"Bullit" Car Chase Scene
(Note: A graphic scene occurs at the end of this clip.)

The windows were open on the house boat and we were letting the wind cool us down after a hot day, but as we were watching the movie, suddenly a powerful gust of wind came down on us. We all suddenly sat stiffly in our chairs as we heard the howling wind. It only took us about two seconds before we realized that we were in for it.

The occupants of the boat suddenly looked like the crew of a star destroyer that was taking emergency action. We were on our feet, running this way and that. It was like playing football and trying the break the line, everyone was suddenly in everyone else's way.

How to Anchor Well:
To properly anchor a house boat you will want to lay the anchors as near as possible to 45 degree angles from the house boat. One end of the rope will be tied to the house boat, and if you are wise, you'll tie the other end to the anchor. To be well prepared, plan on bringing at least four 25 pound anchors. Two will go on one side of the house boat (tying mid-way down the house boat and at the rear) and the other two will go on the other side of the houseboat.

Find the four locations (on land) where you will lay the anchors. At these locations you will want to dig holes about two feet deep and wide enough to fit the anchors down in them. Lay the anchors into the holes and then cover them with dirt. (Important: It is important not to err in the previous step. Do not cover the holes with dirt and then lay the anchor as this will leave the anchor un-anchored.) For additional support, stakes can be laid to reinforce the anchors position.

Finally, tighten the ropes so they are taut. This may take as many as four people pulling on the rope while tying it.

Day 2: First Try
Let it never be said that after a crazy night at Lake Powell that you won't be able to have an awesome day. We still all got up early the next day to start our skiing, wake boarding, and more. There really wasn't anything cool that happened... except the awesome event that Paula got up on the wake board her first try. Was I surprised? Not a bit. I had every confidence that she would get up on her first try.

Ok, truth be told, Paula has gotten up on her first try the last two years, but her second, third, forth, etc tries have been... Well, let's just not talk about that. Now, just so you know dear reader, I don't think Paula is much at fault for not getting up again in previous years. One thing that we semi-professional boaters love to do once someone accomplishes getting up on a wake board is to tell them what else they can do to be better. This isn't necissarily a bad thing, but for some reason as we started telling Paula all of the other things that she could now do, I think we overwhelmed her and she just couldn't get up again. Both of the previous years at Lake Powell she got up once the first day and then just couldn't get up again for the rest of the week until the last day of the week. I can imagine that it was probably pretty discouraging, but I'm glad that I married such a good sport.

This year Paula and I decided to try something new. We would not tell her how to do anything that she didn't ask about. So, when she got up the first time and then later crashed, nobody on the boat said anything. She got up again, and still of course crashed a little later. (I bet at this point most of us were tempted to give some advice, but we refrained.) Fortunately, without us saying anything, Paula just kept getting up. It was pretty awesome.

Here is some proof that Paula got up. This wasn't her first run and it definitely was one of her worst runs, but at least it's a video. See Video

Day 3: You Would Never Believe
The third day was very atypical of Lake Powell. You would never believe it, but nothing went wrong, no one got hurt, and we all just had fun. Everyone did just fine on their wake boards, skis, and so on. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. (Yeah I know, the paragraph doesn't live up to it's title.)

Day 4: Get the Nurse
By the forth day everything was continuing just fine. Paula was still getting up on the wake board and I was getting a bit more confident with my jumps. It seemed like another atypical day until someone got hurt. Fortunately, Paula is studying to be a nurse and know how to deal with a lot of situations, so we kind of had a doctor on board. Unfortunately, it was the nurse who was hurt.

Somehow while Paula was wake boarding, the lip of her board caught and she face planted. Even stranger than that, the board came around her back, and while still attached to her feet, gave her a big wack in the head.

I have to admit that the injury made me a bit squeamish. The board some how gave her a cut that ran around the back of her ear and was about three inches long. At the top of the cut where the board had initially hit her was a goose egg that had also split open and the wound looked pretty deep to me, but I'm sure it couldn't have been to bad because (SPOILER WARNING) Paula is still alive today.

Here is a picture of here injury after it had done some healing.

Later that day we decided to take a break from skiing and such and do some sight seeing. It was interesting going around the lake because the water level had risen a lot over just a few months. For example, our favorite jumping hole, affectionately referred to as the toilet bowl, was now deep under water. But as we were exploring we found a very interesting tree sticking out of the water. Jacob decided it would be fun to climb the tree, so that's what this next picture is.

Also this day we found some nice cliffs and did some cliff jumping. That's always fun, but double, triple, and quadruple check the water depth when you do it. No amount of cliff jumping is worth injury.

Day 5 and 6: This Means War
By Wednesday night we had not yet done any tubing, so Thursday (day 5) we decided it was time to go all out. Lets just say that it was crazy and that no one was seriously injured.

We had three tubes out on the water. Two tubes were one man tubes and the third tube is a beastly large three man tube. We've been known to put small elephants on the large tube... ok just kidding, but it could sure hold a lot of weight.

The way we play it, the two smaller tubes are on the outside while the larger is on the inside. One person rides each small tube and those two are on a team. Two other people ride the big tube and they are also on the team. The goal was to get the other people off their tubes. There are some good pictures of this posted below. See the Ultimate Tube War Video or check out the Girls Tube War.

The First Battle: Jacob and Rachel vs. Jon and Jessie

Check out the Green Tube

An Unlikely Outcome

Dirty... Funny... Legit

That's a lot of People

Never Give Up

This is how exhausted tube wars make you feel

Football anyone?

Another Battle

You Know the Competition is Scared

Holy Cow

Day 7: Homeward Bound
Have you ever seen the movie, "Homeward Bound"? It's about a bunch of animals who are trying to get home. Definitely a kids movie, but day 7 was definitely not like that movie so don't get the wrong impression.

This was our final day. We packed up, pulled anchors, and headed for home, but not before taking the traditional "last day at Lake Powell" picture. We are usually all crying at this point because either we don't want to go home or we are just so beat up we wish that we were at home. Fortunately on this trip we were all just happy to have had such an awesome week.

All of us young adults took out the ski boat out one more time while the house boat drove in. We had time for one last adventure, so we had it alright.

It was near the end of our skiing that we noticed the gas was a bit low so we decided to head in. Right as we pulled into the no wake zone where you dock the boats, we noticed that the boat started to sound a bit funny. The motor was struggling and we realized that the gas was out. So we killed the engine and threw Jon an oar. At the front of the boat he paddled us in. Fortunately the docks were down stream so that helped too. The trip with just the oar probably took about 20 minutes.

I must say, we must have looked like soldiers, home from a war with Lake Powell. It might have been the glistening in our eyes or the spray in our hair, or maybe it was the fact that we were being paddled to the gas docks, but we sure got a lot of looks. Every single (and I do mean every single, without exaggeration) boat, house boat, and jet ski looked at us with piqued silent curiosity as we paddled for home. I could almost hear music playing as we were heralded in to the gas pumps. We were heroes, and we were home. ...Ok, we were stranded survivors, and someone actually pulled us in the last 50 yards, but we can exaggerate on some things, right?

Lanie, Paula, and James

Very late Birth Story

Gwen 1 month old

Pictures of my Kids (sort of)

Gwenli Speirs is Here!

Big News

A few things we have been up to…

Home Hinges Giveaway!

Washington DC

Home Hinges Giveaway!

Home Hinges

More Videos!

Moblie!

Home Hinges

I'm on a roll...just call me butter.

Disneyland

Teething

Pictures and Updates

I want it....

A Picture I love

Pictures & Videos!

Life Happens

What's been happening...

I finially did it...

The Stats

Christmas 2009

The Many Faces of Lanora

My (almost) 2 week old Gangsta

Baby Lanora 3 Days old

The Arrival of Baby Lanora Lindsay

Baby is Here

15 Days!

Countdown Continued

Birthdays!

Countdown

Updates

Best $3 I Ever Spent!

Lake Powell

Overheated Engine Story

Pictures and Video

Blogging without Pictures

Timpanogos Pics!

Pioneer Day

And the Verdict is.....

Cable and Internet

Home Tour: The Complete 2 Episode Season (Part 1 and Two)

Ok, I did make it back

I'm off!

And... we're Back!

Just to say 'hi'

Long Overdue Halloween Pictures

Our Christmas Vacation

Can't Wait....

Post Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Christmas

It's been a long time...

Replaced Coil Springs - 69 Mustang 351

Intro to Nursing

The 4th of July

Welcome to our Blog

Lake Powell 2008