Another long story!

Congratulations to my sister Sarah who just graduated from the University of Utah with her masters in nutrition! 2 weekends ago me and the kids drove out to Utah with my mom and Aunt Rachel for Sarah's graduation. Since Ella was potty training, and we didn't want to stop every hour, we packed her little potty in the backseat right next to her car seat for potty convenience and it worked out great! She didn't have one accident, in the car, the whole way there!! We got in around 1am Thursday morning and as soon as we checked in to our hotel we crashed! Everybody that is except Joshua! So lucky me, Rachel, and Kiera got to listen to him scream for an hour before he finally passed out. Then Rachel, who was sleeping in a bed with Kiera, calls out to tell me that Kiera has wet the bed. I had no idea what time it was and Kiera had slept right through it so I told Rachel that I would take care of it when she woke up. Well an hour or so later Rachel woke up soaked in pee because of absorption spread and had to take a shower and then sleep the rest of the early morning in her towel because her bag of clothes were locked in the car and she didn't want to wake me up. Isn't she so sweet! Joshua kept me and Rachel up until 5 in the morning the next night too! Sorry Rachel! Great birth control though! So my dad was able to fly in and my brother came down from Provo and we all were able to attend Sarah's graduation which was really great and special for her to have everyone there. We missed having Jes and Kevin there but it was really great to see everyone else. We were also able to see Brock's side of the family as well and had fun meeting them at Liberty Park where we had a picnic, visited the aviary, and fed the ducks and then the next day we all went to the Hoggle Zoo together where Macy's was doing an event and we got our faces painted and free ice-cream and did normal zoo stuff like see all the animals and ride the train and the carousel. We also got together for a BBQ at Grandma and Grandpa Brockbanks where we ate some really great food and got to visit with all the Aunts, Uncles and cousins. It was so fun to see everyone and how they're growing and our kids loved playing with all their cousins! Thank You Brockbank family for having us and making my side of the family feel so welcomed! We love you!!! On Sunday we headed back to Colorado with my mom and Uncle RJ. Rachel stayed for an extra week to get engaged!!! Congrats!! So my mom and RJ drove my car with Joshua and Ella and I drove my moms car with Kayla and Kiera. Before we even got started Ella had an accident in her car seat so my mom put napkins down as a barrier between her and the wet seat. And she didn't put panties or anything on Ella before buckling her in. We drove for an hour or so and then had to stop for gas and Ella had fallen asleep but we thought it would be good to take her potty. There were some napkins and stuff on her lap before I could get her out of her seat and when I lifted them off there was this brown mushy stuff sitting in her lap. It took a moment but when I realized what it was I was, words just can't explain it. My brother started to laugh and moan and Ella began freaking out because she hadn't even realized that she messed herself! I took her out of the seat and my mom was trying to peel plastered napkins from her bottom and wipe her down while I was cleaning the seat. We ran out of wipes and of course the gas station we were at didn't sell any kind of a wet wipe so we just had to do the best we could with what we had and luckily there was a garbage bag in my car, thank you Rachel, that we could cover her seat with for the remaining 8hrs. of the trip! There were other incidents where we had to pull over on the side of the freeway because my brother is a big baby but I'll spare the details. What kind of entertainment would there be on these long boring road trips without kids! OH, one more thing I have to tell you and it didn't involve the kids. We stopped to get everyone some dinner at KFC and stretch a little bit. We sat at a table where one side was a booth and the other side had chairs. Me and RJ were on the side with chairs and the kids were in the booth. When my moms food was ready RJ ducked under the table real quick to sit in the booth with the girls and I attempted to scoot over to make room for my mom. I had forgotten that me and RJ were sitting in chairs and not in a booth so when I "slid" over to make room for my mom I fell flat on my butt making a huge crashing noise that put the whole place in a dead silence and all eyes on me. RJ broke that silence with laughter and my mom decided to sit at a different table all together. I was so embarrassed! Never a dull moment! We had so much fun seeing everyone and we are proud of you Sarah for working so hard and making this happen and we're glad we could be there to celebrate this great achievement with you! Congratulations and we love you!!!

ONE!

One what you ask??? Only ONE little toosh with a diaper on it! About two weeks ago my sweet Ella potty trained and I'm so proud of her! What a blessing it has been to have her in big girl panties! She loves that she goes potty in the big girl potty just like her big sisters and she's so proud of herself! And she was sooooo easy! It only took about a week before she started doing everything all by herself with no reminders from me! And I have to thank my mom and sister, Rachel, for helping because Utah would have been crazy without your help so Thank You!!! (More about Utah to come) Way to go Ella, I love you!!!

Utah and Murphy's Law!

A few weekends ago I got to go on a girl trip with my friend Jamie for a whole weekend! We drove to Salt Lake to get away from the constant demands of motherhood and housekeeping, I'm sure you can all relate. The first day we got together with her sister and mine and drove up to park city for some shopping. On the way home we stopped at Wingers for some of the best wings I've ever tasted. It's my new favorite restaurant! The next day we got together with some of Jamies family and friends and my sister and brother and his friends for a BBQ. We were running a little late and were getting stuck behind some of the slowest drivers and Jamies sister yelled out, "Murphy's Law!" I had never heard of it, yeah I know, so I asked what that meant. She of course couldn't believe I had never heard of Murphy's Law and once she was over the shock of it she explained that Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. So we continued on to the BBQ and when we arrived we noticed that Sarah, my sister, had a flat tire. It didn't look too bad so we decided to ignore it thinking it was a slow leak and we would be able to deal with it the next day. We had a lot of fun visiting and mingling, eating, playing games, soaking our feet in a hot tube, and shooting hoops. We decided to go bowling before heading back to Salt Lake but when we got back to the truck we realized that the slow leak was a really fast leak and her tire was almost completely flat! We stopped at a gas station to fill the tire with air and find the leak so we could patch it until she could get in to have it fixed. After putting air into the tire we realized that the tear was in her valve stem, try patching that. So we decided to change the tire but couldn't loosen the bolts in order to get the tire off. So we just headed off to the bowling alley and decided to deal with it later. At the bowling alley we met up with one of our friends husbands who gave the tire a try and fortunately was able to remove it and put the spare one on! We bowled and had a lot of fun and then said our good-byes and headed back to Salt Lake. Jamie was driving her car with her sister and two brothers and me and Sarah were in her truck. We were only a few exits away from our exit and Sarah's truck began to shake vigorously! We looked at each other like what now and after a few seconds realized that another tire had blown! So we called Jamie and everybody exited and pulled over. We got out of the car and sure enough another tire had exploded. Well, we didn't have a second spare so we had to take that tire off and put the one that was leaking back on. And thank goodness Jamie's brother was there to do that for us! We patched the leak as best we could in hopes that it would hold out long enough to get through the night and then got back in our cars to go home. Sarah turns the key and the car won't start! It died! She left her lights on while the tire was being changed and the battery died. At this point we're all laughing hysterically! So out came the jumper cables and with Jamies car we were able to restart Sarahs truck. Me and Sarah said our good-byes and I headed home with Jamie and her sister. And what's the moral of the story.....Murphy's Law!!! The next morning me and Jamie left for Colorado and on the way back had another run in with Murphy's Law. We both love Wingers and we found a sign for one when we were passing through Wyoming. We decided we were going to stop one last time to get some of their yummy wings. For 15 minuets we looked for another sign to give us the exit we needed to take and finally decided that we had passed it so we figured what the heck lets turn around and go back. Once we got to Wingers and were seated and waited 5min. for our waitress we finally got to order. We both ordered the wing dinner and guess what. They were out of wings for the day! It was only 1 o'clock in the afternoon so we asked how they were already out of wings and the waitress told us it was the last day before their next shipment. We decided to leave and get cheap fast food elsewhere. Crazy! The trip was a lot of fun and I've decided that I need to do that at least twice a year to keep my sanity! Sorry this is such a long story and I have no pictures either because I forgot my camera. Also, I forgot to mention that we went up to Kennecott Copper Mine which was really fascinating! And sorry if I couldn't stop by to visit, we were only there for 2 days so I'll have to get you next time!