Spring Break - - Part II

Here is the run-down on the rest of our Spring Break week! It is Friday - Monday.

Friday
We got up and just kinda hung out all day. The kids played and went to a Primary Activity with my mom and Jenna. And the big event of the day....
....I cut and colored my hair!!!
I knew I wanted it cut shorter, but the color was just a last minute change in plans just to do something different and fun. :) I was originally just going to put blonde highlights in it (that's what I usually do) but decided to try and see what it's like to be a brunette! I've never had dark hair before in my life and it is so different! But I am loving it! Here is before and after pics for ya to see the difference!
Before: {This is my total natural hair color - no coloring in it at all}

and after:

It's fun to have something different for a while! :)
Friday night we went to dinner and a play with my parents and it was a lot of fun.

Saturday
Saturday we played all day long! We took the kids over to their Grandma and Grandpa McDougal's and they played with their cousins there almost all day. That night Mike took Shawn and Brady and went with his brother and their two oldest kids to the Jazz game. They had a lot of fun. Saturday night I went with my family (and Connor of course) to my cousin Jackie Reid's wedding reception. It's always so fun to see cousins and catch up on what's going on with each of them. I had three girl cousins that were about my same age (we are all within 2 years of each other). We were very good friends growing up! We realized we haven't all been together probably since we were high school age (over 10 years ago!). We all live in different states now so we just don't get to see each other anymore. Sharon (furthest left) lives in Oklahoma, Jamie (her sister and next one over) lives in Colorado, I live in Arizona, and Lisa (furthest right) lives in Utah. It was Sharon and Jamie's sister who just got married. It was so fun to see everyone again!

After we all got home that night (my parent's house) Mike and I and a few of my siblings decided to make a late night run to Leatherby's! The best ice cream ever! (And yummy french fry's!) I think we went around 10:00 and didn't get home until midnight. Very bad to eat so much junk so late at night, but it was so much fun!

Sunday
Sunday was our last day in Utah. We got up and went to my parent's Sacrament Meeting since my dad had to speak in church. He did a good job. (He always does!) Then we packed up our car, had a nice breakfast with McDougal's then drove on to Provo. My brother Joshua and Michelle were blessing their baby Parker that day so we went to that. It was cool to be there for that. Then we went to their apartment with a bunch of family and had a nice lunch. Here are a couple pics I was able to snap of Parker that day. (I only got two - and not even of Joshua and Michelle. Bummer!) But the baby sure was cute! :)

Grandma Lesa and Parker:

After we were done there we were on the road headed home! It is always sad to leave my family and go home. We all miss them so much! We drove to Las Vegas for the night to sleep and go the rest of the way on Monday.

Monday
We finished up our drive home to Phoenix. It took a LONG time! Traffic was so bad! Especially going over Hoover Dam. But I will definitely take bad traffic over the bad weather I had on the drive up any day! :) Overall it was a very fun week!!!

Spring Break - - Part I

Since we were up in Utah for the week and quite a bit was going on, I decided to split it up into 2 parts. The first is Monday-Thursday. We had arrived Sunday late morning and just spent that day hanging out. We went to my Grandma and Grandpa Dayley's to play games and visit with cousins, etc. It was a lot of fun to see them and everyone there. Then here's the rundown of the rest of the week.

Monday
Monday was our first full day with my family. My brother Joshua and his wife Michelle had a baby February 1st. {Parker} Monday was her first day back to work since having the baby and Joshua had a class at BYU he had to go to. They ended up being short a babysitter so my mom, me and the three boys went down to Provo to visit them, see the baby {for the first time!} and to watch him for an hour while Joshua went to his class. Here is "Grandma Lesa" with ALL of her grandkids! It was fun to have them all together and get a few pics!

My boys are excited to have a cousin on my side of the family. (They have quite a few in Mike's family already, but they've been the only ones in mine until now.)

Shawn with Parker:

Brady and Parker: {Look at that cute little yawn!}

"Aunt Emily" and Parker:

Connor had to get in on the action and give some loves too!:)

We took Parker with us and took the kids to the Bean Museum there on BYU campus. I know what you're thinking. "Beans? Really?" I know because I thought that too when my mom told me she wanted to take the kids there. But it's not what you think. :) Bean is the last name of the guy that founded the museum. It is actually a museum of animals. Real dead animals which have been stuffed to look like they did when they were alive. Sounds kinda gross, right? It was actually pretty neat. My kids thought it was way cool! Here's a few pics of the animals we liked the most.

Look at that huge elephant!!! I can't believe they could stuff that thing! And it looked SO real!

My kids really wanted their picture with the crocodile. :)

And the warthog I just thought was ugly and cool. :)

The wolf was probably my favorite. It looked SO REAL! His yellow eyes just stared at you!

And if you grew up in Utah and ever went to Hogle Zoo, you probably remember Shasta the Liger. She was half Lion, half tiger, born and raised her whole life at the Hogle Zoo. Apparently she's dead now, stuffed, and donated to this museum. It was cool to see because I remember seeing her at the zoo growing up.

Shawn's favorite was this huge polar bear that was standing on it's hind legs. Pretty cool stuff for a kid!

After the museum we went to lunch with Joshua and Steven at the Cougar Eat, walked through the BYU Bookstore, then headed home. We just spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing at my parent's house.

Tuesday
I have no pictures of Tuesday, but I'll just tell you a little bit. That morning we got up and my mom and I went to a session at the Oaker Mountain Temple. It was really nice! Steven was nice to babysit the kiddos while we went. That afternoon I took the kids up to their cousins house to play. They played for a few hours, then we took them all to McDonald's for dinner so they could still play a little more before we had to head back to my parent's for bedtime.
{I wish I had pictures of the kids with their cousins! I just didn't think to get my camera out while we were there!}

Wednesday
Happy St. Patrick's Day! We started the day off with our traditional "green pancakes". The kids always think that's fun. And of course, we all had to wear green. :)
Here's all the kids decked out in their green garb:

My cute little sister, Jenna. She is such a fun "Aunt Jenna" and always plays with the boys so good! It's nice she's only 2 years older than Shawn! :)

We just hung out and played all day.

Thursday
It was my brother Steven's 22nd birthday today! It was fun to be there to celebrate! We spent the morning just hanging out and running a few errands. That afternoon I took the kids again up to their cousins house. They just played and played and had a lot of fun! Again, no pictures. Darn it! Next time we get together I have to make sure and get my camera out!
After we played there for a while and had dinner, we went back to my parent's for birthday cake and ice cream and to watch Steven open his presents. The kids thought that was fun to be there for it all.
Also Thursday night Mike flew in and was finally with us again after almost a week of being apart! We were so glad to see him again!

Well, that's it for Part One of the week! Stay tuned for Part Two!

Angels Among Us...

{This post has no pictures - sorry! - It's just a story I needed to tell. Mainly for my own record/journal purposes.}

Saturday March 13th (weekend beginning of Spring Break for my kids) we started our drive up to South Jordan, Utah to visit with family for the week. My sister-in-law Ashley had come down to visit for a couple of days and then drive with me and the kids so I didn't have to do it alone. {Mike stayed here in Phoenix to work until Thursday, then he flew up to meet us.}

It takes about 11 hours to drive from Phoenix to Salt Lake (South Jordan) and we headed out about 7:45 am with the intentions of reaching our destination at about 7:00 pm that same day.
The drive was going fantastic for the first half the trip! We were in Kanab, UT by 2:00 pm - great timing! We were definitely on target so far time-wise.

Then the snow hit.

We weren't even to Penguich, UT (no idea how to spell that!) yet when it started to snow - hard! {Earlier reports showed that it was going to probably rain, but not snow. Boy were they wrong on that one!} Ashley was on the phone almost constantly with my dad getting the latest weather reports and figuring out which roads were the best to take. We decided the best road would be to take the I-20 across to the I-15 then on up. So we did. And the 20 miles across the I-20 took us an hour and a half. At least. It was snowing so hard, my windshield wipers kept getting frozen over so they didn't work very well. We kept having to pull over and Ashley would get out (in her flip-flops coming from sunny AZ, might I add. Poor thing!) to scrape the snow and ice off the windshield with her bare hands! Once again, from Phoenix - no snow/ice scraper in my car. :( My car does not have 4-wheel drive, only front wheel drive. So I had to go SLOW all the way so as not to slide. I did slide a little still, but nothing I couldn't control. When we would pull over to "wipe off the wipers" I would usually get stuck. We would then wait for the snow plow to come by and then back up onto the clear pathway and drive on from there until we would get stuck again and repeat. The whole way. Very tense and very frustrating/emotional.

Well....we finally made it to I-15. Clear roads, yay! And only about 14 miles until Beaver, UT! But unfortunately, as luck would have it, because of the unexpected snow, there were many accidents along I-15 before we got there. Needless to say, traffic was backed up almost that entire 14 miles. It took us probably about another hour and a half to go that distance. We did make it to Beaver and were able to fill the car up with gas and get some dinner in our very empty tummy's! Then {with the snowing starting back up} it was on the road again.

We started driving and it started snowing more and more. We soon realized that we were not going to be able to make it all the way that night. It was snowing too hard and so I was having to drive too slow. {Since the snow was unexpected the snow plows were not prepared and therefore very behind on keeping the roads cleared.} The next main city from Beaver is Fillmore which is about 55 miles apart. Ashley called my parents and her husband (my brother, Jared) and they agreed we should probably stop. So they booked us a hotel in Fillmore for the night. OK. We only have to make it 55 miles to Fillmore. I can do that. Or maybe not....

I was doing pretty good at first, just following the tire tracks of the cars in front of me. Simple, right? Wrong! The other cars are more adapt for snow than mine, and they soon were all out of sight leaving me as the lonely car on the snowy road. And it got dark. And the wipers kept freezing and weren't working very well at all. And I couldn't see anything. Ashley was so good to help and try to guide me to where we thought the tire tracks were. I just couldn't see. Until there was a pole in front of my car. And I couldn't stop. I slid and hit the pole, and continued to slide off the road until I was stuck in the snow in the median of the freeway. Literally stuck. The snow came up past the bottom of my door - they had to move snow out of the way to open my door.

I just instantly started crying. After so many hours of such an intense drive through crazy snow, this had to happen. It was just too much for me emotionally. I wasn't sure what to do, but I followed my gut instinct - which was to call 911 and tell them we were stuck in the snow and needed a tow truck to come get us out. Luckily just before we slid off the road I had seen the exit for Kanosh, so I was able to tell them right where we were at. They said they would send someone. Then I called my mom and cried to her to tell her what was happening. Then we just sat in shock and waited for help to come. Ashley had attempted flag someone down to help us (still in those flip-flops might I add!) but nobody would stop so she came back to the car. We laughed that we always wondered when we saw people stuck on the side of the road how in the world they got there. Now we know. That was now us. And we waited some more.

Then the angels came.

A younger couple (probably early-mid 20's) in a truck, and their dad in an SUV behind them came and stopped. Pulled their truck right up to us in the snow, actually. They had been driving southbound on the I-15 (we were northbound) and had seen us go off the side of the road. They took the next exit and turned around to come and find us. Wow. They tried to see if they could get us unstuck, but no luck. But they stayed with us the entire time until the tow truck got there. {We probably were stuck about a good 1/2 hour at least before the tow truck got there.} They talked with us, even helped Brady go potty (he was crying so hard because he had to pee and couldn't hold it any longer!). The dad carried him(so he didn't have to stand in the snow) behind their truck where nobody could see and the woman helped him stand on the side of the truck and pee out into the snow. Kinda funny, but so nice of them to do that for a total stranger! They continued to try and get us out until the tow truck finally arrived. Then they helped the tow truck driver get my car out and onto the side of the road. And as if that wasn't enough....the dad of the couple offered to pay for the tow! Over a hundred dollars for me. A stranger. I of course wouldn't let him, but thanked him again {as I once again teared up} that he would even offer that after all they had already done for us. The tow truck left.

The son came over and gave us his name and cell phone number and said if we got stuck again on the way to Fillmore (we had told them we were stopping there) to call them and they would come back and help us. Can you believe that? They were headed the complete opposite direction. (I believe they were moving to Cedar City to go to school there or something like that.) Then the wife said that she had to make sure we got there okay, so instead of leaving us, they followed us ALL THE WAY TO FILLMORE (about 24 miles round-trip out of their way!)....to the parking lot of the hotel where we had a room for the night. {Thank goodness we had been prompted to do that earlier, because they were sold out and turning people away left and right as we were checking in!} When we got to the hotel I got out of my car and ran over to once again tell them thank you for everything and that they were the answer to our prayers that night (which they most definitely were!). The guy went to shake my hand, and he placed money in mine. I tried to refuse, but he stepped back and wouldn't let me. (I'm pretty sure they were paying for the tow truck - that's about how much he gave me - since I wouldn't let them earlier.) Then they said their goodbyes and were gone. Just like that.

I will never know who those people were. And I have no way to ever repay them for what they did for us that night. They truly were angels in disguise and an answer to our many prayers we had prayed that day while driving. I tear up now just writing about it. I still cannot believe that someone could and would do all of that for total strangers. There truly are Good Samaritans out there still in the world today. I know because they helped me that night. And for that I am forever grateful.

To end this novel of mine on a lighter note.....
After what should have been an 11 hour drive, took us 14 hours plus, and still short of our destination. BUT -- we slept great that night and were able to drive the last 2 1/2 hours the next morning rested and on clear roads! Hallelujah! Let our "Spring Break" vacation begin!

I LOVE THIS WEATHER!!!

The Friday before Spring Break was a BEAUTIFUL day!! Ashley was still here visiting and so {after spending the morning packing for the drive to UT the next day} we decided to get outdoors. We took the kids to Freestone Park in Gilbert, AZ. It was a lot of fun and felt so good to be outdoors in the sunshine!

Here are the kids riding the carousel:

And Connor happily watching from the sidelines. :)

We all went on the train ride around the park. Tried to get a couple pictures from behind the kiddos - they tuned out kinda funny! :) But look at all those big brown eyes!

I love how Connor has his tongue out on this one.

After playing on the playground for a while, we decided to walk to one of the lakes and feed the ducks. The kids absolutely loved it!

I thought this duck was so pretty with its green head and yellow beak!

I love springtime in Arizona!!! Such perfect weather/temperature!!! Definitely one of the best times of the year to live here!

Mesa Temple in the Springtime!

My Sister-in-law Ashley {married to my brother Jared} came down to our house for a couple days to play and then drive up to Utah with me and the kids for Spring Break. While she was here, we took her to see some sights around Phoenix since she's never been here before. One of the places we went to was the Mesa, AZ temple. I realized I have zero pictures of this temple in the 4 1/2 years we've lived here. So needless to say I went a little crazy. :) Here are just a "few" of those pictures!

I LOVE the temple in the springtime with all the pretty flowers everywhere!!!

I love the look of the temple with all the palm trees surrounding it! Really neat! Kind-of reminds me of the Hawaii Temple.