Family Outing

After the afternoon session of Conference, we decided to take the girls downtown to Municipal Park where we could go walk on the Greenbelt and also go walk through the Morrison Knudsen Nature Center.

Lexi wasn't too thrilled with being in her stroller, so we were only able to go through the Nature Center (with me having to carry her most of the time). After that, we had a picnic dinner. I remembered my camera so I took a TON of pictures.

We got to see many things at the Nature Center. While there, we.....

Read about wildlife.

Looked at the GIANT Rainbow Trout.

Saw AMAZING waterfalls (one of my favorite things in nature).

Looked at streams.

Watched birds eating.

Saw geese.

And watched as the fish swam underneath us.

Paige had a great time. I was so thankful that we were able to get out as a family and that we were able to enjoy the beautiful things in nature that God has blessed us with.

Plah-Doh Fun

This morning after only being up for about an hour, Lexi and I were so tired that we went back to bed. Paige and Joseph cleaned the house. Paige helped Daddy with everything since one arm was in a sling. After cleaning, they decided to play with Plah-Doh. Paige had great fun.

I took advantage of all their fun to take a TON of pictures. For those of you wondering, yes, Joseph took off his sling for Play-Doh......he doesn't let much get in his way of having fun with his daughter.

This was Joseph's flower that he made......

Here is Paige.
She wanted to make sure that the worm that she was making was in the picture.

Here are Paige's creations.........
with a little help from Mom and Dad.

Common Denominators

What do the following pictures have in common?

MY HUSBAND!!!

No snowboard season is complete without a visit to the emergency room.

Two years ago, Joseph had to take our good friend Jason to the emergency room after he slammed head first into a rock wall that he was trying to clear and jump up on. He had a massive concussion (he didn't even remember that he had a wife and kids or that him and Joseph were snowboarding) and also a shoulder injury which required surgery.

Last year's emergency room fun was due to Joseph separating the cartilage from his ribs and popping a rib out. That occurred when Joseph wiped out while trying to land a 360.

This year, he hasn't attempted to do 360's because of his ribs. However, on Saturday he decided that he couldn't hide from them any longer and started attempting the daunting task. He landed one and decided to go try for one more. The run actually had two jumps. The first jump he would do a 180 off of (not a big deal for him) and then the second, bigger jump he would attempt his 360.

Well, he landed wrong on the 180 and wiped out. He smacked his head and his left shoulder pretty hard. Thank goodness he was wearing a helmet or else the ambulance and ski patrol would have taken him off the mountain.

The result?

A sling, follow-up with an ortho surgeon, and a prescription of happy pills (more commonly known as Norco).

The emergency room doc said that he had separated his shoulder. There are four degrees of shoulder separation. The first being just a little swollen and bruised with the fourth being breaking of the bone. She said his was in between the second and third degree.

She doesn't believe that it will require surgery but wants him to follow up with the ortho doc. It will take 6-8 weeks to heal and he might have to do physical therapy.

And the man is begging me to let him go snowboarding next weekend for "closing weekend".

What did I say?

OVER MY DEAD BODY!

Danes Travel Dreams

Joseph and I both LOVE to travel. I wish that I had a money tree growing in our backyard because if I did, we would spend a lot of money on seeing the world. I think that we have such a beautiful Earth and that Heavenly Father has blessed us so much with our surroundings. I want to experience as much of his creations as I can in this life.

I have wanted to start a travel binder that has a section for each state. Then I would research different vacations and things to do in each state and plan a vacation itinerary. All states would have at least two vacations in it. One that is family oriented and another one that is just a couple 's weekend getaway. Then I would have a jar that has slips of paper with the name of the state and vacation theme on it. Whenever we decide to start planning and saving for a vacation, we can pull a slip out of the jar and that is where we would go on our next vacation.

Instead of having a binder, I have decided to have a blog. I will have labels for each state and also labels for family or couple. If anybody has any ideas along the way, let me know. If you go somewhere and want to give a review, I would love to hear that too.

Let the adventure and dreaming begin! You can check out our travel blog at http://danestraveldreams.blogspot.com.

Picture Update

I am horrible about taking pictures. There are two main reasons for this. The first being that we don't do anything that exciting or picture worthy. In fact, we hardly ever leave the house. The second reason is that when we do go and do something that would be worthy of pictures, I either forget to take the camera or I remember the camera but never think about taking pictures. I did get a couple pictures of things over the last couple weeks so I thought that I would share.

This is my very tired husband after a week in the field with the Marine Corps. He was also very dirty. He had just gotten home and all he wanted to do was go to bed!

Speaking of tired, Lexi always just goes to sleep in the living room if I don't put her in bed when she's tired. I think pictures of her sleeping are so cute! I love the clasped hands.

While Joseph was gone, we did a play date with two of my friends and their kids (their husbands were gone also). Six kids all ages 4 and under.......it was crazy to say the least, even with 3 adults! Kali got the kids playing ring around the rosy, so I got some pictures.

Lexi Is Crawling!

Or should I say creeping! Lexi has started the Army crawl (although, in our house we like to call it the Marine crawl). She loves her newfound freedom of crawling. In fact, sometimes I have to trap her in the living room so that I can get things done. She is like a human vacuum. Anything she finds on the floor, she puts directly in her mouth. She sure is trying to make me a better housekeeper!

I know most of you are probably thinking.....isn't Lexi almost a year old? Yes, she will be 1 in less than a month (where has all the time gone?), however, Paige didn't even roll over at a year old. She ended up being diagnosed with a gross motor development delay and was in physical therapy. Paige crawled at 13 1/2 months and walked at 18 months. I had the same delay and the doctor thinks that it is hereditary. She said not to worry too much. All it means is that my kids will be late walkers, but early talkers.

So I am thrilled that at 10 1/2 months Lexi started to crawl (or creep). Hopefully, we won't have to do physical therapy!

Way To Go, Joseph!

Joseph is currently in a Communications class. Two weeks ago, he had to give a speech. He had the option of videotaping his speech and then entering it into the Speech Showcase that Boise State has. They were going to select six Comm 101 students to be in the Showcase and the winner of the Showcase gets $300.00. So, he figured that he had nothing to lose by submitting his speech.

He got a 97 out of 100 on his speech. I was so proud of him. He works really hard in school and he doesn't always feel like he is very smart. However, after he got back from Spring Break, his teacher told him that he was one of the six students that had made it into the Showcase. I am once again, so proud of him.

He competes in the Showcase on Monday. I will definitely take some pictures and will let everybody know how he does!