Familiar Smells

Do you have a familiar smell that reminds you of something from your past? I sure do. A few weeks ago my dear husband was preparing for his business trip to New York. He bought some shoe polish. Yes shoe polish. When he opened it to polish his shoes, it brought me back to when I was a little girl and my dad was polishing his work boots. My dad was always some sort of policeman during my 21 yrs. When I graduated from high school, he was a deputy sheriff. He always polished his shoes. I think this was a monthly ritual. When my dad would polish his shoes, I would sit on the floor and watched him and he concentrated on polishing his shoes. I would look at how strong my dad's hands were. I would look at his handsome face and think that I would marry a man as handsome as he is. I loved the smell of the polish and I also loved the sound of the shoe brush brushing against his shoes. When my dad was done with his polishing, I was so excited to see his sparkly shoes. As far as I was concerned, my dad had the sparkliest boots in the county. When Dan, my husband, opened the shoe polish, I had no idea I had these memories. I love when I have memories flowing from my mind. Tell me of a familiar smell that brings a happy memory to your heart. Thanks for sharing.

Still Alive

I am still alive. I have been either to busy to write or I have had nothing to write about. We had a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went to our friends house for New Years. We also moved last month.
I will post pictures of our house later when I can find my camera. We moved the week before Valentines Day. We found a 4 bedroom house to rent right by our children's school. I found the house on Craig's list and I drove by it on accident. We love all the room we have in this house. We are slowing putting all the pictures up on the walls. We love the fact that our older girls can have friends over and we don't have to hear them giggling or screaming. They can also have more than two friends over each. We have a huge backyard. There is also poles for a volleyball net. I can pitcure v-ball games through out the summer. We can also have parties. We love to entertain and living in an apartment we were not able to do that. So we are excitied to host several summer parties at this house.
That is what we have been doing since my last post. I will try to post more.

A's

Today, I found out that I got A's in both my classes. I think I only got a few A's in high school.

In my Skills For Learning in the Info Age, I had to write a Survival Guide for my final project. After I had all my notes done, that paper only took me a day to write. I enjoyed writing it too. Who would have known that I like to write papers, grammar free,and in APA format. I received an A on this paper.

In my Contemporary Business Communication class, I had to make a PowerPoint presentation. I have never done a presentation before so this was kind of new. Thank goodness Dan knows PowerPoint and Excell. He guided me through my presentation. I also received an A. This took me a week to come up with my slides. Then in one day, I wrote my script out and I corrected my grammar, spelling and font sizes. After it was completed, I was very proud of myself.

So, for getting A's in my first two classes, I am going to see Twilight and New Moon tonight. Lea, Chayanne, and I are going to stand in line until they let us in. Twilight will be starting at 9pm and at midnight, New Moon will start. I am soooo excited. It will be nice to hang with my girls to see two great movies. Whoo Hoo.

My girls are going to be tired Friday. They are still wanting to go to school after being up all night with me. I think we will be coming home around 3am unless we are stuck in traffic maybe 3:30. The girls catch the bus at 7am. I think they will want me to drive them to school. If I am awake :p My mom will be coming over to help Daniel with the kids. Dan asked my mom if she would spend the night and help. I am still trying to figure that one out. But in the mean time, my mom will be here. My younger kids are excited.

Tomorrow I will let you know my feelings on New Moon. Stay tune to find out if I am still team Edward or if I turned to the dark side, team Jacob.

Daniel

I could not help myself, I had to post a picture of my wonderful, handsome husband.

Walking every morning

Dan and I have been walking every morning around 5am until 6am. Dan has been doing this for about 3 or 4 weeks now and is loosing weight like crazy. He walks about a mile and a half. He will be going for 2 miles this week. He has also cut back on his diabetic meds and asthma meds. It is great to see him so dedicated to his health.

I have been walking for a week now. I walk a mile everyday. I feel so good afterwards and have more energy. I like that I don't have my kids around and I can have some alone time. I don't mind having Dan with me. We stay out of each others way.

We wake up one of the girls to come lay by Elijah in our bed. That will keep him asleep a little longer while I am gone.

Last week we came home and found Lea and Elijah holding each other fast asleep.

Papa's Visit

My dad came to visit over General Conference. We love it when he comes to visit. We wish we lived closer to him. Someday.

I don't know why I didn't get a picture with the older girls. But than again, these are not the best pictures. I am sorry for that.

When I told my dad to look at me he looked down. In the middle picture, Nathaniel is holding up his Wolverine claws and Ella is just posing. In the last picture, Elijah was wearing my dad's boots. He would not leave them alone.

All my kids loved my dad's boots. They think he is a real cowboy for wearing them. When my dad wears his cowboy hat, my kids are asking him about cowboy things. It is so funny. One question they ask him is if he always wears his boots. I don't think my kids have seen him wear anything else but his cowboy boots.

Fall

You know Fall is here when you can sleep with the air conditioner off and windows open. You know Fall is here when you can leave your air conditioner off until around noon. You know Fall is here when you drive the kids to school with all the windows open. You know Fall is here when you here little voices in the van (with all the windows down) saying,"I'm cold, roll the windows up. You know Fall is here when you wake up and go to bed with beautiful cool weather. I wish it would stay like this all year round. You know Fall is here when the air is nice and crisp in the morning.
YES!!! There is Fall in the city of Mesa. We may not have the beautiful fall leaves, but the nice cool breeze is such a welcome to all that live in this city. Remember it is usually around 110 degrees all summer long.