heyyy

hey its zac sayn hi. things are goin great out here. wrestling is done for now but swim team started now. im still playn the bass and hope to get a new one soon. ive learned abou 8 new songs since i left washington so things are good...it is so fun to play the bass!

Wrestling news: i took 9th in state and just finished a free style course. Next year will be my last year of middle school wrestling! i will post more videos and pics next season.

i will try to keep you guys updated as much as i can

~Zac

Who has a facebook?

This is Zac tell me if you have a facebook.

Wrestling update

Sorry I havn't put any video's of me wrestling I will try to get them on soon- I am really busy. I will have alot of video's for you guys cause I have a tornament every saturday.

See ya

~ Zac

My Dad and I at a tornament-I took 3rd place

December 1

Day One....

So this is my attempt to compete in this challenge.

Here is a great picture of Zac. Thought you might enjoy. I was thinking bout sending this out as our Christmas card this year.

A quick update on our humble happenings in Ga. I was called into Young Womens. I am the Beehive Advisor. I do love it. As most of you know, I started working. First I picked a little part time job with Hallmark. I only had 6-10 hours a week to work. So, I decided to pick up another job at Target. This provided alot more hours. So after trying to juggle both for a couple of weeks I decided to leave Hallmark. I was called in to work today and I worked from 9:15 to 2:15. Then I picked up the kids from the bus and took them to the doctors. After the doctors I picked up Dan and went home to make dinner. After dinner Dan ran Zac to wrestling practice and now here we are.

Dan is trying to complete a course for a company called Green Advantage so he can start teaching some courses for them on weekends. He flies out to Houston tomorrow to complete that. When he starts teaching those courses that will be a great thing for our family.

Zac has started wrestling again. He has another meet this Wed. and a tournament this Sat. I'll have to share video.

Toni is starting art classes this week and has been going to chorus ever monday. Her first performance will be in 2 weeks. I'll have to share video of this also. She is on the recovery from a nasty ear infection.

Zeke......is doing much of the same. We took him back into the doctors office today to address an ongoing sinus infection. The Dr. noticed that he extremely large adnoids. We are looking at possibly having to have them removed. He is doing great in school! He is reading more and more every day.

In between all of this today, I have been carrying around Twilght to try to sneak in reading whenever I can. I should have never started this because now I am totally consumed and I think I might have a crush on a vampire!

Lastly, it has been very cold here. Today there were even some snow flurries. Nothing stuck though.

Well, that's it for Day 1. Hopefully I will see you tomorrow.

Life Changes

The kids all started school on Monday. They all have had a great experience so far so I hope it continues this way. I am really happy with the schools so far. We were in such great schools in Camas I was almost positive that we would not find any better schools. Much to my delight they are appear better than the ones in Camas so far. It just goes to show that sometimes it is better to have new experiences.
Now that all my kids are in school full time, I think I will be looking for a job. I have been an "At Home Mother" for over 12 years now and this will definitely be a change. I can not believe that I am already at this new phase in my life. I thought it was further away than it was and it seems to come all too fast. For a person who really tries to avoid change, I seem to be in the middle of quite a bit right now and surprisingly doing pretty well with it. I just hope we can get this house thing resolved quickly. Keep us in your prayers.....

I'm in Georgia

Ok...we are in our new "hometown" in Georgia. It has been pretty rough at times but so far we are all loving it! We have met some really neat people. We miss our family though...tonight Toni cried after she got off the phone with Grandma Diana. She misses you terribly mom! Keep the calls coming, remember they are free because we are both with at&t. I will have to give you more details of our adventure here later, so I am just going to do Cathy's list. Love all you guys!

• Where is your cell phone? on the nightstand
• Significant other? Dan
• Worst bad habit? worring about what other people think
• Hair? very CURLY and going gray
• Fave food? cheesecake
• Fave thing? ditto... summertime and babies laughing and a good book or movie
• Dream last night? I dreamed that I had a dream that I wanted to tell Dan about then I dreamed I told him...weird I know
• Fave drink? water with lime
• Dream/goal? to be happy with me
• Room you are in? LaQuinta Room 301
• Your ex? had a couple 16 yrs ago....
• Your fear? not being liked or loved....also heights and lizards
• Where do you want to be in 6 years? ditto...happy, healthy, and thinner, hopefully out of LaQuinta room 301
• Where were you last night? LaQuinta Room 301
• What you're not? tall, busty and blond....or a singer
• Muffins? blueberry
• Wish list item? a house
• Where did you grow up? North Carolina
• Last thing you did? read my families blogs....loved it
• What are you wearing? robe
• Your TV? Dancing with the stars
• Your pets? Sam and Eco our dogs
• Your computer? hp....need a new one
• Your life? kinda crazy....adventurous
• Your mood? happy
• Missing someone? my family
• Your car? falling apart....love the volvo!
• Something you are not wearing? bracelet
• Fave store? Target
• Your summer? Good....interesting
• Love someone? yup all in LaQuinta room 301 (and CA, WA, UT, TX.....)
• Last time you laughed? tonight
• Last time you cried? a couple days ago

Good night!

Which house did I like the best?

This is what me and my family call the "Conrad Court House". This has been my favorite house so far. I loved the big tall windows in the back of the house that soared to almost 18 ft tall. I didn't have any window coverings on them because I could not bear to cover them. I also loved my backyard. It had a great little garden that we enjoyed planting peas and carrots and zucchini. It also had a trampoline that the kids loved to play on. I also loved the tub, kitchen and hardwoods in this house. I loved living in the cul-de-sac where my kids were playing all the time and last but not least I loved taking care of my yard. The one big downside to this house was that it took a lot of time to care for....that and because the house was so tall and I am so short, I often felt like Alice in Wonderland.

One of my favorite summer memeories

I think Cathy summed up the way I feel about summer. It is all about the music and the sunroof! Summers in the NW are beautiful...to die for. As a matter of fact you just might die (death by drowning or consumed by the gloom) waiting for them! But it has finally made it here this year, WooHoo! So after I read Cathy's "summery" of summer I wasn't sure what I wanted to add but then Dan asked me the other day if Drive-in movies existed anymore and it reminded my of one of my favorite summertime memories. Drive-in movies! Mom and Dad used to take us to the drive in movies. The movie that comes to my mind was watching "The Neverending Story". I just remember being so excited to go and we would pile all our blankets into the car and then putting that big metal speaker on the window. As a kid this was a little bit of heaven!

Second memeory monday - Movies

Movies, I love movies! The movies I could watch over and over again are Grease, Gone with the Wind, Moulin Rouge, The Notebook, Second Hand Lions, Big Fish and A Knight's Tale. I also love watching the old cheesy Elvis movies...always have ever since I was in highschool.

Clearing it up after all these years.

OK, so I am a little behind on memory Monday, but I will work on catching up. I chose to start with the driving memory. I felt like this would give me the opportunity to clear up a little story that has been SO misconstrued over the years. This is not my first driving experience but a very memorable one.
So it goes like this:
On my way to work one day, I was sitting at a stop light in a long line of traffic creeping along. I was playing with my keys listening to the music when I scratched my finger. Now I know that you think you know the rest of the story BUT this where all of you were misinformed! I didn't just yelp in my best sissy voice, begin nursing my poor ol' finger and completely forget what I was doing to the point where I rear ended the car in front of me. What REALLY happened was that I started investigating the steering column to find what was sharp. Not paying attention I apparently let just enough pressure off the brake and slowly rolled forward not even more than 2 miles per hour (if that) and bumped into the lady in front of me. The problem arose when I realized what was happening I was very slow at reacting and bounced off her bumper about 4 or 5 more time before I brought the car to a complete stop.
After all these years I finally got an opportunity to tell mom the real story and she laughed so hard she spit her lemonade all over me! But, I felt better despite the lemonade because I finally got to clarify what happened when I was 16! And now that you all know the real story I feel even better :)

What smells so good?

Ok, I am finally putting up a new blog. I think I milked out all I could get from Dan's Birthday blog. You should all be thankful that it wasn't another Mother's Day Blog that stayed up there forever!
Since Feb.7th, we have:
1. Moved yet again from Camas to (wait for it....) a 2 bedroom apartment! We are actually in the same complex as Mom and Dad. Talk about family togetherness...sheez! Just kidding, actually we are really enjoying our time of no yard work, very little housework and believe it or not, spending more time with Mom and Dad. This move happened because our land lady decided that she wanted to sell her house so she could buy another one with her "shack up honey" so we got the boot! That's ok because as usual we were getting along so delightfully with our neighbors that one of the women actually kicked Dan (I think she did this after Dan was expressing his admiration for her snotty attitude toward our kids and dogs)! We are such white trash...we belong in the apartments.
2. Dan left IES, the company he has been building for the last 3 years. He has put out several resumes and has already received an offer for a company in Tualitin, OR. We think this is where he will end up at for a little while anyway. He actually has a phone interview with an architect firm in Georgia tomorrow. We will see how that goes. We will be sending out one more resume to Irvine, CA. With any luck, maybe we will be down with the Blackburns!
3. My car broke down again...with another hefty repair bill. Gotta love those Volvo's....never again will I buy another one. You would think I would hava learned from the first 2 but nooooo.
4. Sent Eco to live Ciria as you well know from Ciria's blog. We miss him so much but are EXTREMELY thankful to both Ciria and Adam for taking him for awhile. From the sound of it, Eco is very happy with them and the girls love him too!
5. As for me, I was thinking about going back to work. The day Dan received the job offer, I was headed down to Costa Mesa for an interview with Alaska Airlines to be a flight attendant. But, when Dan got the offer, (thanks to my dedicated, hard working husband) it enabled me to go back to concentrating on being a full time mom again. So, with Zeke going into the 1st grade next year I think my new goal will be to go back to school and obtain a nursing degree. We will see.
6. Now that we live in Vancouver, we are making 3-6 15 min. drives back and forth to Camas. So, I am spending a bunch of time in the car again. Thank goodness we only have 4 weeks left of school.

So, that gets you pretty much up to date with our family. But, before I leave I thought I would remind you that Toni's 10th birthday is on the 21st of this month. And I thought I would tell you a funny Zeke story. Here goes:

The other day Zeke had fallen asleep in the late afternoon. He woke up and came into the kitchen where I was making dinner and said: "Mom, what smells so good?" I said, "Dinner, Zeke." Then he replied, "No really, Mom." By this story, you can tell how Zeke feels about my dinners.

I have a couple funny Zeke stories but I will save them for later. I have to go....I have to go tend to Toni. She is sick tonight and I have already had to clean up vomit once tonight while I was writing this new post. Aaahhh, the life of a mother!

Happy Birthday, Dan!

I love you, baby! Hope you had a great day.

Becoming my mother in more than one way

It always makes me smile when I go into mom's house and see all her little reminder notes or motivational sayings posted on the walls, mirrors, refrigerator, cabinets, doors and etc. I actually like reading them and seeing which new ones she has added. Although I had to finally ask her after approx. a year why exactly she needed emu oil?? I don't remember her answer.

Anyway, my point is, as I get older I find myself seeing mom in me in different ways. For example, whenever I look at my hands I see mom's hands; or when I call boys that don't belong to me "son", I think of mom. Or when I stay up later than I should watching TV or some movie I feel like mom; or when I can be chewing out my kids when the phone rings and I answer pleasantly like nothing is going on all the while continuing to give my kids chastising looks and snapping my fingers at them, I giggle to myself and remember mom.

Well, I have found that lately, I am posting more notes to myself like she does. The one I posted tonight was this thought I had...

"Kids - listen to them, get to know them, make time for them, be there for them, remember them, love them. It's not just about the job of being THE mother; it's about being THEIR mother."

So not only am I becoming my mother in so many different ways, I want to become more like her in this one particular way...I want to have a great relationship with each of my kids and be their for them the way she was there for us.

..... Love You, Mom!

No More Weigh in Wednesdays - Stuck in Utah

I weighed in 2 weeks ago (Jan. 23rd) but never got around to posting that I had lost another 2 lbs. Then we left for Utah on an impromptu trip Friday night (Jan.25th) hoping to return the following Tuesday at the latest. While I was pretty good about eating right while I was traveling but my exercise stopped completely. I thought this would be ok because I would start right back up again when we got back but then we got stuck in Utah with all the storms and was not able to return to Wa. again until Friday at 1:30am. We had started to drive back on Thurs. and got 3 hours into our drive when I-84 was shut down in Idaho so we turned back around and headed back to SLC. Dan decided to fly us back home so we headed to the airport to catch a 7:05 pm flight. The flight was delayed for 2 hours then cancelled completely. They then rerouted a plane from Phoenix and picked us up and like I said before we didn't get back home to Camas until 1:30 am. Thanks again Mom for picking us up and waiting all that time!

By Tues. or Wed. of the week we were in Ut. I had stopped eating right all together and I haven't eaten right or exercised since then. I am sure I have gained weight again and I have too much to worry about right now without needing to put this on my plate too. I know I am lame but what can I say. I am sure I pick up again soon but I don't know when. So if somebody else wants to start back up they can pick up where I left off....sorry!

On a lighter note, here is a picture of Zeke with his future wife(he-hee)....Sophie Belle! Love her!!! Wouldn't they make a great couple?!

I think we should keep this picture and use it to announce their engagement in about 16 years. I proposed this to Carrie (her mom) and she said; "First you should know--Sophie is a 10 cow woman. She has several offers on the table, so we are upping the dowry. Maybe you could build us a house!" We are currently still in negotiation. Anybody have some cows I can have?

A tribute to President Hinkley

This was sent to me, I loved it, so I thought I would share. What an amazing man he was and I hope that one day I will have lived my life in such a way that I am able to be in his influence again someday.

Weigh-in Wednesday #2

OK Alex, I guess this just for you and me since we seem to be the only ones participating. I have to sadly report that I did not lose any weight this week but I didn't gain any either. Huge bummer but I am sure that "my fat is turning into muscle". At least that is what everybody says to make you feel better. Dan did start this week. This is my good news for the week...Dan finally came home after being in Utah for 12 days. I am so happy to have him home. Which brings me to Calixta's post. Diet cola cans usually remind me of Dan. But in addition to that when ever I see the kids playing their instruments it reminds me of him, my Grandfather clock that he chose, and one of my favorite things is Harley Motorcycles.

We had SO much fun when we had a motorcycle. I can't wait until we can do that again. Hopefully I will be able to fit into all my leathers when we get around to getting another Harley, which brings around full circle to weight loss. It's not to late to start! Come jump on the fat wagon with us!

Weigh-in Wednesday and other happenings

Today is weigh-in Wednesday! I weighed in today at 138.8 lbs. which means that I have lost 2.2 lbs. That equals to 1.56% lost this week so far. 17.8 more pounds to go! I am excited to hear the progress of everyone else.

I am sooooo happy because I have located all my pictures that I feared were lost for good. I have spent the last 3 days going through them all and doing a thorough back up to hopefully ensure that I won't lose them again. Ciria will be happy to know this because I was worried I didn't have enough pictures of 2006 to do the scrapbook page. So, Cathy, Kiki and Ciria.......I am doing my pages for both 2006 & 2007. While going through my pictures I found some great ones that I thought I should share.

This was at the Provo Temple when Calixta and Nate got married. Apparently I didn't get the memo that said I was supposed to wear a pink shirt with a black skirt.

These were taken this year on the 4th of July at Fort Vancouver. We missed having Alex & Ciria and their families. I look forward to this up coming family reunion this year. I think it will be fun to have us all together this year. Thanks for getting the ball rolling Alex.

If you want any copies of these let me know and I will be happy to e-mail them to you.

The start of a New Year

Ok....today is January 2, 2008 as I am sure you all realize, but this also means today is day 1 of the Biggest Loser Challenge. It is not to late to start. Today I dragged my but out of bed, got the kids off to school and turned on my i-pod and worked out with Tony Horton. I only remember one other time that I have felt so fat and out of shape (not being pregnant) and that was when I started Power 90 the first time in 2004. Except back then I weighed 6 more pounds than I do this time. I am motivated! If you choose to participate I think we should do weigh-in Wednesdays. You should weigh yourself on the same scale each time at approximately the same time each day and then report progress. Today I weighed in at a whopping 141 lbs! My goal is to lose 21 lbs (that is 15% of by body weight) but my body usually stalls when I reach 126 lbs. so we will see what happens. BTW you don't have to post your weight if you don't want to...I am hoping by my doing so it will further motivate me to keep on track.
The next thing that started at the beginning of this month is the 2008 HGTV Dream Home Giveaway. You can enter once a day from now until Feb. 19th. This year the house is in the Florida Keys...how awesome would that be. Here is the link: http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home_2008/text/0,,HGTV_30596_65584,00.html if you are interested in entering, I know it is a huge chance that any of us will win it but the way I see it, somebody has got to win it so we should all at least try, beside it doesn't cost you anything. Good Luck on both! Have a great day!

New Years Eve

As Zac is downstairs partying with his friends, I am hiding in the office hoping to escape some of the noise and commotion of 12 year old boys. I can't believe that we are in our last hours of 2007. I also can't believe how time flies as you get older, it seemed when I was a kid time took forever to pass. Anyway, this is my list of the top 10 events (good & bad) for our family in 2007:

10. Moving back to Washington / Moving out of Utah either way you look at it, it is a good thing.

9. Rush Concert (Dan & Zac)

8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Harry is alive, Snape is good and Dumbledor...well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad.

7. Fudge the Guinea pig :(

6. Completing a 7 mile run (then I stopped running completely and gained 15 lbs.)

5. Our "Sister's weekend" in St. George

4. Christmas 2007

3. Seeing Zac become a Deacon

2. Our Cape Disappointment trip

1. Celebrating our 15 year anniversary

What I am looking forward to next year: Buying Lyn Spears book on parenting so I can do exactly opposite to raise healthy and successful children. LOL!

Happy 2008!

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

We went to go see National Treasure: Book of Secrets today. Pretty good movie, although Zeke was pretty bored. He kept saying "When are they going to find the treasure, mom"? I liked it but I also like Nicolas Cage as an actor. It give you a new way to look at Mt. Rushmore. If you don't see it in the theaters it is definitely worth renting when it comes out. Tomorrow is Zac's 12th birthday. He is going to be sustained a Deacon...can you believe it? He would love to hear from you tomorrow.
Only 2 more days from the new year...any more takers in the Biggest Loser Challenge?!? It will be fun.......