The last few weeks

Here is a picture of the finished poster that I made for Singing Time. It is pretty big!

Unfortunatly, I have been sick for going on 4 weeks now.  I have missed the last three weeks of church.  It started at a really bad cough and that was all I had for about a week.  Then I started getting cold like symptoms and a stuffy head.  I wasn't sleeping well at all.  We were about to leave to go to San Diego for the weekend, so, I went and bought some Nyquill.  It works so well for my sister and I was desperate get some sleep at night. Well, it didn't work at all and it surely didn't knock me out and let me get a good night's sleep!  I was so sad.

We went to La Jolla anyway.  Tanner, Cynjyn, Garry and I left at 7am Thursday morning.  Taz had to go to school that day and was leaving with the team at 5:00pm.  Talon was going to take him to the meeting spot.  We got into La Jolla around noon.  We couldn't check into our hotel until 1, so we parked in the parking lot and walked up the street to a local chinese place for lunch.  Cynjyn has always been obsessed with tea pots and so when they brought us tea, she really wanted to pour real tea from a pot.  So we let her fill our cups with tea. 

Then I poured some water into one of the cups so she could "drink" out of it.  It's the little pleasures in life we should all cherish!  It made her day.

We could walk to the beach from our hotel and so we did.  The weather was iffy, but we enjoyed walking and sitting along the beach and watching the surfers.

That evening, we went down to try to get some picture at sunset, but we couldn't get the camera settings to shot good shots, so they were all weird!

Tanner is wet, because he was standing on a rock and I was taking his picture and a big wave hit the rock and then just splashed up over onto him.  It was funny and we didn't see it coming!  After this pix, he quickly ran up to the hotel for the night.

I super love the foliage in California and I was always stopping to take picture of it.

The kids were getting tired of it, but I didn't care.I made them pose under this unusual looking tree and then I was wishing my dad was there to identify it for us.

That night we walked about a mile up to a local pizza joint for dinner.  We ordered their bear bread and a pizza.  They messed up on the pizza and added green peppers instead of olives, so we ended up getting the bear bread free.

The next day we woke up to rain, rain, rain. So we went on a little drive tour of La Jolla and then we went back to the hotel and played hearts all afternoon.  We decided to go hit the beach one last time before we went to watch Taz's tournament and the weather was gorgeous.  We went to seal beach and walked around looking at the seals for a long time.  Garry was trying to get a pix of C holding the seal.  She thought they were so cute and really wanted a pet seal!

The mothers and babies were all over the beach and they were so adorable.

Tanner and Cynjyn decided at the last minute not to go to the tournament and to stay and play on the beach for a couple of hours since the weather had really improved.  So Garry and I went to the tourny.  Taz got in for one serve that night.  I started feeling worse and worse.  The next day, we packed up and checked out by 8am.  We drove to Taz's tournament place.  He actually got a lot of playing time since the libero got hurt and he did pretty good. 

It was a long morning and tournaments are always draining.

They finished in 6th place and were done by 2;00.

During our bye's I played with Cynjyn's hair,

and for some reason, C kept these glasses on the whole time.  They had no glass in them.

We got home by 6:30 and I was so sick.  I was dizzy and coughing and couldn't taste or smell.  I went right to bed.

Finally, last Tuesday, Talon's car was fixed.  He ended up needing a new engine.  When we went to pick it up, the owners had a pet wolf they had rescued.  That wolf LOVED Garry, it followed him around as he paid for the car and then followed him out to the parking lot and stood in front of the car and Garry couldn't pull out.  The owner had to come out and get the wolf.

Last Saturday, we put the garden in.  Garry made 5 raised beds and we enlisted the kids help and got it done in no time.  Tanner is planting the tomatoes we bought.

Taz is planting the ones we started from seeds about 6 weeks ago.

The kids are all placeing the drip hoses along the planter boxes.

Cynjyn is putting the strawberries in.

Tomatoes

Strawberries, hopefully this will work and we'll enjoy the fruits of our labors in a few months.

Cynjyn is so stinking cute.  She just comes up with the perfect clothes combinations. This was her outfit on a Saturday to go shopping at Goodwill.

Garry and I have been wanting to try some spaghetti squash as noodles.  So we had that for dinner that night.  I haven't been able to taste anything going on 14 days now.  So I really couldn't taste it.  Garry and Cynjyn liked it well enough to eat it again. 

Taz and Tanner said they would eat it again if I made it, but they wouldn't request it.  I will make it again when I can taste again!

And her she is wearing a little sweater she picked up at Goodwill and accesorizing with my pink necklace and hair flower.

Birthday and more

President's day weekend found us with a four day weekend.   We had that Monday and Tuesday off.  since my birthday was on Wednesday, we decided to mostly celebrate on Tuesday since Wednesday would be a normal work/school day.  So Garry came home from work at 11:30 and He, Tanner and I went to the movies.  Cynjyn and Alexa had just come to our house after spending the night at Alexa's and so they were tired and watching Pitch Perfect (first time for Alexa seeing it), so they didn't want to go and Taz had volleyball practice plus, he'd already seen the movie a few weekends ago with his friends.  So we went to Warm Bodies just the three of us.  We had a free small popcorn coupon and so Garry went in to find seats and Tanner and I were waiting in line for the popcorn.  Garry came running out and said the movie had already started.  According to the website, it was supposed to be a 12:40 movie, but the theater said 12:15 and we hadn't even noticed.  It was 12:30, so we skipped the popcorn and ran into the theater.  We had missed the previews and maybe the first couple of minutes.  We all liked the movie very much.  Later that night we all went to In and Out for my bday dinner.  Yummy!!

The next day was normal. Toni's kids take piano from me on Wednesday's so when she brought them, she also brought me a gift.  And Maggie had decorated it with glitter!  I love me some sparkles!!  My birthday happened to be a crazy day.  I taught preschool in the morning 9-11, then piano started at 2 and went to 6:30.  I ran out the door after that to make it to Enrichment which started at 6:30.  I was 5 min. late, but low and behold, they hadn't started yet!! That got over at 8 and then book club was 8:15.  So I litereally didn't see Garry more than a quick kiss as I went out the door and the kids too.

So the next morning, I noticed that my sweet man had brought me flowers...purple...my favorite.  He also left three wrapped presents on the table. 

With those presents, Tanner had left me a giant heart.  He had written this note on one side.

On the other side he had left many reason's why he loved me.  This gift made my heart melt.  I guess my kids did notice and appreciate all the loving I left them during Valentine's month on their doors.  Thanks Tanner, I truly loved that gift.

One day after practice, I took Taz and Cynjyn with me to Tropical Smoothie and I got my free bday smoothie and they got some too.

Toni got me a cake pop maker!  Garry got me three things on my Amazon wish list:  A silpat, a popscicle mold and the game Spot It!

A few days later, I got in the mail a scarf from Krissy and a homemade bracelet and earring made with purple and silver beads, my two favorite colors!  Thanks Krissy and early I'd gotten my $100.00 from mom which I'd already used to buy some clothes with.

We kind of got new bedding for our room for a Valentine's/ birthday gift.  I love the silver/grey black bedding.

Let me see...things we've been doing.  I have been working for two weeks off and on now on a giant handout I'm making for a visual to the March song I'm teaching in primary.  The song is: "If the Savior Stood Beside Me."  I love that song.  I've been gathering a bunch of pictures of the Savior with children and I'm collageing it with words.  When I'm done, I'll post a final picture.

Garry has slowly but surely been working on the garden boxes.  We are doing container gardening this year.

And our exciting news of the month is that Taz made the VARSITY volleyball team.  In December they started Open Gym.  Taz had to go play with the freshman.  He did not like that, so he asked coach Schwalie if he could practice with the Varsity and if Coach allowed him to after seeing him play, maybe he could try out for varsity.  So he pracited all December and January with the 20 or so boys who were going to try out for varsity.  Well, the last week of open gym, the week before tryouts, the coach pulled Taz aside and told him that he was really impressed with how hard Taz had been working.  He told him he was really considering him for his varsity team, but he needed to prove to him this week that it would be a good decision to put a freshman on varsity.  So Taz continued to work hard as usual.  That Saturday, 19 boys tried out for varsity.  The coach was taking 14 on his team.  He pulled three down to JV right away, one was as sophmore, two were juniors.  He cut two boys completly and at the end of tryouts there were 14 boys and Taz was one of them he kept.  Come to find out Taz was his 11th pick!!  So three more would have gone before him!  He was sooooo happy and relieved!  He was just flying high that day.  He is the only freshman on the team and there are only Jr.'s and Sr.'s on the team!!  Woot woot, way to go Taz!

The boys have been playing hearts on their phones for awhile, so we finally started playing it in person.  It has been our new favorite game of choice this past month.  Notice Taz displaying only the heart to let you know what we're playing!

Cynjyn, she has been her cute adorable self.  Dressing up for spirit week.  Today her friends decided they'd all wear bows in their hair.  So she strategically placed a blue bow tie in her hair as a headband, that girl can make anything look cute.

One day was pajama day and she of course matched and looked awesome.

And the trusty old mad hatter hat came out for hat day.

So this past weekend, Taz's team had their first scrimmage of the season. They are going to San Diego this next weekend for a tournament, which will be their first official game.  So Garry and I went to the scrimmage.

Taz actually got a lot of playing time and so we are hoping he will see some in the games this year.

And finally, the newest cell phone game craze around here is Ruzzle.  I like to play it in my free time.  Here is a 190 point word, you don't see that too often, unfortunatly my opponent, Garry, got the word too, but it's still cool when you score a big point word!!