Teach me to walk in the light

Last night I was singing Natalie teach me to walk in the light and she asks me "why don't they teach me how to walk in the dark? I already know how to walk in the light. I'd like to know how to walk in the dark. 

Trouble

Perhaps I already have a post with this title. I wouldn't be surprised. We have gone through a bit of trouble with our two youngest. Mostly Matthew. He seems to thrive on trouble. Let's see. We are having a hard time keeping their room warm this winter. They have broken both our space heaters. So we turned the heat up at night but they have put so many toys down the vent that not much heat is getting in. They kept emptying their drawers so we moved the dresser in the hall. Matthew started turning his light on in the middle of the night and not turning it off waking Michael as well so we took the light bulbs out. I had to buy a new vacuum since they have put toys in my central vac and now it has no suction.  Matt got a hold of a sharpie and wrote all over our brown couches downstairs. He sprayed windex in Michael's eyes. He was looking for mints and found my pill organizer and tried one of my thyroid pills. He didn't like it. He got into the Vaseline and got it all in his hair. He dumped a full bottle of Johnson's baby shampoo into the tub along with Natalie's shampoo and conditioner. He got into my lotion while we were out and got it all over his pjs and hair. If I turn my back for a second he is into something. He will push chairs where he is too short to get something. Like my purse or to look for gum. While in St George this weekend he emptied my purse and the diaper bag numerous times. He pushed a chair to the pantry to get Oreos. He got into the toothpaste and tried brushing his own teeth. He got a sharpie and started coloring all the laminated sheets in the basket. He colored on my sheets with crayons. All this and we weren't even home that much and he was sick. Stop breathing go to the ER sick. He's fine now. Just a barking cough. I'm hoping he grows out of this stage quickly. Just thought I better write a few of these things down before I forget. 

Halloween 2013

My kids had a blast. We went to the city Halloween party Monday night for FHE. We carved our pumpkins last night. Nathan and Natalie had school parties today. We got to go to our friend's house for dinner before a full round if trick or treating. Michael and Matthew have their party tomorrow then I think we are done for the year. 

Birthdays

Nathan and Natalie had a great birthday. Natalie had a fashion show party and Nathan played night games and had pizza. It was a busy yet fun day. 

We had the Wagstaff's over to celebrate on Sunday. Jon and McKenzie came too. Poor Nathan wasn't feeling too well. 

Good Morning

This morning not unlike other mornings I found Matthew in Michael's crib with Michael. Matthew proceeded to tell me he was sad. Then he said Michael. I said did Michael hit you. To which Michael said "No Matthew sad I snuggle him". I asked Matthew if he snuggles with Michael and he said yeah I sad. So cute I can hardly stand it. 

Natalie today as we were making cupcakes for her party tomorrow asked why I was remarking my measuring cup. My glass measuring cup is almost blank. So I was using a sharpie to remark the lines. I explained that to her and her reply was "that's okay you can get another on dot com. Just use your computer. "

St George

We had a blast in St George. It was perfect weather. The kids swam every day. We went to the park, we met up with friends, we ate really well, saw Mary Poppins at Tuacahn, shopped the outlets, stopped at Swigs, we even made it to Swiss Days. Michael did get sick and threw up at Chili's and Natalie got sick on the ride home both were such good sports and are feeling better now. Nathan and Natalie got a little too much sun. Michael and Matthew enjoyed climbing in and out of their pack n plays instead of napping. We watched more HGTV than we probably should have. It was great to go with the Homers. Such a great tradition. Looking forward to next year and may have to get a season ticket for Little Mermaid, Wizard of Oz and Joseph and the Technicolored Dream Coat. 

So fun to meet the cast

Natalie at Swiss Days

BYU Football

Well I'm sorry to say we lost again. What a bummer! Well since I dressed the boys that day they wore their BYU outfits from Grandma and Grandpa Scherbel. We will have to wait another three years for another chance. I guess I will be planning our anniversary AGAIN. Although Ryan did say earlier we should just count Italy as our anniversary. 

On a happier note, I got a Vitamix for my birthday and I have been making the greatest smoothies. My kids are in heaven. Today Natalie asked if she could have a smoothie I said no and she said why not since she only had one today.

Nathan got his Wolf!!

I'm so proud of Nathan. He worked hard and completed his wolf. He finished while we were at lake Powell. He helped make chicken fajitas then cleaned the dishes when we were done.  It was so nice to have him help so readily and happily. Nathan is a great worker. He caught his first fish this year and had a ton of fun doing it. I can't believe how quickly he is growing up. 

Funny boys

These boys are so funny. They insist on wearing sun glasses upside down are both scared to death of the swings, Mike loves this little hat and Matt says "that's a  baby hat. " to which Mike yells "No! That's MY hat!", and Matt climbs just about anything. They keep us all entertained. 

Lake Powell 2013

Great trip even with a fire on one engine and being left to float into a rocky cliff for an hour or so. We boarded Wednesday and drove to buoy 14 when the engines just quit on us. Ryan worked on getting it restarted and while he was trying that Dawes and I smelled smoke and ran to the back of the houseboat with fire extinguishers in hand. Dawes went out as Ryan is yelling to close the door because the smoke was so bad. I shut the door and watched Dawes lift the hatch a smidge and spray and then immediately retreat to the roof. I watched the smoke plume and pulled the pin on my fire extinguisher and watched ready to give it another spray. As I went out to do just that Dawes came back down and we moved wake boards up to the roof so we could look at both engines. The smoke dissipated and Dawes checked that the fire was indeed out. We were left with no power to our engines and as such started drifting quickly to the rocks on our left. Nathan was very frightened. Ryan was trying to hail Aramark and not having any luck. We could hear them but they were unable to hear us. Ryan and Dawes quickly untied the ski boat in hopes of pulling the houseboat away from the rocks we were getting closer and closer to. My kids and Paige were very nervous. I was not very helpful as I was so scared. I could see we were going to crash into the rocks and was trying to figure out if I should be in the front or back pushing us away from the rocks. Meanwhile Ryan and Dawes were successful hooking the ski boat up to the front of our houseboat but unable to accomplish a thing. The houseboat was too big it was whipping the ski boat around so they disconnected I felt like we should get the kids onto the ski boat but Ryan said no we should stay on the houseboat. So I gathered the kids and made sure everyone had their lifejackets on. I grabbed an extra kids jacket and we said a little prayer. I have never been so scared in my life. We started hitting against the rocks and it was loud. Dawes got back on the houseboat and kept watch from the roof. He assured me we were experiencing minimal damage because of the rock wall curving out at the top and thus only the upper deck appeared to be experiencing damage. We would hit the rocks about once a minute. Then for a time we drifted away from the rocks into the channel and that was even more scary because the rocks on the other side were much lower and would cause even more damage. But eventually we floated back to that wall of rock and continued slamming into the rocks. After our prayer I was given great comfort to know we would be okay. Ryan was able to contact the national park services and they communicated our situation to Aramark. About an hour later a small boat arrived and boarded our houseboat to see what our situation was. He ended up pulling us back to Wahweap. When assessing the damage we found some tares in the canopy, scratches on the side of the fiberglass and some indentions in the aluminum on both the back corner and front corner, on the port side. There was a small crack up top on the balcony in the fiberglass. The downstairs back bedroom window got pushed in and we couldn’t get it to close after that. Once we were close to the dock Jonny tied up behind the houseboat and steered us right into our slip. It was amazing. There were mechanics there waiting to help. They worked for an hour or two and said they were not going to be able to fix it and felt like there were three possible outcomes but they wouldn’t know which until the next morning at 8:00. 1) we could stay in the slip 2) they could tow us to a beach and drop us if they could isolate the generator 3) they could put us on a rental houseboat. We went and had a lovely meal on the dock at the new restaurant. Ryan told everyone they had had a hard day and order whatever they wanted. We got fried pickles and pork egg rolls. Everyone got a milkshake and we had a great dinner. We loved the lights on the tables. That night we lost the ability to pull lake water so we didn’t have showers or toilets or anything. I couldn’t imagine going out without that water. The next morning the mechanics showed up and were able to fix the lake water and isolate the generator and even get the other engine up and running. The Painters found us and launched at Wahweap we loaded their stuff on the back of the boat the kids went swimming and then we loaded up and took off toward Loan Rock.

Our burnt engine

Us up against the rock wall

Ryan and Dawes had found a great spot but it turned out to be quite muddy so we anchored at a big beach close to the beach all the campers go to. The beach was great and the water in the bay was awesome. Saturday we had a lot of other boaters but it was still great. The weather was interesting. The first night we had thunderstorms and we were all sleeping up top but we didn’t get wet. The next day was windy and the kids were able to tube to their hearts content. The next day was beautiful water and a bit over cast. Sunday rained like crazy. Monday started off windy but ended up perfect same with Tuesday and Wednesday. Although both Sunday and Monday night were rainy and we had to shuffle everyone so they remained dry. The twins slept in the room with the little door in their pak n plays. We moved the mattress to the living room and Ryan slept there and I slept there when it rained. Natalie and Alli slept in the other room downstairs. Emily and Jason got the small upstairs room and Mike and Paige/Steve and Terri slept in the back master bedroom depending on the day. The Painters went home on Sunday and Steve and Terri arrived on Sunday. Mike brought Chris’ boat down and we had a ton of fun but the night of the storm the boat wasn’t tied up as well as it should have been and it got some big scratches in it. Brand new 2013 wake setter. Heather and Dusty came Sunday with their wake setter. It was so fun to surf behind those boats.