Dad- This one is for you!

My dad likes to shop at a place called NPS. He buys the wierdest things and brings them home. About 6 month ago he bought children's swimming caps and gave one to Darin for his kids and one to me for my kids. I forgot about it until the other day when I checked on Porter as he was taking a bath.

Family Reunion

My family had family reunion this Memorial Day weekend. We began on Friday with sealings in the temple. Dex, Dave, Shelley, Debbie, Ken, Darin, Don, Cami Derrek, Mom and Dad and I were all there. It was neat to be in a room with my family thinking how greatful I am that they are all members of the church and have a testimony of it. I am greatful for the example my brothers and sister are to me. They have always made good decisions and raised great children. When I grow up I want to be just like my sister.

Monday we began the day with a picnic that none of us made it to. Sorry Dave and Shelley. I think we were all just trying to get all the other stuff for the day packed and we all ended up running late.

We all me at a recreation center for swimming and basketball. My kids spent the entire time in the pool and loved every minute of it. Here is a picture of Robin and Chase in the pool.



Aferwards we met at Dave's ward for the remander of the evening. We played volleyball,





cards




and another game called "Human Battleship". It was the funniest thing I ever saw.




This one is of Jackson throwing a ball.



We had a BBQ. The men cooked out in the pooring rain. After dinner we watched "Enchanted" on a big screen in the gym.

Dave and Shelley went to a lot of work to put family reunion together this year. I really appreciate all that they did.

Memorial Day

I always like to visit the graves on the Saturday before Memorial day. It isn't something my mom has ever really taught us to do. She always taught us to enjoy people while they are still alive and to let them know that you love them while they are still alive. Debbie visits the graves every year. I guess I do too, but I don't bring flowers or really do the traditional grave clean up. I just go and hope that the ones on the other side see me and my family and know that I care. One year I remember reading my scriptures at my Grandma and Grandpa Vanderwerff's grave. It was kinda cool because there was just a quiet peaceful spirit there.

This year Don, the kids and I went to visit my dad's side of the family and to see my brother's grave. I try not to take the kids too much because I spend the whole time just trying to keep them from stepping on the headstones and tipping over the flowers. But this year, Kyath and Porter seemed old enough to start participating in the tradition and with Don there I knew Zander and Dresden wouldn't be too much trouble.


This is Ky by my brother's grave. He was a still born that was born after Debbie and before Darin.


This is Porter by his grave. He was looking at the flowers Aunt Fay had left.


Monday Debbie and I went to the other Cemetery together to visit my mother's parents.


We found them, but had trouble finding my Father's step mother. We ended the visit by stopping at President and Sister Hinkley's grave. I loved seeing all the flowers and people visiting his grave. It really left an impact on me.

The Wallet Thief

Okay, I lost my wallet a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't quiet sure where I lost it. I remember paying for a $5 pizza at Little Caesars and coming home. I went to work the next morning and my wallet wasn't in my purse. There was a customer at Little Caesars that did try to distract me. I wasn't sure if maybe he took it while he was distracting me or if I just left it somewhere. With the affairs of my house, it could be in my house never to be found again. I just didn't know where it was.

I cancelled my credit cards. But I wasn't going to start renewing all my cards just to find the wallet the next day. I was really convinced that it had just fallen out of my purse and I just had to look harder at home.

I spent the next week asking every place I went to if a wallet was turned in. One guy laughed and said, "You really think someone would turn a wallet in?" He thought I was crazy. I started systematically tearing the house apart.

Exactly a week from the day my wallet went missing I received a call from the manager at Little Caesars. She had my wallet. I was grateful. I was glad that I wouldn't have to renew all my cards. I was glad I could stop trying to figure out where the wallet was.

"Hi," the manager started. "You don't know me. I am the manager of Little Caesars in Bountiful and I have your wallet."

"Thank goodness!" I exclaimed. "I have been looking everywhere for it."

"I just have to let you know that I cut up your cards." the manager warned.

"Oh, my credit cards?" I responded. "That's okay, I already cancelled them."

"Your credit cards and all the other cards." she clarified.

I had to pause and digest what she was saying. "What other cards did you cut up?" I asked.

"All of them." she responded.

My gratitude turned to confusion. Why did she cut up all my cards? What would possess a person to do such a thing? I mean I understood the credit card thing. I would have never cut up someone else's credit card, but I understood it.

She explained that she had kept the wallet in the safe the whole time. She had her workers try to get a hold of me, but they were unable to determine how to get a hold of me. (Never mind that my address was on my drivers license and that these are teenagers that work at Little Caesars!)

She said that the wallet had just been at her store too long and she just didn't feel comfortable with in in her store with her workers. (So was she saying that she can't trust her workers?) So she started cutting everything up. She said she had started cutting up the last thing when she noticed that it was my business card with my phone number. That it was the first time she knew how to get a hold of me. Then she told me I could come and pick up my wallet and the cut up cards.

I went to the store with mixed emotions. The manager greeted me with my wallet and a breadstick sack filled with the cut up cards. I thanked her (What else could I do?) and went home to access the damage.


I already threw a lot of the cards away. But here is just some of them. I also had an Albertson's card, Smith's card, a Davis County Library card and a ton of business cards from other people.


This is the one that really threw me for a loop. She cut up my government coupons for the Digital TV Converter Box. These are worth $40 a piece. She also cut up stamps. I don't know about you, but it has really had me second guessing whether I will ever eat at Little Caesars ever again.


So the moral of the story is... I really don't know. Be glad that you are not me. Don't envy me. Don't try to be like me. Bad luck seems to find me no matter what. Just keep your space and you should be safe.

Porter's B-ball game

It is really fun to go to Porter's games. All the the kids swing until they actually hit the ball. Porter is up to bat here.


They throw five pitches to the kids. If they miss all five, then they set the ball on the tee. Porter almost always hits the ball when it is pitched to him.


Porter has asked to be catcher for the last two games. They usually have two catchers a game, so he only was catcher for half of the game.

Saying Farewell

What can I say? After my long post about Good Old Rusty I am not quite sure what to say. I convinced Don that we really did need to get rid of the van. I donated the van online to the Kidney Foundation. Today, the tow truck came and took Good Old Rusty away. I expected neighbors to line the streets. I expected the kids to cry. I expected to dance in the street! The tow truck came while the kids were still in school. Dresden was asleep and Zander was watching cartoons. I watched from the window as the tow truck operator loaded up the van and drove away.

Tai Chi

Here is a video Don made to a song he calls "Tai Chi"

Good Old Rusty

Today was supposed to be the day that we sold the huge Ford Club wagon. Today is a day I have been waiting for over five years. Those of you that know me, know the hate relationship I have had with the van from the start.

It all started one day with a call from Don. "Hey, I bought a van," he excitedly said. "A van? I inquired. "We already have a van." I responded. We had just bought a van two months previous and it was running fine. We also had another car that Don drove that we were still paying on. Don continued, "They had this great van for sale at the church. I got a loan and bought it already. Can you meet me here and help me get it home?"


Now all marriages have a point when one spouse does something absolutely insane, right? Maybe he was having a midlife crisis at 30. What could I do? The deal had already been made.

I met Don at work to see this marriage wrecker great van Don had just bought for our family. There in front of me was an eight passenger green club wagon. It was huge. It screamed Mormon Bus! "How can something so big actually fit on the road? I thought to myself. "How am I ever going to park the beast this great gift from my husband without hitting other cars?"

We got the van home. It was apparent from the start that Don loved worshipped this vehicle. He insisted that we replace one of the other vehicles with the van.

I spent the next five years trying to find a way to get rid of this nightmare amazing vehicle. When Don's foster mom, Carol asked where she could buy a van like ours I quickly offered to sell her ours. Don was hesitant, but how could he deprive his foster mother of his one true love, the van or course. Carol took over payments and had the van a year before she decided that it was just too big and she wanted her car back. She secretly hated it too, but couldn't bear to tell Don. By the time we got the van back, it had been in an accident and the side door no longer opened from the outside. It was missing parts for the passenger door. There were a number of repairs that needed to be made. As soon as we came home Don was outside scrubbing it down and patching it up.

Now, I don't know about you, but we have always named our cars. There was the Brown Bear, the Yellow Bullet, the Green Machine to name a few. A name just never fit for the van. It took years before Porter came up with the perfect name. One weekend we had loaned the van to Carol. When we went to pick it up, Porter spotted it in the street parked in front of her house. "There's Good Old Rusty" he said. I looked and there was our then old, tattered, dented, warn out van. The name was perfect. From then on it became known as "Good Old Rusty".

A month ago the van started to show signs of its age. I had stopped at Rite-Aid to pickup a prescription and Good Old Rusty would not start. I had Dresden and Zander with me at the time. Don was at work and I had no way to get home. I walked home carrying Zander on my back and Dresden in her car seat. I knew it was dead. But Don went to his baby after work and carefully checked to make sure it was all the way in park and tried to start it. Good Old Rusty turned over and Don was able to make it home.

A week later I drove Rusty out to Eagle Mountain to my mission reunion. I didn't take the directions with me and I got a little lost. I had the kids with me and Don was at work (again). I stopped in the middle of a neighborhood and asked for directions. They pointed me in the right direction and even printed out a map on map quest. We hopped back in the van and were ready to head off. Rusty refused to start. I played with the shift column shifting it from park to neutral. It would not start. I said a little prayer with the kids, explaining that we were really in the middle of no where and that we really needed to get to the mission reunion. Rusty obeyed and started. Not only were we able to go to the mission reunion, be we also made it back home.

Don had me convinced that it was the steering column. It was fine once it was started. I didn't seem to have any problems as long as it was completely and totally in park.

It wasn't until I was trying to make it home from Wal-mart that I thought it could be something else. There I was in the parking lot and I could not start the van up at all. I called my sister and asked her to drive me home. She rescued me because she is the best sister in the world. She insisted on taking my keys and having Ken get the van home because Don would not be home until late.

About three hours later Ken called to ask questions about what the van was doing. I told him that as long as it was all the way in park, it would start up and Don would try to get it after work I was worried that Ken would spend a lot of time trying to rescue the van. We hung up and I wasn't sure if Ken was going to try to look at the van or if Don would just look at it on the way home.

A couple hours later Ken pulled up in Good Old Rusty. He was in his let's get serious mechanic's clothes and was clearly frustrated with the van. I asked him how he got Rusty started and he said he tried cleaning the battery cables, jump starting the van and everything else he could think of. Then he played with the shift column and finally somehow it started. He still had it running and wanted to know where to park it. I told him that he could park the van in the driveway. As he parked it in the drive way and it started to roll backwards. "Great," I thought. "Now it won't even stay in park." I was worried.

I was pretty sure it was the transmission after the final outing I went on. I figured I just had to get the van started and then keep it on till I was back in my driveway. As long as I did that, I would be fine. I had found a king size headboard and foot board for free on KSL.com. (Yes, I am one of those that check KSL.com for free stuff) It was 20 minutes away. I hauled all the kids in the van and drove out there. I left it running as we piled my new treasure in Good Old Rusty. We had successfully made it there and I knew we would be fine getting back.

As we rolled onto the freeway I realized that Rusty had seen his day. The engine was reeving and I wasn't going past 55 MPH. I couldn't go faster than that because Rusty just would not shift up. It was clear to me that the transmission was gone. I got home and parked Rusty knowing that was my last ride in that horrible wonderful vehicle.

So for five years I have been waiting for this day. Five years of stifled laughs from the neighbors as we drove by. Five years of explaining to people that I really didn't have a say in buying the van. Five years of parking at the end of the parking lot because that was the only place I could really find room to park.

Don announced that we would take it in to Carmax and see what the van was worth. We caravaned out there. Don drove his van one last time with all the kids piled up inside. I took the white car (still not named). They had to at least give us $500 we reasoned or $300 or maybe $200. We could still buy groceries or at least we thought we would be able to.

The gentleman at Carmax tried to put it to us lightly. "That's a pretty big van," he started. "It's domestic too? How many miles does it have?" He peppered us with questions, each time looking more and more grim. "I can have my guys look at it. It would take 45 minutes. I know that you wouldn't get more than auction price and my guess is that it would be pretty low."

By the time we finished talking to him, it was clear that we would be wasting our time trying to get anything for the van. I was depressed. To make matters worse, Don decided that the reason the van would not go over 55 MPH was that I accidentally had it in 2nd gear and not actually in drive. He lectured that I could have really done damage to the van!

So Don has won again. We are keeping the van. It is parked out in front of our house right now. To all my neighbors I say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have had to put up for the beast for this long. I am sorry for the false hope I gave you that we were actually going to beautify the neighborhood by getting rid of the ugly thing. But most of all, I am sorry that you too are cursed blessed with the van.

Blogging

So I am still kinda new at this. I am learning new things about blogging everyday. The newest thing I learned was from my friend and neighbor Tawnie. She showed me how to put links on the side of my blog of my favorite blogs. I took it a step further and included other website of friends and family members. If you have a website that I don't have on here and should, tell me. Maybe I will include it. Then I can stock that website along with all the other sites that I stock!

Mother's Day

This is what I received for mother's day. But wait, let me start from the top.
I woke up before everyone else and got ready for church. I decided with it being mother's day that I shouldn't have to be the one to get my kids ready, so I just got myself ready and of course Dresden (because she will always be fun to get ready). Then I left the rest of my family while I went to church. Kyath and Porter got themselves ready and came to church late. They weren't in time to sing with the primary, but I was proud of them, at least they came.

Kyath was excited to give me the bag he had decorated at boy scouts. It is a cute little book bag that I can use for the library books. I love it. He also gave me a picture that his teacher took of him at school.

Porter gave me a cute butterfly that he made at school. It said "Thanks for giving me wings." I put it up on the fridge until the magnet fell off. Now it is on top of the fridge until I can fix it.

I liked both gifts. But neither of them were as memorable as the gift Porter gave to me right before my parents came for dinner...

he broke my front window. Now there is a big crack screaming to the world, "I have boys!"

I am just curious how you spent your Mother's Day. What did your family do or not do? What did you get or not get? What would have been your dream mother's day?

I think I will have to award a prize to the best comment.

The best comment will get four hours of free babysitting or something comparable if the prize doesn't fit to your situation.

I guess I won. What did you all have an amazing Mother's day? You lie!

Wanted

Wanted, a patient soul to watch my children while I run away for a couple of hours.

Must have

1. an unlimited supply of Benadryl and be current on a days prescription of Prozac, tranquilizers, and or both.
2. the ability to referee non-stop wrestling, karate, and boxing matches.
3. a love of boys, or at least pretend to.
4. a knowledge of how to make peanut butter sandwiches on white bread with no crust and be willing to make Top Raman.
5. protective ear gear to protect the hearing that you currently have.
6. willingness to clean up after huge messes that usually result from playing in the mud.
7. ready arms to hug a crying, injured child every few minutes while busily looking for band aids for the next injury.
8. ability to answer phone and carry on a conversation with background chaos and loud interruptions.

You may ask why I have not included anything about my daughter. She is an angel, thus, she is coming with me.