Navajo County Fair

We live in a pretty central part of town. The elementary school, pool, library, park, and fair grounds are all a 5 minute walk away from us. It is really nice to be so close to all the community activities and I could definitely get used to it. The only down side from this is when anything is going on Macy can see it out our family room window and begs and pleads until we go do it, which is actually good for us because it gets us out of the house. When the fair comes to town we can see the lights of the ferris wheel, as clear as day. The picture below isn't from our window, but it pretty much looks like this.

 When Macy saw all the pretty lights she asked "what's goin' on over there" and I let her know that the fair was in town and maybe we'll go check it out. "Mom! What's the circle?!" "That's the ferris wheel" "I wanna go on the ferris wheel!" and that's how it started, Macy's love of the ferris wheel. Every few minutes she would ask me when we were going to go on it. Kyle and I were already planning on going to the demolition derby so we decided to bring Macy along with us and see how she did. All day long Macy kept asking if it was time to go to the fair, and all day long I let her know "you have to take a nap, eat dinner, drop London off at Grandmas, THEN we get to go to the fair"... She did awesome and patiently waited all day, when it was time for a nap she got all excited because we were that much closer to riding the ferris wheel. 

The demolition derby wasn't as good as it was last year, it had rained like crazy all day so it was extremely muddy and all the cars kept getting stuck and couldn't pick up very much speed. It was fun to watch though and be with friends. We meant Lisa there (Lorin was working) and then ran into the Wheelers too. Yay for friends!

 While we were talking into the stadium a guy from a booth handed Macy a big red balloon. She was having lots of fun playing with it until....

 Daddy accidentally poped it....

 Luckily one of the guys from the booth that she got it from was sitting next to us, and he called one of his guys from the booth and they gave her a new one. After the demolition derby Macy was pretty wiped out but FINALLY got to go on her precious ferris wheel. 

 She was so excited to go but she was so tired and it was hard for her to show all her build up emotions.

For about 2 weeks Macy would tell everyone she met about her experience; "The cars were crashed and then they got STUCK in the mud, and then we went, we went, we went on the FERRIS wheel!!" The next day Macy asked if we could go on it again, I told her it was too much money to go on it more then once. After I told her that she kept telling everyone "But we can't go on it again, it's a hundred DOLLARS" When the fair left she asked me where it went and I told her it went home. She looked at me with a pretty puzzled look on her face and said "It didn't go home. It would make a MESS in the house!"

I'm so glad we decided to take her with us, she had so much fun and it was definitely a night to remember.

Where were you when the World Trade Center fell?

Image via WikipediaAs I was reading where everyone was 10 years ago today I remembered that during this time of my life I actually kept a Journal so I looked it up. Here is my Journal entry from 9/11/2001 unedited. 


Where were you when the World Trade Center fell? I was in Lorca, Spain on exchanges with Elder Shaw in a coffee shop called Expresso watching on a big screen TV. At 4:00pm exactly the phone rang just as we were leaving. Juan Jose a member here in Lorca who works for the military called and asked "Have you seen the news?" I said, "No" he said, "I don't suggest you go in the street right now. The Twin Towers in New York and The Pentagon in Washington D.C. have just been attacked by terrorists. They hijacked planes and crashed them into the buildings. They are not sure who exactly did it but they think it was Muslims and there are as you know a lot of Muslims here." I was shocked. I didn't hardly believe it. It couldn't be, stuff like that just doesn't happen. I assured him that I would call the Mission President and figure it out. So Elder Shaw called the office and they said well President hasn't told us anything yet. So we said OK, well were going to hit the streets then. So then we left and went to the Coffee Shop where I knew there would be a TV and we watched for about a half hour. That is when we saw the second tower fall live. So then we went back to work. We taught the man from Santa Domingo and he said he thought his brother was in the building but we still taught him. Then we taught Lucas, Maria and their family the 5th Charla. Then we came back home when Elder Kallas called and said the Prophet had a message for us. We should not go to government buildings, stay out of Muslim neighborhoods, avoid contacting Muslims, and if we ever feel like we are in danger we should return to the piso. That was a great testament to me on the church. That so fast we had direct instructions from the Prophet. The Church is true. Then later Juan Jose called to give us an update on what's been going on and to find out our information. It was also good to know that the members are so concerned for us. It is definitely a day I will never forget. Where were you the 11th of September 2001 - 9-11


Soon after, I was transfered to another area that had an even higher concentration of Muslims and I remember waking through areas where all the TV's were watching the news of the events in arabic and feeling like I was behind enemy lines. My companion and I were also invited to an American Flag burning by a group of Muslim men about a week after. We didn't go :) Through it all I never felt in danger and most people actually treated us better than they ever had. Before this every time some one discovered we were americans they would tell us how much they didn't like americans. But there for a few months we didn't hear that.  

Dumb vacuum.. or owner?

I love my vacuum, when it works. It sucks things right up and I love the way my carpet looks after I'm done, nice, fluffy and just plain lookin' clean. Every once in awhile my vacuum decides it's not going to work. Then we have to replace the belts- which aren't sold in stores, so I have to wait a week for them to get here. I end up borrowing Kyle's Moms vacuum because I hate dirty carpet. For the past 2 weeks my vacuum has been dead- the brushes are not spinning. I ordered the belts, two this time so that next time one goes out I'll order one when I put the 2nd one in and I'll always have one. That didn't work. Kyle looked at it a few times, and when my brother was in town a few weeks ago he looked at it. The were determined it was because of the 2nd belt, so I got the other belt... that didn't work either. I was determined that m vacuum was just dead. Whatever. I'm done with it anyway, I'll get a new one that actually works.  Then I had a thought, and looked at these buttons.

 See how that little switch says "Flooring"? Well, when it is switched to "Hard" that means the power brushes turn off... ya those brushes that kept not spinning and we thought it was because of the belts... duh- so I switched the switch to "carpet".

And walla, 2.5 weeks, a mail order, trip to the store, a husband and brother, and a switch later, it works.

Happy 1st Birthday London!

For London's first birthday we celebrated in Buckeye with some of our family. Steven was blessing his little boy the next day, so we decided while everyone was there we should do the party as well.My Grandma and Grandpa Bochat, Chris and Kati and their kids, and Steven were all able to make it out to the party. My mom spent the day making shells for dinner and then Kati and I made some cupcakes for the party.  I found the idea for the cupcakes on Pinterest, and they were SUPER cute. We looked all over and we couldn't find the sour airheads that we were supposed to use (they were striped different colors, so it looked like a rainbow) so we had to use just plain colored ones, but that's okay. We took a trip into town to go birthday shopping and the boys watched some (okay, a lot) of football.

London wasn't shy about eating the cupcake at all, in act she thoroughly enjoyed it.

The kids were so excited about eating the cupcakes. Kati and I made them about 1/2 an hour before the party started and the kids could hardly keep their pants on they were so excited to eat them.

 London has enjoyed all of her presents... sometimes we have to remind Macy whose presents they were, but they are doing good sharing and London doesn't really mind all the much.

 Grandma Bochat bough London her very own tissue box, she loves to pull them out- it was one of her favorites.

 After opening presents we went over to the neighbors house and went swimming, I'll have to add those pictures after I get them from my Mom. It was a great way to get the kids energy out.

Here is our happy baby girl that next morning. She is such a baby happy when she first wakes up in the morning, I love it.

Overall it was a fantastic weekend! We went to the Baby Jack's blessing the morning after and had a day filled of family fun. Thanks for having us Mom and Dad!

My Toddler

I just got an e-mail from Enfamil congratulating me on my toddler turning one. It immediately threw me into a defensive "She is not a toddler, she's just a baby" attitude. I started thinking about all the non-toddler things she does, and the list is getting shorter and shorter. London has been walking for about a month, and she even will stand up all by herself in the middle of the floor. She knows the word "no" and usually listens (okay so that's not so toddler like hehe) and she's learning words like "let's go" and will walk to the door when I say it. She waves bye bye when anyone says the word "bye" and now wants to drink out of a cup instead of a sippy or a bottle, even though she still drenches herself with water every time. London is such a joy to have around, she really does just light up the room when she smiles. She has a way of putting me in a good mood but I'm grumpy and reminding me of the sweet innocence of little children. She is so nice to Macy, even when Macy doesn't deserve it, and always shares her toys. Macy will run up and grab the toy London is playing with and I'll tell Macy to give it back, only to have London hand it right back to her. It's almost like she's saying "It's alright, if you really want it you can have it." She is a championship sleeper and hardly ever wakes up during the night and almost always go to sleep without fussing a bit. She loves to talk on the phone and uses anything as one, from a cup to a sock. It's such a bitter sweet feeling when you realize they are growing up, and the time she has as my Little Lou Lou is just going too fast.

Long Day in Show Low

This past weekend our very old and very rusted out evaporative cooler officially bit the dust. Luckily, our house didn't get up to 105 degrees like those people in Phoenix, but it was definitely a warm 85 the past few days. Macy had an appointment to get her cast off (Yay!) so while I was in Show Low I was on assignment to pick one up. Our morning started out in Holbrook where I was to Walt's to check out their selection. They said they had a few in stock that would fit my needs for a decent price, but I wanted to check out Home Depot and Lowe's before I went ahead and bought it, so we headed out to Show Low at 9am.

 I knew I was leaving a little early, so I was super good and went the exact speed limit the entire way - which worked out because it gave the girls a little nap before our busy day. We first went to Lowe's, no luck- they were all out, so I threw the girls back in the car and went to Home Depot. We found one that might work there. I called Kyle to go to Walt's and look at the cooler again to find out about it's specs in more detail. He was at work, so he couldn't do that till lunch and instead of hanging out at Home Depot for 3 hours, we headed over to Walmart.

 I got some stuff for craft night and then we went to Wendy's for lunch. After lunch Kyle still hadn't called yet, and we had about 2.5 hours till Macy's doctors appointment. We've already been to 3 stores and a fast food place so the girls were a little tired and I was done lugging them in and out of the car, so I checked to see if Winnie-The-Pooh was playing in theaters, no dice.

 I remember that there was a pet store with some small animals, so we headed over there. We looked at the birds and some cute cute puppies and Macy was done. I didn't know of any parks in the area and we still had 2 hours till her appointment. 

We started driving around and we found a McDonalds with a play place, Perfect! I stopped and the girls played for a good 45 minutes in the play area, they had a blast. Kyle finally called me back and said that I needed to pick up the cooler from Home Depot. Back to Home Depot we go, I buy the cooler and some nice Home Depot men help me to the van. The HD men are chillin' in the loading zone and when I pulled up with my van they gave me the "This is so not going to fit" look. Well- great. I open up the trunk and told them it was bigger then they might expect so we just need to try it. It didn't fit one way, so they turned it and got it most of the way in. There was still the backside hanging out but with some ropes and a cardboard box we got it all in. Thank you HD men, we were off finally off to the doctors office to get Macy's cast off. 

We got to the Dr. Office at about 1:50 and sat in the waiting room until 3:30. Gr. The girls were really good the first hour, but the last 30 minutes they were everywhere. It was nap time and I had been dragging them around all day- they were so done. Macy wanted to go read all the patient files so I had to keep to occupied from that and London just wanted to walk around everywhere. We finally got called back and waited another 30 minutes in the room for the doctor. There was a couple times I let London cry longed then I normally do to let them know that the lady with the grumpy children is still in the room. We got out of there at 4:15 and Macy's non-casted leg! She's hasn't been walking on it, she's crawling everywhere- but the Dr said that would be the case so I'm sure she'll feel better in a few days. 

We got home and Lorin and Lisa came over to help us with installing the cooler. We got it onto the roof and the vent hood flashing thing didn't match up at all with our cooler, so we have to call someone to get it installed- bummer, but necessary. The joys of home ownership.

We stared potty training! I kept telling Macy when she got her cast off she was going to go pee in the potty, and as the nurse was taking off her cast Macy was telling her as well- so I went ahead and got a little potty, candy, stickers, and panties. She woke up this morning and we had our first success! She's enjoying her own potty and that helps a lot. 

Wish us luck with the evaporative cooler and potty training! :)

Family Fun!

A few weekends ago my cousin Mark got married  and they were having a wedding reception in Flagstaff this weekend for those of us that couldn't make it to Payson last weekend. Steven, Meghan, and Baby Jack came up to visit us on Friday and then we all went to Flagstaff yesterday. It was really fun having them for the weekend and we loved having a little baby in our house again (No, that doesn't mean I'm baby hungry and I don't plan on having another one for another year). :)

Baby Jack and Aunt Alli

We had to protect Jack because London just wanted to love on him a little too hard. 

Poor London got so upset when she couldn't hold Baby Jack.

Macy loved having Jack around. She would play with her arms and legs and just look at him. It was adorable. She's such a great big cousin. 

Thanks for coming and hanging out with us Steven and Meghan!
After a morning of just hanging out, we headed over to Flagstaff. Before we got to my Aunt and Uncle's house we stopped at Bun Huggers for some amazing hamburgers, YUM. Then we went over and met my parents at  Aunt Janet and Uncle Greg's house. They have an absolutely gorgeous backyard and the weather was perfect which made for a very relaxing and fun day.

Here is the happy couple. Congratulations!

Macy kept running and yelling at Grandpa, it was pretty funny.

Macy told Uncle Steven "Okay- Your turn. Run and scream" So like a good uncle, he did.

I seriously can't get over how nice their backyard was, it was seriously so beautiful and it was really nice to just hang out back there. One day we'll have a nice backyard, one day.