Cancun!!

Here we are up in the air parasailing!

Troy loved it!

Us at Chichen-Itza

A beautiful sunset!

Troy in his lush Ritz-Carlton robe, eating our room service dinner! yum..what a vacation! so spoiled!

In Cozumel eating lunch listening to the mariachi's..

On the pier in Cozumel after the ferry ride...ughhhh

This is at Xel-ha(Shell-ha) at the buffet eating...we had several pina coladas and strawberry daquiris...yum...BEERGIN of course ("virgin " being said by a mexican waiter)

Us at Xel-ha, it was so pretty!

Me in my robe relaxing in our room

The view off our balcony..it was so amazingly beautiful!

Ok, so here is the scoop!

Well, on Saturday, Nov 8 Troy and I left St. Louis to head to Cancun for a week. Troy went for a conference, and so we made it our annual trip away from the kids. My mom and dad stayed here with the kids. WE had a blast. Sunday we spent the day hanging out and relaxing, and Troy got started on the conference. Monday we got to go snorkling at Xel-ha..a neat natural aquarium place, it was great. We spent the whole day there, and it was all-inclusive. We got all the food and drinks we wanted..yum... We rode bikes, tubed down the river, snorkled, went in a mayan cave underground, hiked and had a great time. Tuesday we then got to go to Cozumel for a day trip and snorkle and saw tons of fish. Troy and I both got seasick on the ferry from cancun to cozumel..but we survived. We had to ride inside on the bottom, and it was yucky! Then the snorkling boat tour we went on was great, but we were sick there too. We snorkled and even got sick floating on the water. it was pretty rough because of the stinkin hurricane that had just went through. It was great though, there were soooo many fish, we even saw a big barracuda. We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out and then rode the ferry back to cancun that evening. We rode up top and it was alot better. A band was playing some music and it was fun. The next day, WEdnesday, we went to Chichen-Itza to see the Myan ruins. It was very interesting and really neat. We couldnt climb up the pyramids anymore, so that was a bummer. i guess some lady died in 2005, so they stopped the touring. We bought some cool souveniers there though. Thursday we spent the day hanging out and relaxing after 3 full crazy days. We swam and layed on the beach. We went parasailing, it was sooooo scary! Troy loved it, but it was terrifying for me. Friday we pretty much got ready to leave and headed home. it was a long day, we left the hotel at 9 am and got home to Centralia at 12:30 am. Long day! We had a 5 hour layover in Miami. It was a great time we got to spend together and celebrate our 16th Anniversary!! Wow we are getting old!! We ate tons of good food, saw tons of neat plaves and got to enjoy each other alone for a few days...what a treat! Thanks to mom and dad for staying here with our brats and taking care of them! WE had one day to get unpacked, do laundry and clean house to prepare for our other guests coming...Nic, CAsey and kids, and Brandon flew in Sunday afternoon. Next post...

Happy Halloween!!

Well our halloween started early this year....we went to a halloween party on the 17th, the first time the kids got to dress up....then we had our town trick or treating two fridays ago...the 24th...then our ward trunk or treat on wednesday the 29th again...so we said no way to trick or treating in a nearby town on halloween itself!! yuk! i forget how much I dont like halloween! so much candy...jalan and britton have their entire drawer full...its ridiculous!

So here are the kids after carving their pumpkins...they thought this was funny...here is jalan
and macee

britton being cool...and one sock on...

brooke....

and disnee....

here is all the kids with their pumpkins...they all did a great job!

this was the kids before the party at the kretchmer's home...what a bunch!

disnee was a fairy of some sort...let me add, and modest!! I was so proud of her outfit when i saw all the other young girls out...even the yw in our ward! great job disnee!!

Brooke is Alice Cullen...what do you think?? haha...

jalan is a pirate..can you see his chest hair? he had to have some...what a dork!!! heheh

Britton was Robin this night, and batman another time, but i didnt get any pics..such a good mom...

And last but not least, macee was a fairy too..what a pretty girl...she forgot to put her wings on here though...

sure glad its over and on to thanksgiving!! yeah!!!

And the Winner is.......

Britton!! Britton entered a contest at Ace Hardware and guessed how much this pumpkin weighed....Well, it was 90 lbs and Britton guessed 85 and was the closest!!! So he won the pumpkin and we got to bring it home! He was thrilled...its really cool! Great job Buddy!!

Book of Mormon Stories!

Gotta love kids.....today as I am picking up Macee from school..Trinity Lutheran preschool..., she grabbed her backpack and walks out singing, "Book of Mormon stories that my teacher tells to me..." I was dying! it was soooo funny and i wondered if she had sung this for her class:)

Tag, I'm It!!

My 8 obsessions right now:
1. Twilight!!
2. Working on food and water storage
3. Mt dew
4. ebay
5. cute ways to do macee's hair
6. making my white clothes whiter
7. gold canyon candles
8. fall!

8 words or phrases I use often:
1. are you kidding me?
2. i dont know!
3. turn the tv down please
4. go play outside!
5. i love you too macee(10 times an hour)
6. I can't wait for twilight!
7. shhhhh
8. Im hungry!

8 things I want to do before I die:
1. go on a mission with troy
2. visit each of the hawaiian islands
3. go to Wales
4. be a grandma
5. have enough $$ to go shopping and buy whatever I want!
6. see each of my kids married in the temple!
7. go to alaska
8. build my dream home

8 things i want or need right now:
1. a soda!!
2. a maid
3. for troy to come home from work
4. a clean house
5. my house to be done with construction!!!!
6. someone else to paint the cabinets for me
7. chocolate
8. new sheets for my bed

8 people I tag:
1.mom
2. casey
3. julie
4. paisley
5. nicole
6. tiffany
7. disnee
8. brooke

Amazing Weekend

Well, like most of you, im sure, we got the opportunity to listen to conference this weekend. We LOVE to get to listen to conference! Its so amazing and inspiring to listen to words of counsel just for US! I love listening to Pres. Monson....i could listen to him and his stories all day long....But yesterday we had another wonderful addition to the weekend. Troy and I were priviledged to attend Disnee's patriarchal blessing yesterday morning, and for her to receiver her own counsel for "HER". WOW! It was the singlehanded most spiritual experience I have had in maybe forever....What a choice spirit she is!! not to brag...but wow the blessing was so amazing. I was bawling my head off so bad, i hope the tape recorder can understand his words!!! The blessing was so amazing and was so detailed and so beautiful! It was very long as well. We have always know what an amazing young woman she is, but this just enforced on us the reality of her wonderful spirit. I am so thankful for her and for all she has done for me in my life. Just the priveledge of being her mom is a prize in itself. As we were preparing for this day, i was so truly excited and was feeling very nostalgic about Troy and I having our first born receive her pat. blessing. Wow we are so old, but so priveledged to be her parents. Ok..i guess thats enough of bragging on my daughter. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for the wonderful children he has offered to let me have on this earth to be a part of their lives!! There is nothing on earth greater than the love of a family!! I love my family.

Im so grateful for a living prophet on the earth who speaks to us today. I love President Monson! I'm so grateful for the gospel. Hope everyone got the opportunity to watch conference!

What we have been up to!!!!!

Well, things around here have been pretty full and crazy as usual..but I thought i would share whats been going on!!

Here is a picture of our basement...newly cleaned out and organized. Anyone who has seen the "old" basement will see what a change it is!! We are proud and the kids are LoVINg it!! They think its the greatest thing there is. WE now have a table ready and a spot to go to when the tornado sirens alarm and wont be covered with spider webs! yeah us! This is our newly cleaned out back porch!! We got it all cleaned out and its so great having a clean and orderly place again! "king Louis" is teaching macee some cheers...(go figure)

The other side of our clean porch..the kids bikes can actually fit in here now!
Another picture of the basement...sorry i cannot figure this picture uploading in the right order still!! WE got it so nice and even got our deep freeze up and running down there..so nice! ya, that is a shower down there. The people before us had their son shower down there all the time since there wasnt a bathroom with a shower upstairs, other than the master..we sure have changed that! its so gross down there, dont ask me how he did that! ughhh
Notice anything missing in our back yard? The pile!! WE got a dumpster and loaded up the pile of "tennis court" and all the other junk from our remodel and got rid of it! it looks WONDERFUL!! We love the new look of our yard!

Troy also tore down the little shack of a shed thingy and its so open and clean out there! WE dont look like such white trash anymore!
Sis doing her cheers!!
Troy decided he would start yet another project(mind you we still have 4 other rooms not finished, even after our vow to finish one room before starting the next)..and so here he is putting down ceramic tile in the laundry room. He tore out the little window seat. He sort of tiled himself into a corner so to speak....haha look at him teetering on the empty space of floor!! This man is insane! What would we do without his tenacity and the hardest work ethic I have ever seen!!! (other than my dad). He is a nonstop crazy person..he cannot sit down and do nothing..there has to be something going on at all times! He keeps me on my toes thats for sure!!

It looks soooo good!! We havent gotten the grout in yet, just the tile and waiting for it to dry...the bad thing is that the washer and dryer are sitting in the living room...hope we dont mind wearing dirty clothes for a while:)


On another note...we have been seeing this alot lately...K Louis is always reading books..he is really into this and we are thrilled!! What a cutie!

Also, we have had a very neat experience in our family. K/B has a friend that has been getting the missionary discussions, and was just baptized a couple of weeks ago. It has been so neat seeing this and participating in the discussions with them and so forth. She asked Troy to baptize her and it was very neat for us. K/B is loving having a friend now to go to church and activities with, as well as school and she is even a cheerleader with her! congrats to KD!!
We went in to check on sis one night, and saw this....I guess she tucked her water in nice and tight..what a goose!