A Little "R and R"

This summer has been extremely busy for us.  We have had everything from family reunions, to spending an evening at the AF City carnival.  And believe it or not, Chad took an entire week off so that he could spend time with us up at the cabin.  He has never taken that much time off (except for when I had Brexlyn), so it meant a lot to me.  So instead of doing a million different posts, I thought I would just post a few pictures of the things that we have been up too.

This picture makes me laugh because of McKinzley's face.  They are at the top of the picture.  It was the first time that they road the roller coaster, and the first time they had ever been on a roller coaster, and McKinzley looks like she is about to cry.  Once she got off  of the ride she thought it was fun.
Poor Taylin, what a fake smile.  She was not at all excited about the kiddie rides.  She wanted to go on all of the huge roller coasters.  She was really sad when we told her that she was too little.
                                             Again, another Kiddie ride.
At the end of July we went and stayed at my family's cabin for a week with my sisters and their families.  It was so much fun.  One of the days we took them to Cascade Springs.  It was so beautiful (but their were tons of bugs).  That didn't bother the kids though.  They had a great time.
                                Brexlyn zonked out at the swimming pool.
Chad and the girls enjoying some time in the hammock at the cabin.  The little girl on the front left is my sister's daughter Allyson.
Here are most of the kids on one of the bridges that goes over a waterfall at Cascade Springs.
As soon as Chad would get in the water the kids were all over him.  He is such a great Dad!
At the Eldredge reunion the first thing the girls wanted to do was be pushed in the swings.  I for one hate pushing kids in swings because you end up doing it forever, and it was really hot.  Fortunately for me they talked Drew and Kirstin into pushing them (thanks guys!).  There weren't enough swings for everyone and Oaklee wasn't too excited about having to share hers :)
This is the girls before the roller coaster started.  They were really excited.

So that is pretty much what we have been up to this summer.  We did have Brexlyn's 1yr birthday party up at the cabin, but I don't have those pictures yet so it will have to go in another post.  I hope you enjoyed :)

Happy Birthday Taylin!!

This year for Taylin's birthday she wanted to go swimming at a "big" swimming pool.  A couple of years ago we found the best pool in the world.  It is the Veteran's Pool in Provo.  Not only does this pool have a HUGE kids pool, but they also have a regular pool and two really big water slides.  That might not seem like a big deal, but at this pool they let you take your kids down these big water slides.  That is not very common anymore, so it is definitely a perk for us.  The best part about this pool is that it is only $3 per person to get in, and 3 year olds and younger are free!!  So anyways, this is where we decided to have Taylin's party.  

We started out at the park that is right next to it, and we were lucky enough to be able to use a pavillion.  We started out with pizza and soda, then we had cake and opened presents.  Then it was off to the pool.  Here are some of the pictures....

                    Here is McKinzley and Taylin enjoying their pizza, YUM!

                                  Chad, Brexlyn and McKinzley
Here are most of the cousins sitting on some cute little chairs that Grandma Beckie brought
Allyson, Brooke, Aunt Maria and Grandma and Grandpa Heal enjoying the food
Here is Taylin's cake.  She has been asking since McKinzley's birthday in March for an "orange truck cake".  We had a hard time finding one, so she settled for this cake.  She absolutely loved it!
                                   Taylin blowing out her candles
SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!  This is Taylin holding up a $20 bill!  Grandma Beverly gave her this precious gift.  She still hasn't decided what she wants to buy with it.
She got so many great gifts.  This is a box of all different sorts of toy animals, bugs and fish.  Taylin, Oaklee and McKinzley played with these animals for about three days straight, and they still carry them around anywhere they go.  Thank you Grandma Heal!
Next came the water.  Surprisingly, Brexlyn LOVED the water!  She played the entire time.
These are the two big slides.  This is Grandpa Hoyt and Oaklee after one of their many times down.
Here is Drew and Taylin getting out from going on the slide.  Thanks to Drew, Kirstin, Chad, and Grandpa Hoyt, we had enough adults to take the kids down the slides over and over again.  Thanks you guys!!!
Thanks to everyone who came!  I know that our girls had a blast, and so did we!

4th of July

The 4th of July was such a fun day for us!  We started out by having lunch at my family's cabin that is up Provo canyon.  It is so nice and beautiful up there.  We all had a really fun time!

                                                              Chad and Brexlyn

Here is me and the girls on the porch swing.  I got sick of standing behind them to push them, so I decided to join in on the swinging fun.

                                  McKinzley, Oaklee, and Taylin.  Aren't they so cute!!??

After we spent time at our cabin we headed down to Chad's moms house for a BBQ and some fireworks.  The first thing we did were snakes.  I don't know if you are familiar with this firework but I loved them when I was little and I thought for sure that my girls would love them.  Come to find out, in my old age, I find them rather weird and kindof disgusting.  The girls did enjoy them though.
During the traditional "snaps fight"  Aidan and Brexlyn hung out on the blanket chewing on all of the empty boxes from the kids (and adults).
The wind was blowing really hard so the fireworks, mainly the snakes, were hard to start.  That is when Drew decided to get some kind of accelerant and spray all of the snakes with a burst of flame.
                                              This was the result.  Kindof gross huh?
Here is a picture of all of the people who were at the BBQ and fireworks show.

So Long Old Friend

It all started on the morning of July 5th at 6:35am.  Chad was up with Brexlyn when he heard a really loud crash outside.  Now normally he wouldn't look out the window, but the last time that he didn't look out the window when he heard a crash we went out later to find that our mailbox had been smashed to pieces.  So he decided to look.  Which was a good thing since there was another truck along with ours that was basically in our driveway.  Chad went out to talk to the owner of the green chevy truck, and to see what damage had been done.  To his surprise there was no one in or around the vehicle.  Thats right.  They smashed our truck and then they left, but they forgot to take their truck with them, and they left it running!  This is when we knew that we were dealing with some really bright people.  So Chad called the police, then turned off the green truck because it was leaking gas.

So Chad starts to look at the damage caused by this accident, and is quite surprised.  Most of you know that we live in the first house when you turn onto our road, and that the turn to get onto our road is a pretty sharp one.  Well this fellow was going so fast that he hit our truck, lifted it up, and it landed about 6 feet over onto our fence.  Now that is pretty impressive.  Needless to say, the whole front driver's side door, wheel and front fender are pretty smashed.  Then the front of the truck got smashed into the fence which ruined both of the front tires, not to mention it bent our fence and gate in about 4 feet.  The hood of the truck is bent up about 3 inches, and something is wrong with the bed of the truck.  

Now all of that is exciting i'm sure, but I bet most of you are wondering, "Did you catch the guy?".  When looking in the green truck there just happened to be a wallet sitting on the front seat with a package of chicken.  Could we be any luckier?  So the police call the man whose wallet it is only to find out that he lives in Pleasant Grove and loaned his truck to one of his buddies.  Meanwhile my sweet little neighbor, Virginia, who is like 80 years old comes walking over and gives Chad a hug, and the police officer a hug and then tells them that she heard a loud bang and looked out her window to see 4 men running down our street.  Now once again, we are obviously not dealing with smart people.  Again, most of you know that we also live on a dead end street.  So these men had no where to go.  One of the police cars just parked in the middle of the road and waited while all the paperwork was being filled out.  Along comes a girl down our street in a really nice silver honda civic.  I don't think much of it until the girls comes back out of our street with a man in her car.  I was thinking, "They better pull her over!".  Sure enough as soon as they passed the cop that was parked in the middle of the road flipped around and pulled them over.  I bet you can't guess what comes next......thats right!  The man in the car was the one that was driving the green truck!  What an idiot!  Did he just think that he would be able to cruise by?  I don't know.  I don't think I ever will.  We haven't gotten the full police report back but I am thinking that maybe alcohol had something to do with the accident.  I mean, who hits a car and runs, but leaves the evidence behind??!!!   I am very grateful that it did happen that way so that we could get things taken care of.  And I am extremely glad that Chad was not in the truck when it happened.

Needless to say, the truck is totaled.  We have to say goodbye to it tomorrow when they come to take it for scraps.  It was a good little truck for us, and worked really well for Chad to use for work.  So.  Now we are in the market of buying a new vehicle.  Hopefully we can find something nice, and affordable.  I will keep you posted.   As for the truck, we say, "goodbye old friend".

Summer Fun

Since the weather has been so hot, my girls have been swimming out in our swimming pool or my moms swimming pool almost every day.  Here are some pictures that I took (the water is freezing cold!!)

IT'S A...........

GIRL!!!!!!!

I KNOW, EVERYONE IS SO SURPRISED:) WE ARE SO EXCITED!  WE CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS LITTLE ONE TO JOIN OUR FAMILY!

Time's Almost Up

There are only 5 days left until we find out whether this little peanut inside of me is a boy or a girl.  YAY!!!  It will be nice to finally know so that we don't have to keep calling it "the baby", we can start calling it by its name.  

BYE BYE PRE-SCHOOL

At the first of June McKinzley had her pre-school graduation.  She had so much fun in school this year and it has been really fun for me and Chad to see how much she has grown and learned in such a short time.  She is really excited to start Kindergarten in the fall even though she said that she will miss Miss April (her teacher).  She told me not to worry though (not that I was), but Miss April would be ok because Taylin was going to be in her class next year and that would help Miss April to not miss McKinzley so much.  She thinks very highly of herself :)  The program was really short, but cute.  Here are some pics from the graduation. (I can't believe that I have a Kindergartener now!!!)

            It is kindof hard to see, but this is McKinzley getting her "diploma"
                                                       McKinzley and Miss April
Grandma Heal and McKinzley, after the graduation. (Aunt Lauren to the right)

                                      Here is McKinzley and I after she graduated

The Barn

Some of our friends, the Garrett's, have a barn and some property that they have horses and a goat on. About a month ago we went over there to have a BBQ. We had such a great time! For the first part while Kotah was building the fire for the BBQ, we spent most of our time trying to keep Oaklee from scaring the Opie (the goat) to death. I don't know what it was about that goat but she loved it! At first she thought it was a puppy and kept chasing it around saying, "here puppy, puppy". When we told her that it wasn't a puppy and that it was a goat she changed to, "here puppy goat". Poor goat. We finally had to have Kotah and Drew tie the goat over by us so that we could make sure she didn't follow him into the horse pens. The BBQ was awesome, and Kotah was kind enough to let the girls take a ride on one of their horses, and they loved it! Here are some pictures from the BBQ (i'm not sure what happened to the one with Opie in it).


Here is me and Oaklee. She was a little scared of the horses at first (thanks Drew!)

                                                           Here is Brexlyn and Kotah

                                                      Here is McKinzley and Kotah 

                                                           Here is Taylin and Kotah

                                                                   Kotah and Oaklee

FLASH BACK TAG

Drew and Kirstin tagged us with a tag from when we were back in high school, so here it goes.....


1. If you could tell your teenage self something, what would it be?

CHAD: To not even try in high school except for in geometry since that is all I use.
NICOLE: Not ditch school as much (although it was really fun!)


2. Did you do any extracurricular activities in high school?

CHAD: Soccer, video games, driving around, and messing with my truck stereo.
NICOLE: Swimming, Water polo, PLT, HOSA, Basketball


3. What did you do in you free time?

CHAD: Slept and ate.
NICOLE: Hung out with friends, went to parties, and worked as a lifeguard.


4. What's the coolest thing you did in high school?

CHAD: Everything I do is cool.
NICOLE: Grauated


5. Did you have a boyfriend/girlfriend in high school?

CHAD: Wasn't too often that I had a boyfriend.
NICOLE: Yes.


6. What songs come to mind from then?

CHAD: Ice Ice Baby
NICOLE: Runnin' just as fast as you can by Tiffany, and Bye Bye Bye by NSYNC


7. If you could change one thing, what would it be?

CHAD: I could grow a mustache
NICOLE: Nothing

8. What did you think you would be when you grew up?

CHAD: A ride operator at Lagoon
NICOLE: A nurse and a Mom


9. Add a high school picture of yourself.

CHAD: I'm too retarded to figure out how to do it.
NICOLE: The only one I have is of me in the exact same swimming suit as Kirstin only green. I didn't want to be a copy cat.

10. What's the craziest thing you did in High School?

CHAD: I went
NICOLE: I really can't tell you guys...... :)


We tag whoever wants to do this tag....

Finally a due date

Today I had my first doctors appointment, and like all of the other first appointments that I have been to it was very exciting! At my doctors office they do an ultrasound on the first visit which I love because then I get to see our baby. This time was no exception, it was as exciting as it was the first time. The only difference is that I didn't go in for my first appointment until a couple weeks after you are supposed to because my doctor had to have surgery, so when they did the ultrasound this time my baby actually looked like a little person and not a peanut. It was flip-flopping around and waving its tiny arms all over the place. It was so fun! Well, everything turned out fine and they gave me the official due date of NOVEMBER 12. That means in 3 weeks I can find out what I am having! But I think that we will wait until the 20 week appointment to find out. So there it is...mark your calenders!

We are SO not prepared!

My sister came over yesterday, and as the kids were running around like wild animals, we were upstairs having a rather unsettling conversation about how we were going to be able to survive if something bad were to happen. Such as, the "big" earthquake hits, or some other disaster happens that we would have to rely on things such as food storage to live on. Fun conversation I know. Anyways, it really got me thinking, what would I do? I don't know about most of you but my food storage consists of about 4 cans of Spagetti O's, a case of beef Ramen (yuck!), and some cream of mushroom soup. Now if I had to guess I think my family is in pretty bad shape if something were to happen. So that brings me to my point. I have decided to get my food storage all together and get myself and my family as prepared as we can be for any disaster. Of course this is not the first time that we have been warned to get ourselves prepared. My sister informed me that a lot of the conference talks, and almost all of the lessons this year are geared toward getting our years worth of food storage. (I'm not inactive, i just teach sunbeams and don't hear the lessons in Relief Society). Call me slow, but oh well, I have decided to do it. So I come to you guys to ask for any advice you may have on getting yourself prepared. I am really looking for anything that you have to offer. And I thought that it might be nice for other people to see some ideas when they read my blog. So please help me in my quest, and just remember that if you don't comment then the fate of my family is on your shoulders.....Just Kidding.

WE'RE PREGNANT!!!!!

Yes, we have baby number 5 on the way!!! We are very excited. More details to come.....

Sister Fun

So the past couple of days have been really fun for me. My sister, Amy, who lives in Maryland, came out to visit for a week. We don't get to see her very often, so we made sure that we took advantage of the time we had together. On Sunday evening our whole family got together at my parents house and we had a BBQ. It was so much fun to see all of the grandkids together. On Monday we headed up to the Zoo for a day of fun. The kids, and adults, had such a good time! Since I don't have a digital camera, if you would like to see pictures of our trip to the zoo you can go to the Heal Family link and look at them there. A lot of the animals were out, and really close to the fences and glass which made it even more fun for the kids. After we looked at all of the animals we dined on some soft pretzels, french fries, chicken and root beer (that was a big hit). Then we went and rode the train. An exciting end to an exciting outing. On Tuesday, we all got together at my sister maria's house. She was gracious enough to let all of our kids come and run wild in her house. We had pizza and just sat around and talked. It was really nice to spend time with my sisters and my mom. We are all so busy, and some live far away, that it is hard to get together very often. So needless to say, I have had a really good past couple of days.

Happy Anniversary!

Six years ago today Chad and I were married and sealed in the Mt. Timpanogos Temple. I can't believe how time flies! We have come so far since we were first married. I know that you think that you are so in love when you are first married, but I can honestly say that I am SO much more in love with Chad now then I was back then. I can't believe what a great life we have built together, from our four beautiful girls to having a house filled with so much love. I basically wanted to do this post just to tell Chad how much I love him, and that the years we have spent together have been better than a dream, and I know that the years to come will be even better! I love you Chad!

HMMMMMMMM........

So my friend Elizabeth informed me yesterday that it was time for me to update my blog. I told her that the reason that I hadn't updated it was because I didn't have anything interesting to post about, and she told me that I could blog about anything, just look at her blog on canned chicken. So, I can't guarantee that this post will be very exciting but, oh well.

Yesterday Elizabeth and I got together and took our kids to the dinosaur play area in the South Towne Mall in Sandy. For those of you that haven't been there before, it is a great place to take your kids and just let them run around and play. McKinzley ran so hard that her face was so red that it looked like she had a severe sunburn. So see, a good releaser of energy for the kids. The only problem that we ran into was a couple of little boys that were chasing and hitting our kids, all while the mother just stood by and watched. Now most of you know that this type of situation would not fly with Elizabeth or I, and this time was no different. Until we started to get on the boys to not hit our kids, the mother would not do anything. Very irritating! But besides that we had a great time. After we were done playing we went to the food court and got our kids ice cream cones, which I don't know if that was the smartest idea, but they loved it.

After all of the excitement during the day I had asked Elizabeth to come down and help me teach a first aid class for my ward's enrichment night. Now for those of you that don't know, I am terrified to speak in front of people, so needless to say I was about to puke before we were to start. Fortunately everything went really well (even though nobody would comment) and we made it through without any puking (Thanks Elizabeth!!). The only downside to the evening was when we were cleaning up to go home, I was carrying a table out of the gym into the relief society room, and in the process I ran into the door with the table and it slammed the corner of the table into my mouth. Extremely embarrassing! Not only that, but then the women that were still there started to pull out their first aid packets and look through them to see what to do. Such a happy ending. Don't worry though, I am fine. And thanks to Elizabeth again for coming and helping even though she thought that her car was going to die.

Hopefully I didn't bore you too much, and if I did, then I am sorry. There you go Elizabeth, its updated.

Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Heal's

 We asked Taylin and McKinzley to sing something for us and they both went a little crazy and started to dance as well.

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE HIM???

This picture alone can explain why I love Chad so much.  He is just a kid at heart (and a little bit of a dork).  He makes me laugh all of the time, but is my rock when I need him.  I love you Chad!!

Chucke Cheese Yay!!! March 7, 2008

These are some pictures from McKinzley's party at Chucke Cheese.  She was so excited to be able to celebrate her birthday there.  And from what I saw it wasn't just the kids "being kids", a lot of the adults were finding their inner youngster too.  Thanks to everyone that came.  McKinzley still talks about everyone and what "pretty" things they gave her.

Oaklee's Birthday Party February 23, 2008

Oaklee's party was a wonderful success!!!  She had such a fun time, and she received some really nice things.  Thanks to everyone that came!