Carousel and Swimming

Our one picture from our McCall trip. Don't let the smiles fool you, we were pretty miserable and Kylie was about passed out on her dad.

These are Macy and Kylie's first carousel rides at the Boise Zoo. I couldn't get Macy to smile for the picture but she enjoyed it.

Macy and Cody swimming at her birthday party. She doesn't know it yet but they will Marry in 22 years. :)

Here is just a sampling of some of the last few weeks' events. I don't feel like going into too much detail so I will just say that we have been having fun.

38

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

I've got 38, not as many as Brie, where I got this list from, but still pretty good I think. Many of these are on my list but for a few (like harry Potter and Lord of the rings) I just don't have enough interest so the movie will suffice. This does give me a good list to go off of for my next book. I think I want to read Atonement but that means I will have to take a break from my Kathy Reichs series (it is quite wonderful). I also tend to neglect my children when I start a book so I may need to be careful about how many of these It try to tackle.

Look at the list and bold those you have read.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austin
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkein
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible - New Testament - I have read much of it, but not all
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - okay, just about half of them, but close
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel -
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Macy's Utah Party and Train Ride

Here are the pictures from Macy's little Utah birthday party. She had fun swimming with the girls and opening presents.



She may not look like it here but she really was having fun in the kiddie pool.


Another day we went to this guy's house where he had built a bunch of train tracks that went all around his and his neighboring families' properties. It was pretty fun to ride on and Macy had a blast.
We had a fun time and it was a good week. Sorry there isn't much writing. Once I am caught up I will dazzle you all with stories of our adventures as we travel the world.

Macy's Birthday

So I still can't get pictures from my camera to the computer but here are a few my dad took at Macy's birthday party.  We had a party in Utah so her other grandparents and dad could be there and then this one on her actual birthday.  She was pretty happy that she got two party's just for her.  Kylie and my cousin's daughter Lucy, loved helping her open her presents.  The big winner of the night was a laptop that Christy and Gabe got her.  She loves that she can be like  Daddy, even if the games are a little beyond her.  She is also a huge cupcake fan (surprise) and had three that day.  One when we made them, one for her party and then grandpa had to sneak her one more before bed.  He is pretty bad about spoiling her and he literally gives her everything and anything she wants.  I guess I need to figure out how to get her to ask him for a new car :)

Our post illness week has been fun.  I have gotten to spend a little time with several friends and the girls love their grandparents and Aunt Chelsea and Uncle Travis.  Justin surprised us by coming back down for the weekend because he ended up with an unexpected few days off.  It was wonderful to get to spend the time with him and Macy loved swimming in the pool with Dad.  We head back to Utah tomorrow for an unknown amount of time.  We never really know when we will be able to catch a flight home so it could be as soon as June 30th or as late as July 5th.  We will keep you posted! More pictures will be coming once I can hook my camera up.

Incompatibility

So apparently I can't get my pictures from my camera to my parents' Macs.  Some weird long technical incompatibility issues.  Anyway, the pictures from Utah and Macy's Utah birthday party will have to come later.

First, a little story about our weekend in McCall.  McCall is a wonderful place.  We love to go and be in the mountains on the lake and to enjoy the serenity.  However, this trip was not wonderful at all.  It was horrible.  It was horrifically terrible. "How could this heaven on Earth be terrible?" you may ask.  I will explain.

We should have known when Kylie vomited twice on the airplane ride from Utah to Boise on Wednesday night.  We also should have figured it out when she did it four more times plus had major diarrhea before the next morning when we were to begin our drive up. By Friday night Justin, myself and both kids had the same symptoms.  We then proceeded to have the worst night of my family's life as we took turns racing to the bathroom and then cleaning up after the children's messes.  Kylie refused to be put down or to let anyone but me hold her so that only complicated things by having a screaming 9 month old every time I had to drop her to make it to the bathroom on time.  Macy was also traumatized by seeing her parents throw-up repeatedly  in the toilet.  I will save you the rest of the icky details but my mom was a life saver.  She tried to care for the kids while Justin and I did our thing but ended up having a milder version of the illness by morning.  Poor Chelsea, who had held Kylie all Thursday morning for me as we prepared to drive to McCall, was sick alone in Boise because she was supposed to take the ACTs Saturday morning.  My dad was to later fly her up but neither her later appearance nor her test happened for her.

Fortunately, Justin water skied once before he got sick and we were all well enough Sunday morning to go for a little boat ride but most of the weekend we spent inside.  I felt very badly for Justin who had been looking forward to this McCall trip sine last summer.   I guess he will have to jump seat down for a weekend to go with my parents.  He had to go back home Sunday night for work and we miss him already.  

Better go get Kylie who is now awake and yelling for me.  More stories later :)

You know who you are...

To the Flight attendants on our 5 hour flight from Anchorage to Denver: Thank you for being so understanding, accommodating and supportive. You made us feel much better.

To the really nice lady who sat in front of us on that flight, thanks for being understanding and for your kind words of encouragement. You telling me that we were doing a good job kept me from jumping out the emergency door.

To the nice family on our Denver to Salt Lake flight who allowed their dad/husband to switch seats so Justin could sit with me and the kids, we really appreciate your sacrifice.

To the Frontier ticket counter people: You guys were awesome. Everyone we spoke to had a good sense of humor and was very helpful to our family who was flying thousands of miles on standby.

To the people on the 5 hour flight from Anchorage to Denver who gave us dirty looks as my two year old threw multiple tantrums, I hope you step on a tack. And I hope you have children who embarrass you beyond belief with hysterical tantrums while you are desperately trying to get them to stay buckled into their seatbelt so you don't get thrown off the plane. I hope you notice the dirty looks others give you and know how you made us feel yesterday. And I also hope you sit next to an obese person with terrible body odor whose giganticness spills over into your seat for your entire flight. This will just make me feel better.


So yes, there were tantrums and periods of time where we covered Macy's mouth to stifle the screams, but we made it to Utah last night. Now that we are here we may never leave because I am dreading that return flight. :)

Alaska's Getting to Me

Random thoughts you are dying to know:

Since moving here I have acquired hiking boots, Sorel snow boots and a bike. I want to shout and dance "Look at me! I am outdoorsy!" I promised Justin we could go on a mini backpacking/camping trip with the girls, once we get back from our trip, we shall see how that goes.

We will be in Utah this Sunday until Tuesday. Then Boise until the 20th and then Utah again until the 27th. I want to see my friends and family so clear the dates so you can devote them to me! :)

Kathy Reichs is a good author. Do you know the show Bones? Shes is the inspiration. If you need some good books, read hers. I love her already.

I truly and deeply love The Office. The other night I was reading an article about the season finale and I could not suppress my smiles and little chuckles. Justin thought I was weird for simply laughing at the memory of an episode.

Okay, that is all that is on my mind at the moment. Have a good day and watch the Stanley Cup finals today, it should be a good game.