Sydney Vs Shannon - Wii Boxing

We had Shannon over for Dinner tonight and she took on Sydney in Nintendo Wii Boxing. See the results below:

Backyard #2

I finally got the new front flower bed weeded and ready for Bark Mulch. We moved this tree here last year. I also transplanted two Russian Sage here. Last year they struggled but now are doing well.

I also finished up the side yard, so it is really for weed fabric to be put down and then fist sized rocks.

I also have a pretty good start on my new retaining wall. We dug down about 24 inches to make a place for the trampoline and some grow boxes. I bought these brick last year, but never got around to starting this project. Dad helped me get this far.

This is the view from our house of the new retaining wall.

10 years of marriage

Deni and I have been married for 10 years today. That is very odd to say. We had my mom watch the kids while we went out to dinner at Macaroni Grill.

I even got Deni flowers and a card. (Which is out of character for me.)

We had a great time going out to dinner and enjoyed each others company.

Stictches out, flying kites

Deni took Sydney to the ER to get her stitches out today. Deni asked the nurse if it was going to "H-U-R-T" and the nurse said, "yes it will probably hurt". Of course Sydney heard that and they ended up having to hold her down to get the stitches out. Sydney has recently learned how to punch with a closed fist. She punched the nurse in the face before they could hold her down.

Tonight we took a quick family bike ride. It was very windy, so we decided fly kites at the park.
If you look at the top of this picture, you can see the kids kite.

I think this is the first time Sydney has flown a kite.

Party at Grandma's

I worked in the yard most of the day today. Both Ryan and Sydney went to play with friends, so I was able to get a lot of work in the yard done.

Dad came over to help me and was a huge help in the backyard. He designed how the block wall is going to look and started measuring and figuring out how things will fit together.

I helped Dad dig and level out the footings of the block wall. I think we got about 8 blocks down. Once the first level is down, the rest go really quick.

I finished the side yard and it is ready for weed fabric and rock. I need to fix a few of the sprinklers, as I plan on putting Russia Sage in between some of the rock.

At about 5pm we left and went to Mom and Dad's. All of the cousins were there. Stefanie's dropped off her kids at 4pm on her way to Southern Utah with Devin and Teresa was over too. Mom had ordered Pizza and since it is Spring Break, it was nice to get all the kids together and let Ryan and Sydney play with their cousins.

I took the Wii and set it up after dinner. It was a hit. The kids loved playing against each other. The only problem was too many kids and too few Wii remotes.

All of the kids were sleeping over at either Teresa's or Mom and Dad's. Sydney really wanted to stay and sleep over, but I hadn't taken any clothes for her, so since Deni is gone, I told her she could sleep in bed with me. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed to come home with me. Tonight was a late night and the kids were tired.

Deni goes to Texas

I woke up about 4am and quickly got ready. I had already put Deni's things in the van, so we were ready to go. We made it to SLC quickly, however I was amazed on how many cars were on the road at 4 and 5am. It was very windy when I dropped Deni off as a storm was coming in. Not the best of conditions to be flying out on.

I had a hard time staying awake on the drive home. When I got home I feel asleep immediately. Deni called me at 8:30am when she got to Las Vegas, NV. I fell back asleep until I woke up at 10am. I got up and went to get the kids from my parents house.

I worked on the house most of the day, getting the laundry washed and folded, as well as getting the rest of the house cleaned. It took most of the day to get the house done.

I rented a movie for the kids to watch while I made dinner.

I enjoy being at home with the kids. I wish I could say home more often.

Grandma Nelda passed away

Deni found out today that her Biological Grandmother passed away. We had plans on meeting her this summer for the first time when we went to Texas in June. Deni had talked to her a few times on the phone, but was looking forward to finally meeting her in person.

Apparently, her Grandmother, Grandma Nelda, found out last week that she had cancer and died unexpectedly about a week later.

After talking about it for a bit, we decided that it would be a good thing for Deni to try and go to Texas for the funeral.

Deni got a flight leaving tomorrow morning at 6:30am.

I took the kids to my parents house and stayed there until they got back from the MTC. We have to leave by 4am to get Deni there on time and I will pick up the kids after they wake up tomorrow.

At work, I have a 3 day paid time off for bereavement, so I will use that and watch the kids while Deni goes to Texas.

10 stitches

Tonight while Deni and I were working in the yard, Ryan came running around to us stating Sydney had been hurt. 10 seconds later, Syd came around the corner with a bloody chin.

After looking at her chin, we decided that she needed to be seen by a doctor. It was about 7:15pm when she fell. We called and tried to get into our Doctor, but they didn't have any openings, so we had to go to the Emergency Room. We went to Payson Hospital and got there about 7:30pm.

The nurse looked at it and didn't think we would need stitches but she said the Dr would come by to look at it. He did and said she needed stitches. There were others that had actual emergencies, so we had to sit for a long time. While we were sitting there, I looked at Sydney's arm band and it said the Dr's name. Karl Vizmig. To lighten the mood. I told Sydney I would give her an Ice Cream if she would say "Hi Karl" when the Doctor came in. She was very funny and she would say "Hi Karl" over and over again, until the Dr walked in. Once he walked in, she didn't want to be funny anymore. I'm sure she knew what was coming.

They strapped her down in and the nurse held her head. When the Dr was cleaning the wound, he said that it was deeper than he thought and it actually went all the way to the bone, but the bone wasn't broken. He put 3 stitches on the inside and then 7 on the outside, so 10 stitches in all.

Sydney was asleep by the time we got home about 10:30pm. 3 hours in an ER is a long time.

Campout with the Young Men - Whiting Campground

I took yesterday off to work on my yard. I had to rush to get all I wanted done before I had to return the bobcat (boxer) at 2:30pm. After I got the rental returned I had to rush to get ready for a campout with the Young Men. We had planned to go up to Maple Lake, up Payson Canyon, but the road was blocked off and had not been opened yet for the season, so we ended up going to Whiting Campground, which is up Mapleton Canyon.

We left about 4:30pm from the church and got to the camp ground about 4:45pm. We had planned a campout that was close for our first campout of the year. Whiting Campground is a great place to get away for a short campout.

Overnight it got down in to the 30-40's, however I didn't sleep well as the deacons were up from about 2:30am on. I didn't have a watch with me, otherwise I would have gotten up and told them to be quite. I thought it was 5am or 6am, so I let it go, but it kept going on and on and on.

In the morning after breakfast, we had a moose come down right through our camp. I have never seen a moose in Utah County. I saw one on the Green River last year, but had never known they were within miles of my house.

All in all the campout was a good one.

My backyard - Part 1

I've been planning on digging out my backyard for a while to put our trampoline down in the ground, but finally got around to do it this week.

I rented a mini bobcat (boxer) for the day. I had to remove a section of my fence to get in an out of the backyard.

At one point Dad had said we could do the digging by hand, but after 5 minutes with the mini bobcat (boxer), I decided I'll never try to dig things out by hand ever again.

My backyard slopes from the house down to the fence. When it was all said and done, we took out about 24 inches of dirt and piled it out on the street.

The machine wasn't that fast but got the job done. After getting a large pile of dirt on the street, we began to load Dad's snowmobile trailer with dirt and then take the dirt off by hand about a 1/2 mile down the road. We took at least 6 loads of dirt away and it appeared we didn't make much of a dent in the dirt pile.

One of my neighbors said he wanted the rest of the dirt and would bring home a bobcat, which we were grateful for.

We also took the grass/dirt/weeds off our west park strip and dug it down about 4 to 6 inches. This is in preparation of putting fist sized rocks there. The park strip is 6 feet wide and about 120 feet long. Watering a park strip is next to impossible and since most of the water doesn't get on the park strip but gets on the road. We decided it would be more efficient to have rock there instead of grass we have to mow and water. We still have a lot to do with both the backyard and the park strip, but we at least have the dirt dug out.

New addition to my front yard

Finally got my new flags up.