Trek day 1

Well we made it back from the trek in one piece. It was a wonderful experiance and Matt and I definately have more respect for the pioneers and we understand a little of what they felt like as they went across the plains day after day. We had seven children in our family, 3 girls and 4 boys. All of them were very excited to be on the trek. We started out on Wednesday. We had to be at the stake center at 5:00 a.m. We had to get there that early because we had a 4 to 5 hour bus ride ahead of us. Once we arrived at the Martin's Cove visiting center we had to eat our lunch quickly and then go get our handcarts and start filling them. We had a little meeting after that where we found out who was in our family. Then we put our families stuff in the cart and started out. Now while we had been in our little meeting it had been raining. So we started out on our trek with rain, not a lot but some. We walked for about 2 miles and most of the two miles it sunny with no rain. Then as we continued it started raining again a little. Then it was more steady. To say the least by the time we finished the last 4 miles we were going on Wednesday everyone was cold and wet.

When we arrived at our camp ground it had stopped raining and we discovered that most of the camp ground was really, really muddy and wet. So about half of us ended up putting our tents on the gravel parking lot area, so that our tents would stay dry and not get stuck in the mud. We were very blessed that night that we didn't have to cook for ourselves. The cooking staff made spegetti and bread. it was great. It's really interesting how it doesn't matter how cold your food gets, it's still good when you are really hungry. I say this because by the time we got our food and sat down it was already really cold because of the wind. However it was great to have food in my stomache. That night we had a square dance. It was really fun. Matt even danced and he does not like to dance, so I was really excited about that miracle!! Then once that was over we gathered our family up and talked a little about the day and had a spiritual thought and pray. Then it was time for bed. And let me tell you we were all ready to go to sleep.

One of our girls woke me up in the middle of the night because she had to go to the bathroom and didn't have a flashlight. So I grabbed our lantern and went with her. She kept hearing the coyotes, so she didn't want to go by herself, plus it isn't safe to walk around at night like that by yourself anyway. The funny thing about this was I had taken my contacts out and so I just put on my glasses, for some reason I couldn't see very well and she only had on contact in, so we kinda stumbled through the dark and found the bathroom and returned safely to our tents. Well I'll have to continure with day 2 of the trek later. Chau for now.

Taking a bathroom break.

Matt had a Green bandana on his head all day, so his head turned green.

During the square dance. (Jen's in the red sweatshirt with a black coat and blue skirt and Matt has a black coat on with white stripes) We're on the right side of the picure.

The summer begins

I guess i should start off with I'm pregnant and due in November. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet. We won't find that out until mid July. We're very excited!!
Matt finished his finals for this semester at the beginning of May. Now he will start working more and playing more.
Matt plays on a summer softball team. He started those games the Thursday after he finished his finals. The teams has 2 wins and 2 losses so far. Which we are happy with because it is better than last years record was. He has a game every Thursday.
Also Matt and I are getting ready to go on the Trek with the youth in our ward. We will be the Ma and Pa of a family. We're both really excited to go. Everyone keeps telling us we should take Skylar with us on the Trek, but I don't think that would go very well, so he's going to spend 3 and a half days with Matt's parents. They will have lots of fun too!!
Then at the beginning of July Matt starts the one summer class he is taking. It's a five week class 4 nights a week. So he will be plenty busy in the month of July. So those are the happenings right now. I'll do better at the updating.

All - Star Lacrosse game

This past weekend was the All-Star Lacrosse game and skills competition here in Denver. Friday night was the skills competition and of course Matt wanted to go, which I was fine with because it was free. It was suppose to be a fun family outing until I got sick Friday afternoon and wasn't able to go. Matt and Skylar went anyway with our friends J.T. and Brittany and their two boys. Matt was able to get mine and his jersey's signed by some of the players that were there!! All the activities were on the field, which Sky really liked. Sky and our friends little boy Austin had a lot of fun just running around. What a surprise huh!! Matt took pictures with some of the players and he got a picture with the Mascott of the Colorado team. His name is Woolly. He's a big Mammoth. He's one of my favorite parts of the game. Here are some pictures from Friday night.

The next night was the actual All-Star game, but I was still sick so Matt & Skylar went with Matt's parents to the game. They had a lot of fun even though the East won.

Sky's New Favorites

Lately Skylar likes to do two basic things. The first thing is clean up the messes he makes with our dust buster. Of course this is a good thing. So first he makes the mess, which is very easy for him to do. Then he'll go get the dust buster and bring it to me and say "help" and point to the on button. Before I turn it on I have to make sure that nothing is on the floor that could get sucked up that shouldn't be. The main problem with Sky and his dust buster is that he doesn't want to turn it off. He just wants to keep it running even if he isn't cleaning anything. The dust buster is only a little smaller than Skylar so it's very cute watching him carry it.


Now on to his 2nd favorite thing to do. This is watch hockey. For those of you that don't know my husband, he is a sports fanatic. In other words he loves all sports including hockey. So Sky has picked this up from him. Apparently Skylar's favorite sport is hockey because as soon as we walk in the door Sky starts saying "hoc, hoc". He'll either grab the play station remotes or point to the T.V. He doesn't usually care which way he can see it as long as he can. He also likes to play hockey. He will grab two of his plastic golf clubs and a ball then come give one to me and say "hoc". He does pretty good considering he's not even two yet.
The above picture is Sky relaxing watching hockey.

Sky's Joke

Skylar has a phrase that he's been saying for about 2 months now. He goes around pointing to everything, saying "What's that?" So we've been telling him what everything in the world is. Sometimes he doesn't even point he just says what's that. So when he doesn't point to anything we ask him what he's asking about and he says "I don't know". Then he starts laughing in his cute little laugh and looks at you like ha ha I'm so funny. He's starting on his path to be a comedian already.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun this year as it has been the last couple of years. Skylar was able to enjoy it a little more this year than he did last year. To start off with New Year's Eve was mine and Matt's 3 year aniversary. Happy Anniversary to us!! So we planned on going out to dinner for our anniversary before we went to the annual New Years Eve party, but everywhere we went had a wait of more than an hour so we went to a place that was a little better than a fast food place but not much. Oh well we should have none better than to try that.

Off to the New Year's Eve party we went. This New Year's Eve party is a little different from most. At this party there are 8 games set up and at each game there is a tournament bracket, like the march madness brackets. And everyone at the party has to play each game and see how far you can get on the bracket. One of the games was Foos-ball and Matt won the tournament. He's always been in the top two people of that one since we've been going to the party. I'll have to admit he's pretty good. Sky just ran around trying to play all the games all night. He actual stayed up as late as the rest of us which was 2:30 a.m. He was out by the time we got home though.

Here are some pictures from the party and some pictures and videos from the party. One is Matt in the Championship game. One of the videos is Matt doing a dance game against his dad and the other video is Matt training Skylar for next year's compitition.

Christmas

Christmas this year was almost as busy as last year. We started out by going over to Matt's parents house for Christmas Eve. Matt's aunt Jackie and uncle Dan and his cousins Preston and Kelli came over too. When we first arrived we learned that Stevie's (Matt's sister) flight was late, so Matt's dad left a little later than he planned and waited at the airport for her to arrive. While we were waiting for them to get back we all sat around playing games and snacking. Once they got home we were suppose to eat our big Christmas Eve dinner. To say the least Matt's dad and sister were the only ones hungry when they got home because we had been snacking. Not only was Stevie hungry, but she was also without a suitcase because the airport had lost it. So once they got home Tom cooked the stakes and we ate some more. After dinner Skylar was really tired so he had to open his magic jammys so he could go to bed. Aunt Stevie helped him open them. It was funny how much noise the box made before he opened it, but we soon found out why. Elmo was inside making all kinds of noise. Then Sky went to bed and the rest of us played games till pretty late.

Christmas day we got up at 8:00. It's kinda funny that Skylar was not the one that woke up. Matt and I woke up. It was more me than Matt. My body is so used to getting up early, sleeping in doesn't happen very often. So we got up and open presents and then we had breakfast as a family. Then we all had to get ready to go over to Matt's grandparents house to see his dad's side of the family and eat lunch. We were there for a while. Once we left there we hung out at Matt's parents house for a little while then headed back to our apartment to do Christmas there. To say the least Skylar was done with Christmas by the time we got home. He opened a few things. Then just wanted to play. We were tired that night and went to bed early. The best thing was that none of the three of us had to go to work the next day!! I was very excited about that. So that is how our Christmas went, I'll have to let you know about New Year's later.