A Sad Day

Well its offically over, the annual passes to Disneyland are expired! :( We got one last trip in two weeks ago, it was so much fun! Cayman loves it there, I am not sure how I am going to explain to her that we are not going to be going back for a while. We will just have to keep watching the home videos to get our disneyland fill.
The week that we went they were starting their new fireworks show and there is something that is so awesome, I wont say because if you are going I dont want to ruin it for you but a little hint is that someone flies and it is not Tinkerbell. It is so magical!! It made me cry, not that it takes alot in disneyland, I cried the whole way out on the last night because I knew that it would be a while until we would be back. Well here are some pictures from the trip, I guess all good things come to an end......until next time!!!

Long Time No Post

Well its been a long time since I have posted anything here so I thought I would do a over veiw of the last month or so. After the week we spent in st george/disneyland for spring break we spent the next week going up to the hospital in murray to spend time with larrys dad while he was in the hospital. We are very greatful that everything turned out so amazingly well. He had his surgery to remove his tumor and though it was a tough recovery for him he is getting better. They ended up sending the tumor to harvard to have them test it and the results came back that the tumor was not malignant! HOORAY!! He did have a bit of a rough week last week, he was having kidney issues and the flu. We cant wait for him to really get back on his feet so that he can do the things that he wants to do! We love you Papa! Here is a picture of his tumor, the ruler is a 6" ruler

The next 12 days we spent living in springville babysitting for my brother and sister in law while they went on a vacation to hawaii. It was alot of fun to get to spend an extended amount time with my neice and nephews (tyler, witney, spencer, and ethan) and to be able to get to know them even better. One funny thing that happened while there is that my brother just bought a house that has a pool in the backyard and the people who owned it before didnt close down the pool for the winter and so there was a process to get it up and going for spring, well just before Kelly(my bro) left for his trip found out that springville would double their water prices for the summer while they were on their trip so he scheduled appts for people to come fix things, well they weren't showing up and then when they finally did the city was supposed to fill the pool from the fire hydrant and when I called to tell them what time to come they told me that they actually dont do that. Funny how they can tell two different stories..anyways, so I put the hose into the pool on wednesday at about 2pm to fill it hoping it would be filled before friday when the price doubled. Well on thursday morning it was about 1/4 of the way filled, there was no way! I did some thinking and here is what I came up with



Yep call it redneck but it worked, I put two hoses in the tub out the back, down to the pool and siphoned them, now we were getting somewhere!!! Well as the night went on it still wasnt looking like it was going to make it so in an all out effort we all spent about an hour working together and filling soup pots and bowls in the tub and then out the back window and larry and I would carry them to the pool and pour them in...




It was actually really fun and everyone worked together! You can see how close we were, we didnt completely finish before friday but we didnt have to do too much that day.
On Friday the kids came home from school ready to get into the pool however when the pool guy came to set it up they told me that the heater needed some repairs so it wouldnt be heated, everything else was ready just no heat...thus creating the 1st annual penquin plunge!!! Yep the water was a chilly 58 degrees! I will add a picture later it is on the other computer. That was a blast all the kids (even the biggest one larry) went down the slide and jumped off the diving board, it didnt last more that 15 minutes but it was hilarious watching their faces come up out of the water!
That saturday ty had a soccer game and witney had gymnastics and wit's was up in SLC so we picked up ty, then went to wit's meet and they had finished early so we didnt even get to see her perform. While we were in downtown we went over to capitol theater where Wicked was playing and since we had the kids we got an additional 3 entrys into the lottery for tickets. (we had tried to win the whole week larrys dad was in the hospital so that larry could take his mom to it and we had no luck) Well they only draw 10 names and if you get drawn to can buy 2 tickets for $25 each, 8 had already been drawn when number 9 was drawn they yelled out "witney" and of course stumbled over the last name, but I looked at her jumped up and down and scream and we ran up to the front to get the tickets. I couldnt believe it!! I called my mom and she came up switched us cars and took all five kids home for us and babysat so that larry and I could see wicked(larry had not seen it yet) It was the best, our seats were on the 4th row! It was amazing to be so close to the actors. I could see that play over and over again and never get tired of it. I cant wait until october for the arko girls trip to denver, we are going to go see wicked there!
When we finished babysitting we came home and it was like going to a place that you love that you havent been to forever! I felt like we had been gone for years not weeks. It was so nice to be home! Thanks to our great neighbors who mowed our lawn, got our mail, took care of primary stuff for us etc, etc, etc. We missed our great neighborhood so much!!!
We got home on thursday and on friday it was on the road again, this time out to roosevelt for a going away party for larry sister and her family who were moving to St. Louis for school. We are sad that they had to leave and we will miss them so much but its only for a couple years. Thank goodness for Skype!
The next 2 weeks were just filled with the catch up process of being gone so long, working and doing hair appts and then two more quick trips to roosevelt, one for larry's little brothers seminary graduation and being ordained an elder, and the other for his high school graduation

Congratulations Pat!!! We are so proud of you!!!
Well that brings us up to this week, again filled with just working and doing hair appts and getting some projects done around the house. Cayman has had a big change in her life today

Cayman has moved up to the big girl bed! She loves it! I just hope that she doesnt fall out or get out in the middle of the night. She is such a sweet little girl, in all the craziness of the past month she has been so flexible just to do whatever we need her to. A couple of funny things that she has done this month.
She got two butter knives out of the silverware drawer, brought one to me and said "I'm captain hook, lets fight!" I said "ok well then I am peter pan" and we would hit the knives together and after a minute or two cayman says to me "you old codfish!" All I could do was stop and hug her, it was sooo cute!
I found two crayon tips up her nose, she obviously didnt learn her lesson with the rocks, poured her own sippy cup of milk then says "mom I'm a big girl!", loves to sing and knows every word to the loathing song from wicked, apparently we have been listening to that alot around here, and requesting ketchup on her waffles, cayman has been Kenzified! I love it!! Well sorry that was a very long update, hopefully I can do a better job at keeping this up!

Sweet!

I love when people put cute or funny sayings that come from their kids, so here is Caymans latest! We were in disneyland and we had just bought her a princess crown. When she saw herself in the mirror with it she was so proud and thought she looked so cute. Right after that we went to get in line for the carousel. While waiting I was holding her and she was watching the horses trying to decide which one she wanted to ride when she stopped looked me right in the eyes and said "Mom, I am so happy!!" It was the sweetest thing. It made me want to cry that this little 2 year old girl realized and verbally acknowledged how she was feeling. She is truly growing up so fast.

Where would we be without laughter from kids!

This week has been an interesting one, to say the least. Cayman has been a little clown this week making us happy when we needed it and she doesnt even realize it (or maybe she does? hmmmmm) Larry's dad had Cancer in 2006 and he did chemo and he beat it, which we are all so greatful for but the bad part is that the cancer is back. He has been getting tested every six months since he first had it and at this last checkup it showed a tumor that has grown to the size of a tennis ball. It has been hard to know how to feel because we didnt know how/if they could treat it, he couldnt do chemo again and they said they might not be able to do radiation because it is so close to his heart, we didnt know what they could do for him. We found out tonight that he is going to have surgery to try to remove it. We are optimistic (we have to be!!!!) We are praying that everything goes ok, We know that what ever is supposed to happen will, but we really want him to stay with us for a lot longer!!! We love you Dad!

4 little rocks

So this is where the part about Cayman making us laugh comes in. We were at work having dinner and cayman sneezed and a little rock landed on my leg. I thought, that little girl should not have rocks in her mouth!!! We got home and were getting ready for bed and I looked at her and it looked like she had a big booger so I wiped and it was stuck (sorry more detail than some may want to know) so I dug it out and it was a rock. I was so surprised, wondering how this rock got there, I looked at her nose again and right behind it, there was another rock! I got that one out and again there was another rock! She was a rock spewing pez machine! Larry and I just sat trying not to laugh to show her that we did not approved of her shoving rocks or anything else for that matter, up her nose. I felt her nose to see if there were possibly anymore in this secret hiding spot that she had found, and it seemed ok. We put her to bed and Larry and I both laid in bed laughing for a good long while about it. Just what we needed, so thanks Caym! Oh yes and in the morning I got her out of bed and guess what was in her nose, yep another rock!

Easter with the Erk's

Last Sunday we had our easter celebration with the my side of the family. We get together and have a big dinner and the kids get to hunt for eggs. Cayman thought it was the coolest thing that there were a ton of "eggies" laid out for her to pick up, and she was even more excited to see there was candy in them.


My food assignment was dessert. I made these cute cupcakes that look like easter bunnies going into their bunny hole, it was a hit at the party. Thanks to Misti/Kristi for the idea and thanks to Amy for the butter and shortening sunday morning(I couldnt have done it without you!!)

Happiness from a hat!

At Disneyland when larry got his birthday gift card, I knew what he was going to buy. To preface this a little for about 8 years everytime we would go to Disneyland, Larry wanted to buy an Indiana Jones hat. This isn’t a baseball hat type it looks just like Indy's hat in the movies and it was alot of money for a hat. Everytime we would go he would go try on the hat and look in the mirror, well this time he had money that he had to spend on souvenirs so on his birthday we go to the shop and he tries on the hats to get the right size and then gets the biggest smile you have seen just knowing that he is finally getting this hat. He goes and pays for it, the lady wishes him happy birthday and while there the lady hands him the phone from behind the desk and it is goofy, wishing him a happy birthday (so cute, the details that Disney puts in! Amazing!) Then he proudly walks out of the shop and this time he doesn’t have to take it off! Who would have thought that a hat could make someone so happy! Well he wears the hat proudly for 2 days and our last day in the park Larry and I go on splash mountain. Larry wanted to have his hat on for the picture that they take when you go down the big hill. (I think you can see where I am going with this) Anyway he wears it with his hand on top of it to keep it on but as we get down to the bottom he thought that we had slowed down enough to lift his hand and the second he did POOF the hat was gone. We got off the ride and told the castmembers that he had lost it and they told us to come back in 30 minutes because when something gets lost they usually will float through and they will catch it. 30 minutes had passed, Larry walked back to splash and no luck, an hour later he tried again, no luck, 3 more times that day he tried and still no luck. At this point we had to go fill out a form at the lost and found so that if it got turned in they would know it was his. When we got there they said that they drain the ride every night and walk through it and pick up any lost items so its likely that it would be there in the morning. We told them this was our last day in the park and they said that if it got turned in they could ship it to us. Larry was really sad, then mad at himself that he lost it and then sad again but was still hopeful that they would find it that night. The next day on our way to Costa Mesa we stopped in at Disneyland and Larry went to check and still, no luck. You could tell he was so sad because he really just wanted it to be there because this was our last chance in the Disneyland area. Well we traveled home and on Monday when he went back to work I decided to just call down there to see if by chance they had found it and guess what, they had!!! I was so excited that I could barely talk. Larry hadn’t opened his birthday gift yet so I put a card with it that that said happy birthday and that Disneyland had found his hat and they were shipping it that day. When he read that part his face was classic he looked at me and said "are you serious?" I jumped up and said YES!!! then he jumped up and down saying hooray they found my hat!! Well on Friday we got a knock on the door, Larry went to answer and no one was there, then he saw the UPS truck and then saw the box, he grabbed it ran in the house and said "my hat is here, my hat is here" He opened the box and put the hat on ran in the living room and jumped in the air and clicked his heels together several times, it was priceless! My sweet hubby finally had his hat, he was like a little kid! It was so great to see him so excited about it.