For sale...

Just thought I would mention (so you don't hear it from someone else & get offended that I didn't tell you) that we put our house up for sale the week before the Parade of Homes. Don't worry Mom-we aren't going far. :0) We had always planned to sell & build at least once more & thought we would put it up now & see what happens. Not to mention that lot prices & building prices are dropping a ton. I have mixed feelings: I love our home & the area that we live in, but of course it would be great to get more equity in our next home. Plus, I would like to get settled in the home where we will stay before the kids get too far in school. So now is the time, but we are in no hurry, we will just wait & see what happens...

SpRiNg Is CoMiNg!

This is Averee & 2 of her friends from school-gotta love the 'silly' faces!

I just LOVE Spring! And it is on it's way! It is by far my most favorite season. The weather lately has been great-we have played outside a ton! Thanks goodness-cuz Adee & Owen have been sick, so the outdoors have been a much needed distraction. We discovered something hilarious-Sammy (our dog) loves to chase bubbles. He goes crazy chasing the bubbles all over the yard & Owen gets the belly laugh going just watching him. What a riot! Owen is getting so good at climbing the rope ladder so he can go down the slide on his own. He thinks he is so big! He even loves to swing-but only on the horse swing. I can't get him to stay on the regular swing-even if I am holding him he gets a little freaked & jumps off. Of course the girls love the swings & thankfully Adee is starting to learn to pump herself. Hooray for independence! It makes my life much easier! Averee is getting so good on her bike-she is even mentioning that she might want to take the training wheels off soon! AAAHHH!! Adee of course is a little dare devil & loves to go as fast as she can down the hills. Whereas Averee usually gets off & walks her bike down. They are so funny! Luckily, Owen is content riding in the stroller-for now. What perfect walking weather! This is also perfect smore roastin' weather-time to light the fire pit. Did I mention how much I love this weather! :0) Now we just need to refresh the sandbox & the back yard will be perfect. hint hint Danny. :0)

Happy Valentine's Day

This pictures was taken on our anniversary in 2004-

one of the few of us together without the kids...

I just LOVE this holiday! It is my 3rd favorite (Christmas & Halloween being the first 2). I love the colors, flowers, cards, treats, & of course the excuse to tell everyone that we love them. Not that we need an excuse or a holiday to do that-but it helps. Plus, Danny & I met the day after Valentines, so it is a little anniversary for us. I wonder if he even remembers that? :0)

The kids & I spent the morning delivering the Valentines we had made for friends, cousins, & grandparents. The girls had so much fun getting everything ready & were very careful not to leave anyone out. Of course they wanted to stamp on some of them & they are getting to be quite the good little stampers. I am so proud! It is pretty funny to watch how careful Averee is about the placement of the stamps & how NOT careful Adee is. He he he! Adee attacks it like everything else- like a 'bull in a china shop'. Gotta love it! :0) Hope you all enjoy your Valentines & know how much we love you! I truly believe that people are put in our lives for a reason & all of you have taught me so much. I am so blessed by the relationships I have with each of you-I love you!

I got thinking today about past Valentines & thought I would share the good & the bad. So bare with me while I indulge my memories...

The worst: The year was 1997, I was a senior in high school & my boyfriend had just left on his mission the month before. Talk about depressing! This was the first Valentines that I even had a boyfriend-but now he wasn't even here to celebrate with me! LAME! It was a rough day to say the least. (It get's better though so don't feel too bad for me) Anyway-I get home from school to find a beautiful bouquet of roses waiting for me. Danny had arranged before he left on his mission to have flowers delivered to me-he even wrote on the card before he left! How sweet is that?!

The best: The year was 1998, I was in my first year of college & missing Danny terribly. He had been gone about a year now, so we were on the homestretch. Well, I get a note from Fedex that there is a package that I need to come sign for...& I'm thinking 'that is weird'. So I go get the package & realize it is from Danny-hooray! I open it to find a beautiful promise ring inside-I was so excited I was shaking! He wrote the most beautiful, heartfelt card, & of course I was crying. The ring has 2 hearts entwined with diamonds inside. He said that it represented us: two hearts entwined & the diamonds mean it is forever. How romantic! So that confirmed it-he was a keeper! :0) I still have the ring (thanks to Josh Gunn-but that is a whole other story!) & wear it on special occasions. Just looking at that ring brings back such a flood of emotions...I think I will go put it on right now...

Well, I hope that wasn't too sappy-but I don't care! I can get away with it today! I hope that helps you think of your best Valentine's Day & I would love to hear about it...Love ya!

In a word...AWESOME!!!

Well, as most of you know, we got back late sunday nite from a week long cruise to the Caribbean. And in a word, it was AWESOME!! We had such a great time-we did so many fun & different things all in one week! We went with Danny's brother Ryan & his wife Shannon. We just love these guys to death, so it was fun to get to spend so much time with them. Ryan is hilarious & had us laughing the whole time. It was a much needed break from reality, & chance for some R&R. We even went to bed early one nite & slept for 12 hours! I will try not to bore you with too many nitty-gritty details, but here are the highlights:

The trip started off with a bang, but let me backup. We left at 4:00 am on sunday the 27th. Yes, I said 4 AM! That would get us to Vegas an hour before our flight, which should be plenty of time right? WRONG! Between all the old people & foreingers with 20 pieces of luggage-we almost didn't make it. They didn't even want to let us check in cuz they said we would never make our flight. But we took off running to security & luckily that line wasn't too long. We rushed through there & looked around for Ryan & Shannon-but couldn't see them anywhere so we figured they were already on the tram headed to our gate. So we take off running, again. I didn't even take time to put my shoes back on! We jumped on the tram & then ran all the way (shoes in hand) to our gate. I haven't ran that far in years! But Ryan & Shannon weren't there. Meanwhile they are calling for the final boarding of our flight. We are trying to come up with some scheme to stall them when we finally see Ryan & Shannon sprinting to our gate. We barely jumped on the plane before they shut the doors right behind us! Talk about a close one! Come to find out-Ryan got stopped at security cuz he forgot he had a huge Swiss army knife in his carry-on. Yes, a KNIFE! Are you kidding me?! So of course they stop him & he says 'Take it! I'm gonna miss my plane!'. They swabbed the knife & bag & it had traces of explosives-yes, EXPLOSIVES! Seriously?! So then Ryan explains that it is normally his hunting bag & he forgot to take the knife out. And they let him go! Can you believe that! They didn't search him or even pat him down-nothing-they jut let him go! Talk about lucky! But it does make me wonder about our national airline security...anyway...we made it to Miami safely & got on board our ship. Looking good Danny! My wet suit isn't too cute-but at least I can keep my diginity! :0) We were on the Royal Caribbean 'Freedom of the Seas', which is actually the biggest cruise boat in the world. And it was HUGE! They say it is longer than the Empire State building is tall-crazy! My favorite thing about the boat was the FlowRider. It is an artificial wave machine so you can learn to surf & boogie board. It was AWESOME! The boys tried it first & took a beating trying to surf-it is a lot harder than it looked! So we decided to stick to boogie boarding after that. However, we saw way too many peek-a-boobies, wet t-shirt contest, & the like, so Shannon & I dedcided to play it safe & rent wet suits. No one wants to see 2 moms loose their suits-if you know what I mean...can you say stretch marks? :0) Anyway-it was so fun. We got pretty good-we could get up on our knees & even do barrel-rolls. What a blast! My second favorite thing on the boat was the Rock Wall. We did that a few times & loved it. It was crazy to get to the top & look out at the miles & miles of ocean. What a view! We made 3 stops. The first was San Juan, Peurto Rico. That nite we kayaked through a maingrove forest to get to the BioBay. This is one of only 5 bays in the world where there are glowing plankton in the water. It was awesome! Everywhere the oars or our hands touched the water glowed. Of course no pictures turned out since it was nite time. Bummer! The second stop was St. Thomas. It was gorgeous! There we went sailing on a racing sailboat. It was pretty cool-& pretty scary! They actually teach you how to do a specific job (like one of the ropes) & then you race another boat. It was so intense! There we a couple times where we were almost perpendicular with the water while we were turning! It was such a workout too! My arms were pretty sore the next day. After that Shannon & I lounged on the beach while the guys snorkeled. (sorry no pics-Shannon has them...) The last stop was St. Marten. Here we took a bus into the middle of the island & did a tree top zip-line course. It was a blast! This was my favorite thing we did all week. It had zip-lines, rope bridges, rope swings, & tightropes to get from tree to tree, right there in the middle of the rain forest. So cool! Next time I wanna do the Extreme Course that is a lot higher up with longer zip-lines. I hope there is a next time! (sorry no pics-Shannon has these too...) The rest of the time we were either at the Flowrider, Rock Wall, or lounging by the pool. Danny & I even played in a pool volleyball tournament & we won against the all-male ship's crew team-WAHOO! I think Danny served 5 or 6 in row-I was so proud! Not too mention the nite time entertainment & all the food you can stand! I only gained 5 pounds-shocker! Especially considering I had 2 appetizers, an entree & 2 desserts at dinner every nite- What a pig! We met some really nice people. Tons of people where from Utah! Of course, we aren't too hard to spot in our modest swimsuits when everyone else is wearing bikinis, thongs, & speedos-YUCK! This is Ryan & Shannon...aren't they adorable! :0) Well, I hope I haven't bored you to death! We really had such a great time-but it was over way too fast! Although, we were getting pretty anxious to get home & see the kids. I couldn't wait to hear all about Averee's week, give Adee a squeeze, & rock Owen before bed. We missed them tons! Our babysitters (Ed & Amy) did an awesome job-Averee keeps asking when they get to come babysit again. It was so nice not to have to worry too much about them-thanks again Ed & Amy! Now we are back to reality & trying to get back into the swing of normal life. Home Sweet Home!

Tagged...

Thanks for this tag Christan! It is fun to learn a little more about each others lives & husbands...

This is a picture of Danny proudly holding a huge salmon that he caught in Alaska.

My Husband:

What is his name? Daniel Vause Jones

How long have you been together? 12 years (9 years married)

How long did you date? 3 years & 3 months (2 years of which he was on his mission-does that still count as dating?) he he he

How old is he? just turned 30 on January 27th

Who eats more? Danny

Who said I love you first? can't remember...how sad :0(

Who is taller? Him

Who can sing better? I would have to say me since I have only heard him sing a handful of times. But since the girls ask me to stop singing in the car sometimes-I am guessing that I don't sound that great...

Who is smarter? Danny

Who does the laundry? Me, duh!

Who pays the bills? Danny

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Danny

Who mows the lawn? Danny

Who cooks dinner? Me

Who drives? Danny

Who is more stubborn? Danny

Who kissed who first? Danny seems to think that I 'went in for the kill' first. :0)

Who asked who out first? It was a blind date, so I guess Tyler March & Jeremy Mendenhall asked us out! :0)

Who proposed? There was no actual 'proposal'-we had talk alot about it & just started thinking about a wedding date, then when he got the ring he handed it to me & said 'So, will you still marry me?' How romantic! :0p

Who has more friends? Me

Who is more sensitive? Me, a little too sensitive for Danny's taste :0)

Who has more siblings? Danny, there are 7 kids in his family & 5 in mine.

Who wears the pants? I would like to think we both wear the shorts-but who am I kidding-he wears the pants! :0)

Here is Danny with his 'Big Mac' that almost broke the state record up at Flaming Gorge! That fish was huge!

Now tag your it!

P.S. I promise that cruise pics are coming soon...