Confessions of a twenty-five year old drama queen

'I love my life and I'd never trade'

-Garth Brooks Every Now and Then

Today, as I was blog browsing (you know where you go onto your friends blog and then click on there friends link and so forth and so forth. Blog browsing sounds better then blog snooping or ease dropping), I came across several blogs that talked about how so-and-so where graduating or had graduated and how they were so excited. The more I came across, the more I started thinking 'gee, if only Tony started school after his mission, we'd be done with a few working years under our belt.' Needless to say I started to get a little depressed and mostly jealous of all the people who had already put in the long years of school to earn their degree.

Frustrated I clicked out of my browser and headed down stairs to the kids and dirty dishes I had been neglecting while I blog browsed.

As I grumpily fed my kids and did the dirty dishes I began to give myself some well needed advice. Live the life you have. Be happy with it. How many other people get to live the adventure of going to school thousands of miles from where you grew up, with three little kids, and try to make ends meet with the little amount of money coming in. Really? I don't mean that last sentence sarcastically, I mean it with all seriousness. I am living in a beautiful town with beautiful sights that I would probably never seen without coming here to go to school. Our three little kids are never going to be this age again. They are never going to count to twenty by skipping 15-19. Or sing their sentences as if we were in a musical. Or have giant (I mean GIANT) blow outs where all you can think to do is put them in the bathtub, clothes and all, and just laugh. They are never going to be that way again.

And as far as money goes, as Grandpa George says on Willy Wonka

There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket-- There are only 5 of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money. Are you a dummy?

No, Grampa George, I am not a dummy, and I wouldn't trade this adventure and my life for something as common as money. (We have enough for what we need, Ma, I don't want you to worry, I just like to have enough for everything I want ;) )

So like the Garth Brooks song says (I find most of life problems can be solved with Garth Brooks songs), I'm taking my own advice and loving my life and never trading. And the next five years are going to an awesome adventure that will one day end and I'll be blogging about how I am so proud of Tony for graduating, and maybe some one will look at my post and be a little depressed or jealous. My advice I will give to them, live your life, love your life, because this adventure will never happen again.

Our life as a Musical

I'm not going to lie. We sing a lot at our house. Okay, I sing a lot at our house. I sing church songs, disney songs, broadway songs, my own word to songs, and every once in a while some hip rock-and-or-roll song. I didn't realize that I had this strange habit of singing until Emma started to mimic me. Emma has started singing her sentences instead of just saying them. For instance, today Emma has sung, "I dropped my fork!!" "You forgot to put syrup on this piece!" "The water is too cold!" "I need to go potty!" all sung to her own tune. It seems she only sings things if she wants us to do them or thinks she's going get in trouble. (It must make it better if she sings it).

John Deere Museum

This post is dedicated to my little sister Sierra, who loves John Deere, and needs to come to Iowa to see the awesome Museums (yes that's right there are multiple in the Quad Cities area).

On Friday night we took a trip to the John Deere Pavilion to see all the tractors. It was awesome! They had tractors of all sizes that you could sit and play on, and tons of activities for the kids.

Emma in a giant tractor

Liam driving Dan around

The biggest flipping machine there. It was huge!!

Tony and kids in the biggest flipping machine

I think Fox took to the whole tractor thing way to easy.

Backin' up fellas, backin' up

The had an awesome cow you could milk. But, as Emma informed me, "The cow only had water" :)

After all the tractor excitement we went over to the...
Where they have everything John Deere that your little heart could handle! Everything from toys to clothes to mugs! It was very John Deere-tastic!!

Oh, the rows and rows of toys!

This is where they let you kids play with the toys so they cry and ask you for one even more :)

One day, Sierra, one day...your first child is getting this from me! :)

(this one is for Grammy) What are you doing with ordinary bulb watering thingys when you could have John Deere watering bulb thingys!?!

Emma sporting an awesome pink John Deere cowgirl hat.

Fox looking extra awesome wearing his John Deere hat ol' man style :)

Train ride to Iowa

Ah, where to begin, where to begin...

In March Tony left for Iowa with all of our belonging and our car, under the assumption that his mom would drive us out to Iowa in April when our apartment opened up. As the date for us to drive out got closer and closer we started looking at the numbers and realized that it was going to be extra expensive for us to drive (We only had Tony's Dad's big gas guzzler truck :) available to us). So we started looking at other options. We could fly, but the only flights available in our price range, with such short notice, had several connecting flights, and I didn't think that it would be fun to drag three kids and luggage through different airports trying to catch our flights. Several months ago I had looked into Amtrak's trains and found out that there was a train that went from Utah to Chicago, so I really started to research and realized that the train could take me from Provo, Utah, to Galesburg, Illinois (only about an hour away from Davenport) for about the same cost of flying (but meals were included...I think that's a plus ;) ). So we got tickets for the train, tried to fit our whole life into eight little carry on bags, and had Mom and Dad take me and the kids to the train station bright and early Saturday morning (we left the house at 4:30am to try and catch the train that was suppose to leave at 5:15 but was about a half an hour late). (Thanks Mom and Dad for taking us:))

When we first got on we were all tired and our nice train car care guy (kind of like a housekeeping guy for trains) had our beds all laid out for us so we went to sleep. (We got a sleeper room because our train ride was scheduled to take 29 hours and 59 minutes. It ended up taking about 31 hours, but who's counting?)

Fox slept with me on the bottom.

Liam slept on the top bunk (it folds down kind of like a bunk bed in a trailer)

Emma slept in the "child sized" bed at my feet. The top bunk "child sized" bed [not pictured] was full of all of our luggage...we had a lot.

Then the sun came up and our nice train innkeeper man transformed our bed into seats!! Yippie!

Here's one side of our room with the smallest closet you have EVER seen! Barely fit my coat. :)

Here's the other side, this is where the kids played most of the time.

We travel through some of the most beautiful places ever!! And (according to Tony) slept through the more "boring" parts (Nebraska). It was absolutely gorgeous! If you ever plan on taking a train just for fun, I would say to travel from Utah to Denver, prettiest sights ever! There are parts where it is sheer cliff and all you can see is the valley below you, it feels like you are flying! We saw about twenty head of elk and countless deer. And went through I think something like 28 tunnels, one of which was six miles long! (during which we were eating and Liam had to go to the bathroom, but I wouldn't let him until we were out of the tunnel because I didn't know if everything was lit, and what if he couldn't see!! Anyways I was a little bit paranoid...but he finally got to go after we were out of the tunnel) Here's some of the sights. I only took pictures of outside for about ten minutes, so this is only a itty bitty glimpse.

this one you can see Liam's reflection...I thought that was pretty cool.

We got to play a whole lot. And since I didn't think to charge our DVD player, all we did was play. So thanks to all of you who sent gifts, toys, and activities, they really, really, really did help! And made it so that I didn't go insane!! :)

Emma showing off new toys and candy

Liam with new Transformers (best gifts ever, they kept him entertained forever)

Fox just ate the paper

Fox eating the lid off the pringles can (he's easily entertained, what can I say?)

This is where Fox was most the trip. Usually chewing on some random thing or sleeping.

Me and Fox

We got all of our meals free with the tickets we bought. Some body warned me that the food was no good, but I was fairly pleased with how good the food actually was. We got to eat four meals all together (2 breakfast and one lunch and dinner), I ate every last drop they gave me, the kids, not so much...:) (I had salmon for dinner [not pictured here] it was sooooo good)

Liam and Emma waiting for breakfast to be served (yes, they are still in their pajamas...we were on vacation!! I only got a couple of weird looks from people)

Liam's awesome hot dog and chips for lunch

My delicious salad. Mmmm, it was so good, blue cheese, apples, walnuts and chicken...drool...

Emma's pasta that she didn't eat. I tried to talk her out of getting it, I knew she wouldn't eat it, but she wanted it, so she got it.

Happy Emma (usually she gives me this smile right after she's done something she not suppose to...I wonder what she did. :) )

Liam was proud that he put this Mickey Mouse puzzle together (with a little bit of help from Mom)

Happy Fox playing with lots of links

Emma happy to be eating a delicious granola bar

Liam looking all chipper

It was fun! Even with three kids :). I had one elderly lady look very serious at me and say, "you are one brave traveler." Other people say, "Are all three of these yours!?" And the guy that served our food acted a little annoyed that I would bring three kids under the age of five on to the train, but for the most part people were very nice. Liam and Emma got to hang out with the conductor. He gave them "tickets" (little pieces of paper that he called tickets, they were thrilled). One man would hide his eyes when we went through the tunnel, just like Liam and Emma where, and make them giggle every time. And several people would stop just to talk to the kids and ask them if they liked the train, or how they were doing.

So train A+. Would I do it again? If it was cheap enough. So far for the dates I want to go back home the train prices sky rocket! We must have just chosen the right time! But all in all it was a great experience and really how many people can say they've rode a US train? Now my kids can say they have ;)

Let's Go Fly a Kite

During Spring Break last week, the kids and I decided that it would be fun to go and fly a kite. So we packed everyone up and headed down to Central school. It was awesome! I was a little bit nervous about taking the kids by myself, trying to entertain them and manage to get a kite up in the air, but as soon as I got there the wind took a hold of the kite. I didn't even have to throw it, or run! And then the kite stayed up the whole time until I wound it back down when we were ready to leave. Everyone had a chance to hold on to the kite, and we had a great time!

Liam's awesome Bumblebee transformer kite

Liam flying the kite

Emma flying the kite

For some reason Emma thought she had to run while flying the kite

Even Fox got to fly the kite!

He's the best kite flyer ever!!

And he's extra cute, even when he's drooling :)