Lilypie First Birthday tickers

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie First Birthday tickers

Monday, December 21, 2009

Happy Birthday and an early Merry Christmas!

Well, today was my Mom's birthday.

As many are aware, you don't realize how much you love and need your mom until she isn't around. Living in Omaha, Nebraska, 15 hours away from my Mom in Utah, I have continued to miss her more and more. Now that she is in Hawaii it is even worse, because I can't just get in the car and drive there, I have to find a couple thousands dollars and fly almost an entire day to see her.
I think about all that she has put up with raising 7 crazy kids, and I am still amazed that she is the wonderful, sane! woman that she is today. She has taught me so many important life lessons that can never be learned in a classroom, and she continues to teach me. I miss having her close by for us to lean on, but grateful that she has the same opportunity to serve a mission that she helped give 6 of us. I hope that some day I can accomplish even a fraction of what she has done in her life with the same zeal that she has. We love you Mom, and we miss you!

P.S. we opened our Christmas presents from you, and they are great! Thank you so much Dad and Mom!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Catch up! Summer "09 continued with Camping!

So this summer we have been super busy! We were going crazy with Young Women's Girls Camp at the Little Sioux Scout Camp in Iowa, and the Pioneer Trek that we went on for the Stake Youth Conference. After all of that, we wanted to do something for ourselves, thus the camping trip to the Indian Cave State Park in Southern Nebraska. As you can tell from Mark's picture, we were really excited to go!

Ros was also excited to be at the park.

Mark and the pups checking out the view from this lookout point. The Missouri River is in the background, in between the acres of trees.

Mark loves cooking, and the outdoors, so he loved this opportunity to combine the two! I have to say, we had the best camp food we have ever had on this camping trip!

More cooking. Mark is the king of the fire!

After we returned from Girl's Camp, we had to put all of our tents back together, (for some reason we have several tents) and somehow we didn't get all of the tent stakes back into our tent bag. Of course, we didn't realize that until we arrived at the camp ground, which is 3 hours from our house. We did have a bunch of plastic forks, though. So naturally, the forks became the tent stakes. Mark is so creative!

We went down to see the Indian cave, and when we arrived we found this sign at the bottom of the cave. We found it very funny!

The cave is behind Mark. It isn't really a cave, but more of an alcove. There are a bunch of petroglyphs, that are pretty cool.


Apparently we didn't take any pictures of the petroglyphs, but this is a picture of one that I got from online.



Roslyn loved roasting in the sun. That is what she did most of the time. Isn't she so cute?


In all of these pictures it looks pretty sunny, right? Well, it wasn't all good weather. The second night that we were there a storm rolled in. At first we thought it would pass by and not get us, but then we started to hear really loud thunder and felt a few drops of rain. Suddenly remembering that our tent leaked, we frantically gathered up everything that would be damaged by the rain, grabbed the dogs, and ran for the 4runner.

Just as we got the sleeping bags and dogs in the 4 runner the clouds broke and it began to pour! After laying there for only about 5 minutes we couldn't breath anymore because it was so stuffy in the car. We kept trying to crack windows, but it would let in so much rain, we would have to close it again. In the morning when we woke up Mark had charlie-horses in both of his calves because of sleeping with his legs bent in the same position all night.

When we went camping to Niobrara we bought an inflatable boat to go fishing with Ros. I think I explained then that we never got to use it because it just never worked out. So we took it with us to Indian Cave SP, and once again, we never got to use it. We are rooting for this summer. Hopefully we will get to this year!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

I am a Genius! and such

Well, we survived the Youth Conference Trek, which I will blog about later. I am also pretty much ready for camp on Monday June 22nd, which, I must say, is a miracle! I will blog about that also, later.

This week I received a big envelope in the mail, and thought I would blog about it before I forget my special little accomplishment. I opened the big envelope thinking that it was the statement of financial aid that I would be receiving in the fall. To my surprise, it was not a financial aid statement, but a certificate. Recovering from my shock, I read it over and it said that I had made the Dean's list! Amazing! I am in the top 15% of Metropolitan Community College, which means I am one of the smartest in da hood! Yea me! I'll have to treat myself to McDonald's or something.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Mission Call

My parents received their mission call today, and they aren't doing a mission at all, but a vacation! They are going to Honolulu, Hawaii! We just set up their blog to share their adventures as they prepare for their mission, and throughout their mission. It is http://steveandmickeyrobbins.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Marley Strikes Again!

This actually happened a few weeks ago, but I am just now blogging about it because it is no longer fresh in my mind (and heart) to where I want to kill Pig. Ahem. So, the DiRtY deed! Mark and I came home from church two Sunday's ago, and this is what we found, with a smiling Pig right in the middle of it! We don't know who actually did it, we are pretty sure that Polly did. We don't believe Ros to be innocent. If she didn't participate in the actual destruction, then she was probably encouraging Polly to do it, as she often does!

Polly and Ros greeting us, very pleased with themselves.

They still can't figure out why we aren't excited to see them.

The mess! I don’t know how a nylon ended up in the middle of it. Talented puppies!



You can see where her target was in the planter. It used to be a geranium that I had received several years ago from the branch for Mother's Day. I had taken such good care of it, so it had grown quite big.

One of the plants that we had recently potted that we managed to save from the wreckage.
The pile of mess that she created. Oh, and my toes.

What's left. The stick was the geranium.

My "geranium"


Saturday, April 25, 2009

Our very own Marley

A month ago we went to see Marley and Me, and it was so funny!


After leaving the theater we realized why it was so funny to us, we have our very own Marley that we can't imagine living without. She is our Discount Dog. (We paid only $80 for her)


We got her because she was just so cute and playful. She had big floppy ears that we thought she would grow into.


She got along very well with Roslyn.


She was small, close to Roslyn's size. She loves to eat! She doesn't crawl around in her food, but she does hork it down, and then belches right after.


But then the mischief started....


...and as she has gotten bigger it has gotten worse.

She now picks on Roslyn, loves carrots (so much that she will go outside and pretend to use the bathroom to get one)...

...and is now always getting into stuff. She hasn't chewed through a door just yet, but she has almost chewed through the bars of the baby gate that keeps her in the kitchen. (The bittering agent didn't work)

The reason for the post today is because I looked over and she was laying on her blanket, eating one of my pansies. Not just one of the flowers, but she had pulled out the entire plant, and was sitting there eating it!

So, I just needed a reminder of why I love her so much , thus this journey down memory lane!

Friday, April 24, 2009

My bout of craftiness!

I have been feeling ambitious lately, and creating lots of things for myself. I have been looking for shorts to walk in that had pockets, and I have yet to find any. So, I found some shorts, and got some old fabric out and added pockets. So now when I go walking at the park with the dogs, I have somewhere to put my keys and my phone! They are kind of ugly, but very functional!

Before the pockets...

After the pockets! The color of the shorts didn't really change, I'm just not a very good photographer.


A couple of weeks ago I realized the reason my geranium, which I have had for a year now, was dying was because it needed more space. I also had some seeds that the utilities company sent us that I wanted to use. Well, I got carried away! I bought a large planter to put the geranium in, put my ivy in as well, and bought some pansies to go with it. Then I planted the seeds from the utilities company in the old pots of the Ivy and geranium. Not yet satisfied, we also got some lavender seeds, and a little seed starter. The Ivy and pansies aren't doing very well, though, because Pig keeps eating them. We do feed her, I swear!

Here are the pellets before we opened them up and planted the seeds.

Mark "planting" the lavender seeds. He just put them on the end of the pencil, and shoved them in the dirt. They were tiny seeds!


Here is my new planter!


Needless to say, my house will soon be overrun with plants. I need my own back yard!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Mark's Birthday Weekend!

So, Mark hit the big 27 on Saturday! Yea! We started the festivities on Friday and went to HuHot. A friend had mentioned that it was their favorite restaurant, so we decided to try it. It was pretty cool! We took pics with my phone, but I can't guarantee they will ever make it on here. Then Saturday we went to see Monsters vs. Aliens. Pretty funny movie, but not for kids. Mark's birthday dinner was at Chicago Pizza, which is one of his favorite restaurants. We were going to go to Texas Roadhouse, but it is fairly new and still a novelty, so the wait was over an hour long. He got a ton of presents, and loves all of them. His family gave him a bunch of tools, and so now he can't wait to use them. He now thinks he is a fix it man! I got him an HTC Touch Pro (from Craigslist, of course) and all the fixin's, but that doesn't compare to his tools! So here are some pics of his goodies!








Update: I sold my phone, and now I can't access the pictures. What a bummer!


Sunday, April 12, 2009

Pres. Monson and Elder Oaks spoke at our Stake Conference

Today we had stake conference, and we had President Monson, Elder Oaks, Elder Snow, and Sister Lifferth from the general Primary presidency speak to us today.



It was wonderful! Oh, yeah, it was broadcast, too. The conference was broadcast to 61 stakes in 8 midwest states. All four talks were wonderful! The adult session last night was also very inspiring.

After Stake Conference, we went to the Stake 2nd Counselor's house for dinner. Lonnie and Triva had invited the us over for Easter dinner, and then the Curzon's invited them over, since they share backyards, so we were invited too. It was a really nice day. The only problem was trying to get around, which brings me to Friday.

Friday we were at the park walking the dogs, and we were about half way through when I was stepping down off the sidewalk to cross the street. My left heel caught on the sidewalk at the same time that Ros pulled on the leash in my right hand, and my right ankle rolled, and I heard a loud pop. Yup, that's right, my little 9 pound dog took me down! I was sprawled out in the middle of the road. Funny thing was, I yelled out to Mark, "I still have her!" because once Ros gets off the leash, she is a tough dog to get back.
When I got home, and we started icing it, it didn't hurt too badly. It also didn't swell up very much. We would have gone to the doctor, but it was closed for Good Friday. So yesterday I woke up, and it felt pretty good. So I started walking around, and after about an hour it was killing me, and it had swollen up quite a bit. So I got me some crutches, and we are going to the doctor tomorrow to see how bad it is. While we were at the Curzon's house, everyone was teasing me saying that I was trying to get out of the Trek that we are going on with the youth for Youth Conference in June. Hopefully it won't take that long to heal!