And he's a doctor too...

Wes in High School

Wes last Week...

They were all right when they said I lucked out. :)

Daily Dose of Us, August 2007

August 1: Happy 16th Birthday Eleora! A constant noise in my house is Hannah Montana songs (I am thinking our kids might get her CD at some point). I think it is so funny though because when anyone makes a mistake, typically I say, "That's OK, Nobody's perfect." Now however, if I say that, I am met by 2 kids singing "Nobody's perfect, I gotta work it..." Interesting.
August 2: Happy Birthday XiaXia!! Since it is XiaXia's birthday... (BTW-XiaXia means "grandma" in Greek) Whenever I think of Xiaxia, I cannot help but remember her racing past me into the kitchen when Andrea started the fire trying to cook that one night...Who knew she could move so quickly!
August 3: Tonight Wes is on call overnight. We thought we would only get to see him for a few minutes between when he got off (about 5) and when he had to report to the ER (5:30). (We are allowed to go eat with him at the hospital on call nights) But he actually got off early (like 1) so when we got home from playing at the park with some other resident wives and kids, he was home too. It was a nuce surprise to get to hang out!
August 4: I love Diet Mountain Dew Code Red-why oh why must it be so expensive?! I want some now, but alas, we have none...oh well...
August 5: Tonight Wes told our kids that he was going to tell him the secret to a happy and healthy life. Here it is (I know I will misquote it a bit, but basically this is his advice): "Learn everything you can while you are young-everything you can about the church and about the world. Then keep learning more and more while you grow up."
August 24: Man, one tiny little vacation and look what happens to this! Well, my thought today is...well, I don't have much of a thought. So, I'll just tell you what Ender told me earlier today. "Kids really do like to Boogie too!"

Me

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Vaca part 4: Half Moon Bay

So, as I said, we decided to stay on Saturday and Wes suggested we all go to the beach together. We loaded everyone up into our cars, mapquested the directions and set out the hour and a half trip there. The directions took us right through San Francisco (which had CRAZY traffic), so Mickey and Natalie looked on their GPS and found an alternate route. We decided to try the same way they were going using our trusty Atlas. It took some time, but eventually we found our way there. Sadly, the GPS took Mickey and Natalie all over because evidently it was a bit outdated. So, like 4 hours after we left we finally made it to Half Moon Bay and found ourselves surrounded by storm clouds. It was windy and cold, but we were determined. So, we continued with our plans (after all, it was not raining, just cloudy and windy). Wes wanted to make sure all was fun, so he went and rented 2 boogie boards, and he and Mickey played on those until their bodies were numb. All in all we ended up at the beach for about 3 hours. Here are some pictures (Thanks Natalie for taking all these GREAT pics):

Isn't this the best picture? Looks like it's straight out of a magazine!

It is Solace and Mickey (the "little" one). Solace the model.

I LOVE this picture of Mickey and Matt. Matt was SO fun to watch at the beach. He just was having a great time, and it shows in every picture! And I love that Mickey is smiling at Matt's joy in this picture!
Mommy's were there too-see, here's Natalie.
This is like THE picture to define this trip. All the kids were covering themselves in the warm sand. Not just because it was fun and messy, but also because it was warm.
Matt, Mickey, Ender, and Solace by the sand Castle made by big Mickey and his boys.
Armour and I had fun too.

Ender COVERED in Sand!!
I sent Solace in to clean off...
Wes coming in.
My cute big kids.
See, my kids know I am hilarious too!!

Oh my cute (sick) baby.
Matt and more sand.
Mickey on left, Wes on right.
Gabby!
I made it!
I love this picture of Mickey-he was playing with his dad-cute!
Mickey and Wes in their own personal Gap ad!
Wes loves his skim board-he had to take one more run on it before we could go.

Thus ended our day...

Vaca part 3: Vacaville and beyond!

Monday the 13th, after Cannon Beach, we went back to our hotel in Portland and slept. The next morning we woke up early to drive to Vacaville and visit Mickey and Natalie (and kids). After the tire blow out last time we drove, I was nervous about the drive, but luckily there was not any car drama.

The funny thing about this drive though was that about an hour from Vacaville, Ender grabbed his stuffed Mickey Mouse and said "Oh, Mickey, we are almost there to see you again." (In case you didn't read this blog last month, we went to Disneyland at the beginning of July) Wes and I looked at each other and told Ender that we were not headed toward Disneyland. He said "What are you talking about?! You said we were going to see Mickey in California!" Evidently we had confused him. We explained that we were actually going to Northern California, not Southern California, and that we were seeing cousin Mickey, not Mickey Mouse. And Solace said, "Yeah, this Mickey is human, not even a mouse at all. And there is a little Mickey too, and he is not a mouse either. He's a human like his dad." It was hilarious, and luckily, Ender was not too disappointed since he was still going somewhere he wanted to go and meeting cousins he did not know.

Upon arrival in Vacaville, we learned there was a Wii at mickey and Natalie's, and I have to say, we loved it! It will be hard not to just go out and buy one now! We will have to save up for that one.

One day when we were there we took our little family into San Francisco, since I was the only one that had been there before. We hung out at Fisherman's Wharf for a while, saw the famous sea lions on pier 39, and then drove down "the 1" along the coast until we found a beach we wanted to hang out at (Half Moon Bay). We ended up going back there later...more to come about that. But the thing about this Half Moon Bay excursion is that the brakes on my van were basically shot by the time we drove back to Vacaville. We walked in the apartment and asked Mickey where we could go to get the brakes fixed. Evidently he already had plans to go change his brakes at his friend's house the next day and told Wes to just come along with him and they could fix both cars.

Well, that's what they did. For those that may not know, Wes does not fix cars. He is not a mechanic, and would prefer to just take the car in somewhere rather that try to spend the time and effort figuring out what he has to do to fix it. So, my point is that he doesn't know about cars. So, after they did the brakes, Mickey backed out of the drive and Wes was backing out as well, but had not pumped the brakes to get the new brakes going before he started backing out. So, when he started to back out, there was no brakes coming on as he tried to stop, and he ended up hitting Mickey's car with our van. You can't really even see any damage to Mickey and Natalie's car, but ours was evidently one big dent on the back panel. Luckily, Mickey's buddy came out and said he could just fix that. So, he pulled off the panel and pounded it out as well as he could. You can hardly tell because instead of one big dent, there is a bunch of small dents. So, anyway...

The car problem aside, we had a great time visiting with Mickey, Natalie, Mickey, Matt & Gabby. We went to the Jelly Belly Factory, went to the swimming pool, went for walks around their city, and best of all just visited and hung out with them. It was a BLAST!! We had actually planned to leave on Saturday morning, but with Mickey being a real working dentist now, he was gone during the days and Wes and Mickey needed some more time to play, so we decided to stay and do the whole 13 1/2 hour drive home on Sunday. So, on Saturday we went to Half Moon Bay, But that is another blog I'd say.

Solace at Portland hotel

Ender fake sleeping in Portland.

Armour, not even trying to sleep in Portland.

Hanging out watching VeggieTales.

Wes and kids at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
Close up
The sea lions
In front of the sea lions

Vaca Part 2: Portland and Cannon Beach

Early in the morning Wes went to get a new tire, and Ender desperately wanted to go with him. So, off they went. The night before we had searched for the closest and cheapest place near our hotel for him to take the car, and with my directions, off they went. Evidently it was quite the adventure as they had to wait for about an hour for the tire to be done and decided to go for a walk and look for food. Let's just say-not the best part of town. They walked past a lot of things that made Wes glad that Ender cannot read yet!

After they returned, we drove the hour or so to Cannon Beach. On the way we stopped for a few minutes to see the nation's tallest Sitka spruce. Then continued on to the beach. It was a great time! We spent the day there and just came back to sleep. While we were there, Wes bought a skim board and we all took turns playing on it (Wes really got pretty good by the end). It was great-I will just go ahead and let the pics speak for themselves here:

Nation's largest/Oldest Sitka Spruce (Oldest living "being" in the country it said)

Frolicking in the Pacific

Cannon Beach-Haystack Rock in the backgroundFirst steps in the ocean this trip-Wes pointed out that he was in the ocean in Hawaii when he was 5-months-old.! So cute!! (He LOVED it!!)Don't know if you can tell, but she wrote her name, Solace, in the sand.
Ender wrote E's in the sand! Ah the skim board

Here is Wes on his favorite new toy. Wonder if he can use it on the Spokane river?!
Check out Ender!! He yelled "Johnny Tsunami" every time he got on, and now thinks he is an expert surfer! Hilarious!!
Our little princess on the board. When Wes told her she could do this everyday if we had matched in Hawaii, she was SO mad that he didn't match there and asked if we could try the match again this year to go to Hawaii...
Everyone insisted on having a turn, right down to the littlest who in whoville...
Yes, even mommy tried-nice form, huh?! Yeah, I know I'm a babe... :)

Vacation part 1: On the Road Again

So on Sunday the 12th we drove to Portland, Oregon to begin our vacation. All was well until about 200 miles away when I realized I left the trash sitting in our apartment waiting to be taken out and it was too late to go back(nasty!). I thought "Well, at least that is the only thing! It could have been worse." Then it got worse...On the freeway in Oregon along the river, right before we were about to exit to get gas, we heard a huge loud noise and our car began to rock as our tire had just blown out. Oh my word! (as a side note, later we discovered that when the tire blew, it broke out the entire wheel well and broke the gas cap also. We have to hold up the gas pipe to put gas in now...awesome)

I did not even know where the spare tire was in this van, and neither Wes nor I was sure how to get it out from under the car (after he showed me where it was). So, we emptied the back (which was quite a significant amount of stuff) onto the side of the road, and tried to figure it out. There was some instructions with the little jack in the van, but they called for a tool that was not with the pack. At that point, Wes said "Beckee, get me the owner's manual" Obviously he had forgotten that we bought the van used and that it did not have the owner's manual. Nice.

So I went back and looked again in the little pocket that had the jack and found a hidden bag of tools with further instruction on how to get the tire out and stuff. So, then, because I am brilliant and curious went to look more closely at the blown out tire and couldn't help but touch it. Never touch a blown out tire remnant-they are sharp! I got a thin piece of metal in my finger , which I pulled out and held a wet wipe over while it bled, as Wes changed the tire. Of course it happened to be the tire that was closest to traffic, so I was worried about Wes getting hit the whole time.

Well, Wes pretty easily got the spare tire on the car and the blown out one under the car, replaced all the stuff in the back, and off we went to try to find a place to get a new tire. Let me just tell you, a lot of things are closed on Sundays in Utah, but it is nothing like Oregon where we were. Every town was like a ghost town, with every shop, even like national tire store chains closed for Sunday. So we realized we were going to have to finish the drive slowly and carefully into Portland on the spare.

A couple hours later we arrived in Portland where we were staying on this island that used to be an amusement park. After checking into the hotel, we took the kids for a walk around the island (well, a few miles anyway), after which we fed the kids and all went to bed. Ah...bed...

Any comments?

Hey-just so you know, if you are reading this, I really do welcome comments on any of my blogs. As you read, feel free to leave your thoughts or reaction to my Beckee brand of crazy!! :)

Hello again

If you are a dedicated fan of this blog, you may be wondering what has happened to me. I didn't forget my blog or my loyal fans (yeah like anyone reads this but me...), I just went on vacation!! Which by the way was awesome! Now that Wes is a really working grown-up, somehow vacation is even more exciting for me. I have a lot to say about this vacation, and will post some pics and everything, but I just want to give a very un-detailed overview of the vacation here. So, Friday the 10th was Wes's last day of work. We had planned to go to Seattle for the weekend, then on to Northern California to see his cousin Mickey and his family (Natalie, his wife. Little Mickey, Matt, and Gabbie, his kids). The Seattle part didn't work out as we started trying to plan and had trouble even pricelining a hotel there for cheap enough, and all the activities I wanted to do there were expensive, and basically we decided we didn't have the budget to do that and started planning our travel from there. For anyone that doesn't know, I NEVER pay full price for hotels. I am the queen of priceline (ok-maybe the princess as I am sure my mom is the queen). And Wes and I together are almost as cheap as Jeremy is (I know it doesn't seem possible for anyone to be that cheap, but it's true). So, we knew we were going to stop somewhere on the way to Cali for a night or 2, so we started to try finding hotels we could stay at along the way. No where on the way even really had hotels available (what the heck was going on in central Oregon last weekend, seriously?!). So, our trip began to form based around mapquest and priceline. We would find a place a bit off course on mapquest and then try to priceline a room within budget at that place. We did this for a long time and ended up getting a room in Portland for Sunday and Monday nights.

Well, so much for un-detailed overview, right?! Anyway, after the plans were decided, this was the final plan: Sunday morning (the 12th) drive to Portland. Stay there Sunday and Monday nights, Then Tuesday, drive to Vacaville to see Mickey & Natalie (and kids of course). Stay at Mickey and Natalie's house until Saturday morning, then spend Saturday (and Sunday if necessary) driving home, so Wes could be back at work on Monday to start his first fairly bad (time wise) rotation. That was our plan...It all went sort of accordingly....feel free to read the other parts of the story as I post them!