Utah The Aquarium...

While in Utah we went to the aquarium in Sandy with Wes's parents. Sadly, the days activity ended with Wes's mom, Anne having a stroke (not bad-she is fine now, but it did affect her swallowing and she is still re learning it). Here are the FUN aquarium pics from before the stroke:

Lots of good family fun!

While in Utah we stopped by Temple Square...

We took some time to hang out downtown when Wes was at his conference...

Beautiful SLC!

WAY back in June 2010...

We went to Utah to visit. Wesley had a Poster accepted at a conference in Utah and so his work paid for him to attend the conference, stay at a hotel, and eat great food. We decided to make it a fun family vacation. It was amazing as we got to stay in the amazing Grand America Hotel in Downtown SLC...very luxurious! See:

 FYI, the balcony with the open drapes in the middle is our room.

Before I show you all the fun pics, I must tell you the horror of getting there. I do not remember all the details of that happened through Wyoming, but we were stuck for a long time somewhere in Wyoming (was that the time we were on the side of the road in a place with no bathrooms for 5 hours? Yeah...I think that was the one). BUT we HAD to make it to Utah that night because Wes had to set up his poster at the conference EARLY the next morning.

By the time we made in to the Grand America, it was about midnight. Wes went in to pay (you have to put all the stuff on your Credit Card then submit all reciepts for reimbursement when you get home for his work). He was in there a while and came out furious as the Credit Card would not work. I immediately called them to fight, btu as it was the middle of the night and they were LOW staffed, it took like 45 minutes just to get through to someone after which I learned they flagged it as an unusually high charge on a hardly used card. SO, I just had to go through some additional hassles over the next hour on the phone with them before they would let us charge our hotel.

So, around 2 am we finally got to our wonderfully luxurious hotel room ney suite. See these pictures below:

Beautiful, no?! Yeah we thought so too. BUT as many of you know, our Solace gets REALLY car/motion sick. SO far we had been good that day. We put everyone in bed and settled in, then Solace rolled over and projectile vomitted all over between the 2 beds (it went so far it got all over me as well). Oh gross...so we called for help as we did not have any supplies to fix this problem, and guess what? It took them until about 3:30 am to get someone up there to help (I was pissed). We all hung out in the tv/couch room in the mean time and tried to rest. It was a rocky start to what turned out to be a great vacation.

Here are pictures around the hotel:

Well-are you pictured out yet?! Cause this is just the first of many picture posts to come...Booh Yeah!

Solace goes to the Theatre...

First trip to the Theatre.  I started this post on October 22. That day (maybe the day before) Wes had sent SOlace and I so see West Side Story and I got to take my little Lady to see her first live theatre show.  It was great (some risque parts), but overall we loved it. And Solace fell in love and wants to try out for musicals now! I will have to reign in my inner stage mom and just take it slow...

Lets start with a baby update...aka, but what will we name this cutie?

Here is a post from my deals blog that I put up 1/26. I am also going to add a cutie video on the bottom and a couple more pics:
I just wanted to take a deals break and tell you about my baby/pregnancy. I am 30 weeks pregnant as of yesterday (YEAH) so I have about 10 weeks left. As many of you know, my husband is a doctor and in fact a radiologist so occasionally if they are not super busy we can sneak a peek at our baby through ultrasound. It is about the only perk to residency! :)

Anyway-yesterday they had some time to scan my tummy (and they wanted to show a student how to do 3D & 4D Ultrasounds) so went and got some pics of baby boy J. So far his face has been covered in ALL the ultrasounds and so we have not seen it before, but I will tell you, he is a cutie! And boy-he really looks like his siblings!!

The other fun thing is that baby is actually measuring at 32 1/2 weeks instead of 30 weeks and he is already over 4 pounds, so maybe he will come early! :) Fingers crossed! (He is due on his brother, E Dawg's 7th birthday, so It would be nice if he was born early and they did not share a birthday...)

Anyway-here are a few of my favorite pictures of baby J (first is of his feet-he has is big toes crossed, the other 2 are his face!!):

I think he is a cutie! Yes I know I am biased, but oh well...if anyone has unique but not too weird boy names to suggest, I am all ears!!

And NOW special for my friend and family on THIS blog only, here are some more pics and videos of the as yet unnamed little guy (suggestions welcome)...

I LOVE the video where you can see his little movements...he's really in there kickin' around!

And now I am 32.5 weeks along and I am really hoping this little man will come in about 6 weeks...especially with how big he is already and how uncomfortable I am already...So...names that will go well with Solace, Ender, Armour, and Kindle?! Suggest away. Ready....GO...

And we're off...

I admit it...I am a blogging slacker...well, not really. I hope you have been keeping up with some of the antics of the Johnson clan through the deals blog because it seems that I have been posting a lot there...That being said...This is the place I want to document or journal the happenings of the fam, so I am going to attempt to sort of catch up. You can bet you will be getting a lot of photos and not so much writing at the moment. I will likely copy some of the more personal posts from my deals blog as well to incorporate here so I have them on here when I finally get the blog book made...ah...someday...

If Kindle were to name the baby...

Lots to write, but for now just wanted to jot down some of the names Kindle has come up with today for our baby:

• Markie (after her buddy Mark @church)
• Baby Ruth (she thinks she made this up and she and Armour had no clue what I was talking about when I told them that is a candy bar...)
• Key
• Bruland (Sister Bruland is Armour's Sunbeams teacher...not a bad name for a boy though.)

There were more, but those the the ones I coudl remember.

Literally! Kids say the darndest things...

One of my favorite things to document is the funny things my kids do and say, but I have totally sucked at that lately. SO, I wanted to tell you about some of the recent ones-Wes will have to read this later and remind his old forgetful wife about the other ones I forgot!

Kindle is 2 now and speaks better that most of the kids in Armour's preschool class. She is articulate and always surprises people when she opens her mouth, and it is rare that she says something I do not understand. A month or so ago, she came in to the kitchen where Wes and I were cooking dinner and said "I want so buffalope." We asked her to repeat it so we could understand, so she clearly asked again for some "buffalope." I told her I did not know what buffalope was, she got upset, opened the fridge, pointed to the cantaloupe and said "buffalope!" Oh how we laughed! Buffalope! Classic! All the funnier by the fact that Ender used to mix up cantaloupe and antelope.

Solace and Ender are at this stage where they are really broadening their vocabularies, and they both LOVE words. Once they learn a word, they want to use it, and use it often! But never has a new word stuck more in the Johnson household than "literally". Solace and Ender use it in every way they can think of-even some that really don't work. In fact, anywhere most people use the word "really", those 2 kids use the word "literally". For example, Solace might say "Ender, are you literally sick?" Or Ender might say "I literally love playing Wii." You know how people will ask "Really? REALLY?" when they are not sure they believe what you said? Well, here at our house, they say "Literally? LITERALLY?"

Oh and Armour...wow he is somethin'! I don't have a specific Armour word, but it is just how he uses his words. He has some nerve and he is spunky. One night Wes and I locked ourselves in our room as it is the only room in the house we can lock the kids out of. We had put them to bed and were dome with them for the night! Armour came and started pounding on the door for like 5 minutes. Wes got up opened the door and put him to bed with firm instructions to stay there. A few minutes later he was back and we returned him to bed. This happened a few times, then it finally stopped. It stopped and we had about 30 minutes of silent bliss in which time we thought he had fallen asleep. Then another knock came. I thought "who is awake this time?!" So, I yelled out "Who is it?". A very low manly response came saying "You know who it is." It was all we could do not to crack up and send to wrong message...it was hilarious!!

Oh Johnsons...buffalope, literally and you know who it is! Literally , you do!!

Picture Day:Long, but funny read-you will laugh!

Oh friends and family! I usually consider myself pretty on top of things. I rarely miss things I am supposed to do and tend to over organize our schedule on multiple calendars where all can check and see what is going on. So, imagine my surprise when on September 14 Solace came home from school just upset and devastated and said "Mom, you forgot picture day." I though she was teasing so I asked Ender and he said "Oh yeah-you missed it, you missed it good!"

WHAT?! How did that happen?! I wrote it on the calendar...on September 21. Oops. My bad.

Well, I should mention that this had been a particularly poor morning. We had very few clean clothes as our washer was in the process of breaking down at the time and I was sick of fighting with it. So, picture that the kids are basically down to their worst clothes. And, we woke up late that morning (I hate mornings anyway and when I am pregnant, it is all I can do to get out of bed in the mornings...). So, the kids were in charge of quickly washing their own teeth and brushing their own hair. Solace actually ran out the door that morning brushing her hair as the bus honked for her out front.

Needless to say, it was not a great looks day for my poor children. So, when they got to school and discovered it was picture day, Solace was really frustrated. I may not have mentioned on here that this year for the first time, Solace's teacher is a man. We love him-he is great! But, I did learn that there is at least one downfall to a male teacher. When Solace was upset about having to go take pictures, she told him that she was upset that her hair was not brushed enough or fixed as she would like it. To which her teacher replied "that's ok, just go in the bathroom and wet it down."

Trusting her teacher, Solace did just that right before going to wait in line for pictures. According to Solace, her hair was wet and a bit drippy but starting to dry when they took her picture.

To make it worse, Ender had been told a recess that day "Do not play on the slides today-they are wet and muddy and we have pictures right after recess." He forgot. He got all muddy, so they sent him to the nurse to get something not muddy to wear. Sadly, all they had for him was clothing 2 sizes too big. So, he took his picture with muddy skin and clothing 2 sizes too big. Awesome.

Wes told everyone at work that our children will look like a wet puppy and a homeless man in their pictures.

Now, as I forgot about picture day and did not order, I have not seen these (and likely will not unless they end up in the yearbook...), However, I expect they are not good.

Fast forward to today...picture retake day. I had great intentions of baths and curlers (for Solace) last night and perfection this morning. Nope, late night out practicing a song for the upcoming program for church and we did not get home for all that.

So, this morning we woke up early enough to clean, curl, and make cute. We had picked out outfits the day before, but Ender would not let me see his until this morning ("It will be a great surprise mom") So, he came in my room this morning and yelled "Surprise!" He was wearing a nice Sunday button up shirt with tie and ripped up old jeans with his favorite shoes-ripped up old camo shoes. I asked him if he wanted to maybe wear pants and shoes that matched his top better and he laughed. Laughed and laughed. When he got his laughing under control he said "Oh mom, these pictures are only from the shoulder up-I will be lucky if the tie makes the picture!"

Solace had the same idea and wore her lovely dress she chose, we curled her hair a bit, and she looked lovely from the shoulder up-under her dress she wore these crazy capris that sort of match and she wore tall socks and Ender's other pair of camo tennis shoes (she couldn't find hers and they wear the same size). She told me, "Well, I need to look great for the picture part of me, but the rest of me needs to be ready for Gymsic today." (Gymsic is a combo of Gym and Music that the 2 teachers do together each Wednesday.)

Well, I cannot wait to see how the pictures turn out, but I swear to you, if they come home today and say, "Mom, I forgot to tell my teacher I needed retakes, here is your check back," I think I will scream...

Aunt Stefanie visited us in May...

As I mentioned in the last post, Stefanie came to visit us on Kindle's birthday. It was a fun trip, but it was full of drama. Poor Stefanie was here for just a few days during which time we had 2 Kindle parties, I had a PTO meeting, and we ended up with a very sick child. In fact, I spend much of the last 2 days with Stefanie here at the hospital with Ender. I was grateful to have Stefanie in town as she stayed home with the other kids when I had to rush Ender to the hospital. Probably not her ideal vacation, but what can you do?!

With all the craziness, I took very few pictures. Before I post the few pictures I did take, I will tell you about Ender. On the Sunday of Stef's visit (May 16), we took Stefanie to the pedestrian bridge that crosses over the Missouri river between Iowa and Nebraska. We went to the IOWA side to park (as it is easier to park there). Ender cried and whined the whole time that he was sick. This is not uncommon for him when he does not want to do something, so I initially ignored him.

As we got out and started walking, he was dragging more and more and seemed to be getting worse and worse. About 1/3 of the way across the bridge I realized he was really hot and he said he was going to throw up. I told Wes to continue on the bridge with Stefanie and the other kids, and I would take Ender back. I ran carrying him and we BARELY got off the bridge and on to the grass before he started to throw up...a lot. It was nasty, and I was convinced he was in fact sick.

We opted not to take him in to the hospital for this on a Sunday. The next day was Wes and my anniversary, and Kindle already had an appointment scheduled. So, I thought worst case scenario I would ask about his symptoms when I took Kindle in. That is exactly what I ended up doing, and based on his symptoms and the blood test they did, the doctor thought Ender likely had appendicitis. She wanted us to go immediately over to Children's Hospital and get him an ultrasound. As it turned out, Wes was at Children's and ON Ultrasound that day, so he was the doctor Ender was going to be sent to. Wes arranged to just get the scan done right away, and I took Ender over. Though it was an unpleasant surprise that he was so sick, it did make it so I got to see Wes on our anniversary so that was an unexpected surprise.

The scan revealed that happily his appendix was fine, but his kidney was not so much. After more testing (urine, blood) we determined he had a severe kidney infection. Weird for a 6-y-o boy, even weirder was the type of infection it ended up being. He was by this point really dehydrated and really sick and they wanted to admit him to the hospital. Wes convinced them we would hydrate him and be fine at home with him. SO, we took him home and came back to the doctor daily for a few days.

So, just know when you see these few pictures (some taken by me before Ender and I left the bridge, others taken later by Stefanie and Wes) that the one or two with Ender in them really show his misery...

Beautiful bridge, and lovely family if I do say so myself!!