New hairdo

My friend Tara is also my hair dresser. Today she gave me more highlights and a new cut. I love it! It's very choppy. The layers are obvious. She straightened it and the choppy layers show up much more when it's straight. I looked in the mirror at the back of my hair and said, "It looks like a tiki hut roof." She got a horrified look and said, "I thought you wanted choppy!" I had to explain that I really loved it, it just made me think of a tiki hut roof. The last time she colored my hair it was quite an ordeal. She put blonde highlights in and the hair at my part turned orange! She then tried to bleach it out and it did something else wacky (I don't remember what...I've tried to forget it!). She ended up having to color it all darker and then bleach highlights back in. She said she will never use color on me again...only bleach! It was really weird! I'm glad this time turned out OK :) Oh, you can see my new hair in the picture at the right. I like it more in person.

General Conference

Our semi-annual general conference was great! We watched the first session yesterday morning. We were out in the afternoon, but recorded the afternoon session. Today, we watched both sessions. Dallin was bummed that Elder Dallin H. Oaks didn't speak, though. Sara was very impressed with Elder Boyd K. Packer's talk. She really liked it when he held up a Book of Mormon and a Bible and said that the Book of Mormon supports the Bible. I thought that was an interesting point to have made such an impact on her. She even drew a picture of him at the pulpit. David and I went for a walk with Cooper between the morning and afternoon sessions and now the kids are on a little walk. David made pancakes this morning and then made pork chops for lunch. I guess that means I'm on for dinner. Not sure what we'll be eating. I'm going to go enjoy the rest of the sabbath!

Pretty toes!

The nail salon was calling our names. We got manicures and pedicures today. I'm not sure if you can see it, but the girls each have flowers on their toes. It was nice to go with my girls and just have a girls day. We went to lunch, to the mall and the scrapbook store. Didn't spend too much, but had fun. This is going to be a short post because my contacts are killing me...I've got to go put on my glasses!

Beach trip

On Friday of spring break the kids and I went to Little Corona. We had a nice time looking at the tidepools and just hanging out on the sand. It was so nice to have that week off. I felt bad sleeping in and lounging at the beach and pool while David was still getting up early and spending all day at work! I was hoping that he would take a couple of days off work, but there was just too much going on for him to be able to.
To get to the beach from where we parked, we had to walk down a cute little street with some fantastic houses. Some of them had specatular views. Ahhhhh, what would it be like to live on the beach? Gorgeous! Our timing was great. As we were walking up the hill to leave, a group of about 35 kids in matching t-shirts were walking down. Nice kids I'm sure, but it's a very small beach!

Poor little dog!

On Sunday, a woman from our church was bringing over dinner and dessert for us (we weren't sick and I didn't have a baby...it was just something nice she wanted to do). Cooper (our 3.5 year old beagle) barks when someone is at the door and since she was bringing food (which he LOVES) we thought it would be good just to have him on the back patio while she dropped of the dinner and then let him back in after she left. So he was on the back patio and jumped up onto a a chair and then put his front paws on the table so he could smell the daffodils that are sitting in the middle of the table. We all saw him do it and thought it was soooo cute. Then the doorbell rang and we all moved closer to the door and I answered it. The dinner was delivered and as I went into the kitchen to get plates, David went to the sliding door to let Cooper in. He was sitting at the door holding one paw up (Cooper, not David) and it was dripping quite a bit of blood. So I went out to look at it and one of his toenails (is that what they're called on a dog???) was twisted and looked really weird. We think what happened was that he was getting down after smelling the flowers and his nail got caught in the metal mesh table top and kind of tore/twisted close to his toe. So all five of us are trying to get a sock on his paw and clean up the blood that is now tracked through the living room and into the entrance of the kitchen. When we finally get him sort of bandaged, Lauren and I get in the van with him to go to the vet's office. All this time I'm thinking, "I just want to sit down and eat the yummy food that I didn't have to prepare". So we leave David and the other two kids to finish cleaning up the blood and then eat a hot dinner, while we drive to the vet's office. It's 4:10 and the office closed at 4:00. OK, I think there's a little hospital inside of PetSmart. We drive over there. No animal hospital. Oh yeah, that's the Hillsboro, Oregon PetSmart that had a hospital. The manager said he'd look up a vet that's open. He gets online and gets me directions. Great! It's pretty close to our house. We unload and then see the sign that says they are open Monday through Saturday. What? Didn't the PetSmart manager say he looked for one that's open today (Sunday!)? I'll give him the benefit of the doubt...maybe he thought it was Saturday. So we drive home. By this time, David, Dallin and Sara have eaten dinner AND dessert. Cooper's not bleeding and seems to be walking OK. I decide that I'll take him in the next day. Monday morning I took him to the vet and at first she couldn't really see anything. He wasn't licking at it and she said if there was something wrong she would've thought he'd be licking the wound. I left him there and after watching him for a while they noticed that it starting bleeding again and looked more twisted. She examained him more closely and saw that there was definite damage to the nail and a "shard" (her word, not mine) of nail was digging into his toe. She said she thought the reason he wan't licking it was because it was so painful! Ouch! So they did a little surgery and fixed him up. We picked him up today. He's bandaged and has one of those collars so he doesn't chew the bandage off. It's so sad! He's moping around and having a hard time napping. Poor little guy! All because he wanted to smell the daffodils!

It's been a very long time since I've posted. Spring Break has started! Yeah! The girls and I went to the pool and had some friends come over with us. It was very fun! The forecast was for 84* and I think it made it! Yesterday was Easter. Yummy baskets of candy and other little goodies. Church was great. It's always nice to focus on the Atonement/Crucifixion/Resurrection. I got to do Sharing Time for the primary kids. I had 12 Easter eggs, each with a scripture reference and little object to illustrate that particular scripture. I called up 12 kids (2 from each class) and had them choose an egg. They took the eggs back to the group and as a group they looked up the scripture and talked about how the item from the egg related. Then I called them up in order (the eggs were numbered) and the child would show us the item from their egg and then read the scripture(s) that went along with it. It was a great way to illustrate the story and be able to hit the highlights in 20 minutes. The kids seemed really interested in the story as I told it and we talked about it. And I have to say that I didn't come up with the items in the eggs on my own. I found it on a primary website.
After church we came home and David's cousin, Delos, his wife Misty and their 3 children came over for Easter dinner. They were visiting a friend in Oceanside. We had a nice dinner (ham, mashed potatoes/gravy, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, salad), took a walk to the park, came back and had dessert (lemon bars and ice-cream bars). We had a wonderful time talking with Delos and Misty and the kids had fun playing together. It was a very nice Sunday.
Now I'm looking at some beautiful daffodils on my table. I need to go to the mall and pick up two pair of jeans that I bought last week and had them hem. I also need to go to the library website and renew a couple of books since they are due today! Tomorrow I think we might ride bikes to the Farmers Market and the library. It's supposed to be a chilly 74*. Just kidding...about it being chilly. It really is supposed to be 74*.
I'm hoping to be getting a little bit of scrapbooking done this week. Maybe I can even post some pictures.

Happy

Here are some things that make me happy:

1. made beds
2. a spic and span laundry room and empty hampers
3. vaccum lines in my carpet
4. clean window/sliding door tracks
5. dinner in the crock pot
6. 1.5 hour hike w/two friends and my dog

I had a very productive day today. I even rode my bike to drop off the dry cleaning and went to Sara's classroom and read 5 stories to the students for Read Across America! I also watch the movie "The Queen", which I had checked out from the library. Then I returned the movie and some others books. I checked out three books: The Second Time Around by Mary Higgins Clark, Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine (a book about her wanting to marry royalty and trying her darnedest to do it!) and A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (it was made into a movie that I didn't see).
Anyway, I'm feeling very good about all I was able to accomplish! I hope to keep up the momentum for the whole week.