Pedicure - Girls Day

Mckelsie, Caitlyn and I went to get pedicure's on Saturday. The nail salon has these REALLY nice new chairs. The massager in those things is amazing although there's a "butt" one that just shouldn't be there! It was weird and awkward and just not right! I was a little disappointed in the pedicure though. There was NO massaging at all!

Anyhow...it was fun to go with the girls though. =)

St George Mini (very quick and very lazy) Trip

We ran away for a few days to St George. The weather was 73-75 degrees! It was absolutely beautiful! I think its so funny that my kids think the best vacations are the ones where they get to go swimming and eat the continental breakfast in the hotel. They thought that they had died and gone to heaven! We stayed at the outdoor pool for a good 4 or 5 hours and I totally have tan lines now. YEAH! Can't tell you how nice the warm sun felt. We went to the town square where they had water fountains the kids played in. It didn't cost us anything. Flowers are blooming and the buildings around it were just beautiful. We also went that night to a place where it overlooked the city. The kids thought it was so funny that I would call a place like that, "Makeout Point" and it was even funnier trying to explain what that meant. Being able to wear flip flops, short sleeves and Capri/shorts......is so therapeutic too! We definitely have to make this a tradition every spring....but next time I'm staying another day longer.

Mckelsie was trying really hard to smile!

Mckelsie wouldn't put the cell phone down either.... texting is so cool,

even if it's to her mom who's sitting right next to her.

Find Jayden's Head

Jayden was really cute in the fountains.

He was so wet by the time we left but he sure had a ton of fun!

Jayden's so good to pose for me.....he puts up with my constant picture taking.

They are beautiful!

Breakfast at Denny's. It was across the parking lot from the hotel so we just walked.

More to come....

I have more pics.... just have to download them...

Nerf Gun Wars and Pillow/Blanket Huts

We had some company one night, Layne and his kids, Caitlyn and Ethan. Jayden and Ethan decided that they were going to have some Nerf Gun Wars and made a couple of huts or barriers (whatever you call those things....) and played and played. Jayden had so much fun that I honestly didn't mind that every pillow, blanket, chair, piece of wood in my house was used.

Naples, Florida

Naples, Florida

I had the opportunity to go and visit one of my clients at their offices in Naples. Even though it was a very fast day trip and the flights were the WORST part, the weather was beautiful and it's always nice to eat good food. We rented a car and on our way from the airport to our hotel we rolled the windows down, played softy music up loud and turned the heater on. It's always alot of fun with Brad when you're traveling with him but with Brent it was quite heeeellllarrriousss! Good times! The only bad part was that the humidity was murderous on your hair!

My colleagues, Brad and Brent reluctantly joined me down at the beach for a late night (not a thing at all visable) view of the ocean.

When we arrived, we went to the "Parrot Key" for dinner. Apparently everyone in Naples is over the age of..... 65 and really loves Elvis impersonators! Really, we were the youngest people in the restaurant except for the waiters. Brad, Brent and I all joked that it felt like we were in the movie "Cocoon".

Just outside the restaurant, there was a dock with hundreds of boats. It was really facinating to look through the many different kinds from a little tiny motor boat to a gondola to a pirate ship and finally to huge (extremely expensive and lavish) yachts.

The pirates even let me take a picture with one of them. I think he kind of liked me....

I want to ride in one of these one day....but in Vienna!

Wished I had a better camera. The view, even though dark, was really beautiful. The weather there too was absolutely perfect....mid 70's.

All Worth It Moments

Setting: Mckelsie is talking to her friends sister on the phone. These cute girls are 16 and 13 years old and the 16 year old Khristina is in Mckelsie's seminary class. The younger sister, Julia doesn't go to school with Mckelsie but Mckelsie is very excited for when she does come up to West next year. Mckelsie was talking to Julia and Christina for almost 30 minutes. I hear Mckelsie tell her goodbye and she hangs up the phone. Under Mckelsie's breath, talking to herself, she says; "Man that family has alot of homework!"

Reading a new book: Viktor E Frankl

I'm reading this new book called, "Man's Search for Meaning" and I'm very interested in it. I've just started but I find it fascinating the unimaginable things that people endure while I'm complaining of my dirty house. Here's a few thoughts from the author that resonated with me.

"When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."

____________

"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

____________

"... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...."

Thought:

"The best thing to hold on to in life is each other."

Author unknown