This tube kind of defeats the purpose, you can't flip it. Also it beat my back up pretty good, but the girls loved it, and it was fun when we got grown ups on it and actually got up to speed.

A little wake surfing. Lots of fun.

Uncle bones took Cora on the surf board, she loved it.

I don't know what that face is about, most of the time Jess was loving it.

Maren taking a drink. For some reason this is one of the few pics we got of her.

We have been horrible at remembering to bust out the camera on this trip. Although, up until Saturday we haven't been doing anything super exciting. The Cardon's took us out on their boat Saturday (THANKS GUYS). The girls had a blast. Even Maren did well. I could not believe how good the water was. I have never been on Utah Lake for over an hour with out at least a little bit of waves. But it was glass for the whole time, at least 3 hours. So that is all the news for now. I will probably post again soon. We are having to cut the trip a little short; I have to get back to school, and work, ugh. Although I did get a teaching position this semester which rocks. I am nervous and excited. If there is any more news I will post it next time (probably from Texas).
JOSH

House Pics

So as promised here are some pictures of inside the house. I didn't get to post one of Emmett's room/my office. But you get the idea. I have almost everything hung up and put away, and by the end of next week I hope we will be completely moved in. It is so nice to have so much room.
The first picture is of the living room, then the kitchen, Carol's and my room, the girls room, and the toy room.
Well, we made it to Utah. It was actually easier for me to drive through the night this time. I think it has to do with having the winding canyons on the last leg keeping me more alert. That was a huge struggle going back to Texas after Christmas break, because the roads are just long and straight. There will be some pictures soon, but till now the camera has been in the truck, oops. But it is out now. And now I have to go scream at my children for being to loud. J/K...

Scarring

There will be no pictures with this posting and you'll be grateful by the time that you get done reading this. Just this last Tuesday, the girls and I needed to get out of the house and they had been begging me to take them swimming. So I gave in and took them to an indoor pool in Denton.
Well, I needed a locker to hold our shoes, towels, money, keys etc. So we four walk into the locker room portion and there stands a down syndrome girl (in her forties or later) completely naked. And the girls caretaker walks in behind us and kind of blocks the doorway. The caretaker is telling the girl to get her swimming suit on. And guess what my girls are doing? Yep, they're staring... At this point, I am quickly yet subtlety finding a locker that would position us looking away from this scene. Well, to make things more fun, the locker keys have to be purchased before hand. So, thankfully that gave me a good reason to get out of there. I figured that by the time that we got back with a key, we would hopefully be alone in the locker room. As we were walking out to get a key, Jessica not so quietly says " I do NOT want to see that again." How can I keep a straight face and try to teach her to keep comments like that to herself? Well we timed it just right!!! The same girl was putting her legs through the holes of her swimming suit. So the girls also got to see how she took her time getting her suit on. Then she finally left. Yay!!!
We had a good time swimming. However, 5:30 arrived and I needed to get home so that I could get dinner started. So we got out of the pool and Jess and Cora expressed a need to go to the bathroom. After that, we went into the locker room to get our stuff and who should be there? yep that's right, the down syndrome girl and two others all naked. Oh sweet!! We timed it perfect....again. This time I was franticly trying to get the girls shoes on and adjusting the girls heads in the meantime. Jessica asked me why I was moving her head. "To give those ladies privacy." Clearly privacy is not something that they're concerned with. Luckily I got the girls done in record time and dashed out of there as soon as I could. How fortunate we were to be able to see that twice in one day.
We haven't heard anything from the girls about this experience, so hopefully they aren't too scarred. Anyway, I hope that you got a good laugh. I laugh when I think of Jessica's comment : "I do NOT want to see that again." I second that. Aren't you glad I didn't post pictures? The visual imagery is enough.
-Carol

Here is a sweet picture of one of my babies. Any one want to guess which one. I keep trying to trip people up, and it hasn't worked, so I thought maybe if I went younger people might have a harder time. We are almost done unpacking, and you can expect some pictures soon, but I haven't taken them yet. Oh, and I grilled chicken the other night, soo goooooood. Now I don't have to hunt cows. Yay.

It can seldom be all good.

Carol and I have been posting a lot about how excited we are to move and how much we dislike our current living conditions, which may have put the wrong idea out there. Story time - When Carol and I moved to Texas we didn't have a place to live. I am more than sure a lot of heads were shaken at our general lack of common sense. It wasn't for lack of trying and over this past year, I have been relearning that same lesson, which is; No matter how hard I try and force something, it will only happen in the lords time. So our move out here was something of a leap of faith. We have to express deep gratitude to Grizelda for letting us stay with her for a week while we finalized the contract for this apartment, and things really have worked out very well here. Now that we are moving, which again when it is the lords timing things seem to happen very fast, I have to say there are things I will actually miss. Since just before the new year I have been teaching in primary, and while I some days lament the rowdiness, it is a learning experience for me and more than just general patience. Part of teaching, even to young kids is that the spirit will direct you to new insights that you may have never noticed. Also I have loved those kids. They are amazing. They may not know all the scripture stories, but they know the gospel. It is wonderful to see their testimonies, even if it doesn't happen as often as I would like. To expand on that same theme, this is a wonderful ward. Carol and I are not strangers to moving and new wards. We have been married seven years and have moved seven times (another reason we are excited to settle in a bit more). The last time we were in an apartment comparable to this, the ward was so transient, and we had no intention of staying for more than the contracted obligation, which made it difficult to get to know, or have a desire to get to know any one. This ward has been different, and though I am not a chatty person, I have been very grateful for this ward welcoming us. It has felt very much like home from the first day and that is of immeasurable value. So despite our excitement, there is much that we are going to miss. I hope this isn't good bye, but experience (at least for me) says for most of our new friends it is. Thank you all.
Josh

We are moving.....again.

As of last night, we are now home renters!!!!!!!!
I know, it's a lot of exclamation points, but I am really excited. And it all happened relatively fast. Monday night I saw some listings on craigslist and in the local newpaper. So I decided that I would call about them the next morning while Josh was at school. I left messages and got them returned a couple hours later. I set up walk-thru appointments through the week. The first one was on Wed. afternoon and it happened to be this one to the left. Anyway, Wednesday, we filled out an application and the owner said that he would call and let us know the next day (Thursday). Needless to say, I was anxious all day long. About 4 pm, I couldn't take it any more I needed to know whether we got it or if we needed to keep lookig, so I had Josh call him. Anyway, long story short, we made the deposit and singed the contract last night!! We can start moving in on Monday. I can't begin to explain how excited I am. Some of you readers might not get why I would be so excited to move out of our current living arrangement. Well, I'll just name off a couple of the most important in no particular order.
We will be .7 miles away from the elementary school that both Cora and Jess will be attending. We will be able to walk the girls to school, thus not needing a second vehicle (hopefully).
A yard. I am so glad that the girls will be able to get out more. I hated keeping the girls inside most of the day. But being on the third floor in an apartment community...... it's just not safe to let the girls wander. The girls are also very excited to get a trampoline.
There will be no ants. We are going to take extra precautions to make sure that we don't take any unwelcome tag-a-longs.
Privacy. That will be so nice. Anyone that has lived in apartments knows about the noise disturbances. For the past year, I have had to tell the girls to have quiet feet in order to be considerate to the neighbors below. I will no longer have to worry about that!! Anyway, I could go on and on but I've got things to do and I am sure you do as well. So Leah, there you have it! I posted again, just as I promised.

Boom boom boom (hopefully)

Well, apparently the movie didn't appease the appetite for long. Or maybe I just didn't realize how fast time has started to go. I have started my summer semester (which is supposed to be 5 weeks but I think is actually 4). Since it is so short I have been swamped with readings and already having to prep two papers and a lecture. BUT that is not what this is going to be about. The most pressing thing on our minds is moving, YAH! We want to be very clear, that given the way we moved here, we landed quite well, but as some of you may know we have an ant infestation throughout our complex. They are not fire ants, so that is good, but they are Pharaoh ants which is bad. Pharaoh ants don't go for the normal baits and if you do succeed in killing some they just go into over production, creating a horrible cycle. I would go into detail about all of the nasty discoveries we have made but I will spare you. I will add, that the winter months were quite tolerable, with very few sitings. That being said, we are anxious to leave them behind. Beyond that our contract is expiring and we have filed the paper work to move out (with some difficulty). So we are currently looking for a house to rent. The problem has been that when we have been interested in a home, it has been already leased or in the process. We learned early on that if we weren't willing (or able) to put down a lot of money up front, we might as well not even inquire. So now we have the money but the last place we looked at (and loved) had the same problem. I am hopeful, but Carol is getting a little anxious. Let me explain her anxiety. As most are aware we are planning a trip to Utah as soon as finals end the first full week of August. Our contract ends on the 12th. Obviously we can't move if we are in Utah, so we have to have moved before then. We are not wanting to move the week of finals, so that in essence leaves us about two weeks from now to find, lease and move into a new place (thus the title boom boom boom). There are other reasons for moving besides the ants. We want to put the girls in the same school, and a move is necessary for that. Oh, and we hate the ants. Also we aren't anywhere near bordering on impressed with the office staff, classy neighbors, packing groceries up two flights, packing kids up two flights, lacking any reasonable outside accommodations for the kids, ants, ants, cooling an inefficient third floor apartment, oh and we probably will need a little more room for the baby. So, that is the major plans, hope you are all doing well. The paper bring us home (most of you probably won't get that but for you that do, hope you at least smiled).

Girly Dives

As promised video of the pool activities.

More dives

Here are some more pictures and be looking for a video in the next few days as soon as I down load it and do some quick edits.

Summer swimming

I love their funny poses mid air.
Maren's little jumps barely clear the ledge, so cute.

I think this is Cora attempting a dive, you can see it will be all belly.


So it is summer and we have been taking advantage of the break by taking the girls swimming a lot. They have LOVED it. They are both swimming really well, and as a consequence Maren thinks she should be able to swim also. More than once she has jumped in without Carol and I catching her. The first time it freaked us out. But now we are much more careful watching her, and when it has happened we just pull her up out of the water, and she has a big smile on her face so I guess if she enjoys it. Cora and Jess are sitting on my lap as I write and wanted every one to know that they are practicing diving. In reality they are just putting there hands up above their heads in a diving position and falling or jumping in on their bellies. It is some of the cutest belly flopping you will ever see. I may do another post of pictures, just because we got so many good ones.