My house is not like a Zoo

Bryan was able to get last Friday off work, so last minute we decided to take the kids out of school and head to Portland, OR to go to the Oregon Zoo. Portland is about a 3 1/2 hour drive so we decided to get a hotel for Thursday and Friday nights. On our way there we noticed some signs showing a scenic route that passed by several waterfalls. Because we got a late start Thursday night we decided to wait and see them on our way home. When we got to the hotel the kids were so excited that it had a pool, so we had to check it out, even though it was 9:30. Luckily the pool was open until 11:00. We had a nice relaxing morning and headed to the Zoo. Trevor's favorite animal was the sea lions, Kaylee's was the "ringtails", Nathan's was the tiger (which is odd because the tiger was asleep and we could not really see him) Anyway, right after we stopped for lunch I realized how quite and peaceful it was at the zoo. The animals were mostly asleep, but even if they were awake, they just sat there or sometimes walked around. I have heard the expression before "wow, it is like a zoo in here" And have always considered my house to qualify for that expression, however it hit me when we were at the zoo, that my house is nothing like a zoo. I need a new word to describe it because the zoo was way to calm to be compared to my house.

Our hotel was only 2 miles from the Portland OR Temple so we made sure to drive past and show the kids. It is a really pretty temple.

Anyway, we had tons of fun at the zoo and went swimming again that night, and again the next morning before we left. The drive home took a little longer because we stopped to see all the waterfalls. At one of the falls there was a film crew there making a major movie. When we asked what it was, they told us it was called The Road. For more info on the movie click here. We thought that was pretty cool. We are so glad to be home though, trips are nice, but home is better!

Along came a spider and sat down beside her

So here is my story: I was sitting in my back yard working on assembling our new play set when I looked down and saw a spider on my leg. This was not just a little spider. It was a big hairy black jumping spider. We do see these sometimes in the garage or yard, so I wasn't shocked at it's sight, but the fact that it was on me was awful. I surprised myself by not freaking out and instead I thought calmly...."OK, what should I do?" My first thought was to whack the spider off my leg with the power drill that I was holding. I quickly dismissed this idea for fear that I would miss and the spider would "attack" me (these spiders don't actually bit, but I fear them none the less) or that I would miss and hit my leg. My next thought was to whack it off my leg with one of the boards I was working on. I again worried about a miss on my part (I am not the most coordinated person in the world) I decided rather to hold the board up to my leg near the spider and see if he would climb aboard. as I put the board near him, he reared up onto his hind legs getting into a "jumping" position. At this point my heart started pounding because the jumping position looks a lot like a "ready to strike" position. I was relieved thought when instead of jumping at me he took a few steps closer to the board and climbed on. Quick relief flooded over me. But now what to do with the spider for now he was sitting on the board I was ready to install on the play set. Once again my first instinct was toward violence and to just flip the board over and smash the spider. The main reason for not doing this was that I did not want to clean up spider guts off the board, so I tapped the board on a piece of cardboard causing the spider to fall off, then I slid the cardboard over to the fence and waited for him to climb off. You read right I let the thing live. This is a first for me, but for some reason I could not kill it, after all he had not attacked me when he had the chance. All said and done, I do regret a little not killing this spider, but I made up for it when I saw another one in the garage yesterday and stepped on him without a second thought. Pesky little creatures!
If you want to see what kind of spider it was click here

Shame on YOU!

Yeah, you read that right, shame on all of you. You totally let me fall of the wagon regarding weight loss! I had lost a total of 14 lbs, but I have now gained back 5 of those!! It is so much easier to lay the blame on someone else than to take responsibility myself, so that I why I say shame on you. If my support group had kept better tabs on me this never would have happened. Anyway, I am going to rededicate myself to the "program" tomorrow. No more pigging out and stress snacking. And back to daily workouts. I have put a new pole up because that seemed to work well last time. Summer is getting ever so close and I really would like to be able to put on a swim suit, so lets try to pull it together and be a little more supportive this time shall we?

Family

I just wanted to say how lucky I feel that I have been blessed with such a great family. Whenever people ask about my family I feel almost guilty telling them how great everyone is. I don't know how common it is to have your siblings/parents be your best friends, especially when there are six kids in the family, but I can truly say that my brothers and sisters (and their spouses) and my parents are my best friends. I was telling Bryan how lucky I was to have people I can call when I am feeling down and they always care about me and whats going on in my life. Sheesh, I can't even go a week without blogging without someone noticing. Anyway, I don't want to go on and on, I mostly just wanted to say thanks to all of my family members and the love and support that you give me.

AZ Does It

The first grade classes at the kid's elementary school always do a musical performance of AZ Does It. It is a really fun musical teaching the letters of the alphabet, their sounds and functions. They have been practicing for a while and we have the CD of all the music here (which we listen to every time we are in the car.) Trevor was super excited. Unfortunately the place was PACKED! So our seats were not very good, but we did get some video and pictures. The schools out here are growing like crazy. Last year they had 3 1st grade classes, this year there were 5. That is a lot of people to cram into the schools cafeteria! But we had a great time and Trevor did awesome. He is a really good singer and looked dashing in his ABC vest! (the video is kind of long, I tried to pick the shortest song, but it was still long)

Ok, Ok, Ok

I would say that I have been really busy so I haven't had time to do a post, but that would not be entirely true, I have been reading....darn books. I am almost done with my book and almost decided to read this morning, but for the sake of family relations I decided to blog instead, so here goes:

We have finally finished our fence. No more pesky neighbors telling our kids not to play in their own yard. It took us a full year start to finish, but in all fairness, Bryan did work a lot and I did have a new baby during that time, so cut us some slack. I think we did a great job. We did have some awesome help from our friend Michael as well as Barlow and Andrea (we did not make Andrea do hard labor, but she helped out a ton by watching the kids so we could both work) None of our help had ever done this type of fence before, so we had to figure it all out on our own (a little help from Goggle, every now and then.)

Trevor and Kaylee have been keeping busy with school work and piano lessons. Kaylee's writing is getting really good. She creates some great stories now. She is very creative (Trevor could only write non-fiction stories in Kindergarten, but Kaylee writes all sorts of stories) and Trevor is now reading books that are at a 5th grade level. Here is a sample of their piano skills (they have only been in lessons for about 9 months I think):

Nathan keeps me on my toes and laughing still. He is a very observative boy. When I take time to do my hair or make-up in the morning (after he asks if it is Sunday) he tells me how nice I look, or he will compliment my clothes. He is always singing around the house and I got a pretty good sample:

Ashton is growing up super fast. On Sunday, he got a hold of a pink marker and did a number on himself. At first I thought he was bleeding, but then noticed it was to pink to be blood. I am starting to have to baby proof my house again. I have to fix my vacuum before Ashton becomes a human vacuum.

Anyway, that is whats going on at the Davis house. We are all in great health and are still recieving blessings beyond measure!

Big Boy Ashton

I know, I know, to many posts all together, but I couldn't help posting this one! Ashton is starting to sit up for extended periods of time, and I happened to have my camera with me the first time he did it, so here you go, my baby is growing up!