50th Wedding Anniversary

This year, on April 23rd, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.  We commemorated the event with a reception held in their honor.  All of my brothers and sisters took part in planning and carrying out the festivities, including a small family reunion with some of the Oberholtzer side of the family.  It was a wonderful experience to work with my siblings on this project.  I love them each so much and kind of miss the weekly group hangouts via internet that we had as the plans started coming together.  The event itself turned out to be fantastic. Lots of friends and family traveled to be there for the special night.  We also surprised my parents with a handmade quilt with the handprints of each of the children, spouses, and grandchildren.  I am grateful to be part of this family.  They have always been a strength to me in so many ways.  One of my favorite things to do is to get together with them all. I am also grateful for the wonderful examples I have in my parents.  I wish I knew their secret to raising a family that all gets along as adults!  Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Presenting the quilt to Mom and Dad

Some of the Oberholtzer side of the family, including my dad's brother and sister, and some of my cousins.

Zander turns 7

I have no idea where the past 7 years have gone!  It is amazing how time just keeps marching on.  We celebrated Zander's birthday with a family celebration and then invited friends to the park for a party.  I put my cake decorating skills to the test and made a pretty sweet R2D2 cake.  I love my Z-man so much!  I can't believe how much spunk is in his little body!  He loves Legos, Star Wars, Video Games, and math.  He came to Earth with an extremely strong will that helps me hone my parenting skills.  It makes me wonder what kind of trials he will face in his life to have been blessed with such a strong will. I am sure he will do anything he puts his mind to.  I just hope he uses his powers for good and not evil!

Look at My Little Readers!!

I love that both of my kids love to read and this a common scene around the house.  I don't even have to ask them to read!  Sometimes I have to make them stop to do other things!  Love these two little nerds!

Zander's Hospital Stay

In January, Zander came down with a stomach flu.  He would be sick all night and then by the next afternoon feel better so I kept thinking he was getting better.  Then the next night he would be sick again.  This went on for a few days. Haylie got sick during that time and got over it in a day so when Zander still wasn't better we took him into the doctor.  The doctor told us that some stomach flus that were going around were lasting for 6 or more days.  We were on day 4 so we figured we had a couple more days to tough it out.  Finally, after a week, I took him back into the doctor because he wasn't keeping anything down and was becoming dehydrated.  The doctor told us that he didn't like what he was seeing and wanted to admit him to the hospital right away.  I went into a bit of a panic.  I was supposed to be to work to teach school in about 30 minutes and I was worried about what was wrong with Zander.  Thankfully, I worked with a wonderful team teacher who rounded up a sub and made up some lesson plans, and Dave met us at the doctor's office and calmed me down a little.  Usually in cases like these, it is a matter of  rehydrating for a day and then things start to turn around.  He ended up in the hospital for 5 nights.  Even after having the IV and getting rehydrated, he still was having diarrhea and throwing up.  We had blood tests, xrays, and ultrasounds and on paper he was the picture of good health.  The only thing that we didn't have back were some of the stool culture tests.  Finally, things started to look up and he started eating more and keeping it inside and we finally got to go home.  We found out later that the culture that tested rotavirus came back positive.  Rotavirus is a pretty common virus that many people get.  We figure that it hit him hard because he had recently been on antibiotics so there was no bacteria in his stomach to help fight off the bug.  I am so thankful for good health!  I am also thankful for modern medicine that is available to us.

Zander feeling better finally!

He was one sick little guy!

Christmas 2014

We spent Christmas at home this year and had a great time.  The kids are at fun ages and I enjoy making these fun memories with them.  The main gift they got this year was stuff for Dave to build a playset in the backyard this spring.

Zander with Santa at the ward party

Haylie with Santa at the ward party

Getting these guys to pose for a good picture is impossible!!

Haylie's 9th Birthday

For Haylie's 9th birthday we invited a few of her friends to the Desert Wave Pool here in Price for an afternoon of swimming.  Everyone had a great time and it made me wonder why I have spent so much time decorating and planning activities for birthday parties when the wave pool was an option.  I was only slightly paranoid that someone's kid was going to drown on my watch!  I think that is what has deterred me before.
I feel extremely blessed to have Haylie in our lives.  She has such a unique personality that most people don't get to see because she is so quiet around people she doesn't know well.  She has amazing ideas that I can't even begin to think about coming up with.  I love her more than words can say.  She is such a blessing to me.  I look at her and wonder where the time went when she was my chubby little baby.  It goes in the blink of an eye!

Bahamas Cruise

Dave had a stroke of good luck and won a cruise to the Bahamas for 2 from Maverik (a convenience store that we frequent).  It had to be used by the end of 2014 so we quickly made arrangements for the kids to stay at my mom and dad's house and then booked our cruise for 2.  We went in November right before Thanksgiving.  This made it nice because after the cruise we stayed at my parents' house for Thanksgiving and only had to make one trip.  We dropped the kids off and stayed overnight in Brigham City on Wednesday night.  On Thursday morning we flew to Orlando where our port was.  We were on the cruise until Monday morning and then flew back into Salt Lake on Monday night.  It was such a fun time!  Our first stop was in Nassau, the capital city of the Bahamas.  The weather was rainy and windy so the shore excursions we had planned on were canceled.  Instead we ended up on a tour of the city that was pretty uh...shall we say authentic!  The driver, known as Dr. Phil, was hilarious and the family that got in the taxi with us was great to have along too.  We got to learn some of the history of the country which was pretty interesting.

The next stop on the cruise was Coco Cay which is an island in the Bahamas that is privately owned by Royal Caribbean.  Again, the weather wasn't cooperating so our snorkeling excursion was canceled.  We were able, however, to book ourselves on an excursion to visit and hold some stingrays which was really cool.  We also got to spend some time on the beach while we were there.  

The weather was so rainy and windy that the ship was rocking like crazy!  Even the people who worked on the ship said that that much movement was really unusual. It made me pretty seasick the first night we were on the ship.  Even worse was that after we were off, for about 2 weeks afterwards I felt like I was on a moving boat.  It was exhausting!  Thankfully, the sensation slowly went away with time.  Overall, it was a wonderful time.  I am ready to go back in spite of  the seasickness!! Here are some pictures that I took.  I will have to get Dave's pictures and add them sometime too.

Relaxing on the pool deck

The view off of our private balcony in our suite.

This and the pictures above are shots inside our suite.  Maverik treated us pretty good!

Baskin Robbins in the Bahamas! 

One of our towel creations.  We thought a hanging baby was kind of creepy until someone clued us in that it was supposed to be a monkey!!

The Enchantment of the Seas

Another shot of our ship from the tender headed to Cococay.

Swimming with the Sting Rays

Beautiful water and sand!