Cancun, 2019

Back in February, Nichole and I were able to leave for Cancun and spend the weekend there...so sweet!  Unlimited Pina Coladas, swimming with dolphins, visiting Chichen Itza, hanging out on the beach, gave a private swim lesson to Nichole at the pool against her will, ate at amazing restaurants every evening, slept in, didn't watch any TV, and just spent the time with my "girl"

The twinners out on a ride

Deanna and Don came here from out of town.  Don came in from Henderson and Deanna came from Washington.  So, Don and I went out on a ride up to Sundance and then met up with Deanna and Alexis at the Provo Rec Center afterwards for a swim.  Good times!

Jake turns 17

Jake, when he sets his mind to something, he accomplishes his goal.  He really wanted to go to Hawaii with Savannah and David's family.  We told him that he had to pay his way.  Well, he did it.  He saved up enough money and paid for the trip mostly on his own.  He went to Hawaii!! How cool is that?!  For his 17th birthday, we went as a family to Olive Garden.  We met Ethan and Chani there.  He went there at the end of July into the beginning of August.  Happy birthday to himself! I'm so glad he was able to go

My parents celebrate 60 years of marriage

My parents celebrated 60 years of starting their eternal life together.  Unfortunately, it has been a true struggle lately for my mom.  She has struggled with her health.  Mom and Dad were unable to come to Ethan's wedding due to mom's health.  She collapsed at home and fell pretty hard.  She had lost consciousness due to not breathing really well.  Her heart was not pumping enough blood.  She had to get a pacemaker, her diabetes has been out of control and her body has been filling up with fluids.  After being in the hospital for a couple of weeks, she had to go to the rehab center for a few weeks as well.  She's had to go there twice for multiple weeks.  So, Nichole and I have vowed to visit a couple times a week and bring over dinners.  Mom's diet is super restrictive now where she needs to eat lean meets, no sugar/salts, and lots of veggies and fruits.  In all honesty, it sounds like the diet we all need to be eating 

Back to school 2019

This year, Ava went into 6th, Eli went into 2nd and Jake is a Junior.  Brad is in his first year of "freedom" until he decides what he is going to do.  Brad came to work with me for a little bit until he realized that construction was not really for him, or at least working with his papa noodle.  He has decided to work with Factory 6 which is a medical medicine-making company.  It has been good for him, and he seems to really enjoy it.  Brad has been cute because he brags about how much money has been able to continue to save.  He got up to $4200 in his savings account until that jumped to over $8000 because of mom and dad helping him to buy a car.  Brad has looked at so many cars, it is crazy!  It has to be literally hundreds.  In fact, yesterday, we were so close to buying a Kia Optima.  We test drove it multiple times over the course of 3 days, had it checked out, but then the finance guy was kind of a jerk who wouldn't work with us at all.  So, Brad decided to not get it even though it was the exact car he wanted down to the car's color (blue) and beige interior with all the desired options.  The finance guy added basically $3000 to the car's price which really upset us and Brad.  Jake is doing really well with his grades.  He just got his GPA back and it was a 4.0.  Wow!  I never got that high in high school.  Eli is getting better with his reading.  He is having private tutoring lessons.  He seems to be catching onto it as he is finally reading a sentence.  Hopefully, he can be like Brad.  Brad started out struggling with reading, but then something clicked where he started reading books and now Brad enjoys to read