Sarah watching TV

If everyone watched TV like Sarah does then none of us would get fat.

Food update

I am feeling really good about my food storage now, I went to the LDS cannery a couple times and hit the grocery store during the case lot sales and now feel really prepared for any type of food storage emergency. Over conference weekend I also went through my 72 hr kits and rotated out all the old food and small clothes. My kids love when I go through the 72 hr kits, we call it the general conference party, (kind of like the super bowl at our house) they get to eat all the old food every 6 months.

I got my square foot boxes built and part way filled, I am still trying to get my compost looking like it should. I alsoplanted a bunch of tomatoes in the house, so hopefully they will be ready for planting at the end of May. All of my trees and bushes that I planted last year lived, I am actually quite astonished, I thought I would loose at least a few of them. My apricot trees and my peach trees have flowers on them, I am so excited. I feel so blessed to live in a place where I can keep a year supply of food and grow my own garden.

Lots-o-pictures

Playing at the church with cousins and friends




Family Home evening at the Bowling Alley

New Years Eve with the Gauses

Christmas Morning at the Pickering Residence

Sledding with Cousins

Sarah with her two cousins Lincoln and Conor

March update

I am a big advocate of having food storage, but haven't been doing a very good job of adding to mine for a while, so today I spent the day doing inventory. I realized that I am doing pretty good but still need a lot of stuff to have a full year supply. I am also planning on doing my own square foot garden for the first time this year. Not looking forward to all the work it will take to get it going but I am looking forward to all the fresh produce it will provide. We planted 8 fruit trees, and a bunch of blackberry and blueberry bushes last year, I don't think they will have much, if any, fruit this year, but I can't wait until they do.

I started going to zumba again a few weeks ago and am starting to feel the wonderful effect exercise has on my attitude about life and my energy level. I don't know why I ever stopped going, I gained 10 pounds in just a few months while I was pregnant because I was just to lazy to exercise. I gave myself the excuse that I didn't have to while I was first pregnant because I was feeling sick, and then when I lost the baby I wasn't able to exercise for a while. Now I hope I can loose the weight I need to before I get pregnant again and hopefully I won't be so lazy during my next pregnancy.

There are several ladies in my ward that are pregnant and due around the same time I was due. They all have nice round bellies and mine is not. I have mixed feelings every time I see them, initially I am kind of happy that I am not huge and uncomfortable, but mostly it makes me sad that I am not huge and uncomfortable and waiting for my beautiful baby to be born. I am just glad I have the gospel in my life that gives me the strength to turn to my Heavenly Father in hard times, so I can feel of his love and know that I am not in this alone.

While I was pregnant I was having a hard time doing home school with the kids so we decided to send them to the local public school and got the ball rolling before christmas break. Then I lost the baby over the holidays, but we decided to send them anyway since it was already set up. It is really weird not having the kids home during the day after 2 1/2 years of home school. Even Sarah is at school 2 days a week for a few hours. My house is the cleanest it has been in years and I have had a lot of time to help Moroni out with his Xbox game he is making. I am also glad they are in school so I will have time to work in the yard this spring.

Birthdays

Crysania is now 12, watch out world here she comes

This year Crysania got to have a big party at home with all the friends, we had a house full of pre-teen girls and it went surprisingly well.

Mary made the cake as per Crysania's request

Elijah's 7th Birthday

Josh Brennan Bowen Crysania and Elijah at Jumping Jacks

Its the big "10" for Bowen

Lots of fun at Nickle City, Sarah loved driving the race car

Brandon, Bowen, Crysania and Elijah

Happy 3rd Birthday Sarah

So much fun with all the friends and Cousins

Green River

Family trip to green river, although while we were there it was more like the red river, because of some flash flooding further north.Crystal Geyser is supposed to be pretty cool when it goes off, but it is random and all we got to see was some bubbling and a small stream of water coming out the side of the pipe.
Super cool "waterfalls" by the crystal geyser

Goblin Valley was super fun and we went on the best day, warm with a nice cloud cover. Luckily we left right before the wind started picking up and it started to rain.


This is what Elijah thought about riding in the car so much!

We were going to stay three nights but the second night it started to rain right after I started cooking dinner. It rained for a few hours while we hung out in the car and let the food cook in the dutch oven under an umbrella. The rain stopped right when it was time to eat, but picked up off and on again through out the night. We decided we didn't want to risk another night in the rain so we headed home, stopping in price on the way to see the dinosaur museum.

Capital Reef

Time again for the best part of summer, the annual Benson family camping trip. The kids have so much fun playing with their cousins, and this year we even had a Piñata to celebrate some birthdays.The waterfall was the best part of the trip, until Elijah got to a place where he couldn't touch and I decided to try to help him fully dressed with a camera in my hand. I saved Elijah and the Camera but got soaking wet up to my armpits.


The hike to the arch was a lot harder than the kids thought it would be, but everyone made it.
Aspen and Sarah were inseparable on the trip, it was nice to have a willing babysitter.