Imaginarium

We took another trip to the Imaginarium. The Adcocks and the Taysoms came too. We had fun with them. Here we are waiting for the animal show. Left to right: Janiel, Chelsey, Erin, Wes, Kara, Emily, Ashleigh, Nathan, and Alex. (The Taysoms had gone home by this point.) The favorite alligator.
Erin insisted on getting another picture done with the alligator.

Happy Birthday, Kara!!!

Ashleigh and Erin licking the spoon. All Kara wanted for her birthday was a Zhu Zhu pet. Grandma and Grandpa Prime sent her one with a little play set and stroller. Fun times!
Delicately peeling back the paper.

Kara had her big birthday. She had been counting down for weeks. She got a big lady bug. She loves ladybugs.

She loved being in the spot light. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Breinholt for the cute clothes, play dough, and Strawberry Shortcake doll!

Blowing out all those candles!

She said it is "fun" to do this (holding up three fingers)!

The ladybug cake kind of looked like a spider. Kara wanted it purple. When you are the princess for the day you get what you want!

Ashleigh the Fish

Ashleigh has become quite the fish. She loves the water and really wants to swim. She kicks her feet so hard and actually goes. Her favorite at the beach is to look for shells underwater and also do head stands. In the pool she does somersaults and alligator death rolls. She loves it. At the pool I have to stay right by her because she can't touch the ground. I need to find some swimming lessons! Erin is proud that she can hold her breath underwater. That's a start!

Our Own Swimming Pool

Who says the pool has to be deep or large. The girls are enjoying splashing in a tiny baby pool that we brought from Utah. I think we might need to invest in a larger one. Wes and Janiel went to their friends' house and took their swimming suits. The little girls wanted to go too. I didn't want to take them to the community pool, so we broke out this. It is nice, I can sit in the air conditioned house and supervise them swimming.

Scary Sunday

Erin had a fever on Friday, Ashleigh had one on Saturday, and Kara on Sunday. The twins' fever lasted less than a day and medicine helped to control it. Kara's was just slight, so we gave her medicine (I later find out it is recalled Motrin) and went off to church. She didn't feel warm anymore, so we felt she was fine to go to nursery. An hour into nursery, her teacher comes running into Sharing Time and says, "Kara is having a seizure!!!!!" I run. Brent ran after. And sure enough, my baby is in a very sad way. Two nurses in the branch were already in the nursery room helping Kara. She had it for about a minute. It sure seemed a lot longer to me: but I didn't watch the clock. She was unresponsive after, but breathing. Someone called 911, so paramedics showed up but she was able to receive a priesthood blessing before. Kara and I got to ride in an ambulance to the hospital. I had to ride up front in a seat belt because of legal issues, but I could talk to her. She slept most of the ride, but started to cry when the paramedic put ice packs on her to try to lower her temperature. Her temperature on the ambulance was only 101. Not a high fever. Brent took one of the member's cars and met us at the hospital. The branch members watched after our kids still at church. They had a lunch after church, so they fed our kids and then one of the families took them to thier house in our car. What a relief to know the other kids were being cared for. Janiel was quite upset, the twins didn't really know what was happening, and Wes said he felt really shakey. At the emergency room, they did some blood tests, urinalysis, and a chest x-ray to test for pneumonia. They gave her an IV so they could draw blood and then in case they needed to give medicine later. So the picture shows a "board" that protects the IV in her hand. We waited around for a couple of hours for results. Kara slept on and off. Poor baby. All of the tests came back normal. So they sent us on our way. Brother Rosen brought our car to the hospital to exchange it for his. It turns out it was a febrile seizure, which is caused by fever. What a day. It helped us to hold her a little longer and tighter. The highlight for Kara was getting two silly bands from one of the nurses. I ended up sleeping on her floor and waking up every 3 hours to give her some more medicine. I took her to the pediatrician the next day for a follow-up. By listening to her lungs, the doctor thought she had pneumonia. I'm not sure if she really does, but we are giving her the antibiotic anyway. She isn't coughing very much. It is three days later and she is back to her teasing self. Glad to have her back.

Costco Trips

When ever I go into Costco, I get stopped by a lot of older people who ask if these cute girls are all mine. I smile and say yes, but usually don't inform them of the other two! Usually they smile and admire the cute kids that I have. This trip was especially a large one. I build quite the muscles from pushing the cart and girls around. I must be quite the site.

The first time we went to the Costco here in Naples, we just about died laughing!!!! You know how the Costco's in Utah have displays as you leave with carpeting, window blinds, car insurance, counter tops, etc. Well in this retirement community, they have a nice display of the caskets you can buy from Costco. Who knew Costco sold caskets? So make sure your membership is current when it is your time to go!

Key Largo, June 4, 2010

Brent has wanted to try snorkeling. So we drove down to Key Largo to go to an underwater State Park: John Pennekamp State Park. He took Janiel and Wesley and they did a snorkeling tour. They had a blast and saw some coral reefs and lots of fish and turtles. Some in their group also saw a shark. They took pictures with an underwater disposable camera. I haven't developed them yet. So once I do, I will post their pictures as well. We hope that they are just as amazing as real life. So I took the girls to their "man made" beach. It wasn't as nice as our Naples beach, but it was water. I've heard that nothing compares to the Gulf of Mexico beaches. Now I might believe that. There were just a lot of leaves and twigs and things floating in the water. The water was also kind of green. But the snorkeling was clear and good. The girls had fun anyway. We took a little walk though some mangrove trees and could stand on a sandbar. This picture is looking back at the beach. Our spot is on the left with the colorful umbrella and little cabana.
My three little buddies standing on the sandbar.

Ashleigh and Kara on a tree branch. Erin wasn't quite so daring (they were probably 4 feet up in the air).

I like it when I can get cute, natural and not posed shots of my kids. What a cute line up of girls. Not sure if I would dare to sit on that sand. There were a lot of crabs in this beach.

Wesley's Art

Wesley had art this year. He loved it. He has always loved art and has a talent for it. This was great to have a teacher teach him skills. He did so well that he received an award for it. He got a set of markers and some pastels. His teacher was grateful for him and his dedication. Wesley would often come home and say how far ahead he was and that others sometimes just goofed off. (You know the kids that don't do music go to art=goof offs.) He ended up with a 99% in the class which was the highest score in the school. Awesome job, Wesley!!! Wesley and his creations.

This is a mask that Wesley painted on a part of a palm tree. I don't know what they are called, but the part that the leaves have been cut off of and remain on the trunk.

Metal sculpture. Pretty creative.

Orlando Temple

Brent was officially out of school from May 28th to June 8th. So our days were full of being together and having fun. We did a babysitting swap with the Adcocks so that we could both go to the temple. We sent Wesley and Janiel off to school and took the little girls to the Adcocks. We drove the three hours and made it to Orlando just before 1:00. We decided to shoot for the 2:00 session. It was a beautiful temple. It was smaller than the ones we have been to in Utah. It was nice to go.

Our branch is having a temple trip this Saturday. They are arranging for the young women to babysit in the church across the street. We are going to go. We know that Wes doesn't need a babysitter, but this way we only have to be away from the kids for two hours. He can just be his sisters' babysitter in a safe place (hopefully). We thought we would take them to Sea World for a couple hours after.

Memorial Day 2010

We were debating what to do on Memorial Day. We were thinking of either going to Sanibel Island or Marco Island. Sunday night we got a call from one of the members of the stake presidency. He has been to our branch and has noticed Wesley. He has three sons ages 12, 8, 5 and one daughter who is 10. So he mentioned to Brent that we should get the older boys together. So he invited us to our own beach to go sailing. He and the mission president own a sail boat and the mission president owns a motored boat. So that is what we did. We all got to ride on the sail boat and half of the kids got to ride on the other boat as well. Wes and Janiel went on the tube. It looked pretty rough riding over those waves!!! But they had fun.

I thought that this looked kind of neat. Pelicans perched on who knows what? Pelican perches.

Ashleigh found a lizard in the sand. She picked it up and wasn't even scared. She loved it for a minute. Even Erin wanted to hold it.
Wesley stuck it in Erin's hair and she thought that was pretty cool. What a fancy barrette.

Marco Island Beach-Tigertail

After our sea excursion, we headed to the beach on Marco Island. We saw people trekking through the water on this one side. We didn't know where they were going, so we just made ourselves at home on the beach. As you can see in the picture there are some trees right in front of the beach, so you can't see forever. The water was really shallow and had a lot of small fish swimming in it. It was really warm too.A beach patrol guy drove past so Brent stopped him and asked where the people were headed. He informed us that this area was a lagoon and that the main beach was on the other side of the trees. This lagoon has only been here for about 10 years. The trees are mangrove trees which root in oyster beds. So Brent, Wes, and Janiel waded through the water to the other side. They said it was beautiful and amazing. They found really nice sea shells. I should have sent the camera with them. So next time we go down, we will go through the water to the beautiful beach.
Janiel and Ashleigh love to wallow in the water.

We heard this loud bird sound and found this osprey on top of a post. He was eating a fish and another osprey was on another post calling to it. We imagined that the one was begging for this one to share. Not quite sure.

By the bathroom they had this sign. I thought it was pretty neat all the different types of shells that you can find in the gulf. The girls love collecting shells. It doesn't matter to them if it is whole or not. It doesn't even have to be pretty. We have bags full. We need to go through and be selective of which ones to keep. We have found many of the different types.

Sea Excursion May 28, 2010

For Christmas, Brent's parents gave us tickets to ride on a dolphin cruise. It was a fun and an amazing adventure. The cruise that we went on was actually a research boat. They pay for their research by giving rides to the public. So we had a biologist on board to educate and inform us. We saw over 10 different dolphins. They identify them by their dorsal fin. Each dolphin has unique nicks and bumps. They have named each of them and track where they are and their behaviors. I think they said that they are currently tracking 80 dolphins. We saw some that were just hanging around the boat. The captain told us to sit down and he would show us something. He took off and the dolphins followed in the wake of the boat. They flipped and jumped. I think three dolphins followed us. He did that twice for us. It was fun. Here is a mommy and her baby... waiting for their ride in the wake.
They had cute little books for the kids to fill out. They kept track of the dolphins and filled in other information. They each earned a badge when we were done. Here Ashleigh is working hard on her booklet.

Some cute kids on the boat. Ashleigh, Brent, Kara, Erin and Wesley are enjoying the dolphin tour.

The girls loved looking for dolphins.

The biologist took some pictures for us too. He had an amazing camera, and got some better shots than I did. We have many more pictures from this trip, but we will spare the blog of all of them. This is a skimmer. It flies along the water and scoops up fish. Its lower beak is longer than the top beak. Here he has a minnow in his beak.

A dolphin doing some flips in the wake of the boat.

For part of the trip we stopped at an island to collect shells. The island is only accessable by boat. This iguana was sunning himself on the banks of the island.

Some more dolphin play. I think this is the mom and baby. The babies stay with their moms for 2 to 3 years.

The biologist took our picture on the island. It was a great day.

We started the trip from Marco Island. It is about an hour South from our house. There were 12 people on our boat. I think that it could hold 30 people or so. The kids all loved this. They want to go again.