Wrappin' it all up.. better known as "what's the happs!"

Yup! I am a slacker extrodinaire!! I have had wonderful happenings in my life and I have failed to blog them. So, here it all is an a confusing nutshell.....

One day last week I was running around with the kids doing errands and in the "mom mode". I had just picked up Sarah from school and was telling her that she needed to hurry and get her homework done and then get dressed for her t-ball game..blah, blah, blah. The usual mom-drone! Then Sarah piped up from the back,"I will make you a deal mom. What I would really, really like to do today is to make cookies and go swimming at the pool. I will promise to get my homework done right when we get home and then maybe we could make those cookies together." I opened my mouth to say, "No, we have a schedule... we must stay on schedule..blah blah blah." But instead, I said, "Is that what you would really like to do today?"

"Oh yes mom" she replied, "That is what I want to do most of all in the world." ..... So, that is what we did. Will, Sarah and I spent the afternoon making Six Dollar cookies (pretty good recipe from my new cookbook), and then heading to the local pool. I was having a lot of aches and pains from my chemo, but doing what she wanted that one day helped me to not think of the pain... and the pool felt great on my aching body. I will have to try to get out of drone-mode more often!

I doubt you can read the recipe from this picture... but if you would like it, just let me know.. It's definitely a "kid-pleaser" recipe!

Then, on Wednesday after the kids got home from school we hotfooted it down to Phoenix to see my brother and parents get off the plane after picking him up from his mission. His flight was supposed to come in at 8:55pm. It ended up actually arriving at 11pm! Poor tired missionary!!!! We ended up burning a couple of hours and a couple of 20's at Cabella's in Phoenix.

here is the whole tired gang... waiting and waiting...

We waited as close as we could get, which was the security check-point.. so we made the kids stand behind this fence so they wouldn't turn on the alarms by running down the check point to greet their uncle!

And finally, all the waiting was well worth it!!! We got to see the happy, wonderful, yet tired little brother that we have been missing!!! he grew up soo much!!!! (And I don't just mean taller, though he did a bit of that as well.)

here is a picture of the oldest and the youngest. Alisha and Ryan and a tired grandpa after traveling all day long.

All the cousins except Brody who promptly fell asleep in Grandma's arms..

And arriving home at midnight to find a decorated house!!! He rode home from the airport with us in our "fun bus". he said in the mission field they called the white buses like ours the "Wawa". I think he enjoyed our crazy Wawa!! I think he really just wanted to hit his pillow!

We spent the whole weekend down there in the Valley going to a few of my doctors appointments and pretty much just making my brother cringe with our horrible attempts at Spanish. he showed us all his cool souviners from his mission and we listened to his life a bit. But, generally he was quite and a bit out of it. He needed help getting on the "technology train", setting up a Facebook account and getting re-aquanted with "the world". We love him and are soo super proud of him!!

(I thought this cactus at Rose Mofford Stadium was cool)

On the way home, we decided to go to the Bagdad girls softball game. they were in the state championships and they are such an amazing team. After finding the Rose Mofford Sports Complex in Phoenix, parking really far away, and waiting in a long line, we found out that it costs a lot of money to watch them play. It was 10.00 per adult and 6.00 per kid, and the kicker was... you had to pay in CASH!!! I didn't even know real paper money still existed, let alone, have a bunch in my wallet. We tried to located an ATM, but after about 20 minutes, we gave up and went to the park at the sports complex where we could hear the cheering and everything. We texted friends inside the game and basically, that is how we watched the game.. via texts. But we were there in Spirit.. and we got to see the happy team as they went to their bus to leave. Those girls are simply awesome!!! They went on to win 2nd place in State the next day. Way to go girls!!! The newspaper wrote it up as "the team from nowhere is taking it all!!!" Gotta love those Bagdad kids!!