School Time!

School has started!! Second Grade started on Monday for Sammi, and Tuesday (today) Daniel started Kindergarten! They were both SO excited! They both have 2 other friends in their classes that are from church! I am SO glad! We will see how Daniel likes it when he gets home today, but he was sure ready to go! He said, "Bye Mom!" and off I went! No tears for him. I handled it pretty well too. :-) I am just so excited for them both. They each had their Father's blessing on Sunday night, it was a really sweet time. They are just both getting SO big! Hooray for school!

This means I get to have some time with just me and William. Most of the time is spent out running, but he will have some time after the run to play and rule the house! My day is now constructed around drop-off and pick-up. I make a total of 6 trips (walking) which we figured out to be almost 2 miles everyday. :-) Fun! Right after I drop the kids off at school, I take William out in the stroller (one baby! AMAZING!) and we go running! It is so great! It should be a great, and very active year! Yee-HA!

Just got back from that first run with one baby! It was SO great! I better go and clean up myself now . . . :-)

Nothing to fear, but fear itself?

This may be true . . . . . most of the time. But what if there is really something to be afraid of? I was overcome by fear just the other day, more than I have felt in a long time. I try to control my fear, because as Yoda reminds us: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." My fear is of something very small, but potentially very dangerous -- I fear spiders!

There is a special kind of spider that lives in the west called the Hobo Spider. It has the same kind of bite side-effects as a brown recluse (not found in the west). The bite can cause skin decay, nausea, and all sorts of lovely, graphic results. Anyhow, ever since we moved to the lower 48, I have done tons of research on these particular spiders -- so I would know what to look for. I am glad I was aware and did my research because as we were working in our backyard -- I found them! Yikes! I first found a female Hobo in a rock pile and I thought where there is one, there is probably more. Unfortunately, I was right! I found the lady's companion, an icky male Hobo. I squished them both (carefully) and saved them in plastic baggies, so I could practice my identification skills. I went on-line to my spider webpage, and I am almost certain we have Hobos. Yikes!

Picture below is of a male hobo spider, identified by the large palps (which look like boxing gloves) females do not have them.

That night as we were watching a movie, a spider (that looked very similar to our hobos, but much smaller) crawled across our floor. I calmly freaked out. We squished it and added it to our collection. Moments later I saw a big spider (not a Hobo) crawl out from behind the stove. We had seen some spiders in the house before this, but mostly little tiny house spiders, that I do not mind too much. This night was crazy. I felt real fear and anxiety beginning to take over. Fear began to take hold . . . anger, hate, and suffering.

Luckily, we have prayer! A powerful, spiritual anti-venom that can instantly subside the effects of poisonous fear! I can NOT imagine trying to survive without it! I was put at ease, regardless of the knowledge that dangerous arachnids were freely roaming around the outside, and perhaps inside of my home.

Prayer does calm the nerves, but in most cases (with the exception of miracles) we also have to do our part to contribute. For example, you cannot pray to be healthy and then surround yourself with sugar. We could not pray for the spiders to leave us alone, if we did not remove them from our property -- we were considering seagulls swooping in to save the day as an option. :-) So, after that spider-filled night, Charles and I did our very best at going into the yard and destroying the kinds of areas that our Hobo friends enjoy dwelling in. We found quite a few more, maybe 20 or so. Much like Anakin Skywalker and the Sand People -- we killed them all, even the women and children! (Can you tell we have been watching Star Wars?) :-) It was not out of anger and revenge, as it was for Pre-Darth Vader. It was fighting for protection of our home and family! Always a just cause! So we did do our part, and will continue to do so!

We had the hardest time sleeping for awhile. If the kids would squeak, or if we felt something crawling on us, we would wake-up and flip out. Luckily, their season should be over soon. They should die off -- thank goodness! By next year we should be able to rid of them for good!

May the Force be with us!

Fun in Sun Valley

Charles had a conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. We decided that the family would join him -- so we could explore a new area. It was SO beautiful! It was such a fun place! There were many families there too, which made it nice for us. The last conference we stayed at we were in a Hilton Hotel, and they were not quite as family-friendly!

Here are some pictures (in very random order) . . .

Here we are by the Clydesdale horses. They were right next to the bike trail. They were so big and beautiful! I loved them!
The kids had fun just being kids!
We rented some bikes and pullers and went for a long, pretty bike ride. It was so refreshing after being sick for so long! :-)
In the middle of our bike ride we stopped for some dinner at a Hawaiian restaurant. It was really yummy! The ride home was a little more difficult though -- I was SO full! Heave, HO! The hills were a little more painful! Riding a bike with a full gut is not recommended! I am glad I made it!

Waiting to order
Hanging out in Ketchum, Idaho -- just minutes away from Sun Valley. A very pretty town. Very touristy.

Yup, I sure do love this guy!
Just one of the areas around the hotel. It was all like a Swiss village -- so cute!

Ready to roll!

Mmmmmm . . . Hawaiian food. I loved the sign for the bathroom, I should have taken a picture! The sign said, "Take a Leaky."
William enjoyed Daddy's shoulders

We enjoyed listening to the great music played by the awesome orchestra.

There were tons of ponds and creeks flowing through the area, it was so lovely. They had tons of swans, which added to the beauty.

We had a really great time! I am sure we will go there again sometime!

Sun Valley . . .

Each night there was a concert put on by the Sun Valley Orchestra. It was free so we would just go out to the pavilion and sit in the open field, while the kids would roll down this great rolling hill.



It was such a beautiful setting, really lovely. Competely surrounded by mountians.

We stayed at the Sun Valley Inn. It was a really fun hotel. :-) We enjoyed our stay.

They showed the movie Sun Valley Serenade on a channel devoted just to the movie. It was fun to watch a movie that was created in 1941 in the very place we were staying.

Temple and Tornado

We went to the Twin Falls Temple Open house on Friday. It was a wonderful time. Charles got the day off of work, and we decided to make the most of it. The children really loved it. It was a very good experience for them. I was so pleased that they had the opportunity to see inside a temple. I hope that they will remember it forever. When we were in the Celestial Room, William was captivated by the chandelier. I whispered in his ear, "Jesus." We have been showing William pictures and teaching him to identify Jesus. He repeated in his baby-way, "Jesus!" It was very sweet. It was a really lovely time. I was a little concerned about going because I have been sick. Sometimes I just go into these coughing fits, and it makes me nut! I prayed I would be o.k., I chewed gum the whole time, and I was just fine. :-) When we were finished with our tour, my plan was to have someone take a few family pictures for us -- but there was a hugs dark cloud blowing in, and it was beginning to thunder, so we missed out.

As we made our way home we were traveling in some pretty severe weather. There were storms all around us. It was pretty exciting at times, lots of lightning, rain and hail. Then the wind started to blow. We turned a corner into a little valley area and we could see this strange swirling motion of dirt and debris. Charles and I both said, "what is that?" We had to keep driving, we were on the highway. I have NEVER seen anything like it before -- we were in a tornado! The wind was blowing SO hard, and sagebrush and garbage were flying everywhere -- really high in the air. We had to try and dodge all of the things that were being thrown around, the car behind us was covered in sagebrush. We were contemplating pulling over and finding somewhere to be safe -- but there was no where to go, we had to keep driving. I asked Sammi to say a prayer for us, and she asked that our car would not be blown away, and that we would be safe. We were really that scared! It was such a weird thing! The car was being blown around, and the wind was making really strange sounds against the car. I was grateful that there were many other vehicles around -- we were not alone. I am not sure how you determine when it is just strong wind, or a tornado. It was the most severe wind power I have ever seen and felt, and I have been through some pretty nasty storms! ! As we kept white-knuckle driving, the force lasted for quite some time, then we made our way out of it. It really was so strange. We were excited and scared at the same time! The kids handled it well. Charles did a marvelous job of maneuvering through the storm. It was almost ironic, early that day as we were driving in clear blue sky I asked Charles, "What would you do if you were driving and saw a tornado coming?" he replied, " I would drive through it." and he did! It was so crazy! I tried to capture some pictures of the storm, though the pictures hardly do it justice! It was quite the wild ride home! Usually the chaos happens when you are trying to get to the temple, not going home!! :-)