My little Fishy

Today was the girls last day of swim lessons. I did a parent in me with Ariana and Alexis did level 1. Alexis absolutely loves swimming and was been full of energy for her teachers every day for the past 2 weeks. The first day getting in she wasn't so sure because both teachers were boys and the other 3 kids in the class were all boys and she is still in a "I don't like boys" stage . Within minutes she was happy as could be and sticking her head in the water blowing bubbles, kicking extra. Last Saturday Alexis surprised Justin and I by actually swimming by herself with her head in the water. Yeah, I have a swimmer! Today when she got her certificate with everything check off she was just so proud and so am I. Last Saturday Justin surprised the girls by letting them go to Wal-Mart and pick out there own beach towel for when we go swimming. Sorry the picture is fuzzy but you can still kind of see the excitement and delight on the girls faces when Justin showed them what they got to pick out.

Alexis Father's Day Poem

A Beautiful Day

Today was a great day I got to visit the Las Vegas temple. I've been planning for awhile to visit the temple today but I dragged my feet on finding a baby sitter so of course last minute it was a little hard to find one but thanks to Becky Bair's kindness I was able to go. Thank you sooo much Becky! Its been a few months since I've gone to the temple, (I think the last time was in February) and today I was reminded why I really need to go more often. The temple truly is a place of peace and clarity. The session I was in was very small. There was no more than 12 people. There was one couple that really touched me today. The wife suffers from a disability that makes it difficult for her to walk and I got to witness her husband lovingly help her through the temple so she could be in the house of the Lord. When they were about to leave he helped her into her walker that has a seat so he could push her and he gave her the sweetest kiss as they left the celestial room. It touched my heart with how much these two cared for each other but then I was surprised that he pushed his wife over to me and stopped. They spoke to me for just a moment but what they said was just what I had needed to hear. The Lord used this sweet couple to calm my troubled heart and witness to me that my Heavenly Father hears my prayers and loves me. Today I felt the hand of the Lord through a couple that are total strangers to me but took the time to just stop for a moment. Don't under estimate the smallest of impressions or words of kindness that you offer to someone, even if you don't know them, because you might be an instrument for the Lord in that brief moment.

Father's Day

The girls and I had fun getting ready for Father's Day. In preschool I had all the children decorate little heart boxes with paint, stickers and a poem. On the inside I cut out a picture of them with their Daddy and glued it to the inside of the lid. We also filled the box with Hershey's hugs and kisses. The 4 year old class practiced saying the poem a couple times and Alexis worked on memorizing the poem for 2 weeks. I wrote the poem with word clues and put it in my pocket chart so she was looking at it quite a bit. On Sunday the girls and I made a breakfast of oatmeal with bananas and strawberries, eggs and turkey bacon, and fruit juice. The helped me put it on a tray and take it up to Justin. Of course I carried the tray but they proudly carried up their little heart boxes and cards that they made. Alexis was so cute when she recited the poem that I asked her to say it again so I could get a recording. Justin also loves getting A&W root beer or root beer floats at A&W in the frosty mugs so I called A&W and asked if they sell their mugs. They do so Saturday I surprised Justin with two A&W frosty mugs filled with root bear floats. Yummy!

Pool Update

We got the pool set up again and it looks good. Justin spent most of Saturday leveling a huge area in our back yard. We haven't gone in it yet but I'm relieved that it looks like we did it right this time.

Wasting Water

My parents kindly offered to let us have their above ground pool that they bought 3 years ago and never set up. Since we now have a yard big enough for it we gladly accepted. This past weekend Justin leveled the ground area we thought was a big for the base of the pool and Saturday night we began to fill the pool. Well the base ended up being a little bigger than we had thought and part of the pool ended up on un-level ground and the pool began to tilt down hill. You can see in the picture. Each day it got worse and was starting to break the filter system. Justin knew Monday that we were probably going to have to drain the entire pool level more ground and then refill the pool again. I was sick to my stomach because there has to be well over 2000 gallons of fresh water in this pool and now we are going to dump it out and waste all of that water! I went to bed just thinking about how we are in such a bad drought and here we are wasting so much water. So yesterday a lot of you got a strange phone call from me offering to wash your car for free or come fill up your water storage. After several hours of washing cars for neighbors and friends I knocked on the door of one of my neighbors who told me that if I just drained the pool into my sewer clean-out port the water would be able to be reused by the city and I possibly wouldn't be charged for the water. I was so happy to hear I had a way to get all that water to a location where it could be used again! I went home and looked up where my sewer clean-out port was and was directed to Las Vegas Water district page on guide lines for draining pools. I had talked to the water district that morning and they hadn't mentioned that the water would be reused or that I wouldn't be charged (not so sure about the no charge thing still) but for all of you out there with above ground pools it is actually a violation of city ordinances to drain your pool into the street. You are suppose to drain it into the sewer clean-out port. What is that and where is it? Its those black caped off tubes in your front yard landscape with metal tightening strap (at least in my yard that's where it is). So I was feeling pretty good. Yeah the water won't be wasted! I had to stop my bucket bregade anyways because I had to get ready for a meeting I was going to. I figured the pool would be ok until the next morning. Umm, look what I woke up to this morning! The pool had tipped to far last night and just started spilling out the side. My back yard is completely flooded and sadly almost all the water was wasted. A lot was still in our yard so I went and opened my sewer clean-out port and start pouring buckets of water down the drain. I did that for about 2 hours this morning but I still feel awful because I know that I hardly got any of the water back into the system. I guess at least I was able to do some service yesterday but I really wish I had been able to save more water. Alexis took pictures of me and my attempt to get as much water out of the yard as possible. I'm smiling in the last picture but I wasn't happy about what happened. I am pooped! Now I know what to do next time we have to drain the pool and hopefully so will some of you if you set up and above ground pool.

Alexis and the Log Ride

This picture just cracks me up. Alexis face is just so awesome! If you can't see it clearly click on the image and see if you can view it in a larger format. It is totally worth it.