Single Parenting and Sick Kids

Nathan left on a business trip to Japan a week ago.  The morning that we drove him to the airport Ella woke up with a fever.  A couple of days earlier, Savvy threw up all over the parking lot of a grocery store, ran a brief low fever, but then seemed fine.  Ella's fever disappeared within 24 hours and I didn't think much of either of the girls illness after that.  Then on Sunday after church Savvy complained that her neck was hurting, so I took a look in her throat and it was obvious that she had strep throat.  Her throat was red and swollen and there were white blisters all over it.

So we made a trip to urgent care and got her a nice 10-day course of antibiotics.  Luckily Ella has stayed healthy, despite the 24-hour fever, and Savvy is seeming much more like herself.  We've spent the past week recovering and trying to stay sane while Nate has been gone.  The next few weeks are going to be really insane though, as tomorrow I am driving the girls and I to Utah.  Then on Monday the girls and I will be flying to NYC to make banana splits with Kelly Ripa tohelp kick off a new virtual campaign to support the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. We will return to SLC Tuesday night, and then I'll leave for Tokyo to meet up with Nathan on Thursday!  Crazy?  Definitely.  Will I survive?  Maybe.  Fun? For sure!

Gotta love those smiles!

Kidless Trip to Cancun

I am FINALLY getting around to posting pictures from our trip to Cancun!  It's not like we've been back that long...only about uhhhhh, 3 weeks...  The past few weeks have been so insanely busy that I've barely had time to take a breath!

Nate and I left the girls with my incredibly sweet parents, who I'm sure didn't realize what they were really getting themselves into.  We stayed at the beautiful Excellence Playa Mujeres resort, just north of Cancun city.  We loved the resort and enjoyed getting some much needed R & R next to the pool and on the beach.

 One of the days we took a day trip out to Chichen Itza.  We stopped at the Cenote Ik Kil, or the “Sacred Blue Cenote.”  A cenote is a naturally formed water-filled sinkhole.  This particular cenote is perfectly round, 196 feet wide and about 130 feet deep.  The water is about 82 feet from the surface, which you reach by walking down a large stone stairway along the outer edge.  It was beautiful, with tree roots hanging down from the walls and edges of the sinkhole and beautiful clear blue water.

 Then we went on to see the ruins of Chichen Itza which were every bit as spectacular as I expected them to be!

On two of the other days we did some scuba diving.   Nathan and I went through a scuba certification program when we were engaged, but have never had the chance to scuba diving since!  We did a refresher course followed by a 30-foot dive the first day.  Then, on our second day of diving we did an 80-foot shipwreck dive and a 50-foot reef dive. 

The water was very choppy on the 2nd day of diving and a bunch of people got sea sick.  It’s amazing how calm the ocean is though, once you get below the surface!  The sea life was stunning and we enjoyed seeing lots of coral, angelfish, barracuda, a huge moray eel, and a variety of other things.

 It was a wonderful trip!  We were very sad to leave, but happy to be home with our girls again!

Hair-rific

Hooray for Pre-K!

One of the things we have been especially grateful for this year is that our friends, the Mylroies, moved into our ward at the beginning of January.  They were some of our closest friends in our ward in Tokyo, and so it has been wonderful to have them close again.  Savannah would be the only girl her age in her Primary class if it wasn't for the Mylroie's daughter Isabel.  We're grateful to have another girl her age, and they have been having a blast being back together, including going to Pre-K together!

This past Wednesday was Savannah's last day of school in her Pre-K class.  They put on a little program where they said the Pledge of Allegiance

and sang some songs.

Then their teacher, Miss Mandy, presented them with books filled with their projects from the semester.

They were rewarded with a special lunch at the end.

What a fun day!

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm making some changes in the wardrobe department.  The last time I let Daddy dress me, this is what happened:

As soon as I had the chance, I made my escape.

From now on, I will be dressing myself.

Love,
Ella

What Squirrels Do When They Sleep

When I went to get Squirrel up from her nap today, I found her wearing this hood that goes to her snowsuit. She must have been sleeping walking in her closet, because OF COURSE she was actually napping, right?

Savvy & Black

I took some pictures of Savvy today for a project she needs to take to her preschool class tomorrow.  She was hosting a little dog hand puppet, and had to name him/her and do things with him/her.  We were supposed to document the experience and then bring in a show-and-tell page to class.  She decided to name the dog "Black" because it has a black nose.  I thought these three pictures were so cute that I had to share them!

1st Day of Preschool!

The Parks & Recreation department of Corona offers a variety of classes for kids to take.  One of them is a Pre-K class that meets 2 times a week.  Savannah has been on the waiting list until I got a call last night saying that a spot had opened up and they were wondering if we wanted it.  I jumped at the opportunity and Savannah went to her first day today.  The first 5 minutes were rough.  She has quite a bit of anxiety around groups of people she doesn't know.  The teacher was concerned that it wasn't going to work out, but I asked her to give Savannah the benefit of the doubt and let her stay (without me in the room) for 10 minutes and then reassess.  After 5 minutes she quite crying and enjoyed herself (except when they all moved to the rug for story time and she started crying again for a minute)!  To celebrate her big day we made lasagna for dinner, including making the noodles from scratch.  I think I made a good choice:

Fresh Strawberry Carnage

Those strawberries didn't stand a chance.