Busy 1st Quarter

I guess it is too far into 2008 for my blog to say "Merry Christmas." (Easter is only 10 days away).

I have been extremely busy the past 10 weeks and right now I am feeling all of it as I am very exhausted. But as I have learned from Al, that is no excuse to not update a blog and keep in touch with those you love.

This January, I started back at work part-time at Larson & Rosenberger helping with financial audits of insurance companies. I was only planning on working 16 hours a week, but things have gotten very busy, so I have picked up more hours lately. The kids enjoy their new preschool/daycare that is close to home. They do fun art projects and like playing with the other kids.

In addition to going back to work, our traveling pace has not slowed a bit. In January, we spent 5 days in Sun Valley, ID. It was a winter wonderland with Mountains of snow piled up everywhere. We went sledding behind the house and without snowshoes, I sank up to my hip in the snow. This was a great trip full of fun winter activities: skiing, sledding, ice skating, bowling, and hot-tubing. Paul made great progress with Abigail and Andrew and at the end of their ski day, they were both going down by themselves with Paul following. They were so cute encouraging and racing with eachother.
February started very uneventful, until the terrible flu hit our home. We had about 2 1/2 weeks with at least one person in our family very sick. I was wiped out for about 10 days myself. Check out Al's blog to see an even worse case of this flu.

After feeling better, and working a 40 hour week to make up for sick days missed, I went on a business trip with Paul to Cancun. He had a conference there for the Printing Industries of America. The conference kept him pretty busy, so I mostly just sat in a chair at the beach under a canopy and did nothing. It was very nice and relaxing. The beach and the water are beautiful there.

We arrived home late last Thursday night and drove down to Emily's house in Mapleton to pick up the kids. I had to quickly re-pack and the next morning we were at the airport again on our way to Phoenix with the kids. Paul is part of a networking group in SLC that had planned a trip to Phoenix for a Jazz/Suns game. We had to bring the kids with us since this is their favorite vacation spot (even over Hawaii and Disneyland according to Abigail). While Paul went to the basketball game, we drove over to Suz's house and the kids were so happy to see eachother. Julianna was so cute and had saved her money and bought little prizes for each of my kids from her school book fair. Even Matilda was excited to see us - she gave me a huge hug when I got there and patted my back several times. Saturday we spent the afternoon at the hotel swimming and going on the waterslide.

We really wore the kids out - Saturday night Julianna was actually begging to go to bed! On Sunday, we headed back to Utah, but not without stuffing our suitcases, plus an extra box with fresh grapefruit and lemons from Suzanne's and her neighbor's grapefruit trees. Those are so yummy. It is alway fun to visit Suz and her kids. We also love the AZ sun and the yummy grapefruits.
We are now home and I have mountains of laundry calling to me, but not enough energy to fold it all--so I decided to type this up instead.