The Weather Outside is Frightfull.....

Antelope Island Wildlife

It's That Time of Year Again.

Cori's Birthday Party at the Park

Here are just a couple of Cori's Birthday party pictures. Sorry there isn't more...the camera stopped working on us! She wanted it at the park, the weather was perfect and all the kids had a great time. Wish you all were there.

What's New?

Hey everybody.....sorry it's been awhile since we've updated the blogpage. The computers been broken, we haven't had many pictures because we need a new memory card for the camera and because we've been just plain busy! Everyone is doing pretty good. Cori is doing good in school, Her and Jacob are off-track now. Her teacher says she is doing well but talks a lot in class....suprise suprise. She must get that from her Mom and Sister. Jacob has his good days and bad days. Thank God most of them are good. They are adding 1 more class for Jacob in mainstream (Math). He is really excited! Overall he is doing well. Cassie is doing good in school and has been hanging out a lot with her friends. They went to a haunted house last weekend. Diana and I are hanging in there still waiting to win the lottery! It's going to be awhile since Utah does not have a lottery! (Ha, Ha) Anyways....we take Sully tomorrow(Saturday) to the vet to get his platelet count checked again. We pray to God that they are up and he is on his way to getting better. I think this week he seems better than last so let's keep our fingers crossed for him and keep him in your prayers. The other pets are fine.......brats as usual. The holidays are quickly approaching which makes us miss home more. We will take plenty of pictures of the kids for everyone and post them as much as possible. Hope everyone back home is healthy and happy. We miss and love all of you very much and think of you guys everyday. We'll keep in touch and keep an eye on the site because I'm going to TRY to stay up on it. I'll talk to you all soon.
Love,
Mark, Diana, Cassie, Jacob, Cori, Sully, Jennie, Maggie, Alice and Molly.

Fall in American Fork Canyon

Our New Family Member - Maggie

Much Too Young to Feel this Damn Old.

Everyday I feel older and older. Today I took Cassie to "Mountain Mike's Pizza" to see about a job. A JOB!! If she's old enough to get a job how old does that make me? Too old. Soon she will be driving and I can already feel the stress, high blood pressure and gray hairs coming. Now she's talking about "Homecoming" and now I have to worry about who I can trust with her?! Too stressful. Sounds like you guys got a lot of rain back home! Hope everything is drying out and no damage to anyone's place. It's been real dry here. We got a little rain today but nothing major. It hasen't been too hot either so we've been pretty lucky. Hope everything is going well for all back home. As always, love and miss everyone and we'll talk to you soon.

Greetings from Utah

Hey Everybody,
How's everyone doing back home? Hopefully everyone is good. We're getting settled back in after our trips to Illinois. Cori and Jacob started school today and Cassie starts next Monday. It was a busy morning. It was the first time in months that the kids jumped out of bed the first time I called them! They were so excited to start school.(New shoes, book bags, lunch boxes, etc.) Cori has a lot of her friends from last year in her class this year so that made her even happier. Now Jacobs class this year will be a little different. We went to orientation last week for him and found out his teacher from last year, who he really liked, had found a teaching job closer to home and would not be returning. Then he found out the school psychologist, someone he really liked and built models with,would also not be back. We heard he also has some new students so hopefully he makes new friends and gets along great with his new teacher. I have no doubt he will do good academically. Cassie seems to have mixed feelings on starting High School. She'll be O.K. as long as she tries. She starts Drivers Ed soon and we have to take her to get her driving permit so she can start practicing driving with us! I can already feel the gray hairs poping out! As everyone probably knows already Jacob broke his arm again for the 4th time! He was playing out front with the neighbor girl and wiped out on his scooter, which he was not suppose to be riding, and broke it in the same spot as last time. I'm tired of broken arms and I know Jacob is too! Anyways...I'll try to keep everyone up to date on what's going on out here and add pictures when we atke them. Here are some pictures we took on the way home from Illinois. Hope you enjoy them. As always, miss and love everyone very much.

Taken Today at Costco

Sully Scare

Recently we had a scare with Sully. He was having nose bleeds occasionally while sneezing and one time lost quite a bit of blood while sleeping on the pillow.(We had to throw the pillow out.) After talking to a few people we heard that Cancer can cause nose bleeds. We got worried and took Sully in to the vet to get their opinion. The vet didn't seem worried. It had been 2 days since Sullies nose had bleed and he said he doubted it was cancer even after I explained to him where we moved from. He said because everything was so dry that a lot of people and animals noses have been bleeding and not to worry. Knock on wood everything is o.k. with Sully. He is our baby.

Jacob's New Friend

Just an update on Jacob's friend search. Jacob has found a boy in the neighborhood to play with. His name is Aaron and although he is a few years older he has Ausbergers Syndrome and is at the same maturity level as Jake. He could not be any happier! We just found out his mom helps out with Jacob's Scout troop. Just wanted to let everyone know how happy Jacob is now that he found a friend!

No News is Good News

It's been a while. Not much going on here. The weather has been great this past week...it's been in the 50's. I'm getting spring fever...ready to go camping. Everyone is doing well. Cori and Jake have been off track from school for the last three weeks and will be going back this Monday. I put in for time off of work for July to bring the kids out and visit for a week. The dates we're off are June 30th til July 8th. This will allow us to visit for a few days before coming back home. Then on the weekend of the 28th we will be coming back out to Illinois to pick up the kids to bring them back. Hopefully this schedule will work for everyone back home. We can't wait to see everyone. I know we still have a few months but hopefully it will go fast. Cassie, Cori and Jacob are also very excited to see everyone. Hope everyone is doing well there and as always....love and miss everyone!

Still Alive and Kicking II.........

Sorry to everyone for taking so long with the blog page....it's been pretty hectic here the last couple of weeks. Seems like everyone here has been sick as some point and I've been back and fourth to the doctors for my foot and with work it has been hard to find some time to come downstairs and sit and type something and I apologize. The pictures are from yesterday and today. Cori and Jacob are excited they just started their off track from school and will be off for three weeks again! I'm also excited because I too don't have to get up early and get them ready for school...yeah! Jacob had Bronchitis at one point and lost his voice but everyone else has just had the flu....acky, warm and tired. Not much new....got about 3 inches of snow last night so the kids were out playing while I was shoveling. The Sundance film festival started this weekend up in Park City and runs through next weekend. We would like to get up there and see if we can see any celebrities but it all depends on how everyone feels and the weather. Been pretty quiet here. Usually I am a winter person and I was excited to get up to the mountains and try some skiing but with my feet I just assume winter be over and summer here. Can't wait to go fishing and camping up in the mountains! We're going to try to go quite a bit this summer. I think I might go ice fishing in a few weeks....my work is hosting an ice fishing derby for the employees and I might give it a try. Anyways...for now everyone is healthy here so lets keep our fingers crossed. Wish me luck with the specialist on my feet.(No Surgery) As always...wish everyone good health and love and miss all you guys. Bye for now.