Where I Belong ?

You Belong in 1985

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

What Year Do You Belong In?

MEMORIES

This week has also been one of much reflection for me. We found out that my Favorite Uncle Eldon died last friday and today is the anniversary of my best friend Jamie and her daughter, Alexis' death. I wanted to do this post not only for my kids to realize how important these people were in my life but so that I also can use this blog as a tool when my memory fades. I loved going to see Uncle Eldon and Aunt Deon when we were visiting my grandparents in California. Aunt Deon is my Grandpa Dyers Sister. They have treated us like there own grandkids, literally. Because before they had kids, they would always take us out to Bullwinkles when we came. Which besides the beach and cabin was the highlight of our trips. And my funniest memory with Uncle Eldon was when we had gone to my Grandpas school, he was a high school principal at Blackford H.S. in San Jose, and when we came out Eldon and Deon were waiting for us. Eldon had found a shopping cart on the parking lot and put Ian in it and was push him around at illigal speeds for a shopping cart. I can't believe he didn't crash! Jake and I were thinking about how fortunate we were to have been able to stay with Eldon and Deon when we went out for my Grandparents 50th anniversary. We had some good times and were so gratefull for their hospitality.

Jamie Grundy-Finnerty was not only my best friend but my 4th sister. Jeez I am already crying. Even after 2 years it is so hard for me to think about her without crying. Not because I'm sad, but because I feel like I missed the opportunity to know her better as we got older. She was the girl on the street that every one was friends with because she was so sweet and so nice and nonjudgemental. There were so many family trips were it was just asumed that Jamie was coming because she was literally a member of our family. I remeber my Dad taking her a Brecka to the church parking lot to practice driving and the accordian practices that I would go with Kathy to. I was so jealous back then that she could play a musical instrument, because I have no musical ability at all. Even though we drifted apart during high school, she had her drill friends and we had our own group of friends, we never stopped loving eachother. I remeber her baby shower and watching Alexs' flip in her stomach it was amazing. And that was the begining of her amazing journey as a mother. She has 2 more kids now Caitlyn and Ethan and they live in Arizona still. Jake thinks I am crazy but I have kept her funeral paper in my drawer and I doubt I will ever throw it out. I don't want to forget her ever. I am so glad she has Alexis' with her in heaven, they were so close and it had to end it was the perfect ending, here on earth at least. I will cherish the moment that I see her waiting for me and my sisters. I think of the reunion often. Jamie, thank you for being the Angel that the Gustaveson Family needed.

Fun Fridays

So every Friday the ladies in my ward do something fun with our kids. We went to the Zoo last friday and it was so nice and cool. Alex took his clip board and drew pics of all his favorite animals. He is getting really good. Notice Maddie holding Lleytons' new harness, LOVE IT !!! It was so nice not to have to take a stroller that no one sits in anymore. And what can I say about Easton. He is the stinking cutest kid ever.

CRAZINESS !!!

So it has been longer than I like to go without posting, but I have been too overwhelmed with LIFE these passt 2 weeks. Firstly I wanted Maddie and Alex to know how proud I am of them for loving school so much. It is so important to have a good attitude about school, and to enjoy every aspect it, yes even recess Alex. I loved school, no really I did, and am so gratefull my kids seem to have inherited that from me. So here are there pics from the first day of school.

" Happy Birthday To Me !!! "

Since I am so luckily to share my Bday with my identical twin sister Tracie, I wanted to wish her a Happy Bday too. She just had her 4th baby on wednesday night. The pics are so cute. She looks just like all her other kids, she is such a tiny little peanut though. Any ways just wanted to tell Tracie how lucky I feel to be her Sister. She once made me a pillow that said, " I am so glad to be your Sister, too bad there's nothing you can do about it." I don't think I ever wanted to not be her sister, except maybe our senior year when she was under Lisa' nasty spell, but truely, I could not ask for a better friend. That is the one thing that I cherish most, knowing that I always have her to rely on. If I had had more time I would have scanned some of our baby pics but my scanner is pretty crappy anyways. Just so you know , we were the cutest twins on the block j/k!! I remeber when we would fight and Mom would tell us to go t our room, which we shared, and fight it out untill there was blood (I finally understand my moms reasoning fofr that after haveing my own kids). Well we would really try hard to go down and hate eachother, but inevitably we would end up laughing and wet our pants instead, we never had good bladder control when it came to laughing :) Then there was the time she threw my hand carved wooden squirrel that my grandpa dyer made for me against our wall ( it was during one of our fights and she knew how much I loved it) and broke it's leg off. Mom made her fix it, but it was never the same. I have sooo many wonderful memories I could go on and on and on. I know you're all wishing you had a twin right now too, come on just admit it. Tracie thank you for being my friend, and keeping me in line, even when I didn't know I was out of it. I love you more than I can honestly express, not only are you my sister you are my best friend. XOXOXOXOXO

Stake Lagoon Day

So we had our annual stake lagoon day on thursday then 7th and it was awesome. The weather was perfect, not to hot, with a nice breeze. It did make lagoona beach a little cold, but the kids still had fun. It was great to be there with just our little family. I am so irritated with the pics, because my camera got jammed so I couldn't zoom in or out and it and it wasn't focusing properly, uugh!! I was so frustrated.And yes there a lot of pics of Easton and Lleyton because Jake took Maddie and Alex to do big rides so I didn't get very many pics until later in the day of them.


We ended the day with a round of mini golf very fun. The kids were fun to watch


Lleyton was such a cheater we couldn't help but laugh. He thought he was hot stuff


Alex on bumper cars


Maddie on bumper cars


Easton did the best by far on the bumper cars, and Alex was mad because he thinks he is the big race car driver.


They were laughing so hard when they all bumped into eachother that they couldn't get themselves unstuck for a long time


Maddie tried really hard on every hole, total concentration!!


Dad and Alex waiting for the Bat


Maddie on the Bat


Lleyon and Dad on the Dino Egg Drop, this was his favorite ride


Dad and Easton on the Egg too.


Alex and Maddie on the Lady Bug drop


Easton on the Red Barron


Lleyton on the Red Barron


Lleyton and Easton on the cars


Lleyton and Easton on the Helicopters. Note Easatons' cute hair, because I took him to sports clips to get it cut today and the girl butchered it and is so short now.


Lleyton and Easton on the boats, which was the longest wait of the day. We waited longer than it took to go on the ride.


Alex and Easton at the entrance


We dumped our stuff off at the stake pavillion and headed right for the log ride, because we were clear in the back anyways. There was no line yet since they had only been opened about 10 min. and no one had made it back that far yet.


Dad and Easton and Lleyton headed for rattlesnake rapids right after the log ride, we got soaked, and I mean soaked. I never dried out, my clothes were still wet even after we spent 2 hrs at lagoona beach.


Dad and Maddie, waiting to get wet. I don't now how but Jake managed to get the least wet of us all. I was so wet it was beyond looking like I just wet my pants. I looked like I fell in.


Lleyton on dumbo

Breaking Dawn Release Party

O.M.E. I don't even know where to begin. It was the funnest night ever. We started out having an Italian meal (of course), at Marcis' house. Thank you to her for all the great fun. Then we vamped up, see pic below, and then left to get our instructions from B & N about what activities we would be handling. It was awesome, Tara and I and a few other Twilight Moms, were in charge of the " Charlies' werewolve hunt". It was a word scramble in which there were 44 letters on different colored wolves throughout the store, which they unscrambled. It was great fun. I didn't attempt the Bouquet toss, way too many screaming preteens. But it was awesome when all the twilight moms who volunteered got to go to the front of the store to get our books first. Tara and I were the first ones out the doors with are books. Oh happy days. I drove Edward fast back to Marcis' house to get comfy and stake out our reading spots. I won't spoil it for you, but it is tear jerker. It gets a little sketchy at times but is worth it in the end. I officially read it in 21 hrs. It could have been sooner but I had to come home and be a mom for a little while. It is now 11:45 pm on august 2nd and in the last 48 hrs I have only had 9 hrs of sleep. I am feeling so vampish right now because I am not even tired, I am to exhilarated to be. So if someone reads the book and wants to chat, throw me a line or two!!! And for those of you who have not started, do not get frustrated just keep reading. Steph M. is brilliant and by the last 2 chapters I realized that some of the rambling and boring parts were actually very important. So pay attention. and Happy reading of course too. Get a tissue box before you sit down.

Below is a couple pics of me and my girls who are going to Forks next month. Kriselle is Rosalie, Amy is Alice, I am Tanya, and Tara is Hiedi. I was going to go all out and go Strawberry blonde, but I new it would just end up pink on me. So I am just Tanya attending the wedding, OOps spoiler alert!!, and Tara is the Volturi "fisher" who goes and gets the helpless and confused human tourists from Volterra and brings them down for the feeding frenzy. She made her jacket herself.

The cake was made by Tara, the women of many talents, it was red velvet with marshmellow fondant. I looked like blood soaked cake when we cut into it, very appropriate for the occasion. I forgot that we did a wedding toast when we got home from B & N.