Christmas was great in Las Vegas. Lots of family, friends and food. The kids were excited, actually we were all excited. It is so much fun as my kids get older. My parents were out of town for most of it, so we spent a majority of the time at Ryan's parents house. Ryan and I got each other gym memberships. I love to go in the morning after I drop Annika off at school. Ashton gets to play and I get to work out the sweat-YEAH! I hot tub, shower there, come home, straighten my hair, clean up the house, Ka gets home, we have lunch, and the day can start on a good note by noon. Now, I just need to get my husband more motivated. He has had a hard time going back since the ladies kicked his butt in the 24Lift class and he was sore for over a week. Annika got a doll, doll stuff, books, an ironing board, princess stuff, a scooter and games for Christmas. Ashton scored more Hot Wheels, Geotrax stuff, a dinosaur, clothes and a cool Mega Blocks car carrier.
We had a great New Year's Eve! My parents were in Centerville staying with Grandmas, and offered to come and pick up my kids, keep them ALL night and bring them back the next day. YEAH-we felt spoiled. I did not get any pictures, but Ryan and I had a nice dinner out at Rodizio Grill. It is one of those Brazilian steak house places where you eat way too much. Then we went to Sundance and stayed at a cabin with some friends. Their dad owns the place and could not come to enjoy it, so we all did. We had a blast. This was a sweet, huge cabin too. They had the biggest TV I have ever seen down in the basement. We played Wii, sat in the hot tub, watched the ball drop in NYC on TV, ate tons of snacks (gotta love Swedish fish) and played board games way too late into the night. Just the kind of getaway we needed. New Year's day we took the kids to the Gateway Children's museum. They loved it. Kind of pricey, even with our coupon, but we will definitely do it again.
Well, the rest of January has been eventful. We have all had colds that even kept Annika up coughing most of the night. The first week, Ashton had an ear infection-go figure, nothing new there. The second weekend Ashton had a stomach bug that meant throwing up 9 times in 7 hours. Of course it always happens in the middle of the night. I felt so bad for Ryan. I had gone to see a chick flick with friends for a 9:00 showing, and when I got home at 11:00, Ash was in the bath with Annika watching him, the carpet cleaner was out, the washing machine going and towels everywhere. He started puking right after I left and had already thrown up 3 times and Ryan had to deal with all of it. The third weekend, another ear infection for Ashton. Let me just tell you. Annika used to get infections, we would never know about it. Ashton's usually go like this. He wakes up at 1:00AM screaming, will not calm down and will not let me put him down. He will not go to Ryan. He will not take medicine. He pulls his ear for hours. We watch "Cars" a few times until he finally falls asleep at about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. These are not pleasant times. I take him to the doctor, quickcare, ER, whatever the next day, I tell them what is wrong, what ear, they look at it. I am right again, and we go on an antibiotic. We know the drill. We have had 6 now in a year, and are FINALLY going to an ENT specialist this week. I am done with the grouchy boy that lasts a good week after the diagnosis. Other than that, we are busy working, I am busy in Annika's class, bringing her to birthday parties and shuttling her to her friends' houses to play since we can not get a break from the cold weather. With Ashton so sick, I try to keep him inside as much as possible. Occasionally we make it out to the library or the play place at Chick-Fil-A. Oh, how we will be grateful when the sun starts shining again. My dryer has not been working for a week, after figuring out that it was the vent, after lots of getting angry, I finally got the apartment people to send someone out this morning to clean it out. Guess what they found-a dead bird, sticks, hair (I think cat hair the bird had brought in), weeds, lint, you name it, it was in there. They found enough to stuff to fill a grocery bag, full. Gross, huh? Let me just now encourage everyone to get their vents cleaned out. I hope my dryer works better than ever. My laundry has piled up though. Also, my dishwasher started having issues last week, my dishes got piled up too. They had this horrible white film. After multiple tries with the maintenance men, they finally found out that some road work up the street is pushing all this sediment into the pipes and making our hard water even worse. Gross, huh? This means a lot more hand washing and vinegar. We are not even using the water to boil things anymore. Right now we are using all bottled. Sucks, huh? Well, enough of my rambling for today. We just past our year mark here in Utah, and man how time flies, but I am ready to move on, find a HOME and get settled, even if it is here in SL. Only time will tell.
PS-Tomorrow MAY be a first too. I am thinking of letting her ride the bus both ways-that is huge on my part. I do not want to let my little girl go. We will see!
So, my parents came in town this weekend and took the kids for a bit so Ryan and I could do Easter shopping, go to dinner and go to the stores that strollers do not fit in because of so many racks-like the shoe store Forever Young and Maurices. Besides, retail therapy always makes you feel better right, and after my last month, I deserve it. Since there was a buy one, get one 1/2 off, I was able to get one pair of practical flats-I have been needing brown ones, and use my 1/2 off for sexy heels that make a girl feel good. I am still trying to lose the extra pregnancy pounds, nothing fits right, but at least my legs and feet can look good, right?? 
I am finally updating our blog, so here is some old news, but still stuff I need to put on the blog for our journaling. We got to go to Thanksgiving in sunny Las Vegas, even though at that time, we had not really had that many cold days here yet either. It was fun for my family because 5 of the 6 kids in my family were there, which meant like 10 or more cousins always at Grandma's house running around playing, or playing in the backyard as you can see from Ash's picture (his favorite place to be). We had yummy meals at both parents' houses and had to do In N Out for Ryan while we were there. Ryan got in some "guy time" shooting in the desert, and I got in Twilight for the second time with the girls. Ryan and I got in a Macayo's trip and a trip together to the temple, which never happens since we live so far from family that helps to baby-sit. We had a good time as always, but then had to get back to real life for a few weeks before Annika went on track break.
