Bleaaaaack. (me after being sick)

Me at a YW overnight retreat with the stomach flu.

Ben drove up to Heber Valley to pick me up early.

Enough said to employ your sympathies.

Also, my new calling...YW Girls Camp Director

Go ahead, laugh, Ben did.

Come Snuggle Me

1st - SICK! (said with gagging disgust not just a statement of her condition) I've said it before and this just reconfirms that slimy snot triggers my gag reflex way easier than a poopy diaper.  WAAAAY easier! Really, I can hardly stand to look at the picture.

  

2nd - How she managed to not smear that across her face like most babies do escapes me.

And 3rd - Imagine her crib sheet tomorrow morning.

Humidity Pleeeeaaase!

My naturally dry skin, combined with a hard water system, combined with Utah's terribly dry atmosphere, combined with having turned 30, is doing a number on my skin and it is NOT pretty.  I'm telling you I could put straight Crisco on my skin and not break out.  Do the ashy appearance, flaky elbows, magnified fine lines (Do you like that description?  I'm not calling them wrinkles quite yet.  Maybe when I reach 35, but for now they are just fine lines.  Got it?), the itchy, enhanced eczema bother me??  Yes.  That is, everywhere except my hands, which are possibly more dry and aged than anything else on my body.  Why, do you ask, am I not bothered by my 'oh, not so pretty' hands?  Because like my mother and my grandmother we have hands that mature faster than our age.  And so, when I look at my hands I'm reminded of them and where I have come from and it makes me smile.

Also...

My babies are dang cute!!!  And Paul takes great pictures!

The Rick and Kari grand-babies.

Luke (6), Perry (2 mo), Henry (1), Greta (1), and Caleb (4)

The Rick and Kari Family (December 2010)

10 happy and very eventful years!  Still love him lots!

10 Years!!

Sweet Mexico!  Why can't you be more safe so that all would take advantage of your beauty and culture??  Unlike some, Ben and I throw caution to the wind, pack up and head south to the drug-lord driven country when the opportunity presents.  For our 10th anniversary we took a 'Mom and Dad Only' trip to Cancun.  Turns out we picked a very safe week to go with the United Nations Global Warming Conference going on.  Lots of extra machine gun toting military roaming the streets, which doesn't really make me feel more safe given our experience with Mexican cops in Monterey, but the locals all assured us it's "very safe right now."  Maybe.

A day at the Mayan ruins, Chichen Itza.  Perfect weather for a beautiful place.

An afternoon boating in the Lagoon and snorkeling off the shore near the reef.

An hour of swimming with dolphins and then we played at Wet N Wild for awhile which is like a Raging Waters.  No pictures of us with the dolphins as cameras were not allowed and it was $70 for a picture they took and provided.  70 bucks!!!  Ben talked them down to $30 for a single picture - we haven't scanned it in.

We spent time on the beach but not as much as I would have liked.  First, Ben gets bored after too long and second, it was a little colder than I would have liked.  If the clouds covered the sun and a breeze picked up I was cold.  I swam in the ocean only because we were at the beach and it was pretty not because I needed refreshing from the heat.

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It was a wonderful trip and I'm very glad we were able to arrange it.  Huge thanks to Tammy, Grandma Rollins, and Grandma Dutson for watching, feeding, changing, and entertaining our kids.