Blessings

At the gym this week, I listened to this talk about President Erying from October General Conference - Gratitude on the Sabbath Day. 

I love these words and I love this song:

Count your blessings;

Name them one by one.

Count your blessings;

See what God hath done. …

As I look back on this past week, there were hard times - the boys always take several weeks to adjust with Aaron leaves. I cried. They cried. But these blessings are what we'll remember the most of the week. 

Eli loves "reading" to the dog at the library during Paws to Read. We have stumbled upon it twice accidentally and both Eli and Austin get so excited when a friendly dog greets us when we aren't expecting it. 

 

The boys did SO great at the dentist this week. I was so proud. We said a prayer in the car before heading into the office that they would be BRAVE. And BRAVE they were! Kind of ironic that the dentist gave them tooth sucker for being great and not having cavities. 

   

Our koala crate came in the mail. The happiest mail day! The theme was rainbows. 

Aaron bought 8 bottles of A&W cream soda before he left. We finished one off after dinner this week. :)

   

Glitter snow. It was soooo beautiful!!

And on Thursday I took my little monkeys on an adventure to Monkey Business.

   

   

   

The Bensons had us over on Friday and then AGAIN on Saturday. They're the kindest and we love jumping on their toys and playing pie face.

   

   

 

 

Have the best week counting your blessings! :)

Farewell, again

We took Aaron to the airport yesterday morning as he left for Thailand for "just" 5 weeks. It's funny how 5 weeks doesn't seem too long compared to 6 months. He was asked to translate for an investigation case and we felt as a family this was a great opportunity for him and his future career goals. We prayed about it months ago and although we were so sad to seem him leave again, we wanted to be strong and supportive of this opportunity. 

Everything was fine until Aaron went to get in line to board and Austin screamed and started crying, "Dad. Go with dad!" I looked over at Aaron with tears in my eyes to see that he had some tears too. 

5 weeks. We can do this! ;)

   

   

 

USA

We snapped these pics after church on Sunday. The past week and half spending quality time together as a family almost made up for being separated 9 months last year - emphasis on almost. ;) 

 

 

 

Sky Zone

Aaron hasn't been to an indoor trampoline place with the boys before and he wanted to take them! We went to toddler time on Friday morning and the boys loved jumping with their dad! We all had a good workout. 

Friday night Aaron and I went on another date. I loved having two date nights in a row with him! We went out for sushi and then played games with some church friends. 

   

   

Great Wolf Lodge

A Great Wolf Lodge opened in Colorado Springs this month and when we found that a sale was going on for the month of January, we decided to book a room and pretend it was summer by swimming the day away! 

There weren't a lot of other guests at the hotel so it was nice that it wasn't crowded. We check in on Wednesday, swam that afternoon, then had a nice dinner followed by ice cream, a dance party, and story time.

Thursday we swam all morning and then came back home for nap time. When we discovered that we had access to the water park until 9 p.m. that evening, Aaron and I got a babysitter and went back to Great Wolf Lodge to ride the adult water rides. Hahaha - we felt like kids again. It was a fun date night!

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Movie

While Eli was at preschool on Tuesday morning, we had a date with Austin. I love one and one time with our kids! We did some clothes shopping for Aaron. Once we picked up Eli, the boys shoveled the drive-way!

  

After nap time, we went to see the movie "Trolls" at the Dollar Theater and then dad surprised us all with dinner at Chuck E Cheese's!