Pack Night

Craig had his pack night on April 24th. They did a magic night with magic tricks and lots of fun. For refreshments they served the long pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate. Yummy!!! Craig received his wolf badge. Way to go Craig. After pack night Madison did and dance for Millie and she loved it.

Sister Bingham and Craig receiving award

Craig pinning the wolf badge on me.

Craig, Mom and Millie

Madison, Millie and Craig

Madison and Millie

Madison doing her dance for Millie

Millie laughing at Madison. What cheap entertainment.

Saint George Trip

The kids had spring break the week of April 14th thru the 18th. Madison and Craig were so patient with me while I worked that week. We had talked about going to Saint George to stay with some dear friends Dave and Kaleen. We packed up the car and headed down there Thursday night. Millie just loves riding in the car with her brother and sister, you could say its constant entertainment. Madison sings the whole time and Craig does everything possible to make her laugh. We arrived at Kaleen's around 9 and had dinner. We were introduced to a very excited and loving dog Cloe that Millie wasn't sure about but they soon became close friends. Millie would giggle every time Cloe would come close to her.

Kaleen, Cloe and Amelia

We had a wonderful time visiting with friends and relaxing over the weekend. The kids went swimming everyday and didn't ask to do anything else.

Parker in blue shorts Craig in red shorts

Madison

Madison and Craig

Mommy and Millie

We went to Parker's baseball game.

Dave put Millie to sleep in no time, he has the gift!

Skyler band performance (not school but a group band that performed screamo music. I don't understand why this is so popular but it is, oh well. I like to understand the lyrics then to listen to a guy screaming into the mic sounding like a pig heading to the slaughter house. Skyler played the base guitar and he did really good. Kaleen, Dave and I went to a coffee house to listen to a band that was a friend of Kaleens, again not our cup of tea so we left there also. I think I will stick with Country music. Makenna was having a hard time being there and wanted to go home but she stayed.

Makenna and Millie

Saturday night we were invited to Kaleens neighbors for their birthday party, a fiesta. There was good Mexican food, a pinata with lots of candy for the kids and they gave all the kids a gift box. She had enough for even the unplanned visitors (us). The kids thought it was fun to see a different culture celebrate their birthdays.

The party girls Madison and Millie

It was alot of fun visiting and meeting all of Kaleens neighbors. Needless to say it really is a small world you just get to visiting and find out that somehow we know people in common.

We came home from the trip Sunday night again a very pleasant drive home with the kids singing except for one (teenagers!) Millie again giggling until we arrived in Payson and I dropped the kids off at their dads. Millie was no longer happy, she missed her entertainment. So from Payson to Orem she let me know she was sad. It was a fun trip and we miss Dave and Kaleen. We will be going back soon, probably when Cloe has her puppies.

April 10, 2008 Craig and I went on the third grade field trip. We were scheduled to go on the 31st of March but it was cancelled due to a storm that came through the night before that iced all the roads. I was in contact with the school on our way down because we were at a dead stop on the freeway. Not wanting to miss the field trip or worse yet drive anymore with the road condition. We finally got to school which took 1 1/2 to get there from Orem, and they told us that the trip was cancelled boy there were so many tears. The kids were so disappointed. With the field trip rescheduled we left for Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. Being put into groups with the kids we were ready for a day of fun and exploring. Of course we had the best group!!!! After the running around the Museum looking at all the dinosaurs we went to the park and had lunch in the cold and wind. Who thought that one up I don't know but they should be shot. We were human popsicles, not fun at all. It was a marathon lunch, I don't think we ate very much because we all wanted to be back on the school bus, Yuck!!! Once back on the bus we headed to the Bean Museum at BYU. There we saw many different kids all animals, you want to touch them all to see how they feel but they ask you not to so we didn't. I grew up with a friend that her father was an avid hunter and their house, no joke, looked just like this museum. On sleep overs there really was no sleeping you kept waiting for all the animals to come to life just like on the movie "Night at the Museum". All in all it was a very fun day and even with the cold weather at the park would do it again. Although I don't know about the bus ride.

Tyler, Lisa & Craig

Tyler, Craig, Lisa, Mariella & Devan

Lisa & Craig

March 2008

Alright, Chelle was checkin to see why I have been slackin, I really have no excuse. You know the saying "In like a lamb out like a lion" well that will describe March for us. Ali came for a quick visit and we just loved having her around. Madison, Craig, Millie, Ali, Dana and Me all went out to dinner at Noodles & Company. The choice of the night was their Mac and Cheese (just the best in the whole world). While we were eating we had to show Ali how Millie could drink out of a cup. She is so cute drinking from the cup and for only being six months old she does amazingly well. Yeah Millie.

Ali and Dana

Millie drinking out of a cup.

Did it not seem like Easter came early this year? Easter weekend was alot of fun and very busy. We all went to the famous IHop for breakfast. Once all the kids saw Makenna's breakfast they wanted it. She got the Horton hears a Who Breakfast it came with green eggs and ham and a stack of pancakes that were a hit.

Lisa and Craig

Makenna's Yummy Pancakes

We colored eggs at the house which was alot of fun and kept us very busy. Priscilla (Aaron's employee and friend) invited us over for an easter egg hunt and a barbque. The kids had so much fun making new friends and searching for all the eggs. Aaron went outside to hide them and about biffed it slipping on the mud. A common occurance with him as he likes to fall in all sorts of things ice, snow, mud you name it he has to try it. I know it's just for attention. Haha!

Madison coloring eggs

Millie, Maddie and friends

Just before the easter egg hunt

Easter Egg Hunt

Life is a Bag of Frozen Peas

I have been comtemplating life. I have been earnestly praying and asking the Lord to please let me know he is there, that I am love and more importantly everything is going to be ok. I made a goal to stay busy and keep a positive attitude. Its amazing the things that come your way with this attitude. Old friends are there with support and loving arms without me ever saying a word that I need them, new friends are being made. The Lord is aware, gracious and loving we just need to have the right attitude to let him in. This morning when I got to work and looked at my email and this story was there. I think no matter what you are going through or where you are in life this story applies. So enjoy the story of encouragement below.

Life is a Bag of Frozen Peas
A few weeks after my first wife, Georgia, was called to heaven, I was cooking dinner for my son and myself. For a vegetable, I decided on frozen peas. As I was cutting open the bag, it slipped from my hands and crashed to the floor. The peas, like marbles, rolled everywhere. I tried to use a broom, but with each swipe the peas rolled across the kitchen, bounced off the wall on the other side and rolled in another direction.
My mental state at the time was fragile. Losing a spouse is an unbearable pain. I got on my hands and knees and pulled them into a pile to dispose of, I was half laughing and half crying as I collected them. I could see the humor in what happened, but it doesn't take much for a person dealing with grief to break down.
For the next week, every time I was in the kitchen, I would find a pea that had escaped my first cleanup. In a corner, behind a table leg, in the frays at the end of a mat, or hidden under a heater, they kept turning up. Eight months later I pulled out the refrigerator to clean, and found a dozen or so petrified peas hidden underneath.
At the time I found those few remaining peas, I was in a new relationship with a wonderful woman I met in a widow/widower support group. After we married, I was reminded of those peas under the refrigerator. I realized my life had been like that bag of frozen peas. It had shattered. My wife was gone. I was in a new city with a busy job and a son having trouble adjusting to his new surroundings and the loss of his mother. I was a wreck. I was a bag of spilled, frozen peas. My life had come apart and scattered.
When life gets you down; when everything you know comes apart; when you think you can never get through the tough times, remember, it is just a bag of scattered, frozen peas. The peas can be collected and life will move on. You will find all the peas. First the easy peas come together in a pile. You pick them up and start to move on. Later you will find the bigger and harder peas. When you pull it all together, life will be whole again.
The life you know can be scattered at any time. You will move on, but how fast you collect your peas depends on you. Will you keep scattering them around with a broom, or will you pick them up one-by-one and put your life back together?

A story that made me think about Life

What Will You Be Doing 7 Years From Now?
I graduated from Brazosport High School in Freeport, Texas in May 1972. Not dressed in white (honors), but I graduated.
That summer like the previous summer, I worked as a longshoreman loading corn, flour and corn sacks weighing 50 to 140 lbs. and 900 lbs. caustic soda drums on freight ships bound to other countries at nearby Brazos Harbor and Dow Chemical A2 Dock.
This was one of the better paying jobs in the area. It was grueling, hard, heavy work, but I loved it at the time. My father had been doing this job most of his life since it paid well.
Fall came around and I had already decided that I did not want to make my living as a longshoreman. Work was inconsistent and when it was there it only went to the ones with the most seniority, unless there was too much. There was very little opportunity for a better job when you got older.
I had always heard that a college education would get you a better job and decided to find out. So I went to nearby Brazosport College and set up an appointment with a counselor.
I got to his office at the appointed time and he asked me what work or profession interested me the most. I had taken Auto Mechanics I & II during my junior and senior years in high school and asked him if Brazosport College had an auto mechanics program.
He said "no." I asked him if they had anything similar to it. He said that the Machine Tools Technology program was very similar and described the program to me.
I was very interested and asked him how long it would take if I went full time. He said "4 years." I said I couldn't go full time since I am working (whenever work was available).
I asked how long would it take if I go part time? He said "7 years." I was shocked. I said, "Man, I'll be old then, I'll be 25 years old. I don't thing so."
He asked me, "what did you say you did for a living right now?"
I told him again that I worked as a longshoreman throwing bags and manhandling drums. Then he bent over his desk and looked me square in the eye and asked me the most significant words I will never forget in my life:
"IF YOU DON'T TAKE ANY CLASSES. WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING 7 YEARS FROM NOW?"
These words hit me like a ton of bricks! I sheepishly told him that I would be doing the same thing. I signed up for the classes right then and there.
These prophetic words have inspired many of my relatives and friends. The sun will rise and fall 365 days a year. What you choose to do in between will determine many things in your life.
This story alone has inspired relatives and friends to realize an age-old truth: Time will go on regardless and it waits on nobody.
Years later, I told a co-worker this story. He got inspired enough that he went on and got 3 different degrees in computers in less than 7 years! He said afterwards, "7 years ago I would've been saying to myself, 'If only I had the opportunity.'"
TIME WILL PASS REGARDLESS!
Augie Mendoza

Another First

Last night Millie achieved another first in her life. She can finally roll over from her stomach to her back. So no more being on mom's bed for fear she will roll off. Although she did roll off the bed last night but no worries it was a blow up mattress. I had the elders come and move all the furniture out of the bedrooms last night to make room for the new carpet. I slepted on the blow up mattress and Millie slepted on a blanket on the ground next to me. It really wasn't a good nights rest my mattress kept deflating and thus I had to keep blowing it up. (I had a brand new mattress still in the box, did I think to blow that one up?) No, I didn't want to wake Millie up which in all reality made no sense at all because I had to keep pumping the old one up. Duh! So I only have myself to blame for my poor nights rest.

So back to Millie, this morning while I was getting ready and having put the bedding away she had free reign on the bedroom and needless to say she took advantage of the space. She was loving her new found freedom. I don't think it will be too long before she is crawling. She already is try to scoot.

This weekend I spent the entire time painting the family room so that we can have carpet laid. Craig and Madison were wonderful. They both took turns playing with Millie and feeding her. What a big help that was to me. Millie loved all the attention she received from her brother and sister. They were also a big help with the painting, they did a wonderful job and never once did they complain. We all laughed and sang and had a wonderful time. Shawn came both days to help and we enjoyed having him there. I think he was a little suprised at how much Maddie can talk, she can really carry on a conversation. And she kept us in stitches with her humor.