Where does the time fly. A year ehh.

First off I am so excited to announce that EJ received his mission assignment to Fresno, California, spanish speaking.  He leaves for the Mexico City, Mexico Mission training center on November 19th.  He will be in Mexico for 8-10 weeks in which he will learn the spanish language in more detail.  EJ did take 3 years of spanish in High school so it shouldn't be to hard for him.  We are all so excited.   He is going to be a great missionary for the LDS church. He has worked hard to get there.

EJ -  

While we are talking about EJ, we might as well mention that he also graduated from High School a few weeks back.   We have an adult in the house :)  He has been accepted to Brigham Young University Idaho and will go there when he gets back from his mission in 2 years.   

TJ - 

TJ has been traveling all summer with Seattle Starz playing lacrosse.  He has been to Denver Colorado and the east coast in which his team has done really well.   His Starz team won the championship at the the Denver University this past month.   TJ will be a senior this fall.  I see senioritis in the stars at our house.  :)  Here is the picture of TJ's team winning the tournament.  TJ will be spending a week at BYU Elite Lacrosse recruiting camp and at the BYU Lacrosse tryouts in September along with going on a mad hiking trip with his youth group.  

Rae -  

Rae is now 15 yrs old.  She is doing great.  Rae did really well in school and received a 3.6 GPA.  She has doing gardening projects (the tomatoes look great!!) and going to church dances.   She is moving up to the High School this fall now that she is going into 10th grade.   I am so impressed by how well she is doing in all her subjects at school.  She puts her big brothers to shame when it comes to study habits and grades.  This summer she will be attending EFY in Rexburg, Idaho and will be going to girls camp with our ward at church.  

CJ -

CJ just finish 7th grade with a bang.  He did so well this year.   This summer he is planning on programming a computer game and spending time with the family.  The end of this year CJ will be 14 years and will start attending the Youth LDS dances.  I can't wait to see him blush, as he is a shy guy.  :)   He will be spending his summer at scout camp and taking some weekend scout trips with his Scout troop.   He has found a passion for his gas power remote control car.  He has tinkered around trying to fix it up with James and loves it.   He is doing so well.

CJ, AJ and EJ at Newport Beach, OR.

AJ - 

AJ is Mr. Minecraft man.  That boy knows how to creates worlds with the best of him.  He has some plans up his sleeve to start programing a 1st person shooter game this summer with his brother CJ.  How can I say no to such creativity even if it is a 1st person shooter game?  I can't.  This year AJ had some changes.   We found out he was blind with 20/200 vision.   So this boy is sporting new RayBan glasses (that he picked out all on his own mind you).  

Rae and AJ (with his glasses)

James - 

James new company Ottemo, Inc is going well.   They are ready to launch their first Ecommerce software this fall.   He is so excited. James has worked so hard to finally have a business of his own (with partners of course) as he has been talking about it for years and years.  We will see what the future holds in terms of it's success.  James also also had a passion for getting that darn gas powered remote control car working with CJ.  It's been a project of having to buy new parts every few days.  Fun Fun.   He loves the challenge for sure.   He has also been tinkering with all our cars that seem to have died on us this year.   My BMW Z3 died in february and has been sitting in the garage waiting for a new head gasket.   He has been my dad's sidekick while the engine is pulled apart and parts ordered.  Hopefully I will have my car back in the next few weeks.  Back in April our Tundra had engine problems too but it seems to have fixed itself.  When my dad went to go check the compression on the cylinders we found that we did not have engine problems like previously thought and the truck is running smoothly.  A total miracle in and of itself as we thought we had 2 cars with damaged head gaskets.  James has been a champ at fixing all our broken down parts on the cars from alternators, manifolds, to change head gaskets out.  Fun!

Me - 

Well the year for me has been learning how to manage my time, which I am not doing a very good job of now that I am working almost full time.   I do love my job at St Francis Hospital.   I have learned soooo much over the year as I learn how to be a good recovery, surgery RN.   It is been a fun but stressful year, hence why I have not written a blog spot in over year.   Working full time is no fun when you have 5 kids that need to you.  Nonetheless, I have had a good year.   I am now preceptoring (training) new staff nurses and was elected to the Unit Based Council at work.  Last week I also became the secretary of that UBC.   I love teaching and being a leader.  It fits me well.   I will be finally going down to a 0.8 FTE which means I will only work 4 days a week instead of 5 so hopefully that eases my stress a little.  My commute has been crazy this last year and hope to remedy that soon.  With my BMW Z3 out, we went ahead and bought a new car because we were down to only 1 car.   Here is our new VW Passat TDI SEL.   It gets awesome gas mileage (diesels tend to do that) and it is a smooth ride.  

Anyways... That is all for our family.   Thanks for taking the time to check out our blog.  I will edit this post for grammar later.