Oklahoma City...Day 1

My friend Angie and I, along with our kids are in Oklahoma City right now. Here are pictures of our first day, in no particular order. Explanations are under each picture.

Jesse, Luke, Cameryn and Nicole looking at a Condor. You can see it's wing span in front of the kids. We went to the OK City Zoo.
Matthew at the grocery store. The bottom half of the wall was lined in Chrome. I took this picture in honor of my brother, Adam. His favorite color is Chrome. LOL

Matthew doesn't know he's too big for certain things...like the truck cart at Albertson's. He got stuck in there. I ran to get cereal or I would have video taped him getting out.

Colie in front of the little car zoo store.

The kiddos at the swimming pool in the hotel.

Alligator's swimming at the OK City Zoo. We counted 8 in all. I couldn't get them all in the shot.Nicole with an aligator.

Once again, Matthew is not convinced that he is too big. He's almost as tall at the giraffe. I just noticed that. :)

Nicole's hand on the average sized hand of a grizzley bear.

People fishing at the zoo...for real! They were on the other side of the water, and just to the left is the fence that stops people from sneaking into the zoo.

Cameryn and Nicole with a Rhino.

The kids watching the Sea Lion. One funny story here...It was one of the last exhibits we saw that zoo today. All the kids were tired and hungry. Matthew was watching the Lions swim and he said, 'I wish I could drink all that water.' Before I could comment, he added, 'Wait. Is there poop in there?' I said yes. He said 'nevermind.'

All of us on the lion statue.

Matthew's hand is on the bear's foot.

A shout out to my AwEsOmE nephew Devon. What up yo?

Welcome to the zoo!

Welcome to Oklahoma!!

Everyone buckled up, ready to go.

Okay, this next part is a video. It goes against everything I believe, but since I love Matthew SO MUCH, I am posting it for him. Viewer discretion is adviced. If you don't like snakes...DO NOT WATCH IT!!! I'm serious. It is disgusting!!!

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Now that that is over, good night! I'm going to sleep. See you tomorrow!

getting along..

These are the moments everything is worth it!

Spring Break Fun

I have a sister who used to live on a busy street. Often times at night she would see people get pulled over by police in front of her house. Lucky for her, she had a front row seat to the action from her bedroom window. She would just open her window, and sit there watching and drinking a diet coke. She told me that one night a police was pulling over a car and just as she opened her window to watch, the cop told his offender to drive up another block then pull over. LOL A night late night show if you ask me.

About the same time I lived on a busy street also. The corner of 8th N and 50 W in Orem, Utah...no longer a home, but just a wider busy street now. Anyway, because of the way the lights were positioned and because it's a fun steet to speed on, we got to see alot of rear-end collisions. Like my sister, we would just get the lawn chairs set up and watch the action from our front yard. Although the cops never showed us that they were annoyed with us, I would not be surprised if the analysis of our 2 1/2 year old son bugged them at times.

Today my kids carried on our long lasting tradition. A truck got pulled over just east of our house, on our street. Later the kids came and told me he was being arrested. I heard from a reliable source--our kids who heard from the neighbor kids who's mom is dating the guy--he got arrested because he was driving with out a license, not because he had beer in the truck--which he did. Here are some pictures of the action. Of course I documented it!!

Confessions of a Blogaholic

Confession Survey

1 What is your blogger name? I have 2 blogs. Cheney Chatter and Cheney Chatterless
2. When is your birthday? October 24, 1977
3. How long have you been blogging? Since May 2008
4. Who tagged you? I liberated this tag from Kate
5. Tell me your 5 most favorite body parts? My hands because with out them I couldn't play the piano, type, and of course do many other things in my daily life. My teeth...because although Heather says they are my baby teeth, atleast they are mine!
6. What do you wish most for your birthday? It's still far away, hmmm...I wish for the tuition to go back to school. Is that too big of a wish?
7. What color are your nails now? I don't paint my finger nails, my toes are red.
8. Any depressing thoughts lately? PE teacher dead at 39. Chronic Headache and Nausea for over a week now.
9. What's your next 1 month's plan? making plans for Easter--we have a 4 day weekend. Also, finishing up my independant study class, and maybe cleaning out the garage...MAYBE.
10. At what age did you have your first crush? 1st Grade - Zach something. I don't remember his last name, and we moved before Thanksgiving, so it was short lived.
11.Did you attend any school reunion after you graduated? Nope.
12. Are you a clean freak? that would be a big N.O. I would like to be a clean freak. I will add that I'm not a total slob either. I like to go for the happy medium on this one!
13. Which era do you wish you were born in? I'll take any era, just let me be born to the upper class!
14. Are you a vegetarian? No way. Have to eaten tofu? yuck!
15. How many pillows do you sleep with at night? I start out with 1. somewhere in the night, Ken steals it. I end up with 1/2.
16 Are you a light sleeper or I-don't-care-if-there's-a bomb sleeper? I don't wake up to every single noise, but I'm definately more of a light sleeper than the other.
17. Do you secretly wear comfortable grandma panties when your husband is not around? secretly? LOL!!
18. What is your ultimate dream job? Writing Children's Stories and Short Stories AND getting paid for them.
19. What is it your hubby does that annoys you the most? You don't want to know.
20. What is your dream car? I'm pretty happy with what we have but if I got to choose, I'd probably go for a Honda Civic...we aren't a minivan family. No need to be.
21. Do you easily wake up in the morning? If that means that I get up after 5 alarms go off between the times of 5am and 6:50, then yes...I wake up easily. Actually, when I have to get up, I do with no problem. I just like to postpone it lately. I was SO ready for this break!
22. Do you like hairy men? goateed men? what kind of question is this??? No all around.
23. What would you prefer? two hour spa, two hour foot massage, or 2 hour Thai massage? Could I have the money that would go towards any one of those choices?
24. Have you ever wished you had a different name? No, however I have often wished that people would spell it correctly and/or say it correctly.
25. What is the most extreme sport you have ever done? I know I look like an Olympic Athlete, but you will be surprised to read that I AM NOT. The most extreme thing I've done is jump off a high dive at a family reunion in Moses Lake Washington...last summer. However to me that was VERY extreme since I only started swimming 4 years ago and my time off any diving board was a year ago. Sports and I are not really friends.
26. Do you prefer traveling in Europe or Asia? Europe, if I ever get to go, that is where I would rather visit.
27. What is your favorite food? Mexican Food and Red Robin Terriyaki Chicken Sandwiches with Garlic French Fries.
28. What is the most embarrassing moment you had on a date? I didn't date a whole lot...Sorry that I don't have an answer for this one!

**Do we have any similarities?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Day 2 of Spring Break was a million times better than day 1. I’m not really feeling much better; I just decided to make it a fun day for the kids anyway. It seemed to work for them and me too.

Today the guys went golfing. Sorry—no pics of that. They can’t seem to remember that I’m doing a documentary of our LIVES. Nicole and I stayed home. We decorated envelopes that we will mail to my brother Kyle in Pennsylvania. We also planned and made a St. Patrick’s Day dinner (all GrEeN).

When the guys came home, we folded laundry then Ken played with the kids until dinner was ready. One time when I looked in on them they were wrestling. Another they were dog piling. At one moment, Ken called for me to come take a picture of them. They were doing a dog pile…on the DOG. Poor puppy, he’s only 18 pounds. LOL

Here is a picture of our traditional St. Patrick’s Day Dinner. We don’t the exact same food every year, but it is all green. Tonight we had a Chicken and Spinach Curry with Red Peppers and Mushrooms on Jasmine Rice (colored green), jello with pineapple and a green salad. It was delish.

As little side story about our dinner…I had Matthew cut the fat off the chicken for the first time tonight. He couldn’t do it. I actually thought he was going to throw up, so I relieved him of his duty. Preparing Chicken or any other raw food has never bugged me (minus onions) so I thought it was funny how he reacted. I hope the kid doesn’t go foreign on his mission!

Tonight we also had FHE. Yesterday Ken took the kids to the movies and we completely spaced it. I felt bad this morning about it because we don’t skip FHE. I guess everything about yesterday was off. ANYWAY, I changed from the lesson that I had planned to one that my Cousin's Wife put on her blog. She is really clever.

Their FHE yesterday and ours today was about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. We talked about how they 3 separate beings, but 1 in purpose. I explained what that meant and then asked for examples of other things that were one in purpose. Ken said Spaghetti. (Ken will talk about spaghetti anytime he can. He will also eat it anytime he can) He said it you just have noodles or meatballs or sauce, it’s not that great. But if you put it all together, you have the most glorious meal ever. I let it slide this time. Talk about spaghetti made Matthew talk about Nachos. I had to bring us back on track. Finally I showed them our treat. We made shamrock cookies. I took 3 rolled pieces of cookie dough and put them together and we flattened them with the bottom of a glass. They were 3 separate items and then became 1 one purpose. While the cookies were baking I started FHE over and asked the kids the same questions that I started with. I was happy that they were able to answer and they even used different explanations that I did. All in all it was a great lesson.

Temples

The Ides of March

I was on the phone with my sister yesterday and her husband, Farrell, wished me Happy Ides of March. I thought that was pretty awesome since I was thinking about the ides of march as I got ready for church yesterday. So I hope you all had a Happy Ides of March too!

I woke up this morning and immediately knew why I didn't feel good about going on our trip. The insight came in the form of a stomach flu. There is no way I could have driven to St. Louis feeling this way. More than 18 hours later, I'm not really feeling much better. I hope Ken and the kids don't get it.

That being said, day one of our fabulous Spring Break was less than fabulous. We stayed home. I could have taken pictures, but they would have been of all three of us laying around the family room watching movies, Matthew playing a little Xbox, and us folding a couple loads of laundry.

Instead, here are pics worth looking at.

a little change of plans...actually a big change of plans.

It is Spring Break. Since October, maybe even before that, the kids and I have been planning our trip that starts in the morning. First stop, St. Louis. We will be there for 2 days. Next stop, Chicago. I scheduled 1 day there, just to show the kids the Sears Tower, the ball park, and the temple. Last stop, Nauvoo. We'll be there 2 days. then back home, right in time to go to Oklahoma City for our ward temple trip.



Today as I was getting our things packed, I started feeling nervous about the trip. I've gone on roadtrips before with out Ken, so I knew that wasn't the problem. In fact, Ken has NEVER gone with us on a Spring Break. I'd probably be nervous if he decided to come with us.



Anyway, after a few prayers, and a blessing, I couldn't shake my bad feeling that kept getting stronger. We will not be going on our road trip this week. I'm really dissapointed and the kids are sad about it too.



As a side note, this is not the same nervous or other feeling I have when I just decide last minute that I don't want to go somewhere or do something...I have been known to do that also. I tend to over plan, and then when it's time to go, I feel like I've already gone. NOT the case this time.



We've decided that we will take that trip this summer. I've been online looking for things to do closer to home, and when I googled tourist attractions in Kansas, only 14 came up. FOURTEEN...for the whole state. LOL. I've made a short list (a really short list) of things that we could do this week. Since our plans changed, here is our new schedule...tentative.



Each day we will go on a daycation. (word stolen from my Sister's Sister's in Law Blog...did you understand that?) We are going to the Wizard of Oz Museum and we will see Dorothy's House. We will go to Wichita to the zoo. (I said no way to the zoo, but got vetoed.) One day Nicole will go with Ken to work and Matthew and I will go on a daycation together. The next day, he'll go to work with Ken and Nicole and I will go together. At the end of the week, I may drive the kids down to OK City a day early to show them some sites there, before the temple trip, but it's not all written in stone yet.



I'm still disspointed about our awesome trip we've had planned for so long, but I will never regret following the feelings that I've been having all day. As each day progresses, hopefully I'll have some good pics to show you that evening.



Until tomorrow night! CIAO!

Another Happy Birthday, a little late though.

Last Saturday was my friend, Liz's, birthday. She lived in a little duplex so she had he party at my house. It also helped that Ken was out of town and I wanted to have a girl's night anyway.

She decided to have a fondue party. It was a small get together, but it was fun. We are cheese fondue, chocolate fondue, laughed alot and Liz taught us how to peel a tangerine to look like an elephant. Clever girl!

what to name this post...

I don't actually believe in the statement "Better late than never". I'm more of an "I'd rather be 30 minutes early, than 5 minutes late" kind of girl. So I guess being a no-show to my blog each night is not even being a better late than never kind of girl.

But since I haven't been 30 minutes early, or here every night this week, here are a few highlights. AND, I think I figured out my issues with uploading and blogging, that have b een hindering me this week, so I can start updating again.

On Saturday (actually a week ago Saturday) my kids helped me with the typical get the work done day chores.

See this vaccuum? Both of my kids ran into it when they were taking things down the hall to their bedrooms. I didn’t put it in the hall, for the pic, this is where it was. I don’t know if perscriptions need strengthened on the glasses or if they need to wear padded clothing, but both Nicole and Matthew stubbed their toes on it while doing chores. It ended only because I used it, the PUT IT AWAY…a novel concept I know.

Around lunch time Matthew asked me if he could make lunch. I never tell anyone no, if they ask to prepare a meal, so of course I said yes. He decided he was going to cut up some potatoes and fry them as french fries. He didn’t tell me that part. I walked into the kitchen to check on him and this is what I came across.He couldn’t find an extention cord, so he hooked up the fry daddy to a strand of christmas lights and then plugged that into the wall. After I explained to him that we never use an extention cord with the fry daddy, (christmas lights or other…)I showed his the plug in we use.