New Cousin

The girls were thrilled to learn this morning that their newest baby cousin was born last night at 10:56pm. A baby boy, no name yet, who was 7lbs. 11ozs. Laura's water broke at 8pm on Saturday night and she had the baby Monday at 10:56pm. Fifty-two hours of labor! Yikes! Stephanie (Kevin's sister) and I added it up and between our combined eight kids, we were only in labor a total of fifty-one hours.

The important thing is the baby is here and both mom and baby are doing fine.

See a few more pics HERE.

Yosemite

Today we took a trip up to Yosemite. It was me, the girls, our friend Cory Molloy, and the Sister missionaries, Sister Clegg and Sister Cooly. Sister Clegg goes home soon and hadn't been to Yosemite yet, so we wanted to make sure she got a chance to see it before she went home.

It was a gorgeous, albeit chilly, day as we started out from Kerman. We drove through Coarsegold and Oakhurst and then as we got closer to the gate, we were stopped, along with many other cars, by a CHP officer who was enforcing the "Chains Required" rule. Cory was driving and they had just bought an SUV and had not put chains on it yet. We pulled out the chains and attempted to put them on the front tires of the car. These were not the thin cable-type chains, these were the big 1" link chains. We could get one side of the tire attached, but the second side was less than an inch from connecting, and it was not going to budge! We found some large elastic bands with hooks on them and jimmy-rigged the last bit together, on both sides. It was very cold and it was very dirty in the wheel well.

After we got past the CHP officer, we started slowly down the road. We got a little ways and one of the chains started to come off, so we had to stop the car and realign the chain and reattach it. In the meantime, the CHP officer drove by us. After we got back on the road we came up behind him and he came back to talk to us. He asked if we were okay and when we told him we were just fixing up the chains, he asked us if we had the chains on the right tires. The SUV was not 4-wheel drive and was an automatic. We had not been able to find any information about which wheels were the drive wheels in the owners manual, so we just weren't sure. We drove on to the gate and stopped and scoured the owner's manual again. I wasn't able to find anything that said which wheels were the drive wheels, but I did finally find something that said that chains should go on the back tires only. By now we were pros and we got them switched within a few minutes!

We got into the park and started driving down the snow-free roads, and by the time we reached Wawona, Cory had had it and we took the chains off the truck. We were driving so slow we were never going to make it anywhere before we had to turn around to take the Sisters back home.

Glacier Point, where we really wanted to go, was closed, so we went down to the valley floor. The fog and clouds were obscuring most of the scenery, especially Half Dome, but there was one point where we were able to get a quick picture of it with nothing obscuring it.

We saw a coyote, but that was it. I was disappointed, as I like going to Yosemite in the winter because with less tourists, there is usually more wildlife roaming around, and this time we only saw a coyote. He was a good looking coyote though.

We went to the gift shop and then we hightailed it home to get the Sisters back in time. The day did not go as planned, but we had fun. We saw some beautiful country, saw some snow and did a lot of talking and laughing. It was a good day.

See all the day's pics HERE.

Go Katie! Go!

I spent the afternoon marveling at how fast my little baby is growing up. Katrina wanted to follow after her bigger sisters today. She had us put her helmet on and she was off on the scooter. She did so amazingly well and she was so amazingly cute doing it! She scooted all up and down the sidewalk in front of our house, the neighbors houses and one time all the way around the bulb of the cul de sac. Go Katie! Go!

Rebecca's Safety Tips

Rebecca made a book today that I thought was great! It is a book of safety tips, complete with pictures.

Safety tip #1 - Never tighten belts around your neck. (never tighten belts around you'r neek)

Safety tip #2 - Never go swimming during electrical storms. (never go swiming dring alechacle storms)

Safety tip #3 - Never play loud music in headphones. (never play loud mousik in hed fans)

Safety tip #4 - Never give information over the phone to strangers. (never give inframashan over the fan to strangers)

Safety tip #5 - Never leave a thumb tack where you might sit on it. (never leve a tham tap war you mite sit on it)

Safety tip #6 - Never run from policemen who have a K-9. (never run from plecmen how have a K-9)

Safety tip #7 - Never touch hot stoves (never tach hot staves)

Safety tip #8 - Never go up in space without your oxygen tank. (never go up in spas without you'r asagin tanke)

Safety tip #9 - Never look at the sun too long. (never looke at the sun to lang)

Safety tip #10 - Always wear a helmet while riding a bike. (allways war a hellmit will riding a bick)

Safety tip #11 - Don't watch too much TV. (spelled perfectly!)

Safety tip #12 - Never stand on a swivel chair. (never stand on a swivl chare)

Safety tip #13 - Never tell lies to police officers. (never tell lyis to polec oficers)

Safety tip #14 - Never run with candy in your mouth. (spelled perfectly!)

Safety tip #15 - Never poke anything sharp through your skin. (never poke eneting sharp throu your sckin)

Safety tip #16 - Never play with a match. (never play with a mach)

Safety tip #17 - Never play with guns. (spelled perfectly!)

I am sure there will be more, but for now, those are Rebecca's safety tips. I think we will all be a lot safer if we adhere to them!

Good News All Around!

The good news, from our vantage point here in Kerman, is that the "Monster" storm that swept through the west this week did not do any damage to our area. With all the warnings and weather reports we had gone down to Public Works and picked up some sandbags just in case. We put a few on the side garage door, but we had no real problems. We got a little bit of heavy rain off and on, but not nearly the three inches of rain that was in the possible forecast. We really hope that the 5-12' of snow that fell in the mountains will help with the water shortage we are experienceing in the valley.

More good news in that Lora's youngest sister, Candace, received her mission call today. She is called to the Nevada West Las Vegas Mission. She enters the MTC on 5 March 2008!

Then we got really good news that our friends, the Foxes, had their baby today at 12:02pm! They had a beautiful little baby girl! They have not decided on a name yet, but she was 8lbs. 9ozs., 20" long and has strawberry blonde hair. She is very sweet and adorable. We took the older Fox children over to the hospital earlier this evening and they were all enthralled. Well, Sadie was enthralled! Lauren was giggly! Moses was more interested in climbing under the hospital bed and sliding across the floor on his stomach.

We love Good News days like today!