Alaska

August of 2010 I booked tickets to take the kids to Alaska in summer 2011. We had enough airline miles, I am always missing my family and Greg works all the time, so I decided to go for a whole month. The first few days I was worried that maybe a month was going to be too long. But the kids weren't ready to come home by the end. One of the first nights there, the older boy cousins drew in marker all over the younger boys. I was glad my kids were sleeping in my room because they remained marker free, but it was funny to see. Caleb had a heart check the next morning and the doctor lifted his shirt and he had a large arrow pointing at his belly button with a circle drawn around it. The doctor said, "Did you sleep alright last night?"

The whole family went to Hatcher Pass for 4th of July weekend where my sister's family owns an old gold mine. We stay in the old miner's bunkhouse. There are 19 cousins, my Mom, 5 siblings and spouses (except Greg) and there were a couple adopted family members that stayed with us too. Oh and 7 dogs! We did quite a bit of hiking. The kids got very wet and muddy and enjoyed playing on the zipline and going underground. We also did fireworks 2 nights which is kind of funny in Alaska since it doesn't get dark at night. And we had the usual kids talent show which is always entertaining. Alexis and Paxton showed off their cartwheel skills and Denali walked on her hands.

We took 17 of the 19 grandkids to see Cars 2 in the theater. Denali slept through the entire thing and Paxton was so entertained he barely blinked. We went to cousins soccer and T-ball games and enjoyed sleep-overs every night. We spent a few hours at the lake and the kids enjoyed burying each other in the sand. Aunt Missy let them do messy art projects. Aunt Amber made sure there was dessert every night. We hiked to horseshoe lake where we saw moose and beavers and Denali got to get her picture taken in front of the Denali National Park sign. Paxton was a trooper. It is a 3 mile round trip hike with a significant elevation change and he made it almost the entire way. That doesn't include the hour spent running around down by the lake. The kids also enjoyed playing lots of board games with each other.

One of the highlights was we threw a surprise party for my sister's 40th birthday. We invited a bunch of friends and family, gave it a MASH theme and made a awesome slideshow of pictures and videos for her. And of course there was yummy food. She really was surprised even though children kept slipping little comments in around her.

My sister did a camp for kids called "Incredible Edibles" and we were able to participate in that. The girls LOVED it! We roasted many marshmallows and hot dogs over backyard fires, went to the playground frequently and had a super fun cousins scavenger hunt. Uncle Billy took us fishing at the hanger pit and all 3 kids were able to catch at least one fish. We played in a kids miniature golf tournament where Denali won a prize for wearing a Curious George costume. We visited Grandpa Rick at the cemetery. There were a mom and baby moose in my sisters yard as we were leaving Healy.

My mom and brother took some of the younger kids to Happy Hoppers while Missy and I took some of the boys to see Harry Potter. Loved it! I got to visit my friend Ashley and let our kids play. My moms apartment has a most amazing view and the kids loved staying at her house. My brother works for Delta during the summer and he was able to come see us off when we flew out.

I was surprised how well everyone got a long, not too much fighting except my girls fighting with each other as usual. The tooth fairy visited 3 times, only one of those teeth was knocked out, the others came out on their own. One 5 year old got a broken arm. At least half of the family ended up with strep throat. Only Alexis in our family got it, but she was pretty miserable for a couple days. Mostly I enjoyed just hanging out with my family, visiting with my sisters, having help with the kids. Every meal was an assembly line and bath duty was rotated among the sisters. It was so great! And although I missed my husband and my bed, I wasn't really ready to come home either. 3,000 miles is just too far away.

June 2011

June was a little tough for me. May had been pretty stressful and early pregnancy brought on its regular sickness and extreme exhaustion. I don't do well being pregnant. Alexis was amazing helping me out and even made sandwiches for lunch one day. It still was pretty busy too, so we pushed through.
We celebrated Greg's birthday with a heart cake, because that is what Alexis wanted to make. We went bowling and had dinner there and it was a fun little family party.
I watch a little girl, Kenzee, part time. The kids really enjoy playing with her and she is always telling me she loves me. Alexis took this picture of her playing with Denali and Paxton.

Greg's Mom got Paxton and Greg matching ties for his birthday. So they wore matching ties on Father's Day. And Paxton was being silly.

The girls decided they wanted their picture taken on Father's Day too in their dresses.


We got a really good deal on passes for Seven Peaks and other places. So we spent 3 days staying in Orem with Greg's Mom so that we could go to the waterpark every day. Pass holders get in early too, so we were able to get some good playing time before it got too crowded and hot. We would stay until lunch time and then eat lunch and nap in the afternoon. It was really perfect. It also was the Mormon Miracle Pageant. We were selling our temple pictures at the craft fair again this year and I worked a few shifts to help out with that. At the end of the month, I took the kids to visit my family in Alaska.

Crazy, Crazy May 2011

We spent a quiet Mother's Day at home which was so nice. The kids made these videos for mine and Greg's moms:

The kids decorated these bags for me and filled them with treats and Greg bought me flowers.
The kids also drew a bunch of pictures and wrote notes and hung them in a collage on the wall. I have super sweet kids and am lucky to be their Mom!




So this is kind of a strange picture, but I'm weird like that. This is a year supply of toilet paper for my family of 5 and I thought it interesting to see that it doesn't actually take up that much space. I also have super convenient storage space in our bathroom:)
We sent the kids on a treasure hunt. Some were more excited about the prize than others:)

Denali finished her first year of preschool with Mrs. Heidi, our neighbor. She LOVED preschool and they ended the year with a fun program.
Denali wants to be a Mom and a Pizza Maker when she grows up:)

Both girls were in tumbling this year and they had a recital at the end of the year. They both really enjoyed it and Denali wants to keep doing it.


We attended the Elementary School's annual May Day program. Each class performs a musical number and/or dance.
May also took Greg to Denver for work and to Mesquite to photograph a wedding. We dog sat Sunshine for a few days. We had a successful yard sale. I enjoyed a girls day out shopping and out to eat at Olive Garden with Shanae and Julie. It was so fun and so needed at the time! My sweet friend Amberly lost her battle with cancer which I previously posted about. We attended the Elementary School's annual May Day program. Each class performs a musical number and/or dance. Greg and I were both on the committee for Scandinavian Heritage Festival. It is always the last weekend in May and I was in charge of the food and craft booths. We had about 70 vendors total and pulling that together and getting it to run smoothly was completely exhausting. But it was a really great festival and we had minimal mishaps. We ended May with the annual Dart family Memorial Day get together where we ate amazing food and decorated the family graves (in the pouring rain!)

April 2011 Highlights

In April, the kids and I got to tag along with Greg to a conference in St. George. He was in conference all day and the kids and I went shopping and swimming at the hotel. It is a great mini-vacation for us.

Most of April was spent doing yard work and preparing for the busy month of May.
We spent Easter at Karen's house in Orem. We enjoyed the annual Easter party at Grandma Darts house and the Easter Bunny found us even though we were out of town:)
Alexis left the cutest note for the Easter Bunny the night before. It said, "Dear E. Bunny- If there is not enough room in our baskets, you can take the grass out." So cute!

March 2011 Highlights

March was a busy and exciting month. The entire First Grade did a patriotic program which I have a video clip below:

You will notice Alexis has pretty good rhythm:)
Alexis was supposed to wear read and blue. So Denali decided to wear a blue dress, black shoes with no tights and a red hat. She definitely has her own sense of style! Also, in Ms. Whitney's class, the kids took turns bringing home Mouse and you wrote in a journal of the activities you did with mouse. We took mouse to the 1st Grade program.
Paxton turned 2! We had a Toy Story family party at home.

This is Paxton eating a cupcake before I could even get them frosted:

Denali is holding the little Buzz and Woody that Grandma Bev sent.
I always make cupcakes for birthdays. So easy and still fun.


Paxton got big boy underwear, a package of Cars, Thomas and Buzz to be exact. For 3 days he wore a pair from each package, so three pairs of underwear over his diaper.
We made homemade ice cream sandwiches one night just for fun. They were really yummy and I took a picture.

And last but not least, Greg and I went on a one week cruise to Mexico with no kids. We have always wanted to go on a cruise for our 10th anniversary. Looking ahead to that, we knew we wanted another baby and you cannot cruise over 6 months pregnant nor with a baby less than 6 months old. So we started looking at cruises and booked three weeks before and just went! It happened to be Alexis' spring break, Greg was able to take off work and his parents were able to take all 3 kids. It was sooooo great! We came back planning our next one, but the next one will be with the kids.

We drove to Long Beach and had one night in a hotel before we boarded the ship the next morning. We were supposed to port at Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta. However, recent acts of violence in Mazatlan has for now canceled all ports into it. So we were going to have two days in Cabo instead. However, the first night a young guest had a medical emergency and we had to turn around to Long Beach for him to debark. I feel so bad for his family and hope everything turned out to be o.k. So we had only 2 port days, but I didn't care. I would do one of the cruises to nowhere because I just love the food, hospitality and entertainment the ship provides itself.

In Cabo, we took a small boat to an area great for snorkeling. Greg loves to snorkel and I had never done it before. I am glad that I did it, but not sure that I will again. I get claustrophobic easily and I had a hard time regulating my breathing through the snorkel. Also, looking down and seeing that I was extremely close to all of this wild sea life felt a little creepy instead of majestic. Greg had a great time and I enjoyed the experience.

In Puerto Vallarta, we had scheduled a zipline excursion from a company online. The online service had the incorrect pick-up time and so we missed our bus, had to take another cab and for a moment I had wished that we had just stuck with booking an excursion through Carnival. Turns out being late for our tour gave us our own personal excursion. And it was amazing! We drove through an interesting part of town and way up into the rainforest. All of the ziplines stretch back and forth over a river bed, it was gorgeous. The guides were super funny and made the entire trip fun. And when we got to the bottom, they had donkeys waiting to take us back up the mountain so we didn't have to hike. My donkey was so funny too. He considered it a race and no matter what I did, he kept inching forward before it was time to leave and even passed other donkeys on the way up. I might add that the trail was extremely narrow and a little steep, so my ambitious donkey made me super nervous.

Best things about the ship: For dinner every night you are scheduled for the same time and same dining room and you sit at the same table and have the same servers. (Unless you pay to eat at the even more fancy dining room or don't want to sit down and be served. There are other options.) The service is amazing and the staff often performed some sort of entertainment. We were put at a table with Rick and Meghan who also had 3 children (and one on the way) and were celebrating their 10th anniversary. They were a joy to get to know and we loved having dinner with them every night. It was funny too, because on this ginormous ship, we always ended up running into them. The best highlight of dinner for me was the dessert. They have this chocolate melting cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it was too die for. I had it every single night and every single night it was just as delicious. We played miniature golf, enjoying soaking in the sun and hot tub. Took several naps. Really enjoyed the comedy entertainers and the Las Vegas style shows. Although we missed our kids like CRAZY, for one whole week they weren't driving me CRAZY:) One bummer about the trip is I got a bad cold the last couple days. By the time we got back home it was so bad that I didn't really get off of the couch for 3 days. Ugh. But we had a really wonderful time! We took lots of pictures so I put them into a slideshow.

February 2011 Highlights

My mom finished her mission in Salt Lake and stayed with us for a couple weeks before heading back to Alaska. Greg and I took advantage of her being here and went to St. George for 2 nights to celebrate our 9th Anniversary. We soaked in the hot tub and did some shopping and just enjoyed the quiet company of each other. It was wonderful!

The other exciting thing that happened in February is Greg bought me a new vacuum. It is a Shark bagless vacuum. It only cost $75 and it works a thousand times better than my old one that I had been using for 9 years. I vacuumed every day for a couple weeks because I was shocked at how much dirt it would pull out of the carpet. I was so amazed I took a picture:
I tried a new recipe and made these heart treats for Valentine's Day:
They were yummy, but I don't know what I did with the recipe!

Alexis' friend Damien was playing one day and Denali took this picture of them. Damien moved this summer and Alexis is going to miss walking home with him from school.
And that pretty much sums up February!

January Highlights

Alexis turned 7 and she had a "Baking" themed birthday party. Everyone decorated their own cupcakes and made a chef's hat. We got her a keyboard which she is so excited to learn how to play. It has a lot of songs that it plays and the kids are always dancing to it.

She is so grown up!

I am in an organization group with 3 other women. We take turns going to each other's homes and working on a project. Well I got super ambitious and decided to paint my cabinets. Huge project that 7 months later I still am not quite finished and still feel overwhelmed by. I am going to put knobs on. Here are pics:

Before

After
I have since distressed them some by sanding the edges and as I said, I need to add the knobs.

Christmas 2010

I have been putting off my catching up on blogging because I was waiting to find more Christmas pictures. They are on some random folder on the external hard drive. I can't write what is currently going on when I feel like I need to catch up, so here we go. Paxton loves cars and lined all of them up on Christmas morning. We spent Christmas Eve at Greg's parents house and Christmas evening was spent at the waterpark hotel in Salt Lake. The last two years we have spent two nights at this hotel for Christmas. The kids love it. We go to temple square, we swim, we play with our Christmas toys and just enjoy some family time. This other picture is us in the hotel room. My mom was able to spend a few days with us over Christmas because she was still on her mission at temple square.

On December 29, my good friend and business partner, Lisa, was found unconscious in her driveway. I had been to her house just minutes before, but actually didn't find out about it until the next morning. Her heart wasn't beating correctly which was making it difficult for blood and oxygen to get to her brain. Long story short, the doctors told her that she had a 1% chance of survival. If she did survive, she would likely have short term memory problems which she did experience for a couple of weeks. By God's grace she is living a fully normal life. I am grateful for her friendship and grateful for the knowledge of eternal families and for modern medicine.

Also over the break I cleaned up my office, painted my desk and painted and installed shelves over the desk. So much nicer!


We had made a family goal to pay off our 2nd mortgage loan in 2010. We went to the bank on December 30 to make our last payment and Alexis screamed "We're Debt Free!" What a great feeling! We had this list posted on our fridge and would fill it in throughout the year. I posted a little more about this HERE.


I don't remember what we did for New Year's so it must not have been too exciting:)

Because I Knew You, I Have Been Changed For Good

This is the Rhodes family. Amberly is one of the first people I met when I moved to Ephraim. We met at the library story hour and we were both pregnant. Her twin boys were in our preschool co-op when Alexis and them were 4 and they are also all in the same first grade class. Amberly and I were in the same Bonko group and card making group. Greg took this picture of her family shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer close to 2 years ago. Amberly fought long and hard and was relieved of her pain when she passed away yesterday. I am grateful that she is at peace, but my heart is breaking for her family. She leaves behind 4 boys ranging from 4 to 8. I was only 9 when my dad passed away. One of the hardest things for me is that I can't picture his face in my mind. The only image I have of him are from pictures and Amberly's boys likely won't remember first hand just how amazing their momma was. She was so beautiful, with the most amazing smile. She was very smart, a great artist, extremely organized, genuine, kind, etc. But one of the things I admired most about Amberly was her unwavering faith. I imagine the rejoicing going on in Heaven is quite triumphant with her arrival. Her husband Jason is one of the kindest people I've ever known also. I have never once seen him without this giant smile on his face, even today when he was watching his boys participate in the schools May Day program.

Greg's Aunt Claudia died 2 1/2 years ago also of cancer. The song, "For Good," from the musical Wicked, was a song that brought me comfort at her passing. "Because I Knew You, I Have Been Changed For Good." My life will be forever blessed because of Amberly and her sweet family being a part of it.

Good Deal on Wipes

Ok, so I know that I am a nerd when it comes to saving money and probably talk about it too much. But I wanted to share how I save money on necessities like diapers and wipes. I buy most of them on Amazon, because they are the same price or often less than I can buy them at Costco and they are shipped to my door usually for FREE. In fact, I have never paid for shipping diapers or wipes from Amazon. Here is how you can save too:

* Create an Amazon Mom account which will save you 30% off items in their baby store and give you Free 2-Day shipping.
* Find Pampers Soft Care Scented Wipes, 720 Count and choose the Subscribe & Save option. On the right hand side bar you can add them to your cart for $18.49 or Subscribe for $12.94. Subscribing will mean that they will send you this item as frequently as you request, like once a month or every six months. But you can cancel this subscription at any time. I cancel as soon as I receive my order. This alone is a better price than Kirkland wipes last time I checked. Also, just like any store they have sales and discounts so watch prices and buy them at their lowest. For wipes I shoot for less than .02 per wipe and less than .16 per diaper.
* And lastly I used gift cards that I earn using Swagbucks. Set up a Swagbuck account and use it when you search the internet you will earn Swagbucks. You also can earn them by taking the Daily Poll, viewing the NOSO (No Obligation Special Offers - at least I think that is what it stands for), and by watching videos. You can trade in your Swagbucks for a lot of different products, but I always choose the $5 Amazon gift card. I can earn 2 about every 6 weeks with very little effort. I have the videos running and muted while I am checking my email, in fact they are going right now. I use the gift cards to order diapers and wipes as needed!

We Paid Off $23,000 of Debt in 12 Months!

There are thousands of books, magazine articles, and blog posts about how to manage your finances. Many of them differ on advice they give, but all of them agree on one thing: you have to spend less than you make. I wanted to share some of the things that we have done to cut our expenses, leading us to be able to pay off $23,000 in debt in 12 months.

1. Malachi 3:10 - "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Following the example set by our parents, we have always given 10% of our gross income (about 12% net) to our church. Although the monthly tithe amount could have significantly increased our monthly debt snowball payments, the interest returned by God from following his counsel is, well . . . priceless. Not only were our needs taken care of, but our spiritual, emotional and financial health was improved as He poured his blessings upon us. My testimony of the principal of paying tithing grew as I came to the understanding of how human I am and that He truly is the Almighty God. We don’t own anything. Our children, our home, our clothing and most prized possessions are all a loan offered to us so that we might have joy on this earth. Once I gave up the feeling of ownership of my stuff and my things, my desire to own more stuff decreased. His promise to give us more than we have room to receive was understood and my desire to give more increased. All that we can take with us from this life is the knowledge that we’ve gained and the relationships that we’ve made. Truly understanding and following this counsel has brought us much peace and happiness and was the most important stepping stone to getting out of debt.

2. Our second budget category is Home. This includes our Mortgage, Homeowners Insurance, Property Taxes and Home Improvement. I include furniture, appliances, repairs, yard maintenance etc. Even down to the small things like a picture hanging kit into our Home Improvement category.

a. One of the first things we did was shop around for insurance. By doing so, we went from paying $500 per year to paying $350 per year and we have the exact same coverage. We didn’t higher our deductible, we simply found a company with a better rate. We recently read too that if you haven’t shopped for insurance in the last 6 months, than it has been too long. It takes quite a bit of time, so I wouldn’t recommend doing it that often, but it has been 2 years now for us, so we might shop rates soon.

b. Another lesson we learned the hard way is to pay attention to your Escrow account through your mortgage company. Our mortgage company wasn’t taking any amount out for property taxes, even though it was itemized out in our closing documents. It was a simple mistake made by someone processing paperwork, but at the end of the year we were basically sent a bill for $1500 due to a delinquency in our escrow account. Paying attention to your escrow account and understanding what it means can ensure you won’t have a balance at the end of the year and also you aren’t paying in too much.

c. I designate $60 every month for the Home Improvement category. Some months we spend more, some months we spend less. On months we don’t spend $60, we put the leftover into savings for the months that we spend more. When our water heater needed replaced unexpectedly, we didn’t have enough in our Home Improvement budget to cover it, so we borrowed from our Emergency Fund. But for the most part everything gets covered with the extra $60.

d. The biggest impact in this budget category was refinancing our mortgage. We had started the refinance process in November 2009 when rates had started dropping and were low enough to make it worth the time. We had one hang up in closing our refinance which turned out to be a blessing. Some of you will know what mortgage insurance is and some of you might not. If you own less than 20% of the appraised value of your home (or your total mortgage is more than 80% of the value) you pay mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance is a policy that protects the loan company if we get behind on payments. I am spelling it out like this because we owned a home in Alaska and mortgage insurance was part of our payments and so was escrow and I had no idea what they were. I just paid them, because it was part of the payments, but now I understand them. Anyway, during the refinance process, we were approved for the loan, our house appraised for $20,000 more than it had when we bought it 1.5 years before (which was a huge shock and we couldn’t actually sell it for the appraisal price, but it is great news from the loan perspective), but the mortgage insurance company denied us. Their reason for denial was that some of the comp’s used in our appraisal (other home sales that were compared to our home to come up with the home value) were more than a 7 mile radius from our home. This is very common in the rural area that we live, but this certain company didn’t want to approve us because of that. To make an even longer story shorter, we ended up refinancing to two loans. The first loan is our main mortgage and was for 80% of our homes new appraised value and the second mortgage was with the local credit union and was for the amount over the 80%. Because we now had a new appraised value, that automatically changed the percentage of how much of our home we owned. So instead of paying mortgage insurance, we were making 2 loan payments to two different banks. We had to pay closing costs with both banks, but it saved us the $135 per month for mortgage insurance. And here is where it got really exciting for us, we refinanced to a 15 year mortgage, cutting 13.5 years off our mortgage and we lowered our interest rate by 2%. Our monthly payment was only $200 more per month and from the very first payment, almost $500 more per month was going towards principal. Without making any additional principal payments over the life of the loan, we will have saved over $128,000 in interest.

Update: All $23,000 of debt we paid off was mortgage debt (not including interest). This does not include our regular first mortgage payment which we paid about $6,600 in principal in 2010. We borrowed money from my mom for a down payment when we purchased our home. We paid her back and we paid off our 2nd mortgage loan that was created when we refinanced. We made our last payment on December 30, 2010 and our kids screamed "We're Debt Free!" inside the credit union. This made us debt free other than our 1st mortgage which we currently have just under 14 years left on our loan. We don't carry credit card debt, our van was paid off and we paid cash for a car for Greg in June 2010.

Decorating Cookies

I love to bake and always make lots of goodies at Christmas time. We especially always have to make sugar cookies. This was Paxton's first year of really getting to help and as you can see, not much frosting ended up on his cookie.

Snow Storm

We had a pretty warm fall and not a lot of snow, until early December sometime. I don't know the date for sure, but we went to bed with grass showing and woke up to all of this snow:


We ended up getting 18 inches in a 24 hour period and they canceled school. Our school hadn't had a snow day in 20+ years.