Miracle's really do happen!

On Memorial day my parents were in a terrible accident. They were driving on Highway 89 on their way home from my grandma's grave site. As they were passing the cherry hill intersection a car coming from the opposite direction turned and came right at my parents. It would have been a head on collision if not for my dad's quick thinking. He tried his best to get out of the guys way. He hit my parents car on the side and hit the back wheel so hard that he tore the axle off. This cause my parents car to roll three times and skid 20 feet into a bank of trees. The car landed upside down with everyone in it. The glass had shattered so all the kids were really torn up. They couldn't get the doors opened. My dad climbed through the car trying to see if everyone was alright. Ellie was holding her neck yelling that she couldn't move it.My dad said that all the kids were hanging upside down with blood pouring down their faces. As soon as my dad checked to see if everyone was alright he started handing kids out through the back window to people who had come to help. He had eights kids out the back window all eight and younger.The people were so kind and caring. They pulled blankets and sleeping bags out of their cars and wrapped the kids up in them. It took five ambulances to get my family to the hospital. Gracie went missing for a little while at the hospital. No nurses or doctors remembered her coming in. They searched for her for a while and found her in a little room off the emergency room.

One of the doctors told my family that he had driven by the accident right after it happened on his way to start his shift at the hospital. He was going to stop and help but decided he better head to the hospital and get everyone ready because he was sure there were trauma patients and causalities.

It was a miracle everyone survived and was not severely injured. My cousin went into shock, another hurt his neck really bad. My dad hurt is neck and back, my mom was bruised and cut along with Gracie and John. Ellie had terrible seat belt welts and burns from the roll. Each time the car rolled the seat belt tightened so she had three burns from it. Micheal received a bad bump on his elbow.
Natalie was a brave little girl. The doctors did some x-rays on her and stated she had no broken bones. After three days of saying her arm hurt my mom told her in and they found out that Natalie had broken her clavicle. It had overlapped severely and they had to put on a back brace and a sling.

The junk yard man stated he had only seen one accident as bad as ours without casualties. It was a group of girls and they were in really bad condition from the accident.

I know it was a miracle my family survived. It was a blessing from God that they all lived and came away from that bad of an accident with only cuts, bumps and bruises besides Natalie. I am grateful for my family and very grateful to Heavenly Father for their safety.

NCAA Tourment!

   Micheal and I got to go watch the NCAA tournament in Colorado this year. BYU had made it and we were excited to see Jimmer play. On our way over we got stuck in a terrible blizzard. There were trucks off the side of the road and you could only see three feet in front of you. It was a really long, scary drive.
   While we were in Colorado we went and saw my childhood home. It was fun reminiscing with Micheal. We walked around my old neighborhood and stop by to visit a good friend of the family.
    We had a lot of fun yelling and cheering for BYU. It was an intense weekend.BYU beat their first team and were going to play a day later.  We stayed to watch the game after BYU with Gonzaga and another team. The Gonzaga team was huge and really good. Gonzaga won and were all over the newspapers. Almost everyone said they would beat BYU. Micheal and his brother's agreed that BYU didn't have much of a chance.I told them BYU would win no sweat! They still did not have faith.
BYU ended up playing a great game and beat Gonzaga like I knew they would.

   We had a great time together and were grateful we were able to go!

Black Swan!

During the winter I had to give Lulu, our big black lab, baths in our bathtub. It was way too cold to wash her outside and she would stink if I didn't wash her so it was my only option. To our dismay her lovely, thick black hair slowly clogged up our tub. We had water about an inch high growing old in our bathtub. Then Micheal came up with a brilliant idea. He asked his friend Tyler for a highly potent, dangerous substance called "black swan" to clean out the bathtub. He geared up for his dangerous mission and proceeded to dump it down our drain. It was fun watching Micheal prepare for battle. He is a great husband for taking care of our dog problem!

Disneyland!

In April Michael and I were able to go to CA with my family. I was really excited to go with them since I had not seen them as much since I got married. They are all growing up so fast! John is graduating next week and he will go on a mission in a year! Davis just got his name put up in the hall of fame at Layton high school. No freshman has ever had his name put in the hall of fame. Davis is going to be amazing in the next few years at sports. He is planning on playing varsity next fall as a sophomore and I think he will go to state and have a chance at the state title in wrestling next year. He can bench press 235 pounds!! Dylan is 12. He just got the priesthood and is now in young Men's. That's seems so weird to me since I was in young women's only two years ago! Jake is a good young man who is so kind and helpful. Ellie is turning out to be a beautiful girl. She will have all the boys chasing after her. Natalie is so pretty as well. She is full of energy and always getting in to trouble with her little posse Michael and Gracie. Micheal has become a tease! The girls are always screaming because of something he did. He is really fun to hang out with. Gracie is just cute! Not long ago she got in between a dog and a cat and her faced was all torn up. They were afraid she was going to have to get plastic surgery because the scaring may have been really bad. Luckily she is fine and is healing well.

Anyway, we went to Disneyland with everyone but John. John had a class at school he could not miss if he wanted to graduated so he was not able to go. He did come with us to St. George though. We stopped there to have a short break from the driving. We went biking, played basketball and games. It was really fun. After church on Sunday we drove on to CA. We got to the hotel really late that night. Micheal, my dad and I went into the hotel to check in and found out somehow we had schedule the hotel for 2012 not 2011. We had to hurry and try to find a hotel to stay in that night since the hotel would not help us out. We found a nice Marriott down the street that was a suite so we could all stay together. Michael and I slept up in the loft. It had no walls on one side or a door so the whole time we stay there we could hear the kids whispering and playing below us. In the morning the kids would try to crawl up to the top of the stairs and peak their heads around the corner and throw things at us without getting caught. Since we had no door we could not  stop them. :)

We had a lot of fun at Disneyland. I found a really good deal on tickets from a guy on ebay. We picked up the tickets in some back alley. My dad and Michael were pretending the cops were after us and were running around the parking lot back to the car.

Every time my family goes to Disneyland we bring a cooler full of food since a hot dog is eight bucks in the park. This year my dad had a huge cooler, 15 water bottles, and two bags full of food. Michael was carrying two of the big bags. He was really worried he was going to get into trouble so he made my dad carry it through the security line. My dad got stopped. They had three people telling him he could not bring all the stuff in. We had to bring it in my dad told the people because "I have 11 mouths to feed". They said no. My dad asked for my jacket and told us to go through and he would meet us. About 10 minutes later my dad came through the security line with a wheelchair, the food hidden underneath.

Disneyland was really fun but very crowded. After a long tiresome but fun day we headed back to the hotel. The next morning my dad and Micheal went to work in L.A. and my mom and I took the kids to the beach. The water was really cold but after being in it for 10 minutes you didn't notice the cold. Davis, Dylan, Jake and I had fun dodging the waves together and body boarding. After the beach we went back to the hotel; and swam for a few hours. We had a really fun time together.

The next day we drove back to St. George and stayed there for 3 days. While we were there Jake found a turtle. All the kids thought it was really cool and kept asking if there could keep it. For those who don't know my parents have a cat, rabbit, dog and some horses. Jake told me mom said he could keep it if it stayed on the back porch and didn't go away. The turtle would slowly make his way off the porch and into the grass and then Jake would secretly bring it back to the door. The poor turtle would take about two hours to make it off the porch and then Jake would bring it back.

We also went to Snow canyon and played on the "pancake rocks" as Natalie calls them. It was fun but a little scary climbing on the high rocks with all those kids.

We had a great time together and made it back home safe/

Florida

In January Michael and I were able to go to Florida with Michael s family. We had a blast! I love his family. They are so kind and funny. I am very grateful for them. I really believe that God has a plan for all of us. We are never alone. At times we may feel alone but we must remember that there is always someone watching and protecting us. I know God watched out for me. The Lord helped me find my amazing husband and family. I know without his guidance I would not have had the wonderful opportunity to be a part of this kind, spiritual loving family. This trip helped me realize how blessed I am.

This trip was full of adventures and danger! Ranging from missing co-pilots to hunting for alligators with Michael. When we arrived at the airport to leave for what we hoped was beautiful warm Florida we didn't know that are plane had been delayed an hour and a half. We ran through security worried that we may be late, dashed down hallways and into the terminal. While huffing and puffing we realized that we would not be taking off any time soon. After warning the rest of our group we headed for a small sitting area. There we all talked and enjoyed each others company. An hour and a half later we boarded the plane. We had been sitting in our sits for 15 minutes when the pilot announced that his co-poi lot was missing! There was a search in progress and it may take a little while to find him. We waited for maybe another 20 minutes for the copilot to be found. He boarded the plane and we were off!

We arrived in Florida around 9:30 that night. We retrieved are luggage and made our way out to the hotels car that was waiting for us. Did I say car? I meant to say fully decked out awesome limo! Complete with a T.V, lights and drinks! We eagerly got in to explore. There were colorful lights flashing and music pounding. I had never been in a limo before. I was not disappointed. On the way to our hotel we watch Earth's Oceans and told stories of our younger days. I learned a lot about Michael that night that I had not known before. :)

The hotel was really nice. Located on a beautiful river. We had begun to check in when one lady announced that we would need to wear these paper bracelets to let the bar tenders know if we were over 21 or not . She asked everyone 21 and older to move to one side and those younger to the other. How embarrassing! I was the only one on the younger side. I got to wear a bright orange bracelet.

The hotel was called club med. Club med is basically a sports lovers paradise. Every day you were able to participate in a variety of sports. Tennis, basketball, soccer, golf, swimming etc.. We were always able to eat whatever we wanted whenever we wanted and how much we wanted. It was awesome. I don't think I have ever eaten as much as I did there.

Michael and I had a great time taking golf lessons together. Every morning we would rush to eat so we could make it to the lessons. After the lessons we would go golf. It was a lot of fun. Michael is really good. For every one of his hits I would need 10.I felt bad because sometimes I would look back and there would be a line of golfers waiting for us to move onto the next hole.Oh well! It was my first time ever golfing and I had a blast.

On the golf course there were big ponds. Michael told me that the last time he came there were alligators in the ponds. Michael and I would drive our golf cart really close to the pond and glaze into the water in hopes of seeing a big gator. We never did.

We also got to play basketball and soccer with his siblings. It was really fun. I had to guard my sister in law Wendy a lot. It was really hard. She would always run all over the place. I do not think she ever just stood in one spot. I could hardly keep up with her. I also got to guard my father in law. He kept trying to trick me so I would not guard him. One time he got the ball and told me to wait a minute. When I stopped guarding him to give him a second he shot the basketball and made a goal!! It was really unfair! :)

There was a trapeze there as well. You would have to climb up a big latter without a rope to get to the spot were we would grab onto the swing. It was scary but lots of fun. You would have to do a flip in the air off the trapeze. After that we were supposed to do the flip thing and try to grab on one of  the guys  who was swing on the trapeze next to us.

 
It was really cold there. It was windy almost every day.

On our way home our flight was canceled and we got to stay an extra day in Florida. We stayed in a hotel and played games, went out to eat and some of us went swimming.

This trip was a lot of fun and I am glad I got to go on it with my family.