Big Changes

1. Back to School
So I decided to go back to school. This time I'm going for an MA in Psychology. It sounds the most interesting to me and the most beneficial/useful for right now, when I am not planning to be employed for the next few years or so.

I initially thought of UOP, my Alumn, since I am already familiar with their online system. I applied online and got started. But then I figured, it wouldn't hurt if I researched some other universities. So I found out Grand Canyon University was less expensive! Since I've already got a boatload of Student Loans, the less I need to take out for this round-the better. At GCU, the grand total of tuition costs, is what one yr of the program at UOP would cost!!! So I opted for that one. So I applied online for their Psych program. Then a friend let me know about another Univ, American Public Univ. I'd never heard of it before, but I looked into it. Found out that their whole tuition cost the same as one yr at CGU!!! AND that it was less than half what it would cost at UOP!!!! Wowza! So in the end I applied to three Universities!!! LOL! Oh well.

The only thing about APU, is in order to enroll into the MA in Psych, I have to have an UG degree in Psych. If you don't then you need to take 3 pre-req courses to continue into the MA in Psych program. This means, I need to take these courses. Even then, all three of these (9 credits total) courses will cost the same as 1 (3 credit) course at UOP!!

Wow! I would only take courses again at UOP if I had a job at UOP, which would pay for my tuition.

So here I come APU!! Go...(whatever your mascot is!)

2. Moving to Buckeye, AZ

We are in the process of getting a house out in Buckeye. This is the final reason that led to me going back to school. I had thought of doing so, but I just hemmed and hawed at the idea. WELL, in order for our finances to handle the mortgage, we had to put one of our student loans in deferrment. Jason couldn't do it, cuz he's so close to being done wit his UG program, it was the best option for me to enroll for my Grad program.

I grew up in Buckeye, AZ and that's where most of my family is from. Of all 6 of us kids, my brother Mark and I are the only ones that live more than 15 min away from Buckeye. So moving back would be a great option for us, to be closer to family. Though, it'll be weird because it's been a long time since I lived near them. For most of my adult life (which is almost 2 decades!) I've lived out here, Mesa/Chandler/Tempe.

Once things get finalized with the house, I'll post pics of it. We've seen MANY MANY houses! We wanted to be sure that this house we picked out was the one we really liked and suited our needs the best.

This will be a very big change for all of us, as we've got LOTS and LOTS of friends we'll miss and won't get to see as often as we'd like. I'm sure though that we will make new friends and be able to spend more time with my family will be well worth it too!

Chocolate Milk

.....or just chocolate in general......

I must've been on the computer or something when I realized it was quiet-too quiet!

(8/31/10)

Above: You can see her tear on her cheek, after I'd spanked her!

This was NOT one of my "good" days!!!

Below: she's trying to put it back, which ends up not helping at ALL!!!

Video Mix

Jason stayed up all night making this for me (for my birthday last Friday) !!
Savannah LOVES to watch it over and over too!

He said....She said....

Daddy and Savannah one night, while he's "encouraging" her to eat (cuz she has the darnedest time eating-she won't sit still and takes forever to eat.)

D: Okay, make it go down to your tummy.

S: No, my neck (shaking her head vehemently)
Then, my tummy.
Then, my bottom!!

Another UT trip

Yes, it's true, we went up to UT again!!!!

We just couldn't get enough of UT.

A friend, Shari, invited Savannah and I to ride with her to UT. She didn't want to drive by herself with her two little girls, so we came along!! We left on Tuesday the 17th of August.

Savannah is so funny! We hadn't even gotten to Flagstaff (or Prescott for that matter) and she's already whimpering, "back Mommy, Daddy, & nana's house!!" She did that for about 10-15 minutes, and we decided to go ahead and make use of the DVD Player! After that, she was fine for pretty much the rest of the trip.

And, it was her first trip going as a potty-trained tot!! (though I had diapers for accidents and night times) I was so nervous!! But she did AWESOME!!! No accidents in the car(seat)!! Yay!

My MIL picked us up in Mt Timpanogas & took us to Aunt Launa's house for the night and the next morning, she drove us to our friends', the Paynes up in Clearfield. That's where we stayed for the week.

Mostly, we just let the kids play around the house and outside a bit. I got to meet Silvia's new baby girl, Leslie!! She was born the day we got home from our trip to UT back in June!! Go figure! But I got to see her in August. She was so tiny and adorable!! I could tell Nicholas and Alex adored her. Savannah LOVED waking up to find her friends were right there!!

Friday and Saturday were eventful days. On Friday, we rode the train to Downtown SLC to go to the Children Museum. And on Saturday we went to the fair.

The Children Museum was HUGE!! Nicholas and Savannah hardly saw each other while in there. There were just SO MANY things to see and play with! I had to practically drag Savannah away from the 1st floor, to go up to the 2nd floor, because she had so much fun playing in the playhouse, full of dolls, strollers, kitchen, food, and all that stuff.

We had to rush to catch the train home, because Steve was gonna catch it at the next stop. Well, we caught the train and all, but found out that he got a flat tire on his bike!! So we got off at his stop and waited for him to get it fixed and meet up at the station. Savannah decided to use that time to have a short nap-only about 30 -40 min or so. Then Steve made it to the station, and we got on to go home.

Savannah wanted to go swimming, so we go and she decides she doesn't want me to hold her anymore and pushes me away!! (she's in a swimmy tube) I couldn't believe it! She's growing up so fast and is more independent. Some days I like it, some days I don't!

Then we went out to eat at Red Robin's that night. Both Nicholas and Savannah fell asleep while there! They were SSOOOO EXHAUSTED!!! That was fine with us, cuz when we got back to the apartment, Silvia and I got to play some Halo!!

Saturday, we got things packed up and headed out. We went to the County Fair and the kids loved being around all those animals and they LOVED going on the little ride, the race cars going around and around!!!

Saturday night we had dinner with some friends. They're from Mesa AZ, but moved to UT a couple years ago. We didn't get to see them in June when we went up to UT, so we made plans this time around. They have 3 boys, 2 of them are older, I think 7 and 10. Their youngest though was a little over a year. He seemed to like Savannah, because when we got done with dinner, we were walking out to the car and Logan (the little boy) wanted to hold her hand and started crying when Savannah had to leave!! It was so cute!!

Here are some pictures:

Train ride

The Children Museum

Every now and then, Savannah will tell me that she wants to go to Nicholas's house! Awww... and then I have to tell her, that we can't go there for a little while and try to distract her!

I think the next time I ride with someone, I might do better at getting our own transportation once we arrive. Either borrow a car or rent one. I felt bad about having to get rides from all these people-most especially on Saturday. Remember, I had all of our "stuff": bags, her toys, food, and a car cooler. So when we met my friends at Pirate Pizza, we transported our "stuff" to their car, went inside, played and ate. When Shari (the friend we rode down with) got done with her family reunion, then she came and picked us up from the Pizza place. So we transported our "stuff" to her van from my friend's car. I just felt bad at having to ask so much of all these friends.

To end the trip, I ended up feeling stuffy and having a sore throat. I could hardly talk through the dinner. Needless to say, I was not much company for Shari, on the drive home. I tried to help out with the girls in the back as best I could.

We had fun otherwise, enjoyed the somewhat cooler weather (apparently, it's not usually that warm in UT-even in the summer!! Go figure that we were there when that was happening!!), going swimming, Silvia and I visiting, watching chick flicks, laughing and all that fun stuff! I'm glad we were able to go!

What's in a name?

Jason started watching the TV show, Terminator, the Sara Connor Chronicles. In some of the episodes there's a little red-headed girl and her name is Savannah.

Savannah was sitting on the couch with us and I pointed out to her that the little girl had the name "Savannah" too! She looked at her, then at me, with this expression of, I think, confusion. Then after a minute or two, she started to cry, shaking her head, and pointing to the TV, she says, "no Sanannah". Then she pats her chest and says, "me, Sanannah". At that point she starts crying like her little heart is broken!!! Apparently, she didn't like the idea of another girl with the name Savannah!!! I got to hold her and pat her back to try to calm her down. It took almost 10 min. of her crying to get down to whimpers!

I had to stifle my laughs, and boy I tell you that was hard!!

June Road Trip Part 3

Days 7, 8, 9 and 10

There were a couple of days of just traveling...

But when we got to our destinations, we had some fun!

Day 6
We left Salt Lake City and headed over to Grand Junction CO. What a beautiful drive it was for me. I was the one that drove and I enjoyed it.
Grand Junction is where Jason's Aunt Linda lives. His cousin, Ayme, also lives nearby and she has a a son, Tyson who's just a bit older than Savannah. After dinner we all went outside to play baseball and ride trikes. Tyson was so sweet and let Savannah ride on the back with him, so that she could get a ride and she LOVED it!!!!! They went around and around in a circle on the back patio (which was pretty huge by the way). We had to stop only because it was getting dark, and we were all being eaten alive with mosquito bites!!! We had a great time visiting with them all and Jason's mom, even met up with us there too-cuz she was on her way to Denver as well.

Here are some pics of Tyson Zortman and Savannah on the trike!

Day 7 (Thursday)

We had a lazy start leaving Grand Junction to head to Denver....we figured it was only a 4.5 hour drive. We had to stop by the Walmart on the way out but we had a hard time finding it!! Go figure! Again I did a lot of driving in the beginning, and we switched off. Jason got to drive through Denver traffic-during traffic hour!! Fun fun for him--I'm glad I wasn't the one driving through it! I was the map guide. I told him where to go to get to his sister, Jackie's house.
We got to Jackie's house and we just visited with everyone there. Savannah made a new friend. Before I start into that, I need to preface it with some information. Jackie was married before. She is not in touch with her ex, but she still considers her in-laws from that marriage her family. Her MIL is still very much a part of her life. Her FIL and MIL were in Denver too, to celebrate her Temple Marriage to her new husband. When they came down, they brought some of their granddaughters. I can't remember their names, but the youngest one is about 6? She LOVED being around Savannah and they became playmates. I didn't have to worry about Savannah much while there, cuz her new little friend would be with her!! It was nice!!

Day 8 (Friday)

The next morning we all got ready to go to the Temple. Jackie and Caleb were being sealed in the Temple! Savannah was perfectly fine being left in the Visitor Center while we went into the Temple. It was beautiful! We are so blessed to have these beautiful Temples available to us. To be sealed for Time and All Eternity. It made me think back to Jason and my wedding day, and how calming it was for us (after my hectic morning getting to the Temple) to be kneeling across from one another and be sealed to one another forever. It's AWESOME!!!!

Here's Savannah with her cousins, Rayden and Mackenzie Sinema.

Family picture in front of the Denver Temple.

Savannah with her cousins, and new friend.

The rest of the day consisted of a picnic lunch at the park for everyone and then relaxing at the house afterward.
Caleb and Jackie went on a date that night, and when they got back, Jason and I got to visit with the two of them. It was nice to finally have a chance to catch up on each others lives. With so many family members around, there wasn't much chance to sit and talk, so we took this opportunity when it came!!

Day 9 and 10 (Saturday & Sunday)

Saturday morning we left kinda early (8-9-ish I think) in the morning. It was gonna be a long drive to Albuquerque NM! Pretty much all of Saturday was driving to Albuquerque. We had a little break when we stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Other than that, the day wasn't super exciting....! We found a hotel to stay at for the night and it had an indoor pool, and Savannah wanted to so swimming so bad!!! We didn't have any swimmy diapers for her though and we hemmed and hawed at whether we would go to the store to buy some....in the end we just distracted her with movies and walking around (avoiding the pool area). We had enough of being in the car!!

Sunday morning, we checked out and headed out toward home. I was hoping to get a hold of my cousin, Trisha Foote, who lives in Snowflake AZ. I wanted to see if we could stop for a visit and a break. We went ahead and turned off the Highway and headed toward Snowflake, because I wanted to see the Snowflake Temple. She got my message and called me back and we made arrangements for us to come over after we see the Snowflake Temple.

Here's a couple of pictures of us in front of the Snowflake Temple.

We went to my cousin's house and visited with her family. Her and her husband have 4 kids. Their youngest, was their only daughter. She was not much older than Savannah, I think she was 4 yrs old. Savannah had such fun playing with her and her toys! It was a nice break from being in the car. Though, we had a hard time pulling her away from the house to get back into the car! Other than a stop in Payson, we went straight home!

It was nice to be back home! It wasn't so late that we felt like going straight to bed, we got everything brought in, and then just relaxed and I think watched a movie!!

We got to visit with LOTS and LOTS of people!!! I counted up 6 friends and 10 family members we got to see!!! Out of the family members, only 2 of them were mine (Mandy)!!! But out of the friends, 4 of them were mine!!! Jason has lots of family up in UT!!

I really enjoy traveling. I think it stems from my growing up. I remember many summers that we went traveling. Yellowstone National Park one summer. Redwood Forest-Circus Circus-Knott's Berry Farm and Sea World another summer. A few road trips to FL. Such great memories. I hope that we can have memories for our kids as we/they get older.