Small Things

Small and simple things bring me pleasure. Sometimes I am teased about it. For example, I just love to see a full moon, or the beautitul sunsets we enjoy almost daily here, and currently the Russian Olive trees (I think that is what it is) are in bloom and I absolutely love the smell of them. Also when Nate or Hazel text me pictures of the kids and it says "I love you grandma".

Well, this past week we had a couple things happen that made me feel happy. First, we got to meet another "heart" family. The Feinauer's were here on vacation and we got to meet them before they went home. They have a little guy who is almost 5 with some similar defects as Ashton. He is a twin and has an older sister. They are an adorable family. Not only is it good for us "heart parents" to be able to talk and relate our stories to each other but it is so good for the kids to meet each other and know they are not the only ones dealing with the issues they are given. I am so thankful to Carolyn Q. for helping to make these meetings possible.

Then on Friday my phone rang and I was so excited to get a call from a good friend that I have not heard from for a long time. Sharon has always been such a good friend and someone I look up to and admire. She is such a sweetheart and I miss her a lot. It's friends like her that I miss about moving. Other than the friends, I have to say I love it here.

So, ya, small things like that can really make my day.

Catching Up...

So here I am trying to catch up on posts again. These pictures were taken on Easter. We had a very nice day. We went to church in the morning, the girls in their new dresses, Ashton in a new tie. After church the kids get to find the candy that the Easter bunny left. Then Ray and I hide eggs that are filled with candy and change, and the kids find them. We usually do this on Saturday, but it just didn't happen that way this year. We then had our cute little neighbors Jack and Violet over for a ham dinner. It was delicious. Afterwards we had a family night about Christ and the resurection.

Silly kids!!

Ashton with the pile of candy the Easter Bunny had left.

The kids getting ready to find the eggs in the yard.

Also, a couple weeks ago was Ray's b-day. Poor guy, we haven't even really celebrated it yet. How thankful I am to have such a wonderful husband who is always willing to help me, and so patient, and such a wonderful dad and grandpa. Love you tons dear!!

What A CrAzY!! Life We Live :)

Wow, I haven't posted for so long. Just a lot going on, and not much time to get on the computer. I am going to do this backwards and start with this past weekend, and see if I can get everyone a little bit updated on whats going on here.

On Saturday Keanna had a dance competition. Her team did very well, and we are so proud of her. For their hip-hop they took third place and for their jazz dance they took first. Way to go.

Then this past week I started another job. I now work at the city rec center. I am still at Michael's and crossing-guard. I will work three days at the rec center, then three days at Michael's. Crazy huh? It sounds worse than it is. Rather than working one full-time job I work two , or three, part-time jobs to equal almost full-time hours.

Last weekend my cousin Gaylene was here with her family. We took the kids to Snow Canyon and there is a cave you hike down into and then the kids cut open glow sticks, get them all over each other and the cave, then turn off all flashlights and they play hide and seek. They had a great time. I thought I would not do so well in the cave cause I'm a little clausterphobic, but I did fine. We want to go back again. When we came out of the cave we hiked around a little and enjoyed the beautiful weather. That night Keanna went to a concert at Tuachan (an outdoor theater).

The best part of this weekend though (no offense Gaylene :) ) was Nate and Hazel came to visit. Saturday was Savannah's b-day and they were so nice to come here to celebrate it. She is now 3!!! Hard to believe. We took a picnic to the park but it was so windy we hurried and ate and came back home. (It was too hard to try to keep Jaxon out of the wind.) Savannah opened presents and was just happy to play with the kids. The next day we went to church, and afterwards enjoyed a big breakfast together. It was just so nice to have them here and visit. Hazel colored my hair that evening. Thanks again Hazel. You do an excellent job. They left early monday morning to go home so we said our goodbye's on sunday night. I hate goodbye's. :( It was so good to have them visit. We love to hear the giggles of Savannah and even the cries of Jaxon (which he really doesn't do very often). Even all the little fingerprints are so worth it.

Let's see, the kids enjoyed over a week of spring break. We were very lucky to have beautiful weather that whole time. The kids played in the sprinklers, we went to the water park, went to Snow Canyon and we discovered this cute little store here. It is old fashioned and they serve old fashioned candy and malts. I took the kids there and they got some candy. It is so cute. I would love to go and take pictures. It was way too busy when we were there.

And then clear back to when Jaxon was born. Keanna, Ashton and I spent a week up there trying to help out wherever we could. Anyway, Ray and Ambrea came up on Friday, then on Saturday we went to our nephew Jordan's wedding. Nate and Savannah were supposed to come to the reception that evening, but we could not get ahold of them all day. We had tried a couple times, but they never answered. While we were at the reception Nate called to say that Hazel was really sick (she had not been feeling good all week long, but we just kind of attributed it to just having a baby) and he was taking her to emergency. He told us to just hang tight and he would keep in touch. Early Sunday morning he called to say they were taking her into surgery. What had happened was some of the placenta had stayed in the uterus and was causing a major infection. All of us questioned, of course, how does that happen? What happens is there are very tiny blood vesels in the placenta and sometimes they will attach themselves to the walls of the uterus. You generally can't see them in the placenta after the birth. So anyway, it was in there giving her a very bad infection which was making her very sick. They did a d & c that morning. That evening they had to give her two units of blood cause she had lost so much. We visited her that afternoon but had to go home that evening. Luckily Ray was able to stay and help till Tuesday, and then Hazel's mom and step-mom were able to come in. It was so hard to leave when they were needing so much help, but I had to get back to work and the kids needed to get back to school.

Whew, sorry this is so long. Hope it didn't bore you all to death. Just wanted to finally give a little update. And I know there are tons of things I forgot to post. Oh well.

One Week Old!

Jaxon is one week old today. And there sure has been a lot of things going on in the last week and a half.

This is a picture of Savannah helping wash Jaxon's bottles. She is such a big helper. Savannah and Ashton have played together a lot. Here they are playing with animals and play dough.

Finally some pictures of Jaxon. I didn't notice this one was kind of blurry until after the fact. Sorry. That seems to happen to me a lot. Yeah, he's a binky boy.
Another one of Jaxon. Sleeping peacefully.

So the day we were leaving to visit with Nate and Hazel Keanna got braces on. This is a picture with them on.

This is Keanna before braces. :)

The Sunday before Valentines day we made sugar cookies. (The tall dude is Mat a friend of Ambrea's.)

The final product. They were sooo good we had to make more while staying with Nate and Hazel.

OH BOY!!

Boy Oh Boy. It's a Boy! Jaxon Casey Hardy was born Feb. 11, 2009 6 lbs. 4 oz. 19 inches. Everything went well. We are so happy to have him here. Stay tuned for pictures that will be coming soon.

Road Trips, and more Road Trips!!

The "Never Ending Road" as Keanna called it.

I know, I haven't posted for forever. I have been gone a lot, or busy. So we have been on a lot of road trips lately. Let's see, the first one was about 4 weeks ago. Keanna and I met Hazel and Savannah in Salina at my parents. We did a little scrapbook shopping and mom treated us to lunch at "Mom's Cafe". It was delicious. And because Savannah is so stinkin' cute, everywhere we went they would give her treats. Hazel colored my hair and then they headed back home. Keanna and I stayed over night. It was great to see Hazel and Savannah and spend time with mom, dad, Rick (my brother) and g-ma.

So our next trip was up north to a baby shower for Hazel. Well the shower was Sat. morning at 10:00. I had to work Friday night, so it was a toss up. Get up REALLY early Sat. and head up or leave late Fri. night. We decided to leave Fri. night. Ambrea came with us this trip. We didn't leave here till 10:40. We got there at 2:15. We hit rain and fog almost the whole way. It was about 3:00 by the time we got checked into the hotel and in bed. The alarm went off at 8:00 the next morning so we could all get ready to be there. The shower was very nice and Hazel (or Jaxon) received a lot of nice things. Thanks to everyone who came. We really appreciate you. Then we spent the afternoon with mom, Ann, Bobbi and Heather. Mom treated us to lunch again. After that we went and spent some time with Hazel and Savannah. Later that evening we went to dinner with them. Nate joined us for dinner. Once again, it was so nice to see them. Then we stayed with Gaylene that night. We were lazy the next day. It was snowing so I had Ray call road conditions. He said it only said snow in SL. Long story short, by the time we visited with Nate and Hazel one last time it was about 8:30 before we got on our way. Well, it took us 5 hours to get home because it was snowing the whole way. We just took it slow and easy and the girls were good and patient.

Our next trip was on the 31st. It was mom's bday and I wanted to surprise her. Long story again, which I won't bore you with the details, but we really did surprise her. She wasn't expecting us at all. We spent the day with her and then drove home late once again. I have the hardest time leaving, so I always try to stretch out my time as long as I can. We were able to see Nate and spend time with Savannah today also. She is such a sweetheart. Nate and Hazel moved into their own apt. today also. It will be nice for them. It was hard for me cause their stuff had been in storage here and this makes it a little more finalized that they are up there. It is sure hard to have them so far. But it could be worse I know.

So anyway, we have been traveling a lot and will be doing some more cause Hazel's due date is the 14th. So we are on standby for when she goes into labor. We will keep everyone posted.

HaPpy HoLiDayS!!

We had very Happy Holidays. On the Saturday before Christmas Keanna entertained us with a dance performance. They did great, considering the song was played wrong. The audience wouldn't have even known though. The girls didn't give any indication it wasn't right.

Then on Sunday we went with Randy, Natalee and Camden to see the lights at the temple. It is so peaceful there, but it was freezing! We dressed warm and enjoyed hot chocolate afterwards.

I had to work Christmas Eve and so did Natalee but that didn't stop us from enjoying it. After work we enjoyed a delicious ham dinner. Our cute little neighbors across the street had dinner with us. They are in their eighties and we love them to death. And the best thing of all, Nate, Hazel and Savannah came. It was so good to see them. We ended the celebrations a little early cause we were all so tired.

Then came Christmas morning. The kids were so excited. And Santa even brought gifts for Savannah to our house. She was so cute. We really were very spoiled this year. The girls both got camera's, Carolyn got an MP3 player (it is just tiny and cute), Ray got a bike and Ashton got a Wii. He has waited for so long for one. He had been saving his money to buy one, so now he is going to spend some of that money to get a game or two.

Nate and Hazel left Christmas afternoon to try to avoid a storm. I wish they could have stayed longer but I am so thankful they were even able to come. We were truly blessed this season. Not only did we receive nice gifts, but we were able to be with family and friends, which truly is a blessing.

We welcomed the new year in by eating way too much while enjoying the company of family and friends. We went to our friends house with the kids. They played while the adults just visited. Ray took Keanna and some of her friends to First Night about 9:00. At midnight they had fireworks and we could even see them from where we were. I have to say that I have yet to see a bad firework show here. St. George definately knows how to do fireworks.

We hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday season and we are thankful for you all.

Read Previous Post Before Reading This Post...

As I was just finishing posting, they just announced on the news that school is canceled tomorrow. Can you believe it?!! It snows a few inches and they close the schools. But in all seriousness, we discussed why they would do it. Because we have no trucks to salt the roads and wet roads and freezing temps don't go together. Wow, quite an interesting day.

A Great and Horrible Day!

So today has been wonderful, but also horrible. It started out very early, 6:00 am. After all the morning routine and doing the crossing-guard thing, I headed off to work for a day shift. (This is a little different for me. I normally work evenings.) Ambrea and I worked the same shift so it was fun to be working together. At least I thought it was. I hope she thought so also. So after work I asked her if we could run to the library quick to check out a couple books. Well, to make a long story short, my phone got stolen at the library. I am just sick, but also so mad at myself. I had left it on the paper towel dispenser. But the thing is, it was only about 5 minutes, no more, and it was gone that fast. And it is so frustrating that people are not honest and just turn it in. I almost feel like a part of my life is gone. Mostly the pictures I had on there. Also all the numbers. So if everyone could please email me their phone numbers I would really appreciate it. (raycarehardy@q.com) Tonight has been ok. It has actually been snowing here, enough that it is sticking, and the kids are loving it.

It snowed yesterday also, but it didn't stick here. Now that was a different story for Randy and Natalee. Where they live they received a lot of snow. Who says it doesn't snow here.? We have lived here for almost 3 years and it has snowed every winter so far.

Being Thankful and Deckin' The Halls!

I am very late at posting about Thanksgiving, but I have been working a lot of hours since then. Anyway, we spent Thanksgiving dinner with Ray's family. We went to a movie (Madagascar 2) and dinner on Wed. night with Nate, Hazel and Savannah. It was so good to see them! Then on Thanksgiving day we had dinner with Ray's family. His sister Michelle and her husband Chris hosted the dinner. Everything was very nice and we appreciate them opening up their home to all of us. It was good to have most of us all together and the cousins got to play. After dinner we had to head home. Ambrea and I had to work the next day, Black Friday. The store has been very busy since then, so Ambrea and I have been putting in a lot of hours. It's all good though.

Then we decided it was time to get the house ready for Christmas. We put everything up, but I didn't get the tree decorated till about a week later. But I finally got it done. Yeah!

As I said before we have been keeping busy. Ashton has had to sing with the school choir three times since Thanksgiving. He was even on TV one night. (With Ray working where he does, Ashton has actually been on TV quite a few times so its not new with him. Although, he still gets excited about it and records it.) On the 13th me, Ambrea, Keanna and Natalee, along with a friend of mine, went to the Kurt Bestor concert. We usually go to the conert up north but he now does one here. He doesn't bring the whole symphony and band with him here. It was Kurt Bestor and two other guys who play with him. One plays wind instruments and the other the guitar. It was a lot different from the concert up north but it was still a lot of fun. It was more impromptu and personal. After the conert we even got to meet him personally and shake his hand and talk to him. He autographed the cd we bought and also the music that was given to us.

So between those things, parties, working and everything else that goes with the holidays we are keeping very busy. But enjoying every minute of it. Happy Holidays everyone!