von Niederhausern Family

On August 17th we celebrated Steve’s mom’s bday. She is one crazy lady who can always make us laugh. We call her the mother of all nations. One of my dearest memories of her is when she rocked me to sleep in the rocking chair. I also have the best chats with Norma. Everyone needs a Norma in their life. She just keeps life good. We love you Normski!

The grandkids huddle around for a picture. 

Lauren loves to sit on Grandma’s lap and read stories.

Ava looks a lot like Norma did when she was young. Ava said she loves singing and playing with grandma Norma. Ava and Norma adore each other.

I have not done these little blog world games yet, but I saw this one on my cousin Angie’s blog and thought it sounded fun.

Here’s how it works:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn’t matter if you know me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It’s actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I’ll assume you’re playing the game and I’ll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don’t want to play on your blog, or if you don’t have a blog, I’ll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Ava has been working on earning money for a bike for about six months. Steve and I were definitely playing it by ear on this first money earning experience, so she ended up earning eight dollars by doing different chores and setting goals with these reading lessons we are working on. Yesterday she turned in her hard earned cash for a set of wheels! Once she set her eyes on this princess bike there was no going back. She said she loved the tassles and of course the backpack and the waterbottle that came in the backpack. She practiced riding yesterday when we got home. She had a few minor spills but said “I won’t give up, I’ll keep trying.” 

Love at first sight.

Steve let her ride it to the check-out counter and then to the car. It was pretty hilarious.

Here’s Lauren dreaming of the day she can turn in her trike for a big set of wheels like Ava’s.

There’s nothing like the Cache County Fair to make you want to get out the cowgirl boots and let out a “Yee Haw!” For the past two summers my siblings, Cat, Sarah, and this year Jake, have entered lambs into the fair. The whole process of raising the lambs and showing them at the fair is fascinating to me. You should see the judge pick the top lamb in the class. I guess it’s all about the back…how straight it is and how much back fat there is. My sister Catherine’s lamb won a first-prize ribbon this year. That means $11 for Cat and a blue ribbon! Ava and Lauren also had the time of their lives riding the big rides with Ellie and their von cousins, eating pizza and cotton candy, all the while sweating in the blazing hot sun. It was such a great day at the fair!

The month of July flew by in a flash. We were on cloud nine pretending Ruth and her family lived in Cache Valley because they ended up staying two months rather than one. It was the best two months ever! Here are some photos of our activities.

Swimming Lessons at the Aquatic Center

Lauren’s famous words were “I’ll do it myself.” Which meant she wanted to swim and dunk her head no matter how deep it was. This little girl has no fear.

Lily and Ava like playing Tree Chopper and dunking their heads.

Meg didn’t like dunking her head until after when she could tell us for a couple of days that she had done it. She is such a cutie!

Our four little fish.

Treehouse Museum

Girl Slumber Party

While Steve was at a conference for work, we had a major girl slumber party with Ellie Watkins, Lily, Lauren, Ava & myself. We had pizza and brownies and watched Peter Pan. It was great fun.

Three weeks ago I decided to be adventurous and take Ava and Lauren to a family reunion in Idaho. Even though Steve had to work I didn’t want to miss out on the fun at the Too Lazy to Care Ranch (and that’s really the name of it) with my parents, some of my siblings, and a lot of cousins I hadn’t seen in ages. Ruth and I decided to go one day before my parents were leaving. Ruth and I were going to tap into our mom-power and take Ava, Lauren, Lily, Meg, and Grey in Ruth’s van. Tuesday, the day we were leaving, Ruth had some unexpected things happen, so at 3 p.m. she decided not to go. My parents arrived to get me and the girls so at this point we needed Plan B because now we had no car to ride in. I called Steve but he said our car wouldn’t make it on a 10-hr road trip. My parents went to get their other car (which had no AC but my dad was willing to drive). When they went to pick it up they realized it was not registered. Then we went to Plan D, my Grandma Morris’ car. She said we could take it but Brad and Becca had it at Newton Dam. I called them and they said if we met them there we could take it. So Plan D seemed like a winner. We packed all our stuff into my parent’s car and went to fill up with gas at Smith’s. In the interim I had called Ruth and begged her to meet me at Smith’s to bring me her DVD player so we would survive 10 hours in the car. When we arrived at Smith’s, Brad called me to say the key was locked in my grandma’s car. Well, as my mom rushed home to try to find a spare key for Plan D, Ruth arrived with the DVD player and decided to go to the reunion after all. We went back to Plan A and we took my parent’s van and Ruth’s van and headed on our way to extreme northern Idaho. We had a great time eating, laughing, and shooting off fireworks on the 4th. Family reunions are great. And mom-power is great, because Ruth and I made it safely home after 14 hours in the van with five kids. The High School Musical Soundtrack and Dora the Explorer on DVD are what actually saved us. 

The huge flag that reminded me how grateful I am to live in this free country.

Ava’s favorite thing about the trip was definitely the face painting.

This homemade playdough kept the little ones entertained for hours.

Lauren, Marlee, Ava, Lily

Rides on the fire engine and in the tractor bucket, the TLC Ranch is heaven on earth.

By this day it’s a miracle we got this shot. You can see on our faces the excitement to get in the car for the 14 hour trip back home.

It only took me six years to complete my goal of completing a triathlon! I DID IT! I am so happy I did it and I am so happy it is over. I am so glad my friend Christie (my hero) decided to do it first so I was motivated. And another thing I am grateful for, Catherine, my sister, who goes swimming with me at the crack of dawn. After doing my first triathlon, I think I will stick to these over marathon’s. I really enjoyed the cross-training aspect of this race. I definitely need to work on my swimming skills for next summer, because I was the LAST ONE out of the pool. I probably should be embarrassed but I am just happy I didn’t drown. I finished faster than I expected, so overall I was very proud of myself. Anyone want to sign up with me for next year?

Here’s my inspiration, Christie Weaver. She is seriously the buffest chick I know. 

The finish line is always a blessed sight!

Now that I have recovered from childbirth (aka, moving!) I feel like I can write on the blog again! I know this is late but I wanted to post these photos from Father’s Day and say how grateful I am for the father’s in my life. Thank you Steve for being the best father on the planet. Our girls adore you beyond words. 

Thank you to my own father who is an example to me of hard work, endurance, humor and not caring what other people think.

This will be a photo of my dad in his ruffled shirt from the 70’s that he still wears on special occasions.

And to Steve’s father, Fred, who is so kind and intelligent and who we lovingly refer to as “Freddie boy.”

Happy Father’s Day to the wonderful father’s in my life!

Three days after arriving home from our family trip to California, we loaded the moving truck and headed to our apartment in Logan. I think moving is like childbirth. You forget how bad it is until you have to go through it again. Actually, since we had just moved three short months previously to Provo, it wasn’t too painful to pack up and move back to Logan, maybe like afterbirth. But wait, isn’t afterbirth more painful than labor? Which is like moving three months after you have already moved…ok, so it was painful. It’s just all the little random things that are in the corners of the rooms and on the kitchen counters that don’t have a box, saying goodbye to friends, walking back and forth a zillion times from the house to the truck (for Steve), trying to tell your kids why they can’t take things in and out of boxes and why they need to stay out of the way when all they want to do is be right in the middle helping. So I guess I am little tired of the whole moving process, but the good news is we get six to eight months for the memories to fade before we do it again! On a happier note, we will be moving into a new house only a block away. And we do love Cache Valley, so the move hasn’t been everything as bad as I have made it out to be. We have so many good friends in this area, the valley is so beautiful and green right now, the Gardeners’ Market is in full swing and our families are close and so on and so on… So I guess moving is like childbirth, because after the pain you get the joy that comes with it!

I am so glad Steve is spontaneous. Because he was starting his new job at Utah State and could arrange a few weeks of no work, he suggested a family vacation. After I returned home from Ohio on Monday evening, we repacked all our suitcases and left Tuesday morning for the “Happiest Place on Earth,” Disneyland. We owe a million thanks to our good friend who got us buddy passes on JetBlue. Anyone who has not flown JetBlue needs to check it out. The seats are so roomy, everyone has their own TV (which was a highlight for Ava and Lauren), and you get unlimited snacks.

After the flight we arrived at our hotel and took much needed naps. We then went swimming at the pool. Lauren had everyone laughing and commenting about how daring she was. She loved jumping off the side of the pool into Steve’s arms over and over and being submerged all the way underwater. She was happiest when water was covering her whole face. She kept saying, “I need to swim, I need to swim” and pushing my hands away in water that was 5 ft. deep. One guy described her perfectly, “supercharged.” On wednesday we had our first day at Disneyland, and honestly, it was magical. The weather was perfect, Ava and Lauren have never been so happy, and the greeters and music playing at the park made us feel like we should skip in and be transformed into royalty. Thanks to RideMax (a must if you are going to Disneyland) we got in eight rides, saw Mickey Mouse and went to two princess story-times all before 1:00 p.m. This allowed us to go back to our hotel and rest up for the Parade of Dreams in the evening and the Finding Nemo ride afterwards. We had close-up seats for the parade where we literally could have touched the characters, thanks again to RideMax. Thursday we waited in line so the girls could get their pictures with Cinderella, Snow White, and Jasmine. Then we went to California Adventure to see Play House Disney - Live on Stage and Disney’s Aladdin - Musical Spectacular (a must see). That night we ate at Buca di Beppo and Ava said it was her most favorite restaurant in the world.

Friday we headed to San Diego and ate lunch at In-N-Out Burger. During lunch Lauren made friends with four different strangers who sat down next to us. She would always start out by saying “What’s your name?” and then carry on entire conversations with them. She is definitely our extrovert. That night we ate at my favorite restaurant in the world, Anthony’s Fish Grotto. Steve and I ate there on our honeymoon and it’s so divine. 

On Saturday we went to Sea World and met up with my friend Kristi Jones and her little girl, Ella. We fed the dolphins, saw the Shamu Show, Pets Rule with dogs and cats, the Dolphin Discovery Show and the Clyde & Seamore sea lion show. Then we left and went to the beach. Lauren zonked out in the car, but Steve and Ava had a wonderful time playing in the sand and dipping their toes in the ocean at Mission Beach . To end the day we went to dinner with Kristi, Dan, and Ella at the Pier Cafe in Seaport Village. Sunday we found a sacrament meeting to attend and then flew back to reality. 

I love my family so dearly. We had such a great time together laughing, playing and seeing the sights. This family vacation will always be a bright spot in our memories.