Sleep Tight, but don't mention anything about bed bugs

When it's time for Jillian to go down for her nap, someone will usually bring her in to me to say good night. We exchange our bed time pleasantries "Night, mommy!" "Good night, girl" "Sweet dreams!" one of us will usually say, we blow kisses and Jillian giggles, and then she quitely goes down for a nap. Today however, after exchanging our usual sayings, I added, "Sleep tight, and don't let the bed bugs bite." At this comment she looked back at me questioningly, a bit bothered. Thinking maybe she didn't quite understand this new phrase I said, "Don't worry. Just have sweet dreams!" Jon then carted her off to bed only to see his 2 year old daughter's face become more stressed. "Daddy?" she whimpered, "Bugs eat me?"

I've now been warned that Child Protective Services will be called if I ever mention bed bugs again. And all this time I just thought it was another pleasantry my parents and I used to exchange at night. Sheesh. Now I know better....

What a racquet

Well, cross your fingers, knock on wood, and rub your lucky rabbit's foot. Jon has not been accident free for over 2 weeks now, possibly 3. We're excited about that and Jon's relieved that no back muscles or blisters are keeping him from enjoying the pleasures of exercise. Just last weekend Jon and I were able to play several hours of racquetball. Friday evening we went to play and I thought I started out playing a pretty mean game, until Jon showed that he had too many tricks up his sleeve and pulled out a win. After that I fell apart and Jon managed to trounce me the next 4 games. Very discouraging on my part, but at least it was exercise. Saturday morning proved that I must have snagged a decent night's sleep because I came back full force. Although I still didn't beat Jon at any of the 3 games we played, the 3 games stretched over 2 hours and one game even went into overtime, where Jon finally managed to pull off the upset 23-21.

Just in case anyone's wondering, Jon is down 45 lbs and I'm down 21. We're still working hard to eat healthy and get in exercise. We actually started riding the bike most mornings too, and I have to admit we're a bit saddle sore.

Someone's talking!!

Deanna has really taken on to this reading thing. I can't believe the progress she's made this past year and past few months. However, dispite her improvements, keeping up with words of the church hymns during sacrament meeting still posses a problem for her. She used to have me tell her the words as she was about to sing them, but I think sometimes she finds it difficult to sing and listen at the same time. So, recently she's resorted to reading the entire song first before we even start singing. However, this means she's reading during the course of sacrament meeting, and she prefers to do it out loud so I can correct her if she gets it wrong.

A week ago we went to Jon's nephew's mission farewell talk. After the sacrament she dutifully opened the hymn book to the closing song and began reading the text to me. The song this day was Called to Serve Him. She began reading, and was doing great, except I had to keep reminding her that someone was talking and she had to keep it down or others could hear her. It was a difficult task for her, but she got better at keeping it down. When she reached the chorus she came to the words, "onward, ever onward", but instead of saying "ever" she kept saying "every". Trying to keep the volume down myself, I tried to correct her and let it know it was EVER, not EVERY. She began to get a bit flustered, but continued saying EVERY. When I tried to correct her again, she said, "I can't hear you! That lady up there's talking."

I tried to stifle a snicker but told Jon what happened. Upon hearing this he started chuckling and couldn't stop. Deanna couldn't understand why dad was laughing. I think I told her he was just enjoying himself at church....

Time Flies

So, I've had so many things to say and haven't taken the time to write them down. Now I'm certain I've forgotten most of them. I'll just keep posting as things come up.

Jon and I are still working hard to get ourselves in shape. Seems Jon encounters obstacle after obstacle. His back has been doing better for a few weeks now, but he decided to join me in the blister department a time or two. Last week his ankle was bothering him. Saturday he twisted is arm and it's been a bit sore. But, we're still keepin' on. As of now Jon's down over 35 lb since mid/late May, and I'm down around 17. It's hard to see the change when you see yourself every day, but there is some noticable change if you stop to think about it.

As for the home, it's had to take a little bit of a back seat this past week. Work has been busy for me and Jon's been caught up in errands and such. This week alone he went to Idaho to drop off his nephew and pick up his niece. We ran our car into the shop to get repaired, picked it up yesterday, wasn't done right so we'll be heading back out there again soon. Tuesday he spent the afternoon/evening at Ben's Scout camp.....The list goes on and on. But today he's making some progress around the house (finally got the last of the Christmas lights off the house....as embarrassing as that is to say).

We'll check in again soon when I can remember all the things I wanted to mention revisualize in my brain.

Things We've Learned Lately

Throughout life we're constantly learning new things, whether by trial, by error, or perhaps by just plain ignorance or innocence. Here are a few life lessons we've been enrolled in lately:

• Wearing shoes can give you blisters. Not wearing shoes can give you blisters. Bicycle seats were not made with comfort in mind. Scooters are impossible to ride unless maybe you have thighs like a speed skater. Enough blisters make calluses, then the uncomfortable becomes endurable.


• Always take a pair of ear plugs and a cell phone with you when you go on your kid's classroom field trip.


• Opening doors and windows for a cross breeze when it gets hot helps save on cooling costs.


• Flies, hornets, and bees come out of hibernation when it gets hot. Shut all windows and doors.


• Dry erase markers and white out DO NOT wash out of clothing or off your child's face very easily. If you use a permanent marker to label clothing, it will come off in the wash. Use white out to mark your clothing.


• Never leave Super Glue next to your mouse pad when there's a 2 year old in the house.


• Hard work and dedication really do pay off. However, don't OVERDO it! You'll pay for it instead of it paying you.


• Just because it's rainy and cold one day, don't suspect it won't be 95 degress the next day.


• Always call the hardware store FIRST before making 5 different trips to learn that they "just recently stopped carrying that item."


• Spending is most definately related to how much money you have. The less money you have, the more you feel the need to buy stuff.


• Weeds will always grow faster, get taller, and be more endurable than other plants. We should all stop fighting the system and find beauty in weeds.


• We don't know how the pioneers did it!!

Survived with success

Hi all

Well we survived last week with a full house. Gaye's nephew got married last saturday and we opened up the Brady Inn to recieve all of the out of towners. We ended up housing an additional 11 people with occasional visits from 2 others. The wedding luncheon was at Chuck O Rama. All you can eat buffets aren't exactly the best place to hang out when one is trying to lose weight. On top of that they had nothing but cheese cake at the reception and we ended up getting there without having had our dinner. Talk about temptation.

So not only did we make it through the week sanity intact but we also saw success in our effort to lose weight. Gaye and I both were able to lose 3.5 lbs. I was quite worried, after a big loss last week for both of us, all the chaos, temptation and a back injury to boot, that we would be disappointed at the scale but we were both pleasantly surprised.

Now we just have to keep strong and continue the process. I am now able to walk without pain so we are now walking to church on sunday and I do 4 miles walking the kids to school. 2 in the morning and 2 when they come home at 3:00pm. Gaye is a real trooper she does the treadmill and stationary bike for 1 to 1.5 hours each morning and does the 2 mile morning walk to school with us.

Hope all is well on your end of life. Leave us a comment and let us know.

A Full House

Grandma Johnson arrived yesterday. We picked her up from the airport around 4:00 and got back just in time for Ken to pick her up to take her down to Provo for Jessica's (the fiance of Justin, my nephew) endowment session. Meanwhile, I changed quickly and barely made it in time to the Jordan River temple for Ashton (Jon's nephew). Samantha went with me too and did baptisms for the dead with her cousins while we went through the session. Jon was unable to make it because his back is still hurting him tremendously.

After I got home Jon said he chatted with Nate (another nephew) and he and my sister Katherine were suppose to show up today. Plus, the other day my brother David and his wife Lisa called to say they were coming up for Justing's wedding and wondered if the "Brady Inn" was available.

So, we're gearing up for a house full. We love it though. It's great having family around. Sounds like it will be a quick trip for pretty much everyone.

I hope everyone brings something for all seasons. It's a bit cool here today, yesterday was windy, but they say it's suppose to be hot and sunny this weekend. We'll see.