December 16th.

So I haven't been on here in a while so I thought I'd update eveyone on us. Nothing major has happened, just an update. Alexis had a sleepover for her birthday party the first week in December and the girls had a lot of fun. I went to the doctor and got some very good news that all was well and was looking good. So no more worries. I still feel blah and sleepy and still have a very small appetite which does not include fish of any kind or shrimp. I'm still stuggling with meat, onions, and other smelly foods. No mixed salads like chicken, tuna, or egg. Anyways these are just some of them. We will not continue this list. Both children are very excited for Christmas to come and we are excited for it to be over with. We're struggling for a gift for Alexis from Santa. Hopefully we will figure it out soon. I've been volunteering again at the school for the Santa shop. Alexis got into a new therapy group at the Mea'Alofa Autism Support Center. We are hoping this will help her greatly with school and home of course. We will be going there every Wednesday for two hours after school. She will also start attending a social group on Thursdays. Heath really seems to like his job, and is enjoying working with the scouts. I'm coaching girl's basketball for church again this year, which will be lots of fun. So as you can see we are busy, busy, busy.

9

Happy Birthday to the Girl, who has stood the test of time, and made it to Nine. May she test our patience and grow our love to ten.

New mode of transportation

Sadly We had to replace our beloved Explorer due to complications of the engine. She had valve damage, and now we have found an older Chevy Trailblazer to replace the hole in our hearts.
But on the bright side this particular model is a seven passenger design, so we win one against the other losses.
Our Thanksgiving this year was different, one, because Heath was actually home, and two because Laurel, Nick, the Jules visited from back home. Our attempt at being tour guide was easily accomplished with our new passenger capability. It was lots of fun.

_____Just a LITTLE Update on us.____

June 15th, 2010

How Accurate Is It?

So I finally got to go to the range to test out my Storm Carbine. I had heard that it was really accurate and precise, but I wanted to see it for myself. So I went to zero in my red dot scope, and notice how close a group the three shots are on the first target to the right. This was only at fifteen yards but it was the only range I could get to at the time. The three shots can be covered by a quarter. Thats from a triple tap, with Winchester target ammunition. I set my red dot scope to these two sets of three, and then practiced on the bullseye. For the record, this looks like fairly good shooting but I personally am not this good a shooter. This was all the gun's fault.


To the right, is after my first attempt to zero my scope and fire thirty rounds through it. Needless to say those thirty rounds were near right on top of each other. I corrected the scope and I think I could hit just about whatever I wanted to with it at close ranges. (Its not true, but in my world it is.)

THE COUCH

This is several years old, but it' still funny.

Its Soccer Time!

So soccer season is here again. And the boy and the girl has their own teams. Both have been getting so much better, and each have had a turn at goalie. The Girl did awesome, blocking 1 goal. The Boy didn't get to block during his quarter because the ball never made it to their side of the field. I told him that in that case it is OK to be bored as a goalie. But he still sulked after.

However the past two games they are getter so we are really happy.

School has started!

So school started yesterday, and with it came a lot of crappy things. I forgot to take pictures because it was pouring rain. Hunter catches his bus around 7:25 and Alexis catches hers at 7:35. So I literally run back to the house and grab Alexis and run her down to the bus stop because she was still eating breakfast when I took Hunter. I forgot to pack her lunch last night. So I had to find two dollars to send with her for lunch. And yesterday was not one of my best days. Now the house is quiet and I am supposed to be cleaning not playing around on the computer. This is life. Hunter is very excited about school, Alexis told me her teacher was mean. I smiled to myself. She's not excited anymore because she realizes that she has to do a lot of work in third grade. She had homework yesterday. I was hoping we could wait a few days before that started, but oh well. I will post pictures later.

10

HOLY FRIGGING CRAP !
Its been 10 years!

not too much going on around here.

We haven't updated our blog lately because we just have everyday things going on. School still doesn't start for another few weeks, so we are trying to do one lasts for the next couple of weeks. We've registered the kids for soccer on Saturday. I had to give a talk on Patience on Sunday which as we all know is a fun topic on which to have to give a talk. We had dinner last week with a family that has moved into our ward recently. We had a great time getting to know them better. We've been told that the realty company we rent through is selling our townhouse so we will have to start looking for another place to live very soon. We are thinkning about buying but still not sure. I went to a baby shower for a couple of friends about two weeks ago and laughed so hard I was crying. It was great!! Some of us made complete fools of ourselves. There's even a video to prove it. The kids are getting restless about school starting soon. Especially Alexis. We have tried to make her new school a very exciting event. I do have one funny story though. Hunter came up to me one afternoon and asked me why I had bought a pumpkin. I said What are you talking about? I didn't buy a pumpkin, so he picks up an orange bell pepper that was sitting on the counter and says a pumpkin. I tried so hard not to laugh but when I showed it to Heath, I told him that I didn't buy bell peppers, I was buying different colored pumpkins. He got a chuckle out of that. We've gotten a lot of rain lately. Nice storms have been coming through. I'll post some pictures later.

Finished Masterpiece

Here's the finished product. I finally sat down and just finished it since beginning the idea last year. The first is a photo of the drawing that I did in high school and got a B on the project because it was unfinished.

I took photos of the Scruggs home at Cowpens Battlefield and then extrapolated the photos in my head to draw the angle I got. It became more of a project than I could finish and since Mom kept the original all these years, it bothered me when I saw it that I couldn't complete it. Now through the miracle of modern technology I have finished my masterpiece. The background is a field at Yorktown VA battleground.

History Note: the colonials first gained the momentum of the war at cowpens and followed through to the end and final victory at Yorktown, so i hid some symbolism in it by the selection of the subjects.

I also attempted to do it with color originally, but here's a draft.

pics of summer adventures

Just more pictures of our summer adventures.

summer adventures

So lets see, Hunter has now lost both bottom front teeth. Both kids are enjoying swimming lessons, and I've been trying to keep them as busy as possible. It makes night time that much easier. Heath has officially started his new job. My justh younger sister Krystal is graduating Clemson this Saturday. I had hoped to attend but plans are not working that way. So we've been to the Children's museum, Towne Point Park, the zoo and a few other fun things. Both kids are excited to start school again, but they have a month to go yet. Yeah for us! Hunter is learning the hard lesson of the value of a dollar. Alexis is learning that anything you really want is worth waiting for. I have a feeling these lessons will be repeated often. Hunter earneds some money from the tooth fairy and is dying to spend it. Hunter got his new first big boy bike two weekends ago. Alexis wants one right now, but we can only afford to buy one at a time. So she will have to wait until the middle to end of August. She has a few chores to help earn her bike. We did ok for the first couple of days and now she forgets more easily. We almost have all of the school supplies on their lists. Yeah me. I might get to go away for a day all by myself. Yeah me again! I'm sure Heath wil be posting the next one, as I am sure that he will have an adventure with them. HEHEHE! Alexis finally has a definite diagnosis. She has PDD_NOS or ASD. Pervasive Developemental Disorder-NON Origin specific or Autism Spectrum Disorder. She has definite characteristics of autism but she's not autistic. They are however treated the same. I'm learning all kinds of information. If you have any I would love for you to share.

new adventures

Since I posted last time, we had a garage sale that bombed, we visited with our friends Kristy and Andy and their beautiful children. We met up with Lisa Slagle(Alexis' teacher from the last three years) and her two girls and went to the water park and the kids had a lot of fun. Alexis even went down the really big slide once. Hunter started smaller and went down a open tube slide. Then we visited the Leblanc's for a few minutes. We've gone to the zoo, but we didn't take any pictures this time. We went to the beach last Friday and none of got burnt. Then we went to Pioneer day where my kids had even more fun rolling down hills and fishing and beating pieces of tin with nails and rocks. I wasn't too thrilled about that. Alexis and Hunter are now enjoying swim lessons. Today was their first day and hopefully in two weeks they'll be able to swim. If not swim, maybe not drown would be good. Heath is almost done with school. This is our last week, so hopefully we will have a decent schedule soon. HUNTER LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH ON SATURDAY! His adult teeth were growing in behind his baby teeth. He looked like a shark with rows of teeth. His other front tooth is loose as well and so maybe we won't have to do the braces thing. Hunter also got his first real big boy bike on Saturday. He's very excited. Alexis has to wait until two more paychecks to get hers but I found one that I can afford. My kids are enjoying the summer, but Alexis is counting the days until school starts. Literally counting them. She went to her new school today and she saw some of her teachers from her old school there teaching summer school. She was so excited. She was a little upset when she realized that they wouldn't be there when school actually started. So here's to the road ahead.

They're all gonna laugh at you?

You know how it is usually unwise to laugh at some one who is holding a gun. Well notice the person in the background. He is definitely laughing, and why? Allow me to offer an idea, Perhaps it is because this Somali has no clue on how to hold a rifle, let alone maintain this type of weapon. This is a Russian PK general purpose machine gun, or in layman's terms, one that goes bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam bam-bam, a lot. Should he fire this rifle, he would very quickly lose control of it, and be very inept. His stock is not fit up against his shoulder, and the left hand is clueless. but here's an E for Effort, since that is the carrying handle. If any of you dont know how to hold a rifle, ask me to show you.

Sadly though this photo came from a story of the rise of Somali violence, and the fear of their president that American naturalized Somali's will return to fight in his country against his government. Too many cuss words come to mind while thinking over that. but nevertheless, this guy has no clue how to use a rifle, and I laugh at him behind his back.

In Hunter's class today they must have talked about missionaries and missionary work because he came home with a piece of paper pinned to his shirt that said elder Blanton which he had clearly written himself. So when I asked him about this he said he was going to serve a full time mission and he was going to Egypt. I told him that there weren't missionaries in Egypt but he still insited that he's going to Egypt. So there you go. We had fun visiting the Snows last Thursday. Seeing them is always fun. The kids had a good time swimming. I think the pictures are still on the labtop. So I'll put them up later. Heath also gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and didn't embarass me. There is a first time for everything.

We had a rather quiet fourth of July, but we saw fireworks at Harbor Park. They were pretty good. Not quite DC style, but they were pretty good. Heath is enjoying his down time, and starts his training tommorrow. Hunter's two front bottom teeth are loose. He already has new teeth breaking the gum behind the baby teeth. He seems too young, but they all grow up eventually. He's already trying to raise the rates for the tooth fairy, but what he doesn't understand is that the tooth fairy is broke. We took the kids to the new ice age movie and Hunter loved it. Alexis was freaked out about ten or fifteen minutes into it. She's very sensitive and the movie makes it looks like Sid was eaten by a dinosaur. Good times.

Why don't you have any push ups?

Is this what you picture if you hear that question? Well today at Blockbuster, the Boy and I were waiting in line in front of the ice cream, and he wanted something i would not buy. Since he had his wallet with him, I opted for one of life's lessons, and would let him buy one with his dollar fifty. Only thing was he could only afford the push up, but they were out. So as we were checking out, the Boy walked around the counter to the female employee, of a very slender build, and asked," Hey Lady, how come you don't have a push up?" Interestingly enough his pitch of voice carried throughout the store, and piqued the curiosity of all the patrons. The poor cashier didn't know what to say, you see, she was not thinking ice cream, not one bit. So I gathered myself, and explained the situation, only to gather more laughter in the store. Fortunately for the boy, I went to the grocery store later and got him his reward for the humorous situation.

The Vacation's Over.

So much has happened in the past few weeks. Heath and I have gone on a trip to Monterey CA to visit our brother and his family, including the new niece. She's so adorable, as are all of our nieces and Nephews.

Monterey, What a lovely part of the world, and a very different climate than we are used to being around. We traded in our kids for a niece, and flew out west and it turned out well.
We got to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, including all the natural sea life of the Bay.

Before that we got to try out Rex's new Mastercraft and the Boy and Girl got to come along also. They did so well, we were both so proud. They got to knee board in the river, and found out what dipping the boat felt like. THanks Rex.


Now that we have returned Heath has started the new job at District Five, and is soon to start learning the Search and Rescue aspect of the Coast Guard. He is very excited. And there's still two months left of summer vacation, Yeah me!
what will I do with myself.

Turn the page...

Finally Heath has left to ship for the last time. Now we're just getting through the last days of school, and then preparing for a trip back home and then out to CA to visit Noel, Kassandra, and the kids. Then after we return Heath starts his new job, to learn Search and Rescue. Yeah no more deployments!

More pictures

These are all I have left for now.

More random pictures

These are mostly of our first trip to the zoo this year. It was back in April I think.

random pictures

Random pictures of our latest adventures. Okay so most of those are of the park near our house.