Update

Christmas was great in Las Vegas.  Lots of family, friends and food.  The kids were excited, actually we were all excited.  It is so much fun as my kids get older.  My parents were out of town for most of it, so we spent a majority of the time at Ryan's parents house.  Ryan and I got each other gym memberships.  I love to go in the morning after I drop Annika off at school.  Ashton gets to play and I get to work out the sweat-YEAH!  I hot tub, shower there, come home, straighten my hair, clean up the house, Ka gets home, we have lunch, and the day can start on a good note by noon.  Now, I just need to get my husband more motivated.  He has had a hard time going back since the ladies kicked his butt in the 24Lift class and he was sore for over a week.  Annika got a doll, doll stuff, books, an ironing board, princess stuff, a scooter and games for Christmas.  Ashton scored more Hot Wheels, Geotrax stuff, a dinosaur, clothes and a cool Mega Blocks car carrier.

We had a great New Year's Eve!  My parents were in Centerville staying with Grandmas, and offered to come and pick up my kids, keep them ALL night and bring them back the next day.  YEAH-we felt spoiled.  I did not get any pictures, but Ryan and I had a nice dinner out at Rodizio Grill.  It is one of those Brazilian steak house places where you eat way too much.  Then we went to Sundance and stayed at a cabin with some friends.  Their dad owns the place and could not come to enjoy it, so we all did.  We had a blast.  This was a sweet, huge cabin too.  They had the biggest TV I have ever seen down in the basement.  We played Wii, sat in the hot tub, watched the ball drop in NYC on TV, ate tons of snacks (gotta love Swedish fish) and played board games way too late into the night.  Just the kind of getaway we needed.  New Year's day we took the kids to the Gateway Children's museum.  They loved it.  Kind of pricey, even with our coupon, but we will definitely do it again.

Well, the rest of January has been eventful.  We have all had colds that even kept Annika up coughing most of the night.  The first week, Ashton had an ear infection-go figure, nothing new there.  The second weekend Ashton had a stomach bug that meant throwing up 9 times in 7 hours.  Of course it always happens in the middle of the night.  I felt so bad for Ryan.  I had gone to see a chick flick with friends for a 9:00 showing, and when I got home at 11:00, Ash was in the bath with Annika watching him, the carpet cleaner was out, the washing machine going and towels everywhere.  He started puking right after I left and had already thrown up 3 times and Ryan had to deal with all of it.  The third weekend, another ear infection for Ashton.  Let me just tell you.  Annika used to get infections, we would never know about it.  Ashton's usually go like this.  He wakes up at 1:00AM screaming, will not calm down and will not let me put him down.  He will not go to Ryan.  He will not take medicine.  He pulls his ear for hours.  We watch "Cars" a few times until he finally falls asleep at about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning.  These are not pleasant times.  I take him to the doctor, quickcare, ER, whatever the next day, I tell them what is wrong, what ear, they look at it.  I am right again, and we go on an antibiotic.  We know the drill.  We have had 6 now in a year, and are FINALLY going to an ENT specialist this week.  I am done with the grouchy boy that lasts a good week after the diagnosis.  Other than that, we are busy working, I am busy in Annika's class, bringing her to birthday parties and shuttling her to her friends' houses to play since we can not get a break from the cold weather.  With Ashton so sick, I try to keep him inside as much as possible.  Occasionally we make it out to the library or the play place at Chick-Fil-A.  Oh, how we will be grateful when the sun starts shining again.  My dryer has not been working for a week, after figuring out that it was the vent, after lots of getting angry, I finally got the apartment people to send someone out this morning to clean it out.  Guess what they found-a dead bird, sticks, hair (I think cat hair the bird had brought in), weeds, lint, you name it, it was in there.  They found enough to stuff to fill a grocery bag, full.  Gross, huh?  Let me just now encourage everyone to get their vents cleaned out.  I hope my dryer works better than ever.  My laundry has piled up though.  Also, my dishwasher started having issues last week, my dishes got piled up too.  They had this horrible white film.  After multiple tries with the maintenance men, they finally found out that some road work up the street is pushing all this sediment into the pipes and making our hard water even worse.  Gross, huh?  This means a lot more hand washing  and vinegar.  We are not even using the water to boil things anymore.  Right now we are using all bottled.  Sucks, huh?   Well, enough of my rambling for today.  We just past our year mark here in Utah, and man how time flies, but I am ready to move on, find a HOME and get settled, even if it is here in SL.  Only time will tell.