January & February 2009

Amazingly enough, it's already mid-February. Following Christmas, my sister Heidi came to stay with me for about a week, along with her 2 friends, April & Scarlet (who I have now adopted as my new little sisters) her 4 kids & her husband. It was SO great having them here. They were very great house guests and Ashton & Kadence thought it was the greatest thing EVER to wake up to cousins every morning. We miss them!
Mid January, Ashton's preschool teacher Wendi Hansen was hospitalized from carbon monoxide poisoning. We showed up at the house for Tuesday morning class, and she had not turned on the 'green light' indicating class was starting. All of us Moms began to grow concerned after about 5 minutes because she is NEVER late starting class. We finally discovered with the help of Wendi's daughter (also a preschool mom) that the family was in critical danger. Emergency workers finally arrived and each of the 4 living in the house were sent to the hospital; Wendi in the most critical condition. She spent about 5 days in the hospital and has recovered fully. Ashton really missed her and is SO excited to be back at school. We are so thankful everyone survived. We now have CO detectors in our home (we did not before, sad to say) as we are more aware now than ever before of that hidden danger.
Dustin & I took a quick trip to Vegas on January 28th to celebrate both Valentine's day and our 14 year 'dating' anniversary. Can I just say this...I am SO proud of us! We have been together for nearly half of our lives. We are still so incredibly in love & happy! I love that I get to say I married my high school sweetheart! Vegas was GREAT! It was relaxing & rejuvenating and very inexpensive thanks to my thrifty travel planning (and my job). I love you babe!
Valentine's Day this year was centered around Family Love! We woke up & headed to IKEA to get the sale on sheets ($9.99 for king size sheets!) then we headed to the South Jordan Rec Center to go swimming. Ashton's swimming lessons last fall really paid off. He is a great little swimmer at just 4 1/2 years old. He even went down the water slide alone, even though he's not quite tall enough. Then we went out to lunch at Cafe Rio (yum!) then later that evening we went bowling, just the 4 of us. Ashton loves to bowl! Kadence is still too small, but helped me on my turns. She spent more time dancing around to the music & entertaining bowlers around us. What a wonderful, memorable Valentine's day!!