Life is Good :)

What a busy two months we have had here at the Esplin house.  A couple weeks after we got back from Italy, I went to Texas for five days to go to a Time Out  for Women in Plano.  I stayed at my sister's house in Austin, then went to Dallas and spent two nights there, and ended back at my sister's house again.  It was nice to get away all by myself and know that things were well taken care of at home.  It was also nice to come back and be a better mom and wife.

My pictures are not where they should be, so when Robert comes home I will upload some pictures.  However, after Texas, I headed a family fundraiser night at Taco John's with a coloring contest and that was a success.  During that time I also was putting together orders for 72 hour kits for our ward and picking up the items and that was a big undertaking as well.

Halloween was fun.  The kids actually enjoyed it this year. Hannah was five different things, Molli was Hermione and Michael was Harry Potter.  The younger two just happened to be anything that was around.  They had a parade at their school and parties in their class rooms (another thing I was in charge of was getting parents to help out with all of the parties in each classroom). There was no school on Friday, but the kids got to go trick-or-treating at Robert's work.  We tried to go to "Trick-or-Treat Street" at Snake River Landing, but that was a mess and we never did find the end of the line. Saturday was the Trunk-or Treat at the church and the kids ended up with so much candy.  We still have some left even a month later.

After Halloween, I was put in charge of taking orders for a canning activity the young men and young women were putting together. During this time was another fundraiser at the school for Texas Roadhouse Rolls. Note to self -- this was a great fundraiser, almost too good.  Next time it won't be right before Thanksgiving.

In the mean time, I have had a few activities with my girls for my calling as Activity Day leader of the 10 and 11 year olds. Right before Thanksgiving I was released from my preparedness  calling and put in as the second councilor in the Primary Presidency, still retaining my Activity Day Leader position for the time being.

Thanksgiving was a nice break.  After finishing up with the passing out of the rolls on Monday, I headed down to Hyde Park, UT with my kids to be joined later by Robert.  We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa's house then headed to Salt Lake the next day. After spending the night at Nana and Papa's house, we headed back up to Hyde Park for Thanksgiving day with Robert's family and friends.

Now we are back in Idaho Falls and I am preparing my four violin students for a recital coming up on the 19th of December. We are spending Christmas here and the kids are so excited for each new day.  Life is good and I am so thankful to live where I live, when I live, and how I live.

Italy

So, September came and went and I didn't blog at all. At least I did something fun and have pictures for it. Robert and I went to Italy two weeks ago and had a great time. He had a conference to go to and decided it would be more fun if I tagged along. He gave me a weeks notice to leave the country and our five kids at home with Grandma. I must say I was rather excited to be going to Europe for the first time. We were gone the week of September 15 - 22. We flew from Idaho Falls to SLC, to Chicago, to Rome, to Naples. Our hotel in Naples was right across the street from the Gulf of Naples and it was great. His conference was just down the road and most things were in walking distance.

On Friday he had a presentation to give and that is the main reason we went. His boss decided that he had done enough traveling for a while and sent Robert in his place for this presentation. His presentation lasted 8 1/2 minutes, we went clear over to Europe for an 8 1/2 minute presentation. There were other presenters from all over the world. Robert was at an advantage because everyone had to speak in English and that is what most people did not have as their first language. Including me, there were three Americans at this conference of over 100 people.

Robert made it to most of the conference and there was also a welcoming party the first night, a banquet the second night, and a trip to a buried city from lava the third day. The pizza is definitely different from what we have over here, and the other food is good, too, but I think I am too used to the American version of spaghetti and such. We had a good time being tourists on Sunday going to church and Monday going to Capri and souvenir shopping. We came home starting in Naples, to Rome, to New York, to SLC, then Idaho Falls. It took me about three days to get back to being not so tired and crabby to my kids. Thanks to Robert's work for sending us and to Grandma for watching the kids. Here are a few pictures of our trip.

The sunrise from the airplane going in to Rome

The View from our hotel window

Robert and me at the Herculeneum with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

The castle of Naples

Robert touching the Sea

Molli's Baptism

We had a wonderful day yesterday. Molli turned eight and was baptized by her dad the same day! It doesn't happen often that you get to be baptized on your birthday. She made such a cute baptismal candidate, but maybe I am being biased.

Robert was able to go to the temple in the morning and we still made it to the church with plenty of time to spare. I was asked to speak at the baptism and I am thankful for that opportunity. Another 8 year old from our ward was also baptized yesterday, his name is JB. With both families together we packed the baptistery with standing room only. I really enjoyed being able to watch Molli get baptized from the side of the font. When Robert started the prayer, the room was silent. When Molli came out of the water she was smiling from ear to ear, as was I. After she came up the steps and got wrapped in her new towel (her primary teachers brought it over an hour before the baptism), we stood atop the steps and watched JB get baptized. Once again, when the prayer started, the room was silent.

I am thankful for the priesthood in my life and for a husband who worthily honors it. I helped Molli get dressed real fast and we headed over to another room for hers and JB's confirmations. They both received wonderful blessings. We didn't get a family picture at the baptism, but I hope to get one soon with Molli in her dress. We did take some of Molli in her dress earlier so here is one of those:


Another exciting thing happened this past week as well. On Monday, Molli lost her first tooth. She was pretty nervous about it being loose at first, but everything turned out alright.


Molli is a wonderful oldest sister and enjoys making others happy. She is a great help and loves to learn. She has a fun time playing "school" and "house" with her younger brothers and sister and is a great example to them. I am so glad that eight years ago Molli entered our lives, howbeit two months early, her life is a miracle. She is exactly what her name Maligaya means - joy and happiness and I am proud of her.

June was a busy one

Oops, I didn't get around to posting anything in June. It was quite the busy month, if I do say so myself. I didn't take a lot of pictures of our happenings, but it was something like this: Molli had summer school four days a week from 8am - 12pm, Michael had T-ball two days a week, Hannah and Molli had gymnastics two days a week, I had rehearsals and performances for "Oklahoma!" I was in the pit. For one of my performances Robert's whole family (except for Rebecca, she's on her mission in Indiana) were at my house. My mom and dad and sister also came up, so we had a full house, 19 people in all. Robert went to Yellowstone with the kids and his family and gave me two days by myself. I had to stay home for my performances or I would have loved a trip to Yellowstone as well. We were even able to make it to the zoo two times in June.Now that it is July, we are slowing things down a bit. All of the fore mentioned activities ended at the end of June and now the kids (and myself) have swimming lessons to look forward to in a week. We shall see how that goes with me and five kids in the pool.

For the 4th of July weekend we went down to Salt Lake as usual. The kids and I headed down on Friday and Robert come early on Saturday morning. My sister Andrea and I ran a 5k last year and now she thinks it is a tradition so we found another one to run this year. It was in Murray and there were a lot of people. Not my best time (42 minutes, Andrea was 36 minutes) but at least we finished. I plan to run/ walk another one in Iona on the 24th of this month. The whole family will hopefully be doing that one. After the race, Andrea and I took off and forgot to get our T-shirts, so we went back and they luckily still were around to give us some.

After the race we went to the parade and had fun watching that. Robert walked down with Michael while pulling Evan and Hyrum in the wagon and Ryan (my nephew) was on his scooter. I think I got about two hours of sleep the night before so it was really nice to have aunts around to watch the kids while I took a bit of a nap. We headed back to Idaho Falls later on Saturday and made it back just in time to see the firework show that claims to be the "biggest firework show west of the Mississippi." They were cool. Evan was entranced by them. Here are a few pictures just for fun.

Summer is Just Around The Corner..... I think

Wow, another month almost passed by and I haven't posted anything yet. Hannah turned 5 towards the beginning of May and we went to a place called Leo's Place to celebrate her birthday. The kids had fun playing on the toys and taking their chances at Skee Ball.

Hannah's cupcakes and cake. It was late at night and I got creative :)

April sure had some weird weather in Idaho.

This was at the beginning of April - Snow Day - No School

This was about two weeks later - 80 degree weather and beautiful

Now it is the end of May and school ended on Friday for Molli and Thursday for Michael. I think Michael is a bit nervous not to have school anymore. He will miss it. Molli started missing school on Friday around 6:00pm. They will survive. Molli has Summer School starting on Wednesday and is looking forward to that. Her teacher is a good friend of mine from the ward, and I think Molli will have a great time. This June is mighty busy, but I am loving it! Michael has T-Ball twice a week, Molli and Hannah have gymnastics twice a week, Molli has summer school four times a week, I have practices and performances for Oklahoma! and then in July we will take swimming classes.

Life is good and I am glad I had the opportunity to give the lesson in Relief Society today (I was asked on Friday Night to give the lesson). It was on temple work based on a talk by Elder Russell M. Nelson called "Generations Linked in Love" which he gave in the last General Conference. Long Story short, I believe this was to be my topic today. My friend that will be Molli's teacher in the summer is preparing to go to the temple with her family soon. I hope it helped. I had many compliments on it when I finished.

Have a wonderful June!

Our RV trip to Nauvoo

Time for another Esplin post. For Spring Break we decided to take a family trip to Nauvoo and other places along the way. Deciding that we would need to rent an RV to make things more comfortable, we also decided we would need someone in the back of the RV with the kids. So, I asked my mom if she would come. She was a good trooper and I am glad that she was able to make it. We got the kids out of school early on Friday, March 26 and headed down to Salt Lake to pick up the RV and my mom.When we finally got everything loaded into the RV, we left and made it as far as Lyman, Wyoming before we decided it was time to stop.Our first KOA in Lyman, Wyoming

OH! when we first got in the RV at the rental place, I was not too impressed. The RV smelled kind of funny, it was really dusty and dirty, and I think there was a tomato in the sink. We made do and headed on our way. Robert and I joked that it made it from 0-65 mph in about a minute and a half. Well, after our cold night spent in Lyman, we were on our way again. The RV just didn't seem quite right. To make a long story a bit shorter, the RV died about 100 miles into Nebraska in a little town called Ogallala. We then joked that the RV went from 75-0 mph in about 15 seconds. This RV was going nowhere. My mom said she would stand outside and wave a white sheet to stop a Nebraska farmer. That idea didn't pan out (thankfully) and we ended up calling around and found local members of our church to come pick us up. Total strangers were willing to pick up eight stranded people and take them under their wing for a bit. That is one thing great about this gospel, wherever you go, there are great people that have your same standards and are wiling to help you out.

Our RV being towed

Anyway, we went to church with Andrea, Harold, Kimmi, and Ryan and their families (our new friends) the next morning and had a great time. We even were invited to go to one of their houses for lunch after church. In the mean time, our RV had been towed to the hotel we were staying at with hopes for a new RV the next day being brought to us from Denver.
Monday morning brought another tow truck and someone who towed the RV to a place in town. But now we were really stranded without any food of our own and anymore clothes. So, I called Kimmi and asked if we could go to her place until our RV arrived from Denver. She welcomed us with opened arms and we ended up going to a lake for a pic-nick lunch with her and Andrea and their youngest kids. Not really a planned trip, but it worked out well. It was still a bit cold for a dip in the lake, but the kids had fun throwing rocks in and "stirring" their stew.
We finally got back on the road around 8:00 that night in a clean RV that wasn't making weird noises and drove as far as we could before we stopped for the night in Kearney, Nebraska. So much for stopping in Lincoln, Nebraska to visit a friend and his wife and so much for stopping in Missouri to see some sites out there.By driving all day Tuesday, we pulled into the Nauvoo State Park late Tuesday night and we enjoyed a full day of Nauvoo the next day with our own tour guide, my mom's cousin Marjorie. We were even able to put a session in at the Nauvoo Temple while Marjorie watched the kids for three or so hours, many thanks to her. That night we went to a play put on by half of the senior missionaries (we missed my sisters in-laws by a night). We were pretty tired by the end of the night.

The next day (Thursday) we went on a carriage ride around Nauvoo then headed over to Carthage. Robert wanted Hyrum to get a picture by the statue of Hyrum Smith. After our time there, we headed back to Salt Lake. We stopped in Iowa City and had dinner with a friend of mine from the mission and his wife and kids. We stayed the night in Omaha then drove a long time and stayed the night in a cold and windy place (I felt like we were in a boat on the water) in Rawlins, Wyoming. We made it back to SLC the next day and back home to Idaho on Easter Sunday. What an adventure.Our last KOA in Omaha

That about sums up our trip. Kudos to Robert for packing the van just right that everything fit into it that took two trips for me to get it to Salt Lake. It is good to be home. Now I am looking forward to my trip to Boise this weekend with just Robert and me while his mom comes up to watch the kids. Robert is taking his big Professional Engineering (PE) test so good luck to him. That also means that I will have basically a day to myself in Boise, what fun!

Thanks for reading this far on a long post. PS.... What was wrong with our first RV, you might ask? The yoke on the emergency brake fell off. Whatever that is, I don't know. If you know, maybe you can inform me. Life is good :)

March in like a Lamb

Michael got to be the lucky one to hold the baby bear, but Hyrum didn't mind the bear chewing on his arm. "I'm not food!" says Hyrum when he looks at this picture.

Or was that like a lion? Idaho Falls weather is quite interesting. Yesterday I walked to the school to get the kids and it was gorgeous weather. Today.... not so much. When I got in the van to go pick them up it was windy (dust storm from behind us) and then it started to snow/rain and the wind shield wipers had to be on the whole time. Now as I write this, the sun is shining happily through the window. I'll take whatever sun I can get.I have finally gotten some more pictures downloaded so I figured it was time for an update. We are headed off to our Spring Break trip tomorrow. We will start in Salt Lake and eventually end up in Nauvoo and other places in between and then back to Idaho Falls. I have been doing laundry like crazy today to get ready. My mom is coming with us so it should be an interesting trip.



Now on to Hyrum. He just can't seem to stay unhurt or not sick. I think there really is merit to flu shots, he is the only one in our family that didn't get one and he seems to be sick the most. Anyway, after the whole burning his hand incident in December, he fell off the bed downstairs and got stitches in his head, thanks to the neighbor who stitched that up for us. He got the stitches out about a week or so later, thanks again to the same neighbor who took them out, and then Hyrum goes and bonks his nose pretty good on our window sill. That happened about two weeks after the stitches came out. He's only three and has had more injuries than our other four children combined. Ahhh, such is life.

I am keeping busy at home with three violin students (perhaps one more soon, or she might have me teach piano.. OK, sure), and planning trips. After Nauvoo Robert and I will head out to Boise for him to take his Professional Engineering (PE) Exam. His mom is coming up to watch the kids while we are there. I am also going to Dallas this October for Time Out For Women with my mom and sisters. It should be fun. Molli and Michael love school and are looking forward to the next grade. Hannah is also excited to start Kindergarten next year.That about sums up the Esplin's. We did go to Yellowstone Bear World and we were able to hold a bear (well, Michael did) and got a picture of it. Life is good.

The kids in front of Bear World

Michael and his 'do' for Spirit Week 'Crazy hair day.' Yeah, it lasted until the picture was taken, and then it fell over.

Michael learning about the letter 'W' in class, so he got to hold live worms.

Another month has come and gone....

This is a cute 15 second video of Evan saying basically his first words. He is playing "peek a boo" and says "See You!" near the beginning and something like "boo" near the end. This is quite the step up from his high pitched screeching. Take a good look at his hair in this video. This same day Hannah cut his bangs off and some parts off the back. Here are some before and after pictures. (I promise it is the same day, he likes to play in the water and I had to change his soggy clothes.)

This is before....

And this is after....

It was quite subtle so I didn't notice it at first, but that Hannah, I tell you, just don't leave her alone with a pair of scissors and expect her to tell the truth after wards.

Not much went on in January. We decided that we are going to take a family vacation at the end of March/ beginning of April to Nauvoo with my mom. We will rent a motor home and go from there. What an adventure this will be.

I still enjoy helping over at the elementary school two or so times a week. I just got finished calling over 45 people to help with the upcoming class Valentine's parties. I am a little tired of talking on the phone. Maybe this is why I have not updated my post in a while, I don't have much to say. That is all for now. If I think of anything more exciting I will be sure to post it. Have a great day!!