Lava Hot Springs

Yesterday we went down to Lava Hot Springs with my mom's side of the family and had a good time. We rented a double tube and ended up taking it down the river 7 times. I went with Michael, then Celeste (my sister) and Molli, and with Hannah. Robert and I went down together once as well. The hardest part is getting in and then getting out when you are supposed to. Robert went down with Hannah, and Michael twice. He tipped over on all three of those times. Michael thought it was great, and I guess Hannah didn't mind too much because she went again with me. I bruised up my behind pretty good, and Robert bruised his leg. On his last ride down, Robert was with Michael and they had two pretty good spills and unfortunately Robert lost his spare pair of glasses (luckily they were his spare) and, not realizing until this morning, he also lost his wedding ring. I know he feels bad about that. I told him now we get to go wedding ring shopping. He wasn't thrilled about that either. He said, "Well, life goes on," and I told him that is very true. They weren't in danger of losing their lives on the river, but I am glad it was only his wedding ring and not his life. (I also told him better his than my ring, his was less expensive).
I will post some pictures of us coming down the river later.

My sister, Celeste, called us when we were about half an hour from home and told us that her car broke down on the side of the freeway. There was nothing much we could do at this point but give her a few phone numbers. I felt bad for her, but I knew it would all turn out.

In another post I mentioned I would show a video of Evan learning to crawl so here it is.

Randomness in July

I decided I want to post some pictures to facebook, but it didn't work so well, so I am putting them here with captions instead. Here's for trying a 4th time :)

Molli had a party for us and we did a craft of picture frames.

Michael the Missionary

What is this, you ask? It is a baked potato looking ice cream, of coarse. I live in Idaho, what do you expect? I didn't make it, but apparently only a few people legally can.

After the open house of the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple

Enjoying a Sunday afternoon with Aunt Andrea

In a club house, so fun!

Susi, Matt, Ashton, and AnnaBella on AnnaBella's blessing day

Matt and AnnaBella

Waiting for the 4th of July fireworks with Andrea, Molli, and Celeste

Having a tea party. They set it up and cleaned it up all by themselves :)

Molli at her cheer camp

Michael on the field. I have no idea why he is covering his face.

Molli and Michael wearing their "Summer activities" shirts. T-ball for Michael and cheer camp for Molli.

Some Goings-on in the Esplin Days

I guess it is time to update this blog again. We have had a few things take place in June and they are somewhat notable, I guess. Last Saturday I finally ran the To Bone and Back relay with people from Robert's work. I ran the last 5 mile leg and boy am I glad that I am done. Silly me, I will probably run another 5K on this Saturday.


Evan learned to sit up and crawl in one week. There is no stopping him now. He loves to pull himself up on the furniture. I think he will be walking by his 9 month birthday. I hope to post a video of him learning to crawl. It was quite cute. In the mean time, I will just post pictures that were taken in June. Life is good.



Here is a rainbow after a good storm



Here is a sunrise the next morning


Here is my new baby, with Evan sitting in front of it :)



And here are some cute random pictures of Evan.

Our Finished Basement

These rooms are what you see at the bottom of the stairs directly in front of you. Our master room is to the right and the craft/ sewing/ study is to the left.

This is inside our bedroom

This is the kids' craft corner and misc. stuff

This is our new living room with my new craigslist couch and banana chair :)

This is called a "kid cave" which is a playhouse under our stairs for the kids.

This is the play closet full of toys.



Well, we finally got the basement finished so here are the updated pictures. Things are still in the moving stages, but here is the result and I am quite happy about it.

Hannah's Hair Raising Event

What a week!


This is Hannah a day before Michael cut her hair

This is the back view

This is the front view

And this is the view after my friend Paula fixed what she could.

ok- so when the delivery guy dropped off our fridge a few days ago, I happened to mention our broken windshield of last week. He smiled and said, "I hope things don't come in threes." I laughed and agreed with him. My third thing just happened. My 5 year old son decided to play hair cutter for my 4 year old daughter. Her hair that took four years to get just about shoulder length is gone...gone, gone, gone. :o}

What a Feat!

Well, the basement is close enough to being finished that we decided to move down there. I will post pictures later. So, yesterday was the day of the big move and all seven of us got moved in to new rooms. Whew! No more nights in the bathroom for Evan. So Robert and I moved downstairs and so far so good. Hyrum seems to do well in his bed (no problem whatsoever for his first nap in his new room, but a bit of a struggle at bed time). Michael loves his new top bunk, Hannah has promised to sleep in her bed always (as opposed to the floor where she used to sleep), and I think Molli will be fine after some adjusting.

Last night I heard someone crying and I ran upstairs to find Molli sobbing hysterically. I asked her what was wrong and she said that she missed her old room - sorry, not moving back in there. As I was trying to tell her that this is her room now, I found a framed picture of Robert and I from our wedding in her bed with her. I think she misses us being right across the hall from her. Hopefully things will go better tonight.

In other news, I ran my first 5k on May 9th. Wow, what was I thinking? Happily I finished in the goal time I had set for myself, even if I was the 6th to last person to finish. I know now I have a long way to go to run the 5 miles of the To Bone and Back relay at the end of June. But just finishing this race will be good enough for me.

Hannah turned four this month and loves it. Molli will end her first grade year on Friday and I think she is ready for summer. Michael can't wait to start kindergarten and Robert is doing well at ES². And that about sums up May.

The basement

I figured it was time to write again in the blog. We are getting our basement finished and I must say it is quite the process. We hired out, because basically, we wanted it done and Robert nor I have any skills in that department. It is also nice to give people a job during this hard economic time. They framed it when we were out of town at the Grand-daughter's weekend. That was the beginning (after Robert and some boys in the ward moved all the stuff out of the basement to the garage). In no particular order, we've had the electricians, plumbers, sheet rockers, finishing carpenter, painters, the carpet layers are coming to measure some time soon, and I am sure I have missed some people, specifically the framers and our contractor who has been in and out frequently. Needless to say, I stopped breast-feeding Evan about two weeks ago to make things more comfortable for all those involved. It looks really good down there but I am getting anxious for it to be finished. It was also fun to hide Easter eggs and baskets downstairs because it was raining pretty hard at the time we were supposed to hide them outside.

On another note, Robert is still working at ES Squared as an engineer, but sadly, some of his friends over there were laid off this week. Good Luck to all of them that need to find new jobs. They are in our thought and prayers. Life is Good!