Happy Birthday Julie!!

I am just sneaking this in under the wire. It is still March 29th and that means it is still my sister Julie's birthday. She is an amazing sister!! She does so much service for other people - just like my mom did. She is so loving and kind to everyone that I am sure there are about 10 people who count her as their "best" friend. I love spending time with her, hoping more of her goodness will rub off on me. Unfortunately, she has a rather "slow" sister who wrote 3/28 all day and thought her birthday was tomorrow! She didn't even get a phone call from me today because I planned to call tomorrow. What a dummy! Hope you had a great day, Julie! I love you very, very much!!

JET LAG

I am just now recovering from my trip to London. I returned over a week a go and my sleep patterns have finally returned to normal. The fact that we switched to daylight savings time the day before we traveled to London could have contributed to this extended jet lag. I hate jet lag. You go somewhere, spend two days getting over the jet lag just in time to come home and experience it all over again. Oh well, it was worth it. We had such a great time with Lindsey, Alan and Isobel. London is always fun and beautiful but the best sight to see of all was Izzy. Izzy eating everyones food all the time, Izzy crawling from room to room and Izzy just smiling. Constantly. What an adorable child!! Everywhere we went people were excited to see Miss Isobel. She is a real charmer. My next trip is in 2 weeks to Arizona to see Lindsey and family again (they are going there to tend a niece and nephew) and also to visit my family. Then in May, Lee, Alex and I are going to Kaui to our timeshare. Looks like jet lag is in my future still.

London with the Phillips!

Happy Birthday Kell Bell!

March 17th is special to me because it is the birthday of my dad and also Kelly. I really wanted her to be born on his birthday so after a big turkey dinner on the 16th ( a Sunday and we ate at Kelly's grandparents in Blue Lake), we decided to go for a long walk down to the fish hatchery. Mind you, I had done little or no exercising the entire pregnancy. So we walked down and back, 3-4 miles total. Then I had a "sliver " of all the pies we made (about six). We went home and I finished off a 1 lb. Nestle Crunch bar. Seriously! About an hour later I didn't feel very well and started having cramps. Was it the walk and food orgy or labor?? Finally when the cramping didn't quit, we headed to the hospital. I was so bummed because it looked like she would be born on the 16th. A couple of hours before midnight my contrations pretty much stopped. They started up again after midnight with the help of Pitocin and Kelly was born on the 17th after all. I did spend quite a bit of the labor over an emesis basin though. Moral: don't eat much if you think you might go into labor-it was horrible to be so sick during it!! We had thought we were going to have a boy and would have named him Nathan Patrick after my dad and had a girl's name of Summer but when she was born on St. Patrick's day we decided she needed an Irish name and so she became Kelly.
Kelly never thought she was younger than her Chris, Kasey or her cousins. She was always a step behind them, always independent and SOOO easy! I remember Kasey was only 6 months old when I found out I was pregnant with the 3rd child and remember bawling all the way home from the doctor's office. I called my mom and she told me that Heavenly Father really wanted me to have this baby now and that it would be a special child. And she was right. I now have a theory that 3rd babies are really special because Heavenly Father knows you are going to be busy. Kelly always was easy, right from the start. We used to say we could leave her at home without a babysitter and she'd do just fine. She's always been so independent and confident. We loved watching her play sports. She was so good - tiny but tough!
The best thing though has been having her live by me since she got married (Thanks Jody-you are wonderful for having come here for these past years). I've seen her almost every day. Every weekend we go to town, we share stories about the boys and hang out together. She's one of my best friends (Kasey, Lindsey and Alex are my other ones but they don't live near me). I guess that I will have to go out and find friends my own age now that she if moving. Happy Birthday Kelly-I love you so much and will miss our almost daily contact so much. You are a wonderful mother, wife and daughter and I love you to pieces!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for letting me share these past few "extra" years with you!

p.s. sorry there are no cute pictures but I am posting from London where we are having a great time with Linds and family. Isobel is bsolutely adorable!!

OFF TO MERRY OL' ENGLAND!

Here's the latest picture of the house with a picture of one of the workers, Ammon. He loves to go out every Saturday with Lee and "work". His work considers getting as dirty as he possibly can. Last week he was walking on all fours (he was a dog) through mud puddles, barking. I wish I had had my camera with me that day. It was unbelievable!

We leave on Monday to go to London and visit Lindsey, Alan and Isobel. I am excited to see their new flat, hang out at the amazing parks in London, see "Wicked" again, and play with Izzy! This will be Lee's first real visit there so it will be fun to help show him around. We are going to the Cotswalds too! I love London so it's always fun to go back there. Cheerio!

THE ROOF IS GOING ON THIS WEEK!

Here is the latest picture!

They still haven't put a roof over my bedroom but things are progressing. At least they will be able to work even if it rains now!

WORK CONTINUES SLOWLY DESPITE RAIN

Here is the latest picture of the outside of the house with most of the trusses up except over the bedroom on the left. The rain continues and is hampering the sped of the work. Darn! I did pick out windows yesterday and got books for picking out the rock for the front so some progress was made. I just want it to go faster. Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day-like when my roof is done so they can work anyway!