supifam: May 2018

On Thursday April 26, 2018 my Uncle Steve passed away. I still can't believe that he is not with us anymore. My Uncle Steve was my moms brother. He was 61 years old. Aubrey and him actually share the same birthday. My poor Uncle Steve was kind of a hard guy to figure out. He never got married and didn't have any children. He kept to himself a lot but did come to all the family gatherings. I remember growing up and having him over all the time. He was really good friends with my dad and they always did projects together. We even took family vacations with Uncle Steve. When my siblings and I were much younger he would hold us by our feet upside down and do tick tock. I have lots of fun memories of him. Once I got married and moved away I really only got to see him at the family parties. Then when my parents moved to Sonora we even saw him less. Uncle Steve was a very wealthy man but you sure wouldn't now by how he lived. He was a true minimalist. He had a small house in San Mateo that was pretty much empty. He didn't own a car. He would take his bike and public transportation every where. He retired young from working for the city of San Fransisco. He did love to travel and I am happy that he did go places and see things. I loved to work out and run. I loved talking to him about running. He played football in high school and was really good at it. Poor Uncle Steve dealt with lots of mental issues and spent some time in the hospital. In January he was told he had cardiomyopathy. He was told to go and get it checked and to get on medication which we are unsure if he did that and followed what the doctor recommended. Two weeks before he passed away he suffered a heart attack and was in a coma fighting for his life. On Thursday morning at 5am his struggle ended and he went to heaven. This was very hard for all of us since he was so young. I looked back in all my pictures and here are a few of my favorites.

This is Aubrey (1 years old), Uncle Steve and his girl friend Diana

Aubrey's first Easter and meeting Uncle Steve for the first time.

This is one of my favorite pictures. We actually have this picture in our screen saver slide show. Aubrey and her uncles!

Summer 2010 meeting Carter for the first time

We were all so happy that Uncle Steve could make it to last years Christmas at our house. This was the last time we saw him.

Uncle Steve we will miss you! We love you a lot and we have faith that you are with grandma and grandpa in heaven. We haven't had Uncle Steve's celebration of life yet. We have it scheduled in San Fransisco in June.

Man April you were a busy month!

School started back up on Monday 4/9. We were busy with lots of after school errands gearing up for baseball season to officially start.

I need a couple things at Michael's and low and behold they had a kid class going on. The kids begged to stay.

and sure enough had to go back the next day for a slime craft.

Thursday 4/12 Aubrey got awarded student of the month and honor roll. we are so proud of her!

we had to get her a yummy after school treat for all her hard work!

The last day for my older reading groups was Friday 4/13 so this means I know I can play around and help me my kids classes and still get paid until mid May! So awesome! Friday 4/13 we started making hot air balloons in Aubrey's class.

When I got home I made a shirt for myself and another mom on the team.

Friday 4/13 was also our baseball parade making party at our house! We invited the whole team to our house to build the float, eat pizza and make a few crafts. Our good friend Carrie spent the night that night also.

I'm so sad that the only picture I got at the party was this boring table shot! What the heck! I was so busy with 11 baseball players and all their parents that I didn't have time to snap a few shoots I guess!

One of the crafts we made were these cute baseball necklaces!

The girls had a fun sleep over! But we were up bright and early to start our very bust Saturday!

Poor Spencer raced to the bay area the night before right after the parade. His brother called saying that he thought their dad was going to pass away that night so Spencer jumped in the car at 8pm and drove all the way to the bay area. He stayed the night with his dad. They were able to get his dad on a high dose of pain meds and he was able to live through the night. Spencer got back in the car and raced back to Merced to make it to the 9am baseball parade! I was shocked he made it! He is such a reliable coach.

Our truck looked fantastic! and so does the team!

We were thrilled the night before when Titi called and said she was going to make it to our busy fun Saturday!

I drove the truck in the parade that was a first! It was fun and it was neat to be such a part of our community. All the kids loved it too.

After the parade it was off to lunch at In N Out.

Then it was our first game at 1:00pm Coach Spencer getting his team all ready.

The game was great! Carter got a few hits! It was a tie game. By the looks of it we are going to have a great season!

Carter and I with our friends Lucas and Brandi.

After base ball we changed in the car and headed over to Carter's first piano recital. He did fabulous! I was so impressed with how good he already is!

To add to all the excitement of the weekend why not get a new car?!?

Out with our Chevy Traverse...

In with our GMC Yukon Denali...

Man this was a hard decision and we went back and forth for so long. We bought our Traverse back in 2010 a week after Carter was born. After we had Carter we quickly found out that his car seat and Aubrey's car seat didn't fit in our Santa Fe that we had at the time so we went down to Chevy to buy a Tahoe. When we got there and realized that the Tahoe's 2nd row didn't move it was pretty much the same problem as our Santa Fe so the car salesman showed us the Traverse. It was the only car at the time that had a movable 2nd row. I was never in love with the look and the color always bothered me. Well we got 8 years out of that car and after looking back it was a really good car and I feel a little bad about always complaining. It was just not my favorite look but it got us safely to lots of places and we have had many, many great family memories in it. Well about 2 years ago we started talking about wanting to get something new. Since I love the SUV look we went back and looked at the Tahoe's, we have always loved the Yukon look, Lincoln's and the Ford Expeditions. We then decided to wait and see the new Ford Expedition model in 2018 to make our final choice. 2 weeks prior to us buying our new car we went to GMC and saw the most beautiful Yukon. As we walked up we said I hope it has the interior color we want and it did. Then we looked and it had the bucket seats we wanted! The sunroof we wanted. The DVD the kids wanted. It had it all and more! We feel in love! It was then hard to justify buying a new car. Our red one was paid off and ran great why would we buy a new very expensive car?!?! but then we realized you know our kids are still young we have lots of road trips in our future why hot get something that is fun, new and has all the bells and whistles. I was still on the fence but when we took Titi to go see it she said you should just do it! So we did and we could not be more happy with it. It's an amazing car! I can't even list all it does. It's the Denali package so it has everything and more. We are going to have so much fun with it!

Now it was time to relax for the rest of our very busy weekend!

Every time we go in the garage we smile! We are loving it!

New car and new Lego sets, why not?

Tuesday 4/17 working in Aubrey's class painting the air balloons.

Wednesday 4/18 second coat

They came out so cute!

Wednesday was also Activity Day Girls. We made Mother's day gifts.

Aubrey looking cute for school!

Friday 4/20 helping with art in Carter's class.

Our final picture of the hot air balloons. They came out so cool!

Saturday 4/21 we were so excited to drive our new car up to Mariposa to do an escape room with the family and dinner. It was a gold mine escape room and it was so so so much fun!

We did it we escaped!

We even got certificates.

For dinner we went to this great place. I'm not even sure what my dinner was called but it was so yummy!

We had a great time!

When we got home the kids started on the Earth day crafts.

First up an Earth necklace....

That I got to wear to church on 4/22 for Earth day!

For breakfast I made Earth pancakes...

At sacrament meeting I printed out some fun activities...

That afternoon we made dirt for dessert.

We went on a nice walk and then made Earth slime.

and enjoyed dirt for dessert.

Tuesday 4/24 Carrie came over for the afternoon.

On Thursday 4/26 we had a very sad day. My uncle Steve passed away from a hearth attack. It has been a hard year for health in our family. My hearth just breaks that we lost him! I will do a tribute to him after this post.

On Friday 4/27 we needed to just be our family to reflect and be with the ones we love. We spent the day very sad but did do a small spring craft to bright our spirits.

Saturday 4/28 was the annual Activity Day Girls stake activity. I went with Aubrey to help. I worked in the crafting room making Thank You Cards. They always do such a great job and make the girls feel so special.