The Vance's Sealing

So this weekend was amazing! For Christmas I got my mom's grandparents names ready to go to the temple. Greg and I went and did their baptisms and confirmations, My little brother and his wife did their initiatories and my older brother and his wife did their endowments. Then I took the temple name slips and made a wedding announcement that said, "Vivien Marie Gordon and Robert H. Vance request the honor of your presence at their temple sealing to be held at your earliest convenience, at the temple of your choosing." and we gave it to my mom for Christmas. We videotaped her opening it and she loved it. Well Saturday we finally got everyone together and went to the Mesa Temple and sealed my Great-Grandparents together! It was such an amazing experience. My Great Grandma died almost 2 years ago and I had spent most of my summers with her staying at our house so I really knew and loved her. My great Grandfather died before I was born and so I never knew him. But now after spending time in the temple on their behalf I feel closer to them now than I ever have and I am so grateful for this experience.

The Accident

So I have been waiting for something interesting to happen so we could print a new blog, well maybe I should have stuck with the boring stuff. Greg was in a car accident yesterday. Everyone is ok but greg's car is pretty much wrecked. Of course it happens on his way to court so in between dealing with cops and insurance companies he is trying to appear telephonically at all of his hearings (4 total) scheduled for that morning and trying to come up with alternate transportation. I think the Lord was just giving us a push to replace Greg's car. Now to the really funny part. Ethan came home from school and wanted to know where his dad was. I said, "he is at work." to which Ethan replied, "no his car is outside." So I explained that "Dad took a different car because dad had a car accident today." Ethan looks up with mild concern and says in the most straight faced deadpan way "oohhh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (very long pause) . . . . . . . . did he survive?" so of course I start to laugh, hug Ethan and tell him that "yes of course Dad survived!" and he said, "that is good, I have heard on the news that sometimes people don't survive car accidents." And I am thinking "son is that really how you think I would tell you? Here honey I made cookies do you want one? Oh yeah dad died today. Do you want some milk with that?" lol lol

That kid is so serious all of the time. Yesterday Emma was pretending to be Cookie Monster and so Ethan told her, "Cookie monster it is not healthy for you to eat cookies all of the time. I am going to start giving you healthy snacks and telling you they are cookies so that you can start developing healthier eating habits and making better food choices. ok?" I so don't know where we got that one!

Rock N' Roll Half Marathon

No I didn't run it as much as I would like to say that I did!! But we did go down and watch it last weekend. And I use that term "watch" loosely! Our friends Susie and LeAnn were running it and so we took our family down to cheer them on. The whole way down my four kids were chanting"Go Susie win the race!" It was incredibly cute, they love their Auntie Susie! After taking a tour of downtown Phoenix led by Josh (actually Josh was just trying to find the starting line) we parked right around the 5 mile marker. We stood around for about 2 hours waiting for them to reach us and mocking the attire some runners choose to wear in public (or not wear for that matter lol). The entire time my kids were trashing my car (did you know that baby sunscreen will eat right through paint? and I put that on my kiddos?!?). But we did finally see them, they were doing great! We cheered and screamed and then played marathon frogger getting back across the street through all of the runners to get back to our cars. Greg and I hadn't checked out of our room yet so we needed to get back to the hotel. Unfortunately at that point we were marathon locked and couldn't get to our hotel!! Finally after about an hour and a half we made it the 8 blocks back to our hotel and checked out. Then we tried to find our way to the finish line to see Susie "win the race". Traffic was horrible so we made it to a parking space just in time for Susie and her family to make it back to her car! Dang it!! We really wanted to be supportive but hey we had fun! We got to go to lunch together (after another tour of the Valley courtesy of Josh! :) ). All in all it was a great time with great friends and now I so want to run in the half marathon, . . .someday :) !

Just a start

It has been an amazingly busy year. Here are a few of the highlights:

Ethan (6) - He is amazing. When he isn't going to school and challenging his teachers to think of something to teach him he is at home teaching himself. He recently taught himself to count to one hundred in Cantonese and has been working on memorizing the bones in the human body. He loves to read anything from story books to his sisters to home medical journals.

Emma (4) - She is hilarious. Her favorite thing to do is to make people laugh. She is taking after Ethan being a little smarty pants as well. She has been loving her preschool class and her tumbling classes as well

Rory and Bailey (2) - They are definitely giving us a run for our money. They are best friends and love to do everything together. They love it when they get to go to Emma's preschool and pretend school too. Rory never stops, she runs everywhere she goes and wants to try everything the big kids get to do. Bailey is the youngest (by a whole minute) and loves to be the baby. She is content to sit back and observe and let Rory do all of the exploring for her.

Greg and I have been doing really well. A year and a half ago we went out on a limb and bought the only firm here in Winslow. Working for ourselves has been quite an adventure but the lord has surely blessed us this far. I get to work two days a week handling all of our billing and accounting. It is so much fun to get some time with Greg away from the kids and every now and again to watch him in court. I really am impressed with all he is able to do. This Sunday he gets to start on a new adventure as the Elder's Quorum President (shh it's still a secret :)! I am once again working with the Young Women and I love it! I also help teach our preschool co-op. It is a great time and an amazing group of kids.