A Morales Minute

When Lindsey came home to go to the temple she brought some things home so that she wouldn't have as much to bring back later at the end of her semester. A day after she left I had gone into the spare room where she had left boxes. I pulled out the chair and this is what I saw... She has finally decided she doesn't need Oink anymore. 😢 She's engaged and ready to really grow up and leave stuffed animals behind. I knew the day would come. Honestly she's kept him a lot longer than I thought she would. She received Oink as a Christmas gift on her first Christmas when she was nine months old from her Great-grandma Naylor. She grew attached to him immediately. It was always so cute. But this, was harder for me to see than I thought it would be. It wasn't where he just got stuffed into a box or closet as a kid. She kept him on her bed for all her life. Through over a year of college, and now she's brought him home. I love the girl I've raised. 💗 I had a bag of do

Koda was sniffing the bag that I had just poured his food from into the storage bin. There was still some food in the bottom half of the bag so Olivia lifted the bag open and Koda just walked further into the bag and started munching.  He was a bit hesitant at first because of the sounds of the bag but then he decided he could trust Olivia to keep it open so he went further in. It was a good thing because he hadn't been eating a whole lot lately. We were actually glad to see him eat probably close to an entire serving. It was just so cute to see him want to climb in there. 😍  

  Brian has been wanting to run a half marathon so he asked me if I'd get back into running and train and prepare to run one with him. It just so happened that he was available to come up for the Run the River half marathon on April 20th. (Lindsey deciding to go to the temple the day before made it perfect timing so that Brian could be there for it and the half marathon.) My parents stayed the night at our house so they could come support us at the start of the race.  I kept a good pace and was trying to get a PR. It would have been awesome to make it under two hours but I just couldn't run faster it seemed. I felt good the entire race but the last couple miles it seemed to drag on, like I was running longer than 13 miles. lol But I am happy to say I did get a PR! I cut 2 minutes off my time. I ran it in 2 hours and 33 seconds. So not far over 2 hours! I placed 49th out of all runners, 22nd among all females, and 5 in the female age group of 40-49.  Brian finished in 2 hours 8

After we came out of the temple Lindsey had many family and friends out waiting for her.  I thought it was so special that Jaime's parents and Bel came with Olivia and the boys to see Lindsey come out. Brian flew up for the event and Lori, Elizabeth and my parents were all there inside the session with Lindsey. I appreciate that Jaime's side of the family supports our kids in their religious endeavors and even though they don't completely understand what happens inside the temple, they understand how important is to us and they still do what they can to be a part of it.  After these pictures Isaac took Lindsey for a walk around the temple. The rest of us crept round the other side to take a peak at the scene unfolding at the back of the temple.  Isaac proposed to Lindsey! His parents set this up for him and they were there to record it. The rest of us tried to stay back and give then some time alone for their moment. lol I'm sure Lindsey knew what was going on as soon a

What a blessing to see Lindsey have the desire to go to the temple for herself and make covenants with Heavenly Father. We were looking forward to this day and the morning of I got a message saying that our session at the temple was canceled! I just couldn't believe it. I called the temple and found out that they had a pipe break and so the water was turned off to the temple and all appointments for the temple that day was canceled. They said they were working hard to get it fixed but there was no guarantee! We had family fly into town for this. Isaac's family was currently on their way because they wanted to be there for Lindsey and, little did she know, but Isaac was planning to propose to her outside the temple that evening. Because they were working on getting the pipe fix we just continued on that day with the plan that we'd still be going. We decided to exercise our faith.  Isaac's parents got in to town. We visited for a bit and then were headed out to go for lun

Lindsey and Isaac had the goal to take their siblings to the temple to do baptisms. They went to the Meridian Temple with Isaac's siblings and then when they were visiting us they went to the Columbia River Temple with Lindsey's siblings.  Tyler, Isaac, Lindsey, Aidan We had a good time being there together. We really missed having Olivia with us. She's on the superintendent's student action council and had a meeting that she needed to be to.  Thank you Lindsey and Isaac for your sweet example.  Tonight we made stores and sat by the fire. I love casual evenings of hanging out with the family and my kids enjoy just being together.  Olivia liked having some time to be with Lindsey. Isaac was so good to let them hang out on the outdoor sofa laughing and giggling as he visited with the boys.   

These two! I love them so much. These girls put these suction cups on their heads. Connected at the forehead. haha Their antennas. I didn't get a picture of when Olivia took hers off. Poor girl had purple marks left on her head, the suction brought the blood to the surface of the skin leaving slight circle bruises. She was able to cover them pretty good with makeup. It was only noticeable if you knew it was there and looked hard enough you could see it. She was upset but she could laugh about it too. She did think it was funny. Glad she could laugh about it.   

Happy Easter! We spent Spring Break in Seaside with my parents and it happened to be the same week of Easter. It makes me remember back when we went to Utah for General Conference on Easter with my parents when our kids were a lot younger. We went to church then came back to our hotel right on the beach. We were blessed with such beautiful weather! Love my parents. Work has been crazy so Jaime was more than ready to get away for a week.  Awww, the way that he loves me. 😍 Lindsey spent Easter with Isaac in Meridian.  They sent us their Easter pictures. 😊 How cute! Tyler and Olivia enjoying the sun and playing games out on the balcony. We've been to the Peter Iredale shipwreck many times. It was fun to take mom and dad to walk along the beach and see it.  It seems like there's more of the ship visible now. Some years there's not much of it at all but a lot of sand has been pulled out in to the ocean revealing more of the ship's skeleton. Then we drove up to the jetty to