Falling in love...

I was reading an article yesterday on Flipboard. 

The author said that there is a huge reason for so many marriages failing and yet nobody mentions it or even talks about it.

Expectation.

We watch the movies and read the books and everything is so dang adorable and we think that is how marriage is going to be. 

Adorable... 

and we are going to have these darling children and we will love each other so much and nothing can be hard when we are so in love.

See Expectation.

I remember my dad telling me when I was younger a true story about when he was a bishop of a young married congregation.  Everybody that went to his church was just married or newlyweds.  He told me that these young marrieds were coming to his office in droves.  A huge majority of them having marriage problems all ready.

So my dad would inevitably ask what the problem was.

9 out of 10 times they would say, 

"I don't know, but marriage isn't what I thought it was going to be."

Darn they had an expectation.

Maybe it's true.  

I don't have an explanation of what happens in other peoples lives and why so many families are falling apart. I do think that the way love is portrayed now a days does skew our minds, but there have been love stories since the beginning of time.

I have always LOVED a good romance novel or movie.  Oh my goodness a good 17th or18th century English novel is always my favorite go to genre.  I have loved Jane Austen since high school and don't even get me started on the Bronte sisters. 

I can't remember if I had an expectation going into marriage or not.  

It was almost 25 years ago.  

I was 21 years old and so in love I couldn't see straight.  Maybe Tom is such a good husband that even if I had expectations he was continually exceeding them.

 I guess in the end I just like my life more then any book or movie I have seen because it's mine. 

I am the heroin in my own life.

(Stole this from the Holiday... clearly) 

The learning, the mistakes. the triumphs, they are all mine.

Tom and I are far from perfect (and who is?) but our love story truly is my favorite one.

It's uniquely us and I really, really love us.

And I can tell you this... when I watch him love and play with our kids... 

I fall completely head over heals, crazy over the top, in love with him over and over again.

She is still mine...

And I thank my lucky stars.

She's strong and walks with confidence.

She is poised and articulate but has a shy streak. 

She loves her brothers but she is sensitive and they can hurt her with one look.

She is smart. 

She's has a heart of gold and is kind but don't tick her off.

She has one best friend and they laugh and giggle together endlessly.

She has zero girl drama and she doesn't care a wit about any of it.

She doesn't care about fashion or primping. 

She has a wildness and a love of life.

She loves the water and plays in the freezing ocean for hours.

She's athletic and fast.

She's competitive and wants to win.

She loves animals.

She is still a little girl but in a young women's body.

She sleeps every night holding on tight to her teddy bear.

And every night when a tuck her in 

I thank my lucky stars

She is mine...

Spring Break...

Things have been stressful lately...

No need to go into detail on my "online private journal" haha but I don't write anywhere else so here it is.  

Life is not all rainbows and kitty cats as much as I would like it to be and believe me I seriously try and make it just that. 

I actually deleted all my social media because when life throws you curve balls and you are reading and looking at peoples pictures and they are spending spring break in Hawaii and Paris and the Bahamas and their life looks so perfect and you forget that maybe their life isn't so perfect.

And even though I know this when I see all the pictures of people seemingly living their perfect lives it makes me not count my many blessings and makes me wonder, "Why am I not in Paris for spring break? Why does my husband have to work all week?  Things like that and suddenly I am having a pity party for one serving myself a healthy dose of sadness to go with it. 

So for me I have to step back and remove it all and start at the basics.  We are healthy, I live with the man of my dreams and he gave me these people who I love more than anything and I get to share this crazy life with them and yes things are hard right now but these people are all healthy and happy and suddenly you stop having that little pity party. I just have to focus right now on helping my family the best way I know how.  

What's the saying? 

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  

Truer words have never been spoken.

So I keep putting on my oxygen mask first so I can help my kiddos and my sweet man. If I can't breathe then I certainly can't help them breathe.

In the meantime spring break turned out to be a blast and boy I was not expecting that.  

Monday I allowed myself to be in just a rotten mood.  Sometimes you have to work through stuff and I did. 

I woke up on Tuesday ready to make the best of it all so little Charles and I headed to the Oakland zoo.  Ella was with her girlfriend and since Charlie being the fourth child and all, probably didn't even know that a zoo exists, it was the perfect place for our date.

So hand in hand doing just what he wanted... we saw it all.

I honestly have never loved the zoo more.

It was all through Charlie's 8 year old eyes...

This is the part where the zoo worker scolded me for letting him sit on the fence.  C'mon it's not like I was dangling him above the lions...it was a little harmless monkey.  See him looking at us?

Wednesday was a total success at Six Flags.  

I am still amusement parked out from last spring break when we had our fun at Magic Mountain but the kiddos love it and I am such a roller coaster junkie at heart it didn't take much convincing.  So we met the Doxey's and Ellie came with Ella and again it exceeded all my expectations.  

Maybe that is the key don't have any expectations and then nothing is a disappointment...right?  Truthfully though I think it is because we talked Charles into riding Medusa and he loved it.  His height barely squeaked the line but the worker probably had pity on us after she over heard me talk to Charlie for 30 minutes straight how much he was going to love it.

Heading up the first hill I had my doubts. 

The poor kid was a light green color... but luckily to my roller coaster loving heart when I heard him say, "That is my favorite ride ever!"

 Well it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

We went on it 3 more times back to back and I mean we ran fast and I felt like a kid again and I was laughing and panting and laughing some more until Ellie threw up because apparently she does not have the roller coaster stomach stamina that Call's are naturally born with.

Oops sorry Ellie..

Things weren't quite as funny for a moment there...

Ellie looks a little pale still  ;)

This is where it gets good and I mean really good like as in great.  

Like as in the ocean seems to calm my restless soul instantly.

Growing up I didn't know I needed the ocean.  Land locked in Utah I just didn't know.

Now I need it's healing presence like I need air.

We stayed in Carmel Thursday and we drove home late Sunday night.

4 days on the beach and all was right with my world.

The first couple of days it was just me, Ella and Charles plus

Doxey's and Ann.

Nicholas flew in late Friday and he, Ben,Tom and John drove down to meet us.

I can't express how much fun these couple of days were.

Bonfires on the beach, runs along the ocean, bike rides into town and hours playing in the ocean.

I needed that.

I can't express how much I needed that.

This is an important picture.

This is Paris bakery and when I am here I sing to myself, "Who needs Paris anyway?" Sung in Elsa's voice to the tune of frozen, "The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway."  Seriously those songs have ruined me forever.

As I was saying the best pastry on the planet lives here and it is an almond croissant and you might be thinking that that doesn't sound very good because I would of, but it happens to be the best thing that has ever happened to our planet and the best thing that has ever happened to me while I am eating it and I was sharing it for the first time with Nicholas and I was just so very happy.

Siblings together again...

Things like this happen here.  

Usually I have to beg, borrow, plead and bribe to get them to let me take their picture.  My generally nice people turn nasty mean when they see a camera and make ugly faces on purpose, but when we are in Carmel Charlie looks at me and says, 

"Take a picture of me running fast."  

I smile and I do.

My boys are competitive about everything...

When Nicholas saw this picture he thought he looked buff and so I put it here to remember how much my boys like to look buff.

I love that they love the ocean...

but no one more than my Ella

He still loves his kite...

But not his burn because he was a ding dong and would not listen to his Mama.

I begged him...I really did.  

But noooo he wanted to be bronze for the ladies.

The kids went back to school on Monday and I was grateful for every minute with them and I got Nicholas for a whole week almost to myself while they were in school...
to be continued...

Easter Week-end...

I was having family over for Easter dinner. 

Doxey's to be precise.

I was planning on eating outside because that is where we eat 9 months out of the year. We have had blue skies and 70 degree weather for months because California decided to skip the rainy season for the last couple of years...thus the drought. Which as a side note I am really mad about because we can't water my yard...boo! 

But for right now, besides my lawn, my yard is the garden of Eden and smells of jasmine and my Easter dinner was going to be heavenly. 

However, this Easter we got a serious cold front Easter weekend and it was waayy to cold for outdoor dining...I mean it was like 62 degrees. 

So plan B and I had to bring the outdoors in.  

Since I decorated my table with Jasmine my whole house smelled sooooo good!!

To cut down on stress for Easter dinner I mostly decorated on Saturday but I put all my table pictures together to keep it all orderly.  

I'm good like that...

A little Easter fun...

Off to go see baby bunnies and chicks...

This picture kills me in black and white and color.

I mean seriously...I want one sooooo bad.

I want the coop.

I want the chickens.

I want their eggs.

 Easter day was weird/different.  We didn't go to church because we had General Conference at home.  No church on Sunday means no family pictures because we barely got dressed let alone be in cute clothes.  So it sorta didn't even feel like Easter...like I said weird.

I am sure it was the kids favorite Easter in the history of ever.  

We still had the Easter egg hunt with all the candy but no church...Score 1 for the kids!

 He is as not as serious about the Easter egg hunt as he used to be.  :(

He was at a leisure stroll while the other two ran circles around him and then after it was over he looked around and said, "Does anybody want my candy?"
What is wrong with him?

I hate that they grow up...have I said that before?