Ladybugs

Before it gets too hot outside we spend lots of time in the backyard. A few days ago as we were watering the lawn Treyson found a new treasure, a ladybug. He was super excited to see one in real life. He loved having it crawl all over us, although she would fall back in to the grass every once in a while. He would find her and hold her and tell her what a beautiful ladybug she was. He can test me to no end one minute and the next he melts my heart with his sweet ways!

Legacy

I remember a sunny summer afternoon playing in Grandma Walters back yard while she, mom, and grams all shaved the kernels off corn cobs. I wanted to badly to help. So Grandma gave me a corn cob and a knife and I butchered the poor thing but I helped. That is my first memory of canning. I can also remember sitting on the back steps of our house in Riverside shelling peas from our garden for mom to can. That garden was HUGE and in retrospect I am in awe at the bottles and bottles of food we had stored down in our basement and the work that went into that labor of love. So now I am carrying on that legacy and canning too.

This week I did 21 quarts of chicken breast (that's about 50 pounds... good thing it was on sale LOL). I also did 24 pints of strawberry jam and 14 quarts of Idaho spuds. This is all added to the bottles of carrots, peaches, and pears from last year.



What you see here is three rows of chicken, two rows of potatoes, and two rows of strawberry jam.

I am loving it! As prices rise at the grocery store it is such a comfort to know I can watch for the sales and stock up when the price is good. Thanks Grandma, Grams, and mom for teaching me this valuable skill and for giving me a legacy I can be proud of.

~Nikki

Alli and her latest accomplishment!

Report cards just came out for the 3rd quarter of school and my Alli got straight A's…. again!!! Do you know that since she started going to school in kindergarten she has always had A's and B's. In Jr. High she started taking accelerated courses and I got a lil nervous, but she is such a smart young lady and does soooo awesome in school. Next year is 8th grade and we received a letter from the school that Alli has been asked to join National Jr. Honor Society! On Tuesday, April 29th she will be inducted! I just had to brag about our Fred for a bit! Scott and I are such pround parents!!!!!
Hope everyone is doing great! I love you all!!!

Alli is getting baptised!!!

HELLO ALL,
TIFF HERE. JUST WANTED TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. ON SATURDAY, APRIL 26TH AT 10:00 A.M. ALLI WILL BE BAPTIZED. SHE MADE THIS DECISION ALL ON HER OWN, WE HAVE HAD THE MISSIONARIES AT OUR HOUSE BETWEEN 2 AND THREE TIMES A WEEK FOR THE PAST 2 MONTHS. IT HAS BEEN SUCH A NEAT EXPERIENCE. THE 3 OF US READING THE SCRIPTURES AND HAVING THE DISCUSSIONS. WE JUST LOVE OUR MISSIONARIES TOO. WE ARE SO SAD THAT 1 MIGHT BE TRANSFERRED TODAY. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE IF HE COULD HAVE STAYED FOR HER BAPTISM, SINCE HE WAS WITH HER FROM THE BEGINNING. IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO COOL!! ANYWAY, JUST WANTED TO LET YOU ALL KNOW!

LOVE YOU!

Aloha from Hawaii

We had a fun day 476.8lb blue marlin. It was a really fun fish it jumped so much and we got to see so much surface action that the fish tired out quickly and we got it to the boat in 45 minutes. I was really happy to because Amanda was with me on the trip, she is my good luck charm :)

I am living on the Island of Maui in Lahaina Town. I am Captain for a boat called the EXACT for Finestkind Sportfishing. It is a really fun job, were mechanics, plumbers, electricians and we get paid to go kill some fish I love it. My girlfriend Amanda and I own a hair salon called Salon Maikai, it's doing good we need more stylists and then we should be doing good. Amanda is really good and what she does everyone that leaves the place is smiling ear to ear. Well I have to work in the morning at 4am so maybe I will have more big fish pics tomarrow :) Take care hope everyone is doing good. My email is Mauimarlinslayer@yahoo.com

THANK YOU TJ ! FOR CREATING THIS WONDERFUL FAMILY BLOG. I CANT WAIT TO CATCH UP WITH EVERYONE.

Hello

So i must say that it is so exciting to hear how everyone is doing. i like this idea. As for me, I am lucky enough to have quite my job and stay home with my 8 month old baby, Hagen! He is amazing. I never would have guessed that a little miracle would bring so much joy and happiness into my life. Although, i am not going to be staying home much longer as i am almost done with school. I am currently doing some classes online to become a dental assistant. Spencer, my fiance, is getting really busy now that the weather is getting warm and that the bees are coming back from California. Thankfully we had a lot of snow this winter so it will be a good honey season for us. Well, that's me in a nut shell, and i look forward to hearing from everyone else.

Ashley

Grams and Papa are getting ready for the semi-annual move

Per the phone call with Grams and Tawny this morning:
Grams had cleaned her stove yesterday and is cleaning her fridge today. They will be leaving St. George sometime between Thursday and Sunday of this week.

Yesterday they enjoyed a ride to Kolob (we must know people in high places!) and Grams reports it was beautiful. They look forward to doing that again. Kolob is on the backside of the mountain that you see from the Zion National Park Visitor Center. (Tyia is disappointed it's not the planet after all.) Grams expressed her love of the beauty of the Earth and she's grateful to get out and see these beautiful places. Their good friends, the Reeders accompanied them.

During Gram's stay at our house to help Mom we had a few computer lessons while enjoying the spring weather outside (it's in the 80s!!) It's hard to imagine this great-grandmother as anything but hip! She loves to always be learning and keep up with the big dogs. She enjoys applying the knowledge that she has. How blessed we are to have her as the matriarch of the family.

Treyson's First Fish!

We had such a wonderful weekend. Treyson got a new fishing pole and tackle box for his birthday so we have been fishing the past 2 weekends. He loves it and wants to go everyday. This past weekend he caught his first fish and was SO excited! These are the memories I cherish!

Fun weekend!

Last week while garage saling with Grams I came across a little treasure that I had to have. I was purusing some books and found an instructional book on how to make little clay figures. Well I've been flirting with polymer clay for the past few months and I really enjoy it so I thought I could make some of the characters out of this book. When Nikki and her family came over for Kaidance's birthday party I showed the them my new book and they immediately wanted to give it a try too.

So this past weekend we all gathered at Mom's house to watch General Conference and play with clay. We all made a huge mess and laughed and giggled the whole time. What a fun memory. And now we each have some new critters to keep close by to remind us of our fun weekend. Of course we had to have a photo shoot with our new friends so that we could share them with all of you! Hope they bring you a smile or two :)

Tyia

Happenings at the Ritter Ranch

Wow Tyia... you ROCK for putting this together. :-) This is going to be great!

So... to catch everyone up on our little family. Jeff and I are doing great... we will celebrate our 8 year anniversary in May. Jeff is running an engineering lab and loves it. With the slow down of new home construction it's been a little scary but not too much. He is going thru a mini-mid life crisis and keeps bringing home new "toys". I just roll my eyes and laugh... he can buy all the motorcycles he wants as long as he pays cash and doesn't get a girlfriend. LOL

I have started my own little enterprise. My new "business" is a website (www.seemediet.com). I am so sick of being overweight that I decided to chronicle my own weight loss and sell tickets. LOL As I lose weight people can buy a membership to see what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and join in the fun. Although the site is live and anyone can see it it still needs a bit more content before it will be ready for paid memberships. I'll also have a free newsletter section that folks can subscribe to for free. I expect that most of the money earned on this site will come from the affiliate links. I am still working for www.savingdinner.com as well as teaching early morning seminary everyday. That keeps my days filled until the kids get home from school.... :-)

Madi is 13 now *UGH!* and doing great! She is still playing club volleyball and also made the school volleyball team. It leaves us running from practice to games all week long but it keeps her busy and away from the boys so it's worth it. LOL She is serving as 1st counselor in her Beehive class and is really excited for Girl's Camp this summer.

Jack just turned 11 and loves that his dad is now his scout leader. He earned his Arrow of Light last month. He is very active in Karate and is working toward his next belt. He loves Karate and is really doing well with it. He goes 3 times a week so it keeps him busy as well.

We finally got the addition on our home mostly done YAY!! Just a few cosmetic things to do here and there and the plumbing in the master bath then we'll good to go to start remodeling the "old" part of the house. I must say I'm sick of construction but I love how this little humble abode is starting to turn out. :-)

Yikes... I wrote way more than I thought I would so I am going to close for now. Can't wait to hear about everyone else's life. :-)

Love, ~Nikki

The Ortega Family

I love this whole idea of us keeping up with one another families! I am so excited to see how everyone is doing and how our lives are these days.
Joe and I just celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary and we getting ready to celebrate our 12 year anniversary of being together....yes I said 12 years! Treyson just turned 3 on March 27th and our little Jersey Girl was born on February 1st. Joe works very hard everyday in construction and I am blessed to be able to stay at home and raise our babies. I am happier and more fulfilled in my life than I ever thought possible and I love it! My days consist of diapers and spit up, monster trucks and sandboxes and "Mama I love you, your my best friend". Could life be any better.....I dont think so. My husband is my very best friend, we play jokes on eachother, have water fights and dance in the hallway. I am truly blessed! My life is very exciting and everyday brings new challenges, thanks to Tresyon. So I will for sure let you all know what kind of havoc my boy tests me with.
Again, I am so glad we are all doing this and I am excited to see all your families and stories.

Love Boo

Alli's Wisdom Teeth

Hi this is Alli, yes i just got my wisdom teeth pulled on Monday. Dont worry though i am doing ok, just a lot of pain and bleeding.

love you all, allison

Kymber is learning to walk

We had so much fun Sunday night! With Grams in town to help take care of Mom, Nikki and her family and Holly and her family came over Sunday night for pizza and a little fun. It was also Kaidance's (and Layken's) birthday so we got to have a little party. The slide show is from that night. But we also got some hilarious and beautiful video of Kymber walking back and forth between me(Tyia) and Holly. You can hear her giggling and doing so well!!! None of us could stop laughing. Anyway, here's one of the videos so you can all get a kick out of it too! What a precious little creation she is.

Tyia