Salt Lake City 2009, The Alpine House, 2 weddings and a couple birthdays!

This past summer we took a trip out to Salt Lake City for two weddings, my sisters and our nephews, and John's mothers birthday. John's mothers birthday just happens to be a day before my fathers. My father passed away in 2006, but that didn't stop us from celebrating with him. We went to our favorite bakery (Glauss in sugerhouse), we bought our favorite cake and visited his gravesite and had cake with him. It was nice to be able to be with him on his birthday.

Here I am thinking about my dad.

We had a wonderful time with family, although we kept it low key because we were there for only 5 days and had so much going on in that 5 days. However, we did find time to visit Alpine, Utah. Rumor had it that the home my parents designed and built had been torn down and a new home put it in its place. My heart felt a pang when I heard that. I was 2 years old when my parents designed and built it and we moved in, my family and I lived there for 8 years. We had to move because my father had gotten to ill, he had just fought cancer, had heart disease and it was about that time that he was beginning to have symptoms of Inclusion Body Myositis; which originally was diagnosed as ALS. He was a fighter and he put his heart and soul into this house. I have lots of fond memories of that home and the memories it held for us. As we drove up our old street in Alpine and saw the tractors and work trucks in front of the home, I was afraid it was all true and sure enough there was a new house in its place. Tears welled up in my eyes and I think I jumped out of the car before John could even stop the car. I went up to the workers and asked if the owner was at home, I just wanted to see if he had preserved any part of our house. The new owner of the home was so gracious and kind and offered to show us around and sure enough he had preserved parts of the house.
Here is the home when we lived in it, then below that the owners after us painted it white?

and now finally it was almost completely torn down and this home was put in its place. I have to say the new home is amazingly beautiful and is a big improvement to the original home, although I still am very sad to see it go.

As we toured the home, the owner showed us what was original. He kept our pool, the one I learned how to swim in, oh so many memories!! And yes, that is me jumping in, with my little sister Yvie waiting patiently in back, so how many of you rember the red tank top unitubes?? Anyway, here are some before and afters...

He kept the original storage rooms, part of the lower patio in the back, and he put new walls in their original locations in the basement, he had to tear the original walls down because of termite damage. Most of the house had a similar layout to the original one, which I was glad to see. And finally the back of the home before and afters. My favorite part is what he did with the backyard and accenting the river.

When I lived there our backyard was mostly made up of trees and weeds and weaving through the trees was a river, beyond the river we owned another acre of land (I don't recall ever venturing beyond the river, though). The people we bought the land from back in 1977 had built a makeshift bridge accross the river and my sister R'lene and brother Kyle tried to make it safer to cross by adding more 2x4's and plywood accross the top. It still was not very safe, I was never allowed to cross by myself, nor did I want to. The current owners kept the bridge in it's original location and built a beautiful bridge in it's place. I recall in the winter my brother Kyle and I would play on the frozen river. There was one frightful day though that I won't ever forget, Kyle was walking accross the ice and fell in, we were able to get him out and he was safe, but I will never forget the fear and disbelief I felt.

Here is the new

backyard, isn't it stunning!

Then we went to my sisters wedding and Hugh the 3rd's wedding. Here is my sister and her new husband and then some cute pictures from Hugh's wedding.

Lydia graduates from Preschool and Jack finally looses a tooth at age 7!

Lydia graduated from Page 1 preschool in June and will attend all day Kindergarten with Jack starting in Sept of this year. We are so proud of her and think she did a great job! Here are some highlights:

I want to give you the story behind Lydia's banged up lip and face. I awoke one night before graduation to find Lydia crying loudly in her bed only to find her bleeding from her mouth and lip all over her bed. My husband and I cleaned her up and decided that she didn't need stiches. Lydia has no recolection of what happened to her and I did not see it happen. All I can assume is that it may have been from one of her night terrors. She tends to have night terrors at night, I have witnessed her standing up in her bed screaming at the top of her voice, eye's wide open and we have been instructed by the physician not to wake her up. If you know anyone that has had that type of dream, you know it can be terrifying to watch and all you want to do is protect them from whatever it is that is terrifying them. It is crazy her eyes will be wide open looking beyond you at something terrifying, you can literally see the fear in her eyes. So, my assumption is that she had, had one of these dreams and fell off from a standing position off of her bed and had hit the corner of her bedside table drawer, which was left open that night? Poor girl!

Lydia's teachers Mrs. Julie and Miss Shannon

Yes, it is true that my little boy finally lost his first tooth. He actually wrote about it in his journal at school and this is what it said, his spelling and all :).

"It was math time. later in math I got board so I disided to wiggle my tooth. While I was wiggleing my tooth something shoot up in my mouth! I took it out... and it was my tooth! I couldent believe what just happend."

I have to add that he left a note for the tooth fairy and here is what it said:

On the front it said

"To the tooth fairy

From Jack West

(leave for us Please. Thank you)

Inside it read:

"On the seat you will find the empier state bilding to welcome you. by the way, WELCOME"

(he had made it out of legos)

"Do wateever you want with it, you can even reck it! only if you want to. if you want to you can write back to me, I might show my class."

Of course the tooth fairy wrote back, you know she was quite nice. ;)

Margaret Louise Park and Birthdays

Ok, it has been a long time since I have written in my blog… and there is a lot to share... so there will be many posts dating back to early spring this year. Here is the first of many...

I had the Richards kids over for a few hours. They played out in the backyard where we have a small stream and nature path. They caught snakes, saw frogs, turtles and even saw a small beaver. After they played for a while catching snakes, I took all the kids including a few neighbors down the nature trail which leads to Margaret Louise park. Here are a few highlights from the trip:Grant holding the snake with Jack and Monte
Lilly and Lydia

Boys with sticks!







Elise, Emma, Erin, Lydia, Grant, Lilly, Monte and Jack.... here they are looking at turtles.

Comming back from the walk.

Emily Turned 1!

Emily’s birthday was a low key birthday we didn’t have a party or get together just simple cake and ice cream with Dad when he got home from work. We opened a few presents which included a couple of very pretty dresses from Grandma and a couple of outfits from mom.

Here is my 1-year-old eating her cake!

She took her first steps about a month after she turned 1!

Jack’s 7th and his Surprise!
I told Jack this year that he wasn’t going to get a birthday party, so his birthday came and went with just cake and ice cream and a few presents. He got some new roller blades and clothes and as an extra special gift I told him that we would go to adventure speedway one Saturday. So, two weeks later, on weekend where John would be home on a Saturday, we had all of his friends gather at Adventure Speedway to surprise him and the boys got to ride go carts and bumper boats, they all had a blast. Needless to say it was Jack's best birthday ever!

Staring Emily, SLC, home makovers, and ice skating in our own backyard!

It has been a long time since I have written on my blog I apologize and I have lots to update you on… I want to start out with the most exciting thing. My little Emily was chosen by Fisher-Price to model the Brentwood Rocker, here is her picture and you can check out the real thing on their website. http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=2011&e=detail&selcat=bgb&pid=48213 I took a trip out to Baby’s R Us and sure enough she was also on the box, she wasn’t the main baby on the box but they had a close up of her on the front and the back of the box.
I woke up this morning with this on our Kitchen table – “Don’t drink it is a ecksparement” can you guess who did this? You know if Jack goes into Science this picture will be classic!
I went to Salt Lake City with my three kids in February and it was as always, busy from start to finish. I flew out to take care of some family business. We stayed a few nights with John’s parents, one night with my sister R’lene, my mom and sister Yvette, then finally with John’s brother Will.
Lydia and Jack had so much fun being with family and all of their cousins and having multiple sleepovers with George and Lucy, Will’s Kids.
My friends Becky and Sarah put a get together on for me while I was there. My high school friends Jason, Becky, Natalie, Wendy, Sarah, Tasha, College roommates Amber, Becky and Michelle with spouses all came out! It was great to see them all and so much fun to reconnect!!
Flying home was not very fun, I got home and the Dr. said I had possible pneumonia. So not feeling well and having to be on-call with all three kids throughout the trip home made it not so fun. Although, I made it but I don’t think I would do it again, but I am sure there will be a time that I will have to. I was so glad to be home!!

Home projects… John took a week of vacation from work and his idea of a good vacation is staying home and getting something done. He tore up the kitchen floor and put a hard wood floor down. He also cut the counter off and put it in the center between the refrigerator and the sink, I can’t tell you what a huge difference it has made in the look and functionality of the Kitchen. Here is the before, John working on it and the after.
He also tore down the dark brown 70's paneling in our family room and painted it a light orange with white crown molding, it isn’t completely finished but this is it so far.
Tuesday nights the Residents usually have mandatory journal club, so we girls don’t want to be left out and we get together and have dinner or make dinner. In the picture; Karen PGY3, Me PGY2, Megan PGY4, Liz PGY3 and our 4 baby’s born not to far apart, aren’t they cute! We are missing the other wives, we hope they can come next time! These girls help me stay sane; I don’t know what I would do without them!!
And last but not least dating back to when we still had snow on the ground, here is a short video of Jack and the twins next door on the ice rink our neighbors dad constructed!

Our 2008 Christmas Story

It all began with a couple of huge weekend snowstorms that left us with about 3 ft. of snow on the ground, which the kids loved!

The schools were closed both the Friday before Christmas and the Monday, so the kids had one day of school before Christmas with all of their Christmas parties on that day. We went to Lydia’s for her Christmas program and she was a Christmas tree representing how Germany celebrates Christmas, I thought that was fitting giving our family history and her grandfather Henry Herget.

Santa Clause came to visit her school and we were able to get the kids picture taken with Santa. Emily is not to sure about the situation.

Then on Christmas Eve we had a surprise visit from the Fire Department and guess what, they had Santa with them! Their fire engines came roaring down our street decked out in Christmas lights and Santa in the front seat. They stopped in front of our next door neighbors. And of course all of the kids on our street came out of the house. Santa gave them each a candy cane and a hot wheels car! We were lucky enough to get our picture with him.

Overall, this year was a little lonesome. John had quite a week at work, starting on Sunday leaving at 5:30am and not getting home until 7:00-9:00pm most nights and he finished out the week on-call on Saturday not getting home until 10:00am Sunday. He was exhausted.
Thankfully he was home for Christmas Eve. The kids and I had dinner at the Hulse’s and then we caught up with dad that night at 6:30pm. We had hot cocoa, listened to our family Christmas stories and let the kids open one gift. Their one gift is Christmas PJ’s and here they are:

Then Christmas day, Jack is at that age where 4:30am isn’t to early to see what Santa brought him. So he comes into our room to wake us up, our first reaction is to roll over and go back to sleep but we figured since dad had to leave at 5:30am and was going to miss Santa gifts we would do Santa gifts with him; so we all got up and went downstairs. They each got to open the gifts Santa brought and that took until about 5:00am. Then John went and got ready for work while I put the kids back to bed. And guess what they slept in until 8:45am, I couldn’t believe it. I think we are on to something here.

Christmas day the kids had to wait until dad got home to open the gifts under the tree, so to keep them occupied the sister missionaries dropped by and played battleship with Jack and helped me get ready for John to get home. It was a blessing to have them drop by!! John got home at 7:30pm, we ate our Christmas dinner of Ham, cheesy potatoes, homemade rolls, etc. and then we sat down and opened the rest of our Christmas gifts. The kids didn’t get to bed until close to 11:00pm!

Christmas Greeting!

In April of 2008 we welcomed Emily Kathryn West into our family. She has been such an easy baby and we feel so blessed to have her in our lives. She was a lot smaller than Jack and Lydia coming in at only 6 lbs. 1 oz. Her brother and sister have been a huge help taking care of her and she is now starting to coo and babble.
John is staying very busy in his residency by working long hours. I have enjoyed my calling on the Church Public Relations committee which has me recording a radio show that airs once per month. Jack is in 1st grade and I am continually impressed with the school system here. He is already doing story problems in math and reading chapter books. We are so proud of the progress he is making. Lydia is in Preschool five days per week and preparing to enter Kindergarten next year.
We miss all of you so much and hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

I am sorry for the informal Christmas card this year, I hope you can all forgive me. I know how much fun it is to receive Christmas cards each year and I love putting them up on my bulletin board for all to see. So I promise this will not always be the way you will get your Christmas greeting.

Thanksgiving and a couple of other treasures.

I thought I would post this cute video of Emily… she has started doing this soft singing and then she turns up the volume… it is so cute.


John has been working 17 hour shifts starting at 4:30pm and ending at 9:00am the next day, that basically gives him 6-7 hours to sleep before he has to be up and back at the hospital, he is so tired… I caught him taking a cat nap with our daughter Emily.

On Thursday, Gantrie and Corey Boren invited us over to share Thanksgiving with them and it was wonderful. John got up at 2:00pm and we went over he ate and then he left for the Hospital, I stayed with the kids and we played a few games, it was a lot of fun and it was nice for me to be with friends on the holiday. Thanks Gantrie!

Then Saturday we celebrated a second Thanksgiving because John wanted to wake up to the smell of Turkey in the oven. It was quite nice. It was our first Thanksgiving dinner with just our immediate family without friends and family and it was great. Here’s a picture of the table with all the fixins! I made homemade wheat rolls, turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, banana cream pie, etc.

Another fun thing I thought I would add. In Buffalo it is not unusual to find someone building an ice skating rink in their yard for the winter. And my neighbor did just that, here is a picture of the ice rink before the snow and ice. Twin girls live here, they are Jack’s age in fact they were born the same day as Jack. One of the girls plays ice hockey and the other one a figure skater. It will be so fun to watch them out there this winter!

Lydia was Glowing on her Birthday!

Lydia turned 4-years-old Saturday and so we threw a “Glow-in-the-dark” party for her. We had the girls make beaded necklaces, with glow-in-the-dark beads, complete with their names. Then we painted their nails with glow-in-the-dark nail polish, painted their faces with glow-in-the-dark paint, gave them tattoos that glow-in-the-dark and when they were all finished I handed them each glow necklaces and glow bracelets. Then we went to our basement for some glow-in- the-dark fun, complete with a black-light which made their clothes glow as well. The girls had so much fun!

Here are all the girls that came to the party.

Here they are glowing…

Jack got creative with the necklace and bracelet and made a shoe out of them.

And here is one more video of the fun they had!


That evening after John had gotten some sleep from being on-call the night before, we went to Red Robbin to get Lydia's birthday burger. Just after we placed our order, the lights went out. Apparently a transformer at a nearby Lowe's caught fire and caused a power outage to local businesses. We joked that it was continueing Lydia's glow-in-the-dark theme. They were still able to serve the kids macaroni and cheese and bring us some salads but because of the power outage the kitchen was shut down, so no burgers for us - oh well :(. I have to say though, that the staff there was fabulous and helped to make it fun for all of us despite the circumstances, can't wait to go back!

Halloween and an Update on our House Projects!

A couple of weeks ago my husband finished the walls in our basement (the ceiling will be finished next year). Here are some before and after pictures:

You can't really tell what color the walls are but we painted them a very light lavender and then we had carpet put in the Wednesday before Halloween.

So, we decided to have a Halloween party at our house. We had about 10 families join us for some warm soup before heading out to trick-or-treat.

This is Jack and Lydia at the Great Pumpkin Farm, the pumpkins are as big as they are and there are pumpkins there that are 4 times as big as they are as well.

Lydia made a beautiful Cinderella.

Here is Lydia and 2 of her friends from the party.

Emily was a fabulous Jester.

And Jack a Power Ranger, of course.

Here we are right after we all went trick-or-treating and the party had come to an end.