School Year Review and 500th Post!

Holy bananas, it's my 500th post. Cray cray! I know blogging has lost its popularity, but I sure do love going back and reading posts from the last several years, and I hope my kids will appreciate it one day.

The end of the school year has come. I always get really sad the last week of school. The last 4-5 weeks of school, I can't wait for it to be over. I get pretty tired of driving all day between 2 schools and 2 different time tracks. However, the last week of school, I get quite weepy that the school year is over, which means the kids are older and will never be a 5th, 3rd, or 1st grader again. Boo-hoo!

I'm so pleased with the schools my kids go to. This year has been great for all of them. Anders loved going to school every day. His teacher made learning exciting and interesting. The kids raised tadpoles, bred plants, orchestrated their class play from the script to the set, did crazy science projects, learned all about American history and the Constitution, and on and on. He had such a great year.

Addie had a crazy year and has grown up so much. She started out the year struggling a lot. She's in the same accelerated program as Anders, and we were thinking it wasn't a good fit. She didn't do her homework, even though she acted like she did. This resulted in lots of micromanaging on my part, which resulted in lots of tears for her. Sometimes her homework would take 4 or 5 hours, when it was designed to take 30 minutes. After a couple of months we started realizing something was wrong, and that it wasn't just an attitude problem. We eventually figured out she has an attention deficit, which was why she was struggling to stay focused in class and while doing her homework. It wasn't something we ever considered with her, because she's not hyperactive at all. She's always been so easy-going. Once we started making the connection, though, it really made sense. After getting her treated for that, she's improved like crazy and has gotten all A's on her own- no micromanaging from me. Her stress and anxiety disappeared and she genuinely enjoys school and has done really well. I'm thankful for that, and proud of her for hanging in there and working so hard. Her teacher is amazing, and I'm thankful Addie got to experience her class.

Addie's class had a parent party (which was on crazy-hair day and pajama day). We got to take funny Photo Booth pictures. I'm loving my T-Rex hands.

Aani loves her school and has made good friends. She's done well in both Chinese and English, and had two fantastic teachers who were so kind and loving. The school she goes to is a very happy place to be, with a very friendly principal, which trickles down. Whenever I was there, something fun was going on. As it turns out, her Chinese teacher bought a house just few houses away from us and will be moving in soon. Aani cannot believe how lucky she is! Free Chinese tutoring?

Ava went to preschool this year at a neighbor's house and loved every second of it. A few of us in the neighborhood have decided to do a co-op preschool again for next year, so that should be super swell. I have Ava enrolled in an online preschool program as well, so she better be a genius by the time this is all said and done.

Today was the first day of summer break, and I made it to 11:00 before losing my mind on the children, with their inner pigs coming out in full force, as well as their inability to clean up after their piggy ways. Should be a great 2 1/2 months!

Beach Days are the Best Days

While we were in California, Brian took us to Zuma Beach in Malibu. We all love the beach. The kids are happy for hours digging for seashells and making sand creations. Since it was April, and the water was FA-REEZING, we were some of only a few people there that day. It was great. 

Brian is an LA native, so I'm sure he loved it when the lifeguard drove his yellow Baywatch truck past us and I exclaimed, "Is that David Hasselhoff?" Then I had to have my Baywatch moment of running on the beach, pretending to save a life. 

Brian also graduated in marine biology, so I'm sure he also loved it when we saw a seal pop its head up near the shore and we were all so excited about the "otter". 

"Look, you guys! An OTTER!" -Me

"I'm pretty sure that's a seal." -Brian, humbly

Perfect Day

We laugh when Dad flexes. Love you, honey!

Indy's first day at the beach! We're so honored!

These two are all business about seashell digging.

Played in the sand for hours. 

Thanks, Brian, for spending the day with us at the beach! We loved it!

Happy Mum's Day 2014

Nils and the kids make a Mother's Day video every year, and here's the 2014 edition. I laughed a lot when I watched it. It's a little long, but do make sure you watch until the very end- there's a fun little extra scene. Thanks for the video, N4A. I know it took all day and a significant amount of bribery. I love my family and their horrible fake British accents!

Disneyland is expensive because they mop the concrete.

We went to California for Spring Break this week. Shiloh and Brian (Nils' brother and partner) adopted a baby in the fall, and now that we have reliable transportation (wahoo!), we took a trip to meet our new niece/cousin, Indy. Shiloh and Brian are so nice, gracious and patient with us and our brood. Indy is the cutest, most chill and happy baby, and the we couldn't get enough of her. We had a wonderful time! Thank you, SAR/BLE/IRL!

Miss Indy

Help! They're all around me!

While we were there, Brian hooked us up with his friend who works at Disneyland and got us in for the day at a steep discount. Yeah, baby. That's how we rizz'oll!

I was actually pretty stressed about Disneyland before we left. The kids are old enough to really enjoy it now, and I felt a lot of pressure to make sure they had the best possible day there. I know it's not possible to do and see everything in one day, and I was worried that it would be really crowded, with all of Utah County being on Spring Break in Disneyland. For the record, we did see a lot of BYU t-shirts there, so my worries weren't totally without merit. Haha.

It was all for naught, however, because we had a fantastic time. We spent around 15 hours there, splitting our time between California Adventure and Disneyland. The lines were all around 15-30 minutes, and by taking advantage of the fast passes, we were able to hit almost all of the rides that we wanted to. At the end of those 15 hours, we were more tired than we ever have been. I don't think I've ever seen the kids so beat down. Success!

One of the things that made the day so fun was that we were able to do everything together. Ava is tall enough to go on almost all of the rides, and we took her and Aani on everything. Sometimes they didn't know what they were in for, but they were good sports and liked almost everything. Except the Hollywood Tower of Terror. That scared the living crap out of them. We didn't really know what that ride entailed and we just schlepped them along with the rest of us. Ava ran off of the ride crying and saying, "that ride was scary!" over and over again. We're still learning how to be parents, okay?

The Tower of Terror. Ava was pretty much resigned to the fact that she was falling to her death at this point. Sad.

This cracks me up. The ride kept stopping and I think the pic was taken during one of the stops. I promise I didn't really  hate it. 

Star Tours, which our nerdy kids loved.

Our one and only character picture. Addie said Goofy was creepy. Such a sweetie.

Mad Hatter shop. Just close your eyes, hand over the money and try not to think too much about what you could do with $92.

 Nils and I have been mystified by how expensive Disneyland is. Not just admission, but the place is a money-hemorrhage regardless of what you're buying. We spent $16 on 4 soft serve ice cream cones. Anyhoo, at one point that day, one of the kids dropped some cracker crumbs on the ground. 15 seconds later, a man was sweeping them up. I watched as another man walked around with a mop, mopping the concrete. MOPPING THE CONCRETE! That's why it's so expensive! It's clean and un-trashy, and the patrons aren't carnies. And, everything is well done and oodles of fun, so there's that.

Waiting for the World of Color, utterly exhausted

Right before Aani fell asleep on the ground. We left halfway through the show. 

Next up: The beach and California Science Center.

Reading Alma takes a long time

We're working on reading the Book of Mormon by June, because we're sooo righteous. Last night we finished the book of Alma, so tonight we got ice cream to celebrate. I like to think that reading Alma is like driving through Pennsylvania. It's lovely and full of goodness, but it is oh-so long, and when you're through it you feel like you've accomplished something pretty big. 

This  school year is the first time we've read actual scriptures with the kids every night. We've always done the scripture videos on lds.org or the simplified scripture stories. Sometimes getting through those chapters is a bit tedious, but we've been amazed at Aani in particular, who can now read those big scripture words without any trouble. Who needs first grade sight words?

Conclusion of the $10,000 Mistake

I promise this is the last minivan-themed post I will do, but this drama has been too cray cray to not document. We were discussing it with some friends the other day, and one of them put it perfectly when he said, "It's almost like there's a portal to hell in that minivan", and I was like, "Yes, a portal to hell makes perfect sense!"

We've had it for 9 months, and it's spent 5 weeks in various shops, and had over $7,000 in repairs. It still doesn't drive like it should, the alignment is wacked out now, and the rotors make it shaky when you brake. It really is never ending with this thing. Two days after we got the transmission fixed, our big heavy ladder in the garage fell on the van, denting the same panel that was fixed from the accident I was in 3 months ago. No one knows how this happened, but I have an explanation: PORTAL TO HELL!!

We've been over it, but have never felt good about selling it to someone else. DARN YOU, ETHICS! Financially, we have just made peace with the fact that this is a disaster and there will be no compensating for it. There was no way to get out of it without losing more money, but I'm confident that keeping it would be constant money down the drain, and we'd be stuck with an unreliable ticking time-bomb.

Nils took it to a dealership yesterday to have it appraised. They did a thorough inspection on it, and told him that the frame was damaged. In other words, it had been in a major collision that was never reported. Finding that out was crappy, but it actually validated our experience that the van is jacked up and will always be trouble. They offered him less than half of what we paid for it less than a year ago. Nils then took it across the street to a different dealership, who looked at the van for 5 minutes and offered him a few thousand bucks more if we bought a minivan from them. That's how we ended up with this beautiful piece of heaven in our garage. I love it so much. When Nils got home with it, the kids were jumping up and down and shrieking for joy. We have all been quite traumatized over the last year, so this minivan is our wildest dreams come true. And the kids don't need to go to college, anyway, right?

This morning, Anders opened the door to the garage to look at the van, and he said, "It wasn't a dream, it's still there!" Traumatized much?

Nils and I both agree that under different circumstances, we would never own a minivan this new. We both felt really good about this purchase, however, because the post traumatic stress disorder has changed us, and we want to travel with our family and not have to be towed home anymore. I love you, New Van. Please teach our children calculus.

May the good Lord bless the soul of whoever ends up with that portal-to-hell-laden Odyssey. We honestly tried our best with the thing, and I hope it gets driven off a cliff or blown up before it victimizes someone else.

Minivan stories out!

BEST VALENTINE'S DAY EVER! (Minivan Edition)

At the beginning of February, I was having an episode of hating everything. Lots of people go through this in January, when it's cold and dreary and nothing fun is going on anymore. Since January is birthday month around here, it's a busy month full of joyness and cake. And, I can't hate the month of my birth- so I hate February instead. We decided to head south to Nevada (warmth, sunshine, and Nana & GrandPar) for President's Day weekend, which coincided with Valentine's Day as well. I checked the kids out early from school, and we were all set to get an early start so we would get to Nevada in the early evening. Oh, irony.

Enter: The Minivan of Doom... Destroyer of Dreams and Road Trips.

We have been lulled into a false sense of security over the last six or seven months, with our minivan running fine-ish; specifically, not giving us further transmission problems whilst driving around town. We thought that surely it would be able to handle a 5 hour trip to Nevada. The reason we thought that is that we're stupid, and because we continue to underestimate the demon powers of this vehicle.

Everything was going smashingly! Movies were on, the kids were eating their Valentine's Day spoils, and around Fillmore (about 2 hours in?) Nils even patted the van on the dashboard and said, "Hey, you're doing good, Vanny!" Vanny? I didn't realize we had named this vehicle, but if we had, I think it should've been more along the lines of "Dark Lord of Engine and Transmission Failure".

15 minutes after that happy little dashboard pat, it all started again. No acceleration, smoking under the hood, stuff like that. We had just gone up that big hill before Beaver- you know the one. Next time you drive that hill, say a prayer for the Rasmussons. We were able to basically coast for 10 miles into Beaver. We told the kids we were going to have to cancel our trip and find a way to get home, and they were all bawling inside the Wendy's we had coasted to. It was a good moment.

Ava wins for best sad face.

Nils called his dad, who suggested that he come pick us up (2 1/2 hr. drive each way). He said it made no sense for us to cancel our whole weekend, that we were out a van either way, so we may as well enjoy the weekend and figure it out on Monday. Wasn't that nice of him? GrandPar: Saver of Fun! While we were waiting, we had someone suggest to us that we sign up for AAA- they have a 48-hour waiting period before you can use their services, so we did that right then. That was a huge blessing.

Nils' dad arrived in his new, company-issued Ford Escape (a 5-passenger vehicle- there are 6 of us, plus our dog, plus all of our stuff.) 4 kids crammed in the back; blankets, booster seats, dog crate, dog in the front with me; luggage, blankets, metaphorical kitchen sink and HUSBAND stuffed in the hatchback trunk. What could go wrong? Nothing went wrong for almost an hour, until we got pulled over. After yelling back to Nils to hide, I said to my father-in-law, "Are we going to get arrested?" He assured me that he wasn't worried in the least, which made perfect sense, since we were only breaking like 6 laws. We got pulled over because the car's tail lights weren't on. And Par had hurried so fast to come get us, that he didn't have his license. And since it was a new company car, he didn't have any registration. And the kids were sharing seatbelts. And Nils was in the trunk. And a dog was on my lap barking at the cop. Par calmly explained the situation to this nice police officer, and after making sure the tail lights were on, the cop let us go! And he was nice about it! GrandPar: Cop Whisperer! 

We got to Logandale at 1:00 in the morning, so I was really glad we had gotten such a nice, early start. Haha. We had a nice, warm weekend in Logandale and Las Vegas with Nana and GrandPar, and when it was over, Par drove us back to Beaver (with Anders stuffed in the trunk this time). AAA arranged a tow home for us. We were able to ride in our van on the tow truck, which was awesome and super classy, in keeping with our life theme of being awesome and super classy.

Laugh or cry?

Then we got to have our transmission rebuilt, which was also awesome (but not that classy).