2025 Hello, Goodbye, Hello 2026

Jacob asked me the other night if I still keep a family blog and that he'd like to read it sometime. I have not been good at journal writing as of late, but I definitely want him to be able to read our family happenings through the years. So, were going to try to recap 2025 in one post...yikes. It was a really great year for our family. Especially after the bumpy end to 2024, it was needed. I was still trying to figure out my health stuff, which was figured out with the right doctors, supplements and blood phlebotomies. Once I started feeling well around February/March, we decided to go to Utah for the kids spring break. We spent a week there, playing in the snow in the mountains, sledding and enjoying the beauty that was around us. It was so fun to see the kids enjoying their first sled ride, making snowman and getting stuck knee deep in the cold stuff. We spent some time in park city sledding and checking out the winter Olympics museum. It was a great way to enjoy the break as a family. Since we're in the month of February, let's talk about how miss lily did this year. Lily turned 13, officially a teenager! She is such a wonderful girl. She is a deep thinker, deep lover of others and is just a light to those who know her. Teen years are tough for everyone, things change, the way we see things changes, but lily has handled all of it with wisdom. She's amazing. Even when she doesn't see it sometimes. She has a group of girlfriends she's really close to, so friends held high importance for her this year. She had her 7th and beginning of 8th grade year. She was in student council which she loved. Lily will deny it, but she loves school, especially the teachers who love her as well. She ran for student council publicity commissioner, her theme was 'don't be silly, vote for lily!' She dressed as the mad hatter and created the coolest poem and poster. And of course, she was voted by the students for the position. She has been having so much fun coming up with the posters for school events. She is still a true artist and is so talented. She makes amazing animation, I keep encouraging her to create a comic with her characters she creates. She played basketball and flag football for her school, but her main sport of choice is still weightlifting. She got best lifter at a Mountain South event and went to nationals in Colorado where she took home the overall gold medal as again a national champion, she also took home all silver medals in Florida for NAO finals and region records. I love how lifting has given her a sense of pride in her body and what she is capable of doing. She is known as the strong girl at school, and definitely intimidates the weak minded boys, which can be frustrating for her since boys at that age can be dumb. But, they have not dampened her stride to work hard at a sport she loves. She is an example to many and we are so proud of her hard work. She never demands any attention or time from us, which I have to be mindful of her often as I don't want her to ever feel left out or neglected. She has always just been so chill and calm! I love our girl so much! She truly is our heart. April and May were good, celebrated easter with some new traditions. However, according to Lily 'mom, we have way too many traditions, its crazy.' But Jacob and Nacho love them, so there. We began watching The Chosen as a family, which helped the kids a lot to know the savior a little more. We also had nightly discussions lighting the candles with the names of Christ. We also celebrated the Passover which the kids really enjoyed. Mothers day was in may, we spent it in Tucson so we could celebrate grammy's birthday. I have been doing more gardening and making food items from scratch (mayo, dressings, bread, teas, cleaners, etc...) it has become my new hobby and I’m always having fun working on a new project. It's amazing how many things we purchase at the store are actually so easy to make at home. It gives you a sense of independency. The kids finished 3rd and 7th grade. To celebrate, Mark and I did a local stay in Tempe away from the kids so they could have some time with their Grandma's . lol. It is always great to get away with Mark, we have lots of fun together. June and July were great months, mostly cause we are traveling and not having to stay in the crazy hot Arizona weather. We went to Utah to spend our month away, be with family and beautiful summer mountains. We went camping for the first time as a family. It was such a joy to be in the mountains of Utah, the amazing air and weather. we went hiking, hammocking and to the lake where the older kids did some diving into the cold lake. We felt one with nature and definitely plan to return to the mountains this summer 2026. I am stocking up on camping equipment! Mark and I and Lily went to Colorado for her National meet. We had a great time exploring Colorado Springs. Then we continued our time in Utah, enjoying nature, family, milkshakes/Daddy Doug’s and swimming. We got to celebrate the 4th there, which is always the best view from my sisters house. We love our summers in Utah so much! Since were in June, lets talk about our beautiful Jacob boo. Goodness I love this kid with all my soul. He had a bit of a struggle with 3rd grade. He gets pretty hard on himself if he is not meeting other peoples expectations, and he had a hard teacher this year. Not as gentle as previous years. He struggled with self worth, which was so hard to witness and try to help him with. Nothing hurts me more then seeing my children in pain. But, he grew a lot this year, and learned some very important lessons on where our worth lies. He knows now that he does not carry worth only if others see/recognize it. He always has worth! Heavenly father endowed him with it, and he can do all things with the savior by his side who will never leave him. He has always been our soft heart and bleeding soul. But we are learning we can do hard things. He turned 10 this year, we finished our last day of camping on his birthday, but had lots of fun going to sushi and nickel mania with family to play. He loves gaming, which we have been working on reducing, but it is hard in this day of tech. He loves to play Fortnite, ROBLOX and loves all things sonic the hedgehog. He still loves toys, and collecting them, as well as Legos! He wants to be a Lego engineer someday and is actually very talented at creating his own sets (he's into making mech suites for various characters and is creating a sonic world of his own). He is a smart kid, and loves to learn. He asks me none stop questions whenever he is around, sometimes i have to ask him to give my mind a break. He is my best bud, we still lay with each other in his bed at night to talk about cool info we found out in our day, and he'll come at me with more questions to which i use google. He is always looking for opportunities to make money, so he’s just like his daddy. He has begun doing weightlifting like lily and had his first competition in December. We look forward to him continuing competing in 2026.Jacob is the best son, loves me so much and I love to watch him grow. He is the soul of our family. The kids started 4th and 8th grade. The last year they will be at the same school together. Kind of a sad thought. Lily is in student council as the publicity commissioner. She loves participating in all the school stuff and is apart of the backstage crew for the schools play Annie Jr. Jacob had a change in teacher half way through the year, was pretty sad about it as he liked his assigned teacher, but was happy he is in the class with all his closest friends. Overall this half of the school year is going well. Nacho has started doing swim lessons and tumbling at a local gym teachers house, he made a lot of progress with swimming! previous he would not even place his face in the water from fear of drowning. Now he can hold his breath, which is a great start. With tumbling, he has so far learned to donkey kick and do a killer bridge. He also began playing soccer, and is actually pretty good at it. He scores lots of goals and even has a victory dance where he shoots into the air and does the '6-7' dance. Speaking of our cutie Nacho, he turned 4 this year in August. We went to fat cats to play lots of games and win tickets, he wanted Sushi and Ahi Poke for dinner, seafood is his favorites. Nacho loves to play sports and be active, he is the only one of our children who actually wants to jump on the trampoline. He still makes the funniest faces and can hardly ever give a real smile for pictures. He has so much personality. My favorite thing is waking up next to him each morning where we will cuddle until he says zombies are coming, to which he will make us hide under the covers (our cave) and collect our ammo(bombs, pillow launchers, binki launchers, pistols and atomic missiles) and then we pop out of the cave to defeat the zombies. We cannot leave the bed to go potty until all the zombies are defeated. He's the best! We saw the movie Elio during the summer and after he wanted us to call him 'Glordon'...that was short lived, now he's Nacho again. He has two imaginary friends named 'Clamy and Oysten'. It started when he was pretending to split apart my hands that looked like clams. I told him he killed the whole family of clams and I think he felt bad cause he said there were two survivors which are brothers and then began to call his hands in clam shape oysten and clamy. If I do not lie with him at night, he asks me to 'hold my hand so I can remember you.' MELTS MY HEART! He copies almost everything Jacob does and looks up to him so much. He asks frequently when Jacob will be home from school so they can play. They wrestle together (Jacob, often too rough), but he hardly ever cries about it when it's too rough, he just loves playing with his brother. Nacho is such a sweet heart, I call him the air that I breath because when I'm feeling overwhelmed I just have to stop, cuddle him and breath in his scent for me to feel calm. I am grateful for him everyday in our lives. End of July I went to Boise to celebrate the baby shower of my niece Ashlyn and great niece Hazel who was born in November. It was so fun to visit my brother Gary and his family, my mom and all but one of my siblings attended (daniel) and it was so nice to be just us. After Nacho's birthday in August, we took the kids to Oregon to visit the places I grew up around. I have been wanting to take the kids to Oregon, and southwest had some great deals on flights. So without thinking too much about it, I booked the flights and hotels on the coast and we had the best family vacation. The kids said the only place they are willing to move to is Portland. They loved it! We visited the Portland temple, my city of Tualatin, the parks around the area, I got to visit with my sweet high school bestie Megan and meet her beautiful family. We spent most of the time in Lincoln city, which was everything. I miss having the Oregon coast near by, that holds some of my best childhood memories and it was so amazing sharing it with the people I love most in the world. We spent lots of time on the beach looking for sea life (lots of jelly fish) climbing the rocks in Ocean side, eating ice cream at Tillamook creamery and eating crab rolls and chowder beachside in Newport. We ended our trip visiting the Columbia gorge, and multnomuah falls. All the nature, all the green crisp air, and our family is considering moving to Oregon someday...I wish. September Mark and I celebrated our 16 yr anniversary by going to Niagara Falls Canada and Palmyra, NY. We got to visit the sacred grove, which I had a spiritual council with Mark and had some answers to prayers of the heart. It was a very enlightening experience that I have been preparing for since last year. I won't share what it was about, but lets just say I will continue with faith believing in the things I cannot deny. Grateful for a husband who loves me enough to listen to my doubts with love and patience and help me make sense of all my feelings. We spent majority of the time in Canada, Niagara falls. So beautiful, nature and human ingenuity is so incredible. I am humbled by natures power and the effort that those who have come before us have sacrificed so we can have all we have. We had so much fun exploring Ontario and Niagara together. I love going away with Mark. It's hard to get quality time when you have children to care for 24/7 and a demanding job that pulls him aways from us months at a time. So when it gets to be just us, we are reminded of our close friendship. I know some people don't have the same relationship with their spouses' but Mark is truly my best friend. I am always so grateful for him in my life, he makes all things feel possible and helps me in ways no one else could. I love him so much and am so grateful for the beautiful life we've worked hard to create and always being each others friend and companion, even when we don't see eye to eye, even when we do things to annoy each other, even when things aren't perfect (which is most of the time) we still choose each other and fight for our love/friendship above everything. He's still my medicine after all these years. October, I had to make up for 2024's crappy experience, so we went Halloween everything! Lots of haunted houses, corn mazes, haunted goodies, lots of scary movies as a family, scary stories and time spent together making Halloween our favorite holiday season together. Costumes, Mark and Nacho were characters from Minecraft movie (mark: Garbage man Garrison, Nacho: Chicken Jockey) Lily was a circus ringmaster (she put together her own costume), Jacob was Player 456 from Squid Games and I was an old haggard witch and Galinda from Wicked with my sister who was elphaba. I used the Witch costume to create a Witches workshop/sodapop shop to lure in children at our ward trunk or treat. My theme was 'you’re my little soda pop shop' And I played the Soda pop song from Kpop demon hunters and gave the kids a hand crafted soda pop meant for me to feast on their souls. I won the medal for best trunk...I am very proud of this accomplishment. lol. Halloween really will always be my favorite holiday. November we had a great time with family, just the small Arizona group at our house for the holiday. Nice and quiet which was great as we got ready for the Christmas season. I love Christmas, but sometimes all the shopping/santa hype can damper the fun. So much to try and cram into one month of fun, it feels overwhelming. This year we had our shopping completed in November so we could just enjoy our holiday traditions and creating memories as a family through the season. I liked doing this. focusing more on creating memories then the need to buy and DO stuff. Next year I'd like to keep it minimal and just focus on time with each other. Anyways, it was a wonderful Christmas season. Lots of movie nights, treats, baking, looking at Christmas lights and singing Christmas carols in the car. We went to schnepf farms the 23rd, I think this will need to be a repeated tradition each year as it was everything we needed this season. Also our tradition to go to the giving machine downtown gilbert, donate and then oreganos with the kids will also need to continue. As the kids get older, we are trying to narrow down the traditions that are meaningful to them. Nacho is at an age that is so fun, and he is understanding all the hype. You can tell it makes it more fun for the older two. Jacob was all talk with Santa when we went to Schnepf to visit him, I love that he is still my little guy, pure in every way. Grateful for these moments of them being little and excited about the magic of Christmas time, but also seeing how the season is evolving for lily, who appreciates the traditions and how spending time with family is everything. Christmas day we went to Tucson where we stayed while Mark was on a golf trip with his Uncle Kevin and cousins. We were lucky to have all of my siblings join us at my moms (except David who we missed by one day). ringing in the new year with my family and loved ones was the best way to wrap up a fantastic year. 2025, you were oh so good to us. Hopeful for a happy 2025.