I think I can. . .I think I can. . .

For some reason I haven't been able to get myself to sit down and summarize the past month, or even the previous one for that matter. I think it's because I've been doing so many things that I don't know where to start, what to leave out, and how to post all the pics I want to share. So, I decided I'll just sit and write from memory and leave the rest for--I don't know what, where do all the unblogged activities go?!! Oh well, I can't worry about that now, hopefully they'll all get scrapbooked some day.

The kids are so excited for Halloween tomorrow--I am too, I love getting together with family to carve pumpkins, trick-or-treat, etc. and to watch the kids have so much fun dressing up and running from house to house to get treats. Kyra and Darci are going to be witches and Mark is going to be a skeleton. Well, maybe. . .today Kyra told her friend she was going to be a mean green witch. Then Darci said "ya, and I'm gonna be. . ." when she didn't finish I said "a cute purple witch". She said "no, I've changed my mind, I'm gonna be Spiderman now." To that Kyra said "well, that's a boy costume, but I guess that's OK if you want everyone to give you BOY candy!"

I had a wonderful time visiting with Missy, my BF from HS at the end of September. I flew to SD and spent three days with her and her family. My visit was really way past due! I loved chatting and catching up with the past 15 years! They took me to the beach and taught me how to surf! :) I loved every minute of it! It's amazing how close friendships don't deteriorate over time.

Dave went to California for the US Open Jiu-Jitsu competition. A bunch of his students from the gym went with him as well. They all did great and had a good time. Dave came home with TWO GOLD medals! We are so proud of him. Now he's training for the PanAmerican competition in April.

Mark and Kyra are doing well in school. Mark is enjoying Montessori. He has a "field trip" to Yellowstone for a week in the beginning of November. I'm excited to go along and experience it with him. I've been able to go on two field trips with his class so far: hike to Cecret Lake and biking around the neighborhood. I also volunteered to be his room mom and to keep up his class blog. Kyra likes kindergarten. . .especially the part where she comes home with a treat every day. Her teacher says she's doing great and she's learning to read pretty well now. Darci loves having "preschool" with her cousins Elizabeth and Forest once a week and "playgroup" with some little friends in our neighborhood once a week. She still loves playing house with her friends and babies.

Mark and Kyra are taking piano and doing well. They love to play, I don't ever have to remind them to practice! I love watching them and hearing the songs. . .I'm amazed at how fast they've learned some of their songs!

We are SO excited that I'm pregnant. The kids ask about the baby every day. Yesterday after I threw up, the girls said they didn't feel very well. I asked them if they had babies in their tummies too. They said "no, we have puppies in our tummies"! They want a puppy almost as much as a baby! :) I've been really tired and nauseus, but I'm sure it'll only last another month to 6 weeks. . .maybe by Christmas I'll get some energy back. Meanwhile, Irene and Rachel are keeping me honest with working out, I'm excited to try and keep it up through this pregnancy.

Last night I got to go out with all my "sisters" for Kari's b-day dinner (my step-mother-in-law. . .hee hee, sounds funny, right?). We had a great time just chatting/laughing for hours. Irene and I also went to a Halloween party with some of our neighborhood friends a week ago and we had a fun night chatting, eating, and playing games(I LOVED announcing my pregnancy to my friends that night with my preggo-belly-costume)! I had a bunch of my friends over for scrapbooking last weekend, and as always, we had a lof of fun! I live for nights like these. . .thanks to all my sisters/girlfriends for providing me with such good times!

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Booooooooo! I hate to see the summer come to an end! I’ve loved every minute of it. We’ve had so much fun at the pool and not having anything on our schedule except play time and swim time (well, ok, aside from all the doctor, dentist, and therapy apts. but who counts those, right?). :) All of the kids “swim” without floaties now and their favorite thing is diving for the rings on the bottom of the pool. Kyra has been a pro swimmer/diver/everything-in-the-pooler for a long time, but Mark just learned to jump off the edge into the water AND to swim across the deep end on his own—goggles have made all the difference for him. He loves doing back flips and turns in the water, and playing with his friends in the deep end, I’m SO happy for him!

Darci also likes jumping off the side and going under water to fetch things. She and Forest are amazing. . .I guess spending EVERY spare minute at the pool pays off! We’ve also managed to have Emily and Elizabeth swim enough with us that Emily will “dive” (belly flop) off the side and spend most of her time under the water, and Elizabeth now spends most of her time IN the water (a big step) too. :) Also, both Mark and Kyra have learned to ride their bikes without training wheels, we started on the grass (Irene’s bright idea) and now they can ride on the sidewalk for quite a ways.

You may want to turn the volume down on this one--I was a bit excited! :)

I can’t believe how fast they are growing up and learning new things. We’ve loved having Hobie and Irene live just down the street—the kids are in “cousin heaven” and I’m in “aunt heaven”! Rachel, Irene, and I have stuck with our workout routine for 4 straight months now—it’ll be interesting to see how we work it out during the winter. . .but, let me assure you. . .WE WILL! We all feel great and have at least kept off the weight we lost! I love meeting up with them every morning and working out—I would/could NEVER do it without their support. We had so much fun at the family reunion. Kyra assures me every night that she would pick going to another family reunion over going to Disneyland—if it ever came to that! I’m so happy that everyone made an effort to be there. Even though it gets pretty crazy, it’s awesome and worth all the effort.

We LOVED spending a week with the Jaspersons before the reunion. It was fun working-out with Annette and `Jon to the Wii and having all the kids together to get to know each other! Since the reunion both Mark and Kyra had friend birthday parties AND we had a family birthday party for all three kids. They LOVED having everyone over to celebrate. Mark is 10, Kyra is 6, and Darci is now 4. . .CRAZY!!!

They all do jiu-jitsu with Dave now that Darci is 4. It’s awesome—she’s so excited to be one of the big kids and be a part of “fight school”. Chrissy stayed with us for 3 weeks—it went by WAY too fast, and of course, we had a ton of fun. We swam, shopped, worked-out (well, she watched us. . .or slept in while we did it), went to “the beach”,painted some crafts we bought her for her birthday, had a few “girls’ nights”,ate yummy food, and spent most of the time chatting while doing all the mommy things with the kids together. :)

Irene and I (along with our friend Angie) did a sprint triathlon and we LOVED it! Right when we finished we looked at each other and said “that was so fun, when can we do another one?!” So, we are going to do our neighborhood triathlon this Monday on Labor Day—it’ll be so fun. We’ve also signed up to run a marathon relay with Rachel, and might do another tri in November if it’s not too cold or snowy.

Dave has been training like crazy for the US Open Jiu-Jitsu tournament in October. He goes to the gym every morning at 5:30 to train and then teaches his adult classes two nights a week. He’s been taking all of his guys on big hikes every Saturday too. So far they’ve hiked Timp and Mt. Olympus along with a couple smaller ones. He’s gotten injured a couple times but is still planning to compete.

Kyra started kindergarten and Mark starts school the day after Labor Day—we’re very excited to see how he does at the Montessori school. I’m kind of dreading the tight schedules, short days, not enough play time, homework, and activities—but I’m sure it will all be great. We’ve signed Mark and Kyra up for piano with a lady who just moved into Rachel and Robert’s neighborhood, I’m excited to give Mark another chance and to see how Kyra likes it as well. So, with jiu-jitsu twice a week, piano, and scouts, we’ll have something to do everyday after school. Hopefully it’ll all be worth it. We really enjoyed seeing lots of you at Dad’s farewell party and Irene’s birthday party. We love you all and are looking forward to the holidays coming up!

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Well, I’ve pretty much been working out a ton this month—getting ready for Fitness Ridge in 2 weeks! The first Saturday of this month I ran my first race ever—one mile at Jordan Landing. Irene invited Rachel and I to run it with them, I thought she was crazy at first, but after some persuasion from mom and Rachel I decided I’d try it. So Rachel brought Katie, Sarah, and Hannah and we all did it! We ran the whole thing in the pouring rain. Sarah and I ran together . . . it was very fun. I found that I enjoyed running with a bunch of people, so when I got a flier from a store about a 5K at Thanksgiving Point—through the gardens—I didn’t hesitate to sign up! The second Saturday I went on a long hike with Becca, Irene, Rachel, Hawk and Hunter. It was AWESOME! I have to admit that over the years I’ve wondered what the fascination was that Becca and Dad had for hiking, but I found out quick just going out once! I LOVED IT!!! I can’t wait to go again. Then the third Saturday was my first 5K race. I ran with Alexia and we had a really great time. And, NOW I’ve signed up to run my first 10K next Saturday—from the mouth of Provo Canyon up to Bridal Veil Falls and back. I think Hobie and Irene are rubbing off on me or something. . .?!! I’ve loved running every morning—I’ve run three miles with my friend Christina, Irene, or by myself almost every morning. I really enjoy working out with Rachel, Irene, and Affy either at the park or in Rachel’s backyard where we work our legs/arms every day. AND, now I’ve started attending a Bikram Yoga class as often as possible! It’s CRAZY!!!!!

OUR POOL IS OPEN! We’ve been swimming twice now and I love it as much as ever. The kids are all big enough to swim around by themselves and I’m sure they’ll almost always have cousins to swim with! We played on our slip-n-slide in our backyard for a couple weeks before the pool opened and the kids LOVED that! We got a bunch of flowers planted in our yard and it’s been fun keeping the lawn and flower beds all pretty! I even planted a few tomatoes. . .we’ll see if I can get any to grow! We had a little “Johnson” campout over Memorial Day weekend; we pitched tents in the backyard, cooked smores, slept outside, cooked and ate breakfast on the patio, went fishing, and then cooked the fish for dinner! We all had tons of fun! I’m sure we’ll do it again soon. For some pics of all our fun check out my personal blog! (yes, even YOU dad!)

Dave taught the Special Forces guys again, and said it was a lot of fun. He’s still teaching the kids jiu-jitsu class twice a week and the adult class at the gym twice a week. He loves and does great with both! He goes up to Ogden a couple weekends a month to train with a group of guys, and on the other weekends he stays home so he can teach Gospel Doctrine at church.

We are so excited for Hobie and Irene to move two houses down from us! And, I CAN’T WAIT for the family reunion in July! I love having fun family things to look forward to!

Call Home!

Can I just say--I'VE HAD THE FUNNEST MONTH E-V-E-R?! So, first of all, it was my birthday, so of course I "partied it up"! It all started with WICKED! Rachel, Katie, Sarah and I all went to the broadway play Wicked and had the best time. I loved it! I sat by Dan and Stacy (Gordon's) and we had a good time chatting--not during the show, of course. :) Then I went skiing with Robert and Sarah. I can't believe how fun it is to ski again! We even had pretty fresh snow. On my actual b-day two of my friends went with me to get pedicures and lunch. . .LOVED that! (my nails are now orangish) I caught a glimpse of Kim and Jon as they arrived late and left early for MO, but it was fun to see them anyway! I went to the temple with Edyn--and of course, out to lunch after and then enjoyed a fun "girls-night-out" with a bunch of my friends/neighbors where we played games. The next day Rachel, Becca, Irene, and Af (of course, with Boston, Reed, and Robyn in tow) took me bowling and again out to lunch! We had so much fun. I bought myself a new pair of running shoes (as I think I can say I am officially a "jogger" now)! I've been meeting up with one friend or another, or just going by myself, almost every morning to jog a 3 mile loop that I'm so proud I can finish! I went hiking with Becca, Hobie, and Irene and found that my knees didn't do so well coming DOWN the mountain. But, I loved it anyway--it's SO refreshing to be in the mountains. Vicki and Dennis took us out to dinner for my b-day and I got to have crab legs! Ooooooh, LOVE it! I had friends over last night for scrapbooking--even mom and Gordon joined us before it was all said and done. The kids LOVED watching Hannah get baptized and confirmed this morning, we're so proud of her. And, we'll be having everyone who wants to come over tomorrow night for dinner to celebrate before mom and Gordon fly out to visit Chrissy and Jared! I also got to slip away for a couple hours today to make some more cards with my friends. We've been to the park a bunch this month--the weather has been PERFECT for that (it's been great to actually have SPRING weather this year), and we had two HOT days where we got out the slip-n-slide. . .need I say more? I took Kyra to kindergarten orientation and she was soooooooo excited, she can't wait for school to start. It's nice to see her be so ready! Mark is looking forward to going back to school too--we are SO excited about the Montessori school. We had a great Easter-- full of egg hunts, baskets, candy, toys, dresses,and get-togethers. Dave had a fun weekend in CA where a bunch of guys on his team competed in the jiu-jitsu tournament and did well. I enjoyed watching conference while he was gone and not having to get the kids through church by myself. We loved having Walden and Michelle and family here for a weekend--the kids enjoyed playing with those cousins that we don't get to see too often, and I loved having everyone get together, of course! Kyra had dental work done TWICE and was a trooper both times. She had to get a crown and two fillings--yikes, sounds like she got the Simmons teeth like most of the rest of us! :) (well, ok, either that or I'm just horrible at flossing her teeth. . .hmmmmmm.) I'm still on FB every day and still blogging--I love getting to know some of our cousins that we've never had a chance to know, and it's such a fun way to keep in touch with friends. I love both. Sorry if this is repetitious to those of you who keep up with my blog--but I know that's few (hint hint) so I'm not too worried about it.

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We had a great time having Emily and Elizabeth with us for 10 days this month while the rest of the Hokansons went to Beliz! The girls loved every minute of it. When I told Emily that it was the last night and she and Kyra could sleep in the tent together, she said "But, my mom told me we would sleep here for a looooong time!" :) We went to the park almost every day because the weather was so nice. Irene went with me a couple times and Afton even made it over once before the girls got so sick! I made the kids green oatmeal on St. Patrick's Day--Mark didn't enjoy eating it (but he did) and Darci wouldn't go anywhere near it! I got all five kids to church clean, happy and ON TIME (thank you very much). Irene helped watch everyone while I had a cavity filled at the dentist and while I helped with a service project in our ward. I also had a great night with a bunch of my neighbors one night as we karaokied (I know, I know) to the songs from Mama Mia--it was totally fun rockin' out with a bunch of girls. This past week we've had blizzards and ice cold weather--you gotta love Spring! Kyra and Mark both gave talks in primary and both did great jobs. I got to take Mark with me to the Draper Temple dedication--that was pretty special. I actually went running twice last week and kind of liked it, so I told one of my friends that I'd try running with her in the mornings! I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into, but I have a feeling I'm going to find out as soon as it warms up a bit again. We actually have a small group of girls that want to run together now, so it should be fun. Irene has a workout for me and Rachel as soon as it warms up too. With all these great influences around me, it should be a piece of cake to drop some lbs! I had my friends over for scrapbooking at the beginning of the month and one of my friends helped me get started with digital scrapbooking. I've been doing some pages and I LOVE IT! I'm so excited to get faster and be able to start whippin' out the layouts! :) Well, I got a speeding ticket, took Mark to another craniofacial clinic apt. (the yearly one where we see MANY of his doctors in one long afternoon), got Mark's CURLY hair cut, and even had Kim and kids here to visit for a couple days after her visit to TX. We had so much fun! One night Rachel and Irene got away for a little "girls night" with us where we made cookies, watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and worked out on the elliptical! Very fun--now THAT'S what sisters are for. We missed Afton because her girls were really sick, and Becca because she was in CA! Now, I'm about to go out to another "girls night in" with my friends and then tomorrow I'm gearing up to go skiing with Becca! Woo Hoooo. I can't wait. I haven't been in over 5 years! Dave is in CA for a tournament where a bunch of his students are competing. He was excited to go and have a whole team there to coach. I hope they all do well. We have Lainey's (Julie's baby) and Reed's baby blessings to look forward to on Sunday and a family dinner here afterward with hopefully everyone who lives close plus our parents--I LOVE FAMILY GET TOGETHERS! Love you all and sure can't wait for the reunion in July! It can't come soon enough. Oh, and we're so excited that the Jaspersons will be here a full week BEFORE the reunion and that Chrissy and girls will be staying for a few weeks AFTER the reunion! Yippeeeeeeeeeeee. Bring on the Fam! :)

Here are a few pics of our family get together tonight:
My sisters Afton and Rachel, and Elizabeth
My brother Frosty, Kyra, Emily, and Hunter My step-dad Gordon and sister Becca
My dad and sis-in-law Irene and Boston
My mom, brother Hobie and silly Mark!

Call Home!

My family has a newsletter "Call Home!" that we put out once a month (my maiden name is Call if you don't already know that). I will be posting my section under this title every month. It will usually be pretty long as I sort of recap everything, so if you're interested, read on. . .

I (along with the help of Dave’s mom) home schooled Mark this month. It has been fun and a little bit crazy, but also productive for both Mark and me. But, now (through Phil and Becca—whose nephew attends, and my neighbor—who teaches there) we’ve found a Montessori private school that Mark is excited to go to. We don’t know yet if he’ll be able to start immediately or if we’ll be waiting until Fall. We toured the school and it seems that everything is taught in a very “right brained” way. Mark is most excited about not having to wear shoes, getting to do his work on the floor (at his own pace), having a quiet lunch room, and getting to go on a field trip EVERY Friday. Needless to say, I’ve been very busy and going a little bit crazy trying to adjust to all the changes around here. Hopefully we’ll be able to settle back into some sort of routine soon.

Well, we’ve all had dental appointments where 3 of us (Mark, Kyra, and I) had to schedule again for fillings and crowns. What is up with our teeth?!! It was fun to have mom here for a few days after Reed was born, she and I got to go to the temple together. Speaking of--Rachel, Robert, and I just took all the kids through the Draper temple. The kids LOVED it! Darci thought all the lights were pretty, Mark loved the “heaven” room and the sealing room where “he will get married,” and Kyra liked seeing where we do baptisms for the dead—in a font on top of 12 huge oxen. It was a great experience and I’m really looking forward to attending the temple dedication with Mark in a couple weeks.

We’ve been taking advantage of the awesome weather this past week. I took the kids to the park on Tuesday and finished my book while they played (yes, my kids are old enough to do that now), Wednesday Rachel, Irene, and I took all the kids to the zoo, and yesterday Becca called everyone and we all met at the park for the afternoon. We missed Irene and kids and Frosty, but the rest of us “locals” were there to have fun together for a few hours.

Kyra and Emily had a little dance recital where they both volunteered to do solo’s. I was so surprised that Kyra jumped right up to perform without any reservations—she’s usually too shy and nervous to do things like that in front of other people. When Dave asked her if she was scared she said “No, my teacher told us to just pretend we were in class and that no one was watching, so I did that and it wasn’t even scary.” They were both adorable and did a great job!

Dave just got a third job (second being a jiu-jitsu teacher at the gym) with a security solutions company that provides training for the Special Forces teams from all branches of the military. He’s the high threat environment instructor who teaches them the hand to hand combat and ground fighting. Last week they told him he’s the highest rated instructor they’ve ever had. Now he is part of the required curriculum for their program.