Palm Desert - Feb 13th- The Living Desert

Morning Wake up call. The kids all slept at my parent's condo, while Anna & Gabe, Eric and I shared the other unit. They were so nice to get up with them in the morning. Some mornings were earlier than others. Eliza and Jackson liked having their packnplay's next to each other. Gretta had to get into the action too.

Once we were all ready we went to "The Living Desert"

Aren't my cheetah's cute?

The petting zoo. Gretta, Eliza & Jackson really liked the goats.

While Anna, Gabe, Eric and my dad golfed my mom and I took care of all of the kids. She took Gretta to the pool at one and I joined them once Eliza and Jackson were awake about 2:30pm. Gretta swam for 4 hours. She had such a great time with Nana at the pool.

The gang coming home from the pool.

Isn't this one of the funniest things that you have ever seen???
I can't believe that Gretta is getting so old. She can do so many things now like ride a bike & swim.

Palm Desert - Feb 12th

Here we come... Snyder Family Vacation
2010
Poor Eric the pack mule. We took up a whole conveyor belt with our carry on bags. We could have checked the car seats for free, but they didn't have any bags. So we decided to gate check them too.
We flew to Palm Springs direct from Salt Lake City. It was a nice short flight. We were all excited, but I think that Gretta was the most excited.

Eliza

Dinner with Nana

Making Cookies

Anna & Jackson

Getting ready for bed

Papa Herb Goodrich's 91st Birthday Party

Eric's Grandpa Herbert Goodrich turned 91 on Saturday. We went to California for the party, and had a great time. All of his kids, Linda, Debbie and Chip, and all of Linda and Debbie's families. It was a great party!!! Also Noreen and Alan Songster, Papa's nephew from Nebraska, and lots of Papa's friends. It was a great party!

Debbie and Linda did a great job!

Gretta loved wearing a name tag.

Papa & Chip

Allison and Darron.
Getting married June 26th!!!

Eliza and Gretta were a little under the weather. Eliza wanted Linda to carry her around most of the day.

Gretta passing out programs to the guests.

Gretta singing the BYU fight song for everyone.
Go Cougars!!!

Happy 91st Birthday Papa!!!

Eliza was so interested in Odell, Lindsey's dog. It took her all day and night, but she finally was able to pet him. He is a pit bull, but the nicest dog you have ever met. It was so cute to see Eliza warm up to him.
Here she was just getting brave enough to get a little closer to him.

Allison, Darron, Allison and Brittany

Chip Goodrich, Linda Fors, Papa Goodrich & Debbie VanLeeuwen

The whole gang
Back row: Eric, Gretchen & Eliza Fors, Allison & Rod Guillen, Dennis Fors, Spencer VanLeeuwen, Darron Fors & Allison Romero, Lindsey VanLeeuwen & Mike Hill
Bottom Row: Chip Goodrich, Linda Fors, Herb Goodrich, Debbie VanLeeuwen, Lesa VanLeeuwen, Dan Whitaker
Floor: Brittany Fors, Gretta Fors, Lauren Whitaker

Karaoke
Gretta loves the microphone

Thanks Papa!!!
It was a great party and hope for another one next year!

Group Babysitting

We just started a co-op group babysitting on Friday nights with some other families in the MBA program. The kids think it is a big play date and we hope it will give us some kid free nights without having to pay a babysitter. They came over at 5pm and their parents picked them up at 8pm. The only problem is that I work until 6pm on Friday. When I got home I found Eric feeding them chicken nuggets around the table. He had it all under control. Way to go Eric.

Ricks College Nursing Get together

Olive, Patty, Amber, Niki, Me, Misjha, Carrie
Today a few of my good friends from nursing school at Ricks College all got together. We meet at Amber's Mom & Dad's house in South Jordan. We live all over the Wasatch Front. Can you believe that we graduated 12 years ago? Isn't that crazy. Two of us are NP, and three others still work as RN's. One is a full time stay at home mom, and they other does physicals for insurance companies. So nursing school greatly impacted our lives. One is divorced and had to support her own family for a while until she got remarried, and others of us have had to be the sole supporters of our families at times. We are all grateful for our education.
Between all of us we have 19 kids and two on the way. Luckily some of them were at school or it would have been really crazy.
It was so fun to get to spent time together and see everyone doing so well.
Hopefully we can all get together again sometime soon.

Gretta's Trip to the Dentist

I took Gretta to a new Dentist in Provo last week. He contracts with the BYU Health plan to give a better price to the students. I didn't know anything about him or his office. but I figured she only needed a cleaning, and fluoride treatment, so it didn't really matter. Well I think I was wrong. First they let the girl who just graduated from their training program clean Gretta's teeth. Don't tell me she is good because she did such a great job on her "test" cleaning of another hygienist. Not a way to build up my confidence. Then the Dentist he told me she had 4 cavities. One in each back tooth. How did she go from having no cavities to 4 cavities in less than 6 months? One I could believe, but FOUR I could not. Is this from the lack of fluoride in the water? Is it that we aren't great about brushing her teeth in the morning? I couldn't believe it. I also couldn't believe that he wanted to take her to the Provo Surgical Center and put her to sleep so he could fill them. How much was that going to cost me??? I set up an appointment to come back in a few weeks and get the cavities filled.

Then I went home and set up an appointment to see the Dentist we saw 6 months ago right after we moved to Utah when we still had dental insurance, and there was a question about a cavity.
We went to see him to day. He thought she had two cavities. He said he could fill them today, so I agreed. It seemed more reasonable that she had two and not four. He is also a pediatric dentist, so he was willing to try and fill them with her awake first. He did tell me if she needed IV sedation they do it at their office at it is $450. I was hoping we wouldn't need that.
We didn't!!! Yeah!!!
Gretta did great!!! She sat still the whole time. They used laughing gas and she watched the movie "Up" on the TV in the ceiling, and didn't move the whole time. They only had to numb one side of her mouth. She didn't even jump when the put the shot in her mouth. The other one he didn't without numbing her because it was so small.

I still can't believe how great she did. I was so proud of her. She didn't complain about it and thought it wasn't a bad experience. That is all you can hope for. Way to go Gretta!

PS. I thought about taking a picture why she was in the chair, but decided against it.

Look what we found in our backyard

Camped out

So the deer are cute when you see them once in a while. Now I am begininng to wish they would find another place to hang out. They have been eating our grass, and leaving lots of deer poop in our back lawn. The good news is that someone finally moved into the empty house next door to us and they have a dog. Maybe a barking dog will keep them away. Let's hope!