Korea

This past week, I have woken up with Natalie next to me almost every morning. I woke Natalie up for school this morning and she asked if she could sleep for 10 more minutes. I think this was the first time in her whole life that she has asked to sleep more. I thought 10 more minutes sounded great so we both went back to bed. I guess I am the only one that went back to sleep.  Natalie brought me breakfast in bed served on a cutting board.    The measuring spoon and the old Diet Mt dew with a swallow or two left cracked me up.  There was s strawberry muffin that the kids and I made yesterday delivered on the cutting board as well, but Natalie said she was still hungry and asked to eat it.    I was soooo tired this morning so it was great to wake up to such a kind gesture from Natalie. 

We had our daily email and pictures from Brig who is now in Korea. Brig wrote:

Ok, so I had a much more interesting day today. I woke up and went running by the big river that runs through Seoul. I can’t remember the name, but it was a very nice run. I felt very good about it.to see the training and the presentation at Hynix tomorrow. He also is traveling around Asia to hammer the field to sell more scopes. I was very happy to have him… J Nothing like spending a day with your boss. The training went very well. After that, the customer visit we were supposed to have was canceled, so I had the afternoon free.I then met with the Agilent representative and Jun Chie to go to do training of our local AE team. Yep, that is right Jun was there. He came out here.

Jun (who is from Seoul), wanted to show me around. It was actually really nice of him. I have attached a picture of him and me at our lunch engagement today (the picture is not the most flattering). He then showed me around the palace and found a really neat shopping area known as Insa-dong, which is where there is a ton of antiques and gift shops. This is the street I have been looking for. I have attached pictures of unique plates that I took at one of the shops. I found this bowl, that I really liked, but it turned out that it was $1000 and I felt that was a little bit too expensive, sorry.

The palace was neat and I am sure we could spend nearly an entire day together just walking around it. Jun and I also took the Seoul subway, it was in English, which made it not too terribly scary.

Well tonight I have a dinner with the field, so we shall see how it goes.

I miss my camera but I do have a few pictures from my phone from the day. I have Ben and Molly dog playing with Mickey Mouse. Molly likes to supervise and is right there with Ben all the time. The kids and I still laugh everytime we find Ben in the book basket. We just don't understand his obsession with it.

More from Taipei

We had a busy and hard day today.  I am so so so tired. When I went to bed last night I smelled something funny and when I went into Natalie's room realized that she had thrown up in her sleep.  The poor little girls was so sick and up for hours which woke Ben up.  Needless to say it was a long night.  Not too long after I feel asleep, it was time for Zach to get up and meet at the church at 7:30 for the youth temple trip.  Madeline watched Ben so I could get a little sleep and then Maddi went to Gymnastics and I had to go to a meeting about planning the next gymnastics meet.  Maddi's coach talked to me after the meeting and kept telling me how much she loves Maddi and how great she is doing on the team. It is always nice to hear good things about the kids. Natalie is feeling better now and I hope the other kids don't get sick.  Poor Natalie has just picked up every little virus and bug that has gone around this year.

Zach and Maddi agree with me that Ben can now say night-night.  We has said a couple days in a row and tonight he said it over and over as he was rubbing his eyes.  Ben also says something like Gog for the dog and yells by the stairs for the basement for Zach.  He will blow a kiss and puts his hand on his ear or holds a toy up to his ear and talks like he is talking on the phone. He is just so cute. I think the best part of the day was watching Zach play with Ben tonight.   Ben kept reaching for Zach's hand to hold and they played and laughed for a long time. It was just the sweetest thing. 

We talked to Brig again on Skype before he left for the airport to fly to Korea.  I am thinking that he should be calling any minute to say that he made it safe.

These are the pictures and part of the email that Brig sent today:

I met President Horner of the temple there and he showed me around. It was like my own custom tour, that was pretty cool. They have church tomorrow at 11, so I will see if I can make it. I need to check when my flight is. The session was nice as I did it in Spanish. There were quite a few people in the session, which is much better than the last time I went to the temple in Taipei. As I was leaving a bus pulled up and literally a hundred people poured into the temple. It was really neat. The temple will be packed today, which was great to see.

 I then got the highlight of my day which was the video call with you guys. I love you guys so much. Ben holding the PC really made my day. I just miss you guys. I actually miss holding the boy and having him grab my leg. I almost miss Natalie’s non-stop talking… J Again I am very sorry that she is sick and I can’t do anything to help you.

After the call, I looked outside and it had stopped raining. So I went running. I ran all over Taipei with my camera so I could take pictures of different things. I attached a picture of the CKS memorial hall. I also saw the Botanical Gardens, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei main station, the North Gate, and the Presidential Office on my run. It isn’t as impressive as it seems since all those things are within a square mile. Still it was neat to see so much and not have to get on a subway.

I ate McDonalds, I just needed a break from Chinese food and rode my first Subway to the Taipei 101.

Skype

There isn't anything better than actually being able to see Brig when he is out of town.  Big gave me a new laptop for Christmas that has a video camera so we can use skype now  For some reason it make the kids act crazy and make silly faces but they love being able to talk to their dad.  It makes it seem like he isn't so far away.  Ben was pushing the kids away from the computer tonight to make sure he could see Brig and even Molly dog likes to see him. 

I took the pictures with my cell phone because I left my camera in Cheyenne last weekend. Not the best pictures but I loved how the kids were all gathered around to talk to Brig.  The blanket in the background is from our picnic for dinner.  We made pizza and the kids used cookie cutters to cut out different shaped pizza then we got to eat in the family room. We played Apples to Apples Jr. and laughed so hard that Zach's face was bright red.  It was a good night.

Snow Day

Today we only had a 2 hour delay and all the other districts around us were closed.  I found Madeline outside shoveling the driveway for me which was so sweet for her to do.

 It was a nice morning cuddling with Ben and I had a chance to put my foot up because I am pretty sure that I broke my little toe AGAIN. Since this has happened before, I know that there isn't anything that I can do for the poor little toe. We also woke up to an email from Brig. He sends us a summary from his day before he goes to bed every night, He also sent some pictures that he took for Natalie and her bunny Felix that she sent with him.

  Here is a little of Brig's email:

It rained all day today, so you wouldn’t have liked being here. The temperature was still quite pleasant, it was just very wet. I had two visits today, one was with a professor that knew a lot about scopes and wanted me to know he knew a lot. That wasn’t my favorite visit. I don’t run into that too much, but every once in a while it happens. The visit went ok though. My other visit was with a customer that I have met many times. His name is Chester and he is a nice guy. We talked about QREX and had a good discussion. Kind of strange that I know many people in Taiwan. The professors visit was in south Taiwan, so I rode the high speed train. That was kind of cool. The train runs at over 300 km/hr, so it is moving pretty fast. I still don’t know the name of the city that I visited, but I think that is ok. I have one more night in the hotel that isn’t very nice and then I move to the Sheraton. That will be a nice change. I also didn’t need to start my visits until 11 am, so I walked around a little bit (even though it was rainy). Taiwan is kind of interesting, but I don’t think I would want to live here… J I filmed a little bit of the scenery from the train in Taiwan as well, but the file is too big for you to see. I will need to figure out a way to get it to you.

I miss you guys so much. I watched Honey I blew up the kids, because the 2 year old reminded me of Ben. It is a terrible movie, but he walked like ben walks… J

Where the Wild Things Are

The exciting part of the day was the bobcat behind our house. There is a bobcat that hangs out in the neighborhood. We have seen the bobcat in our front yard and on our street in the summer . This is the first report of him on the the path behind our house.  Then I had to run to the post office and Natalie counted 9 deer in the road that he had to wait for them to cross the street.  They were in no hurry at all. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

I think I can survive this week...

Brig is in Korea and Taipei until next week. This is going to be one of his longer trips and the kids have a million things to do this week. So, I am going to stay positive and just do what I can.

We went to Cheyenne Sunday since my Aunts, Uncle and cousin went to visit my parents. Everyone is worried about my dad especially since the Doctors have decided that he had a stroke in addition to the diabetic coma and seizure. He is doing so much better even compared to last week especially since the the first thing that he said to me when I walked in was that he liked my haircut.

It was great to see Aunt Bess, Uncle Dyion and cousin Ethan. Aunt Gwen was flying standby wasn't able to make it in until today so I didn't get to see her. Ethan just returned home from his mission and is one of only 4 members of the Skipper family to serve a mission. I think that Zach is next in line to serve.

The kids were going to go skiing with Grandpa Asay Monday morning since it was president's day. They got up and got ready and headed out but didn't make it too far since the road to Laramie was closed. They ended up sledding for a bit but it was just too cold. They played a game with Papa Skipper and then since the kids didn't go skiing, and I was tired from Ben being up most of the night, I left Cheyenne early. I was worried about driving in snow and the crazy wind. I didn't want to hit ice in Monument in the dark. The drive was so windy but we made it home safe. When I got home I saw on the news that there were 70 to 80 mph cross winds along I-25.

Molly dog woke me up in the middle of the night and when I let her out I noticed that our trash can had blown over and our garbage was all over the street. Molly and I gathered garbage at 2:00 in the morning.

Today was a busy day. I had speech clients, Natalie had a play date, Maddi had gymnastics, Zach had scouts and luckily we cancelled activity days. I just finished helping Maddi figure out her science fair project. Not sure who thought of the science fair idea but whoever it is, he not my favorite person right now.

Lunches are made, homework is done, children are in bed, and the dishes will remain on the counter until tomorrow.

Look who can read!

A couple of months ago I told Natalie that I wanted her to stay little and be a Kindergartner forever. She told me that she would stay little but she wanted to be able to read better first. Mission accomplished! So look who can read real books! Natalie is learning so quickly and loves every minute of Kindergaten. She loves to write me notes(especially when she is suppose to be cleaning her room)and loves that she can read things on her own.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Valentine's 2012 -poor Natalie started out the day with a soar throat and didn't go to school.  She started to feel better so I took her for her Valentine's party at the end of the day.  I just couldn't let her miss her Kindergarten party.  She had a great time at her party and I was able to go to Madeline's party for a little bit too.  Madeline's class had a pajama party and root beer floats and made book marks. After school, the girls and I made some treats for Valentine's dinner.  We made red heart jello, and heart shaped cakes.  We also made chocolate frosting for the first time and it turned out pretty well.  Brig brough a rose home for each of the girls, Ben got to try red jello, and we had a special dinner on my new red dishes :)

ONLY 3 MORE DAYS

In 3 days Brig will fulfill his lifelong dream of seeing Lord of the Dance. We almost went 11 years ago while we were in Las Vegas for the Mountain West Tournament but ended up going to a comedy show instead. We made the wrong choice and should have gone to see the Irish dancing. We didn't make that mistake this time... Michael Flatley here we come!

Our Little Guy- 14 months

Look at those eyes!

Look at those blond curls!



He melts my heart

Ben has discoverd Trains

He is getting so big and growing so fast and reminds me so much of Zachary at this age.

 He loves the trains but he pushes all the trains off the piano bench when he is done playing.  We are not sure why but they all must crash to the floor.

DesignCon in San Jose

Brig presented "Waveform Transformation" at DesignCon in San Jose. DesignCon is conference held every year to discuss digital design and is visited by around 20,000 people during the week. Brig then went on to do customer visits in San Jose and Portland. While in Portland Brig went to the famous VooDoo Donuts(he heard of it on Man Vs. Food) and had their unique voodoo donut.. Turns out that he didn't like the donut but he got to cross another Man Vs. Food place off his list after missing his flight Friday because he was stuck in traffic.

Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!

After a busy morning of birthday parties and gymnastics, Kristi met me and we took all 4 kids to see Mitt Romeny who is running for President. Natalie, Zach and I were able to see Mitt in 2008 as well except in 2008 Zach was able to shake Mitt's hand. Brig missed his flight in Portland and was not able to come with us.

My Email from the Romney camp

Hello,

Thank you for your RSVP to today’s event. Governor Romney will be at Springs Fabrication, located at 850 Aeroplaza Drive in Colorado Springs at 2:45 pm, so make sure to get there a little early.

Also, if you would like to serve as a Romney Representative for Governor Romney at your caucus on Tuesday night, please email COCaucus@mittromney.com or sign up at http://mi.tt/CO-Romney-Rep. You can look up your caucus location at http://caucus.cologop.org/.

Look forward to seeing you at the rally!

Thanks,

Romney - Team Colorado

An article from the Denver Post:

COLORADO SPRINGS — On a day that saw him roll to an expected victory in Nevada, Mitt Romney turned his sights Saturday afternoon to Colorado, hoping voters here will help him pull further away from the GOP field when they head to the Republican caucuses Tuesday night.

The former Massachusetts governor took the stage with the swagger of a front-runner and wasted no time before taking aim at President Barack Obama.

"We elected this president to lead. He chose to follow," Romney told the crowd of about 700 gathered in a manufacturing plant near the Colorado Springs Airport. "Now it's time for him to get out of the way."

If Romney wins Colorado in addition to Nevada — both battleground states he won in 2008 — "he's on his way" to the GOP nomination, said Republican consultant Katy Atkinson

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken the day after thanksgiving in Garden of the Gods. We feel lucky to live in Colorado by such a beautiful place!