NO MORE...

Mistress. For the last four years Arik has had a mistress. She has taken up all his time and energy. I am not jealous or mad. At least I get him for an eternity. This morning Arik got her binded and finished all the hoops and loose ends that needed to be done. HE IS NOW A FREE MAN!!!!

For those of you that don't know, we have called Arik's thesis his mistress ever since a lady in our ward in Logan told my sister that Arik said he was gone doing research but really he was having an affair. Anyone that really knows Arik would just laugh (which Brandee did) so it became our joke and that is what we called it.

Monday night we went for a walk and then came home. I was giving the girls a bath and Arik was walking around looking lost. I asked him what was up and he said that he didn't know what to do with himself. He was not used to actually having free time to do whatever. He is free now to spend more time with us (though he tried very hard to always make time for us before), the time spent now is free of thinking of the thesis and what he should be doing. It is so very nice and what a relief off his shoulders.

Next Friday Arik will graduate and I am so very proud of him. I love him so much and am grateful for the opportunity to watch him grow and learn from this and the joy he has felt from finishing what he started!!!! WAY TO GO ARIK!!!

I am ...

so stressed out. I have my Praxis test Saturday that will help with certifying in PE. I also had an interview with an online school and will hear by Friday if I got it or not. I also have to create a PE portfolio for my mentor, who will determine if I certify or not. We are also still trying to find a house, the last one didn't go through. Arik is finishing all the little things and WILL BE GRADUATING on MAY 7th!!! I am so proud of him. So much has happened and this will finally come together.

Life is fun but so stressful and crazy at the moment.

Take a breathe. Okay I am ready for this week. NOT!!!

And the Winner is...

This year, as in all past years, we fill out brackets for March Madness. We have friends and family fill them out and then see who has bragging rights for the next year. This year the winner is Melanie(my sister). The following is a list of where everyone ranked.

Melanie Bowen 710
Mandy Walser 700
Me 690
Mo Hemming 630
Phil Tufts 630
Dad 620
Rob Severinsen610
Arik 610
Alicia Hemming610
Mom 490
Garrett Bowen 460

Congrats to Melanie, you can brag like dad did last year. Now we have to wait until football season and start fantasy football again!!!!

Finally..a picture post (could be long)

I finally got my camera back from my sister so I finally have pictures to update. This weekend was my Spring Break. (Yep I got a whole two days off!) Brandee and her family came down to celebrate Easter and just get out of the house. All it did was snow, snow, snow and it is snowing right now. I have no idea how my track kids can get on the track before thier first meet (which is on Thursday). Here all the long needed pictures (not in time order but you get what you get).

The kids Easter morning waiting for all the parents to get up and get the cameras. They are sitting on our new bed. It is a nice big comfy bed. Back to Easter. I think one cousin woke up all the others.

The Easter bunny left this book and markers for Brookelyn. She loves to draw and write and she has not let it leave her side. That is all the pics I have of Easter because my camera died. The girls got these really cute Easter dresses that I will try get a picture of on Sunday. For MaKynzee's brithday we took her to see Disney On Ice down in Salt Lake. The night before, Lukas was jumping off the stairs onto our bean bags and landed and hurt his foot. You could touch it and everything but he would not walk on it so we called our friends the Severinsens to watch Luke. (We were not going to carry him around Salt Lake the whole time.) (Come to find out he broke it.) I called our neighbor and asks if Albree (Brookelyn's friend) could come with us instead. These pics are out of order. We didn't get home until 11 that night. Here are the kids on the way home:
Brookelyn, Albree, Lukas

Here are all the girls outside of the Arena. It was a fun girls' night out.

Brookelyn, Albree, Kira, MaKynzee

Disney on Ice was very cool. They had Tinkerbell.

The Lion King

The Little Mermaid

And Cars.

It was a lot of fun and the girls all enjoyed it. Kira has a fear of heights so it took her a minute to get used to being up so high. But other than that they had fun.

They all were so intent on what was going on. Brandee took pictures and they hardly noticed.

Brookelyn has been trying to help around the house and one day while I was vacumming she decided she wanted to help. (If only this would last).

It takes my girls some time in the morning to wake up. "The Pit" as Arik calls it. This is how I found them one morning.

Some other updates. I got an interview with an online school and will do that on the 16th. I am so happy about that. Then we made an offer on a house. We like it and there are some things we can do to it. So cross your fingers. We are in the waiting game again. We only have to wait 17 days before the buyout (which could take up to 45 days). We will probably move by June 1st. School ends the 27th of May so that would work great.

All in all life is good. I am grateful for the reason for the season. I am grateful that the Savior would sacrifice himself for me so that I can return to my Heavenly Father someday. I love being a member of the Church and having the knowledge I have. Conference was wonderful. The topic this time seemed to be families and parents raising their children but that could have just been for me. Enjoy your Spring (if the snow would ever stop!!)