Free Time?

I wrote down everything I need to do before the last day of class and decided I could afford to sit down and organize all my photos in prep for upcoming blogs....

I have become a very lazy blogger... sorry. I had every intention of doing the usual cutesy pictures with text describing them but instead I am just going to tell you about Jordan's homecoming and then give you a link to Ryan's mobile me where I uploaded all the pictures to for Grandma Pullan.

It's so great to have Jordan back. I already can't wait for the next family gathering. It has been so empty without Chelsie, Jordan, Chason, Brooke, and Rylie. Having Chelsie and Jordan with everyone was a lot of fun. Chelsie took Jordan back out into the world yesterday to buy things and get ready to be a none missionary. I can't even imagine how incredibly hard it must be to leave such a wonderfully spiritual life behind. We had rotisserie chicken instead of turkey which is fine by me because I love that stuff. Jordan taught us all anew monopoly card game while we listened to christmas music. What a great de-stresser!

Any way check out the pictures I took here... They are pretty blurry. The lighting in the airport didn't agree with our camera... LAME.

Someday I'll do a normal blog. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

blogs to come

I have many blogs to catch up on over Christmas break...
Kaylee's birthday, Kaylee in general, Jordan's Homecoming, Thanksgiving...

please be patient.... here is a fun video to watch in the meantime

The life and times of R.S. & K. Hightower

Well I'm actually in class... I think I have some sort of senioritis but don't worry I'll make it :)

Ryan has taken a leave of absence from school until the end of the year. He and I talked about it and we decided that this was best for all of us right now even though it pushes his graduation back to late September. He has a lot of work projects lined up and there just wasn't enough time for him to do all the work and be a more than full time student who cares for a 1 year old all day. He is using this time to make us a little bit of money so we can eat a little longer ;) The good news is, in January I will only be taking 10 credits which I have crammed into 2 days of the week (Tuesday and Thursday). This means I will be home most days of the week to help him with Kaylee. I will still graduate in August, but I have just spread the work out between winter spring and summer semesters. (10, 5, & 3.5 credits respectively)

I have 4 weeks of class left... 1 of them is Thanksgiving week (only 2 days of class) 1 of them is the last week of class (4 days of class) There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

I am very excited for Thanksgiving (and the break that comes with it) and I am teaching sharing time the Sunday after. Does anyone have a good idea for a serving my family sharing time? (Have I mentioned that I am the primary Secretary? I'm not very helpful but I do what I can.) The Straw family is taking new pictures on the 28th to include the new grand kids. Hopefully we get some good ones.

We have having Hightower Thanksgiving on Nov. 30th when Jordan gets home. I am very excited for that day too! I am not going to that day of school so that's another non full week!

Kaylee is getting a bit too smart for our own good. She is getting so old. It almost makes me want another tiny baby (but not enough to make it worth going through school pregnant again.)

So that's life :)

Family Pictures/ Kaylee 1 year

We took some new family pictures the day after Kaylee's birthday. I had every intention of uploading them to the blog but after sorting through all 92 of them for my favorites I only have time to give you a link...
Click here for Family
Click here for Kaylee

ENJOY :)

I want to blog about her birthday but I'm waiting to get all the good pictures from Kristi's camera. coming soon...

Halloween '09

Five grandbabies 2 and under in costumes eating candy = PURE INSANITY! Halloween was really fun though and all the grandbabies looked cute. I made all the girls bows and did all their hair. I love that kind of thing.

Kaylee fell asleep after 1 street (not enough napping on such an exciting day) of trick or treating but after her little nap she was having a blast! People probably thought yeah that little kid won't eat that candy but seriously her doctor said feed her anything... make her put on weight so she has been loving the candy! She totally understand that if she can get her hands on the bag with the pumpkin on it she finds sugar. Kaylee is such a people person. She would giggle every time I stopped to grab her out of the stroller for the next house. And as a mom I did love hearing people say Oh how cute:)

You can see more pictures here : Facebook Album

Birthday Fiasco

So I found a free two night stay in park city online... I figured it was a timeshare presentation but I figured I could sit through a presentation if it meant a free weekend away. I knew when we left that my finance teacher said that a time share is just about the worst use of your money and that if you buy one you need to get it from a timeshare resale site because they are about 60% cheaper. As we were sitting waiting for the presentation I asked Ryan what excuses we should use to decline. Yet somewhere between that and the end of our presentation we were actually considering it. Thankfully there was no way we ever could have done it because we just don't have the money but my hat goes off to the people at Westgate for being REALLY good at selling! Somehow they did get us to decide to book a three night stay which can be redeemed at any Westgate over the next 2 years. The kicker is they charged us more than a three night stay would usually cost. (Don't worry I just read the agreement we signed and we have a five day grace period in which we can write a certified letter to get the money completely refunded) Looking back on it now I can see how everything they did was all a part of the closing techniques and the fact that I couldn't see it while I was there scares me! Ryan and I are so stingey with money but I think we are easily sold by salesman. They didn't know it but they were pulling on Ryan's heart strings because one of his fondest childhood memories was skiing in park city with his family for Christmas. In his mind he was going to re create this memory with a time share. What finally snapped us out of our funk and opened our eyes was when we found out that we weren't even staying in the place they were showing us ...
We were looking forward to experiencing this

(There's a tub like that in the rooms!)

Turns out that since this is fall break for most of Utah, October 16th is a really popular time to try to get a free hotel stay. They had something like 90 people they were presenting to and something like 15 rooms available so they sent us to some other hotel in Park City that isn't half as nice. In fact they are "green" which to me means cheap. It's annoying because all the lights are dim and the hot tub is hardly ever on.
so what we got was this...

this is a standard tub in a bathroom so tiny that I couldn't get a picture of it without being in it!



We did have a cool little back porch with a fireplace that led right to the jacuzzi that was almost never on for use...


To make matters worse, Ryan has been feeling kinda sick lately but by the time we got all settled in he was feeling like death. He didn't think he'd ever felt worse and he was running an outrageously high temperature. It was a little scary. His fever broke around 3:30am and he took some nyquil to sleep. So rather than hit up garage sales in the morning for my class as planned the day looked like this.


Live and learn I guess...

MIA

I've just been too busy to take pictures let alone post them. I do have some videos of Kaylee walking. This is the best one yet I think...

She also likes to say Hi now...

Life is crazy stressful and I have spent the night working on Chelsie's site rather than studying for my test or doing assignments(awesome!) So if anyone of you haven't checked it out since we put in the new design, I HIGHLY recommend taking a peak. www.ChelsieHightowerDance.com.

I just posted a video on the site that you all MUST see! I will post it here in case you don't have time to go see it on the site.

I will some day write a real blog about life... Kaylee is almost 1!