All Hail Tamara & Rem!

Just wanted to say thanks to Tamara & Remington for all of their efforts on the reunion. I think that we all had a great time, so three cheers for them!! 

One Minute Speeches

Here are two examples of one minute speeches on the house floor (which all politicians should be limited to).  If politicians all spoke this frankly, the world would be a better place, because I think he hits the nail on the head.

Click here for an Obama summary

Click here for a Morality summary

Car Accident

(Atwood family: I copied and pasted this from our own blog, that's why it is written so generally, as if you had never heard of this "Kenner" character before)

We had a pretty terrifying experience Saturday. Here's the story:

We were heading southbound on I-15 in Salt Lake coming from the I-215 in our Ford Explorer. We had our entire family, plus our 14 year old nephew who we were dropping off in American Fork. 

Our car was in the far right lane going about 60-65 mph, a Wal-Mart semi was directly to the left of us, and a RAV4 SUV was on the left side of the semi. Rem had been watching the other SUV from his peripheral for a bit and knew that their lane was about to end. He then realized that the lane wasn't ending, it was ENDED. 

He said something like "Oh my gosh!" which grabbed my attention. I looked over just as the semi clipped the other SUV, threw it in front of us, and then the semi swerved and hit us. We instantly started rolling it seemed. The witnesses said we rolled 3 times. We then slid across the 6 lanes of traffic on the drivers side for a few seconds before we popped up on our tires next to the median, facing North in the southbound side.

Rem and I looked at each other and saw that we were okay, and then I immediately looked back to check on Tyson, Seth, and Kenner. I saw Tyson right away but noticed that Kenner was not in his seat. My immediate thought was that Kenner had been thrown, but then he popped up from the far back and said "I'm okay!"

I couldn't see Seth because he was behind my seat and was in a rear-facing car-seat, but by this point 20 cars had pulled over and people had rushed over to check on us. A lady checked the back seat right away for me and told me that Seth was awake and fine.

Rem couldn't open his door so he crawled out of his window and then went on to check the kids, since I couldn't open my door.

I wondered how it was that Kenner ended up in the backseat for a while, then it finally dawned on me. I turned around and asked if he was wearing a seat belt, and sure enough he hadn't. 

Tyson and Seth did not have one scratch, one bruise, anything on them. Rem was the worst with a pretty cut up elbow, and I cut my foot up a tiny bit, Kenner was absolutely fine. 

I won't use the word luck, because I absolutely believe that it was a series of miracles that protected our family on Saturday. For one, our kids windows did not shatter. Another is that we landed so perfectly, upright and out of the way of traffic. And the most obvious was the fact that Kenner was not killed. I get emotional every time I think of it. The highway patrolmen told us that in his 30 years, he had never seen someone not wearing a seat belt in an accident like this walk away alive.

Not to get all sappy on you, but in all seriousness this could have ended up a lot differently. I know for a FACT that Heavenly Father saved our family that day. I'm so grateful for that, and especially for the knowledge that had things turned out differently, it still would have been okay. I'll be with my family forever, and this experience just made me realize how fragile life really is and how in an instant it can change here in this life. Our testimony's were given a swift kick in the pants that day, and I'm okay with that.

OH, and if you're wondering what this is, we had just come from the bread store, not 5 minutes before. We had 20 loaves in the back for our family reunion next week. It was strewn across the highway and smashed to smithereens. But that's okay, i'll take the 30 dollar loss any day.

Announcement.....

In keeping with the previous post...the cat is officially out of the bag. We're having a baby! Due Thanksgiving Day.

From Conseption to Birth

Informational Announcement

For those of you interested - I have uploaded more photos onto our family Dropbox folder.  Cute little ditties like this one . . .

 And this one . . .

Informational Post

I just thought we should have some information along with our fun.

Wrong? Maybe.

The only thing I found messed up, was that I didn't think of it first.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=25187169&nid=711&title=rich-moms-allegedly-renting-disabled-people-to-skip-lines-at-disney-world&fm=home_page&s_cid=featured-4

High IQ's

California Trip

This is because Kim asked for a pictorial update on our family.  Our camera battery died, so we used the phone.  Some photos have not been downloaded yet (the black bear we saw in sequoia) and some of these may not be the clearest photos, but here they are:

Hey everyone just saying hello.  We want updates from everyone on what is going on.  This is a picture of us about to go on a bike ride to the pool.  Aiven has a chair on my bike but she is always the first one when she hears bike ride to run and grab her helmet and grab mine as well.  Update here is that we are sooo excited to come back in June to see everyone.  Joe is working hard here and usually busy.  Bryar is in Kindergarten and learning lots of bad habits that have to be corrected when she gets home.  In fact one super cool song she learned at school, "Gangum Style" was a very short fad in this house.  I was wondering what it was and watched it on You Tube so I could figure out what she was learning at school.  After watching it I was more stupid than I was when I started it and now I know that she is going to school to become more stupid.  But really she is reading now and loves art and is pretty good at drawing details in her pictures.  Her teacher won't let her draw before she writes a story now because she takes so much time with all the details in the pictures.  Bridger is doing great and loves to go to preschool and is almost reading (he is reading small words).  He wants to be an athlete when he grows up and turns down sweets all the time because they are not healthy and likes his vegies because that is what athletes eat.  He would like to play football, soccer, golf, tennis, baseball, and tug-o-war.   Asher is the cutest kid that is super hard to discipline for two reasons, he is super cute, and he doesn't listen and does whatever he wants even if you do discipline.  So we are still working on him.  Aiven is super sweet and super sassy.  If she wants something she will fight for it, but she is the only one who will just cuddle up with you and just let you hold her.  She is either glaring at you or smiling.  At church one guy loves to come up to her and say, "do I get a glair or a smile today".  Well that is us in a nutshell.  I just sit around the house and watch sop-operas.  You know how it is for us stay at home moms.

To Believe

Spring Camping Fun

Sure was fun - wish Joe Buck was there!

NCAA Atwood Madness

Please disregard the results posted via the Atwood Family NCAA tournament results page.  We have found that the results were tainted, and we are going to have to return to traditional Atwood family scoring in order to find out who the true champion of the gene pool is.

I just cleaned six toilets.  I thought I would share part of my day with you :)