We're Back....

hey everyone! so this past week i was in florida, and it was a BLAST! it was cold, but it was so much fun! we spent three days in disney world, two days on the beach, and two days traveling (to and back). we have a ton of pictures and i'm only going to post a couple of them, so here they are! The Pic with the sodas on it is a picture of this one place we went to in disney world that had sodas from all over the world. you could have all the soda that you wanted! my favorite was the watermelon one from china.

HAPPY 2009!

HAPPY 2009!! sorry i am five days late, but... oh well!!

i had an awesome christmas. part of my awesome christmas was that i got a camera! here are just so random pics that i took with it! My favorite picture is the one with cami pretending to climb up a wall!! Her and Sarah Patrick were goofing off with my camera during Service Learning.

Last Years Ripley News

I'm going to put our last years newsletter on here because it is SO stinkin funny! you laugh, you cry, and everything in between! (ps my mom wrote it). Please forgive any typos, i had to copy it all down because it wasn't saved into our computer. Here it is:

RIPLEY NEWS 2007

Three-year-old rescuer

This summer josh (8) kept finding snakes in the field behind our house and much to the amazement/horror of the other neighborhood moms-- I let him keep them. (there has to be some perks for being surrounded by sisters.) One snake only lasted a night and then passed on to greener pastures. Another he kept a couple of nights and brent brought home a tiny pinky mouse to feed it. Josh placed the mouse in the cage but the snake wasn't interested. After a couple of hours Josh checked again and the mouse was gone. He ran around the house ecstatic that the snake had eaten. Several hours later, megan (4) played a game of 'guess what i have in my hand' with her mom and revealed the allegedly eaten mouse. (Yes, shock and screaming were involved.) She tearfully confessed to sneaking into Josh's room and rescuing the mouse, hiding it in her dress-up box. The snake never did eat the mouse and was set free.


Son mortified at Bus Stop

Karen made the mistake of hollering to josh while he stood at the bus stop, "josh, do you have clean socks on?" The poor boy turned pale and looked around at his friends and mumbled "yes." Unfortunately, Karen couldn't let it be but had to repeat the question adding, "are you sure?" Poor josh almost passed out. Upon asking karen about her irrational behavior she replied, "Well he was going bowling during school and i didn't want him to be embarrassed." Joshua, when asked about the incident replied, "Mom? What mom? I've never seen that lady before in my life."



Up and Coming Actress

Besides eating worms and growing 6 inches this last year, Amanda (11) has found a passion for acting. She's performed in several plays and has been to drama camp. This year she couldn't wait for summer to be over because "when school starts, so does acting." One problem with a child actress is when she calls from school -- "you have to come get me right now. I'm going to throw up all over the secretary's desk." --her parents always wonder- is it real or is she acting?


Life at the Locker

in august, Sara (13) said good-bye to recess and little kids, packed up her backpack and headed to junior high. in typical teenage fashion she summarized 7th grade in one word-boring. Luckily eavesdropping while driving carpool you can find out the latest school news: such as how some kid barfed after the health teacher made them watch a gruesome video on the consequences of drunk driving. When Sara isn't going to boring school she spices up her life with soccer, volleyball, motorcycles, friends, and making photo collages.


We were expecting a baby but got an angel instead

On September 5th our baby girl Emily was delivered stillborn. She lived to the gestational age of 6 months and i was induced after we found out that she had passed on. Brent and i spend a sweet couple of hours holding her body and saying a brief hello and goodbye. Two days later we held a graveside service with our children. Losing her has been painful beyond words. And yet the tender care we've received from our friends and family overwhelming. Our comfort lies in knowing families are eternal and we will get to be with her someday. In the meantimes, she is our angel Emily--daughter and sister.


A few little Snippets

On our vacation in oceanside, CA Josh wrote in the sand--josh rocks-- then went out to dive under waves. Sara snuck over (in typical pesky sister fashion) and changed a letter and a half making it - josh sucks. Karen made her change it back but she only did so halfway and it ended up - josh socks.

(also on the beach) megan said, "i need my boogie board, so i can boogie."

Megan dressing up like a pirate and saying, "aye aye crappin"

Megan stepping on the bathroom scale saying, "mom look, it says one megan."

Meggy running back and forth in the backyard. her hair flying in and out of her face, yelling, "I'm going to race the wind."

Megan replying while looking at her toes, "mom, i need to put on socks. My feet are dirty."

Too...much....popcorn!!

i just ate a huge bowl of popcorn...i think i'm going to be sick! :(

So much for posting a lot of comments...

wow i suck at this. Maybe i'll get better at this if i get people to actually read my blog besides ali and janell!! lol! jk... i know you guys read it because you tell me that you do at school!

I'm sorry that i have had really bad grammar and use abbreviations (Ex: LOL, JK) in my posts. Please forgive me if it is a little hard to read. I will try harder.

I'm going to tell you guys a funny story...

Once upon a time there was a girl who got really lazy after her soccer season started. She got so lazy that she started bullying her siblings a lot and got very grumpy. This girl (we will call her Fredrika) started to wory about her health. She didn't like to be grumpy. Fredrika had always gotten a lot of exercise before because she was always SO busy in soccer (4 times a week or more if there are games) . Soccer really took over her life.

So fredrika wanted to exercise more. She didn't want to go on a run because she was really sick of running, but couldn't think of any good exercise besides running that would give her that awesome feeling you get when you exercise really hard. THE END.

ok so that wasn't really a funny story, but (believe it or not) this story was actually about me!

I know it's pretty lame not to know any good exercises to do, but i just can't think of anything that doesn't involve having a team (like basketball) or involve running up and down the canyon. (that gets BORING!!)

Does anyone want to help out Fredrika??

THANKS I LOVE YOU ALL!!! YOU ARE MY IDOLS!!

Life is Good.... Ü

Well... i am just loving life right now! it has been so much fun and i am really happy all of the time. I just switched into Mia Maids, i'm in volleyball with a lot of my friends, and i don't feel stressed out all the time because the term just ended. My piano is going good, i'm really happy with it, my friends and family are finally all healthy (well, really close, especially because it's been really bad lately.) And it's getting so so so pretty here in utah. The leaves are all changing and the weather is very good.

I'm so happy right now, i can't think of anything bad right now. I'm just really happy!

I LOVE YOU ALL TO DEATH!!!!! YOU ROCK MY SOCKS!!! HA HA!!!!

14 YEARS OLD!!

guess what? i have the most amazingly wonderful friends EVER!!! yesterday my friends threw me a surprise birthday. here's what happened:

So i went over to my friends house at about 6 30. I went upstairs to help her clean up her room, then the doorbell rang. My friend ran down the stairs as fast as she could yelling " I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT"

I followed her and when she opened the door all of my friends were there. i hadn't quite grasped what was going on so i replied "hey guys, so uh, whatcha doin?"

(ha ha)

So then i figured out what was going on, and we went downstairs. there was a christmas tree that was decorated with happy birthday signs. Well, i had a christmas in october party and opened up my presents under the tree. i got christmas pjs, christmas soaps, christmas cards, christmas blankets, and even footie pajamas!

it was awesome i had a blast! thanks you guys who threw it because i know you are reading my blog!! it was awesome! i love you all!!!

Summer Pics

We had a LOT of apricots this summer. we tried to freeze like all of them but it didn't work. i don't think i can eat another apricot in my life.
This was in jackson hole. we went to this gross store with all these animal furs. this is megan and her friend playing with them. it was really quite funny! The little boy (travis) stuck his finger in the bears nose and said "you have a booger!"

This is all the girls that went to jackson hold this summer.

This is right before river rafting. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!

This is me and my soccer team eating at subway after a victory!

Girls Camp Pics!

I'm Back.....

So i really don't even know if anyone read this, but if you do, i'm back!!

Go Janell for coming back from your surgery!! wahoo!! i hope your hearing comes back soon....

so it's just been crazy around here. Here's an update:


I got my blog template to work (tee hee)

Amanda's in YW now! she is 12! yay!

Soccer has been great! we have had a couple rough times though. We lost our game yesterday and we really shouldn't have. i'm really mad about it. the stupid ref didn't call anything! DUMB! I freakin hurt my knee and had to sit out because a girl came and fouled me in the BOX!! that should have been a PK. oh well, life goes on.

I finished Breaking Dawn. That's a very action filled book. it answered a lot of unsolved questions. (it's part of the Twilight series)

I'm in school and all is well. it's MID TERM!

I joined cross country and am staying very busy with that, soccer, school, young womens, and piano.

The Fiddler On The Roof play at SJHS is coming out in 1 week! A LOT of my friends are in that play. i'm SO excited for them!!!

Im really sorry that i haven't really been writing in this. i got really busy and kind of forgot (Ü).
I'll try to post some pictures of the summer up soon!

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