the show must go on...

sadly, it will go on without grace. on 29 may, grace had her last day of preschool with ms. barbara. what a great experience it was for her to attend preschool as a 3 year old. she learned so many new things and i am so grateful to ms. barbara for doing such a good job with her. grace made so many new friends and i know she misses them. here are grace and ms. barbara.


here is most of her class... left to right: andrea, bobby, hailey, analiesa, brandon, grace, grant, curren, jaxson, and noah.


and after class, grace and jaxson played around for a few minutes while alison, bryan, and i chatted. i know grace especially misses jax and we were so sad to leave. i hope that they will remember each other when they get together in the future!

medieval times

way back in may, we went with the thompson family to medieval times! bryan and nate had been talking about going after they graduated, so we finally went. it was a blast and the kids had a great time.



here are grace and paige and then all the girls... makayle, raegan, grace, and paige



that same day, we decided to head out to the huntington beach pier and eat at ruby's. raegan managed to eat almost an entire adult size shake on her own and the weather was crazy! very windy and rainy. that walk down the pier was horrid, but we did get to see the beach again!

those crazy missouri thunderstorms

well, i thought the best way to get this news out was to blog about it, since i don't particularly like to tell the story so much. so, yesterday morning, i asked my mom if she wants to go for a walk with the girls. grace had asked the day before if we could go for a walk and i told her no since it was too hot (she asked at like 3 in the afternoon) and that we could go for a walk in the morning. well, we were scheduled to have thunderstorms yesterday, so i said... mom, let's go before it starts raining. so, we headed out without even eating breakfast. we like to walk at this lake that is really close to our house. so, when we get to the lake, we start our walk and it starts to sprinkle a little bit. we decided that since it is just sprinkling and not thundering we should go on. well, we continue walking and at our turnaround point to walk back to the car (we can't walk all the way around, it is like 6 miles) we stop for a few minutes at a creek and watch the tadpoles. we decide to head back and all of the sudden it starts thundering and lightning really badly. i mean, like ear shattering thunder and really close. well, the babies that my mom and i are, we start screaming and running back to the car. grace and raegan are freaking out as well. it is really loud and at this point it is raining again. i realize that we are about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile from our car, so i tell my mom to walk (she is pushing grace) and i will run with raegan (who i'm pushing) and will get the car and then come back to get them.

so, i start running and just as i reach the top of this small hill, i have to slow down to walk because i'm tired. i see off to my right in a small parking lot this boy who had been fishing walking to his car. i continue walking and all of the sudden i realize that i have fallen down and i am on my knees. i look around thinking, how did i fall down, did i trip? and my teeth kind of hurt. well, as i am looking around, i notice that the boy is laying on the ground by his van. he is laying on his back with his fishing pole in his hand. i wonder to myself if he is laying down on purpose... is it safer to lay down in a lightning storm? well, i keep looking at him and i take raegan out of the stroller and about this time, my mom is coming over the hill and she is wondering why there is someone on the ground and why raegan is out of the stroller. as i get closer i tell my mom that i don't think that he is breathing. then i see that he is taking a breath about once every ten seconds. well, we start calling for help to the nearby fisherman and i grab the boy's keys and open his car to see if he has a cell phone. (both me and my mom had left ours in the car). i dial 911 and hand the phone to a fisherman that has come over after hearing our cries for help. we put grace in the boy's car with my mom and 911 tells us to start chest compressions with no breathing. so, the man does. at this point, a truck with a family who had been fishing drives up saying that they heard our cries for help and me and raegan get inside the truck to get out of the rain (which is a downpour by now and still thundering and lightning). the family drives us over to our car and then i drive back to where the boy is and keep grace and raegan in my car. about this time, the ambulance arrives and the paramedics start working on him. we tell them that we think that he has been struck by lightning.

in the slightly more controlled environment with the paramedics there to help, i start to think about what happenend. i realize that when the lightning struck, i was knocked to the ground because i was so close to where it hit (less than 50 feet from the boy). then, i start to worry about raegan, who was there with me, and the baby. so, we tell the paramedics that i am pregnant and they suggest i go to the hospital. we drop grace off with aaron, and then we head to the emergency room. after several hours, they tell me that my ecg was normal and do an ultrasound and the baby seems to be fine. the only real damage i seem to have sustained is in my knees which are scraped and bruised). the doctors think that raegan was protected since she was in the stroller and not actually touching the ground.

the thing is, what happened to us was really awful, but i am so grateful that we were there. if we hadn't been there i don't know how long it would have been before someone found the boy. there was no one around him and he probably would have died. the boy, david mcadams, was taken to the hospital and they told us that he was breathing on his own and had a pulse and they would be transporting him the university hospital in columbia (about 30 miles from jeff city). they now have him listed in serious condition. it turns out that he was not actually struck by lightning, but either his car was, or the ground very close to him was.

after these messages, we'll be right back.

ok, so many people have been wondering about my lack of blogging lately. well, we had a minor problem with our computer right before we came to missouri. i have sent our computer to be fixed, so until we get it back, i fear we will have no pictures for the blog... i left all of my software for my camera in california/oklahoma and the software the i put on my parent's computer isn't really working at the moment... so, please await the multiple posts that will be coming.

before... and after

white coat ceremony... usc... 02 september 2004... bryan and nate


graduation day... usc... 16 may 2008... dr. thompson and dr. horspool


my, how they have aged well...

white coat ceremony... usc... 02 september 2004... the bryan l. horspool family...
calm, cool, and collected.


graduation day... usc... 16 may 2008... the dr. bryan l. horspool family...
complete and utter chaos.

the doctor is in

so, this weekend bryan graduated from dental school! yippee! finally, it has been a long (and short) four years. his graduation started off on thursday night with a dinner for the graduating seniors. we picked my family at the airport and then headed over to the dinner. mom, dad, and nannie took the girls home and had fun. the dinner was great and bryan took a new oath for the army. here is a picture of all the lds guys that attended the dinner. man, those guys sure did work hard!


afterwards, on our trip back to the parking garage, we took this picture against the los angeles skyline. it looked pretty cool at night!


on friday, the graduation started at 11. in attendance were nannie, my mom and dad, aaron, bryan's mom, and my uncle dan, aunt pam, and cousins, hannah and sarah... plus grace and raegan. we had a great time. here is a shot of bryan coming down the aisle to go to his seat.


when it was his turn to go up, i ran up and took a few pictures of him as they called his name.


we are so glad that so many family members were able to make it to the graduation! here are nannie and bryan.


thank you all for coming and sharing this fantastic moment with us!

grace's sacrament meeting debut

ok, so for mother's day at church, the primary kids usually go up to sing a song to the mothers. well, i had been talking to grace about that all week, mentally preparing her for sunday. since she is a sunbeam, this would be her first time to go up on the stand to sing. she didn't really seem interested in going, but i kept reminding her that on sunday, the kids would go up and she could go up too, if she wanted. well, we have sacrament meeting last, so, during primary singing time, the kids were practicing their songs and i asked grace again if she wanted to go up during sacrament meeting (i'm the sunbeam and ctr 5 teacher, so i'm with her during those times). she told me that she didn't want to sing the songs, and i asked her if she just wanted to go up and stand there with the other kids. she said that she wanted to do that, but she emphasized that she 'just wants to stand.' i said ok, and to be honest, i was a little doubtful that she would actually go up since she is so shy.

skip ahead to sacrament meeting... time for the kids to go up... i tell grace, ok, go up and stand by the girls... she goes out the aisle and up to the front and sister astle... bless her, she loves grace so much... puts grace right in front of all the girls. ok, so i pull raegan onto my lap and point up to grace and say... 'look, there's grace singing.' well, she see grace and just about flips because she wants to be up there with her. she keeps saying... 'go see gracie, go see gracie'. well, grace hears raegan and turns her attention to us. and she waves... how cute. then, she starts talking to me... from the stand... she says... 'mom, i just want to stand here.' i'm like... oh great! ok, i whisper to her, 'ok', and do the shushing things with my finger over my mouth and then give her a thumbs up just to let her know i heard her. then, she says it again. by this time, the songs have started and she is still talking to me... saying, 'i just want to stand here.' i continue with my efforts of shushing her, giving her a thumbs up, and proceeding to turn a brighter shade of red each time she talks to me... well, after a few minutes of her saying 'i just want to stand here' over and over, she looks at me and says, 'i can't hear you mom, i can't hear you.' by that point people are actually turning around to look at me and laughing. i'm sure i am bright red... then sister astle... bless her again... says 'grace!' and that ends her talking for the rest of the 2 songs. she quietly comes down and sits with me and i tell her i am so proud of her for going up there... she says again... 'mom, i just wanted to stand up there'... and i told her that next time, she didn't need to talk to me.

holy smokes!

ok, i have definitely been a non-believer in this film... but after the trailer, i don't hate who plays edward as much as i thought i would... i think i may have to see it!

so long, farewell...

on saturday, we headed down to crescent bay for our last beach trip with the horspool's. we got together with brooke, tami, and kids; and mike, amber, and kids; and tay and aubree. we had a ton of fun, but i was sad to think that we won't be back for quite a while. last summer we went to the beach about once a week and that was so much fun.


here is grace, trying to bury herself in the sand... yuk, sand... note the cigarette butt on her tummy!


well, the most exciting news of the day happened when bryan and mike were out snorkeling (bryan's bummed he missed it, since the best thing they saw was a half dead octopus). it started when we first saw a group of dolphins jumping in the water (sorry no pictures). then as they were passing, we saw a whale! it was pretty close to us and we would see it pop up and at one point it stuck its head out of the water. it was pretty cool! unfortunately, i didn't get my camera out until after the whale had done all of the cool stuff, but tami snapped this picture for me.

we are rock band

on friday, the earl's invited us over to play rock band... let me tell you, we rocked out. we had so much fun and the kids did too! here are the kids taking over the band!


we love the earl's and will miss them so much when we move. they have been awesome friends! here are grace and jax just hanging out.

it's baby time!

last wednesday, we announced that we are going to have another baby. i went for an ultrasound and i am due on 08 december. yikes! that is so far away. we are super excited and can't wait for baby #3! when we told grace, she didn't believe me for the first few days... she would say... 'there's no baby in your tummy!' after about 3 days, we finally had her convinced, but now, i think she has just plain forgotten about it.

grace rides again...

for grace's 3rd birthday, nana bought her a bike. at first, her legs were too short to ride it, so we would just push her around the backyard. a few months ago, grace grew and her feet were finally able to push the peddles. since then, she has been non-stop on that bike. she loves it and rides almost everyday. she recently discovered that she can have raegan stand on the training wheels and she can drive her around the yard. we got a video of the two of them, and they are hilarious.

a beach birthday

ok, so in the midst of my ever-horrible flu, tami celebrated her birthday with a day at the beach. i, of course, had to stay home, but bryan took the girls for a day of fun in the sun. they had tons of fun with grandma and the cousins. since i wasn't there... the details are slightly lacking, but bryan managed to provide us with a few pictures to document the event. apparently, the girls love pudding! happy belated b-day to tami!

bananas... mmmmm....

need i say more?

cute and crazy

well, way back in march, i took these pictures of the girls before we went to quilting. they looked so cute, but of course, as soon as i got the camera out, both kids hammed it up with their picture smiles. nice.


ok, so not only does raegan undress at night... but i snuck in one night to check on them and this is where raegan was... getting ready for her late night shenanigans again. fortunately, we caught her in the act and prevented her from quietly running wild in her room. sometimes i go in to check on her during her nap time and i find her playing with toys. this one is sneaky!

down time

ok, so the flu has ravaged our household... way back like 3 weeks ago, bryan go the flu. the gross flu that last forever and knocks you out for like a week. well, after he had been sick for about 6 days, he passed it on to me. and let me tell you, i was down and out for a while. thus, no posts. after about a week and a half i felt mostly better, but have been so busy getting caught up on stuff around the house, i have just now gotten around to blogging. well, get ready for a power blog... we've got lots of stuff to cover.

loved it

click here to find it in a theater near you!

probably one of the best documentary films we have seen. very enlightening and entertaining. highly recommended.

ok, seriously...

'i'm 3 years old, i'm not a child!'

these are the words that came out of grace's mouth last night. i laughed out loud and replied, 'you're a child until you are 18 years old!' man alive... you can't make this stuff up.

when i told bryan, he asked her if she could pour a cup of milk by herself... she said, 'no'... his response... well, then you are still a child. hopefully she will learn the actual definition of a child before she learns to pour her own milk.

spider... fuzzy... dirt... bug... crumbs... fly...

ok, so for probably the last 2 - 3 months raegan has been freaking out about anything that even remotely resembles a bug/piece of dirt/crumb... it started out with spiders. anytime she saw anything that moved (even dust in a ray of sunshine), she would flip out and start yelling/crying, 'spider, spider!' well, one time i corrected her (she had a piece of fuzz on her finger when she flipped out this time) and told her it was just a fuzzy. then she moved on to yelling, 'spider, fuzzy, spider, fuzzy...' whenever she saw something moving. after a couple of weeks of calling everything a fuzzy (even real bugs), i corrected by telling her that what was on her hand was dirt. she only called the things she saw 'dirt' for about a day, then we say an actual bug and for the next week or so after that everything was a 'bug' or 'buggy'... then one day we were eating cinnamon toast for breakfast and there were crumbs on the table. once again she flipped out and i told her it was just crumbs, so she started calling everything 'crumbs'. even in the pool at june mackay's all the little floating bugs were crumbs for the first few she saw, but i corrected her and told her they were flies... so, at this point in her little life, whenever she sees something moving in the air (fuzz, dirt, flies, what have you) she says 'bug, buggy, fly'... whenever she sees something that is stuck to her hands (dirt, crumbs, little rocks, sand) she calls it 'crumbs'. maybe one day she will get it right.

bon jovi... still lookin good at age 46

ok, alison's birthday was on the 30th of march... so, for her b-day, eric bought her tickets to see bon jovi in concert at the honda center. and because she is so stellar, she invited her friends to go along too, so we went with them and the fongs. what fun! ok, so awesome concert and my favorite song they performed was 'i'll be there for you', but of course i loved 'wanted dead or alive' and 'you give love a bad name'. awesome! thanks, alison!

bryan... usc's new model student

 

complete on the cover of usc's strategic planning book... bryan went into an office at usc a week or so ago and the girl working said, 'don't i know you from somewhere?' then she said, 'oh wait, this is where i saw you... ' and produces a copy of the book... very interesting, bryan didn't even know he was having his picture taken (obviously... if he did, i'm sure we would have made a crazy face and then it would never have made the cover...) at least he just had his haircut.

discovering science... part two

today we went to the discovery science center with the fongs. it was a blast. right now they are having a tiger exhibit as well as a whole section dedicated to clifford. you know... the big red dog... we brought the girls here about a year ago and they loved, so it was great to take them again before we move.

here is grace perfecting her dental skills. my what big teeth you have...


they had a slide down clifford's tail and the kids liked that for about 2.5 seconds... they managed to remain inactive long enough to snap a few pictures on clifford... the first is grace and jared, then raegan and lizzie in the background.



ok, i just had to add these two pictures in because finally grace is actually smiling when i take the pictures! hip hip hooray!



after clifford, we headed outside to the dinosaur exhibit which they loved. they have a little cave to go in and they are showing this movie with a t-rex looking for food and he keeps going on and off the screen like he is looking at you and for you to eat... well, grace loved it (spending like 10 minutes straight in there) and raegs hated it (crying at the first sign of t-rex and saying 'scary, scary, scary... and on and on).

here are grace, raegan, and jared on the slide that is the dinosaur's tail.


after the outside dinosaur fun (which includes dinosaur poop!), we headed inside to do a few more things before lunch. grace really wanted to try to the rock wall, so i put her up there and had her pose for a picture, then helped her climb the wall. i was always there to support her and she got a little ways up, but after a few steps, she said... 'i'm scared, i want to come down'... so down we came.


and here is raegs in all her 'say cheese' cuteness! love her!

easter parties in full swing

friday, we attended an easter party with grandma at alison earl's house. it was great fun! grandma was kind enough to come down to babysit for us on thursday while we went to the game and then stayed until the party was over. the girls love having her around to play with!


at the party the kids enjoyed decorating bags for the egg hunt and decorating cookies... lots of decorating going on.

and the streak(er) continues....

byu loses in the first round of the ncaa tournament... again

last thursday, bryan and i went with the fongs to the first round of the ncaa tournament to see byu play texas a&m. they played in anaheim which was awesome and crazy lucky for us to go. we bought tickets on tuesday and it all fell into place. this first picture is just how far away we were. being afraid of heights, it took a little bit for me to get over how high we were. yikes!


well, as we all know what happened, byu started off terrible... down by 11 points before scoring, then came back and played well enough to keep it within a few points and even sometimes taking the lead. however, in the end, they just couldn't hold on and lost 62-67, continuing the streak of losing in the first round since their last win in 1993 against smu.


here are cathy and danny looking awesome and me not looking at the camera... again.

lip service

ok, so last night, we were saying the prayer with grace and raegs and i was helping raegan to say it. i would say a few words and then she would repeat them. she started out great, saying everything i would say, then i said, 'we thank thee for...' and usually she would repeat, but instead she said, 'five, six, seven, eight...' i cut her off there and finished the thought, then moved on to the next thing we were thankful for and said again, 'we thank the for...' and again she said, 'five, six, seven, eight...' and only then did i realize that i had said 'for', and all she heard was 'four'... so she just kept on counting. i struggled to help her finish the prayer without laughing. it was so funny!

raegan has also started to sing the alphabet song, she skips a whole bunch of letters (she goes from 's' to 'y and z'), and her favorite part is to say, 'next time sing with me!' i love it...

grace has started something pretty funny as well. due to the mass amounts of princess movies available for her viewing, she has started calling me 'your majesty' and 'queen mom' and refers to herself as 'princess grace' and raegan is 'princess raegan'. occasionally, she asks if i will be the wicked queen, but i always tell her that i want to be the nice queen... she argues for a few minutes, then accepts that i don't want to be the wicked queen. the other night she called bryan, queen dad... i laughed and explained that a queen was a girl, not a boy... now she just calls him dad.

american idol

ok, can i just comment for a moment on the american idol disaster that is kristy lee cook? no offense to the poor girl, but i think tmz.com said it best when they said that she could kill the two remaining beatles with her rendition of eight days a week. seriously.

i love that they have opened the lennon/mccartney songbook... as long as we don't hear any more performances that make me want to gag.

on a lighter note... i find myself home alone as the girls have headed off to grandma's for the weekend... amidst the things i dream about doing if they were away, i find myself rather sad. i really miss them. it's interesting how you wish you had a moment alone to do something for yourself, then when you find it, all you think about is how much you miss your kids. i've eased into the day by sewing and reading, but as the day wears on, what will i really do with myself? apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side.

last dance class

grace finished her last dance class on wednesday. she was having so much fun! in her class, they start out with ballet for the first half, then do tap for the last half. she seems to really enjoy both. she was a little afraid at first; she only wanted to go to class if paige was there with her, but near the end, she was doing much better. i have a video of her jumping on her last day. the girls were asked to run and leap over the small stuffed animal on the ground.



i noticed on the last day that grace mostly followed paige around. she stuck to her like glue, but paige was a veteran and had taken the class before and was a good example to grace. grace would mostly just run around and try to get things right. hopefully when we move we will be able to put her into another class and she can learn more.