A VERY Merry Christmas

RELAX RELAX RELAX

these 3 words pretty much sum up the way I feel our Christmas went. How many of you can say that?
We woke up a 8am (that is the latest Christmas morning Paul and I have ever had together) and unwrapped presents. Oh so many presents! Santa Claus broought Tre' lots of legos and I was happy about this. I turned to Paul at one point during the day and said "I love a big boy Christmas!" I like the toys that I feel we are actually able to play with him. The inter action and the actual fun that the parent can have. :)
After presents we had breakfast with family/friends, immediately taking ourselves back to living room for lots of playing and hanging out. Both my parents came to visit and in the early afternoon then we headed to have Christmas with the Asay family. It was great!
We were spoiled rotten by our famililes. Thank you ALL!
The time with the Asay family went by so quickly. I don't know if it is the excitement of everything, the love, the friendships, the compassion everyone shows to each other, maybe all of the above. The spirit and the happiness felt on this day I never want to disappear. I want everyone to feel this love and compassion ALWAYS one to another. I know we are not all perfect and at a certain point we would be wishing someone would be mean and pissed off just to show an emotion other than happiness but for what it is worth I LOVE seeing the love and compassion.
I have to share with you all a very special gift that I got from Paul. It is a homemade gift that melted my heart. He made me a book titled "YOU ARE........" as he goes on writing the book there are many pictures of our little family of all the things we have done together. Each page states something like, You are, the jelly to my peanut butter, the spokes to my wheels, the honey to my bee and so on. I will take pictures of this sweet book so you call all see the beautiful and heart felt gift from my one and only. Check back!
I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that you have a Happy New Year. We love you all!!!
Here is a peek at the Chritmas a family time we have and continue to enjoy.....

Feeling BLESSED

As I sit here at work on Labor and Delivery this Christmas Eve night I am feeling very blessed. Around me currently there is a mother and father who this Christmas Eve will not be going home with their child. This child has another plan in which her Father in Heaven will be the one to look over her. She may be in this world for a few short minutes but either way her visit is short. My heart and prayers immediately go to this family.
At this time I can't help but think about how blessed I am to have a great husband. One in which I communicate well with. We work together. He is supportive and appreciative.
I am grateful for a healthy, happy and believe it or not, the engery of a sweet boy. For his intelligence, his sweet heart and the continued learning experiences he gives.
I am grateful that my family is in town this holiday season. Dad made it here safely from London. Joey and Natalie gave us all the best Christmas present ever.......... the surprise at our door steps that they were here. LOVED IT!!!!
Wendy has fought round 2 of breast cancer, chemo, a double masectomy and still continues to be the tough go getter and lover of our family. She has let us be apart of this battle the every step of the way. I am greatful that she is here with us.
I am grateful for the tradition we started of Punk sleeping over Christmas Eve with us to then enjoy chistmas morning.
We are missing 2 members of the family, Kyla and Jimmy. The good news is Tre' and I are going to go there to visit them in 2 weeks :) Happy day!!! Can hardly wait for that. See you soon guys.
There are many things that we think of all year round that we wish we had or that we could be blessed with, without taking the time to think of or be grateful for the blessings that are right in front of our faces!
Blessings are not huge, very rare are the huge and obvious. Our Savior is not an "attention seeeker" and will contnually bless us daily and we will see them if we let ourselves.
I love my family and could not be happier that the Lord has worked in many different ways to get us and keep us all together at this time.
My heart feels over joyed.
I am grateful to be here at work this evening to help bring in and watch this little miracle go back to our Father in Heaven. For I am so grateful for the wonderful family I have in my life.

"RoYAl" day at Sugarhouse Park

Today we went to sugarhouse park for one reason and one reason only, to enjoy the entertainment brought to us by Royal Bliss with a ffew back and forths between the playground.
Paul abouslutely LOVES Royal Bliss. After finally seeing them live I could not a gree with him more. Neil,(the singer) is quite talented. I love he way he sings. It is not soothing, it is a rocker/sexy we could listen to you all the time voice.
We listen to them quite frequently in the car so Tre' and I know the tunes. Yes, that is right, I said Tre' and I.
Tre' has a favorite song by them called "We Did Nothing Wrong". Today, Tre' talked to the band himself and made a special request. Before they played the song, Neil, let all know that the next song they were going to jam was requested by a little boy while pointing Tre' out to everyone. It was very cute.
Tre' was all bundled up and freezing but the smile on his face said it all. Congratulations Paul, you have yourself your own little groupie. :)

Question

Do you have something that you look forward to very week? Tre' sure does,

PRESCHOOL!!!!

Tre' has the greatest Yaya and preschool teacher ever!!! This is one thing that highlights Tre''s week, every week. My highligt is coming home from work to see what he learned and what he made. Thank you Yaya for all your hard work and all that you do to help him excel.

(This is how the Indians make noise)

Happy Birthday Papa!

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG FROM YOUR CREW.........

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR PAPA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

A day in the life of a FIreFighTEr......

Today, was a wonderful day at the firehouse. lately with the weather coming to a change and now changing I have been on a serious search to find things to do to keep Tre''s INCREDIBLY busy body BUSY!
On top of looking at different websites and pinterest for crafty and baking ideas I thought I would look out into the community for fun, free things to do that can be informative and fun at the same time and yesterday took us to the Unified Fire Authority Station #106.
Tre' and I picked up Takoma and Zoey in the morning and off we headed for a surprise visit the the fire station. Upon arrival we met Ryan our tour guide. He welcomed the kiddos and walked them back to the most important part of the whole tour straight away with no thought or trying to bore them with the other stuff, the fire trucks!!!!
Once we got to the fire truck Ryan got down to their level and talked to them about the gear that fire men wear when they are called for help. He pulled out the boots, overalls, coat and hat and explained to them that they should never be scared when they see firemen in their fireman "costumes". When they are in their "costumes" they are there to help people and to make people and kids feel safe. I loved this.
Now for the fire trucks.......Takoma was incredibly shy. I could not believe how shy she was. She usually puts herself out there especially when Tre' is around, not this time Takoma and Zoey switched roles. Here are the pictures of a day in the life of a firefighter..........
Thank you Unified Fire Authority for opening up to us and letting the kids play. I had 3 firefighters of my own yesterday that put out many fires and even saved a few cats :)






Our craft for the afternoon, "jumping cups".


A gift from Hawaii...........

Tre' will be starting swimming lesson on the 28th and in the meantime we are going to have to spend some extra time learning how to use the snorkel. All he wants to see are the fish, and the submarine when we get to Hawaii. Thank you Kyla and we will do uor best to worrk on getting him to use the snorkel. :)

Did you think you would never hear from me again? Well, think again.

The smile on this boys little face is the exact way that my heart feels. Our life has been changing a lot lately I feel. We have been through a lot together and are growing together more and more every day. My heart is incredibly full and let me tell you why......

Back in April Paul's mom was rediagnosed with breast cancer almost to the day of here 6th year in remission. This is something that I have never been thorugh or faced with in my life until now. I was not quite sure how to handle it all except to just be there for my boys, be supportive and do what I could to to help. Luckily Wendy had made the decision to keep us up to speed every step of the way. She would answer all my questions (stupid or not) to help me understand. Shortly after Wendy was diagnosed my grandma was diagnosed and I am very grateful for the time that Wendy took to listen to me cry over the phone and answer questions and help me understand the best was to be supportive to her. The best advice I was given was to not treat heer like a "cancer patient" to treat her the way I always do and to let her know that she is loved. This advice was very helpful to for me when being with my grandma and when being with Wendy.

As time went on and Wendy went through chemo, and then went on to have her double masectomy I was overwhelmed by the amount of help, love and support that we recieved from friends and family. When I was younger there were times I would through a fit because my parents planned some stupid family outing when I had plans to go with friends. At the time I would have thought it was the end of the world. At these times my dad would always say so subtly "you know, in the end your family is all you will ever have, so enjoy it." Blah, blah, blah, whatever to that. Now that I am married and have my own family there is so much truth behind those words. Family is truly all we have. Paul's family really stepped up to the plate when all started to crumble. Sara is amazing, pateint and has a very special place for Tre' in her heart. Thank you to Sara, my mom, and many others we were able to get through mine and Paul's full time work schedules and get Paul through to graduation. All of the help with Tre' with no questions asked. Simply amazing!

Well, towards the end of Wendy's recovery we were faced with a new obstacle of me needing to quit my job or find work that I could do through the evening. Tre' was exhausted from being bounced around from place to place daily and wanted nothing more than to be with his YaYa. He had enough of everything else and wanted things back to normal. After weighing a few options the only way for us to go was for me to quit. So, after long prayers and a lot of faith, I came into work on a Friday and was ready to give my 2 weeks notice.

The friday I came in to do so I got a phone call at 7:30 in the morning, at work, from a friend that was working on Labor and Delivery. (She knew that I had been in search for something that could better accomadate our schedule and lifes) she had informed me that one of her co-workers had just quit and wondered if I was interested in working to days a week on labor and Delivery. WHAT???? I was shocked, happy and overwhelmed all at the same time. I called Paul straight away and told him what was happening and he insisted that I give it a shot. I walked over to the unit and spoke with the manager straight away. (My friend did not know that I had been working with, and new her manager from a committee I was involed with on my other unit.) When my friend "introduced" me to the manager, the manager was thrilled and told me right there on the spot that I was hired! I kept saying over and over "are you serious, like really serious? I need to know right now for sure. This is my situation, I am going into my manager today to quit my current position becasue my son needs me home more than I am and we cannot joke around about this." She laughed, told me to take a deep breathe and that if I really wanted the job it was mine. Wow, talk about an answer to our prayers and living in some faith. From this moment on we still had family helping us out the last few weeks while Yaya was recovering with Tre' and I was able to keep us all insured, still help out with the bills, and most importantly BE A MOM!!!! This has been the greatest role to play for real. Not just for a few hours in the evening and on the weekend but 5 out of 7 days of the week!!!!! YAHOO! don't get me wrong everyday that we have together is not a bed of roses. We have both been trying to figure each toher out and testing our boundaries with one another and some days have been way more challenging than others but, I know we will figure it out, day by day we will keep working on it.

For me, I think it is a great thing that I worked fulltime for so long and was nort a stay at home mom right at first. I feel that I appreciate this opportunity more now than I would have right off the bat.

I am a firm believere that everything happens for a reason and this whole experience is keeping that alive for me. believe it or not, Paul sent me an e-mail pretty quickly letting me know that he still hates it when I use that phrase but that this moment in time has made him believe it. :)

So, needless to say I am VERY HAPPY working on Labor and Delivery. I LOVE the people that I am working with. They have welcomed me with open arms and made me feel that this is where I need to be at this point in my life. It is amazing to me that we are never forgotten and always watched over by our Father in Heaven. This whole experience is a AMAZING!

Now that I am home I am learning what mom's do with their kids during the day. This has been an interesting adventure. You mean that I cannot fill a full day with T.V. and ipad games and a few games here and there? I know that sounds really bad but I am being honest with my thought process. I thought that mom's who stayed and home lived blissful lives, that their children were angels and helpful. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha BOY WAS I WRONG!!! Being a stay at home is very hard and rewarding but it takes a lot of work and patience. I am learning. We are getting better. We go to the library, having play dates (which we love, love, love) I am learning to be crafty, learning that small activities that I think sound incredibly lame mean the world to Tre' and are probaly are the funnest actiited I have done with him. He is so simple as long as I take time to do what a 3 year old wants to do. Imagine that :)

Paul is working his butt off at work and accomplishing much. They are finishing moving to a new warehouse. An official place that bikewagon can call their own home. This is exciting and stressful all at the same time. Paul is very excited about his new office and those in which he will be sharing it with. I am excited to get to go to Bikewagon's new home next week and see it first hand. I'll take some pictures and show you all the new place.

Paul took a nice little vacation with the boys to Pittsburgh in October and loved it. Pittsburgh is where he served his mission and this was his first visit back since. There was no mission visiting going on but he was happy to see where he was for his mission so long ago.

They ventured to Pittsburgh to watch the Utes play Pitt. All I have to say is that I am glad they won. These boys get way to into these games that I believe if they lost it could have ruined the whole trip even though everything about it was great. Boys, boys, boys.

They had lots of good eats. Wings and Primani brothers (burger or sandwich with fries on it) heard a lot about. hopefully one day I will get to try it. hopefully one day Paul and I will go back and I can see where he served his mission and where all the good food hides.

Paul is way into his biking still. He has ventured in to cross racing and loving it. cross racing is a whole other world. I cannot believe the terrain they ride, run and work their asses of to get through. Paul's "category" if you will, is a 40 minute timed race. This just means that they need to run the course as many times as they can in the 40 minutes and the first of their group wins. In cross racing there are events during the week and on the weekend. It is more of a seasonal event. By that I mean, over a few months time you earn points for your races and at the end of months time, depending upon your points you win.

They obviously ride this course on their bikes but at differnet times thorughout the race the course is a bit difficult and they end up having to run through mud, sand, dirt, up hills, all while carrying their bikes on their shoulders. WOW! Paul is amazing, with the sexiest legs EVER. Keep it up babe. I am happy and very proud of you.

I am loving being able to have dinner on the table for my man when he arrives home at the end of the day and being together as a family. I am not known for being a great cook by any means but, I am hear to tell you that since I have been home and had a little more time my cooking has really improved. We have been eating at home a lot more and there have been happy faces at the dinner table. Tre' even comments "mmmmm mom, this is a really good dinner." he doesn't ask for nuggets every night anymore. BOO-YAH!

Well, i think that is a good long update on the Asay family. Here are some random pictures. I hope you all enjoy and don't give up, I will post again.

Best birthday ever!

I love Birthday's!!!!! From the time I was young birthday's were a big deal in our house. I mean a big deal. I can't remember one time where I did not get what was on my birthday list. ( This does not classify me as a snob :)My Dad always made big cakes with a them, we had the whole neighborhood over to hang out with Tootsie (the coolest clown ever) There are so many big birthday meemories. Thank you mom and Dad.
Over the past few years I have had to train Paul that birthday's are important and are going to continue to be that way in our home. This was a little hard for him in the beginning but he is catching on quite nicely.
This year he got my twinner and some of our close girlfriends and their families together for a bbq in our front yard. We had had chicken shish kabobs, pasta salad, fruit, and best of all Paul made me and Gina a birthday cake. This is the first cake the Paul says he can remeber making and I am here to tell you it was great!
I cannot even begin to tell you all how great of a day I had. I was with so many friends and family. The best part, well to best parts, my Dad called from England and I got to spend the actual day with my twinner. I am so greatful to her for bringing her family to my house to celebrate our day. I came here to this earth with her for a reason and I love her to death!!!! Twinner I don't know what I would do without you, without your friendship and who you are. I am so glad we decided to come here together.
Pictures to come :)

100 Miles of Nowhere: Liberty Park Division

I know this is posted a bit late but, Paul has been telling me that he was going to psot it. That has not happened obvioulsly. I am so proud of him and want all who are reading this to read about his amazing accomplishment!!!!
I am sure most of you have never heard of 100 Miles of Nowhere, so let me fill you in. 100 Miles of Nowhere is a ride that was set up to allow people all over the world to ride a bike 100 miles to raise money for cancer research. The only catch is your ride is supposed to take you nowhere, some people ride on rollers while others ride a very short course, the event is put on by fatcyclist.com.

Now for the ride report:

Early on in 2011 my mom decided that she wanted to ride the Salt Lake Century as a fifty-something year old cancer survivor. However a few months into her training, she was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. This meant that she would be in the middle of her treatments during the ride, and would not be able to do it. A few short days after her diagnoses I was visiting Fatty’s Blog and he had just announced the registration dates for 100 Miles of Nowhere. My first instinct was that only a crazy person would ride 100 Miles and go nowhere, but my second thought was that I should be one of those crazy people and do this ride in honor of my mom.

I picked Liberty Park in Salt Lake City as my official ride location; the outside loop of the park runs a little over a mile, which meant lots and lots of laps. When race day arrived I woke up early in hopes of beating the traffic as Saturdays at the park can get really busy, I started my ride at 6:05am and made the rookie mistake of thinking that sense the weather man said it would be 80 degrees I would be good to go in just my shorts and jersey, and let’s just say it took until about 8:30 for things to finally start warming up.

By 10:00 I had made it over half way through my 100 miles and was feeling strong. As I came around on yet another lap, I was greeted by waves and cheers from my mom and dad. It was a great motivator to have my mom there for a big chunk of the day as I was riding in her honor. One of the best things about riding 100 Miles of Nowhere is that it was easy for friends and family to come by and show support because they knew it would just be a few minutes until I was coming back around the park (thanks everyone who came out). I was even joined for part of the ride by my wife and son, who spent the entire day hanging out at the park and cheering me on.

The last 20 miles of nowhere were definitely a struggle, the combination of having ridden 80+ miles and the traffic at the park picking up, were really starting to get to me. Lucky for me on the last 10 miles my wife and son were right there at the curb cheering me on every time I came around for yet another lap, and I was able to finish strong with a total of 101.1 miles! Of course by finish strong I mean lay down on the grass for a while and wonder if my backside would ever feel the same.

The "FIghT FOR a CuRE!!!!"

This year it is a fight for the cure for our family. Wendy was re-diagnosed with breast cancer the end of March and so this year, it is a fight!
She was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 years ago, did radiation and was told there was a very very small chance this was to ever return well, here we are round 2 and she is nothing but a fighter and TOUGH!!!!
She is doing chemo treatments every other week at this point and there is not a day that goes by I am not amazed by here attitude, toughness, and gratefulness. The reason I say this is because it cannot be easy and I could think of a million reasons to be pissed off, mad at the world, question faith and life, and yet to see her act and take this in the way she is opens things up a bit for me. She keeps us updated every step of the way. Every doctor visit, every treatment, every phone call. She wants us to know and be aware and ask. I am grateful for not having to wonder.
We are definitely in this as a family.
This year at the race we would have rather stayed home. it is such a emotional experience and with the turn of events for Wendy this year we dreaded going. The good thing is, what we dreaded turned out to be a great day!!! We were all happy to be there together as a family skipping across the finish line. Can't wait for next year. GO YAYA!

He did it, He did it, He did it YAH!!!!!!

Thursday night was graduation night for Paul "the legend" Asay!!!! What a happy day for our whole family. I have got to give a shout out the the best husband ever........ During school Paul always put us first before everything!
Almost every night was 2-3 a.m. painting, designing, cutting, pasting, drawing (don't you wish your homework consisted of these things? Sounds easy but, not so much!) Paul never started homework tell our bug was asleep for the night.
This to me is amazing. If the roles were reversed I would have been the one to come home after a long day of work and school and say "where's my dinner and see ya later I have got a lot of studying to do." I am sure this thought crossed his mind a few times but not once did he act this way. He would have dinner ready for me when I got home from work.
SIMPLY AMAZING is how I describe my hard working, graduated husband!
Congratulations, I love you!

NO AdULTs ALLOWed!!!!

Once a week YaYa does preschool with the grandkids and boy oh boy are those kiddos lucky to have a YaYa who wants them to learn and have fun as amuch as possible.
How are the kids suppose to be themselves and focus on what they are learning with their parents over their shoulders watching and critiquing their every move. Besides they don't need multiple voices giving them instruction.
YaYa has taught Tre' his alphabet. He can sing the alphabet song, write and recognize most of the letters. There are a few he struggles with and those letters are taped on the kitchen wall and we go over a letter a night at dinner. He is catching on.
Tre' knows the pledge of allegiance by heart. SERIOUS SERIOUS. It is so cute to hear him recite it. THere are a few books that he LOVES to read to you. They have been read to him so often that he has them memorized page by page. my favorite part is when he bring home is book fro preschool and gets me to sit down so that he can read me the book he learned to read. I eat it up!
The point of this post is......... I always want to be apart of preschool to see what goes on and why it makes Tre' so happy and I got to. I got to be apart of his learning. It was a very small portion of it, only the craft but I was there. That is the point.
It is amazing to me all the effort and time that goes into getting preschool ready for 4 little kiddos every single week. She does so much with them, a craft, the pledge of allegiance, singing time, weather, calendar, the letter of the day and I am sure there is more.
Thank you Yaya for teaching Tre' and helping him to grow into a little man. I am very grateful.


Waiting for instruction..........

They are building a chick chick
Hard at work :)
The final touches
The final product.......
The chick chick! It's wings are Tre's little hands :) So cute!

Jungle Jim's = Happy kiddos

Today I had the day off and I decided that I would let Tre' make the plans for the day. Because the weather was looking a bit gloomy this morning I recommended going to get Takoma and bring her to our place to try out the new basketball hoop. (inside)
Anyway, Tre' said "no, you play it outside. How about I call her and we go to Jungle Jim's?"
Well, alrighty then. Off to Jungle Jim's we went.
Time out............. We had to have an early lunch at McDonald's first and play there cause we were a little to early for Jungle Jim's
My question is, why in the world does a kid center play place open at 11? Are they not aware what time kids wake up? Come on people!

I would also like to say THANK YOU Auntie KyKy for making this fun day happen. We loved it!






These two on this roller coaster are hilarious! I it even better with Zoey squished in the middle. Good times!

Easter with the Asay's

He looks,
H+e shoots,

He scores!

What a happy Easter. We enjoyed a delicious ham dinner and jiggler eggs that I look forward to every year (Thank you Sara)

We had an Easter egg hunt. Every year Brent and Wendy do an egg hunt for the kids and grandkids. This is not just any kind of hunt though, it is a money hunt. They hide the eggs all over the yard and let us loose. This tear was a blast for me because Tre' got the hang of it and I got to be the picture taker.Thank you Bent adn Wendy!The first money egg....

"E"
Haylie
YaYa and Ali
Papa, Isaac and Uncle Nick

Ali :)