Hi everyone!!!! I am actually posting again!!! Can you believe it?!?! Me neither but hey! I had a spare few minutes and so why not? We have been a busy family. Tons of activities with the kids, Tom in school, traveling for work and his customary "game night" and me with my karate, ukulele and mandolin playing and all around erratic behavior has made for a busy life. This picture was taken on our trip to Savannah, Georgia last November. It was more than fun. We would love to go back someday. Tom is in Texas right now and will be flying to California tonight. He just returned home from Brazil (I'm jealous!!). Hopefully the travel will slow down in the next month or two. He will be graduating with his Masters in business in May and we are all excited about that. Hopefully, it will mean a little bit of spare time but who knows? I have been back at karate and have been LOVING it!! I am sore all the time but it is super rewarding and I think the kids benefit from it too (a more sane mom). I am also gearing up for an AWESOME garden this year. I am talking about corn, people. Just kidding, I am just trying to have enough plants in my garden that they will, hopefully, choke out the weeds!!! I am also going on a cruise next week. I am a little nervous but very excited about it. We will be going to Grand Bahama out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Woohoo!!!

This is what Keenan likes to do the most. He will play on Tom's phone ALL DAY LONG, if we let him. He is amazing at Cut the Rope and Angry Birds. He is in spring soccer and scored his FIRST GOAL EVER this last Saturday. He was super excited about it. He got high fives from everyone on both teams and both sets of coaches. It was funny. Keenan is really loving his swimming lessons. All the kids love them. I like that I won't have to be worried too much longer about my kids drowning, especially Keenan, who has no fear at all. Keenan is excited to start kindergarten this fall and asks me every day if it is fall yet.

Here is Coltrane at a class performance of the First Thanksgiving. Can you guess what he was that day? Cole was excited to wear his cool indian outfit. He has been doing fantastic in school and is reading like a champ. He started spring soccer and LOVES it. It is probably his favorite sport of all (besides playing the xbox.... if you consider that a sport). Cole is excited to start the hip hop class with his sister..... I think...... you never know with boys. Anyway, he is just having fun and looking forward to summer (he has a countdown going for how many weeks till school is out). He is a funny kid and a blast to be around, even when he cries in every line at Disneyland because he is afraid that the ride is going to be scary (including It's a Small World)

Here is little Quyn in diguise. I think it suits her, don't you? Q has been involved in tons lately. She has started learning the viola and is an expert at playing "mississippi hotdog" and the "ant song". She also is involved in girl scouts and got to sell super yummy awesome girl scout cookies a few weeks ago. Q has been doing ballet for a while and we are going to switch her to hip hop in May. She is excited for that. She is enjoying the piano more now that she can play a wider range of music but what she likes the most is just hanging out with her cat Lulu. Sometimes I feel bad for that cat but then I remember that I have to clean out her kitty litter and sweep litter out of the bathroom 3 times a week and I get over it.

So, all in all, we are doing great. We have really enjoyed the kids at this age. We go to movies together, miniature golf, arcades, board games, we even went bowling last week!! Bowling! We never could have done that before and had a good time. We are looking forward to camping as a family this year and perhaps some hiking too?! Well, hopefully it will not be more than a year till I post again but if it is, don't worry, we aren't dead, I am just REALLY lazy......

Hey everybody!! I know it has been a looooong time since I last blogged and I am not sure how to catch y'all up on the happenings at the Salmond fish bowl..... I'll do my best.

This first picture is when Q and I had a girlie evening. We painted each others fingernails, well, I painted her fingernails and she painted my fingers, we did each others hair and makeup. So worry not, friends, T has did not beat me up, I have not forgotten that eye shadow goes ABOVE the eye lids, and I am NOT stuck in the 80's with the powder blue eyeshadow. But Q sure looks cute. She begs to wear makeup all the time! Doesn't she know that it is a curse, not a gift?

Bounty Hunter C is on the prowl. He got this helmet and dart gun for his birthday and has totally loved it. It makes sounds and has a little microphone in it. He also got a Darth Vader helmet too, and that was perfect because now C and K fight each other. It is funny because they use "the force" when they fight. They open they hand and thrust the palm of their hand at each other from across the room and the other one falls over. Don't ask me why they love star wars so much but they totally do.

Here is a picture with our family and T's grandparents. We had a normal smiling one but I think those are so boring. T's grandparents health is faling but grandpa is just as cute and funny as ever and grandma is just as gracious as ever. Grandpa kisses me on the cheek every time we go up and visit and says "I don't know how Wilford snagged you but he sure is a lucky man!" I think I am the lucky one to have had the opportunity to get to know these wonderful people.

This is C's soccer team. He was so cute in soccer. I think we will put him in soccer again. He was a strong kicker, when he didn't lay on the ball. I can't tell you how many times he would kick the ball and then lay down in the crowd of kids. He got kicked in the head, stomach, legs, wiener (twice), and back. I told him, everytime he came over to me crying, that if he didn't lay down in front of all the kicking 5 year olds, he wouldn't get booted in the noggin!!!

This is a semi-bad picture of the fam at the red and white scrimage game. It was such a fun day. We went to the game then when to a pizza joint for dinner afterwards. The day was pretty cold and Q snuggled up in a ball on T's lap the whole game (I don't think that she is a football fan). They put little K on the big jumbo screen because he was dancing to the music. He does this little spiderman bum jiggling dance that is impossible to explain but priceless to see. The best part of the game was that UofU won the game!!!! I am not even going to mention that of course they won the game, they were playing themselves.

I have been working REALLY hard on the landscaping and that has taken the bulk of my time. I spent at least 3 hours a day on the landscaping for a couple months now (with the occassional day of total exhaustion). We have a ton of new plants planted, all our veggies planted, all the mulch spread (2 full dumptrucks full!), the entire lot deweeded (quite a job considering we are surrounded by fields and weeds), and 11 trees planted. I think one tree is dead but that isn't a bad ratio, 11 planted, 1 dead. I am planning on buying 3 more trees. But I wannt to be certain that this tree is a gonner before I turn it into firewood. I will take pictures next month when things are poking out of the ground better.

T turned 33 yesterday and we had a fantastic birthday barbeque. I invited all his close friends and they all came!! It was awsome to see them. We hadn't seen some of them in over a year so it was great to catch up.

I had been practicing the ukulele pretty regularly. I am working on finger picking. I have really loved my ukulele and am planning on replacing the strings in the very near future. I found out that my uke is a pretty ok uke but the strings are crap so if I got them replaced I would hear a big difference in the sound of the instrument. I have to have them sent from Hawaii, but at least the shipping is only 80 cents.

Q graduated from 1st grade and is very excited to live in her swimming suit this summer. We got seven peaks passes and she loves going there. They all do except C, who is very timid about any of the slides. He will play in the kiddie pools and the wave pool but if you even hint at a slide he cries. Q also has piano and dance this summer. She is VERY excited to try out dancing. I hope she likes it because she doesn't seem to like sport too much.

Well, I think that is all for now because I am tired of writing. I am positive that I forgot stuff but it's all good. Hopefully, I will write again soon. Have a great day and an even better tomorow

Mom and I had an interesting experience recently. So last Thursday we went to the new walmart at about 9:15 PM. We were checking out shrubs and trees and stuff and so we were in the outdoor area sort of near the back. It was super cold and I was afraid that it was going to start snowing. But lady luck was not smiling at us that night. It started ice raining on us. You know ice rain..... it is rain that is not quite frozen enough to be snow so it drops like rain but kind of stings when it hits you, either from being so cold or from being slightly frozen. I say slightly frozen because it still drenched us from head to toe. I am not kidding you, it was a downpour. There were little rivers that had formed in the parking lot. Well, when we couldn't stand it anymore and decided to buy the plants we had. We went to leave the garden center only to find that the doors were locked. Mom checked her clock and it was after 9:30 and realized that a worker had probably not seen us and locked the doors. My first thought was "I can probably climb these bars and squeeze in between the ceiling mesh and the top of the bars". Mom's first thought was (so much more logical than mine) to grab her phone. She had the number in her phone already because she had to talk to the pharmecist earlier in the day. So she pulls out her phone, calls walmart and says, "we are stuck in the garden center, can someone come and let us out?". The chick said "sorry, those doors are closed. You'll have to go around". Mom, "No, we are IN the garden center, we picked out our plants and now need to get out". Chick, "I'm sorry, you'll have to use the front cashiers, the garden center cashiers have cashed out for the night". Mom, "NO! We are STUCK IN the garden center. We have been LOCKED IN the garden center and we want someone to come and UNLOCK the doors so we can get OUT of the garden center!". Chick, "The garden center is closed". Mom, "I know, you CLOSED it with us inside". Chick "OH!! YOU ARE STUCK OUTSIDE IN THE GARDEN CENTER!!!? I"LL BE RIGHT THERE!" So we stood there, like drowned rats pitifully waiting for the employee to come and free us only to find that when she got there that she didn't even have the keys to unlock us. She had to call for a manager. He was super apologetic and even unlocked the side door and let us back mom's car right up to the door so we could load the plants I had bought directly into her car to avoid the monsoon. I felt bad for mom because she didn't even have a coat on but she said that she wasn't even cold. I find that hard to believe because by the time we got home I was so cold that I had to take a hot shower to stop my teeth from chattering. It was funny though because as we were driving away I noticed the 2 emergency exits in the garden center. Here I was tempted to climb over the top when there was an exit not 7 feet away. The other funny thing was that we were so distracted about the garden center that we didn't buy the medicine that our family needed so we had to drive back around the front of the store, go back in, and buy the medicine and then race back through the rain to our car. All in all, the trip was a success but MAN!! the funniest things happen when mom is around!
So Tom had an experience on Friday night. He was playing with K and once again Lady Luck was frowning on our little family. He was putting his leg up against the wall in the hallway to make a bridge for little K to run under. So the first time he did it everything went fine. Well, he put his leg down and went to make a second bridge with the other leg but his toe snagged the rug runner and propelled Tom forward. He went flying into the wall. I was in my bedroom when I heard the BAM!! I called out "are you ok!? What happened!? Are you alright?" Tom anwered back "I'm ok, but the wall isn't". I went out and saw the carnage. There was a BIG hole in the wall where Toms elbow and foearem went through the drywall. It was a foot across and about 14 inches long. I asked what happened and when he told me, I laughed and said that he was lucky that his elbow went in between the two studs because otherwise his arm would be broken and not the wall. So he fixed it on Sunday and after he put on the patch and the spackle he went and layed down (because wehave all been sick). Well, I thought that the house was a little too quiet so I went to check on K and found him fingerpainting in the spackle. He was making pictographs on our newly fixed wall. He got a "I'm very disappointed in you" and a stern look (which is usually the worst thing you can do for him and Coley) and then I fixed the wall again. They didn't touch it anymore that day and now it is dry so no worries. Anyway, funny story though. Have a great day everyone.

Hello to all those who are as sick of the snow as I am (I am assuming that everyone is so over winter.... but I could be wrong). I hope all is going well for everyone. I feel like our little family has fallen off the continent. We have been sick and so have been staying around home a lot. Little Q has missed 6 days of school so far and still is sick. She seems to be on the mend but she can't seem to shake this terrible cough and cold that follows the cruddy bug that has hit us. I think she will be ok enough to go back to school on Monday. We can only hope!! After 8 days of being stuck in the house 24 hours a day, the kids are ready to get escape this prison they call home. Poor kids. I know that they have been in the house too long because of these little indications and clues:
1.My mother caught K throwing hunks of playdo at the tv last night for no reason, I'm sure, other than to cause mischief. It's a good thing that momma caught him and not Tom because there is a good possibility that there would be a murder in the Salmond home.
2.Momma also caught the 2 boys swinging on the cords to the blinds. We have already had to repair 2 sets of blinds (and another is in line to be fixed) because of blind abuse from the kiddies. I don't know what possessed the boys to become little tarzans. They know that if I ever caught them even playing with the blinds that there would be dire consiquences.
3.C cried when I went to take the garbage out today because he "wanted to come too". Can you imagine!? Wanting to go outside so bad that you are willing to take out the garbage!
4.They argue and snip and bicker about the silliest things like He got more ketsup than me, she is touching my giraffe, he made the bubbles pop in the bubble bath, he looked at me, she makes too much noise when she blows her nose..... the list goes on and on.
5.I am finding excuses to get out of the house by myself so that I can get away from the near constant bickering. Whether it is pulling weeds in the nongarden in the snow, or taking the garbage out one bag at a time, at least it gives me a little solace from these overstimulating conditions.
6.They sit by the windows looking out at the snow longingly (even though it is so cold out there that they wouldn't stay out very long anyway).
7.They keep opening the windows and doors to feel the breeze, which wouldn't be an issue except that it is 30 degrees outside.
8.They find evey excuse known to man kind to sprint out eh front door. For instance, yesterday we were unloading the crabapple trees we purchased (WooHoo!!) and about every 2 minutes a kid was standing on the fron lawn yelling things up to us. When we finally got them to stay inside and we went into the house too, Q ran out the front door because she saw a "flag" on the hill and she wasnted to go get it. It turned out to be a piece of garbage. C saw the neighbor goat on our lawn so he went running out to chase him back (this is an occurance that happens multiple times a day).
So I could go on but I keep getting distracted by the arguing chillies and since I am the fireman-police chief-doctor-xbox commander-waitress-snuggle expert, I have some duties to perform. I only wish that I wasn't sick too, I would be so much more patient. I have learned from past illnesses that nyquil is waaaay too strong for me so if I take half doses I can sleep through the night without clogged nose, sinus headaches, cough or sore throat..... and I can still get up in the morning with only a little struggle. When I used to take a full dose, it knocked me out so hard I couldn't wake up for at least 12 hours and then when I was awake, I was groggy and lathargic for a couple more hours after that. Tom isn't affected like I am. He took the nyquil last night, slept soundly, got up in the morning bright and ready and was fine by the time he got to work (with the aid of dayquil). Not fair. Oh well, so goes life. Well, as I said before, I have to go halt the next coming world war so untill next time.....Caio.

Hello, all!! It has been a LOOONG time since I have written a post. I normally write these during the day but ever since I started working at Tom's parents house 2-3 times a week, I just haven't had the time to even catch my breath, let alone write on the blog. So life has been fun around these parts. Tom has had to travel for business and has one more trip coming up, and I am jealous!! He gets to go to Europe. I realize that it is a business trip but he and his colleague are driving through a few countries to get from one training location to the next. His colleague is from Europe so he feels like he is a confident navigator. I'm sure Tom will have a good time and hopefully he won't come back sick from this trip..... but he probably will anyway because he always does.

So I have been going through some pictures for a project that Quynie has at school and I came across a few super cute ones. I am going to put some up on the blog and take a walk down memory lane. I apologize to everyone in advance because I can not, for the life of me, get the pictures to stay all on one side, and seeing as Tom is in Las Vegas on business, I guess the pictures are going to stay screwed up. Sorry, folks.

This first pictures is of all the Salmond sons. Going from right to left it goes Tom, Wayne, John, and Brian Ray. The funny thing is that they are sitting in birth order. I sometimes forget these fun times. This picture was at the PG 4th of July fireworks show.

This one is last year at fish lake with the Salmond family. We had a good time. The weather was wierd, though. Sometimes it was warm and sometimes it was FREEZING. What I remember most about that trip was seeing Starli and Q on the lake in the little yellow raft, frantically trying to paddle back to shore as they drifted so far away from us that they looked like a little yellow dot on the water! We took this picture about half hour too late. Starli and Mike had just left. That's too bad, but there is always next year.

OH! Don't you love dad's funny picture face!? It looks strangely similar to his normal picture face!

This is little Coley in his Bouncer chair. The wierd thing about this picture is that there was a party going on and he was sleeping through all the chaos and noise. He has always been our good sleeper. The jammies that he is wearing were my favorite summer jammies for all three kids because they were really thin but still long sleeved. Coley looks exactly the same now as he did back then, in my opinion. I just love how he is holding the strap in one hand and how cute his little legs are, poking out the bottom of the jumper. Cute baby.

Here is little Quyn with her poor dead father. Tom loved this halloween costume. I jerry rigged some shoulder and leg pads up for him using my karate sparring gear and then found some baseball pants from DI that could pass for football pants for one evening. Quynie is crying in this picture because she thought that Tom really had been cut on his face. She didn't like to look at him. In all the pictures we have of that night, she isn't looking at him in any of them. Wierd. OH! Did I mention that Tom is a dead football player?

Here is Keenan smelling the leaves. The park had such gorgeous colors that we went over and took some family pictures. Keenan was completely adorable the whole time. He mostly threw leaves the entire afternoon. Leaves and rocks. Leaves, rocks, and dirt....... OK! He threw anything he could find to throw, but it was ok because I don't think he hit other people with his projectiles.... well... maybe he hit a few people, but at least it wasn't on purpose..... I hope. Anyway, most of the pictures that we took of Keenan that day were very, very cute. His eyes are SOOO blue and his skin is SOOO light and his hair is SOOO non existent that the vivid colors just popped. He is a handsome boy and has such a cute personality that it makes his onory moments almost bearable.... almost. What a cute kid.

Oh! And I love the bare feet. Pictures where the kids are barefoot are almost always cuter than shoed pictures... don't you agree?

Last, but certainly not least, is our picture at the BYUvs.UTAH football game. That was such a fun day. The season was a series of ups and downs, amazing comebacks and fantastic games. We absolutely loved having season tickets and will get them again. This time we know what to expect. I will dress really warm every game and wear sunblock even if is snowing and it will be expected that Tom will not be able to speak the next day after each game and that he could very easily have 3 heart attacks each season. I loved spending so much time with Tom.

Well, there you have it. My little walk down memory lane. I will do it again next time I post. Hopefully that will be sooner than later....... but who knows.

I have been having major writers block lately..... maybe not writers block, more like writers lazy butt who sits around at the computer and plays the ukulele instead of writing the post that has been looming over head for over a week now. So I started writing today and my attention waned and I caught myself, five minutes later, messing around with some rubber bands that are sitting at the desk, seeing how many times I can wrap them around one of my fingers (my pointer finger). When I realized I was stalling, I grudgingly turned away from my little "project" and started typing this post. I might add that the rubber band is still around my finger and it feels REALLY wierd typing with it. Anyway, we are all really happy to have the man of the house back home after his lovely business trip to the Philippenes, where he was protected in a compound with high walls and guards with guns, not that it isn't safe there or anything (she said sarcastically). Anyway, we missed him. There just wasn't enough testosterone around here without him. I found myself doing totally girlie things with all the kids (painting toe nails, putting on face masks, making frilly valentines cards, baking heart cookies and decorating them in pink and red sprinkles... the list goes on). I realized that, although a lot of fun, my little men needed a little bit of man time. So I played starwars monopoly with them. The kids did really well, except for Keenan of course, and we found ourselves playing Star Wars Monopoly almost every day after that. We set a time limit so that the kids could see an end to the game and then we just played. It was a lot of fun. I think that monopoly is a poor substitute for a daddy though and the kids were very happy when he came home. I came to the realization that Tom is very calming for me, he is able to relax at home and play with the kids, whereas I tend to race around all day long, working, cleaning, cooking, doing whatever. I find myself scheduling time to play with the kids whereas Tom just plays with them. Sometimes it is aggrevating to me how much he messes around with the kids when there is so much to be done, but deep down, I want to be exactly like that too. Not that he doesn't work when he is home. Far from that. He works very hard, but he has a very good sense of what is important and is ok with letting the unimportant stuff go until later. A good motto, if you ask me..... Don't sweat the small stuff. It can be applied to choosing battles with kids, and to situations in life. So anyway, having him home has been relaxing for me because when he is around, I hang out more, probably because I want to spend as much time with the goof as I can. Q was very excited to have him home too because she lost her 3rd tooth while he was gone. She told him about the letter that the tooth fairy left explaining why she hadn't collected Q's tooth the day before (oops), it said that she had to collect lions teeth from a pride of lions and that lions are tricky to deal with so it took her longer than she had anticipated. Q got a kick out of that one. When she read about the lions, she turned to Grandma, all wide eyed, and said "for real!!??". So when she told Tom that, she was really animated. Super cute kid. So now she can shove corn, peas and cereal through her teeth without actually opening her mouth, and she does, a lot, like, all the time. She cuts everything super small so that she can push it in there. Kids are funny. Keenan has been very animated lately too. He has discovered this little demon voice that has possession of him when he is mad. It is a mix between a howl and a gutteral growl. He also has been laying on the ground and kicking his legs lately when he is mad. Needless to say, Keenan has spent a lot of time in the corner as of late. The funny thing is, he will stay there until I go and get him. It doesn't matter what is going on around him. He just stays in the corner, bottom lip out and crocodile tears running down his cheeks. He will learn soon enough appropriate ways to exhibit emotions... we are working on it together. Anyway, Cole has had a lot of pain in his legs lately. I can only guess that it is growing pains, because he hasn't been injured or anything. Sometimes it is bad enough that he won't bend his knees. Dressing him this morning was definetely a challenge. It is hard to thread on underwear and jeans without bending your legs. You should try it sometime. Not easy. We have had a lot going on but it seems like I can never remember what we did at the end of the day. Q had a bad ear infection last week, the doctors irrigated her ear and cleaned it out (she said it hurt A LOT), Cole has a new school computer program that he likes a whole lot, I am helping a friend paint her bathroom tonight (I really like to paint), Tom got sick when he got back from his business trip and stayed home from work, slept, ate chicken noodle soup and watched his saved shows, we made water babies for the kids (waterballoons with faces drawn on them) and they all love them, they made little homes for them and carry them around in blankets, I have been playing the ukulele and guitar a lot lately, I figured out a bunch of new songs, including a few from Coldplay (fun fun), valentines day was fun, we had dinner with Mike and Starli, hung around, laughing and talking. Tom gave me a air popcorn popper and I absolutely LOVE it, I don't really like flavored popcorn so it is perfect for me. Anyway, I can't really think of much else that is going on. I'm sure I'll think of something and have to post again soon but until then, that is the salmonds in a nutshell.

It has been a long night, and it is going to be an even longer day!

I have been on a business trip in the Philippines all week, and was able to arrange my flights home so that I could get back in time for Valentines Day... but the schedule has had its issues. Last night at 1:45 AM I left the Philippines and flew to Korea where I landed at 7:10 AM this morning. I have have now spent the last six hours waiting for the chance to check into my upcoming flight... just so I can wait another two hours before I will be be allowed on the plane... which leaves at 3:30 PM. Once on the plane, I get to sit for 14 hours as we fly over the Pacific to San Francisco. I then get to wait another four hours until I can get on another plane and take a short two hour flight home. All in all the trip home will take 29 hours... although I will arrive in Utah only 14 hours I left the Philippines due to time zones.

The trip has been a lot of fun. I stayed at an incredible hotel that had amazing service and was right on the beach. The weather was about 85-90 degrees every day, and we were able to eat outside overlooking the ocean for most meals. The hotel offered every amenity imaginable, and even has massage therapists come into our meeting room twice a day to give free massages to all of us, we had a special Phillippines dance program performed for us on the beach, I ate tons of exotic foods including parrot fish, Asian soups, white snapper sushumi, etc. and drank more pina colada's than I could count.

While the trip was fun, however, I found myself spending most of my time thinking about home, and wishing I was there... all of the experiences mean nothing when I am unable to share them with the ones I love. And although I am now preparing to return home to cold, snow, the daily routine of work, home, family, scouts, church, etc... I can not think of any other place I would rather be.

So, while the trip home is going to be long... being able to spend Valentines Day with my incredible wife and my adorable children is the best Valentines gift I could ever receive... and would be worth a trip a hundred times as long as this global jaunt.

Contemplating family from a corner in the Korean airport,

Tomasina Cool Cat