Sunday, October 18, 2009

Time With Family

This past week was a good week to be with family. It was nice to just be busy with family stuff.

Monday night, we spend Family Home Evening (FHE) going to a Pumpkin Patch with the kids. We picked some good pumpkins for a good price then went on a "hay ride." The kids enjoyed the the whole experience. Monte and Catherine got into a "discussion" about the hay ride. Catherine grew up an on farm and therefore knew the difference between "Hay" and "Straw." Straw is yellow and Hay is green. Then Monte asked "then why is it called a "hay" ride and not a "straw" ride? That is when a gentlemen next to us said it just sounds better and more exciting for the kids. This is why Monte married Catherine... she is a smart "country girl!" (Big grin from Monte).

Monte goes to lunch with is brother(s) and dad once a month. It was Neils' turn to choose. He chose a BBQ place, which was not so bad. It was nice to sit and chat as "Stark Men." You could call it "male bonding time."

On Sunday we went up to Evanston for the baby blessing of R & K's new baby boy (their 3rd). It was nice to see Monte's "Big Baby" brother. They love talking sports and accounting. Catherine was very tied because she worked a 13 hour overnight shift at Sam's Club, but enjoyed talking with family as well. The kids love playing with all of their cousins.

Well that is all from the Monte Stark family this week.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Weekly Report

Well another week has gone by in the lovely month of October. What shall we talk about? Monte is the one that does most of the postings and he is an accountant not a writer. He does his best though.

Danielle is getting so smart at 2 and 1/2. One of her favorite shows is "The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" on Disney channel. She was sitting there watching it this morning. In the beginning of the show they always do the roll call of the characters. She will repeat every name with out a hesitation. She also loves "Handy Manny" and "Little Einsteins." She will get up and run to where you are at in the house and tell you which show is on. Then run back to watch the show. We love being her parents!

Question for any parent with any boys around 5 years old... How well are they doing on going potty? Connor is a great boy, he, as of late, has been having trouble with going potty. He will get to busy playing or something and wont go to the bathroom. It has been very frustrating for us and we don't know what else to do with him. He will be good for a day then have about 3 accidents the very next day. (It is starting to wear down the washing machine). It just boggles our mind that there are three bathrooms in the house and he just can't make it to one of them. (HELP!!)

Bronwyn is making good strides in second grade and really loves dance. They had to change her dance class to Monday nights; because the class she was in was so small they combined with another class. By the way for those interested the Christmas Dance Recital is coming up. We will email the family with the specifics.

Catherine works hard at Sam's Club. In this economy we are happy she has a job. We know right now how difficult it is to find a job. Our brother-in-law in California has been trying. We hope and pray that he finds what he is looking for and wish him well. We know he will do great in what every job he finds. Catherine is also working hard as a Webelos Scout leader. She is learning a lot and this may come in handy when Connor comes of scouting age.

Monte is still working hard at his job in downtown SLC. He has been there for a year and half now. He is become known as the "Excel Master." When anyone has an Excel question they come to him first. He even get Excel assignments from his boss from time to time. Monte love maintaining the vehicles. This past weekend he changed the brakes on the van and then changed the oil in both the van and Kia.

Well that is all from the Monte Stark Family. Sorry no pictures this week. We will talk with you later.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

It has been a little bit since our last blog. Life has gotten much busier since Bronwyn and Connor are now in school. Both of them are enjoying it very much. They both ride the same bus home and we think that is helping them grow closer together.
Danielle is becoming smarter every day for a 2 1/2 year old. One of the smart things she does is talk very well and constantly (just ask Catherine). She says "thanks dad or mom" when she is given something. She is in a beginning dance class and really loves it. She sings her dance song at home a lot! Monte loves coming home from work, because Danielle will run to give him a big hug.
We love the house we are now in. We have been in this house for about 6 months now. Since the house is surrounded by a hay farm/field we are seeing a lot of cool animals. Take a look at these pictures. This is a couple of deer that hang out in our back yard every so often.

The kids think it is pretty cool. Connor calls them reindeer and says we need to take them back to Santa Clause.

We would like to congratulate Monte's baby brother and his wife. They just added their 3rd boy to their family. Richard is starting his basketball team. He now has enough for a 3 man team! Both baby and mom are doing fine. Way to go Richard Stark Family!

Well another week has gone by and it is now October. We hope everyone has a good coming week.
Love
The Monte Stark Family.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

2009 Family Summer Vacation

It is been a while seen we blogged last. Sorry about that. Last month (July) we went to Toronto Canada to see family on Catherine's side. This is family that Monte has not met at all. It was fun getting passports to go and then finally going to "another country." We are happy to report that things are still good in Canada "a"! Monte learned that there is nothing wrong saying "a", especially when you are talking about an exciting topic. :-)
While there we visited an Canadian Air Museum. It was quit fun to see all those old airplanes. One was the only remaining Halifax Bomber in the world. This plane was rescued from a World War II crash site and rebuilt to factory specification. It was big! Connor said he wanted to take one of the planes home with us.







We then visited a Lock System on a nearby river/bay area. The kids had some fun watching boats go through the locks. They even let us help open the doors to the locks. There where about 12 locks in the whole system spanning a good 25 miles.
And we can't forget about seeing family. We stayed with Catherine's aunt, Rose. She is a cute lady just like Catherine's mother. They are short people, therefore the ceiling up stairs and in the basement was very short. Monte nearly received a concussion coming down the stairs.









After being in Canada for a few days, we then drove down to Niagara Falls and the Palmyra Pageant. They where both very cool and exciting to watch. We enjoyed ourselves and we learned how small Connor's bladder was during the whole trip. This was the first time Monte has been this far north east. We also found time to stop at the Sacred Grove and then Kirkland Temple on the way back home.




All in all we really enjoyed our road trip and grew closer together as a family. We hope you enjoy our pictures and we will make a better effort keeping up on our blogging.
Love the Monte Stark Family.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Finally Moved In

Well, it has been a little bit since we last blogged. We have been busy with moving our stuff to the new Riverton house on 4/28/09. We had a good showing of family and church member in helping us move out to the West Jordan house. The Elders Quorum President from the new ward came over to help us unload at the Riverton house. We were able to get unloaded by 2 PM. We greatly appreciate my family members helping us move. Especially Monte's mother and father for taking the kids overnight that Friday. It was a big help to have the kids stay with their grandparents.




We are still unpacking boxes though, that will take some time. But is starting fill like home. Don't worry, we will be unpacked with things to host a family party this summer.

This past weekend we had Lexi. She had a dance competition in Bountiful on Saturday. Her dance team did a really good job and we was happy to be there. Lexi is growing into a teenager every day. One things she does a lot while she is with us is talk on her cell phone with her friends.

Well that is all from us today. Have a great week everyone!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Another Busy Week

Another busy weeks has passed us by. We are currently packing up the house in preparation to moving to another house. We will be moving 4/25/09. That will be here before we know it and we are very excited about the move. We thank the family ahead of time who will be helping us move.

Lexi had a dance competition this past Saturday at Energy Solutions Arena. When calling her the next day, she said her team got 2nd place. I am very proud of her in all her efforts. She realy enjoys dancing.





We love having family with farming knowledge. Last week we received a call from our Wyoming family. They just bought six or eight pigs and asked if we would like to buy one. They were such a great deal that we could not say no. We now have a pig that our Wyoming family will take care for us until the time comes to process it. (Sorry, that is part of the farm life, you raise an animal in plans of increasing you food supply). For the record the pigs name will be "Porky"

Well, that will be all for this post. Thanks for reading our weekly post.
Love the Monte Stark Family.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Prayers Answered

The past few weeks have been busy for us. Catherine is doing much better from her surgery. She is now back to work after taking 3-4 weeks off. Her work is excited to have her back.

We received a call from our property manager for the house we are currently renting. They told us the land owner would like to sell the house, but have us stay until the house is sold. We decided that would not be in our best interest since our lease is up April 30th. So we looked really hard to find a new house to rent. Our prayers were answered when we found a nice rambler in Riverton. It is 3000 square feet with a 2 car garage and plenty of storage. We got the okay to rent the house just this afternoon (3/29/09). We are very excited.









So Monte will be planning the moving crew this next month. We will take possession of the house on 4/15/09 (Tax Day).

So that is the news from the Monte Stark family this week.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

A Week To Remember

Some things in life happen to make you think and reflect. This happened for our family just last week.

To preface the week, last Sunday we found out a person in our ward passed away in a fire just down the road where will live. This event got my mind working and that night I dreamed that something happen to Catherine at work and that I would have be a widowed father with three kids under the age of eight. I am so glad that is not true.

Well, On Thursday morning at 2:30 am Catherine woke up with sharp pain in her stomach area and vomiting. She woke me at 3 am to give her a blessing, I did, but the symptoms did not go away. I called into work to take care of Catherine for the day, thinking it is real bad case of the stomach flu. But the pain nor the vomiting did not stop since 2:30 am. So the kids and I took Catherine to the ER to be checked out. The Pain was so bad that Catherine needed a wheelchair when we got to the hospital.

They said they needed to do some tests and an ultrasound to check her out. While they are doing that, Jen was very kind to take the kids until this was done. When I got back to the hospital, they had already done the ultrasound and found that Catherine had Gallstones trying to leave the Gallbladder, which was causing the pain and vomiting.

Catherine need surgery to remove the Gallbladder; this was the only way to solve the symptoms. The surgery went fine and the Dr. even offered to give us the Gallstones. We kindly declined. So Catherine was in hospital all day Thursday and came home Friday afternoon.

She is now resting and will be out from work for three weeks. She struggles a little bit, because they had to make three small incision in her abdomen. You never know how much of a muscle you use until it has been cut or damaged.I want to personally thank Jen Stark (my sister-in-law) in watching our kids (Bronwyn, Connor and Danielle) Thursday. She helped me to focus on Catherine during this time. I know that if we where still leaving in Minnesota this would have been a tough challenge for our family.

I am grateful that this was not as serious as it could have been. Gallstones are not dangerous unless they try to leave the Gallbladder or rupture the Gallbladder.

Thank you for your thoughts, calls and prayers.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Starting (Again)


Hello all, Catherine checked out a library book on blogging. So we are trying to make a better effort in the blogging world. We are still trying to do our best in getting updated pictures.

We can't believe that it is going on to March of 2009. We have been busy and healthy for the first two months. We celebrated Danielle's birthday the last day of January. February 28th will be Lexi's birthday and she will be 13 (our first teenager in the house). Then in March Bronwyn will be turning 7. And Connor continues to be our "rowdy" boy through and through.

Monte is very busy at work with his audit season coming up. Plus he has taken on more responsibility since he received his CMA (Certified Management Accountant). Plus with the economy being very slow there are always changes at work.

Catherine is working hard at Sam's Club. It is always a joke when she is there. The night management team does not promote a fair and friendly working environment and then wonder why people are on edge. They really need to take a lesson in management 101.

We will do our best to blog more!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Well I have finally changed the background so that we are somewhat updated. I am still trying to learn all the ins and outs of the blog. We have been keeping ourselves busy with the kids activities. We have started looking for another home to move into since we have to wait for your forclosure to mature, and we do not like the house we are in now. I think that we are looking at staying here in West Jordan for now since it is close to Bronwyn's school.