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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.