Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

70th wedding anniversary

The kids and I traveled to Utah to celebrate my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary. Yes, that is 70! My grandparents favorite dining place is in Brigham City, Utah and it's called Maddox. It was so fun to see Aunts, uncles, and cousins.

All of my nieces and nephews are above, those not pictured include Zane who is rolling down the hill and T.J. was unable to make this trip.

The four girls, my sisters. We had so much fun being together, which doesn't happen very often.
I promise Ally, I'll sit at the kids table next time.

Picture time, for all the families. This just happens to be mine, minus all of our husbands. Not that they wouldn't get into the picture, none of them were able to attend.

Cousin time, Austin and Devyn, I believe she is trying to do a body slam on the tramp.

Cheers, Catie and Avery always celebrating. A great time was had by all. If you think about it we accomplished alot in 2 days. Arrived in SLC at 3:00 a.m., Anniversary dinner 1:00 p.m., arrived at Mom's around 4:00 p.m., Annie cut avery and catie's hair, saw "Sex and the City" with girls and Mom, finally went to bed at 12:30 a.m., arrived at church with Brett's parents at 9:00 a.m., Made it to Jer's for late lunch 5:00p.m., left for airport and arrived back in Las Vegas around 10:00 p.m.

happy father's day

Wish we could be there we will be home tonight. Enjoy your relaxing day.

hi daddy why didn't you come? from trevor

it's really fun at utah, i love you happy fathers day. from devyn

hi daddy, it's avery, wish i could be there.

The curtains go up and the Lights go out!

It all started with a broken video camera and having to run to K-mart to buy a video camera so Brett could see Dev's dance recital, due to him being at Trevor's championship baseball game. The culprit that broke the video camera looks really worried. He is on the left in the window, thanks TJ, ka-ching$$$. Although these two big brothers did video tape their sisters very well.

This is our little "Barbie Hollaback Girl" dance routine. We worked so hard on Devyn not pursing her lips together and showing her teeth so that we could see her nice smile. Humm, let's see if that worked...NOT!

These little Barbie girls just lit up the stage with their fired up moves. Nice teeth Devyn.

Too cute. Show those teeth!!!

Then we move on to the "Cooties" dance from Hairspray. The girls really got into their far out costumes and being able to hula hoop.

These two crack me up. I was surprised they didn't do their signature move of the "Charlie Angels" pose. Notice Dev's pursed lips again.

This year it was mandatory that flowers were given. Last year was our rookie season and we showed up empty handed. Dev had a mental breakdown. Devyn was so great and it was enjoyable to watch her participate in something she absolutley loves doing. Great job, girls. We then raced to the car and tried to get to Trevor's baseball game. When we got there the game was neck and neck. Trevor had a great hit and he moved around the bases.

The game is in the last inning and we are at the bottom of our line up. We are down by one run. The kid at bat has not hit a ball all year, he kind of tries but I think he's afraid he might actually hit it. We have our slowest runner on third, (the tying run). The tension is so high. The main umpire got sick, we got a relief umpire in, it was just a crazy game. We knew that we had to tie the game to go into another inning, so the guy on third leaves the base to run home just as the catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher, the crowd in on their feet and we are yelling for him to slide, run faster, etc. and just as he approached home plate................the lights go out! What in the world! It couldn't have been timed any better. So the umpires decide along with the president over Little league that we will resume tomarrow.

After this long saga over baseball, we show up on Saturday and Andreas, the kid who has not hit ALL year, is at bat. The count is 2 and 2. We all pray for 2 balls and that's what happens. But then it hit me, OH MY HE--, Trevor's up to bat. The whole game is on his shoulders. And after a great at bat he walks the tying run home. Then Jacob comes up and hits a bouncing ball to the short stop that he bobbles. Jake is safe at first and Daniel runs home for the winning run. Congrat's Rangers!!!

Another year without a New Car

May 13th was the day that our little Avery took my dreams away of 4 new wheels, a cd player that works, no rattling in the engine, a transmission that will shift, and yes, the automatic windows that don't grind when pulling into Sonic. Avery got braces. She looks so grown up.

Well, here's to another year with the Toyota Sienna. Just in time for Trevor to get braces.

Going to Work with Dad Day

Brett decided to take the kids to work with him and the "Big Apple" was their destination. As you can see Brett's office is quite boring but the kids loved sitting in the cockpit. I personally loved the instruction manual sitting in the window. UMM which airline does he fly for?

The Yankee tickets were purchased before they left Vegas and they were off. This was a highlight due to this being the last season in this stadium. Of course they were in the rowdy section, where you either joined in with the crowd or you were ridiculed. The crowd chants every Yankee players name on the field and they keep chanting their name until they wave to the crowd and then they move onto the next player. The kids loved it. Of course security took over and told everyone to keep quiet, and then the leader of the pep squad was yelling about how his first amendment rights are being violated. You have to love New Yorkers!!

Now only my family will get this joke but when you have only have 12 hours in a city and you throw a Yankee game in, you are running. We like to call it the Glenn Olson-Vard Swain tour. You don't actually get to experience each location its just a quick look and then move on. This is Central Park. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention a picture is taken to document that they were there, so when they get older and say they didn't go anywhere when they were kids, there is proof.

On the Swain-Olson tour this is as close as you get to the Statue of Liberty. If you squint really hard you can see her in the distance.

Brett's favorite place, Wall Street.

The kids were a little apprehensive about the Subway. It just looks so much cleaner on Seinfeld, but they did manage to get on and get around the city. Of course in true Trevor fashion, he yells for them to not touch anything.

Grand Central Station.

Times Square. All Avery could picture was Giselle from "Enchanted" coming up from one of the drains.

This is Avery in the cockpit of the Airbus, and if you notice how happy she is to be heading home. If you notice only one child on this flight, yes the joys of stand by, the boys were left behind. As Brett pulled out T.J. and Trevor waved from the airport, Brett said it was one of the hardest things he's ever had to do. But 12 hours later we picked them up at the Vegas airport and heard about their wild adventure at JFK for a day. I think Brett has fulfilled the "take your child to work day" commitment.

childhood dreams

While reading the newspaper waiting for General Conference to start I came across a story about a professor who did a last lecture. Our home teacher had told me about this but I had forgotten, so when I saw it in the paper this morning I decided to do the u-tube thing and found it. You can listen to it here and it is 76 minutes long but worth every minute. You can find it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. It truly makes you think.