HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MATT!

18 Years and counting! I have now known Matt just as long as I had lived with my childhood family- 20 years!

I am so amazed that Matt and I have been married for 18 years, where has the years gone? I mean man, aren't I still just 18? Nope, how could that be with an almost 17 year old boy?!

I love Matt so much and I count my blessings everyday that He is my husband. He spoils me rotten, he treats me and the kids not only with the respect that we deserve but as if we are his very best friends (which we are!) We have spent a lot of time together lately and I really can say that I don't tire of him being around. Yes, maybe when he is retired and is hanging around 24-7 I will feel different, but right now I love having him home when he is home. We have started talking about what we will do when they kids move out of our house when they step into the lives as they should! I think that we will do some kind of traveling, live somewhere that I or he love to be (he the mountains, me the ocean- can we do both? a Winter home and a Summer home? hum,we'll see!)

Here is where our trip started 18 years ago.


This is where we went again this year, no, not Circus Circus, but to Las Vegas! Matt got tickets to the Phantom of the Opera and a great hotel room so that we could go to other shows the next night. We ended up going to the Knights of the Round Table Tournament and Dinner Show, it was really fun!



Phantom of the Opera even though it wasn't the Broadway version was Phantasmal! I loved the surroundings (in the Venetian,) the stage design, the singing and yes, the Phantom was great! The only thing that I didn't like was the fact that the music from the Orchestra was louder than the singers so sometimes you really had to strain to hear what they were singing!

We loved the shows but not the Vegas experience, it was hot (114*)! it was dirty, it was crowded, I mean it was after all a few days before the 4Th, and last but not least, we are far from being Gamblers and so there wasn't much of an attraction to the lobby of the hotel (except for Starbucks right before turning in!)

Even though the Vegas Experience wasn't that great, I really did enjoy walking around the Venetian- it is so intriguing to me to visit Europe that I really had fun watching the different things going on at this hotel. I thought that the live statue was amazing, how some guy can stand for hours on end not moving and looking so marble like is beyond my realm of thinking. I think after 10 minutes, I would have had to scratch my nose, batted an eye more than every few minutes or maybe having someone standing next to me while some one took our picture I would just have to smile. But this guy stood pan still, never even looked like he was blinking and never showed the pressure! That to me is amazing!



I wanted to go on the Gondola ride, but the first time we went into the Venetian, they were having a wedding and the Bride and Groom were being escorted to their wedding site by gondola. The next time it was just plan busy!!!

We ate at Outback and Denny's- what the heck! Why do we pick stuff that we can go to at home?? Hum, I don't know?! Matt says it is because we are boring. I think it is because it was so crowded and we knew that it would be better to stick with something safe so that we got food that was actually edible. Okay---- we are boring!


I really enjoyed our alone time together and the trip went too fast, but since it was Las Vegas when Tuesday rolled around we were happy to be going home!

26 Miles across the Sea- Santa Catalina is awaiting for me....

Ahh! A place that no one in my family has visited. This was Mckenna's first performance of the week and the girls couldn't wait!

Mckenna got a little sea sick and so she slept a little on the boat ride to the island. On the way home she was given a motion sickness pill so she was fine!

We were wanting to go into the water and swim at the beach but there was a bacteria in the water, so all the girls could do was play on the beach and out run the waves coming in. I thought the fun part was looking at the stores, seeing the old mission base, that is now a movie theater and seeing all interesting archetecture of the houses on the island. But the best of all was the Dance Performance with the ocean and many boats behind the girls. What an awesome backdrop!

Enjoy the slideshow of all the many pictures of Catalina

Universal Studios or Day #2

The next day our gang (lisa, me, mckenna & maddy,) went to breakfast with the double Haileys,Morgan and Holly gang (we will call them the Hailey's from now on,) at Coco's. We needed a good breakfast because we knew that the food at Universal (or the rest of the day of each day,) would be fast food and not top notch, so we decided to start with a good meal each day.


Then we were off to Universal Studios.


Lisa's desire for the day was to see if Desperate Housewives was taping (they have Wisteria Lane in the Studio Tour,) the girls desire was to get as many autograph's of stars as possible and to ride the Mummy. Well, the Mummy was closed due to reconstruction and so that one was scratched off the list. My desire was to see the fun rides that I didn't get to do at Universal in Florida- which were not even in the California park... No, spiderman, no Hulk--- nothing. What a bummer. In the evening we were getting ready to leave and ran into all the older girls who were waiting for some singer named Rihanna who was going to sign autographs and sing in Universal's version of Downtown Disney. We had a few girls that bought the cd so that they could meet Rihanna personally, but she was 45 minutes late and we had to leave before she left. Mckenna was bummed because she wanted to tell her brother's that she met someone famous. (i don't know who this girl was, how could she be that famous?)



But here are the famous people that Mckenna met!

What do you like to do at Downtown Disney?

We Like to Build Bears! Or get great Halloween ideas!!!

The last thing that we did our first day of our California trip was to visit Downtown Disney. All Spring long Mckenna and Maddy have been saving their money for a chance to build a bear (or disney character,) at Build-A-Bear Workshops in Downtown Disney, this is the night they wanted to do that. While we were looking for the build a bear store I ran into the coolest store-fronts based on Pirates of the Caribean, which I thought would make great halloween backdrops for our haunted porch idea this upcoming Halloween.

Enjoy watching the process of building a bear...
















get some ideas from my store front Pirates...

FOR DAD / GRANDPA

We went Quackers today GRANDPA!!!!

California Adventure - Disneyland

Today was a long bus ride, but we had alot of fun at California Adventure. Mckenna and Maddy hung around with the big girls and so the "older" gals got to go on a few rides without worrying about the little gals.





I took the plunge and went on the big, crazy gondola ferris wheel- which I usually refuse to do since I am so afraid of heights, but it was really fun and I wasn't half as afraid as Lisa and Heather were who screamed the whole time we were up.

Lisa& Heather before the ride started

It wasn't a very long ride and didn't go around very often as I would have liked, but it was a good start!


Lisa and I after a while reclaimed the little girls so that the older girls could enjoy each other without babysitting and the girls had fun together going on different rides.. enjoy the pics...




Mckenna went on this ride while waiting for the fastpass to activate for Screamer!!!

California Here We Come!

Now that the Dance Competition season is over the fun is heading our way! We are going to California with the Dance Studio, the girls will be performing at Disneyland and at Catalina Island. We will also be going to Universal Studios, California Adventure park and tons of eating out! We are very excited to be riding on the tour bus (like Devin when he went on his Violin tour.)

This is a cute top that Mckenna bought for the trip....


California--- HERE WE COME!
See you when we come back....


*no internet connection, now that we are home, it get's posted!

Final Dance Competition for Kenna

Wow, do I have a lot of pictures from all the competitions that Mckenna has been in the last two months! So in the side bar I have included a slideshow of all her pictures.


But, here is a video of her Jazz and her Lyrical solo.
I hope you enjoy them!



Mckenna's jazz solo for Provo was very fast so I am including a copy of the parowan solo so that you can see the difference.

Friends, Friends and more Friends

I have taken some fun pictures of the kids and their friends lately and thought that I would share them with ya'all.

Let's start with Devin: (like his whole life he has all the firsts:>) Devin has had a lot of buddies come over and play badmitten in our backyard, it has been fun, some of them have been kyler's age, but hang around with Devin because the more the merrier according to Devin (yes, Kyler is involved also!)

Now, we have a foosball table and they play that too, but no pictures yet (i got it at a garage sale last week.)
Kyler and Devin had a fun challenge with Kyler's school security officer (who also lives in our neighborhood and is friendly with Matt,) and they beat Mark very strongly in their foosball match! Kyler thought that was an awesome thing, Mark has challenged them to a rematch sometime at our house...



Kyler has had friends over (which I think I put up on the blog before, but Kyler just had a choir concert and Mckenna took fun pictures there. The other day in the car we were giving Brayden and Gabe a ride home and Gabe says, "Kyler if you hadn't of transfered into 4th period I would have never met you, I am glad you did." I thought that was a really nice comment. 4th period is all year Choir, Kyler originally was only 1/2 year and then going to be in Drama, but his Choir teacher asked him to transfer into her all year class since she loved his singing. (more on that to come...)

Mckenna: I snapped a few pictures of coming to the crosswalk at school after school. Usually she walks home but Andrea called me very sick and asked if I could give Kyleigh and Katheryn a ride home and I said ofcourse. Mckenna just looked so cute in her outfit that I had to have a picture and luckily I had my camera (i seem to carry it everywhere now adays. I think it has to do with the realization that the kids are getting older and will be becoming butterflies and flying away sooner than I would like, plus I like to snap for this blog!) She is walking with Katheryn (kyleigh and Christee are behind them.)
Katheryn

Kyler and Baseball

Kyler's baseball team for little league is called the Dodgers, last year it was Devin's best friend's Eric's team and so they built it for eric and the older kids. The younger kids never played last year! This year matt had to draft 9 kids (this includes Kyler,) to the team there are 12 kids on the team total. Most of the kids are not use to playing competitively because they played in the minor league where as Kyler and three other kids played in the majors and it was very competitve. So, Kyler is going a little crazy with the losing of games that have happened in the last little while. They won their games last Saturday which I did not get to watch since I was in Parowan with Mckenna for a dance competition where the studio was name best Studio of this season- which is a great honor but back to baseball. The game before that I was there and they were beat by many, many points and Kyler was furious because not one of the outfielders could field the ball, they either watched it go over their heads or let it fall at their feet and took their time throwing it back in field after the other team scored 4 runs at a time (this would be the batter, and the loaded bases group.)

Kyler's team won their game today though and it was very exciting because they won by one point!! Kyler did an awesome job pitching. Most of these games are late games- 8:15 p.m. to 10:15. It is really fun to go to night games maybe that is why I love going to kyler's games when I can not only to watch kyler play but because one of the boys on his team family is really good friends with our family and his family is so fun to be around. Devin is really good friends with their daughter Natalie and neice Brooke, Kyler is friends with Dallin and Kristy one of their older daughters use to be Mckenna's ballet teacher last year. Patrice their mom is awesome, we have gone skim boarding together, she took me horseback riding last friday (boy was I sore, but a different blog for that one!)

The other thing that is great about Patrice is that she can calm me down when one of the very loud complaining parents talks about the coach to all the other parents and just continues to complain about how her son doesn't get to pitch all the time. 2 weeks ago her complaint was that we don't have the practices that they had last year (her kid never played because he was a 13 year old.) and this last game she tried to get Lance (matt's friend who is helping him coach since no parent will) to change pitchers, "are we going to make a pitching change soon, or is he going to pitch the whole game, he is really cute, but I am tired of my son crying each night of a game because we loose and he could have pitched." Lance told her that he was not the manager and she needed to talk to the manager (matt) she said "she wasn't going to talk to anyone"- whom, seems that she was talking to lance and everyone else that would listen!! Her son plays every inning of every game in a key position- so she shouldn't complain.

But, I know that matt is being fair to everyone and so I couldn't care what she says, it is just that she is creating a very negative experience in the stands with her mouth! So, the kids and I try to make it a fun atmosphere and override her negativity.

I am going to be able to watch kyler's game tomorrow, but not Saturday since Mckenna will be at the Provo Competition. I asked Devin to record it for me, but then remembered I will have the camcorder with me since I have one more time to record Mckenna's solo performance. It is nice to record them all so that she can she her changes and how her performance are getting better.

I am excited for tomorrow! Go, Kyler!!!







Matt instructing one of his players

And so it starts! Dance Competition #1 ~ Champion Productions

So, we are off to another year of dance competions...
The competition was stiff, so many teams from the north that focus on only one type of dance style ex: jazz and not lyrical, lyrical and not hip hop etc... Mckenna learns all styles and can do all those dance styles well, but I think Jazz is her best, but it is still hard for her to understand that not all studios teach all things and when they do then the girls are put on competitive teams and only focus on that one style. I guess she is lucky to the extent that she will be able to do all styles for drill team or whatever else she decides to do with her dancing skills in her life whether it be teaching dance, dancing in plays or just teaching her children about what values she learned in her dancing days...

This competion though was unusual and shall I say very long, ( solo's from 3 to 10:30 p.m. then then next day from 10 a.m. til again 10:30 p.m.) was really good for Mckenna because it helped her to see what she needed to work on. With each routine they included a dvd with the performance and comments at the time of the mistake or awesome move. Mckenna's comments were basically smile and point toes.

Enjoy!

Some of the fun things that the girls do during down time: Elevate your body and Ride that pony game (anyone that has gone to girls camp knows these games.)

Happy Easter Everyone!

Have a Beautiful day!

Easter Eve and the Sound of Music

While Mckenna was waiting for our Easter Egg decorating time she decided that she wanted to watch an Easter show, This is what she picked The Sound Of Music. I thought it was mighty cute that she thought this was an Easter show. I guess compared to everything else that was on this was very spiritual. I mean, Nun's- Maria being afraid to not serve God and running from a very evil power (the Nazi's,) this was as Eastery as we could find. No Easter Parade, No, Peter Rabbit cartoons and absolutely NO movies about the Savior's Crucifixion or the Resurrection- nothing until later in the Evening say---- 9 p.m. too late for my kids.

But I really am not minding this at all since I love The Sound of Music and we got to record it since I have never owned a copy of this movie. So, I guess we are pretty lucky Mckenna didn't pick Spongbob Square pants or Drake and Josh! And we got to munch on some yummy carrots, broccoli and snap peas while we were waiting for our cheese raviolis- delicious!