Shiner

 Poor Alex was playing volleyball and came home with a black eye.  Ouch!

Suns Fever

 

Lovin' the Suns this year!

Dan the Man

 Danny turned 11 this year!  He is in the 5th grade and doing really well.  He is in ALP and gets straight A's.  He likes sports and has lots of friends.  He is such a fun boy to be around.  Thanks for being such a good boy Danny :)

Spring Break and Snoopy

 For a few days of Spring Break this year, we got to go to Knottsberry Farm in California!  Taylor couldn't go with us for some reason so we took Connor Ward with us.  I don't know what happened, but I didn't get pics of Alex and Connor and I am not happy with myself!  We had a great time and of course got to enjoy some Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner :)  We love Knottsberry Farm!

 In Camp Snoopy, they were doing a little scavenger hunt that was fun for the boys.  They got these shirts and hats and binoculars.  Danny had just sprained his wrist the week before.

Taylor's JUNIOR Prom and MORP

Well, today I guess it's time to write about Taylor.  He is 17 1/2 and just went to his Junior Prom last weekend.  He went with a girl named Rachel Riggs.  I got to help make dinner for 26 people!  Prom is so expensive these days, that a bunch of the moms got together and made a fancy dinner for all these kids.  It was a lot of fun!  Plus, I got to take as many pictures as I wanted!  Taylor is also in his high school musical production.  They are performing Beauty and the Beast this weekend and Taylor is playing the part of Belle's Dad!  He is such a great young man.  He is very involved in music and church.

Earlier, he had gone to MORP (prom spelled backwards - we used to call it Sadie Hawkins) with Bethany Malan.  He sure has such a great group of friends.

Lobster Anyone?

On the 8th, I meant to talk about Alex.  It was his 15th birthday!  Time passes so quickly.  We were so scared when he was born, because he was born with a kidney ailment called Hydronephrosis.  He also had to go back into the hospital for a few days when he was 4 days old because he had severely jaundiced.  He was pretty sickly for awhile and he had surgery on his kidney when he was only 9 weeks old.  I still remember his little face when the nurse carried him away to the operating room.  It was so heart wrenching.  We had to see the pediatric specialist every year for 5 years.  Thankfully, the problem was corrected and he is doing great.  He is a freshman at Highland High.  He is on the JV volleyball team and he is 1st counselor in the Teacher's Quorum.  He is a wonderful boy who is very affectionate.  We love him so much!  I guess I ought to explain this picture.  I saved it from the Disney cruise.  We were on the Disney Cruise in November for Thanksgiving.  Alex decided to choose lobster for his Thanksgiving dinner instead of turkey!

Let it Snow!

We have 5 beautiful children.  The oldest is Emily.  Emily turned 20 in February and is in her second year at BYU.  She loves every minute of being there.  She is majoring in English, with minors in Music and Editing.  She is a busy kid and will be going on study abroad to London, England in June!  She is very excited needless to say and I don't blame her a bit.

Every year she has been gone, she has been able to come home on President's day week-end and share her birthday with Ryan.  He loves it!  Her birthday is on the 19th and Ryan's is on the 14th.

 Emily & Corey

Tara, Emily & Amelia celebrating her birthday :)

Stuffed Animal Heaven

 Last year for Ryan's 5th birthday, he wanted to go to "Build a Bear Workshop" and he picked out the cutest dog which he named Fluffy.  Well, for his birthday this year which is on Valentine's Day, he asked if he could go again!  So Brad and I tagged along and he chose this dog which he named Scruffy :)

 Here he is with Fluffy, Scruffy, Baby Tiger and Mickey

 Just in case you can't tell - he's a stuffed animal junky :)

Here he is in his kindergarten class.  It's kind of fun bringing birthday treats on Valentine's Day!  All in all I think he had a great day!

Arrow of Light

Back in January, Danny worked hard, finished up his Webelos in Cub Scouts and received the highest award which is the Arrow of Light.  He worked hard to get it and we are really proud of him!  He had to climb the ladder behind him to get the arrow which the cub master had placed up by the basketball hoop!  It is a really cool arrow with an arrowhead on it.  We are proud of you Danny!

It Started With Us

Brad and I have been busy living our wonderful fairytale for almost 22 years now!  July 18, 1986 was the big day and we have loved every minute of it!  Well . . . almost!  Seriously, there have been hard times and trials that we have gone through as a family.  But hopefully we have grown and learned as we have gone through them.  I am so glad that he is by my side and  I am so thankful that we found each other and that we have been so blessed.

Yay for Disney!

Well, I am trying to be adventuresome and start a family blog! I have no idea what I am doing, but hopefully with some work this will be a neat thing for our family. I have to have some way to keep a history of our family and I love reading Emily's and Brandi's blogs. So, I guess I will start with one of the latest pictures of our family. We were so spoiled and went on a Disney Cruise for Thanksgiving this last November, 2007.  Andy and Suzette's family joined us and we had such a great time!

 We went to all of the parks first while we were in Florida.  I can't remember the order or even all the names, but I remember that this is the first thing Ryan wanted to do when we got there :)

 We were missing Danny the first little while because he was hanging with his McBride cousins, Max and Sam.  Taylor broke his wrist a few weeks earlier while riding his longboard.  We were really worried because we knew that we had this trip coming up.  But they told us not to worry and put a water-proof cast on.  Isn't that awesome?!

 Epcot Center.  I wish we would have had more time to spend here.

 Dad and Ryan in the shark from Nemo

 Emily and Danny.  Uh oh - I don't know if Danny's ok!

Jessie from Toy Story signed Taylor's cast!

 After we spent time at the parks for a couple of days, we drove to the ship.  After we got on, Brad realized that he had left his credit card at Walgreens.  So, the first thing he had to do was do some dancin' trying to figure all that out.  We were supposed to go get food and hang out on the deck while they got all our luggage in our rooms and stuff.

 We sailed off and this was the beautiful sunset from our balcony.

 We had to get two room because there were so many of us.  Emily, Taylor, Alex and Danny shared a room right across the hall from me, Brand and Ryan.  We were all pretty impressed with the cool animals they made out of the towels every night.

 The next day we landed at Nassau, Bahamas and we took a little cruise over to an island to hang out for the day.

 All the cousins on the boat ride back

 

 This is a cute street in Nassau

 

 One thing really neat about the ship is that Ryan got to see Disney characters to his heart's content!  Every night we went with the group we were assigned with, to a different restaurant.  We had the same waiters all through the trip and they were great!

 Emily, Mickey and Ryan

 Belle and Ryan

 Belle and Emily :)

 It's a little dark, but this is our whole family table the first night

 Danny & Max

 Danny and Sam

 Cole and Ryan

 Wendy, Ryan and Peter Pan

 Ryan getting his book signed by Alice

 Pirate Night

 Andy makes a good pirate face :)

 Donald Duck & Danny

 We landed at Castaway Cay - Disney's own private island.  It was sooooo fun!  Look how HUGE the ship is!

  I finally remembered to take pics of our cabin

 And this picture about sums it all up!  It was a wonderful time that we will remember forever.  We made so many wonderful memories.  Thank you so much Dad!