the one about the BEACH PARTY

Quayd's teacher let the class chose a theme for their end of school party. The voted and decided on a Beach Party. I am the official party planner mom, so Mrs. Murray asked me to come up with a plan. I bought leis and squirt guns for everyone. We played some water games, had a water baloon fight, snacks and tons of fun! Quayd and his teacher Mrs. Murray)




To finish it all off, Brett brought the fire truck and sprayed the kids. They LOVED it! Everyone thought it was pretty cool that Quayd's dad was a fireman and could bring the firetruck just for them! Quayd was pretty proud to have his dad there. (Dad was a just a little proud too!!!)

the one about Brett's hairy chest

I was just thinking about this funny thing that happened on our cruise and thought I would share...

Seriously, cruising is so much fun! Whenever there is a "Day at Sea" the crew works really hard to make sure you are having fun and they schedule activities for every second of the day. Our second day at sea, they had a Hairy Chest competition. We had been begging Brett to do it. He was a little hesitant at first, but he finally decided to go for it. The only requirement was that you started the competition with a shirt on so you could take it off for the big reveal. There were 8 contestants. They had a panel of 4 female judges that could touch and feel the men to determine a winner. For round one, they took all of the men (yes, the contestants were all male! thank goodness!) to the second level of the pool deck. They had these curvy stairs and the guys had to walk halfway down the stairs, take their shirts off then go the rest of the way down the stairs. Then the judges felt the hair and eliminated a few men. Brett was super funny as he came down the stairs and everyone was cheering for him. He cleared round 1.
Here he is meeting the judges.

In round 2, the contestants had to show their muscles (or lack thereof), make their best Tarzan yell then "aligator wrestle" a beach towel. Brett may have not been the hairiest man, but he was by FAR one of the best performers!! He was so funny and everyone was laughing at him. Another guy, Rich, was also super funny, but the real crowd favorite was on old man named Bob.


Brett cleared this round too. The last part to determine the winner was a popular vote. Brett did pretty well on this round too, but like I said before, the real crowd favorite was Bob. Brett did a great job and I was so... ummmmmm.... whats the word I am looking for?? Not proud... but, well... I guess HAPPY for Brett for doing so well and for being a good sport. He got a nice medal for participating and a lot of cheers for being so dang funny!

the one abut the field trip

Today I was able to go with Quayd on his second grade field trip. We went to historic Josie's Cabin. Josie was a lady who built a cabin and ran a ranch near Split Mountain on Dinosaur National Monument land. She is known for letting some of the outlaws (such as Butch Cassidy) stay at her place when they were traveling in the Colorado, Utah and Wyoming areas. The cabin is in such a beautiful location and it is amazing to think of what her life may have been like when she lived there. Josie established her homestead in 1914. She raised and butchered cattle, pigs, chickens and geese. She canned vegetables from her large garden. Her source of heat for her cabin was wood, her water came from a spring, and light from an oil lamp. Josie lived a 19th century lifestyle well into the 20th century. She lived there until she died at the age of 90 in 1964. It was so primitave and I felt totally weird playing with my cell phone and checking twitter from just outside her cabin!
Quayd and his friend Antonio


Quayd and I didn't really feel well. I have had allergy/sinus crap and Quayd had a stomach ache and said he had growing pains in his legs. We hung out together and took it easy the whole day. We sat together on the bus, ate lunch together and hiked together. I kept telling him to go play with his friends that he didn't have to hang out with his old mom, but he said he just wanted to spend the day with me. He is so awesome! It was such a great day. The weather was perfect, everything was starting to bloom and so beautiful.



I haven't been to this area for many years and I was so happy I went. I enjoy refreshing my mind with all of the fun history of this area... plus I LOVE seeing Quayd in another world besides home. Its fun to see him interact with his teacher and friends. He has such good friends and he is such a good little boy. We live in such a cool area and we are surrounded by rich history and amazing beauty. It was such a great day! I heart field trips!
Shade, Quayd and Rylan
Shade, Austin and Quayd
(Austin is the cutest little boy... He is autistic and has seriously grown leaps and bounds this year! Quayd and Shade have tried really hard to include him and be his friend. Austin LOVES these boys and is very posessive of them! He likes to know where they are and what they are doing every minute. Quayd and Shade don't even act phased by it all. They are such good boys! They make their moms very proud!)

the one about my cousin Brooke

I suck at blogging. I am so sorry that I just can't get my blogging life together. It seems to be the last thing I can find time to do. Blogger drives me crazy because it is so slow at loading pictures and I hate fighting with it for hours! I have no patience! Excuses, excuses. I know.

A couple months ago, I went to SLC to see my cousin Brooke and her new baby. While there, she told me that she was going to stop reading my blog because I never update it. I promised her that I would blog the pictures from that weekend. Well, of course, time got away from me and here it is, mid-May and I am barely getting to it. So sorry Brooke! She told me that the last time I posted a picture of her, it was very unflattering (SO NOT TRUE!) and she wanted me to post a new one that looked better. Go to this post, scroll down a bit and see that it was a good picture of her and her hubby!! She is adorable!!! Anyway, with this post, I am hoping to redeem myself to my FAVORITE cousin, and hopefully win her back as a blog reader. Besides, I am excited to show off her cute baby!

I come from a small family. My Dad only had one sibling, a brother, who he married later in life and he and his wife never had children. My Mom only had one brother and he and his ex-wife only had one child. That means I only have one cousin. Yes, just one. Brooke. My grandparents only had three grandchildren, therefore, we all got lots of attention. Growing up, we were all very close. We lived near each other and did everything together. I always thought Brooke was so cool. I wanted to be with her all the time and I thought she was the greatest thing ever. I was crazy jealous of her. She was a few years older than me, and I know I had to be totally annoying to her, but she was always sweet to me. I got to go on a few trips with my aunt, uncle and Brooke and they were all so good to me. They still are! Brooke has accomplished a lot in her life and I am so proud of her! She has a great job as a paramedic and is married to a math teacher! She never seemed to want to have children, but finally got to a place in her life where she needed to be a mommy. Her sweet baby Moses must be the luckiest kid ever because Brooke is the BEST MOM! It has been so much fun to see her transform from "super strong independent career woman Brooke," to "gentle kind nurturing motherly Brooke." They are just the cutest little family and Moses is the most beautiful, perfect baby I have ever seen. (Well, maybe the 2nd most beautiful and perfect baby I have ever seen!) ;) I LOVE my one and only cousin and I am so proud of her! And I am really mad that she lives 2 1/2 hours away so I can't love on that baby more often.

Here are the pictures of our trip to meet baby Moses. My uncle is a collector of all things weird. He has this creepy puppet, "Jerry Mahoney." I think it is hilarious, but Brooke is totally creeped out by it! She was throwing a total fit when we took this picture. "Get that away from my baby!"
"Grandpa" Kim and Moses
Four Generations

the one about our super amazing vacation

I am sitting at the LA airport bored to death waiting for our flight that is still 2 1/2 hours away. I was wondering what I should do to kill some time... hummmm.... what to do, what to do? OH! I could BLOG!!!! I just loaded up all of our vacation pictures so to help pass my boredom, you can hear all about our cruise!

Let me start you off with a pick from our pre-cruise planning party the Monday before we left.We left last Saturday, April 24th around noon so we could go watch my nephew Brennen's traveling soccer team play in SLC. Once we got there, we met up with my uncle and brother's family and had lunch. I had a little bit of pre-vacay shopping to do and then it was bed time. My super awesome amazingly cool uncle Kim let us stay at his house that night. (Thanks Kim and Jayme!!!!) Of course I couldn't sleep worth a dang because I was SO excited! We got up early on Sunday morning to make it to the airport for our 8:15 flight. Everything went very smoothly. We landed in LA and found the Carnival Cruise people right away and boarded the bus for the pier. It was a pretty quick drive and once we got there and got checked in, we could walk around the ship, the pier and there were lots of things to do there. We were so excited though, that we just kind of hung out by the ship. It was pretty cool. We were able to board the ship around 1:30. It was so beautiful! It was shocking to see how big the ship really was. It was incredible. Our ship left Long Beach around 5:30 that evening.
It was a beautiful sight!

Our first two days were sea days. We played on the ship and soaked up the sun for 2 days as we traveled to Puerto Vallarta.
Quayd took advantage of the kids programs on board and totally loved it!!! He got to do a build-a-bear, make a t-shirt and played lots of fun games.
On Wednesday morning, we arrived in Puerto Vallarta. It was Brett's 30th Birthday!!!! And the city, the ocean, the weather, EVERYTHING was beautiful!

We just kind of explored the city. We shopped, went to Senor' Frogs and just hung out.


We had a great time there. They were having a real live bull fight in the evening. Brett thought that sounded awesome, but nobody else would go with him. He went all alone, and hated it. He said it was totally different than what he had expected. He was thinking one on one, man vs. beast. But they actually give the bull a tranquilizer first, and there were about 5 people helping the matador. I thought it was gross and I didn't really pay attention to details, so if you are really that curious, you will have to ask him. Gross. Oh well, happy Birthday to him!

Thursday was Mazatlan. Beach Day.



Amazing.

By the time we made it to Cabo San Lucas on Friday, we were BEAT! We were only in Cabo for about 7 hours, so we just went into the city and looked around. We bought some treasures and enjoyed the beautiful city. I am a BIG shopper! Love it, love everything about it, however, I hate shopping in Mexico. I hate bartering, bargaining, and listening to all of the beggers. It drives me crazy. Brett and Quayd love it though!!! So needless to say, they did all of the shopping. I pointed and things I liked and they took care of the rest. I actually forgot my camera on the ship the day we were in Cabo, so the only picture I have is this one I took from my cell phone.

The last day was another sea day and the seas were so rough!! It was a hard day and night! It kind of threw us all over the ship. Crazy. It was windy and awful too. Yuck. Anyway, it was nice to have a day to relax and wind down after a week of non stop GO GO GO!

Here are a few more pictures of some highlights of the trip.








Ok, that is all I am going to add. I don't want to bore you anymore. Plus, its almost time to board our flight!!! YAY! We are finally making progress home!!!!