The One with March Madness 2013

Not only did we get to go to the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament this year but Salt Lake hosted a round of the National Tournament.  Glory be!  Justin and I got to watch little Wichita State (who turned out to be quite the Cinderella making it to the Final 4) beat top-ranked Gonzaga and then Arizona kill Harvard.  We ended up sitting by some Gonzaga and Wichita St. fans and the WSt fans were saying how cool it was for their little school to have even made it to the tournament and be up against a big dog like Gonzaga.  Funny thing is, WSt actually has about 3 times the student population of Gonzaga.  So they really were up against a much smaller dog.  Gonzaga just has a great basketball program (and not much else) thanks to John Stockton whose jersey is hanging in Energy Solutions Arena.  Just FYI, Stockton's son is currently playing for Gonzaga.  Must have been pretty cool for him to play in the arena where his dad's jersey is.  Or really intimidating.  He played well but his team lost.  There were a lot of Arizona fans there so that made me happy but if you're just a basketball fan who wanted to watch the game and your team isn't there, you shouldn't wear one of their t-shirts just to be a butthead.  I'm talking to the one stupid ASU fan I saw in the crowd.  He's lucky he didn't get jumped with all that red and blue walking around!

Waiting at the Trax station.  I was proud of my sign :)  Also, it looks like there was still some snow on the ground and it was insanely bright, as evidenced by my super squinty eyes.

I just love the Arizona uniforms.  They're so pretty :)

They honored 3 members of the only national championship basketball team from Utah, way back in 1944!  These guys were so cute!

We killed Harvard!  It was a good game :)

It's hard to see but the guy with the big yellow head is the Wichita State mascot, the Shocker.  Apparently a shocker is a cross between a firework and an ear of corn :)

Sad day, I forgot this poster at the stadium after I put it behind us to pose for this picture.  I bet the cleaning crew just threw it away :(

The One that Stays in Vegas

Maybe my love of birthdays hasn't exactly rubbed off on Justin (I think that's just because he's older ;) but he has thankfully picked up on the fact that my birthday at least is a VERY BIG DEAL!  Way back in January he was already saying he had my present and I have to admit I was on the lookout every time I cleaned the apartment.  But I never saw anything!!  He finally had to spill the beans a week before my birthday and surprised me with tickets to the Pac-12 men's basketball tournament in Las Vegas!!  Woot!!!  My two loves- Justin and Arizona basketball :)  Life doesn't get better than that folks!

Other amazing presents: new slippers from Mom (I find them to be an absolute necessity up here), a new book and these gorgeous flowers from Misha.

 

We woke up early on Thursday and drove all the way to Vegas.

Justin found a really cheap hotel less than a mile from the MGM Grand where the tournament was being held.  We checked in and walked to the arena.  Or maybe I skipped a little.  We had student tickets and they were supposed to mail them to us but of course through some administrative errors (blah, blah) we had to pick them up at the arena.  Only the MGM Grand is HUGE!  And not very clearly marked.  We were waiting in (the wrong) line when the Utah Pac-12 rep who helped Justin buy the tickets walked by.  He had some tickets on him and gave them to us.  Here's the best part about that: our ticket package came with one session of two games for each day of the tournament.  We missed the first round on Wednesday because Arizona had a bye and we didn't want to take 3 days off work so we forfeited those tickets.  We thought that might have been the only day Utah would play and had to decide to miss that game.  Utah, however, surprised everyone and made it to the semifinal round.  So when Justin and I got to Vegas on Thursday we had to pick Session 1 to watch Arizona or Session 2 to watch Utah.  Really not a hard choice for me but since the Utah rep gave us extra tickets and let us know where we could pick up the tickets we had bought, we got to go to both sessions and watch both our teams play!!  Yay!!  We watched 4 basketball games in a row!!  Good thing we're fans :)

 

There are always lots of things going on during timeouts these days.  Contests and giveaways, etc. and Vegas was no exception.  There was a man who would come out during the first media timeout in the second half of each game to give away tickets to a Cirque du Soleil show.  He was looking for the "loudest fan."  You guys know I can get loud when I want to and I wanted free tickets.  During the first session our seats were in the corner so I'm pretty sure I had little to no chance to win tickets in those seats but our second session seats were amazing.  Just off half court and about 5 rows up.  I was so certain I was going to get those tickets.  The guy came out during the 3rd game and stood right in front of us.  I stood up and screamed and shouted "It's my birthday!!"  We made eye contact!  And then he ran right by me and gave the tickets to someone else :(  But now he knew where I was and I still had a chance.  I even got the support of the other fans sitting around us.  Apparently other people think birthdays are big deals too.  The second half of the 4th game started and the first timeout came, quickly followed by the Cirque ticket man.  He stood right in front of me and I jumped and screamed and everyone around me screamed and pointed at me and I knew he was going to give me tickets!!  But the poophead gave them to someone else.  Again.  What a stinker!!  All I got was a sore throat and a blister on my toe.

Arizona and Utah both won on Thursday which was better than Cirque tickets anyway and meant we got to watch both teams again.  Friday and Saturday only had one session each so we didn't have to choose which team to watch.  I was certain Arizona was going to beat UCLA on Friday and make it to the championship game.  Partly because everyone else thought so too and partly because Justin and I took advantage of the morning off to go to the temple.
 

Aaron Barker photography

Side note: I love the Vegas temple!  It's actually my favorite celestial room.  I've even been to the San Diego temple which everybody else seems to love and personally prefer Vegas.  Salt Lake has a special place in my heart of course and is probably my favorite temple silhouette but they recently redid the Vegas celestial room and it is so gorgeous and peaceful.  I was very tempted to put Sean Miller and Nick Johnson on the temple roll but I didn't.  God doesn't play favorites in sports people, no matter what the athletes say :)

Sad news- Arizona and Utah both lost in the semifinals.  Originally I had told Justin that I didn't care who was in the championship game and we should stay to watch it no matter what.  Turns out that I didn't think that through and I did not want to watch UCLA in the final.  By the way, their win was highly controversial and has actually now resulted in the resignation of the Pac-12 commissioner of officials.  Just sayin'.

So Saturday morning (which was actually my birthday) we checked out of the hotel and drove all the way back to SLC to go to the Florida-Utah gymnastics meet that night.  Florida and Utah both have excellent gymnastics teams and alternate hosting a meet every year.  Justin and I go to the Utah meets pretty often and never miss when Florida comes to visit.  That was the original plan before I knew we had tickets to the basketball tournament anyway.  We ended up seeing some new friends from the ward at the meet and they went out for Fleming's chocolate lava cake with us afterward.

Which is still so good it almost made me feel better about the Arizona loss.

 

Almost.

 

The One with all the Babies

Nope, still no announcements here.  This post is about our no-longer-recent trip to Arizona for Eden's baby blessing Labor Day weekend.  Justin is awesome and drove the whole way!  We were smart and cut it in half by staying at Don and Wendi's in Las Vegas Friday night.  This was great because 12 straight hours in a car is a long time and also because we found these-

Hulk Hands!!

We made it to Yuma early Saturday afternoon and Mom, Dad, Wendy, Timmy and Wyatt pulled in a few hours later.  It wasn't long before this happened-

Mom is such a good grandma!  Timmy looooved playing "pat-a-cake" and "speckled frogs on a log."

Such concentration!  Oh and look in the background.  When did Dad switch napping chairs?

Sunday morning we all got ready for church where Steve would bless Eden.  Justin let me tie his tie.  I did such a good job!!

Or maybe not.  He retied it.

After church Mom and I had a photoshoot with both new babies, Eden and Wyatt, on the blankets I crocheted for them.

Wyatt first.

What a cutie!

Eden is just over two weeks older than Wyatt and she started out bigger.  She made him look so tiny!

So sweet!

This is Edie's "I'm hungry!" face.  Bwahahaha!! Don't ask how I got such an amazing shot of it.  I'm just that good :)

 

Tons of pictures of me holding babies.  I don't know why Eden looks so scared, I'm great with babies :)

I took this one myself because her little face looked so sweet.  She was only a month old and holding her own head up to look all over the place.  Too cute!!

I learned on this trip that Timmy has an interesting security blanket- Wendy's hair.  He likes to twist his fingers in it and that helps him go to sleep.  What a good mommy!  I've already told Justin my hair will be cut short if our kids pull it.  Have to prepare him now, he likes my hair as long as it can be.

Oh no- a crying, unhappy baby!

I'm on it!

See!  I said I was good :)

Heather and Steve made some delicious fajitas to feed all the family after church.  Steve's friend Johnny brought some of his kids over as well.  All the kids had a blast playing in the den until...

That's right!  I had to lay down the law.  Lesson learned- do not have a pillow fight with Cindy and Justin's pillows!  We like them fluffy and in their pillowcases still thank you very much.  I love that Anistyn had my back.

I am also a good aunt to the older nieces/nephews.  Proof.

We've been debating whether to use these next pictures as Christmas cards this year.

Look what we've got!!

Aren't babies wonderful?

What do you mean she's not ours and we can't take her?!!

As I'm writing this I honestly just freaked out a little thinking we could really look like the middle picture within the next year.  Yay!!!  And aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

We passed this billboard on our way back home through LV.  Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!  Awesome!!

The One with the Return to Arizona

It's actually been a long time since I've been home.  Last Thanksgiving in fact.  Even though I have been able to see a few family members since then (Lisa and Mom have both been up here to Utah) I was getting pretty homesick.  I really miss the sun during the long Utah winter!  Anyway, one day in early June Amy and I were talking on the phone and she mentioned that her babysitter was going on vacation for two weeks.  She jokingly asked me to come down and help her out and I said I probably couldn't because I had to save up my vacation days in case any of the Young Women in my ward decided to go to Girls' Camp.  None of them can ever decide to attend anything until the day before, but more on that later.  As it turned out, none of the girls did go to camp so I had a few spare vacation days.  I was able to find a decently priced plane ticket to Phoenix and surprised Amy by telling her I could come down the second week of her sitter's vacation.  I wish I'd been able to make it for the first week because everyone else got together for a family barbecue.  The week before I came!  So sad :(  That was the week of the Fourth of July though and tickets were way expensive.  In the end, I still got to go home.  Mom and Dad made another trip back up to Phoenix to come see me.  They must love me or something.  Mom, Amy and I made a diaper cake for Heather.  I've never made one before.  So easy!  Going to have to work that into my crafty arsenal.  Mom also showed us how to make veggie pizza.  It's basically raw veggies on Pillsbury rolls.  Healthy and delicious.  I need to add that to our dinner menu also.  The rest of the week was basically a test to see if I could handle four kids by myself.  I think I did a pretty good job :)

On Sunday Amy got stir crazy and decided we were all going hiking in Sedona.  We thought it might be a little cooler up there.  It was cooler than the Phoenix area but still over 100 degrees.  And no shade trees.  It was a short hike.

We forgot a hat for Sethie and he did not want to keep Ray's on.  Even though it was a totally awesome hat!

 Kaden doing some parkour :)  America's Next Ninja Warrior?

Family picture!

Seth is such a sweetheart.  He was so good the whole time and just hung out in the baby backpack.

I don't know where they got this awesome Radio Flyer trike but Dillon was a beast on it.  So cute!!

Amy has 4 kids!!  Sometimes that still shocks me.  4 kids and I don't have any yet.

Arizona is beautiful.  Our camera was being really cooperative all week and I got some great pictures.

Cute girl!

Kaden is king of the rock!

It wouldn't be an adventure without a poopy diaper.  The funny thing is we put it in the diaper bag to carry it out.  Guess who carried the diaper bag?  Me.  I forgot and then thought "Good grief it stinks!  Oh yeah, I'm carrying a bag of crap!"

Me, Kaden and Makayla on top of the rock.

Waving is my go-to pose :)

We bought some Powerades and water but even on that short hike we drank it all.  Dillon must have overdone it on the bike because he threw up right at the end.  There's nothing like pink puke.  And Seth had a runny nose.  They both slept the whole way home.  Overall, still a good day hanging out with family.

Monday was my first day with the kids by myself.  Eeek!  I have to admit I was kind of nervous.  Justin and I have been debating lately how close we want our kids to be and this was a good test.  Closer in age definitely = harder!

Twinners!  It was fun dressing them in coordinating outfits.  I don't know how but I always catch Dillon mid-air.  Seth thought this was so fun!  Don't tell Amy I let her kids jump on the bed :)

Since this was right after the Fourth, Dillon was obsessed with "Pop-Its."  I tried to stretch the boxes out throughout the week.  Dillon would have popped them all in one day!

Popping with his feet.

We slipped and slid almost every morning.  The boys love to be outside so I would spend a couple hours with them outside every day before Kaden and Makayla woke up.

Nice action shot!

Makayla joined us when she woke up.  She's such a good helper!

She made a much bigger splash than Dillon.  I don't have a picture but when I slid, I flew out the end.  Apparently this is a toy for children :)

Where was Kaden during all this fun?  Sleeping of course!

I don't know how comfortable this was.  You would think he woke up with a pounding headache.

Makayla's friend Morgan came over to play and they spent hours building cardboard towers.  Makayla is inside all of the boxes.  She has such an imagination.  Why do we even buy her toys?

  

Dillon loves playing with his Sissy.  His towers were never very tall but he loved being a part of the game.

Dillon and Fonzie

 

Seth is a great spectator.  He's also a good eater.  This is where he spent most of his time.  He ate almost 2 whole PB&J sandwiches by himself!

We also played beauty parlor and Dillon wanted to get his hair done.  So cute!

Kids in the cupboard.  Dillon couldn't figure out why he didn't fit :)

Love the teeth!

This is still Monday!  We fed the turtle.

And played in the pool.

And then finally they were worn out and went to bed :)

Tuesday morning we loaded up all the kids (yep, even Kaden woke up early enough to go) and dropped Amy off at work.  Then we kept driving all the way to Tucson to visit Wendy and her kiddos.  Trevy, Landon and Callie had a morning art class with Melissa so we went to Timmy's swim lesson.

Timmy loves the water!

What a cute little wave!

He's so brave!  Or a dangerous daredevil!  That boy will just jump right off- whether you're there to catch him or not!

Um can you even tell she's pregnant!  Geez.

Dillon entertained himself by throwing dead leaves.  He also picked a big booger and then stood there with it on the tip of his finger, like he didn't know what to do with it.  I thought it was hilarious!!

After Timmy's swim lesson we took all the kids to Eegee's for lunch.  I love Eegee's!  Kaden really liked the slush.  We waited half an hour and then went to one of the public pools that had a baby pool and a high dive.  Unfortunately the baby pool was being refilled (someone threw up in it the day before, eww) but the lifeguards were nice and gave all the little ones life vests.  Trevy, Landon, Callie, Timmy and Dillon had a blast jumping into the shallow end of the pool and then monkeying along the side back to the steps.  They all did really well wearing the life vests and didn't whine at all.  Kaden and Makayla hung out in the deep end where Kaden tried to convince Makayla to go off the high dive.  She didn't, but I got some nice diving shots of both of them.

Excellent technique.  9.5!

We were supposed to pick Amy up from work so we headed out early.  It also started to rain just as we left the pool so I guess it was good timing.  Unfortunately Kaden left his glucose checker at Wendy's house and we had to turn back around.  Then it started to really pour.  That morning I had left my phone at Amy's house and she had left hers in the car so we had no way to get in touch with each other!  Thankfully Wendy is on top of things and she called Ray who was able to pick Amy up from work.  We got home much later than planned but had lots of fun with cousins.

The rest of the week was more of the same- trying to keep up with two very active little boys.  I didn't get tired until Friday, thankfully.  I did notice that was when Dillon got away with more mischief, like climbing up the pantry shelves before I noticed.  Sneaky!  How do little kids know when you're not paying close enough attention?! Here are some more pictures of our week.

Dillon teaching Seth how to ride the big boy bike.

More slip 'n' slide!

We may have repeated a few activities.  That's me in the box tower.

I tried to spend some one-on-one time with my girl Makayla.  Man that is hard with two little ones!  We made monogrammed cupcakes for everyone.  Makayla made the frosting from scratch!  Note the orange and blue F in the back.  I was starting to miss my hubby a little.

The house next to Ray and Amy's is finally being built.  The little boys loved watching the big trucks work.

Dillon didn't watch too long though.  He had some popping to do!

It was a huge mess so we taught him to throw them in the street.  Sometimes they didn't pop though and then cars would drive by and stop to see what was wrong with their engine.  Too funny!!

Listen to Dillon encouraging Seth.  "Going, going, going."  Adorable!

You can see how fast Dillon is on that trike.  He rode it all week long.

Makayla posed Seth in this tractor wagon.

And then Dillon wanted to be in the picture.

Apparently Seth doesn't like sharing the spotlight.

I am such a good sitter!  We jump on beds and spread dirt all over the carport.  The kids were always clean!

 

Monsoon sky.  So cool.

 

This was so cute.  Makayla and I were outside watching the lightning and Dillon got scared for us.  "Guys, it's dark out there!"  I really wanted to catch a loud thunder but it didn't come till right after I turned the camera off.  It was so loud it woke up Ray!

This picture was too cute not to include!

What a fun but crazy week!  As it turned out Aunt Davene, my dad's older sister, passed away while I was there so Mom and Dad made a third trip up in as many weekends.  It was good to see more family again, including aunts, uncles and cousins, but definitely a sad reason for the get together.  I was glad that I had somehow timed my trip so well.  Lisa and I used to spend a week every summer at Davene's house while Mom was at Girls' Camp.  We loved to swim in her pool and she had some of the coolest toys and games that I always looked forward to playing with.  Aunt Davene has had a lot of health problems so we're glad she's no longer in pain and is with Grandma, but we will miss her.