SYTYCD

A couple of months ago, Wayne gave me a "Thanks For All You Do" card. That was a pleasant surprise. Inside the card, were tickets to the So You Think You Can Dance (USA) tour in Salt Lake City.

Some quick back story...when I found out they were going to Utah, I expressed my interest in going. Wayne quickly shot it down saying it wasn't worth making a trip down just to see that. If it happened to correspond with some of his music stuff, then we could consider it. I proceeded to remind him that last year he took a 24 hour trip to Seattle to see a concert of 2 of his favorite artists. I also reminded him how his music stuff always dictates when we go to Utah for trips. Needless to say, I was a bit miffed and told him to forget it.

So this was a surprise...although I know he felt guilty in to buying the tickets. In any case, I was happy to get them.

We decided to make the quick weekend trip with only the girls and without the boys. We left them with my parents. We invited Emmy and Azia's good friends to come with us. These girls did everything together for the 4 years we were in Utah. It was fun to see these girls together and able to pick up their friendship where they left off.

As for the SYTYCD performances...A-MAZE-ING!! (I will admit that even though the SYTYCD Canada winner is from our hometown, I still follow the US show more closely). So here are some shots from the show...

***********"The Butt Dance" ******************Brandon's Amazing Solo**********

******Wade Robson choreography*************** Mia Michael's "Addiction"**********

**Tyce Diorio's emotional choreography *******Jeanine and Brandon...Incredible!***

Christmas Already?

Our house has been mildly decorated with Christmas decorations since the middle of October. Wayne has been working on a new music video of one of his Christmas songs and needed some family footage. So while I was out, they pulled out the tree, set it up, and put up a few decorations on the front side. Hung the stockings and unpacked the nativity.

Christmas is still 7 weeks away...but it already feels like it at our house!

Here is a sneak peak at the video.

The Flu

2009 will forever be know as the year of the Swine Flu (otherwise known as H1N1). There is much controversy around this virus and the hastily developed vaccine that is being distributed world wide to combat this pandemic!

I don't know if the H1N1 flu has been making the rounds through our family, but I do know that all of the kids, except Azia have had or have flu-like symptoms. Coughs, fevers, headaches. It started with Parker, then moved on to Cardiff, then Sawyer, now Emmy. Everyone is on the mend, but the schools are quite adamant that children do not return to school until they are symptom free.

Wayne has never seen so many VERY sick people in walk-in clinic before and now wears a mask during most visits to avoid being exposed. I went to Walmart to purchase some more Tylenol/Advil for the kids and the shelves were empty!

Flu season hasn't even begun yet....

14 Years

OK, if you a frequent visitor/reader of my blog, you'll notice I cheated a bit and back-dated some entries from our trip to New York. Is that bad? Oh well, I figure this is more of an e-journal for myself anyways, so I guess I will do what I want to.

I did neglect an entry on October 7th, however, as I was bit busy getting ready for the trip.

October 7th marked our 14th Anniversary and things could not be better! A lot has happened in the past 14 years:
-Bought a house (1995 - our 1st anniversary)
-Had Emmy (1998)
-WB graduated from U of L
-Had Azia (2000)
-Moved to Utah for Medical School
-Had Parker (2003)
-WB graduated from U of U Medical school
-Went to Disneyland
-Moved back to Lethbridge
-Bought another house
-Sold our first house
-Had Cardiff (2005)
-WB finished residency (2006)
-Went to Mexico
-WB started his own practice
-Bought a lot and started building our dream home (2007)
-Had Sawyer (2008)
-Went to Disneyland again
-FINALLY moved into our new house (2009)
-Went to New York for our anniversary trip

Life is good. Life is beautiful.

New York - Day 5

First of all, HAPPY THANKSGIVING! (Canadian Thanksgiving, that is!)

This is it...our last (full) day in The Big Apple. I think one of Wayne's favourite things this entire trip is the hot breakfast at the hotel. Everyday has been something different and it has all been so good! It has been really nice having a full, hearty breakfast all ready for us before we venture out for the day! Both Jade and I are really pleased with the hotel and are glad we chose this one!

It was cold today!! (Although, we heard it has been snowing like crazy back home....) We jumped back on the tour bus and toured around Central Park, up to Harlem and back to Times Square. We made a quick stop at the Museum of Natural History. This is where they filmed the movie, "The Night at the Museum" with Ben Stiller. Surprisingly, the museum has a suggested admission price, but it is up to you how much you want to pay. If you don't want to pay the suggested price, you can pay any 'donation' amount and get admission! We paid a donation and walked (very quickly) through most of the museum. Again, I thought about how much the kids would've liked to have been there! Some other interesting sites that we saw, the building where John Lennon used to live and was gunned down at, the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, the Guggenheim Museum, and lots of buildings where celebrities live (although we did not see any real celebrities). Our tour guide was an interesting guy. His pants were floods (too short), his fly was down, he had coffee dripping all over his hands and on the bus, he had this horrendous laugh (which mostly happened after his own lame jokes) and he made this really weird horse noise (without moving his mouth!) We were all laughing so hard AT him, but I think he thought we were laughing at his lame jokes. We had thought about getting off and catching the next bus, but we waited it out and now it makes for a funny story!


Today was also our taping for the David Letterman show. We had to line up to get our tickets, then we had to line up again at a later time to get in to see the show. Everything worked out smoothly and by 6pm, we were in our seats watching the "Late Show with David Letterman". It was pretty entertaining and he is a pretty funny guy. I think Mike enjoyed being able to do his full-on belly laugh and not get mocked by anyone! On the show was Uma Thurman and Tim McGraw. The taping was an hour long and then we were all swiflty escorted out of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. Our show will actually air on Friday.


After the taping, we grabbed a hot chocolate and a huge cupcake from a little over-priced bakery and jumped back on the tour bus for the night tour. It was cold, but it was fun! This tour guide was much better than the last and just as funny. We rode over the Brooklyn Bridge and got a great night view of the city of Manhattan from the Brooklyn side.

This really has been my dream date with Wayne! We just celebrated our 14th Anniversary and I have had the best time with him on this trip! I am so glad that Jade and Mike were able to join us too. They are so much fun and we are glad that we get to spend so much time with them.

We were glad to hear that the kids have been doing well with Grandma Deb and we are so grateful that she offered to be our nanny for the week. As much as I needed this time away, I will be so happy to see the kids again! I feel rejuvenated and re-energized for another stint of motherhood! If anyone wants to go to NYC and needs a friend...give me a call! I'd go again in a heartbeat!

New York - Day 4

Ahhh, Sunday. There was no sleeping in today as church was at 9am. It was in the same building as the Temple which was kind of neat. It was a fairly small chapel, but it quickly filled up. To our surprise, we saw Greg Strong (a retired dentist from Wayne's building) walk in with his wife. They are supposed to be in Switzerland on their mission, but have had some visa setbacks and are now serving in the Manhattan Temple mission for now. What a small world! Of all places to run into someone from home, it happens to be at church in a city of 8 million people!

Church was...interesting. The organ played prelude at full volume and the chorister lead the music at the pulpit in front of the mic. The combination of the two made it impossible for anyone to hear themselves sing! It was testimony meeting and there were some interesting people who got up. All I have to say is "Focus, people, focus!" Too many tangeants!

We left after Sacrament meeting and took a round-a-bout way back to our hotel. We walked by Julliard School of Fine Arts, the Lincoln Center and the Intrepid Air and Sea Museum (which Parker would have LOVED to see)! We then ventured out using the Subway system. We made our way back down to Wall Street and Battery Park, then caught the Staten Island Ferry. This was a FREE ferry and it goes right by the Statue of Liberty. We got a good glimpse of Lady Liberty then turned right around and came back on the next ferry.

My cousin Michelle and her family live in Brooklyn and we had been hoping to meet up with them at some point. Things just weren't working out. Jade and Mike left to head back to the hotel and Wayne and I were just getting ready to take the subway to Brooklyn for a fireside. Then Michelle called and said they had come over and were by the ferries. We managed to find them among the hundreds of people there and got to visit with them for a brief time. It probably wasn't more than 15 minutes before Wayne realized it was already 5pm and we were to be in Brooklyn at the church by 5:15pm. There was no way this was going to happen. Unfortunately, we had to end our visit with Michelle and Tristen fairly abruptly as we began to run to the nearest subway station. I felt so bad that they had come all that way (40 min drive) and then we had to leave!

A couple of weeks ago, Wayne made contact with a seminary teacher named Sister Tejeda and asked if she would be interested in hosting a fireside for the youth. She was more than excited and made the arrangements to have Wayne come talk and sing to the youth. She invited 5 branches (all hispanic), including one branch that drove 1.5 hours from New Jersey to be there. Wayne spoke about the importance of choosing good and appropriate music and shared a few of his songs. He even sang one in spanish for them and they were very appreciative. It was a really great evening. The youth seemed quite receptive and Sister Tejeda and the other leaders were so very grateful. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! The youth really need things like this and they just don't get it around here!" she said to us. She called us her heros and continued to express her thankfulness to us for coming to do that for her students.

Brother Tejeda personally escorted us back to the subway station and made sure we got on the right train. (We were in a part of Brooklyn that was a bit scary, so they wanted to make sure we were safe!) It truly was a great way to spent our Sunday evening.

New York - Day 3

We went back to the Rockefeller Center for a tour of the NBC Studios. We saw them prepping the Saturday Night Live set for the live taping, the NBC Nightly News set and some other fun studios. Pretty fun, but we weren't allowed to take photos, so no picture memories

We jumped on the bus tour which is a hop on/hop off bus and rode it down to China Town, Little Italy, the site of the World Trade Center buildings and by Battery Park. We didn't think it would take so long to get around, but with all of the stops, it would've been faster to walk to where we needed to be.

We found our way to our last show, STOMP, which was playing off-Broadway. (When they say off Broadway, they really mean OFF Broadway...it was way out towards the southern part of Manhattan.) It was playing in this really tiny theatre. We had tickets in the 5th row and so we were quite close to the performers. It was a pretty good show, but Wayne, Jade and I had all seen it before. It was a loud performance, but Wayne still managed to fall asleep through part of it. I don't know how anyone could sleep when people are banging on garbage cans!

We made our way back to Times Square and did some more shopping for souvenirs. We went to a huge M & M store and the biggest Toys R Us store in the world.

We were all pretty tired and so we decided to just take it easy and had an early night. Some rest is definitely needed!

New York - Day 2

This morning came way too early! But there is so much to do...

We enjoyed a great breakfast at our hotel and headed out for the day. We made our way back to Times Square and over to 30 Rockefeller Center (home of the NBC studios). This is the place to get the best view of the city! The observation deck is on the 69th-71st floors of the Rockefeller Center. From here you get unobstructed views of the city, including a GREAT view of the Empire State Building! Central Park was amazing to see from above. The planning geniuses who conciously kept that large of a green space right smack in the middle of city...brilliant!

On our way out of the building, we stopped in at the gift shop and caught a quick glimpse of Jimmy Fallon as he was finishing up his appearance/signing. Our first celebrity sighting!

Wayne had planned for us to bike around Central Park for a couple of hours. There are a number of bike rental places around the park. We had reserved 2 tandum bikes, but when we got there, they admitted they made a mistake and gave one of our bikes away. So Wayne and I rode 'real' bikes and Mike and Jade took the tandum bike. As we were leaving the store, we noticed a sign that said "No Bikes Allowed on Sidewalks. It is illegal and dangerous." We kind of chuckled and joked that they thought the sidewalks were dangerous...but then the employee told us that it really is illegal to ride bikes on the sidewalks and that we would have to ride on the road. Are you kidding me?? Do they really think that riding a bike on the road with all of those crazy yellow taxis is safer than the sidewalk?? So a few deep breaths...and off we went to Central Park. We weren't quite sure where we were supposed to ride, so after getting caught for a brief moment in an intersection, I decided to just cut in front and cross the intersection to get to the other street. CRAZY!!!! I didn't get hit by a truck or taxi, but I did get honked at!!

We rode for almost 2 hours in Central Park. The park is huge! We stopped to see some of the highlights; the Bethesda Fountain, bridges that Wayne was hoping was from the movie 'Enchanted', an old castle. We even stopped to watch some hip-hop freestylers - one of which decided to do a little solo right next to me (and with me) while I tried to video tape him. Too funny! It was a perfect day...20 degrees Celcius, but by the end of the two hours, by legs were tired! On the way back to return the bikes, we found the Temple just a few blocks away. We'll be stopping there for church on Sunday.

While we were at a restaurant for dinner, Deb called us from our home and told me that the David Letterman show had just called looking for us. Our name was drawn in the lottery and we got tickets! We were supposed to call Jaime back and make arrangements. We played a bit of phone tag, but did eventually speak with Jaime. We asked her if we could get 4 tickets instead of just 2. It took her a while to check and talk to whoever, but she did manage to get us all tickets! We were so excited to get this call. The funny thing was that she had asked to talk to Wayne or Jasmine and Mike proceeded to pretend he was Wayne. In order to get the tickets, we had to answer a skill-testing question without any help from anyone else. Thankfully, Mike (as Wayne) got it right. Then Jaime needed to speak with Mike or Jade. Jade knew she didn't want to do the question so I pretended to be Jade. (Are you confused yet?) My question was about Allan Coulter and what he does at the start of every show....he is the announcer. It is a good think I am up late and have watched the show before! So our tickets are for a taping on Monday...we are on Jaime's Gold List!

(Getting the call confirming our tickets for the David Letterman show)

But tonight is what I've been waiting for...'WICKED'!! If you haven't heard about this musical, you need to become more culturally informed! This musical is about the two witches from Oz and how they became who they were. We'd been listening to the soundtrack at our house for the past 3 or 4 months, but to see the music with the set and costumes and the rest of the dialogue...it was PHENOMENAL!! I have been lucky enough to see quite a few musicals, but this was by far, the BEST one I've ever seen! I just kept thinking about the girls and how much they would've loved to have been there! Both Jade and I were teary eyed at the end...it was so overwhelmingly spectacular! (I honestly don't think there are enough words to describe this musical!) If you haven't heard the music from this...it is a must-hear. The music alone is moving! I would definitely pay the $125/ticket to see this one again (and again...and again!)

New York - Day 1

I have been waiting for this trip for a very long time. This year, we finally decided to do it! It has been in the planning phase for about 2 months and I am more than ready for some time away...without kids!

We had a very early start to our day, waking at about 3:15am to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Great Falls for our flight. We flew out of Great Falls at 7:30am and had a very short stop in Denver. When we landed, we had just less than 20 minutes before our next flight started boarding and it was just our luck that our next gate was at the complete opposite end of the terminal! We were running...where are those courtesy carts when you need them?? We made it just as they were boarding passengers. Unfortunately, our seats weren't together. The ticketing agent told us to just wait until the very end and she thought she could get us seated together since another flight was delayed. We really lucked out as we were upgraded (slightly) to seats with a bit more leg room.

We flew into Newark, New Jersey. Everything went smooth getting our bags and finding our shuttle to the hotel. However, the ride to the hotel was a bit scary. Everyone talks about 'those crazy New York' drivers, well, it is more than true! We were inches away from hitting pedestrians and side-swiping cars! We were swerving around traffic so much that Wayne and I both started to get nauseated. Then to top things off, the driver took us to the wrong Hampton Inn!

Once we finally made it to our hotel, we were beat!We had just a couple of hours to re-group, eat and then head over to our first Broadway show! Our hotel was PERFECT! It was just half a block from the 2 Broadway shows that we had tickets for and just 1 block away from the hub of Times Square.

Tonight, we went to the August Wilson Theatre where we saw "Jersey Boys". It is the story of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. The music and singing was amazing, but it is set in New Jersey in the 1960's, so the language was a bit rough. I really love the music from this era and I often think I should've grown up in that time period!

After the show, we walked around Times Square and was amazed at how bright it was at 10:30 at night! All of the neon and signs just illuminate those city blocks like it was noon day!

Jade and Mike arrived shortly after we made it back to the hotel. It is going to be a fun few days with them. I'm excited for the next few days to come!

Our New Addition

We always knew that one day we would have a Grand Piano. Wayne says it is easier to be more creative and inspired on a grand piano. So now that we have a house that will fit such an instrument, there wasn't anything holding Wayne back.

We had tried quite a few pianos on our last couple of trips up to Calgary. (There is not much to choose from here in Lethbridge). Wayne was the main "test driver". He sampled Yamaha, Boston, Steinway & Sons, Baldwin, and others, but none of them compared to the Hai Lun. This is a Chinese made grand piano with the engineering of Steinway behind it. It is the new 'up and coming' line of grand pianos! The sound was amazing, the tone was great and the touch was the one that Wayne fell in love with.

So a month ago, he ordered one. A 7 ft. 2 in. concert grand piano in black ebony. The dealer here in town gave him a really great deal that he could not refuse. They found one in Kentucky and had it shipped up here to Lethbridge.

On Monday, we finally got it moved into our house after a week or so of tuning down at the music shop.

Our "piano room" has gone from this...

To This...

We have been very blessed that Wayne has a great job that allows us to gain such magificent pieces of art and furniture as this is. I know it will be lovingly played by many hands for numerous years to come.

Deals

When we lived in Utah, I LOVED going shopping with my sister Jade and finding the best deals we could. It varied from $0.47 clothes from Old Navy to a case of bananas for $3.00! The better the deal, the better my day was.

The deals are not near as exciting here in Lethbridge, but once in a while we will get a $0.94 clothing sale...again, it is only once-in-a-blue-moon-while.

I have a friend that is living in Florida. In addition to being an amazing photographer, she is now my coupon hero! If you are interested in how to save a couple of bucks (or in her case...almost $800 to date), you can check out her blog here.

Knowledge is power...and in this case, extra money!

Reflections

The other night, Sawyer woke up crying in his sleep. I usually let him work it out himself, but he didn't seem to want to calm down. So I quietly went into his room and picked him up. He settled right down and snuggled in. As I rocked with him in the darkness of his room, I started to contemplate on how blessed I have been to have the priviledge of holding FIVE sweet, sleeping babies in my arms. Yep, FIVE of them!

This got me thinking about each one of my children and how truly blessed we were to have five HEALTHY babies and to have them here with us still; to watch them learn and grow and mature.

As Sawyer is our last, I thought back on all the months of being sick with morning sickness (that only happened at night). Gaining 35 lbs with each one and not quite loosing it all in between each one. Hearing that first heart beat...five different times. Getting ultrasounds done and being surprised with the announcement of what gender each baby was at birth...NOT at the ultrasound.

This also brought back the scary memory of being told that baby #4 (Cardiff) had a choroid plexus cyst on the right side of his brain, found during a routine ultrasound. I remembered how terrified I was that something would be wrong with him. These particular cysts are often signs of genetic diseases like Down Syndrome or Trisomy 18 (which is always fatal). Again, I was calmed as I remember going to the Temple with Wayne and feeling comforted that I would be able to take care of and raise this baby and that things would be all right.

As soon as he was born, almost before the doctor could say "It's a BOY," I asked, "Is he okay? Does he look all right?" He was...he was perfect just like the others. What a blessing Cardiff is to us. And today, I took him to his first day of pre-school. He was so incredibly excited!

After rocking my last baby back to sleep, I put him back in bed and gave thanks for a home filled with joy, laughter (usually) and the smiling faces of Emmy, Azia, Parker, Cardiff and Sawyer. Oh, how I LOVE them!

First Day of School 2009

FIRST DAY OF

SCHOOL 2009

Wow, when did my children get so old? This year Emmy moved up to Middle School! YIKES! If she is old enough to be in middle school than I must REALLY old! Wayne took Emmy to her first day at Gilbert Paterson Middle School. She is in grade 6 this year. She didn't want him hanging around too long and making a big deal of things, so as soon as she saw her friends, she said to him, "I see some of my wierd friends, you can go now." She has always done so good on her first days...never a tear or any apprehension.

Azia moved up to Mr. Roesler's grade 4 class at Agnes Davidson. Since there is only 1 class of each grade in the English track at the school, she knew almost all of the kids there already. There were some new move-ins and she quickly made some new friends on the first day.

Parker makes the jump to full-day school in grade 1. His teacher is Mrs. Simons and she seems very nice. Like Azia, he too knew most of the kids in his class from Kindergarten. There were some new faces, but he was thrilled to see his school friends again.

So that leaves me at home with my two little guys, Cardiff and Sawyer. I figured Cardiff would soon realize how boring it is hanging out with me all day, every day, so he will soon start in pre-school. Cardiff will be busy with his own school activities 2 afternoons a week. I think this will be really good for him...both socially and verbally. The pre-school he is enroled in has on-site speech assistants and pathologists. I know this will be a huge asset in continuing his progress with articulation. Unlike the other 3 kids, I think his first day will not be as smooth...but I guess we'll see.

August trip to Utah

There aren't too many people who venture to the same country/state more than 4-6 times in a single year...but we do! We took one last summer trip to Utah in August and much fun was had. Here's a glimpse of what we did...

Heard sounds of rain in Idaho, but it wasn't rain...instead, it was BUGS hitting our windshield to the point of not being able to see out very well!

Stopped for a quick family picture in front of the Idaho Falls Temple.

Went to Hogle Zoo.

Wayne filmed a music video for one of his Christmas songs.

Wayne did a concert at UVU with Sam Payne, Mercy River and Michael Dowdle.

Went swimming at our-new-favorite-pool but had to evacuate before even getting wet due to a d-i-a-r-r-h-e-a accident! Ummm, yeah....GROSS!

And with that, we say good-bye to another summer.

Broadway comes to Calgary

We had the wonderful opportunity to take our 3 oldest kids to see "The Lion King" in Calgary. It isn't often that we get Broadway plays in our neck of the woods, but we knew that we wanted to see this one.

We left Cardiff and Sawyer with Wayne's parents for the day then drove the extra 1 1/2 hours up to Calgary. We detoured to a couple of piano stores on the way to the theatre. (That is a whole new blog entry to come....!)

The play was AMAZING!! The singers were great, but the costumes and puppetry were truly breath-taking! I almost teared up in the opening scene as all of the animals came on stage...including the HUGE elephant that came down the aisle of the Jubilee to get to the stage.

This seems to be the year of shows/plays for us. We will be going to NYC with Jade and Mike in October over Canadian Thanksgiving and we will be seeing Wicked, Jersey Boys and Stomp. Then in November, we will head back to Utah to see the So You Think You Can Dance tour when it stops in Salt Lake. Too much fun to come!

The Wedding

A few months ago, Tami, the daughter of our pseudo-grandma Deb, got engaged. She thought it would be "fun" to have her wedding and reception in our backyard. We were happy to oblige...since we do have the room.

Her big day was on Friday. We gathered at our house the night before to prep all of the food and make final decoration arrangements. Let me just say...um...it was an interesting night. There was a stressed out mother-of-the-bride, future in-laws unsure of what was going to happen, a bride and groom who just wanted to be married privately that night and a bride in the middle of a "small" emotional break-down. We still had no definite idea of what they were envisioning or what they were expecting.

The week leading up to the wedding was anything but summer-like. The temperatures dropped into early spring-like numbers and then the clouds moved in. Like any bride, Tami was a bit stressed and concerned about EVERYTHING! She continued to tell us her plans of her garden wedding...even though the forcast was for thunderstorms on Friday.

I finally pulled Deb aside and asked her if anyone had talked to Tami about a back-up plan. With a 90% chance of rain, I thought it would be a good idea for her to be prepared NOT to have it in the backyard.

Friday morning came. Deb called and asked if it was too late to move it to the church. Uhhh...YEAH! We had no way of transporting decorations, which we finished at 1am, and there was no secondary location mentioned on the invitations, which meant everyone would come to our house anyway. So, with that we proceeded to transform our house into the best wedding location possible.

By 1pm, all of the furniture had been moved out of the main floor. There were no more family picutres on the wall. The family room was decorated even more than the picutre shows. By the time the ceremony started, the clouds opened up and the rain started to pour down. I know everyone was glad we still didn't try to set things up outside.

Following the ceremony, we "magically" transformed the family room in to the reception room with 7 round tables and seating for more than 50 people.

It really was a beautiful wedding and everyone was happy in the end. It is amazing how things just fell into place that day. I truly think this is how it was supposed to be and I am so GRATEFUL for all those how helped make my house the perfect place for Tami and Mike's wedding.

Frogs

We live on the prairies. Our backyard backs on to an open field. I would've expected mice...but not FROGS!

So far, we have found 1 dead frog (ewwwww!) and 2 live ones, jumping around on our basement carpet. I don't know how they are getting in or where they are coming from, but the kids are slightly freaked out and I am a little more grossed out. I don't do well with creepy-crawlies or anything that is slimy or slithers...or jumping amphibians of any kind.

Again....EWWWWW!

The 3's of Me

OK, another Facebook "tag", but I thought I'd post it in the blog for my posterity (you know, when I print this into a book for future generations to enjoy!)

Three names I go by:
1. Mom, Mommy, or Mama depending on which child is yelling it.
2. Girl (Wayne's nickname for me. He NEVER uses my real name)
3. Sister Burton

Three Jobs I have had in my life:
1. Cashier at a drugstore
2. Dance instructor
3. Sales clerk at a clothing store

Three places I have lived:
1. Manyberries, Alberta
2. Rexburg, Idaho
3. Salt Lake City, Utah

Three TV shows I watch:
1. So You Think You Can Dance
2. Grey's Anatomy
3. anything of HGTV

Three places I have been:
1. England
2. Hawaii
3. Mexico

People who text me regularly:
1. Text?? What's that?? (I don't text)
2
3

Three of my favorite foods:
1. Anything with Cream cheese or whipping cream
2. Crab
3. French fries with gravy

Three Favorite Drinks
1. Cherry Coke
2. Virgin Strawberry Daquari
3. Any fruit smoothie from a place like Booster Juice or Jamba Juice in the USA.

I skipped the part about who I think will respond since I'm not forwarding it to any of you. But...Did you learn anything new about me?

Our babysitter

Wayne and I decided to go out to a late show this evening. We left Emmy in charge as the babysitter for a couple of hours. She took a babysitting course earlier this spring and "aced" the final exam. We've had her do quite a lot of babysitting for us this last while.

When we came home, the boys were brushed and ready for bed (they both had naps so they were still awake). Azia was quietly playing on the computer and Emmy left a surprise for us upstairs. She cleaned the kitchen, dining area and family room!!

(the note on the counter says, "I hope you like it...from Emmy")

With summer break, the house is rarely tidy for more than an hour or so. This truly was a pleasent surprise! It was cleaner than when I tidied this morning!!

I AM impressed! (and relieved to see that some of our "hounding" is making an impact.)

Stand in Holy Places

We were fortunate enough to catch the open house for the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple in the southwest area of the Salt Lake Valley.

The Temple is nestled in a quaint neighbourhood and set on a small hillside. The grounds are already beautifully landscaped and dotted with white tents to welcome the thousands of visitors who would come to see the new Temple.

We started by watching a short video that spoke about the importance of LDS Temples and how they allow us to live as eternal families. After the video was done, the kids exited from the tent and Parker asked, "Is that it?? Was that the open house?" I told him that it was just the introduction and that we would get to go inside and see it. His eyes widened with an innocent smile..."Really? I'm so excited...I've never been in the Temple before!!" It was so sweet to see his pure excitement to go in to the beautiful building.

As with all Temples, it was exquisite! The chandeliers were breathtaking, the finishes were beautiful, but the feeling of peace and happiness within those walls is undescribable. It was truly a wonderful tour of a magnificent building. It was also a great blessing to see my family, all 5 of our children, with us in the Temple for the first time.

Kennecott Copper Mine

We lived in Utah for 4 years and never went to one of its "biggest" tour attractions. Since moving back to Lethbridge, we've probably made another 20 trips back to Utah. Everytime we go, Wayne always says, "Maybe we should go up to the Copper Mine!" It never sounded very fun, so we never did it. Until now.

Jade and her boys joined us for our little adventure up to the biggest open pit mine in the world. It is so large, it is visible from space. It is a really BIG hole in the ground and it was actually more interesting than I thought it would be. The boys all thought it was really great, especially the massive trucks that were hauling the earth away.

Water Fun

As our first summer trip this year, we went to...UTAH! (Big suprise, right?) Even though Wayne had 2 big recording sessions, we still managed to get in some good family fun!

We had a tonne-of-fun at the Lehi Aquatic Centre. They had an AWESOME pool with so much to do. The kids' favorite was waiting for the giant bucket to dump a bunch of water on them from up high!

We also had a fun filled day with some "village" friends. The Madsen's were kind enough to host the fun and the kids had a blast!

We even celebrated Cardiff's 4th birthday! Happy Birthday Diffy!