Mission Farewell (3/27/2011)

So today was Dylan's farewell talk. His topic was the Restoration of the Church. It was a good talk. He had many friends and family show up. They even opened the back overflow doors..that is a good turnout my friend. Again I am so thankful for all the friends he has and all the support he gets from them.  He also had family drive up from Tucson which was great. We took some photos afterwards while he talked with all his friends. We didn't have an open house, so our afternoon wasn't stressed, but we are having a Madagascar night on thursday at 7:00 p.m. After church we watched "The Best Two Years" movie. Twice. It was great. I hope Dylan has a great mission and truly cherishes every moment. It is going to fly by so fast. He also had his exit missionary interview and he will be set apart as a missionary on saturday morning. Sweet!

Dayna, Uncle Paul, Aunt Kristi, Dylan 

Xavier and Dylan

Andrew and Dylan

The first of many hugs goodbye

Cousin Kenneth and Dylan

Aunt Allison, Dylan, and Uncle Norm

Writing the talk (3/26/2011)

Today was suppose to be mom's cleaning and moving out day part 2. Instead it turned out to be...mom, will you help me write my talk because I procrastinated the last 3 weeks? Please...

Well Dylan did write most of his talk and he actually started packing today. That was very kind of him to do his own packing. He also hung out with buddies again. I told him Wednesday was his bachelor party as nomore after that. Boy is going to bleed me dry on gonig out. I am super glad he has great friends.

Spring Cleaning & Moving OUT! (3-25-2011)

So today was the start of cleaning up the house because there is so much to do next week I don't want to be cleaning...i'd rather be maintaining my home. Needless to say it took me till 3 to start cleaing the home. It was Dylan's job to move out of his current room (which is actually the baby's room) into the toy room. Needless to say Dylan wasn't too happy about it so instead he decides to go fishing for a couple of hours instead of cleaning. Well he was definitely more successful at the fishing more than i was at housecleaning. Looks like he had a good time and he caught a pretty big fish. Glad he had a good time as he keeps telling me that this is his last time to do ____________(you fill in the blank).

4 Generation Pedigree Chart (2/11/2011)

So one of the items that you are asked to bring to the MTC is your four generation pedigree chart and a couple of stories about your ancestors . It's interesting the things you find out about when doing your genealogy. For Dylan there are a few exciting and sad things. Sad for instance is not knowing who is great grandfather is. A one night stand is not good for anyone. Enough said on that subject.  The other is a story of his many great great grandmothers who was on the pioneer trail to Salt Lake City, when this particular grandmother just dissappeared-so the family thought- until further investigation lead to three eye witness accounts say they saw a women walking the other way- Leading to the belief that this mother just up and left her small family of tiny children to defend for themselves on the pioneer trail cause she couldn't hack it. One would hope the beginning of the story is right story- that she just dissappeared as many people did on the trial west.

One the other side it was exciting to find out that we are related to Emma Hale-wife of Joseph Smith Jr, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bringham Young, Heber C Kimball. There was some very interesting stories that come from our family history.

Mission Photos & Family Pictures (3/24/2011)

So today we had a few more errands to run, like getting white pants, and picking up Dylans police letter (thankfully no altercations with the police), and then we needed to find a shirt for family pictures for Dayna, what a breeze today. At 1 we went to Brandt Photography and had professional photos of Dylan taken. Very nice. They took so many as it was painful to have to cut out so many. But Dylan did great and we have our proofs and now we just need to pick the ones we want. Then after Dylans picture we went home and got ready for family pictures done by Tami Webb. It was as painful as a root canal. I can't believe how hard it is to get a good family picture with only 10 people. That shouldn't be too hard...well when you have a 2 yr old and an 18month old it is hard. Tami said she got some good pictures, lets hope so. Today ended with Dylan hanging out with his buddies...let's hope his talk is coming along.

SHOPPING....AGAIN? (3/24/2001)

So today is day 3 of the shopping spree. Dylan was not too happy today. We had to go look for sweater vest #2, get Dylan's police report, and make a few more stops.  We have just about it all. We are still in need of a camera, 2 sweatshirts, shoelaces and a few other items that we know we can get at, again Walmart.

We also checked the airlines again and they were offering a spring special so we booked our tickets to Salt Lake. We are heading out Saturday at 12:30 p.m. and get there at 3:00. This should be fun as Dylan has never been on an airplane.

SHOPPING SPREE PART III (3/22/2011)

So today we went shopping at Walmart to get all the non clothing items. I typed out the shopping list and it was 2 full columns on 1 page. Richard about had a  heartattack because he never really read the list before. So we headed to WAlmart and let Dylan do the shopping and it was too funny. Its amazing what your kids do and don't know about shopping. Well in the end we all played the price is right and see who guess the closest prices off all the items we got. Well Richard guessed $700, Dylan guessed 500 and I guess $425.  Well winner is....the MOM...of course.  Total bill came to $438.  Alot of stuff for 2 years! and in Richards words...How is he going to pack all that stuff into 2 bags.....I say Miracles do happen!

SHOP TILL YA DROP PART II (3/21/2011)

So this is THEEEE  week. We have be waiting for our money to come in so we can purchase all Dylans needs. The plan was to shop for clothes on monday and on tuesday shop for the non clothes items. Well, we went to the mall for 3 hours and ended up buying 1 tie. Oh my lanta this is going totake forever. I wish I had a video camera  of Dylan shopping. It was too funny. He just couldn't make up his mind. He knew what he didn't like but that was about it. Well after hitting up all the stores in the mall we finally hit up Burlington Coat factory and found a raincoat...(yes they do sell raincoats here in Arizona but apparently on during the rainy seasons) and we got a belt and some ties and a shirt.. Woo hoo we are on a roll. We then headed home to switch out the babysitters and then out again we went. This time to DSW at the Chandler Mallfor some shoes. Good prices good selection. We got him 2 pairs. Then we headed to Fiesta Mall to Dillards outlet. The other hard thing to find in Arizona apparently is a long sleeve v-neck sweater. We found one at Deseret Industries, but man we hit up laike 7 stores and couldn't find anything finally my brother in law suggested Dillards oulet. Great Store, found 4 racks of v-neck long sleeve, solid sweaters. Hallelujah! Then on to backpacks. Another hard thing probably because of the type he needed to have. You'd think a backpack would be an easy find. Again...one of the three hardest things to find. Anyways we came home with almost all his shopping done!!! Picture coming soon!

Shopping Spree Part I (3/19/2011)

So the other day our tax refund came in, which is what we were using to pay to purchase all of Dylan's mission stuff. Well it came in and we were planning to go shopping on Monday, when the kids were in school. Well while looking at the ads we saw that JCPenney's had a sale going on from 9 am-1 p.m with extra discounts. Well we jumped on it and headed to the mall. Found some good stuff, then went and got Dylan(he was at his cousins house), and made him come down and help pick out some clothes. We got quite a bit of stuff, well we get to the check out and find out that the sale was at the other location. All that rushing for nothing. But we did take advantage of a great sale that was going on. He got to check off his list his:

Suit  (How handsome is he going to look in this)

1 long sleeve shirt

4 dress pants

9 socks

2 pairs of shorts

2 ties



and we even picked up some shirts for our family photo. Way cool. Way good savings.

Family Pictures Part I (3/18/2011)

So some of the appointments are starting to be made. Today we made Dylan's appointment to have his professional Missionary Photos taken. We also made an appointment to have our family pictures taken. unfortunately I found out that Dayna has to work that day, so I got to call again and reschedule. It is going to be fun to take family pictures..with 10 of us...seriously..no really, it should be fun. Last family pictures with just all of the kids. (i know that there will be more but there could be more people...like a new son-in-law or a new daughter in law.) one never knows...and one can hope right.  Here are some of the past fun times while taking family photos.