Memorial Day

Every year since I can remember, we always spend Memorial day visiting cemeteries and have lunch as a family. I don't know if we do it because my brother was born on May 24th or if it was a tradition of my parents growing up. So yesterday we went and took flowers and cleaned the head stones of our loved ones that have passed on and then we headed to Carbon Canyon Park for a picnic. It was a fairly cold day but other than that it was so much fun. I think my favorite part was when the kids were playing freeze tag and Dan, my brother John and my brother in law Richard joined in. It was great watching them chase each other around and Dan's feet were really sore this morning from all the running and twisting. Although it is fairly sad thinking of those that have passed on and missing them, I love being together as a family
and remembering them.

This is my brother's head stone after we had cleaned it.

Ryan and Sara had so much fun on the swing together and we gave Ryan a Mohawk yesterday for fun.

We of course feed the ducks at the park and Charles wanted to jump in.


Lately Ryan has been helping me unload the dishwasher, he already knows the sound of the door being opened so he rushes over to crawl in and help.

Saturday Fun

Yesterday was such a great day, Dan and I got up early and worked in the yard all day and then we had tickets to the Galaxy game. A couple of days ago I found a great deal where we got the tickets 50% off so I called the Garces Family and asked them to join us. Unfortunately Dan managed to hit two water pipes and of course he broke them when I was in the shower and he had to turn the water completely off. He was nice enough to let me wash off before he had to turn the water off and I thought our great day was ruined because Dan was not in a very good mood. Luckily our neighbor came over and helped so Dan was able to fix the problem. So we got to head to the Galaxy game. The Galaxy play at the Home Depot Center and I think it is one of the greatest stadiums, I absolutely love watching games there. Also, since Dan played soccer all growing up he loves to go to games. I was a little upset at the beginning of the game because every time David Beckham had the ball the whole crowd started screaming. I was so annoyed because he is not the only player on the team and I felt that it wasn't fair but thank goodness it seemed to fizz out with in the first twenty minutes. We had seats behind the goals so it made things really exciting and the kids loved all the action. It was a great game and they won 3 to 1.

Self Portraits aren't they the best!
Christian loved the game

Ryan has been very spoiled in his short little life as far as sporting events go. He has been to 3 baseball games, a basketball game, and a soccer game all with in a year. Can you tell that he loves all the action.This is our favorite player Landon Donovan, I absolutely loved his ORANGE shoes!


The Wizards got pretty aggressive toward the end of the game since they were losing and we felt that there should have been more penalties.Here are some of the pictures I got of Beckham and sorry Rachel he was totally looking at me!!!

He's On The Move

Ryan is 13 months old today and he is doing so great. I am so lucky that he is such a happy baby. Here is a video of him walking, sorry it is not that great but I had to try and get him to walk and video at the same time which is a lot harder than it sounds.



Also he has began to explore and today he found the pans. He had so much fun banging them against the floor.

Lastly, we got a swimming pool and the boys had so much fun playing in it and it is perfect size for both Christian and Ryan.

Nana's Song

Christian recorded this song for Daniel's Mom for Mother's Day, sorry it is so late I have been trying to download this video for the past week. Happy Mother's Day!

Accomplishments

Well this weekend was full of accomplishments. First Ryan started to really walk, then Dan and I had a night all alone and my brother graduated.

We had such an amazing weekend. We got to hang out with Friends and Family and the best part was that Ryan really started walking. On Saturday morning while Ryan and I were at home hanging out he stood up in the middle of the room and took two steps. Now he has taken steps before but he had never stood without holding on to something so I was really excited that again he decided to do a new trick while I was home. That was one of my biggest fears of having to work part time was missing out on all the first, but my Heavenly Father knows and loves me and has made sure that most of the big things have happened at home with me first. Well then on Saturday night Dan and I went to the Hathaway's for a great Ping Pong Party. The men played ping pong while the ladies chatted and it was perfect. The food was incredible and the company was even better. They have decided to have many more and we hope we will be invited to them all. Then Dan and I got to go home and be alone for the first time in over a year. It was really great except that we still had to wake up at 7 in the morning to make it to my brother's graduation. And although it was super hot it was fun. I am so happy for my brother to finally be done with his undergrad so that he can start his CPA Training and they can move forward in their live. I am so proud of him. So then we went to my parent's house for a little party and Ryan was walking all over the place. It was really great, I think he made it to 8 or 9 steps. I tried to get a video of him walking today but he was not having it with me today so I will try again tomorrow so that everyone can see his great accomplishment. Well I hope that this week is as relaxing and fun as the weekend was.

Angels vs Dodgers

I have been looking forward to this weekend for a while. We had such a great time at the Angel's/Dodger's game! Angels won which made it even better. We went a little early to watch the teams warm up and it was really cool. The Garces Family joined us in their full Dodger Blue but we let them sit by us anyways. We sat right behind the bullpens so we got to see all the pitchers up close. This is actually the first game we went to as a whole family. The other games have either been me with the kids or we didn't have Christian so it was nice to be the four of us. Ryan actually stayed awake for the whole game and loved being there. Friday Nights are Firework night at the Angel Stadium and Ryan hated the Fireworks. He kept trying to crawl out of my arms to get away from the fireworks and at one point his whole body was shaking, so I guess he will not be enjoying July 4th with the rest of us. Tomorrow night we have an Adult party so my parents are going to watch the boys over night and then on Sunday my baby brother is graduating. So it will be a very eventful weekend and hopefully the rest will be as fun as tonight! This was the view from our seats!

Dan of course had to wear his Boston Hat!

We had a really great time, even though this picture doesn't really show it!

I finished the race

Well I ran the revlon 5k on Saturday and it was great. They said there was about 55,000 people there so it was huge but it was an incredible experience. I did the 3.22 miles in just under 52 minutes, I had to walk a little bit more than I wanted to because I was so hot (next time I am not going to wear the big cotton shirts they provide) but I really loved it. At the beginning of the race they had a moment of silence for all the women how have had or do have cancer. It was amazing that a crowd so big got so quiet so quickly. I ran the race with my friends Rachel and Laura and I am so grateful that I did. Around the 2 mile mark I was having a hard time and Rachel said to me, remember you are running for people who can not run themselves. We are doing this for our future and our daughters future. That really helped me continue on. Thank you so much for all of you that donated and supported me with this race. I am so grateful that my first run could be for such an incredible cause I hope to do this race every year. I can't believe that I have enjoyed training as much as I have. I was really tired on Saturday and Sunday but they could be because I didn't sleep well the night before because I worried of missing my alarm and then we had to leave around 6 am. I have a race planned for every month for the next three months so if anyone wants to join me please let me know, the more the merrier.

This is us at the start of the race. This was the start line there was four times as many people behind us!
Then at the end, we got these great medals for finishing.

This was my greatest motivation I was honored to run in memory of her!

5k

Ok everyone Saturday is my first 5k and I am participating in the Revlon Run/Walk for Women's Cancers. I am doing it in Honor of Becky Jorgenson, she is the mother of an old friend that recently past away from cancer, and I am so happy to be doing this in her memory. I would like to invite you to click on the link below to visit my personal page and make a donation. Your one-hundred percent tax-deductible contribution will help fund important research into the causes of and cures for women's cancers. Thank you for your support in the fight against women's cancers.

https://www.revlonrunwalk.com/la/secure/myWebPage.cfm?pID=446081

We were invaded

This weekend Dan and I were host parents for Youth Conference (which is kind of like a weekend retreat for the youth of our church ages 14- 18). Thank goodness we got boys and we got the older age group so we had 6 boys ages 17 & 18. It was a lot of fun and the boys were great but it was definitely exhausting. It started at 5:30pm on Friday night and ended Saturday at 9pm. They had activities and food planned for almost the whole time. On Friday night we didn't get back to our house until after midnight and the boys didn't get to bed until around 3am. My mom took Ryan for the night which was really hard on us but we didn't have much time to think about him because there was so much going on. On Saturday they went and visited with the Elderly at a rehabilitation center. It was an incredible experience to see the way these young kids interacted and served them. These young men and women we met and hung out with were just amazing kids and we had a blast with them. I don't know if I will want to do it again while we have young kids because they do have to stay some where else, but once they are older I hope they will ask us again.