Dance recital 2008

Our beautiful and talented girls at the 2008 ballet recital!

Amanda in the front middle of the crowd.

Sydney dancing 'Star Dust'
Time for the big ballet recital of 2008! The dress rehearsal is an all day affair. Luckily, our girls rehearsal times were back to back! Then, we usually grab dinner and they have to go back for the run through of the entire show. This year, the parents were asked to not come to the later rehearsal and so Holly H., Rachel O., Liz K. and I went shopping! Mikey came home to stay with Brandon and for their boy's night went to the Bees game!

Sydney right in front with her back to us.
Amanda dancing in 'Space Girls' not sure which one is her, but it's a fun picture!
Sydney and her friend, Abby O.
And with some more dancing friends, Lucy K., Indiana, Abby and Sydney
Amanda and her dancing friends, Susie E., Hanalee H. and Maddy L.

The girls were darling and did so great on their dances! I had a hard time getting great shots of the dancing. We always order the DVD of the show and the kids watch it constantly!

Cousin Day...last week!

We met at Murray Park for cousin day! It was nice weather and lots of fun!

The kids mostly played on this toy. Uncle Dan was the 'pusher' and they loved every minute!

After everyone left, the kids and I went to Grandma Gib's to mow her lawn. Then, since Mike had been out of town, he texted me about picking him up from the airport later that night. We decided to stay in SL and went to see

Kung Fu Panda! Cute movie and the kids loved it! We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Cafe Rio and then off to the airport! We actually drove under Daddy's plane as it was approaching the airport to land. That was kind of fun for the kids! And I was glad to have Mikey home!

Need a good read?

Another great Stephenie Meyer book! It took me a couple of chapters to figure out what was going on, but after that...I couldn't put it down!

Mtn. Vistas Day 2008

Every year our neighborhood has a big party. This year...it rained! We usually miss the flag ceremony and early morning bike ride and run. We don't like to get up early! Maybe we're getting old or maybe we are tired of it because we did it for so many, many years, but we wait until it's time for the children's parade! Just as the parade started this year, it started pouring rain! But, no worries, we still walked in the rain! Mike drove the car down and picked up Sydney half way. Amanda rode her bike on ahead of us and Brandon and I just walked, really fast!

Are we having fun yet?

After the parade, there was supposed to be a family picnic in the common area. So, since the rain canceled that, we had a family picnic at Gandolfo's!

Then, the inflatables! The sun finally came out and the kids could hardly wait!

Mikey was such a good Dad and helped Brandon on the obstacle course.

Brandon and Sydney 'boxing'

Super slide

Amanda helped, too.

The carnival games included catch a goldfish with you hands! Fun, but now we have 3 goldfish that won't die. Many neighborhood people sent their fish 'to live in the ocean' which translated means flush them that night! Great idea....
Sydney won a cookie eating contest!

That night we have a bbq and raffle. It was cold, but a lot of people came. Mike usually cooks and this year I helped in the food line as the dessert nazi, telling the neighborhood kids they couldn't fill their plates with desserts! A guy in the neighborhood has a band and they played for us....and did a great job! In the raffle, we won vitamin water...whoopee....and then they canceled the outdoor movie because it was cold and someone forgot to get a good speaker, so no one coudl hear. It got rescheduled for Monday night. It's a busy day, but it is fun and most of all, it's making memories for the kiddos!

Brandon

Dad: Brandon, can I have a boy cheese sandwich?

Brandon: No, Dad. You have a Dad cheese sandwich!

School's out party - Part II

We postponed Amanda's school's out party a couple of days because of RAIN! But, today was still COLD and RAINY! But, once again, her friends decided to try the slide and had a great time. When they weren't sliding, they were doing karaoke and playing hide and seek in the house. Amanda was a very cute hostess and ended up playing with Maddy L. for a long time after the party. Brandon and I ran a ton of errands today. The bulk of the time was spent driving around construction! Every road up here is torn up! The other thing I couldn't believe today was that it took $100 to fill up the gas tank in my car! And I put the cheap grade in!!! Unreal.....

I do have to say today, that I am so grateful for the time Mike spent as YM President in our prior ward. We had the cutest bunch of boys in his Priests Quorum. We ran into one boy last weekend at the garden store. Brody R and his twin brother, Brandon, are such cute boys who now have darling wives and each has a baby of their own! I was thinking tonight that I had Amanda while Mike was in YM's and she was the age of their babies now! We had all of them over for dinner tonight and it was so great to visit and reminisce about the old days. Brody now lives only about 3 miles from us and Brandon is pretty close, too. Our kids had a great time entertaining their kids and Sydney wants to tend Brody's little girl 'everyday.' Those times were really fun and I didn't even mind the time Mike had to spend away from us because we just loved these boys and Mike loved his time as their leader. We even pulled out the scrapbooks and found the picture of the 'moon' under Delicate Arch. Good times.....

Cousin Day!

The Gibby cousins have decided to hang this summer...so since our first plan got RAINED out, we headed to the Church History Museum. (Are you getting the theme of RAIN?)
Here is Cozette's nephew, CJ, and Brandon at the 'Tabernacle pulpit'. Then, we went into the I Am A Child of God exhibit. Brandon was obessed with these magnet cars! He played with those until a wild pack of girls surrounded him and took the magnet from him. He gave up peacefully and ran to Mommy! Mean girls! Pretty soon they were bored and he was able to resume playing. So busy he couldn't even look up for the picture.

Here the girls were dressed up as angels for the Baby Jesus story. They are flying! This is as far as we got because Brandon didn't want to be a sheep-literally, there were sheep puppets.

Then, I wanted a picture of all the kids 'holding to the iron rod'-as you can see, the girls did a great job....Brandon didn't want anything to do with it as long as the girls were there.

Finally!

We also ran into Sister Berrett and Sister Kelly from the 10th ward. They were training to be guides at the museum. Kat also ran into another ward member from 10th ward, that was just raving about how cool Dad is....he's so down to earth and real and I love how he speaks (gives talks I was assuming). That was fun to hear about my Dad!
As we were leaving to get lunch, Sydney decided to 'lead the Relief Society in a song'
And then it was Amanda's turn.....Can you guess by Brandon's picture where we went next? We had lunch with Darin and Roger who work close by....and then went to the Gateway Olympic Fountain.....This time started out like the last time we were here...with Brandon running in to get wet, but he promptly fell and was done with the fountain for awhile.

Then, he couldn't resist and went back in for fun!
We played awhile with Kat's kids and Corrine's kids (Kat's sis) and all the kids were having a blast even though it was COLD! Brando and Zach, Aubrey running in the background.....
When we started to leave the kids wanted to find our brick! During the 2002 Olympics, you could buy a brick to pave or decorate this plaza. Mike and I thought our kids would think it was cool....and they do! We found it in section 30 - 6 rows up from the fountain.

It was a fun day and we are looking forward to our next fun cousin activity!

School's out party - Part I

Sydney had her school's out party on Tuesday. Who knew that the forecast had changed and it was going to be cold AND raining! She had a ton of little kindergartener girls over along with 6 of the neighbor kids. Although it was FREEZING, they all went down the slide. Some kids kept on sliding while some kids went inside and did karaoke. Complete chaos, but a lot of fun.

School's Out for Summer!

Having the girls in the traditional school year schedule has been great this year! I had such a hard time last year when they had to go all through June! Both girls wanted to have 'school's out' parties for their friends. I have been telling Mikey that I loved having the waterslide a couple of years ago as it entertained the kids for hours! So, we ventured to Toys R Us this week and purchased a summer full of fun!!! (with a warranty this time since our last one ripped)

The kids couldn't wait to try it out and had a great time even though it was a cold evening. Brandon is in heaven! The girls got a little crazy and Amanda ended up falling off the top of the slide. A good lesson: the inflatable wall does not hold you up or in! She's fine, just a little sore.

Thanks Daddy for making all of our dreams come true this summer!

Brandon

Mom: Brandon, do you want a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch?

Brandon: No, I want a boy cheese sandwich!