Sydney's birthday #14!

 Sydney does not like our traditional Mrs Backer's birthday cakes, so she is now getting Cold Stone ice cream cakes for her birthday.  She loves, I mean loves, ice cream!!

 Cute Daddy!

 Sydney's friend Morgan decorated her room so cute! Each balloon had a note attached.  Super cute!  Unfortunately, right after this, she and Morgan got into a fight, mostly over a boy, and ended up not friends forever! They have since made up, but it's not the same.  That's junior high girls for you!!! ha ha ha ha!

 She had a good birthday!  Can't believe you are 14 little Syd Syd!!

Sydney's 14th birthday!

Yikes! Sydney turned 14!!!  Surprise balloons and gifts...

 Posing outside the front door....many faces of Sydney!

 I checked her out for lunch and Paige and Brenda came with us! Love these two and it was so nice of them to come with us! We went to Panda Express.  Love this huge Panda wall!

 Selfies in the car...

 Sydney and Cambree below:

 Here's the gross cheese puffs that she asks for every birthday!

 One last cute smiling pic...

And one last poser pose at the front door....more to come!

Mike's flying with the Broncos and more football

Baileys is a big sponsor of the Broncos. I'm sure I've mentioned it before.  But, when I only update my blog every 3-4 months, I forget what I have mentioned. :) I'm trying to do better.  Right now, I'm stalling preparing my RS lesson. Yes, I was just called to be an instructor. Never done this before. Super anxious.  Laughing at the kick in the pants Heavenly Father is giving me because the first lesson I teach is on scripture study!  I'm terrible at individual scripture study and we read as a family about every 3 weeks.....This is now a new goal to be more consistent in scripture reading.

 Anyway, Mike got to fly with the Broncos, Spencer Jones (L) and Kevin Beckstead (C) to Kansas City for a game.  It was a huge game, but now that I am late on the documentation, I couldn't tell you anymore about it other than Broncos won in the last bit and it was a HUGE win!  Mike said they were hoping to get out of the stadium without getting beat up!

 Little pre game sideline action...

 That's pretty close to TV!

 A view from their seats....

 And the plane they few on...chartered for the Broncos and guests.  Pretty amazing! Even more amazing that he's done this more than once!

 Low-key celebrating the win!  Trying not to get in a scuffle with the KC fans!

 And then it's on to our favorite football team to watch: Brandon's team!!

 Above is how Mike watches the game.  He paces and always goes to stand where he can see the play the best.  Below is how I watch the game: Seated in the shade!  I sometimes go along the sidelines watching, but most of the time I am with other football moms or grand parents.

 More on his season later, but we had an amazing time with this team....two thumbs up!

Broncos Game!

The weekend of Homecoming, Mike was able to get his company's 4 tickets and sideline passes to see the Broncos game!  He flew over with Brandon and Sydney on Saturday and Amanda flew out at 7am isn on Sunday morning.  Funny thing about the airport with Amanda was that since this was her first time flying alone, she wanted me to come in with her.  So, we parked and when we got inside the airport, the security line was the longest I've ever seen it! It wrapped around the luggage carousel!  So lucky for her...she had TSA PreCheck!! So, she and I enjoyed a little breakfast and when it was time for her to go, she walked right through!  After she got through, she ran into a friend from school that was getting on the same plane (with her Dad) going to the game, too!  I was happy for that because then Amanda wouldn't be nervous that she made it to the right gate and plane.  

 Mike, B & Sydney picked her up and headed to the stadium. They had sideline passes for before the game started, and then awesome seats afterward.  I stayed home rather than buy a random ticket to paint Sydney's room and go to Corvin's farewell.

 So, here are a bunch of pictures from the warmups. They kept saying these players are HUGE!

 My pictures are in random order, but here's their seats...with the random guy photobomb :)

 More pictures from the sidelines

 This is a cute pic of the mascots and our kiddos!

 Here's Sydney's room going from pink to grey!

And here is a selfie of me and Maddie at Corvin's farewell. He did such a great job! He's totally ready!  And, now that it's 8 months later, I can tell you he's loving Norway and doing so great!  He talked a lot about his dad, Jim, and the understanding he has gained over the past year and that he knows he has to bear his testimony to him. He visited Jim in NY before he left and actually found out that Jim is taking missionary discussions! kind of by accident because they ran into the missionaries and before Corvin could introduce Jim to them, they called Jim by name and chatted!

 The best part of this story involves the airline flights! On Monday, Mike got the kids to the airport and checked Amanda in. (She was on a separate itinerary due to homecoming) and then when he went to check he and the others in, it told him he was too early!  Come to find out, Mike booked the 3 of them for the next day!  He called me in a mild panic because he needed to be in Chicago for business Monday. :)  He tried to rebook Brandon and Sydney and just have the kids fly together, but the only thing he could get was $800 per ticket! Um, no thanks!  He got rebooked to Chicago.  So, I just said, well, I'll jump in the car and come get the kids! ha ha!!  So, I did!  I had never driven to Denver and let me tell you...Wyoming is boring!  Mike had to get a hotel for the kids because he had to leave them about 3 hours before I would arrive.  During that short time, Sydney and Brandon spent $100 in room service! :( Oh my!  We left Amanda with them instead of putting her on the plane because we didn't feel ok leaving just the two of them there.  Also, Amanda could help me drive home if needed.

 I arrived about 7pm?  We grabbed few treats for the ride home, got me some dinner and then went to the hotel to sleep for about 3 hours.  Amanda had a test at 10am, so we needed to leave in time for her to get to school!  Sydney was also worried about missing school (but she ended up staying home and sleeping instead of going :)  We woke up, I showered and we took off about 3am.  The funny thing about driving through Ft Collins (where the college is) is that we smelled marajuania through the vents (coming in with the air  conditioner) as we drove through! Oh Colorado....weed heads....  So, we decided the kids are not allowed to go to college in Colorado, :) ha ha!!  We had a nice drive home and Amanda made it in time for her test.  And as I said before, Sydney, Brandon and I just slept!!  We joke all the time now that I went on that Denver trip with Mike & the kids, too! And here Sydney photoshopped me in the picture! :)

 Mike's boss, Kevin & wife Judy, who live in Colorado asked why we didn't call them for help. They are very kind, but we take care of our own and didn't want to bug them.  They were busy, too, because that's why Mike went to Chicago so that Kevin could stay home that week for some other commitments.

 We were good though! We made some awesome memories and it's a trip none of us will ever forget!!

 Here's some pictures from the homecoming cd.....of the whole group!