We are family, I got all my sistah's with me.

I thought I'd post again soon so you won't have to see the sick animal again...

My dad is in Afghanistan for about an year or so. He left in May and got to come home for his leave and he got to spend some time with us girls. It was so nice. Nat flew in to hang out. Now all you faithful readers out there know that I am complete slacker and don't take the best pictures... Well, this visit with my dad and Nat was no exception. AND to make it better, there are no pix of me or Gar. LAME!!! But there are some great pix of the fam.

I am not in these pix because I was at rehearsal this morning. LAME again. They all got together for Benjamen's birthday breakfast and Jacob's football game. Hence the t-shirts Beck and Nat are wearing.

I did get to hang out quite a bit and love seeing the kiddies. This is Benjamin swinging in the back yard, and came up to me so I could snap a shot of the face. Could he be any cuter? I don't think so!

These two are so freaking cute. And they are buddies. They were chowing down on some fruit and kept having me and Nat take pictures of them... Posers! I have no idea where they get that from...

Over all it was so great to visit with my dad. It is so crazy that he is over there in the midst of all the horrible things that are going on. But I'm so glad he is safe and it able to help out over there.


I feel that I need to pay a tribute to a great friend of Garrick's and mine. He passed away unexpectedly the same time my dad was here and his birthday is on Halloween so i've just been thinking about him. Christian Adams was such a good man and a great friend to us. I worked with him at the hotel and we became instant BFF's. He would call Garrick his "Boo" every time he would see him. When Garrick got his braces on, he said he wanted his smile to look like Chirstians. And, he is the reason we have Toby. When Christian and his wife were pregnant with their first, they could not handle 2 dogs, so Christian gave Toby to us, we could not be more happy to have Toby in lives. He was a good man and he and his million dollar smile will be deeply missed.

Animal House...

Warning, the pix below may make you sick to your stomach... be advised!

Ok, so I might be a little dramatic about this, but I do think it calls for all the drama I gave it.

The animal in the pictures, noted as exhibit a and exhibit b, was found wandering around in our basement... WTF! I was pulling out the treadmill to run and out of the corner of my eye, see it crawling on the floor. Mind you the lights were off, so it was a little dark and I could still see it trying to make our basement it's home...

This is making me all itchy just thinking about it!

So, if you know me at all, I don't do bugs, insects, spiders, roley polies, lady bugs, butterflies, bees, OR ANY TYPE OF BUG/INSECT... you get the point. Well, I couldn't bring myself to kill it, so I got the heaviest glass to put over it. Now, I say the heaviest because the thing was so huge it probably could have pushed any ordinary glass over and come charging for me.

So there it sat in the glass trying to climb up it and push it over while I ran on the treadmill. I swear it moved the glass a couple of inches towards me before it gave up... Gar got home and he wouldn't kill it. (It's so big the only thing that would kill it would be a shotgun...) So he took it outside to release it back into the wild. I told him to do it far from the house, so he put it in the middle of the street... AND it started crawling back to the house... so Gar kicked it further away and it wandered of in the other direction.

To say the least.... I'm happy the animal is gone!!!

Exhibit a

Exhibit b

The Romantic St. George Anniversary Getaway

So I will have to preface this St. Greoge trip... In April, I was on a committee for an event called the Chinese Auction. It ended up I was not able to actually attend the auction, so Gar went in my place. I was able to make it to the last 20 minutes so I called Gar to have him save me a seat and he said... "Bring the other visa card". Now mind you this is an auction where people drop a fair amount of money on item and then the money goes to charity.

To make a long story short, (too late), he ended up wining a bid for a weekend getaway for 2 to St. George, hotel and 2 tickets to see Les Miz at Tuachan. It was a good purchase and the money went to charity.

This summer was Stefanie and Garricks summer of fun. We went on many trips and most of them with just the 2 of us, which was so great!! It was so beautiful in St. George, perfect weather. We laid out by the pool went to dinner and just hung out with each other, we have a blast together!

Being the 90 year old I am with NO memory, I don't remember things that well and I didn't take many photos and we only have photos of the show...DUH. But none the less, we have footage... If you have not been to Tauchan, you must go. It is a terrific venue and they put on great shows. This was Gar's first time and I have only been there once. We had the "Chuck Wagon" dinner and headed to see the show, Gar had not see Les Miz on stage before. The fountain above is when you drive in to the venue. Fun huh.

This is Gar and I the "lobby" the stage is set behind and blow us. The weather was great. We were worried, because a couple of hours before the show, there was a huge thunder and rain storm. Tuachan is an out door theater and I was freaking out a little, but we lucked out and on our drive there it stopped raining. It was perfect cause it cooled the night off!

This is the stage. It is pretty sweet. We had great seats, 10th row middle! During the show, Fantines mic cut out and she sang "I dreamed a dream" with out a mic and the girl rocked it! I'm sure the people in the back row could hear her, she has such a great voice. I pretty much cried though the whole show as I always do.
Well, we had a wonderful weekend and loved the show. Here we are... good times...

NEWS FLASH... I'M BLOGGING AGAIN!

So i'm going to start with a family blog. My nephew Adam a couple of weeks ago told my sister, Beck, that he really wanted to have a family dinner at Stef & Garricks... He bugged her about it for about a week, SO cute, I love that they love to come over and hang out, anyway, we finally set a date for Beck & Ang's fam to come hangout. That day Gar and I bought guitar hero and had the kiddies show us... This is Ang claiming she knows how to rock out! She showed me up that day, but boy, I would totally kick her but now!

Beck was pretty dang good at it... She's not concentrating as has as Ang or I was.....

Now the kids all totally showed us up. They are good. Jacob can do all the songs on expert level... I was so surprised at how good they were. And could Jacob look any bigger?

Could anyone be concentrating anymore than this kid here.... The crazy thing is he was playing a song on expert level.... It was so freaking hilarious to watch. I love him.... He is always SO laid back that I didn't think he would be into this game, but he is good!

It's fun when the kiddies come over, Gar gets to break out all of his toys. They kids LOVE it, (and Kirk loves it too).

Gar found Rio playing with some toys too.... Well, they are Toby's toy, but she was enjoying them. Could these kids be any cuter??? I don't think so!

Now this picture is really just for me and Gar. This is Brooklyn, our niece from the other side. Gar's brother Jesse, this is his little girl. Look at that face. Gar and I were on their web page and could not stop laughing at this picture, she is just TOOOO dang cute. We will finally get to meet her his Thanksgiving, she will be a year... She is so freaking cute!