Thursday, May 5, 2011

The Rest of April


Here is a picture catch up of the rest of the month:





Lindsey is becoming quite the little reader, and she loves to read to anyone who will listen!



My first bountiful basket. Don't know what that is? Check out bountifulbaskets.org.
Basically, you get $35-$40 worth of fruits and vegetables for $15. It's fresh and very yummy! I'm a fan! 



East Sunday dresses



Here are the cuties on a different Sunday


Mr. Independent with his new found crawling skills



Here is Lindsey's Easter project from school: an edible bird's nest




Here is Oreo the night we brought him home. What a cute, little puppy!




Here is proof that Oreo and Dylan can co-exist at times without eating each other's toys and/or crawling over or licking the other. 




Here is Brandon's 2nd grade trip to the zoo, which Justin got to chaperone




Here is the Easter Egg hunt at the church on Saturday. It was absolutely gorgeous outside!








The girls with friend Ryder



Oreo continues to grow and get visibly bigger every week or two




But he can still fit in his doggy toy box. I know, I know, you didn't know there were doggy toy boxes? Well, there are, and when your husband works as a pet supplies buyer at Amazon he brings home all kinds of freebies, mostly for the dog these days. You're looking at the most spoiled dog on the block!




Here is Dylan trying out some banana. This boy is getting much better at trying new foods!!



Our indoor Easter Egg Hunt (since it was wet outside)






Daddy giving hints



Time for naps?




Good job hiding eggs Daddy!



The much anticipated Pinewood Derby



Brandon with his friend Berkley




Brandon won one race the whole night (racing against 5 other cars at a time). His car the award for "the most menacing!"



I think that covers the highlights. It was a busy and fun month!



Our visit to Utah


Once again, I find myself behind in my blogging. April was a busy and fun month for us. We went off to Utah to visit family during spring break the first week of April. It was a wonderful trip, once we got there! Here is a quick recap:

Thursday before we leave: 
we are busily packing and getting everything ready for us to be gone for a week in Utah
we find out that Oreo has 2 parasites and requires prescription medication
we also realize that we have to return an over-sized chair to Overstock.com so we won't be charged for it
we go to print a shipping label and the printer won't work
we go to print it out at a friend's house, which finally works, thank goodness
we rush off to get Oreo and meet Justin after work to drop the dog off at the kennel before they close at 6:30 pm
Justin goes straight to the kennel
I go get the prescription for the dog
we meet up at the kennel and they tell us that Oreo is contagious and they will not take him
It is 6:45 pm and we don't have a kennel for the dog
Justin rushes off to get the over-sized chair to UPS before 7:00 pm when it closes
Oreo gets sick in the car on the way home
I get home and madly start making phone calls to any and all animal hospitals in the area
no one is willing to take Oreo
we finally find a 24 hour emergency animal hospital down in Tacoma that is willing to board Oreo
Justin takes Blue our beta to a neighbor to fish sit and then takes Oreo to the kennel at 10:30 pm
I try to finish the packing and getting the house in order
we go to bed too late, very tired

Friday:
we wake up bright and early to get loaded and get the kids up to go to the airport

(picture of kids ready and excited to get there)

we get there in good time and get ourselves through the long security line
no one was stopped for the pat down, which I was very grateful for
we get to our gate 15 minutes before it is time to board, and we are feeling really great about how well the morning had gone so far
the airline people at the desk inform us that they overbooked the flight and do not have room for our family on the airplane
we were shocked and very frustrated
since families always have priority in boarding airplanes we did not realize that the early online check in would jeopardize our tickets entirely
they offered a $300 voucher to anyone who would delay their own flight but no one came forward
the only option they gave us was to fly Saturday night, their next available flight
thankfully Justin thought to ask them to check the flights out of Portland
they found one that left Friday at 5:30
we picked up our suitcases and car seats and went back to the parking garage a week earlier than we thought we would
we loaded up again and drove 3 hours south to Portland

(picture of kids on the second road trip of the day, still in the state of Washington, and not quite as excited to be back in the van)


we then parked again, went through security again and finally got on an airplane

(Katelyn is excited again. This is the first airplane ride for Katelyn and Dylan.)

we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house at 8:30 pm
it was a long, exhausting day, but at least we made it on Friday!

The rest of our trip to Utah is highlighted in a video I made in the next post to summarize our activities but in one sentence, here are the highlights:

We watched General Conference, played frisbee on the golf course, enjoyed the snow, played games, played in the snow, played tag, cooked yummy food, went to tour the Conference Center and Visitor's Center at the Salt Lake Temple, did a scavenger hunt, soaked up some vitamin D in the sunshine, went to BYU, saw the Carl Bloch art exhibit, Justin met up with MBAs on campus, played with cousins, went to see "Tale of Two Cities" the musical (amazing!!), took family pictures, had a push up competition, shopped and just had a good time together.







We managed to squeeze in a little bit of time to meet up with our good friend Sheri and her boys. They're getting so big!!




Back to the Portland Airport, next leg of the trip: 3 more hours driving back up to Seattle. Why didn't we ask the airline to pay for a rental car for us? Oh well!




What a fun trip!


Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Smith Family Reunion 2011

Here is a great video recap I made of our trip to Utah during Spring Break. We had so much fun! Pull up a chair and enjoy!!


Smith Family Reunion 2011



Thursday, March 31, 2011

Picture Catch Up!

February Pictures

Blue and Gold banquet




Dylan's funny face when he tries something new, or when he is just being funny



Cute boy!



and here is my handsome hubby and beautiful little girls



Most of our other February pictures were during the big baptism week (see previous post with video).



March Pictures

Lindsey's Birthday

Happy, happy birthday to our sweet 6 year old!!










We got a new puppy! His name is Oreo and his is an English Springer Spaniel. He's very sweet and he was house trained in 5 days! We weren't going to get a puppy this soon (very long story) but things fell into place and we're glad that we have him! He is very soft and loves people. He won't do anything when we get him up in the morning until we have given him some love. He loves his belly to be rubbed!




Happy kids the morning after we brought him home. Did I mention that we got home with him at 10:30 pm? And that we had to stop by Walmart on the way home to get a few essentials? Yes, it was unexpected.








Justin's trip to Orlando, FL for 4 days, 5 days after we brought Oreo home. Good thing that boy was house trained! I enjoyed his company late at night.



Silly kids











Justin's birthday

Happy birthday honey!




 


My birthday. The big 3-0




Happy Birthday to Us - date to the Broadway Showstoppers





Fun in the snow:



More videos to come.....



Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Technical Difficulties

I apologize for the lack of posts. There are several things that I need to post, including Lindsey's birthday and our new puppy! But unfortunately our computer has died. I think we might need to go buy a new one. So for now, I will just keep gathering pictures on my camera. I will update the blogs as soon as I can!

Brandon's Baptism

Here is as video recap of the wonderful week we had surrounding Brandon's Baptism.

Brandon's Baptism