Braxton's 12

Time has just flown by.  It seems like this young man was just a baby a little while ago.  Braxton had his 12th birthday just a few weeks ago.  We are so proud of Braxton.  He was just ordained a deacon in our church this past weekend.  I can't wait to watch him pass the sacrament tomorrow.  He decided that since we are back in the states again that he wanted to have his party the day of his birthday.  Braxton's birthday parties are getting easier and easier to throw together.  He wanted to have a teenage get together.  We had hotdogs and hamburgers, the kids played nerf gun battles and watched a movie.  They all had a great time.  We love Braxton so much and are so proud to have him as our son.

Football Season

Braxton has been playing football for about a month now and had his first game last weekend.  He is in his element and has been loving every minute of it.  He comes home from practice all pumped up about how many boys he had buried their faces in the dirt.   He has been telling Brandon that he would like to wake up at 5 am to exercise with him so that he can get better, and then turn around and practice for two hours that evening.  He loves this game and we can't be happier for him.  His first game the team played better the second half.  The score was 8 to 16.  I was proud of the coaches in how they handled the boys they told them that they were so proud of them and how well they played the second half.  They were so positive I don't think the boys could be disappointed in themselves after hearing their coaches.  Braxton has had to make a very difficult decision this week.  His Saturday game got cancelled due to a field conflict and so Braxton's game is on Sunday this week.  He decided that he wasn't going to play.  I know that he had to struggle with this and didn't want to let his team down.  He is one of the team's key players and he knows it.  But we are very proud of him and his little spirit.  What a great kid he is! His coach talked to him and told him that his decision wasn't going to effect his other games and that he would still be able to play and start.  He also told him that he is thinking about taking a coaching job at one of the middle schools close by and if Braxton was going to that school he would put him on the team.  His coach really likes Braxton and it shows.  I am so glad that he had a group of coaches like this for his first year playing.  What a great way to start off playing.  

Braxton is #1
Go Figure. We already knew that!!!

The Jaguars little cheerleading Squad.
 Don't look to closely at their bows.  They all have them on wrong.

In the middle.
 Braxton is the 5th one from the left of the kids in the center group.

 When they made their touch down.

Happy, Happy Happy!

The boys are back in school today.  I love them both dearly, but I am doing the happy dance today.  Braxton is starting middle school today:  6th grade.  And Isaiah starts 3rd.  I can't believe how old they are .  I sure have a couple of handsome boys.

Meet Sally!

 The boys have all wanted to get a dog since we have lived outside of Utah so Brandon and I decided that if we could get a fence put up and the boys could show us that they could be responsible that we could possibly get a dog.  Well, the fence will be started in a few weeks and so we thought that if we just looked at the pound to see what our options were maybe we may get an idea about the kind of dog that we were interested in.  Yeah right!  We showed up at the pound at 5 pm.  They closed at 5:30pm.  We adopted Sally at 5:33pm.  She was just the sweetest thing.  She is 3 and a half months old and weighs 17lbs 6 oz. She will be pretty big.  She is a mix German Shepherd/lab.  We were told that we couldn't bring her home until she had been fixed and because we adopted her right before the weekend happened she had to stay at the pound until Monday when they could take her to the vet.  Well, Monday happened and the vet called and told us that Sally wasn't well enough to get fixed, so we were able to bring her home for a few weeks as she was going to be taking medications to get well enough.  And then she well have her surgery in a few weeks.  The boys are on cloud nine and have been taking her all over.  She has been very sleepy, we think that either her illness or the two medications that she is on is making her lay around  a lot.  Today she is starting to be the Sally we met at the pound.  we bought her  a swimming pool and kind of forced her to take a swim with the boys.  We also gave her another bath, and she didn't quite appreciate all of it.  She has been such a quite dog and doesn't jump up on us very much.  So far she has only barked if she knows someone is in a dark room and can't figure out who it is.  She is getting very spoiled and can't stand being outside without company.  Hopefully we can change this as she will most definitely be an outside dog as Isaiah is getting some allergy symptoms since she has ben with us. 

 

 

Family Vacation #2 Yellowstone here we come

We took the family up to Yellowstone our last few days of our Vacation and stayed in a Yurt.  We had a blast and it didn't really feel like we were camping we had mattresses on the beds beds and the bathroom had warm water in the showers.  Very nice.  When we got to West Yellowstone we played in the river and took the boys to the Bear Discovery Center.  Our first night we were awakened by coyotes howling in the distance at 4 am.  The next morning we took the boys river rafting and had a blast.  The river water was freezing but it felt great after being in the heat.   Then our last

day in Yellowstone we toured all of the fun sites.  Glad we were able to go.

 

 

We slept in these.  Luxurious tents with beds. 

 

Playing in the river outside West Yellowstone.

 

 

 

Looking for flat skipping rocks.  The boys learned how to skip rocks on this trip.  Isaiah loved it.  He couldn't stop finding rock to skip.

 

The river was cold.  Braxton braving the chilliness.

 

 

 

Grizzly Discovery Center.  Bear foraging for food that was hidden by the keepers so that we could see how they hunt for food.  The small river is stocked with live fish and we were able to see them fishing. 

 

Wolf at the Discovery Center

 

It started down pouring while we were there, and Isaiah found a nice safe bear cave to stay dry in.

 

 

Papa bear and my two cubs!

 

 

 

 

 

Braxton riding the bull and loving it!

 

 

Nice!

 

 

Getting ready for another big one

 

 

 

Yellowstone at 6 am

 

 

 

Beautiful, but stinky!

 

 

 

Waiting for Old Faithful

 

 

Finally!

 

 

Fox hunting a mouse!

 

 

Black Bear #1 He is about 2 years old and was just kicked out of his mother's den this year.  We saw two.  This little guy was just so much closer than the other one.

 

 

Nice way to end our Yellowstone adventure.  Seeing elk along the road.

 

 

 

Family Vacation that we didn't want to finish!

We had so much fun visiting Utah for a month.  It had been almost three years that we have seen our family and we were so glad that we were able to visit.  We were able to do so many fun things.  Syracuse Family Fun Center, Fishing and more fishing with Grandpa, Bowling, Trips to the park, Sewing, Boondocks, The Aquarium, Movies, Swimming, Surf-N-Swim, Timpanogos Caves, Seven Peaks Water Park, Fireworks and Parades, Rainbow Runs, Marble Wars and lots for cherry eating from Uncle Matt's tree, shopping, hiking and just getting cousin time.  What a fun trip we had.  It was very hard to leave because we were having such a great time. 

 

 

 

 

Best Buddy Cousins

 

 

Swimming fun

 

 

March of the Penguins 

 

 

 

Aquarium Time

I Max 4D theater

 

 

Girls Spa Night

 

 

Bubbles...

 

 

 

 

And more bubbles.

 

 

Buddies

 

 

Dancing in the Street

 

Pampering Grandma for her birthday

 

????

 

 

 

Grandma and Grandpa with al the grandkids.

 

Another Reason we love NC

Meet Warty!  Braxton found him under our grill. Braxton is now out in the back collecting bugs for him to eat.  NC is so boy friendly, that the boys never really get bored of having anything to do